St. Charles Divorce Attorney Named 2016 Leading Lawyer in Illinois

June 15, 2016, 11:02 am

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St. Charles Divorce Attorney and Mediator, Matthew G. Shaw of Shaw Family Law, P.C., has been selected as a 2016 Leading Lawyer in Illinois.

St. Charles, IL (PRWEB) June 15, 2016

The St. Charles law firm of Shaw Family Law, P.C. is pleased to announce that Founding Attorney Matthew G. Shaw has been named a 2016 Leading Lawyer in the state of Illinois.

Leading Lawyers are recommended by their peers and are among the top lawyers within their respective area of practice, as less than five percent of all lawyers licensed in each state receive this distinction. The Leading Lawyers database consists of the most respected and experienced lawyers available to individuals searching for legal assistance.

Kane County Attorney Matthew G. Shaw brings 30 years of experience to his legal practice, which he concentrates in family law, divorce, and mediation. He is a certified mediator and Guardian ad Litem. He obtained his B.A. Magna cum laude from Illinois College, and obtained his J.D. from Northern Illinois University College of Law.

He maintains a 10.0 “superb” rating on AVVO based on exceptional client reviews and peer recommendations. Additionally, the Leading Lawyers Network named Shaw a 2013-2014 “Leading West Suburban Lawyer”.

He is a member of the Kane County Bar Association, DuPage County Bar Association, and charter member of the Illinois Family Support Enforcement Association. He is also a member of the Illinois State Bar Association where he has served on the Family Law Section Counsel and on the Family Law Section Council Custody Subcommittee.

Shaw has been a legal author and lecturer for several years. Most notably, he authored Chapter One of the Illinois Family Law Handbook, Strategies for Family Law in Illinois, and has presented as a speaker and panelist at continuing legal education events across the state and nation.

About Shaw Family Law, P.C.:

The law firm of Shaw Family Law, P.C. is located in St. Charles, Illinois. The Kane County family law firm represents clients throughout Northern Illinois including the communities of St. Charles, Geneva, Batavia, Elgin, and Aurora. Shaw Family Law, P.C. provides tailored legal counsel in the practice areas of family law, divorce, parenting (child custody), child support, adoption, paternity, and mediation.

If you are seeking efficient divorce representation in Kane County contact Shaw Family Law, P.C. Call 630-206-3300 or visit http://www.kanecountydivorceattorneys.com to schedule your free consultation today. Reported by PRWeb 5 hours ago.

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On Gun Violence - Let's Come Together and Stop the Heartbreak

June 15, 2016, 4:46 pm

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Columbine. Virginia Tech. Fort Hood. Tucson. Aurora. Newtown. Navy Yard. Isla Vista. Charleston. Umpqua. Colorado Springs. San Bernardino.

And now Orlando is etched into the list of places in America that have been forever scarred by gun violence.

In the aftermath of each of these deadly mass shootings, we express our horror, our prayers for the victims and survivors, our condolences, our thanks to the courageous first responders - and of course, we must and we should. But words are not enough.

After the horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School four years ago, I was convinced that Congress would finally take action to address that epidemic of gun violence that kills more than 30,000 Americans every year. But only four Republicans were willing to join with 51 Democrats and independents, and so commonsense gun safety legislation was once more derailed.

That's why I am so proud that Senator Chris Murphy - joined by his Connecticut colleague, Senator Richard Blumenthal - took to the Senate floor with a simple message: Enough is enough. The Senate must address this issue with a vote.

We may not be able to prevent every tragedy, but there is so much we can do to save lives and protect our communities. And we can do it while still protecting the Second Amendment. We should start by taking these six commonsense steps right now:

• We can pass legislation to prevent a suspected terrorist from buying firearms or explosives.

• We can pass legislation to keep military-style weapons off our streets. These are weapons of war, and they do not belong in our communities.

• We can expand background checks - an idea supported by almost 90 percent of the American people and a majority of NRA members - which will help keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.

• We can pass the Gun Violence Intervention Act, which would allow families to go to court to seek a "gun violence prevention order" to temporarily stop someone who poses a threat to themselves or others from purchasing or possessing a gun.

• We can increase funding for the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), an important grant program that helps communities plan how best to prevent and respond to acts of terrorism.

• We can protect our children by investing in the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative, which helps schools develop school safety plans and provide critical safety training to school personnel.

We need a layered defense to protect our communities from criminals and terrorists who want to inflict mass casualties, and that is what these proposals would provide.

We know that tough gun safety laws work. We have seen it in other countries, like Australia. And we have seen it in my state of California which - after passing sensible laws - saw a 56 percent drop in gun violence between 1993 and 2010, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

People deserve to feel safe in their communities. They deserve to feel safe at work, at school, at a shopping mall, at a movie theater, at a health clinic, at a night club.

As elected officials, we take an oath to protect and defend the American people. Right now, we are failing at our most basic task - keeping our children and our families safe from harm.

It isn't enough for us to keep lamenting these tragedies. The people of Orlando, San Bernardino, Isla Vista, Newtown and so many other communities want more than words. They want action. And they want it now.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 1 day ago.

Denver firefighter charged with indecent exposure at Aurora mall

June 15, 2016, 4:57 pm

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A Denver firefighter was charged with indecent exposure after witnesses told Aurora police they saw him masturbating in a store at the mall. Timothy Plybon, 34, was placed on paid administrative leave on June 7, one day after his arrest. Reported by Denver Post 1 day ago.

Top official says Aurora VA hospital 70 percent complete

June 15, 2016, 5:39 pm

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Aurora VA hospital is 70 percent completed and construction is anticipated to finish in January 2018 Reported by Denver Post 23 hours ago.

VA official: 'No guarantees' on Aurora hospital cost (Video)

June 15, 2016, 6:20 pm

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Aurora -- No guarantees. That’s what Sloan Gibson, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, offered when asked about the final cost and opening date of the Denver area's new VA hospital. Gibson -- who visited the Aurora construction site Wednesday -- put a rosy face on the project, saying he was “very pleased and very impressed” with the progress since the Army Corps of Engineers took charge of construction. But he added: “We got a lot of things wrong. We learned a lot… Reported by bizjournals 22 hours ago.

Angry young Men and Mass Killings

June 16, 2016, 6:33 am

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I remember exactly where I was in April 1995 when Timothy McVeigh exploded a Ryder rental truck packed with explosives outside the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, a federal office building with a daycare in the basement, killing 168 and wounding 600. I was in Margate New Jersey, at the beach. I woke up early and finished reading a book by the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the great Morris Dees. I walked inside, turned on the TV, turned on CNN, and there was carnage from exactly the racist domestic terrorist Dees wrote about fighting. If you go to Oklahoma City and walk the beautiful memorial where the Murrah building was, and it is spectacular, what is most striking is the scale of the attack. There are buildings half of a mile away that twenty years later still bear scars from the bombing.

I remember 9/11. I was in Maine on vacation. Very early, my wife and I took a long walk on that gorgeous day. We stopped at a fire station where there was a basketball hoop and a ball sitting in a basket. We shot badly and laughed for a while. When we returned home, our friend rushed to the door and was stricken, and said "you haven't heard?" And we watched the second plane hit the second tower and watched along with a young woman who would have been in that second tower had she not been vacationing with us.

I woke up early this Sunday to the news from Orlando. Alone in my living room. That memory will also stay with me.

I study criminology for a living. I can tell you where I was when I heard about Columbine. I can tell you where I was when I heard about Charleston. I can tell you where I was when I heard about Tucson and Aurora and, I can, but I won't because it is too heart-breaking, where I was when I heard about Sandy Hook.

So what's the answer?

The thing they all have in common are angry young men.

So what drives these angry young men?

James Allen Fox wrote a brilliant op-ed in 2011 after the Loughner attack in Tucson where he describes these murderers as "loners and losers." He says about the Tucson shooting of Congress member Gabby Giffords:
"Were schizophrenia the critical element underlying [Jared] Loughners alleged rampage, then one would expect to find profound mental illness in the majority of mass murder cases. Rather, it is his history of failure, rejection and social isolation that set the stage. Had Loughner been successful in his educational or job pursuits, or had he benefited from a strong support network comprised of family and close friends, then his apparent mental illness would have been manifested in far less violent ways."And this is the point.

Should we restrict access to high-powered weapons? Obviously.

Should we provide better access to care for people with mental health problems and behavioral issues? Of course.

Should we invest in a defense infrastructure that prevents international terrorists from conducting 9/11 style attacks? Also obvious.

But prevention of mass murders along any of these grounds misses the larger point. The larger point is that we have a lot of really angry young men in our country and in the world. Perhaps this has always been true. But I am struck by two ideas.

One is derived from the principals of cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a catch all for a simple concept: that you are responsible for your own actions and you have the power to change those actions. What all of these mass murderers have in common is that the problems they care about, the problems that lead them to these horrific acts, are about someone else's actions. The goal then is to get these angry young men to internalize, rather than externalize their fears. And that at the end of the day is the problem: these angry young men are afraid and they lash out.

I end with the core principles of the Southern Poverty Law Center: fighting hate, teaching tolerance, seeking justice. If we could do a better job teaching these values to our angry young men, it would solve more problems than any singular policy prescription. I'm not sure exactly how to get there, but that should be our objective.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 10 hours ago.

Aurora Boy, 12, Shares Experience as Voice for Nemo in 'Finding Dory'

June 16, 2016, 10:33 am

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Patch Batavia, IL -- Hayden Rolence, 12, was in Hollywood last week, promoting the film, which will be released nationwide on Friday. Reported by Patch 6 hours ago.

What Ever Happened To Our Gun Legislation?

June 16, 2016, 9:25 am

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There's no denying that the regularity of mass shootings in the United States are horrifying. As we try to come grips with the murders that took place in Orlando, we are also marking the one-year anniversary of the Charleston shooting which took the lives of nine church group members. In an attempt to make sense of it all and also to memorialize the victims, here's a brief history (the last four years) of the mass shootings that have occurred in the United States. This list is not complete, which sadly shows how prevalent gun violence is today.

Aurora: 7/20/12. 12 killed, 58 injured.
Newtown: 12/14/12. 28 killed, 2 injured.
Washington Navy Yard: 9/16/13. 12 killed, 8 injured.
Fort Hood: 4/3/14. 3 killed, 12 injured.
UCSB: 5/23/14. 6 killed, 13 injured.
Charleston: 6/17/15. 9 killed, 1 injured.
Chattanooga: 7/16/15. 5 killed, 5 injured.
Umpqua Community College: 10/1/15. 9 killed, 9 injured.
Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood: 11/27/15. 3 killed, 9 injured.
San Bernardino: 12/2/15. 14 killed, 21 injured,
Orlando: 6/12/16. 49 killed, 53 injured.

*So now the question is, what's the deal with federal gun legislation?*

While the government seems too paralyzed by partisan interests to take action on gun violence, there was actually a period in time when legislation was passed to limit the sale of assault weapons. In 1994, after a series of shootings in California, Congress passed one of the most monumental pieces of legislation to date -- the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.

However, the legislation had a few issues. One was the issue of nomenclature. What was an "assault weapon"? The law had an answer, but it was hidden in a series of complicated flowcharts and fine print, making the law easy to accidentally break.

Additionally, the law targeted only specific types of semi-automatic weapons because banning all semi-automatic weapons would affect almost every gun owner in the country. (Fully automatic weapons have been strictly regulated since 1934.) As a result, gun manufacturers were able to slightly alter their present models to get around the ban.

*Where did the Federal Assault Weapons Ban go?*

The legislation was written so that it would expire after 10 years. So in 2004, the ban was lifted. While the law wasn't perfect, it is worth noting that it would have banned the sale of the AR-15s that the Orlando and Aurora shooters purchased legally.

*So what regulations are in place at the state level?*

In addition to federally mandated background checks conducted by the FBI, some states have passed measures of their own to tighten gun sale regulation. These measures include requiring waiting periods for prospective gun buyers, limiting magazine capacities for purchased weapons and further screening for prospective gun buyers on a state level.

*Then how did the Orlando shooter get his gun?*

Florida does not conduct background checks on gun buyers after the FBI does. Consider that the FBI rejects less than 1% of prospective gun purchasers on account of their criminal history, drug use or mental health. The lack of additional screening, therefore, makes it really easy for people to buy guns in Florida. In fact, Florida is one of 32 states that have no further background checks. That means that virtually anyone who wants to buy a firearm from a licensed dealer will pass a background check. Unless, of course, you buy from a gun show, in which case you likely wouldn't have to go through a background check at all.

Florida also does not have a limit on the capacity of firearm magazines. Prior to the shootings in Newtown and Aurora, Connecticut and Colorado didn't either. Connecticut now limits the magazines of its firearms to 10 rounds and Colorado to 15.

*So now what? What's the government doing to stop mass shootings?*

Well, as it stands, not too much. While President Obama announced a series of executive orders in January 2016 that would modernize the background check process and hold gun sellers more accountable for their transactions, many were quick to point out that it was not in his power to make the reforms for which he was advocating. Technically, that's up to Congress.

Congress, however, is at a standstill on this one (like so many other issues). Numerous bills to reform firearm sales have been introduced by Democrats to the Republican-controlled House, but they have died on the floor due to voting along party lines. In fact, tensions boiled over the day after the Orlando shooting when Democratic Rep. James Clyburn asked Republican Speaker Paul Ryan when gun control legislation would be voted on. Ryan dismissed his request and tried to initiate an unrelated vote. The House Democrats left the floor in protest.

*Anything else?*

Yes. President Obama and presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump all have something to say about the most recent shooting in Orlando.

*President Obama* was quick to condemn the "horrific massacre." He asked the public if they wanted to be the kind of country in which it is easy "for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub."

*Secretary Clinton* also denounced the shooting, sending grief to the affected while advocating for national unity rather than scapegoating America's Muslim population.

*Mr. Trump* has used the most recent shooting to reaffirm his stance on banning Muslims from entering the country and to suggest connections between the shooter and President Obama.

Shockingly, however, they can all agree on one thing: meaningful reform must be made to stop the wrong people from getting firearms legally. This will likely be in the form of a "No Fly, No Buy" law.

-Tyler Bloom

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-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 7 hours ago.

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5 Aurora Men Arrested for Series of Oswego Robberies

June 16, 2016, 11:44 am

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Patch Montgomery, IL -- The robberies occurred in late 2015 and early 2016. Reported by Patch 5 hours ago.

Aurora police investigating carjacking near Cherry Creek Reservoir

June 16, 2016, 11:49 am

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Aurora police are investigating a carjacking Thursday that happened east of the Cherry Creek Reservoir. Reported by Denver Post 5 hours ago.

Aurora, Colo. PD: "We stand with Orlando"

June 16, 2016, 12:16 pm

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Police who responded to the mass shooting at a movie theater in 2012 created a video showing support for the Orlando police Reported by CBS News 4 hours ago.

Aurora police reach tentative agreement on new contract, fire department going to arbitration

June 16, 2016, 2:30 pm

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The city of Aurora and the police department have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract, but negotiations with the fire department are headed to arbitration. Reported by Denver Post 2 hours ago.

HUFFPOST HILL - 'Master Of The Senate' Fanboys Excited To Gush About Statesmanship Behind Weak Gun Bill

June 16, 2016, 2:51 pm

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Donald Trump may use the exposure of his campaign to launch a media network, hopefully with the tagline, "We Report, You Won't Believe How Amazing This Reporting Will Be; It'll Blow Your Mind, Folks." John McCain *blamed* President Obama for the Orlando attacks, but it's important to remember that McCain is a statesman because he doesn't think President Obama *sympathizes with the attackers.* And staunch Bernie Sanders supporter Raúl Grijalva endorsed Hillary Clinton, something that could have been avoided if the Democratic Party allowed open Raúl Grijalvas and let independents participate in its Raúl Grijalvas. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Thursday, June 16th, 2016:
Happy Make America Great Againiversary...

*OBAMA'S LATEST ON OUR PECULIAR CUSTOM OF ROUTINE MASS MURDER SPREES* - The president in Orlando just now: "Those who were killed and injured here were gunned down by a single killer with a powerful assault weapon. *The motives of this killer may have been different than the mass shooters in Aurora or Newtown, but the instruments of death were so similar*, and now another 49 innocent people are dead. Another 53 are injured. Some are still fighting for their lives. Some will have wounds that will last a lifetime. We can't anticipate or catch every single deranged person that may wish to do harm to his neighbors or friends or co-workers or strangers, *but we can do something about the amount of damage that they do*. Unfortunately, our politics have conspired to make it as easy as possible for a terrorist, or just a disturbed individual like those in Aurora and Newtown, to buy extraordinarily powerful weapons, and they can do so legally."

Gwen Moore introduced legislation to drug test rich people who claim big itemized deductions on their taxes.

*SENATE TRIES TO HASH OUT GUN BILL THAT HOUSE WILL PROBABLY KILL* - Everyone enjoy your National Moment. Karoun Demirjian: "Senate leaders are hashing out the details of an agreement to hold votes on gun-control measures that are likely to pit Democrats and Republicans against each other. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday said that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) indicated early in the morning that he would allow votes on 'two important gun safety measures' as part of a pending bill to fund certain government agencies, including the Justice Department. McConnell said that nothing was finalized but that leaders would 'try' to schedule votes on proposals 'from both sides.' … *Democrats have been angling for votes on a measure written by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would deny firearms and explosives to anyone the attorney general suspects of being a terrorist … On Thursday, McConnell strongly hinted that Republicans would be offering an alternative to Feinstein’s legislation* from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) that would give the attorney general the power to deny firearms to terrorists only if she could prove within a 72-hour window that there was probable cause to do so." [WaPo]

*NO KIDDING: SUPPORT FOR ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN JUMPS* - Jeremy Silk Smith: "Support for a nationwide ban on assault weapons increased in the wake of the Orlando mass shooting that killed 49 people, especially among Republicans, a new poll shows. *The CBS News poll , conducted over the two days following the shooting, shows 57 percent of respondents favor banning assault weapons, a 13 percent increase from a previous CBS News/New York Times poll that was conducted a few days after of the San Bernardino shooting that killed 14 people. * But support for an assault weapons ban climbed the most among Republicans. In December, 25 percent of Republicans supported an assault weapons ban, but in the most recent poll, 45 percent of Republicans are in favor." [Roll Call]

The House Appropriations Committee is cutting the EPA's budget because apparently its bungling of the Flint water crisis was caused by too much funding.

*DELANEY DOWNER* - Chloe Pfeiffer: "The number of people receiving food stamps has fallen again, continuing to decline past last year's record low of 45.7 million participants. This could be a sign that the economy is improving - higher employment means fewer people receiving unemployment and other benefits. *But it's also likely driven by people losing eligibility even if they're still unemployed*, a result of states becoming more and more stringent in their approach to non-working adults." Also, this is a federal law -- though some states carry it out with more gusto than necessary. [Business Insider]

Like HuffPost Hill? Then pre-order Eliot's book, The Beltway Bible: A Totally Serious A-Z Guide To Our No-Good, Corrupt, Incompetent, Terrible, Depressing, and Sometimes Hilarious Government.

Does somebody keep forwarding you this newsletter? Get your own copy. It's free! Sign up here. Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to huffposthill@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill

*TEAM TRUMP NOT CRAZY ABOUT THE RNC* - The feeling is mutual, it would seem. Also, surprise surprise: Donald Trump doesn't like homework. Ken Vogel, Eli Stokols and Alex Isenstadt: "*While Trump had promised Priebus that he would call two dozen top GOP donors, when RNC chief of staff Katie Walsh recently presented Trump with a list of more than 20 donors, he called only three before stopping*, according to two sources familiar with the situation. It’s unclear whether he resumed the donor calls later...Several Trump allies said their distrust [of the RNC] spiked this week when they learned that Rick Wiley, who was fired from the campaign last month, had been spotted in the RNC’s Capitol Hill offices and had participated in a Tuesday RNC conference call...Trump’s campaign has sought to exert influence over the RNC by signaling its preference that party contracts be withheld from some firms that worked for Trump opponents or on the so-called #NeverTrump movement to block him from the nomination...Three operatives who have worked with the campaign suggested that Wiley’s recent hiring by the RNC may have been partly a power play by Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in his power struggle with campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who had pushed for Wiley to be fired from the campaign." [Politico]

Brett Baier asked the Dalai Lama if he's ever seen Caddyshack.

*GRIJALVA BACKS CLINTON, WAS MAJOR SANDERS BACKER* - But, but, the Hillary indictments are coming any day, now! Ben Kamisar: "Rep. Raúl Grijalva, one of Bernie Sanders's few supporters in Congress, has endorsed Hillary Clinton as Democrats continue to push for unity around her presidential campaign. *The Arizona congressman and co-chairman of the House Progressive Caucus was the first member of Congress to support the Vermont senator's presidential bid back in October*. He has been a key ally for Sanders, serving at times as a cable news surrogate and as one of the campaign's picks for the party's platform drafting committee. ..'With voting completed in the final Democratic Primary, it is now time for the Democratic Party to unify. For all of us who supported Bernie from the beginning, whether we considered ourselves progressives or independents or just Americans tired of being on the outside looking in, the most important thing now is to beat Donald Trump in November,' he said." [The Hill]

*TRUMP SPENDING TIME IN RED STATES FOR FUNDRAISING* - Maybe he should instead be calling more of those people on Reince Priebus' list. Maggie Haberman: "Donald J. Trump’s campaign schedule is being driven by his fund-raising needs, prompting him to appear in heavily Republican states like Georgia and Texas and diverting his attention from battlegrounds where Hillary Clinton is spending her time. Mr. Trump’s aides, scrambling to raise money to compete against Mrs. Clinton’s cash juggernaut and extensive donor network, have scheduled fund-raisers in places like Georgia, North Carolina and Texas this week. The private events for donors were often scheduled first, followed by his campaign rallies, according to two people involved in Mr. Trump’s fund-raising who insisted on anonymity. Even some of Mr. Trump’s appearances in battleground states have been tied to fund-raisers: A New Hampshire rally on Monday night was planned in conjunction with a fund-raiser in Boston, but both events were canceled after the deadly shooting in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday." [NYT]

*You know what's really going to sway the rampant xenophobe mulling over whether to vote Trump? A Richard Armitage endorsement*: "Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush, says he will vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, in one of the most dramatic signs yet that Republican national security elites are rejecting their party’s presumptive nominee. Armitage, a retired Navy officer who also served as an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, is thought by Clinton aides to be the highest-ranking former GOP national security official to openly support Clinton over Trump." [Politico's Michael Crowley]

*Other defections*: "Arne Carson, the Republican former governor of Minnesota, told CityPages on Wednesday that “no human being in history has been more vetted” than Clinton while Trump 'has taken campaigning to a new low.' Mike Treiser, a former Mitt Romney staffer, said that 'in the face of bigotry, hatred, violence, and small-mindedness, this time, I’m with her.' As conservative writer Ben Howe put it, 'I am a fiscal conservative and I am a social conservative. That will not change. But I will not vote for an egomaniacal authoritarian. Nope.'" [HuffPost's Alana Horowitz Satlin]

*HILLARY NABS UNION ENDORSEMENT, SURPRISING NO ONE* - The question is whether the AFL-CIO can keep its rust belt members in line this November -- also if Richard Trumka keeps his mustache and its magical GOTV properties. Dave Jamieson: "The country’s largest federation of labor unions formally endorsed Hillary Clinton for president on Thursday, assuring that organized labor would devote its considerable resources to keeping a Democrat in the White House for another four years. The AFL-CIO’s board voted to approve a Clinton endorsement after the group’s political committee recommended the move on Friday. A clear majority of the AFL-CIO’s member unions had already endorsed the likely Democratic nominee on their own, many as early as last year. But *the surprisingly close primary challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) led several major unions to wait out the endorsement process, while a handful chose to back the self-described democratic socialist over Clinton*. The former Secretary of State finally secured the necessary support from member unions after her insurmountable delegate lead recently made her the presumptive nominee." [HuffPost]

*It's sometimes easy in this Ted Cruz, Donald Trump age of ours to lose sight of the wonderful crankypantsiness of John McCain*: "President Barack Obama is “directly responsible” for the Orlando, Fla., massacre, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) charged Thursday. McCain, one of the Senate’s most hawkish members and long a vigorous advocate of military intervention in the Middle East, said Obama was at fault because he pulled troops from Iraq too soon and failed to respond more vigorously to the rise of the so-called Islamic State, according to the Associated Press and numerous reporters who listened to him." [HuffPost's Mike McAuliff]

@SenJohnMcCain: To clarify, I was referring to Pres Obama’s national security decisions that have led to rise of #ISIL, not to the President himself

*BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR* - Here's a cat eating ice cream. That's it.

*COMFORT FOOD*

- A very interesting take on Donald Trump, courtesy of Japan.

- You wanna see a ton of crabs?

- The parenting happiness gap is a thing.

*TWITTERAMA*

@emmaroller: when I am president people who use online contact forms instead of just listing their emails will be put in the stockades

@PaulBlu: On this day.
June 16, 1858: Lincoln gives House Divided speech.
June 16, 2015: Trump descends escalator, gives "they're rapists" speech.

@SimonMaloy: and now Cruz is railing against Syrian refugees

haha Trump sure is an outlier amirite

*Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com) or Arthur Delaney (arthur@huffingtonpost.com). Follow us on Twitter @HuffPostHill (twitter.com/HuffPostHill).*-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 2 hours ago.

After Mass Shooting, Aurora, Colorado, Police Produce Video Tribute: 'We Stand With Orlando'

June 16, 2016, 3:51 pm

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After the Orlando shooting, Aurora, Colorado police delivered a video tribute Reported by People Magazine 44 minutes ago.

E.coli victim sues over outbreak at Vietnamese restaurant in Aurora

June 16, 2016, 3:34 pm

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The family of a 14-year-old Denver boy hospitalized weeks ago after ingesting E.coli-tainted food filed suit, alleging a pattern of recklessness in how food is prepared and handled. Reported by Denver Post 1 hour ago.

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Inaction Cannot Be An Option

June 16, 2016, 2:08 pm

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“This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well.”
– President Barack Obama, June 12, 2016

“We have to face the fact that meaningful gun control has to be a part of homeland security . . . We need to do something to minimize the opportunity for terrorists to get a gun in this country.” – U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, June 14, 2016

“I am proud to announce that after 14+ hours on the floor, we will have a vote on closing the terror gap & universal background checks.” – Tweet by Connecticut Senator Christopher Murphy, June 16, 2016

Inaction is not an option. In the wake of the worst mass shooting in American history we can and must do everything in our power to end this scourge of terror, hate and bullets that fly across our land killing and maiming and breaking hearts and traumatizing communities with ever increasing frequency. How can inaction continue to be an option in the face of senselessness and intolerance fueled by guns? We must act to save our country’s soul and the lives of our people — all of our people.

The June 12 attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando was both our nation’s worst act of terrorism since 9/11 and a hate crime. In that it was all too common: lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are too likely targets of hate crimes in America. A large number of victims were gay people of color who were celebrating Latin Night in what many said they trusted and believed was a desperately needed “safe space.” But as we have seen over and over again, America is running out of safe spaces. Not Pulse. Not Bible study at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church. Not an office holiday party in San Bernardino. Not a movie theater in Aurora. Not a dorm or university hall at Virginia Tech. And not a first grade classroom in Newtown, Connecticut, in a country where hate, bigotry, terrorism, and mental illness collide with unfettered access to these weapons of war that leave us with no hiding spaces unless we do something now.

Connecticut Senator Christopher Murphy couldn’t face the families of the children of Sandy Hook unless he did something. The Senate filibuster he led in the aftermath of the Orlando slaughter lasted for more than 14 hours before there was bipartisan agreement to allow a vote on two common sense amendments that would make all of us and our nation safer. Creating a “No Buy List” so that the more than 800,000 people on our terror watch lists cannot legally buy guns in America should be an easy decision for all of us. Closing the loopholes in existing background checks to reach sales at gun shows and through the internet to keep more criminals, would-be terrorists, and others from buying guns should be another easy decision. The evidence is clear that expanded background checks work. A recent study found that a Connecticut law that expanded background checks on all handgun purchases helped achieve a 40 percent reduction in gun homicides during the first 10 years following the law’s enactment. These are measures the majority of Americans strongly support — and it’s long past time that Congress followed the will of the people instead of the will of the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers whose profits are soaked in the blood of our people.

The majority of Americans also support reinstating the ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines that have been used time and time again: to kill the innocent children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the innocent people in the Aurora movie theater, the innocents in San Bernardino, and now Orlando. Why should it be perfectly legal to buy an AR-15 in a Five Guys parking lot in Vermont the day after the massacre at Pulse with no background check and no paperwork at all? Weapons designed for war are now as easy to buy as a loaf of bread. Since 1963 more than 176,000 children have died from gun violence in America — over three times more than all the soldiers killed in action in the Vietnam War and every external conflict since. Our children have a right to grow up in a caring and decent society that protects their right to live and learn in safety. That right must take precedence over anyone’s right to own assault weapons or high capacity magazines that have nothing to do with self-defense or hunting and have no place in the hands of non-military and non-law enforcement personnel. Without these weapons of war how many would be alive today? How many Newtown or Aurora or Orlando victims would have survived?

Senator Murphy said while paying tribute to Sandy Hook victims teacher Anne Marie Murphy and 6-year-old Dylan Hockley before ending his filibuster at 2:11 a.m. this morning: “It doesn’t take courage to stand here on the floor of the United States Senate for two hours or six hours or 14 hours. It takes courage to look into the eye of a shooter and instead of running, wrapping your arms around a 6-year-old boy and accepting death as a trade for just a tiny little-itty piece of increased peace of mind for a little boy under your charge.” Senator Murphy then asked his colleagues a question we should all ask our elected officials in the upcoming days: “If Anne Marie Murphy could do that, then ask yourself: What can you do to make sure that Orlando or Sandy Hook never happens again?”

Unless we want to give up and agree that the only way to survive our nation’s gun violence crisis which goes on and on and on in this land of ours, is for every adult, teenager, and child in America to own a gun, we need to provide common sense safety solutions like a “No Buy List,” universal background checks, and a ban on assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines — now. Our children are afraid for their friends, their families, and themselves. And this needs to change. We all need to stand up until we are heard and laws are changed. *Contact your Senators right now* to urge them to support these common sense safety solutions all of us so desperately need. Please *act **now*.

Inaction cannot not be an option in a decent, caring nation that purports to value human life.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 1 day ago.

Republicans: Step Up or Get Out!

June 16, 2016, 5:03 pm

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Americans woke up today to some good news in the fight to enact common-sense gun reforms. After Democrats seized control of the Senate floor yesterday and held a nearly 15-hour filibuster demanding action on two pieces of pending legislation, a compromise was reached early this morning. Senate Republicans have finally agreed to hold votes on two measures that would ban people on the government's terrorist watch list from obtaining gun licenses and expand background checks to gun shows and internet sales.

Great news for sure! But haven't we been here before?

Just a few years ago, in the wake of another gun violence tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, the Senate found themselves poised to vote on a gun reform proposal. The bill, introduced by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, required background checks on most private firearm sales. The proposal was bi-partisan. The vast majority of Americans supported enacting it. And the Senate passed it overwhelmingly.

I know. That's not what happened.

Despite overwhelming public support for enacting universal background checks and the bi-partisan nature of the bill, the Senate still voted down the legislation 54 - 46. In fact, only four Republican Senators crossed the aisle and voted in favor of it. To be fair - 5 Democratic Senators also voted against it. It was clear to everyone watching that the rigid opposition and deep pockets of the NRA trumped the will of the electorate.

Is anything going to be enough for these Republican Senators? If 20 first graders and 6 educators shot down at Sandy Hook Elementary; or 9 worshippers in a North Charleston church shot to death because of the color of their skin; 28 moviegoers in Aurora enjoying the newest Batman film; or 14 coworkers in San Bernardino at an office holiday party wasn't enough-- will 49 people in Orlando out for a fun weekend night of dancing and socializing at an LGBT club make the difference for these legislators? Clearly, part of the reason this is moving faster is because of organizations like Moms Demand Action. They have energized millions of people to reach out to their lawmakers and have created the grassroots pressure to make these politicians take action.

If Senate Republicans refuse once again to pass commonsense gun reform, there's only one solution. They've got to go. When over 90 percent of Americans support background checks (including 87 percent of Republicans), but Republicans in the Senate can only muster four votes, something is seriously broken. These new pieces of gun reform legislation will fail for the same reasons the last measure did. The wrong people are in office.

Luckily, we can do something about it. We can show Republicans that we reject their obstructionism and unwillingness to work across the aisle by voting them out and voting in Democrats that get it.

It starts this November when we all head to ballot box. Remember Sandy Hook when you vote for local school board and city council members. Think of the victims of the Orlando shooting when you vote for your county council and state legislators. Electing these people locally is part of an important, long-term plan that will help us eventually get to where we need to be nationally with gun reforms. We may not get Republican lawmakers to see the light on this issue, but we can certainly show them the door.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 1 day ago.

Versace, Restoration Hardware headed to Chicago Premium Outlets

June 17, 2016, 10:41 am

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Nearly a dozen new stores, including Versace, are scheduled to open in the Chicago Premium Outlets mall in Aurora by the end of the year.

The mall's parent company, Simon Premium Outlets, announced the new stores Thursday as part of a reopening after the mall's expansion and renovation.

A 250,000-square-foot... Reported by ChicagoTribune 6 hours ago.

Healing by Helping: Orlando's Strategy for Victims, Families, and the Larger Community

June 17, 2016, 7:57 am

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AP Photo/David Goldman

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, left, and Police Chief John Mina lay flowers at a makeshift memorial to those killed in the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub, Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Florida. 

In April, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer delivered his state of the city address. Dyer hailed Orlando as a 21st century urban exemplar bursting with the kind of dynamism that most mayors can only dream about: billions in transportation investments, a booming job market, new companies moving in, and some of the best first responders in the Sunshine State.

“How do we ensure that Orlando wins?” Dyer said. “That’s a question that we can answer with, one powerful word: connectivity.”

Today “connectivity” in Orlando is taking yet another form: the millions in donations flowing into the city-backed OneOrlando Fund after the shootings at the gay nightclub Pulse to help heal the city’s psychic wounds. Thanks to an innovative funding mechanism modeled after those used by other cities following similar tragedies, the money is going to community organizations as well as to the people directly affected by the killings. 

The OneOrlando Fund is a stark reminder of one of the most difficult choices that municipal leaders ever have to face: how to best channel the money that pours into a community in the aftermath of a heinous episode like the Orlando nightclub killings. Do city leaders focus exclusively on victims’ families, survivors, and their loved ones, or do they also attempt to try to help the wider community?

In Orlando, a small group of city officials faced an eerie set of facts. Omar Marteen, the Orlando shooter, had called Dzhokhar and Tamelan Tsarnaev his “homeboys.” In April 2013, the two Massachusetts brothers placed homemade bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Three people were killed and nearly 300 people were injured. An MIT campus police officer died after being ambushed by the two men several days later.

After that tragedy, then-Boston Mayor Thomas Menino (who died the following year) and Governor Deval Patrick decided that the victims’ families, the survivors, and their relatives would be best served by the establishment of an innovative funding mechanism that could get donated money out fast.

In a January Harvard Business Review look-back, Mitchell Weiss, Menino’s former chief of staff, described the “lessons learned.” The Boston mayor made a deliberate decision to get a no-frills, PayPal-driven website online the day after the massacre. Menino said in a 2013 statement that he got calls from businesses “within an hour” of the fund’s creation. Weiss noted that other funding drives established in the aftermaths of killings in Columbine, Newtown, and Aurora took months to distribute funds to eligible people. The One Fund Boston took about two and half months to get the money out.

The fund’s overseers made other critical decisions to assure that the funding recipients could spend the monies on whatever they deemed important, including medical expenses, scholarships, and the like. Bureaucratic hurdles, such as IRS regulations, where handled with a “hack the bureaucracy” strategy that relied on some creative interpretations of federal tax regulations. The fund wrapped up its operations almost two years after it started accepting funds.

To Weiss, the defining lesson was that creating new, place-specific tools worked better than jury-rigging something designed for a private company, or for use elsewhere under a different set of circumstances. Newer municipal-backed funding drives like the one established by Charleston after the shootings at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church last year tend to zero in on getting money quickly to affected individuals and families, rather than trying to meet specific community needs.

The Orlando effort builds on earlier efforts and adds place-specific features. Earlier this week, Dyer announced that the Central Florida Foundation, a regional charitable organization that oversees hundreds of other funds, would administer the OneOrlando Fund. Where the Boston fund focused on distributing money directly to affected people without restrictions, the OneOrlando Fund monies will be distributed through nonprofits to support the victims and families as well as to LGBTQ, Hispanic, faith, and other affected groups.

The dollars will be also available to area organizations that plan to study the underlying causes of the tragedy and to address other, as-yet-unknown community needs. Central Florida Foundation president Mark Brewer told the Orlando Sentinel, “The nagging question we'll have to address in all this is: How did this happen? What is going on in the community that made this possible, and what can we do to prevent it?”

Like the Boston effort, the OneOrlando Fund has set high expectations for the business community. To date, the fund has pulled in about $3.6 million. The area’s marquee company, Walt Disney, the owner and operator of Disney World, contributed $1 million and pledged to a dollar-for-dollar match from “eligible donations” from Disney employees. Comcast NBCUniversal also donated $1 million.

Two other funding drives, helmed by the National Compassion Fund/Orlando and by statewide LGBT group Equality Florida plan to steer money directly to affected families. The LGBT group’s GoFundMe drive that has pulled in $5 million and counting, the crowdfunding site’s most successful fundraising campaign ever. Scams, too, have multiplied—suggesting, regrettably, that such efforts demand special vigilance.

Dyer’s vision of connectivity resonates in a new context. Orlando residents have been brought together by one of the most chilling events imaginable. The city will find out in the months ahead whether the OneOrlando Fund can satisfy the two powerful, but potentially conflicting impulses of municipal leaders: To care for those who experienced the horror first-hand, and to calm the fears of residents living in a walking nightmare. There are no easy philanthropic solutions for Mayor Dyer or for the community leader who will be seeking his advice after the next mass killing. Reported by The American Prospect 9 hours ago.

Thousands Of Americans Are Gunned Down Each Year, But Few Die By Assault-Style Rifle

June 17, 2016, 10:00 am

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In the aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, the political debate has quickly turned to the weapon a gunman used to massacre 49 people and injure 53 more at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday.

Some supporters of stricter gun laws argue it's far too easy to obtain firearms like the shooter's Sig Sauer MCX, an $1,800 semi-automatic rifle and a cousin of the highly popular AR-15. They say the same features that have made these weapons fit for the battlefield render them unfit for civilian use. In the wrong hands, their accuracy, reduced recoil, large magazine size and high rate of fire make these guns perfectly suited to inflict mass casualties in a short period of time. And it's hard to discount that concern: In seven of the last eight high-profile mass shootings -- as well as in earlier incidents in Newtown, Connecticut, and Aurora, Colorado -- perpetrators were armed with assault-style rifles.

But as momentum builds for a new assault weapons ban, data shows just how small of an effect such legislation would have on the overall levels of gun violence in the U.S.

At least 84 people have been killed and 119 have been injured so far this year in 86 shooting incidents involving assault-style rifles, according to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit corporation that tracks gun violence. Those numbers include the casualties at Pulse nightclub over the weekend.

There have been at least 267 incidents involving assault-style rifles in 2016, including reported weapons thefts, crimes in which the guns were brandished, arrests for illegal possession and other legal interventions in which they weren't fired.

Those deaths account for about 2 percent of the 6,153 gun deaths and less than 1 percent of the 12,560 gun injuries the Gun Violence Archive has counted so far this year. This tally consists largely of homicides, but also includes suicides that were part of a murder-suicide. It also counts accidental deaths, the majority of which involve handguns, not rifles.

If those numbers seem high, that's because they are. The U.S. has the highest gun death and ownership rates in the developed world. Americans are 10 times more likely to be killed with a gun than people in other developed nations; with an estimated 300 million to 400 million civilian firearms, the U.S. is by far the most heavily armed nation per capita. About 20 million to 30 million of those guns are assault-style rifles, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a lobbying group that wants you to refer to these weapons as "modern sporting rifles."

Gun Violence Archive notes that its count could be incomplete because it relies on news and police reports, which don't always include full details on the weapons used. Its data also only specifies incidents involving AR-15s and AK-47s, two of the most popular types of assault-style rifles but not the only ones available to civilians.

While these rifles hardly factor into the routine gun violence that rips through the nation every day, we found plenty of incidents that underscore the inherent danger they present.

In May, for example, a military veteran engaged in a standoff with police in Houston managed to fire off 212 shots from an AR-15 before a SWAT sniper killed him. He injured six people with the rifle, all after killing a man in an ambush with a handgun. The suspect's family claimed he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Earlier this week in Detroit, armed gunmen used an AK-47 and another weapon to open fire on a vehicle, killing two and injuring one more in a hail of 30 bullets. An AK-47 was also used in a mass shooting in Pittsburgh earlier this year, when gunmen unloaded 49 rounds into a crowd of partygoers, killing five and wounding three. 

Other shootings have flown further under the radar, likely because they didn't result in casualties. Earlier this week, a man reportedly armed with an AR-type rifle fired between 40 and 50 shots at police officers in Georgia. Nobody was injured.

With so many assault-style rifles already in circulation, gun advocates believe these rare instances of misuse shouldn't outweigh evidence suggesting that the overwhelming majority of owners are law-abiding citizens. But opponents argue that this level of firepower is unnecessary for civilians, especially considering how easy it is for them to obtain. They say these guns -- which have an average price tag of $1,000 but often come much cheaper -- give pretty much anyone the means to carry out a mass casualty event. Some lawmakers want to address that by renewing the sort of assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.

Which side is right? It's a worthwhile debate. And maybe we don't need to choose between nearly unlimited access and total prohibition. Maybe people who want to buy assault-style rifles should have to first provide endorsements from people willing to vouch for their intentions. Maybe "modern sporting" riflemen and riflewomen should be required undergo periodic certification to make sure they're fit to be members of the "well-regulated militia" referenced in the Second Amendment. At the very least, maybe we shouldn't just let people buy these weapons on a whim, with no waiting period whatsoever.

This is really not the only conversation we should be having about gun violence -- a scourge of murders, suicides, domestic mass shootings and tragic accidents that claimed 33,636 lives, mostly by handgun, in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But as long as we're only willing to discuss this massive, deeply entrenched issue in response to an atypical act of unfathomable brutality, maybe this is the best we can do.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 7 hours ago.