Chicago

For months we've been writing about the staggering rise of violence in Chicago.  As the year has worn on, the grim milestones have added up: the deadliest month in 23 years, the deadliest day in 13 years, 4,300 people shot...the list goes on and on.  With five days left in 2016, official police records indicate that homicides in Chicago surged 57% YoY and shootings spiked 46%.  To put those numbers into perspective, Chicago recorded over 20% more murders in 2016 than New York and Los Angeles combined, despite having a fraction of the population.  Per the Ch

The colder weather in the Midwest was supposed to bring with it a reprieve for the police and residents of Chicago from the historic levels of violence that have devastated that city this year.  Unfortunately, while the colder weather came the violence never subsided.

According to data released by the US Census, in 2016 the U.S. population grew at the lowest rate since the Great Depression, while the state of New York shrank for the first time in a decade. The biggest loser, again, was Illinois which shrank for a third consecutive year, losing 38,000 people, mostly from the Chicago area.

The Brennan Center for Justice has just updated its annual crime report, and the surge in violent crime and murder rates across the country is somewhat staggering.  While the Brennan Center continues to downplay the YoY increases, saying "concerns about a national crime wave are still premature," the numbers seem to paint a different story with murder rates in the largest 30 U.S. cities expected to increase 15.5% in 2016.  Meanwhile, that number would be over 17% if the study reflected the most recent 2016 Chicago murder estimate of 800.

Submitted by via InternationalMan.com,

In 1871, a large portion of the city of Chicago burned to the ground. The Chicago Tribune attributed the fire to a cow owned by a Mrs. O’Leary. The Tribune stated that the cow kicked over a lantern as she was being milked, burning the barn and much of Chicago.