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* Daily Southtown…

Thornton Township Supervisor Tiffany Henyard filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to overturn the results of what she believes was an improperly run Democratic caucus that kept her off the ballot. […]

She is suing the Thornton Township Democrats as well as committeeman and state Sen. Napoleon Harris, who received the Democratic nomination for supervisor, for denying voters their full rights to choose their own candidates.

Dixmoor Mayor Fitzgerald Roberts was also named as a plaintiff, though he released a statement Thursday stating his inclusion was a mistake on the part of Henyard’s attorney, Max Solomon. Solomon confirmed Friday morning he was working to remove Roberts from the suit and declined to comment until after he had done so.

The lawsuit alleges the township Democrats and Harris acted improperly by allowing members who met at the Homewood-Flossmoor Park District auditorium for a private event to stay there for the following caucus, while denying entry to others seeking to vote to nominate candidates.

*** Madigan Trial ***

* Capitol News Illinois | Judge won’t acquit former AT&T Illinois boss in Madigan bribery case after hung jury: A federal judge on Thursday declined to acquit former AT&T Illinois president Paul La Schiazza after his September trial on charges that he bribed ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan ended in a hung jury. U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman was forced to declare a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a verdict in La Schiazza’s case, which ended a few weeks before Madigan’s trial began five floors down in Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Courthouse.

*** Statehouse News ***

* IPM | Illinois teachers urging lawmakers to help them use artificial intelligence safely in the classroom: “With the rapid expansion of AI, we’re not sure which apps are Student Online Personal Protection Act-compliant and which ones aren’t,” Murmann said. “Not all districts have access to screening all of these tools. So teachers are very hesitant to use them, and not using something could inhibit a learning practice.” The Teach Plus fellows are asking the General Assembly and Illinois State Board of Education to provide guidelines to schools “with urgency,” and incorporate teacher voices to continually update its approach. Some states like California and Minnesota have already published policies to guide the use of AI in the classroom.

*** Chicago ***

* WBEZ | As Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson delays budget vote, City Council members complain about what the budget lacked: Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th Ward, a progressive who was going to vote “yes” on the budget Friday, argued opponents of the budget who are dissatisfied with Johnson “just want to be oppositional.” “They’re upset with him,” she said. “I think this is some people in council just kind of flexing — if you want to go that route — on things that they feel like he hasn’t compromised enough on, or he hasn’t talked to them enough, or they feel disrespected, or they feel like he’s not listening.” But she noted that opposition to this budget proposal spans the political spectrum, including from those in Johnson’s own progressive wing. Hadden ultimately blamed the delay on the fact that “the fifth floor can’t get relationships together.”

* Sun-Times | City Hall ouster exposes rift in Johnson’s environmental mission: Mansour’s ouster is the type of behind-the-scenes politics that would’ve been largely overlooked had it not been flagged by community advocates who knew how integral he was to an air-quality assessment that they deemed important. The devices are a step toward understanding how air pollution can significantly fluctuate in low-income communities of color. “Those monitors could be utilized in our community rather than collecting dust,” says Cheryl Johnson, executive director of People for Community Recovery in Riverdale on the Far Southeast Side. “When the city makes the commitment to provide resources, make it happen. In our community, we’ve been waiting over 30 years for air monitors.”

* The Triibe | Chicago activists push for universities to pay for city services to ease budget woes: As Chicago City Council works to pass a 2025 budget that will likely include a property tax increase, organizers are calling for private universities to pay their fair share for public services. “We know these private institutions that are benefiting from services – like law enforcement, like the fire department – aren’t having to pay property taxes,” says Jesse Hoyt, executive director of the community organization ONE Northside, which is pushing for universities here to participate in a tax-paying program named PILOT. “Now, more than ever, we need to see progressive revenue options, and we see the PILOT program as one of those ways of really achieving that.”

* WTTW | CPS Planning ‘All-Hands-on-Deck’ Approach to Protecting Students, Families From Mass Deportations: Martinez said the district enacted a “comprehensive response” to protect its students, families and staff when Trump’s first term began in 2017, and CPS officials are planning to take similar steps before Trump’s inauguration next month. Earlier this week, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan said that mass deportations would “start right here in Chicago.” “We are not taking these threats lightly and be sure that we will stand strong to protect our school communities from harm,” Martinez said.

* Block Club | ‘A New Day At CHA’? Residents Still Face ‘Ridiculous’ Conditions In Public Housing Buildings, They Say: The CHA and its property managers haven’t properly maintained her building for the last 15 years, causing headaches and safety concerns for her and her neighbors, she said. Flowers’ experience highlights larger, ongoing management failures by the CHA — problems agency officials have said multiple times over the past year they’re working to address.

* Block Club | Chance The Snapper Is Now 7-Foot-1 — And Helping Scientists Study Cancer: Chance is now 7-foot-1. He was just about 4 feet long when I first found him. He has also nearly quadrupled in weight to about 130 pounds since then! It took three of us to pick him up. More importantly, he’s now contributing to vital research that could pave the way for advanced cancer treatments — or perhaps, someday, a cure.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Herald | It’s a wonderful site — Christmas movies find ideal backdrop in the suburbs: The historic Long Grove Bridge doesn’t get much respect from the dozens of vehicles that have bumped it over the years, but directors of Christmas movies love it. Some of the many holiday films shot in the suburbs over the years have used the iconic covered bridge as a backdrop. Dare we say it’s a hallmark of the season.

* Patch | Bald Eagles Stay The Winter In Will County Preserves: That means the regal raptors are likely to be hanging around the Forest Preserve’s Lake Renwick Preserve in Plainfield, McKinley Woods in Channahon, Rock Run Rookery Preserve in Joliet and Whalon Lake in Naperville. However, the preserve is reminding visitors, that proper bird-watching etiquette requires humans to give the birds a wide berth.

* Tribune | Northlight Theatre announces groundbreaking for long-awaited Evanston theater: Northlight Theatre told the Tribune Tuesday that it plans finally to break ground on a new Evanston home in early March. The new theater building, which is projected to cost around $32 million, is expected to be ready in time for the 2026-27 season. Construction is expected to be substantially complete by the summer of 2026. Northlight says it has raised $26.2 million toward that cost and plans a continued public campaign this winter to secure the remaining $6 million. Either way, enough money has been raised for construction to get underway.

*** Downstate ***

* WCIA | Sangamon Co. prepares to hand over info to DOJ; makes changes to hiring processes: Sangamon County Sheriff Paula Crouch has been on the job for about three months, and one of her first tasks was compiling a huge trove of information for the U.S. Department of Justice. “Obviously, they have received some information that they believe that the information they’re requesting for us will help answer the questions that have been posed to them,” Crouch said.

* WGLT | McLean County’s smaller communities embrace ‘a different way of policing’: “We get out of the car, we interact with the students and the staff, making sure everybody gets in safe, and [making] sure everybody leaves safe,” Hudson Police Chief Mark Kotte said. Hudson, located just north of Bloomington-Normal, is home to about 1,700 people. It’s one of a few dozen smaller communities in McLean County with their own police force — albeit a small one with two full-time officers and one part-time.

* WCIA | Illini football takes teen moms on shopping spree for third-straight year: For a third straight year, Bret and Jen Bielema picked up the bill giving 50 young families a financial boost of a $200 shopping spree at the Urbana Walmart through the YoungLives program. They’ve had an incredible season on the field, but the opportunity to do this off the field, it just says so much about his (Bret Bielema’s) heart and the way that he reaches out,” YoungLives director Erin Watson said.

*** National ***

* The Atlantic | Environmental Internationalism Is in Its Flop Era: Despite all of that, this year in international environmental diplomacy went exceptionally badly. Inflation and cost-of-living crises, coupled with a rightward shift in politics in many countries, meant that negotiating for major environmental spending this year was poised to be difficult. But environmental diplomacy has also reached a hard new crossroads: The science of ecological destruction is settled, the trajectory is bleak, and the need for change is obvious. All that’s left to do is decide who should deal with it.

* Bloomberg | Inside the Graphic and Bizarre Threats Against Scotus, Federal Judges: For years, the US Marshals Service has been raising red flags about the nature of the threats directed at Supreme Court justices, federal judges and its other protectees, but the agency has never disclosed the content and details of the threats, until now.