* Click here for some background. Tribune federal courts reporter Jason Meisner…

JUST IN: The 7th Circuit issues a mixed ruling in the Trump administration's appeal in the Castanon Nava consent decree case over immigration arrests in Chicago.
One key point in the ruling: The feds illegally held most people arrested during Midway Blitz in mandatory detention pic.twitter.com/3HHYnbFMKS

— Jason Meisner (@jmetr22b) May 5, 2026

*** Statehouse News ***

* ABC Chicago | Chicago police det. to get new kidney after COVID complications, IL State Compt. Susana Mendoza says: After six long years, former Chicago police sergeant Joaquin Mendoza is getting a new kidney. He is the brother of Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza. Compt. Mendoza shared the news on social media Monday. “Tonight we got the call,” she said. Det. Mendoza was hospitalized for 72 days after being diagnosed with COVID. He lost both his kidneys and had five strokes, the comptroller said.

* Tribune | Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Springfield wish list: Digital ad tax and other levies — but not the Bears’ bill: In a Tuesday news conference, the mayor said he will head to the state capitol later that day to advocate for three main approaches to shore up more revenue for Chicago: reversing cuts to the Local Government Distributive Fund, creating a new digital advertising tax and granting the city home rule authority to pass levies. It will be his third visit to Springfield as mayor and comes in the final stretch of the General Assembly’s spring session. […] On the digital ad tax, which would create a levy on advertising revenue earned from Illinois viewers, the mayor said the proposal should apply statewide. Last fall, Johnson’s Springfield lobbyist John Arena led a group of the mayor’s City Council allies to Springfield to lobby for such a tax, laying out a model that would have a “progressive rate structure (2.5% to 10%) application to firms with over $100 million in global revenue.”

* Crain’s | Johnson heads to Springfield seeking revenue boost — and Bears leverage:The state previously put 10% into the so-called Local Government Distributive Fund until 2011, when it was lowered as part of a temporary income tax increase. The percentage has been lowered since even as the governor’s office counters the actual dollar figure has increased. Pritzker’s 2027 budget plan would hold the dollar amount steady with the current year, which would lower the percentage from 6.47% to 6.23%. If the percentage was kept the same, the city estimates another $60 million would flow to local governments statewide, with $12 million going to Chicago. If it was increased by 1%, an additional $80 million would be distributed across the state.

*** Chicago ***

* Tribune | Dismissed Chicago immigration judge sues Trump administration: In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, attorneys for former Judge Carla Espinoza argued that the Trump administration’s Justice Department violated Espinoza’s First Amendment rights and federal equal rights protections when they terminated her as an immigration judge last July. She was one of nine judges to leave the Chicago immigration court in a wave of departures, firings and buyouts in the first year of the second Trump administration. All told, the court lost nearly half the judges who were on the bench in January 2025. The turbulence at the city’s immigration court mirrored a nationwide exodus of judges amid a rapidly changing landscape for immigrants, attorneys and advocates.

* Block Club | Cook County Landlords Have Filed For More Than 40,000 Evictions Since 2022: Residents of Chicago’s South and West sides, and particularly the South Shore neighborhood, have been hit hardest by evictions in recent years, according to Block Club’s analysis of available data. But the court’s records are missing addresses for nearly 10,000 of the cases filed between April 2022 and September 2025 — nearly a quarter of those filed in that time period — which makes a thorough look at eviction trends all but impossible.

* Crain’s | Office tower near Google’s Thompson Center poised to sell at steep discount: Menashe Properties is in advanced talks to buy the 38-story office building at 180 N. LaSalle St., according to sources familiar with the matter. The Portland, Ore.-based firm is poised to pay less than $60 million for the 785,000-square-foot building, sources said, or close to 70% less than the $198 million paid a decade ago by the current owner, a venture of Montreal-based La Caisse.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Crain’s | Trib owner in advanced talks to buy the Daily Herald: Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, owner of the Chicago Tribune, is in advanced talks to buy the publisher of the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights. Alden, which already owns a number of suburban publications via the Tribune acquisition five years ago, made a very public bid for employee-owned Paddock Publications in early February after the Daily Herald publisher first disclosed it was considering a sale. In a full-page ad in the Tribune, the hedge fund said it could pay “30% more than anyone else.”

* ABC Chicago | Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Samantha Steele found not guilty in 2024 N. Side DUI arrest: One of the officers at the scene testified that Steele refused to take a sobriety test. Steel was found not guilty Tuesday on the grounds that the alcoholic beverage container was capped and bagged, and suspicion of impairment by the officers is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

* Pioneer Press | Evanston-Skokie District 65 walks back decision to cut middle school librarians: The district announced on April 18 that middle school librarians would be “reassigned” to classrooms in D65 schools next year and would fill in for teaching roles recently vacated due to ongoing budget concerns, according to Tamara Mitchell, District 65’s chief financial officer. But the decision to eliminate the positions resulted in widespread dissent from community members, dozens of whom signed up to voice their opposition at the district’s April 20 Board meeting. The district declined a Pioneer Press request for comment on why the positions were being reinstated, referring back to Superintendent Turner’s original message.

* Daily Herald | ‘I want her gone’: Lawsuit claims retaliation against Schaumburg fire lieutenant over Charlie Kirk post: The suit states she received a nine-shift suspension, later reduced to eight, for exercising her right to free speech on social media, and that the union ultimately declined to represent her grievance. The complaint states that after Kirk’s killing on Sept. 10, she posted on her personal Facebook page, “I can choose to ‘not celebrate’ but also not be sad,” with a link to a New York Times article about the fatal shooting. She also posted an image of a quote attributed to Oscar Wilde that reads, “Some men improve the world only by leaving it.”

* Tribune | Arlington Heights school cancels class after resource officer loses gun: The officer, assigned to Forest View Educational Center, used the restroom and removed the weapon from his holster just before school was let out for the day. After dismissal, he realized the weapon was missing and searched the restroom, but couldn’t find it, according to an Arlington Heights police news release. Hallway surveillance images were reviewed to determine who entered the restroom, and school officials and police were notified about the missing firearm. School officials decided to cancel school Tuesday in order to conduct a complete search of the school building and grounds. Police dogs were brought to the school to help in the search, but the weapon was not found, the release said.

* Lake County News-Sun | Former Waukegan cop found guilty of reckless conduct: ‘These criminal actions … are offensive to good police officers’: A Lake County judge found a former Waukegan police officer guilty of misdemeanor reckless conduct, but acquitted him of felonies for injuring someone during an arrest, according to Lake County prosecutors. Richard Tabisz, 43, was charged after, authorities said, he threw a handcuffed suspect to the ground, causing a head injury. Other officers witnessed the incident and reported it.

*** Downstate ***

* WGLT | State Farm, Country Financial stay busy handling McLean County tornado claims: Statewide, both companies’ combined total is nearly 8,300 claims — 1,669 for Country and more than 6,600 home, property, and auto filings with State Farm. In comparison, Country Financial said it fielded 13% fewer claims in Illinois during March and April this year than it did in all of last year. Country said it already has closed nearly half of the claims that have come in, and inspectors have reviewed three quarters of them. State Farm has closed nearly three quarters of its claims related to the storms.

* WAND | Springfield to consider increasing parking fines: Many of the initial fines would double. A violation for parking in a no parking zone would increase from $25 to $50. Parking in an emergency lane would increase to $100. Tuesday’s council agenda states the ordinance is necessary to, “…encourage greater compliance with parking regulations, improve traffic flow, and enhance public safety.”

* Press release | Illinois State Museum Route 66 exhibit to open May 23: The exhibit incorporates the museum’s Route 66 Oral History Project, a collection of 100 interviews with people who experienced the road when it served as the primary route between Chicago and Los Angeles. Visitors can listen to excerpts from these firsthand accounts throughout the exhibit. On display will be a range of Route 66 memorabilia, including vintage souvenirs, neon signs, fiberglass advertising figures and Burma-Shave signs.

* WCIA | ‘Never seen anything like it’: Longtime bus driver fights through Central IL dust storm: “I had a full bus. Dirt was coming in all through the windows,” Gharrett said. “It was in my eyeballs. It was everywhere.” She said she turned on the flashing lights and took her foot off the gas, letting the bus idle on the road. “You couldn’t see somebody in front of you if they were stopped, which was why I just I idled because there’s nowhere to pull over,” Gharrett said. “And you can’t just stop in the road with 70 kids on a bus.” Almost as quickly as it started, it was over after a few minutes.

* WCIA | ‘Only at Illinois’: U of I students react to campus cow capture: “As soon as it turned the corner, it kind of locked eyes with us and lowered its head a bit and just kind of started speeding up directly at us,” said PhD student David Buller, one of the people nearly hit by the cow. “A lot of people are in disbelief it’s actually me.”

*** National ***

* 404 Media | The AI Hard Drive Shortage Is Making It More Expensive and Harder to Archive the Internet: Over the last several months, prices for both consumer level and enterprise solid state drives, hard drives, and other types of storage have skyrocketed. As an example, a 2TB external Samsung SSD I purchased last fall for $159 now costs $575. PC Part Picker, a website that tracks the average price of different types of drives, shows a universal increase in storage prices starting in about October of last year. Prices of many of the drives it tracks have doubled or increased by more than 150 percent, and at some stores SSDs and hard drives are simply sold out. There is now even a secondary market for some SSDs, with people scalping them on eBay and elsewhere.

* Bloomberg | DOJ Offers Lawyers $25,000 Signing Bonuses as Hiring Lags: Further, the head of the Civil Division—which plays a crucial role advancing and protecting the president’s policies in court—informed all his attorneys Monday that they’ll begin receiving a “retention incentive allowance” ranging from around $60 to $220 every pay period through Thanksgiving, according to an internal email reviewed by Bloomberg Law.