* Subscribers know more. ICYMI: Trump administration’s surprise federal funding freeze sows havoc across Illinois before being blocked by federal judge. Tribune…

- U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan blocked the Trump administration effort to freeze federal grants and potentially trillions of dollars in spending the action minutes before it was set to go into effect at 4 p.m.
- The administrative stay pauses the freeze until Monday.
- The judge’s decision capped a day filled with confusion, frustration and fear across the nation after Trump’s Office of Management and Budget called for the temporary pause on funding, including for programs related to “foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal,”

* Related stories…

∙ Sun-Times: Trump’s federal funding freeze on hold — as ‘chaos, confusion and fear’ grip Chicago
∙ Capitol News Illinois: ‘Blatantly unlawful’ federal spending freeze sends state scrambling
∙ Sun-Times: GOP plan to cut Medicaid expansion could cost coverage for 900K Illinoisans, Dems say

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* SJ-R | Illinois Supreme Court will take up State’s petition on Sean Grayson’s detention: Oral arguments will be heard by the high court after the State and defense attorneys for Sean P. Grayson file briefs. The petition, or PLA, asks the Supreme Court to address a Nov. 27 ruling from the Fourth District Appellate Court that would have cleared the way for Grayson’s release from detention under the Pre-Trial Fairness Act, which is part of the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today, or SAFE-T Act.

* WGN | ‘I’m worried about him’: Undocumented father of 4 removed from Elgin home during raid targeting different man: Ramos was wanted for a parole violation for aggravated battery with a firearm and charged with attempted first-degree murder. Family members said Ramos has not lived at the home for months. […] Agents did not find Ramos, but they did encounter 44-year-old Raul Lopez, a father of four who was living in the country illegally. A task force spokesman told WGN-TV that ICE was part of the team and removed Lopez from the house after finding him hiding in the attic.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Tribune | Illinois GOP sues over Democratic legislative remap, calling it ‘not just a little corrupt’: In their lawsuit, Republicans argued the boundaries drawn to give Democrats supermajorities in the state House and Senate are in violation of both the state constitution’s mandate that elections be “free and equal” and a requirement that districts be drawn compactly. The legislative boundaries enacted into state law in September 2021 were “drawn with the primary motivation to ensure Democrat victories and is anything but ‘free and equal,’” the lawsuit argues. “The Enacted Plan thus denies voters their equal right to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.”

*** Statewide ***

* Chalkbeat Chicago | Illinois’ 4th grade NAEP scores drop in both reading and math: The latest round of test scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as NAEP, released on Wednesday shows that Illinois students who missed school or went through the interruptions and struggles of remote learning may still have gaps in their education from that time. However, Illinois eighth grade students — who would have been in fourth grade when the pandemic started — either held steady or outperformed their peers in 2022 in reading and math but their scores lagged behind their peers who took the exam in 2019.

* Tribune | If you’re arrested by ICE in Illinois, what happens next? Legal experts explain the process: Nearly everyone else is up to the discretion of ICE on whether or not they should be detained, Hallett said. Deciding factors that go into that process include whether ICE believes a person is a flight risk, poses a danger to their community or even whether an ICE facility has enough beds to hold someone. “In many cases, ICE is sort of forced into releasing people because there simply aren’t beds available to detain them,” Hallett said.

* Daily Herald | Bicyclist fatalities: How Illinois aligns with — and differs from — national trends: Time of day for fatal bike crashes in Illinois differed significantly from the national trend. NHTSA refers to this as the “time/light condition,” reporting, “over half (56%) of bicyclist fatalities occur in dawn, dusk, or nighttime conditions; the highest proportion.” In contrast, 87% of Illinois bicyclists were killed during those same time/light conditions, based on 20 of 23 crashes in which time of day was identified.

*** Chicago ***

* WTTW | CTA Says Federal Funding for Red Line Extension Still Expected Despite Freeze: “Our position is that the Red Line Extension Project’s full funding grant agreement that the CTA and (Federal Transit Administration) executed recently, like similar grant agreements that the CTA secured for projects such as the Red Purple Modernization Program, is a binding and legal commitment by the federal government to provide the committed and obligated funds,” CTA spokesperson Tammy Chase told WTTW News in a statement. “As a result, we do not interpret any recent activity to have any impact on the federal government’s commitment to fund this essential transit project.”

* ABC Chicago | ICE arrestee from local weekend raid ordered released by federal judge: After spending roughly 48 hours in federal custody - first at the HSI offices in Lombard, then at the MCC Chicago federal prison - Martinez-Cermeno is scheduled to be released from custody Tuesday evening. While prosecutors mentioned that there is an “ICE detainer” for Martinez-Cermeno, and that ICE would likely take him into custody upon his release, the judge said this was legally unacceptable as ICE did not have the proper judicial warrant to detain him further, and that an ICE detainer is only a “civil request.”

* Block Club | Chicago Emergency Response Times Are Worsening. A Slain Rapper’s Mom Wants to Know Why.: Weekly’s lawsuit highlights a persistent chorus of concerns over Chicago’s emergency response times, which critics say are too slow to help injured people. In Illinois, the state’s administrative code requires fire departments to measure EMS response times against a standard of six minutes, one minute longer than the National Fire Protection Association’s widely followed five-minute standard. Weekly’s lawsuit states that the city’s failure to transport Duck sooner delayed his access to care that could have potentially saved his life.

* WTTW | Johnson Declines to Immediately Respond to Request to Testify to Congress About Sanctuary City Status: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Tuesday declined to respond to a request from the Republican chairperson of the U.S. House Oversight Committee about the city’s self-proclaimed status as a sanctuary city. Instead, Johnson referred questions to the city’s top lawyer, Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry, who said the letter sent by U.S. Rep James Comer (R-Kentucky) was under “legal review.”

* Crain’s | Johnson’s invited to talk sanctuary cities in Congress, but will he go?: Johnson said he’d be willing to meet with Trump to discuss immigration issues, but has not reached out to the White House. “If the president of the United States of America wants to meet with me, I’m a phone call away,” he said.

* Dan McGrath | Wrapping up a miserable year in Chicago sports: The White Sox literally set a record for ineptitude with their 121 losses, but if you thought that was as bad as it gets, along came the Bears. They’ll finish 4-13 barring some unlikely miracle on Green Bay’s frozen tundra. They’ve done worse seven times in their century-long history — remember 1-13 in 1969? — but the 11-game losing streak the team will carry into next season is more representative of its flailing futility than the record.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* FOX Chicago | Tiffany Henyard involved in scuffle at heated Thornton Township meeting: According to those present, Henyard’s boyfriend confronted the activist, Jedidiah Brown, leading to an altercation. Henyard reportedly pushed her table aside and ran to the back of the room, allegedly joining the brawl. Police were on the scene as the situation unfolded.

* Shaw Local | Will County schools, local governments evaluate plans after Trump’s call to freeze federal funds: Lockport Township Supervisor Alex Zapien said the potential ramifications of the pause on federal funding are “concerning,” with several vital initiatives that could be affected. “For example, [Lockport] Township currently has an ARPA-funded senior bus project in progress and this may face delays or disruptions depending on the length of this pause. Furthermore, our partnership with the fire department on a mental health counseling program, which serves residents who heavily rely on Medicaid, could be jeopardized if Medicaid funding in Illinois is indeed blocked as is being reported,” Zapien said.

* Daily Herald | ‘A better toolbox’: Winter presents unique opportunities for restoration work in forest preserves: The large-scale restoration work of removing aggressive, invasive species and helping native ones flourish follows seasonal changes across the collar counties. […] “When you’re out chainsawing down trees and dragging brush, it is super physically intensive, and so you are not cold because you’re working so hard,” said Shaela Rabbit, natural resources specialist with the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County. “When it’s not very cold and the ground isn’t frozen, that means that we can’t have large equipment helping us clear, and we can’t get as much done as during the winter.”

*** Downstate ***

* SJ-R | ‘More questions than answers.’ White House memo sends Springfield agencies scrambling: One project that still could be left in the lurch is the Springfield Rail Improvements Project, according to U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield. Budzinski called Trump’s freeze on federal funding “reckless.”

* 25News Now | City of Bloomington leaders contemplate solutions to ‘terrifying’ reality of housing market: During Tuesday night’s Committee of the Whole meeting, Bloomington Normal Economic Development Council President and CEO Patrick Hoban said as the population continues to grow, there is already a need for 4,500 houses in 2025. “The terrifying part is if you project that out to 2030 and 2035, it’s saying you need 16,000 houses,” Hoban said. According to Mid-Illinois Realtors Association President Tracy Patkunas, there are only 99 homes on the market right now in Bloomington-Normal.

* 217 Today | A school district in northern Illinois banned smartphones this year. How is it going so far?: In today’s deep dive, we’ll learn about a school district in northern Illinois that banned cell phones in their high school and middle school hoping it would help students both socially and academically.

*** National ***

* NBC | ICE makes close to 1,200 arrests in one day: Data first obtained by NBC News shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a total of 1,179 people on Sunday, which is more than the 956 arrests that the agency posted on X on Sunday night. But just 613 of those total arrests — nearly 52% — were considered “criminal arrests.” The rest appear to be nonviolent offenders or people who have not committed any criminal offense other than crossing the border illegally.

* NYT | Kennedy, in His Own Words: Flu, Diabetes, Autism and More: For years Mr. Kennedy has questioned the safety of vaccines, including those for polio and measles, two diseases that continue to harm children. More recently, he has said that he’s not planning to take vaccines away from Americans but wants to release safety data to the public — even though nearly all of the data is already publicly available.