Back in 1996, MidCoast Fine Arts exported its "art-in-the-empty-storefronts" model from the Rock Island District to downtown Davenport with the Art Under Glass program. Rotating juried exhibits of local and regional art have filled the empty storefronts of the Redstone and the Parker buildings on 2nd Street ever since.
• The Mississippi Valley Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) has been awarded funds to refinance homes purchased on contract, which commonly have high interest rates and balloon payments due in a short period of time.
Deep down, Bill Salier argues, nearly everybody's a conservative. You might claim to be a Democrat or a moderate, but really, on the issues that matter, you're a conservative, believing in "individual accountability, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency," to quote one of his brochures.
After three years, Hornucopia might finally be done answering the question: What kind of music is it again? "We spent the first couple of years explaining what it was," said Jennifer Fowler, executive director of The District of Rock Island.
• The Quad Cities area appears to be the starting point for a series of pipe bombings across the western United States. On Friday, pipe bombs were found in rural mailboxes in Anamosa, Dubuque, Eldridge, Farley, and Tipton, Iowa, and in Elizabeth, Morrison, and Mount Carroll, Illinois.
Legislation that sets federal agriculture policy for the next six years is close to becoming law, and large agricultural producers will gain even more advantages over the small family farmer because of it. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the 2002 Farm Bill on Wednesday, May 8, and it's expected to pass, according to Seth Boffeli, a spokesperson for Senate Agriculture Committee Chairperson Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).
The inventor of the modern computer and the Blues Brothers are among the figures that could be memorialized through public art as part of a capital-improvement project over the next few years on and near the Great River Plaza of Rock Island.
• Have you ever wondered how your favorite restaurant or grocery store does on its health inspections? Although food-establishment inspection reports have always been available to the public by coming to the Health Department, you can now log on to the Scott County Health Department's Web site at (http://www.

Debating Death

Too often in Illinois, police and prosecutors have seemed hell-bent on convictions - not justice - when it comes to serious crimes. "Too often" is once if it means the death penalty, but at least 13 times the state has sent somebody to death row who was later discovered to be innocent.
In its report, the Commission on Capital Punishment condensed its recommendations into a summary of 10 items. These are taken from the report's preamble. • We recommend videotaping all questioning of a capital suspect conducted in a police facility, and repeating on tape, in the presence of the prospective defendant, any of his statements alleged to have been made elsewhere.

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