Illinois man kills six-year-old Muslim boy and stabs mother in hate crime

Joseph Czuba, 71, was charged with murder and hate crime for stabbing his tenants over a dozen times in Plainfield, Illinois

Michael Sainato

@msainat1

Sun 15 Oct 2023 21.09 BST

A 71-year-old man in Plainfield, Illinois, has been charged with murder and a hate crime after stabbing a child and his mother because they were Muslims in an attack that killed a six-year-old boy and left the adult seriously wounded.

In a statement posted to the Will county sheriff’s office social media page, law enforcement responded to an emergency call made by a 32-year-old woman who alleged her landlord had attacked her with a knife.

The problem with video gambling machines

Nearly a decade ago, Illinois lawmakers legalized video gambling. They hoped that the machines, which offered up electronic versions of games like slots or poker, would generate billions of dollars of revenue for the state. So they passed a bill quickly, with little debate, to expand the industry dramatically. Illinois now has more than 30,000 of these machines, and more locations to legally place a bet than Nevada. A ProPublica Illinois investigation has found that the expansion of video gambling hasn’t pulled Illinois out of debt — it’s actually accelerated it. While people in Illinois have gambled a lot more on machines that can be highly addictive, most of the additional money has ended up in the hands of a small group of companies behind video gambling.