US: Illinois (News/Activism)
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Two Pakistani nationals were indicted on Thursday for their roles in defrauding Medicare in a scheme conducted in Chicago, Illinois. The duo allegedly regularly billed “Medicare and private insurers” in excess of $10 million for “nonexistent healthcare services,” according to the Department of Justice. Kashif Iqbal and Burhan Mirza, and several other unnamed participants, “used nominee-owned laboratories and durable medical equipment providers to submit fraudulent claims to Medicare and private healthcare benefit programs for items and services not rendered. Mirza illegally obtained private identification information of individuals and providers as part of the fraud. He then used this data to...
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Evanston, Illinois. will issue $25,000 to 44 residents in reparations payments, the City’s Reparations Committee has announced. Established in 2019 and approved by the City Council in 2021, the program issues $25,000 direct cash payments to Black residents and descendants of Black residents who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969. Evanston was the first city in the nation to pass a reparations plan, pledging $10 million over a decade to Black residents. The payments are intended to cover housing expenses, Evanston official Cynthia Vargas told the Chicago Tribune. Tasheik Kerr, assistant to the city manager, said during a meeting...
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is out thousands of dollars after they wrote two checks, not even close to that amount. They said they're victims of a check washing scheme, and believe it is taking place at their local post office. Therese Scarlati collected during her own investigation, collecting every sheet of paper, starting with those two checks. Therese sent a $165 check to her insurance company. Her husband wrote this $64 check for the water bill — both mailed on the same day, yet somehow the amounts were both changed. Her husband's was cashed for $5,700 in storage fees, while Therese's check was cashed...
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You may vote red or blue, but would you rather live in a blue state or a red state? Regardless of what people do at the ballot box, newly released data from the Census Bureau overwhelmingly show people voting with their feet, leaving blue states for red states. And this is nothing new.From July 2024 to July 2025 (the latest numbers available), blue states like California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts hemorrhaged their most valuable resource—people—at an alarming rate.These were the five worst states for net domestic migration, meaning more people left those states than moved in, for...
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Tuesday on MS NOW’s “The 11th Hour,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should not be wearing masks during their operations in American cities. Paul said, “I think the main thing is if you want trust to develop again, I’m not somebody who wants to abolish ICE. I want ICE to behave within the rules and enforce the law. But I want them to behave in a normal, rational law enforcement manner.” Host Stephanie Ruhle said, “Do you think it’s OK for ICE to be wearing these masks? Paul said, “I think that anonymity and wearing...
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As the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown has swept across the U.S., countless people have been documenting federal agents’ actions, warning neighbors of their whereabouts with whistles and car horns, and uploading videos of encounters to social media. Two people who have been on the front lines are Ben and Sam Luhmann, a pair of homeschooled teenage brothers from the Chicago area. They kicked off their work as so-called ICE watchers when “Operation Midway Blitz” began in the Chicago region back in September, and most recently were on the ground in Minnesota documenting immigration enforcement actions in the Twin Cities....
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Federal agents carried out a military-style raid on a South Shore apartment complex last fall with the permission of the building’s owner and manager, according to new court filings that appear to confirm residents’ suspicions and corroborate key allegations driving a state investigation. The Trump administration has claimed the squalid building was a magnet for criminals and Venezuelan gang members, but the court records filed Tuesday indicate the harrowing raid was actually based on intelligence that “illegal aliens were unlawfully occupying apartments in the building.” Arrest reports for two of the 37 people detained in the overnight raid at 7500...
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Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order Saturday ordering Chicago police to investigate alleged abuses by federal immigration agents for potential felony prosecution. Johnson’s Ice on Notice directive calls for the police department to document federal activity, including with body-worn cameras, and identify federal supervisors at scenes where enforcement could cross the line into criminality. The order also calls for CPD to file reports on potential violations by federal agents and refer cases to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office for prosecution. The police department will publicly share “aggregated data on documented legal violations,” according to Johnson’s office, which touted...
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Sean Grayson, the former Sangamon County sheriff's deputy, was sentenced on Thursday to 20 years in prison after he was convicted in October 2025 of second-degree murder for the July 2024 fatal shooting of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who called 911 to report a possible intruder at her home in Springfield, Illinois.
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There is a cynical reason why Democrat leaders keep illegal aliens in the country. It is not for humanitarian reasons. The net effect of increases in both legal and illegal immigration in the 2020 Census shifted 17 House seats and 17 Electoral College votes. It resulted in a net gain of 14 seats in blue states. Ten seats shifted from red states and four from battleground states. It’s partly due to districts with high percentages of noncitizens who lean heavily Democrat. “Of the 24 districts where one in five adults is not an American citizen, twenty were won by a...
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A Christian college, The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, continues to be excluded from the Chicago Public Schools student teacher program after suing for religious discrimination, the college’s lawyer told The College Fix. In an exclusive interview, senior counsel on the case Jeremiah Galus said that as of Jan. 7, Chicago Public Schools still wasn’t allowing Moody’s student teachers to work in its schools.... Moody began offering a Bachelor of Arts in elementary education in 2024. However, according to an ADF news release, Chicago public school leaders refused to employ Moody’s student teachers unless the college abandons its religious hiring...
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Illinois governor doubles down on comparing current moment to Nazi Germany rise during podcast appearanceGov. JB Pritzker, D-Ill., said during a podcast on Tuesday that the current political "moment" was "slightly worse" than the COVID pandemic, despite the many deaths COVID caused. "I've Had It" host Jennifer Welch asked Pritzker how he was doing, and the governor said that while every day was a blessing, he's often asked about whether the current Trump administration was comparable the situation Americans were in during the COVID-19 pandemic. "It’s been challenging," he said. "I've been asked, is this like COVID, you know, the...
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"GO ICE," the teacher at West Chicago’s Gary Elementary School, posted on Facebook last week. Shortly after the post was made, activists in the predominantly Hispanic community quickly began sharing the post and calling for action to be taken against the teacher, who Fox News Digital is not naming due to safety concerns. -snip Activists began circulating a flyer online, with a Change.org petition, calling for the employee's job and for students to stay home from school in protest, saying, "the casual way in which he publicly promoted the actions of ICE in our area is inappropriate and unsuitable for...
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The headmaster of Chicago’s tony Latin School will resign less than two weeks after it was revealed that students were rehearsing Nazi marching themes for the second year in a row. Dr. Thomas Hagerman revealed his plans to leave his job in a Jan. 14 email to the Latin School community which cited health issues as the reason for his exit. “This decision comes after a great deal of thoughtful deliberation. I have been repeatedly reminded about the importance of attending more intentionally to my health and overall sustainability,” Hagerman wrote*** The surprise resignation comes two weeks after middle schoolers...
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A Democrat judge has released a Chicago man with 57 prior arrests after he pleaded guilty to using a metal bar to smash a man’s jaw in a sneak attack.
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The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has been forced to delete a post urging the 'ultra-wealthy' to fully fund city schools after it was mocked online for misspelling 'governor.' On Tuesday, the CTU posted a flyer across X, Facebook and TikTok calling on the public to push state leaders to tax billionaires, months after a report found the district is $1.6 billion short of necessary funding, according to Chicago Public Media. A damning report revealed that last year, over half of Chicago students couldn't read at grade level, and nearly three-quarters failed to reach math proficiency on state tests, according to...
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The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Rep. Mike Bost’s lawsuit challenging his home state of Illinois’ mail-in ballot policy to move forward, issuing an opinion that could have major implications for future elections. In a 7–2 decision, the high court determined that Bost (R-Ill.) and the others who joined his suit have standing to sue despite lower courts concluding that they hadn’t provided evidence of harm. “Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless of whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their...
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The killing of a Minnesota woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer is reverberating across Capitol Hill where Democrats, and certain Republicans, are vowing an assertive response as President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation operations spark protests nationwide.Lawmakers are demanding a range of actions, from a full investigation into Renee Good’s shooting death and policy changes over law enforcement raids to the defunding of ICE operations and the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in what is fast becoming an inflection point.“The situation that took place in Minnesota is a complete and total disgrace,” House Democratic...
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Illinois leaders and lawmakers spoke out on Friday about the Trump administration's move to withhold billions of dollars in federal childcare funds for Illinois and four other states run by Democrats. The move will freeze nearly $2.4 billion for the Child Care Development Fund, and billions more in funding for other social service programs in Illinois, Minnesota, New York, California, and Colorado. However, on Friday, a federal judge in New York issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from freezing those funds for now. The order will last for 14 days, while the court considers a request for...
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Faith leaders gather outside Trump Tower and call on county officials to roll back tax assessments and request lawmakers in Springfield to enact caps on the amount property taxes can be raised year over year. --SNIP-- Residential property tax bills are rising fastest in predominantly Black neighborhoods on the South and West sides because the county’s tax burden is being shifted away from the economic center of the city, according to a Cook County treasurer’s office report last month and a Sun-Times analysis of five years of tax bills. Other neighborhoods, such as Pilsen, have seen similar increases and th
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