* ICYMI: Illinois airport travel this Thanksgiving will surpass pre-pandemic levels. Sun-Times…

-About 290,000 travelers are expected to go through Illinois airports, an increase of 8% over last year and topping pre-pandemic levels.

-COVID-19-related hospitalizations have increased by nearly 17% over the last week. Though the Chicago Department of Public says the COVID risk level is low and only 1.3 percent of hospital beds are being used by COVID patients, which is a slight drop from the week before.

* Related stories…

∙ Sun-Times | Holiday hordes? Record number of Thanksgiving travelers expected at O’Hare and Midway: ‘Travel’s coming back’
∙ Bloomberg | Thanksgiving Travel in US Set to Hit Post-Covid High

* Isabel’s top picks…

* Tribune | Celebrating marriage equality: Same-sex couples reflect on their hard-fought right to wed a decade after it became legal in Illinois.: While the milestone was joyous for many, there was still a faction vehemently opposed to the change: One bishop in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield had pledged to offer prayers “for exorcism in reparation for the sin of same-sex marriage” at the time Quinn was expected to sign the legislation. Ten years later, same-sex marriage has gained far greater acceptance across the nation, with 71% of Americans believing same-sex marriage should be legal, according to a Gallup poll released in June. This is compared with 53% of those surveyed by Gallup in 2013; support for the legalization of these unions has generally risen since 1996, when 27% of respondents favored same-sex marriage rights, according to Gallup.

* MSNBC | Jen Psaki’s one-on-one interview with Governor JB Pritzker: Governor JB Pritzker sits down with Jen Psaki for a wide-ranging interview. They discuss his advocacy for abortion rights, immigration, Donald Trump’s increasingly dangerous rhetoric, the 2024 presidential race, the latest on the Israel-Hamas war and much more.

* Tribune | Bankruptcy at Friendship Village retirement community in Schaumburg has financial impact on residents and families too: Her dispute is over Friendship Village’s policy of only paying back entry fees upon the resale of a resident’s unit. The facility — the largest not-for-profit retirement community in Illinois, with 815 units — didn’t resell Kroll’s one-bedroom unit, so hadn’t paid his family back. Now that Friendship Village has entered bankruptcy, families of former residents are unlikely to ever receive full repayment, which Barnes and other families see as a betrayal of what they were promised.

* Here’s the rest of your morning roundup…

* Capitol News Illinois | State school board weighs increased funding requests ahead of budget season: “It does appear that revenue will be a little bit tighter in the next four to five years,” ISBE’s chief financial officer Matt Seaton told the board at its monthly meeting Thursday. “And with other state pressures, whether that be pension payments or what have you, it would be our anticipation that the budgets are going to start to restrict a little bit.” Seaton delivered a summary of the funding increase requests that ISBE received from districts and members of the public during a series of hearings on the agency’s budget last month. Those requested increases, he said, totaled just over $1.7 billion. The largest of those was for an increase in Evidence-Based Funding, or EBF dollars. That’s the formula that lawmakers approved in 2017 aimed at eventually bringing all districts up to an adequate level of funding.

* Daily Southtown | Firm hired to review Calumet City’s bids wins most architecture contracts, investigation shows: Farnsworth Group, the engineering and architecture firm appointed by Calumet City Mayor Thaddeus Jones to be the city engineer, plays an integral role in helping the city select what firms should win publicly funded construction contracts. But a monthslong investigation into Calumet City’s spending habits shows the firm also wins a large portion of engineering and architecture contracts, leading to questions of a possible conflict of interest.

* Tribune | A landmark jury verdict threatens to upend home buying and selling. In Illinois, changes are already underway: Last month, a Missouri federal jury issued a landmark $1.8 billion verdict finding the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors and several large real estate brokerages conspired to artificially inflate commissions on home sales. The association has said it is appealing the verdict, while similar cases are ongoing in Illinois and Missouri.

* WIFR | Maurice West discusses new medical licensing bill, reveals 2024 campaign: State Rep. Maurice West II (D-IL 67) talks about how importance behind the new Modernized Professional Licensing bill passed a week ago. He also reveals his new 2024 campaign and his goals while running.

* Daily Herald | New Rosemont hotel tax aimed at preventing long-term migrant stays: Rosemont is tacking on a $1,000 tax on hotel stays 30 days and longer in an attempt to prevent housing migrants and protect its convention business, officials say. The new tax comes in response to chatter village officials say they’ve heard in the hospitality industry about suburban hotels being eyed to shelter migrants. Mayor Brad Stephens cited a Nov. 3 story in Crain’s Chicago Business about Chicago developer Mike Reschke’s efforts to get six to eight suburban hotels to host thousands of new arrivals.

* Center Square | Will city, state funding for the migrant crisis be enough?: “Just like the state of Illinois knows what their assignment is, just like Cook County government knows what their assignment is, and as a public school teacher, I expect people to turn their assignment in,” said Johnson. When asked how much money they would need, Johnson said, “A lot.”

* Block Club | What Does The City’s New 60-Day Shelter Limit Mean For Migrants In Chicago?: If migrants are still living in city shelters after the 60 days run out, they will have to return to the city’s “landing zone” — the area near Downtown where most buses carrying migrants drop them off — to make a new shelter request. Extensions to stay in a shelter beyond 60 days will only be granted in “extenuating circumstances” like a medical emergency or severe weather, officials said.

* State Week | Illinois to spend more on helping asylum seekers: With winter near, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said this week the state will spend an additional $160 million on measures intended to assist the growing migrant population. More than 20,000 individuals have arrived in the city over the past year, most of them traveling by bus at the direction of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

* Documented | Deportation Orders Reach 25 Year Height as Migrants Miss Notices in Shelter Shuffle: More than two months have passed since Padilla Yasig, 33, first came to New York from Ecuador, and her family now lives in a shelter, not at the address she provided. She changed her address recently, but she still doesn’t know if mail alerting her to appear in immigration court will be sent to her at the shelter or to her family friend’s address. This is complicated further by Mayor Eric Adams imposing limits on shelter stays, which will likely force Padilla Yasig to move throughout the city on a regular basis, making it harder to keep track of vital correspondence.

* WBEZ | Chicago cops tied to Oath Keepers barred from testifying in court, Kim Foxx decides: The move by State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office came just weeks after the officers were linked to the Oath Keepers in the WBEZ, Chicago Sun-Times and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project joint investigation of “Extremism in the Ranks.” The series reported that 27 current and former members of the Chicago Police Department were found on the membership rolls of the Oath Keepers. Records show some have faced serious misconduct complaints, including for accusations of using excessive force and making racist comments.

* WBEZ | CTA Yellow Line crash caused by a ‘design issue’ with the braking system, investigators say: The train was going 26.9 miles-per-hour when it struck snow removal equipment that was on the tracks while employees were conducting training for the winter season, Homendy said the preliminary findings of an investigation showed. At that speed, the train was designed to be able to stop within 1,780 feet of an object it its path, but didn’t, she said.

* New Yorker | What the Doomsayers Get Wrong About Deepfakes: arrived. Sensity conceded in 2021 that deepfakes had had no “tangible impact” on the 2020 Presidential election. It found no instance of “bad actors” spreading disinformation with deepfakes anywhere. Two years later, it’s easy to find videos that demonstrate the terrifying possibilities of A.I. It’s just hard to point to a convincing deepfake that has misled people in any consequential way.

* Tribune | Chicago’s trailblazing first female judge known for looking after juveniles, stating, ‘There are no bad children’: Two girls who’d been before her in Juvenile Court said they were so glad “their friend” was now “a real judge.” For 11 years Bartelme had been an assistant judge in juvenile court, appointed because the head of Juvenile Court threatened to quit if he didn’t get someone to do his pretrial investigations of girls. Jane Addams, the famed pioneer of social work, recommended Bartelme for that post. They agreed that truancy isn’t necessarily a telltale sign of delinquency. Maybe a child is hungry and there’s little or nothing to eat at home.

* Daily Journal | KLASEY: Remembering ‘Smilin’ Sam’ : After the war, Shapiro returned to his law practice, and to his interrupted political career. In November 1946, he was elected to the first of seven consecutive two-year terms as an Illinois state representative. During his 14 years in the legislature, “Smilin’ Sam” Shapiro earned another nickname: “Mr. Mental Health.” Inspired by his mother, Tillie, who was a longtime volunteer at Kankakee State Hospital, he was a strong advocate for treatment and care of the mentally ill. Shapiro was a cosponsor of legislation that established the state’s first mental health code. In 1974, Kankakee State Hospital was renamed as the Samuel H. Shapiro Developmental Center.

* The New Yorker | A Hedge-Fund Founder’s Obsessive Storytelling: Thirteen years after the Principles became public, the New York Times reporter Rob Copeland has published “The Fund,” a book that blends Dalio’s biography and Bridgewater’s history into a closely observed investigation of how the Principles worked in practice. Copeland covered business at the Wall Street Journal for nearly a decade before moving to the Times, and has spent much of his career writing about hedge funds like Bridgewater. His history of the firm benefits from deep sourcing, drawing on new on-the-record interviews, internal documents, and multiple leaked e-mails, some of which are imported straight into the text.