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CHICAGO (AP) — Jussie Smollett staged a racist and homophobic assault and told police he was the victim after the television studio where he worked didn’t take hate mail he had received seriously, a prosecutor said during opening statements in the ex-“Empire” actor’s trial Monday. Smollett has maintained he was attacked in downtown Chicago in January 2019 by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, a report that ignited political and ideological divisions around the country. But special prosecutor Dan Webb said the actor recruited two brothers to help him carry out the fake attack, then reported it to Chicago police, who...

The Illinois county that's home to Chicago is going to make legal gun owners pay for the crimes of illegal gun owners, regardless of what any court might say. Cook County slapped a tax on guns in 2012 and added ammunition to the tax in 2015, according to Fox News. The tax was $25 per gun, with centerfire ammunition taxed at 5 cents per round and rimfire ammo at one cent per round, according to Fox. An Oct. 21 Illinois Supreme Court ruling, written by Justice Mary Jane Theis, found the tax was unconstitutional and a violation of the Second...

A Cook County judge on Monday denied a request by the City of Chicago forbidding the head of the union representing rank-and-file Chicago police officers from defying a mandate requiring city employees to report their COVID-19 vaccination status.

Supreme Court Justice Mary Jane Theis wrote in a 6-0 decision that the taxes violate the constitution’s uniformity clause. She noted revenue from the tax isn't directed toward funds or programs to curb the costs of gun violence or reduce the violence.

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday that she took her fight with the head of the city’s police officers union to court, arguing that his call for officers to ignore the order to report their COVID-19 vaccination status was illegal. The mayor said in a statement that the city’s law department filed a complaint in Cook County Circuit Court for injunctive relief against Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara, whom she accused of “engaging in, supporting and encouraging work stoppage or strike.” Lightfoot asked the court to prohibit the union and its officers from “engaging in...

<p>But a short time later, Lightfoot brushed off Foxx’s claims and announced that she’d effectively circumvented her by asking U.S. Attorney John Lausch to review the evidence in the gang-related gunfight Friday morning in Austin that left one shooter dead and two suspects wounded.</p>

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot slammed Cook County’s State Attorney Kim Foxx for not bringing charges in a deadly West Side shooting – and Foxx is hitting back. One person was killed and several others injured on Friday when a shootout broke out among alleged gang members in the Austin neighborhood that was caught on police cameras – but Foxx didn’t charge five suspects saying there was insufficient evidence. Lightfoot said on Monday she and lawmakers sent a letter to Foxx asking to reconsider fearing a lack of accountability could send the city into chaos, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s...

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and a group of City Council members urged Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx Monday to reconsider prosecuting five suspects in a deadly gang-related shootout last week in Austin after they were released when prosecutors rejected charges against them. Chicago police sought to charge all five suspects with murder and aggravated battery after they allegedly engaged in a Friday morning gunfight between two factions of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang, the Chicago Sun-Times first reported. The state’s attorney’s office, however, declined to charge any of them, calling the evidence insufficient. A police report further noted that...

“How is it mutual combat when my son didn’t have anything to combat with?” asks Manuel Porties of the state’s attorney’s office decision. An Illinois family mourning the death of their 18-year-old son is outraged that no murder charges will be filed in conjunction with his death due to what prosecutors are calling “mutual combat.” Manuel Porties, Jr. was killed Tuesday after being stabbed to death during a recorded, planned fight in Schaumburg, a town located 30 miles east of Chicago. According to WGN 9, video of the fight shows Porties Jr. being punched in the face by a 17-year-old,...

For the past two weeks, Firlit has been able to speak to her son on the phone and via video calls, but has not seen him in person. A mother from Chicago says a Cook County judge stripped her of her parental rights after learning she was not vaccinated against COVID-19. All parties agree that it is a very unusual and perhaps unprecedented move: A judge at the Daley Center in Chicago has stripped of custody of Rebecca Firlit for refusing to get a vaccination. Firlit and her ex-husband appeared in court through Zoom for a child support hearing involving...

CHICAGO - A Chicago mother says a Cook County judge has taken away her parental rights after learning that she is not vaccinated against COVID-19. In what all parties agree is a very unusual and perhaps unprecedented step, a judge at Chicago’s Daley Center has stripped Rebecca Firlit of custody because she refuses to get a vaccination shot. "I miss my son more than anything. It's been very difficult. I haven't seen him since August 10th," Firlit told FOX 32 News in an exclusive interview.Snip "You have to understand the father did not even bring this issue before the court....

Democrats have been trying for years to get Donald Trump’s tax returns and it just blew up in their face. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Trump is owed a $1 million refund on a skyscraper. “The Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board has decided former President Donald Trump is due a $1 million refund on his skyscraper’s 2011 tax bill, ruling last month that the Cook County Board of Review overestimated the value of the building’s hotel rooms and retail space,” the Sun-Times reported.

The Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board has decided former President Donald Trump is due a $1 million refund on his skyscraper’s 2011 tax bill, ruling last month that the Cook County Board of Review overestimated the value of the building’s hotel rooms and retail space. But the Cook County State’s Attorney has filed suit with the Illinois Appellate Court, seeking to block the tax refund, which has yet to be issued. If Trump ends up with the tax refund, it would come out of property taxes due to the city of Chicago and eight other government agencies, including Chicago Public...

Chicago’s top prosecutor apologized Wednesday because an attorney who works under her implied in court that 13-year-old Adam Toledo was holding a gun when a police officer fatally shot him, and she acknowledged that neither she nor anyone in her office tried to clear up the matter until right before video was released showing that wasn’t actually the case. The Cook County state’s attorney’s office came under fire after the April 15 release of body camera video showing that Toledo either dropped or tossed the gun less than a second before Officer Eric Stillman shot and killed him early on...

A report from WLS in Chicago cited the office of the Cook County medical examiner for news that gun violence deaths reached a record 875 in 2020. This lamentable figure apparently went without notice from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). Certainly there has been no known report citing Rep. Waters to the effect that there must be a confrontation with the perpetrators of black-on-black crime. Joe Biden has not been known to issue statements opposing "systemic" violence within the black communities of urban America.Indeed, why hasn't the Hon. Waters gone to Chicago to declare that the streets of Cook County, Illinois...

Pastors who bully parishioners over masks appear to have forgotten the soul-saving mission of the church, and are instead tyrannizing those they should serve.Despite Texas Gov. Greg Abbot’s repeal of the state mask mandate, a pregnant Catholic mother was kicked out of Mass in the Diocese of Dallas for failing to wear a mask.Father Milton Ryan, pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Parish, is alleged to have called the police while the service was underway and have the young mother threatened with arrest for trespass. Deidre Hairston returned to her pew after receiving communion, with her one-year-old baby in her arms,...

At least 15 people were shot, two of them fatally, inside a “pop-up party” early Sunday at a business that operates as a tow company and apparent event space on the South Side, Chicago police Superintendent David Brown said. Investigators believe the 4:40 a.m. shooting was “gang-related,” according to a Chicago police report citing preliminary information. Officers and firefighters responded to a business at 6798 S. South Chicago Ave. in the Park Manor neighborhood, according to police and fire officials. The report says a woman who was shot three times, including once in the head, was found dead outside the...

This week, the U.S. House passed, along party lines, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. A vote in the U.S. Senate is expected soon. Buried within the 591-page bill is a $350 billion bailout for 50 states, tribal governments, U.S. territories, and more than 30,000 cities and counties.Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com finally located the $350 billion allocation, line-by-line, in a supplemental database hidden on the back end of the House Oversight Committee’s website.We mapped the data to each of the 50 states. Click here to see how much taxpayer money Congress earmarked your hometown to receive from...

On this date in 1887, the Chicago political machine hanged four at Cook County Jail to defend civilization from the eight-hour day. The Haymarket martyrs, as they would be remembered ere the hysterical atmosphere of their sentencing had passed, were four from a group of eight anarchist agitators rounded up when a never-identified person threw a bomb at Chicago police breaking up a peaceful rally. The bomb killed one cop; the indiscriminate police shooting that followed killed several more in friendly fire, plus an uncertain number of civilians. The incident occurred just days after nationwide strikes began on May 1,...

A virtual rally in support of a proposed constitutional amendment to change Illinois' income tax system to a graduated-rate tax was sidetracked by Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle delivering a lengthy pitch for State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s reelection. The rally of high-profile Democrats, hosted by the proposed amendment’s chief supporter, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, also featured Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton alleging amendment opponents were billionaires fighting against “communities of color and women and working-class families all across the state.” But pro-amendment discussion, dubbed the “fair tax” by supporters, gave way when Preckwinkle, the Cook County Democratic Party chair and a strong...