* My favorite Thanksgiving tradition…

* Here’s a shameless self promotion of my own White House photos from last year…

* Roundup…

* Vox | The incredible shrinking future of college: In four years, the number of students graduating from high schools across the country will begin a sudden and precipitous decline, due to a rolling demographic aftershock of the Great Recession. Traumatized by uncertainty and unemployment, people decided to stop having kids during that period. But even as we climbed out of the recession, the birth rate kept dropping, and we are now starting to see the consequences on campuses everywhere. Classes will shrink, year after year, for most of the next two decades. People in the higher education industry call it “the enrollment cliff.”

* NPR | Largest freight rail union rejects contract agreement, heads back to bargaining table: SMART Transportation Division, the largest freight rail union representing 28,000 conductors and other trainmen, has rejected the tentative agreement brokered by the Biden administration in September.

* My Journal Courier | Illinois joins 13 states challenging transgender student sports ban: Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the 13 attorneys general filed an amicus brief in the case of A.M. v. Indianapolis Public Schools. In it, they maintain the court should affirm a preliminary injunction that allows a 10-year-old student who identifies as female to play on a school’s girls’ softball team.

* NBC 5 | Illinois Coronavirus Updates: State Case Numbers Rise, New COVID Variant: Illinois health officials reported 13,659 new COVID-19 cases since Nov. 11, along with 48 additional deaths over the past seven days.

* FOX 2 | Can I smoke weed in my yard in Illinois? It depends: State law says that marijuana cannot be smoked in public places, such as hospitals, government places, streets and parks, according to Health Care Weekly. Residents are able to smoke at a private residence, which includes their home or friend’s homes. However, it cannot be done if a minor is present.

* Crain’s | Municipal races crank up as petition filing window opens: Filing promptly on the first day—the window is open through next Monday—is usually considered an advantage because it gives the filer at least a shot at the top ballot position. But waiting gives a contender more time to rustle up the needed signatures and their foes less time to pore over the petitions and look for fatal flaws.

* Sun-Times | City blows deadline to make all polling places accessible, deeply frustrating disabled voters 30 years after ADA became law: The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners was ordered to make every polling place compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act nearly six years ago, but it still hasn’t done so.

* Labor Tribune | Illinois leaders call on U.S. Postal Service to improve protections for postal workers:U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and U.S. Reps. Mike Quigley, Sean Casten and Jan Schakowsky all co-signed an open letter on Oct. 20 asking the USPS board of governors to take “the necessary steps to ensure postal workers across the nation can carry out their jobs in peace.” This comes after a similar letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was ignored, according to the legislators.

* Michigan Live | 28 ejections from Michigan Stadium during win over Illinois : Of the 28 ejections, two were for vaping, two were for assault, six were for alcohol-related reasons and 20 were for violations of stadium rules, according to numbers provided by the University of Michigan Division of Public Safety and Security.

* Center Square | Helicopter removes Old State Capitol flagpole; John Wayne Gacy prosecutor dies: As part of $2.5 million in renovations to the Old State Capitol in Springfield, a helicopter removed the flag pole Monday. […] William Kunkle Jr., the prosecutor who charged serial killer John Wayne Gacy, has died. Kunkle was 81 and died of natural causes.

* Center Square | Record number of shoppers expected for Thanksgiving weekend: The National Retail Federation predicts over 166 million people will shop from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, which is 8 million more than last year.