Yeah, life is good for Rick Springfield, the actor and musician behind the ’80s hit “Jessie’s Girl,” who performs in Springfield on Sunday.

Writing is not something that happens in a vacuum, Lombard Middle School students learned Wednesday. A true writer writes all the time, with some successes and failures.

Oil. It's almost become a dirty word. Evoking painful thoughts of high gasoline prices, associated with terrorism, war and synonymous with the rising cost of nearly everything that depends on it. It's also associated with America's seemingly unquenchable thirst for the stuff. But after it's been used to keep the motors moving, what happens to the gallons that get left behind? 

The Illinois State Fairgrounds is still in need of major improvements such as roof repairs and replacing the aboveground electrical system, but the facilities are ready for the 2009 exhibit and event season, the newly named head of the Illinois Department of Agriculture said.
 

Mitsubishi Motors North America feels the pain that's being experienced by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

Despite even more bad budget news Wednesday, state lawmakers appear to be in no rush to give Gov. Rod Blagojevich extraordinary powers to curtail spending.

Adolf and Portia Fullgrabe remained loyal to the former Oldsmobile brand to the point that factory executives made a special trip to Springfield in 1997 to sell the first of a retooled Cutlass line to them. He now drives a 2007 Malibu and she a 2003 Volkswagen Beetle. The Olds they purchased in 1997 eventually was turned over to a son in Ohio.
 

Troy Smith was apprehensive about being enclosed in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. But the diabetes-related treatment is beginning to ease his mind and his pain.

First, the good news: science is closing in on creating the artificial pancreas, a breakthrough treatment for those with diabetes, particularly type 1 diabetes.

A new effort to improve Illinois’ public school system has attracted some of the state’s most prominent political figures: former Gov. Jim Edgar, ex-U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley and retired U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
 

Engineering may be a male-dominated field but that never deterred Tana Utley, chief technology officer at Caterpillar Inc.

Southwest Airlines is one airline that’s flying high in an industry that’s been saddled with losses and layoffs.

Ethanol producers such as Pekin-based Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings Inc. are feeling the squeeze these days.

Having dozens of extended family members over for Thanksgiving or Christmas is often a great excuse to buy a new stove, but retailers are worried that this year’s economy will put plans for new appliances on ice.

Eric Schenck was rooted in the present once again, his Alumacraft canoe firmly strapped to the roof of his Ford Explorer after 3 1/2 hours of paddling through one of the last great expanses of wetland wilderness in central Illinois.