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Seven people were killed and at least 41 others were shot in violence that plagued Chicago over Father's Day weekend. Six of the fatalities and 13 other shootings occurred overnight Saturday leading into Father's Day, including the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old boy. On the Southwest Side, five people were shot, one fatally, in two shootings in the Little Village neighborhood.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to start reducing health insurance coverage next year for more than 30,000 retired city workers and begin shifting them to President Barack Obama's new federal system. The move is aimed at saving the city money Once the phaseout is complete, those retired workers would have to pay for their own health insurance or get subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. The city-subsidized coverage is particularly important to retired workers who aren't yet eligible for Medicare Henry Bayer, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, said the uncertainties of the...

The White House is playing a larger role in developing the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill than its supporters publicly admit, according to a forthcoming article in The New Yorker. “‘No decisions are being made without talking to us about it,’ the official said of the Gang of Eight negotiations … ‘This does not fly if we’re not O.K. with it,’” a senior Obama official told author Ryan Lizza for the pending article. White House officials also believe the emerging bill will be a huge success for President Barack Obama.

If ever there was a region where incumbent Republican governors can experience the great GOP gubernatorial apocalypse, it is the upper Midwest. Three of the races involve Republican incumbents who rode the Republican wave of 2010 into office. They are Rick Snyder in Michigan, John Kasich in Ohio and Scott Walker in Wisconsin. That potential loss of three Governor’s offices may be mitigated by a Pat Quinn Democratic loss in Illinois. The problem is that Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin are less red than Illinois is certainly blue.

Seven people were killed and at least 30 others were shot in violence that plagued Chicago over Father's Day weekend. Six of the fatalities and 11 other shootings occurred overnight Saturday leading into Father's Day, including the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old boy. On the Southwest Side, five people were shot, one fatally, in two shootings in the Little Village neighborhood.

ModMark wrote: One of the coal plants shut down in Chicago was built ~90 years ago. While upgraded in the 1950's. it still did not meet EPA standards before Obama was elected. These plants were grandfather in when the clean air act was past. These ancient relics should have been converted to natural gas long ago.Do you really want to live next to one of these ancient plants? –in response to Obama Promise Kept: Coal Plants to go Bankrupt with New EPA Carbon Cap Dear Comrade Mark, The building was built 90 years ago, but the actual power plant generating electricity is considerably...

Lawyers for Jesse Jackson Jr., in asking a judge for a lenient sentence, are arguing that his lavish spending sprees — paid for by money looted from his campaign fund — were tied to his bipolar disorder. The attorneys also are pleading for a shorter sentence by arguing that Jesse Jackson Jr. will “unlikely” be able to relate to a prison psychiatrist and as a consequence, his mental health may suffer. “It is unlikely that Mr. Jackson will be able to establish a trusting relationship with a Bureau of Prisons psychiatrist quickly enough to maintain his progress toward improved mental...

Chicago Public Schools says its plan to close 50 schools and programs means that it will have to lay off nearly 850 workers. The number released Friday includes about 550 teachers along with teacher assistants, bus aides, clerks, custodians and security officers. CPS says some of those workers will be eligible to reapply for other jobs. They will be notified in mid-July.

Car burglars appear to be using a new high-tech device that allows them to disable alarm systems and quickly enter vehicles. Law enforcement agencies are stumped as to how they can prevent the auto break-ins.

The university's Stritch School of Medicine not only intends to waive legal residency as an admissions requirement for applicants but aims to offer a financing plan through a state agency

Homeland Insecurity: The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won't snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are. That's right, the government's sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized. Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents.

INFORMATIONAL ALERT - What's in the CCW Bill? The concealed carry bill, HB0183 (as amended), which passed through the Senate and House by overwhelming majority, is now waiting for Governor Quinn's signature. Please keep in mind that the Governor has not signed the bill, it is not yet law. He still may Veto the bill, or he may use an Amendatory Veto. Since no one knows what the Governor will do, the synopsis of the bill will not be valid if the Governor vetoes it or uses an Amendatory Veto. Many of you have been asking what the bill contains...

<p>WASHINGTON -- As soon as the Constitution permitted him to run for Congress, Al Salvi did. In 1986, just 26 and fresh from the University of Illinois law school, he sank $1,000 of his own money, which was most of his money, into a campaign to unseat an incumbent Democratic congressman. Salvi studied for the bar exam during meals at campaign dinners.</p>

...SYNOPSIS... A SIGNIFICANT SEVERE WEATHER OUTBREAK APPEARS INCREASINGLY LIKELY ACROSS PORTIONS OF THE UPPER MIDWEST/LOWER GREAT LAKES FROM THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH THIS EVENING. INTENSE STORM DEVELOPMENT IN A VERY UNSTABLE AIRMASS...COINCIDENT WITH A COMPACT AND INTENSIFYING SURFACE LOW SHOULD RESULT IN NUMEROUS DAMAGING WIND EVENTS AS WELL AS SCATTERED...POSSIBLY STRONG TORNADOES. ...ERN IA/NRN IL/NRN IND/NWRN OH AND ADJACENT AREAS OF EXTREME SRN WI AND SWRN LOWER MI...

Ingredients are coming together across parts of the Midwest and Ohio Valley that could potentially trigger a derecho on Wednesday into Wednesday night. While it isn't exactly a certainty whether or not a derecho will form, some of the cities and towns most at risk include Chicago, Ill.; Columbus, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Aurora, Ill.; Dayton, Ohio and Davenport, Iowa, to name a few. Strictly speaking, a derecho is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. These showers and thunderstorms produce wind damage over a large swath of land. While...

6/9/2013 Arlington Heights man, police in dispute over confiscating his guns By Melissa Silverberg Arthur Lovi sat down with a therapist one day last August to talk about some things that were bothering him. He had high blood pressure, and his physician suggested he talk to someone. He already spoke to a VA psychiatrist once a month — he has persistent memories from his days as an Air Force crash rescue helicopter pilot in the 1960s — but he agreed. He'd been through a lot lately and figured it couldn't hurt to get some of it out. "I felt like...

(CNSNews.com) - Cardinal Francis George, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago, asked in a column published Sunday whether faithful Catholics are now to be excluded from working in the newspaper industry because of their beliefs. "Are Catholics to be unwelcome in the editorial offices of major newspapers?" he asked. In the same column, Cardinal George said that President John F. Kennedy started the problem of Catholics who act according to their faith being shunted out of the public life of the nation when he told a group of ministers during his 1960 presidential campaign that they did not need "to...

The bill permitting the concealed carrying of weapons that passed in the closing days of the Illinois General Assembly spring session includes provisions that create a bad legislative precedent and public safety risks. Although the bill sailed through by wide margins, Gov. Pat Quinn should employ an amendatory veto to try to eliminate the bill’s worst parts. He should also revise his call for a June 19 special session, now set to deal only with pensions, so the Legislature can act on concealed carry as well. As now written, the bill preempts county and municipal governments from putting stronger limits...

As the North American natural gas boom continues, state legislators across the country have targeted hydraulic fracturing for new regulations, proposing a range of 50 bills involving bans, moratoriums and increased disclosure requirements, according to a new Colorado State University study. Much of the new legislation tries to address issues such as water use, air and water quality monitoring and fluids disclosure, as many non-industrial communities grapple with the impacts of hydraulic fracturing and the changes it brings. For example, Illinois passed new rules in May requiring drillers to publicly disclose the chemicals they use, and on water testing. And...

University of Chicago (UC) administrators permanently removed pews from an 88-year old chapel on campus in order to accommodate Islamic prayers, according to a local news report. Chicago NPR affiliate, WBEZ news, reported on May 23, the pews, which are now part of display at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago, were “removed in order to provide Muslim students a place to pray.” Literature describing the artwork that was created by UC Director of Arts and Public Life Theaster Gates, also describes the removal of the pews as symbol of religious tolerance. “The pews were recently removed from the...

Democrats continue to try to dismiss the evidence that Obamacare will dramatically increase the cost of insurance for people who buy it on their own. But on Thursday, the Ohio Department of Insurance announced that, based on the rates submitted by insurers to date, the average individual-market health insurance premium in 2014 will come in around $420, “representing an increase of 88 percent” relative to 2013. “We have warned of these increases,” said Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in a statement. “Consumers will have fewer choices and pay much higher premiums for their health insurance starting in 2014.”

Three days into her uphill campaign for the Republican nomination for Congress, Urbana attorney Erika Harold got a taste of what big-money politics is like today. Harold, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, for the GOP nomination in the 13th Congressional District that includes Champaign-Urbana and a big chunk of central Illinois to the southwest, saw her first campaign "tracker," an anonymous young man with a video camera who records every statement — hoping for a gaffe or maybe a flip-flop on a position — and other behaviors by a candidate. Sometimes, as in the case of the...

A day after federal prosecutors announced they will ask a judge to send his son, former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., to prison for four years and his daughter-in-law, former Ald. Sandi Jackson, for 18 months, the Rev. Jesse Jackson appeared at Rainbow PUSH on Saturday but said nothing about the prison future that may await them. But others attending the regular “Saturday morning forum” at Rainbow PUSH headquarters on the South Side said they worry about the Jacksons’ two children, ages 9 and 13. “I think it’s really unfortunate that both parents are going to be without their children...

Chicago's 3-year-old gun registry could go away as part of the concealed carry law state lawmakers recently passed, but few are publicly mourning the loss of a database once heralded as a key part of the city's gun control laws. The registry, put in place by then-Mayor Richard Daley after the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out Chicago's 1982 handgun ban, required people who wanted guns in Chicago to buy city permits and register the weapons with police. Gun rights advocates derided the registry and Chicago's municipal permit process as ineffective in curbing gun crime and an unfair burden for law-abiding...

The Illinois pension saga just keeps getting worse. In response to the state legislature’s failure to pass a pension reform bill before adjourning, Fitch downgraded Illinois’s bonds from A to A- earlier this week. On Thursday Moody’s joined the party, lowering the state’s rating from A2 to A3. S&P is now the only agency not to have downgraded the state, but it is issuing its own dire warnings. As Reuters notes, Illinois now has the lowest credit rating of any state in the country even without the S&P downgrade, and the worst rating in its history. The higher borrowing costs...

WASHINGTON — Prosecutors Friday recommended four years in prison for former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., following his guilty plea this year on criminal charges that he engaged in a scheme to spend $750,000 in campaign funds on personal items. The government suggested an 18-month sentence for Jackson's wife, Sandra, who pleaded guilty to filing false joint federal income tax returns that understated the couple's income.

Chicago's 3-year-old gun registry could go away as part of the concealed carry law state lawmakers recently passed, but few are publicly mourning the loss of a database once heralded as a key part of the city's gun control laws. The registry, put in place by then-Mayor Richard Daley after the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out Chicago's 1982 handgun ban, required people who wanted guns in Chicago to buy city permits and register the weapons with police. Gun rights advocates derided the registry and Chicago's municipal permit process as ineffective in curbing gun crime and an unfair burden for law-abiding...

The Illinois General Assembly sent Gov. Pat Quinn a concealed carry of firearms bill that embodies the art of compromise. In other words, nobody likes it. Pro-gun groups say the bill is too restrictive. They say it carves out so many places you can't carry a concealed weapon that it neuters the ability of law-abiding citizens to adequately protect themselves. Gun control advocates say the bill is too loose. They say it doesn't give law enforcement enough discretion to deny concealed carry permits. We're not crazy about the bill, either. We would have preferred a law modeled after New York's,...

In a debate on acceptance of same-sex marriage, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, remarked on the media bias in coverage of issues involving homosexuality. Speaking to an audience in Arizona, Bishop Paprocki said that a woman who worked at a parish where he had served in Illinois was killed because of her defense of Church teachings on homosexuality. Mary Stachowicz, a part-time parish secretary, was beaten, stabbed, and strangled by a man who resented her efforts to persuade him to avoid homosexual acts. “Mary’s murder was widely ignored by the media, despite the fact that she died as a...

“With all due respect, Senator, I don’t think this is an appropriate setting for me to discuss [this issue],” Holder replied during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing when Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., asked if the executive branch was conducting surveillance that would give “unique leverage” over lawmakers. Kirk replied that “the correct answer would be no, we stayed within our lane, and we did not spy on Members of Congress.” Holder assured Kirk that “there is no intention to do anything of that nature — that is, to spy on Members of Congress or to spy on the Supreme Court.”

A 16-year-old boy was one of two people shot dead and a 9-year-old boy riding in a car with his mother was among seven others wounded in separate shootings Wednesday on the city's South and Far South Sides. About 6:30 p.m., two boys, ages 16 and 15, were shot on the 5100 block of South Washtenaw Avenue in the Gage Park neighborhood, police Officer Amina Greer said.

For the former Miss America who just jumped into the race for Illinois’s 13th Congressional District, the Republican primary might be, well, a bit like a beauty pageant. She calls her opponent, an incumbent freshman, a “good person,” insists there’s no need for attacks, and says let the judges, no, make that the voters, decide. “I view this primary process as being very healthful to the party because we will be able throughout the campaign to debate the issues that are important to the party,” newly declared candidate Erika Harold told POLITICO, referring to her challenge of Rep. Rodney Davis...

ItÂ’s commencement season. College seniors across the country are donning mortarboards, getting misty-eyed and preparing to face the realities of President Barack ObamaÂ’s sparkling economic recovery. The Daily Caller is a little misty-eyed, too, because college students will soon disperse from campuses for a long summer, which likely means far fewer stories about stupid and otherwise outrageous occurrences on campus. The time is right, then, to celebrate the academic year that was. Here are the 20 stupidest, most outrageous and most cringe-worthy campus moments of 2012-13. Florida Atlantic University: Worst university in AmericaWhat an embarrassing year for Florida Atlantic. The...

The St. Charles City Council signed off Monday night on a plan by the St. Charles Police Department to sell old guns stored in the department's armory to gun dealers. After some discussion, the council voted 6-3 to sell about 20 guns, some recovered from criminals, to two dealers, who will then provide about $6,000 in credit for more equipment. Aldermen Jo Krieger, Maureen Lewis and Ed Bessner voted against the sale. Krieger said she wasn't given enough information before she previously voted yes in committee about what the proposal entailed. "I didn't fully understand they were to be sold...

A 33-year-old former Miss America says she plans to challenge first-term U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis in the 2014 Republican primary. Erika Harold announced her campaign Tuesday at Urbana High School. She grew up the Illinois city and recently moved back there from Chicago.

What same-sex marriage advocates won in the Illinois Senate on Valentine’s Day 2013 was just reversed. After weeks and months of hard work to accomplish what should have been easy, gay Democrat sponsor Greg Harris could not muster the votes, while Democratic Speaker of the House, Michael Madigan, did not even call for a vote to establish same sex marriage in Illinois. “Today a broad grassroots coalition of Illinois families of Faith of all creeds and colors took on all the Illinois political bosses from Washington to the Governor’s Mansion to Chicago’s City Hall who tried to pay back the...

Click Here! Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals seeking a 30-day delay of a mandate for the state to enact a concealed gun carry law. In a statement Monday, Madigan says she filed the motion in order to give Gov. Pat Quinn time to review the legislation passed last week. "The current stay of the Court’s mandate expires in less than one week, which significantly shortens the time set in the state Constitution to allow the governor to review legislation," said Madigan. "This request for an additional 30 days would allow...

Scandal: Before his 2010 letter urging the IRS to target conservatives, the Senate majority whip's 1996 campaign benefited from the targeting of his opponent by a Federal Election Commission official with a familiar name. Perhaps not surprisingly, the IRS scandal may have its roots in Illinois politics with the 1996 targeting of Illinois conservative Al Salvi by a familiar name, Lois Lerner, then head of the Enforcement Division of the Federal Elections Commission. That year, Democrat U.S. Rep. Dick Durbin and Republican State Rep. Al Salvi were locked in a battle for the U.S. Senate seat Durbin would eventually win....

ILLINOIS (WIFR) -- Lawmakers approved a bill to overturn the state's ban on concealed carry just days before the June 9th deadline. What's next for the bill is the governor's response, but ultimately the bill will become law because it's veto-proof. The bill would require gun owners to go through 16 hours of training and go through a background check in order to get a concealed carry permit. That permit will cost one $150. Gun owners won't be able to carry their firearms on trains, buses, parks, schools - including universities - and bars. The bill doesn't remove any current...

Today we start with a quiz. Two politicians, one black and one white, have a disagreement on an issue. One airs an opinion, and the other responds with a racial insult. What will happen next? A) The politician who used the racial insult will be roundly and widely denounced and forced to resign from office. B) Nothing. The answer is: It depends. It's impossible to determine the correct answer without knowing whether the epithet came from the white politician or the black politician. In a society that treats racism, correctly, as a grave offense, it shouldn't really matter. But apparently...

Illinois is going in the wrong direction on gun safety. At a time when gunfire claims life after life on city streets, when the horrors of mass killing after mass killing stun the nation, the Illinois Legislature has chosen to make it easier to let guns get into the hands of criminals. Gov. Pat Quinn has no choice but to veto this shameful legislation, though it cleared both houses in the General Assembly with veto-proof margins. On Friday, the Legislature passed a bill that would allow people throughout the state to carry concealed weapons. Local authorities would have no control...

A MESSAGE TO ISRA MEMBERS FROM ISRA PRESIDENT DON MORAN Fellow Members: As most of you know by now, a "concealed carry" bill passed both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly yesterday, the last day of the legislature's regular session. By doing so, Illinois has partially met its obligations as ordered by the federal appeals court. The next set of milestones includes getting the governor to sign the legislation and for the state police and other government agencies to implement the provisions of the new concealed carry law. The bottom line up front is that anyone who feels that the...

Illinois lawmakers approve concealed carry gun bill SPRINGFIELD --- State lawmakers today approved compromise legislation to set up rules on who can carry concealed guns and where they can be carried. Illinois is the last state in the nation not to have some form of concealed carry on the books, but a federal appeals court overturned the state’s long standing ban in December and gave lawmakers until June 9 to come up with regulations to allow it. "Don't let your constituents go off the cliff, this is a historic day for law abiding gun owners in this state," said sponsoring...

A gay couple alleges an innocent peck nearly caused them to be ejected from their cab onto a rain-slicked Kennedy Expressway earlier this week. Steven White and his boyfriend Matt McCrea were on their way from O’Hare Airport Thursday night, they tell CBS 2’s Brad Edwards. During the ride, McCrea “leaned over to look at something on the phone and then he leaned in to kiss me,” White recalls. McCrea says it was a closed-mouth kiss that lasted all of a second. It did not go over well with their cab driver, the two men say. It was 11:30 p.m....

Chicago’s murder rate is widely considered to be fueled by the drug wars that are fought between the city’s network of gangs. The homicide rate has been largely confined to the city’s south and west areas, African-American bastions of Chicago. And in 2012, the number of murders climbed, with homicides increasing by 16 percent over the previous year.

SPRINGFIELD --- The Illinois Senate today approved new version of legislation to give Illinoisans the right to carry concealed weapons as lawmakers try to get a bill to the governor's desk before today's midnight adjournment deadline. Chicago's ban on assault weapons would be kept intact, and concealed weapons would be banned from numerous sites, such as CTA and Metra buses and trains, casinos, government buildings and stadiums. The bill moved to the full Senate on an 8-6 vote of the Executive Committee and then quickly passed the full Senate 45-12-1. The bill needed 36 votes to pass instead of 30...

Illinois --(Ammoland.com)- Cliff or no cliff- that is the question. Today we should see revised language for HB0183. As all of you know we have been working very hard for concealed carry for a very long time.For me it has been 27 years and for others like Jim Vinopal it has been twice that long. Today at some time we will see language for an amendment to HB0183. We will all have to read the bill and decide if we can support it or not or just remain neutral . For me 27 years of work will have to be decided...

Allen West takes on Dem Rep. Bobby Rush ripping Sen. Mark Kirk's proposal for a mass arrest of gang members in Chicago.

WE NEED YOU! Lawmakers will be in Springfield one more day before they adjourn for the summer. Homosexual activists are pushing hard for a vote on SB 10, the same-sex "marriage" bill. They are planning a rally at the State House tomorrow at 11 a.m. We need you to join us to make a strong showing for natural marriage. If you are at all able to join us tomorrow morning at the Illinois State Capitol, please do so. We will meet in the Rotunda at 10 a.m. Everything comes down to what happens before the end of the day tomorrow....

By MICHAEL TARM Associated Press CHICAGO A federal judge has sentenced a Lebanese immigrant to 23 years in prison for placing a backpack he believed contained a bomb along a bustling street near the Chicago Cubs' baseball stadium. Sami Samir Hassoun was sentenced Thursday, little more than a month after the Boston Marathon bomb attack. The 25-year-old former baker pleaded guilty last year to dropping the backpack into a trash can outside a bar packed with late-night revelers across the road from Wrigley Field in 2010. FBI undercover agents had given him the bag.