According to the Illinois Department of Corrections, 59-year-old Vance Patton has now been sentenced to prison 25 times, with convictions dating back to the 1980s. His convictions include 20 burglaries spanning the decades, as well as convictions for possessing a stolen vehicle, criminal damage to property, and possession of burglary tools.

“Conventional wisdom would say if someone were using a service, they should be the ones paying for it. But RTA’s farebox recovery ratio, the share of system revenue generated by riders, was 43 percent in 2018 and has fallen to just 21 percent. This means taxpayers are on the hook for 80 percent of the system’s finances.”

“Our local press corps has abandoned skepticism for sermonizing. They’ve become propagandists — much like the newspapers of the South in the years before the Civil War — stirring emotion, arousing grievance, and normalizing rebellion against our own federal government. They no longer cover the news; they choreograph it.”

“The Miracle Mile Shopping Center in Chicago, once considered our Nation’s BEST, now has a more than 28 percent vacancy factor, and is ready to call it quits unless something is done about the murder and crime, which is prevalent throughout the City. CALL IN THE TROOPS, FAST, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!” President Trump said on Truth Social around 11:51 p.m. Monday.

Some posts blamed federal immigration agents for a supposedly slow police response, saying local residents are afraid to call 911 because of ICE. Other posts even claimed the agents committed the murders themselves and escaped in an SUV with Texas plates. But surveillance video and police dispatch records show those viral claims aren’t true.

As part of their study of the 100 largest cities, WalletHub researchers compared 30-driver-friendliness indicators across categories that include costs, congestion and safety with Chicago ranking 96th overall, including 99th for traffic and infrastructure and 76th for safety. Researchers also weighed such variables as gas prices, insurance rates and road quality.

Chicago’s current sales tax is broken down into four categories: 6.25 percent statewide sales tax; 1.25 percent city sales tax; 1.75 percent county sales tax; and 1 percent RTA tax. Under the bill, the RTA portion of the tax will rise to 1.25 percent in Cook County starting June 2026. In the collar counties it will increase from 0.75 percent to 1 percent.

Customs and Border Protection officials said Latin Kings street gang leaders have issued a “shoot on sight” order targeting agents involved in immigration operations in Chicago.

“Opponents of the tax are forcing a City Council vote Wednesday that is shaping up to be the moment of truth for this terrible policy initiative and a city stuck at the no-growth motel.”

“What began as a complaint by journalists and protestors alleging that DHS officers targeted them with crowd-control devices at a handful of protests in September and early October has transformed into an instrument for judicial micromanagement of federal law-enforcement operations in the Chicago area,” DOJ attorneys wrote in their 22-page emergency stay motion filed Monday afternoon.

The unidentified suspect, a Mexican citizen, was in a Jeep that drove up near the agents and fired shots before driving away, federal sources said. At the time of his arrest, he was found with a firearm, sources said. The weapon allegedly used in the shooting has not been matched to shell casings found at the scene of the shooting.