Chicago mayor faces DOJ probe over allegations of racial hiring practices
CHICAGO, Ill. (WTVO) — The City of Chicago is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for potentially racially based hiring practices.
On Sunday, Mayor Brandon Johnson made remarks at the Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn, saying, 'It goes back to what Reverend Jackson would always share with me. Our people hire our people. And so one of the ways in which we're ensuring – let me back up for a second. Because there are some detractors that will push back on me and say 'the only thing the Mayor talks about is the hiring of black people.' No. What I'm saying is when you hire our people, we always look our for everybody else. We are the most generous people on the planet.'
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon sent a letter to the Mayor's Office, highlighting Johnson's remarks about the number of 'Black officials' in city government, in which he said, The deputy mayor is a Black woman… Department of Planning and Development is a Black woman… Infrastructure, deputy mayor is a Black woman… Chief operations officer is a Black man… Budget director is a Black woman… Senior advisor is a Black man.'
Dhillon stated in the letter, 'If these kind of hiring decisions are being made for top-level positions in your administration, then it begs the question whether such decisions are also being made for lower-level positions.'
The Mayor's Office released demographic information showing the breakdown of its office, showing Black 34.3%, White 30.5%, Hispanic 23.8%, and Asian 6.7%.
According to , 15th Ward Ald. Raymond Lopez reacted, saying, 'Hearing what he said and seeing this investigation, taking part, unfolding today, I think validates the concerns that many people have that this isn't a mayor for everyone.'
He added, 'The mayor has made it possible for Donald Trump to zero in on us, once again, to kick us, once again, and to use that as an excuse to take away money from us.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
25 minutes ago
- USA Today
Musk-Trump alliance craters
Musk-Trump alliance craters | The Excerpt On Friday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer has the latest on the feud between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump. Plus, Josh takes a look at how the feud might end. Here's what you need to know about this week's travel ban. The Department of Homeland Security is ending its Quiet Skies surveillance program. The Supreme Court sides with a straight woman in a 'reverse discrimination' case. USA TODAY National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise tells us about invasive Asian needle ants. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to podcasts@ Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Taylor Wilson: Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Friday, June 6th, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today, Musk and Trump take their feud to a new level. Plus, details on this week's travel ban. And let's talk about invasive ants. ♦ Elon Musk and President Donald Trump's beef reached a new level of personal jabs yesterday. I caught up with USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer for a look at their ramped-up feud. Hello, sir. Josh Meyer: How's it going, Taylor? Taylor Wilson: Good, good, Josh. Thanks for hopping on, on this. We've been keeping a close eye on this alliance between Trump and Musk for weeks, and now this relationship really seems to be blowing up. What's the latest as Trump threatens to cut billions in federal contracts with Musk's companies? Josh Meyer: Well, it's blowing up in spectacular fashion, Taylor. Trump has threatened to end billions of dollars in federal contracts that Musk's companies have or have had with the government. He's also seeking billions more in contracts through SpaceX, through his AI company, and so forth. Trump, in one of his tweets during this escalating feud, said, "The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's governmental subsidies and contracts." He said, "I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it". Of course, Musk replied, and it kept escalating from there. Taylor Wilson: Absolutely. We'll get to some of those escalations. He also responded to this threat over government contracts by saying SpaceX will pull back from some of its work, and we know SpaceX does a lot of work for the government. What can you tell us here? Josh Meyer: Musk said he's already going to be decommissioning their Dragon spacecraft, which does payload deliveries to the International Space Station. Musk has already taken steps, he says, to pull back some of the deliveries from his contracts, including to NASA and the Defense Department. I'm not sure he can do that. I assume there's going to be some lawsuits flying from both of these guys in terms of this, but this is really like two junior high school kids that break up, and they're just getting very personal and very nasty, and they're just threatening all sorts of things and won't talk to each other. Who knows where this is going to end? Taylor Wilson: Speaking of nasty, I know Musk has even alleged that Trump's name is listed in classified files related to Jeffrey Epstein. What did he say here? What happened here? Josh Meyer: Basically, Musk said, "Time to drop the really big bomb. Real Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day DJT." I mean, it's really getting quite nasty here. Taylor Wilson: Yeah. Well, Musk's various companies have benefited from billions in government contracts over the past two decades. We've touched on some of this. What would this Trump threat to pull billions mean for Elon's businesses if came to fruition? Josh Meyer: A lot of the billions in subsidies came in the early years. I mean, Tesla got hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars of subsidies early on. We're at the point now where, I think, it's 18 different companies or entities from within the Musk empire are getting some federal money, and it's not that easy to just pull them back. I mean, Trump is threatening to do this, but SpaceX delivers a lot of payloads to the International Space Station. It helps get satellites up into space. It's interwoven within the fabric of the US government in ways that would be hard to disentangle. I'm not sure how much of this is actually going to happen, but I can say that there's people that are watching X, as it's now called very, very carefully to see how much more they escalate. I know that there's people acting as intermediaries to try to get both of them to calm down, but we don't really know where this is going to end. Taylor Wilson: As you write, Josh, the political battlefield is littered with the scorched remains of some of Trump's previous allies who picked a fight with him or were on the receiving end of one. I'll ask you, could Musk be next? Josh Meyer: Well, I think he already is next. The question is how much. I talked to John Bolton, who is Trump's national security adviser, and that was fired by Trump/faced Trump's vindictiveness, too. I mean, he wrote a book called In The Room Where It Happened. Trump tried to get it shut down before it could be published, claiming that he was using classified materials. Tried to get him prosecuted. What Bolton said about the current spat, "It's going to end up like most mud fights do, with both of them worse off. The question is how much worse the country is going to be off as a result." Taylor Wilson: All right. I'm sure this is not the last of this. Josh Meyer covers domestic security for USA TODAY. Thanks, Josh. Josh Meyer: Thanks, Taylor. ♦ Taylor Wilson: We're learning more about President Trump's travel ban this week. On Wednesday, he signed the sweeping proclamation that will bar or partially restrict entry to the US from nearly 20 countries, citing national security concerns. The ban prohibits travel into the US for foreign nationals from Afghanistan, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Haiti, Iran, and many other countries, and he issued travel suspensions for a number of other nations. The White House emphasized that the ban targets countries with high visa overstay rates and that are deficient with regards to screening and vetting. There are similarities to Trump's controversial 2017 ban, which targeted several majority-Muslim nations and faced widespread protests and legal challenges. Former president Joe Biden repealed that ban in 2021, calling it a stain on our national conscience. This latest ban includes exceptions for lawful permanent residents, current visa holders, and certain visa categories, and individuals whose entry serves US national interests. Though, those qualifications were not specified. ♦ The Department of Homeland Security is ending its controversial Quiet Skies surveillance program for airline travelers, saying yesterday that since its existence, it has failed to stop a single terrorist attack while costing US taxpayers $200 million a year. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that the program had been improperly politicized and that under the guise of national security, the Quiet Skies watch list was used to target political opponents and benefit political allies. Noem said the Transportation Security Administration will maintain its critical aviation and security vetting functions, and the Trump administration will return TSA "to its true mission of being laser-focused on the safety and security of the traveling public". Quiet Skies was revealed in 2018 by the Boston Globe, which said the program deployed air marshals who fly armed and undercover to thwart terrorists, to track dozens of suspicious travelers daily. Lawmakers and civil rights groups have long criticized the program for potentially masking racial or religious discrimination in deciding who to focus on. Part of identifying suspicious travelers had relied on noticing behaviors like fidgeting or having a penetrating stare, which government watchdogs and some lawmakers have criticized in the past as an unreliable basis for probable cause. ♦ The Supreme Court agreed yesterday that a worker faced a higher hurdle to sue her employer as a straight woman than if she'd been gay. The unanimous decision could trigger a wave of reverse discrimination lawsuits, and it came amid a national backlash from some against DEI programs. The justices rejected a lower court's ruling that Marlean Ames could not sue the Ohio Department of Youth Services because she had failed to provide background circumstances showing the department was that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority. US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit said back in 1981 that, while white people are covered by the Civil Rights Act, it defied common sense to suggest that the promotion of a Black employee justifies an inference of prejudice against white coworkers in our present society, but the law itself, which bans discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, does not set different thresholds for members of minority and majority groups. You can read more with the link in today's show notes. ♦ Asian needle ants are spreading across the country. I spoke with USA TODAY National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise, to learn more about this invasive species. Thanks for joining me, Beth. Elizabeth Weise: Once more into the scary creatures beat. Taylor Wilson: Well, I love the scary creatures beat, Beth. Let's start with the basics, though. What are these ants? Elizabeth Weise: They're called Asian needle ants, and the problem with them is they look like a lot of other ants, so there's no way that they're Asian needle ants until they sting you. Then, you know. Taylor Wilson: Well, all right. What does happen when they sting you? Elizabeth Weise: They are carnivorous. They hunt prey, especially termites. They love termites. They're used to attacking. If they sting you... They're not very aggressive, but if you reach into where they live, they will sting you. First, you feel this intense sharp pain like somebody poked you with a needle. That lasts for a couple of minutes, and then it fades and you're like, "Cool, I'm fine." Then, five minutes later, you feel the same thing again as if you'd just been stung but you hadn't. The pain continues to reoccur in the same place. It disappears. It comes back. It disappears. It comes back. One of the researchers I spoke with said, for him, that pattern lasts for about two hours, but he has talked to people for whom the reoccurring pain can go up to two days. That's not the only thing. These ants also... They can cause severe allergic reactions in some people and in about 1% of the people that get stung, they can cause anaphylactic shock, which can kill you. Taylor Wilson: Well, in terms of how they got here and how they've spread in the US, tell us about this mystery behind this. Elizabeth Weise: It's a bit of a mystery. They were first recorded in the US in Georgia in 1932, but they must have been here before that because two years later in '34, they were being seen in three different states, mostly in the southeast. They live in mulch and loamy soil. It's thought they probably came over in the root ball of trees that were being imported. They're originally from Asia. They occur natively in China, Japan, and Korea. There's thought that they might've come over perhaps in the flowering cherry trees, the ones that we just had the blooms of and that are popular in Washington, that were very popular at the turn of the 20th century. A lot of them were imported from Japan. At that time, trees were transported with soil around their roots. We don't do that anymore, partly because it's dangerous because they can carry things with them. Taylor Wilson: I guess you don't want heaps of these in your back or front yard. What can folks listening at home do about these ants? Elizabeth Weise: Yeah. There's not a lot you can do to prevent their arrival. They're now in more than 20 states, mostly in the southeast, but they've been seeing as far north as Connecticut/as far south as Florida. If you leave them alone, they will be fine. They will not bother you. They're not like fire ants that will go on the rampage. But they do like to live in mulch and loam, so if you're out gardening... Or they also like to live in rotting logs, so if you've got a wood pile and you pick that up/up a log, you might disturb a nest. They're a little hard to deal with because they don't lay pheromone trails. Most ants lay a pheromone trail, and so, one, you can see where the nest is. You follow it back. And two, you can disrupt the pheromone trail and stop them. These don't. You have to look to see where their nest is. Then, you can put out bait. Protein bait works really well. That will kill off the nest. But all the entomologists I spoke with said, "Don't try and do just widespread spraying because it's not going to work because they're underground, and you'll kill a lot of things that you want in your garden and you probably won't kill the ants." Taylor Wilson: And they are invasive, right? These ants, Beth? What have they done ecologically? Elizabeth Weise: I mean, that's the other problem, is that like a lot of invasive species, when they show up someplace where they did not evolve, they out-compete other native ants. It turns out they will push out other ants. They'll eat a lot of insects that would've been there otherwise. Those are important... I mean, even termites. You don't want termites in your house, but you sure need termites out in the forest because they're what break down fallen logs. If you don't have termites, those logs don't necessarily break down as fast. Another thing is, this was interesting, a researcher who's now in Hong Kong did some work. There are ants that disperse seeds. They eat them, and they carry them away, and then the seeds get dispersed and plants and trees grow. The Asian needle ants out-compete those seed-dispersing ants. The Asian needle ants don't disperse the seeds. They just stay where they fall and they die. Then, they're seeing places where plants that should be spreading naturally are not. Taylor Wilson: All right. Elizabeth Weise is the national correspondent with USA TODAY. Thanks, Beth. Elizabeth Weise: You're so welcome. Thanks a lot. ♦ Taylor Wilson: Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan, and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Data fail to support Trump's justifications for latest travel ban
The Trump administration on Wednesday announced travel restrictions targeting 19 countries in Africa and Asia, including many of the world's poorest nations. All travel is banned from 12 of these countries, with partial restrictions on travel from the rest. The presidential proclamation, entitled "Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats," is aimed at "countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a full or partial suspension on the entry or admission of nationals from those countries." In a video that accompanied the proclamation, President Donald Trump said, "The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colo., has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted." The latest travel ban reimposes restrictions on many of the countries that were included on travel bans in Trump's first term, along with several new countries. But this travel ban, like the earlier ones, will not significantly improve national security and public safety in the United States. That's because migrants account for a minuscule portion of violence in the United States. And migrants from the latest travel ban countries account for an even smaller portion, according to data that I have collected. The suspect in Colorado, for example, is from Egypt, which is not on the travel ban list. As a scholar of political sociology, I don't believe Trump's latest travel ban is about national security. Rather, I'd argue, it's primarily about using national security as an excuse to deny visas to non-White applicants. Terrorism and public safety In the past five years, the United States has witnessed more than 100,000 homicides. Political violence by militias and other ideological movements accounted for 354 fatalities, according to an initiative known as the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, which tracks armed conflict around the world. That's less than 1% of the country's homicide victims. And foreign terrorism accounted for less than 1% of this 1%, according to my data. The Trump administration says the United States cannot appropriately vet visa applicants in countries with uncooperative governments or underdeveloped security systems. That claim is false. The State Department and other government agencies do a thorough job of vetting visa applicants, even in countries where there is no U.S. embassy, according to an analysis by the CATO Institute. The U.S. government has sophisticated methods for identifying potential threats. They include detailed documentation requirements, interviews with consular officers and clearance by national security agencies. And it rejects more than 1 in 6 visa applications, with ever-increasing procedures for detecting fraud. The thoroughness of the visa review process is evident in the numbers. Authorized foreign-born residents of the United States are far less likely than U.S.-born residents to engage in criminal activity. And unauthorized migrants are even less likely to commit crimes. Communities with more migrants -- authorized and unauthorized -- have similar or slightly lower crime rates than communities with fewer migrants. If vetting were as deficient as Trump's executive order claims, we would expect to see a significant number of terrorist plots from countries on the travel ban list. But we don't. Of the 4 million U.S. residents from the 2017 travel ban countries, I have documented only four who were involved in violent extremism in the past five years. Two of them were arrested after plotting with undercover law enforcement agents. One was found to have lied on his asylum application. One was an Afghan man who killed three Pakistani Shiite Muslim immigrants in New Mexico in 2022. Such a handful of zealots with rifles or homemade explosives can be life-altering for victims and their families, but they do not represent a threat to U.S. national security. Degrading the concept of national security Trump has been trying for years to turn immigration into a national security issue. In his first major speech on national security in 2016, Trump focused on the "dysfunctional immigration system which does not permit us to know who we let into our country." His primary example was an act of terrorism by a man who was born in the United States. The first Trump administration's national security strategy, issued in December 2017, prioritized jihadist terrorist organizations that "radicalize isolated individuals" as "the most dangerous threat to the Nation" -- not armies, not another 9/11, but isolated individuals. If the travel ban is not really going to improve national security or public safety, then what is it about? Linking immigration to national security seems to serve two long-standing Trump priorities. First is his effort to make American more White, in keeping with widespread bias among his supporters against non-White immigrants. Remember Trump's insults to Mexicans and Muslims in his escalator speech announcing his presidential campaign in 2015. He has also expressed a preference for White immigrants from Norway in 2018 and South Africa in 2025. Trump has repeatedly associated himself with nationalists who view immigration by non-Whites as a danger to White supremacy. Second, invoking national security allows Trump to pursue this goal without the need for accountability, since Congress and the courts have traditionally deferred to the executive branch on national security issues. Trump also claims national security justifications for tariffs and other policies that he has declared national emergencies, in a bid to avoid criticism by the public and oversight by the other branches of government. But this oversight is necessary in a democratic system to ensure that immigration policy is based on facts. Charles Kurzman is a pProfessor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The views and opinions in this commentary are solely those of the author.
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
A conversation with Beth Shelburne on ‘Blood Money'
The cost of defending lawsuits against individual officers and larger, class-action cases against the entire department has pushed ADOC's legal spending over $57 million since 2020. In the last five years, the department has spent over $17 million on the legal defense of accused officers and lawsuit settlements, along with over $39 million litigating a handful of complex cases against ADOC, including a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice over prison conditions. (Alex Cochran for Alabama Reflector) Journalist Beth Shelburne spent over a year investigating the Alabama Department of Corrections, pulling court documents, financial records and internal documents to track settlements over excessive force and what happened to those involved. In 'Blood Money,' a four-part series that ran on the Alabama Reflector last month, Shelburne revealed the state had spent tens of millions of dollars to settle litigation alleging assaults on inmates that led to hospitalizations, brain damage or death. Most of that money went to attorneys for corrections officers. Some officers at the center of multiple allegations excessive force received promotions afterward. Shelburne discussed the series with Louisiana Illuminator Editor Greg LaRose on the Illuminator's podcast, 'The Light Switch.'
