Free Republic

The family of an 11-year-old Chicago boy murdered last year by his mother’s ex-boyfriend the day after he was released from prison is suing the state — including the embattled Prisoner Review Board and Illinois Department of Corrections— for negligence. Jayden Perkins, an accomplished young dancer, was stabbed to death last March while his mother, Laterria Smith, sustained “multiple life-threatening stab wounds to her neck, back, and chest while desperately trying to protect her children,” according to one of the lawsuits she filed last week. Smith was pregnant at the time, while her then-5-year-old son witnessed the stabbing. Ahead of...

The hollowing out of U.S. cities’ office and commercial cores is a national trend with serious consequences for millions of Americans. As more people have stayed home following the COVID-19 pandemic, foot traffic has fallen. Major retail chains are closing stores, and even prestigious properties are having a hard time retaining tenants. The shuttering of a Whole Foods market after only a year in downtown San Francisco in May 2023 received widespread coverage. Even more telling was the high-end department store Nordstrom’s decision to close its flagship store there in August after a 35-year run. In New York City, office...

A 26-year-old Trump hater with “She/They” pronouns has been charged with felony criminal damage to property and misdemeanor criminal trespass after allegedly vandalizing a newly built Tesla sales, service, and delivery center with graffiti targeting Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and supporting “trans rights.” The Daily Herald reports that Erin L. White, a resident of the Chicago suburb of Buffalo Grove, was arrested on charges of vandalizing the newly-built Tesla dealership located in the same town. The incident occurred on Friday, and White is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday. According to reports, the graffiti on the building’s showroom glass...

CHICAGO — A judge has tossed a man in jail, calling him a threat to law enforcement after he allegedly confronted the prosecutor handling his domestic violence case with a belt in a courtroom elevator. “You’re the b***h prosecutor,” Devin White allegedly said while holding his belt in his hand. “You want to go?” He proceeded to follow the woman off the elevator at the 555 West Harrison courthouse until she jumped into a safe room and called for help, according to court filings. Even then, the 36-year-old White continued screaming at the woman. Records show he was at the...

The Chicago River is once again glowing kelly green as the city opens its annual St. Patrick's Day celebrations. Thousands lined the river and packed bridges Saturday and erupted in cheers as members of the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Union Local 130 sprayed dye into the water from boats, carrying on a tradition they began some 63 years ago. The dyeing immediately precedes the annual downtown St. Patrick's Day parade. The day — which falls on Monday this year — celebrates Irish culture. St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and is credited with having brought Christianity there in the...

Last week we went to Somalia as American tourists. We stayed only a night, but that was plenty of time to wander unescorted through the local market, explore town in a battered Toyota station wagon, and even head out into the desert to admire some ancient cave paintings. It might seem an odd choice of vacation spot, given that Somalia, so long synonymous with "failed state," appears to be growing ever more dangerous. The insurgency against the American-backed Ethiopian occupation persists, and just last week it was reported that a particularly radical group has launched a campaign to murder relief...

Just released cover of Tower of Power's classic hit, "What Is Hip," by Leonid & Friends.

CHICAGO — Prosecutors have charged a Chicago man with shooting his girlfriend during an argument over weed. Anthony Jones, 21, was already on pretrial release for a machine gun possession case when he allegedly shot the 19-year-old woman on February 22. Jones is the first person charged with shooting another person in Chicago this year while on felony pretrial release. During Jones’ detention hearing, Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Ballow said Jones was visiting the woman at her apartment in the 6300 block of South Stony Island when they got into an argument. “An argument over weed, mind you,” Ballow noted....

According to the World Health Organization, more than 7 million people across the globe have died from COVID-19 since the virus was first declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Chicago will soon be home to a global monument designed to honor those killed by the virus and pay tribute to frontline workers who risked their lives during the pandemic. Sally Metzler, board chair of the COVID-19 Monument Commission, leads the project under the Hektoen Institute of Medicine. Metzler said the idea came to fruition for her during the pandemic. “It was a great hardship for the entire world, but...

One person was wounded after a fight led to shots fired outside a Chicago O’Hare terminal Wednesday around 1:00 a.m. Shots rang out during the fight, leaving a 25-year-old man with two gunshot wounds to “the lower body,” NBC 5 reported. The wounded man was hospitalized in stable condition. The Chicago Sun-Times spoke with Mahmoud, an airport worker who witnessed the incident. Mahmoud said, “They start fighting, regular fighting, after that they [go] in the car, they bring the gun and then start shooting. After that, I hit the ground.” The Sun-Times noted that police found “several rifle rounds” at...

CHICAGO — A 15-year-old boy was part of a group that robbed three people on a Red Line train at 95th Street late last year, police said this week. Around 10:52 p.m. on December 29, “several” victims were robbed by at least four offenders while riding the train, officials said. At 95th Street, the victims included a 15-year-old boy, a 17-year-old boy, and an 18-year-old man. Prosecutors charged 20-year-old Jemaal Muhammad with robbing the 15-year-old earlier this year. He is also accused of mugging a 44-year-old man minutes later on the Red Line at 79th Street. They said he implied...

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund will receive an $80,000 payout after representing an illegal immigrant couple whose former Chicago landlords threatened to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement on them. The landlords were banned from discriminating against tenants based on actual or perceived immigration status under the Illinois Immigrant Tenant Protection Act of 2019, according to a Thursday report from NBC News. Cook County Circuit Court Judge Catherine Schneider ruled that landlords Marco Antonio Contreras and Denise Contreras had to pay damages, as well as attorneys’ fees and costs, for violations of that law.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit five years ago, property values have fallen downtown, and that’s shifted a greater portion of Chicago’s tax burden away from the heart of the Loop and onto homeowners and business owners elsewhere in the city, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found. The property taxes paid by the once-bustling but now-struggling Water Tower Place, for instance, have plunged from $16 million annually to $6.8 million last year. With Water Tower Place paying less, that means other homeowners and businesses have needed to make up the shortfall to cover the taxes that pay for police, firefighters, schools...

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has cancelled the lease for the Obama Presidential Library in Chicago, according to reports. DOGE included the library, which is currently in Chicago’s Hoffman Estates, in its extensive list of federal lease terminations. However, the library was already scheduled to closed and move to a new location, so the termination of the lease may not have any meaningful or major impacts. According to Fox News: The DOGE website did not provide a timetable for the closures, although a NARA spokesperson told Fox News Digital the Hoffman Estates library was scheduled to close in late...

CHICAGO — Some Illinois state legislators are trying to make it legal for people who might appear to be having a mental health episode to attack police officers. But it would still be illegal to attack firemen like the one the bill’s chief sponsor is married to. Rep. Lisa Davis introduced House Bill #3458 last month and picked up two co-sponsors yesterday: Rep. Kelly Cassidy, who represents parts of the North Side, and Rep. Marcus Evans, Jr., whose district includes parts of the South Side and adjacent suburbs. If it becomes law, the bill would “[provide] that it is a...

Rahm Emanuel, a former Chicago mayor and most recently the U.S. ambassador to Japan, is not ruling out making another bid for the city’s top job or even seeking the Illinois governorship but stressed both the city and the Democratic Party in which he’s long been a leading voice have a lot of work to do. Emanuel, who was mayor from 2011 to 2019 after serving two years as chief of staff to President Barack Obama, said Monday that the city will remain his home and that he wants to “take some time to think about what I’m going to...

WAUKEGAN, Ill. — The trial of the man accused of opening fire at a Fourth of July parade in the affluent Chicago suburb of Highland Park ended almost as quickly as it began Monday when the suspect surprised the courtroom by pleading guilty. Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, who faced 69 counts of murder and attempted murder stemming from the July 4, 2022, mass shooting, entered the plea shortly before opening statements were supposed to get underway.

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) argued that “the prices at the grocery store are going up because democracy is being taken away.” And “The impact on you in terms of your health care, 770,000 people in Illinois will lose health care as a result of what Donald Trump and Elon Musk and the Republican Congress are doing right now, it’s a danger to your way of life, and that’s what people need to understand.” Pritzker said, “When you lose, as is happening in my state –we’re losing our meat and poultry inspectors....

The overwhelming disapproval comes from a survey of nearly 700 likely Chicago voters in a poll conducted between Feb. 20 and 21 by M3 Strategies. It’s the latest sign of residents’ frustration with Johnson who took office in May of 2023 and whose tenure has been marked by continued violent crime and tensions with aldermen over city finances and the leadership of Chicago Public Schools, among other issues. Poll results By the numbers: A whopping 79.9% of respondents said they disapprove of Johnson’s record. Only 6.6% of respondents held a favorable record, which gave him a net favorability rating of...

The Democrat dubbed “America’s worst mayor” will no longer hold the title after getting obliterated for re-election last night, a month after brawling with her constituents. As The New York Post reported, the antics and illegal behavior finally caught up to scandal-plagued Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard at the ballot box where she suffered a landslide loss in Democratic primary. Her opponent, Village Trustee Jason House, won almost 88% of the votes while Henyard could barely manage 12%. Making things even more embarrassing for Henyard, FOX 32 reported earlier in the day that she said she had “no competition” and would...