McHenry County | featured news

SAN DIEGO – The Border Patrol, reacting to a breach it discovered in a steel-pole border wall believed to be used by smugglers, gave activists no warning this month when it bulldozed the U.S.

BEIJING – A new virus that started in China and is popping up around Asia and the world hung over the first day of the Year of the Rat.

Lunar New Year festivities were canceled across mainland China on Saturday and scaled back in the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong, where residents also endured months of anti-government protests in the last lunar year.

The new coronavirus – from a family of viruses that also caused the deadly SARS epidemic in 2002-03 – didn’t stop everyone from going to temples, but many wore f

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s lawyers plunged into his impeachment trial defense Saturday by accusing Democrats of striving to overturn the 2016 election, arguing that investigations of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine have not been a fact-finding mission but a politically motivated effort to drive him from the White House.

“They’re here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone told senators.

BEIJING – The new virus accelerated its spread in China with 56 deaths so far in what the country's leader called a grave situation, and the government stepped up efforts to restrict travel and public gatherings while rushing medical staff and supplies to the closed-off city at the center of the outbreak.

The figures reported Sunday morning cover the previous 24 hours and mark an increase of 15 deaths and 688 cases for a total of 1,975 infections.

The government also reported five cases in Hong Kong, two in Macao and t

BAGHDAD – Iraq cracked down on anti-government protesters who have been occupying key public squares for months, leaving four demonstrators dead Saturday in a country reeling from political turmoil and violence.

Security forces set fire to protesters' tents in southern Iraq and reopened public areas in Baghdad just hours after a powerful Shiite cleric dealt a major blow to the movement by withdrawing his support, prompting his followers to leave the encampments.

Security forces fired tear gas and live rounds to dispers

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out in anger Saturday at an NPR reporter who accused him of shouting expletives at her after she asked him in an interview about Ukraine.

SPRINGFIELD – In 2007, Springfield’s gleaming new shrine to Abraham Lincoln was open, but it lacked touchstone pieces to show off, so organizers paid $6.5 million for the most symbolic Lincoln artifact available: one of the 16th president’s stovepipe hats.

A dozen years and as many studies and hand-wringing public statements later, there’s no concrete evidence that the felted beaver-fur hat ever sat atop Lincoln’s 6-foot-4 frame.

Has anyone requested a refund?

No, and it doe

GREEN VILLAGE MILITARY OUTPOST – U.S. troops at military outposts ín eastern Syria asked variations of the same question to their top commander Saturday: What is our future here? What are the goals we need to think about?

Gen. Frank McKenzie, the U.S. Middle East commander, knows the future is not certain. But at least for today, he said, “this is an area where we made a commitment.

ELBURN – A Waterman man is facing attempted murder charges after investigators found he tampered with a gas line to a home, casing it to fill with gas, police said Saturday.

Frank E. Ryan, 33, of Waterman was also charged with reckless conduct and battery, according to a news release from Elburn Police.