* Sun-Times…

Suburban communities in Illinois are failing to meet the requirements set out for them in a 22-year-old law aimed at increasing the state’s affordable housing supply.

The Illinois General Assembly passed the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act in 2003 to “address the shortage of affordable, accessible, safe, and sanitary housing,” the law says. It requires eligible municipalities to submit reports to the state every five years, detailing their plans to build more affordable housing units.

A new report found only around a quarter of submissions were compliant, according to Impact for Equity, a nonprofit focused on legal and policy issues in Illinois. All but one of the 44 jurisdictions that need to submit plans are located in the Chicago area.

“The law is … not doing what it needs to do to get us to a place that we need to be as a state,” Suni Kartha, coauthor of the report and attorney at Impact for Equity, said. The organization successfully advocated to amend the law in 2023, in an effort to boost compliance.

*** Statewide ***

* WBEZ | Trump administration to strip protections for wetlands and streams, leaving Illinois habitat at risk: At the heart of the proposal announced earlier this week is a new, stricter definition to the long-debated legal term, “Waters of the United States,” the federal guidance that determines which bodies of water are protected under the 1972 Clean Water Act. The proposal codifies a 2023 Supreme Court decision that limited federal protection to wetlands indistinguishable from larger, relatively permanent bodies of water like streams, rivers and lakes. Effectively, the new definition excludes seasonal streams and wetlands, which remain dry for much of the year.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Capitol News Illinois | 9 months after federal bribery conviction, former Speaker Madigan disbarred: On Wednesday, the Supreme Court approved Madigan’s motion, although the official order mistakenly listed his middle name as “James” two of the five times it appeared on the document. The others correctly stated it as Joseph.

* Alton Telegraph | State’s top doc, others blast change in CDC site linking vaccines to autism: U.S. Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Dixon said in a statement that “studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities” and that prompted the change. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a longtime vaccine critic and has made multiple claims of a correlation between autism and vaccines and acetaminophen use during pregnancy. Saying the medical community is unhappy would be an understatement, with many lashing out — including Illinois Department of Public Health Director Sameer Vohra.

*** Chicago ***

* Tribune | Program that allows police to directly file some gun charges to expand citywide: The program, which means prosecutors in the office’s Felony Review Unit will not first assess charges in some cases, has been controversial among some advocacy groups and community members, who objected to the pilot programs starting out in majority-Black neighborhoods and argued that an initial review was an important oversight measure. But officials with the state’s attorney’s office said prosecutors still review the charges early in the case, adding that the process change has eased bottlenecks and freed up prosecutors and police officers for higher priority, victim-centric work.

* Tribune | Federal gun charges unsealed against man arrested after alleged shots at immigration agents in Little Village: A few hours before Gómez’s arrest, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents had called 911 to report that someone in a black Jeep had fired at them one block to the north. Law enforcement sources said the 9mm pistol Gómez had on his lap at the time of his arrest was being analyzed to see if it matched shell casings found on the street near that shooting.

* Crain’s | British menswear brand Charles Tyrwhitt plans Mag Mile store: The deal helped push the slowly recovering shopping strip’s vacancy rate down slightly to 28.7% at the end of the third quarter, according to data from Chicago-based retail brokerage Kirsch Agency. It’s also a sign of life at a property that traded hands via a deed in lieu of foreclosure last year. Global asset management firm Barings took over the retail space in June 2024 after the former landlord, New York investor Ashkenazy Acquisition, defaulted on a $61 million loan in 2023. Barings didn’t respond to a request for comment on the Charles Tyrwhitt lease.

* Sun-Times | Off-duty Chicago cop accidentally shoots himself in groin outside police station in Gresham: The man, 22, was in the parking lot of the station, 7808 S. Halsted St., when the firearm in his waistband went off around 10:05 p.m. and grazed him in the groin, police said. He was “wearing street clothes” and “heading for duty” when the gun discharged and “he accidentally shot himself in the testicles,” according to Office of Emergency Management and Communications records obtained by the Sun-Times. An officer in distress call was made around the time of the shooting.

* Tribune | Feld, Ever and Kasama react to Chicago Michelin awards: ‘I don’t think we ever cooked with a star in mind’: On the heels of a newly coveted Michelin star, chef Jake Potashnick of Feld is still just processing the fact that his Ukrainian Village restaurant lives to see another winter. He’s chuffed — completely. Creating his own restaurant has been a dream since he was 7 years old. But a star within 16 months of being open is unmistakably impressive, and something he struggles to wrap his head around.

* Chicago Mag | Why Are There So Many Old Style Signs in Chicago?: Old Style, which controlled a third of the local market in the 1980s, isn’t as popular here as it used to be. (Budweiser took its place as the Cubs’ official beer in 2014.) Still, the Old Style sign remains as a symbol of a classic Chicago tavern, labeled “Cerveza Fría” in Latino neighborhoods and “Zimne Piwo” on the Polish Northwest Side. The Old Style Bar Project has documented hundreds of Chicago-area signs on its website, out of the 2,000 installed throughout the Midwest. We may not drink as much Old Style as we once did, but no other beer is so beloved.

* Crain’s | Forget dinner. Chicago execs are helicoptering clients to Michigan wine country: Vertiport Chicago, a commercial helicopter facility located blocks from the Illinois Medical District, is ramping up its business with tours that take clients winery hopping on the southwestern coast of Michigan. The round-trip tours, which start north of $9,000, have attracted both international and local business folks, said Vertiport executive director Daniel Mojica. They’re looking to entertain, incentivize or reward employees and clients.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Sun-Times | Cook County townships to reopen property tax appeals window: The Cook County Board of Review is reopening the property tax appeals window in townships that have closed it for the 2025 appeal season. The Board typically gives taxpayers in townships a 30-day filing window to appeal assessed property values after bills are sent. But “unprecedented circumstances” following a four-month delay in mailing second installment bills has led the Board to reopen the window in every closed township, the Board of Review said in a news release Thursday.

* Crain’s | ​River Forest doctor charged with $1M Medicaid, Medicare fraud scheme: The Illinois attorney general’s office alleges Dr. Mohammad Khamis received more than $1 million in Medicaid and Medicare payments for care and prescriptions not rendered by Khamis himself, but by his unlicensed medical student. Khamis, 56, is detained at the Cook County Department of Corrections, according to a press release yesterday from Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office.

* Daily Herald | Ex-cop working as school security officer charged with breaking into kids’ bedroom in Bloomingdale: A former Bensenville police officer has lost a job as a high school security officer after being accused of breaking into the bedroom of two Bloomingdale children in the middle of the night. The Fenton High School District 100 school board terminated Carmen Mirandola on Wednesday night. In a letter to parents, the district announced it had fired someone who was involved in a Nov. 8 “law enforcement incident.” The incident was a home invasion, according to charges filed against Mirandola in DuPage County Circuit Court.

* Pioneer Press | Elmwood Park’s lead pipes become poster child in push for EPA funds for replacement: A group of area mayors and other politicians gathered in Elmwood Park recently to make a plea for financial support for efforts to replace aging lead pipes used in water delivery systems statewide. U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is running for the U.S. Senate, stepped just outside of his 8th District to Elmwood Park to announce a proposal urging the federal Environmental Protection Agency to create a grant program that would eliminate lead pipes that can lead to contaminated drinking water in household taps.

*** Downstate ***

* BND | Metro-east employees are first in Illinois to get workers’ comp for radiation: Roughly 70 former employees of a metro-east factory tied to the Manhattan Project—and the spouses of deceased workers—have become the first group in Illinois to receive workers’ compensation for radiation exposure. “I am literally a landmark decision,” said Larry Burgan, one of the former employees of Spectrulite Consortium Inc.

* WSIL | Former pastor from Southern Illinois jailed for COVID relief fraud: A former pastor from Hamilton County received a 21-month prison sentence for fraudulently acquiring COVID-19 relief funds meant for his church. The US Department of Justice, United States Attorney’s Office Southern District of Illinois, said Terry Hall, 58, of McLeansboro, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and making false statements. The attorney’s office said he was ordered to repay $199,900 plus interest to the Small Business Administration and will serve two years of supervised release after imprisonment.

* WSIL | Cairo families to receive Thanksgiving meals from Comptroller: The initiative is supported by donations from Laborers’ Local 773 and Operators 318 in Marion, Sen. Dale Fowler of Harrisburg, and the Polish and Slavic Federal Credit Union. Krispy Kreme in Marion is contributing boxes of donuts. This marks the ninth year the Illinois Office of Comptroller has provided Thanksgiving meals to Cairo families. Employees in Chicago and Springfield have also collected canned goods and toiletries for the Cairo Women’s Shelter.

* IPM News | This niche card game has a loyal following in an Illinois prison: In 2001, Danville Correctional Center banned the family and friends of those incarcerated from sending them Magic: The Gathering cards. “At the time, the cards were identified as a potential security risk because of their perceived value and their ability to be used in trading,” Illinois Department of Corrections spokesperson Naomi Puzzello said in an emailed statement. But in 2021, the prison began hosting Magic: The Gathering tournaments, using old cards it had from before the ban.

*** National ***

* ProPublica | “We’re Broken”: As Federal Prisons Run Low on Food and Toilet Paper, Corrections Officers Are Leaving in Droves for ICE: And at some facilities, staff said the agency had even stopped providing basic hygiene items for officers, such as paper towels, soap and toilet paper. “I have never seen it like this in all my 25 years,” an officer in Texas told ProPublica. “You have to literally go around carrying your own roll of toilet paper. No paper towels, you have to bring your own stuff. No soap. I even ordered little sheets that you put in an envelope and it turns to soap because there wasn’t any soap.”

* CNBC | Fed won’t get key inflation data before next rate decision as BLS cancels October CPI release: The Bureau of Labor Statistics said it was canceling the release of the October consumer price index, leaving the Federal Reserve without a key piece of inflation data to ponder when it next decides on interest rates on Dec. 10. The CPI data, previously scheduled to be released on Nov. 7, was canceled because the government shutdown made it impossible for the BLS to “retroactively collect” certain parts of survey data, the agency said on its website.

* AP | Fugees rapper Pras Michel sentenced to 14 years in prison over illegal donations to Obama campaign: In April 2023, a federal jury convicted Michel of 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The trial in Washington, D.C., included testimony from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Justice Department prosecutors said federal sentencing guidelines recommended a life sentence for Michel, whom they said “betrayed his country for money” and “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his schemes.”