Oprah’s Book Club pick due in September

CHICAGO — The first week of the final season of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” will include a selection for Oprah’s Book Club.

A Harpo spokeswoman said Thursday that Winfrey will announce her 64th and latest pick during a live episode airing on Sept. 17. That would be 14 years to the day that Winfrey announced her first book club selection — Jacquelyn Mitchard’s The Deep End of the Ocean — on Sept. 17, 1996.

Winfrey’s book club choices have vaulted to the best-seller list and instant fame. Her last choice was author Uwem Akpan’s short story collection Say You’re One Of Them.

It’s not known if Winfrey’s latest pick will be her last on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which is set to premiere its 25th and final season on Sept. 13.

Durbin: Ill. needs to latch onto coal projects

TAYLORVILLE, Ill. — U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin says two power-plant projects that would rely on clean-coal technology are opportunities Illinois can’t afford to let get away.

Durbin spoke Thursday in Taylorville in central Illinois after meeting with local leaders and officials from the Nebraska power company Tenaska Energy.

Tenaska hopes to build one of the projects. The Taylorville Energy Center would use coal to make power but capture its carbon dioxide and store it underground.

On Wednesday state regulators delivered a critical analysis of the project. They said its costs to power customers could be high.

The other project Durbin spoke about is the long-delayed FutureGen clean coal project. Recent surprise changes have again raised doubts about it.