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Walgreens Closing Chicago Location Due to Massive Theft, Local Political Leaders Who Enable the Crime Are Outraged

Walgreens has announced that it is closing a store in the Chatham neighborhood of Chicago. They claim that the store is losing upwards of a million dollars a year to theft, so the reason for the closure is no mystery. They say that this particular store loses more in theft than any other store.

And yet… The political leaders in Chicago, who allow thieves to run wild, are angry at Walgreens.

They caused this, with their soft on crime policies, yet they are mad at Walgreens for closing the location.

FOX 32 in Chicago reported:

Walgreens to close Chatham store after more than $1M loss, cites theft and declining sales

Walgreens executives revealed the store lost more than a million dollars last year, partly due to declining prescription sales but also a massive amount of store theft.

“Theft at this store is 16 percent,” Johnson said. “That’s four times above the company average.”

And the company explained that they tried to stop theft.

“Lock boxes help us protect the merchandise in the store. A lot of the time, those lock boxes were getting destroyed. And that’s at a great cost to the company,” said Jason Vasquez, Walgreens District Manager.

They say Walgreens was spending $400,000 a year on security guards in the store, but there were still attacks on store employees.

“We’ve had people jump across the counters, because we sell liquor behind the counter, taking liquor, cigarettes… That wears. That wears down. Not so much the financial piece but the endurance of that day in and day out,” said Lonnie Fuqua, the store’s manager.

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As Evidence Mounts of Dogs Raping Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Prisons, NYT’s Isabel Kershner Revives Unverified October 7 Rape Narrative

Isabel Kershner, a longtime correspondent for The New York Times whose sons have reportedly served in the Israeli military, is facing growing scrutiny over her latest reporting on alleged October 7 sexual violence claims — particularly as renewed attention falls on documented abuse and sexual violence agaisnt Palestinians inside Israeli detention facilities.

Public scrutiny intensified following a recent report by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times detailing allegations of severe abuse against Palestinian detainees at Sde Teiman prison, including claims involving sexual violence and the use of dogs against prisoners, including minors. Kristof’s report helped push allegations long documented by human rights organizations into mainstream American discourse.

Yet as renewed attention focused on Palestinian detainees, Kershner published new reporting reviving disputed and unverified October 7 rape allegations attributed to Hamas. Critics argue the timing reflects a recurring media pattern: whenever scrutiny intensifies around Israeli abuses against Palestinians, major Western outlets redirect attention toward unverified claims against Hamas to justify Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

At the center of Kershner’s latest reporting is Cochav Elkayam-Levy, one of the most heavily promoted sources behind claims of Hamas sexual violence. Elkayam-Levy and her organization became central to Western media coverage after October 7, with outlets and political leaders worldwide presenting her as a leading authority on the allegations.

However, Israeli media later reported accusations that Elkayam-Levy and her commission had misled donors, exaggerated evidence collection efforts, and spread misinformation related to October 7 claims. The controversy surfaced shortly after she received the prestigious Israel Prize.

Despite repeated disclaimers acknowledging that rape allegations could not be independently verified, outlets including CNN, BBC, Associated Press, and The New York Times amplified the narratives globally. The allegations quickly became central to political messaging used to justify Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Kershner’s own role has fueled further debate about conflicts of interest in Western reporting on Israel and Palestine. Years earlier, she publicly acknowledged that her children had served in the Israeli military, prompting criticism from media watchdogs who argued that major outlets often blur the line between reporting and national alignment in coverage of Israel and Palestine. 

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LA mayoral hopeful Nithya Raman proposes backyard BBQ ban

Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Nithya Raman wanted to ban backyard barbecues for residents during certain high fire danger days across the city.

Raman introduced a motion Wednesday directing city officials to examine emergency restrictions on grilling during Red Flag Warning days, when high winds and dry conditions significantly increase wildfire danger across Los Angeles.

The proposal specifically asks officials to consider possible limits on backyard barbecues, fire pits and other open flames in residential neighborhoods during those high-risk weather events.

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who represents much of the San Fernando Valley, stepped in and successfully blocked the proposal by introducing a separate motion that stripped Raman’s barbecue ban.

“The last thing Angelenos need is a ban on hosting a carne asada in their own backyard,” Rodriguez told The California Post.

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Convicted Pedophile on the Run for Nearly a Year After California Judge Released Him on Bail

A convicted child sex offender in California remains on the run after a judge released him on bond last summer while he was awaiting sentencing.

Authorities in El Dorado County near Lake Tahoe now are asking for the public’s help to locate Carl Cacconie, 51, who was convicted last year of six felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts on an 11-year-old girl.

The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office described the fugitive as a “convicted and violent sexual predator” and is asking anyone who knows his whereabouts to contact law enforcement or the Sacramento Valley Crime Stoppers.

On July 17, 2025, Carl Cacconie, 51, was convicted of the charges. El Dorado Judge Michael McLaughlin set his bail at $1 million, which the convicted pedophile posted.

Typically, with the help of a bail bondsman, suspects can put up just 10 percent, which in Cacconie’s case would have been $100,000. Cars, homes, and other valuables can be used as collateral.

Cacconie was instructed to return to court on August 25, 2025, for sentencing. He faces 18 years in prison.

He never showed up.

The El Dorado County Probation Department fit Cacconie with an ankle monitor in 2023, the Daily Mail reported.

That device was disconnected on August 17 on a street in San Francisco, according to a report obtained by KCRA3.

Eight days later, the day of his sentencing, his family reported him missing.

El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson and the victim’s family were critical of the judge’s decision to allow Cacconie to bond out of jail.

“To expect that a person on $1 million bond, who has now been convicted, that merely adding an ankle monitor, which can be easily cut off, adds any real assurance to bringing him back to court, it’s kind of folly,” Pierson told the TV news outlet.

He added, “This is a county that prides itself on holding people accountable. And, unfortunately, that’s so far not what has happened.”

Cacconie’s family has told authorities that he left a suicide note, but police and prosecutors believe that’s a ruse by the fugitive to evade capture.

Cacconie inflicted sexual abuse on the victim, now an adult, over a period of several months in 2014 and 2015, and his felonies were facilitated by his close relationship with her family, KCRA3 reported.

“He’s a monster, and he took away my innocence,” the victim reportedly said.

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Beatles manager Brian Epstein was murdered by US mafia, Reggie Kray claimed in newly unearthed interview

Reggie Kray has claimed that Brian Epstein was murdered on the orders of the American mafia, according to an unearthed prison interview revealed in a new book.

Epstein, the influential manager of The Beatles, was found dead at his Belgravia home in 1967.

At the time, a pathologist concluded he had accidentally overdosed on Carbrital, a sedative prescribed to treat his insomnia. 

However, Beatles biographer Philip Norman’s new book suggests the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death may not be as straightforward as originally believed.

It raises the possibility that his death could have been connected to a failed US merchandising arrangement, which left several American businesses facing serious financial losses.

In a 1985 interview conducted at Parkhurst prison by Liverpool Echo journalist Peter Trollope, Kray gave a striking account of Epstein’s death. 

‘It’s easy to kill someone and make it look like an overdose,’ he said.

The Kray twins, notorious figures in London’s criminal underworld, also claimed they had planned to blackmail Epstein using compromising photographs taken at parties they hosted in the 1960s.

At the time, homosexuality was illegal in Britain.   

‘We were just going to blackmail Epstein over the photographs, but then he goes and dies,’ Kray said.

He added that organised crime groups could act indirectly through established British criminals: ‘For us, the Mob were always in the background. They knew that if they wanted anything done in England, they could do it through the Krays. But it [Epstein] wasn’t us.’

Norman writes in his book, Mr Moonlight: Brian Epstein and the Making of the Beatles, that Kray appeared to suggest Epstein may have been targeted by the American mafia, rather than his own gang.

‘This ultimate insider in British organised crime seemingly knew for certain that Brian had been murdered, albeit not by his own ‘Firm’… but, he’d hinted, by the American mafia to which the Firm had been fraternally linked,’ Norman wrote.

The book also details how Epstein became embroiled in a controversial US merchandising deal connected to the Beatles band.

According to Norman, Epstein licensed a group of New York entrepreneurs to produce official merchandise, but the agreement was heavily weighted against him and the band, who reportedly received just 10 per cent of profits.

As the arrangement unravelled, Epstein is said to have attempted to renegotiate more favourable deals from London.

The confusion allegedly led major US retailers, including Macy’s and JCPenney, to cancel orders, leaving some small manufacturers financially exposed.

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Eight chilling never-before-seen UFO videos at center of explosive disclosure battle detailed by insider

A battle over UFO transparency has erupted in Washington as ‘certain intelligence agencies’ have been accused of withholding evidence from the American public. 

Investigative journalist Jeremy Corbell told the Daily Mail there is a ‘bottleneck’ inside US Central Command where footage of unidentified flying objects is being blocked from reaching officials seeking access to it.

Corbell said some members of Congress are now ‘dead set’ on forcing the release of the material ‘come hell or high water,’ with some lawmakers prepared to escalate the fight if agencies continue withholding records.

The growing disclosure battle has now centered on 46 classified military UFO videos that lawmakers recently demanded from the Department of War last month, which have yet to be released.

Eight of those highly anticipated clips appear in Corbell’s documentary Sleeping Dog, where viewers are shown brief glimpses of what he described as unresolved UFO encounters collected by the US military.

Corbell stressed the footage shown in the film represents only ‘tiny glimpses’ of a much larger archive of sensitive material tied to sensitive defense operations and unexplained aerial incidents.

Among the footage referenced by Corbell is what he described as full-color ‘satellite footage’ and ‘full motion video’ of mysterious flying objects that he believes Americans ‘need to be able to assess’ for themselves.

Corbell said the documentary was created not only to reveal pieces of the evidence, but to expose what he called the broader resistance against journalists, whistleblowers and transparency efforts surrounding UFO disclosure.

But whistleblower David Grusch claimed the disclosure effort is already facing resistance from within the intelligence community.

Speaking to FOX News on May 8, Grusch said: ‘It has come to my attention, actually, recently as of today, there are some actors within certain intelligence agencies, to include DIA and CIA specifically, that are actually blocking some of the president’s, a Presidentially appointed team in getting access and getting control of some of these historical records.’

The allegations fueled outrage among disclosure advocates, including Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison, who warned Wednesday on X: ‘More is still classified, and I’ve seen some of it. If the administration doesn’t release it, I will, under Speech or Debate.’

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Nazi-obsessed teenage girl who called herself the ’embodiment of hell’ is jailed for 15 years for axe attack on stranger

A Nazi-obsessed teenage girl who called herself the ’embodiment of hell’ and launched an axe attack on a stranger outside a barber’s shop has been jailed for more than 15 years. 

Alina Burns, then 18, attempted to repeatedly strike Mohammed Mahmoodi, a 27-year-old Iranian Kurd, with the weapon on August 2, 2025 in Bedminster, Bristol. 

CCTV from inside the barber shop BHK captured Burns as she swung an axe at Mr Mahmoodi’s neck from behind while he chatted with a friend. When he realised what was happening, Mr Mahmoodi then turned and ducked – closely missing the blade. 

Burns, who had a shaved head and wore a black padded jacket, went to strike her victim again but was stopped after Mr Mahmoodi grabbed her hand, pulling the axe from it. 

Police arrested Burns at the scene – who left Mr Mahmoodi with three scratches on his neck and cheek – and found she was also carrying a scalpel and a number of darts. 

Bristol Crown Court heard Burns shared her violent ‘plan’ with a man she met on a dating site, who alerted the police about his concerns months before the August attack. This included a wish to ‘kill all’ British Jews and Muslims.

Burns, who was in contact with far-right group Patriotic Alternative, wrote in an email to the man she met on dating site Duolicious: ‘I’ve realised my role in existence: I am the embodiment of hell, destined to annihilate everything holy I bear witness to.’

The teenager referred to carrying out a ‘plan’ and said she wanted ‘all the credit and glory’, adding it was her ‘purpose/meaning in life’. 

In a second email on March 20 last year, Burns wrote: ‘I don’t want to end my life anymore. I plan on bringing change to the UK through means I can’t detail.’ 

After the man said he would do anything for her, the court heard she replied: ‘Yeah, I shared too much for that. Kill all the Jews and Muslim in Britain please.’

When he responded it would not solve anything, Burns said: ‘Nah it’ll solve heaps. I’m dead serious, do it. I think being the catalyst for change in my nation is far more important. I need to be a force of something, have agency in the outcome of history.’

Detectives discovered Burns exchanged a series of messages with the group Patriotic Alternative and looked up their ‘plan for the United Kingdom’.

Patriotic Alternative was founded in 2019 by Mark Collett, a Neo-Nazi who calls for a ‘racially pure white society’ and led the British National Party’s youth wing before the party expelled him. 

The court was told the group called for an end to immigration and the ‘repatriation’ of non-whites and Jews to their ‘ancestral homelands’.

Seized diaries and notebooks belonging to Burns revealed ‘copious details’ about weapons used by the Nazi SS and German military units in WWII. 

While the court heard Burns on July 30 searched online ‘what age can you buy an axe UK’, ‘is an axe a good weapon for home defence’ and ‘how to properly use an axe for self-defence’.

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Gavin Newsom’s hearing aid debacle costs California tens of millions as kids suffer in silence

Child advocates and lawmakers are furious with Gov. Gavin Newsom as California’s pediatric hearing aid program has spent tens of millions of dollars on administrative fees while delivering only a few hundred hearing aids.

Nearly five years after Newsom pushed lawmakers toward a state-run alternative instead of requiring private insurers to cover pediatric hearing aids, California’s Hearing Aid Coverage for Children Program had around 300 active enrolled members despite spending almost $23 million, according to a report delivered last month to a state Senate budget committee. That works out to about $76,000 per person.

Michelle Marciniak, founder of Let California Kids Hear, told The Post that the governor’s office has dropped the ball.

“The governor has a budget proposal on his desk that would help more children, reduce taxpayer exposure, and finally reflect years of bipartisan legislative intent,” Marciniak said, noting that Newsom still has time to address the issue in his revised budget coming out Thursday. 

“A child’s development doesn’t wait. It is time to solve this.”

Newsom’s refusal to take greater action to help kids with hearing loss stands in contrast to his action last week to provide free diapers, as well as his swift reversal earlier this year to expand menopause care for women in the budget after criticism from actress Halle Berry.

The state program has received roughly $30 million in taxpayer funding over multiple budget years while serving only a fraction of the children advocates say lack adequate hearing aid coverage statewide.

State Sen. Suzette Valladares (R-Santa Clarita) ripped Newsom by noting that “nearly 20,000 kids are still sitting in classrooms struggling to hear clearly.”

“These are real children whose learning, confidence, and futures are being impacted every single day,” Valladares told The Post. 

“At some point we have to stop funding bureaucracy and start fixing the actual coverage gaps so families can get their kids the help they need.”

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Sen. Rand Paul’s Son Apologizes After Alleged Anti-Semitic, Anti-Gay Tirade Targeting Rep. Mike Lawler

The son of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has issued an apology after reportedly unloading a drunken, expletive-laced tirade at New York Congressman Mike Lawler (R-NY) inside a Capitol Hill bar Tuesday night.

According to multiple reports, William Hilton Paul confronted Lawler at the Tune Inn, a popular dive bar frequented by Hill staffers and lawmakers.

The outburst allegedly stemmed from frustration over the primary challenge facing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY).

Paul reportedly mistook Lawler for being Jewish and launched into a ten-minute rant accusing “your people” of meddling in GOP primaries and prioritizing Israel over America.

Lawler, who is actually of Irish-Italian Catholic descent, recounted the incident publicly Wednesday, describing it as “f***ing disgusting.”

He said Paul yelled that the Iran situation was “about the gays and the Jews, and I hate them both, and I don’t care if they die,” while trafficking in classic antisemitic tropes about dual loyalty and anti-American influence.

More from New York Post:

In a phone conversation recounting the evening, Lawler told The Post that he was sitting at a popular DC bar with a friend and a reporter for NOTUS, which first revealed the incident involving William Paul.

“So Rand Paul’s f—ing son is sitting next to us at the at the bar … And he just like chimes in on our conversation, f—ing drunk and belligerent, and then starts going off about, you know, if [Rep. Thomas] Massie [R-Ky.] loses [his primary], it’s because of my people,” Lawler recalled.

“I’m like, ‘What people?’ He goes, ‘Jews,’ and I’m like, ‘Do you think I’m Jewish? … I’m Irish-Italian Catholic, buddy,’” the Hudson Valley lawmaker went on.

“He’s like, ‘Wait, you’re not Jewish?’” Lawler recalled the younger Paul asking, to which the lawmaker said he replied: “And even if I was, what’s the problem?”

“And then he got into the Middle East, and he was talking about, like, us trying to steal Iran’s land for the Jews and steal the West Bank, and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’”

At that point, William Paul said: “This war, it’s all about the gays and the Jews, and I hate them both, and I don’t care if they die.”

[…]

“I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force,” the Kentucky senator and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee said.

On Wednesday afternoon, Paul posted a clear-eyed apology on X:

“Last night, I had too much to drink and said some things that don’t represent who I really am. I’m sorry and today I am seeking help for my drinking problem.”

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CBC spends $59,000 fighting to keep Gem subscriber numbers secret

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has spent nearly $60,000 in legal fees fighting an order to disclose how many people actually subscribe to its Gem streaming service, according to access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The legal battle stems from an access-to-information request filed by transparency advocate Matt Malone, founder of Open By Default, seeking subscriber data for the CBC’s streaming platform, CBC Gem.

According to the records, the CBC has already spent $59,000 on lawyers in an effort to block the release of the numbers.

“The CBC bragged about its Gem subscription service and pointed to Gem as proof it’s providing value, so why is the CBC trying so hard to keep these numbers hidden?” said Franco Terrazzano.

The dispute escalated after Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard ordered the CBC to release the records. The state broadcaster instead took the matter to Federal Court, arguing the information should remain confidential because it constitutes “sensitive commercial information.”

CBC CEO Marie-Philippe Bouchard defended the secrecy, saying subscriber totals are kept private for “competitive reasons.”

Major streaming competitors such as Netflix, Amazon and YouTube routinely disclose subscriber metrics or revenue figures in public financial filings.

Maynard rejected CBC’s argument, ruling the broadcaster failed to show any realistic competitive harm from releasing the numbers.

“[While the] CBC did identify possible harms to its competitive position or to ongoing negotiations, it did not demonstrate that there was a reasonable expectation that these harms could occur, well beyond a mere possibility,” Maynard wrote in her decision.

Former CBC president Catherine Tait repeatedly claimed before parliamentary committees that “millions” of Canadians were using Gem, including testimony in January and October 2024.

Terrazzano argued taxpayers deserve transparency from a publicly funded broadcaster that receives more than $1 billion annually from the federal government.

“The CBC should be more transparent than Netflix or Amazon,” he said. “If the CBC doesn’t want to release the information and be transparent with taxpayers, then it shouldn’t get one cent from taxpayers.”

The current court fight is not the first transparency dispute involving the CBC. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation previously launched legal action after the broadcaster resisted releasing details about executive bonus compensation. Records later showed seven senior executives collectively received nearly $3.8 million in compensation.

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