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CHICAGO -- At least 54 people have been shot, seven fatally, in 4th of July holiday weekend shootings across the city, Chicago police said. In fatal attacks this weekend, a woman was killed and a gunman was among two others wounded in a shootout Friday night in Chinatown, Chicago police said. A man and another gunman were shooting at each other about 10:50 p.m. in the 2200-block of South Wentworth Avenue, police said. A 24-year-old woman was struck in the torso and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where she died due to her injuries. Three people were shot, one fatally,...

President Joe Biden may face a primary challenge if he runs for re-election in 2024. Analysts speculate Illinois Governor JB Pritzker may be eyeing the White House despite his claims that his focus remains on the state's upcoming gubernatorial race. Pritzker said Wednesday it is 'certainly possible' Biden would face a Democrat challenger, but added: 'It's not something I'm encouraging.'

Illinois Republicans chose conservative state Sen. Darren Bailey as their gubernatorial nominee in Tuesday’s primary to take on Democrat billionaire Gov. J.B. Pritzker in November. With 45 percent of the votes counted, Bailey leads his four rivals with a strong, 55.5 percent of the vote.Big night and win for @DarrenBaileyIL! Illinoisans are ready for a new direction and leadership that restores integrity and responsibility to the governor’s office. pic.twitter.com/GjoS5mjuvg— GOP (@GOP) June 29, 2022Meanwhile, Pritzker cruised to victory in the Democratic primary, earning a whopping 92.3 percent of the vote, as of this writing. He used a tactic familiar to...

At least 47 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend, 13 of them in just five hours late Sunday and early Monday. An 11-year-old girl was shot in the leg in the Auburn Gresham area just after midnight Monday. Ten minutes later, a woman and two teens, 16 and 17, were wounded about half a mile away, according to Chicago police. ...

One of the most powerful yet unremarked-upon drivers of our current wars over definitions of gender is a concerted push by members of one of the richest families in the United States to transition Americans from a dimorphic definition of sex to the broad acceptance and propagation of synthetic sex identities (SSI). Over the past decade, the Pritzkers of Illinois, who helped put Barack Obama in the White House and include among their number former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, current Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and philanthropist Jennifer Pritzker, appear to have used a family philanthropic apparatus to drive...

Ten of those 52 people who were shot died, authorities said. More than a quarter were wounded in a single police district on the West Side. Memorial Day weekend in Chicago has again lived up to its violent expectations. By Tuesday morning, 52 people had been shot in the city over the holiday weekend, as the Chicago Police Department canceled officers’ days off in anticipation of the historically violent unofficial start of summer. About half of the shooting victims were wounded on the West Side, while the South Side saw about 14 victims. The downtown area, which has seen several...

CHICAGO -- At least 29 were shot, one fatally, across Chicago since Friday evening, including a man wounded by a security guard during a shootout at Millennium Park. A man was found fatally shot Sunday morning in a Gresham apartment complex on the South Side. The man, 24, was found by a tenant with two gunshot wounds to the head in the entry way of the complex in the 7800-block of South Laflin Street about 1:30 a.m., Chicago police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. A 22-year-old man was trying to enter Millennium Park about 7:20 p.m. Friday...

Gov. J.B Pritzker has extended his emergency powers – for the 29th time – through the end of May. Illinois’ mask mandate has been lifted for weeks, and more than 80% of Illinoisans over the age of 5 have at least one dose of the vaccine. Illinois has never been closer to pre-pandemic life, so why is Pritzker still declaring a statewide emergency? He said COVID-19 infections are still too high and it is claiming too many lives. The state reported a weekly average of seven deaths on May 9 – the lowest average since early August 2021.

Last October, Boeing’s headquarters in Chicago was described as looking like a ghost town, with few people showing up to work at the company’s corporate offices. And that was largely after the city began reopening following the pandemic lockdowns. Many employees may still have been working from home out of caution over COVID, but others simply didn’t want to brave the streets of the Windy City for fear of being carjacked or otherwise harmed by the criminals who seemed to be running the streets. Now the “ghost town” reputation is apparently going to be amplified because the company announced that...

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago has announced a bid to bring the Democratic National Convention that will choose the party’s presidential nominee to the city in 2024. The announcement Tuesday morning was accompanied by endorsements from top Illinois Democrats, including Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Gov. J.B. Pritzker on down.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a $46.5 billion budget Tuesday morning that includes $1.8 billion in election-year tax relief and a $1 billion deposit into the state's rainy day fund. “The budget I’m signing into law today brings real improvements to the lives of working families and sets us up for a stronger fiscal future,” Pritzker said in a statement. “Investments in stronger schools, modernized airports and newly paved highways, hundreds of thousands of well-paying infrastructure jobs, and a better funded pension system… these are the kind of priorities we can invest in when our state is governed responsibly.”

One of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s loudest critics, Alderman Raymond Lopez, announced on Wednesday that he is running for mayor of the Windy City next year. The alderman, who has led the 15th Ward since 2015, has become the first official 2023 opponent to announce a bid to replace Lightfoot at City Hall.

A judge has granted a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit that sought to end mask mandates in Illinois schools, effectively blocking the masking requirement and other mitigation measures, prompting Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office to declare it will appeal. Sangamon County Judge Raylene DeWitte Grischow said in a Feb. 4 ruling that the defendants—Pritzker, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), and over 140 school districts—are barred from enforcing school mask mandates, exclusion protocols, and COVID-19 testing requirements. The ruling, which explicitly declares some of the measures “null and void,” comes in a case that saw parents file suit against...

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker joined abortion industry leaders Friday to celebrate the opening of a new call center that will encourage women to travel to Illinois to abort their unborn babies. Instead of addressing the underlying reasons why women seek abortions, including financial struggles, abuse, fear, social pressure and a lack of family support, the call center will help Planned Parenthood and the Hope Clinic for Women, an abortion facility in Granite City, sell more abortions. St. Louis Public Radio reports the purpose of the new call center, located in the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Fairview Heights, is to...

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who is fully vaccinated and boosted, announced Tuesday that she has tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing mild symptoms.

A top CPD leader canceled days off for the city’s cops over the upcoming weekend, and sources indicate the reason is that positive COVID tests have decimated the department’s active force. In fact, the union representing front-line Chicago cops estimates 2,600 officers are currently out for medical reasons. Before COVID, the medical absence number usually hovered around 1,000, according to the union. If the union’s estimate is accurate, that would mean about 20% of the city’s police force is out on medical leave. Cops who test positive for COVID are required to take ten days off. The COVID surge is...

CHICAGO (CBS) — At least three people are dead and 14 are injured in weekend shootings across the city. One of the victims was under the age of 18. The first homicide of the weekend happened around 8:11 p.m. Friday in Gresham. An 18-year-old man was walking in the 7900 block of South Parnell when he was shot in the neck by an unknown offender, according to police. The victim was transported to Saint Bernard Hospital where he was pronounced dead. In other shootings since 5 p.m. Friday: At 5:57 Friday, a 24-year-old male was standing in front of a...

A Chicago 911 dispatcher warned Tuesday on "Fox & Friends" that citywide staffing shortages are exacerbating violent crime, knocking local government and leadership for their inability to keep citizens safe. "All hell has broken loose," Keith Thornton told "Fox & Friends" enterprise reporter Lawrence Jones. Thornton said that a "massive" amount of crime is taking place in the city at "all hours of the day," while first responders are being overworked and receiving no support from lawmakers and politicians. "What’s horrible is the lack of leadership and the failure of leadership throughout this entire city of Chicago—and it’s ridiculous because...

On Friday, a Chicago Democratic lawmaker appeared in a Fox News interview where he torched Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) handling of crime in the city, describing her as “hypocritical” and saying she “played politics with people’s lives.” Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez, who has served in elected office since 2012, outlined how Lightfoot previously refused help from the Trump administration to alleviate violent crime in the city. Now that President Biden is in office, Lightfoot announced that she would accept help from the federal government. “Most Chicagoans find it very much hypocritical that the mayor, 15 months ago, told Donald Trump...

Cook County will follow Chicago in imposing a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for patrons 5 and older of restaurants, bars, gyms and an assortment of other businesses, officials announced Thursday. The mandate for suburban Cook County takes effect Monday, Jan. 3, as does Chicago’s. The indoor establishments that will be required to ask for proof of vaccination status also include gyms and anywhere else food and drink are served, according to a copy of the COVID-19 order from the Cook County Department of Public Health. That encompasses movie theaters, concert venues, arcades, sports arenas and more. ...