Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
A 22-year-old central Illinois man who was arrested and detained after posting online pictures of himself burning an American flag has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to have the state's flag desecration law declared unconstitutional. Such state laws are already invalid after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled separately, in 1989 and 1990, that flag burning and other forms of damage are constitutionally protected free speech.
Illinois' financial crisis is being handed off from one set of lawmakers to another this week - a problem that, at 18 months, is the nation's longest-running budget stalemate. The key players: The conservative businessman-turned-governor Bruce Rauner and Michael Madigan, the old-school Democratic House speaker whose decades at the helm has made him a Capitol institution.
Under mounting pressure to free convicts as a last act, President Barack Obama is planning at least one more batch of pardons and commutations before leaving office in two weeks, but don't expect many famous offenders to make the list. The list of bold names appealing to Obama for compassion in his final weeks includes accused leaker Chelsea Manning, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Army Sgt.
His last presidential vacation behind him, Barack Obama is entering the closing stretch of his term, an eleventh-hour push to tie up loose ends and put finishing touches on his legacy before handing the reins to President-elect Donald Trump. Obama returns to Washington at midday Monday from Hawaii with less than three weeks remaining in his presidency.
By The Associated Press Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer says he expects President-elect Donald Trump will boldly use Twitter to make major policy announcements.
The temporary Illinois budget plan agreed to last summer expires with the new year. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrats who control the General Assembly have hardly talked about how to replace it.
In this July 15, 2011 file photo, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich arrives at the federal courthouse in Chicago. Blagojevich is asking a U.S. appeals court to nullify his 14-year prison term and order a third sentencing hearing.
Almost nine years ago, then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama in giving his campaign-defining "More Perfect Union" speech set what many hoped would be the course to a new United States. Read More
Question the timing all you want, but last week's legal filing by Attorney General Lisa Madigan to stop paying state employee wages without an official appropriation is long overdue and is completely consistent with a 2016 Illinois Supreme Court ruling and with her opposition to a similar lawsuit brought by social service providers. Monday, January 30, 2017 On a fairly regular basis back in the day, state Sen. Barack Obama would walk up to the Senate press box and bum cigarettes off me.
Imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is seeking a presidential commutation of his 14-year sentence on a corruption conviction. U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman Dena Iverson said Friday the department has received a petition for commutation from Blagojevich.
The logo of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA is seen at a gas station in Caracas, Venezuela December 23, 2016. A flag bearing the logo of Tradequip is pictured at its headquarters in Maracaibo, Venezuela April 2, 2016.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's decision to release thousands of pages of private emails does not end a dispute in Illinois about public access to such emails from him and other officials when they deal with government business. Emanuel announced late Wednesday that he had settled a lawsuit by a government watchdog group over emails from his personal accounts, but it allows him and his personal lawyer to decide which emails are public records and which are not.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel turned over about 2,700 pages of emails Wednesday as part of a settlement with the Better Government Association, which had sued for the mayor's communications about official business on his personal email accounts. A Chicago Tribune suit on similar issues, filed before the BGA suit, remains unsettled.
Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is asking a U.S. appeals court to nullify his 14-year prison term and order a third sentencing hearing, with a lawyer arguing on his behalf that the Democrat's model behavior behind bars and other factors justified a reduction in his sentence. Attorneys for the Chicago Democrat filed the appeal late Tuesday night with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Illinois House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, speaks to Democratic lawmakers while on the House floor during a session at the Illinois State Capitol. The top Illinois House Republican claimed "tension is a lot stronger" in Springfield since the election, in part because Democrats are upset Republicans picked up seats.
House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is part of the Republican leadership working to repeal the Affordable Care Act as quickly as possible in January. Republicans in Congress are so eager to repeal the Affordable Care Act that some have vowed to get a bill to President-elect Donald Trump's desk on the day he takes the oath of office.
A dozen law enforcement officials in North Dakota are imploring President Barack Obama in a letter to send federal officers to help local police during protests against the $3.8 billion Dakota Access oil pipeline, citing costs, fatigue and a growing fear of vigilante justice. The officials asked Obama for 100 Border Patrol agents and members of the U.S. Marshals Service Special Operations Group, along with an unspecified amount of financial assistance, saying they've been "completely and utterly abandoned" by the federal government.
Industry leaders on Monday urged President-elect Donald Trump to make approval of the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline a "top priority" when he takes office next month, while opponents who have protested the project for months vowed to stay put on their North Dakota encampment despite harsh wintry weather and a tribal leader's call to leave. The moves come after the Army Corps of Engineers declined to issue a permit for the $3.8 billion pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in southern North Dakota near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
Industry leaders are urging President-elect Donald Trump to make approval of the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline a "top priority" when he takes office next month, while opponents who have protested the project for months are vowing to stay put on their sprawling North Dakota encampment despite harsh winter weather and a tribal leaders' call to leave. The moves come after the Army declined to issue a permit for the $3.8 billion pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in southern North Dakota near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.