Author: chicagoinquirer

by Andrew Seligman CHICAGO  — The Chicago Bears plan to build an enclosed suburban stadium that could host Super Bowls, College Football Playoff games and Final Fours. The Bears released conceptual illustrations Tuesday of the proposed stadium and entertainment complex that would be built on the site of a former horse racing track in Arlington Heights, Illinois. The Bears said the project could include restaurants, office space, a hotel, fitness center, new parks and open areas as well as “other improvements for the community to enjoy.” “We envision a multi-purpose entertainment district anchored by a new, best-in-class enclosed stadium, providing…

by Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless LONDON (AP) — Liz Truss became U.K. prime minister on Tuesday and immediately confronted the enormous task ahead of her amid increasing pressure to curb soaring prices, ease labor unrest and fix a health care system burdened by long waiting lists and staff shortages. At the top of her in-box is the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which threatens to push energy bills to unaffordable levels, shuttering businesses and leaving the nation’s poorest people shivering in icy homes this winter. Truss, who refused to spell out her energy strategy during the…

LONDON — Liz Truss has been elected as the Conservative Party’s new leader, the party announced Monday, and she will take office Tuesday as Britain’s new prime minister to steer the country through an acute cost-of-living crisis. The 47-year-old Truss, who is currently foreign secretary, beat former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak after a leadership contest in which only about 170,000 dues-paying members of the Conservative Party were allowed to vote. Truss received 81,326 votes, compared with Sunak’s 60,399. She faces immediate pressure to deliver on her promises to tackle the cost-of-living crisis walloping the U.K. and an economy heading into…

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden excoriated “MAGA Republicans” and the extreme right on Monday, pitching personal Labor Day appeals to swing-state union members who he hopes will turn out in force for his party in November. “The middle class built America,” Biden told a workers’ gathering at park grounds in Milwaukee. “Everybody knows that. But unions built the middle class.” Later Monday, he flew to West Mifflin, outside Pittsburgh — returning to Pennsylvania for the third time in less than a week and just two days after his predecessor, Donald Trump, staged his own rally in the state. The…

by Howard Fendrich NEW YORK — Frances Tiafoe ended Rafael Nadal’s 22-match winning streak at Grand Slam tournaments by beating the 22-time major champion 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the U.S. Open’s fourth roundon Monday. Tiafoe is a 24-year-old from Maryland who is seeded 22nd at Flushing Meadows and reached the second major quarterfinal of his career. He is the youngest American man to get that far at the U.S. Open since Andy Roddick in 2006, but this was not a case of a one-sided crowd backing one of its own. Nadal is about as popular as it gets in…

CHICAGO  — Seventy-five immigrants bused from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott have arrived in Chicago, the latest chapter of the bitter political battle over the immigration policy of President Joe Biden’s administration. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office confirmed that the group arrived Wednesday night and said the nation’s third-largest city welcomes them. Abbott is busing the immigrants from Texas as part of a strategy launched this year to share the influx of people from outside the United States with cities that have Democratic mayors. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey also has adopted this policy. At a news conference Thursday, Lightfoot called…

by Zeke Miller and Josh Boak PHILADELPHIA — President Joe Biden warned Thursday night that “equality and democracy are under assault” in the U.S. as he sounded an alarm about his predecessor, Donald Trump, and “MAGA Republican”adherents, labeling them an extremist threat to the nation and its future. Aiming to reframe the November elections as part of a battle for the nation’s soul — “the work of my presidency” — Biden used his prime-time speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia to argue that Trump and the “Make America Great Again” allies who now lead the Republican Party are a menace…

By Michael Tarm CHICAGO — Singer R. Kelly told a federal judge Thursday that he won’t testify at his ongoing trial in Chicago on charges that accuse him of child pornography, enticement of minors for sex and fixing his 2008 state trial. The judge raised the issue minutes before attorneys for Kelly and two co-defendants began calling their first witnesses, endeavoring to counter two weeks of government testimony, including from four women who accused Kelly of sexual abuse. Addressing the Grammy Award-winner directly Thursday, Judge Harry Leinenweber asked if he had discussed with his lawyers whether to testify. Kelly, 55,…

COLUMBIA, S.C. A federal judge on Thursday ruled that constitutional protections don’t shield U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham from testifying before a special grand jury investigating possible illegal efforts to overturn then-President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May rejected Graham’s argument that all his calls with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, were protected under the U.S. Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which shields members of Congress from questioning about official legislative acts. She did, however, agree with lawyers for the South Carolina Republican that legislative protection applies to parts of…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI investigation into top-secret government information discovered at Mar-a-Lago is zeroing in on the question of whether former President Donald Trump’s team criminally obstructed the probe. A new document alleges that government records had been concealed and removed and that law enforcement officials were misled about what was still there. The allegation does not necessarily mean that Trump or anyone else will ultimately face charges. But it could pose the most direct legal threat to Trump or those in his orbit, in part because the Justice Department has historically viewed obstruction as an aggravating factor that tilts in…