Author: chicagoinquirer

by Hope Yen and Lisa Mascaro WASHINGTON  — After an epic 15-ballot election to become House speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy faces his next big test in governing a fractious, slim majority: passing a rules package to govern the House. The drafting and approval of a set of rules is normally a fairly routine legislative affair, but in these times, it’s the next showdown for the embattled McCarthy. To become speaker and win over skeptics, McCarthy had to make concessions to a small group of hard-liners who refused to support his ascension until he yielded to their demands. Now those promises…

by Colleen Long EL PASO, Texas  — President Joe Biden walked a muddy stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border and inspected a busy port of entry Sunday on his first trip to the region after two years in office, a visit shadowed by the fraught politics of immigration as Republicans blame him for record numbers of migrants crossing into the country. At his first stop, the president observed as border officers in El Paso demonstrated how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. Next, he traveled to a dusty street with abandoned buildings and walked along a metal border…

by John O’Connor SPRINGFIELD, Ill.  — The idea for raising salaries of top Illinois state government officials, which culminated this weekend with the House voting lawmakers an 18% pay hike, began with Gov. J.B. Pritzker. But the Democratic governor said he originally requested that the General Assembly increase pay for his administration’s agency directors to recruit and retain top talent. Pritzker said he wouldn’t presume to tell the General Assembly what its members should be paid. “The Legislature is a coequal branch of government,” Pritzker said Saturday at a preinaugural community service event at Central Illinois Foodbank. “They haven’t had…

Erstwhile World Bank vice president and one-time Nigeria’s finance minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iwueala was a guest at Ted, a platform of world’s greatest thinkers and doers recently where she urged the Western world to take advantage of the reform and democratization going on across Africa to invest and help Africa stand on their feet instead of churning aids to the Black continent. Excerpts: Africa: Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iwueala: Talk about a different Africa. There are some allusions to Africa you hear about all the time. Africa of AIDS, Africa of malaria, the Africa of poverty and the Africa of disaster. It is…

by Lisa Mascaro WASHINGTON  — Republican Kevin McCarthy is the new House speaker, but as bruising as it was for him to seize the gavel in a history-making election, it may be even more difficult for the embattled leader to do much with the powerful position — or to even keep it. Like the two most recent Republican speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, McCarthy takes the helm of a restive, rebellious majority split in much the same way as the party itself, between what’s left of the Grand Old Party conservatives and a new generation of tea party-to-Donald Trump…

by Mark Gonzales CHICAGO — Zach LaVine made three consecutive 3-pointers during a key fourth-quarter stretch and scored 36 points, DeMar DeRozan had 35 and the Chicago Bulls beat the Utah Jazz 126-118 on Saturday night. After hitting 11 3s and scoring 41 points Friday night in a victory in Philadelphia, LaVine converted the three straights 3 to push the Bulls’ lead to eight. Bulls coach Billy Donovan said he’d like LaVine to shoot 10 to 15 3-pointers every game. “I’ll try if I can,” LaVine said. DeRozan passed Pau Gasol and Bob Pettit for 40th place on the…

by John Wawrow ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — It was uplifting enough for the Buffalo Bills staff and players to see Damar Hamlin appear on the video screen in the team’s meeting room Friday — “larger than life,” as coach Sean McDermott put it — for the first time since the safety collapsed and had to be resuscitated on the field. What sent everyone’s emotions over the top was hearing Hamlin, his mouth and throat still raw shortly after having a breathing tube removed, softly say: “ Love you, boys.” “Amazing. Touching. To see Damar, number one, through my own…

by John O’Connor SPRINGFIELD, Ill.  — A ban on dozens of semiautomatic weapons, a top campaign promise of Gov. J.B. Pritzker, won Illinois House approval early Friday. The House voted 64-43 to outlaw .50-caliber guns and cartridges, not defining the term semiautomatic but listing specific types or brands of 20 pistols and five dozen rifles. Leading negotiations on the issue was Rep. Bob Morgan, a Deerfield Democrat who attended the July 4th parade in the Chicago Suburb of Highland Park where a gunman killed seven and injured 30. Pritzker made such a ban a main point of his reelection bid…

Download AssetsCopy StoryMore OptionsClose DES MOINES, Iowa  — Another Mega Millions drawing, another night without a big winner. No one hit all six numbers and won the estimated $940 million jackpot, pushing the lottery prize to an estimated $1.1 billion ahead of the next drawing Tuesday night. The prize is now the third-largest in U.S. history. The numbers drawn late Friday were: 3, 20, 46, 59, 63 and gold Mega Ball 13. There have been 24 drawings without a jackpot winner, stretching back for more than two months. The winless streak is largely due to the game’s long odds of…

by Lisa Mascaro and Farnoush Amiri WASHINGTON  — Republican Kevin McCarthy was elected House speaker on a historic post-midnight 15th ballot early Saturday, overcoming holdouts from his own ranks and floor tensions boiling over after a chaotic week that tested the new GOP majority’s ability to govern. After four days of grueling ballots, McCarthy flipped more than a dozen conservative holdouts to become supporters, including the chairman of the chamber’s Freedom Caucus, leaving him just a few shy of seizing the gavel for the new Congress. As the House resumed for the late night session McCarthy had been on the…