* Press release…

Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 18 states, today called for a federal recall of Hyundai and Kia vehicles following the companies’ continued failure to take adequate steps to address the alarming rate of vehicle thefts.

The letter, sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), encourages the NHTSA to recall unsafe Hyundai and Kia vehicles manufactured between 2011 and 2022 that have easily-bypassed ignition switches and lack engine immobilizers that make the vehicles vulnerable to theft.

In a letter issued in March 2023, Raoul and a coalition of attorneys general urged the companies to take stronger steps to address the safety concerns caused by vehicles’ vulnerability to theft. Because the companies have failed to address safety issues, Raoul and the coalition are now calling on the NHTSA to step in. The attorneys general argue that the vehicles’ systems remain out of compliance with federal standards and pose an unreasonable risk to public safety.

“Kia and Hyundai have still not fully addressed vulnerabilities in certain models that have resulted in increased thefts in Illinois and around the nation,” Raoul said. “I am calling for a federal recall of unsafe Kia and Hyundai vehicles because I stand committed to protecting consumers and our communities from crime. Because these car companies have not done their part to prevent thefts, I am urging the federal government to help us protect our residents.”

From approximately 2010 to 2021, Hyundai and Kia failed to equip base vehicle models with engine immobilizers, which prevent the vehicle from operating without a key or key fob. In 2022 alone, there were over 7,000 Hyundai and Kia thefts in Chicago, which account for 10% of all registered Kia vehicles and 7% of all registered Hyundai vehicles in the city.

* Sun-Times…

An Illinois appellate court has slammed Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s electronic monitoring program for its “ambiguity” on whether apartment-dwelling detainees are allowed in other parts of their building for daily tasks such as getting the mail and washing clothes.

The ruling, a unanimous three-judge decision, throws out the 2018 escape conviction of Demarko Williams, a Chicago man who was imprisoned nearly five years for the offense — a conviction that followed his acquittal on drug charges, the case that landed him on the electronic monitoring in the first place.

“The state failed to offer any evidence that [Williams] was not permitted to go to other places within his apartment building without the sheriff’s approval,” the court ruled April 7, finding that Dart’s electronic monitoring program did not define whether a “residence” in a multi-unit building consists solely of the detainee’s unit.

So, he got five years for going someplace else in his apartment building, but was acquitted on the original charge?

…Adding… Joe Ryan at the sheriff’s office…

Hello Rich
I saw you reposted the WBEZ piece and raised an understandable question. I want to make sure you know WBEZ didn’t report the whole story and we have been discussing that with them. They failed to report that the court opinion noted that during trial the other following facts came out: the defendant knew he needed to turn himself in and didn’t, he skipped his regular court date more than 20 days after that visit by Sheriff’s officers, and was found weeks after that initial visit by CPD about six miles from his house after having cut off his ankle monitor.

Oddly, WBEZ didn’t report that. We also included that information in our statement to them below. And it is in the court opinion: https://ilcourtsaudio.blob.core.windows.net/antilles-resources/resources/5a62e8c5-9af5-45c0-8363-0f24bc5e46d3/People%20v.%20Williams,%202023%20IL%20App%20(1st)%20181285.pdf

These are highly relevant facts because to leave them out leads to the questions that you raised.

Thank you
Joe

Here’s the statement we provided to Mitchell: The Sheriff’s Office strongly disagrees with the Court’s opinion. No reasonable interpretation of Electronic Monitoring rules would allow for individuals to have free reign to wander all over a multi-unit residential building. Further, this Court’s ruling ignores the facts outlined in its opinion that in early September 2017 the defendant knew he needed to turn himself in or a warrant would be issued for his arrest, cut off his ankle monitor after the Sheriff’s Office tried to locate him, failed to appear in court three weeks after investigators first visited his residence, and was subsequently arrested approximately six miles from his residence the following month still without his ankle monitor.

* Gary Rabine lives in exurban Bull Valley and his company is headquartered in Schaumburg. But here’s Fox “News”…

A Chicago business owner says he is fleeing the crime-infested city because leaders are “supporting anarchy” and he “can’t put up with it any longer.”

“Our employees are being held up for their wallets and their phones at gunpoint,” Rabine Group founder Gary Rabine told “America Reports” on Wednesday. “It’s just not worth it anymore, the danger. You know, we are very safety-oriented company, and we can’t put up with it any longer.”

Rabine got 6.55 percent of the vote in the 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary and took fewer votes than Beverly Miles. If you don’t know who she is, you’re not alone.

* Background is here if you need it. From comments earlier today…

Many have wondered why Scott Kaspar bought the Illinois Review and is using it to pummel Mayor Pekau almost daily. Well, it just became crystal clear. Kaspar recently changed his committee name to run for Orland Park Village President

Click here.

* Crain’s…

Chicago is home to 124,000 millionaires, making it the fourth-wealthiest city in the United States and the 11th-richest city globally, according to investment migration firm Henley & Partners. Its growth in that field is slowing considerably, though.

Chicago follows New York City, the Bay Area and Los Angeles in number of high-net-worth individuals in the U.S.

* Isabel’s roundup…

* Sun-Times | Acting Chicago Police Supt. Eric Carter announces retirement amid nationwide search for next top cop: Carter plans to officially retire on May 15, just two months after he took over the Chicago Police Department from Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s hand-picked Supt. David Brown, whose tenure was marked by a historic spike in violent crime, low officer morale and slow progress meeting sweeping court-ordered reforms.

* Block Club | DePaul Student Journalists Say Newspapers Vanished After Critical Story On University’s Budget Gap: The reporting quoted faculty members who said university leadership had “hastily” planned cuts to non-tenured teaching positions, other staff and department budgets. The teachers said they were left in the dark about changes. In the days after the article ran, several DePaulia editors noticed student workers tossing papers off newsstands into recycling bins at the school’s Lincoln Park library, student center and academic center, said Marla Krause, the paper’s adviser and a journalism professor at the university.

* Chalkbeat | Urban Prep Academies could be turned over to Chicago Public Schools after state denies appeal: But Urban Prep officials said late Wednesday that they filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County “asserting that the Chicago Public Schools has violated state law that there be a moratorium on school closings until 2025.” However, the district is not planning to close the schools. In October, when the Chicago Board of Education voted to revoke Urban Prep’s charter agreement to operate campuses in Englewood and Bronzeville, district officials – in a nod to the network’s unique mission and model – promised to continue operating the schools under district management.

* WICS | Illinois receives approval from Biden admin for school-based health services expansion: The expansion of the School-Based Health Services program will build on a foundation of currently-offered health care services available in Illinois schools to Medicaid-enrolled children, as well as training offered to staff, and reporting and claiming of federal matching funds that HFS does on behalf of schools.

* Illinois Times | City receives $500K state grant for the Y block: The empty lot just north of the Illinois Governor’s Mansion was once the site of the YWCA building, which was razed in 2017. Over the years, various ideas ranging from a law school campus to an apartment complex and private businesses have been proposed for the site.

* WICS | Officials say Legacy Pointe Sports Complex will increase sports tourism in Springfield: The project has been in the works for the last couple of years, and now, the city council gave the green light for funding. The hope is to be able to host tournaments and tourists all year long and it even comes with some economic benefits.

* News-Gazette | Owners of former Champaign County Nursing Home file plan with state to close: Rothner told the board last month that the nursing home has racked up millions of dollars in losses, and the mortgage on the facility had gone unpaid for eight months.

* Cannabis Business Times | Green Thumb Workers Strike at 3 Dispensaries in Illinois: Among the three Green Thumb Industries (GTI) retail locations in Illinois—two in Joliet and one in Niles—there are more than 100 unionized workers represented by Teamsters Local 777 who began engaging in the “open-ended unfair labor practice strike,” not an economic strike, according to union spokesman Matt McQuaid. Local 777 represents more than 500 cannabis workers throughout Illinois.

* Tribune | As cannabis customers celebrate 420, consumption becomes more common at sponsored events: In Chicago, the Sesh City bus will start early with a “wake and bake” session from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. at Kinzie and Wells streets. It’s a precursor to a daylong Cannabis Innovation Lab Summit at the nearby Merchandise Mart.

* American Inequality | Childcare costs skyrocket in the Northeast and West: New data highlights inequalities for communities struggling with affordable childcare

* Patch | How Illinois Facebook Users Can Claim Cash In $725M Settlement: A settlement comes after Facebook paid out $650 million last year for using photos of users without their permission as a violation of Illinois and federal privacy laws. Last year, Facebook users in Illinois received up to $400 as part of the settlement payout.

* News-Gazette | In founder’s honor, empathy takes center stage at Ebertfest: In a speech outside the Chicago Theatre in 2005, Ebert called movies “machines that generate empathy,” which allow viewers to gain a greater understanding of others that are different form them in some way. Ten years after her husband died after a long battle with cancer that left him unable to speak, Chaz and other Ebertfest organizers decided to honor Roger at this year’s festival with a theme of “Empathy at the Movies.”

* WaPo | Top GOP lawyer decries ease of campus voting in private pitch to RNC: A presentation by Cleta Mitchell at a donor retreat urged tougher rules that could make it harder for college students to cast ballots.

* The Atlantic | A History of Humanity in Which Humans Are Secondary: Most accounts of humanity’s origins, and our evolution since, have understandably put Homo sapiens center stage. It was our ingenuity, our tools, our cultural savvy that enabled our species to survive long past others—that allowed wars to be won, religions to blossom, and empires to rise and expand while others crumbled and fell. But despite what the schoolbooks tell us, humans might not be the main protagonists in our own history. As Jonathan Kennedy argues in his new book, Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues, the microscopic agents behind our deadliest infectious diseases should be taking center stage instead. Germs and pestilence—and not merely the people who bore them—have shaped inflection point after inflection point in our species’ timeline, from our first major successful foray out of Africa to the rise of Christianity, to even the United States’ bloody bid for independence.

* Daily Beast | Tech Bosses Are Letting Dictators Censor What Americans See: It sounds far-fetched, but recent moves from some leading names in tech and social media paint a worrying picture: Foreign censorship laws are increasingly determining what people in free countries, including the United States, can do online.