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Suspect Christopher Darnell Jones, was considered "armed and dangerous," in connection with the deadly shooting and was taken into custody Monday. The student suspected in a shooting at the University of Virginia that left three members of the football team dead and two others injured is in custody, officials announced Monday. The University of Virginia Police Department identified as Christopher Darnell Jones as the suspect in the shooting. In the middle of a press briefing at 11 a.m., UVA Chief of Police Timothy Longo announced he was taken into custody. He said that the police department secured an arrest warrant...

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article, written by Daniel Zanoza, was published in the January 2002 edition of Guns Save Life [www.gunssavelife.com/]. The article was an RFM NEWS (now known as RFFM.org) Exclusive. The following details how Jim Ryan, who is currently seeking the Illinois Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2010, attempted to entrap law-abiding citizens who were selling and/or buying firearms over the Internet. In 2001, Ryan was Attorney General for the state of Illinois. Ryan launched a failed--and what many called unlawful--sting operation targeting gun owners and dealers. While Ryan was conducting what his own legal advisors determined, up until...

John Kass, he of the rail against "the combine," has another column reminding us of why the Illinois GOP has become the laughing stalk of the GOP nation wide. It's because up until this very day, the Illinois Republican Party has been but a weaker arm of the Illinois Democrat Party. Too many in the state GOP have been so intertwined with the criminal Democrats that they are indistinguishable one from the other, hence why Kass calls them "the combine." Kass reminded us of how the Illinois GOP establishment under past Party Chair Andy McKenna worked hand in glove with...

Former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan, who lost to Democrat Rod Blagojevich in the 2002 governor's race, will be attempting a political comeback by filing petitions to seek next year's Republican governor nomination, aides said Sunday. Ryan's camp will file petitions Monday to appear on the Feb. 2 Republican primary ballot, aides said. That's the last day to do so. Ryan hasn't said anything publicly about his potential candidacy. A news conference is scheduled for Tuesday in Springfield. Ryan lost to the now-disgraced Blagojevich 52 percent to 45 percent in an open-seat contest -- the result of an election in...

Illinois Democrats looking to recapture retiring Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald's seat have been mobilizing for months -- raising moneiy, rounding up endorsements, recruiting volunteers. Republicans, meanwhile, have had trouble even finding candidates. First Fitzgerald said he wouldn't seek a second term. Then political veterans Jim Edgar, Judy Baar Topinka and Jim Ryan bowed out. In the past month, a handful of newcomers have stepped in. With 17 months to go before Election Day, Republicans, already tainted by former GOP Gov. George Ryan's scandals, must now fight a costly, uphill battle to hold the seat. "They kind of had that head...

One Ryan is skipping the U.S. Senate race, and another is jumping in. Former investment banker Jack Ryan announced Wednesday that he will run next year for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald. That makes Ryan the first Republican to formally enter the race. A day earlier, former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan said he would not run. Ryan, the GOP's nominee for governor last year, said he chose to continue practicing law and teaching at Benedictine University after a discussion with his wife. "Marie and I pretty much decided I'm not going to run," Ryan said....

Former Attorney General Jim Ryan said Tuesday he will not run for the U.S. Senate--making him the fourth major Republican to opt out of the high-profile race in less than a week. The former GOP gubernatorial nominee's decision came as four wealthy Republicans moved closer to joining the contest to succeed Sen. Peter G. Fitzgerald (R-Ill.). North Shore businessman Andy McKenna Jr. said he will file the paperwork for a fund-raising committee today. Former investment banker Jack Ryan said he will issue a statement about his plans. Gold Coast accountant and lawyer John Cox said he is 95 percent sure...

Can the Illinois GOP compete for the U.S. Senate? It has been 63 years since a Republican, the late C. Wayland "Curley" Brooks, last won an open U.S. Senate seat in the Land of Lincoln. Next year, for the fourth time since 1980, Republicans have a chance to fill a soon-to-be vacated senatorial seat. In the previous three contests, each GOP nominee lost by pluralities of more than 500,000 votes and received about 42 percent of the overall vote. If former Gov. Jim Edgar had made the race for the seat of the retiring Peter G. Fitzgerald, he would have...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Within hours of Illinois Sen. Peter Fitzgerald's surprise announcement that he will not seek re-election, top Illinois Republicans were courting former two-term Gov. Jim Edgar to become the party's standard bearer in 2004. "He's clearly our dream candidate," said Bob Kjellander, an Illinois member of the Republican National Committee, who spoke with Edgar early Tuesday before Fitzgerald publicly confirmed his decision. Edgar, a moderate who has twice rejected party appeals to run for Senate and retired as a popular incumbent in 1999, said the race was wide open and he was not ready to enter it. "I...

GOP TAUGHT A LESSON THEY WILL NOT SOON FORGET - NOW DEMOCRATS WILL TEACH US A LESSONBy John Birch, President, Concealed Carry, Inc., PO BOX 4597, Oak Brook, IL 60523, Tel: 630 660-3935 Fax: 815 327-1152 Email: john@concealcarry.orgAfter years of taking everyone for granted, especially gun owners, the GOP finally had their head handed back to them on a platter. They are finished, washed up, forgotten at least until 2006.TO JIM RYAN: You betrayed us and deservedly lost. If you wish to atone you should render a favorable legal opinion on "fanny pack" carry before you are replaced by Lisa...

<p>SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Republican Jim Ryan has closed the gap with Democrat Rod Blagojevich, creating an apparent dead heat in the race for Illinois governor days before statewide elections, according to a new Post-Dispatch poll.</p> <p>The statewide poll of 802 likely voters found that 43.5 percent support Ryan, while 43.2 percent support Blagojevich.</p>

Let's put Republican Jim Ryan back on top! Here is the question: Who do you think won the gubernatorial debate? Rod Blagojevich 51.9% (802 responses) Attorney General Jim Ryan 48.1% (742 responses) 1544 total responses

September 27, 2002 2:55 p.m. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens sailed into Chicago early in the week to preside over the distribution of awards given in his name. Mr. Stevens is a hero in the anti-capital-punishment crusade because it was he who wrote the decision banning the execution of the mentally retarded, thus relieving some 20 states that had not yet banned it the tedium of passing their own laws on the subject. Justice Stevens is a nibbler on the subject of capital-punishment reform, and in his speech he applauded the work of Gov. George Ryan. Gov. Ryan, hereafter...

Why I’m going to a Jim Ryan fundraiser tonight Monday, September 16, 2002 By Jill Stanek (Jill@illinoisleader.com ) I thought after the primary I would just ignore the governor’s race this year. My guy, Patrick O’Malley, didn’t win and I had a big problem with the guy the Republicans of Illinois picked, Jim Ryan. I also had a big problem with conservative leaders and groups that I thought should have supported O’Malley during the primary but either didn’t or put their feet in both camps to hedge their bets. I blamed them for O’Malley’s loss. I thought to myself,...

Freeper Question of the Day: If there is an effort to throw a legitimate statewide candidate off the ballot because of minor technicalities in the number of signatures they collected, is this good or bad? If ANOTHER's party's candidate for the same office says they support removing the other candidate because he could take votes away from him, is this good or bad? According to many Libertarians, it seems, this is: *Good during the 2000 Massachusetts Senate race...and Carla Howell was absolutely right to support it. *Absolutely wrong and tyrannical during the 2002 Illinois Governor's race...and Jim Ryan must be...

WASHINGTON -- As he campaigns to be elected governor, Democratic U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich quietly has cut back on one of the defining duties of his current office: voting on legislation. Since the beginning of the year, Blagojevich has missed half of the roll call votes on the House floor. The votes he has skipped cover such key issues as the federal budget for the coming year, a tightening of corporate auditing standards in response to the Enron scandal and an overhaul of immigration enforcement procedures spurred by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Ironically, shortly after the Tribune contacted Blagojevich's...

The scandal that cut short Gov. George Ryan's political career looms heavily over a wide-open race to succeed him, a new Tribune/WGN-TV poll shows. The survey shows Democrat Rod Blagojevich and Republican Jim Ryan locked in a neck-and-neck battle, with more than 9 in 10 voters saying the issue of government corruption will be an important factor to weigh in deciding between the two in the Nov. 5 general election. The poll results also indicated some confusion among voters between Jim Ryan and George Ryan, who share the same surname but are not related. In a close race, that means...

(StopDemocrats.com) - Attorney General Jim Ryan is the Republican nominee for Governor of Illinois in the 2002 November elections. With 80% of precincts reporting state Attorney General Jim Ryan (The more Moderate) had 44% to state Sen. Patrick O'Malley's (The more conservative) 28% and Lt. Gov. Corinne Wood's (The more Liberal) 27%. On the Democratic side things changed over night when Rep. Blagojevich took the lead with 35% to Chicago schools chief Paul Vallas's 34% and Former Attorney General Roland W. Burris with 30%, the race is too close to call at this moment. In an interesting twist, when...