* Here y’all go…

* Sun-Times | Pritzker presses Biden for more help as migrant buses double: ‘Illinois stands mostly unsupported against this enormous strain’:“Mr. President, I urge you, [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Secretary Mayorkas, and the rest of your administration to take swift action and intervene on our behalf and on behalf of the other affected states and their residents,” Pritzker continued, “as well as on behalf of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who undertook a dangerous and difficult journey in hopes of attaining public safety and forging a better life for themselves and their families.”

* Shaw Local | DeKalb alderwoman to run for 76th House District in 2024 election: Carolyn Zasada, 1st Ward alderwoman for DeKalb, announced that she’ll seek the 76th District in the Illinois House in 2024 as a Democrat, putting her in line for another battle with Mayor Cohen Barnes. Barnes also announced Sept. 22 that he plans to run as a Democrat.

* Sun-Times | Racist propaganda, antisemitic acts spiked in Illinois last year, report shows: Antisemitic acts, including assault, harassment and vandalism, rose to their highest level in recent history in 2022, jumping 128% from the previous year, from 53 to 121. That was the seventh-largest statewide total in a year that saw “the highest-ever number of antisemitic incidents nationwide,” the ADL noted.

* Center Square | Illinois legislator tells prison agency ‘do your job’ on sex offender notification: Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savannah, said she has no interest in legislative changes. “I don’t understand what the problem is. It is their responsibility and their mandate to report that sex offenders are getting out,” McCombie said. “I am certainly not interested in any legislative fix to remove that mandate. If that’s something they’re interested in, I’m certainly not interested in that, and I don’t think anyone in the public is.”

* AP | 5 died of exposure to chemical in central Illinois crash, preliminary autopsies find: Five people died from exposure to a chemical that spilled after a semitruck overturned in central Illinois, according to autopsies conducted Monday. Effingham County Coroner Kim Rhodes said official results from the autopsies won’t be available for several weeks. The victims of the multi-vehicle crash in Teutopolis, about 110 miles (177 kilometers) northeast of St. Louis, were Teutopolis resident Kenneth Bryan, 34, and his children, Walker Bryan, 10 and Rosie Bryan, 7; Danny J. Smith, 67 of New Haven, Missouri; and Vasile Cricovan, 31, of Twinsburg, Ohio, were killed.

* Tribune | Ford lays off 243 workers at stamping facility in Chicago Heights due to UAW strike at nearby Chicago Assembly Plant: A total of about 330 layoffs were announced Monday between the Chicago Stamping Plant and the Lima Engine Plant in Ohio. Both facilities supply parts to Ford’s idled assembly plant on the city’s Southeast Side, where thousands of employees walked off the job Friday in the United Auto Workers’ expanding strike against the Big Three automakers. “These layoffs are a consequence of the strike at Chicago Assembly Plant, because these two facilities must reduce production of parts that would normally be shipped to Chicago Assembly Plant,” Ford spokesperson Ian Thibodeau said Monday.

* Crain’s | Impact of Chicago Ford plant strike is already spreading: The autoworkers’ strike that reached the Ford plant on the South Side on Friday didn’t take long to spread. Once assembly plants go dark, nearby suppliers soon get idled. That means the pain of the first United Auto Workers union strike at Torrence Avenue since 1976 will quickly extend beyond the 6,000 people who make Ford Explorers and Lincoln Aviator SUVs.

* Sun-Times | Illinois sues alternate electric supplier for ‘deceptive’ tactics that may have cost residents $15 million: Illinois is suing alternative electric supplier Residents Energy LLC, accusing the company of “deceptive and unfair tactics” that made some state residents liable for “millions” more in energy costs. The lawsuit, announced by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office Monday afternoon, accused the company’s sales force of promising “historically low,” first-month rates without disclosing that they were temporary deals.

* Press Release | September U of I Flash Index remained steady: The U of I Flash Index for September 2023 remained at 102.9, the same as in August. The Index appears to be in a holding pattern since the beginning of 2023, remaining in a narrow range of around 103. As noted last month, this may be an indication that the long-sought-after soft landing is in sight. This is in marked contrast to the general outlook prevailing until recently that the economy was likely heading toward at least a minor recession.

* Tribune | Union sues over Signature Room layoffs: The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Chicago by hospitality union Unite Here Local 1, alleges about 130 workers it represented there were laid off in violation of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires certain large employers to provide written notice of certain business closures or mass layoffs at least 60 days in advance.

* Tribune | Celebrating the late, great local musician John Prine in the new book ‘Prine on Prine’: Editor Holly Gleason tells me she first heard Prine when she was a 12-year-old in Cleveland. She writes about eventually meeting him when she was a 20-year-old living in Florida and writing music reviews. She interviewed Prine for a story that was never printed. But as she went on to become a veteran of the music journalism scene and author of books, she maintained a close relationship with Prine and his colleague and friend Dan Einstein, to whom she was once long ago engaged and who did not live to see this book completed.

* Crain’s | Black Panthers’ medical, day care sites part of historic district proposal: Locations in Chicago where the Black Panther Party offered medical care, free breakfast and day care in the late 1960s and early 1970s are part of a proposed scattered-site Illinois landmark district that would memorialize the group’s social service agenda. “The Black Panther Party was not about going around toting guns like they’ve made it sound in the past 50 years,” said Leila Wills, a program officer for Landmarks Illinois who is leading the landmarking effort as executive director of the Historical Preservation Society of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party.

* Tribune | ‘Invasion’ of tropical birds known as limpkins reported in Illinois; invasive snails may be attractive food source, experts say: Once nearly wiped out in Florida, the limpkin has recently spread to the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana, where it successfully nested. In the late 1990s, limpkin populations were declining in Florida as wetlands were drained and their main food supply, the native Florida apple snail, was decreasing. In the mid-2000s, various types of apple snails native to Central and South America as well as Asia were introduced to the United States, often for use in aquariums.

* Tribune | Marijuana dispensary in former Rainforest Cafe won flip-flop from state regulators, but remains on hold as one man fights against it: The holdup comes from one resident fighting against what he characterizes as an improper partnership in which social equity cannabis license holder Bio-Pharm LLC, is acting as a front for an established multistate company, Progressive Treatment Solutions, or PTS. In the meantime, no work has been done on the site, and the original plans to open this year have gone by the wayside.