* Here you go…

* WTTW | Legislative Session Roundup: Updates on Chicago’s Elected School Board, Red Light Cameras: That includes bills that prevent license plate reader technology from being used by other states seeking to extradite residents who travel to Illinois to have an abortion (HB3326), that require Illinois universities’ major course credits to be transferable to other 4-year state public higher education institutions (HB2288) and a requirement that if a new drinking fountain is installed in place where the state requires them, a water bottle filling station must also be put in (SB1715).

* WBEZ | Illinois lawmakers passed bills on book bans, abortion rights and other issues: Lawmakers approved a $50.4 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1. It took some time to craft because revenue estimates started trending down soon after the governor gave his budget address, and a program offering Medicaid-style healthcare to undocumented immigrants 42 and older blew past cost expectations.

* Tribune | Migrant crisis puts more pressure on Chicago finances as state budget offers less than sought: The $50.6 billion state budget approved by the Illinois Senate late Thursday and the House early Saturday includes $42.5 million to provide services for migrants arriving from the country’s southern border. That provision emerged earlier Thursday following an ask from Mayor Brandon Johnson; however, his administration had pressed for more, and the $42.5 million total will be available to counties and towns statewide, rather than just Chicago.

* Crain’s | Johnson buys time to work out firefighter pension bills: The bills, sponsored by State Sen. Rob Martwick, D-Chicago, had been sailing along despite warnings from the outgoing Lightfoot administration that the measures would boost unfunded liability in the fund by $3 billion and cost taxpayers $55 million a year in extra payments.

* Tribune | Naperville chamber membership for Awake Illinois’ nonprofit affiliate sparks questions, review: NACC President and CEO Kaylin Risvold, speaking in an email, said because some chamber members have raised questions about Awake Americans being part of the organization, “the matter is under advisement.”

* Daily Herald | Landmark Muslim bills on their way to becoming laws: Two landmark pieces of state legislation, one requiring halal/kosher foods be made available at public facilities and another providing Muslim imams access into prisons for chaplaincy, are on their way to becoming laws. The bills — Faith by Plate Act and Faith Behind Bars Act — recently passed both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly.

* Tribune | Some rural communities in Illinois are pushing back against the narrative that they’re dying: Rural towns like Cullom stand in contrast to some larger downstate communities that have struggled amid population loss and a changing national landscape over the past half-century as companies that once employed hundreds have left and stores on rural Main Streets have closed. These smaller towns also are being used as examples by advocates for rural development who are trying to change the narrative about how small towns — and rural America as a whole — are perceived.

* Craig’s | Greg Hinz: Illinois Republicans start choosing which candidate to back in the 2024 race: Just a few hours after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis got off to a dead-air-filled start to his race for president, Donald Trump picked up an endorsement from Darren Bailey, who may have been blown out in his race for governor last year but now appears to be preparing to run for Congress in Southern Illinois and wants the former president on his side. That, in a nutshell, is the state of the GOP race for president, both here in Illinois and nationally.

* KSDK | Darren Bailey mulls primary challenge against GOP Congressman Mike Bost: Another clue about Bailey’s designs came in the form of a recent poll that asked Republican primary voters to compare Bailey’s favorability to Bost, measured support for Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, and floated a question asking whether voters might support his wife Cindy Bailey in a run against incumbent Jason Plummer for the state senate.

* Tribune | Bill to allow law enforcement drones at parades and other events passes, despite questions over personal freedom: The legislation, passed in the final hours of the General Assembly’s spring session last week, amends the Freedom From Drone Surveillance Act by allowing law enforcement to use drones at “routed” or “special” events, which means planned gatherings like parades, walks, races, concerts and food festivals.

* Tribune | Years after a police SUV rolled over a 15-year-old girl during George Floyd protests, CPD footage is missing as a civil case proceeds: The city has refused in court filings to admit whether the footage exists, raising questions about the department’s practices around creating and storing body-camera footage, a key reform tool meant as an accountability measure for police officers.

* Politico | Historic gains: Low-income workers scored in the Covid economy: A POLITICO analysis shows that pandemic-era policies reversed the trend toward a widening income gap. The move away from them threatens those gains. Which way will Biden turn?

* Daily Herald | Argonne finds a way to recycle ‘plastic No. 2′ not just two or three times but infinitely: In the current process for recycling these high-density polyethylene, or HDPE, plastics, much of the material’s properties are lost, so recycling can be repeated only two or three times. Argonne’s novel method, developed in March, converts used HDPE into material that can be recycled many more times over.

* NPR | A ‘natural death’ may be preferable for many to enduring CPR: Many people learn what they know about CPR from television. In 2015, researchers found that survival after CPR on TV was 70%. In real life, people similarly believe that survival after CPR is over 75%. Those sound like good odds, and this may explain the attitude that everyone should know CPR, and that everyone who experiences cardiac arrest should receive it. Two bioethicists observed in 2017 that “CPR has acquired a reputation and aura of almost mythic proportions,” such that withholding it might appear “equivalent to refusing to extend a rope to someone drowning.”

* NPR | Illinois State Superintendent Tony Sanders talks about the need to eliminate preschool ‘deserts’: The Illinois State Board of Education is offering grant money to preschool providers to try to eliminate “preschool deserts” where there are little to no pre-k services for kids. WNIJ’s Peter Medlin spoke with state superintendent Tony Sanders about the grants. The deadline to apply for the preschool grants is June 14th.

* Tribune | DuPage County explores cutting water contract with Chicago, building pipeline to Lake Michigan: The massive undertaking, which would cost billions of dollars and was once considered almost unthinkable, comes at an inflection point in the region’s water system, as the DuPage Water Commission’s 40-year agreement with Chicago is ending in March 2024. It also comes just weeks after Chicago inked a historic deal to sell water to the city of Joliet at an attractive rate.