Free Republic

The Illinois Legislature has a chance to save lives by reducing gun violence. But it must act quickly. The local firearms toll is staggering. In Chicago alone, 769 people were killed in 2020, mostly by guns. More than 4,000 were shot. Just over this past holiday weekend, 30 were shot and six were killed. Gun violence also has increased in cities around the state. Illinois does not have to meekly accept such horrific mayhem. Editorials Legislation called the Block Illegal Ownership bill would plug legal loopholes through which guns flow to the criminals who turn streets into killing zones. It...

Macy’s is closing its flagship store in Water Tower Place, creating a huge vacancy on the Magnificent Mile during an already challenging time for retail landlords. The 170,000-square-foot store in the North Michigan Avenue vertical mall will close after a clearance sale that starts this month and will run for 8 to 12 weeks, Macy’s said Tuesday. “After careful consideration, Macy’s has decided to close our Water Tower Place location,” Macy’s said in a statement. “This closure is part of the company’s strategy to right-size its store fleet, announced in early 2020. The decision to close a store is always...

Lockdowns are merely forced gatherings.. Author and statistician William M. Briggs argues that lockdowns don’t work because they force people to gather in fewer places like supermarkets and therefore spread viruses faster than if people were allowed to spread out. Writing for LockdownSkeptics.org, Briggs states, “A lockdown will spread this bug faster than allowing people to remain at liberty.” The author notes that a lockdown is not the same as a quarantine. Under lockdown, people only have a limited selection of venues at which they are allowed to gather, meaning those locations are busier and therefore make a virus more...

Gun violence spiked across the country in 2020, the most violent year in decades. 19,000 were killed in shootings, the highest death toll in 20 years (and that does not include gun suicides). Mass shootings — defined as four or more shot in an incident — also rose drastically to over 600. Chicago’s 769 homicides in 2020 were, according to ABC News, “more homicides than in all but one year in more than two decades.” The 4,033 shooting victims were also drastically higher. The spike in Chicago was echoed in other big cities like Detroit, Washington, D.C., New York and...

Describing President Trump’s phone call with Georgia’s top election official as “frightening,” an Illinois Republican congressman suggested that he now regrets his vote for the president and might even be open to a third party if his GOP colleagues continue to echo baseless conspiracy claims about a stolen election. In an interview with Yahoo News’ “Skullduggery” podcast, Rep. Adam Kinzinger also said he is worried about the prospects for violence around the Capitol on Wednesday, when tens of thousands of Trump supporters are expected to show up for protests aimed at pressuring lawmakers to block Joe Biden’s election. Those protesters,...

The city and county of Kenosha could be held liable for up to $20 million in damages connected to the Aug. 25 shooting of two men, one fatally, according to claim notices filed in December. The parents of Anthony Huber, 26, of Silver Lake, who was killed, and Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, of West Allis, who was wounded, have served $10 million claim notices with both the city and county. It was not known as of Monday if the family of a third man, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, of Kenosha, also fatally shot, has filed a claim.

It’s easy to see why the American Left loved Sami al-Arian. Leftists hate Israel, too. Longtime FrontPage readers will remember Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida professor who for years was a darling of the Leftist intelligentsia. IPT News reported Monday that he has resurfaced, but that the stalwart old Jew-hater hasn’t changed: while he has reined in his rhetoric a bit and speaks in a more civilized manner, he is still calling for Israel’s destruction, which would result in the murder of millions of Jews. Back in 1991, during a speech in Chicago, al-Arian screamed: “The Quran...

CHICAGO -- At least five people have been killed and 25 others wounded in citywide shootings so far this holiday weekend. In the weekend's latest fatal attack, a man was killed in a shooting Sunday in Grand Crossing on the South Side. The 29-year-old was found inside a 2011 Chevy Malibu about 7:10 p.m. in the 6800-block of South Stony Avenue with multiple gunshot wounds on the chest, Chicago police said. He was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. The Cook County medical examiner's office hasn't released details on the death. About 12:55 a.m.,...

The number of homicides and shootings in Chicago spiked dramatically in 2020, ending with more bloodshed than in all but one year in more than two decades, statistics released by police on Friday revealed. After three years of falling homicide totals, 2020 ended with 769 homicides — 274 more than the previous year and the most since the 784 homicides in 2016. The latest shooting victim figures told the same story, with the year ending with 4,033 shooting victims compared with 2,598 the year before. And it never let up, as is illustrated by the fact that in December, there...

A Chicago Teachers Union leader is facing criticism for vacationing in the Caribbean while at the same time claiming it’s unsafe for teachers to return to the classroom. Sarah Chambers is on the union’s executive board and is an area vice president. As recently as Thursday, she tweeted to rally special education teachers not to return to work Monday because it’s unsafe. Just a few hours earlier, Chambers posted a picture on Instagram that appears to show her pool side in Puerto Rico and talking about going to Old San Juan for seafood

On Thursday, a teacher who is on the executive board of the Chicago Teachers Union, for whom she serves as an area vice president, reportedly urged special education teachers to refuse to return to work the week after New Years’ Day because it would be unsafe. A few hours prior to that, the teacher, Sarah Chambers, posted a photo on Instagram of a pool in Puerto Rico captioned, “Spending the last day of 2020 by the poolside.” “We have the whole pool to ourselves,” Chamber’s caption continued. “Then, we are going to old San Juan to get some yummy seafood...

John Marshall Metropolitan High School is a West Side institution. One of the city’s oldest public high schools — once heavily Jewish and for decades home to a nearly all-Black student body — it boasts fiercely proud alumni and a reputation for powerhouse athletics. It’s named for the fourth chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, widely regarded as the most influential leader of the nation’s highest court, honored with his face on postage stamps and his name on law schools in Chicago and elsewhere. Marshall also was a slaveholder his entire adult life, with at least 200 Black...

MILWAUKEE -- Prosecutors have charged a 17-year-old Illinois teen accused of shooting three people during a protest in southeastern Wisconsin this summer with violating curfew that night. Kyle Rittenhouse was charged in August with multiple counts, including reckless and intentional homicide, endangerment and being a minor in possession of a firearm. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that prosecutors added violating curfew the night of the shootings to the list of charges on Monday. The offense is a civil citation punishable by forfeiture.

A man on the scene shot the robbery suspect in the chest and abdomen, police said. It is not clear if the man was the owner, employee, or another customer. Police said the shooter, 29, had a valid concealed carry permit. The robbery suspect was transported in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

An accused serial burglar and thief has been sentenced to probation for a burglary in Lincoln Park last year — even though he was already on probation for two burglaries at the time of the alleged break-in. Jonathan Hernandez, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of theft in exchange for an 18-month probation sentence in the latest case, according to court records. He has been arrested seventeen times in Chicago since March 2014, according to CPD records. One year before his arrest, Hernandez was charged with threatening to shoot an off-duty police officer who confronted him as he allegedly burglarized...

A member of the US Army was charged Sunday in the deadly mass shooting at an Illinois bowling alley — a random attack in which a 14-year-old boy was also shot in the face, according to officials. Suspect Duke Webb, 37, of Florida faces three counts of murder and three counts of first-degree attempted murder in Saturday’s shooting in Rockford, police and prosecutors said at a press conference Sunday. Webb is “a current active military member, and we are in contact with the US Army regarding his military status,” Police Chief Dan O’Shea said. “We believe this was a completely...

I have to ask, “What’s the point of having police and a judiciary?” when I read about this case from Chicago, a city world-renowned for the level of lethal criminality its residents endure . .. An accused serial burglar and thief has been sentenced to probation for a burglary in Lincoln Park last year — even though he was already on probation for two burglaries at the time of the alleged break-in. Jonathan Hernandez, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of theft in exchange for an 18-month probation sentence in the latest case, according to court records. He has been...

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger is firing back after Donald Trump's latest unfounded claims of election fraud. Trump sent a flurry of tweets Saturday morning, including one which read: 'The 'Justice' Department and the FBI have done nothing about the 2020 Presidential Election Voter Fraud, the biggest SCAM in our nation's history, despite overwhelming evidence. They should be ashamed. History will remember. Never give up. See everyone in D.C. on January 6th.' The tweet was labeled by Twitter as a disputed claim.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., lambasted governors for locking down their states during the coronavirus pandemic. "You know, nobody ever intended that governors would be sort of czars or dictators in charge of the economy ... Governors around the country have imposed restrictions to varying degrees during the pandemic. In Paul's home state, Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear has implemented a mask mandate, limited private gathering sizes, and set minimal capacity for indoor small businesses such as gyms . .. New York Democrat Gov. Mario Cuomo ordered restaurants to again stop indoor dining in mid-December. California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday...