Free Republic

It's not every day that an American labor union gets investigated for possible ties to two of the world's most lethal terrorist organizations. But Chicago's Service Employees International Union Local 73 isn't an everyday union. Last September 24, FBI agents raided residences in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan of more than a dozen radical activists in an effort to connect them to the Hamas (Gaza and the West Bank) and FARC (Colombia) guerrilla movements. Two of the occupants were SEIU Local 73 chief steward and executive board member Joe Iosbaker and former local board member-steward Tom Burke. Neither they nor anyone else has...

Illinois GOP's Real Problem Isn't Money. It Doesn't Want Trump's Candidate To Win With just over 40 days until Election Day for the midterms, the Illinois Republican Party has yet to provide a meaningful financial boost to the man carrying its banner for governor: Darren Bailey, whom President Donald Trump reaffirmed his support for this week. "I’ve already endorsed him. I’m all for Bailey," Trump said.

A would-be thief got more than he bargained for recently, when an alert gas station customer in Chicago with a concealed carry permit pulled out a gun and shot him. After the shooting, the thief hobbled away from the scene as quickly as possible. There would probably be a lot less crime if aspiring criminals were made to watch incidents like this one.

Last week, a relatively unknown 27-year-old researcher quit his job at Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI model.Then, he published his first post on X (formerly Twitter). In it, he warned that artificial intelligence could eventually kill humanity. The post exploded across social media. Within days, it racked up more than 150 million views. Major news organizations seized on the story. Politicians demanded action. And some of the biggest names in AI started debating whether development should slow down.Then, on Monday, Wall Street reacted. Investors started dumping many of the very companies powering the AI boom. But something doesn’t...

Although a recent report on financial red flags said Chicago is on a path toward insolvency, Wirepoints founder Mark Glennon says Chapter Nine bankruptcy might not work for the Windy City like it previously did in Detroit. Reason Foundation’s report on state and local government finances said Detroit’s financial condition at the end of fiscal year 2012 would trigger seven red flags, just like Chicago received in the organization’s report last month. In July 2013, Detroit became the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy. Glennon said Chicago, unlike Detroit, has sold most of its future sales tax...

FRANKFORT, Illinois (WBBM) -- A mother has been charged with murder after her 2-year-old child was killed inside a home in Frankfort, Ill. Police said Corie Walsh, 38, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder. Police said Walsh is in custody and was in the hospital for medical treatment. Friday afternoon she was transferred to the Will County Adult Detention Facility ahead of her detention hearing. Court documents have revealed unsettling and disturbing details about the toddler's death. Frankfort police said officers were called to the home in the 22700 block of Brook Stone Court around 4 p.m. Tuesday...

“Never forget where we came from. I will remember this for as long as I am alive. I thought I was going to get called back into service but I didn’t. God bless our troops and god bless all the hero’s from that day,” Alderman Mike Adkins of Quincy, Illinois posted in commemoration of the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Islamic terrorist attacks on America. One of his posted images included a billboard favoring President Trump’s immigration ban noting that “19 Muslim immigrants killed 2977 Americans” on September 11, 2001. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was named...

LIVINGSTON COUNTY, Ill. (WKRC) — Two people were arrested after deputies found four children and two dogs riding inside the enclosed cargo area of a U-Haul box truck during a traffic stop in Illinois, authorities said. A Livingston County sheriff's deputy stopped the U-Haul at about 6:05 p.m. Thursday on an Interstate 55 on-ramp in Pontiac, according to the sheriff's office. The driver told deputies the group was moving from Louisiana to Michigan. During a search of the truck, deputies found four children, two adults and two dogs traveling inside the enclosed box portion of the U-Haul, the sheriff's office...

An 11-year-old schoolboy from Cambridge, Illinois, has made history by becoming the world’s youngest male to curate a museum. Anderson Taylor earned the Guinness World Records title after opening the Cambridge Natural History Museum when he was just nine years and 340 days old on August 10, 2024. Anderson is the museum’s sole owner and curator and has built a collection featuring fossils, minerals, gems and taxidermy animals. Anderson’s journey began in 2022 after a family trip to Scotland. A visit to the Staffin Dinosaur Museum inspired his fascination with creating a museum of his own. “When I went to...

Anew report published by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, highlights more than $1 trillion worth of taxpayer money spent on projects that he argues wastes and abuses taxpayer money. Tucked in the report are three programs funded by federal agencies using millions of taxpayer dollars to experiment on cats. The details are explicit and gruesome.

Illinois Islamic Scholar Sheikh Kifah Mustapha called for Muslims during Friday prayer to seek positions within the police, federal agencies, the police, fire departments, the Pentagon, the White House, and the Senate to “change the world” for Islam. This cleric has terrorist ties, and is linked to CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamic leaders aren’t trying to hide their intentions… believe them when they tell you their goal is to infiltrate every bastion of American authority so they can seize power. Illinois Islamic Scholar Sheikh Kifah Mustapha at The Prayer Center of Orland Park on July 31, 2026, came right...

For decades, the federal government has funneled big-ticket grants to local communities to help them take on ambitious construction projects to expand public transit. The grants, sometimes in the billions of dollars, have funded new railroad tracks, train stations and roads rebuilt for modern bus service. Today, they’re funding extensions of the Second Avenue Subway in New York and the Red Line in Chicago, as well as the Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River and bus infrastructure in Indianapolis and San Antonio.But since President Trump returned to office, the Federal Transit Administration has not signed a single new agreement under...

The Arlington Heights couple charged with vandalizing the Republicans of Wheeling Township headquarters in January pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges Thursday. Brock McNerney, a 72-year-old retired financial planner, and Moisette McNerney, a 69-year-old retired special education teacher, admitted to criminal damage to property and criminal defacement of property charges as part of a plea agreement. Cook County Judge Thomas Newinski sentenced the couple to 18 months court supervision, 100 hours of community service, a $100 fine and court costs. Newinski also ordered the couple to pen an apology letter to the Wheeling Township organization. Following the hearing at the Rolling...

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was dealt a major legal blow Friday after a federal judge gutted key state laws providing in-state tuition, financial aid and scholarships to illegal immigrants, marking another win for the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration agenda. US District Judge Stephen McGlynn, a Trump appointee serving in the Southern District of Illinois, sided with the Justice Department, ruling that Illinois’ in-state tuition policies, the RISE Act and the Illinois DREAM Act are “unconstitutional and invalid” as they apply to illegal immigrants. The ruling permanently prevents Illinois from enforcing the laws, although McGlynn delayed the order from taking effect...

Republicans will make even moderate opponents answer for the radical views of DSA candidates. I have no objection to the Democrats’ nominating an oysterman for a Senate seat. When I led our party’s effort to recapture the House in 2006, we made a point of recruiting candidates with “authentic” broad-based appeal. But that strategy, which flipped 31 seats during my tenure, and claimed 21 more in 2008, was predicated on a substantive premise: We needed to allay voters’ worries that Democrats were weak on national defense and culturally out of touch, vulnerabilities born from previous elections. If we could do...

Oklahoma Republican lieutenant governor nominee T.W. Shannon criticized the opening of the Obama Center in Chicago, arguing that the project highlights concerns about voter identification, and reports of unpaid contractors.

Weeks after the Obama Presidential Center’s star-studded opening in Chicago, a subcontractor who previously claimed his company was stiffed for nearly $4 million has shut down operations and laid off 25 union workers. Mike Owen, the owner of Chicago-based Adamson Plumbing Contractors, told Fox News Digital that the financial fallout forced the company to abandon about half a dozen other construction jobs and left it on the verge of collapse. Owen described the shutdown as a painful decision he believed was necessary to save the company from bankruptcy. "Laying off close to 30 people is something that no owner in...

Barack Obama’s presidential library opened a few weeks ago with a star-studded celebration, and ongoing criticisms about its Star Wars-prison appearance and failure to pay contractors who worked on the monolith project. Now one subcontractor has shut down operations because the project manager has refused to pay for work that was done on the project. A report at Fox News outlines how Mike Owen, owner of Adamson Plumbing Contractors, confirmed his company was on the verge of collapse because of payments that were due, but never were made. “Laying off close to 30 people is something that no owner in...

Weeks after the Obama Presidential Center’s star-studded opening in Chicago, a subcontractor who previously claimed his company was stiffed for nearly $4 million has shut down operations and laid off 25 union workers. Mike Owen, the owner of Chicago-based Adamson Plumbing Contractors, told Fox News Digital that the financial fallout forced the company to abandon about half a dozen other construction jobs and left it on the verge of collapse. Owen described the shutdown as a painful decision he believed was necessary to save the company from bankruptcy. "Laying off close to 30 people is something that no owner in...

The city of Chicago is billions of dollars in debt, including $36 billion in pension debt. The Chicago Public School district also has a budget deficit of more than $700 million. Despite these very dire fiscal parameters, Mayor Brandon Johnson wants to spend more taxpayer money to give reparations to areas where ICE conducted immigration enforcement raids. "I believe the most relevant ballot referendum question around receiving reparations for communities that experienced that hardship, and whether that was on the west side of Chicago or the black man being placed in an illegal chokehold or long guns being stuck into...