Opinion & Comment
Comment: It's Just Life in the Big City...
A burning train car, a shooting under the Christmas lights, a killing in a doorway. Three tragedies close in space and time, the cause all the same. And no one with the sense to stop it.
Illinois Politics
Illinois State Politics from the Chicago Journal.
Opinion & Comment
Comment: The Bell Tolls Not for Madigan, but for Thee
The sound of a once-mighty machine is replaced by a resounding crack of a gavel, the final note in a symphony of corruption, patronage, and unchecked power that spanned more than half a century.
Chicago Journal
An Introduction to AI-Assisted Analysis in Illinois
Curious about how AI and humans can team up locally? Explore this deep dive on Illinois corruption as a real-world experiment. Hopefully, AI can help us unite data-driven analysis with creative understanding for a smarter, more transparent future. Either way, this is only the beginning.
Chicago Journal
Opinion & Comment: Let's Go, Brandon!
Contributor Wink Swindell cheers the Mayor's 6.6% approval crash, his $830M bond spree, and sanctuary city bravado. He urges the mayor to go all-in, ignore fleeing business and debt, and embrace a raucous spiral into the People's Republic of Chicago's glorious unknown. As long as he gets a piece...
Illinois News
Supreme Court upholds cash-free bail in Illinois, takes effect in September
Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis ordered that the halt on the law be lifted 60 days after Tuesday's opinion, on Sept. 18, 2023.
Law
Illinois ban on cash bail in hands of state's Supreme Court
Brief arguments before the Supreme Court's seven justices in Springfield on Tuesday largely centered on whether lawmakers have the authority to make such a sweeping change to pretrial procedures. The justices gave no timeline for when a decision in the case will be released.
Law
Illinois enacts mandatory paid leave 'for any reason'
Just Maine and Nevada mandate earned paid time time off and allot employees the freedom to decide how to use it, but Illinois’ law is further reaching, unencumbered by limits based on business size.
Chicago Journal
Board skirts concealed-carry law, drafts bill to fix issues
Attorney General Kwame Raoul's office declined comment in part because it expects lawsuits over the board's unwillingness to administer the expanded program.
Chicago Journal
Rep. Darin LaHood says FBI wrongly sought surveillance info about him
At a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee, LaHood pressed FBI Director Chris Wray to acknowledge that his agency and others had at times violated the rules on the use of data collected through electronic snooping.
Chicago Journal
Retired officers angry at board's delay on gun-carry law
The ILETSB said conflicting laws render the board powerless to issue CCL's to sheriff's deputies who worked the jails or monitored courtrooms. But it waited until Jan. 11 — more than a week after the law's effective date — to seek an opinion from the attorney general as to how to proceed.
Law
Illinois gun-ban incites challenges to legislative shortcuts
The proposal that became the weapons law was introduced more than a year ago as an Insurance Code change specifying duties and contractual obligations between a public adjuster and an insurance-coverage holder.
Chicago Journal
NRA sues over Illinois ban on semiautomatic weapons
The powerful NRA joined a parade of gun-rights activists seeking to toss out the newly minted prohibition on dozens of rapid-fire pistols and long guns, as well as large-capacity magazines or attachments.