* Capitol News Illinois…

In March, we told you about a new program Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration launched offering up to $15,000 in down payment and closing cost assistance for eligible first-time Illinois homebuyers.

Within nine weeks, more than 1,500 homebuyers have been offered upwards of $18 million in down payment assistance, Pritzker’s office confirmed to us. The program, dubbed “Access Home,” has quickly become the Illinois Housing Development Authority’s most popular program, representing 61% of the department’s loan reservations made in 2026.

The assistance is provided as a zero-interest silent second mortgage with repayment deferred for up to 30 years unless the home is sold or refinanced earlier. […]

“As evidenced by the recent success of Access Home, there remains a large pool of individuals and families who want to buy and put roots down in Illinois,” said IDHA executive director Kristin Faust. “The passage of BUILD will expand IHDA’s ability to provide downpayment assistance programs for working individuals and families, giving them the chance to thrive and not worry about student loan debt or other hurdles preventing them from achieving their dreams.”

* The Sun-Times…

Sam Sianis, legendary owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, died Friday from natural causes at Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital. He was 91.

“My dad was always a person who lit up the room when he walked in, always in a good mood,” said Mr. Sianis’ son Bill Sianis, who, along with his brother Paul Sianis, has operated the family tavern since their father mostly retired about a decade ago.

“I think he became a part of Chicago because of how he was, a hard working person but also with a big heart,” Bill Sianis said.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Telegraph | Illinois mine subsidence bill passes Senate, goes to Pritzker: A bipartisan bill that would change Illinois’ mine subsidence insurance rules is on its way to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk. Illinois House Bill 5376, sponsored by Metro East Republican lawmakers Rep. Amy Elik and Sen. Erica Harriss, would change how mine subsidence insurance is funded and managed, and how coverage applies when homes or businesses are damaged by land sinking above old underground mines.

*** Chicago ***

* Tribune | CPD body removal contractor saw license suspended in November, records show: The license of Nakia Wallace-Harrison, president of Wallace-Harrison Funeral Home Inc., was suspended indefinitely in November 2025 by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which cited her “failure to file and/or pay Illinois state income taxes.” The lapse in licensing appears to violate the terms of the $4.4 million contract awarded last year to Wallace-Harrison Funeral Home, the subject of a newly filed lawsuit by the former contract holder, Allied Services Group.

* Block Club | 300-Unit Housing Complex Could Be Coming To Busy Lincoln Square Corner, Alderman Says: The pitch isn’t finalized and would still need to go through the ward’s community zoning process and the city’s planned development process if the developer submits a formal proposal. But the rough outline of the plan could lead to at least 60 of the units being set aside as affordable housing based on city rules, Vasquez said.

* Tribune | A former Tribune critic’s writings are being adapted into opera for the second time. This time, it’s his life onstage: “That not only was the first time that my friends and colleagues at the Tribune found out that I’m the son of survivors, but kids I went to school with in Skokie told me, ‘Hey, I’m the child of survivors, also’ — and I was 49 years old when that story ran,” Reich, now 72, recalls. “I cannot tell you how little this subject was discussed as I was growing up in the 1950s and ’60s.” The code of silence that surrounded the Shoah is nearly unimaginable today, when Holocaust education can, in some cases, even take the form of an opera. Reaping from his own writing, Reich supplied the libretto for “The Dialogue of Memories,” a one-act arriving at the Studebaker Theater on May 23 and 24.

* WGN | Millionaire’s museum sparks legal fight: Fred Eychaner is a prominent philanthropist and Democratic donor. He is also the founder of 659 Wrightwood, an art museum and exhibition space. When completed, the expanded property will sit within a few feet of Lisa Berron’s condo building and extend above her roofline – potentially blocking her views and light. “It’s so upsetting,” Berron said. “Like when they told me what they were going to put next door, I was just, like, crushed.”

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* WGN | Calumet City mayor answers questions on controversial spending: Calumet City Mayor Thaddeus Jones answered questions and concerns Thursday night regarding tens of thousands of dollars charged to his city credit card for meals and travel. […] Jones had refused to speak with WGN-TV regarding his spending for weeks, but that changed Thursday after City Council voted to require him to submit receipts to prove the money he spent benefited taxpayers. […] “I’m not Tiffany Henyard. I’m not a woman. I’m Thaddeus Jones. He disrespected me by trying to loop me in with Tiffany Henyard,” Jones said. “Tiffany Henyard was a bad elected official. I’ve been in office and brought over $900 million back to my district, $126 million to Calumet City.”

* WGN | Aurora Christian Schools board member accused of long-term minor sex abuse: In December, a man in his 20s reported to Aurora police that he had been a victim of child sex abuse beginning when he was an early teen. Police allege that Herbert used a trusted relationship to groom and abuse the victim over several years. Herbert allegedly provided gifts, money and other incentives as part of the abuse. As the investigation progressed, detectives developed information indicating Herbert may have had similar interactions with other juvenile male victims.

* Daily Herald | Schaumburg police erase staffing shortage after overhauling hiring process: In May 2025, 13 vacancies among the department’s 119 officer positions were causing problems with overtime and fatigue. Officials realized they needed to cut their six-month hiring process down to the regional standard of two months. Now, there are zero vacancies with 24 recruits at three different levels of readiness prepared to hit the streets this year.

* Pioneer Press | Glencoe’s Frank Lloyd Wright cottage, past home to racist lawyer and suffragette, may open to public: However, the historical society also plans to acknowledge that the name of Sherman Booth was stripped from the cottage in 2024 after historical society Board members researching the exhibit “Blacks in Glencoe” discovered Sherman Booth had participated in a racist scheme to keep Blacks, Italians and Greeks out of Glencoe through racially restrictive real estate covenants.

* Daily Herald | Elgin to purchase mobile hydration station to provide free water at events: Elgin City Council members on Wednesday approved a plan to purchase a WaterTap trailer, a mobile hydration station that will provide free drinking water to people attending various public events. The hope is to reduce the reliance on single-use plastic bottles. The $40,000 purchase of the trailer will be funded with money the city receives from the Lakeshore Recycling System’s Annual Green Initiatives in-kind fund. That fund contributes $25,000 annually to the city as part of the company’s contract to provide refuse and recycling services. The current available fund balance is $50,000.

*** Downstate ***

* BND | New Athens principal resigns amid scrutiny over response to gun found on child: A New Athens principal is resigning amid scrutiny of her actions after staff found an unloaded gun in a first-grader’s backpack. New Athens Community Unit School District 60’s board accepted elementary and junior high principal Stephanie Kennedy’s resignation at its meeting on Monday. She has been on a paid suspension in relation to the incident since it happened in late April, School Board President Karen Meyer said during the meeting.

* WGLT | ISU student deposits drop as enrollment cliff arrives: ISU student deposits are down 8% compared to last year, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign atypically had to tap into its waitlist, according to Jeff Mavros, ISU’s executive director of admissions and recruitment marketing. As of a couple weeks ago, most institutions in the state were down in student deposits, he said, although the University of Illinois at Chicago reported positive deposit numbers. A spokesperson for Bradley University in Peoria said its first-year student deposits rose 30%. Heartland Community College headcount for the fall is up by 1% and credit hours are up 3%. Numbers for Illinois Wesleyan University were not immediately available.

* WGLT | Normal to vote on 6-month data center moratorium: In a memo to the town council, staff say a moratorium would give the town the necessary time to “study best practices, evaluate local conditions, and develop clear, consistent standards within the Town Code. This will ensure that future data center development, if permitted, aligns with community priorities and infrastructure capacity.” Staff say data centers present “distinct challenges and impacts” that the town’s land-use regulations are not currently built to address. […] Mayor Chris Koos has said the town has not received any inquiries from data center operators.

* WCIA | Fuyao Glass expansion to add hundreds of jobs at Mt. Zion facility: Fuyao Glass announced on Thursday plans to expand its Mt. Zion facility. It will make the facility the largest float glass plant in the country and create 200 additional jobs. Officials from the Decatur Regional Chamber of Commerce said the project is awaiting approval from the federal government before proceeding with the expansion.

* Illinois Times | An AI anniversary logo: Sangamon County officials revealed an artificial intelligence-driven logo concept to commemorate America’s 250 years of independence and 100 years of Route 66 at the May 12 county board meeting. The logo, which District 17 board member Annette Fulgenzi said has some things to clean up, appears to depict Sangamon County with Christian County’s borders appended to the capital county’s southeast corner and only has 12 stripes for its colonial flag background. […] The statement prompted some groans from audience members waiting to eventually discuss the county’s April approval for CyrusOne’s conditional permitted use of 280 acres of agriculturally zoned land to build a hyperscale AI data center. But that sentiment wasn’t shared publicly by any board members; there was only praise for the design.

* WGLT | After April tornadoes, McLean County continues home repairs with no federal loans: Cathy Beck, director of the McLean County Emergency Management Agency [EMA], said the Small Business Administration [SBA] determined not enough homes in the county met the threshold to provide low-interest home repair loans. “We follow the FEMA guidelines on creating the damage categories, which enabled IEMA to bring in SBA or request SBA to come and do an assessment and see if we can get support,” Beck said on WGLT’s Sound Ideas.

*** National ***

* Bloomberg | AI Buildout Drives 76% Power Bill Jump on Largest US Grid: The total cost of wholesale power on the 13-state grid managed by PJM Interconnection LLC averaged $136.53 per megawatt-hour in the first three months of the year, according to a report from Monitoring Analytics, the grid’s independent market monitor. That compares to $77.78 per megawatt-hour during the same period in 2025.

* Vulture | The Feed Is Fake: That “viral” song, movie, meme, influencer, and celebrity drama was probably the product of a stealth marketing campaign: Joe Lim estimates that 90 percent of what you see on the internet is advertising in disguise, and he should know. For three years, Lim ran a company called Floodify, which at its peak operated 65,000 dummy social-media accounts used to drum up attention on behalf of paying clients. On a typical day, he says, Floodify posted 50,000 videos across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and X, all of them designed to pass for the unscripted output of ordinary users.

* Post-Tribune | All 22 linked to ‘Greek’ Northwest Indiana gambling ring plead not guilty: Breen said his client was slated to be named man of the year by his parish, but “didn’t want to take on the responsibility” because his relative was sick. He also said Rovito had donated Thanksgiving turkeys in the past. The lawyer was then asked to respond to allegations that Rovito told Gerodemos he would “shove” Victim 2’s head into a machine at a Florida casino. “It didn’t happen,” he replied to the incident detailed in the federal indictment.

* CNN | Penile implant specialist with history of far-right comments led Hantavirus presser: As the Trump administration sought to reassure Americans this week that a hantavirus outbreak posed little risk to the public, Dr. Brian Christine, one of the top public health officials in charge of infectious disease policy, stood before reporters in Nebraska promising a response “grounded in science” and “grounded in transparency.” Before he joined the Trump administration last year, Christine was an Alabama-based urologist who specialized in penile implants. He has little public health experience and a history of far-right commentary and promoting conspiracy theories. He’s said the Covid pandemic led to a wider government plot to control people, compared the Biden administration to Nazi Germany and suggested the Covid vaccine had little effect in stopping the pandemic.

* NYT | Martin Short and the Secret to Finding Joy While Surviving Tragedy: This particular brand of resiliency — “laughing wild, amid severest woe,” as the poet Thomas Gray put it — is an undercurrent of “Marty, Life Is Short,” which takes its name from Short’s response to a talk-show question about how to cope with the death of parents. He said that you could despair, but that he chose to conclude that life was short and that there were tools developed in disaster. “You became your own therapist,” he told me, adding that this grieving period helped him develop “muscles to survive.”