* NPR Illinois…

The Illinois Department of Corrections has indicated it wants to rebuild [the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln] near Stateville prison in the Joliet area. The department said the current women’s prison is outdated and need of costly repairs. It also said a new prison and new location would expand program options and improve employee recruitment. […]

But local officials worry about the economic impact. Logan employs 454 people, mostly in security roles. If Logan were to close, IDOC says there are expected to be enough vacancies in other prisons to offer everyone a job, albeit in other communities that may require relocation. IDOC says there will be about 850 positions available in these other IDOC facilities “within a 90-mile radius of Logan.”

The town hall will feature Sen. Sally Turner (R-Beason), Rep. Bill Hauter (R-Morton), Logan County Board Chairman Emily Davenport, Lincoln Economic Advancement & Development CEO Andrea Runge and Lincoln Mayor Tracy Welch. It is scheduled for May 15 at 6:30 p.m.

It will be streamed on Sen. Turner’s Facebook Page at www.Facebook.com/SenatorSallyTurner

* An interesting comparison fom ShotSpotter CEO Ralph Clark. Politico…

Have you talked to the mayor about him wanting to stick to his campaign promise?

“We’ve had some conversations. I understand the honor of that [campaign promise]. And I’m reminded of Barack Obama [who] campaigned on closing Guantanamo Bay when he was a candidate. Then he became president, and he probably had his first briefing, security briefing, and thought, ‘OK, I might be looking at this thing a little bit differently than when I made this campaign promise. I had a certain facts and a certain set of facts and assumptions I had campaigned for. It certainly sounded good. But now I’m elected my higher duty is not to a campaign promise, but to my sworn obligation to serve and protect.’”

* The American Cancer Society Action Network….

State legislators will hear firsthand from cancer patients and survivors during Cancer Action Day next week. The day-long gathering draws advocates from across the state who will ask lawmakers to prioritize legislation that will reduce the burden of cancer in Illinois. Cancer patients, survivors, their families and caregivers will wear their “suits and sneakers” to ask lawmakers to hit the ground running to make cancer a policy priority.

This year, advocates will ask lawmakers to reduce the burden of cancer in Illinois by improving access to care through increasing funding for the state’s colorectal cancer screening program and improving access to recommended genetic testing. They will also ask lawmakers to support legislation increasing diversity in clinical trials.

Who: Maggie Powell, breast cancer survivor and ACS CAN volunteer
Ally Lopshire, ACS CAN government relations director

When: Tuesday, May 7, 2024, 10 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

An estimated 78,200 Illinoisans will be diagnosed with cancer, and 23,280 are expected to die from the devastating disease. The legislature can and must do better to prevent and treat cancer in our state.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Tribune | For Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, federal recognition at last: The designation marks a long-awaited victory in the tribal nation’s fight to recover its ancestral home. When the land is placed in trust, the legal title is transferred to the U.S. government, which will hold it on behalf of Prairie Band and establish tribal governance. It opens up a string of benefits including tax credits and land use exemptions. […] At the state level, a bill would immediately turn over Shabbona Lake State Park, around 1,500 acres adjacent to the reservation. If passed, Prairie Band would assume ownership but continue to operate the property as a public space. The bill is still in committee, but Rep. Mark Walker, a Democrat from the Northwest suburbs and one of the co-sponsors, is optimistic that it will go forward.

*** Chicago ***

* Block Club | Bally’s Profits Continue To Lag At Medinah Temple, Executives Say: The budget anticipates $35 million in local tax revenue from Bally’s, averaging out to $3 million a month. As of the end of March, Medinah Temple has generated about $3 million in tax revenue this year for Chicago. A revenue report for April is expected to be released this week, according to a company spokesperson.

* WBEZ | Faced with cuts under a new funding formula, several CPS schools are rejecting their budgets: “The budget that we have does not meet the need,” said Sequoiah Brown, a member of the Local School Council at Poe Classical School in Pullman on the Far South Side. “Our parents are adamant about the needs of our students. You should be trying to bring up the others to that standard, not taking from one to give to the other. That is not how equity works.” […] School district officials say they are aware that some councils rejected their budget, but they will not have a tally until later this month. The schools confirmed by WBEZ include Poe, another selective enrollment elementary school, one neighborhood high school and one neighborhood elementary school. Selective enrollment and magnet schools have been speaking out about being hurt by a new budgeting formula in use by the school district for next school year that prioritizes schools with the neediest students.

* WTTW | Probe Into 8 CPD Officers Found No Evidence They Were Active Members of Oath Keepers — But Investigators Only Asked Them: However, investigators with CPD’s Bureau of Internal Affairs did not interview anyone other than the eight officers accused of belonging to the Oath Keepers, according to the 30-page report. Interviewing the officers appears to be the most significant investigative step taken by investigators during the probe, which was completed in less than six months. The eight officers were each questioned by investigators for an average of 29 minutes, according to the summary of those interviews included in the report. The longest interview lasted 48 minutes, the shortest just 17 minutes, according to the probe.

* Tribune | Johnson pulls plans to place migrant shelter site in 11th Ward after stiff opposition from alderman, property owners: The change came after the owners of the property said Johnson never informed them of his plans to use the building at 3951 S. Canal St. for a shelter. When the Tribune asked the city about that apparent disconnect, the Department of Family and Support Services released a Monday statement saying the city is “no longer considering” housing migrants there.

* Block Club | For 2 Decades, A Historic Pullman Home Has Been Vacant Under CHA’s Watch: The CHA acquired the Corliss home to house people in need. But after letting the house sit empty for nearly two decades and racking up violations with the city’s Department of Buildings, the CHA announced this fall the home was one of more than 40 scattered site properties the agency would rehab, restore and sell so families can live in them. But now CHA officials say they’ll move forward with “alternative plans” for the home they let sit empty for years after an assessment found needed repairs could total nearly $500,000, records show.

* Chicago Reader | Publisher’s note: why the Reader is returning to weekly publishing: First, because Chicago’s creative, civic, and cultural concerns don’t reproduce on a biweekly basis, nor do they circulate equitably from behind an online paywall. From Portage Park to Pullman, Chicago is a living conversation. For the tens of thousands of people who use our printed paper, that conversation doesn’t pause for two weeks so we can recapitulate it. It’s time for the Reader to get back on beat, back in rhythm with the verses and views, pictures and sounds, tastes and takes that make this the best city in the world.

*** Downstate ***

* Daily-Journal | Alliance grows with Gotion as members visit China sites: The cross-cultural awareness presentations which Gotion officials extended to the Kankakee County contingent was most impressive to Michael Boyd, president of Kankakee Community College. […] Boyd was part of the group that made the trip to China — paid for by Gotion — that also included Angela Morrey, vice president of business development for the Economic Alliance; Jeff Bennett, of McColly Bennett Real Estate and vice chairman of the Economic Alliance board; Theodis Pace, an alliance board member and also president of the Kankakee County Branch of the NAACP; Pat Martin, former past chairman of the board for the Economic Alliance and executive vice president with Iroquois Federal; and Ryan Marion, building official for the village of Manteno.

* WSIL | SIU wraps Saluki Takeover Tour: Saturday’s event concluded the tour aimed at recruiting more Southern Illinois students to SIU. SIU Chancellor Austin Lane appeared alongside the school’s athletic director and new basketball coach. SIU officials told News 3 the tour covering all 17 counties in the Southern Illinois was a success and plan to make the events bigger and better in coming years.

* WSIL | One Sent to Hospital After Crashing into Sinkhole in Jackson County, Sheriff’s Office Says: News 3 previously reported a sinkhole forming along Highway 51, just north of De Soto on Thursday. A section of highway surrounding this sinkhole was reportedly closed by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) to all traffic on Friday morning. IDOT also then said an assessment of the damage will take place the following week.

*** Sports ***

* Chicago Mag | Best Seats in Sox Park: One upside to the White Sox’s dismal start to the season: You can have your pick of seats. For cheap. And while Guaranteed Rate Field will never get the love Wrigley does, it’s still an enjoyable place to watch a Major League Baseball game. As long as you can stomach seeing the home team lose. So where should you sit? We offer these three (highly specific) suggestions.

* Daily Herald | From promises of no new taxes to Burnham, Bears’ latest stadium presentation sounded familiar: As Chicago Bears executives last week presented glossy renderings and extolled the virtues of building a new stadium on the city’s lakefront, one could hear echoes of similar remarks some of those same leaders made a year-and-a-half before to a suburban audience at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights. While the intended location for a new Bears stadium might have been different, officials from the NFL franchise came to both events with Power Point presentations and talking points in hand, as they made pitches for public subsides to help bankroll the envisioned megaprojects.

* STL Today | Busch Stadium needs renovations. Should St. Louis taxpayers kick in?: DeWitt says he is not “fishing” for public money now. He might in the next few years. The club, he says, is just starting to study the stadium’s needs. If the Cardinals ask for taxpayer help, however, it could be a fight. New leaders have taken over City Hall, vowing to do more for the poor and neglected. They are pushing to improve services for the homeless, rebuild north St. Louis and dig into longstanding inequalities. They have begun to take a harder line on subsidies for developers, forcing some concessions to city schools, affordable housing and workers.

*** Cicada-geddon ***

* Tribune | Illinois cicadas, loud but harmless, to make historic emergence in mid- to late May: Yet despite recent reports of cicadas coming out, experts say the insects probably won’t do so en masse in Illinois for another few weeks, as early as mid-May, but more likely toward the end of the month. Reports of sightings are likely individual “stragglers” that have come out too early or from people who have taken a shovel to the ground.

* Here’s the DuPage Forest Preserve District on the life cycle of a 17-year cicada…

* Block Club | Cicada Parade-A Art Project Raising Money For Insect Asylum’s Rooftop Garden: Inside the basement of the Avondale museum at 2870 N. Milwaukee Ave., volunteers and employees are hard at work making over 1,000 cicada plaster molds for a spectacular community-wide art project that will celebrate the convergence of two cicada broods while raising money for its rooftop garden project. Last month, The Insect Asylum launched the Cicada Parade-a 2024, an art initiative organized by the museum and Baltimore-based Formstone Castle Collective artist Michael Bowman to bring awareness to the double cicada emergence through collaborative art. The idea was birthed by Roger McMullan, of Salt Lake City, a lifelong enthusiast of the periodical cicada and author and illustrator of the new graphic novel “Cicadapocalypse.”

* PJ Star | Do cicadas destroy crops? What farmers in Illinois need to know: “Periodical cicadas don’t pose a risk to any of the major crops in Illinois,” said Illinois State Entomologist Christopher Dietrich. “They are restricted to areas with mature natural forest, and they don’t move around much so we’ll see few, if any, in areas dominated by row crops.”

* PJ Star | What animals eat cicadas?: When periodical cicadas emerge, they’re consumed by just about anything that eats insects. Mammals and birds, amphibians and reptiles, and fish all eat cicadas — and benefit from the glut of them. […] Yes, and eagerly, reports the University of Maryland Extension. “If you have free-range chickens, they will happily scratch up the cicadas and eat them. The cicadas aren’t poisonous.”

*** National ***

* AP | Dozens of deaths reveal risks of injecting sedatives into people restrained by police: At least 94 people died after they were given sedatives and restrained by police from 2012 through 2021, according to findings by the AP in collaboration with FRONTLINE (PBS) and the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism. That’s nearly 10% of the more than 1,000 deaths identified during the investigation of people subdued by police in ways that are not supposed to be fatal. About half of the 94 who died were Black, including Jackson.

* Axios | More women are working now than at any time in U.S. history: The rise in flexible work arrangements is likely helping, in addition to the strong labor market. […] The employment numbers — technically the employment-to-population ratio — include part-time workers. So it would include women who want to work full-time but can’t due to child care issues. Women overall are working less now than in 2019, as ADP research found earlier this year.