* WTTW…

An Illinois commission created to document alleged abuses committed by federal immigration agents has determined a Border Patrol agent had no justification when he shot Marimar Martinez in Brighton Park last year.

During its final public hearing, the Illinois Accountability Commission on Tuesday heard extensively from Martinez and her attorney, recounting her shooting and the lies federal agents allegedly told after the fact to defend their shooting of the 31-year-old Montessori school teacher in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago last October.

After conducting its own investigation, the commission determined there is reasonable cause to believe the agent who shot Martinez did so without justification, that evidence was deliberately tampered with, that federal agents deployed chemical weapons against Chicagoans indiscriminately and that the Department of Homeland Security failed to ensure any accountability for those actions.

“This is an extraordinary and profoundly alarming pattern of events,” Jimmy Arce, an attorney and member of the commission, said Tuesday, “not procedural lapses or technical errors, but consistent intention violations of the law and deliberate institutional cover-up.”

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* WBEZ…

Meanwhile, a quarterly financial report shows the district is projecting it will again end the current fiscal year on June 30 in a hole, albeit a smaller one, of $45 million. CPS says it is making up some ground by spending less grant money.

CPS officials say this year’s projected deficit might shrink as the school year closes. But CPS is also $118 million over budget on staff, which it attributes to increased spending on workers who serve students with disabilities. […]

CPS officials also continue to want the state to pick up more of the district’s teacher pension costs, as it does for other districts statewide.

“Achieving pension parity and reaching 100% funding adequacy are not just fiscal goals — they are essential requirements for long-term equity and stability,” CPS said. “Without these structural corrections from the state, the district will continue to face tight margins that do not reflect the true cost of educating the district’s 315,000 students.”

King and board members have gone to Springfield seeking more money, but so far none of the bills that would funnel more funding toward education have passed the Illinois General Assembly.

*** Chicago ***

* Crain’s | Chicago home prices rising at 5 times the speed of the nation’s: March was the second month when Chicago quintupled the nation’s price growth. It was also a time when the median price of homes sold in the city hit a new all-time high. This news may discourage aspiring homebuyers who see affordability galloping away from them, but as a measure of the vitality of the local housing market and its ability to fatten existing owners’ equity, it’s quite good.

* Crain’s | Paris Schutz exits local Fox affiliate to join NBC 5: The station said Paris Schutz, a longtime reporter and anchor at WTTW and more recently Fox 32 Chicago, will join its newsroom May 4 as a general assignment reporter with a focus on investigative and political coverage. Schutz, a two-time Emmy winner, spent 15 years at WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight,” where he rose from intern to co-anchor and chief correspondent, breaking stories on state and local politics. He joined Fox 32 in 2024 as a political anchor and host of “The Chicago Report.”

* Block Club | A Day In The ‘Life’ Of A Food Delivery Robot: Lots Of Waiting And A Few Collisions: Most orders were delivered to addresses within a few blocks, although one was taken to a house more than a mile west — a trip that took a little over 20 minutes. In between there was plenty of down time, including an almost two-hour stretch where the robot sat dormant on Barry Street near a bagel shop, as well as a 45-minute sojourn outside an IDOF falafel restaurant on Belmont Avenue. The robot also had a few minor collisions with curbs and building walls, although it did not cause any apparent damage.

* Tribune | Never-before-heard tapes by late Jazz Showcase founder hit shelves — just in time for his 100th birthday: Around 10,000 more, in fact. Unbeknownst to most, Segal, who died in 2020, had fastidiously captured years of Jazz Showcase performances from the venue’s soundboard, with musicians’ consent. Three trips to Chicago, countless crates and about a year-and-a-half of nonstop listening later, Feldman has curated four double- and triple-LP sets gleaned from live Showcase performances in the 1970s. The records document long-past performances by saxophonist Joe Henderson and his quartet; pianist Ahmad Jamal with bassist John Heard and drummer Frank Gant; multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef with pianist Kenny Barron, drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath and bassist Bob Cunningham; and pianist Mal Waldron with saxophonist Sonny Stitt, bassist Steve Rodby and drummer Wilbur Campbell.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Tribune | Former West Suburban Medical Center staff detail poor conditions leading up to its closure: The climate control at West Suburban didn’t work at times and some rooms registered temperatures of up to 100º during the summer and rooms were chilly during the winter, said Sylvia Williams, the former nurse director at West Suburban. This lasted from August to December 2025, she said, only in January did the heating partially work. The Illinois Department of Public Health visited West Suburban last summer while the air conditioning was not working, Williams said. Her 34 bed medical-surgical unit was reduced to about 17 patients because of the HVAC system not working, she said. The other patients were spread throughout the hospital, she said.

* Daily Southtown | Oak Lawn Trustee Timothy Desmond resigns to develop housing with village: “I want to make sure that the public is aware that the reason for the resignation is a very good one,” Village Manager Thomas Phelan said at Tuesday morning’s meeting. Desmond was not present, having submitted his letter of resignation April 20. Phelan said the village became interested in acquiring empty lots or properties with foreclosed or abandoned homes, to tear them down and build new ones, but struggled to find a building company willing to agree to its terms. Desmond’s company, Leeside Builders, has been the second largest home builder in Oak Lawn for the past 20 years, Phelan said. Desmond said the company has constructed about 20 houses within the village.

* Daily Southtown | Harvey City Council approves feasibility study for community solar project: Marquis Matilla of Evolved Living, who presented the proposal to the council’s Legislative Committee, emphasized it would not cost the residents or city of Harvey anything. […] The council approved a feasibility study, which Matilla estimated would take between 60 and 90 days, to determine whether the land was suitable for the project.

*** Downstate ***

* 25 News Now | Peoria Mexican restaurant cancels outdoor Cinco de Mayo festivities after ‘disgusting and racist’ insults: “Last year, we were the unexpected host of a dangerous parking lot party after we were forced to close early due to capacity issues and continued fights despite our very best efforts to provide adequate security and crowd control for the event. The DISGUSTING and racist insults we were subject to as we tried to clean up the parking lot after closing are inexcusable. We were forced to pull our staff into the building for safety and had to wait for the crowd to disperse.”

* WCIA | WEIU ends broadcasting on-air after decades: Last July, PBS funding was cut nationally, and 80% of WEIU TV’s money was lost. That left station leaders scrambling. “I love WEIU so much, and it really has been a home to me for at this point,” said EIU student Olivia Bennett. The home she’s talking about is the WEIU newsroom at Eastern Illinois university.

* WAND | USDA invests in water infrastructure for 7 counties in rural Illinois: The U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Illinois State Director Jesus Ortega announced EJ Water Cooperative, Inc. got $5,537,000 for construction of a reservoir west of Holland, Illinois. The reservoir is one of the water upgrades the cooperative is making to provide access to reliable water for more than 16,000 rural residents across seven counties in rural Illinois.

* WSIL | SIU researchers develop microbe that could help reduce plastic waste: The microbe — known as Erwinia strain LJJL01 — was identified during earlier research into breaking down plant-based waste. Scientists later engineered it to process both natural and synthetic materials. In lab testing, the microbe has been used to convert waste products — including plastics, agricultural byproducts, and even coffee and tea waste — into materials that could be used for biodegradable plastics, fuel alternatives, and pharmaceutical compounds.

*** National ***

* ProPublica | The Trump Administration Aims to Penalize Disabled Adults Who Live With Their Families: The administration is working on a rule change that would deduct the value of a disabled adult’s bedroom from their SSI allotment, even if the family members they live with are poor enough to qualify for food stamps. This would mean slashing the benefits of some of the most low-income SSI recipients by up to a third — about $330 a month in Burton’s case — or ending their support altogether.

* Pew | State Tax Revenue Volatility Remains High as Long-Term Trends Moderate: The gap between recent and long-term tax revenue volatility has continued to widen. Revenue fluctuations were greater in every state from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal 2024 than they were over the 15 years ending in fiscal 2024, underscoring how the COVID-19 pandemic-driven economic shock affected virtually all tax systems. The states with the largest increases in short-term volatility compared with long-term trends tended to be those that rely most on historically volatile tax sources, but even states with traditionally stable revenue structures faced greater-than-usual swings.

* LA Times | California to share data on immigrant drivers nationally: California is preparing to share with an outside organization detailed information about driver’s license holders, including immigrants who do not have legal authorization to live in the United States. That breaks a promise the state made a decade ago when it began issuing licenses to unauthorized immigrants, advocates say, and it means more than 1 million people may face higher risk of deportation. But if state officials don’t turn over the data, the Department of Homeland Security may refuse to accept California licenses and IDs at airports, the advocates believe, following a briefing with the California Department of Motor Vehicles and the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this month. State authorities confirmed they plan to share the data to comply with the Real ID Act of 2005, which set requirements for accepting state identification at federal facilities such as airports.