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Isabel’s afternoon roundup
Friday, Jun 20, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * The trial is expected to last four weeks…
* Crain’s…
* Planned Parenthood of Illinois…
* US Rep. Robin Kelly receives CBCPAC endorsement…
* IDES…
* Statewide | New insight into Mary Lincoln’s “madness”: Newly discovered correspondence between Mrs. Lincoln and her friends and family – letters long assumed to have been lost or destroyed – shed new light on the nature of her illness as well as the nature of her relationships with the few friends and family she had left by that time. The Dark Days of Abraham Lincoln’s Widow, As Revealed by Her Own Letters,” was compiled by historian Jason Emerson and was recently released by Southern Illinois University Press. * Tribune | Amid federal funding uncertainty, Illinois lawmakers add ‘safety valve’ to state budget: “The magnitude and volume of problems that Trump and his administration are creating is something that no state has ever dealt with before. So it will have limited use,” Andy Manar, the deputy governor on budget issues, said of the $100 million fund. “But it will serve a very strategic role.” The state has also expanded the state treasurer’s authority to lend up to $2 billion to the comptroller to pay bills, building on emergency lending powers used during the budget impasse of former Gov. Bruce Rauner, as well as expanded payroll protections for state workers funded by federal grants. * Illinois hemp growers mixed over spring legislative session : Rachel Berry tells Brownfield, “A mixed bag.” She says, “We didn’t see a lot of movement with regulation, or any surprises come up like we did last session, but we really pushed this season for some commonsense regulation, and you know, we just couldn’t get.” Last fall a proposal in the Illinois General Assembly would’ve banned the sale of many hemp products outside of licensed cannabis dispensaries, but Berry says she was grateful those efforts didn’t resurface. * Sun-Times | Chicago cop linked to federal extortion case is now under investigation by Chicago police: According to prosecutors, the officer told the FBI he left guns at a home of Fakroune in the Chicago area. The officer said Fakroune failed to return the guns, which prosecutors said were later seized on Dec. 18 in an FBI raid of a home where Fakroune was staying in Manhattan. They said the officer reported the guns stolen, but some information in his report was false. * Crain’s | Supreme Court refuses to expedite Chicago-area toymakers’ challenge to Trump’s tariffs: The companies want the court to take the unusual step of considering the case without waiting for a federal appeals court to rule. The administration says the Supreme Court should let the normal appellate process play out. The clash is putting Trump’s tariffs before the justices for the first time. A federal district judge agreed with educational-toy makers Learning Resources Inc. and hand2mind Inc. that Trump lacked authority under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to issue the import taxes. * Triibe | ‘Roll N Peace’ combats perception that Black people don’t ride bikes, especially in Englewood: “I remember when I initially had this idea, and I was just kind of sharing it with people, and everybody was trying to deter me from doing it,” Perkins said. “They were saying that Black people don’t ride bikes, and nobody will ride bikes through Englewood at night, on a Friday night, and how dangerous it could be and all of that.” * Sun-Times | Misericordia’s Sister Rosemary Connelly has died at 94: ‘She saw our kids as people, not as disabilities’: By 1954, the Home for Infants housed about 50 children with developmental challenges like Down syndrome and cerebral palsy. In 1969, the task of keeping them alive until the state could take over fell to Sister Rosemary Connelly, a 38-year-old nun from the Sisters of Mercy who knew little of Misericordia but immediately realized she had found her calling. “I felt God’s presence on my very first day at Misericordia,” she said. “I could tell that all the children were loved.” * Tribune | Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf to be deposed in Rate Field shooting lawsuit: Reinsdorf — who’s in the midst of a deal to sell the team he’s owned for more than 40 years — must give sworn testimony by July 31. An attorney for the White Sox, Robert Shannon, told Judge Sarah Brunson on Friday that the questions for Reinsdorf will likely center around comments he made to the media in the days after the shooting, as well as the team’s decision to not call off the rest of the game after the shooting occurred. * Block Club | Sammy Sosa Returns To Wrigley Field For 1st Time Since 2004 Cubs Exit: For years, Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts had said he wanted an apology from Sosa for allegedly using performance-enhancing drugs. Sosa has always denied those allegations, but the relationship between the two showed signs of harmony when Sosa offered a semi-apology this winter. “There were times I did whatever I could to recover from injuries in an effort to keep my strength up to perform over 162 games,’’ Sosa said in a statement in December. “I never broke any laws, but in hindsight, I made mistakes and I apologize.’’ Sosa will return Friday to Wrigley Field and is set to be inducted into the Cubs Hall of Fame this summer, according to The Score’s Bruce Levine. * Crain’s | Bears, Sox radio flagship moving to Chicago Board of Trade Building: Good Karma Brands confirmed it has signed a lease in the historic 44-story office tower at 141 W. Jackson Blvd. The Milwaukee-based owner of radio station WMVP-AM/1000 is slated to relocate its Chicago office and studio early next year to about 15,000 feet in the Loop landmark from its longtime home at 190 N. State St. * Sun-Times | ‘Dangerously hot and humid’ weekend expected in Chicago area, with heat index jumping to 105: Temperatures are expected to reach the mid 90s on Saturday and continue climbing throughout the weekend and into Monday, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures in the city won’t drop below 75 degrees overnight, and some areas could see them stay as high as 80. * Charles Stelle | Waukegan loses another firm to Wisconsin: While Gov. JB Pritzker was trying to answer inane questions from congressional Republicans last week, officials in Wisconsin were finalizing a deal to bring a top-notch Waukegan manufacturer to the Badger State. The impending move of Yaskawa America was but one in a series of recent bad jobs news for Illinois. […] In Libertyville, 133 employees at two Bristol Myers Squibb sites in Innovation Park, off Route 45, south of Winchester Road, will be out of work beginning July 1. The pharmaceutical firm announced the layoffs early last month. Cardinal Logistics Management Corp., a North Carolina-based transportation and warehousing company, has gotten rid of 43 employees in Naperville * Tribune | PADS Lake County set to renovate former Waukegan motel into a fixed-site shelter for the homeless: With a $2 million grant in hand from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO), PADS Executive Director Allen Swilley said the organization is primed to begin renovation on a shuttered motel to make it a permanent shelter. Swilley said when complete, a family will have the privacy of a motel room converted into a small efficiency apartment with common areas nearby for children’s enrichment and developing skills to move into their own home in a reasonable amount of time. * Daily Herald | Tobacco shop passes first test under new Mount Prospect policy; trustees concerned about Delta-8, Kratom: The board approved the permit with youth-protection conditions including elimination of window signage except for the name, hours and age restrictions. The shop is banned from selling cartoon-themed apparel and smoking accessories targeting youth, with apparel limited to nontobacco and vape-branded items. “No stylized T-shirts or anything with cartoons would be permitted,” said Community Development Director Jason Shallcross. * Chalkbeat Chicago | Juneteenth: How classroom lessons sparked a community-wide celebration: apped by the county to work on a new Underground Railroad unit, I came to the project with an educator’s mindset and a heart for justice. What unfolded over the next several months, however, was more than a lesson plan for local students. It was a journey of reconnection, reckoning, and restoration. And it all began with a question: What would it mean for students to see themselves not just as learners of history, but as part of it? That question anchored our team of educators’ work as we developed a unit exploring the Underground Railroad through the lens of Caroline Quarlls. Quarlls’ journey from slavery to freedom began in St. Louis; she passed through Crete on her way to Canada. Bolstered by a county grant, my colleagues and I designed the middle and high school curriculum with a deep commitment to place-based education and social-emotional learning. * BND | Metro-east leaders say state is forcing them to implement local grocery taxes: Belleville City Council and Swansea Village Board approved ordinances on Monday night to implement their own 1% local grocery taxes to replace the state tax. Many other metro-east municipalities have taken the same action or plan to do so in the near future. Belleville Mayor Jenny Gain Meyer said the city would lose about $1 million in annual revenue without a grocery tax, forcing officials to find replacement funds or cut city services. “This isn’t a new tax,” she said. “If you’re going shopping right now, you’re paying this tax. It’s just going to continue.” * Daily Southtown | In backdrop of shuttered MetroSouth hospital in Blue Island, south suburban officials warn Medicaid cuts could undermine health care: Blue Island’s former MetroSouth hospital served as a warning Friday of what could happen if President Donald Trump’s big bill aimed at slashing federal spending and extending tax cuts becomes law, elected officials and health care workers said Friday. “We went through a hospital closure right down the street, and we know what that did to this community, but not just this community, the South Side of Chicago and the south suburbs,” state Rep. Bob Rita said at a news conference on the impact of Medicaid cuts. * WGLT | After Minnesota killings, elected officials in B-N say violent rhetoric here comes at a cost: Since the Minnesota killings, County Board member Corey Beirne said he’s been wondering how safe he should feel and what’s the line between cowardly internet attacks and a real physical threat. One recent example: Earlier this year Beirne posted to Facebook about immigration enforcement in McLean County schools. Beirne is a Unit 5 teacher. “That exploded. That blew up,” he said. “There were several individuals who threatened to – I’m vision-impaired, I only have one functioning eye – take my other eye. To hang me. To ‘take Beirne to the bay.’ There were a number of death threats by a number of individuals. One particular individual posted no less than 213 times on my campaign [Facebook] page. He was reaching out to school administrators, the parents of my students, with various accusations and threats.” * WMBD | Duckworth warns Medicaid cuts will impact 60,000 people in Peoria County: The Senate budget bill would kick 60,000 people in Peoria County off Medicaid, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said at a Thursday press conference with local health care advocates and Medicaid recipients about the consequences of Medicaid cuts. The Senate’s version of the budget bill, released Monday, includes even deeper cuts to Medicaid than the House bill. It imposes stiffer work requirements, while the House version provided some exemptions. * WCIA | Danville Farmers Market increasing accessibility with personal shopper program: The Danville Farmers Market is taking extra steps to make sure everybody can have access to fresh products. This weekend they’re introducing the Personal Shopper Program. It lets people who can’t easily walk through the market themselves order up to five items per visit. * WGLT | Bloomington to celebrate Juneteenth, including honoring three ‘community icons’: The Bloomington-Normal community will mark Juneteenth on Saturday during an event at Miller Park, featuring live music and dance, activities for kids, and a ceremony commemorating three community servants. The Juneteenth event runs from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Miller Park. It’s hosted by the City of Bloomington and the Bloomington-Normal Black History Project. This free event will feature live performances, food trucks, a children’s area, soul line dancing, the introduction of Bloomington-Normal’s first Miss Juneteenth, and free admission to the Miller Park Zoo and mini-golf course. * WaPo | As Trump shuts out migrants, Spain opens its doors and fuels economic growth: In this nation of 48 million with long colonial links to the New World, an influx of predominantly Latin American immigrants is helping fuel one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe. The Spanish economic transformation is unfolding as the center-left government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has streamlined immigration rules while offering legal status to roughly 700,000 irregular migrants since 2021. * WaPo | Parsing ICE’s mixed-up, hard-to-believe assault claims: We should begin by noting that the 413 percent figure — mentioned in a DHS social media post about Lander on Tuesday — has been deployed by DHS since early May. In a post from mid-April, the figure was 300 percent, suggesting that some recalculation had been undertaken. If that’s the case, though, either the number of assaults since early May has been steady or DHS hasn’t bothered to update the figure even as their officers have been deployed much more broadly in an effort to increase immigrant arrests. That ICE uses a percentage is telling. A 413 percent increase could mean that the number of assaults went from 200 in 2024 to 1,026 in 2025 — or that it went from eight to 41. I hasten to say that, of course, assaulting anyone, including law enforcement officers, is unacceptable. But there’s a big difference between an increase of 826 assaults and an increase of 33 — especially if some of those “assaults” are of the Lander variety. * Sun-Times | Court cases offer a look inside ‘one of the most violent biker gangs in the country’: The Sin City Deciples had thousands of members across the country, some connected to political figures and cops, prosecutors say — including a Gary police chaplain who admitted killing the son of a former Gary police chief. * Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette’s statement after been shot in their home…
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- Leatherneck - Friday, Jun 20, 25 @ 3:13 pm:
=Bears, Sox radio flagship moving to Chicago Board of Trade Building: Good Karma Brands confirmed it has signed a lease in the historic 44-story office tower at 141 W. Jackson Blvd=
Good Karma Brands must own WMVP but the teams on their station play more like Bad Karma Brands.
- Dirty Red - Friday, Jun 20, 25 @ 3:49 pm:
Does CBCPAC typically endorse in contested primaries?