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John Keilman

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum speaks Sunday, March 25, 2012, at South Hills Country Club during a public rally near Racine, Wis. (AP Photo/Journal Times, Gregory Shaver)

Teens viewing Internet porn may be sympton, not cause of isolation

Last updated Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - 9:43am

CHICAGO -- Internet porn became a fleeting campaign issue last week when GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum, calling the Obama administration soft on enforcing obscenity laws, claimed that children were being harmed by online smut.

"Obviously Congress ... understood that hard-core pornography is very damaging, particularly to young people, and that exposure on the Internet can be very damaging to a lot of folks who are in all sorts of settings," he said on ABC's "This Week" program.

It's clear the Web has brought a universe of explicit images within easy reach of adolescents, but that's about the only indisputable point when it comes to kids and porn. Numerous studies that have tried to examine sexually explicit material's effect on young people have failed to produce straightforward answers.

Internet, Pornography, Teen behavior, Teens, National Read more Comments

'Blizzard babies' not all that common

Elizabeth Owens-Schiele, John Keilman Chicago Tribune

Last updated Sunday, November 6, 2011 - 11:38am

CHICAGO -- Gene Hall gave birth Thursday morning to her third daughter, Kayla -- a baby that, when you do the math, was conceived in the aftermath of February's colossal blizzard.

"We were stuck in the house that week because of the snow, my husband and I and our kids, all homebound, playing games and watching movies," Hall, 32, of Chicago's Chatham neighborhood, said before the delivery. "When I look back now, I remember my husband and I got some good quality time together.

"We thought we were done having children. This snowstorm baby was a blessed surprise."

It's a surprise you might expect to be widespread. For decades, disruptive events like storms and power outages have been anecdotally linked to a spike in birth rates nine months later. Couples are stuck inside and bereft of distractions, and so, the theory goes, nature takes its amorous course.

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Regular teen Facebook users more prone to drug, alcohol abuse

John Keilman, Robert McCoppin Chicago Tribune

Last updated Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - 9:05am

The eternal struggle to keep young people away from bad influences has moved to a new frontier: A research organization said Wednesday that teens who regularly log onto Facebook and other social networks are considerably more likely to smoke, drink or use marijuana than teens who don't visit the sites.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that teens who spend time on the networks are likely to see images of their peers drinking or using drugs -- images that could help to convince them that substance abuse is a normal, acceptable activity.

Features, Drug abuse, Facebook, Social media, Social Networking, Teens, Alcohol Read more Comments

Tale unravels for man who returned 'found' bag of money

Chicago Tribune, John Keilman McClatchy Newspapers

Last updated Friday, July 1, 2011 - 10:03am

CHICAGO -- Despite everything, Robert Adams considers himself to be an honest man.

Adams, 54, a hospital engineer from Arlington Heights, Ill., made the news last month for turning in a bag of money he said he found lying on the ground. He was praised as a paragon of integrity.

But this week, his story unraveled. After being confronted by FBI agents and Rolling Meadows, Ill., detectives, Adams admitted that he had found the cash inside a Walgreens store -- and that he had harbored thoughts of keeping it for himself.

Crime, Money, National Read more Comments

Priest's $300,000 theft puts spotlight on gambling addiction

Art Barnum, Chicago Tribune, John Keilman

Last updated Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - 9:01am

CHICAGO -- Within weeks of arriving at St. Walter Catholic Church in Roselle, Ill., the Rev. John Regan began stealing from the collection plate to fund his gambling addiction.

He stashed checks in a private bank account and spent the money at casinos in Elgin and Joliet. He lost big, blowing $116,000 in less than a year at one of the riverboats, prosecutors say. By the time the Diocese of Joliet figured out what was going on, Regan, who last week pleaded guilty to theft, had taken nearly $300,000.

It's a striking case but not an unusual one, say addiction counselors, and it illustrates a problem they expect to grow if gambling expands in Illinois.

Crime, Gambling, Priest, National Read more Comments

David Pierini/Chicago Tribune/MCT
Kelly Christian Jr., 64, gives a hug to a friend at Interfaith House in Chicago, Illinois, on December 18, 2010. After years of drug addiction and stealing to support his habit, he was faced with a choice in 2007 -- go to jail or enter two years or rehab. He chose rehab and has been clean since.

Given final chance, career thief takes it

Chicago Tribune, John Keilman

Last updated Thursday, January 6, 2011 - 4:38pm

CHICAGO -- Kelly Christian Jr.'s rap sheet offered little reason for mercy. He was a gray-haired, $200-a-day heroin addict with a mile-long criminal record, and in April 2007 he was once again standing in a courtroom, his fate in the hands of a judge.

A DuPage County prosecutor wanted to put him away for seven years for stealing a laptop computer. But when Judge Kathryn Creswell looked over his file, she noted an astonishing fact: In all of Christian's trips to prison, he had never received drug treatment.

"He obviously hasn't been rehabilitated in the Department of Corrections," she said, "so I am going to give him that opportunity."

Christian, then 60, instantly calculated the angles. He had been a dope fiend and a crook for decades, selling drugs, conning the gullible, pilfering everything from eggs to designer jeans. He knew how to work the system. He just had to play along with this treatment nonsense until he could hit the streets and get back to the game.

Features, Crime, Courts Read more Comments