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Isabel’s morning briefing
Friday, Jan 10, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Sun-Times | Illinois joins Justice Department lawsuit against RealPage and big landlords: The civil antitrust complaint filed Tuesday alleges the companies coordinated to keep rents high by using an algorithm to help set rents and privately sharing sensitive information to boost profits. The amended lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina against RealPage and six landlords. They include Chicago-based LivCor; Cushman & Wakefield, whose residential property management business formerly operated independently as Pinnacle; Camden Property Trust; Greystar; Willow Bridge Property and Cortland Management. * CBS | Earth records hottest year ever in 2024, passing major symbolic climate threshold: “It’s a red flag”: American monitoring teams — NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the private Berkeley Earth — were to release their figures later Friday but all will likely show record heat for 2024, European scientists said. The six groups compensate for data gaps in observations that go back to 1850 — in different ways, which is why numbers vary slightly. * Capitol News Illinois | Lawmakers give small boost to renewable developments, delay broader reform: Lawmakers this week passed a bill aimed at boosting the development of renewable energy generation, but its proponents said the final measure was a “skinny” version of what they had hoped to pass. The bill comes as several state officials warn that Illinois is falling behind on its clean energy goals. The state’s main funding mechanism for renewable energy projects also faces a potential $3 billion budget shortfall in the coming years. * Capitol News Illinois | Potawatomi land transfer clears General Assembly: Nearly two centuries after losing its reservation in Illinois in a land sale that most people now concede was illegal, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation could soon get its land back. In the final hours of a lame duck session Tuesday, the Illinois House gave final approval to a bill authorizing the state to hand over to the tribe a 1,500-acre state park in DeKalb County, land that largely overlaps the tribe’s original reservation. * Center Square | Illinois General Assembly approves rules Republicans say are unfair: Without debate, the Senate approved its rules. Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, explained a few committee additions, and changes to how senators conduct themselves. “We will specifically require senators to avoid threats, inciting violence or other assaults in debate,” Lightford said. * Tribune | Federal government to deliver Chicago and Cook County millions in disaster relief funds for severe storms and flooding: Communities in Illinois will receive a portion of $12 billion in federal disaster recovery funds for severe storms and flooding over the last two years, including $426 million for Chicago, $244 million for Cook County, $96 million for the town of Cicero and $89 million for St. Clair County. * Tribune | Bird flu: Here’s what Illinois residents should know, following the first US death from the virus: Nationally, there have been 66 confirmed cases in humans during this latest outbreak, and a man in Louisiana recently died from the virus. He became sick after he was exposed to a backyard flock and wild birds, and he was older, with underlying health conditions. In Illinois, there have been no confirmed cases yet of humans with the virus. But there have been detections of bird flu in two commercial flocks of poultry in the last 30 days in Illinois, affecting 81,200 birds. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources also said in late December it was monitoring “a large event of waterfowl mortality” at numerous locations due to bird flu. * Crain’s | Moody’s flags the risk that O’Hare project costs could rise: Aviation watchers breathed a sigh of relief late last spring when the city of Chicago sewed up a deal with the airlines at O’Hare International Airport to move ahead with a major terminal upgrade and expansion. Although the two sides have agreed on a budget, ratings agency Moody’s is keeping a close eye on the potential risk that costs could keep climbing until the airport locks in construction contracts. Work is scheduled to start late this summer on a satellite concourse before starting on the centerpiece of the project, a new global terminal. * Sun-Times | Casino operator Bally’s faces no city fines for demolition debris dumped into Chicago River: Bally’s will not be fined for a mishap at the site of its future casino that sent demolition debris into the Chicago River last month, officials confirmed Thursday. Demolition work at the site can resume as early as Friday, according to a city spokesperson. Bally’s and its general contractor were required by the city’s buildings department to submit a “corrective action plan” after the incident. * NPR | Chicago has started powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy: In effort to fight climate change, cities across the country are working to go green - think solar panels, trees, electric buses. Well, the country’s third-largest city just took a major step. At the start of the year, Chicago began sourcing all of the electricity in its municipal buildings from 100% renewable energy. Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, of member station WBEZ and the environmental newsroom Grist, has this story. * Tribune | Chicago area to see some snow, accumulation during Friday morning commute, Weather Service says: Chicago-area residents will wake up to a light blanket of snow Friday morning that could complicate the morning commute, according to the National Weather Service. Snow was forecasted to begin falling between 5:30 and 6 a.m. Friday and would likely amount to about an inch or an inch and a half, tapering off around midafternoon as the snowstorm moves to the east, according to David King, a meteorologist with the weather service. * Sun-Times | Slain gunman who targeted far-right provocateur Nick Fuentes had mounting legal battles: Lyons had been scheduled to appear in Cook County court the following morning in a pending criminal case stemming from a hit-and-run crash in Proviso Township in September, court records show. Reports obtained from the Berwyn and Mahomet police departments offer a window into Lyons’ psyche at the time of the crime spree. But the records don’t provide any indication why he targeted Fuentes, whose apartment building had become a magnet for his critics after the address was leaked online in response to a controversial social media post he made. * WIFR | Winnebago Co. veterans speak about battle between the county board and VAC: At Thursday night’s county board meeting, the VAC’s former community outreach liaison, Ray Richmond, raised his concerns over the commission’s most recent annual report, citing issues such as financial mismanagement. Richmond says despite what’s being claimed, the VAC’s budget has not been cut but has been going up the past couple of years, as well as its expenses. “I’m a veteran, I’m a taxpayer myself, I’m a homeowner myself, and I understand that other taxpayers and homeowners would like to know what’s happening with their tax dollars,” Richmond says. “Well, it goes to the Veterans Assistance Commission, but how? How’s it being utilized? Why is it being utilized the way that it is? Those questions need oversight and if we do not do that, it’ll continue to run amuck.” * Capitol News Illinois | “All our future money is gone”: The impossible task of providing child care in rural Illinois: Over the past decade, Illinois has lost nearly 4,300 licensed child care providers, a 33% decline. As a result, it has also lost nearly 38,000 licensed child care slots for kids, outpacing the rate at which the child population is shrinking. * SJ-R | Rochester school board hires law firm to investigate superintendent on leave: The Rochester Board of Education has hired an Monticello, Illinois-based law firm to investigate the district superintendent who was placed on paid administrative leave. Board President Amy Reynolds didn’t detail following Thursday’s special board meeting why Dan W. Cox was being investigated. Miller, Tracy, Braun, Funk & Miller, Ltd. was hired by the board, Reynolds said at the meeting. The announcement followed a two-and-a-half hour executive session. * WCIA | Tuscola potential home of $750 million corn wet-milling plant: The China-based company, Fufeng USA Inc., is looking to build a $750 million corn wet-milling plant somewhere in the country, and Tuscola is one of their options. Their nationwide search includes the site of the former LyondellBasell plant that closed three years ago. Brian Moody, Douglas County Economic Development Corp. executive director, said Tuscola could see a huge economic impact if selected by the company. * Rockford Register Star | Hard Rock Casino Rockford rakes in nearly $100M in 2024: Despite closing for more than two weeks starting Aug. 12 as the casino transitioned to the big joint and out of the temporary location on Bell School Road, the Hard Rock made 41% more in revenue than the $69.1 million it did in 2023, according to data from the Illinois Gaming Board. * Bloomberg | LA Fire Hydrants Running Dry Poses New Danger in Combating Blazes: As the Palisades and Eaton fires spread on Tuesday night, multiple crews reported losing that crucial firefighting tool. The issue wasn’t California’s water management, as some including President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk have suggested, but rather systems that simply aren’t designed to handle fires of such ferocity burning in or near urban areas. * Better Conflict Bulletin | Meta Drops Fact-Checking Because of Politics, but Also Because It Wasn’t Working: There were 302 fact checks of Facebook content in the U.S. conducted last month. But much of that work was conducted far too slowly to make a difference. For example, Politifact conducted 54 fact checks of Facebook content in January 2020. But just nine of those fact checks were conducted within 24 hours of the content being posted to Facebook. And less than half of the fact checks, 23, were conducted within a week. This is slightly less than 10 fact checks per day in the US. And if fact checks take days to complete, then most people will view viral falsehoods before any label is applied.
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