Author: chicagoinquirer

by Seung Min Kim WASHINGTON  — President Joe Biden’s visit to a notoriously dilapidated bridge connecting Ohio and Kentucky is a chance for him to showcase accomplishments and talk up the virtues of bipartisanship while rubbing shoulders with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. The trip on Wednesday is also about cold, hard cash. “It’s a giant bridge, man,” Biden said this week when asked about his planned trip to the Brent Spence Bridge. “It’s a lot of money. It’s important.” Indeed, the nearly $1 trillion that Biden’s administration is doling out for roads and bridges, broadband networks and water projects…

by Lisa Mascaro, Farnouch Amiri and Kevin Freking WASHINGTON  — Unable to elect Republican leader Kevin McCarthy as the new House speaker Tuesday, the Republicans adjourned for the day in disarray as the party tries to regroup from his a historic defeat after a long, messy start for the new Congress. The surprise move end to Day One shows there is no easy way out for McCarthy whose effort to claim the gavel collapsed to opposition from conservatives. Needing 218 votes in the full House, McCarthy got just 203 in two rounds — less even than Democrat Hakeem Jeffries in…

by Lisa Mascaro WASHINGTON  — The new Congress opens with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy grasping for his political survival, with the potential to become the first nominee for speaker in 100 years to fail to win initial support from his own colleagues in a high-stakes vote for the gavel. Lawmakers convene Tuesday to a new era of divided government as Democrats relinquish control of the House after midterm election losses. While the Senate remains in Democratic hands, barely, House Republicans are eager to confront President Joe Biden’s agenda after two years of a Democratic Party monopoly on power in…

by Mauricio Savarese SANTOS, Brazil  — Thousands of mourners, including high school students and supreme court justices, began filing past the body of Pelé on Monday on the century-old field where he made his hometown team one of Brazil’s best. The soccer great died on Thursday after a battle with cancer. He was the only player ever to win three World Cups, and he was 82. Pelé’s coffin, draped in the flags of Brazil and the Santos FC football club, was placed on the midfield area of Vila Belmiro, the stadium outside Sao Paulo that was his home for most…

by Darlene Superville CHRISTIANSTED, U.S. Virgin Islands  — President Joe Biden and top administration officials will open a new year of divided government by fanning out across the country to talk about how the economy is benefiting from his work with Democrats and Republicans. As part of the pitch, Biden and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell will make a rare joint appearance in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky on Wednesday to highlight nearly $1 trillion in infrastructure spending that lawmakers approved on a bipartisan basis in 2021. The Democratic president will also be joined by a bipartisan group of elected…

SPRINGFIELD, Ill.  — The Illinois Supreme Court has halted provisions of a new law that would eliminate cash bail for criminal defendants, issuing a stay hours before the new policies were set to take effect Sunday. The high court said in Saturday’s order that the stay was needed to “maintain consistent pretrial procedures throughout Illinois” as the court prepares to hear arguments on the matter. The order said the court would coordinate an “expedited process” for an appeal the Illinois Attorney General’s Office filed Friday with the court of a local judge’s ruling, which found that eliminating cash bail for…

by Nicole Winfiel VATICAN CITY  — He was the reluctant pope, a shy bookworm who preferred solitary walks in the Alps and Mozart piano concertos to the public glare and majesty of Vatican pageantry. When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI and was thrust into the footsteps of his beloved and charismatic predecessor, he said he felt a guillotine had come down on him. So it should have come as little surprise that with a few words uttered in Latin on a Vatican holiday in 2013, Benedict ended it all, announcing that he would become the first pope in…

by Ayanna Alexander and Gary Fields WASHINGTON  — Black voters have been a steady foundation for Democratic candidates for decades, but that support appeared to show a few cracks in this year’s elections. Republican candidates were backed by 14% of Black voters, compared with 8% in the last midterm elections four years ago, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive national survey of the electorate. In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp more than doubled his support among Black voters to 12% in 2022 compared with 5% four years ago, according to VoteCast. He defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams both times. If that…

HAMMOND, Ind. — A northwestern Indiana hospital said it will close its emergency room Saturday, a day after an Indiana Court of Appeals judge issued a stay of a lower court ruling that it must operate those services for nine more months. The stay, issued Friday afternoon by Chief Appeals Court Judge Cale Bradford, halted a Lake County judge’s ruling that would have postponed the closure of Franciscan Health Hammond’s emergency room for nine months while the city of Hammond searched for another operator. Ambulances were to be diverted elsewhere starting at midnight and the emergency room will close to…

by Andrew Seligman CHICAGO  — Zach LaVine scored a season-high 43 points, and the Chicago Bulls pulled away in the closing minutes to beat the Detroit Pistons 132-118 on Friday night. LaVine looked more like his old explosive self than the guy managing his left knee following offseason surgery. And the Bulls ended the game on a 17-3 run after getting all they could handle from the team with the NBA’s worst record. “Nothing surprising. That’s the Zach we all know,” DeMar DeRozan said. LaVine had the crowd roaring when he capped an 18-point first quarter with a thunderous, right-hand…