* Jury selection continues in the trial of Sen. Emil Jones III…

After this latest round of challenges, Judge Wood has excused eight of the 30 potential jurors for cause. No peremptory challenges have been made yet.

Questioning should resume in about 10 minutes or so.

— Jon Seidel (@SeidelContent) April 8, 2025

* WAND…

A Sangamon County judge decided the trial for a former Sangamon County deputy accused of shooting and killing Sonya Massey inside her home will move out of the county.

On Tuesday, Grayson was present in court while his attorney argued to move the trial out of Sangamon County. In the motion filed with the court, Grayson’s attorney argued that coverage and community engagement in the case “has made it virtually impossible to empanel a fair and impartial jury in Sangamon County.”

The judge agreed with Grayson’s attorney and decided it was best to move jury selection and the trial out of the county.

His case will now be heard in Peoria County.

*** Statehouse News ***

* WGLT | Illinois proposes a victim-first approach to combat human trafficking: There were more than 2,000 human trafficking victims in Illinois from 2019 to 2023, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. Nearly one-third of victims live in Central Illinois, one tally shows. Experts warn it can happen anywhere and to anyone — and they want something done to prevent this abuse and to help its victims. One of those experts on human trafficking is Carol Merna from the Center for Prevention of Abuse. The Peoria organization has been around for 50 years. It created a division to help combat human trafficking in 2018.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Southtown | Dolton trustees seek forensic audit of finances; Tiffany Henyard skips final meeting: Trustee Kiana Belcher, reelected to the board, moved to request proposals from outside firms to conduct a forensic audit, saying such a probe will “give us some clarity on what we don’t know” about village finances. Belcher said the audit would focus primarily on spending in the village’s Police, Water and Housing departments.

* Daily Herald | Des Plaines closer to creating local grocery sales tax: Des Plaines City Council members on Monday overwhelmingly supported creating a local 1% sales tax on grocery items to offset the pending elimination of an identical state tax. But the tax isn’t a sure thing yet. A second vote is needed.

* Tribune | Wind Creek to open hotel Friday at Chicago area’s fastest-growing casino: In March, Wind Creek hit new highs with nearly $16.9 million in adjusted gross receipts — up 25% month-over-month — and drew more than 219,000 visitors, according to data from the Illinois Gaming Board. Overall, the state’s 16 casinos generated $170.9 million in adjusted gross receipts and welcomed 1.39 million visitors last month; both figures were up by more than 21% over February.

* WTTW | Ex-Northwestern Football Players Expected to Settle Hazing Scandal Lawsuit Against University, Coach Pat Fitzgerald: A group of former Northwestern football players who sued the university following allegations of a yearslong hazing scandal under ex-head coach Pat Fitzgerald is expected to settle their lawsuit. According to a university spokesperson, settlement documents are currently being finalized after Northwestern and the former student athletes recently engaged in a mediation process that resulted in the agreement.

* Lake & McHenry County Scanner | Attorney has license suspended for defrauding victims out of $139K while working at McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office: A Crystal Lake attorney had his law license suspended for committing a scam where he defrauded victims out of $139,000 while working as a prosecutor for the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office. The Illinois Supreme Court issued a two-year suspension for attorney Brendan M. Pierard, of Crystal Lake, last month. […] The IARDC said Pierard’s suspension is due to him engaging in multiple acts of deceit over five years and committing wire fraud in connection with a cryptocurrency scam.

* Press Release | Project offers technical assistance to small food-related businesses in DuPage and Kane counties: The Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) is partnering with the Smart Energy Design Assistance Center (SEDAC), both units of the University of Illinois, to offer free technical assistance to 10 small food-related businesses in DuPage and Kane counties. Businesses will benefit by lowering their operational costs and reducing wasted food and resources, thereby increasing their sustainability. “Smaller businesses, such as restaurants, grocers, and food pantries, often don’t have the same opportunities for technical assistance as larger businesses,” said Zach Samaras, ISTC project manager. “With the smaller operations, we can make change happen quickly.”

* Crain’s | Local investor adds to suburban hotel buying spree: A venture led by Northbrook-based investor Parag Patel paid $13.1 million last month for the 107-room Home2 Suites by Hilton in northwest suburban Schaumburg, according to Cook County property records. The Patel venture bought the four-story inn at 1300 E. American Lane from an affiliate of Oak Brook-based Inland National Development, which completed construction of the property a couple blocks from Woodfield Mall in 2017.

*** Chicago ***

* Tribune | Mayor Brandon Johnson to jump-start budget talks with larger shortfalls expected: Johnson sent a letter to aldermen Monday outlining a series of initial budget-focused meetings starting this month and continuing through the summer. With the formal discussions, he hopes to quell pushback from a City Council widely frustrated by the delayed, tangled budget process he led last year. “We’re starting the process a lot earlier. We’re more transparent than we’ve ever been and the point of all of this is that we come together, collectively,” Johnson said at an unrelated news conference Tuesday. “This is not about pointing a finger at anyone.”

* Crain’s | Why Johnson’s industrial zoning plans are giving the biz community heartburn: Named for an environmental justice advocate from the city’s Southeast Side, Mayor Brandon Johnson is preparing new legislation meant to address the environmental impact caused by decades of clustering polluting companies in Chicago’s Black and Brown neighborhoods. Years in the making, Johnson is set to introduce the Hazel Johnson Cumulative Impacts Ordinance on April 16, but those plans could be stalled if the draft language has not yet landed on the right balance between addressing environmental harms without risking good-paying jobs to satisfy the City Council.

* Crain’s | Green Social Housing ordinance going up for a vote: The so-called Green Social Housing program would take $135 million from Johnson’s housing and economic development bond to establish a revolving loan fund allowing the city to partner with private developers to build or acquire apartment properties with at least 30% of the units permanently set aside as affordable housing. The program is ripe for in-demand neighborhoods where high market-rate apartments would more readily subsidize the costs of permanently maintaining the affordable units. The city’s development partner would manage the buildings.

*** Downstate ***

* PJ Star | Close races hang in balance as more than 2,000 Peoria ballots left to be counted: More than 2,000 ballots are expected to be tabulated Tuesday, according to Peoria County Election Commission Executive Director Elizabeth Gannon. Those ballots could be the deciding factor in the too-close-to-call races in Peoria’s 2nd and 4th council districts. Candidates Alex Carmona and Estrella Diaz were separated by just 73 votes following after the April 1 general election that saw Carmona tally 1,360 votes to 1,287 votes for Diaz.

*** National ***

* NYT | I.R.S. Agrees to Share Migrants’ Tax Information With ICE: The Internal Revenue Service has agreed to help homeland security officials find immigrants they are trying to deport, according to court records, committing to sharing information in what would be a fundamental change in how the tax collector uses its tightly regulated records. In a court filing, the Trump administration said that the I.R.S. and Immigration and Customs Enforcement had reached the agreement on Monday and that the two agencies had not yet shared any information. Under the terms of the deal, a redacted version of which was submitted in the case, ICE officials can ask the I.R.S. for information about people who have been ordered to leave the United States — or whom they are otherwise investigating.

* SCOTUS Blog | Justices pause order to reinstate fired federal employees: In a brief unsigned order, the court explained that it was not weighing in on the claims by other plaintiffs in the lawsuit – specifically, unions representing government employees, whose claims Alsup did not address because he concluded that he likely did not have the power to hear them. The court also did not weigh in on the propriety of the firings more generally. Justice Sonia Sotomayor indicated that she would have denied the Trump administration’s request to pause Alsup’s order.