* Here you go…

* CBS Chicago | Illinois Auditor General reports on $5B improperly paid by the state: Among those receiving benefits: 481 dead people who got $6 million and about 3,500 inmates who received more than $40 million. The report dings the Illinois Department of Employment Security for its call center, describing hundreds of people who had to call more than 1,000 times to get through.

* Sun-Times Editorial Board | Pipe nightmare? Put safety in place before transporting carbon dioxide to Illinois: Sequestering and transporting carbon dioxide could be a tool to help fight climate change, but only if it is done safely and doesn’t encourage the burning of fossil fuels.

* Capitol News Illinois | Pritzker Signs Bill Aimed at Ending Homelessness in Illinois by Bringing Agencies Together for Comprehensive Plan: House Bill 2831 codifies an executive order Pritzker signed in 2021 that established the Illinois Interagency Task Force on Homelessness and the Community Advisory Council on Homelessness. It centralizes programs across 17 state departments and agencies to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to combat homelessness.

* Tribune | Need to renew your driver’s license? Starting Sept. 1, you’ll need an appointment.: Illinois residents will be required to make appointments to renew driver’s licenses or deal with state ID business at more than 40 of the busiest drivers’ services facilities starting Sept. 1 under a “skip-the-line” program aimed at cutting wait times.

* Scott Holland | New union contract includes action steps for staffing concerns: The terms include several items aimed at improving the state’s hiring process and employee retention. The new contract language reflects the state’s switch to an electronic system for filling open positions and joint commitments to streamlining steps to filling vacancies. A new labor-management committee is tasked with identifying hiring roadblocks. There will be a pilot program testing recruitment bonuses for tough-to-fill jobs and a commitment to making sure current employees away on parental leave aren’t cut off from applying for openings.

* WBEZ |
A Chicago Park District lifeguard was fired after he allegedly ‘inappropriately touched’ a girl: In the latest incident, though, the Park District’s inspector general describes a disturbingly familiar situation. The internal investigation began with “a complaint that a male lifeguard inappropriately touched an underage female program participant during the summer of 2022,” records show.

* WSN | Illinois Set to Award More Sports Betting Operator Licenses Soon: The state’s $20 million application fee is a big reason for the struggles. That is a far larger number than in other states, and obtaining a license would only be the first step. New operators would enter a small pool of online sportsbooks filled with all of the major players. Operators like FanDuel, DraftKings, and Caesars have driven out smaller competitors nationwide. That makes entering the market a high-stakes move, driving away many second or third-tier operators.

* Bloomberg | Chicago, Milwaukee Seek Extra $50 Million to Cover Convention Security: “Cities shouldn’t be expected to front the cost,” Representative Mike Quigley, a Chicago Democrat and House Appropriations committee member, said in an interview. He added that risks aren’t static. “If anything, they have increased,” he said.

* WBEZ | New Chicago Public Schools board lays out ambitious agenda for school system: The newly seated Chicago Board of Education hand-picked by Mayor Brandon Johnson unveiled ambitious plans Wednesday to transform the school district into a place where parents of students with disabilities want to send their children and where the definition of safety includes “dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline.”

* WBEZ | Chicago’s Urban Prep school for boys wins right to remain open this fall: Cook County Judge Anna Loftus this week sided with Urban Prep in ruling that a state moratorium on CPS school closings applies to charter schools and CPS “thus may not close, consolidate, or phase-out Urban Prep-Englewood and Urban Prep-Bronzeville until after the moratorium expires on January 15, 2025.”

* Sun-Times | Former CPD official accuses top cop of retaliating against her after she headed investigation that led to his suspension: Many of Skahill’s key claims relate to Waller ordering her to nix the department’s costly training agreement with a Texas firm that has close ties to former Supt. David Brown, whom Skahill had directly reported to.

* Shaw Local | Rep. Fritts selected to Edgar Fellows Program’s Class of 2023: The group will meet for the first time at their Executive Leadership Training Program held Aug. 6 through Aug. 10 on the University of Illinois (U of I) campus in Urbana-Champaign.

* Pioneer Press | Lake Bluff, Park District at odds over pickleball courts; ‘We have to enforce the zoning code’: In a dispute stemming from a noise complaint coming from play on pickleball courts, the two government entities are at odds whether the Park District acted within its authority to operate the courts, and whether village approval was required for the conversion from tennis to pickleball courts.

* WBEZ | Chicagoans remember trailblazing cop Renault Robinson: A South Side church service Tuesday celebrated the life of Renault Robinson. He’s a former Chicago cop who organized against police racism in the ’60s and ’70s. He also sued successfully to force CPD to hire more minority and female officers. In the ’80s, under Mayor Harold Washington, Robinson had a stormy tenure as head of the Chicago Housing Authority. He died this month at age 80.

* Gizmodo | Twitter Deletes Its Own Fact Check Correcting Elon’s Bogus Vaccine Tweet: Unfortunately for fans of accurate information, that label no longer appears on Musk’s tweet, but you can see a copy preserved by the Internet Archive. There’s no indication that Musk intervened to take the note down. The company’s press email auto-responds with a poop-emoji, a joke that continues to bring joy to five-year-olds across the globe.

* NBC | ‘Translators’ gives bilingual teens of immigrant families their due recognition: A short documentary has drawn praise for showing the crucial role children play as translators for their parents, as generations of Americans have done.

* Sun-Times | Illinois tops nation in tornadoes in ’23 with 119: On March 31 the state had 37 confirmed tornadoes, putting Illinois ahead of other states. On July 12, 13 tornadoes tore across the Chicagoland area.

* NYT | What ‘The Bear’ Gets Right About Chicago: Leave it to a Chicagoan like me to note that there are, in fact, more than 20 restaurants in the city with at least one Michelin star. But “The Bear” captures something real about the city’s dining culture — and, more broadly, what you might call the geography of ambition.