* AP…

The Trump administration is releasing billions of dollars in grants to schools for adult literacy, English language instruction and other programs, the Education Department said Friday.

President Donald Trump’s administration had withheld $6 billion in funding on July 1 as part of a review to ensure spending aligned with the White House’s priorities.

The funding freeze had been challenged by several lawsuits as educators, Congress members from both parties and others called for the administration to release money schools rely on for a wide range of programs.

Last week, the department said it would release $1.3 billion of the money for after-school and summer programming. Without the money, school districts and nonprofits such as the YMCA and Boys and Girls Club of America had said they would have to close or scale back educational offerings this fall.

Illinois was set to lose over $240 million in funding.

* The Chicago Abortion Fund…

Since Iowa’s 6-week abortion ban went into effect on July 29, 2024, the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF), in partnership with the Iowa Abortion Access Fund (IAAF), have fielded support requests from over 870 Iowans facing barriers to abortion access. 

Since the ban took effect, and in partnership with IAAF, CAF has:

 
● Distributed over $400,000 total in abortion appointment costs and wrap-around support funding, including travel, lodging, and childcare expenses. 
● Met a 100% increase in costs for travel and related wrap-around needs – which grew from $40K in the year before the ban to over $80K in the year since the ban.
● Connected with 870 Iowans overall who were facing barriers to abortion care, 75% of whom traveled out-of-state for care. 
● Connected with over 360 Iowans that obtained care in Illinois, a 200% increase compared to the year before the ban was implemented.  […]

The number of Iowans seeking care in Illinois alone has more than doubled per the Guttmacher Institute’s Monthly Abortion Provision Study. Since the ban took effect, hundreds of Iowans have been forced to travel across state lines to Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska, often on short notice and without information about local abortion providers and support resources. Hundreds more, who are accessing care at home, face an extremely tight timeline to find out they are pregnant, make a decision about accessing abortion care, gather funds, make an appointment—with nearly no margin for error. 

* Governor Pritzker is headed to North Carolina this weekend to keynote the state Democratic Party’s Unity Dinner. The North Carolina GOP is on the attack…

The North Carolina Democratic Party’s “Unity Dinner” on Saturday will be an event of who can out-radical the next speaker with luminaries such as future U.S. Senate loser Roy Cooper and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker taking the stage.

The Pritzker Record in Illinois is what Democrats want here in North Carolina. Here’s a few more!

MORE TAXES (Your author senses a theme)

Illinois has 27 of the nation’s top 50 counties for highest property tax rates. And five of Illinois’ metro areas are in the nation’s top 10, including the four highest in the country.

The state also features the second-highest gasoline tax in the U.S. behind California.

SUPPORTING SANCTUARY FOR ILLEGALS

Pritzker defends Illinois sanctuary laws at congressional hearing, saying, “I will stand in the way of Tom Homan.”

BONUS!

“As a protest against Trump’s rescinding protections for trans kids, everyone should use the other gender’s bathroom today! #protecttranskids,” Pritzker tweeted in February 2017.

“JB Pritzker’s Illinois is a vision Democrats have for our state: a wasteland of higher taxes, bloated spending, and sanctuary for illegal immigrants. Democrats do not care about the health, safety, and well-being of North Carolina families and that’s why they will lose up and down the ballot in 2026,” said NCGOP Communications Director Matt Mercer.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Daily Herald | Mundelein’s Henning sets sights on Johnson’s state Senate seat: Attorney Chris Henning will seek the Republican nomination in the 30th Senate District next March. The post now is held by Democrat Adriane Johnson of Buffalo Grove. Henning is a U.S. Army veteran who has never held elected office. In a news release from the Senate Republican Victory Fund, Henning said he’s “lived the same struggles so many families in our district are facing.” “We need leaders who not only understand those challenges but who are willing to fight for real solutions,” he said.

* Streetsblog Chicago | State Sen. Ram Villivalam: Here’s how we can stop Chicagoland transit from falling off the fiscal cliff: “And so I think those negotiations, those committee hearings, the piece of legislation, the CMAP report, they really represent what reforms are in the legislation that we have, and a lot of the funding concepts came from those meetings and reports as well. Long story short, I think that we put our product forward in the Senate, and we believe there’s wide consensus on the reforms. And in terms of the funding, it was our plan for $1.5 billion in funding for the entire state public transit systems. And so we’re looking forward to having the conversation with the House and Governor’s Office. If they have a better plan, we’re all ears. If there’s no other plan, we’d like to see our legislation move forward,” Sen. Villivalam said.

* Aurora Beacon-News | State Sen. Donald DeWitte will not seek reelection in 2026, says current priority is transit fiscal cliff: He told The Beacon-News he’s not planning to retire, but wants to “redirect (his) energy” to some other opportunity in public service. He said he wouldn’t definitively rule out running for another office, but said he wasn’t seeking anything currently. But, for now, he said the mass transit fiscal cliff is “number one on (his) plate right now” as he finishes out his term in the General Assembly in Springfield. Chicago area transit agencies are currently facing a $771 million budget shortfall, according to past reporting. Illinois lawmakers recently adjourned their spring legislative session without passing legislation that would avert the fiscal cliff.

*** Chicago ***

* Crain’s | Jury sides with CME in $2.1 billion class action by former pit traders: A jury has found in favor of CME Group in a decade-old class action brought by former pit traders who claimed the value of their memberships tanked during the shift to electronic trading. The plaintiffs, a group of nearly 4,000 traders, had been seeking $2.149 billion in damages from the exchange operator for the lost value of their memberships following the 2012 opening of CME’s data center in suburban Aurora. The jury reached the verdict this afternoon following a three-week trial in the case, which was first filed in 2014.

* Sun-Times | Chicago’s federal judges choose Andrew Boutros as top prosecutor: U.S. District Chief Judge Virginia Kendall signed a general order dated Thursday that said the “full court” had “approved the appointment” of Boutros, effective Aug. 5. It said the judges met in executive session Monday. Boutros joins a growing list of court-appointed U.S. attorneys originally appointed by President Donald Trump’s attorney general, and not voted on by the Senate. The orders providing for the court appointments have varied in detail, with some noting they were made by “unanimous” or “affirmative vote” of a court’s judges.

* Sun-Times | Last remnant of Columbus statue being removed from Grant Park as city looks to add ‘rotating art’: Newly appointed Chicago Park District Supt. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa issued a statement saying the temporary art would “celebrate Chicago’s diverse communities” in a proposed “Peoples’ Plaza.” The new plaza is expected to open in late summer or early fall after pavement restoration. Ron Onesti, president of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, viewed the move as a betrayal of the innovative agreement he cut with Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration nearly three months ago.

* Tribune | Former Robert Emmet Elementary School in Austin gets new life as community center, workforce development facility: The second life of the building, now called the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation, is the brainchild of the community group Austin Coming Together and the nonprofit Westside Health Authority. They envisioned continuing its history as a community resource, rather than let it fall into private hands. “Austin is surrounded by manufacturing zones on three sides, but even with all the jobs around us, there wasn’t the infrastructure to get people the certifications and training they need to be considered for those jobs,” said Natalie Goodin, interim director of the new center. The partners brought in architecture firm Lamar Johnson Collaborative to design the $40 million renovation, which transformed the fenced-off parking lot into a community plaza and added a three-story, glass-walled entrance that glows at night.

* Daily Southtown | Immigrant brothers work as a doctor and lawyer, but at Lollapalooza they’re the Donut Dudes: Going to night prayer at 3 a.m. wasn’t always easy for Khader and Mohammed “Moe” Zahdan when they were boys, so their dad used a little fatherly ingenuity to encourage them — he took them to a local donut shop afterwards. That fostered a love of donuts in the brothers, who also inherited an entrepreneurial streak from both their parents, and eventually led them to open Donut Dudes at 10301 S. Kedzie Ave. a few years ago in Mt. Greenwood. They’ve since expanded to a kiosk at 10559 S. Harlem Ave. in Chicago Ridge, and are regular vendors at Lollapalooza and Taste of Chicago.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Tribune | Impact of Trump’s immigration crackdown felt in Chicago suburbs: Now, community members say it’s more challenging to secure a job without proper documentation. Recordings of plainclothes officers raiding factories, approaching vehicles or setting up in vacant parking lots near homes have become commonplace on social media. People leave their homes each day, preparing for the eventuality that they might not return. In a statement sent to the Tribune, a spokesperson for Nestlé said that it aims to fill the positions by “converting as many of our current temporary workers as possible and through direct hiring,” but did not specify how many of the 600-700 positions have been filled.

* Press Release | Elizabeth Granato Wins Cook County Board of Commissioners Endorsements: Today, Cook County Commissioners Scott Britton (14th District), Bill Lowry (3rd District), Stanley Moore (4th District), and Josina Morita (13th District) endorsed Elizabeth Granato for a seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners. […] Granato announced her candidacy earlier this week with the backing of the Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers ADC 1 Illinois and Ironworkers District Council of Chicago & Vicinity. 

* Crain’s | Prime Healthcare replaces Joliet hospital chief: Prime Healthcare, the new owner of St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet and seven other former Ascension Illinois hospitals, announced today that Barbara Martin is leaving her position as chief executive officer of the Joliet hospital and would be replaced by an interim CEO, effective immediately. The California-based for-profit health system thanked Martin for her contribution and said she had come out of retirement to helm the financially troubled hospital in March 2024. Martin was stepping into a contentious labor dispute with nurses who had held three strikes in the span of several months.

* Daily Herald | Elgin cold case detectives launch season 2 of hit podcast, seeking to solve 1970s murders and disappearance of Barbara Glueckert: Less than 50 days after the first episode dropped, authorities pulled her 1980 Toyota Celica from the Fox River on March 25. The skeletal remains inside quickly were identified as Karen’s. Det. Andrew Houghton said Karen’s cause of death officially remains undetermined, but police believe it was a tragic accident. There was no evidence of trauma to her remains, the car was found with the key in the ignition, in fourth gear, its windows closed and the emergency brake activated — all indications that it was driven into the river, not pushed. The discovery helped catapult “Somebody Knows Something” into the podcast stratosphere — it became among the top 1% in downloads nationally — and thrust Houghton and partner Matt Vartanian into the spotlight. They appeared on national TV, were featured speakers at the True Crime Podcast Festival in Boston last week, and next month will travel to Denver for the CrimeCon Clue Awards, where they’re among three finalists for “America’s Greatest Detective.”

* WTTW | 4 Piping Plover Chicks Just Landed in Waukegan. Ecologists Released the Captive-Reared Fledglings in Hopes of a New Generation: The arrival of the four chicks — two males and two females — was a much-needed morale boost for monitors after Waukegan’s piping plover mates, Blaze and Pepper, lost three of their four hatchlings this summer. It was a stark contrast to the pair’s first charmed breeding season in 2024, when they successfully reared three chicks. Their lone survivor in 2025, the newly named Aster, has immediately taken to the newcomers, Lueck said. “All five of them were together,” she said. “It was magical.”

* Daily Herald | Kane County humane group takes in pets from Texas after catastrophic floods: Rescue animals from parts of Texas devastated by catastrophic flooding this month arrived at the Aurora Municipal Airport on Thursday and were taken in by area shelters. The plane transporting dozens of animals landed in Aurora, and more than a dozen went to four Illinois shelters, including Anderson Humane in Kane County.

*** Downstate ***

* Muddy River News | QPS superintendent issues new public statement in wake of Denman Elementary controversy: Todd Pettit set out to reassure those who spoke at the meeting that their comments were taken seriously about years of conduct that included taping of students’ mouths and birthday spankings. He said the administration did all it could to get input from those directly involved after a November 2024 DCFS investigation concluded that the conduct of teachers Kimberly Kirby and Jennifer Oitker was inappropriate, but did not rise to the level of criminality or abuse. “We hear those in our community who are frustrated, sad, disappointed, and even angry about the events and how QPS has addressed the situation,” Pettit’s statement read. “While we cannot force or compel anyone to agree with the manner it was handled, we are hopeful that people can acknowledge, or even respect, that QPS has sought to follow the facts and evidence wherever it led. We have been open to and sought to interview any parent and/or student who has raised a complaint and accepted an invitation to meet in person or by phone.”

* President and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association Mark Denzler…

* WCIA | DACC Board finalizes contract for new President: At a June 26 meeting, DACC’s Board of Trustees officially named Dr. Randy Fletcher as the next President of the college. Following his appointment, it was announced on July 24 that the Board approved a four-year employment contract outlining key terms of his presidency. Dr. Fletcher, who had been serving as Interim President since December 2024, started his official term on July 1 and will continue in the role through June 30, 2029.

* WICS | Illinois State Fair enhances security with new measures: Additional security measures are being implemented at the Grandstand to maintain a safe environment for event attendees and entertainers. New this year are metal detectors and bag checks at all Grandstand entrances. Bags larger than 14″x8″, including backpacks and duffle bags, will not be allowed.

* WCIA | Hundreds of music students travel from 28 states, perfecting marching band skills at EIU: About 1,000 students from 28 different states are dedicating parts of their summer to Smith Walbridge Clinics (SWC), a unique program on the Eastern Illinois University campus. Each week focuses on a different aspect of the marching arts, such as skills for drumline, color guard, and drum majors alike. The final two weeks of the camp are tailored for drum majors, those who lead and conduct bands, at the high school and college levels.

*** National ***

* Stat News | Trump seeks to make it easier for people with mental illnesses to be involuntarily committed: The administration wants to expand involuntary commitments by reversing judicial policies that restrict the use of the controversial approach and by providing grants, legal advice, and other assistance to local and state governments. The order also directs several agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, to audit grant recipients to ensure no money flows to organizations that promote policies that clash with the administration’s stated values. […] Many public health professionals believe that involuntary commitment should be used as a last resort, if it is used at all. They suggested that involuntary treatment lacks sufficient evidence for its expansion and would only dissuade individuals from seeking care.

* WIRED | How Trump Killed Cancer Research: He paused NIH grant-making for more than two months, holding up an estimated $1.5 billion in funding. He effectively halted clinical trials of new drugs. He laid off thousands of employees at the FDA, the NIH, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, an estimated $35 million in already-funded research—including for cancer—was thrown into jeopardy when Trump instituted a hiring freeze. At the EPA, staff were instructed to cancel existing grants, including to the Health Effects Institute, which has published research on the link between air pollution and cancer. And in the stopgap funding measure, set to expire in September, Republicans cut about 60 percent from the Defense Department’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs—including funding for research on breast and ovarian cancers. (The programs for pancreatic, kidney, and lung cancer disappeared from the agency’s list of funded projects and rolled under another program, which did not receive any additional funding for 2025.) At the National Institutes of Health, some grants resumed and others were slated for termination. The current state of US cancer research could fairly be described as—confusion.

* Slate | Millions of Americans Need These Drugs. RFK Jr.’s Minions Have Them in Their Crosshairs: Of the 10 panelists, only one—the sole specialist in maternal mood disorders at the event—argued for SSRIs’ safety and value. The others insisted, with just as much of a sense of authority and certainty, that the medications were ineffective and that they caused miscarriages, hemorrhaging, autism, ADHD, cardiac birth defects, fetal alcohol syndrome, and other frightening outcomes. For any pregnant woman tuning in or later hearing about the two-hour conversation, it would be hard to come away without a sense of confusion and anxiety about taking antidepressants.