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Diversity is good for business
When thinking of immigration reform, we must ask ourselves what we want for the country. From a business perspective, important goals to aim for are innovation and entrepreneurship. And although there’s no simple recipe for achieving them, one key ingredient is diversity.

Legislative little me’s
In a country where people of like social class (and thus political views) tend to huddle together like bison in a blizzard, defining the geographical reach of a given legislative district goes a long way toward deciding which party represents it. The unhappy results include uncompetitive races, political stagnation and columns like this one.

Let’s re-fund America
The powerhouses of Wall Street have tunneled directly into the cloistered backrooms of Washington deal making, extracting trillions of dollars worth of government bailouts, special tax breaks and regulatory favors every year.

LETTERS
The Little Giant was not a good man. He and Lincoln were lawyers and politicians. They were horse thieves who did what they did for power and money. Lincoln had worked for the railroad helping run people off of land they had scratched out of rough country.

Madigan and Rauner tool up
Worries about low Democratic turnout in an off-year election for an unpopular governor and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner’s millions in campaign spending are obviously driving much of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s personal legislative agenda this year.

Free-speech icon to speak at UIS
Nearly 50 years ago, when Des Moines, Iowa, teenager John Tinker and his sister, Mary Beth, took a stand against the Vietnam War, they had no idea they were helping to create a legal precedent that would echo through free speech jurisprudence for decades to come.

COMCAST CARES DAY
Comcast Cares Day, described as one of the “largest corporate volunteer initiatives in the nation,” will be renovating Springfi eld’s Boys and Girls Club, 300 South 15th Street, on Saturday, April 26, one of more than 80 similar projects happening that day across Comcast’s service region, which ranges from Quincy to South Bend, Ind.

PROSTATE PROGRESS
Men, welcome to the future: A developing technology that would make prostate biopsies far less invasive is coming to Springfi eld. Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and St. John’s Hospital announced this week that they have begun training to use magnetic resonance imaging, commonly known as an MRI, to detect cancer within the prostate.

Christian pleads guilty
But Christian recently pleaded guilty to charges of reckless driving and fleeing police that he cites in a federal lawsuit as examples of harassment that began when he filed complaints against officers and sued the city to gain access to internal affairs files.

Reform wave hits DNR
Reforms to practices for issuing coal permits are contained in a March 24 settlement of a lawsuit filed against the department in 2007 by Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who sued the department after it approved a permit for a 600-acre strip mine near Banner, about 70 miles north of Springfield in Fulton County.

Pay at the pump, fix the roads
The state’s major funding program for infrastructure improvements, Illinois Jobs Now!, was initiated by Gov. Pat Quinn in 2009 as a five-year program and ends this year. The lack of another capital funding plan and the declining condition of Illinois’ roads have led the Transportation for Illinois Coalition to call for a higher state motor fuel tax.

Getting it right
A promising high school football star with serious NFL prospects, Banks got his first college recruiting letter as a sophomore. Before he even started his senior year of high school, he was recruited to play football at a prestigious university, where he wanted to study journalism.

Cap 2: Sober reflection
While it could be argued that Captain America is the least “super” of the superheroes in the Marvel Comics universe, there’s no question he carries the most symbolic weight. The character, having been created at the dawn of World War II, was an obvious propaganda symbol used to rally support for the growing threat in war-torn Europe.

Curry party
A curry party turned out to be a potluck, with everyone contributing a different curry or Indian dish, clearly something that had its roots in British Colonial India that had filtered into other Commonwealth countries.

PUB CRAWL
Sunshine Daydream, Bo Lowder, Untouchable Force, Nate Cozadd, CJ Stucki & Dustin - Illinois NORML Benefit.

BAND SPOTLIGHT | The Todd Henry and Stan Kupish Show
If you notice a couple guys sporting goofy glasses, wacky wigs, Elvis suits complete with sideburns, jumbo jackets, silly shirts, hilarious hats, all picked and paired at a moment’s notice to match songs from the 50s to the present performed with...

Here comes the sun and the shows
If there was no other way to tell the turning of the seasons than by careful observation of the local music scene, one might become as knowledgeable as the ancients were in noticing and identifying how the changing weather patterns concur with the Earth’s movements around the sun.

THE CALENDAR
Two frustrated London housewives decide to rent a villa in Italy for holiday away and recruit two very different English women to share the cost and experience. $16-$18. Hoogland Center for the Arts, 420 S. Sixth St., 217-523- 2787..

PARANORMAL | Horror fun
Prairie Capital Convention Center will host ScareFest Road Trip, a convention for horror and paranormal enthusiasts, April 12-13. Intended as a preview of the larger convention held in Lexington, Ky., each year in September, attendees are encouraged to wear costumes or cosplay, though it is not a requirement for admission.

THEATER | Musical stories
Roxy Theatricals presents Songs for a New World.

SPORTS | Joy ride
Illinois State Fairground’s Coliseum comes alive April 11-12 with the rustle and bustle of C-Bar Rodeo’s championship bull riding and barrel racing. Bring the entire family out to a show like you’ve never seen before. You’ll also be amazed by specialty acts such as trick and Roman riding by Dusti Lynn Crain.