2012-05-14 22:29:00
JEFF HAWKES
David Rusk, a Washington-based urban policy consultant and former mayor of Albuquerque, N.M., visited Lancaster about 30 times in 2009 and 2010 as an adviser to the county planning department.
With an eye to boosting the county's economic competitiveness, Rusk took note of economically se......
2012-05-09 20:21:00
JEFF HAWKES
Can a teenager from Colerain Township come to the rescue of a fat nation?
Probably not. We like our bacon, egg and cheese biscuits too much. Mmmmm.
But I'm still going to root for 17-year-old Tyler McCardell. After all, it's not every high school junior who can cite childhood obes......
2012-05-07 21:38:00
JEFF HAWKES
Jesse Charles fell from a tree in 1983 and ever since hasn't been able to walk or move his fingers.
But while Charles' body has not worked the way he would have liked for 29 years, the way he is able to hire the home-care attendants he relies upon to get showered, dressed and out the door......
2012-05-02 20:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
Summer is coming, and mine just got a lot better.
Ten years in the making, Robert Caro's latest book has just come out, and I can't wait to bury my nose in it.
I'm anticipating intrigue, dirty double-dealing and the ruthless pursuit of power — all of the juicy details uncove......
2012-04-30 19:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
Traffic is a big deal in Lancaster. You can tell because it has its own commission.
Pedestrians, on the other hand? No commission. They fall under the purview of the city's traffic commission.
Because its very name implies the commission's focus is the movement of people and freig......
2012-04-25 19:42:00
JEFF HAWKES
Amid the hubbub of 40 people mingling and chattering as if they'd been sprung from solitary confinement, chorus director A.J. Walker settled behind a knee-high djembe and started drumming.
Conversations abruptly ended. People found their places. The weekly rehearsal of Lancaster's nonaudi......
2012-04-23 21:18:00
JEFF HAWKES
Lancaster County has given the world such luminaries as Robert Fulton, Thaddeus Stevens, Floyd Landis.
It's too bad we've overlooked Simon Rathvon.
Simon who?
I had a feeling you'd say that.
Born in Marietta 200 years ago today, Rathvon ranks right up there with Ng......
2012-04-18 23:40:00
JEFF HAWKES
For almost three months, then-18-year-old Lindsey Nester told no one about the night three strangers forced her into an empty dorm, held her down and sexually assaulted her for the most terrifying 90 minutes of her life. Lindsey, a freshman at Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, told no one ......
2012-04-16 20:40:00
JEFF HAWKES
The rules for how boundaries of state Senate and House districts are to be drawn couldn't be plainer.
Districts must be "nearly equal" in population. Counties and municipalities must not be divided "unless absolutely necessary." And districts are to be "compact."
It's that simple.......
2012-04-11 20:29:00
JEFF HAWKES
A panel of local housing experts recently gazed into a crystal ball to discern the future market.
What they think is coming is greater demand for apartments and other kinds of multifamily housing, a trend that mirrors what's happening nationally.
So is Lancaster County poised to m......
2012-04-09 21:31:00
JEFF HAWKES
Letting voters decide if they want to shrink the 253-member state Legislature is an overdue idea for reform that finally has legs.
The House (203 members) passed a measure last Wednesday. The Senate (50 members) seems poised to follow suit.
And Pennsylvania voters just might get t......
2012-04-04 19:24:00
JEFF HAWKES
Refugees who've escaped persecution in faraway lands often find Lancaster County a tough place to start over.
Some feel trapped at home and estranged from society because they can't speak English or get rides to where they want to go.
Others say the quality of English-language ins......
2012-04-02 22:44:00
JEFF HAWKES
Brian is a pale, introspective 14-year-old boy from Columbia who got in trouble and found himself last month locked behind concrete block walls on the Sunnyside peninsula.
The walls of the Youth Intervention Center effectively isolated Brian and several dozen other teens. The walls also e......
2012-03-28 20:29:00
JEFF HAWKES
Jonathan and Rhoda Charles mentor impoverished but resilient families from Burma who likely will find a way to get by after their food stamps are eliminated May 1.
But getting by isn't a strategy for getting ahead. That worries the Charleses.
They're concerned that families who we......
2012-03-26 22:24:00
JEFF HAWKES
What was Rapho Township farmland seven years ago is now a 30-acre park that 81-year-old Jay Geyer visits daily when the weather is fair.
He glided Friday afternoon along its winding, asphalt path in a three-wheel scooter, having motored from the neighboring Four Seasons at Elm Tree 55-plu......
2012-03-21 20:22:00
JEFF HAWKES
If a study about wasteful welfare spending across the 50 states gave Pennsylvania a grade of C-minus, do you think Republicans in Harrisburg would ignore it? Not a chance.
Or what if a study gave Pennsylvania a C-minus for insufficient state support of education? Do you think Democratic l......
2012-03-19 21:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
After the unthinkable happened on Sept. 11, 2001, we reacted with outrage and dread.
We worried about what a terrorist cell or outlaw regime would try next and whether anything could be done to prevent another atrocity.
But as understandable as our fear and bewilderment were, did ......
2012-03-14 20:25:00
JEFF HAWKES
Michelle Janidlo wanted to shop for shoes on a recent Thursday. Would her 12-year-old son, Connor, cooperate?
A spindly dynamo with profound developmental delays, Connor is hard to control. But Michelle, 41, would have help: a pair of assistants.
State-funded staffing makes it pos......
2012-03-12 17:56:00
JEFF HAWKES
I sympathize with women who feel guilt after an abortion.
But as painful as their remorse may be, it doesn't justify the dubious remedy called the Women's Right to Know Act championed by Pennsylvania abortion foes.
The intent of the bill, supported by local Republicans in the stat......
2012-03-07 21:12:00
JEFF HAWKES
On many nights Paul Leatherman climbed onto a roof not far from downtown Saigon and watched his countrymen unleash lethal rain.
He saw glowing tracer bullets fall hour after hour upon an unseen enemy targeted by a lumbering Douglas AC-47 nicknamed Puff the Magic Dragon.
It was 196......
2012-03-05 20:31:00
JEFF HAWKES
Here's something to feel good about. Lancaster County is now ranked No. 1 on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.
We splashed the good news across our front page last week.
The top ranking means people here feel happier, healthier and more fulfilled in work and life than people......
2012-02-29 21:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
If an aura truly was radiating from Jennifer Stuckey's body as she rested on a massage table one recent Saturday, I certainly couldn't tell.
But Barbara Pacca said an aura, or energy field, was present. She said she had detected it with her palms.
"I feel a tingling, like pins and......
2012-02-22 22:26:00
JEFF HAWKES
Sam Bressi gets up each day thinking about how to make $70 million do the greatest amount of good for our community. Now that's a pretty cool job.
Bressi, president and CEO of Lancaster County Community Foundation, also starts his day thinking about something else: What if he had not $70 ......
2012-02-15 23:03:00
JEFF HAWKES
Hiding in Burma's rain forest from soldiers pillaging her village, Ma Thein found weaving calmed her fears.
The mother of six tied one end of her loom to a tree. The other end she strapped about her waist.
She then sat on the ground and wove, passing a shuttle that unspooled white......
2012-02-13 20:16:00
JEFF HAWKES
Being a responsible American comes with certain obligations.
Jury duty, for one. The government expects us to show up, and it fines those who don't.
If we want to remodel our kitchen, the government says, Get a permit. If we want to marry, we need a license. If we have kids, we're......
2012-02-06 18:08:00
JEFF HAWKES
I'm thinking we're owed an apology.
Legislative leaders in Harrisburg abused their authority by gerrymandering the heck out of legislative districts, evidently thinking they were clever enough to get away with it.
But the state Supreme Court has called them on it, tossing out thei......
2012-02-01 19:26:00
JEFF HAWKES
Amy Walter, a 23-year-old office worker, stepped on the scale at work Monday morning. Other co-workers followed.
Up a pound, Walter was not surprised.
"I did eat out at Chili's. I get the chips and salsa," she said. "And I didn't run this weekend."
Walter's participation i......
2012-01-30 21:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
In adding mapmaking to her skill set, piano teacher Amanda Holt may have helped to change the shape of Pennsylvania politics for the better.
Holt, 29, drew her own maps of legislative districts because she believed the redistricting commission had violated the state constitution by splint......
2012-01-25 20:19:00
JEFF HAWKES
Politicos are asking whether Democrat Joe Sestak will run to regain his former seat in Congress, now held by a Republican.
But the better question is: Did Sestak ever stop running?
Sestak is the former admiral and Delaware County congressman who fell short in his 2010 bid for Sena......
2012-01-23 22:04:00
JEFF HAWKES
Along comes state Rep. Mike Sturla with an idea for reforming the government.
Will wonders never cease. Pay-hike Mike thinks we should amend the state constitution!
But before you go check on weather conditions in Hell, be advised Sturla's proposal is as much about good government......
2012-01-18 22:08:00
JEFF HAWKES
Kiss the January blahs goodbye with the tang of a moro orange.
Jonathan Steffy is cutting into one now. His blade cleaves the pitted skin, revealing startlingly luscious crimson flesh, a cranberryish hue that puts pink grapefruit to shame.
"Try it," he says, offering a piece that ......
2012-01-11 17:25:00
JEFF HAWKES
You're not alone if you wonder why Pennsylvania isn't taxing big energy for the privilege of profiting from our abundant natural gas deposits.
About two-thirds of Pennsylvanians favor a tax on gas drillers, and that support has been growing despite Gov. Tom Corbett's unyielding opposition......
2012-01-09 20:36:00
JEFF HAWKES
Gov. Tom Corbett cast himself as a trustworthy guardian of Pennsylvania's "long, proud and sustaining democracy" in his inaugural address last January.
On a chilly, overcast day, the white-haired, 61-year-old Corbett pledged to "move forward with government and legislative reform," to do ......
2012-01-05 00:00:00
JEFF HAWKES
In 2004, Lancaster's quilt museum threw open its doors in expectation of 55,000 paying visitors that year alone. Charlie Smithgall, then the mayor, could hardly contain himself, saying the influx of quilt lovers would make downtown "a worldwide attraction." But then almos......
2012-01-02 21:44:00
JEFF HAWKES
No, I didn't ring in the new year. What was so bad about the old year? I actually liked 2011 — protesters in the streets, Katy Perry on VH1.
And now we're just kicking 2011 to the curb. Not nice.
As for me, I'm still trying to figure out 1985. Whose idea was New Cok......
2011-12-21 20:04:00
JEFF HAWKES
I'm not sure Pennsylvania's new 7th Congressional District could look any stranger if it grew in a lava lamp.
It goes this way and that, plump in places, reed-like in others.
It reaches across five counties, bumping up against Philadelphia, skirting Reading and snagging Bird-in-Ha......
2011-12-15 00:00:00
JEFF HAWKES
You'd expect a former president judge of Pennsylvania's Superior Court to play by the rules. And not only play by the rules, but have a deep and abiding respect for the rules. But before voting Monday to gerrymander many of Pennsylvania's 50 Senate districts and 203 House......
2011-12-12 21:48:00
JEFF HAWKES
Bruce from Mount Joy, you're on 'The Dr. Tom Creighton Show.' What's on your mind?"
"Thanks for taking my call, Doctor Tom. Love your show."
"Thank you, Bruce. What's your question?"
"I don't have a question really. Just a story."
"OK, but keep it brief."
"......
2011-12-07 22:36:00
JEFF HAWKES
Decades ago, a camera clicked and captured an odd moment: a stern-faced woman strong-arming two small children to kiss.
Perhaps the amusing nature of the black-and-white print made the outdoor snapshot a family favorite. Or maybe it got tucked away and was forgotten.
In any case, ......
2011-12-05 20:00:00
JEFF HAWKES
Stepping outside Habecker Mennonite Church, Rhoda Charles, 57, gave a shout.
"Everybody come in now!" she called.
It was 10 on a Sunday morning, time for worship. Newcomers from Burma, mostly in their 20s and 30s, some with children, had been chatting or tossing a football, and th......
2011-11-30 21:39:00
JEFF HAWKES
Well, that was cute.
Rep. Joe Pitts held a town hall meeting Monday night, and roughly 20 people from Occupy Lancaster hijacked it.
Standing and reading from a script, they yelled and chanted. Others in the Farm & Home Center audience of roughly 200 started yelling back at the......
2011-11-16 20:56:00
JEFF HAWKES
Kristen Hertzog picked her way between cinder block and corrugated steel hovels in the shantytown of Cite Soleil, a sprawling slum wretched even by Haitian standards.
Hertzog was a 16-year-old from northern New Jersey who had a typical preoccupation with clothes and boys. Nothing ruined h......
2011-11-14 18:33:00
JEFF HAWKES
I was yelled at by a secret police goon tapping a baseball bat against his palm.
I waited in line for government services and then was told to come back another day.
I was derided by an American for looking different and told to go back to where I came from.
For an hour la......
2011-11-09 21:07:00
JEFF HAWKES
"Hey, Dad, can I borrow the car?"
"Sorry, son. I can't help you. You're not in my district anymore."
"What do you mean I'm not in your district anymore?"
"The Constitution requires legislative redistricting after every census. Boundary lines have been redrawn, and you've b......
2011-11-02 19:16:00
JEFF HAWKES
I followed 81-year-old Daniel Aber into a stand of trees behind a big industrial building near Ephrata to see the place he used to call home.
We walked through damp undergrowth and down a short, rocky slope. And that's where we came to an abandoned truck trailer, rotting and forlorn.
......
2011-10-31 21:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
With nearly 800 rising to sing the National Anthem, Building One Pennsylvania's statewide meeting Thursday got off to a strong, unifying start. But it wasn't long before the coalition's big event took on a decidedly Democratic tone.
And that made for an unfortunate turn of events.
...
2011-10-26 19:39:00
JEFF HAWKES
Driving home on Friday evening, June 24, Alan Cherkin answered his phone. It was Alana, his 19-year-old daughter, asking if he knew where her brother was.
It wasn't an innocent question. Alana had reason to think something was wrong.
"My friends keep texting me and saying is there......
2011-10-24 21:40:00
JEFF HAWKES
So it has come to pass that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is toast. What will never end, however, is confusion over how to spell his name.
Above, I went with The New York Times' spelling because who can argue with The New York Times? Well, it turns out, just about everyone. The Atlantic, for in......
2011-10-19 20:57:00
JEFF HAWKES
The biggest thing the ragtag Occupy Lancaster encampment has going for it is heart.
Look beyond the sign-waving, drumming and other protest-related activities at the around-the-clock occupation of Art Park and you see something more is happening at Prince and Chestnut streets.
On ......
2011-10-12 17:41:00
JEFF HAWKES
Of all the cows in Lancaster County, a placid 2-year-old Jersey named True Heart might be the only one owned by a video game designer who moved here from San Diego because she wanted a cow to milk.
On a recent morning, the tethered True Heart munched on grain while Jane Holmes, 48, settle......
2011-10-10 19:11:00
JEFF HAWKES
Budding director David Godin grew up in a West Hempfield Township subdivision where acres of rolling farmland stretch far beyond his parents' backyard.
The rural backdrop that Godin, 24, saw every day offered inspiration for "Seed," his debut short film that explores the city-country divi......
2011-10-06 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Presidential campaigns are divisive, bruising affairs that feed on the tribal nature of American society and often exacerbate it. The Electoral College only makes things worse. States on Election Night show up as red or blue, reinforcing the bitter us-versus-them nature o......
2011-10-03 22:41:00
JEFF HAWKES
Dr. Lydia Chang, 26, admired her childhood dentist and as early as junior high thought of following in her footsteps.
Dr. Mary Beth Price, 29, was assisting an oral surgeon when she decided upon dentistry.
Now newly minted dentists, the women found their paths converging when they......
2011-09-28 19:51:00
JEFF HAWKES
I have a favor to ask of Scott Boyd, the gregarious Republican from Lampeter who's decided that 10 years as a state representative is enough.
Maybe some of you will consider asking the same favor of him.
One big thing that Boyd, as a lame duck, is free now to do for every Pennsylv......
2011-09-21 21:15:00
JEFF HAWKES
Riding the success of his anti-fracking documentary "Gasland," indie filmmaker Josh Fox has leapt with both feet into a new role he plays exceptionally well — a snippy, finger-wagging and infinitely wise environmental scold.
Fox's take on natural gas? It's one more pernicious fossil......
2011-09-19 22:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
It bothered the late Dr. Ed Freedman that many in our society can't afford even basic dental care, and so in his last years he brought a never-say-die tenacity to trying to start a volunteer-run clinic to meet at least some of the need.
But then time ran out. Just as Freedman's dream was ......
2011-09-14 21:38:00
JEFF HAWKES
As she cradled the bundle that was her just-born daughter, Sara Brown, 17, felt her heart glow.
But love-at-first-sight enchantment didn't come with clear thinking. Sara left the hospital ready to quit school and work as a cashier to support her baby.
That was more than 11 years a......
2011-09-12 21:42:00
JEFF HAWKES
Jeremy Feakins is an entrepreneur who calls Pequea Township home, his milieu a handsome country estate where horses graze on gently undulating fields.
But ask Feakins about business these days, and he'll tell you all about warm tropical seas.
It's not palm trees and sultry breezes......
2011-09-08 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
The prospect of climate change can feel heavy and remote, making people avoid thinking about receding glaciers and rising oceans. So you have to give Tony Robalik of North Mary Street credit for remaining hopeful that the spell of apathy can be broken here. Robalik, 29, and a small g......
2011-08-31 19:13:00
JEFF HAWKES
"Please stand, step forward and place your hands behind your back," the police officer instructed Jerry Lee Miller, 63, a retired pastor who last week found himself under arrest after joining a sit-in outside the White House.
Perspiring under a hot sun, Miller, of Manheim Township, compli......
2011-08-29 21:17:00
JEFF HAWKES
At a seminar for school principals, the instructor asked for a show of hands from those who aren't "math people."
Sue Sneath, one of the principals attending the Pennsylvania Inspired Leadership training, saw a lot of hands go up.
What the instructor said next, looking at those wh......
2011-08-08 23:34:00
JEFF HAWKES
The weather and the price of milk are worries for Jeff Balmer, a young dairyman raising a family on a modest farm in Warwick Township.
He's concerned, too, that costly pollution-control edicts coming out of Washington could drive him off his 110 acres.
But one thing Balmer has goi......
2011-08-03 19:08:00
JEFF HAWKES
Bicycling across windswept prairie, David Hill noticed two pronghorn sprinting beside him.
He marveled at their gazelle-like swiftness and their nimbleness in vaulting fences. The pair would disappear, only to reemerge from behind scrub to resume the chase. For two miles, the pronghorn ra......
2011-08-01 21:08:00
JEFF HAWKES
"Gilligan!" bellows the Skipper. "I've about had it with you!"
"What did I do?" wonders the star of TV's "Gilligan's Island."
The Skipper thrusts a credit card bill at the skinny castaway. "Did you buy this stuff?"
Gilligan examines the bill for rope, nails, powdered eggs,......
2011-07-27 20:46:00
JEFF HAWKES
As the steel industry declined, the small, Ohio-bordering city of Farrell approached insolvency and became in 1987 the first Pennsylvania municipality to be designated "fiscally distressed."
Other communities hit hard by the changing economy — Aliquippa, Braddock, Scranton, Johnstow......
2011-07-25 17:39:00
JEFF HAWKES
Ever wonder why Washington is broken? David Brooks in a powerful column last week hit on part of the problem.
The right-leaning New York Times columnist blamed certain "show horse" Republicans for putting ideological purity above doing the right thing for the country.
Brooks' targ......
2011-07-21 19:47:00
JEFF HAWKES
Carol French and husband Claude tend 70 heifers and calves on 160 acres near the New York line. What did they know about negotiating mineral rights?
So, when a natural gas company's landman in 2006 dangled a $13,800 signing bonus to drill on the Frenches' farm, they bit. "Our biggest conc......
2011-07-20 22:41:00
JEFF HAWKES
Twenty years ago, Vera Scroggins found it: a Civil War-era farmhouse in northern Pennsylvania. The 8-acre property came with barns, a pond and trees bearing fruits and nuts.
Having searched years for just the right home in the country, Scroggins and her family finally escaped the congesti......
2011-07-18 21:25:00
JEFF HAWKES
Developer John Meeder brought vision and tenacity to bear in turning three deteriorating buildings in the 100 block of East King Street into the soon-to-open Historic East Side Suites.
But also key was creative tax policy.
The $9 million project's mix of shops, offices and upscale......
2011-07-13 23:53:00
JEFF HAWKES
Once upon a time there was a wise king who decided children should go to school. The king decreed two schoolhouses be built, one for nobles and the other where peasants dwelled. All children learned how to read and use an abacus, and the kingdom prospered. Every year......
2011-07-11 20:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
One reason school vouchers seem like a good idea is they would let disadvantaged children in struggling schools transfer to public or private schools known for high achievement. The premise is the change to stronger schools will translate to success for the transferring students. But is ......
2011-07-06 20:19:00
JEFF HAWKES
One moment Mary Loreto, the 85-year-old proprietor of a Columbia antiques market, was selling a pair of earrings to a middle-aged customer. The next moment Loreto was pressing on the customer's chest because he had collapsed awkwardly onto the floor and was foaming at the mouth.
"I was sa......
2011-07-01 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
It turns out a publicly funded report on Lancaster County court operations that the president judge doesn't want you to see can be found on the Internet. This newspaper ran a front-page story Thursday about the judge refusing to release the report. The headline was "Judge keeps lid on cou......
2011-06-29 21:53:00
JEFF HAWKES
Acidic drainage from thousands of abandoned coal mines across Pennsylvania turns streams a sickly orange.
But Radisav Vidic, a professor of environmental engineering at University of Pittsburgh, says those polluted waters might not be completely worthless.
Because the extraction o......
2011-06-27 21:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Radwa Matar, 23, turns cabbage, onion, rice, ground beef and other familiar ingredients into delicious Egyptian dishes with names that are unfamiliar to many of her First Friday customers.
But still they come, climbing a narrow staircase to the third-floor Community Room at 17 N. Prince S......
2011-06-22 19:17:00
JEFF HAWKES
Before he was elected to the U.S. Senate, Pat Toomey wrote an op-ed piece in which he said the government's first principle in job creation ought to be "Do no harm."
But that was so 2010. These days, Toomey is Mr. Risky Business. As Congress debates raising the debt ceiling, the full fait......
2011-06-20 20:49:00
JEFF HAWKES
Walking through her woods, Elizabeth Mills sees evil at every turn.
Over here, she points, is oriental bittersweet, a grasping, greedy vine winding around to the top branches of Mills' beloved oaks and hickories. Groaning with bittersweet, the weakened trees come crashing down in storms o......
2011-06-15 19:37:00
JEFF HAWKES
Let the record show that on the 521st day of Mayor Rick Gray's second term, he took a mighty swing at the status quo.
It came not a day too soon.
Joining with eight business leaders who comprise the city's municipal finance task force, Gray last Thursday warned that "arcane and in......
2011-06-13 19:45:00
JEFF HAWKES
Gov. Tom Corbett was recently on the radio defending his budget cuts, and he made one thing quite clear: He's not going to be accused of being flexible.
The interviewer was Marty Moss-Coane of Philadelphia's WHYY-FM, and she wanted to know how open Corbett was to negotiating the $27.3 bil......
2011-06-08 19:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
Christian Sciarrino, owner of Christian's Fitness Factory, had two words for Andre White, his new hire: "Show me."
Sciarrino didn't want to hear about White's addiction to crack or details about his tangles with the criminal justice system.
What Sciarrino wanted to know was, if he......
2011-06-06 20:52:00
JEFF HAWKES
We tramped through woods last week and were greeted by such delicate wonders as a tiny toad, mountain laurel in bloom and fungi bright as orange sherbet.
The Lenape would have been familiar with these finds back when all of these hills east of New Holland were their domain. But that was l......
2011-06-01 19:22:00
JEFF HAWKES
Bob Stahr of New Holland just wanted to stay active. The retiree jumped on a bike one day in August 2000 and rode 10 miles. Two days later, he went nine miles. Ten days after that, he got in 14 more.
Fit and adventurous, the 70-year-old Stahr decided bicycling suited him.
After ea......
2011-05-26 19:37:00
Staff Report
An audience of youth, parents and peace-loving community members attended the 27th annual Peace Essay Contest on May 15.
The theme of this year's essay was "World Peace: How can this dream become a reality for me?"
Yentli Soto Albrecht placed first in the 11-12 grade division, and......
2011-05-25 20:33:00
JEFF HAWKES
Dust flew as stone carver Younus Masih of Pakistan pressed a small block of onyx against the spinning wheel of an electric grinder.
He turned the beige-and-brown stone this way and that, and, after 12 minutes of grinding and sanding, produced the regal figure of an elephant.
Last ......
2011-05-23 20:53:00
JEFF HAWKES
Joel Lesher, who has performed off and on in local theater for years, didn't think long about playing the part of a child molester. He read the script and was hooked.
His decision is a credit to his open-mindedness and a testament to the playwright's courage in turning a distasteful topic......
2011-05-18 22:37:00
JEFF HAWKES
At 12:50 p.m. on the day almost no one voted, judge of elections Doris Johnson, 82, was at her post inside Crispus Attucks Community Center cutting coupons from the Sunday paper.
Angie Watson, the majority inspector, sat before a voter signature ledger and nibbled on a Dove chocolate bar.......
2011-05-16 20:36:00
JEFF HAWKES
In this era when so many people have soured on politics, consider this: Primary voters Tuesday will find candidates who actually want to be school board members.
It's amazing enough in ordinary times that anyone wants to be on a school board. Is there a more demanding, unpaid position in ......
2011-05-11 17:35:00
JEFF HAWKES
Before Gov. Tom Corbett makes Pennsylvania a school voucher state, let's hope he gives what would be a profound policy shift deeper thought than was evident in his speech Monday in Washington.
His address at an education conference failed on multiple levels, showing no understanding, in p......
2011-05-09 21:41:00
JEFF HAWKES
The bad news is that Lancaster County is home to 700 miles of polluted, silt-choked streams, making it a major contributor to the Chesapeake Bay's decline.
The good news is that people here are concerned and doing neat things to improve water quality.
How to tell that story to fed......
2011-05-04 22:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
As a kid, I gorged on potato chips. Lunch wasn't lunch without a mountain of chips leaving a satisfying rim of oil around my lips.
Potato chips were such a big deal that a uniformed guy in a step van delivered tins to our door.
That was the '60s. One wonders why the obesity epidem......
2011-05-02 20:20:00
JEFF HAWKES
While the blue tie he wore to work Wednesday screamed old school, little else about 29-year-old Andrew Wulfkuhle, a school librarian, did.
Not his iPad, his enthusiasm for interactive, Web-based learning, his embrace of graphic novels for reluctant readers. And also not his ease with the ......
2011-04-27 19:30:00
JEFF HAWKES
We see their mug shots in the newspaper: men and women accused of robbery, assault or other unlawful behavior and committed to Lancaster County Prison to await trial. It's hard to feel much sympathy.
We easily assume the worst of those who might have hurt others and made our world a more ......
2011-04-25 21:43:00
JEFF HAWKES
Wendell Potter says he earned a handsome salary for misleading the public.
For two decades he was the senior public relations executive for Humana and then CIGNA, two of the country's largest for-profit health insurers. He went to the office every day to help his company increase the bott......
2011-04-22 22:36:00
JEFF HAWKES
If your house is on fire and you have time to save only one thing, what would it be?
The family Bible? A photo album? An autographed baseball?
Pedro Rivera, superintendent of schools for 11,000 Lancaster children, has chosen to save full-day kindergarten.
The raging fire h......
2011-04-20 17:39:00
JEFF HAWKES
I generally find that state Rep. John Bear of Lititz is open to good ideas and shares many of my values.
Transparency and accountability in government, for instance? He's on it.
Making state government operations more efficient? He's all over that one.
And how about standi......
2011-04-18 22:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
Emily Case, 21, who ordinarily is shy, fragile and anxious, looked particularly nervous last Wednesday.
She was staring at the floor, tapping her foot and methodically rolling a smooth stone between her fingers.
A wispy 4 feet, 6 inches tall, Emily wore a black velvet jacket for t......
2011-04-13 22:04:00
JEFF HAWKES
In 1932, Dr. Marvel Kirk opened a reproductive health clinic on West Chestnut Street, a daring step considering contraception was illegal in most states and birth control information fell under an obscenity ban.
Because of the 26-year-old obstetrician's pioneering work, birth control in L......
2011-04-12 08:22:00
JEFF HAWKES
At 8 on a Friday evening, Fred Eberly found his 22-year-old daughter, Katie, sacked out on the couch. He had to chuckle. Katie, a student teacher, had spent the week with a class of 21 first-graders, and she was worn out. Eberly, 57, is a teacher himself. After 33 years at a high scho......
2011-04-08 20:58:00
JEFF HAWKES
It's a town known for Moravians, Wilbur Buds and one blast of a party on the Fourth of July.
Locals would know I can only be talking about Lititz, a 255-year-old borough that now has a new reason to feel special: innovative zoning.
Zoning?
OK, land-use regulation doesn't e......
2011-04-06 18:09:00
JEFF HAWKES
School choice is an idea with staying power because it evokes good feelings.
If a child's neighborhood school fails to offer a safe, nurturing environment where learning flourishes, we feel something should be done.
And if the solution is to give some low-income students a publicl......
2011-04-04 21:42:00
JEFF HAWKES
For an hour Friday, I was Charles Chen, a fictional 42-year-old, unemployed computer programmer with a wife and kids.
Wow! What an hour.
I was robbed, lost my home to foreclosure and had two sons taken from me. It was all part of a poverty simulation experience.
The Commun......
2011-03-30 23:07:00
JEFF HAWKES
State education secretary nominee Ron Tomalis spent six hours Tuesday defending Gov. Tom Corbett's cuts to school funding. By way of the Web, I watched his appearance before two legislative panels, and it occurred to me Tomalis missed his calling. He was patient, articulate and unflappable, ......
2011-03-28 20:55:00
JEFF HAWKES
The home page for Texas-based Range Resources, a leading natural gas driller in Pennsylvania, is crystal clear about what makes the company tick. It's the money. It says the company seeks to "drive up production" and maintain "one of the lowest cost structures in the industry in order to inc......
2011-03-23 20:09:00
JEFF HAWKES
Manheim residents who vowed to block transitional housing for 144 low-risk inmates can take a deep breath.
For the moment, they're off the hook. Because of county Commissioner Scott Martin's outreach, MinSec Companies has put its Manheim project on hold.
Martin met twice with MinS......
2011-03-21 21:18:00
JEFF HAWKES
My drive home from work is short, but it was long enough March 7 to hear about the powerful connection between relationships and learning, about the primacy of emotion in decisions, and about other discoveries in neuroscience, including how guys named Dennis are uncannily drawn to dentistry.
......
2011-03-16 19:35:00
JEFF HAWKES
I didn't realize this about state Rep. Gordon Denlinger, a pro-business Lancaster County conservative and graduate of Bob Jones University, but he's gaining a reputation as a liberal's right-winger.
By that I mean liberals listen to him and think, "That wasn't so bad."
Monday offe......
2011-03-14 22:50:00
JEFF HAWKES
On a routine Tuesday, in an ordinary elementary school, 8-year-old Dylan Reed sat beside a volunteer and read to him.
It was just business as usual for Dylan, a second-grader. Almost every day he reads to a volunteer, and on a recent Tuesday it happened to be Dr. Larry Carroll, a semi-ret......
2011-03-09 21:30:00
JEFF HAWKES
State Sen. Lloyd Smucker's website features a reaction to Gov. Tom Corbett's budget address.
He liked it!
I know that comes as a shock.
But think about it. If you're a Republican lawmaker from West Lampeter, what's not to like about seeing the governor eliminate 1,550 gove......
2011-03-07 20:33:00
JEFF HAWKES
State Sen. Lloyd Smucker says market competition made him a better business operator, and he believes competition can likewise drive improvement in public education.
At a hearing on school vouchers, Smucker, the West Lampeter Republican, explained his support this way:
"You look a......
2011-03-02 19:56:00
JEFF HAWKES
Fourteen months after Harrisburg Mayor Linda Thompson took office, voters are having buyer's remorse.
A poll found 57 percent consider her performance "poor" and 49 percent favor her resignation for what the Patriot-News calls "managerial blunders."
Viewed from Lancaster, 35 miles......
2011-02-28 20:23:00
JEFF HAWKES
David Pfeiffer, 54, is a self-employed auto mechanic in Pequea Township who can continue changing belts and fixing brakes only if he has his health.
And as of today, Pfeiffer has reason to worry about staying healthy.
He is one of 41,000 working Pennsylvanians who depended upon th......
2011-02-23 22:10:00
JEFF HAWKES
By way of YouTube, I've learned of Sen. Pat Toomey's fascination with "The Little Red Hen," a children's story revered for its moral about initiative and hard work.
In at least two speeches, Toomey has featured the tale and given it an anti-government twist. His latest was to conservative......
2011-02-16 22:54:00
JEFF HAWKES
Meet Bruce Heffner, a 62-year-old gospel musician and missionary. He and his wife, Deb, are about to lose their health insurance.
Meet Ashley Heffner, 25, Bruce's and Deb's daughter.
Ashley just earned a master's degree in guidance counseling and works part time at the Friendship ......
2011-02-16 20:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
Meet Bruce Heffner, a 62-year-old gospel musician and missionary. He and his wife, Deb, are about to lose their health insurance.
Meet Ashley Heffner, 25, Bruce's and Deb's daughter.
Ashley just earned a master's degree in guidance counseling and works part time at the Friendship ......
2011-02-14 19:48:00
JEFF HAWKES
Kristine and Phil Newswanger started a website design firm because they wanted to make money, of course. But they also wanted to do good.
So they've cultivated mission-driven clients such as the U.S. Green Building Council, World Resources Institute and Global Impact Investing Network tha......
2011-02-09 19:18:00
JEFF HAWKES
The mice are back. I'm awakened by their scrabbling above the bedroom ceiling.
Then it stops, and I wonder if I was mistaken. Maybe it was a wintry gust forcing branches of the dormant maple against the brick house.
No, I hear it again, and there's no mistaking the sound this time......
2011-02-07 21:39:00
JEFF HAWKES
Eight-year-old Emma settled into a dental chair, put on big, plastic sunglasses and asked Dr. Denise Alston a pertinent question for a little girl about to have her first cavity drilled.
"Will it hurt?" asked Emma, sounding more curious than worried.
Alston, 37, a bubbly but level......
2011-02-02 21:49:00
JEFF HAWKES
A pupil at an orthodox Jewish school where book learning meant everything, Eli Gilden was a restless, sports-minded misfit.
He couldn't sit still in grade school and often returned late from recess. Later in high school, he started skipping classes altogether.
"Teachers are taught......
2011-01-31 22:30:00
JEFF HAWKES
Sally, 52, doesn't ask for much.
She and her husband, who lost his job, get by on her wages — about $29,000 before taxes.
They don't use credit cards. They drive their 14-year-old car sparingly. They tend a vegetable garden and save a ton by avoiding highly processed foods....
2011-01-26 17:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
I welcome state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola's concern about schools where academic underperformance is chronic.
Not so welcome is the way he's misdiagnosing the cause of poor test scores and pushing school vouchers as the cure-all.
Piccola, a seasoned Republican lawmaker from Dauphin Cou......
2011-01-24 22:09:00
JEFF HAWKES
On the one hand Gov. Tom Corbett comes into office saying government must show "compassion for those most in need."
On the other he is letting a health insurance plan for the working poor expire next month.
Are his actions speaking louder than his words?
Let's give our new......
2011-01-19 20:32:00
JEFF HAWKES
A community today continues to grieve. Four teen boys, full of promise, are dead.
The loss is too painful for words. People are hurting, and lives have been turned upside down, never to be the same.
But after Friday's memorial service, after the graveside farewells, after the cand......
2011-01-17 20:40:00
JEFF HAWKES
At an Hourglass Foundation forum on school funding, state Rep. Scott Boyd warned of cuts.
He said Tom Corbett ran for governor on a no-tax-increase pledge and savings will have to come from every department, education included, to close a $4 billion deficit.
"We have a spending pr......
2011-01-12 22:15:00
JEFF HAWKES
When the heat-lamp bulb disappeared from the shower stall in our house, no one had to ask who removed it.
I did. I'm the energy miser in the family.
Even though I inconvenience my wife and sons by fretting about our carbon footprint, not to mention energy bills, I like to think th......
2011-01-10 18:34:00
JEFF HAWKES
One time when Cara Longacre Hurst was little, her mother prepared for a dinner party by pitching a Bedouin tent in the living room.
Beneath a canopy of sheets and blankets, guests dined on Mediterranean dishes that would have delighted the most discriminating nomad.
Another time, ......
2011-01-05 19:22:00
JEFF HAWKES
Shane Claiborne is a lanky, bohemian Christian who favors loose-fitting homemade clothes in dull earth tones.
He has a goatee, fixes a handkerchief to his head and fashions his hair into long, extravagant braids that tend to flop about like captured snakes whenever his excitement grows as......
2011-01-03 18:20:00
JEFF HAWKES
The Ed Rendell era ends Jan. 18 when Republican Tom Corbett takes the oath as Pennsylvania's 46th governor.
But today we take a trip to an alternate universe where governors aren't limited to two terms. And there we find the 67-year-old Rendell writing his third inaugural address.
...
2010-12-22 20:45:00
JEFF HAWKES
Ask District Attorney Craig Stedman what he thinks about a halfway house that prepares inmates to return to society, and he'll say, "The concept makes sense."
But ask him about Delaware County-based MinSec Companies' plan to house 144 low-risk offenders in Manheim and he'll tell you the s......
2010-12-15 18:38:00
JEFF HAWKES
If you care about job growth, I hope you have a chance to check out our post of an 82-page blueprint for a stronger local economy.
...
2010-12-13 20:29:00
JEFF HAWKES
Sitting at a Parisian cafe, college student Jason Meinzer noticed an attractive blonde and the clunky bike she was pedaling.
The woman disappeared, but Meinzer continued seeing odd bicycles like hers all over Paris. He found out they belonged to a bike-share program with 20,000 rentals at......
2010-12-06 21:54:00
JEFF HAWKES
Today we take a look at a proposed 82-page economic development plan for Lancaster County that took two years and $300,000 to write but is in danger of not making it to the finish line.
If it fails to get approved — county Commissioner Scott Martin, for one, doesn't like the current......
2010-12-02 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
The country seems stuck in what someday we might look back on as The Time When The Economy Refused to Play Nice.
For 18 months and counting, unemployment has been 9 percent or higher.
Lancaster County has had it a little easier, but the latest jobs report brings discouraging news ......
2010-11-17 20:57:00
JEFF HAWKES
If you think Lancaster County took an unfortunate step backward Wednesday when the majority Republican county commissioners voted to end funding of civil rights protection, you have reason to feel glum.
Many people worked hard, attended rallies and spoke eloquently on behalf of the Human ......
2010-11-15 23:12:00
JEFF HAWKES
On a Monday, Darlene Taylor, 40, a single mom, office worker and indefatigable volunteer, chaired a parent advisory committee meeting at McCaskey East High School.
One night later, Taylor was in the sparse audience for a meeting of Lancaster's school board.
The next night, Taylor ......
2010-11-10 19:17:00
JEFF HAWKES
It's the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter. Your team is down by a point and has the ball.
But then your quarterback walks off the field and out of the stadium, and he's followed by the running back. The center accuses the other team of cheating, and he leaves, too.
As the ......
2010-11-08 21:08:00
JEFF HAWKES
Republicans soon to take charge of the governor's mansion and the Legislature want to draw a sharp contrast with how Democrats ran the state.
They'll do that most dramatically by attempting to balance the budget with draconian spending cuts, efficiency measures and the liquidation of asse......
2010-11-03 19:38:00
JEFF HAWKES
With the Human Relations Commission hanging in the balance, county Commissioner Dennis Stuckey is approaching decision time.
In a vote expected later this month, he can kill the agency and claim the mantle of taxpayers' hero. Or Stuckey, a Republican in his first term, could surprise us. ......
2010-11-01 21:29:00
JEFF HAWKES
John Hines has had a month to calm down, and I think he's going to be OK.
But in September when the federal Environmental Protection Agency called his work "seriously deficient," Hines was not a happy camper.
A deputy secretary with Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Prote......
2010-10-27 22:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
How can you tell that former presidential candidate Howard Dean isn't running for anything these days?
Because he's saying stuff about reducing the deficit that would get him clobbered in a campaign.
I hope he keeps it up.
The present fiscal trajectory is one of deficits a......
2010-10-26 00:22:00
JEFF HAWKES
America is more than a country. It's also the embodiment of the idea that free people can govern themselves.
With that thought Congressional Republicans begin their "Pledge to America." It's a great start to the 45-page campaign manifesto, reminding us of the extraordinary experiment our ......
2010-10-20 19:50:00
JEFF HAWKES
Meeting recently with this newspaper's editorial board, state Rep. Mike Sturla seemed more talkative than usual, if that's possible.
He arrived a little early, had lots to say about any topic we threw at him and seemed happy to keep going. And he would have continued, I think, even after ......
2010-10-13 20:36:00
JEFF HAWKES
TV news anchor: "We turn now to Harrisburg, where an unusual rally is happening on the Capitol steps. Mike, can you fill us in?"
Metallic banging is heard as Reporter Mike speaks.
Reporter Mike: "As you can hear, a noisy group has gathered, and their purpose is to launch a politic......
2010-10-11 20:31:00
JEFF HAWKES
Jerry Policoff is the rare candidate who cares not a fig for conventional wisdom.
A never-say-die progressive, Policoff still advocates for a Canadian-style health system even though the rest of the nation has a case of buyer's remorse over just the modest reforms achieved by the Obama ad......
2010-10-07 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
When sex offenders return home from prison, Pennsylvania assures them a chilly, if not exactly hostile, reception. Let's count the ways. First, they have their names, photos and addresses posted on the Megan's Law website. Second, those tagged as violent predators kn......
2010-10-04 19:36:00
JEFF HAWKES
Appearing on CNBC in October 2007, Pat Toomey was asked whether the Bush tax cuts, due to expire Dec. 31, should be extended.
Toomey, then president of the tax-averse Club for Growth, responded with the glee of a 16-year-old who has the choice of his mom driving him to the mall or his mom......
2010-09-29 20:12:00
JEFF HAWKES
You don't tug on Superman's cape or pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger.
And, if you're smart, you don't mess around with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Just ask Barry Smith, manager for Manor Township.
Smith was required to spend two days with five EPA inspectors ......
2010-09-27 20:11:00
JEFF HAWKES
Becky Rupp sang into a karaoke mic Wednesday night, her melancholy voice competing against barroom chatter and the sounds of a game of darts.
She tapped her foot but was economical with motions as she settled into the unhurried pace of a Bonnie Raitt ballad she knew like the hug of her li......
2010-09-22 19:53:00
JEFF HAWKES
About 4 p.m. last Thursday, rain began to dampen the city, an unusual occurrence during one of the driest summers in memory.
At first, the drizzle barely dotted windshields or caused oil to bead in the streets. But the precipitation persisted and picked up in the evening before tapering o......
2010-09-20 20:58:00
JEFF HAWKES
I remember Dr. Ed Freedman telling me about widows on fixed incomes coming to his dental office because they could no longer bear the discomfort of ill-fitting dentures.
In telling him they knew they should have attended to the problem before it got so bad, the elderly women would be almo......
2010-09-15 20:33:00
JEFF HAWKES
They crossed a line you cannot cross.
Some of them got their kicks viewing child pornography. Others lured children into sex or forced their way upon women.
And now their grim faces stare back at us from the Megan's Law website, Pennsylvania's hall of shame.
The sex offend......
2010-09-13 20:51:00
JEFF HAWKES
I don't have a specific memory of being moved by a Cat Stevens song; no story about dropping a quarter into a juke box at an all-night diner to hear him sing about longing and love lost.
And I wonder how that can be.
How is it I can't recall a time when I was hurt, lonely or adrif......
2010-09-09 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Oysters and blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay don't have a vote. Farmers and developers do. So cleaning up North America's second-largest estuary comes down to a basic political consideration. As long as some dairymen, builders and others whose activities impinge upon the bay's health......
2010-09-06 20:08:00
JEFF HAWKES
Jessica Madrigal knew exactly what she wanted to do when she enrolled at Dickinson College three years ago.
She has taken education and foreign language classes and studied abroad with the goal of becoming a Spanish teacher.
But Madrigal's college experience has gone beyond career......
2010-09-01 19:47:00
JEFF HAWKES
Jenn Tarr knew when her twin brother was lying. She could see it in his eyes.
And that day last November when she confronted 21-year-old Adam about iTunes downloads that had been purchased with her credit card, she saw through his denials. And she was furious.
She was angry becaus......
2010-08-30 20:04:00
JEFF HAWKES
A laid-off foundry worker, Brian Smith, 24, has followed up on job leads he found in the help-wanted section, on employment websites and by word of mouth.But with nothing panning out, Smith, of Elizabethtown, remains a casualty of the Great Recession that economists are now warning may hav......
2010-08-25 20:04:00
JEFF HAWKES
State Rep. Tom Caltagirone counts up the 73 municipalities in his home county of Berks and asks a good question: Do we need so many?Because townships and boroughs are a legacy of horse-and-buggy days, do they remain the most cost-effective way to police communities, fill potholes and maint......
2010-08-19 21:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
I risked heatstroke in perusing Newt Gingrich's fire-breathing blog entries attacking Park51, the proposed Islamic community center near ground zero, but it was worth it.That's because of this nugget: In contrast to New York City, which has more than 100 mosques, Saudi Arabia has n......
2010-08-18 20:11:00
LARRY ALEXANDER
Sorry, guys. We're not No. 1. We're not No. 2, either.Heck, we didn't even make the top 10.There's a new list of America's 50 most manly places, and tractor-pulling, overalls-wearing, beer belly-shaking Lancaster County didn't make it.I almost choked o......
2010-08-16 21:57:00
JEFF HAWKES
After bicycling mile upon mile, Joe Lapp could no longer keep pace with pals speeding into a sweeping curve of the country road.Lapp looked ahead only to see the pack pulling farther away. Then he saw one rider peel off. It was his cousin, Glen Lapp, coming back for him.Glen signale......
2010-08-02 19:18:00
JEFF HAWKES
County commissioners Scott Martin and Dennis Stuckey just want to save taxpayers a few bucks.It's not hardness of heart that makes them question the need for the $470,000 human relations commission, but a philosophical commitment to fiscal restraint.On behalf of taxpayers, they ......
2010-07-28 20:21:00
JEFF HAWKES
Thursday night's showdown over the future of Lancaster County's human relations commission need not devolve into a snarling, stereotypical town hall meeting with entrenched camps shouting past each other.I mean, we all get it.When it comes to race relations, immigration, gay......
2010-07-26 22:00:00
JEFF HAWKES
A little common sense in the way Pennsylvania rehabilitates nonviolent criminals could save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, put the brakes on our prison-building spree and actually make communities safer.Other states are already at it. New York, for one, has seen crime fall at t......
2010-07-22 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
I talked to 21-year-old Michelle Zuziak of Ephrata about college costs, and I didn't exactly make her day. "That's upsetting," she said when I pointed out how her bill for Harrisburg Area Community College is higher because she lives in Lancaster County. "That's crazy," said Megan Brill......
2010-07-19 20:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
Ecological calamity in the Gulf. An economy beset by joblessness and jittery investors. A growing fear we're fighting a war we can't win.These are not the best of times, and it's easy to feel there's nothing we can do about it.But before we throw up our hands and ret......
2010-07-14 21:44:00
JEFF HAWKES
All morning it rained, and the forecast for more gave Pastor Kevin Brown pause.Should he postpone Arlene Kaiman's graveside service?He knew almost no one was coming. He knew almost no one cared.But he cared. And he felt God cared.What was a little rain?Short......
2010-07-12 22:07:00
JEFF HAWKES
Stepping off a small plane in Haiti last month and into a makeshift dirt-floor terminal, Charis Haldeman, 19, tried to suppress a sense of panic.Men in threadbare clothes besieged the innocent-looking American traveling alone. They clamored to carry her luggage and insisted, "I help! ......
2010-07-07 20:16:00
JEFF HAWKES
Down on the field, the Barnstormers were swinging and coming up empty.Up in the Buchanan skybox, Anthony Smith, 32, was getting his own moment at bat, too. He was not going to waste it."My ideal job," Smith said to more than a dozen employers he hoped had an opening for hi......
2010-07-05 21:28:00
JEFF HAWKES
In the interest of belt-tightening, my wife and I decided to save a few bucks a month by cutting back on the TV channels we get from Comcast.Did I second-guess that decision when the Flyers were making their thrilling run in the Stanley Cup playoffs? You bet.But life is about choice......
2010-06-30 19:53:00
JEFF HAWKES
Why is it that, financially speaking, Lancaster city is on the ropes?Well, that's easy to answer. The city's stagnant tax base can't keep up with the costly demand for police and other services.No, wait. It's because absentee landlords turned single-family homes into......
2010-06-28 20:41:00
JEFF HAWKES
Walking to work on a recent morning, Barbara Slotter didn't grumble about litter. She picked it up.She dropped an empty pack of Salems into one plastic grocery bag she carried. Into another bag reserved for litter to recycle, she put a flattened Sprite bottle.Slotter, 66, a tiny......
2010-06-17 19:36:00
JEFF HAWKES
Newly released from jail, his job search striking out, Lester Shultz, 51, still found a reason to get out of bed in the morning.He went to Dutch Wonderland to make pizza.With much of the amusement park's work force back at school, Shultz volunteered last August as a late-season ......
2010-06-16 20:39:00
JEFF HAWKES
On Shelby Nauman's walking tour of Lancaster, the city didn't always put its best foot forward.Two blocks from our start at the Marriott at Penn Square, we eyed the yawning pit on North Queen that's the site of a future parking garage.We paused beside the former home of ......
2010-06-14 20:28:00
JEFF HAWKES
Peh Reh, 12, born in a refugee camp in Thailand, the eldest son of a Burmese rice farmer, had never seen a pencil sharpener."He looked at it," fifth-grade teacher Elizabeth Fredericks recalled. "He looked at me. He kind of figured out what to do. The other kids kind of snick......
2010-06-09 20:23:00
JEFF HAWKES
Scott Sheely isn't sure if money can be made recycling used mattresses.He's also not sure if it's possible to stop the revolving door of prison recidivism in which inmates are released only to boomerang back.But Sheely is sure it's worth exploring a connection betwee......
2010-06-07 19:36:00
JEFF HAWKES
Andre White walked out of Lancaster County Prison with a goal and a plan.His goal was as straightforward as it was daunting: stay off crack.His plan wasn't complicated either, and White, 46, wasted no time getting started."I went home," he said. "I went to ......
2010-06-02 20:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
A stagnant tax base. Yawning deficits. Strained services. Shuttered businesses, and a third of the population in poverty.Thirty miles up the road, the city of Reading is heading for trouble, like a train hurtling into a dangerous curve.The state in November officially designated Rea......
2010-05-31 20:24:00
JEFF HAWKES
The state Legislature's brazen pay grab of 2005 energized the usually lethargic electorate in ways no one had ever seen.Anger grew over the sneaky tactics lawmakers used to hike their salaries 16 percent to 54 percent, and four months into the controversy voters bounced a Supreme Court......
2010-05-26 20:07:00
JEFF HAWKES
A grand jury of 23 ordinary Pennsylvanians — an office clerk, a car salesman and a sheet metal mechanic among them — got an inside look at the games politicians play in the state Legislature.They were not amused.During their two-year investigation into public-funded elec......
2010-05-24 21:11:00
JEFF HAWKES
On the same night that Republican Tom Corbett declared in his primary victory speech that if elected governor of Pennsylvania he's taking tax increases "off the table," a funny thing happened in Arizona.Voters there decided to raise taxes. And it wasn't even close. The &q......
2010-05-19 20:11:00
JEFF HAWKES
Every night, Vietnamese immigrant Luan Nguyen read to his little girl.His English wasn't perfect, but the books were simple, and his daughter, Thanh, was an eager learner."I wanted to build a good foundation for her," Nguyen, of Lancaster, said of the reading lessons....
2010-05-18 01:43:00
JEFF HAWKES
Imagine the bottom of the sea and the creatures at home in the cold and dark. Now picture the scene with aliens. Sea worms and other slippery things would, of course, be oblivious to the intruders. A sunbeam is beyond their comprehension. A ruptured pipe spewing oil and the submers......
2010-05-13 21:47:00
STAFF REPORT
An editor, five writers and reporters, two photographers and an online journalist whose work appeared in the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era in 2009 have won awards in statewide journalism contests.Awards sponsored by the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors will be prese......
2010-05-12 21:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
A sign of these tough times is a leaner Lancaster Alliance, the CEO-driven civic group behind many initiatives to revitalize the city.A strategic planning process has led the 14-member Alliance to sharpen its focus and downsize its operations.The biggest casualty is the Lancaster Ca......
2010-05-10 20:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Microbes, take note. Your freewheeling days in Pennsylvania hospitals are numbered.Pseudomonas aeruginosa? We're coming for you.Staphylococcus aureus and acinetobacter baumannii? You can run, but you can no longer sicken patients with impunity.Those days are coming to an end ......
2010-05-05 19:38:00
JEFF HAWKES
Rolling on a train track somewhere is a boxcar that 16-year-old Brandon Master of East Petersburg spray-painted."I climbed on top and tagged it real quick," he said. "And it left the next morning. Who knows where it's at now."More than trains, Brandon, a graf......
2010-04-28 19:31:00
JEFF HAWKES
A young driver I knew died on a local highway.I clicked on the story on LancasterOnline, this newspaper's website, to find out how the accident happened.At the end of the story, my eyes fell on a comment left by another reader.I couldn't believe what I saw.The ......
2010-04-26 22:52:00
JEFF HAWKES
On his release from prison last year, football sensation and convicted dogfighting promoter Michael Vick made an interesting confession.He wrote in a blog entry of having gone through life like he was "numb," numb to the violence he witnessed growing up in the projects of Newport......
2010-04-21 20:07:00
JEFF HAWKES
At 3:30 p.m. last Friday, an hour before she needed to be at work, Susan Shue, 27, came out of the McDonald's in Ephrata carrying three Happy Meals.Then Shue went to the day-care center at Bethany United Church of Christ to pick up her 3-year-old daughter, Isabella, who hadn't napp......
2010-04-19 20:16:00
JEFF HAWKES
If you watched TV in the 1970s, you remember the tear on the Indian's cheek.The iconic image of the heartbroken Native American was the climax of one of the most famous public-service ads of all time.As urgent music builds, the somber canoeist paddles from wilderness into an ind......
2010-04-14 20:47:00
JEFF HAWKES
About that scream you heard the other night. The one that registered on seismographs.I can explain.I was in my living room, lost in a book, when my wife screamed and rushed in as if someone was after her. That's what you might have heard.Instantly, I knew two things:...
2010-04-12 20:22:00
JEFF HAWKES
From the party that added "you lie!" and "baby killer!" to America's political lexicon, now Republicans are ratcheting up the rhetoric about Iran's nuclear ambitions with alarmist talk of a "second Holocaust."No longer is it enough to warn of the dange......
2010-04-08 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
He had been a cook and a nursing assistant, but when in his mid-30s Bill Jones became a factory worker, he felt he was set. He began welding commercial and industrial shelving for a Hummelstown company that offered a competitive wage, benefits and lots of overtime. "I was in a career that ......
2010-03-31 19:18:00
JEFF HAWKES
Daniel Schrag is a climate scientist, and these days that's not easy.The spotlight on global warming has changed everything.Where once Schrag's work was defined by the laboratory, lecture hall and articles in arcane journals, now he must venture into the arena of public poli......
2010-03-30 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
In fair weather or foul, fiscal conservatism is Pat Toomey's compass.Throughout his meeting with this newspaper's editorial board, Toomey stayed true to his thumbnail self-description of being "a Ronald Reagan conservative" wedded to "limited government and more econ......
2010-03-25 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
It happens from time to time at my office.I open the freezer only to find empty ice cube trays.Grrrrrr.It's a little thing, I know, but why do some people feel they can take ice and leave empty trays?Why is it some parents drop off kids for every soccer practice, b......
2010-03-23 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Becoming a hero just got easier. All you need is two hands and a willingness to save a life.And, oddly enough, knowing the song "Another One Bites the Dust" might help too, although it's not essential.The latest thinking about cardiopulmonary resuscitation is all about......
2010-03-18 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Michele Re, 46, walked out of the state prison at Cambridge Springs on Jan. 10 thinking she had paid her debt to society by spending a year and a day behind bars.The grandmother planned to start over by moving in with her widowed sister in Elkton, Md., finding work and returning to school ......
2010-03-16 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
If you've got a job opening, Shondreya Greggs, 19, is all ears.She wants to work as many hours as possible, and she's open to just about anything promising a steady paycheck."Right now, (the kind of work) doesn't matter," Greggs said. "I just got to help p......
2010-03-11 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
He's a happily married, Chicago Bears-crazed, pizza-loving former Boy Scout.He listens to alternative rock by U2 and Collective Soul, belongs to a rowing club in Philadelphia and hails from Springfield, Ill.So the evidence suggests that Moein Khawaja, 27, has every reason to con......
2010-03-09 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Smiling, slimmed down and tanned, Gov. Ed Rendell strolled Friday into Filling's on College Row with the air of a man boarding his private yacht.And why not? He knows he's Pennsylvania's biggest political celebrity. Sorry, Arlen.And he knows — correctly, I'd sa......
