Pantry clients receive food Saturday

It was Christmas Saturday for 419 Illinois Valley families receiving their annual Christmas basket. Executive Director Donna Hess oversees the Illinois Valley Food Pantry. She told “Classic Hits 103-9 WLPO” 56 more will be served Monday.

Pantry volunteers assembled dinners of ham, instant potatoes, stuffing mix, vegetables, corn muffin mix and jello. Clients needing to fill their December order, can do so 9 – Noon Monday and Wednesday. The Pantry closes December 24 and re-opens January 4.

Help Saturday came from Zion United and Peru Scout Troop #123. Meat was paid for by Oglesby Elks and 1 family who gave a significant amount in the memory of a loved one.

Mitsubishi recalling cars

Mitsubishi Motors is recalling roughly 25,000 Mirages with model years 2014 and 2015 on concerns that certain wires could corrode and cause issues to the vehicle’s air bag systems.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Saturday that the vehicles affected were manufactured from August 2013 to September 2015 and were sold in states on the East Coast and in the Midwest.

The NHTSA says the Mirages have a design flaw in which melting snow could soak through the driver’s-side floor carpeting and corrode wire connectors running to a junction box nearby. The corrosion could cause delays in the deployment of the vehicles’ frontal air bags.

The NHTSA says Mitsubishi will notify owners, and any repairs necessary will be done free of charge.

Accused bow and arrow murderer gets new La Salle County court date

There’s an update with one of the biggest stories of the year in the Illinois Valley.

Twenty-two-year-old Bradley French of Varna was in court Friday getting a new trial date for three counts of first-degree murder. He’s the man accused of killing a man on Father’s Day morning with a bow and arrow in the Illinois Valley Community College parking lot in Oglesby.

French was given a new final pretrial hearing date of Friday, January 22nd and a new trial date of Monday, February 22nd. He’s inside the county jail in Ottawa awaiting trial. French needs $200,000 to bond out.

He’s accused of killing of 38-year-old Joshua Scaman of Oglesby. Prosecutors think the two men had an argument and agreed to meet in the IVCC parking lot where French shot Scaman in the chest with an arrow.

Drug overdose deaths surge in 14 states

A government report shows drug overdose deaths surged in 14 states last year.  Rates went up in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and other Midwestern states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the report Friday.

The highest overdose rates were in West Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio.  For the nation, overdose deaths last year surpassed 47,000 – up 7 percent from the previous year. That’s the most reported in the nation since at least 1970, according to CDC records.

The count includes deaths involving powerful painkillers, sedatives, heroin, cocaine and other legal and illicit drugs.