* Sun-Times…

Early childhood education advocates, including the Illinois Head Start Association, are seeking to expand their ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration to include new immigration status checks that the plaintiffs say are unlawful.

The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union for Head Start advocates in Illinois and five other states in April, accuses the president of harming the longtime federal preschool program for low-income families through a series of illegal changes, the latest on Thursday targeting undocumented immigrants. […]

In Illinois, about 28,000 children too young for kindergarten attend Head Start programs.

“In Chicago, our programs already see families living in fear — including refugees, undocumented parents, and those here on student visas,” Lauri Morrison-Frichtl, executive director of Illinois Head Start, said in a news release. “This directive adds to that fear, denying children critical educational opportunities and threatening the well-being of entire communities.”

* At least some national Republican lawmakers are hoping to introduce legislation to revoke the federal charter of the National Education Association…

The NEA is a radical, anti-American group that has declared war on parents and children.

They’re pushing gender propaganda, promoting antisemitism, and bankrolling the Democrat Party.

I joined @RepMarkHarrisNC and @Moms4Liberty to END their federal charter!

WATCH: pic.twitter.com/KWmtwcA8i9

— Rep. Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) July 16, 2025

*** Statewide ***

* WCIS | American Cancer Society seeks more Illinois Road to Recovery drivers: A program known as the Road to Recovery allows volunteer drivers to take patients to their doctor’s appointments free of charge. […] Some patients said they have built relationships they will never forget. “I didn’t feel like I was being picked up off the curb and dropped off at the curb,” cancer patient Marcus Ford said. “He rode with me. Literally rode with me through the entire process.”

* WCIA | Illinois AG files lawsuit against Trump admin over education grant freeze: In the lawsuit, Raoul and the coalition argue that the Trump administration’s actions violate federal funding statutes. These include the Anti-deficiency Act, the Appropriations Act, the Administrative Procedure Act and the Impoundment Control Act, as well as multiple provisions of the U.S. Constitution. This coalition is calling the Trump administration’s decision to freeze billions of dollars in funding for six longstanding education grants, “unconstitutional, unlawful and arbitrary.” The administration’s decision comes just weeks before the start of the new school year.

*** Statehouse News ***

* WAND | Illinois lawmaker proposes ban on foreign clean energy components to protect grid, national security: An Illinois Republican lawmaker has filed a bill to ban the use of renewable energy components made by foreign adversaries in any Illinois energy projects. Senate Deputy Minority Leader Sue Rezin told WAND News her plan could protect the state’s energy grid and national security. The Morris Republican said she is concerned about security risks tied to inverters, batteries and other components of solar panels and wind turbines.

* Center Square | State reps counter Lt. Gov. candidate’s claim that ethics led Illinois energy legislation: Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s candidate for lieutenant governor, former State Rep. Christian Mitchell, D-Chicago, addressed a question about ethics at a campaign stop with the governor in Chicago earlier this month. “Listen, when we passed the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), we led with ethics. The governor said ethics was his first principle, and so we worked to make sure that how energy legislation was done, instead of being done in a conference room of our largest energy provider, was done in the light of day in large working groups. We made sure that we ended the formula rates that ended up getting a lot of people in legal trouble,” Mitchell said. […] State Rep. Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis, said it was evident in this year’s legislative session that the General Assembly’s supermajority Democrats have no desire to pass meaningful ethics reform. “The things that Mr. Mitchell pointed to in CEJA are very minor changes to our ethics laws. They do not do really anything that I think an objective observer would say is meaningful change to our ethics laws,” Windhorst told The Center Square.

*** Chicago ***

* Sun-Times | City Council fails to override Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s snap curfew veto: Johnson frequently points to the tangible progress being made by his “holistic” strategy of having police work with community-based “violence interrupters” while investing more in young people to confront the “root causes” of crime. He reiterated that point again Wednesday, saying Chicago is coming off the “safest Memorial Day weekend in 16 years” and the “least violent July Fourth weekend” in six years.

* Crain’s | Union standoff delays $1.1B riverfront project near Bally’s site again: Utilizing a mechanism to require action if the developer’s zoning change request fails to receive a vote in the Zoning Committee, the project was set to be considered at today’s City Council meeting, but allies of the union used a parliamentary maneuver to block the vote. Ald. Michael Rodriguez, 22nd, and Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, motioned to defer and publish the measure, pushing off a vote until the next City Council meeting.

* Block Club | Push To Allow New Coach Houses, Basement Units Citywide Advances — With Restrictions: The ordinance, which includes coach houses, basement apartments and so-called granny flats, must still be approved by the full City Council, which meets Wednesday. Under the amended legislation, however, some districts zoned for residential use would see a limit on how many ADUs could be built on specific blocks. That change was added at the last minute to win over support from hesitant City Council members.

* WTTW | Chicago Park District’s Internal Review of Douglass Park Pool Shooting Identifies ‘Gaps’ in Oversight: “To date, the Park District’s review has not identified a specific warning that Leto would commit such a violent act,” officials said in a statement. At the same time, the internal investigation “identified gaps in employee oversight, communication and documentation,” according to the statement. Several emails, texts and incident reports relevant to the investigation have been posted online by the Park District for the public to access. These documents show that at least two patrons lodged complaints about Leto in the past. Both involved verbal altercations that were resolved on site by supervisors, and never formally documented in the district’s centralized human resources files, which may have escalated disciplinary action.

* WTTW | Chicago to Pay $35.2M to Settle 4 Police Misconduct Cases: Less than seven months into the year, Chicago taxpayers have spent at least $224.5 million to resolve nearly two and a half dozen lawsuits, exceeding the city’s budget to resolve lawsuits alleging police misconduct by more than $142 million, city records show. It is unclear how the city will find the money to make the payments approved Wednesday by the City Council, since it has already exhausted the $82 million officials set aside to cover police misconduct settlements and judgments in 2025.

* Crain’s | Tribune staffers brace for layoffs as buyout offer falls flat: The union representing Chicago Tribune newsroom employees expects layoffs to begin soon after buyouts announced last month failed to get many takers. The Chicago Tribune Guild, a unit of The NewsGuild, told members in a July 10 email that “layoffs will come soon” but had few other details after a July 9 meeting with management. Just one person took the buyout, according to the email: Longtime political reporter Ray Long, who announced his retirement last month after more than 27 years at the paper. His coverage included corruption scandals involving former Speaker of the Illinois House Mike Madigan, which he chronicled in a 2022 book.

* Tribune | Man working as peacekeeper shot in South Shore: ‘We got a long way to go’: Duncan watched an orange cat step between the shell casings as detectives and evidence technicians examined nearby cars and buildings. He wore khaki shorts, sneakers and a t-shirt that read #MakePeaceCool. “People who are trying to help create peace are still victims of violence,” he said. “We got a long way to go as a city.” Ald. Desmon Yancy, 5th, was disappointed to find himself at the scene of shooting, especially given how the year had been going. “That stretch of 71st Street had actually been much quieter than in previous summers,” he said. “So there was some comfort and some hope that that bad behavior was behind us.”

* Tribune | Chicago creating index to identify neighborhoods most vulnerable to heat waves: The team, the Defusing Disasters Working Group, compiled data on citywide heat deaths to produce Chicago’s first heat vulnerability index. The tool shows which Chicago neighborhoods are at the highest risk during heat waves, based on not only their history of heat-related deaths but also on several other factors, including demographics, land use and air conditioning access. This initial version of the map shows a band of neighborhoods stretching from Chatham and Englewood in the south to Austin and Portage Park farther north where heat vulnerability is the highest. Neighborhoods closer to Lake Michigan tended to have lower scores, while those farther inland often had higher scores.

* CBS | U.S. Senate panel holds hearing on cargo thefts, a serious problem in Chicago and beyond: Chris Spear, president of the American Trucking Associations cargo thefts have been growing more and more sophisticated. He said he has noticed a shift from opportunistic thieves to highly organized criminal enterprises that use identify theft, fraud, and cyber capabilities to steal or redirect cargo. The money in some cases fuels cartels, terrorists, and human traffickers. “We’re talking about transnational organizations that are operating from Eastern Europe, Russia, hacking into our systems, redirecting the most valuable cargo,” Spear said.

* Tribune | Angel Reese sits out Chicago Sky loss with a leg injury. Will she be able to play in the All-Star Game?: Coach Tyler Marsh described Reese’s absence as “precautionary,” but the injury throws some uncertainty into Reese’s availability for the WNBA All-Star Game on Saturday in Indianapolis. “I think she should be OK, but I’m not sure,” Marsh said. “She’s taking it day by day. She’s feeling better today.” Reese was selected as an All-Star reserve for the second consecutive season. The 6-foot-3 forward is averaging 14 points and a league-high 12.6 rebounds and leads the Sky with 31.7 minutes per game, which ranks 13th in the league.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Shaw Local | Lifting Joliet residency rule for city workers stirs more debate: Mayor Terry D’Arcy on Tuesday said Joliet needs more apartments if it wants a residency requirement for city workers. D’Arcy’s comments came as the City Council approved a second union contract allowing city workers to live as far a 50 miles away. One resident called the vote “anti-Joliet” as debate continued over whether the city should keep a residency requirement. D’Arcy repeated his argument that the city lacks the available housing, especially apartments, needed to hire workers with a residency rule in place.

* Daily Southtown | The south suburban world where Pope Leo XIV grew up now very much changed: But restoring the world Prevost grew up in and around Dolton is not possible. The village has evolved, and many of the boyhood haunts that he and children his age may have frequented, including movie theaters and dime stores, are now empty buildings and photos in history books.

* Chicago Mag | Jackman & Co. Will Bring English Pub Favorites to Glenview: O’Donnell is very firm that Jackman & Co. is not one of those replica pubs with mass-produced antiques on the walls and mediocre fish and chips on the menu. While it’s very much inspired by the great pubs of the United Kingdom, it’s also a Midwestern restaurant. “I’m not trying to make everything ‘proper’,” he says. Now, some things are absolutely proper, including British chips and aioli, but don’t expect a theme restaurant. The menu is broken down into four sections — snacks, small, medium, and large. Snacks include Devils on Horseback (cheddar-stuffed dates with bacon and maple) and hand-cut chips. Small plates include English peas and bacon with leek cream, spiced lamb samosas, and a Peekytoe crab toast with dill. Larger dishes, like red curry prawns or a spatchcocked Cornish hen with figs and roasted olives round out the menu, and of course fish and chips are a highlight.

*** Downstate ***

* WIFR | Measles case confirmed in Jo Daviess County: Daviess County health officials sound the alarm after a confirmed case of measles is reported in the county. If you were at The Country Store at Eagle Ridge Resort and Spa, 109 Eagle Ridge Dr., any time between 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 6, and you are unvaccinated or unsure of your vaccination status, you are encouraged to contact your healthcare provider.

* WCIA | Homelessness up in Champaign County; CSPH pushes for investment in community: A total of 355 people were identified as homeless in the county in this year’s PIT count in January. This number is up from the 279 homeless people accounted for in Jan. 2024. The count was conducted by the Champaign County Continuum of Services Providers to the Homeless (CSPH) on Jan. 22, with more than 40 volunteers helping.

* WGLT | Judge cites Aaron Rossi’s ‘hubris and unlimited greed’ in giving 3 more years in prison for COVID fraud: Former Reditus Labs CEO Aaron Rossi’s “fast-paced disruptor mentality” got the best of him when he defrauded the State of Illinois and public and private insurers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars at the height of the COVID pandemic. That’s the phrase Rossi used to describe his actions during a sentencing hearing Tuesday in front of Chief Judge Sara Darrow in Peoria. Those actions resulted in a 37-month prison sentence handed down by Darrow. Rossi faced a maximum of 30 years.

* WSIL | Mine collapse reported in Perry County, two hospitalized: Two people were hospitalized after emergency crews responded to a report of a mine collapse in Perry County on Monday night. The Pinckneyville Ambulance Service said they sent crews out to the Knight Hawk Coal mine at around 10 p.m. on July 14. Dan Wilkerson, Assistant Coordinator with the Pinckneyville Ambulance Service said two people were flown out for treatment of their injuries. One flown by Arch helicopter to SLU Hospital and Air Evac to a hospital in Carbondale.

* WIFR | Several Winnebago Co. tornado sirens out of order, community worries about safety: Berry adds it will just take time. Schomber, however, worries mobile alerts may not be feasible for everyone, namely those who have difficulty using their phones. She suggests people get a weather radio. “Other people that I’ve said, you know, they’re not watching the local stations. They might be streaming something, so they’re not getting the alerts on TV,” Schomber said. “So we need something, you know, in the community to tell our people.”

* WSIL | Funding now available for senior farmers’ market coupons, senior representative says: This information comes from the Egyptian Area Agency on Aging Executive Director Becky Salazar. On July 9, Salazar said funding wasn’t available for vendors when redeeming coupons in connection with the 2025 Illinois Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program. Therefore, senior facilities held onto the coupon booklets and did not distribute them to area seniors until the money was available. On July 16, Salazar said the funding came into the account and the vendors at area farmers’ markets who honor the coupons, are now able to be reimbursed by the state.

* WGLT | B-N street minister and author shares experiences through homeless outreach book: This past winter, Bloomington-Normal street outreach teams visited unhoused people living outside and provided supplies to get them through the freezing temperatures. While providing this type of care to unhoused individuals, Bloomington-Normal street minister Bobby Jovanović said it inspired him to write a book. “I just think this past winter was pretty rough,” Jovanović said, “and in one encampment particularly that sat on the water, it’s obviously colder there, you’re beating the elements [and] there’s no transportation [to services.]”

*** National ***

* Gizmodo | Billionaires Convince Themselves AI Chatbots Are Close to Making New Scientific Discoveries: Generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok have exploded in popularity as AI becomes mainstream. These tools don’t have the ability to make new scientific discoveries on their own, but billionaires are convinced that AI is on the cusp of doing just that. And the latest episode of the All-In podcast helps explain why these guys think AI is extremely close to revolutionizing scientific knowledge.

* Apple | The Illusion of Thinking: Understanding the Strengths and Limitations of Reasoning Models via the Lens of Problem Complexity: Recent generations of frontier language models have introduced Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) that generate detailed thinking processes before providing answers. While these models demonstrate improved performance on reasoning benchmarks, their fundamental capabilities, scaling properties, and limitations remain insufficiently understood. Current evaluations primarily focus on established mathematical and coding benchmarks, emphasizing final answer accuracy. However, this evaluation paradigm often suffers from data contamination and does not provide insights into the reasoning traces’ structure and quality.

* Study Finds | Musical Training May Hold The Key To Fighting Age-Related Brain Decline: Scientists have discovered that lifelong musical training appears to shield the brain against one of aging’s most common challenges: understanding speech in noisy environments. The study, published in PLOS Biology, found that older musicians’ brains maintain remarkably youthful patterns of neural connectivity, essentially preventing the typical age-related changes that make it harder to follow conversations when there’s background noise.

* NYT | Kennedy Fires Two Top Aides in Health Department Shake-Up: The firings included Heather Flick Melanson, his chief of staff, and Hannah Anderson, his deputy chief of staff for policy, according to two people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the personnel changes. Both Ms. Flick Melanson and Ms. Anderson were seen as steady and effective government veterans. During a recent Senate hearing, Mr. Kennedy indicated that they were the people in his office to call to get things done. When one lawmaker raised a concern about regulations governing the amount of sugar in orange juice, Mr. Kennedy advised: “Why don’t you call Heather Flick or Hannah Anderson this week? And we will act on that as quickly as we can.”

* CBS | Can female crash test dummies improve safety? A bipartisan group of senators push for equality in testing: Women make up more than half of U.S. drivers, but are 73% more likely to suffer serious injuries in a crash than men, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They are 17% more likely to be killed, data shows. … Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois added, “So there are all those moms and daughters and sisters and best friends come home.” Duckworth and Fischer, along with Sens. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, and Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, are sponsoring the “She Drives Act” to update federal crashworthiness tests by requiring the use of advanced test dummies that better reflect the driving public, including one simulating a woman who’s 4′11″ and 108 pounds.