Groups call for community control of police, City Council advances ShotSpotter proposal, police misconduct settlements approved - Illinois news - NewsLocker (2024)

Advocates renew push for direct community control of police Members of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression gathered at City Hall on Wednesday, joined by allies on the City Council, to mark the introduction of a referendum that would overhaul the Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA). The CCPSA, created in […]
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Reverence and Service: Mark Buford On Why Memorial Day Should Matter To Us

Memorial Day also encapsulates the perspectives and experiences of African Americans. The holiday explores our reflections on the sacrifices made by veterans; it is also a day of participation in traditions such as family gatherings and barbecues, a chance to advocate for equitable treatment of veterans. The holiday is also a time to honor the memories of those who served by taking part in community engagement and support initiatives.
Mark Buford, a military veteran, Chicagoland real estat

Review: Backspot

D.W. Waterson’s Backspot, at first glance, is a lot like any number of other sports films. There’s an ambitious protagonist and a gruff coach (Evan Rachel Wood) with (maybe) a heart of gold. There are training montages. There are setbacks, and relationships fray under the high-stakes pressure. And, of course, there are triumphs, victories, and […]
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Guns Are Killing Young Black People in Rural America, Too

A combination of limited opportunities, lax gun laws and a sense of hopelessness are likely causes for increasing gun deaths among young Black people in rural enclaves and small towns. (Credit: Luka Lajst from Getty Images Signature).
This article was originally published onWord In Black.
By Jennifer Porter Gore
Overview:
The scourge of gun violence, the leading cause of death for Black youths under 21, is a growing problem for small towns and rural areas that don’t get as much atten

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Black Woman Earns College Degree At 79

Photo: troy.edu
A 79-year-old Alabama woman has earned her college degree.
According to Fox 8, Angerline Day, 79, recently walked across the graduation stage and accepted her diploma from Troy University.
“I don’t give myself any expiration dates on anything,” Day said.
Day said she had dreamed of getting a psychology degree when she was younger but couldn’t afford it. Day was enrolled in Alabama State University after high school but didn’t have the money to finish

Surviving Domestic Abuse In Hollywood: The Story Of Diddy And Cassie

By Michael Gaskins
Let me take you back, way back, into time. It’s the mid-1990s, and Sean “Diddy” Combs, then known as Puff Daddy, was beginning his upward ascent in Rap and R&B. As the founder of Bad Boy Records, Diddy was a key figure in shaping the Hip-hop landscape. Artists like The Notorious B.I.G., Lil’ Kim, Total, Faith Evans and Junior Mafia were under his label, creating a distinct sound that resonated from car stereos to clubs everywhere.
Over the yea

Tariq Nasheed’s ‘Microphone Check’ Highlights Black Founders of Hip-hop

Tariq Nasheed, director of Microphone Check, a documentary about Hip-hop (Credit: Kickstarter).
By Corli Jay
With her most recent album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyonce has sparked conversations about the Black origins of country music, a genre long co-opted and gentrified by the White masses despite its roots as a Black-founded style of music.A new documentary similarly aims to dispel myths about the origins of one of the world’s most popular musical genres, Hip-hop.
“A lot of f

City Of Chicago Unveils Comprehensive Summer Safety Plan

On Friday, the City of Chicago announced a groundbreaking summer safety plan, underscored by a $100 million investment from the FY24 budget.
This comprehensive strategy focuses on anti-violence programming, strategic CPD deployments and strengthened investigations, restorative justice, re-entry services, and domestic and gender-based violence prevention and intervention – all aimed at enhancing community safety and well-being.
“Today marks a significant step forward in ou

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Obama Makes Surprise Appearance At Biden’s White House Dinner For Kenya

Photo: Getty Images
Former President Barack Obama recently made his way back to the White House.
On Thursday (May 23), President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden hosted a White House state dinner for Kenyan President William Ruto and his First Lady Rachel Ruto, per CNN.
The guest list for the official state dinner featured celebrities and politicians including Former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, actor LeVar Burton, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, NBA

After George Floyd’s Murder, a Minneapolis Church Builds Community

George Floyd Mural (Credit: Lorie Shaull/flickr)

A member of Calvary Lutheran Church says they’ve learned to be “gentle with each other so we can be dangerous together.”

This article was originally published onWord In Black.
By Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware
May 25, 2024, marks four years sinceGeorge Floyd was murdered— on May 25, 2020 — by white former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Chauvin, who was found guilty of s

The Overlooked Black History Of Memorial Day

Photo: Getty Images
When the last Monday of May comes around, Americans fire up the grill, welcome the upcoming summer season, and most importantly, honor U.S. soldiers who gave their lives to defend the country.
Initially called Decoration Day, the observance was held in remembrance of Union troops who perished during the Civil War. Over the next century, more states and government agencies started observing the holiday for all U.S. soldiers who died in wars. It didn’t become a national h

Vitamin T Fitness to host Mental Health Spin Bike Ride and Resource Fair May 25

Vitamin T Fitness is marking Mental Health Awareness Month with a special spin ride and resource fair on Saturday, May 25, from Noon-1:30 p.m. at 6128 Broadway. Gym owner Tiffany Blakemore developed the event to raise awareness of the critical connection between mental and physical wellness.
“We must take care of the mind and the body,” said Blakemore. “We all are either going through or have been through something that may have caused some type of mental distress. This event w

Chicago doom-folk outfit Huntsmen confront personal ups and downs on The Dry Land

Chicago quintet Huntsmen made waves with their 2018 debut full-length, American Scrap (Prosthetic). The record’s distinctive sound blends heavy doom with dark folk and Americana, a combination so intuitive that it’s hard to remember it wasn’t already an established genre. Two years later, Huntsmen’s follow-up, the March 2020 release Mandala of Fear, is an ambitious […]
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Chicago footwork producer Heavee brings his immersive vision to Smart Bar

As Heavee, Chicago producer Darryl Bunch Jr. is responsible for some of the most inventive footwork tracks in recent memory. In March, Hyperdub released his album Unleashed, which offsets its polyrhythmic aggression with melodic serenity. Bunch likes to evoke video-game scores in his work, and Unleashed sometimes includes parts that recall, say, Super Mario 64, […]
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That unrelenting buzz is the sound of a new summer schedule for Monday Night Foodball

Hark! What’s that sound? That pulsating drone rising and falling amid the leafy, green canopy? It sounds like the sizzle of bison fat dropping on hardwood lump charcoal. Or it’s the snap of smoldering white oak and the fizz of icy cold beer. It has a bewitching aroma too—tangy fermented dough swelling into fresh, hot […]
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UK punk legends the Damned reunite with their founding drummer to make noise, noise, noise

You can keep your Clash and your Sex Pistols; when it comes to pioneering British punk acts, this closet pogo fiend will choose the Damned every time. The Damned roared out of the gate in November 1976 and became the first UK punk band to release a single—the irresistibly propulsive “New Rose.” Since then, the […]
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The Chicago House Music Festival makes its grand return to Millennium Park

The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events debuted the Chicago House Music Festival in Millennium Park on Memorial Day weekend in 2018. Even in its first year, the fest felt like part of a tradition, because the city had presented house-music events in the same place at around the same time for years. On […]
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Mysterious Australian instrumental trio Glass Beams make their Chicago debut

Melbourne instrumental trio Glass Beams have crafted a distinct sound that blends influences from Indian classical music with elements of disco, funk, surf rock, and more. The band formed in 2020, and within a year they’d captivated an international audience with the strength of their debut EP, Mirage. While Glass Beams’ profile has continued to […]
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Japanese art-rockers Melt-Banana have spent decades perfecting their mash-up of spasmodic noise

Japanese art-rock outfit Melt-Banana have been making sharp, spasmodic noise for 32 years. In that time, their approach hasn’t changed so much as they’ve gotten better at what they’ve always done. Their music pairs the energy of a sugar-crazed child with the sophistication of a lighting grid—it’s strangely angular in a way that feels technical […]
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Inspired by migrating wildlife, sound artist Olivia Block returns to singing after three decades

When Olivia Block came to Chicago from Texas in 1996, she’d already given up singing in order to focus on the collection and manipulation of sound. Her practice since then has ranged widely, encompassing orchestral compositions, musique concrète–inspired collages of found and performed materials, and site-specific works with which she’s invited listeners to perceive in […]
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Cult blackgaze project Sadness makes its live debut

Damián Antón Ojeda launched the solo blackgaze project Sadness while living in Oak Park a decade ago and quickly attracted a cult following with music that braids together the serene melodies of shoegaze, the majestic splendor of postrock, and the volatile melodrama of black metal. Ojeda divides his time among several musical endeavors, each devoted […]
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Chicago indie rockers Babe Report deliver a lean, huge-sounding debut

Babe Report’s new debut album, Did You Get Better (Exploding in Sound), delivers unfussy pop songs on the back of straightforwardly fuzzy guitars and colossal punk rhythms—it wastes no time rocking. Jefferson Park residents Ben Grigg and Emily Bernstein launched Babe Report during the pandemic lockdown, with Bernstein playing guitar, Grigg playing everything else, and […]
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Angel Reese Joins Ownership Group Or New Women’s Soccer Team In D.C.

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
She’s already captivated the sports world, made a successful foray into modeling, and is changing the endorsem*nt game for women’s collegiate and professional basketball. Now, Angel Reese, the standout women’s basketball player from Maryland, has been announced as a founding owner of the DC Power Football Club, a new professional women’s soccer team launching in Washington.
DC Power FC will compete in th

The Story Behind ‘To Walk in My Shoes’ Summer Kickoff, Which Returns May 26

Shrone Conaway, Co-Chief Executive Officer of “To Walk in My Shoes” and a West Garfield Park-Austin native on Chicago’s West Side, is working to help the community that helped her.
When it comes to her mission, Conaway is even more emphatic: “I have to save the community that once saved me.
Her journey from grappling with personal trials to leading a transformative nonprofit is a testament to her unwavering commitment to uplifting people in her community. She is pla

Rhino Fest offers theatrical symbiosis

In terms of symbiotic relationships in nature, I’ve always been struck by the one between the oxpecker bird and the rhinoceros. The birds hang out on the backs of the rhinos, ingesting ticks (and sometimes blood) off the thick hides of their hosts. And they also serve as an early-warning system against poachers, making hissing […]
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How Detroit techno is preserving the city’s beating heart in the face ofgentrification

Detroit, the birthplace of techno, is facing the pressures of gentrification. Willie Orlando Ford, CC BYby Carla Vecchiola, University of Michigan-Dearborn
For over two decades, Detroit has celebrated its status as the birthplace of techno with an electronic music festival held over Memorial Day weekend.
But like the city around it, the festival has changed. At its inception, the event was free and focused on techno music and Detroit musicians, primarily the Black Americans who started techno &n

17-Year-Old Rapper Accidentally Shoots Himself Dead In Social Media Video

Photo: GoFundMe
A young rapper in Virginia was found dead after accidentally shooting himself in a video posted on social media.
17-year-old Raleigh Freeman lll, known as Rylo Huncho on TikTok, died on May 15 from a self-inflicted gun wound, per WAVY News.
Prior to his death, Freeman had posted a video on social media of him holding a gun with a green laser and flashlight attached. Freeman was toying around with the gun before he appeared to point it at the side of his head with his finger on th

La compañía UrbanTheater sigue arraigada en Humboldt Park

Read in English Stages of Survival es una serie ocasional sobre grupos de teatro de Chicago, que destaca sus historias y cómo sobreviven—e incluso prosperan—en un panorama que se ha vuelto decididamente más desafiante desde el cierre de COVID-19 en 2020. Hay compañías de teatro que llegan a los barrios por casualidad, a menudo dictadas […]
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English provides lessons in identity and loss

The galvanic power of language to create and destroy is easy to take for granted. Language defines how we think, how others perceive us, and how we engage with the world. So what happens when achieving your dreams means foregoing the mother tongue that governs your very thoughts? For the Iranian students in Sanaz Toossi’s […]
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Vengeance is hers

Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s The Visit has found many reimaginings since it was first produced in 1956. The story of a wealthy woman returning to the town that once scorned her after she became pregnant as a teenager has been retold by Israel Horovitz (The Widow’s Blind Date) and in a musical version (also called […]
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