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According to a news release from Raoul’s office, the settlement comes after a multistate investigation into wireless carriers’ misleading advertising. In total, Illinois will receive roughly $387,000 of the total sum.
The incident happened after 4:30 p.m. Sunday in the 100 block of N. Dearborn Street. The victim, a 15-year-old boy, was approached by four male suspects on the sidewalk when the situation escalated.
The acting director of the agency blamed much of the delays to a large backlog that has built up in recent years. Gov. J.B. Pritzker asked for a 20 percent increase in funding for the agency, but that could be in doubt with news that there is an $800 million shortfall in the proposed 2025 budget.
The village would need to find another revenue stream comparable to raising property taxes by 10 percent or cutting costs equivalent to 11 firefighters or police officers, per Village Manager John Lockerby’s memo to the Board. “(The grocery tax) has financing ramifications for every municipality in the state. I’ve talked to my peers and we’re all concerned,” Lockerby said.
“Among the nation’s 30 largest metropolitan areas, metro Chicago owns the highest level of Black unemployment at 13 percent, according to census data spanning the five-year period from 2018 to 2022. With a nearly three-to-one ratio, metro Chicago also has the widest gap between Black and white unemployment among the nation’s 30 largest metro areas.”
Jim Dey: “To pass their surprise-attack legislation, Democrats used a familiar tactic — ‘gut and replace’ — honed during former House Speaker Michael Madigan’s lengthy tenure. They took a shell bill — SB 2412 — ostensibly devoted to Department of Children and Family Services issues, and led by state Rep. Jay Hoffman, stripped the bill of its original content, replacing it with election proposals.”
A press liaison for the protesters said that in any scenario, demonstrators want to embody what she calls the “resilience and resistance” of the Palestinian people.
A large police presence amassed on the Lincoln Park campus of DePaul University Friday night, as protests grew at the pro-Palestinian protest encampment that has been in place since last week.
“The leadership has been taking funds from much needed areas, and they’re getting a lot of flack for it. And all of a sudden, those resources that they never had, for the homeless problems that they’ve already been faced with, they’re now being made available,” Brook said. “I understand when people, from Chicago or other areas start to really question the fact that now we have these resources, and they’re going toward individuals who sometimes are not even legally here, and we never had an opportunity to get those resources ourselves.”
Legislation introduced by state Rep. Dan Didech would establish a performance-based tax credit for concrete producers that use low-carbon materials and methods for state-funded projects. Because concrete would have to deliver quantifiable reductions in embodied carbon to qualify, the bill further requires the implementation of performance-based specification standards.
Jason McGrath, a Chicago-based strategist and pollster, said Mayor Brandon Johnson should be concerned about these “calls coming from inside the house.” He said, “It’s a very, very hard job, and I think he’s finding now that it’s a lot easier to throw bombs from the sideline than it is to be in the ring and actually defuse them. Right now, there are too many people who are openly criticizing him who should be with them. And if that’s not a flashing red light yet, it certainly will be soon.”
The allegations against the two state police officers are particularly significant because the agency is held out as a gold standard of policing. In the Chicago area, suburban police agencies turn to the state police to conduct independent investigations of police-involved shootings involving their departments. The state police might take over that role for the Chicago Police Department, too.
Among other things, Northwestern promised to provide the “full cost of attendance for five Palestinian undergraduates to attend Northwestern for the duration of their undergraduate careers.” The agreement also provided for “funding two faculty per year for two years,” with the provision that these professors will be “Palestinian faculty.” Universities that choose appeasement should expect to feel the consequences.
The Chicago Teachers Union has given the City of Chicago a list of more than 700 demands. Included in their demand is a 9 percent pay raise through 2028, 100 percent funding for teachers to get abortions, $2,000 for each illegal immigrant family, fee fare for all CPS students and employees to use public transportation, 45 vacation days per year, and no requirement for woke teachers to disclose to parents if their children are identifying as a different gender at school. All told, the list of demands has an estimated $50 billion price tag. The radical teachers’ unions have become
“There’s already a joke going around Democratic strategist circles that the main difference between 2024 and 1968 is that the Chicago mayor this year will be on the side of the protesters, not the cops.” Brandon Johnson was an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union and “has yet to fully make the jump from activist to mayor of one of America’s largest cities.”
“Chicago’s activist mayor is sympathetic to the pro-Palestinian protesters and likes to refer to the police as an entity separate from himself rather than under his control. Thus, he cannot be counted on to protect the convention and the party’s prospects. … From Chicago’s point of view, if the city is reduced to little more than a drone shot and minimal live activities, that’s bad for the city and us. People will figure out why.”
Meanwhile Illinois’ tax policy doesn’t align with or function well in the modern economy. Hence over time, state revenue growth is generally insufficient to keep funding the same level of public services, adjusting solely for changes in inflation and population. Which means state decisionmakers are already rationing inadequate resources among vital public service priorities. In that environment, diverting tax dollars to enrich folks who are already well-to-do isn’t justifiable.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson joins Rev Al Sharpton to discuss the current status of college protests in Chicago as well as upcoming DNC Convention and Johnson’s work this week in Springfield. Johnson quoted W.E.B. DuBois when he said, “We’re just simply demanding that Springfield do their part and fund our education system.”
City officials and the Police Department have pushed to downsize this year’s Pride Parade — which is set for June 30 — with fewer participants, citing safety and logistical concerns.
With his latest appointment to the Regional Transportation Authority board, Mayor Brandon Johnson is apparently honoring a Chicago tradition: picking someone who is politically connected but has no apparent expertise in the work at hand.
“The drastic increase in fleeings we’ve seen in recent years is a level of lawlessness I haven’t seen in my 23 years in this profession,” Naperville’s police chief said at a press conference promoting legislation aimed at deterring such behavior and punishing those who commit it.
“We’re going to be here in full solidarity and we again are publicly asking the university president to continue the dialogue and asking the mayor of the City of Chicago to refrain from using the Chicago Police Department in any of these demonstrations, because they are peaceful they are moral and they are the right thing to do,’ Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez said Saturday night.
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