Features

Family-owned store subject of sexual discrimination lawsuit

  Citing a longstanding culture of sexual discrimination, a lawsuit filed in November in U.S. District Court in Peoria is seeking damages from Sherman’s Place appliance and furniture store in excess of $2 million plus legal fees on behalf of…

Rents could further burden tenants in coming years

Many young adults piled up huge student debt to get college degrees enabling them to pay off loans but face a slowly recovering job market. On the other side of the career spectrum, retirees worry that fixed incomes won’t be…

Strengthening Peoria’s economy will take ‘horse sense’

It’s jarring when reality thumps wishful thinking. But “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” as it’s said. (Maybe the central Illinois equivalent is, “If wishes were caterpillars, butterflies would come.”) Anyway, the Peoria economy seems to be crying, “My…

Organic farmers sustain huge losses From GMO contamination

DANFORTH, ILL. – On a warm September day on the cusp of harvest season, about 70 farmers from throughout the Midwest drove to a cavernous metal equipment barn on Harold Wilken’s organic grain farm in Iroquois County. They came to…

Labor Day 2015

Critical “tipping point” between unions and so-called “right to work” BY CLARE HOWARD As the nation celebrates Labor Day with parades and picnics, an “apocalyptic” moment is brewing in the United States with Illinois widely viewed as a critical pivotal…

Does where you live determine where you’ll go?

By BILL KNIGHT As Peoria’s City-County Citizen Leadership Academy starts this month with help from neighborhood activists, two recent studies seem to indicate a struggling Peoria and the need for strong neighborhoods to be the backbones of cities. The new…

ROYCE ELLIOTT PLACE The sun was shining brightly, almost like God’s spotlight on America’s cleanest comedian, Royce Elliott, as people gathered to honor the man who made so many laugh and smile. The occasion was the unveiling of the honorary…