‘Silver Search’ locates 120 missing Alzheimer’s patients since program began – Alzheimer’s – Optimum Senior Care – Chicago In Home Care – www.OptimumSeniorCare.com
In 2016, the Alzheimer’s Association teamed up with law enforcement and other state agencies to help bring these loved ones home with Silver Search. “We use lottery terminals, we use Department of Transportation road boards, we use Facebook and other social media accounts. So this information gets out to the public, similar to what we do in AMBER Alerts, so the public can be our eyes and ears.”
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WICS/WRSP) — Hundreds of thousands of people in Illinois live with Alzheimer’s Disease and it turns out, 60% of those people will wander off at some point.
“A lot of them that wander may still have a driver’s license, may still be in a vehicle, may still be on our roadways,” ISP Missing Persons Coordinator Craig Burge said. “So it creates a hardship for law enforcement to determine where these people might be located.”
In 2016, the Alzheimer’s Association teamed up with law enforcement and other state agencies to help bring these loved ones home with “silver search.”
“We use lottery terminals, we use Department of Transportation road boards, we use Facebook and other social media accounts,” Burge said. “So this information gets out to the public, similar to what we do in AMBER Alerts, so the public can be our eyes and ears.”
In Illinois, more and more people wander off each year. Of the 121 silver alerts that have gone out since 2016, all but one person has been found.
“This is about safety,” Olsen said. “This is about the dignity of people and making sure that they’re able to be safe.”
CHICAGO (AP) — Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed a bill to expand abortion protections in Illinois, a move that comes while some Republican-led states try to restrict the procedure.
The law establishes abortion as a “fundamental right” for women. Pritzker, a Democrat, signed the bill Wednesday, surrounded by advocates. He says Illinois is taking a “giant step forward” while other states are taking a “giant step backwards.”
The measure rescinds decades-old regulations on abortion that had been suspended by judges. It also requires insurance coverage for abortions, contraception and related medical care.
Supporters say the legislation would put existing practice into law. Republicans strongly objected.
At least six states have adopted steep restrictions or bans on abortion.
Organizations are speaking out on the new law:
The following can be attributed to Colleen Connell, Executive Director of the ACLU of Illinois:
“Governor Pritzker today completed a critical, much needed victory for access to reproductive health care in Illinois. Even as other states – including Georgia, Alabama, and our neighbors in Missouri –recklessly act to ban abortion, Illinois now stands as an example of how we can safeguard the right of every person to reproductive health care, including abortion.
From his early days in office, Governor Pritzker has encouraged Illinois elected officials and residents to do everything possible to protect reproductive health care, and to make ourselves a model for other states. With the stroke of a pen to the Reproductive Health Act, the Governor has made those words reality.
The law is now clear in Illinois: decisions about reproductive health care are between patients, their family members, doctors and other health care providers. Thank you, Governor Pritzker, for making this policy the law of the land. Thank you to all the legislators who worked to move this measure forward, especially sponsors Senator Melinda Bush and Representative Kelly Cassidy. And, special thanks to the thousands of Illinois residents who spoke up and made their voice heard over the past few months. Your involvement made this victory possible.”
The following comes from the Thomas More Society:
The Thomas More Society has declared Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s signing of SB 25, the state’s extreme abortion law, to be tantamount to “legalizing the death penalty, with no possibility of appeal, for viable unborn preemies.”
The Honorable Peter Breen, former Illinois Representative and Thomas More Society Vice President and Senior Counsel, issued a brief analysis and response to the Democratic supermajority’s legislation, rushed through the Illinois House during the Memorial Day weekend and sent to the governor’s desk by the State Senate on June 4.
“This law is the most radical sweeping pro-abortion measure in America and makes Illinois an abortion destination for the country. The deceptively titled ‘Reproductive Health Act’ gives our state some of the most extremely permissive abortion laws of any state in the nation,” explained Breen.
The law brings about the following, which Breen labels, “disgraceful”:
All licensing requirements for abortion clinics are abolished, and health and safety inspections ended, despite those inspections shutting down numerous dirty abortion clinics in recent years
Dismemberment abortions of “preemie” babies, who feel pain, without anesthesia, are legalized
Every private health insurance policy, including those for small churches and religious nonprofits, must pay for elective chemical and surgical abortions
Every unborn child, up to and even during birth, will now have NO legal rights in Illinois
Abortion is labeled a “fundamental right,” protected to a greater degree than Free Speech and other First Amendment rights
“The governor and the Democratic supermajorities who fast-tracked this legislation have created a new ‘death penalty’ in Illinois, with no possibility of appeal, for viable unborn preemies,” Breen remarked.
The law, signed by Pritzker on June 12, 2019, removes reporting requirements for all abortions including those done on viable babies, repeals penalties for performing illegal abortions, allows nurses to perform medical abortions, strips away abortion conscience protections for health care workers, and eliminates existing licensing and health and safety inspections of abortion clinics. It expressly strips all rights from unborn children and wipes nearly every abortion regulation off the books in Illinois, subjecting any that remain to a court challenge under a near-impossible-to-meet “strict scrutiny” standard.
“This act is barbarous. Its definition of ‘viability’ expressly excludes many babies who today live and thrive when born premature – these babies now have zero legal rights or protections, under this law,” said Breen.
The new law permits dismemberment abortions of living, viable, and unanesthetized premature babies, who feel pain while they are being torn limb from limb. The new definition of mother’s “health” is so broad that it provides no protection for any post-viability baby.
Breen suggests that this law, purporting to improve health care for women, instead, by removing all regulation and oversight, sends it back to the dark ages.
“This law creates a ‘fundamental rightto have an abortion, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise that right.’ The General Assembly majority and governor have placed abortion as the primary and principal right in Illinois, above all others,” the attorney and former legislator explained.
Under this law, every health insurance policy in Illinois is now required to cover elective abortions, even late-term ones. There are no exceptions for churches, religious nonprofits, or pro-life individuals and small business owners. It even strikes current law that protects parents from having to pay for a child’s abortion, when performed without parental consent.
Illinois’ new abortion mandate also strips the express right in current law for health care workers to choose not to participate in abortions.
Breen is particularly concerned about the stripping of all licensing requirements for abortion clinics. “This removes the only effective tool the state government has to regulate and shut down unsanitary and unsafe abortion clinics, like Rockford’s ‘House of Horrors.’”
“The legacy of this governor, and any legislator who voted to pass this law, will be that of cruel dehumanization of unborn Illinoisans on a mass scale,” declared Breen. “They will bear the legacy of thousands of late-term dismemberment abortions inflicted on perfectly healthy, viable children. They will bear the legacy of many thousands more children aborted in Illinois instead of being allowed to live, with the resulting psychological trauma to their mothers, including teenagers, who might otherwise have brought their children to term. They will bear the legacy of harm done to those women who suffer from abortions performed in filthy unlicensed clinics.”
Breen added, “This law violates the deepest moral and ethical convictions of millions of Illinoisans. While the Democratic supermajorities in the 101st General Assembly and Governor Pritzker have sped these radical measures into law, the citizens of this state can and must make their voices heard.”
Planned Parenthood of Illinois thanks Governor Pritzker for signing the Reproductive Health Act into law:
Today, June 12, 2019, Governor Pritzker signed into law the Reproductive Health Act (RHA), establishing reproductive health care as a fundamental right in Illinois.
“We are in for the fight of our lives, for our patients’ lives,” said Planned Parenthood of Illinois President and CEO, Jennifer Welch. “By signing the Reproductive Health Act into law today, Governor Pritzker has solidified his commitment to guaranteeing patients at Planned Parenthood, and other health care providers across the state, have the fundamental right to the full range of reproductive health care. At Planned Parenthood, we’re committing to ensuring that right is accessible, no matter what. Thank you, Governor Pritzker, for living up to your promise of making Illinois the ‘most progressive state for reproductive rights in the country’.”
The RHA repeals the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975 and establishes the fundamental right to make individual decisions about reproductive health care, including contraception, abortion, and maternity care. This includes birthing decisions like whether to have an induction, epidural anesthesia, or cesarean surgery. The RHA also requires private health insurance plans in Illinois to cover abortion like they do other pregnancy related care.
“It is appalling in 2019 that anti-abortion advocates are still trying to shame women about their reproductive health care; we see it at some of our health centers every day,” Welch explained. “Whether it’s access to abortion or contraception, we’ve seen opposition to common-sense legislation that keeps women in control of their own health and lives.”
2019 State Abortion Restriction Snapshot, released by the Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, shows proposed six-week abortion bans — like the ban signed by Mississippi’s governor last week — have increased by an alarming 63 percent compared to last year. Right now, over 250 bills restricting abortion have been filed in the majority of state legislatures and dangerous new bills are being filed every day.
“By signing the RHA,” summarized Welch, “Illinois is sending a very clear message – a woman, not politicians, should make decisions when it comes to her own pregnancy.”
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WICS/WCCU) — The defense attorneys for Brendt Christensen, the man accused of kidnapping and killing missing U of I scholar Yingying Zhang, said in opening statements that he did it.
“Brendt Christensen killed Yingying Zhang,” the defense attorneys said.
They went on to explain the guilt phase of the trial is merely part of the legal process to get to the penalty phase.
The federal prosecutor detailed Yingying’s death to the jury in their opening statement saying he raped, choked, and stabbed her in his bedroom. “He hit her in the head with a baseball bat, broke open her head [in his bathroom]… and he cut her head off… While Yingying was on campus pursing her dream on June 9, the defendant was there pursuing something dark, evil… kidnapping and murder”
Prosecutors say Christensen is heard on a recording saying Yingying was his 13th victim. The defense says there’s no evidence of this calling it a “false claim,” saying Christensen was drunk when he said it.
Christensen is accused of luring 26-year-old Yingying Zhang into his car in June 2017 as she headed to sign a lease off campus.
The Associated Press contributed to the report.
