Featured

Highland investigation: Did teacher help students cheat on ISAT test?

Highland Community Unit School District 5 launched an internal investigation this week into allegations...

Friday's high school playoff scores

Here are Friday's high school sports playoff scores for games involving area and regional teams...

BND VIDEO

MORE > Photos Videos Submit a Photo

BND GALLERIES

MORE > Photos Videos Submit a Photo

Metro-east News

Caseyville Police Chief Jose Alvarez outside his office at the police station.

Caseyville chief, mayor return to their corners; next bout March 19

Jose Alvarez is still the Caseyville Police chief, at least until March 19, which is when the Village Board meets.

Crime

Police: Man sets motorcycle, apartment on fire, attacks fire chief

A St. Clair County man was charged with one count of residential arson and one count of aggravated battery to a firefighter after he allegedly first set a motorcycle and then later an apartment building on fire.

Hot Topics

Kimberly Fowler with her 11 year-old son Kobie Fowler, who is being bullied at Wolf Branch School where he's a sixth grade student.

Feds investigate bullying complaint in Swansea school district

The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights is investigating allegations of racially motivated bullying at Wolf Branch Middle School in Swansea.

Sports

Cahokia slips by Althoff

Longtime rivals Althoff and Cahokia have staged many epic battles in their battle for supremacy in the South Seven Conference over the years. 3 hours ago

Features

Oscar Pistorius sits in the dock during his trial at the high court in Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, March 7, 2014. Pistorius is charged with murder for the shooting death of his girlfriend, Steenkamp, on Valentines Day in 2013.

Pistorius trial hears damaging testimony

In a day of potentially damaging testimony, a former girlfriend of Oscar Pistorius said at his murder trial Friday that he once shot his gun out of a car sunroof and later cheated on her with the woman he killed last year. And a security guard recalled... 3 hours ago

State|Region

Woman killed when gun goes off in donated clothes

A woman working at a thrift store was killed when a gun that was in dropped-off clothing accidentally discharged, hitting her in the chest.

Nation|World

This booking photo released by the Volusia (Fla.) County Division of Corrections shows Ebony Wilkerson. Wilkerson, accused of driving a minivan carrying her three young children into the ocean surf off Florida, was charged Friday, March 7, 2014, with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, though she has denied trying to harm anyone, authorities said. (AP Photo/Volusia

Kids rescued from surf: 'Mom tried to kill us'

After she drove her minivan into the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean, authorities say a pregnant South Carolina woman tried to call off bystanders hustling to rescue her three screaming children from the water that was rushing in through the ...

Opinion

Free will cost state taxpayers

The pay-it-forward interest-free loan concept has caught the fancy of many state lawmakers, including in Illinois. It's a feel-good, utopian-sounding idea -- which should be enough to make lawmakers run the other way.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?