* Here you go…

* Sun-Times | Some downstate counties struggled as bail reform took hold this week; one didn’t even try applying the new law: At the Sangamon County courthouse in Springfield, pretrial hearings were still being conducted under the old system. Officials there said it was because no new arrests had been made since the law took effect at 12:01 a.m. on Monday.

* Capitol News Illinois | As SAFE-T Act goes live, murder suspects previously eligible to post bond are held in jail: In St. Clair County Circuit Court, where nearly 2,000 felony cases and more than 3,400 misdemeanors are filed annually, at least one person was released from jail to await trial on the second day the SAFE-T Act’s bail reform provisions were in effect. A woman accused of aggravated domestic battery for hitting her partner with a piece of wood was released on Tuesday morning. A mother of a newborn, she was released after a detention hearing found she was not a flight risk or a threat to the public or a specific person.

* Shaw Local | Downstate prosecutors allow murder suspect to leave jail before his trial: Without cash bail as an option, the suspect would’ve spent the last two weeks in county lockup, and he’d generally be there outside of court appearances as the criminal trial proceeds. Instead, he found the money to buy time at home. That’s the system proponents fought to preserve, including the Madison County state’s attorney who helped the ultimately unsuccessful legal challenge seeking to block the reform. “Accused killer pays $100,000 to leave county jail” isn’t the whole story, but it’s enough information to question how the old system stacks the legal deck – and in whose favor.

* Sun-Times | Christy George, top Pritzker aide, named executive director of Chicago DNC host committee: Christy George, Pritzker’s first assistant deputy governor for budget and economy, will serve as the host committee’s permanent executive director effective Sept. 25, the committee announced on Wednesday. The host committee is tasked with raising between $80 and $100 million for the presidential convention, taking place Aug. 19-22. A spokesperson from the host committee described fundraising as “impressive” thus far, but would not disclose a number.

* WGN | ‘Dobbs decision just made me angry:’ Pritzker, Democrats return focus to reproductive rights ahead of next election season: “Every state around us in Illinois is an anti-choice state now,” Pritzker added. “And that means that we’ve had a massive increase in the number of women who are seeking just to exercise their fundamental rights, their reproductive rights.”

* WBBM | State lawmaker pushes for bill that aims to protect kids from harmful effects of social media: “We’re seeing increase in mental health problems in our minors,” said State Senator Sue Rezin. […] Rezin said the Bill’s objectives are simple and aim to “put protections into place that protect minors from the algorithms, protect minors’ data and protect minors on these social media platforms.”

* Sun-Times | Duckworth blasts ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ senator for blocking vote to confirm U.S. attorney in Chicago: Every senator has the ability to put a hold on a nominee. “It is an important tool for senators,” said Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat. But when it goes too far, Duckworth said, it is an abuse of power. […] No senator, Duckworth said, “has abused” the hold power of a single senator “the way Tuberville has.”

* The Daily Egyptian | Former Illinois congresswoman Cheri Bustos reflects on her career in Morton-Kenney lecture: Bustos spoke about her upbringing and the political environment that she was surrounded by even as a young child. “We’d have people like [late Illinois Senator] Paul Simon, and just wonderful people over at our house growing up. And what was so great about our household, is never, not once in my entire childhood did my dad ever say ‘go away a little girl, this is an adult conversation,’ so I can sit there and listen to just these amazing stories and these amazing conversations until it is time to go to bed,” she said. “So, it was politics, sports, family/beer, but that was the Callahan household.”

* Chalkbeat | Chicago Public Schools enrollment is stable for first time in more than a decade: New preliminary numbers for this school year show just over 322,500 students are registered at CPS schools. The data represents enrollment as of the end of the day Monday, the 20th day of the school year, when the district traditionally takes its official count. On the 20th day of last school year, 322,106 students were enrolled according to official data. CPS enrollment has been in decline for 12 years, so this year’s shift is significant.

* WBEZ | Chicago elected officials get a pay bump. But the mayor’s administration won’t say yet who accepted it.: “Details of each elected official’s selection will be made available in the budget to be released by the Mayor to City Council in mid-October,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Just like all items in the Mayor’s budget recommendation, City Council members have the opportunity to propose amendments for consideration by the full body, with salary and wage determinations made final once the budget is passed and appropriated.”

* ABC Chicago | Chicago real estate transfer tax proposal from Mayor Brandon Johnson already faces pushback: The current transfer tax is a flat rate of 0.75% on all property sales in Chicago. The Johnson administration’s revised plans increases the rate to 2% for properties above $1 million and 3% for properties $1.5 million andabove, but Ald. Ramirez Rosa, who is a sponsor of the resolution ,said the selling point to voters is that the rate will decrease for all properties under $1 million.

* Fox Chicago | Illinois legislation sets new standard for drug education in schools: Louie’s Law is a mandate for the Illinois Board of Education to create and recommend a comprehensive drug education curriculum because currently there isn’t one. “There’s no mandated curriculums or standards. There’s the school code. The school code is enshrined into law about what public schools have to teach regarding health, regarding art, you know, whatever the subject is. So this was an amendment to the school code,” said Chelsea Laliberte-Barnes, co-chair of the Illinois Harm Reduction and Recovery Coalition.

* Poynter | A reporter made sure a retired police chief’s death didn’t go uncovered. Then social media attacked her: When retired police chief Andreas Probst was killed in a hit-and-run last month, Las Vegas Review-Journal crime reporter Sabrina Schnur was the first journalist to arrive on the scene. […] But despite her work documenting Probst’s death, Schnur became the target of anti-Semitic attacks and death wishes over the weekend as social media users questioned why the “media” wasn’t properly covering the attack. Screenshots of the month-old obituary’s headline sparked outrage among readers who falsely assumed the Review-Journal was downplaying Probst’s death.

* Tribune | From homebodies to prolific swimmers, researchers track Chicago River fish to find out where they are going and why: Under the muddy surface of the Chicago River, a bluegill swam miles upon miles, back and forth from one end of the river system to another. […] This kind of fish is not known for being a traveler. So the strikingly different behaviors have intrigued researchers from the Shedd Aquarium, Purdue University and the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, who are tracking the movements of 80 individual fish in the Chicago River system.

* Sun-Times | ‘King Rudy’ walks free after helping feds nab ex-state Sen. Martin Sandoval, dozens of others: A federal judge handed a time-served sentence Tuesday to a longtime Chicago-area drug dealer who pushed “off the charts” amounts of narcotics but then spent seven years helping prosecutors secure charges against dozens of people, including the late state Sen. Martin Sandoval.

* NBC Chicago | Illinois man immediately retires after $2M scratch-off lottery win: “When I told my boss the news of my retirement, he wasn’t happy,” the winner said in the release. “He asked me – ‘What’s it going to take to get you to stay?’ I chuckled and said, ‘$2 million dollars!’”

* Crain’s | Chicago architect eyes restart of long-stalled tallest tower in the world: Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill Architecture designed what is now known as Jeddah Tower to be the first kilometer-tall building, at more than twice the height of the Willis Tower. Construction began in 2013 but ground to a halt by 2018 about a third of the way up at the 62nd or 63rd story.