* Tribune…

Cook County prosecutors on Wednesday dismissed 21 cases that were filed against protesters at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Broadview, including charges for 15 moms who hopped concrete barricades in a highly publicized act of civil disobedience.

During a short court appearance at a branch courthouse in Maywood, prosecutors referenced extenuating circumstances when dropping the misdemeanor cases, according to an attorney for the women, Nick Albukerk. The decision was lauded by the women, who gathered with coffee and donuts outside the courthouse after the proceedings. […]

Throughout October and November, local authorities arrested more than 100 people outside the immigration facility, most on misdemeanor offenses involving allegations of disobeying police officers or obstructing or resisting, raising questions about how the state’s attorney’s office would handle the cases once they go up before a judge. […]

Most of the cases are still pending, though prosecutors have also dismissed charges against a batch of around 19 other protesters. At least two cases have been resolved through guilty pleas.

* Citizens Utility Board…

As financial losses mount for Illinois consumers with alternative electric and gas suppliers, the watchdog Citizens Utility Board (CUB) has joined with other consumer advocates and state Rep. Kimberly Du Buclet to advocate for the No More Utility Bill Rip-Offs Customer Protection Act (House Bill 4313), a series of reforms to protect utility customers from bad energy deals.

Amid an affordability crisis–in which costs for necessities such as utilities, groceries and healthcare–are high, the consumer advocates also issued a statewide warning against bad deals peddled by alternative suppliers. Advocates are concerned that warmer weather and headlines about elevated utility bills will make conditions conducive to rip-offs, as suppliers launch door-to-door marketing campaigns.

CUB said HB 4313, sponsored by Rep. Du Buclet, would build off the Home Energy Affordability and Transparency (HEAT) Act, historic consumer protections against bad energy deals passed in 2019, and help ensure Illinois’ electricity and gas markets are working as intended for consumers. The consumer group urged Illinois consumers to contact their legislators in favor of the reform legislation. […]

HB 4313 would implement several key protections and market enhancements to help shield customers from bad deals. It would…

● Require that suppliers can’t at any time charge a supply rate more than 25 percent higher than the utility supply price.
● Require a customer signature at the time of automatic contract renewal of the offer, if the supplier is increasing the customer’s rate.
● Ensure that salespeople of electricity and gas suppliers are not paid on an incentive basis. (This market enhancement protects alternative supplier sales representatives, as well as consumers, by preventing abusive practices by employers.)
● Requiring suppliers to provide more accurate data to the ICC for utility price-comparison purposes.

* WAND…

One of the few surviving dresses worn by Mary Lincoln is on display at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM).

Known as the “strawberry dress” for its decorative pattern of berries and leaves, the dress can be seen in the “Lincoln: A Life and Legacy that Defined a Nation” exhibit.

The dress was preserved by Lincoln’s relatives for generations until it was donated to the state of Illinois in 1963.

The ALPLM said the dress is very fragile, so it is rarely put on display. This is the first time since 2011 that the dress will be viewable to the public.

*** Statehouse News ***

* WAND | Attorney Gen. demands GoFundMe prove removal of all plagiarized charities’ web pages: Attorney General Kwame Raoul and 21 attorneys general and charitable regulators sent a letter to GoFundMe after reports the company plagiarized donation web pages for charities nationwide without the charities’ knowledge or consent. In the letter, Raoul and the coalition said they shared concerns about GoFundMe’s “misconduct” and called for “immediate remedial measures, such as providing proof the company has removed all unauthorized donation web pages.”

* WBEZ | Illinois Democrats call for state commission to probe Epstein files for local ties : The proposed bipartisan Illinois Epstein Files Investigation Commission would have subpoena power to probe crimes tied to the late financier that “happened in Illinois, targeted Illinois residents or involved people and institutions subject to Illinois law,” according to state Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, D-Bridgeview. […] Under Rashid’s bill, a 10-member commission would be able to refer cases to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office, where state prosecutors also would be empowered to seek a statewide grand jury to examine allegations of trafficking, sexual exploitation, racketeering, bribery, official misconduct, obstruction of justice and witness intimidation.

* WGLT | Illinois lawmakers consider removing the 2-year foreign language requirement for high school: State Rep. Travis Weaver, representing a rural area between Peoria and the Quad Cities, is the Republican sponsor of the bill to have the requirement dropped. He said AI is making learning another language not as valuable for students as they join the workforce. “As I look at the value of foreign language, it’s not that I’m saying that there’s no value in it, I just think that there’s a much higher value in other skills that are irreplaceable by AI.” Weaver said.

* Sun-Times | Pritzker urges Secretary of State Marco Rubio to help stranded Americans in the Middle East: The Democratic governor detailed his concerns, and offered suggestions, in a letter penned to Rubio and Mora Namdar, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs. It came after Pritzker participated in a staff-level briefing with the State Department on Tuesday, along with other governors’ offices and congressional offices. According to a source familiar with the call, the department did not provide further details or “instill confidence” that there is a plan to transport stuck Americans out of the area.

*** Chicago ***

* WTTW | Chicago’s Watchdog Says City Lawyers Withheld Records About ‘High-Profile’ Hires: Witzburg, who is set to leave office next month after serving just one term in office, said her office obtained the records by submitting an “anonymous” Freedom of Information Act request for the records at the center of the dispute. It was “improper” for the department led by Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry to refuse to provide those records to the Office of the Inspector General, Witzburg said in a statement.

* Chalkbeat Chicago | Chicago school board Vice President Olga Bautista steps down: Bautista has remained a close Johnson ally on the board: She was one of seven members on the 21-person board who voted no on the district’s budget last fall when a majority of the board backed it, flouting the mayor’s push to include a controversial pension reimbursement to the city and take out a high-cost loan to afford it. She steps down as campaigns for all seats on the board, which will be up for grabs in November, are getting underway.

* Sun-Times | Pokémon fans swamp the Field Museum’s website on day 1 of tickets sales for exhibit in May: “I knew it was going to be popular. So I thought, I’ll get my tickets when they go on sale, but I didn’t expect it to be so crazy,” said Genevieve Bookwalter, who was getting tickets for her family, including her 6-year-old son Gus. “Once I was in line, I thought, I might as well just stay here because if I get out, it’s just going to be worse.” […] A Chicago Sun-Times check Wednesday morning found almost no wait for Chicago and Illinois residents seeking to buy tickets, but a line of 23,497 people for nonresidents.

* Tribune | Most endangered Chicago buildings list includes Pope Leo’s childhood church and Art Institute trading room: There’s a lot more than eight endangered structures if you count the iconic bridges and tender houses falling into disrepair along the Chicago River, which collectively form one item on the expanded list. And topping Preservation Chicago’s 24th annual list are two historical features at the Art Institute, which may fall by the wayside under a plan to expand the sprawling campus along South Michigan Avenue.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Southtown | Dolton works on plans to pay $33.5 million judgment; hires new village administrator: Dolton has three options to pay the $33.5 million judgment and accrued interest from a police chase lawsuit filed in 2022, Sullivan said during a court hearing Feb. 20. The village can issue a bond, issue a tax levy increase or increase costs of services. House said Monday the village hopes to pay it through “identifying a separate revenue source,” though he didn’t specify what that source could be.

* Aurora Beacon-News | East Aurora School District 131 board OKs $1.1 million annual Chromebook purchase: He said the district has discussed ways of making these annual purchases “more sustainable over a longer period of time,” like having cabinets or racks at school to hold the computers for elementary students so the devices would last longer and incur less damage. District 131 Superintendent Bob Halverson noted that such a plan could still enable the district to send the laptops home with students as needed, but could “extend the life cycle on them a little bit.”

*** Downstate ***

* BND | Former Carlyle police chief accused of embezzling over $100K, feds say: A former Carlyle police chief has been indicted on allegations of embezzling over $100,000 to buy personal items including a diamond engagement ring and two tickets to a WNBA game in Washington, D.C. Mark A. Pingsterhaus, 52, of Carlyle, was indicted on two counts of wire fraud and two counts of theft of government funds, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday. A summons filed Tuesday in federal court calls for Pingsterhaus to report to a judge at 11 a.m. March 16 in the federal courthouse in East St. Louis.

* WCIA | Executive order looks to bring more herbicide production to US: Most of the current glyphosate used on American farms currently comes from China. U of I professor Aaron Hager said most of the corn and soybean production in Central Illinois depends on the weed killer to keep yields up.“We were working on a project with some other colleagues at the Illinois Soybean Association and the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Economics to try to estimate what a loss of glyphosate would mean to the Illinois economy,” Hager said. “Now, we’re not necessarily finished with that analysis, but the preliminary numbers are a little bit startling.”

* Journal Courier | Illinois Supreme Court to hear arguments at Western Illinois University: One case will be People v. Marshall. The court will rule on whether, under SAFE-T Act procedures, defendants who fail to raise an issue in a required trial court motion before appealing have permanently waived that issue or forefeited it, meaning it can be reviewed by an appellate court again in limited circumstances.

* WAND | Areas across central Illinois see record rainfall totals: Most of the day on Thursday looks warm and quiet with temperatures warming up into the 60s. Temperatures will soar on Friday as a warm front moves through the region. This could trigger another round of strong to severe storms for late Friday evening. Rain will linger overnight into early Saturday morning, but most of the weekend is looking dry and warm.

*** National ***

* 404 Media | CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements: In essence, the AdID acts as the digital glue between a person’s device and their location data, allowing marketers—or a surveillance contractor or DHS—to attribute a set of movements to a specific device. From there, investigators can draw geofences to see all phones at a particular area over a period of time. Many smartphone location data tools then let officials see where else those devices went, potentially revealing where their owners live or work, or other sensitive locations.