* “With $24,000 raised so far, help us bring Christmas joy to the 2,530 children served by LSSI—just $25 provides a gift for a child in need!”

* ICYMI: Pritzker brushes off Trump ‘border czar’ promise to start deportations in Chicago. WGN…

The Pritzker administration on Tuesday brushed off a promise made a day earlier by President-elect Donald Trump’s ‘border czar’ to make Chicago ground zero for mass deportations.

Tom Homan, the former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first term, said at a Monday night Law & Order PAC event in the Portage Park neighborhood that mass deportations would “start right here,” adding: “Chicago is in trouble because your mayor sucks and your governor sucks,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times, Politico and other outlets.

He called on Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to “come to the table” and not impede the administration’s efforts.

“It’s no secret that Illinois will face countless, baseless attacks over the next four years from the Trump Administration,” a Pritzker spokesperson told WGN via email. “Rather than responding to every ridiculous boast from Trump lackeys, Governor Pritzker is focused on what he was focused on during the first Trump term: leading our state with competence instead of chaos.”

* Related stories…

∙ Sun-Times: Top mayoral aide takes high road in response to Trump border czar’s rhetoric

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* WCBU | Illinois’ Secretary of State is ’screaming from the rooftops’ to register for REAL ID: “We’ll keep coming back, and again, we are really trying to bring awareness,” Giannoulias said. “We do not want people to get stuck at the airport in May and not be able to board their flight.” In addition to flying domestically, those without a REAL ID won’t be able to visit military bases or secure federal facilities, like nuclear power plants.

* WTTW | Amid Concerns Over Paper, Illinois Prisons Would Be Able to Electronically Scan Mail Under New Contract: The contract with ICSolutions, a telecommunications company for correctional facilities across the U.S., states that tablets will be supplied to those in prison with “all necessary hardware, software, and functionalities pre-installed to enable secure and reliable delivery of digital correspondence and mail through the tablet on an individual basis.”

*** Statehouse News ***

* WTVO | New Illinois law will require police training to recognize signs of autism: Hundreds of new laws are set to go into effect in Illinois on January 1st, 2025. One requires police to take specialized training to learn to interact with people with autism. People with autism can sometimes be nonverbal or easily agitated, making stressful situations — like encounters with law enforcement — especially dangerous.

* Capitol News Illinois | First look: New Illinois state flag designs unveiled: The Illinois Flag Commission this week released 10 potential new designs for the state flag after lawmakers moved in 2023 to explore replacing the current banner. The commission is planning on setting up a voting system to collect public input on the designs, which it will launch in January. The online vote will be non-binding but will inform a report that the Illinois Flag Commission is set to release in the spring. After the commission delivers its final report – with a recommendation as to whether the state should adopt a new flag – the Illinois General Assembly will have the choice to adopt a new flag or keep the old one.

*** Statewide ***

* Tribune | Illinois workers can claim unpaid wages totaling more than $4.2M: More than 5,500 Illinois workers owed back pay totaling more than $4.2 million can claim their unpaid wages online, the U.S. Department of Labor said Tuesday. The funds are the result of investigations by the department’s wage and hour division, which recovers back pay for workers when they are underpaid in violation of laws, including minimum wage and overtime laws.

* Farm Week | IFB partnership expands ag news coverage, helps local newspapers: While the press association was thinking about the needs of the newsroom, they were already running Capitol News Illinois, covering state government issues and distributing stories for Illinois newspapers to use as their own content. “We thought, why can’t we do the same thing with agriculture from FarmWeek,” he said, adding that is why IPA and IFB started the Ag News Service, with the first story sent out May 19, 2021.

*** Chicago ***

Tom Homan, the next time you come to #IL03 —a district made stronger and more powerful by immigrants — you better be ready to meet the resistance.

You may think Chicago needs to get out of the way of Trump's plans for mass deportation, but we plan to get ALL UP IN YOUR WAY. https://t.co/g02g4m7QW6

— Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (@repdeliaramirez) December 10, 2024

* Center Square | Johnson says billionaires and visitors would pay for a new football stadium: Even with the city facing a budget deficit of nearly $1 billion, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson says he still favors a new lakefront stadium for the Bears. Johnson said he remains committed to keeping the National Football League club in the city. “The $600 million debt that’s owed on the old stadium is a depreciating asset,” the mayor said.

* Sun-Times | High-ranking Chicago cop faces suspensions for disparaging gays, leaking kids’ records to deputy mayor: The first disciplinary case centers on a March 21 incident at City Hall, where Jerome “disseminated a list containing juvenile records” to one of the city’s deputy mayors, according to a summary report of the probe. Internal investigators found that he violated rules that bar cops from improperly handling or releasing records, disobeying an order or directive, and discrediting the department.

* Sun-Times | CPS School Board is not expected to act on CEO Pedro Martinez’s contract on Thursday: The Board of Education has not scheduled a vote to fire or otherwise push out Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez this week, which threatens to prolong the drama around his job status through the holidays and into the new year. A meeting agenda posted Tuesday afternoon for the school board’s Thursday evening meeting does not list action toward Martinez’s dismissal or for a separation settlement. The board offered Martinez a buyout last week, but he has so far opted to remain in his role.

* Tribune | Training for newly-elected Board of Education members postponed without explanation: After receiving news of the postponement, the new board members expressed frustration with the late notice and their lack of the appropriate background to jump into high-stakes board meetings when they will be seated in January. “I’m ready to do the work that I was elected to do, and I want to learn what I need … to do it right with integrity and honesty, transparency, accountability,” said new board member Ellen Rosenfeld of District 4.

* Sun-Times | Scenes of Gov. JB Pritzker aboard the CTA holiday train: Gov. JB Pritzker boarded the Santa’s Express car on the CTA’s Holiday Train on Tuesday at the Clark and Lake station, greeting passengers, handing out candy and taking photos with them. The governor mingled and chatted and met Santa Claus until the train reached the Kedzie station.

* Tribune | Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association receives $50 million donation: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association on Tuesday announced that it had received a donation of $50 million from benefactors Helen and Sam Zell on behalf of the Zell Family Foundation, with the money planned for the long-term financial health of the orchestra. According to the announcement, the money will “allow the CSOA to continue to advance its strategic goals.” Among those goals are reducing the CSOA’s debt, increasing its endowment and funding musician and staff retirement benefits. The donation will also help support the orchestra’s domestic and international touring, pay for marketing initiatives and go to “special artistic projects shaped by CSO music directors.”

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Tribune | After decades of trying, DuPage acquires horse farm link to Morton Arboretum: DuPage County Forest Preserve District officials finally acquired a long-sought, 34.9-acre horse farm in unincorporated Wheaton that the district viewed as a keystone parcel between the 797-acre Danada Forest Preserve and the 1,700-acre Morton Arboretum. The district closed on its $12 million acquisition of the Gladstone Ridge horse farm, at 3S325 Leask Lane on Nov. 26 after decades of attempts at acquiring it from the Bolger family, which had owned the land since 1966.

* Daily Herald | ‘So much to be done’: Arlington Heights pastor, 90, reflects on decades of fighting for civil rights: After more than six decades of following in the footsteps of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and promoting his legacy, the Rev. Clyde Brooks doesn’t feel he has accomplished as much as he would have liked. “I don’t think I’ll ever retire because there’s so much to be done … but I am tired,” the 90-year-old Arlington Heights pastor said of his activism, which he started right out of college, largely inspired by King.

* Daily Herald | 1,400 council meetings later: Palatine honors Solberg for 37 years of service: Solberg recently stepped down from his post after 37 years of service. Joe Falkenberg stepped in to succeed Solberg in District 4. Mayor Jim Schwantz calculated Solberg attended approximately 1,400 village council meetings and approximately 450 liquor commission meetings. “An unbelievable amount of time spent serving the Village of Palatine,” Schwantz said.

*** Downstate ***

* NYT | R.F.K. Jr.’s War on Corn Syrup Brings a Health Crusade to Trump Country: “It’d have a huge impact,” a 37-year-old electrician who would identify himself by only his first name, Tyler, said of Mr. Kennedy’s declaration of war on corn syrup and corn oil. He was grabbing lunch at Debbie’s Diner in the shadow of the mills. “That shuts down Central Illinois, if A.D.M. shuts down.”

* PJ Star | Chemical plant given approval to build facility along Illinois River in Peoria: A chemical plant that Peoria officials say will bring practices that are “sensitive” to environmental concerns will be allowed to build a new facility along the Illinois River. The Peoria City Council voted 9-1 to allow Viridis Chemical to move its operations from Columbus, Nebraska, to Peoria and construct a new facility behind the existing BioUrja ethanol facility off Southwest Washington Street.

*** National ***
* Semafor | Arctic emitted more carbon than it stored for first time in 2024, US report finds: About 1.5 trillion tons of carbon remains stored in permafrost, which is more carbon than in all the trees in all the world’s forests, according to NPR, and unleashing that carbon could significantly accelerate the effects of climate change. The warming arctic is already having noticeable ecological impacts: Inland caribou populations have declined by 65% over recent decades, according tot the NOAA report.

* The Atlantic | Why Democrats Got the Politics of Immigration So Wrong for So Long: The election of Donald Trump this year shattered a long-standing piece of conventional wisdom in American politics: that Latinos will vote overwhelmingly for whichever party has the more liberal approach to immigration, making them a reliable Democratic constituency. This view was once so pervasive that the Republican Party’s 2012 post-election autopsy concluded that the party needed to move left on immigration to win over more nonwhite voters.