The Natural Land Institute filed suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court to stop the Greater Rockford Airport Authority from tearing up the 8,000-year-old Bell Bowl Prairie as part of an airport expansion project.

Mauricio Ramirez, 32, was ordered held on $500,000 bail Thursday after he was charged with criminal sexual assault to a victim between the ages of 13-17 and aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim under 18.

Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson is one of three sitting members of the Chicago City Council to be charged with federal crimes.

The hearing was likely the last before Rittenhouse goes on trial Nov. 1 for the shootings during chaotic demonstrations in Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020, two days after a white police officer in that city shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back while responding to a domestic disturbance.

Milixen Ardon, 24, and Wilfredo Cruz, 43, were each held without bail following their arrests on charges of first-degree murder in the death of Ardon’s 2-year-old daughter Alison Zerais Ardon.

U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber appeared to have wanted the trial in Chicago to begin earlier, but he set it for Aug. 1 after one of R. Kelly’s attorneys, Steven Greenberg, said that he another of Kelly’s attorneys will be in trial on other cases through July.

Thomas Osadzinski, 22, designed a computer code to help the Islamic State bypass programs designed to block the group's propaganda, prosecutors said.

The officer, Michael A. Riley, is accused of tipping off someone who participated in the riot by telling them to remove posts from Facebook that had showed the person inside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack, according to court documents.

A judge on Friday denied a last-ditch effort to dismiss a criminal case against actor Jussie Smollett, who is accused of lying to police when he reported that he was the victim of a racist, anti-gay attack in downtown Chicago in January 2019.

Federal prosecutors announced charges against five reputed members of the O-Block street gang, accusing them of participating in a criminal organization responsible for murder and of “violently” protecting the gang and its territories on the South Side.

Louis Capriotti, 46, entered a guilty plea Thursday, court records indicate, admitting to leaving what a federal judge had previously described as “very explicit and concerning” voicemails.

The order Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman is the first legal blow to the Texas law known as Senate Bill 8, which until now had withstood a wave of early challenges.

Michael Aguirre was held without bail during a court hearing Wednesday following his arrest this week on a charge of first-degree murder stemming from the killing of 14-year-old Savanah Quintero.

The latest legal challenge came as the Biden administration waited for a federal judge in Austin, Texas, to rule on a request to halt the law known as Senate Bill 8, which bans abortions in Texas once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks. 

An Illinois man who shot three people during a protest over police brutality in Wisconsin last year was justified because the men confronted him and two of them tried to wrestle his gun away, a use-of-force expert called by the defense testified at a pretrial hearing Tuesday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who campaigned on a promise to root out corruption in City Hall, has repeatedly called for Ald. Ed Burke, the other indicted member of the Chicago City Council, to step down. But on Wednesday she stopped short of calling on the 11th Ward alderperson to resign.