Free Republic

Owner Mike Pascale said it has been fun for him to see the happy faces "we haven't been able to see at Aurelio's inside our dining room."With indoor dining suspended across the state, restaurants are coming up with creative ways to bring Christmas cheer this holiday season, including having food delivered by a beloved Dr. Seuss character. Aurelio's Pizza of Plainfield has enlisted one employee to dress up as the Grinch, a pot-bellied, grouchy creature, whose heart is too small for him to truly appreciate the spirit of Christmas. The Grinch delivers food and even takes photos with the customers....

CHICAGO — Predictions of a “surge on a surge” of coronavirus cases caused by Thanksgiving travel may be coming true in some parts of the U.S., but Illinois has seen a drop in new infections on average even as the state reports more lives lost than at any other point of the pandemic. The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 7,123 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 Wednesday, as well as 146 additional deaths.

Thus far in Florida, approximately 20,000 people have died of COVID-19. In Texas, the number stands around 24,000, and in New York, about 35,000.New York is the smallest of the three, with 19.54 million residents. Then comes Florida, with 21.67 million, before Texas, with 28.7 million residents.COVID numbers are difficult to trust. Cases are often counted more than once as patients go in and out of the hospital, and some deaths are attributed to COVID that are barely related, if at all.There’s a perverse incentive to write down “COVID” and get state and federal money, no doubt, but one thing...

Around 10:20 a.m. on Dec. 1, a man got off a northbound Metra Electric District train at the McCormick Place station, pulled out a collapsible rifle from his backpack, and fired a single shot while standing on the platform, according to the FBI and Metra Police. ] The man then placed the rifle back into his bag and exited the station. Chicago Police and Metra Police searched the area for the gunman, but could not find him. Luckily for the FBI, he did it in front of cameras. Images showed a man with close-cropped hair and a receding hairline. “When...

A 26-year-old woman allegedly drove into a Lynwood police officer while trying to avoid arrest in the south suburb. Body camera video shared by police allegedly shows Megan Rozak in the driver’s seat Dec. 4 as she’s confronted by two officers who arrested a package thief moments earlier, Lynwood police said in a statement. After placing Stefan Wisnewski in cuffs for allegedly stealing a package from a porch, the officer walked over to Rozak and told her to unlock the car door, police said. She allegedly refused and sped forward into a second officer. The officer standing in front of...

An Illinois artist was left baffled after a man paid him to paint a mural of “Sesame Street’s” Cookie Monster on the side of a building — that he didn’t actually own. Joshua Hawkins said he recently got an angry phone call from the actual owner of the Peoria building, “asking why the hell I painted this ‘crazy ****’ on his building.” “Evidently the guy that hired me to paint the mural was NOT really the owner of the building!,” Hawkins wrote on Facebook. The artist said a man he knew only as “Nate” called him the day after Thanksgiving...

HODGKINS, Ill. (WLS) -- The Illinois Tollway has reached the first milestone in its enormous Mile Long Bridge project. The northbound section of the new bridge, a stretch of Interstate 294 between 75th Street and La Grange Road, is scheduled to open next week. Crews started building the new Mile Long Bridge alongside the existing one two years ago. Weather permitting, the northbound section of bridge will open by Wednesday morning. "We were hoping for the end of the year; clearly we're a month early and want to obviously thank everyone involved, but we're super excited that the bridge itself...

“Toll free in ’73.” That was the campaign slogan over five decades ago that promised tolls on Illinois interstates would be a temporary revenue sources. Today, the tolls are higher and the tollway authority is more permanent than ever. Lawmakers promised tolls would help fund 186 miles of interstate construction and would be removed when the roads were paid off. After that, highway maintenance would be funded by the gas tax. In 1968, the General Assembly made the Illinois Toll Highway Authority permanent. What started at just 10 cents at the exits and 25 cents at the plazas has grown...

WESTERN SPRINGS, IL — Western Springs and Hinsdale appeared to have found agreement on the style of the new pedestrian bridge over Interstate 294. This week, the Western Springs Village Board received more detailed numbers on the village's cost of maintenance for the bridge, which would be next to 47th Street. Western Springs was told a couple of months ago that its costs would amount up to $250,000 in 25 years to repaint the entire bridge with a painted finish, plus $60,000 for picket-style fencing. But Illinois Tollway official Nicole Nutter told the Western Springs Village Board on Monday that...

A federal appeals court has thrown out the 16-year prison sentence for a suburban Chicago man convicted in a terrorist bombing plot, saying the judge paid only “lip service” to the seriousness of the crime and overplayed the defendant’s immaturity at the time the FBI caught him in the sting. The ruling Tuesday by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sends the case of Adel Daoud back to the district court for resentencing, marking yet another twist in an unusual terrorism case that began more than nine years ago when Daoud was just 17.... “We do not see how...

CHICAGO, Ill. (WTVO) — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker pushed back against notions that his coronavirus mitigations were designed to strip individual freedoms away from residents at his daily briefing on Thursday. “People may have the notion that we’re taking their freedoms away, but there are laws on the books that say the job of government…is to step in and try to reduce the disaster and save as many lives as we can,” he said. “We’ve put the science and facts out there throughout this…why those mitigations are in place. There are people who don’t want to believe them and say...

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is reaching out for help for the beleaguered restaurant and bar industry, the same industry facing restrictions from his state-imposed mitigations. “I want to urge the Congress to step up and include in the stimulus package support for restaurants and bars that have been so hard hit by the virus,” said Pritzker Tuesday at his daily COVID-19 briefing.

Former Illinois governor and federal inmate Rod Blagojevich, whose sentence was commuted by President Trump early this year, knows firsthand the ways of corrupt big city Democrats, as well as the ways of federal judges, prosecutors, and juries. And he has some advice for President Trump and his legal teams that he expressed in an interview on Newsmax TV. Robert Jonathan of BizPacReview noticed and preserved video of the his conversation with Leo Terrell, one of the most emphatic (and surprising) supporters of President Trump. Most interesting to me is his PR strategy, urging President Trump to not try to...

A veteran police lieutenant was reassigned last week after a one-day trip to Chicago by Attorney General William Barr caught Chicago Police Department leadership and the mayor’s office by surprise. Sources told the Chicago Sun-Times that Lt. Patrick Quinn was pulled from his position in the Crime Prevention and Information Center in police headquarters and sent to the Rogers Park District on the North Side after Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPD brass learned of Barr’s visit during a conference call Nov. 17 — just a day before Barr, the nation’s top law enforcement officer, was scheduled to arrive in Chicago....

The niece of an Illinois mayor is putting her uncle on blast for attending a large wedding in Florida where he was photographed huddled closely with relatives who weren’t wearing face coverings — just days after floating a potential mask mandate in his city. Kristin Chirico, co-host of YouTube’s “The Kitchen and Jorn Show” and a former BuzzFeed personality, publicly criticized her uncle, Naperville Mayor Steve Chirico, for attending his daughter’s nuptials in Naples after a photo purportedly from the affair surfaced on Twitter.

The Illinois Department of Public Health quietly removed thousands of available hospital beds from their data showing how much capacity Illinois’ medical centers have. The number of available hospital beds is closely tracked by the state as a barometer of how much stress the COVID-19 pandemic is placing on Illinois’ medical system. The state has more than 30,000 total general use hospital beds. The lower the number of free beds, the worse the COVID-19 pandemic is becoming. “We actually need to know how many beds are available that have staff that could actually work it,” Ezike said. “When you put...

Police looking for the attacker who shot and wounded eight people at a shopping mall in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin near Milwaukee this afternoon. They say tonight the "shooting was not a random act, and was the result of an altercation"... Kyle Rittenhouse, accused of killing two left-wing protesters and wounding another during rioting in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August, freed on two million dollars bail... New Tier 3 coronavirus restrictions taking effect in Illinois today... In Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan announcing a return to coronavirus restrictions... A lockdown in Canada's most populous region with the City of Toronto and the neighboring...

Nancy Pelosi has been reelected speaker of the House by her caucus for the next session of Congress, marking what will be her fourth term with the gavel. The caucus vote was conducted virtually, but Pelosi was approved with a voice vote. Pelosi, 80, did not not face any challenge for her post, but she will also need to secure a simple majority — 218 Democratic votes — by the full House of Representatives in January to be sworn in again as speaker. In 2019, several Democrats voted for someone other than her on the floor, but with a slimmer...

Teddi Pritzker and her friends openly violate her father's Covid restrictions. Theodora “Teddi” Pritzker was spotted at a packed table in violation of Covid restrictions over the weekend. Teddi, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s daughter, was photographed seated at a table for 14 at Chicago Cut Steakhouse. A Twitter user posted the photo of Teddi, who formerly attended Francis W. Parker in Chicago, and a closely-assembled group of friends. “10 person outdoor limit for thee....jb 18yo daughter didn’t seem to abide by her dictator Father’s demands while dining outdoors ... Following more restrictive rules imposed by Pritzker, groups of 10 or more...

Gov. JB Pritzker said Wednesday that “deep and painful cuts” are coming to the Illinois budget now that his plan to bring a graduated income tax to the state has failed. Pritzker said he will be meeting with legislative leaders in the coming days to work out a plan moving forward. “We have to move expeditiously, no doubt,” Pritzker said when asked if budget or revenue changes could be debated during the upcoming veto session. As of now, the veto session is scheduled to start Nov. 17. Supporters of the graduated income tax amendment conceded defeat Wednesday as it became...