Afternoon Briefing: Man charged in connection with stolen violin on Blue Line train
Democratic state Sen. Emil Jones III told a federal jury in his bribery trial today that the FBI asked him to wire up on the CEO of Roseland Community Hospital as part of a cooperation bid that could keep Jones from being charged.
Jones, who is on the witness stand for a third day, made the disclosure during direct examination by his attorney, Victor Henderson, who was asking about several meetings Jones had with federal investigators after he was first confronted in September 2019.
Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit chicagotribune.com/latest-headlines and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices.
South Side man charged in connection with stolen violin on Blue Line train
A Douglas neighborhood man was charged with robbery and accused of taking an expensive violin on a CTA Blue Line train, Chicago police said. The violin was taken around 9 p.m. April 11 at the Clark and Lake station. Read more here.
Whiting approves sale of former Mascot Hall of Fame to bp Whiting Refinery
The Whiting Redevelopment Commission approved a proposal from bp Whiting Refinery to purchase the former Mascot Hall of Fame building and surrounding land. Read more here.
Trump administration plans to end the IRS Direct File program for free tax filing
Barnes & Noble opening new Naperville location with the help of best-selling author
Northwestern and star Madison Taylor want to create 'something special' for 'Lacrosse Night in Chicago'
When Northwestern hosts No. 13 Michigan in an event it's calling 'Lacrosse Night in Chicago,' the Wildcats hope to set a program attendance record at Northwestern Medicine Field, also the temporary home of the football team in 2024 and 2025 as Ryan Field is rebuilt. Read more here.
Jazz bassist Matt Ulery returns to his roots with 'Mother Harp' and a release concert at Hungry Brain
Music pours out of Matt Ulery. Since moving to Chicago 25 years ago, the Rockford-born bassist, 43, has put out 15 albums of originals, a body of work that defies generalization. Read more here.
More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories:
What happens next after judge warns of possible contempt prosecution over deportation flights order
A federal judge's ruling that the Trump administration appears to have willfully violated his order to turn around planes of migrants headed for El Salvador increases the prospect of officials being held in criminal contempt of court and potentially facing possible prosecution.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 minutes ago
- Yahoo
This Woman Is Going Viral For Hilariously Explaining The Brutal Truth About The US's Student Loan Crisis
I doubt it'll come as a surprise to anyone under 45, but according to nearly "one in six adult Americans" has federal student loan debt, and the New York Times reports that millennials hold the bulk of that debt. Back in May, President Trump resumed collections on previously defaulted student loans, which had been paused since 2020. Combined with the government allowing loan servicers to report late payments to credit bureaus again (which had also been on pause), the New York Times said that millions of people have seen their credit scores drop, and "a record number of borrowers are [now] at risk of defaulting by the end of the year." Student loans have continued to be a point of contention politically as well, with many conservatives arguing against student loan forgiveness, saying it's akin to getting something for free. However, younger people contend that the loans are predatory, unaffordable, and feel impossible to pay off, sometimes even after they've been making regular payments for years. Zoë Tyler, aka thezolyspirit, recently went viral in a video where she jokingly laid out exactly what the student loan crisis looks like in reality. Zoë started out the video satirically, in a perfect mid-Atlantic accent, with a text overlay that says, "What boomers think the student loan crisis is...": "Oh, yes," she said, "Well, I, I know I said I would pay back those student loans, but I... I've decided I don't want to," she said with a smile. "I don't ever want to grow up. I want to stay a child forever." @thezolyspirit / Via Then, she switched immediately back to her normal speaking voice with a text overlay that says "What it actually is..." as she began imitating a one-sided phone call. "Hi, yes, um — so, I have my student loan pulled up here — I've been making the minimum payment on time for 10 years, and I now owe more than I took out. So I just… I was wondering what's that about?" she asked. @thezolyspirit / Via "The interest accrues faster than you can pay it off? Oh, that's…that's you guys are able to do that." "What is the interest, by the way? I can't… It's 13%? Okay. That makes sense, that…that it would be that." Then, Zoë begins a new conversation. "Hi! I just graduated, and I noticed that my student loans are way more than I originally took out. It was accruing interest while I was at school? Uh. Hmm. But it says the principle is more than I took [out]..." @thezolyspirit / Via "When I graduated, you combined the accruing interest into the principle, so now… I took out $55,000, and it's saying that it accrued $20,000 while I was at school. So now, instead of taking the 10% interest off of $55,000, you're taking 10% interest off of $75,000? Wow!" @thezolyspirit / Via The video ended with Zoë signing off the call. "All right, well, uh, thank you. What was your name, sir? One more time? Beelzebub? Okay, thank you." People in the comments were quick to back Zoë up, pointing out that they'd had similar experiences with their own loans. "I borrowed $17k and they want $60k back. They need to be fr lmao," said one person. "My husband, after paying for 13 years, checked his student loan breakdown. Turns out, of the 350$ a month he has been paying on time for 13+ years, only .16 CENTS a month goes toward the principle balance." "atp my student loans are an issue between the government and god." Others pointed out how much costs have changed since the baby boomers were in school. "Tuitions and Fees have gone up 133% since the 80s." U.S. News & World Report confirms this statistic, with the qualifier that it is in regard to in-state tuition and fees at public national universities, and is not adjusted for inflation. "My FIL [father-in-law] paid for his college and his living expenses for the entire year by working an entry level construction job in the summer. No way anyone could do that now-a-days. A summer job wouldn't even cover books and fees." The conversation made its way over to Twitter (X) as well, when the video was shared with the comment, "A TikTok that explains the student-loan crisis better than any politician or journalist can, in 93 seconds." Quoting a response to the original tweet, they also said, "This is not 'basic finance,' these are exploitative non-negotiable terms which makes this a form of predatory lending." "If you get a 7-year car loan and make the minimum payment every month, the loan will be paid off in 7 years... It's literally only student loans that are like this." Unsurprisingly, there were commenters who felt that borrowers were the ones responsible for their debt. "Crying about being responsible for your choices just shows how out of touch that generation is," said one person. "What this tik tok explains really well is that people didn't learn the right things in college." "Do not sign don't understand. Especially don't do that and then try to make it other people's problem." But others pushed back, pointing out that people took these loans out when they were still teenagers, usually with a promise that going to college would help them earn more money later. "Worst part is people will see this and say 'well you as a 17/18 y/o should have realized how predatory it was.'" "Telling 18 year olds that they have to go to college to be successful and not fully explaining to them what loans are like is diabolical." "a lot of us were just shuffled through a line and told to sign a sheet of paper so we could go to school, all with minimal explanation of any of it." And finally, this commenter summed it up best: "But make sure you pay them off whilst also buying a house, paying for a wedding, and having children all whilst earning proportionally less than they ever did because wages are stagnant, ok? You can do it if you just cancel your Netflix." You can see Zoë's full video below: @thezolyspirit / Via And now I have to know: What do you think? Are you still paying off student loans? Do you feel they should be forgiven, or at least reduced after a decade of payments? Let us know in the comments. And if you'd like to remain anonymous, you can use the form below.
New York Post
5 minutes ago
- New York Post
Ex-Gov. David Paterson backing Eric Adams for NYC mayor— after endorsing Andrew Cuomo in Dem primary
Former Gov. David Paterson is backing a new horse in the crowded field for New York City mayor — putting his support behind Eric Adams' bid to hang onto City Hall. The 55th governor of New York became the highest-profile Democrat to back the incumbent's re-election bid, after previously endorsing his successor in Albany, Andrew Cuomo, in the June Democratic primary for mayor. 'I'm here to stand for someone who has already run this city for nearly four years and has made huge changes over the past administrations,' Paterson said outside City Hall Wednesday, surrounded by more than two dozen Adams supporters. Paterson made his latest endorsement on Wednesday. Matthew McDermott Eric Adams has been polling in the single digits with his long-shot independent bid for mayor. stefano Giovannini 'At this particular time, in this moment where so many issues are occurring, so many difficulties are coming to this state … the person we need to protect us is Mayor Eric Adams,' he said. The endorsement comes just weeks after Paterson called for the candidates — GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa and independents Adams, Cuomo and lawyer Jim Walden — to unite behind one person as the best way to beat the frontrunner, socialist Zohran Mamdani, in the November election. Under the proposal, the contender who continues to campaign would be determined by an independent poll closer to the election or by leaders across Big Apple institutions. But Paterson said Wednesday he was dropping the idea, which Cuomo had publicly endorsed. 'It was an idea to generate conversation. None of the candidates seemed particularly interested, so I considered the issue to be mute,' he said. Cuomo has maintained his runner-up status behind Mamdani in a handful of polls over the last month, while Adams has been struggling to muster double-digit support, putting him in fourth place. Paterson has repeatedly spoken out against Mamdani, who shocked the political world when he won the Democratic nomination and gave Cuomo an electoral shellacking in the primary. 'It would kind of be like comparing a lit match to a forest fire,' Paterson said Wednesday, when asked why he was supporting Adams over the party's nominee. 'Mr. Mamdani has proposed some very interesting concepts and idea. The problem is that he can't really solve them unless he has the resources. And he never really discusses where he's going to get the resources from,' Paterson said. He compared the Queens assemblyman to lefty Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, whose popularity has dipped as the Windy City's budget woes worsen. 'We don't want to go through that. We don't want to have these situations where the government is falling apart and there's no leadership and nobody know what to do,' Paterson said. The endorsement is the latest shift for Paterson, who also worked Walden early on in the lawyer's independent campaign for mayor. Veteran political operative Bill Cunningham predicted that having the backing of Paterson — the state's first black governor who served from 2008 to 2010 — will help Adams and take a bite out of Cuomo's chances of winning the race. 'It will make a difference for Cuomo. His strategy rests on being the choice of moderate to liberal elderly voters of color,' Cunningham told The Post. 'David's endorsement of Adams is like the iceberg cutting a slit at the Titanic's waterline,' he said, 'and it may help Mamdani for the same reason. 'The questions for Adams' team is how can they use it to best advantage given his money problems.' Meanwhile Sliwa, who has a longtime personal and professional relationship with Paterson, thanked the ex-gov for not backing him — calling an endorsement from him the political 'kiss of death.' 'I have political vertigo from my husband-in-law David Paterson,' Sliwa told Politico. 'You went from Adams to Jim Walden to Cuomo, now you are back to Adams. Stay away from me. Say bad things about me! But please don't endorse me.' When asked about Sliwa's comments, Paterson fired back. 'Curtis Sliwa is a kiss of death.'
Buzz Feed
5 minutes ago
- Buzz Feed
This Senator Made A Very, Very Good Point About Trump's Weird Comment About Gold
A bunch of Donald Trump's new tariffs went into effect on August 7. But there's one thing that won't be hit with a tariff, and that's gold. Yep, gold is off the table! Some people pointed how that this could be because of all of the gold in the Oval Office. Other people compared him to an Austin Powers villain. And this person said, "I miss when the federal government wasn't a meme." But one reply to Trump's post is going more viral than the rest, and it's from Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. Here's what he said: "Trump could have cancelled tariffs on groceries, clothing, back-to-school supplies – any one of a number of things that would have reduced costs for American families. Instead, he chose gold." NextGen America responded to that comment, "Trumponomics, simplified: More golden ballrooms for him, more tariffs for the rest of us." Thoughts?
