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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog Sunday of undermining his efforts to prevent Iran’s nuclearization by declining to call a potentially nuclear Iran an existential threat to the State of Israel. “I agree that a nuclear Iran is extremely dangerous, and I believe that it must be prevented,” Herzog said in an interview with Washington Post correspondents William Booth and Ruth Eglash. “No Israeli leader will accept a nuclear Iran. All options for me are still on the table,” including Israeli military strikes. When they asked if he agrees with Netanyahu that a nuclear Iran would...

Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog announced Tuesday he will not be traveling to the US to appear before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference, amid growing tensions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned speech to Congress on March 3. "Netanyahu's spin about who is going to Washington must stop," Herzog told a gathering of foreign media in Israel. "My firm position against a nuclear Iran is known by every Israeli and American, including the US president, and I know how to voice it in a sharp, clear manner - from here, not from there." Herzog added: "A...

On Monday Senators. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., invited Netanyahu to meet in a closed-door session with Democrats during his visit. Netanyahu declined the invitation on Tuesday and expressed regret about the politically fraught tone of his trip. “I regret that the invitation to address the special joint session of Congress has been perceived by some to be political or partisan,” Netanyahu wrote. “I can assure you that my sole intention in accepting it was to voice Israel’s grave concerns about a potential nuclear agreement with Iran that could threaten the survival of my country.” Netanyahu said to...

Four years ago, former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel breezed to victory in the Chicago mayor's race. He was the golden boy of Democratic politics, mentioned in some party circles as a possible presidential candidate in 2016. Yesterday, the incumbent mayor was humiliated by failing to receive a majority of the votes against 4 relative unknowns. The result forces an April 7 runoff where he is still expected to win handily, but is now considered damaged goods. His downfall? Persistent violence and a pension shortfall threatening to bankrupt the city. Bloomberg: “We have come a long way and...

The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site. The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will easily take first place in Tuesday’s municipal election, but polls show he may miss the 50 percent mark needed to avoid a run-off in the race to lead the financially challenged, third-largest U.S. city. Emanuel, 55, a former adviser to President Barack Obama seeking a second term as mayor, has already spent millions of dollars in the non-partisan race against four challengers, and a second round will mean six more weeks of expensive campaigning. Emanuel is close to the mark, getting 48.3 percent of the vote in a recent Ogden & Fry poll. His nearest...

**SNIP** So Thursday, the FEC sent Jackson’s campaign committee its eighth consecutive failure-to-file notice. It must file its end-of-the year report for 2014 or face a penalty. (Perhaps that threat rings a bit hollow when you’re already in jail?) In August 2014, the FEC fined Jackson for nearly $18,000 for not filing reports in 2013, according to the Chicago Tribune. He must formally terminate his committee to get the FEC off his back, but his treasurer quit in September 2013, and so it seems there’s no person responsible for doing the necessary paperwork. Since his last report in November 2012,...

Chicago really doesn't need a presidential temple of worship masquerading as a presidential library, or a fancy downtown college basketball palace, or a Star Wars museum on the lakefront. And downtown doesn't need a big casino, either, not even a glitzy one with monstrous video billboards depicting the giant, pitiless eyes of the mayor staring down at those from the neighborhoods who dared to look up. Downtown has been getting quite a bit of attention, and though it might be nice to have all these things, (or not) — they aren't vital to the future of Chicago. But there is...

A group of 23 liberal House Democrats urged Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday to delay Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress next month. In the letter spearheaded by Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the lawmakers argued that Netanyahu was being used as a "political tool" against President Obama. "As members of Congress who support Israel, we share concern that it appears that you are using a foreign leader as a political tool against the president," they wrote. Netanyahu's March 3 address will be just two weeks before the Israeli elections and...

A wrongfully convicted man filed a $40 million lawsuit on Tuesday against Northwestern University, a former journalism professor, a private investigator and an attorney, accusing them of framing him for a double murder to get another man released. Alstory Simon, 64, of Ohio, claims in the lawsuit that he was the victim of unethical tactics by a team focused on freeing another man in what became a celebrated Illinois wrongful conviction case. Simon was imprisoned in 1999 after confessing to the 1982 murder of two people in a park, and spent more than 15 years behind bars before he was...

Amid depressed turnout and pent-up frustration with the Springfield status quo, Illinois voters last November ousted Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, awarding billionaire venture capitalist Bruce Rauner a five-point victory. The five weeks since Rauner took office as Illinois’ first Republican governor in a dozen years have offered a vivid illustration of the truism that elections have consequences — consequences that will be paid disproportionately by the state’s poor, working class, and middle-income citizens. Rauner fired the opening salvo in his war on workers earlier this month, issuing an executive order that allows public employees to opt out of paying fees...

CHICAGO - Former Republican congressman and conservative radio host Joe Walsh says he's "seriously looking into" a primary challenge to U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk next year. He told Illinois Review he will decide within the next two months. Citing Kirk's lack of support for Jim Oberweis' 2014 challenge to Dick Durbin, Walsh told the Daily Herald: "As far as I'm concerned, he [Kirk] left the Republican Party." The usual political pontificators speculate that Walsh is merely looking to boost ratings, and will ultimately not run. "It's about him and promoting himself and promoting his positions. He's just not viable,” said...

Longtime presidential adviser David Axelrod claims 'there hasn't been a major scandal' in the Obama White House – and draws a mix of applause and laughter Longtime Obama administration political insider David Axelrod claimed on Monday that the Obama administration hasn't been tainted by a smidgen of scandal. The surprising boast came during a Q&A at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, an organization he founded and leads. 'I'm proud of the fact that basically you have had an administration in place for six years in which there hasn’t been a major scandal,' Axelrod said. 'And I think that...

<p>CHICAGO - The longtime head of a suburban Chicago Islamic school has been arrested and charged with sexually abusing a 23-year-old woman who worked at the school.</p> <p>Police said Tuesday that 75-year-old Mohammad Abdullah Saleem faces a felony charge and was arrested Sunday. He is due in court on Tuesday.</p>

---SNIP--- On a nitty-gritty level, I would be interested if Dave Zirin can think of a single example on the South Side of Chicago of a) Boys and Girls Clubs that are now bistros, or b) public baseball diamonds that are now condos. Actually, I'm not that interested, because I know the answer, which is "No," because a) those things did not happen and b) Dave Zirin made them up. One reason I know that Dave Zirin made them up is that black neighborhoods in Chicago, particularly on the South Side, almost never gentrify. --SNIP-- Which means that Dave Zirin...

Governor Palin wowed the crowd as she arrived on the "red carpet" for Saturday Night Live’s 40th Anniversary 3-hour special.She stopped on the "red carpet" to talk with actor Alec Baldwin, quipping that she likes his brother, Stephen –a conservative– better. NBC anchors Savannah Guthrie and Matt Lauer intereviewed the two of them, and it may be me, but it seemed as though Baldwin was doing his best to keep Gov. Palin from talking. After Guthrie asked her a direct question, Baldwin was forced to listen, while chomping on his gum (or could it have been leftover food from dinner?)Twitchy caught some of the...

A scientist who found deep grooves chiselled into the teeth of dozens of 1,000-year-old Viking skeletons unearthed in Sweden believes the strange custom might have been learned from aboriginal tribes during ancient Norse voyages to North America -- a finding that would represent an unprecedented case of transatlantic, cross-cultural exchange during the age of Leif Ericsson. The marks are believed to be decorations meant to enhance a man's appearance, or badges of honour for a group of great warriors or successful tradesmen. They are the first historical examples of ceremonial dental modification ever found in Europe, and although similar customs...

Senator Ted Cruz, the boat-rocking limited government constitutional conservative Senator from Texas, provided another one of his patented cross examinations of a smoke-blowing government official at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Cruz, the son of legal immigrants from Cuba, asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about border security measures – the so-called “triggers” – contained in the “Gang of Eight's” immigration bill. Specifically, Senator Cruz asked, “If there are no objective metrics, if it is simply the subjective assessment of a host of factors, how can we have any confidence that the border will be secured and that any...

The first-known footage of the Eastland disaster was found by Jeff Nichols, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, while he was looking for unrelated material about World War I, the Chicago Tribune reported. Nichols found the footage on Europeana’s 1914-1918 website. Nichols said he found the clips in Dutch newsreels. Title cards describing what happened precede them. "It's as easily recognizable to someone who cares about Chicago history as the Titanic, so I knew what I had right away," Nichols, who has lived in Chicago for 20 years, told the Chicago Tribune. "I knew folks would...

CBC News Posted: Feb 14, 2015 Halifax police, RCMP, CBSA and Homeland Security all involved in investigation Two people were arrested at Halifax Stanfield International Airport and have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder after an alleged plot was foiled to kill a large number of people at the Halifax Shopping Centre in the city's west end on Valentine's Day. Lindsay Kantha Souvannarath, a 23-year-old from Geneva, Ill., and Randall Steven Shepherd, 20, of Halifax have been charged.