Illinois

Terrorism charge against SUV driver in suburban Chicago mall

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. (AP) — A man accused of driving an SUV through a suburban Chicago shopping mall was charged Sunday with a state terrorism and ordered held without bond.

Police in Schaumburg said the Cook County state’s attorney had authorized the charge against Javier Garcia, 22, of Palatine, Illinois. Garcia also was charged with felony criminal damage to property.

Police: Suspect in cop shooting, bike attack captured

CHICAGO (AP) — A man suspected of shooting and wounding a Chicago police officer on Saturday and of being the bicyclist who shot a woman in broad daylight near downtown days earlier has been captured, police said.

Officials announced at a press conference that Michael Blackman, 45, was apprehended following an armed encounter with officers. The individual was shot by police and no officers were injured, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said, adding that a gun was recovered from the scene.

Jailed Russian arms smuggler Bout wants to write book, says wife

MARION /Illinois/, September 20. /TASS/: Viktor Bout, a Russian national serving out a sentence in the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, plans to write a book about his trials and tribulations, his wife, Alla Bout, told TASS on Thursday. His spouse along with his daughter Yelizaveta were allowed to see him on Wednesday and Thursday for the first time since he was sentenced in 2012.

Trial to begin in 9-year-old’s killing that shocked Chicago

CHICAGO (AP) — It stands as one of Chicago’s most horrific crimes, in large part because of small details that are impossible to shake: The promise of a juice box that lured the 9-year-old boy off a playground and into an alley, and the basketball he dropped when he was shot and killed there.

Jury selection will begin Friday in the murder trial of two of three men charged with carrying out the November 2015 attack on Tyshawn Lee, a smart fourth-grader who prosecutors say was killed by gang members to send a message to his father, a purported member of a rival gang.

Ex-US congressman set to challenge Trump

26 Aug 2019; MEMO: US President Donald Trump will face a primary challenge ahead of the fall 2020 elections from a former one-term congressman, the ex-lawmaker announced on Sunday, Anadolu reports.

Making the announcement on U.S. television network ABC, Joe Walsh, former Republican congressman for the Midwestern state of Illinois, accused Trump of incompetence, adding that he “lies virtually every time he opens his mouth” and “stokes bigotry.”

Jewish groups speaking out against Trump immigration policy

CHICAGO (AP) — From fiery protests outside detention centers in Texas, New Jersey and Rhode Island to a sit-in that blockaded an Amazon store in New York, a fledgling coalition of liberal Jewish groups is increasingly making itself heard as it fights the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Using the social media tag #JewsAgainstIce, the movement has likened President Donald Trump’s actions on asylum and incarceration to what went on as the Holocaust was taking shape.

As Trump expands deportation powers, immigrants prepare

CHICAGO (AP) — A sweeping expansion of deportation powers unveiled this week by the Trump administration has sent chills through immigrant communities and prompted some lawyers to advise migrants to gather up as much documentation as possible — pay stubs, apartment leases or even gym key tags — to prove they’ve been in the U.S.

But the uncertainty about how the policy might play out has created confusion and made it harder to give clear guidance to immigrants. Attorneys and immigrant rights groups gave conflicting advice about whether to carry these documents.

Segregation among issues Chicago faces 100 years after riots

CHICAGO (AP) — On a hot July day in 1919, a black 17-year-old swimming in Lake Michigan drifted in a dangerous direction — toward the white section of a Chicago beach.

White beachgoers, angry at Eugene Williams’ intrusion, hurled rocks at him. One struck him in the head, and he drowned. And so began a week of riots that would kill 38 people — 23 of them black, 15 of them white — and leave more than 500 people injured, according to the Chicago Historical Society.

Ex-Illinois student's life spared in killing of scholar

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) — A former University of Illinois doctoral student was spared the death penalty Thursday and sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and killing a 26-year-old scholar from China. Her parents, disappointed he was not sentenced to death, publicly begged for the killer to reveal where her remains are so they can be returned home.

Jury deliberates death penalty in Chinese scholar’s slaying

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) —  Jurors began deliberating but didn’t reach a decision Wednesday on whether a former University of Illinois doctoral student should be put to death for the brutal slaying of a scholar from China he abducted at a bus stop.

Brent Christensen’s attorney, Elisabeth Pollock, teared up earlier in the day during closing arguments in the penalty phase in U.S. District Court in Peoria, at one point walking behind her 30-year-old client and putting her hands on his shoulders.

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