L-P, Hall finish Friday football with wins
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www.newstrib.com | Monday, September 30, 2019 | 75 cents
Just what we all needed — more rain Fields are soaked and rivers swollen
Bureau County Health Department director Hector Gomez (back) looks on as regional Red Cross representatives unload flood cleanup kits this weekend. The free cleanup kits can be picked up at the Princeton office.
By Craig Sterrett and Tom Collins NEWSTRIBUNE STAFF
Our rivers still are flooded and we won’t see them recede until midweek. Farmers already fed up with Mother Nature could be heard cursing the heavy rains. Tempers are short in Princeton, where basements flooded. But authorities were largely re-
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lieved and surprised, pleasantly so, that motorists heeded Friday warnings to stay put. The La Salle County Sheriff’s Office echoed flash-flood advisories and told motorists to stay off the roadways. The owner of a local tow company reported today that most people listened for a change. “People must have smartened
Good to meet you finally…
up this time,” said Jim Senica, owner of Senica Interstate Towing, reporting only a handful of weather-related tows and stranded vehicles. “Usually, you get a storm, people have to go out and see what’s going on. This time, they stayed home.” Illinois Conservation Police Sgt. Phil Wire also reported no See RAIN Page A4
Republicans split over impeachment pushback as Democrats plow ahead By Laurie Kellman
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NEWSTRIBUNE PHOTO/SCOTT ANDERSON
They look like old friends — and they are — but Marci Boucher (left) of Milwaukee, Wis. and Toni (Johnson) Pienta of Spring Valley had never met face-toface until Saturday at Grand Bear Lodge in Utica. Their friendship was strictly by correspondence dating back to 1976, when Pienta’s third-grade teacher in Ladd paired students with a class from Modesto, Calif. The long-awaited pen pal reunion finally happened after Boucher moved to Milwaukee, enabling them to drive for a weekend rendezvous to catch up and embrace for the first time.
…after 43 years By Tom Collins
NEWSTRIBUNE SENIOR REPORTER
Toni (Johnson) Pienta fired off the first letter from Ladd Grade School, got a nice reply from Marci Boucher in California and so began a long correspondence. Toni hoped to meet her pen pal face-to-face. Saturday, they finally did meet — after 43 years. Pienta and Boucher spied each other in the lobby of Grand Bear Lodge in Utica, let out shouts of surprised joy and gave each other a big embrace. Though they’d known each other as school girls since 1976, until
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Valley woman meets pen pal she’s written since ‘76
recently they lived 2,000 miles apart and never had a chance to make eye contact. “It’s really cool,” a still-smiling Boucher said. “43 years is a long time.” “It’s surreal,” Pienta agreed. “I’m overwhelmed. How awesome to get a gift like this?” Pienta of Spring Valley and Boucher of Milwaukee, Wis. initially settled on a rendezvous in Utica hoping to get in a hike and maybe some early fall colors. Mother Nature had other ideas and bombarded Starved Rock’s trails with rain, so the women instead planned to take long meals and play catch-up
Kinzinger blasts as ‘repugnant’ Trump civil war tweet WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican congressman is slamming as “beyond repugnant” President Donald Trump’s tweet of a conservative pastor’s comment that removing Trump from office would provoke a “civil warlike fracture” in America. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a former Air Force pilot who represents an Illinois district Trump won in 2016, tweeted Sunday, “I have visited nations ravaged by civil war. ... I See TWEET Page A2
“My husband said, ‘What are you going to talk about?’” Pienta said. “What aren’t we going to talk about?’” Considering they first became acquainted during the U.S. bicentennial, there’s quite a bit of ground to be covered. Pienta’s third grade teacher at Ladd Grade School, Mary (Coulter) Dalton, initiated a Pen Pal program with students. Toni and Marci Boucher of Modesto, Calif., were partnered as pen pals even though they were a year apart, Boucher is now 54, Pienta 53. Dalton had hoped to join her former student and pen pal
Saturday but was diverted by a funeral. Through Pienta, she commented how excited she was that a classroom exercise evolved into a durable friendship. “Probably the main reason I started the program was because as a child I had pen pals,” Dalton said. “It was always such a joy to receive a letter from one of my friends. I wanted to bring that experience to my class. The joy on all your faces when you each got a letter of your own was so special. Plus it was an all around good English curriculum See MEET Page A2
Poll: Most disapprove of Trump on race relations By Russell Contreras and Deepti Hajela
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NEW YORK (AP) — Large majorities of black and Latino Americans think Donald Trump’s actions as president have made things worse for people like them, and about two-thirds of Americans overall disapprove of how he’s handling race relations, according to a new poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public
Affairs Research. About half of all Americans think Trump’s actions have been bad for African Americans, Muslims and women, and slightly more than half say they’ve been bad for Hispanics. Trump’s 33% approval rating on handling race relations makes that one of his worst issues in recent AP-NORC polls. That stands in stark contrast to his handling of the economy: About half say they apSee TRUMP Page A2
WASHINGTON (AP) — The president’s lawyer insists the real story is a debunked conspiracy theory. A senior White House adviser blames the “deep state.” And a Republican congressman is pointing at Joe Biden’s son. As the Democrats drive an impeachment inquiry toward a potential vote by the end of the year, President Donald Trump’s allies are struggling over how he should manage the starkest threat to his presidency. The jockeying broke into the open Sunday on the talk show circuit, with a parade of Republicans erupting into a surge of second-guessing. At the top of the list: Rudy Giuliani’s false charge that it was Ukraine that meddled in the 2016 elections. The former New York mayor has been encouraging Ukraine to investigate both Biden and Hillary Clinton. “I am deeply frustrated with what he and the legal team is doing and repeating that debunked theory to the president. It sticks in his mind when he hears it over and over again,” said Tom Bossert, Trump’s former homeland security adviser. “That conspiracy theory has got to go, they have to stop with that, it cannot continue to be repeated.” Not only did Giuliani repeat it Sunday, he brandished pieces of paper he said were affidavits supporting his story. “Tom Bossert doesn’t know what’s he’s talking about,” Guiliani said. He added that Trump was framed by the Democrats. Senior White House policy adviser Stephen Miller, meanwhile, noted that he’s worked in the federal government “for nearly three years.” “I know the difference between whistleblower and a deep state operative,” Miller said. “This is a deep state operative, pure and simple.” Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Jordan, (R-Ohio,) heatedly said Trump was merely asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to root out corruption. That, Jordan said, includes Hunter Biden’s membership on the board of a Ukrainian gas company at the same time his father was leading the Obama administration’s diplomatic dealings with Kyiv. There has been no evidence of wrongdoing by either of the Bidens. Mixed messaging reflects the difficulty Republicans are having defending the president against documents released by the White House that feature Trump’s own words and actions. A partial transcript and a whistleblower complaint form the heart of the See IMPEACH Page A2