* Donations have been a bit on the slow side today, so please click here and help buy Christmas presents for foster kids. Thanks!

* Background is here if you need it. I asked the governor’s office for a response to the US Steel layoff announcements. Here’s Gov. JB Pritzker…

“U.S. Steel’s Granite City operation is a union shop with a long history in Illinois, and it’s alarming that company executives would announce these layoffs alongside a move to a right-to-work state where they can pay workers less and subject them to worse working conditions. The lack of responsible communication between the company, its employees and the state is potentially unlawful and the Department of Labor will work to ensure workers’ rights are protected. DCEO will continue to provide rapid response services to those affected by the layoffs to assist with finding new employment. Illinois’s top-tier workforce cannot be easily replaced—the diligence, training, and hard work of these U.S. Steel employees makes them a valuable asset to companies who care about producing a top-tier product.”

* IDOL…

The Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) has issued a subpoena to the United States Steel Corporation (US Steel) to investigate its compliance with the Illinois Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN).

The Illinois WARN Act requires employers with 75 or more full-time employees to give workers and state and local government officials 60 days advance notice of a plant closing or mass layoff.

IDOL was informed Tuesday, November 28, 2023, of a mass, impending layoff at Granite City Works in Granite City. This follows layoffs that were announced in September, although US Steel characterized those as temporary at the time. More than 1,000 workers will have lost their jobs at the conclusion of the layoffs.

“Mass layoffs impact entire communities,” said IDOL Director Jane Flanagan. “At the Department of Labor, we want to ensure that workers are given the required notice under law before they are laid off. It is also our intention to make certain United States Steel Corporation has acted in compliance with the WARN Act.”

An employer that fails to provide notice as required by the Act is liable to each affected employee for back pay and benefits for the period of the violation, up to a maximum of 60 days. The employer may also be subject to a civil penalty of up to $500 for each day of the notice violation.

* WCIA…

It has been more than a year since the Dobbs decision changed the course of abortion access across the country. The outcome is exactly what some experts expected.

Some states banned the procedure while others opened their borders for people seeking care. Illinois was one of them. Planned Parenthood Illinois says the numbers have gone up significantly.

Planned Parenthood reported a 54 percent increase in abortions since overturning Roe versus Wade and a 700% increase in traveling from outside of the state. […]

Since the Dobbs decision, patients traveling from 29 states now make up 85 percent of all abortion appointments, Planned Parenthood announced the first mobile abortion clinic, and vasectomy appointments went up by 97 percent.

* Isabel’s roundup…

* Center Square | Some Illinois law enforcement say enforcing gun ban violations not a priority: During recent public hearings, the agency said prosecution of first and subsequent offenses will be up to the 102 different county state’s attorneys. “That’s going to be up to the state’s attorney and the courts,” ISP attorney Suzanne Bond said. […] “We recognize that it is the law and we respect it. We also have limited resources and have to set priorities for the office, and this will not be one of our top priorities,” [McHenry County, State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally] told The Center Square, noting that each case will have unique circumstances.

* WAND | One Aim Illinois: Lawmakers, advocates call healing critical in gun violence prevention: “We need to have those that are at the forefront, the ones that are most impacted, the ones that are ostracized and sort of the forgotten voices,” said Monse Ayala, an organizer with Increase the Peace. “That’s a lot of our young people. We need to have agency over how we are tackling this and what they need from us and how we can do better for them.”

* Press Release | IDNR receives grant to recognize and research African American heritage properties in southern Illinois: The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) has been awarded a $75,000 grant from the National Park Service to recognize significant African American heritage properties in southern Illinois. Illinois was one of 21 projects in 16 states and the District of Columbia to receive funding from the Underrepresented Community Grants (URC) program through the Historic Preservation Fund administered by the National Park Service.

* RiverBender | Gov. Pritzker Celebrates Completion Of I-280 Over Mississippi River In Quad Cities: The Baker Bridge opened in 1973 and today carries more than 28,000 vehicles a day, almost 20% of which are trucks. The new deck is the first replacement since the bridge opened. A $49.7 million project began in 2021 with the demolition and replacement of the westbound bridge deck, followed by the eastbound bridge deck in 2022. The final stage of the project, which patched and resurfaced I-280 from the bridge to the Illinois 92 interchange, was combined with another $16 million improvement that extended the work from the Illinois 92 interchange to east of the Milan Beltway. Additional work included bridge painting and lighting upgrades at Illinois 92.

* WCIA | Meta launches new data center in Illinois: Meta officials joined Governor J.B. Pritzker and other state leaders to celebrate the start of the data center in DeKalb. Officials say the facility will bring 200 jobs and represents a nearly $1 billion investment to Illinois’ economy. […] Meta officials chose the chose DeKalb area because it offered excellent infrastructure, access to renewable energy, and a strong talent for both constructing and operating the center. The data center is supported by 100% renewable energy, officials said.

* RiverBender | Gov. Pritzker Celebrates Opening Of Meta’s Dekalb Data Center: Today, Governor JB Pritzker joined local elected officials, Meta leadership, and business and academic leaders to celebrate the opening of Meta’s Data Center in Dekalb. The data center is now fully operational and is supported by 100% renewable energy

* The Crusader | Pritzker Administration, IDPH to host 2023 Illinois Minority Health Conference in Bloomington December 4 & 5: The conference at Illinois State University is designed to share knowledge on health disparities and social justice issues; build competencies among healthcare professionals; and develop collaborations with service providers and community partners aimed at more effectively serving minorities and other disadvantaged communities in Illinois.

* Dispatch-Argus | Henry County board member announces candidancy for Illinois’ 37th State Senate District: Republican Henry County Board member Tim Yager is running for the 37th State Senate District in Illinois. […] Republican Sen. Win Stoller holds the seat. Stoller was elected in 2020 and announced in August that he would not seek reelection.

* WGN | Kankakee County moving to encrypt public safety scanners: The Kankakee County Communication Center is beginning the project soon and starting with police channels. That is expected to take three to six months and then fire/EMS channels will be encrypted. The general public and media outlets will not be able to hear transmissions in real time. The county is citing three reasons for the move; officer safety, citizen privacy and reporting accuracy. The county said agencies will distribute information through social media when it’s “appropriate and factual.

* Crain’s | Ford: UAW strike cut profits by $1.7B, new contract to cost $8.8B: Ford Motor Co. said Thursday its new four-and-a-half-year labor contract with the UAW is expected to raise costs by $8.8 billion, or an average of about $900 per vehicle by 2028. Ford said it lost $1.7 billion in profits from the union’s 41-day strike against the automaker. The company now expects $10 billion to $10.5 billion in adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, down from previous guidance of $11 billion to $12 billion.

* ABC Chicago | Migrants in Chicago: City won’t use Amundsen Park fieldhouse as migrant shelter: “The city did a really terrible job at handling this,” Donald Glover, president of the Amundsen Park Advisory Council, said. “They held our community and our park hostage for almost 60 days. We couldn’t use the park. Our kids couldn’t use it, our seniors couldn’t use it and they could have been more transparent. Hopefully in the future they will include rather than the exclude people.”

* CBS Chicago | 17 Chicago churches to take in migrants from police stations, as work begins on tent camp in Brighton Park: Dubbed the “Unity Initiative,” the mayor on Tuesday joined a group of faith leaders and philanthropic groups to announce that 17 churches will begin providing shelter and other services for migrants as soon as Wednesday. The number of churches participating in the program could expand later. John Zayas, associate pastor at Grace and Peace Church in Austin, said the goal is to start sending buses to police stations on Wednesday.

* WBEZ | New seating protocols at Chicago’s City Council meetings draw sharp criticisms: The Rules Committee, which oversees the council’s security team, outlined the new protocols to WBEZ, but has not published them publicly. The committee clarified on Thursday that members of the public will not be turned away if the third floor is full, and will be allowed to sit on the second floor in that instance. The committee also clarified this seating protocol is for full council meetings, not committee meetings.

* Daily Egyptian | Set up “to fail:” Air Traffic Control shortage casts clouds over SIU aviation program: Two sources close to the situation said a newly hired controller who didn’t get enough training created the hazardous conditions. The Daily Egyptian is granting these sources anonymity, but their stories corroborate each other’s. One source said, “So what happened was, there was a new tower controller who has recently…been signed off for solo operations that he could conduct without being supervised…he just lost the whole picture. He was clearing the wrong airplanes, getting people mixed-up, sending people towards each other.”

* Pew | State Automated Retirement Programs Would Reduce Taxpayer Burden From Insufficient Savings: Today, as many as 56 million private sector workers lack access to a retirement savings plan through their jobs. The analysts who conducted the study for The Pew Charitable Trusts estimate that such limited savings could lead to a cumulative additional cost to the federal government of $964 billion between 2021 and 2040. State spending on these programs, stemming from administrative costs, required state match formulas, and supplemental state benefits, totals another $334 billion over that period. And social spending does not replace the entirety of the gap, requiring many households to reduce their standard of living in retirement. … Eleven states have already launched automated savings programs to help more private sector workers routinely put money away for retirement. This year, lawmakers in more states are introducing measures to expand those opportunities. These bills create savings options—sometimes referred to as Work & Save or Secure Choice—that allow people to set up state-sponsored individual retirement accounts (IRAs). Typically, workers at companies without employer-based benefits are enrolled automatically but can opt out. The states that already approved programs are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, and Virginia.

* Tribune | Advocates, survivors of detainees mourn 16 who died in Cook County Jail: “Every person back there is a human being, and they have loved ones like us,” Cassandra Greer Lee said, nodding across the street to one of the buildings in the jail complex on South California Avenue. Lee’s husband Nickolas was the third person to die of COVID-19 while in custody in April 2020. She stood with Vicki Willis, whose son Alteriq Pleasant died in custody last year.

* NYT | Airlines Race Toward a Future of Powering Their Jets With Corn: “We’re on track to massively increase water usage without any real sense of how sensitive our aquifers are,” said Jeffrey Broberg, who is concerned about groundwater in Minnesota, a major corn state, where he is a water-use consultant and founder of the Minnesota Well Owners Organization. United Airlines this year signed a deal with a Nebraska ethanol company to buy enough sustainable aviation fuel, as the biofuel is known, to power 50,000 flights a year. In August, Delta announced a plan to create a sustainable fuel hub in Minnesota, a major corn state. The Biden administration could decide on its tax incentives for the industry as soon as December.

* ABC Chicago | Illinois Holocaust survivors write letter to share powerful message: The video says, “Over 80 years ago our lives changed irrevocably. As Jewish children in Europe during the Holocaust, we experienced the destruction of our families, traditions and communities.” “When they saw the attacks on Israeli on October 7, obviously it was so traumatizing, and re-traumatizing for so may of them, they’ve said over and over again that in a moment of crisis, that’s not the time to retreat, it’s the time to lean in,” Bernard Cherkasov, CEO of the Illinois Holocaust Museum, said. “There is no justification for Hamas’s terror…The plight of civilians trapped in a war zone is one that we also know all too well,” the video says.