reporter

When Nate Schwiethale joined the Wichita police force 17 years ago he was assigned to downtown, where he spent most of his time dealing with homeless people, who often had substance abuse problems, mental illness or both. He would arrest them for drinking or panhandling and send them off to jail. After a short stay […]

As the high-profile Bill Cosby trial winds down this week, it’s right to ask what happens to low-profile victims who get harassed in the workplace every day by low-profile lowlifes? What happens to victims who don’t happen to work in Hollywood? Naming and shaming doesn’t work so well when offenders don’t have much of a […]

Rosanna Pulido was nearly unknown in Springfield until last fall when she emerged as the strongest citizen voice opposing the city council resolution to make Springfield a “Welcoming City.” The resolution is positive, progressive and innocuous, with phrases like, “the City of Springfield is committed to continue building a neighborly and welcoming atmosphere in our […]

Last August the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” – an area of low oxygen (hypoxia) that can kill fish – is the largest ever measured. At 8,776 square miles, it is an area about the size of New Jersey. Scientists have determined that the dead zone is caused […]

When Dr. Jerry Kruse headed to Honduras in 2005 to volunteer, he thought he was going on a simple medical mission trip to a rural village devastated by Hurricane Mitch. Instead he discovered a hurricane of ideas and organization that gave him a vision for reforming the U.S. health care system. Kruse, who for many […]

When the wheels come off in Washington, and Illinois enters another cycle of bad government, I turn to the Adlai Stevensons for hope about politics. The Adlai I have had the privilege to cover is number three, not the more famous Illinois governor and two-time presidential candidate, or his namesake who was Grover Cleveland’s vice […]

In the fall of 1977, not long after Elvis Presley died, I took a call on one of the two phones in our Illinois Times office on Eighth Street, a few doors from Lincoln’s home. Both phones had long floor cords so they could be moved from desk to desk, but if someone walking by […]

I have made it a practice to travel to countries where toileting facilities are different from ours. I can understand an obsession with scatology from somebody with a diet of cheeseburgers. He thinks he needs a chair to sit on while doing his business, because he probably has to sit there a big part of […]