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Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin on Wednesday attributed the guns laws in Indiana for the continued wave of violence in neighboring Chicago.“We’re next to Indiana and if you got to a gun show in Indiana, you can purchase a gun without a background check. And so that’s what’s happening,” Mr. Durbin,a Democrat, said on MSNBC. “The drug gangs and these thugs are filling up the trunks of their car and heading into the neighborhoods of Chicago. And we see these gun violence crimes happening every single day.”Mr. Durbin said that nearly 600 people have died in Chicago due to gun-related deaths...

CHICAGO (CBS) — Former President Barack Obama reported for jury duty Wednesday morning at the Daley Center downtown. Obama spent the night at his home in Kenwood before leaving for jury duty shortly after 9:30 a.m., in a motorcade of four black SUVs, a marked Chicago police SUV, and a marked Illinois State Police SUV. After navigating through traffic in the Loop, he arrived at the Daley Center courthouse around 10 a.m., and entered the building through the basement.

Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson has been accused of sexual harassment by a journalist who says the Chicago community leader grabbed her thigh while making a crude comment. Writer Danielle Young, in an article for "The Root," accused Jackson of making the "unwanted" advance and comment during a photo-op after a media event. "I walked toward Jackson, smiling, and he smiled back at me," Young wrote. "His eyes scanned my entire body. All of a sudden, I felt naked in my sweater and jeans. As I walked within arm’s reach of him, Jackson reached out a hand and grabbed...

Chicago is close to recording its 600th homicide for the year, only the second time the city will have reached the grim milestone since 2003, according to data kept by the Tribune. After a weekend when 30 were people shot, five of them fatally, the number of homicides stands at 593 this year, according to the Tribune's database. That's below the 681 homicides this time last year but substantially above other recent years. Last year saw gun violence at levels not recorded since the late 1990s. This year has not been as bad, but the last time the city hit...

The City of Chicago has released its Gun Trace Report. It is a political, polemical document, with a vernier of respectability lent by the University of Chicago Crime Lab. Prominently displayed are suggested restrictions on gun ownership, gun sales, and increased record keeping requirements.While reading the document, I was looking to find how many guns were *not* traced. It is an important number. If the percentage of guns not traced is high, it undercuts any supposed utility of tracing guns.Not only does the document lack any numbers for guns that were not traced, it conflates the numbers of traced...

An Edwardsville man who pleaded guilty to threatening to assassinate President Trump on Facebook may face up to five years in federal prison. Joseph L. Pickett published multiple posts on Facebook, threatening to “take the life of, to kidnap, and to inflict bodily harm” against Trump, according to a criminal complaint filed with the charges in June. “Before I die I want our president and congress to sign a treaty to never side with Russia or any enemy of the United States of America! If one will then that person deserves to be shot,” his post read. “Guess what Trump?...

CHICAGO -- Five people were killed and at least 24 others were wounded in shootings across Chicago since Friday afternoon. A 38-year-old man was killed in the most recent fatal shooting, which happened about 7:20 p.m. Sunday(snip) He was in the 1700 block of East 79th Street when he was shot in the chest, back and neck.(snip) At 4:26 p.m. Sunday, a 36-year-old man was killed in a West Town shooting on the Near West Side. He was shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene(snip) A 26-year-old man was shot to death at 1:24 a.m. Sunday in...

More than 100 concerned residents peppered state and local officials Monday for information about the new Interstate 74 Bridge. Moline Mayor Stephanie Acri hosted the event, part of a series of casual meetings to share ideas and air concerns about the city. Experts on site included Ryan Hippen, construction field engineer for the Illinois Department of Transportation, and Danielle Mulholland, I-74 project engineer with the Iowa Department of Transportation. "I don't get tired of talking about this improvement," Hippen said. The basket handle true arch twin bridge is to cost an estimated $1.2 billion, and open late in 2020 after...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- The first company to obtain a permit for fracking in Illinois announced Friday it won't use it, citing market conditions and the state's "burdensome and costly" regulations. "The process we have gone through to receive a permit was burdensome, time consuming and costly due to the current rules and regulations of the state of Illinois, and it appears that this process would continue for future permit applications," Woolsey vice president Mark Sooter said in a statement. The Illinois Legislature in 2013 passed a law regulating fracking. At the time, the law was considered one of the...

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) released the following statement on the tax plan released this morning by House Republicans: This plan gives massive tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest individuals while middle class families are left behind. It is based on the mistaken belief that cutting taxes for the wealthiest will benefit everybody else—an assumption that has been proven false each and every time it’s been tested. Eliminating state and local tax deductions will hit Illinois hard—resulting in double taxation for a third of the families in our state.

Prince Harry and Michelle Obama surprised approximately 20 students today at Hyde Park Academy, a high school on Chicago’s South Side, which is located across from the future site of the Obama Presidential Center. “The warm and wide-ranging conversation, lasting over an hour, covered how the Obama Presidential Center will showcase the South Side of Chicago for a global audience, the importance of young people staying inspired....

A Hispanic student organization at the University of Chicago is urging students to not “be problematic on Halloween.” A flyer produced by Mecha de UChicago tells students to stay away from costumes that represent cultures that aren’t your own, and “anything that sexualizes an individual or group of people.”

Northern Illinois University is urging students to “think carefully about the impact of costumes” this Halloween. An article in Northern Illinois University Today, which was sent out in a campus wide email by the Dean of Students, encourages students to avoid costumes that “mock the sexual orientation, gender identity, cultures, ethnicities, and races of others.”

Timothy Ward was a convicted felon barred from possessing a firearm on the night he fatally shot a man during an argument on Chicago’s West Side. Minutes after the July 2015 slaying, police stopped a light-colored van and found the suspected murder weapon — a black revolver — under the front passenger seat where Ward had been sitting. The gun had been sold just four months earlier at Suburban Sporting Goods in Melrose Park, a cramped strip mall store about 10 miles from the gritty block where 25-year-old Charzelle Hayes was killed, according to Chicago police. Ballistics matched the Nagant...

Former President Barack Obama has been called for jury duty in Chicago. Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans on Friday told county commissioners during a budget hearing that Obama, who owns homes in Washington, D.C., and Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood, will serve in November. He is registered to vote in Chicago. Evans says Obama’s safety will be “uppermost in our minds” when he serves. …

Northwestern University plans to double the capacity of the “men’s project” that it launched last year to help male students “deconstruct their own masculinity.” Each quarter since spring 2016, “NU Men” has offered 12 openings for a six-week program where men can learn how “oppression is impacted by their male or masculine identity” and how they can “contribute to stopping violence.”

egislation to ban “bump stocks” and other devices that allow guns to fire more rapidly was rejected by the Illinois House on Thursday, as opponents from both parties contended the measure was too broad and could turn legal gun owners into criminals. State Rep. Marty Moylan, D-Des Plaines, said the bill was designed in response to the mass shooting in Las Vegas, where the gunman used bump stocks to increase the rate of fire on several semi-automatic rifles. “Today we are taking the first step towards better protecting our loved ones and preventing this horrific violence from happening in Illinois,”...

SPRINGFIELD — Downstate Democrats joined with Republicans Thursday to thwart a ban on devices that make a semi-automatic rifle shoot about as fast as a fully automatic weapon — arguing the bill would have outlawed too many types of weapons. State Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Smithton, said about 40 percent of the “50 to 60″ guns he owns would be banned under the bill.

A protester shouted and threw what appeared to be Russian flags at Mr. Trump, screaming “Trump is treason!” and “We should be talking about treason not tax cuts!” CBS News’ Nancy Cordes reports that the man has been identified as Ryan Clayton of the Americans Take Action group. Clayton made a similar disturbance at the Capitol when he threw a large Russian flag in the way of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, back in July when he met with Senate Intelligence investigators as part of their ongoing probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. This was Ryan Clayton from...

Recruit your neighboring governors to thank the opposition party leader.