* Chicago Tribune…

Public transit riders could soon know which of their bus routes and train lines will get cut if the CTA, Metra and Pace don’t secure hundreds of millions of dollars in additional state funding.

That’s because the board of the Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees the three public transit agencies, has directed them to get specific.

RTA board Chairman Kirk Dillard sent a letter to his counterparts at the CTA, Metra and Pace telling them to come prepared to talk about service cuts in detail at the Oct. 3 meeting of the RTA’s Ad Hoc Committee on Transit Funding. The leaders of each agency were also copied on the letter, dated Thursday. […]

On Oct. 3, the three agencies should be ready to detail exactly what types of service cuts they plan to make “with as much specificity as possible,” the letter said. They should also be prepared to say when service cuts and fare increases will take place and when layoff notices will go out to workers, it said.

* From Rich: US Rep. Jonathan Jackson attended Sen. Willie Preston’s congressional fundraiser over the weekend. Preston is running in the open 2nd Congressional District. Another possible contender is Congressman Jackson’s brother, Jesse Jackson, Jr. So, make of this what you will…

*** Statewide ***

* Sun-Times | Head Start preschool remains open to all regardless of immigration status, two judges rule: The Illinois Head Start association filed a lawsuit, along with other Head Start and parent advocate groups and the American Civil Liberties Union, to halt the changes to the rules announced by the Trump administration. Another suit was filed by Illinois and 19 other states with Democratic attorneys general, plus the District of Columbia. This week in both cases, Republican-appointed federal judges agreed to block the changes.

* Bloomberg | Illinois toymakers’ tariff challenge puts Trump’s deficit plan at risk: “We called in every favor we had” in the effort to shift out of China, get safety tests done and go into production in India, Ruffman said. “All to come in at a higher tariff than it would have if we’d kept it in China” she said — referring to how the president last month jacked up the US surtax on Indian imports to 50%. Meantime, the added levy on goods from China has come down to 30%. So far this year, Ruffman said her company has paid more than $5.5 million in tariffs, compared with just $2.3 million for all of 2024. And the bill would be much higher if the company hadn’t paused production on many of their goods to avoid significant price hikes, Ruffman said.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* The Bond Buyer| Moody’s upgrade buoys Cook County as it prepares to sell bonds: Cook County, Illinois, plans to go to market Oct. 1 with $150 million of sales tax revenue bonds. The deal comes on the heels of a Moody’s Ratings upgrade to Aa3 from A1 on Thursday.

* Tribune | Lake County’s 911 consolidation rift resurfaces: ‘What do we do now to protect and serve the county?’: The $100,000 was for getting the Sheriff’s 911 dispatchers emergency medical dispatch training and certification, which is a state requirement, although a waiver has been in place since 2022. The board, in a split vote, ultimately put the item on indefinite hold, with Chair Sandy Hart saying it would reopen the item if the state were to end the waiver. Those in favor of the delay argued it was a case of duplication of services, something LakeComm was created to address, and urged the Sheriff’s Office to move towards consolidation to address more fundamental issues. Those opposed felt the training was important regardless of the consolidation controversy, and should not be delayed.

* Tribune | Federal immigration agents make arrests in Chicago and West Chicago with sightings in several other suburbs: State Sen. Karina Villa, a Democrat from West Chicago, said she saw the federal agents assembling at a West Chicago Police Department station parking lot early Monday. When she confronted them about why they were present, they dispersed, she said. At some point, she said there were “probably over five” arrests, though she said that was not confirmed independently by federal or local law enforcement. Villa said volunteers in the community were dispatched to take video or photos of immigration enforcement activity, and the agents were wearing vests that identified them as being from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and they were in “unmarked vehicles.”

* Daily Herald | ICE activity reported in West Chicago: District 33 Superintendent Kristina Davis said the “secondhand reports” indicated people have been detained. “We were only hearing rumors,” Davis said about noon Monday, nearly five hours after first being notified of ICE activity. “We have not verified any of that,” she said. “But at this point in terms of who or how many people, we have heard that there have been some people detained, but we have not been given any names or verification of who that might be, at this time.”

* Shaw Local | Data center construction could be more expensive in Yorkville with increased building fees: “Current permit and plan review fees were not designed to address the scale and technical complexity associated with data center facilities, which often include millions of cubic feet in building volume and require hundreds of inspections per structure,” Krysti Barksdale-Noble, community development director, states in city documents. City officials looked at the towns of Aurora, Elk Grove Village, and Hoffman Estates, all which have data center developments, to craft their own figures.

*** Chicago ***

* Sun-Times | City Council Finance Committee backs $90M payout to resolve 176 lawsuits tied to corrupt cop Ronald Watts: A City Council committee tried Monday to write a $90 million ending to one of the ugliest chapters in the Chicago Police Department’s checkered history of disgraced cops. A Finance Committee that has closely scrutinized and occasionally stalled prior settlements tied to allegations of police wrongdoing unanimously jumped at the chance to resolve 176 lawsuits tied to former Chicago police Sgt. Ronald Watts in one fell swoop.

* NBC Chicago | Bears fan vowed to run a mile for every point the team loses by. Then Sunday happened: “The Chicago Bears could destroy my legs today,” Bandolik posted on TikTok ahead of the game, making a vow that sparked plenty of attention. His video quickly garnered hundreds of thousands of views as fans watch the numbers during the Bears-Lions game quickly climb. “Just start running from Chicago to Detroit,” one commenter said.

* Sun-Times | Chicago directors are leaning into film’s favorite new genre: the tech bubble-inspired horror comedy: Both locally sourced and set films screen at the 32nd Chicago Underground Film Festival, which opens Wednesday and runs through Sept. 21. Co-founded by Bryan Wendorf, the 2025 edition of this maverick nonprofit fest lines up 26 features and 38 shorts (lengths range from two minutes to over three hours). Wendorf expects about 60 filmmakers to attend audience talkbacks after showing their work.

*** Downstate ***

* Pantagraph | Delayed McLean County audit preventing release of $18M in tax revenue: The release of roughly $18.7 million in property tax revenue for McLean County is contingent on when the county can submit its 2024 annual audit, which is three months overdue, to the Illinois Comptroller’s Office. This delay has also caused the county to pay thousands in additional billing services to its external auditor, CliftonLarsonAllen. State statute also allows the comptroller to assess daily fines for overdue audits.

* STL PR | East St. Louis affordable housing development quickly sells out : All the units of a new affordable housing development in downtown East St. Louis, 38 apartments and townhomes, have already been spoken for since going on the market just a couple of months ago. Called Winstanley Park, the $13 million development offers one- to four-bedroom units that primarily serve working families. The project, spearheaded by a Baptist church’s economic development arm and the Illinois Housing Development Authority, aims to breathe new life into East St. Louis and will serve as a stepping stone for more development, according to the project’s backers.

* WCIA | Secretary of State announces $28 million for IL libraries, literacy programs: More than $28 million is going to libraries across the state — including several in Central Illinois — courtesy of Secretary of State and State Librarian Alexi Giannoulias. Giannoulias’ office announced a series of grants on Monday that will go toward regional library systems and literacy programs.

* WGLT | Normal Town Council to consider allowing more pets per household: Town staff say in a memo to the council that pet limits are common among Illinois communities “as an exercise of police power to protect public health, safety and welfare.” The proposed ordinance would increase the number to three animals per species. So, if approved, three cats or three dogs would be allowed in a home, compared to current limit of two.

*** National ***

* 404 Media | Airlines Sell 5 Billion Plane Ticket Records to the Government For Warrantless Searching: The contract provides new insight into the scale of the sale of passengers’ data by the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), the airlines-owned data broker. The contract shows ARC’s data includes information related to more than 270 carriers and is sourced through more than 12,800 travel agencies. ARC has previously told the government to not reveal to the public where this passenger data came from, which includes peoples’ names, full flight itineraries, and financial details.

* AP | Trump threatens to take over DC police again over immigration enforcement: Trump’s emergency order, which took over the local police force, expired last week. Hours before it elapsed, Mayor Muriel Bowser said that the city would not cooperate with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement in their continued operations in the nation’s capital. Earlier, she had said the city would work with other federal agencies even after the emergency order expired. In an early-morning social media post on Monday, Trump said his intervention into the D.C.’s law enforcement had improved crime in the city, a claim Bowser has backed up, though, data shows crime was already falling in Washington before the law enforcement surge began.

* Politico | ‘The whole thing is screwed up’: Farmers in deep-red Pennsylvania struggle to find workers: In Tioga County, where President Donald Trump won 75 percent of the vote in 2024, farmers are losing patience with the White House’s promise of a quick solution for farm workers. Their urgent need is highlighted by stories like those of a multigenerational dairy farm that sold off all its dairy cows because the owner could not find workers and another where a farmer’s job listings have received no responses.

* AP | Abortion advocates raise alarm about social platforms removing posts in apparent overreach: Clinics, advocacy groups and individuals who share abortion-related content online say they are seeing informational posts being taken down even if the posts don’t clearly violate the platforms’ policies. […] The [Electronic Frontier Foundation] says it received close to 100 examples of content takedowns from abortion providers, advocacy groups and individuals on Meta platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, as well as TikTok and even LinkedIn.