William Recktenwald

-- -- -- Joe Mack has been luckier than Johnny Calvin Russell--at least so far. Now 42 and a janitor in the Methodone Clinic at 4010 W. Madison St., Mack...

-- -- -- Gilbert parks his car in front of the red-brick building where Ronald Coleman is supposed to be living with his mother, Lillie. In June, Coleman was released...

The first time Edward Williams was on parole, he committed murder two months after leaving prison. Williams and an 11-year-old boy were stealing tires from the lot of an auto...

It was almost 3 a.m. when Tommy Lee Allen and Donnie Riddle rounded the corner at 16th Street and Kedzie Avenue and spotted Charles Jackson. They knew him as ''the...

-- -- -- From kindergarten to 8th grade, the obstacles interfering with education at Lathrop are considerable. Teachers blame parental indifference and the home lives of their pupils for their...

In a kindergarten classroom at Julia Lathrop School, a 5-year-old girl ''punishes'' her doll by shoving an iron into its face. A boy pretends to burn his doll with a...

Iris Moore is chewing bubble gum and singing along with a song on the radio as she sits beside a tiny incubator in the intensive care nursery at Mt. Sinai...

In 1867 a new courthouse seemed like a good idea to the officials of Downstate Macoupin County, and the state legislature authorized the issue of $50,000 in bonds to erect...

The proliferation of computerized voting systems is raising concerns that old-fashioned ballot stuffing and ghost voting could be replaced by a more sophisticated brand of vote fraud that may be...

Joining a West Side gang in his freshman year at Harrison High School meant Hector Gonzalez could walk safely into gang-controlled classrooms. But the Puerto Rican youth got more than...