Free Republic

A study shows that a non-invasive imaging test can help identify patients with coronary artery blockage or narrowing who need a revascularization procedure. Doctors use coronary CT angiography (CTA) to diagnose narrowed or blocked arteries in the heart. A CTA exam receives a score from mild (0–1) to severe (4–5). Patients with scores above 3 typically require medical treatments. Doctors have traditionally relied on invasive coronary angiography to image vessels and more recently have added fractional flow reserve (FFR) to identify and assess significant blockages. To assess CT-FFR, Dr. Randhawa conducted a retrospective study of patients who underwent coronary CTA...

Only days after one passenger shot and killed another aboard a West Side bus filled with other riders, Chicago Transit Authority union leader Keith Hill says he’s now open to seeing the Illinois National Guard provide security for the long-troubled system. “Since 2017, my call has been for extra security, a presence on the transit system,” Hill told The Center Square. “From a worker standpoint, the workers need to feel safe. When a person rides the system, they should feel safe getting from point A to point B.” Late Tuesday night, a 53-year-old man began waving a knife around while...

What Every Small Business Needs to Know About the Corporate Transparency Act The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is going into effect on January 1, 2024, impacting millions of small businesses across the U.S. Knowing the intricacies of this act and its potential impact is essential for small businesses. Otherwise, they may incur criminal or civil penalties for not filing or updating this report. What is the Corporate Transparency Act? Enacted in 2021, the CTA aims to combat illicit activity including tax fraud, money laundering, and financing for terrorism by capturing more ownership information for specific U.S. businesses operating in or...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A 25-year-old Chicago woman was charged in connection with a shooting on the CTA Red Line in the Loop over the summer, Chicago police said Tuesday. Latrice Harvey was charged with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery/discharge of a firearm after being identified as one of the suspects who, on Aug. 27, shot and seriously injured a 30-year-old woman, CPD said. The Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested her Monday near her home in the 3600-block of West North Avenue. Shots were fired on the train as it approached the State and Lake station at about...

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (TND) — A public records request from a parents' group which sought to keep schools open during the COVID-19 pandemic apparently shows the California Teachers Association (CTA) – one of the state's largest and most powerful teachers' unions – was spying on them and other similar groups seeking to reopen schools.

A California teachers union is being accused of spying on parents after emails reveal the union was conducting opposition research on parent groups fighting for schools to reopen during the height of the COVID pandemic. The California Teachers Association (CTA) employed a researcher who emailed a parent arm of the local union in April 2021, hoping to dig up information on the motives of San Diego County parents who had successfully sued the state to reopen schools a month earlier. According to emails obtained through a public records request, the union was seeking to uncover “some of the ideological leaning...

CHICAGO — The Chicago City Council narrowly approved Wednesday Mayor Lightfoot’s plan to handout prepaid gas and mass transit cards to Chicago residents. The vote was 26 to 23.

When Quinton Joiner stabbed a CTA worker in the neck on a Loop train platform in August, all of the corporate news outlets ran stories. But only CWBChicago followed the case to report that prosecutors only charged Joiner with a misdemeanor and then settled the case less than a month later with a sentence of probation. On October 16, we exclusively reported that Joiner, still on probation for the CTA stabbing, was arrested again after she walked into a wedding ceremony in Millennium Park and allegedly brandished a knife to steal a woman’s purse. Once again, she was only charged...

A Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) worker is petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the union dues he was forced to pay must be returned, thanks to the 2018 Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union (AFSCME) decision. Benito Casanova was forced to pay dues to the local chapter of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) that represents CTA workers. He is represented by attorneys for the National Right to Work Legal Foundation (NRTWLF). The Court held in Janus that public sector employees who do not wish to join a union cannot...

It's hard to figure out the back story for this caught-on-video moment but one thing is certain, that CTA driver isn't someone to mess with. The eight-second video is just long enough to make you cringe and yell, "damn!" And, yes, someone on Twitter re-dubbed the video with the perfect audio.

In the wake of Labor Day, there might be at least one union we want to bid farewell to. The California Teachers Association (CTA) does little to protect its most vulnerable members, former CTA member Rebecca Friedrichs averred in an appearance at the Heritage Foundation last month. Friedrichs is currently a fellow at the State Policy Network. When novice teachers get laid off under the "last in, first out" rules that the unions pressed for, the CTA does nothing more than show these unemployed teachers how to file for unemployment benefits. Moreover, the smallest portion of the union dues that...

CHICAGO (CBS) –A 63-year-old Chicago man was charged Tuesday with using an illegal device to get some peace and quiet on the CTA. CBS 2’s Audrina Bigos reports it isn’t the first time the man has been accused of jamming cell phones and lots of complaints about dropped calls raised some eyebrows. With a ball cap and business casual attire, the certified public accountant Dennis Nicholl walked out of jail after being charged with a felony for use of a signal jamming device. Keegan Goudie says the device, “stuck out like a sore thumb” so much so that he and...

When Dorval R. Carter Jr. returned to the CTA last month as the transit agency’s president, he had to temporarily give up a sweet pension deal that had paid him three-quarters of a million dollars in just five and a half years. Taking advantage of a little-known early-retirement incentive offered by the CTA, Carter left his second stint with the agency in 2009 and started collecting a $137,229-a-year pension the same month he turned 52, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times .. Carter didn’t retire, though. He moved to Washington, D.C., to take a post as a top lawyer in...

A federal judge says he'll decide soon on whether the Chicago Transit Authority must let employees distribute campaign leaflets in break rooms that oppose Mayor Rahm Emanuel's re-election bid. U.S. District Judge Robert Dow began hearing testimony Wednesday on a temporary restraining order that would force the transportation agency to allow the materials in advance of the April 7 runoff election. Dow told attorneys he hopes to rule by noon Thursday. The Amalgamated Transit Union filed a lawsuit in Chicago federal court Tuesday accusing the CTA of violating its members' free-speech rights. It claims the CTA allowed the distribution of...

he California Teachers Association (CTA) has quietly started to prepare its members for life after extortion. It has put together a report titled “Not if, but when: Living in a world without Fair Share,” in which it acknowledges that the days of being able to extort teachers to bribe Democrats may be fast coming to an end. Automatic, compulsory union membership for teachers is being challenged in court and the thugs that run the state’s biggest teachers union can see the outcome will lead to an end of their cushy lives. They have prepared a slideshow outlining the “terrible consequences”...

Rebecca Friedrichs, a teacher and former member of the California Teachers Association, spoke at the event at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 12, 2014. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr) (CNSNews.com) – Teachers who left labor unions connected with their jobs said on Tuesday that they felt “bullied” for their opposition to compulsory membership and payment of dues that funded political activities. “We literally felt like little children being bullied on a playground,” Rebecca Friedrichs, a teacher and former member of the California Teachers Association, said at the event at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Friedrichs, who is also...

Half a Billion Dollars. That’s how much the California Teachers Association and the powerful Service Employees International Union have spent on California politics since 2000. The unions’ return on that “investment”? A legislature totally beholden to them for political support and campaign contributions. Here’s another mind-boggling number: Half a Trillion Dollars. That’s an estimate of the unfunded public pension liabilities racked up by California’s state and municipal governments due to overly generous pay and defined benefit pension plans lavished on unionized government employees. If you thought the bankruptcies of Stockton, San Bernardino, and Vallejo were entertaining, break out the popcorn...

Ten California teachers are suing to break one of the strongest iron triangles in American politics, where the taxpayers pay the teachers; the teachers’ union supports candidates and referenda, and that leads eventually to the teachers getting better pay, benefits and working conditions. A civil rights law firm filed a federal law suit April 30 on behalf of 10 California teachers and the Christian Educators Association International challenging the state’s closed shop law that has them contributing to support political activity they opposed. "Individual teachers have a constitutional right to decide for themselves whether to join a union and financially...

The Chicago Transit Authority, one of the largest employers in Chicago, has a dramatic racial imbalance in its workforce, records show. Data obtained by WND through a Freedom of Information Act request reveals that whites and Hispanics are vastly underrepresented in the Chicago Transit Authority workforce.

Message for wealth-bashing millionaire actor Ed Asner: Man up and take responsibility for lying to America's schoolchildren. Confronted by a producer for Fox News Channel's "The Sean Hannity Show" this week, the left-wing celebrity claimed he couldn't remember "a thing (he) said" on a vile propaganda video produced and published by the California Federation of Teachers. Asner narrated the unforgettable eight-minute anti-capitalist screed geared toward children. Think Occupy Wall Street meets Sesame Street. "Things go downhill in a happy and prosperous land after the rich decide they don't want to pay taxes anymore," Asner warbles in a folksy grandpa voice....