* ICYMI: No endorsements from Pritzker, Durbin, Duckworth after Biden drops reelection bid . Capitol News Illinois…

After weeks of pushing from fellow Democrats – including five of Illinois’ members of Congress – President Joe Biden on Sunday announced he will not accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for reelection. […]

Top Democrats in Illinois – including Gov. JB Pritzker – offered their praises for Biden’s time in the White House, while some moved quickly to endorse Harris in Biden’s stead. But Pritzker, who has often been mentioned as a potential fill-in candidate for Biden, was not among those who immediately endorsed Harris, instead focusing on the wider goal of defeating former President Donald Trump in November. […]

Pritzker has long been a Biden campaign surrogate and staunch defender of the president, and most recently said of Biden that he’d continue to stand behind him so long as he was the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. […]

U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth were both complimentary of Biden’s presidency, with Duckworth claiming that “no one has done more for working Americans than Joe Biden.”

…Adding…Sen. Dick Durbin endorsed Harris this morning.

UPDATE: Gov. Pritzker will likely say something tomorrow about VP Harris, according to Pritzker insider. More at the link https://t.co/TX3vh3hJhV https://t.co/a6fSxMq8ng

— Capitol Fax (@capitolfax) July 22, 2024

* Related stories…

∙ WBEZ: Not all Illinois Democrats fall in line over Kamala Harris replacing President Biden
∙ WGN: City, State politicians react after Biden drops out of presidential race
∙ Tribune: Chicago-area residents worry about how a new candidate will address immigration, Gaza, environment
∙ WMBD: Illinois lawmakers react to Biden dropping out

Click here and here to catch up on yesterday’s coverage.

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* Sun-Times | Michael McClain’s lawyers want him tried separately from ex-House Speaker Madigan: In a filing Friday, McClain’s defense lawyers argue that on top of facing federal prosecutors, McClain will also be facing “The Madigan Second Prosecutors,” contending that Madigan’s apparent defense strategy, which is redacted from the filing, involves blaming McClain. The two are set to be tried together beginning Oct. 8 on similar charges of racketeering, bribery, fraud and attempted extortion.

* Tribune | Illinois continues to struggle to fill vacancies on public boards, state audit shows: In the two years ending in June 2022 covered by the report, 30% of the boards that existed — with purposes as disparate as reforming campaign finance in judicial elections to promoting amateur sports — were inactive, the IG found. Some weren’t working because they didn’t have enough members, while others had just recently been created during the time of the audit or were inactive for other reasons, auditors found. More than 30 had been inactive since at least 2018, the report said.

* Sun-Times | Prairie State Conservation Coalition stepping up to fund land projections: Good news is a prime stream of revenue for land purchase and management is being passed on. As the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation winds down, it gave a $42 million grant to the Prairie State Conservation Coalition. The ICECF was established in 1999 with a $225 million endowment from Commonwealth Edison with a mission to “to improve energy efficiency, advance the development and use of renewable energy resources, and protect natural areas and wildlife habitat in communities all across Illinois.”

*** Statehouse News ***

* WSPD | Illinois bill requires school districts to provide resources for special education children without guardians: An Illinois bill signed on Friday, July 19, will now require Illinois school districts to provide resources and services for special education students who do not have a guardian. House Bill 4581 is a result of an issue brought to the attention of State Senator Rachel Ventura and State Representative Michelle Mussman.

* SJ-R | Who are Illinois’ highest paid state workers? Here’s the top 10: Gov. JB Pritzker is often referred to as the richest politician in the country. Yet, it is his personal wealth as an heir to Hyatt Hotel fortune, and not a state salary, that earns him this distinction. Even if he decided to take the $226,800 salary for the current fiscal year, Pritzker still wouldn’t be paid as much as the following state employees. That applies for the rest of the statewide elected officials, Illinois Supreme Court justices and legislators in the Illinois General Assembly as well.

*** Statewide ***

* Sun-Times | Two deaths — including one in Illinois — linked to listeria food poisoning from meat sliced at deli counters: At least 28 people in a dozen states have gotten sick, though the largest number, seven, were in New York, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The people who died were from Illinois and New Jersey. Samples were collected from May 29 to July 5 and so far, all of the people known to be part of the outbreak have been hospitalized.

*** Chicago ***

* Block Club | Piping Plover Chick Being Raised At Montrose Beach Gets New Name: The Great Lakes piping plover chick born this summer to parents Imani and Sea Rocket has been named Nagamo, the Chicago Piping Plovers volunteer group announced Saturday. Nagamo, chosen among names submitted in a contest, mean’s “he/she sings” in the language of the Ojibwe, an Indigenous tribe whose traditional homeland is what’s now Chicago.

* Sun-Times | Local chefs celebrate the work of Cook County Sheriff’s Urban Farming Initiative: What might sound like offerings at a high-end restaurant were actually made at the Cook County Sheriff’s Urban Farm with ingredients grown on the grounds of the Cook County Jail at 26th Street and California Avenue. Local chefs Will Carter and Alvin Green on Wednesday were each given an hour to create a dish using ingredients grown at the farm. The cookoff was the second Cook County Sheriff’s Office’s Garden Chef Challenge.

* SBNation | South Siders get three-hit, and laughed out of Kansas City : The White Sox have now been swept 14 times this season and have more games of one or fewer runs scored (29) than wins (27). They are averaging 2.14 runs per game. Only 10 teams in history played the first 101 games of a season and had a worse record than the 2024 White Sox, none of them after 1979.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Tribune | Bickering in DuPage County reveals lack of oversight and loss of millions of tax dollars: When recreational marijuana became legal in Illinois in 2020, it seemed like an easy source of new revenue for local governments. DuPage County was among many that enacted a sales tax on cannabis. But by mid-2021, officials there noticed they weren’t getting any of the new money. The Illinois Department of Revenue said the county never notified it to collect the tax.

* Daily | New life for ‘zombie offices’? Suburbs’ less desired buildings are gradually repurposing in evolving market: Though the suburbs ended the first half of the year with a daunting 24% office vacancy rate and a slowing leasing rate, a closer look shows signs of resiliency, according to a new report by Chicago-based commercial real estate firm Bradford Allen. Any vacant space must be acknowledged in the data. But nearly 75% of that space is concentrated in about 20% of suburban properties, Bradford Allen found.

* WBEZ | Cook County is full of ‘fake’ lakes. They help tell the story of development in the area: It turns out many bodies of water — including nearly all designated fishing lakes — within Cook County are technically fake. They were artificially created or significantly expanded as part of major construction projects during the 20th century. Today, the county’s fishing lakes in particular serve important roles for wildlife and recreation, and their location can tell us a lot about the history of development in the area. […] In 1958, expressway contractors made an agreement with the Forest Preserves to create these lakes and landscape the area.The chief engineer of the Forest Preserves called it a “real windfall” at the time. It would’ve cost the agency $2.5 million to construct these lakes on its own.

* NBC Chicago | Chemical release from Will County plant prompts large emergency response: “The hazard on site has been mitigated and is no longer actively releasing,” the fire district said in a Facebook post at 3:55 p.m. “Hazardous Materials Teams have monitored and confirmed the chemical incident has stabilized.” Facility personnel were investigating the cause of the release on Saturday night.

*** Downstate ***

* AP | As a scholar, he’s charted the decline in religion. Now the church he pastors has closed its doors: Many U.S. churches close their doors each year, typically with little attention. But this closure has a poignant twist. First Baptist’s pastor, Ryan Burge, spends much of his time as a researcher documenting the dramatic decline in religious affiliation in recent decades. His recent book, “The Nones,” talks about the estimated 30% of American adults who identify with no religious tradition. He uses his research in part to help other pastors seeking to reach their communities, and he’s often invited to fly around the country and speak to audiences much larger than his weekly congregation.

* WQAD | How Deere’s decision to distance itself from inclusion efforts could impact business: Frank Dobbin, a Harvard sociology professor who has studied corporate diversity programs, said the most common DEI programming is employee training, such as teaching employees about biases or stereotypes. However, he said those programs don’t do much to change what the workforce looks like. “Some pundits, conservative thinkers, got the idea that this is an industry where they might be able to affect investor sentiments,” Dobbin said. “If people switched from John Deere to International Harvester, that could affect John Deere’s bottom line. We have conservative thinkers affecting how investors are thinking about this and with the threat that customers in this sector may not be on board with DEI programming.”

* IPM | Rural student “didn’t see any changes” after Illinois LGBTQ+ history law passed: Amber Cannon came out as nonbinary in fifth grade in rural, western Illinois. Around that time, in 2019, a new Illinois law also came out requiring public schools to teach LGBTQ+ history every year. Cannon followed the news of the law and saw little change in Cuba’s public school curriculum.

* IPM | High schoolers in rural, western Illinois learn the history of why their town is white: It is also 95 percent white, according to the last U.S. census. Once in a while, Cuba High School history teacher Joe Brewer’s students ask him why. “My students want to ask about lynchings in the area,” Brewer said. “It’s difficult for folks to talk about still, but those are the exact questions my students want to address.” When Illinois lawmakers expanded the Black history curriculum required to be taught in public schools, part of the goal was building empathy among non-Black students.

*** National ***

* AP News | US women’s Olympic basketball knows it has work to do after loss to WNBA team: There is no panic in the U.S. women’s Olympic team. The Americans have been in this spot before. The U.S. lost to the WNBA All-Star team on Saturday night 117-109 and are headed on a flight to London to continue their prep for the Paris Olympics. Breanna Stewart said it felt like deja vu and she wasn’t wrong. The 2021 Olympic team also lost to the WNBA All-Star team in a tune-up to the Tokyo Games. They went on to cruise to a seventh consecutive gold medal.