Henry Brockman planned to cut back on his extensive and demanding organic farming operation after his one-year sabbatical in Japan. He’s been farming on fertile bottomland outside Eureka for 25 years, his three children are finished or finishing college, he’s…
BY GEORGE HOPKINS In the year 120 BCE, the Roman Senate banned actors from holding elective office, according to Mary Beard, in her magisterial book S.P.Q.R: The History of Ancient Rome (2015). So why this odd footnote to history? It…
Peggy Hurt and Peg Phillips share an experience each wishes they didn’t. The women, both from Pekin, worked together for years, and then years apart they each fought a potentially deadly form of highly contagious diarrhea. They were both diagnosed…
BY TERRY BIBO Central Illinois may well be the Saudi Arabia of water. “There’s extreme value in the water,” says Bryan Stubbs, executive director of the Cleveland Water Alliance. “It is the new oil.” It is safe to say most…
BY ELAINE HOPKINS PEORIA, IL – Quietly behind closed doors, the drama over what is commonly known as ‘shaken baby syndrome’ plays out in courtrooms across Illinois and the nation. Medical science cannot prove this diagnosis, now known as ‘abusive…
SPRINGFIELD – The ancient Biblical practice of gleaning fields after harvest to collect remnants of food for the hungry is spreading from fields to markets, and a newly enhanced federal tax benefit is incentivizing the practice for farmers. In the…
Beyond a grassy ridge from a tree-covered bandshell, carnival rides twinkle and sparkle in the humid evening, calliope music tinkling softly. It could be almost any year in the last century. The louder music exploding from six Marshall amps…
UPDATE: Judge Albert Purham orders appointment of special prosecutor to review Cleve Heidelberg case from 1970. Steve Heidelberg remembers nothing from the 1970 murder trial of his father Cleve Heidelberg, but he now sees some of the legacy that trial…
The Fresh Food Van makes regular stops throughout Peoria much like the ice cream trucks of decades past. But unlike the Good Humor truck, there is no need for a bell to alert nearby residents. They know the schedule. On…
BY GEORGE HOPKINS The vacant shop’s windows blare a message to the old town square in tiny Cuba, Illinois —“Lost Dreams! Broken Heart! Must Sell!” Like many once-thriving downstate market towns, this Fulton County hamlet is a pretty place, with…
