Free Republic

“If you’re a successful governor with $2 billion, where do you go next? The White House,” outlines Pritzker’s fantasy ascendance to the Oval Office, perhaps in 2024 due to the incumbent’s mental and physical decline, or four years later in 2028. Pritzker desperately wants to be a bigger player than he is, and ambitious politicos swaddled in luxury from birth prefer to start at the top. Pritzker’s dark-money organization — Think Big America — is buying him political goodwill all over the country. Are citizens in states across the country hungry for Pritzker’s reforms like the SAFE-T Act, which releases...

Now law is the $750 million in tax increases to fund Illinois’ largest spending plan in state history. But so is a measure increasing the state’s debt by $8 billion while giving schools more taxing authority. Pritzker signed the $53.1 billion budget Wednesday. Friday, he signed the tax measure that includes capping the credit businesses can get for claiming net operating losses and capping the discount retailers get for collecting and remitting sales taxes. Hours later, Pritzker defended another tax increase, the tiered tax on sports betting companies. “In fact, if you look at what we did, really our focus...

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) is pushing to implement a curfew on unaccompanied minors downtown following an attack last week on a couple by a group of teenagers. The couple were on a date Friday night when they were surrounded by a group of teens who began beating them about 9 p.m. near Grand Avenue and McClurg Court in Streeterville, Chicago police said. Police say the man, 40, was hit several times in the head by a 14-year-old boy, and the woman had her hair pulled out by a 17-year-old girl. ...

A Springfield judge on Wednesday ruled unconstitutional a new law that would have prevented Republicans from slating candidates for the November general election in contests where they had not fielded a contender in the March primary.

A group of teens forced a woman to miscarry with a brutal attack after she and her husband dared to stray onto a Chicago street that the youths claimed as their own. The 41-year-old mother was returning home with her husband from a date night on Friday when they were surrounded by at least 10 young people in the city's notorious Streeterville neighborhood. The woman, who gave her name only as Nina, told Fox32 that she was pepper-sprayed in the face, kicked in the stomach and lost a clump of hair as her husband was held back by the mob....

A would-be thief fired shots at a priest Monday morning after he caught two men trying to steal a catalytic converter outside St. Ignatius College Prep.

Way before 5 a.m. people eager to cast a vote for the Mexican presidential election began to form a line outside the Mexican Consulate in Chicago. By noon, thousands of people took over South Ashland Avenue, forcing police to close off streets and set up barricades to control the lines. For the first time, Mexican nationals could cast a vote in person at consular offices around the world, in a historic election where the country is set to elect its first woman president. Voters will decide whether Claudia Sheinbaum, aligned with the left-wing party Morena, or Xóchitl Gálvez, with the...

Students who sued the University of Chicago for tuition refunds due to COVID-19 closures have reached a nearly $5 million settlement agreement with the school. The private Illinois university finalized the class-action lawsuit settlement with the students last week, agreeing to pay $4.95 million, according to the Chicago Sun Times. Students affected by the university’s 2020 decision to switch to online classes due to COVID-19 could receive $25 or more from the settlement, the report states.

Once again, our Illinois politicians believe they have the magic that will cure the crime that riddles our city of Chicago. I recently learned that our state’s Democratic lawmakers plan to introduce House Bill 4409 to amend the Illinois Crime Reduction Act of 2009 in order to rename "offenders" as "justice-impacted individuals." That is right — with the magic of rewording, we will no longer have "offenders" or "criminals." Instead, we will have "justice-impacted individuals" and the implication could not be clearer: rather than being seen as criminals who victimized society they will be seen as victims of the system....

CHICAGO (WLS) -- It's been a violent holiday weekend so far in Chicago. At least 41 people have been shot, nine fatally, since Friday evening. One of those shootings left a 5-year-old girl dead. Despite the still high shooting numbers, calls to stop the gun violence in the city seemed to have an impact. This holiday weekend's violence numbers, so far, are lower than last year's, when 53 people were shot, 11 fatally. The long weekend is putting Mayor Brandon Johnson's summer safety plan to the test. He spoke during a community walk over the weekend, criticizing previous administrations for...

The CTA has committed to providing as many as 250 buses for use during the Democratic National Convention this summer, even though the agency has faced staff shortages that led to service cuts in recent years. The head of the union that represents bus drivers says he anticipates having enough staffing for both the DNC and regular scheduled bus service. But designating buses for the convention has some advocates concerned. “Pulling CTA operators from their regular routes to a specified task that doesn’t serve all of Chicago is of tremendous concern,” said Kyle Lucas, with the transportation advocacy group Better...

Updated: Sunday, May 26, 2024 12:08PM CHICAGO (WLS) -- At least 25 people have been shot, five fatally, in Memorial Day weekend gun violence across Chicago, police said. A 5-year-old girl was shot to death on Sunday on the city's West Side, police said. The shooting happened around 3:32 a.m.. A group was standing outside when shots were fired. The girl was inside a parked vehicle when she was shot in the abdomen and taken to the hospital, where she later died. Last year in Chicago, there were 53 people shot and 11 killed over Memorial Day weekend.

Saturday, May 25, 2024 11:24AM CHICAGO (WLS) -- At least 10 people have been shot, two fatally, in Memorial Day weekend gun violence across Chicago, police said. Last weekend, at least 45 people were shot, one fatally, in gun violence across Chicago, police said. Last year in Chicago, there were 53 people shot and 11 killed over Memorial Day weekend.

... The holiday has historically marked a spike of street violence in the city, lasting throughout the summer. Though Chicago violence has decreased in recent years, dozens were shot over the last Memorial Day weekend. “I will not rest and my administration will not rest until we tackle this problem and stop the violence,” Johnson said at a news conference inside the Chicago Cultural Center. Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said the department will put additional officers on the street by canceling certain days off and adding overtime hours, but he said that the effort would be “strategic” and “deliberate.” The...

The Illinois House on Tuesday passed House Bill 581, The Hospital Emergency Service Act, which declares abortion to be a “stabilizing treatment” during pregnancy. The bill passed 71-36 along party lines. The bill is said to have been authored in response to the anticipated Supreme Court decision this June regarding an Idaho law that protects preborn children from abortion when their mother is facing a health complication during pregnancy. It’s important to note the distinction between ending a pregnancy via induced abortion and ending a pregnancy via induced delivery. In an induced abortion, the preborn child is intentionally and deliberately...

Illinois Democratic state lawmakers are aiming to change the word "offender" to "justice-impacted individual" with a new bill.

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher predicted that this year’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago will be a repeat of the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention, which was also held in Chicago, because there will be large numbers of protesters whose “new cause” is “Hamas, to be on their side.” Maher said, “I was twelve years old, when they had it in 1968 in Chicago. It was like my baptism into politics, like, wow, this is kind of interesting shit going on on TV, and I know this is politics — but because there [were] hippies...

A high school senior's promising future was tragically cut short three weeks before graduation after he was involved in a devastating car crash that split his car in half. Authorities say the Illinois teen was killed in a "fast and furious" accident caused by a drunk driver racing at 131 mph and had his lights off. Around 11 p.m. on May 12, 21-year-old Taeyoung Kim was reportedly racing his 2021 Ford Mustang at speeds exceeding 130 mph in Glenview, Illinois – a suburb approximately 20 miles northwest of Chicago. Police said Kim's own dashcam captured him speeding, aggressively passing other...

The man Chicago police have been hunting since a woman was attacked in the West Loop last month is a Venezuelan migrant living at a nearby shelter, officials say. And a CWBChicago reader helped police track him down. Jheison Lazaro, 19, was on pretrial release for a felony shoplifting case when he attacked the woman in the 100 block of North Carpenter on April 14, officials said. Lazaro grabbed the 38-year-old woman with both hands and dragged her into an alley around 5:24 a.m., according to prosecutors. He covered her mouth with one hand and wrapped his other arm around...

Breaking News: Donald Trump could owe $100 million for improper tax breaks on his Chicago tower, an IRS audit uncovered by The New York Times and ProPublica shows