News of Jonathan Mattingly’s book drew online criticism Thursday, including from Kentucky state Rep. Attica Scott, a Democrat, who wrote on Twitter that “People love to profit off of Black pain and tragedy. It sells.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Louisville police officer who fired at Breonna Taylor after being shot during the deadly raid on Taylor’s apartment is writing a book, but it won’t be distributed as planned by publishing giant Simon & Schuster.

Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and another officer fired shots that hit Taylor during the March 13, 2020, narcotics raid. Mattingly was shot in the leg by Taylor’s boyfriend. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency medical worker, died at the scene, but no drugs were found in the apartment.

Mattingly’s book will be published by Tennessee-based Post Hill Press, The Courier Journal reported. The company website said it publishes “current events, Christian and conservative political books,” among other topics. It has a deal to have its books distributed by Simon & Schuster, which earlier Thursday indicated it could not refuse Post Hill titles.

But late Thursday, Simon & Schuster released a statement saying it would not be involved in Mattingly’s book.

“Like much of the American public, earlier today Simon & Schuster learned of plans by distribution client Post Hill Press to publish a book by Jonathan Mattingly,” the publishing house said in a statement. “We have subsequently decided not be involved in the distribution of this book.”

News of Mattingly’s book drew online criticism Thursday, including from Kentucky state Rep. Attica Scott, a Democrat, who wrote on Twitter that “People love to profit off of Black pain and tragedy. It sells.”

In a statement to The Associated Press, a publicist for Post Hill Press said the company supports its authors’ free speech rights and that Mattingly “deserves to have his account of the tragic events heard publicly.”

Post Hill Press books are distributed by Simon & Schuster and Mattingly’s book is expected to be released in the fall. Other authors include conservative commentator Dan Bongino and embattled Congressman Matt Gaetz.

Mattingly’s book will be titled “The Fight For Truth: The Inside Story Behind the Breonna Taylor Tragedy.”

Mattingly, 48, was shot in the leg by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who said he fired a single shot after fearing an intruder was breaking into the apartment.

Mattingly was recently reprimanded by Louisville’s police chief for a September email that was critical of department leadership and protesters. He remains on the department. Two other officers who fired their guns during the raid have been dismissed.

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Flipping through television channels. Flicking through radio stations.…Read More

The fire broke out in the basement of a building in the 1400 block of West Garfield Boulevard.

Two people were critically hurt in a fire Friday morning in Back of the Yards on the South Side.

The blaze broke out in a basement in the 1400 block of West Garfield Boulevard, according to Chicago fire officials.

Two people were transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, fire officials said.

The fire was put out by about 6:20 a.m., fire officials said.

This is a developing story. Check back for details.

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Duncan Keith has been a premier defenseman in the NHL for most of his career. The Chicago Blackhawks have been lucky to have a player like this for as long as they have. He is going to be a first-ballot Hall of Fame player when he is done and don’t be surprised if the Chicago […]

Chicago Blackhawks: Duncan Keith reaches another great milestone – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & More

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A 17-year-old was fatally shot while riding in a vehicle in the 4100 block of West 25th Place, Chicago police said.

Eight people were shot Thursday in Chicago, including a 17-year-old girl killed in Little Village on the Southwest Side.

The teen girl was inside a vehicle about 7:45 p.m. in the 4100 block of West 25th Place when she heard shots and felt pain, Chicago police said.

She was struck in the head and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, police said. She was later pronounced dead, according to police.

The Cook County medical examiner’s office has not yet released information on her death.

A 55-year-old man was shot Thursday night during an attempted carjacking in West Pullman on the Far South Side.

The man was sitting inside his blue Nissan Rogue about 9:35 p.m. in the 12300 block of South Princeton Avenue when a number of unknown males approached him and showed a handgun, police said.

He drove away as at least one male fired shots, grazing him in the ear, police said. He was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in fair condition, police said.

About 20 minutes earlier, four people were wounded in a shooting in Humboldt Park on the West Side.

The group was standing outside about 9:10 p.m. in the 600 block of North Sawyer Avenue when someone fired shots, police said.

An 18-year-old man was struck in the lower back and was transported to Norwegian Hospital in good condition, police said.

A woman, 20, was struck in the foot and taken to the same hospital in good condition, police said.

A 23-year-old man was shot in the hand and another man, 24, was struck in the foot, police said. Both were taken in good condition to the same hospital.

Another person was wounded in a shooting Thursday night in Douglas on the South Side.

The female, whose age was not known, was on the sidewalk about 8:30 p.m. in the 26oo block of South State Street when she heard shots and felt pain, police said.

She suffered a gunshot wound to the leg and was taken to Norwegian Hospital, where her condition was fair, police said.

In the day’s first reported attack, a man was shot during a robbery in the West Pullman neighborhood.

The man, 54, was sitting in a parked vehicle with another man at a business about 6:30 a.m. in the 12200 block of South Halsted Street, police said.

Two other men with a gun stepped out of a vehicle, approached the pair and took the belongings of one of the men in the car, police said. Meanwhile, the 54-year-old ran away from the car to an alley but was shot in his hand by two other people inside the robbers’ car.

The man was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn for treatment, police said. The other man, 62, was uninjured.

Six people were shot, two fatally, Wednesday in Chicago.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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On HBO series, the world-weary cop gets mixed up in scandal and murder in a small Pennsylvania town.

For all the murder and mayhem and madness happening in the HBO limited series “Mare of Easttown,” there’s something grounded and real and authentic about nearly every scene and every character. When old friends meet for coffee on a park bench on a chilly morning, when a new arrival in town navigates his way to buying a drink for a local he finds attractive, when a mother and her teenage daughter tangle as mothers and teenage daughters do — it feels real. It feels as if we know these people, even as they’re going through one soap opera-level crisis after another.

Set in a small, middle-class town, “Mare of Easttown” could have been titled “Big Little Working-Class Lies.” The contrast in locales between Monterey, California, and Easttown Township, Pennsylvania, couldn’t be sharper, but when it comes to scandal and romance and affairs and violence and cover-ups and crime investigations, those elite West Coasters got nothin’ on what’s happening here.

Kate Winslet adds to a long list of magnificent, disappear-into-the-character performances as Mare Sheehan, a world-weary police detective more celebrated around town for starring on a championship basketball team a quarter-century ago than for her police work or for that matter her personality, which leaves a lot to be desired on even her best days. If you told Mare to smile she’d tell you to f— off, and she DOES have her reasons. She’s still in mourning for her teenage son, who took his own life; her ex-husband Frank (David Denman) lives so close she can literally see across the yard into his happy home, complete with new fiancé, and she’s under fire because it’s been a year since a local teenage girl — the daughter of one of Mare’s high school basketball teammates — has gone missing and the police still have no solid leads, no suspects, nothing.

The town is further roiled when a teenage single mom named Erin (Cailee Spaeny) is murdered, her nude and grotesquely twisted body splayed on the bed of a creek. When a THIRD young woman goes missing, it appears there’s a serial kidnapper/killer on the loose, as the community loses all faith in Mare and hotshot young county detective Colin Zabel (Evan Peters) is brought in to partner with Mare on the case, and you can imagine how thrilled Mare is about that. The investigation introduces us to a number of potential suspects, including Erin’s ex-boyfriend, Dylan (Jack Mulhern), who has a nasty streak; a priest (Neal Huff) with a troubled past and even Mare’s ex Frank, a high school teacher who claimed he barely knew Erin but in fact had been close with her.

Amidst all the chaos, Mare enters into a relationship with a college professor (Guy Pearce) who has just moved to Easttown and has to contend with her meddling mother (Jean Smart) and her rebellious teenage daughter (Angourie Rice.) The skies above are usually cloudy and gray, but there’s never a dull moment in Easttown.

At times the criminal procedural seems almost secondary to the tangled web of stories about custody battles and extramarital affairs and troubled children and delinquent teenagers, and it’s a bit of a task to keep up with every character and how this one is related by blood to that one, and this one had an affair with that one, and those two have a problem with each other because of that thing — but we always find our footing when Winslet is onscreen and Mare is in charge, or at least thinks she’s in charge. Mare is smart and has a dark sense of humor and is capable of empathy, but she’s complicated, troubled and self-destructive, she makes some really bad decisions and almost dares people to dislike her as much as she dislikes herself.

“Mare of Easttown” holds our interest throughout, thanks to showrunner/writer Brad Inglesby, the brilliant ensemble cast led by Winslet in one of the most resonant performances of her career — and also to the locale itself. It was filmed in and around Easttown Township, and even in this age of CGI trickery and this city filling in for that city, there’s something almost tangible about real-world, real-deal locations. Easttown comes across as a no-nonsense, middle-class small town where everybody knows everybody else, and every time you walk into the local pub or grocery store there’s a chance you’ll run into an old high school classmate, or your ex-husband’s new wife, or your kid’s teacher — and you’re happy about those encounters maybe half the time. At best.

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Police were called to reports of gunfire just after 11 p.m. and officers observed an active shooting scene, police spokesperson Genae Cook said.

INDIANAPOLIS — Eight people were shot and killed in a late-night shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, and the shooter killed himself, police said.

Multiple other people were injured Thursday night when gunfire erupted at the facility near the Indianapolis International Airport, police spokesperson Genae Cook said.

At least four were hospitalized, including one person with critical injuries. Another two people were treated and released at the scene, Cook said.

The shooter wasn’t immediately identified, and investigators were in the process of conducting interviews and gathering information. Cook said it was too early to tell whether the shooter was an employee at the facility.

Police were called to reports of gunfire just after 11 p.m. and officers observed an active shooting scene, Cook said. The gunman later killed himself.

“We’re still trying to ascertain the exact reason and cause for this incident,” Cook said.

FedEx released a statement saying it is cooperating with authorities and working to get more information.

“We are aware of the tragic shooting at our FedEx Ground facility near the Indianapolis airport. Safety is our top priority, and our thoughts are with all those who are affected,” the statement said.

Family members gathered at a local hotel to await word on loved ones. Some said employees aren’t allowed to have their phones with them while working shifts at the facility, making it difficult to contact them, WTHR-TV reported.

Live video from news outlets at the scene showed crime scene tape in the parking lot outside the facility.

A witness who said he works at the facility told WISH-TV that he saw a man with a gun after hearing several gunshots.

“I saw a man with a submachine gun of some sort, an automatic rifle, and he was firing in the open,” Jeremiah Miller said.

Another man told WTTV that his niece was sitting in the driver’s seat of her car when the gunfire erupted, and she was wounded.

“She got shot on her left arm,” said Parminder Singh. “She’s fine, she’s in the hospital now.”

He said his niece did not know the shooter.

The shooting was the latest in a string of mass shootings across the U.S. in recent months. Eight people were fatally shot at massage businesses across metro Atlanta, and ten died in gunfire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado last month.

This is the third mass shooting this year in Indianapolis. Five people, including a pregnant woman, were shot and killed in January, and a man was accused of killing three adults and a child before abducting his daughter during at argument at a home in March.

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Saturday showdown: Salukis host Southeast Louisiana in playoff audition

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By Dan Verdun,
today at 4:44 am

Whether Saturday’s nonconference matchup with nationally ranked Southeastern Louisiana provides a bridge to the FCS playoffs, Southern Illinois is treating it as such.

“(I’m) excited for this game. A lot has happened in the last two weeks of the season with not having a game, (and then) being able to find a game with Southeastern Louisiana,” SIU head coach Nick Hill said at his media address earlier this week.

After a last-second defeat at Missouri State March 27, Southern Illinois lost two potential victories when in-state rivals Illinois State and Western Illinois each opted out of the remainder of the spring season.

SIU athletic director Liz Jarnigan was then able to secure Saturday’s game at Saluki Stadium with Southeastern Louisiana, a member of the Southland Conference.

Thus, the 18th-ranked Salukis (4-3) will host the 17th-rated Lions (4-2) for a noon kickoff.

This game bookends a season that saw SIU play one fall game — a last-second victory over regional rival Southeast Missouri State of the Ohio Valley Conference. In between, the Salukis posted a 3-3 record in the spring Missouri Valley Football Conference season.

Saturday marks the final opportunity for both SIU and Southeastern Louisiana to get a win against a quality opponent and potentially catch the FCS playoff committee’s eye.

While the NCAA will announce the 16-team postseason bracket Sunday, that possibility faces long odds with only six at-large bids up for grabs with plenty of qualified candidates under consideration.

Scouting Southeastern Louisiana

The Lions will make the eight-hour bus trip to Carbondale from Hammond, Louisiana to face SIU.

Southeastern Louisiana finished second in the Southland, where undefeated and No. 5 Sam Houston State (5-0) wore the conference crown. Like SIU, the Lions are striving for a win over the Top 20 team and a glimmer of hope for the playoffs.

The Lions are led by quarterback Cole Kelley, who leads the FCS in passing yards (2,244). The 6-foot-7, 260-pound senior has 16 touchdown passes in six games to rank fifth-best in the nation.

The Saluki defense will be on high alert as Southeastern Louisiana has scored more than 40 points in three straight games. The Lions rank ninth in the country in offense (38.2 points per game).

However, Southeastern Louisiana ranks 82nd in scoring defense, allowing 33.3 points per game.

“Some of the games that they’ve been in have almost been like Arena-type games,” said Hill, a former Arena football quarterback himself.

The Lions are coming off a 52-45 win over Nicholls. Saturday’s game at SIU marks the fourth time in as many road contests in 2020-21 for Southeastern Louisiana against a ranked opponent.

Saluki news & notes

The last time SIU made the playoffs was 2010 . . . Saturday’s game will be the fifth time the Salukis have played a ranked opponent this 2020-21 season . . . Foes have scored 67 points off Southern turnovers while the Salukis have 28 off opponents’ miscues . . . due to injuries, SIU has started three different quarterbacks — Kare Lyles, Nic Baker and Stone Labanowitz — this spring . . . Avante Cox leads the team with 47 receptions for 533 yards and three touchdowns. The junior is also SIU’s third-leading rusher with 164 yards . . . kicker Nico Gualdoni has hit 7-of-8 field goal attempts . . . Jack Colquhoun has averaged 44 yards per punt and put 10 balls inside the 20-yard line . . . Bryson Strong in the top tackler with 49 stops, 34 of which are solo.

Where to find the game

Saturday’s 12 p.m. game will be televised on ESPN+ and can be heard on the Saluki Radio Network.

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Missouri Valley Football Conference, SIU Salukis, Southern Illinois University

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One person was killed and at least three others injured in a crash Thursday night in West Town.

About 11:25 p.m., a 58-year-old woman was driving her silver Lexus north in the 100 block of South Western Avenue when she attempted to make a u-turn and struck a Chevy minivan also traveling north, Chicago police said.

The woman was transported to Stroger Hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said. The Cook County medical examiner’s office has not yet released information on her death.

The woman’s 17-year-old son was riding as a passenger in the car, police said. He was transported to the same hospital in fair condition, according to police.

A 33-year-old man driving the Chevy and his passenger, a 36-year-old man, were both taken to the same hospital in good condition, police said.

Area Four detectives and the Major Accidents Unit are investigating.

No citations were issued.

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Moon Alert

There are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions. The moon is in Gemini.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Although you might have difficulty with authority figures this morning, as the day wears on, you will have the power to encourage friends or groups to do what they need to do. You can be an inspiration for someone. Rally your troops and set them marching!

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Steer clear of discussions about controversial matters this morning. Instead, use your excellent money savvy to promote your public reputation. It is likely that you will put forth ideas that impress someone. (Especially a boss.)

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Be patient with a friend because they might not share your enthusiasm for going out on a limb to explore new ideas. You want to reach out through travel and further education or training to become better prepared, especially for next year, which will be so successful for you.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Steer clear of power struggles with authority figures today because this is possible, especially this morning. Instead, use your energy by working behind the scenes to do something to improve your financial assets, shared property or anything that you own jointly with someone else.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

Rather than get into disputes about controversial issues, use the influence that you have with friends and groups because you can actually uplift people, perhaps even members of the general public. You might encourage someone close to you to become more physically active and enjoy life!

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

You are in a powerful position today because you can do something to advance your own interests on the job or with your health. You might inspire a group of people to get on board with your ideas. Your optimism will create a positive energy that attracts something favorable to everyone.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Be patient with others today because this can turn out to be a lovely day for you. Sidestep disputes. Instead, you can encourage sports activities, fun times with kids and different kinds of social diversions where people can enjoy themselves. You’re the Pied Piper!

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

Ignore people who want to argue today. You don’t need this. Instead, invest your energy into making improvements at home or within your family relationships. You might invite people to your home (or a group), which, in turn, might benefit you.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

Be patient with children today. Don’t get involved in romantic spats. Instead, get serious about making plans for the future! Think about what kind of training or further education you can get. The idea of travel is thrilling, especially after so much restriction.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

Keep your wits about you today because if you work hard, and if you work smart, there is something you can do to boost your earnings and make you richer. This is totally possible. Your cash flow will be energized, which might also mean that you will make a big-ticket purchase.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Avoid squabbles with siblings and daily contacts. Instead, be aware that fiery Mars is magnifying the energy of lucky Jupiter in your sign. This will help you do anything you want to do today! It will energize your muscles and give your mind a great ability to plan ahead. It’s also favorable for business. Yay!

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

This is a feel-good day for you if you can avoid financial arguments. Seek out ways so that you can enjoy your own solitude because in doing so, you will feel happy and content. You might also make ambitious plans for your future.

If Your Birthday Is Today

Actress Anya Taylor-Joy (1996) shares your birthday. Although you are sociable and friendly, you need your private time. You are a confident person, and, yet, you are also a gentle Aries with a dreamy nature and a vivid imagination. You are idealistic and expect positive results in whatever you do. You are entering a year of study and teaching. Learn as much as you can.

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