Growing danger

Last July, two 14-year-old girls from Sterling in northwestern Illinois died of electrocution when they came into contact with irrigation equipment that had been damaged by lightning. Jade Garza and Hannah Kendall were best friends engaged in the seasonal ritual of detassling corn for seed production. Shortly after the girls’ deaths, the Labor Department proposed…

Death on the farm

Jade Garza and Hannah Kendall, of Sterling, Ill., were 14-year-old best friends whose Facebook page describes how they laughed together every day. They died side by side Monday, electrocuted while working in an Illinois cornfield. Anyone who grew up in Midwest farm country is familiar with the annual summer ritual of removing tassels from seed…