Free Republic

CHICAGO (AP) — Federal immigration officers in the Chicago area will be required to wear body cameras, a judge said Thursday after seeing tear gas and other aggressive steps used against protesters. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said she was a “little startled” after seeing TV images of clashes between agents and the public during President Donald Trump’s administration’s immigration crackdown. “I live in Chicago if folks haven’t noticed,” she said. “And I’m not blind, right?” Community efforts to oppose U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have ramped up in the nation’s third-largest city, where neighborhood groups have assembled to monitor...

CHICAGO (AP) — A federal judge has approved a $9.25 million settlement by the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union in two long-running lawsuits stemming from the layoffs of hundreds of Black educators at underperforming schools, officials said Wednesday. Those eligible to receive payments under the settlement have until Friday to submit claims, attorneys for the teachers union said. Eligible to receive payments are all Black persons employed as teachers or para-professionals in any school or attendance center subjected to a “turnaround” policy that targeted schools that had been put on probation due to substandard test scores and...

downstate judge has ruled in favor of a Republican legislator in his lawsuit against Gov. J.B. Pritzker over whether the Democratic governor exceeded his legal authority in issuing a stay-at-home order in March to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Just hours earlier, Pritzker notched a win in federal court against the Illinois Republican Party, which sued the governor claiming he violated the GOP’s constitutional rights to assemble during the coronavirus outbreak. In the downstate lawsuit, state Rep. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, and his attorneys fought hard to keep it in state court. And Clay County Judge Michael McHaney ruled in favor of...