Untitled Document When someone stole a month’s supply of medicine from 23-year-old AIDS activist Hydeia Broadbent and her insurance company refused to replace the drugs, she figured she’d pay for more out of her own pocket — until she learned that they’d cost her $1,600. “They really expect people to be able to afford this […]
R. L. Nave
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The gasoline guessing game
Untitled Document Traffic spilled onto Sangamon Avenue and Peoria Road last week as two dozen noontime commuters crammed onto the lot of the Thornton’s Oil store, hurrying to fill up their tanks for $2.58 per gallon. Most gas stations in Springfield had already jacked up their prices by more than a quarter per gallon earlier […]
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Fostering hope
Untitled Document The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has until the end of November to answer questions about changes the agency wants to make to its scholarship program for children and young adults who have been under the guardianship of the state. Under the proposal now being reviewed by the Joint […]
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Does not compute
Untitled Document The state of Illinois is teetering on the brink of financial calamity. In excess of $40 billion by most estimates, Illinois has the largest unfunded pension liability in the U.S. — more than five times the national average. Under the state’s current tax structure, the state cannot generate enough revenue to keep pace […]
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Deal or no deal
Untitled Document Two days before the State Journal-Register offered optional severance packages to 149 nonunion full-time workers, the newspaper’s parent company, GateHouse Media Inc., rolled out a contest to award $1 million to any employee who comes up with an idea to generate $50 million in earnings by the end of 2010. The […]
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Lighting a fire
Untitled Document When refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan leave the camps to collect firewood, the men are killed by Janjaweed militias — so they send the women, who are often raped. It’s conditions such as these that have ignited an international movement for change in Darfur, including an international divestment campaign. On Sunday, […]
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Hellraisers
Untitled Document Bruce “U. Utah” Phillips — folk singer, historian, activist, and longtime member of the Industrial Workers of the World — will be the featured performer at a program to honor one of labor’s best known agitators and organizers: Mary Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones. This Sunday, Oct. 14, the Springfield-based Mother […]
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Out of the shadows
Untitled Document More than 20 years before Muhammad Ali was famously stripped of his boxing titles and convicted of draft evasion, Bayard Rustin served 27 months in prison for refusing to fight during World War II. Unlike Ali, whose application for conscientious objector status was denied, Rustin, a Quaker, had the option of serving in […]
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Minority report
Untitled Document Members of racial minorities, who make up 35 percent of Illinois’ population, accounted for just 20 percent of state employees in fiscal year 2006, according to an analysis of state hiring data conducted by the Illinois Association of Minorities in Government. “Even though minorities are highly represented in the public sector, many agencies, […]
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Tanked
Untitled Document Illinois environmental regulators this week issued a citation to Land of Lincoln Goodwill Industries for failing to remove a dormant underground fuel tank. The permit for the unit expired in January. No fines were levied, but Goodwill has 60 days to comply with an order to extract the 2,000-gallon gasoline tank, which is […]
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The CHIPs are down
Untitled Document As he moves ahead with his plans to cover more of Illinois’ medically uninsured, Gov. Rod Blagojevich also is weighing in on the national healthcare debate. Blagojevich, along with a bipartisan group of 30 governors, last week sent a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt asking for […]
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Cold cuts
Untitled Document With assistance from University of Illinois at Springfield students working on behalf of the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project, Herb Whitlock, a co-defendant in the 1986 murder of Karen and Dyke Rhoads of Paris, was granted a new trial this month by an appellate-court judge. Innocence Project co-director and UIS emeritus professor Larry Golden […]
