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Four boys in Chicago were wounded as they walked down the street, and a total of 17 people were shot in the city on Monday. The shootings of the youngsters happened at approximately 9 p.m. when an unknown male approached and opened fire on the city's West Side. The boys — aged 12, 14, 15 and 16 — were all in stable condition at local hospitals on Monday night. No arrests have been made, but an investigation is ongoing, an official with the Chicago Police Department told the Daily News on Tuesday.

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Philadelphia police are investigating six deaths in six separate incidents, with crime scenes in Southwest Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, West Philadelphia, Strawberry Mansion, Grays Ferry and East Falls. So far, police have identified four of the six victims and, Action News has learned, one of those who died was the younger brother of an NBA player.

A preview of the mayhem that is likely to envelop the 2016 GOP Convention in Cleveland will be seen this Friday when Trump holds a rally in Chicago. The Facebook page soliciting 'non-violent protesters' to attend the rally has over 7000 people promising to attend, and another 7000 are "interested". The escalation of disruption and the provocation of violence has been on view over the last few weeks, in several Trump rallies. The Black Lives Matter activists have been the most visible disruptors, but there are others as well. The BLM movement was involved in fulminating full on riots (arson,...

The Hoosier State may have some prominent sports franchises and the Indy 500, but it also has been declared as the state with the highest rate of black homicides. Of course, the gun control movement was quick to blame weak gun laws (via KPNX): Indiana has the highest rate of black homicide victims in the country, according to a study conducted by the national nonprofit Violence Policy Center. The study uses FBI homicide data to rank states according to their black homicide victimization rates. According to the study, there were 213 black homicide victims in Indiana in 2013, or 34.15...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- There have already been more than 100 homicides in Chicago this year - and it's only February. There were over 50 homicides in January alone, a 75 percent increase over January of last year. According to the Chicago Tribune, this month there have been more than 40 homicides, bringing the total for just this year to 102. Since late Friday afternoon, two people were killed and at least 17 others have been wounded in shootings across Chicago.

Presidents Day weekend shootings have left four people dead and at least nine others wounded across the city, according to Chicago Police.

This is so disturbing. A young black male knocks out an unsuspecting old man on a street corner as his friends film the assault.They all laugh as the old man collapses on the street. Hopefully someone will identify this thug and bring help bring him to justice. Via WorldStar posted this week:UPDATE: Am getting emails the young man in the video is from Paterson, New Jersey. Am trying to verify.

(AP) - The Archdiocese of Chicago expects to close an undetermined number of parishes in coming years due largely to a shortage of priests. Archbishop Blase Cupich outlined a "multi-year planning process" in a column in this week's archdiocesan newsletter, Catholic New World. He says "demographics have shifted dramatically" in recent decades, buildings are in disrepair and fewer priests means resources are spread too thinly. Cupich says by the time the process is complete "we will mourn together the loss of some parishes."

In 2008, Ed Boland, a well-off New Yorker who had spent 20 years as an executive at a nonprofit, had a midlife epiphany: He should leave his white-glove world, the galas at the Waldorf and drinks at the Yale Club, and go work with the city’s neediest children. “The Battle for Room 314: My Year of Hope and Despair in a New York City High School” (Grand Central Publishing) is Boland’s memoir of his brief, harrowing tenure as a public school teacher, and it’s riveting. There’s nothing dry or academic here. It’s tragedy and farce, an economic and societal indictment...

More than 100 Chicagoans have been shot in the first 10 days of 2016 — a jarring figure three times more than last year. At least 19 people were shot and killed between New Year’s Day and Monday morning, including someone gunned down just blocks away from the mayor’s home, the Chicago Tribune reported. Another 101 were injured by firearms.

Now tallying 21 counties among their ranks, supporters of the movement to carve an independent “State of Jefferson” out of Northern California plan to introduce a bill this session seeking sovereignty. Organizers on Wednesday turned in declarations for 15 counties, including Sutter, Placer, Nevada and El Dorado, asking the state to grant them permission to separate. Six others petitions – which were either passed by the county boards of supervisors or reflect signature-gathering drives – have already been filed. Jefferson proponents contend that their rural areas lack adequate representation in state government, which has led to over-regulation and environmental policies...

About 10:05 p.m., a 30-year-old man was wielding a brick during a fight with a female in the 2300 block of West Jackson, police said. The security guard attempted to intervene, and the man then attempted to strike the guard with the brick. The guard opened fire and shot the man in the chest.

The San Francisco Bay Area—stretching from San Jose and Silicon Valley in the south to Oakland, Berkeley, and the city of San Francisco in the north—is the world’s foremost tech hub. But the city and region also suffer from deepening urban challenges such as an acute housing affordability crisis and rising inequality. Congestion in the area is rising, commute times have become unbearable, and long-time residents and even members of the creative class are being priced out of the city center. Protests have erupted over the private bus services that transport tech workers from their expensive apartments in downtown San...

A new analysis by WalletHub has compared and classified 1,268 of America's small cities in the U.S. to find the ones where residents don’t have to give up much by avoiding the "bright lights" and the soaring rent. Its data set include a total of 22 metrics, ranging from housing costs to school-system quality to the number of restaurants per capita. Why live in a small city? Inevitably, life in a small city demands some tradeoffs such as shorter business hours, a heavier reliance on cars and fewer dating opportunities.  It does bring benefits - tighter communities, less competition,...

The oldest and most incredible footage of New York City ever, including where the WTC would be built. With added maps carefully researched to show where the camera was. 28 shots of classic footage with a new twist and a new soundtrack.... This collection of footage was taken between 1896 and 1905 and shows various places around New York City, all identifiable by location on a map.

French fascism is alive and well, and its current headquarters (as I write this) are not in the offices of the Front National but, appropriately enough, in the ugliest building in the world in the most beautiful capital city in the world, the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It is here that has been held the completely uncritical exhibition to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Le Corbusier, the fascist architect, under the title Le Corbusier, Mesures de l’homme.

Things are getting bloody in America’s cities. Homicide rates are spiking in many U.S. cities. There are different factors that are contributing to the violence, one of them being stringent anti-gun laws, which keep law-abiding citizens disarmed and vulnerable while the criminal element’s access remains unmolested. Yet, The New York Times reported that one of the demographics driving the spike in murder rates isn’t out of the ordinary. It’s young men relying on violence to settle disputes: Cities across the nation are seeing a startling rise in murders after years of declines, and few places have witnessed a shift...

The boos began as soon as Washington's mayor said she was putting more police officers on the streets in neighborhoods affected by violent crime. They didn't let up for the next 18 minutes as Democrat Muriel Bowser laid out her plans to address an increase in homicides in the nation's capital. Bowser was repeatedly heckled and interrupted by a few dozen protesters affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement during her address Thursday inside the sweltering gymnasium of a long-shuttered school in southeast Washington. Shouting "Jobs, not jails!" and "More police is not the answer!," the protesters accused the mayor...

Twenty years ago, America’s cities were making their initial move to regain some of their luster. This was largely due to the work of mayors who were middle-of-the-road pragmatists. Their ranks included Rudy Giuliani in New York, Richard Riordan in Los Angeles, and, perhaps the best of the bunch, Houston’s Bob Lanier. Even liberal San Franciscans elected Frank Jordan, a moderate former police chief who was succeeded by the decidedly pragmatic Willie Brown.

It began with a routine traffic stop, blossomed into a protest with the help of a rumor and escalated into the deadliest and most destructive rioting Los Angeles had seen. --SNIP-- The commission that investigated the riots recommended better schooling, job training, more low-income housing, public transportation, health services and better relations between the police and the community. Few of those things were realized. Today, the Watts neighborhood is largely Hispanic, but remains poor. Unemployment is high.