Author: staff

Under the state legislation creating a casino license for the south suburbs, the host community will keep 2% of adjusted gross receipts, or money wagered after winning bets are paid, while 3% will be divvied up among another 42 towns. In the example of the Homewood/East Hazel Crest site, they would share the 2% take.

Under the state legislation creating a casino license for the south suburbs, the host community will keep 2% of adjusted gross receipts, or money wagered after winning bets are paid, while 3% will be divvied up among another 42 towns. In the example of the Homewood/East Hazel Crest site, they would share the 2% take.

“We’re asking people to spell out how much they want,” Noormohamed said. “We’re asking artists to think collaboratively as well … with other artists, with community organizations. The idea here is to bring these pieces together. We’re not limiting this as far as art goes. It’s open to visual arts, conceptual arts, performing arts; we’re really focusing on bringing the community out through activation events. So, there can be something where an artist creates a physical piece, but also has a plan for bringing community out at a celebration to unveil the event or to have some kind of educational event or performance around that piece as well. And really, I think that thinking of art as a not just a unifying element, but a gathering space was also really important to us because it sparks that conversation. We want to have citywide conversation on climate.”

— Jussie Smollett tells police he was attacked by two men in downtown Chicago at 2 a.m. The actor says the men used racist and homophobic slurs, wrapped a rope around his neck and poured an “unknown substance” on him. Police say Smollett, who is Black and gay, told detectives the attackers also yelled he was in “MAGA country,” an apparent reference to President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan that some Trump critics call racist and discriminatory.

I wanted to serve. We’re at a pivotal point in our country: COVID has exposed and exaggerated big challenges we’re facing, but they’ve been building for decades. I agree with President (Joe) Biden that this is a country that can do absolutely anything … if we truly try. Being a citizen is an active job, though, and I wanted that quality of citizenship to be a bigger part of the way I spend my time. This fellowship struck me as an incredible opportunity to use the skills that I’ve developed in my career, which has mostly been in the private sector, and directly apply them to this great American experiment. I want my whole career to have impact. It’s a unique kind of impact you can have through the work of the federal government. There are so many ways in which the federal government interacts with we the people and I wanted to more practically understand how it actually works, so I can ideally help, in some small way, to make it work better in creating positive impact in the daily lives of people. When I return to my work outside the government, I want to be a good partner both in holding the government accountable, but also in helping the government have the impact that it wants to have on the lives of Americans and on people around the world. I realized that given where I am in my career, this fellowship was a really unique way to contribute. I’m not afraid to roll up my sleeves and do the work. I credit that mentality to growing up in Illinois.

Benson read a portion of the letter issued to the Rev. Wheeler Parker, Jr., Till’s cousin and best friend, who was in the Mississippi house when Till was kidnapped in the middle of the night: “In 2017, professor Timothy Tyson (with the publication of “The Blood of Emmett Till”) alleged that Carolyn Bryant, now Carolyn Donham, the wife of one of the confessed murderers and a witness to events leading up to the murder, had in an interview with him recanted previous accounts she had given of the circumstances surrounding Mr. Till’s murder. In response, the Dept. of Justice and the FBI examined whether Carolyn Bryant had recanted and if so, whether she had information that would allow prosecution of any living person, including Carolyn Bryant herself. Following the exhaustive, multiyear investigation, which included fully reviewing that new evidence and examining the evidence gathered from an earlier investigation, we regret to inform you that for the reasons explained more fully below, we have not uncovered sufficient evidence to support a federal prosecution.”

Webb said prosecutors have overwhelming evidence corroborating that the two key witnesses, brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, told police the truth about Smollett’s plan to pay them to commit the hoax beating, yell racial and homophobic slurs, pour bleach on him and put a makeshift noose around his neck.

In this provided photo, the Alkhafajis family, from left to right: Jay, Rasha and their dog, Ganosh, Ali, Mousa and their dog, Hero pose for a picture at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Thousands of Airbnb hosts have agreed to house refugees as part of the online lodging marketplace’s philanthropic program to provide emergency temporary housing to those who need it. (AP)

An Amazon headquarters building is shown on the company’s corporate campus in downtown Seattle, Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021. Amazon Web Services suffered a major outage Tuesday, the company said, disrupting access to many popular sites. The company provides cloud computing services to many governments, universities and companies, including The Associated Press. (Ted S. Warren/AP)

Western governments, including the U.S., Australia and Britain, have increasingly criticized Beijing for human rights abuses against its Uyghur minority in the northwest Xinjiang province, which some have called genocide. They have also spoken out against Beijing’s suppression of democratic protests in Hong Kong. Rights groups have called for a full-blown boycott of the Beijing Winter Games.