Pro-Palestine protests continued for a second day Friday at Northwestern’s Evanston campus, with hundreds of students and faculty — many of whom spent the night in tents — pressuring the university to divest from funds connected to Israel or those that profit from its war in Gaza. Students and activists associated with the Northwestern Divestment Coalition started the “Northwestern Liberation Zone” Thursday morning at Deering Meadow, a popular common area on campus. By Friday morning, more than 40 tents covered the encampment — three times as many from the day before — along with a medic tent ..read more

R. Kelly’s sex-crime conviction and 20-year sentence in Chicago’s federal court will stand, an appeals court ruled Friday in a blistering opinion. “For years, Robert Sylvester Kelly abused underage girls. By employing a complex scheme to keep victims quiet, he long evaded consequences. In recent years, though, those crimes caught up with him at last,” Judge Amy St. Eve of the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals wrote in the terse, 14-page ruling. “But Kelly — interposing a statute-of-limitations defense — thinks he delayed the charges long enough to elude them entirely. The statute says otherwis ..read more

Rush University System for Health is teaming up with top-ranked University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center — a move that’s expected to give Rush patients better access to the latest cancer treatments and help Rush compete against other Chicago-area hospitals. Under the partnership, which was announced Friday, Rush Cancer Center is being renamed Rush MD Anderson Cancer Center. Rush will retain ownership of its program. Neither leaders of Rush nor MD Anderson would discuss the financial details of the arrangement. As part of the agreement, protocols and cancer treatment plans at Rush will mir ..read more

Two teenage victims were left in critical condition overnight after a shooting in the South Shore neighborhood, Chicago police said. Shortly before 11:30 p.m., two gunmen entered an apartment where the two teens were inside and opened fire, police said. ‘One of the victims, 18, suffered gunshot wounds to the left side of the jaw and right arm. The other victim, 17, was shot to the right side of the head and cheek. Both teens were taken in critical condition to UChicago Medicine. A rifle was discovered at the scene. No one was in custody for the shooting, and detectives were investigating the c ..read more

A lot of my friends and I are turning 50 this year, which means my calendar is filled with celebrations to mark a half-century (!) of life and memories and friendships and mistakes and love and heartbreak and reinvention and redemption. And my social feeds are filled with ways to look like none of it happened. There’s a product or procedure for saving every (I mean every) inch of our bodies from looking their age. It’s a little exhausting. We already grew up devouring magazines that spoke to us like the worst friend ever. (“You’re hideous! But don’t worry I can totally fix you!”) We’ve been ta ..read more

LOS ANGELES — Harvey Weinstein’s landmark New York sexual assault conviction was thrown out by an appeals court Thursday, and most of the dozens of civil cases filed against him since he became a central target in the #MeToo movement in 2017 have either been settled or dismissed. That doesn’t mean the 72-year-old disgraced movie mogul and his lawyers don’t have plenty of court time ahead. Prosecutors in Manhattan say they plan to retry him, and several other cases remain unresolved. Here’s a look at those, and at some that have come and gone: THE LONE LOS ANGELES CONVICTION Weinstein was found ..read more

The students at Columbia University who inspired pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country dug in at their encampment for the 10th day Friday as administrators and police at campuses from California to Massachusetts wrestled with how to address protests that have seen scuffles with police and hundreds of arrests. Officials at Columbia and some other schools have been negotiating with student protesters who have rebuffed police and doubled down. Other schools have quickly turned to law enforcement to douse demonstrations before they can take hold. As the death toll mounts in the war in ..read more

A man was pronounced dead overnight after being found lying on the ground critically wounded in the Englewood neighborhood, Chicago police said. Shortly after 2:30 a.m., officers responded to a call of shots fired and found an unresponsive man lying on the ground in the 200 block of West 72nd Street. The man was taken to UChicago Medicine after suffering about 20 gunshot wounds to the body, and was pronounced dead. No one was in custody for the attack, and detectives were investigating.   ..read more

An unidentified woman was pronounced dead following a fire that broke out at a building Thursday night on the South Side in the Bronzeville neighborhood. Shortly before 11:30 p.m., officers responded to a residence  in the 3600 block of South Giles Avenue where a woman was critically injured, police said. The woman was taken to UChicago Medicine in critical condition due to smoke inhalation and was pronounced dead a short time later, police said. As of Friday morning, the woman has not been identified. The cause of the fire was ruled accidental, officials said.         ..read more

Good morning, Chicago. The University of Southern California canceled its main graduation ceremony Thursday and dozens more college students were arrested at other campuses nationwide as protests against the Israel-Hamas war . College officials across the U.S. are worried the ongoing protests could disrupt plans for commencement ceremonies next month. Some universities called in police to break up the demonstrations, resulting in ugly scuffles and arrests nationwide, while others appeared content to wait out student protests as the final days of the semester ticked down. Schools such as Columb ..read more