* Sun-Times…

Chicago’s violent gangland history came to the forefront Thursday as three federal appellate judges confronted lawyers challenging Illinois’ ban on assault weapons, passed in the wake of the mass shooting in Highland Park that is nearing its one-year anniversary.

Judges Frank Easterbrook, Diane Wood and Michael Brennan tussled with the argument that a U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer — and the Second Amendment itself — forbids governments from banning weapons that are “in common use.”

Easterbrook asked whether laws against machine guns, following their use in Chicago’s notorious St. Valentine’s Day massacre and other mob hits, would be considered unconstitutional today. […]

Core to Easterbrook’s question was the notion that the Supreme Court decision suggests governments lose the right to ban weapons once they become popular with the general public — something unlikely to occur if governments were to ban weapons before they hit the marketplace.

“It’s very troublesome to have a popularity contest decide a constitutional principle,” Wood remarked.

* Daily Herald…

[Chicago Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren] envisions a scenario where people would come to downtown Arlington Heights before games or other events to have a meal, walk over to Arlington Park, then return afterward. It’s in the Bears’ best interest that the established business community “thrives,” said Warren, adding that the club would show “sensitivity” to their concerns. […]

“But I know if I’m a restaurant owner or person in downtown Arlington, I’d be ecstatic about this.”

[Chip Brooks], who opened his 4,000-square-foot music listening room and bistro on Vail Avenue in 2018, was hardly ecstatic.

“He talks about people walking from downtown Arlington Heights to the stadium that’s two miles away — that just means that he really hasn’t studied it yet,” Brooks said. “To be fair, he hasn’t thought about the impact, so he hasn’t really thought through how to make it not hurt our downtown.”

* High praise…

In a whirlwind visit to Chicago on Wednesday, President Joe Biden trotted out a re-election campaign message built on economic recovery – and effusively praised Gov. JB Pritzker for helping him win the White House in 2020.

“There’s a guy that helped me more than – I can say this without equivocation – helped me more than anybody in America get elected last time. A single person: your governor,” Biden said during a speech in Chicago’s Old Post Office, the first stop before a pair of private fundraisers, including one hosted by Pritzker and his wife MK, where the minimum donation was $3,300.

“He stepped up. He raised money, he raised support,” the president continued. “Governor, you’re the best. Thank you for being such a good friend. I really mean it.”

* Stay inside if possible…

A Northwestern Medicine doctor said poor air quality created by Canadian wildfires that blanketed northern Illinois with smoke this week is likely leading to increased emergency department visits and respiratory complaints.

Dr. Jeremy Silver, director of the Emergency Department at Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital in DeKalb, said over the past week his department has seen about a 20% increase in patient visits. Respiratory complaints also have increased at a similar rate, he said.

“We have looked at the data and it does correlate with an increase in visits … so I can’t prove that it’s causal,” Silver said Wednesday. “But I think intuitively we’d expect to see at least a little bit of a bump, although, not all [Northwestern Medicine] campuses have seen the same type of data.”

* Oof…

Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Thursday for his role in the largest corruption scandal in state history.

The 64-year-old Republican appeared before U.S. District Judge Timothy Black, who meted out the punishment, about an hour after he and his wife arrived at the federal courthouse.

Householder and lobbyist Matt Borges, a former chair of the Ohio Republican Party, were both convicted in April of a single racketeering charge each, after a six-week trial. Borges is set to be sentenced Friday.

Jurors found that Householder orchestrated and Borges participated in a $60 million bribery scheme secretly funded by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. to secure Householder’s power, elect his allies, pass legislation containing a $1 billion bailout for two aging nuclear power plants owned by a FirstEnergy affiliate and then to use a dirty tricks campaign to stifle a ballot effort to overturn the bill.

* Hope everyone is OK out there…

Damaging straight line winds plunged about half the city of Springfield into darkness Thursday afternoon, felling tree limbs and power lines.

According to City Water, Light and Power, outages and damages stemming from the storm have been reported throughout the city. CWLP said that 40 separate outages have been reported throughout its coverage area, leaving more than 30,000 customers without power.

* Isabel’s roundup…

* Herald-Whig | Holder White announces candidacy for Illinois Supreme Court: Justice Lisa Holder White has announced that she will seek a full term on the Illinois Supreme Court of Illinois.

* News Gazette | Danville casino expands hours, days of operation: The Golden Nugget Danville casino will be open seven days a week with longer hours after receiving approval from the Illinois Gaming Board. General Manager Juris Basens announced Wednesday that the state agency had approved the changes.

* News-Gazette | Parkland offering paid job-readiness training in construction trades: The state-funded program, called the Highway Construction Careers Training Program, actually includes preparation for a variety of construction trades, among them iron workers, carpenters, electricians, land surveying, plumbers and laborers, according to Elise Doody-Jones, the program manager at Parkland.

* Crain’s | Scoping out succession paths in the wake of Jim Crown’s death: A person with knowledge of the firm’s dynamics says there’s no clear line of succession — that a case could be made for any of several family members or for none of them. One potential candidate is William Kunkler, a Crown in-law who has worked since the early 1980s at family-affiliated companies.

* Block Club | After Failing To Respond To Migrant Crisis, City Council’s Immigration Committee Calls On Itself To Meet More Often: In just its second meeting since 2021, the Committee on Immigration and Refugee Rights also heard the city’s plans to move migrants out of police stations and into more stable housing, keeping alderpeople better informed.

* Crain’s | Powerful attorney and top academic both being pushed to lead city planning department: As Mayor Brandon Johnson looks to fill out his administration, two people with different backgrounds have emerged as candidates to lead the $203 million Department of Planning & Development.

* Register Star | Rockford to get new, better buses with $6.3M federal grant: RMTD has made it a goal to have a zero emission fleet by 2036. More than $6.3 million in federal funding announced on Thursday by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin will help the city and RMTD get there.

* Chalkbeat | Chicago grapples with reengaging youth who are not in school or the workforce: In Chicago, an estimated 45,000 teens and young adults like Wilson are not in school, college, or the workforce. That’s roughly 15% of the city’s 16- to 24-year-old residents. City leaders and experts have long seen reengaging these young people — whom they call “Opportunity Youth” — as crucial to addressing poverty, racial inequities, and gun violence.

* Sun-Times | Six candidates advance to semifinals of Chicago police superintendent search: Advancing to the background check phase of the nationwide search are: Counterterrorism Chief Larry Snelling; his now-retired predecessor, Ernest Cato III; Street Operations Deputy Migdalia Bulnes; Constitutional Policing and Reform Chief Angel Novalez; Labor Relations Cmdr. Donna Rowling; and Shon Barnes, the police chief in Madison, Wisconsin, who spent about a year as COPA’s director of training and development.

* WMBD | Power outages reported in Central Illinois: According to the Ameren map, in the greater Peoria area, there are reportedly over 8,000 outages at this time.

* WGEM | WIU Performing Arts Center still on track for late 2025 completion, officials say: ”We have had some delays, a 100-year old campus you’re going to find all kinds of unforeseen, unknown conditions, drain lines, telephone lines that were put in in the 60s, all that type of stuff, and then things that were just missed or weren’t on any plans,” Renner said.

* Block Club | Jefferson Park Church Launches ‘Pride Jam’ Series For NW Side LGBTQ+ Neighbors And Allies: Saturday’s event will be a discussion on what Pride means to different people and the work that needs to be done to advance the inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community locally and nationally, said pastor Jacki Belile, who is leading the event.

* WCIA | Return of the face masks, Canadian haze has Champaign taking precaution: One woman says she’s been noticing a tingle in her throat over the past couple of days. But since the haze has lowered that tingle turned into a sore throat and then into a cough. She says she didn’t expect to be back in a mask, but she’s willing to do whatever she needs to.

* Journal Star | ‘Like smoking a pack of cigarettes’: Breathing Peoria’s smoky air can affect your health: Warnings have been issued to help minimize negative health effects from the lingering smoke, which can cause a variety of symptoms, from stinging eyes to coughing, headaches, chest pain and rapid heartbeat. Though the smoke is more likely to have negative effects on children, older people, and people with heart and lung issues, at current high levels it can affect everyone.

* WCIA | Return of the face masks, Canadian haze has Champaign taking precaution: One woman says she’s been noticing a tingle in her throat over the past couple of days. But since the haze has lowered that tingle turned into a sore throat and then into a cough. She says she didn’t expect to be back in a mask, but she’s willing to do whatever she needs to.

* AP | Expect a hot, smoky summer in much of America. Here’s why you’d better get used to it: The only break much of America can hope for anytime soon from eye-watering dangerous smoke from fire-struck Canada is brief bouts of shirt-soaking sweltering heat and humidity from a southern heat wave that has already proven deadly, forecasters say. And then the smoke will likely come back to the Midwest and East.