Illinois picks new-ish state flag
Except, well, it's not new.
Flashback: Last year, the Illinois Flag Commission released 10 designs for the public to vote on.
Driving the news: Giannoulias said Thursday that 385,000 votes were cast in the contest.
165,000, or 43%, selected the current flag that features an eagle on a rock with a red ribbon coming from its beak, emblazoned with the words "State Sovereignty, National Union."
Zoom in: More than 5,400 Axios Chicago readers voted on the best design and the option with a simple navy background with a bust of Lincoln, squeaked by as the winner.
Second place? The current flag.
What's next: The decision to *checks notes* use the current state flag as the new state flag goes to the General Assembly. Lawmakers could also decide to pick a new design or revert back to an old one.
The bottom line: Do we hate change?
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Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
Will County Board member from Naperville announces bid for Senate seat
Will County Board member Julie Berkowicz, a Naperville Republican, has announced plans to run in the 2026 primary for the state senate seat representing District 21, which covers portions of Will and DuPage counties. The position is currently held by Sen. Laura Ellman, a Naperville Democrat elected to the post in November 2018. Berkowicz said at the county level, she advocates for lower taxes and smaller government and has been frustrated in recent years with the increased tax levies that have been approved. Financial votes tend to break along party lines, she said. The Will County Board has 11 Republicans and 11 Democrats, with County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, a Democrat, able to cast tie-breaking votes. Berkowicz said she knows residents grapple with paying high property taxes and believes it's wrong that tax burdens are forcing people out of their homes and prompting some to move other states. 'If people in the state are struggling, then we are not doing our job,' she said. 'People are not feeling secure anymore.' Mandates coming from Springfield are another factor in her senate bid, Berkowicz said. She said she believes the General Assembly has tied the county board's hands when it comes to issues like approving solar farm projects, taking local control away from the board and its residents. If the board rejects a commercial solar farm, the company can sue the county, Berkowicz said. While she supports some solar projects and opposes others, Springfield needs to return control back to the counties and municipalities, she said. 'I feel by going to serve in state government, I can make a difference and give people back their voice,' Berkowicz said. Preserving farmland, helping the agriculture industry and protecting open space are also important initiatives, she said. The 21st District covers portions of Naperville, Bolingbrook, Downers Grove, Glen Ellyn, Lisle, Lombard, Wheaton and Warrenville. Berkowicz said she is 'not motivated by blue or red' agendas, acknowledging DuPage County has been shifting in favor of Democrats for the last several years. As an example, she said she cast her vote against a quarry expansion in Wheatland Township on the borders of Plainfield and Bolingbrook and not far from Naperville despite eight of her Republican colleagues voting in favor of it. Berkowicz has been on the county board since 2018 and serves as vice chair of the finance committee and treasurer of the board for the Forest Preserve District of Will County. She was reelected last fall to a four-year term, which ends in 2028, and would likely have to resign from the board were she elected to the senate. The campaign for state office, however, will not affect her commitment to her board duties, she said. She plans to take the same approach to governing at the state level as she does at a county level, she said. 'I go in there to do my best,' Berkowicz said. 'I do my research, become educated, understand the role I take and act accordingly. I have the experience, knowledge and background to go to the table, look at the facts and do what's best for Illinois.'
Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Miami Herald
In a first, U.S. sanctions Cuba leader Miguel Díaz-Canel for human rights violations
Coinciding with the anniversary of the islandwide July 11 uprising in 2021 on Friday, the United States sanctioned Cuba's leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, for his involvement in 'gross violations of human rights, ' the Department of State said in a statement. This is the first time the U.S. government has imposed sanctions on Díaz-Canel, Cuba's handpicked president and head of the Communist Party, a civilian figure who was spared in several rounds of sanctions on Cuban officials both under President Donald Trump, in his first term, and President Joe Biden. The State Department also sanctioned Cuban Defense Minister Álvaro López Miera, and Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas. The sanctions mean the three, along with their immediate family members, will be prohibited from traveling to the United States. Their public designation was made using a section of the State Department's budget appropriations act for fiscal year 2025, which states that foreign government officials who have been involved in significant cases of corruption or a violation of human rights are not 'eligible' to enter the United States. 'The United States will never forget the tenacity of the Cuban people four years ago as they demanded freedom and a future free from tyranny,' a senior State Department official told the Miami Herald. 'The Trump Administration remains firm in its commitment to holding the Cuban regime accountable for its repressive actions and rampant acts of corruption.' In addition, the State Department is imposing visa restrictions on several unnamed 'Cuban judicial and prison officials responsible for, or complicit in, the unjust detention and torture of July 2021 protestors.' Because those sanctions are imposed under a different authority provided by immigration laws, which establish confidentiality on visa matters, the administration cannot publicly identify those targeted. The State Department is also adding 11 hotels to its Cuba restriction list and its Cuba Prohibited Accommodations List, which include companies and properties linked to the Cuban government and the military conglomerate GAESA. Among those newly banned are luxury hotels recently built in Havana, like 'Torre K.' In 2019, during the first Trump administration, the State Department invoked a similar authority under the budget act to impose visa sanctions on Raúl Castro, the island's ultimate ruler, and his sons and daughters. Still, Díaz-Canel is the sitting president, and the sanctions likely mean he won´t be attending the United Nations' General Assembly, which he has done on a couple of occasions, in 2018 and 2023, accompanied by his wife, Luis Cuesta. Díaz-Canel's term will end in 2028. General López Miera, the head of Cuba's Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, was already unable to travel to the United States because in 2021 President Joe Biden added him to a list of 'specially designated nationals' for his role in the 'mass detentions and sham trials' that followed the July 11 demonstrations, Biden said. Days before leaving office in January 2021, President Trump had also sanctioned Álvarez Casas under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and added him to the designated nationals list. The July 11 anti-government demonstrations were met with a crackdown ordered by Díaz-Canel on state television that day. Justicia 11J, a group that has tracked political detentions in Cuba, has documented at least 1,586 arrests linked to the uprising. Many of those arrested were given decades-long sentences in summary trials. By December last year, 553 protesters were still in prison, according to Justicia 11J. Other organizations estimate a higher number. As part of a deal brokered by the Vatican and the Biden administration, Díaz-Canel committed to releasing 553 'prisoners,' the exact figure used by the Justicia 11J; however, Cuban authorities ultimately released only 212. Since then, Cuban authorities rounded up some of the same people released under the deal, including well-known dissidents like José Daniel Ferrer, Félix Navarro and Donaida Pérez Paseiro. On Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that 'the Cuban regime continues to torture pro-democracy activist José Daniel Ferrer. The United States demands immediate proof of life and the release of all political prisoners.' Still in prison are Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, a prominent dissident artist, and Maykel Castillo, a Grammy-award-winning rapper and activist. Several women remain behind bars for protesting against the government that day, including Lisandra Góngora, a mother of five, sentenced to 14 years in prison, and María Cristina Garrido, a poet, activist and mother of three, sentenced to seven years. Worsening prison conditions Conditions in Cuban prisons have grown worse in recent years. The Cuban Prison Documentation Center, an independent organization based in Mexico, said that at least 24 people died in the prison system in the first six months of this year. The group documented 45 complaints of beatings and physical torture and 104 cases of denial of medical care in 43 prisons in the country. Lack of food and medications and unsanitary living conditions are also common, the group said. Yan Carlos González, a man who staged a 40-day hunger strike in prison protesting charges of sabotage that carried a 20-year sentence, died earlier this week, according to activists and Cubalex, a group providing legal help to people in Cuba. The group said González had been accused of burning a sugarcane field with no evidence. He died in a local hospital in Santa Clara, in central Cuba. A Human Rights Watch report published Friday also documented the accounts of 17 people who were detained in connection with the July 11 protests, claiming abuses suffered in prison. The interviewees described physical abuse by prison guards and said they were subjected to stress positions such as 'the bicycle' or 'wheelbarrow', in which prisoners 'are forced to run, handcuffed, with their arms raised above their heads,' the report says. A former detainee held in the Boniato prison in Santiago de Cuba said he was beaten and put in solitary confinement several times for making requests to guards. During one incident in 2022, 'they brought me down in handcuffs using a hold they call 'the bicycle,' and they beat me with a hose all over my body,' the former prisoner recalled, according to the report. 'If your family isn't bringing you food, you die,' one of the interviewees told Human Rights Watch. 'The food they gave you was inedible. It had worms in it,' said another. They also reported outbreaks of scabies, tuberculosis, dengue fever and COVID-19, which they said were left untreated. They said prison officials regularly ignored medical concerns. In a virtual meeting with relatives of imprisoned protesters, human rights activists and independent journalists at the U.S. embassy in Havana on Tuesday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called for the release of all political prisoners. In a video message, Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised those invited for opposing 'a regime that does everything possible to punish you and your families.' Last month, a Cuban diplomat said at a United Nations meeting debating the 'Nelson Mandela Rules' — a set of minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners — that in Cuban prisons 'the rights of persons deprived of liberty are guaranteed,' and that 'there is no overcrowding, violence against women, unsanitary conditions or discrimination.'
Miami Herald
3 days ago
- Miami Herald
At a tense town hall, Democrats offer a peek at their messaging on Trump's ‘Big Bill'
Despite what Republicans say about the merits of the so-called 'big, beautiful bill,' they are not eager to talk about it in public forums. Democrats, however, can't wait to discuss the highly unpopular legislation with their constituents. On Tuesday night, two Wake County Democrats, state Sen. Jay Chaudhuri and state Rep. Tim Longest, got that chance. Their town hall had been scheduled in advance of President Donald Trump's July 4 signing of the bill, but the timing turned out to be, in Chaudhuri's words, a 'fortuitous' opportunity to hear voters' concerns and shape a Democratic response. After the town hall drew what Chaudhuri considered a strong crowd of about 50 people on a summer night, he said, 'I think Donald Trump just handed state Democrats some of the best messaging.' During the event, he also credited another Republican with helping with the Democratic narrative. Sen. Thom Tillis, North Carolina's senior senator, voted against the bill after speaking on the Senate floor. 'For anyone who listened to Tillis' speech, I think that was as thorough an analysis as you will find,' Chaudhuri said. 'He came to the conclusion that, bottom line, the 'big, beautiful bill' will cost the state, at the best case scenario $26 billion over 10 years, $32 billion, worst case scenario scenario.' The two lawmakers tried to make the event at the Pullen Park Community Center a nonpartisan discussion of how the loss of federal aid will complicate a state budget that's already strained by past and planned tax cuts. Heba Atwa of the nonprofit NC Budget & Tax Center gave a presentation on the effects the new federal law will have on Medicaid and the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps. But there was no missing the political dynamics behind the painful combination of the Republican-controlled General Assembly reducing state tax revenue and Republicans in Washington cutting food assistance and access to medical care. The questions from the audience made the political tone clear. One woman asked, 'What plans do Democrats have to regain control of the legislature?' Another said she feels the nation is 'in a car with no brakes and we're heading toward a precipice.' Another felt overwhelmed by the volume of divisive issues coming out of the Trump administration. She told the lawmakers, 'There's always been things to oppose, but not at this pace.' Chaudhuri said he and other Democrats may hold town halls in Republican districts, but the most persuasive message will come from those most affected. 'I actually believe that the best voices are those of the people who are impacted,' he said. 'These are the stories that have to be pushed out.' Longest said opposition can't simply come from Democratic lawmakers. It must come from the public. 'I do not doubt that the volume of comment he received persuaded Sen. Tillis to vote against the 'big, ugly bill,' ' Longest said. 'It was not, ultimately, at the end of the day research, or any lobbyists, it was hearing from ordinary North Carolinians about the effects this was going to have on our state.' Ellen Beidler, a retired nurse, left the event in a somber mood. She saw what happened to people who lacked health insurance before Medicaid was expanded, some of them finally coming in for medical care after their cancer had reached a late stage. Now she worries that people will be returned to that vulnerable condition. 'I'm really heartbroken over what's happening to health care,' she said, 'We're all connected and we're all going to get hurt.' Chaudhuri said that health care concerns will be at the center of Democrats' messaging and at the center of Republicans' dilemma over the legislation. 'You're going to take away their chemotherapy coverage for cancer in order to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, and create a huge fiscal deficit in the process?' he said. 'What part of the bill actually resonates with the public?' The legislation was not resonating Tuesday night, but the early town hall suggests it is alarming the public – and energizing the opposition.
