Sun-Times file photo | Allen Kaleta, Sun-Times Media
The victims were found along the Illinois River west of a park boat ramp around 7:20 p.m. Thursday.
Three people died after apparently igniting a “black powder substance” and causing an explosion near Starved Rock State Park, a coroner said.
First responders were called to an area along the Illinois River west of a park boat ramp where they they discovered three dead males around 7:20 p.m. Thursday, authorities said.
“With assistance from the (Illinois) State Police, the Kane County Bomb Squad Unit & the FBI, it was determined that the individuals appeared to have ignited a type of black powder substance along an area near the riverbank,” LaSalle County Coroner Rich Ploch said.
Black powder was the original gunpowder and can be used to make fireworks.
The three died from injuries they received in the explosion, Ploch said. Autopsies were planned. The victims’ names have not been released.
The explosion occurred about 75 miles southwest of Chicago.
Israeli forces inspect the scene of a shooting attack where bodies of two Palestinian gunmen, killed by Israeli border police, lie on the ground in front of the military base of Salem near the West Bank town of Jenin, Friday, May. 7, 2021. Israeli troops shot and killed the two men and wounded a third after they opened fire on a border police base in the occupied West Bank. It was the latest in a series of violent confrontations amid soaring tensions in Jerusalem. | AP
Muslim worshippers clashed with Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound late Friday, a major holy site sacred to Muslims and Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount.
JERUSALEM — Palestinian worshippers clashed with Israeli police on Friday evening at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City as weeks-long tensions between Israel and the Palestinians over Jerusalem soared again.
The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service said 53 people were wounded in clashes with police there and elsewhere in Jerusalem, including 23 who were hospitalized. It says most were wounded in the face and eyes by rubber-coated bullets and shrapnel from stun grenades.
The clashes were the latest in a deadly day that saw Israeli forces shoot and kill two Palestinians after three men opened fire on an Israeli base in the occupied West Bank.
They erupted when Israeli police deployed heavily as Muslims were performing evening prayers at Al-Aqsa during the holy month of Ramadan. Video footage from the scene shows worshippers throwing chairs, shoes and rocks toward the police and officers responding by opening fire. Israeli police also closed gates leading to Al-Aqsa inside the walled Old City.
Dozens of Palestinians in an east Jerusalem neighborhood are at risk of being evicted following a long legal battle with Israeli settlers, and Palestinian protesters have clashed with Israeli police in the city on a nightly basis since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The unrest has drawn attention from across the region, with neighboring Jordan warning Israel against further “provocative” steps, and Iran seizing on the sensitivities around Jerusalem and encouraging the violence.
In the attack on Friday morning, Israeli police said three attackers fired on the base near the northern West Bank town of Jenin. The Border Police and an Israeli soldier returned fire, killing two of the men and wounding the third, who was evacuated to a hospital.
Some 70,000 worshippers attended the final Friday prayers of Ramadan at Al-Aqsa, the Islamic endowment that oversees the site said. Thousands protested afterwards, waving the green flags of the Islamic militant group Hamas and chanting pro-Hamas slogans before dispersing peacefully.
Israelis and Palestinians are bracing for more violence in the coming days.
Sunday night is “Laylat al-Qadr” or the “Night of Destiny,” the most sacred in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Worshippers will gather for intense nighttime prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, a flashpoint site sacred to both Muslims and Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount.
Sunday night is also the start of Jerusalem Day, a national holiday in which Israel celebrates its annexation of east Jerusalem and religious nationalists hold parades and other celebrations in the city. On Monday, an Israeli court is expected to issue a verdict on the evictions.
Israel’s archenemy Iran was meanwhile marking its own Quds, or Jerusalem, Day on Friday. The national holiday typically features anti-Israel protests and fiery speeches by Iranian leaders predicting Israel’s demise.
“The downward and declining movement of the Zionist regime has begun and will not stop,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised address. He called for continuing armed “resistance” in the Palestinian territories and urged Muslim nations support it.
This year, Ramadan has coincided with an uptick in Israeli-Palestinian violence focused on Jerusalem, where Palestinian protesters have repeatedly clashed with Israeli police over restrictions on outdoor gatherings at the Damascus Gate leading into the Old City.
On Thursday, Israeli forces arrested a Palestinian suspected of carrying out a drive-by shooting earlier this week in the West Bank that killed an Israeli and wounded two others.
On Wednesday, Israeli troops shot and killed a 16-year-old Palestinian during a confrontation near the West Bank city of Nablus. The military said several Palestinians had thrown firebombs toward soldiers.
In recent days, protesters have scuffled with police and settlers over the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in east Jerusalem. Several Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah have been embroiled in a long-running legal battle with Israeli settler groups trying to acquire property in the neighborhood north of the Old City.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza — territories the Palestinians want for their future state — in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally and views the entire city as its capital.
The Palestinians view east Jerusalem — which includes major holy sites for Jews, Christians and Muslims — as their capital, and its fate is one of the most sensitive issues in the conflict.
Neighboring Jordan, which made peace with Israel in 1994 and is the custodian of Al-Aqsa, weighed in on Friday, saying “Israel’s continuation of its illegal practices and provocative steps” in the city is a “dangerous game.”
“Building and expanding settlements, confiscating lands, demolishing homes and deporting Palestinians from their homes are illegal practices that perpetuate the occupation and undermine the chances of achieving a just and comprehensive peace, which is a regional and international necessity,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi tweeted.
The Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, has egged on the violence, and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fired rockets in support of the protesters.
Earlier this week, the shadowy commander of Hamas’ armed wing, Mohammed Deif, released his first public statement in seven years, in which he warned Israel it would pay a “heavy price” if it evicts Palestinians from their homes.
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Associated Press writers Fares Akram in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
Muralist Eugene “Eda” Wade works on the doors at Malcolm X College to transform them into works of art spotlighting Black culture and Egyptian and West African designs. The early 1970s project took two years to complete. | Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events
A Chicago star in the Black Arts Movement, his work also included turning turned 32 steel fire doors at Malcolm X College into vibrant, majestic murals.
It took two years for Eugene “Eda” Wade to complete one of his biggest projects: painting 32 fire doors at Malcolm X College with images of Black culture and Egyptian and West African designs.
He transformed the 64 steel canvases — 32 10-by-four doors, front and back — into something vibrant, inspiring and majestic.
Maséqua Myers, who went on to become executive director of the South Side Community Art Center, remembers how, as a student attending Malcolm X, the doors “instilled an immeasurable amount of historical pride to hundreds of thousands of young African American students walking by them daily.”
“The doors were such a wonderful gift to give to the students,” muralist Dorian Sylvain said.
A Chicago star in the Black Arts Movement, Mr. Wade died April 15 of heart failure at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
After retiring in 2005, he moved back to his native Louisiana to enjoy a return to warm weather, according to his daughter Martha Wade. Mr. Wade was 81.
Lee BeySome of Eugene “Eda” Wade’s doors at the old Malcolm X College.
“He was a master artist,” said Chicago poet Haki Madhubuti, founder of Third World Press Foundation.
Lee BeyEugene “Eda” Wade painted designs that transformed the steel fire doors at Malcolm X College.
Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special EventsEugene “Eda” Wade’s doors from Malcolm X College were displayed at the Chicago Cultural Center in 2017.
He also repainted sections of Chicago’s Wall of Respect mural at East 43rd Street and South Langley Avenue in 1967. The building and its mural have long since been torn down, but art historians often cite it as the nation’s “original community-based outdoor Black Power mural,” according to Jeff Huebner, author of a book on one of Mr. Wade’s collaborators, “Walls of Prophecy and Protest: William Walker and the Roots of a Revolutionary Public Art Movement.”
The Wall of Respect helped launch “a revival of mural painting in the United States,” said Daniel Schulman, director of visual art for the city of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
It displayed images of cultural icons including Muhammad Ali, James Baldwin, Stokely Carmichael, Ornette Coleman, Wilt Chamberlain, W.E.B. DuBois, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, Sidney Poitier, Nina Simone, Cicely Tyson and Malcolm X.
It also featured an image of Illinois poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks, who recited “The Wall” at its dedication, including these lines:
It is the Hour of tribe and of vibration,
the day-long Hour. It is the Hour
of ringing, rouse, of ferment-festival.
On Forty-third and Langley
black furnaces resent ancient
legislatures
of ploy and scruple and practical gelatin.
They keep the fever in,
fondle the fever.
All
worship the Wall.
The Wall — organized by the Visual Arts Workshop of the Organization of Black American Culture — was an exuberant community counterpoint to officially sanctioned public art like the Picasso sculpture, unveiled downtown the same year. It also was an expression of Black pride and autonomy.
“The entire mural was an act of defiance,” Huebner said.
“This was public Black art, and we’ve always spelled Black with a capital ‘B,’ ” said Madhubuti, who called the Wall of Respect “one of the most critically important artistic international statements made from Chicago artists.”
Like Brooks, Madhubuti recited a poem he’d written titled “The Wall” at the dedication. It included the line:
Our heroes, we pick them, for the wall
The mighty black wall about our business/blackness
Can you dig?
The Wall of Respect was, in the parlance of the day, a happening. And it soon begat other happenings, becoming a gathering spot for poetry readings and dance and musical events.
“As a theater director, my company and the Kuumba Workshop presented numerous performances at [the] Wall of Respect, which had become a spiritual site and creative center,” Pemon Rami said.
Mr. Wade’s “religion section of the Wall of Respect was seen in the background for many of our performances,” Rami said.
Alterations to the Wall of Respect became a source of debate and controversy. At one point, Walker — sometimes called the originator of the project — asked Mr. Wade to “paint over” artist Norman Parish’s section. That caused a “lasting rift,” according to a 2017 Cultural Center show about the Wall of Respect.
In addition to the Wall of Respect, Mr. Wade worked on neighboring murals — one called the Wall of Truth, another a porcelain-enamel piece memorializing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
In his younger years, Mr. Wade went by the nickname Edaw — Wade spelled backwards. He later shortened that to Eda.
He also worked on public murals in Detroit, including the Wall of Dignity, at Kennedy-King College and in Baton Rouge.
“His fading 1996 ‘Legacy’ survives on a Metra retaining wall at Kinzie and Laramie,” Huebner said.
“Eda’s style of painting was unique and memorable,” said Romi Crawford, a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “His painting is, at once, figurative and graphic, bold and confident in terms of design, the maneuver of symbols, and adamant in its use of color.”
Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special EventsA 2017 show at the Chicago Cultural Center featured the 32 doors — 64 sides, with the fronts and backs — that muralist Eugene “Eda” Wade painted for Malcolm X College.
He didn’t mind when producing his murals — like the doors at Malcolm X College — took him away from Chicago’s weather extremes.
“I went inside because it was too hot outside in the summertime, and it was too cold in the wintertime,” he once said.
Lee BeyA closeup detail from artist Eugene “Eda” Wade’s doors at Malcolm X College.
Mr. Wade felt it was important to introduce color to the doors when he took on the Malcolm X project in the early 1970s.
“When I went over there and I saw those doors, they were jet black,” he once told the Chicago Sun-Times. “They were quite depressing. I thought it was a challenge.”
Lee BeyEugene “Eda” Wade introduced eye-catching color to the steel fire doors at Malcolm X College.
He decided to use quick-drying acrylic paint.
“You must realize that, during the time I was painting it, I had students, constant traffic back and forth, and sometimes I would have to close off a section so the students wouldn’t knock over my paint,” he said.
Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special EventsThe Malcolm X College doors painted by muralist Eugene “Eda” Wade featured different artistic styles.
Eight of the Malcolm X doors are now at the DuSable Museum of African American History.
The remaining 24 are at the new Malcolm X College, which “is working to raise funds to properly display them at the college,” said Katheryn Hayes, an associate vice chancellor.
Young Eugene grew up in Scotlandville, a community that’s now part of Baton Rouge. At 7, “He saw a little boy drawing a cowboy, and he told himself he wanted to do that,” his daughter Martha said.
By fifth grade, he had teachers asking him to decorate their classrooms and offering extra credit for doing it.
He got his bachelor’s degree in arts education from Southern University and A&M College, his daughter Jessica Scott-Wade said, and a master of fine arts degree in painting from Howard University.
Mr. Wade became a popular teacher at Malcolm X and Kennedy-King, according to his daughters.
“He always said it wasn’t about the mone,” Martha Wade said. “He just wanted to share the knowledge and share the creativity.”
He was creative as a parent, too, she said, taking his children bike-riding and on outings to the lakefront and amusement parks.
“He believed he was put here to be a father,” she said.
Mr. Wade continued creating well into his later years, switching to digital art.
“I moved from being a traditional artist — painting with paint, such as oil paint and acrylics, and things like that on a large scale or even on canvas — to painting on a computer,” he said in 2015 for a video posted to YouTube.
In addition to his daughters Martha and Jessica, Mr. Wade is survived by daughters Elizabeth J. Wade and Ivy Scott-Wade, sons Durand and Manaseh, his brother Robert and five grandchildren.
Martha Wade said a Chicago memorial service, featuring some of Mr. Wade’s paintings and a video devoted to his work, is being planned for June.
A man is facing charges in connection with a shooting from Oct. 4, 2019, in Uptown.
Fabian Regalado, 30, is charged with attempted murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm, police said.
A man has been charged with attempted murder for allegedly shooting at a car carrying a woman and toddler in Uptown on the North Side in 2019.
Fabian Regalado, 30, is also charged with aggravated discharge of a firearm in the attack, which happened Oct. 4, 2019, in the 4600 block of North Sheridan Road, Chicago police said.
About 2:16 p.m. that day, a 37-year-old woman and a 3-year-old girl were in a parked BMW when Regalado pulled up in a red pickup and fired at the BMW, police said.
The BMW was hit multiple times but the woman and the child were not injured, police said, adding that the incident was domestic-related.
Regalado was arrested Thursday in Little Village on the Southwest Side, police said.
A man was killed and another hurt in a drive-by shooting May 5, 2021 in West Garfield Park. | Sun-Times file photo
Two men were standing on the sidewalk in the 4100 block of West Adams Street Wednesday when a car drove past and someone inside fired.
A man was killed and another was wounded in a drive-by shooting Wednesday evening in West Garfield Park.
John Wesley-Reese Allen and another man were shot on a sidewalk by someone in a passing car about 7:40 p.m. in the 4100 block of West Adams Street, Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
Allen, 33, was shot in the leg and lower back and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said.
The other man, 29, was struck in the wrist and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition, police said.
You should celebrate your mother everyday, but for a little extra love on her most special of days turn to one of these 19 Chicagoland bars, restaurants, dessert shops, etc, for the best Mother’s Day specials this year. Choose between these restaurants celebrating moms: Andros Taverna, BLVD Steakhouse, Farm Bar Lakeview, Farmhouse Evanston, Funkenhausen, Gemini, Nonnina, PB&J, Rainbow Cone, Recess & City Hall, Robert Et Fils, Sepia, Sophia Steak, Stan’s Donuts & Coffee,The Dearborn and The Table at Crate.
Follow our roundup and find the perfect Mother’s Day meal to celebrate the most important woman in your life.
Andros Taverna will celebrate moms with brunch and a selection of pastries and whole cakes for pre-order including Tahini Chiffon Cake with Heaven’s Honey Cream, Rosewater Galaktaboureko with raspberries and Chocolate Frappé Cake with coffee ganache. Mother’s Day cakes serve 4 – 6 people. Moms can also dine-in at Andros for a Mother’s Day dinner with Philotimo Feast with Border Springs roasted leg of lamb and floral bouquets for pre-order. For pre-order and reservation details visit androstaverna.com.
Celebrate mom with a one-day-only brunch at BLVD Steakhouse. In addition to its regular dinner service, the glamorous Old Hollywood-inspired steakhouse will offer a 3-course shared brunch menu for $55 per person on Sunday, May 9. Dish selections include: Cured Salmon Toast with pickled beets, arugula, housemade yogurt and dill; Pain Perdu Brioche French Toast with rum custard, fresh berries and crème anglaise; Shakshuka with an ottoman farm vegetable stew, poached eggs and goat cheese; Chicken & Waffles with buttermilk fried chicken and a house-made Belgian waffle; and Steak & Eggs with a 10oz prime bavette steak, breakfast potatoes and two farm fresh eggs. Bloody Marys, bottomless mimosas, other specialty cocktails, as well as luxe upgrades, like Seafood Towers and Caviar Service, will also be available. BLVD Steakhouse will be open on Mother’s Day for brunch from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and for dinner from 5-9 p.m. Reservations can be made via OpenTable. For more information, visit www.blvdchicago.com.
El Che Steakhouse & Bar will celebrate moms with the Mother’s Day Kit this year. The kit will be $175 and include two filets, a bottle of bubbles, alfajores, smoked salt and a Studio Sour bowl. Mother’s Day Kits are available for order online now at exploretock.com/elchechicago.
To celebrate the queen bees, Farm Bar will serve brunch specials with a complimentary jar of Brown Dog Farm honey and free peach mimosas for moms. Brunch will also include Monkey Bread, Strawberry Rhubarb French Toast and Smoked Trout Benedict. Reservations can be made online with Resy at farm-bar.com.
Farmhouse Evanston will celebrate moms with an all-day menu featuring three courses. Course one will include family-style breads and spreads. Two will feature your choice of an entree including Eggs Benedict, Red Wine Braised Short Rib and Seared Salmon, while course three offers a family-style dessert featuring Strawberry Short Cake and Chocolate Bread Pudding. The three-course menu is $38 for adults and $17 for kids. Reservations can be made at farmhouseevanston.com.
FireLake Grill House & Cocktail Bar, the restaurant located at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel, is serving a three-course pre-fixed Mother’s Day Dinner May 9 from 2pm – 9pm. Start with a choice of Delta asparagus soup with Blue crab, sherry, and brioche croutons; or Cow’s Milk Burrata with prosciutto, asparagus, and cara cara. For the Main, choose between the Chilean Sea Bass with onion crust, spring vegetables, and English pea sauce; Cabernet braised short rib with spring onion, miso turnip puree, mizuna, and kumquats; or Wild Shrimp Risotto with English peas, bacon, and yuzu emulsion. For Dessert, choose between Tiramisu with Frangelico mascarpone mousse, coffee syrup, milk chocolate, dark chocolate glaze, and salted chocolate hazelnut; or Carrot cake with cream cheese icing, shredded carrots, coconut, pecan pieces, and crushed pineapple. Reservations at firelakechicago.com. $48 per person.
Nestled in Lincoln Park, Gemini will offer specialty brunch and dinner options for Mother’s Day. Guests can enjoy Lobster Caesar Salad for $28 and their usual brunch options. Dinner options include Lobster Bisque, Alaskan Halibut with morel mushrooms, sweet spring peas, petite salad, and meyer lemon Beurre Blanc, and Fried Chicken Dinner. All day dessert includes Strawberry Shortcake for $12. Additionally, Gemini will partner with a local flower shop so diners can pre-order mini bouquets for mom with their reservation. Guests can also request a bouquet by calling any Ballyhoo location when booking their reservation.
To help celebrate moms all weekend long, Nonnina will offer complimentary prosecco to moms when they dine on Saturday, May 8. Reservations are available with OpenTable at opentable.com/r/nonnina-chicago.
This Mother’s Day, PB&J will feature specialty brunch menu items such as a Lemon Ginger Souffle served with strawberry rhubarb jam, Milk Crumbs, and Mint Fizz. Additionally, PB&J is celebrating moms by giving them a free glass of Champagne and rose upon arrival. Guests can make reservations at https://pbjwestloop.com
City Hall, located adjacent to Recess in the same historic West Loop building, will open for a special family-style Mother’s Day Brunch on May 9. Enjoy live music from a female-only band. Recess will offer a la carte brunch options as well. For more, visit http://thecityhall.com/ and https://chicagoinrecess.com/
In honor of Mother’s Day, Robert Et Fils will offer diners a “Mother’s Day Picnic Kit” that is perfect for the whole family. The kit is $160.00 and serves up to four people. The kit includes fresh juice, a bottle of wine, fresh bread, preserves, hand picked wild vegetables, Salade Maison and a Whole Roasted Green Circle Chicken stuffed with lemon, picholine olives, and breadcrumbs. For dessert, guests can indulge in a Seasonal Tarte and more. Guests can order on Tock and schedule their pick up for Sunday, May 9th between 10:00am and 2:00pm. For more information, visit https://www.robertetfilsrestaurant.com/order-online.
Sepia will offer an at-home Mother’s Day Meal Kit. The meal kit, which feeds two people, is $80 and includes Toasted Almond Bostock and Blueberry-Lemon Muffins, Vanilla Yogurt, Arugula Salad with dried cherries, candied hazelnuts and goat cheese and the Buttermilk Biscuit Sandwich in two variations. Add-on items include Pimento cheese with Lavash Crackers, Smoked salmon rillettes with a toasted baguette and Strawberry-rhubarb pie. For more, see sepiachicago.com.
Located on the North Shore, Sophia Steak will feature the ultimate Mother’s Day Brunch. Sophia Steak is partnering with a local flower shop so diners can pre-order mini bouquets for mom with their reservation. Guests can also request a bouquet by calling any Ballyhoo location when booking their reservation. For more information, visit http://sophiasteak.com
To celebrate the opening of their new Hyde Park location, Stan’s will host a Stan’s Van popup at 5225 S Harper Ct, Chicago, IL 60615. Find more details at stansdonuts.com.
The Dearborn will be serving all-day specials for Mother’s Day including Jumbo Shrimp & Lobster Cocktails for $36, Chicken ‘Pot Pie’ Vol au Vent for $25 and The Dearborn Pastry Basket for $30. Reservations can be made online at thedearborntavern.com/reservations.
The Smith will be offering two experiences to celebrate Mother’s Day this year, including a specialty brunch and at-home kit. Mother’s Day brunch will consist of The Smith’s full brunch menu plus an asparagus toast with burrata and poached eggs special. The Smith will also offer their take-home kit to bring the brunch offerings to you. Brunch is available from 10:00am – 4:00pm.Reservations at at-home kit requests can be made at thesmithrestaurant.com/location/chicago.
Chef Bill Kim will offer a special four-course brunch menu that pays homage to three special mothers who have each had profound impacts on his life. Each dish draws inspiration from these women, telling a story through dishes, ingredients and flavors representative of each. The first course, Green Acres Farm Spring Asparagus Sauté, starts with Beth Eccles, the first local farmer who Kim began working within the city and who became like a sister over the last three decades. Chef Bill’s mother is the inspiration for the second course, Mama Kim’s Famous Savory Pancake with soft-boiled farmer’s egg and shrimp, highlighting their Korean heritage through her famous savory pancakes. The third course is a nod to Kim’s mother-in-law Lola and his wife’s Puerto Rican background: Lola’s Salmon Criolla with roasted garlic & Three Sisters Garden white corn grits. Available for $65 per person on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 9. https://www.tableatcrate.com/.
Mother’s Day Specials Featured Image Credit: Pixabay
ChicagoBears fans are still on cloud nine after what general manager Ryan Pace was able to accomplish last week. They traded up in the first round to get arguably the second-best quarterback in this class in Justin Fields. On day two of the draft, they went ahead and traded up again for offensive tackle […]
In this April 22, 2021, file photo, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., speaks during his weekly press briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington. McCarthy is leading his party to an inflection point. House Republicans are preparing to dump Rep. Liz Cheney from the No. 3 leadership position. If so, McCarthy will have transformed what’s left of the party of Lincoln more decisively into the party of Trump. | AP
The GOP leader argues that ousting Cheney has less to do with her very public criticism of the former president’s lies about his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden than her inability to set aside personal convictions and do her job.
WASHINGTON — Republican Kevin McCarthy is leading his party to an inflection point, preparing to dump Rep. Liz Cheney from the No. 3 House leadership position and transform what’s left of the party of Lincoln more decisively into the party of Trump.
The GOP leader argues that ousting Cheney has less to do with her very public criticism of the former president’s lies about his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden than her inability to set aside personal convictions and do her job. As conference chair responsible for communicating a unified party message, Cheney has lost the confidence of rank-and-file lawmakers, he said this week.
But in tossing aside Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president and as close as it gets to GOP royalty, and promising a “big tent” to win back power, McCarthy is hollowing out a cadre of lawmakers intent on governing while he is elevating the people and personalities most loyal to Donald Trump. In one stroke, he is amplifying the former president’s false claims about the election and seeking to mend his own tattered relationship with Trump, reasserting himself as Trump’s man in the House.
It’s a transformational moment for McCarthy, who resurrected his political career by attaching himself to Trump — who called him “My Kevin” — and is now on a glidepath to become House speaker, second in line to the presidency, if Republicans win control in next year’s elections.
“There’s a complete changing of the guard here,” said Adam Brandon, president of the conservative FreedomWorks, a tea party group aligned with Trump’s rise.
“This started as one thing and morphed into something else: It’s about the future.”
The vote as soon as next week is expected to be decisive, showing the power of Trump’s reach, particularly on McCarthy. The GOP leader initially criticized Trump’s actions after the 2020 election, saying he “bears responsibility” for the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the most serious domestic assault on the building in its history.
Five people died after Trump encouraged loyalists to “fight like hell” as Congress was certifying his defeat to Biden. In a private call during the insurrection, McCarthy had urged Trump to call off the rioters, only to face the president’s rebuke.
“The saddest day I have ever had” in Congress, McCarthy said that night, even as he joined 138 other House Republicans in voting to overturn Biden’s win.
McCarthy stood by Cheney when she faced a February challenge for leading 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump for his role in the insurrection. McCarthy argued that the House GOP needed to stay united against newly empowered Democrats, and she easily survived.
But in between the lines, McCarthy was also considering the optics of the moment, according to Republicans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private vote. Booting Cheney so soon after the riot would be a bad look for the party, especially when House Republican leaders were also encouraging a unified vote of support for newly elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump ally who faced reprimand from Democrats over her conspiracy-laden social media rants.
The GOP leader counseled Cheney to stay on message, but as she continued to warn the party off Trump’s falsehoods, he groomed a newly transformed Trump acolyte, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., as her replacement. Like McCarthy, she is raising millions of dollars for the GOP as a Trump defender.
A last straw was Cheney’s press conference at the House GOP’s retreat in Florida last month when Cheney criticized Trump anew and broke with McCarthy to back a bipartisan commission fully focused on investigating the Capitol attack.
“The American people need to know how we got to Jan. 6 — people need to be held accountable,” she said.
In an essay in Wednesday’s Washington Post, she warned colleagues, “History is watching.”
McCarthy, who has jetted to Trump’s private club at Mar-a-Lago to win back the former president’s support, had already changed his own tune, now saying he did not believe the former president had provoked the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Trump has made clear he wants Cheney out. During an event with the conservative Freedom Caucus at Mar-a-Lago ahead of the House GOP retreat, Trump told lawmakers that Cheney and other “RINOs,” including Senate leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, must go, according to two Republicans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private remarks. RINO refers to those considered insufficiently loyal or conservative — Republicans in name only.
In private calls with lawmakers, Trump had expressed similar displeasure with McCarthy, too, according to one of the Republicans.
“It’s not like the ‘My Kevin’ days,” the Republican aide said.
Never fully supported by GOP’s far right flank, the California Republican has labored to win over the party’s conservatives by embracing Trump and giving the former president’s allies a seat at the table in House leadership.
McCarthy was among the first Republicans in Congress to endorse Trump’s presidential campaign and quickly became a close confidant and late-night telephone buddy, often fielding his calls in view of reporters in the Capitol.
In many ways, McCarthy had bridged the party’s path to the Trump era years earlier. He recruited the tea party class of Republicans who seized control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections, newcomers who shut down the government during hardball fiscal fights with then-President Barack Obama.
Underestimated by Democrats as a legislative lightweight, without a House Speaker Nancy Pelosi-style resume of committee work and policy chops to pass bills, McCarthy revels in outperforming expectations, steadily rising to the top GOP leadership position.
But McCarthy has always had other would-be leaders on his heels. After the Freedom Caucus led by Mark Meadows forced former Speaker John Boehner into early retirement, McCarthy withdrew his own bid to become speaker in 2015. The gavel slipped away again after Speaker Paul Ryan retired and Republicans lost House control in 2018.
McCarthy has faced potential challenges from conservative Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the GOP whip in charge of counting votes, though the two are more friendly rivals now, as well as from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the de facto leader of the swelling conservative ranks and another Trump confidant.
Jordan said McCarthy has done what the others failed to do — bring the Freedom Caucus and conservatives into the fold. While Boehner punished what he sometimes called the “knuckleheads,” and Ryan simply ignored them, McCarthy showers the far right with face time and rank. He made Jordan the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, the perch he used to defend Trump from impeachment.
“He’s going to become the speaker if we take back the House,” Jordan said an interview Thursday.
McCarthy, who declined to respond to an interview request, has said he wants House Republicans to focus their attention against Democrats, not on internal party rifts.
Without Cheney, he may have fewer dissenters to contend with.
“The frustrating thing about this is that they’re both right,” said Michael Steel, a former top Boehner aide.
“Cheney is correct that President Trump lost the presidential election … and McCarthy is also right — the job of the Republican leader is to gain the majority and become speaker of the House.”
The relative of a victim shouts against the police during a protest one day after a deadly police operation in the Jacarezinho favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, May 7, 2021. A bloody, hours-long gunbattle here echoed into Friday, with authorities saying the police mission killed two dozen criminals while residents and activists claimed human rights abuses. | AP
When the fighting stopped, there were 25 dead — one police officer and 24 people described by the police as “criminals.”
RIO DE JANEIRO — A bloody, hourslong gunbattle in a Rio de Janeiro slum echoed into Friday, with authorities saying the police mission killed two dozen criminals while residents and activists claimed human rights abuses.
It was just after sunrise Thursday when dozens of officers from Rio de Janeiro state’s civil police stormed Jacarezinho, a favela in the city’s northern zone. They were targeting drug traffickers from one of Brazil’s most notorious criminal organizations, Comando Vermelho, and the bodies piled up quickly.
When the fighting stopped, there were 25 dead — one police officer and 24 people described by the police as “criminals.”
Rio’s moniker of “Marvelous City” can often seem a cruel irony in the favelas, given their violent conflicts, stark poverty and subjugation to drug traffickers or militias. But even here, Thursday’s clash was a jarring anomaly that analysts declared one of the city’s deadliest police operations ever.
And it was by far the most violent since Brazil’s Supreme Court issued a ruling banning most such actions during the pandemic, which drew a rebuke from the U.N.’s human rights office.
The bloodshed also laid bare Brazil’s perennial divide over whether, as a common local saying goes, “a good criminal is a dead criminal.” Fervent law-and-order sentiment fueled the successful presidential run in 2018 by Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain whose home is in Rio. He drew support from much of society with his calls to diminish legal constraints on officers’ use of lethal force against criminals.
The administration of Rio state’s Gov. Cláudio Castro, a Bolsonaro ally, said in an emailed statement that it lamented the deaths, but that the operation was “oriented by long and detailed investigative and intelligence work that took months.”
The raid sought to rout gang recruitment of teenagers, police said in an earlier statement, which also cited Comando Vermelho’s “warlike structure of soldiers equipped with rifles, grenades, bulletproof vests.”
Television images showed a police helicopter flying low over the Jacarezinho favela as men with high-powered rifles hopped from roof to roof to evade officers.
Others didn’t escape.
One resident told The Associated Press that a man barged into her home around 8 a.m. bleeding from a gunshot wound. He hid in her daughter’s room, but police came rushing in right behind him.
She said that she and her family saw officers shoot the unarmed man.
Hours later, his blood was still pooled on her tile floor and soaked into a blanket decorated with hearts.
On Friday, protesters gathered outside police headquarters near Jacarezinho to denounce the violence, holding a banner that read “STOP KILLING US!”
Felipe Curi, a detective in Rio’s civil police, denied there were any executions.
“There were no suspects killed. They were all traffickers or criminals who tried to take the lives of our police officers and there was no other alternative,” he said at a news conference.
Curi said some suspects had sought refuge in residents’ homes, and six of them were arrested. Police also seized 16 pistols, six rifles, a submachine gun, 12 grenades and a shotgun, he said.
Bolsonaro’s son Carlos, a Rio city councilman who is influential on social media, supported police. He expressed condolences to the family of the fallen officer on Twitter, while skipping any mention of the other 24 dead or their families.
The president didn’t refer to the incident at all Thursday night in his weekly live broadcast on Facebook. His vice president, Hamilton Mourão, told local media on Friday in capital Brasilia that it is unfortunate that “true narco-guerillas” retain control over areas in Rio.
Bolsonaro’s political rival, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said any operation that produces two dozen deaths doesn’t qualify as public security.
“That is the absence of a government that offers education and jobs, the cause of a great deal of violence,” said da Silva, who is widely expected to mount a challenge to Bolsonaro’s reelection bid next year.
The Brazilian divisions of international advocacy groups Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International urged prosecutors to thoroughly investigate the operation.
“Even if the victims were suspected of criminal association, which has not been proven, summary executions of this kind are entirely unjustifiable,” said Jurema Werneck, Amnesty’s executive director in Brazil.
The Rio state prosecutors’ office said in a statement to the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo that it would investigate accusations of violence, adding that the case required a probe that is independent from police.
Brazil’s Supreme Court issued a ruling last year prohibiting police operations in Rio’s favelas during the pandemic unless “absolutely exceptional.”
The order came after police fatally shot a 14-year-old in a home where there was no indication of any illegal activity. The teen’s death sparked a Brazilian iteration of Black Lives Matter protests held across the city’s metropolitan area for weeks.
The spokesperson for the U.N.’s human rights office, Rupert Colville, told reporters on Friday that it was “particularly disturbing” that the raid took place while the court’s ruling remains in force.
The ruling caused a decline in police operations throughout the middle of last year, as reflected by a plunge in the number of shootouts reported by Crossfire, a non-governmental group that monitors violence, and in official state data on deaths resulting from police intervention. But both indicators have crept back up to around pre-pandemic levels.
The Candido Mendes University’s Public Safety Observatory said Rio police killed an average of more than five people a day during the first quarter of 2021, the most lethal start of a year since the state government began regularly releasing such data more than two decades ago.
“We remind the Brazilian authorities that the use of force should be applied only when strictly necessary, and that they should always respect the principles of legality, precaution, necessity and proportionality,” Colville said in Geneva. “Lethal force should be used as a last resort.”
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Associated Press writer Mauricio Savarese in Sao Paulo and AP producer Diarlei Rodrigues in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.
In this file photo dated Thursday, March 18, 2021, a pharmacy technician draws a does of the AstraZeneca vaccine ready for use at the Wheatfield surgery in Luton, England. | AP
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the country’s current blanket ban on overseas vacations is being replaced by a traffic-light system classifying countries as low, medium or high risk.
LONDON — The British government on Friday announced a “first tentative step” toward resuming international travel, saying U.K. citizens will be able to travel to countries including Portugal, Iceland and Israel later this month without having to quarantine on their return.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the country’s current blanket ban on overseas vacations is being replaced by a traffic-light system classifying countries as low, medium or high risk.
The “green list” of 12 low-risk territories also includes Gibraltar, the Faroe Islands and the Falkland Islands — but not major vacation destinations for Britons such as France, Spain and Greece. Britons traveling to those countries will have to self-isolate for 10 days upon their return.
All but essential travel remains barred to countries with severe outbreaks, including India and South Africa, and people returning from them face 10 days of mandatory hotel quarantine. On Friday the government added Nepal, the Maldives and Turkey to that list.
Friday’s decision throws into doubt fans’ ability to travel to the Champions League soccer final between two English teams — Manchester City and Chelsea — which is due to be played in Istanbul on May 29.
The changes take effect May 17, the next date on the government’s roadmap out of lockdown. Pubs and restaurants in England can reopen indoor areas that same day, and venues including theaters and cinemas can open to limited audiences.
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The Original Rainbow Cone
