* April Perry has been nominated to be the new US Attorney for the Chicago area…

Perry is currently the senior counsel for global investigations and fraud and abuse prevention at Chicago-based GE HealthCare. Previously, she worked for 12 years as a federal prosecutor in Chicago, and for a time was a coordinator for various programs that concentrated on violence against women, hate crimes and civil rights.

While with the U.S. attorney’s office, she prosecuted television pitchman Kevin Trudeau on allegations that he made deceptive TV commercials, a crime that led to a 10-year federal prison sentence for Trudeau

Perry left the U.S. attorney’s office to work as chief ethics officer for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. She left the office while Foxx’s administration was under scrutiny for abruptly dismissing charges against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett. […]

Perry is also a hearing officer for the Chicago Police Board, a panel that decides whether Chicago cops should be fired for disciplinary infractions.

* Naperville Sun…

Robert “Bob” Berlin has announced he will seek his fourth, four-year term as DuPage County state’s attorney in 2024.

Berlin was appointed in 2010 to the unexpired term of Joseph Birkett and was elected three consecutive times as a Republican to the county’s top prosecutorial position in 2012, 2016 and 2020. […]

A Downers Grove resident, husband and father of two daughters, Berlin said among his most recent accomplishments was to work with legislative leaders in Springfield to help amend the state’s Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act, or SAFE-T Act, bond provisions for violent crimes.

* USDOT…

Today, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced that the Biden-Harris Administration has awarded $67,683,587 from the RAISE discretionary grant program to three different infrastructure projects across Illinois. […]

Today’s awardees in Illinois include:

• $25,000,000 for the 95th Street Terminal Electric Bus Improvements project to install bus charging equipment at the 95th Street Terminal with associated electrical upgrades at the 95th Street rail traction power substation to support the equipment. The project will also provide the infrastructure to support an electric bike station. The project will allow for the accommodation of all-electric buses, significantly reducing the greenhouse gas emissions along the corridor, improve access to daily destinations, and reduce physical barriers to transportation, while improving public health by adding electric bike infrastructure.
• $22,683,587 for the Curtis Road Grade Separation and Complete Streets Project to create a new railroad grade separation and approximately two miles of railroad improvements by relocating the railroad track and embankment. Additionally, the project includes two additional vehicular lanes, new on-street bicycle lanes, modernized traffic signals with pedestrian countdown signals, drainage improvements, enhanced transit stops, and construction of a railroad bridge. This project also incorporates solar lighting, automated pedestrian detection, and a conduit for future fiber optic broadband deployment.
• $20,000,000 for the Pace Pulse Halsted Line project to implement a bus rapid transit (BRT) service, serving four Chicago South Side neighborhoods and three south suburban communities. The project will construct approximately 14 intermediate stations, bus lanes, queue jumps, enhanced pedestrian ADA access, and new buses, thereby improving bus speed and reliability. These improvements will reduce mobility barriers and will offer significant improvements, thus having a significant impact on the ability to attract employees and business development in the area. In addition, the modal shift and new right-of-way infrastructure, curb extensions, and improved signage will increase the safety of motorized and non-motorized travelers.

Full list is here.

* NAMIC…

The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies issued the following statement in response to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s recent signature on HB 2296, a bill that would narrow free-market competition. The statement can be attributed to Andrew Perkins, NAMIC’s regional vice president, Great Lakes.

“We are very disappointed that Governor Pritzker has chosen regulation over free-market competition with his signature of HB 2296. Illinois has long had an open market in which consumers benefit from insurers competing against each other for policyholders. Although the bill doesn’t directly impact property/casualty insurance, the idea that regulation is a better way to price products than the competitive market is short-sighted and just plain wrong. Decades of experience with heavy-handed regulation have shown that consumers benefit from a robust market where insurers compete for business.

“If the governor and proponents of this bill are truly committed to fairness, they should instead focus on underwriting accuracy. Competitive, risk-based ratemaking promotes accuracy, which is the essence of insurance fairness. Creating severe barriers within this time-tested insurance system will only make things more difficult and force consumers to subsidize the risk of others.”

* Most legislators don’t just vote in Springfield and call it a year. They also do tons of other things, including attending local events. Just one example…

My team was able to attend the ribbon cutting for Heaven's Barbecue on Earth, where the Greater Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce also recognized Tots Therapeutic Childcare Center as their community partner for the evening! pic.twitter.com/nuwUSE9oI7

— Mary Beth Canty (@RepMBC) June 28, 2023

* Isabel’s roundup…

* Sun-Times | Boosting the brand? Biden kicks off reelection message in Chicago with embrace of ‘Bidenomics’ tag: After the speech, Biden headed to two fundraisers at the J.W. Marriott Hotel — the first hosted by Pritzker and Illinois first lady M.K. Pritzker. A minimum donation is set at $3,300, with up to 200 people expected. Donors who pay $25,000 qualify for a photo with the president.

* Tribune | This was your chance to see a loud librarian — annual ALA conference in Chicago this weekend took on book banning: The American Library Association conference that just ended at McCormick Place tends to be a predictably tame six days. The annual gathering of librarians, publishers and information professionals has been happening since the 19th century. The Chicago-based ALA greets librarians from rural towns, big cities, colleges, high schools, libraries in other countries. They eat a hot dog and take a boat tour and, for a week, dig into the latest archiving techniques, discuss methods of bolstering diversity and forecast digital trends.

* Crain’s | An unusual sight at this weekend’s NASCAR race: A union-sponsored car: The International Union of Operating Engineers, or IUOE, which has a strong presence in Chicago and throughout Illinois, will sponsor Ryan Preece’s No. 41 Ford Mustang in this weekend’s NASCAR race. The union’s name will be emblazoned across the hood and along the sides of the car.

* WTTW | Garien Gatewood, Chicago’s New Deputy Mayor for Community Safety, Aims to Transform City’s Approach to Violence: It will be up to Garien Gatewood, the city’s new deputy mayor for community safety, to make good on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s promise to take a new approach to the surge of crime and violence that took hold in Chicago during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to fully recede.

* Crain’s | Land bank targets Englewood rehabs to spur homeownership: “This is a community where the majority of homes are vacant,” says Asiaha Butler, CEO of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood. “Our strategy is to change that in a reparative way that (increases) homeownership in a neighborhood that has historically been harmed by redlining, predatory lending and other ways that stripped away Black wealth.”

* ABC Chicago | Towing company charged in multi-million dollar catalytic converter theft ring: Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub says TDI Towing in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond section bought $8.2 million worth of catalytic converters over three years. Detectives combed through 5,000 hours of surveillance and conducted undercover operations. One surveillance video shows a person inside of TDI Towing in Port Richmond pulling a catalytic converter out of a car and cooling it off.

* Prospect | The Death Cult of the American Car: Also last week, ProPublica and FRONTLINE reported that in 2017, the Department of Transportation started writing a report considering possible regulations for side guards on commercial trucks, which would help prevent pedestrians and cyclists from being trapped and crushed underneath. This prompted a furious backlash from the trucking lobby, which was allowed to provide extensive comments on a draft of the report before its publication. Sure enough, the final product contained no recommendations for new regulations.

* AP | Is it a ‘richcession’? Or a ‘rolling recession’? Or maybe no recession at all?: The latest signs suggest maybe not. Despite much higher borrowing costs, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive streak of interest rate hikes, consumers keep spending, and employers keep hiring. Gas prices have dropped, and grocery prices have leveled off, giving Americans more spending power.

* Journal Star | ‘Support the cause’: What Tony Romo had to say during the Metamora pro-am golf event: “I was excited to come here. I haven’t been back in the area in a while. I went to college at Eastern Illinois. I haven’t driven on 57 and I-294 in a while and so it brings back some memories. This course looks like it’s in incredible shape.”

* CNN | The Illinois funeral home with a mini-golf course underneath: In 1964, Roger Ahlgrim strolled into Ahlgrim Family Funeral Services’ newly constructed building, located in the small, leafy village of Palatine, a suburb of Chicago. He was the grandson of Arthur Ahlgrim, who had founded the family firm in 1892. As he explored the new site, he discovered a vast basement. Some 20 feet below ground, with no windows, it could serve little purpose for the funeral business, but Ahlgrim soon found a use for the room.

* NYT | How Easy Is It to Fool A.I.-Detection Tools?: Their tools analyze content using sophisticated algorithms, picking up on subtle signals to distinguish the images made with computers from the ones produced by human photographers and artists. But some tech leaders and misinformation experts have expressed concern that advances in A.I. will always stay a step ahead of the tools.

* Sun-Times | Chicago is no longer the worst, but air quality still ‘very unhealthy’: Even people without respiratory problems may experience some discomfort or irritation from the smoke, but they could probably go out to do everyday tasks, local health experts say.

* WCIA | “Hazardous Air Quality” now declared; Decatur reports 2nd worst air quality in the world: The latest data at 12:00 p.m. Central Time shows that Decatur has breached into the “Hazardous” air quality category. This is the worst quality air possible on the scale.