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Lake Sediments Record Climate Change At Cahokia INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA —National Public Radio reports that climatologist Broxton Bird of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and colleagues analyzed layers of calcite crystals interspersed with layers of mud on the bottom of Indiana’s Martin Lake in order to learn about historic rainfall levels at Cahokia. The study suggests that beginning in the 900s, the Central Mississippi Valley received more rain than usual. And carbon isotopes found in skeletons at Mississippian cities indicate that people ate a lot of corn. “That comes at right around 950, and that’s around the time the population at Cahokia...

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) Jurors in a federal vote fraud case will decide in the coming weeks whether East St. Louis Democratic Committee leaders attempted to buy votes in the November elections, or if committee members were set up, as a defense attorney alleges. Committee Chairman Charles Powell Jr. and others are accused of trying to buy the election using cash, liquor and cigarettes. But Powell's lawyer Bruce Cook said in opening statements Tuesday that ``the FBI engaged in picking sides during an election'' by arresting his client two weeks before he was up for re-election to the City...

3 are slain in Belleville beauty salon By Doug Moore and Robert Goodrich Of the Post-Dispatch 03/02/2005 Authorities were working both sides of the Mississippi River late Wednesday night in their search for a killer who stabbed a popular Belleville hairdresser and two of his customers earlier in the day. A customer who showed up at the salon just after 11 a.m. Wednesday found the bodies of salon owner Michael J. Cooney, 62, and sisters Dorothy E. Bone, 82, and Doris J. Fischer, 79. Police believe Cooney knew the killer, who fled in Cooney's sport utility vehicle. Authorities were seeking...

EAST ST. LOUIS - Carl Officer, the four-term mayor of East St. Louis, Illinois, announced before local supporters today that he has accepted the position as head of the Illinois Steering Committee of "Democrats for Bush," founded earlier this year by Democratic Senator Zell Miller of Georgia. A life-long Democrat, Officer is a third generation African-American entrepreneur with a family funeral home business and mayor of one of the poorest cities in Illinois and, for that matter, America. Officer was once a top aide to Secretary of State Alan Dixon, a Democrat who later served as a U.S. Senator from...