* ICYMI: Paying millions to house migrants, Chicago failed to take Catholic archdiocese up on offers of free rent. Sun-Times…

- The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has space in more than 60 shuttered churches, schools and other buildings listed for sale or for lease.
- Church officials offered up more than dozen of these locations to the city, emails reviewed by the Sun-Times show.
- In the emails city officials appear largely unresponsive to the offers, aside from one partially redacted email from Cristina Pacione-Zayas, who visited one site, but didn’t find it large enough.

* Related stories…

∙ Tribune: Aldermen brought in to help with shelter measles outbreak
∙ ABC Chicago: Aldermen ask mayor not to evict migrants from Chicago shelters after 60 days, but face pushback

* Isabel’s top picks…

* Capitol News Illinois | With recession fears subsiding, new state economic forecast expects ‘firm but steady growth’: COGFA’s revised revenue estimates expect the current fiscal year to end with $52.6 billion in revenue, or about $2 billion ahead of what lawmakers budgeted for last May. That estimate tracks closely with the revenue estimate released by the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget in February. The GOMB estimate was about 0.7 percent, or $374 million, below COGFA’s updated projection.

* WTTW | CTA Continues to Rely on Bus and Train Operator Overtime — But Fails to Provide Detailed Information Within Required Time Frame: Illegally delayed responses are a chronic problem with the CTA’s FOIA office. Other news organizations and advocacy groups, including Block Club Chicago and Commuters Take Action, have also dinged the agency for its FOIA transparency failures. […] Budget data provided to WTTW News shows bus operations came in nearly $600,000 under budget last year. But the CTA still spent $2.4 million more on bus overtime in 2023 than in 2019. The agency’s highest paid operator in 2023, a bus driver, earned $212,232 — more than two and a half times the standard yearly rate.

Governor Pritzker will be at the Governor’s Ceremonial Office in the State Capitol at 10:30 standing with sponsors to outline proposed health insurance reform initiatives. Click here to watch.

* Jason Misener…

JUST IN: Feds argue to SCOTUS that “gratuities” as defined by under section 666 aren’t just a lesser form of bribery, they “are a different type of pernicious graft.”
“Corrupt gratuities give rise to deceitful behavior by their recipients” — i.e. people like Mayor James Snyder pic.twitter.com/u0tlByITib

— Jason Meisner (@jmetr22b) March 12, 2024

* Here’s the rest…

* Landmark | Rashid faces challenge from former cop in Democratic primary: Two years after Abdelnasser Rashid knocked longtime incumbent State Rep. Mike Zalewski out of the Democratic primary to set him on a path to the General Assembly, he’s now facing a challenge of his own. He’s defending his seat from former Chicago police detective Vidal Vasquez the 21st District, which covers much of Riverside and the southern portion of Brookfield.

* Tribune | Change to immigrant health care programs in Illinois will cause up to 6,000 to lose benefits: The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services projects that as many as 6,000 people will lose coverage by next month when the state stops offering the programs’ benefits to those who have green cards but have not completed a five-year waiting period in the U.S.

* Sun-Times | Abortion, other reproductive health info would be shielded in court documents under pioneering proposal:
The initiative would automatically seal or redact details about someone’s reproductive health in court documents, Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Iris Martinez announced Tuesday. “In these uncertain times, we must ensure reproductive health remains a private matter and the details discussed in courtrooms around Cook County may never be held against any woman criminally or civilly,” Martinez told reporters at her Daley Center office.

* Fox Chicago | Illinois, Indiana programs spread awareness on baby surrender options: “I’m very, very passionate about it because I think there’s nothing more important in the world than human life, and especially babies,” said Chief John Moriarty of the Carmel, Indiana Fire Department. Moriarty has been with the department for 42 years and the Safe Haven Baby Box at Station 345 is perhaps the part of his professional career that he is most passionate about.

* WTTW | Many Illinois Companies Will Soon Be Required to List Pay Scales, Benefits in Job Postings: By the end of Tuesday — more than three months into the year — the average American woman will have at last earned what the average U.S. man earned by the end of 2023, a salary lag that has led March 12 to be recognized as Equal Pay Day.

* WCIA | Schools stare down deadline as COVID-19 relief funds set to expire: Over the pandemic, Congress gave schools almost $200 billion in three rounds of funds referred to as Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER). Schools have used the funds on everything from building upgrades and sanitation methods to summer enrichment opportunities meant to help counter learning loss. But experts say districts face a monumental strain for how to keep up these new programs with the funding expiring at the beginning of September.

* NY Mag | Can Democrats Make 2024 the Abortion Election?: That summer, Ohioans were organizing ballot measures to protect abortion rights, and he sent them $750,000. By October, sensing momentum, he scaled up, both founding and funding a group called Think Big America that promptly sent the organizers another $250,000. He duplicated that donation in Virginia, earmarking the cash for the state Democratic party and legislative candidates who sought to prevent Republicans from passing a 15-week abortion ban. Democrats took back the state house, and Ohioans voted to protect abortion access by a large margin.

* Daily Southtown | Former Flossmoor police Chief Jerel Jones alleges racial discrimination in firing: While a Thursday email from Mayor Michelle Nelson said his dismissal was triggered by “administrative lapses,” the suit, filed Monday against the village and its manager, alleges the firing was because Jones complained Oct. 5, 2023, about experiencing “disparate treatment” from village manager Bridgette Wachtel.

* CBS News | Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Cook Co. Clerk Iris Martinez unveil Women’s Right to Privacy initiative: On Tuesday, former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot joined Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Iris Martinez to announce a new initiative to safeguard women’s reproductive health and fertility treatment information. The Women’s Right to Privacy initiative is meant to protect the information in court case files, which are currently public records.

* WaPo | U.S. courts require random judge assignments to avoid ‘judge shopping’: The Judicial Conference of the United States, the policymaking body for the federal courts, said district courts may continue to assign cases to a single-judge division if those cases don’t seek to bar or mandate state or federal actions through declaratory judgment or injunctive relief.

* Tribune | Bally’s weighing buyout offer amid funding concerns for Chicago casino: Standard General, which owns 23% of Rhode Island-based Bally’s, submitted an offer Monday to buy out the rest of the stockholders at $15 per share, valuing the company at about $648 million. That represents a premium to the current share price, but is less than 40% of what Standard General was willing to pay two years ago in an unsuccessful bid to buy the company.

* Sun-Times | Bally’s chairman tries to take company private as it searches for $800M in Chicago casino financing: Bally’s on Tuesday formed a special committee to evaluate a bid from New York hedge fund Standard General, which already owns about a quarter of the company, to buy out shareholders at $15 per share. That marks a premium over Bally’s Tuesday afternoon price of $13.88 — but it’s less than half the value offered two years ago by the hedge fund and its founding partner, Soo Kim, who is Bally’s chairman.

* WIFR | First look inside the Hard Rock Casino Rockford’s construction process: “We’re targeting a late August opening,” said Hard Rock Casino Rockford President Geno Iafrate. “We intend to start putting tickets on sale for our hard rock live concert venue, probably mid-May.” More than a thousand slot machines, a sportsbook, and dozens of table games will bring in guests, but Iafrate says the 13,000 square-foot concert venue will keep them coming back.

* Naperville Sun | Fate of Naperville’s Magic Rock unknown as new owner makes plan to demolish house on the site: For more than a decade and a half, people have marveled at the Magic Rock of Naperville. A local landmark of sorts, the display is as nonsensical as it sounds: it’s a rock — or rather, a few — on which toys, knickknacks and trinkets have been added over time to form a mini menagerie made by and for the community. […] Lately, however, the future of the well-established treasure trove has been up in the air as redevelopment plans for the residential property get underway.

* Daily Beast | $500K Sand Dune Designed to Protect Coastal Homes Washes Away in Just 3 Days: fter being completed last week, the barrier made from 14,000 tons of sand lasted just 72 hours before it was completely washed away, according to WCVB. “We got hit with three storms—two in January, one now—at the highest astronomical tides possible,” Rick Rigoli, who oversaw the dune project, told the station.

* WTTW | The Solar Eclipse Is a Month Away, But the Time to Get Your Viewing Glasses — and Smartphone Filters — Is NOW: And because we live in an age where everything needs to be photographed, take note: Smartphone cameras will need a filter too. That also goes for regular cameras, telescopes, binoculars or other devices. These filters are already beginning to sell out, and plenty of counterfeits are flooding the marketplace.

* WGN | Frontier Airlines’ new option: Guaranteed empty middle seat: “Many consumers strongly prefer a seating option that offers extra space when flying,” Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle said. “Frontier is all about choice and giving consumers the flexibility to customize their travel to suit their individual needs and preferences. UpFront Plus is a great option for those who want expanded personal space and extra comfort.”

* WTTW | Illinois DCFS, Other State Agencies to Hold Job Fair Thursday at UIC: DCFS is hiring for positions including child protection specialists, child welfare specialists, daycare licensing representatives, office associates, paralegal assistants, reimbursement officers and public service administrators, according to a news release.

* Sun-Times | Thomas ‘TNT’ Todd, trailblazing attorney, civil rights activist and co-founder of Operation PUSH, dies at 85: He co-founded Operation PUSH in 1971. He was one of the city’s first Black federal prosecutors. And he was the first full-time Black professor hired at Northwestern University’s law school. Mr. Todd, known as “Tom,” came up with the name PUSH — People United to Serve Humanity — and served as its first vice president under the Rev. Jesse Jackson and as acting president from 1983-1984 when Jackson ran for president.