Free Republic

The annual Little Village Cinco de Mayo parade was rerouted and then cut short Sunday after shots were fired along the parade route, officials said, though paradegoers still reveled the chance to celebrate Mexican culture and history. The Chicago Fire Department responded to the scene near Cermak Road and Washtenaw Avenue, but they found no one with injuries to take to the hospital. Chicago police worked with parade organizers to reroute the celebration, which was scheduled to start at noon, heading west along Cermak from Damen Avenue to Marshall Boulevard. Instead, the parade started closer to 12:30 p.m. south on...

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is negotiating a new contract with the public schools system and is understood to be calling for an extra $50 billion to pay for wage hikes as well as other demands such as fully paid abortions for its members, new migrant services and facilities and a host of LGBT-related requirements and training in schools. To put the figure into context, the total base tax receipts for the state of Illinois last year were $50.7 billion.

Chicago, like so many of our major cities, is out of control. Homelessness, smash-and-grab robberies, carjackings, gangs effectively taking over parts of the city - Chicago is in free fall. On Sunday, another incident in Chicago's meltdown was revealed when the Chicago Police Department canceled the city's Cinco de Mayo parade "out of an abundance of caution," due to gang violence and large-scale fighting in the area of the parade.Families in Democrat-run Chicago hoping to enjoy a Cinco de Mayo parade will have to wait until next year – after the city canceled the festivities due to "gang violence."The Chicago...

At $1.5 million per job, this new incentive package from the state is at least 15 times the norm. For this much money, the state could have just handed out a million bucks to 827 people, instead of creating 550 jobs.Gov. JB Pritzker announced Thursday that the State of Illinois will provide an $827 million incentive package for Rivian to invest $1.5 billion to expand its electric vehicle factory in Normal, Illinois. The expansion is expected to create at least 550 full-time jobs within the next five years, and will build Rivian’s next model EV, the R2. Rivian initially got...

The Democratic Party is bracing for massive protests during the Democratic National Convention, comparing it to another chaotic event from the 1968 convention. As pro-Hamas protests continue to rage through college campuses due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, concerns that similar protests will occur during the DNC convention this August in Chicago. Former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff William Daley told the Washington Post that the chaotic college protests that have occurred in the past week have “taken the demonstrations to a different level.” “It portends that you have the potential for big demonstrations. Whether they get violent —...

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was caught on camera bolting from local reporters who wanted to ask him about the recent arrest of an alleged cop killer. Johnson was at a National Day of Prayer service Thursday in the Windy City, with his chauffeured car waiting in an alley, according to reports. Local reporters darted after the mayor, hollering for him to wait and to comment about the arrest of Xavier Tate Jr., who allegedly killed Chicago Police Officer Luis Huesca in a carjacking last month, according to video.

(CHICAGO) – Workers at Sunnyside, a subsidiary of Cresco Labs, in River North have voted overwhelmingly to join Teamsters Local 777. “We are thrilled to welcome another Cresco location to Teamsters Local 777,” said Jim Glimco, President of Local 777. “Dispensary workers are seeing their counterparts at other locations organize with the Teamsters and they want to secure the benefits of a union contract for themselves. We look forward to helping these workers get their first contract and continuing to organize workers in the cannabis industry across Illinois.” The River North dispensary is the sixth location to organize with Local...

During the first three months of this year alone, over 1,000 illegal aliens from Venezuela were arrested for committing crimes in Chicago.

Move over California and New York, a new state is in contention for the 'most dysfunctional' in America. Illinois is grappling with a string of issues which have triggered a rise in residents departing the state. The state has struggled to add jobs and its public pension debt has ballooned to nearly $150 billion. Meanwhile, its population has declined, hurting tax income.

But the election bill given final approval by Senate Democrats Thursday on a 35-3 vote, with 18 Republicans voting “present” in protest, would further help Democrats maintain control in the next General Assembly. Under the measure, local political party organizations could no longer appoint candidates to fill out legislative ballots where the party did not field a primary candidate. Current law allows the appointment process within 75 days of the primary.

The last thing the communist stronghold city of Chicago needs is yet another crime wave, but thanks to Democrats, globalists, and most importantly, the voters, the Windy City has a brand new problem. ... As of this writing, 755 people have been shot in Chicago this year, and 161 have been murdered. In just the first quarter of 2024, Chicago cops have arrested over 1,000 Venezuelans for a wide array of crimes.. One would think the newcomers replacements flowing into Chicago from Venezuela would be grateful for the free housing, free food, free healthcare, and pocket cash they receive, all...

“Ayers was hunted by the FBI for his alleged involvement in the 1970 bombing of the New York City Police Department headquarters, 1971 bombing of the United States Capitol building and the 1972 bombing of the Pentagon.”.. Bill Ayers, famous for being a leading member of the ‘Weather Underground,’ a domestic terror group in the 1960s, showed up at the anti-Israel encampment at the University of Chicago, where he ended up teaching for years. People who remember the 2008 election will recall that Ayers became a political lightning rod because he was an old friend of Barack Obama, who famously...

Northwestern University has capitulated to the demands of pro-Palestinian protesters who set up an encampment last week, offering scholarships for Palestinians, Palestinian faculty appointments, and special housing for Muslim students. In return, the students agreed to take down their tents and to protest during daylight hours in Deering Meadow, the common space that they had occupied since last week and decorated with radical and antisemitic signs and slogans. As Breitbart News noted, the activists in the encampment not only physically barred other students from entering, but also stole an American flag from peaceful pro-Israel counter-demonstrators and vandalized university buildings. ewish...

Northwestern University officials announced Monday that they have reached an agreement with students and faculty protesting against the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, outlining a plan intended to allow demonstrations to continue while preventing the chaos and occasional violence that has engulfed other campuses across the country. The deal — believed to be the first between a major U.S. university and Pro-Palestinian protesters —comes five days after demonstrators established an encampment in Deering Meadow, a popular common area on the Evanston campus. Administrators responded to the protest by banning tents and temporary structures, but they did nothing to enact the new...

LA County Assistant DA Diana Teran, who oversaw George Gascón's efforts to prosecute law enforcement officers instead of criminals and to release thousands of felons from prison early, was arrested Saturday on 11 felony charges related to the "unauthorized use of data from confidential, statutorily-protected peace officer files." Like many alleged felons in Los Angeles County, Teran was out on bail less than an hour after her arrest. Unlike many alleged felons in Los Angeles County, the Diana Teran scandal has the potential to topple the county's power structure, or to put a severe dent in it. That potential exists...

Former President Donald Trump was greeted by enthusiastic supporters at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, Georgia, while on the campaign trail and ordered 30 milkshakes and chicken for everybody. Video shows the former president speaking to workers at the location, asking, “Can I have 30 milkshakes and also some chicken? We’re going to take care of the customers.” He then asks if business is good, to which the workers reply, “Yes.” Milkshakes for everyone at Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, Georgia pic.twitter.com/9kWnLpgGTv — Karoline Leavitt (@kleavittnh) April 10, 2024 Donald Trump just walked into a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta and ordered 30 milkshakes for...

A group of black residents tore into Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday over his plans to spend an additional $70 million to feed and house illegal aliens, and to drive their point home, they wore former President Donald Trump’s signature MAGA hats during a meeting at city hall. Johnson has been continually ramping up spending on migrants, but his attention to Biden’s border crisis has sent many of Chicago’s black residents to despair as their communities lose resources so Johnson can redirect city finances and services to migrants. The self-professed “progressive” mayor has already thrown $300 million at migrants,...

Program will address ‘insidious problem’ with racism in medicine: nurses association Nursing students at the University of Illinois soon will receive “diversity, equity, and inclusion” training via virtual reality courtesy of a $20,000 grant to address racism. The American Nurses Association, which awarded the grant through its National Commission to Address Racism in Nursing, says the funds will address an “insidious problem” with racism in nursing. But other medical professionals and scholars say the project is a waste of money. The university’s College of Nursing plans to use the grant to hire a software engineer to create virtual reality training...

State police arrest teen suspect after crash on expressway, victim saysAn elderly pizza delivery man said he was robbed and carjacked earlier this week on the city's Northwest Side. The 81-year-old victim, Ernie Aimone, said he was crossing the street Wednesday in the Jefferson Park neighborhood after delivering a pizza when he says a man walked up from behind, and the next thing he knew he was on the ground. He spoke exclusively with ABC7 on Friday about the attack. "They said, 'gimme the keys, gimme the keys,'" Aimone said. "And they sucker punched me from behind, hit me in...

The city and state are in the planning stages to combine Chicago’s legacy homeless shelter system with its system for migrants, according to government officials, and turn it into a unified shelter structure, an idea advocates for the homeless have long championed. The “One System Initiative” will shift a “permanent shelter management to the non-profit workforce,” Illinois Department of Human Services spokesperson Daisy Contreras said in a statement. Currently, the city contracts with Favorite Healthcare Staffing, whose sizable overtime has contributed to tens of millions of dollars in city payments to the firm staffing the city’s migrant shelters. The state’s...