Lockdowns have been lifted after a man attending a court hearing found out he was wanted and fled from police on foot in Waukegan Thursday morning.

Lake County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli told Lake and McHenry County Scanner that a 36-year-old man went to the Lake County Courthouse Thursday morning.

The man was at the courthouse for a hearing in an order of protection case.

He learned he had an active warrant out of Kenosha County, Wisconsin, and abruptly left the courtroom, Covelli said.

Covelli said the warrant is sealed, meaning a judge in Kenosha County has prohibited any information to be publicized regarding the case.

Members of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office attempted to stop the man but he continued fleeing.

He was chased about a block away and officers lost sight of him.

A large perimeter was established about a block from the courthouse and the area was searched, Covelli said.

The College of Lake County sent a message at the time of the incident saying their Lakeshore Campus located in Waukegan was placed on lockdown due to “dangerous conditions.”

“Police are on scene and managing the situation,” the message said.

The school asked students and staff to stay inside locked buildings and wait for the all-clear, which was given around 11:40 a.m.

North Chicago School District 187 said in a message that Evelyn Alexander School was also placed on soft lockdown.

The suspect was ultimately not located. There is no threat to the community, Covelli said.

Kenosha County law enforcement officials have been briefed on the situation.

The man is described as being an African American, 5-foot-7, 150 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.

He has tattoos on his arms and face. He was last seen wearing a black t-shirt and blue jeans.

SINGAPORE — Associate Professor Daniel Goh has made public his expulsion from the Workers’ Party (WP), the largest opposition political party in Singapore.

Assoc Prof Goh, a sociologist at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and former Non-Constituency Member of Parliament, shared the news on his Facebook page on Thursday evening.

In a detailed post, Assoc Prof Goh explained that he received the notification of his expulsion while away on a work trip. “Daddy, you are expelled from the Workers’ Party!” exclaimed his son upon opening the registered mail.

The former cadre member of WP described the incident as the final act in his retirement from politics.

Assoc Prof Goh’s expulsion comes after an internal dispute related to his Facebook posts on the party’s handling of the Raeesah Khan saga where the former WP MP for Seng Kang GRC resigned from the party and Parliament on 30 November 2021 after making unsubstantiated allegations in Parliament on three occasions and a Committee of Privileges being held as a result of the allegations made.

In September last year, Assoc Prof Goh shared that WP had established a disciplinary committee to investigate the issue, though he had declined to participate in an interview with the committee.

The root of the controversy lay in Assoc Prof Goh’s criticism of the party’s leadership in dealing with former MP Raeesah Khan’s admission of lying in Parliament.

Assoc Prof Goh had repeatedly called for the leadership to take responsibility for allowing Khan’s actions to persist over several months.

The committee had expressed concern that Assoc Prof Goh’s posts revealed the party’s internal dynamics and could potentially give political opponents an inside understanding of WP’s operations. His posts were also perceived to have negatively impacted the image of the party’s leadership.

However, Assoc Prof Goh defended his position, arguing that his posts were questions based on public information. He stated his belief in the importance of public accountability and integrity in political leaders.

He also expressed disagreement with the notion of viewing the government or any political party as “political opponents” and questioned the implication that his actions, rather than the party leadership’s response, had led to a loss of trust in WP.

The former Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (MP) had earlier stepped down from his positions in WPs central executive committee in 2020 due to an unspecified health condition. His roles included serving as the party’s organising secretary and the chair of its media team.

In his latest post, Assoc Prof Goh indicated that the expulsion would allow him to focus more on his responsibilities at NUS. “With this closure, I can now focus on serving my country in my responsibilities in NUS,” he wrote.

He added, “Gotta update my CV to say I was expelled from WP for calling out the leadership. Anyways, my dear friends, thanks for all the support and concern all these years, they were really important for me during this fruitful political journey!”

TOC has reached out to WP for their response to Assoc Prof Goh’s Facebook post and subsequent expulsion.

Facebook parent company Meta is threatening to remove news content on its platforms Instagram and Facebook in California if the state legislature passes a new proposal that would make tech companies pay publishers for news content. 

“If the Journalism Preservation Act passes, we will be forced to remove news from Facebook and Instagram rather than pay into a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers,” reads a statement posted to Twitter by Meta spokesperson Andy Stone.

Meta’s statement says the California bill, which is now before the state Assembly, “fails to recognize that publishers and broadcasters put their content on our platform themselves and that substantial consolidation in California’s local news industry came over 15 years ago, well before Facebook was widely used.”

The bill would require covered platforms to pay a “journalism usage fee” for content from local outlets — and require publishers to devote 70 percent of the proceeds from these fees to creating and maintaining journalism jobs in California. 

“It is disappointing that California lawmakers appear to be prioritizing the best interests of national and international media companies over their own constituents,” the Meta statement concludes.  

California state Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D), who sponsored the bill, said Meta’s threat is “a scare tactic that they’ve tried to deploy, unsuccessfully, in every country that’s attempted this.”

Meta made a similar threat last year after lawmakers introduced to Congress the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which would also have required tech companies to pay news outlets for their material. The social media giant has also reportedly moved to block news content in Australia and Canada over similar proposals.

“It is egregious that one of the wealthiest companies in the world would rather silence journalists than face regulation,” Wicks said.

The nonprofit News Media Alliance said in a statement that Meta’s threat is “undemocratic and unbecoming.”