* Fran Spielman interviewed House Speaker Chris Welch today…

Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch on Friday defended the revenue choices state lawmakers made to deliver a $1.5 billion mass transit bailout that he believes will serve as a long-term fix for Chicago area transit agencies. […]

Welch said the toll hike was the price that needed to be paid for labor support.

“It was important to them, if they were going to agree to give up almost a billion dollars a year from the road fund, that they can point to something that will help keep working people working and keep roads getting repaired,” the speaker said. “I believe it’s a very minimal fee: 45 cents on passenger vehicles per toll to help keep our toll roads some of the best in the country and still some of the lowest fees in the country.” […]

The mayor came up empty again, but Welch believes Johnson is “getting a better footing here in Springfield” with “a lot more presence” than he had at the start of his administration.

* Two federal judges have ruled the Trump administration must tap into emergency funds to partially cover food stamp benefits. NYT…

In his ruling from the bench in the SNAP benefits lawsuit, Judge John J. McConnell, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, told the Agriculture Department that it “must distribute the contingency money timely or as soon as possible for the Nov. 1 payments to be made.”

His order came mere minutes after another federal court in Massachusetts handed an early victory to about two dozen states, which similarly had sued to force the release of food stamp funding. In that case, Judge Indira Talwani, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, gave the administration until Monday to explain how it would fund benefits.

*** Statewide ***

* Sun-Times | ICE has powerful facial recognition app Illinois cops are barred from using — with little apparent oversight: The Trump administration has contracts with Clearview AI, a firm banned from doing business with Illinois police agencies. “This is what dystopian nightmares are made of, this kind of continual expansion of surveillance without any real oversight or restrictions,” says Jeramie Scott of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Shaw Local | State senate OKs bill to transfer Joliet prison land to Will County forest preserve district: Ventura, D-Joliet, is the sponsor of Senate Bill 1698, which was approved by the Senate on Wednesday. “This transfer will bring much-needed oversight and cleanup to land that has been neglected for too long,” Ventura said in the lease. “Management by the forest preserve will not only enforce proper use of the land, but will also expand access and accountability to the local community.”

* Shaw Local | DeKalb Park District’s proposed 2025 property tax levy would see residents owe about $120 more on bill: A tax levy is a tool that determines how much money a governing body will collect in property taxes each year. Other measures that contribute to the funding formula include the equalized assessed valuation of the taxing body and the tax rate. The levy amount makes for an estimated 20% increase for the district over the prior year’s aggregate extension of roughly $6.5 million, park board documents show. Under the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law, the district is limited to a 5% increase, or the consumer price index, or the rate of inflation, whichever is less, plus new construction.

*** Chicago ***

* Sun-Times | Massive oily asphalt spill in Chicago canal leaves environmental threat months later: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has overseen the removal of almost two tons of oil-based asphalt that the agency says spilled from Petroleum Fuel and Terminal Co., a Forest View business operating along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. While the company has been ordered by the EPA to modify its safety practices to avoid future spills into the water, the agency hasn’t issued any penalty or even a notice of violation almost nine months after the problem was detected. The business is responsible for the cleanup, however. Officials with St. Louis-based Apex Oil Co., which owns Petroleum Fuel and Terminal, did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

* Block Club | As ICE Targets Home Depot Stores, Advocates Say Company Is Failing To Protect Day Laborers: The company’s stores have historically been a place where day laborers, including many immigrants, have gathered outside to look for work from contract companies — but those workers have now been repeatedly targeted by federal agents. Organizers have said Home Depot isn’t doing enough to deter ICE and Border Patrol and to protect day laborers. “As a larger-scale corporation, you would hope that they would want to protect the life of their company: people who patronize it, people who work there and even folks who use their materials to be able to work,” Miller said.

* Crain’s | Former Mayor Daley creates merchant bank with son and longtime associate: The new venture, called Great Lakes Global Partners, combines Daley’s Tur Partners, which focused on advising distressed companies, and Great Lakes Global Holdings, an investment firm led by Adam Hitchcock. “GLGP focuses on the kinds of complex transactions traditional financial institutions cannot pursue on their own — opportunities that demand an understanding of government and finance,” Daley told Crain’s in an email. “It is the right platform for this moment, and I am proud to be part of it.”

* WBEZ | Harrison Ford recognized for environmental advocacy at Field Museum ceremony: Framed by dinosaur fossils and elephant taxidermy, Harrison Ford recalled his childhood in suburban Chicago, spending his weekends at the Lincoln Park Zoo and wandering outdoors during his free time. It was on one of those adventures in his neighborhood that he came face-to-face with a red fox, and that encounter led to a revelation, the actor and environmental activist said during a Field Museum conversation Wednesday evening.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Herald | Asleep at the wheel? Driver cited after self-driving Tesla rear-ends police SUV: Fresso, the report states, later admitted he had fallen asleep with his vehicle in self-driving mode and woke up too late to avoid the collision. Two South Barrington officers and the truck’s driver were taken by ambulance to Ascension St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates for treatment of nonlife-threatening injuries. They were later released.

* Daily Herald | Schaumburg gives apartment buildings more flexibility on switching between heating and A/C: While the benchmark dates remain, trustees’ unanimous vote allows landlords the ability to decide for themselves when to switch systems within 30 days of those dates. The complaints mainly have been about heat. The change means air conditioning could return as early as May 1 and linger as late as Oct. 15 each year.

*** Downstate ***

* WICS | Prosecution team in Sean Grayson’s trial breaks silence, urges judge to give max sentence: “At the sentencing hearing, we will be asking for the maximum sentence of second-degree murder,” State’s Attorney, John Milhiser, told NewsChannel 20. A jury found Grayson guilty of second -degree murder yesterday. He shot and killed Sonya Massey inside her home last July.

* Capitol News Illinois | ‘They are literally targeting people.’ ICE comes to southwest Illinois: When Jose Jeronimo Guardian showed up at a Spanish language traffic court this week, he didn’t expect to be detained and face expulsion from a country he’d lived in for more than two decades. Guardian, 48, was scheduled to appear Monday in a courtroom where a county-provided translator would aid communication with about a dozen Spanish-speaking defendants who face charges from traffic infractions like his — two charges of driving under the influence of alcohol — to serious felony charges.

* WSIL | RHI breaks ground on expanded clinic in Metropolis, IL: Rural Health, Inc. (RHI) has started construction on a new clinic in Metropolis with a groundbreaking event on Thursday. The facility will be located at 1521 East 5th Street. The new building will be just under 11,000 square feet, offering services like Family Medicine, Behavioral Health, General Dentistry, and an in-house pharmacy. This expansion is due to RHI outgrowing its current location at 1003 East 5th Street.

* WGLT | ‘Oh, hi Mark’: Actor Greg Sestero presents ‘The Room’ and ‘Big Shark’ at Normal Theater: Fans of the cult classic independent film The Room have the chance to say, “Oh, hi Mark” to Mark, played by actor Greg Sestero, at Normal Theater on Nov. 8. Sestero recalled that he started his creative projects around the age of 12 after seeing the movie Home Alone. “I just sat down and started writing a screenplay about Kevin McCallister getting lost in Disney World, getting on the wrong plane and meeting his long-lost best friend, who now lived at Disney World,” Sestero said.

* WCIA | U of I professors go viral after catching students using AI: When they started getting apology emails, they noticed nearly 100 emails all starting with “I sincerely apologize.” That’s when they knew students were using AI to write apology emails. […] “The first person was very apologetic,” Flanagan said to her students. “They said, ‘Dear Professor Flanagan, I want to sincerely apologize.’ And I was like, thank you, they’re owning up to it. They’re apologizing. and then I got a second one, and a third. And then everybody started ‘sincerely apologizing’ and suddenly it became a little less sincere.”

*** National ***

* AP | Young adults turn to Quakers’ silent worship to offset — and cope with — a noisy world: It has been called the “Westminster Abbey of Quakerism.” Yet for years, attendance at Arch Street was so low, and its historic 300-seat West Room felt so empty, that the few people present began to meet in a smaller room. But recent years have produced an unprecedented surge in the number of attendees at Sunday worship — from about 25 before the coronavirus pandemic to up to 100 today. “One of the things that I’m very excited about is the number of people that we have coming to meeting, and the fact that the majority of them are young,” says Hazele Goodridge, Arch Street’s clerk.

* 404 Media | You Can’t Refuse To Be Scanned by ICE’s Facial Recognition App, DHS Document Says: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not let people decline to be scanned by its new facial recognition app, which the agency uses to verify a person’s identity and their immigration status, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document obtained by 404 Media. The document also says any face photos taken by the app, called Mobile Fortify, will be stored for 15 years, including those of U.S. citizens.