Free Republic

Higher education’s ideological rot has been exposed for Americans to see—but the elites who adhere to such thinking retain control of these institutions. The struggle for Harvard’s presidency is ostensibly about anti-Semitism, freedom of speech, and a rapidly unfolding plagiarism scandal. A group of challengers—most notably, New York representative Elise Stefanik, hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, and journalists Christopher Brunet, Aaron Sibarium, and myself—has contested the leadership of Claudine Gay, arguing that she epitomizes the moral and intellectual rot within the institution. Despite the firestorm, the Harvard Corporation has stubbornly defended Gay. And it appears that, for now, the outsider offensive...

CHICAGO — A newly acquired video shows four people, at least two armed with machine guns, unleashing a torrent of gunfire in Chicago on Wednesday evening. The shots left a 14-year-old boy dead and at least three others injured. Later, a 16-year-old boy fired a gun at Chicago police officers as they investigated the shooting. He was charged yesterday with six counts of attempted murder of peace officers. The video, provided to CWBChicago by a source, shows four people walking across a vacant lot in the 4200 block of South Wells around 8:20 p.m. on June 1.

Lori Lightfoot is the first Chicago mayor in 40 years to lose re-election. She will now assume a teaching role at Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Ironically, Lightfoot will teach a course titled “Health Policy, and Leadership.” While there are worse choices to educate students about leadership, we can’t think of one off hand. Nonetheless, Michelle A. Williams, Dean of Faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, considers Lightfoot an impressive addition: “I’m delighted to welcome Mayor Lightfoot to Harvard Chan School as a Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow. As mayor,...

Headline only, paywall.

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) abandoned plans to try and knock Mayor Lori Lightfoot off the ballot — even after uncovering a “pattern of fraud” that suggested she may not have the 12,500 valid signatures required by law. After a “cursory review” of all of the 40,000 signatures that Lightfoot filed and getting “into a secondary” review to see if those signatures match the signatures of those voters, Hopkins said he “got it down to about 17,500 signatures” when he “ran out of time.” “Had we had a couple more weeks, there is a clear pattern of fraud. We might have...

The incident unfolded around 6 a.m. in the city’s west side when a vehicle with "three males inside" approached the victim, who was inside his own vehicle... "One of the individuals got out of the vehicle, pointed a firearm at the victim and demanded his belongings," police said. "A struggle ensued before the victim," whom police say legally owned a firearm and was a concealed carry license holder, "withdrew his weapon and fired several rounds."

A statue of young Abraham Lincoln has been splashed with red paint with the words 'COLONIZER' and 'LAND BACK' written below it in Chicago. The statue, which has stood in the Edgewater neighborhood since it was donated to Senn Park in 1997, also had the words 'Dakota 38' written on it. Dakota 38 refers to Lincoln's ordered execution of 38 Sioux, who were publicly hanged for participating in the Sioux Uprising in the US-Dakota War of 1862 in Minnesota.

Chicago’s gun violence continued over the weekend as police said gunfire struck more than 30 people, including an off-duty cop who was shot in her neck and a 15-year-old boy shot in the head during a drive-by. The bloodshed occurred from 6 p.m. Friday to 11:59 pm. Sunday, according to Chicago police data released Monday morning. In total, there were 20 reported shooting incidents and 32 shooting victims, which included at least four juveniles. Police said at least five people were murdered in the weekend gun violence. Among those fatally shot was a 15-year-old boy who was found laying on...

Carjackings have been making headlines in Chicago for nearly two years. But what is the punishment for a carjacker convicted of hijacking someone’s vehicle in Cook County? According to sentencing data from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, defendants convicted of hijacking charges between January 2017 and the end of 2021 received an average sentence of 9.4 years. Kim Foxx assumed leadership of the office in December 2016. In the seven years before Foxx was sworn in, hijacking convictions carried an average sentence of 12.4 years. CWBChicago pulled some court records to find the outcomes of some carjacking cases we...

CHICAGO -- Nine juveniles are among at least 52 people shot, 11 fatally, in Chicago gun violence so far this weekend, police said. Five people were shot, three fatally, after a caravan involving about 100 cars on the Southwest Side, Chicago police said. The shooting happened in the Brighton Park neighborhood's 4300-block of South Kedzie Avenue at about 4 a.m. on Sunday, police said. Two people were seriously wounded in a drive-by shooting Sunday night in Brighton Park on the Southwest Side. A man, 29, and a 40-year-old woman were near a sidewalk about 7:45 p.m. in the 2400-block of...

Three people died and two were wounded in a shootout early Sunday at an intersection in Brighton Park, where drivers had taken over an intersection in one of several unauthorized drifting events overnight in Chicago, police said. Police had been monitoring a “large car caravan” on surveillance video at Archer and Kedzie avenues on the Southwest Side with 100 drivers and people drifting in the intersection, Police Cmdr. Don Jerome told reporters at the scene.

CHICAGO—Many Black voters in some of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods are frustrated that Democrats haven’t curbed persistent crime or fixed the economic problems that underpin it, prompting some to weigh sitting out upcoming elections. The Republican effort to win the Illinois governor’s race this fall has centered on calling for more police officers and blaming Democrats for violent crime in Chicago, which last year had one of its worst years since the 1990s before some types of crimes receded this year. Republican aides and strategists said they wouldn’t come close to winning deep-blue areas of the state such as Chicago...

A man casually carrying a shotgun and claiming to be from Chicago walked into a Florida convenience store during an attempted robbery but walked out when a clerk displayed his own weapon, authorities said. Rakim Stephen Tate, 32, made a bad decision that "became a worse decision" when he walked into a convenience store on Sept. 9 with a visible shotgun to his side, the Escambia County Sheriff's Office said Monday. He is charged with openly carrying a prohibited weapon and attempted robbery with a firearm. Tate walked around the store for a few seconds before a clerk out of...

Samuel Stebbins writes for 24/7 Wall St and several other left-leaning organizations such as the NYTs, HuffPost, and MSN. Mr. Stebbins has written a number of articles involving guns, crime, and statistics. The numbers he cites are usually correct. They are from sources such as the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.Unfortunately, it is easy to make errors if you do not understand how the numbers are generated. It appears to be the reason for the laughable numbers in Samuel’s most recent article claiming “Gun Sales are Collapsing in Illinois.” In Illinois, gun sales are falling even faster than they are nationwide....

CHICAGO -- At least 38 people have been shot, sevenfatally, in weekend shootings across Chicago, police said. About 1:30 a.m. Saturday, two men were standing in a parking lot in the 7100-block of North Clark Street when a group of people fired shots at the pair, Chicago police said. One man, 37, was shot in the chest and taken to Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston, where he died, police said. The other man, 36, was shot in the abdomen and back and taken to the same hospital in critical condition, police said. About 30 minutes later, a 30-year-old man was...

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Major developments surfaced Thursday into the 40-year-old investigation into the Tylenol murders in the greater Chicago area. CBS 2 Chicago learned that investigators travelled to the Boston area this week to re-interview the man considered a suspect in the seven deaths. James Lewis was never charged with the murders, but he was convicted of trying to extort $1 million from Johnson & Johnson in the days after the cyanide-laced pills showed up on store shelves. The CBS 2 Investigators began re-examining the case back in April; reporter Brad Edwards travelled to Massachusetts last month to try to...

Following Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s call to send Illinois Republican candidate Darren Bailey “back to the farm,” the Republican nominee fired back, calling on the Democrat mayor to get off her “elitist high horse” and “remember who puts food on your plate.” In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News on Sunday, state senator and Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey, who is a third-generation farmer, stated his intention to “restore” the Prairie State in light of the “mess” created by Democrat leaders. “Mayor Lightfoot, I’ll go back to my farm after I clean up the mess you and [Gov.] J. B....

At least two people were shot in separate incidents in the Loop as revelers filled Chicago’s downtown area to celebrate Mexico’s Independence Day. At times, members of the crowd overwhelmed Chicago police, threw bottles and other objects at officers, and even tried to pull some cops from their patrol cars. Videos uploaded to the Citizen App showed people climbing on top of a CTA bus to wave Mexican flags. A sports car caught on fire outside the Roosevelt Red Line station while other souped-up vehicles spun donuts in downtown intersections. ...

The People Who Play By The Rules PAC has released a chilling ad in which a Chicago woman’s scream echoes in her neighborhood as she is attacked in daylight. “On a Sunday afternoon in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood….” the ad’s introduction reads. The video depicts a woman briskly walking down a residential street during a pleasant day when a car comes to an abrupt stop, three men jump out and attack her. In the beating the attackers took the woman to the ground, kicking her as she wails. “How much worse does it have to get?” the ad reads at its...

Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso, a Republican, told Fox News that the migrants are being used as "political pawns" by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker. "As is my understanding, this hotel, about a year ago, when refugees came in from Afghanistan, apparently accepted several either through faith-based or charitable organizations, but now the state assumes they can just send migrants… this isn’t about them, the migrants is fine, they’re being used as political pawns by the governor and mayor," Grasso said. Grasso also said it's hypocritical for Lightfoot to be complaining about Texas Governor Greg...