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A man with a concealed carry permit shot at an armed robbery suspect who was running from a cell phone store in Crestwood, prompting an officer who was also chasing the suspect to take cover, police said. The man with the permit told police he was about to step inside an AT&T store at 4756 W. Cal-Sag Road around noon Saturday when he noticed the store was being robbed, Crestwood police said in a statement. The man said he stayed outside to prevent anyone from entering, police said. After he saw the suspect leaving through a back door, he entered...

Thousands attend EID prayer at Toyota Park BY NICK SWEDBERG Correspondent Updated: July 29, 2014 2:08AM Thousands of Muslims filled the field at Bridgeview’s Toyota Park Monday morning for an unusually somber Eid prayer ceremony in the light of heightened hostilities between Israel and Gaza. Volunteers collected signatures for the 5,000 postcards brought to the event. They intend to mail them to President Obama over the latest deaths in recent violence between Israelis and Palestinians. The postcards, which 10 chapters of the American Muslims for Palestine across the country distributed Monday, demand that the White House intervene in the fighting...

CHICAGO – Employers in Illinois can no longer access criminal background checks on potential hires until after an interview is conducted. Gov. Quinn signed into law this week a bill that prohibits private employers from asking applicants about their criminal history prior to determining if they are qualified for the job. “Everyone deserves a second chance when it comes to getting a job,” Governor Quinn said in a press release. “This law will help ensure that people across Illinois get a fair shot to reach their full potential through their skills and qualifications, rather than past history. It will also...

VILLA PARK, Ill. — Comparing their campaign to the civil rights movement, fast food workers from across the country voted today to escalate their efforts for $15-an-hour pay and union membership to include nonviolent civil disobedience. More than 1,300 workers gathered in a convention in center in suburban Chicago to discuss the future of a campaign that has spread to dozens of cities in less than two years. Wearing T-shirts that said “Fight for $15” and “We Are Worth More,” the workers cheered loudly and said they would win if they stuck together. “People are just fed up,” said Cindy...

Last week, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the troubled bastion of mainstream liberal journalistic thought in the great American heartland published a short, but typically piquant editorial piece slamming Patrick J. Buchanan for his soon-to-be released memoir of the 1968 Presidential campaign entitled, “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create a New Majority.” The Post-Dispatch, anticipating the release of Buchanan’s work launched what may be charitably labeled a pre-emptive strike on Buchanan, even though his new book does not concern the PD. Tony Messenger, the newspaper editor, picked an unnecessary fight with Pat Buchanan, and, like...

If you want to know which individual political race has the biggest stakes in 2014, look no further than the Land of Lincoln. The Illinois governor’s race pits incumbent Pat Quinn, a Democrat, against upstart non-politician Bruce Rauner. Why are the stakes so huge? Because Illinois is arguably the worst-run state in America. It’s a blue state that has been run for many years by corrupt and bungling politicians including Rod Blagojevich, who went to jail for trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat, and Mr. Quinn, who has run the state’s finances into the gutter. This year shows no...

A proposed gun shop/shooting range that has generated controversy because of its location near several neighborhood schools will be coming to Niles. The Niles Village Board of Trustees voted 4-1 on Tuesday to approve a special use permit to allow firearms sales, firearms safety training and an indoor firing range at the proposed location, at 6143 Howard St. About 200 supporters and critics of the plan packed the Village of Niles Municipal Building to make their voices heard on the gun shop, to be called Sportsman’s Club and Firearms Training Academy. Dozens wore green shirts and ribbons to honor victims...

Gangster John Dillinger’s lifelong career of crime—he robbed at least 12 banks and four police departments and was accused of shooting and killing an East Chicago police officer while escaping one bank robbery—ended, with his life, eighty years ago today outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago, Illinois. Agents from the Division of Investigation (DOI) of the Justice Department (DOJ), a predecessor to the FBI, surrounded the theater based on a tip from an informant and then shot and killed him when he resisted arrest outside.

It wasn't enough that Hobby Lobby won in a landmark Supreme Courty case for employers being able to deny women reproductive healthcare coverage. Now, the conservative-led company wants to also dictate which restrooms women can use at work. That is, if you happen to be a transgender woman. Megan Sommerville, a 16-year veteran of the arts and crafts franchise, began her transition in 2009 and had her name legally changed in 2010. But she was nevertheless recently written up at her Aurora, Ill., store when she began using the women's restroom. According to Sommerville, store managment said that she'd only...

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) likes to present itself as the champion of the little guy. But officials of SEIU Healthcare—“the fastest-growing union of healthcare, child care, home care and nursing home workers in the Midwest”—aren’t averse to a little high-living. For example, in FY 2013 officials of SEIU’s Illinois-Indiana healthcare division (SEIU-HCII) chalked up more than $1.1 million in travel expenses—$13,000 of it on D.C. hotel expenses rung up at President Obama’s second inaugural. The union designated all that travel as “representation activity.” Also claimed as a “representation” expense: a $6,000 liquor store tab for “beverages for...

First those Texans took our jobs. Then they took our money. Well, to be precise, Mexican Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna’s leg. A group of Illinois soldiers stole it fair and square – back in 1845. During the U.S. war with Mexico, Santa Anna skedaddled from the battle on a donkey and left his prosthetic leg behind in a carriage along with a bag of gold and a freshly cooked chicken. A group of Illinois soldiers ate the chicken, gave the Army the gold and kept the leg. One of the soldiers traveled about Illinois charging 10 cents for...

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is calling for commercial airplanes to be equipped with missile defense systems after a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down over Ukraine on Thursday. Kirk said Friday in an interview with CNN that the missile defense system would prevent a repeat of Thursday's crash, which killed the 298 passengers aboard the flight. "I would have another suggestion that there is a system called DIRCM, which could potentially defeat heat-seeking missiles looking to shoot down a civilian airliner," Kirk said after calling for "one hell of a wrongful death suit" to be filed against Russia. "It is...

<p>A foul-mouthed Tinley Park man cursed out his children and threatened to lock them in a "hot truck" if they didn't "shut up," then unleashed a stream of profanity at a woman who objected to his language, police said.</p> <p>The man, 33-year-old Mark Pawlak of 17411 Carlyle Court, was carted off by the Orland Park cops and charged with disorderly conduct for his allegedly offensive behavior.</p>

A key House Democrat on immigration reform is slamming a bipartisan bill that would make it eaiser to deport child immigrants from Central American countries who are crossing the border illegally. “This is not the middle ground, this is the deportation-only agenda dressed up in sheep’s clothing," Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said of the bill introduced by Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). "More of the same is not a solution,” he said. Gutierrez had already expressed opposition to the Cornyn-Cuellar proposal at a press briefing on Friday in which he and his colleages from the Congressional...

AURORA, Ill. – A Hobby Lobby store in Illinois is facing a discrimination complaint after a ‘transgender’ employee was told that he may not use the women’s restroom until he has reconstructive surgery to switch from male to female reproductive organs. The employee, who goes by the name Meggan Sommerville, also professes to be a Christian. He has worked for Hobby Lobby since 1998, at which time he identified as male.However, in 2009, Sommerville began transitioning to look like a woman and changed his name. According to Sommerville, Hobby Lobby accommodated him by changing his gender in the company records...

CHICAGO • llinois Gov. Pat Quinn is once again calling for legislation that would ban the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. The Democrat addressed the issue at a news conference on Sunday. He spoke in the Morgan Park neighborhood — a South Side Chicago community that's been affected by gun violence.

A group of protesters in Chicago called for action and heavily criticized President Obama for ignoring the high rates of violent crime in the city while spending billions of dollars to deal with an influx of illegal child immigrants into the U.S. “Do something for our children,” said one of the protesters, in a video posted at the blog Rebel Pundit. “Have the same love for these young young people like you got for the ones across the border, and you want to save them.” “With the president setting aside all of these funds for immigrants, and forsaking the African...

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For 10 minutes, it seemed like the shooting was everywhere in the South Chicago neighborhood. It started when someone shot and wounded a couple, then two people fired at the shooter, then there was a chase and shots exchanged and a man sitting on a porch was hit. Responding officers kept cutting each other off on their radios as they reported other gunfire in the area late Sunday night and early Monday morning. Then the heavy equipment rolled in: A helicopter and SUVs packed with lockers of rifles. SWAT teams in green coveralls patrolled the streets with uniformed officers. It...

Friday on "Democracy Now," Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) attacked his "shameful" Republican colleagues for wanting to change the 2008 child trafficking law so that the children from from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador current streaming across the border in hopes of evading deportation will be treated the same as those from Mexico before approving the $3.7 billion in emergency funding the president has requested. The Illinois Democrat said, "I think it is shameful that in the Congress of the U.S. we see members of Congress engendering and creating fear of children. We should be protecting children, not creating fear of...