Cancellations due to the “stay at home” mandate include Neighborhood Watch, May 13; West Peoria Book Club no May meeting; West Peoria Township Clean Up Day will be rescheduled. Boy Scout Troop 11 members are selling 30-gallon trash bags. To…
Labor Roundup | May 2020
NY Mayor Bill de Blasio orders probe of Amazon firing protesting worker Christian Smalls, who organized a walkout to demand greater protections against coronavirus for warehouse workers. About 15 workers participated in the walkout at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse after…
UnityPoint calls for public’s help making & donating face masks
MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Alyson McKean Regional Marketing Manager (309) 409-5775 Alyson.McKean@unitypoint.org UnityPoint Health calls for community help with COVID-19 Peoria, IL- March 27, 2020- UnityPoint Health (UPH) joins health systems across Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin in…
Limiting protective garb for healthcare workers sparks conflict at OSF
BY CLARE HOWARD OSF Saint Francis Medical Center issued a policy Tuesday prohibiting employees from buying, borrowing or making their own personal protective equipment like face masks. At a time COVID-19 is sweeping across America taking a devastating toll, healthcare…
Bill Knight | Coronavirus
Donald Trump shouldn’t be blamed for the coronavirus outbreak any more than the asteroid moving past Earth April 29. However, he is responsible for his response to the escalating emergency, and he’s downplayed danger while almost 140,000 in more than…
Full court press for Census 2020
Voting in jails
Detainees at the Peoria County Jail cast absentee ballots for the statewide primary in March. They will vote again in the upcoming presidential elections. Peoria County Jail Superintendent Ronda Guyton coordinated with Peoria County Board of Elections director Tom Bride…
Geriatric prisoners and “three strikes” — it’s taxpayers who strike out
Research and nearly half a century of precedent have widely disproven the value of three-strikes-and-you’re-out, but change may be too slow in coming for Lester Mason. The three-strikes legislation was supposed to act as a deterrent to violent crime. Instead,…
Straight Talk | Exclusive news
We’ve been doing our morning radio show for almost 18 years, give and take a year here and there when we made a few transitions, through no fault of our own. It started as “Breakfast with Royce and Roger” and…
The Lion’s Den | To Play Ball, or Not to Play Ball: That is the Question
As I write this article, I am reminded of a conversation I once had with my wife. The question that I posed to her was this: “Can you imagine a world without sports?” She laughed and said, “No.” Well, here…
Editorial | The press
We are living in dangerous times for democracy when the press is blamed, pilloried, discredited and barred from public meetings. The national press pool is corralled in at Trump rallies as the crowd chants “Lock them up.” That animosity has…
OpEd | Inconsistencies in anti-abortion reasoning
In January, the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal money from the state of California if it does not drop its requirement that private insurers cover abortions. It declared that California was in violation of the federal Weldon Amendment, which…
COVID-19 Briefs
As the world hunkers down under quarantines and business closings, here are some facts on this latest “novel” virus. COVID-19 is a new coronavirus that was initially identified in Wuhan, China, and linked to a seafood and live animal “wet…
Reflections From The Clergy | Interfaith endeavors build bridges and make communities thrive
When Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (a great Islamic figure) was on his death bed, a Christian pastor of his community visited Imam Ahmad and said, “O Imam, your life was not only a blessing for Muslims, it was a blessing…
The Watch | Mailed ballots
Peoria County’s first vote of 2020 returned via Singapore, according to Local Government Observer (LOGO) reports from the League of Women Voters of Greater Peoria. By the time Peoria County Board of Election Commissioners met on Feb. 11, about 150…
Nature Rambles | April flowers
Anyone who wanders through our parks in April can’t help but notice the emerging spring. As Emerson penned, that the “earth laughs in flowers,” and indeed April is rich with such laughter. Wooded trails are alive with the hues of…
Inland Art | Andrea Ferrigno
Under her designation of “Systems and Structures,” Andrea Ferrigno plots the stratosphere in graphite. In dizzying constellations, like the drawing “Static Search,” delicate contours arc from one dark polestar to another. Passages compress and then re-open as they flow across…
Art and Justice | African American artists – “the true historians of our culture”
Jonathon Romain sees the world with a clarity that stems from his unique perspective. “I started going to jail before I was 10 years old. I remember vividly the first time I was handcuffed and tossed into a squad car.…
Heat Waves — In Red and Black | Heat Wave Denialism: Shooting Craps with Mother Nature
Tri-County’s Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan, which covers Peoria, defines heat waves as relatively inconsequential. History tells us differently: Chicago 1995, 700 dead; France 2003, 15,000 dead; Western Russia 2010, 50,000 dead. Before Tri-County releases its 2020 plan, it could consult…
Reflections From The Clergy | Where is wisdom to be found?
When the topic of wisdom comes up, so do the usual images. Walls and walls filled with dusty old books. Elders with the wisdom of many years carved into the wrinkles on their faces. Diplomas framed and filling one’s office…
Real Talk | Searching for little messiahs
How can we see through the lies of others when we are longing for the truth? The way our mind is set up, we look for others to lead us to the truth. This path for truth comes in different…
Labor Roundup | April 2020
Labor-law reform passes House, stalling in Senate. The Democratic-run U.S. House has approved the Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, the nation’s most comprehensive pro-worker reform in decades. Pro-worker lawmakers and union representatives crafted the measure (HR2474), which would…