* WAND…

A new grant program helping volunteer groups fight hunger is now accepting applications.

Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs announced the Charitable Trust Hunger Relief grant program to help volunteer groups battling hunger and food insecurity after federal government cuts to food programs.

The grants will provide up to $5,000 to volunteer-driven food pantries, soup kitchens and similar nonprofit organizations with no full-time employees.

The state treasurer’s office said program was launched after the Trump administration cut funding for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) and a program that allowed Illinois farmers to sell their fresh food to Meals on Wheels and food pantries.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Chalkbeat Chicago | Illinois approves numeracy plan to improve math education: Kirsten Parr, director of Standards & Instruction, presented changes that were made to the plan as a result of the public feedback during an ISBE meeting Wednesday. She said the state added more “examples and non-examples” of strong math instruction, added best practices and tips for supporting students with dyscalculia, a learning disability that affects how a person learns, understands, and retains math concepts, and included more high school level data. “This is not just an elementary plan,” she noted. “This is really to increase the numeracy skills of students across all of our ages and stages.”

* Capitol News Illinois | Raoul suggests underfunding of his office could make winning legal battles against Trump harder: Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul says his office was underfunded by $10 million in the latest budget, and that could make it more difficult to fight legal battles against the Trump administration while still fulfilling its enforcement duties in the state. Raoul spoke at a Tuesday event at the City Club of Chicago about the challenges of working with a federal government that has been hostile at times to Illinois. He also touted some of the state’s legal victories against the Trump administration and his efforts to work with the federal government on other issues.

* Rock River Current | Darren Bailey visits local manufacturers ahead of fundraising stop in Rockford: Bailey said he’s trying to set up a meeting with the McCaskey family so he can negotiate a deal that keeps the team in Illinois while still benefiting taxpayers. “I’d love to be able to meet with the owners and just have a conversation business person to business person,” Bailey said. “If I could have the moment to speak with the owners and bring legislators like John (Cabello) and others to the table, we have the answers because we’re business people.” [Rich: Cabello is a police officer.]

*** Chicago ***

* Tribune | Former CHA director indicted for collecting $420K in kickbacks: Ryan Ross — CHA’s former senior director of asset management — and Vanessa Rhodes have each been indicted on eight counts of honest services fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois announced in a news release. Each fraud charge is punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison. The 22-page indictment was returned in federal court in Chicago on Tuesday, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Ross, 50, is accused of receiving kickbacks between May 2023 and September 2024 from 47-year-old Rhodes, the president of Bell’s Better Buildings, a Chicago company that did business as Twenty Eleven Construction, per federal prosecutors.

* Tribune | CTA offers explanation for shortening some weekend trains: In response to questions from the Tribune, the agency said cutting train lengths will reduce the wear and tear on train cars that can cause service delays and enable better deep cleaning of train cars. The practice will also save money on energy costs because of the reduced power needs of the shorter trains, the agency said. It’s not entirely clear how much money the shorter trains will save the CTA.

* WTTW | CTA Leaders Tout Ridership Gains, Lower Crime Rates on System: The Chicago Transit Authority’s acting president said Wednesday that a long-elusive goal is in sight, telling board members that ridership on the agency’s buses has reached 90% of its pre-COVID levels. Calling the gains a “really exciting milestone,” CTA leader Nora Leerhsen also told directors that weekend ridership has surpassed the levels seen before the onset of the pandemic. Leerhsen chalked up some of CTA’s recent successes to increased investment in service, including its frequent network of routes with buses scheduled to come every 10 minutes. Four more routes are slated to be added to the network later this year, with later night and more weekend service set to come online to capitalize on summer ridership.

* Chalkbeat Chicago | After delay, Chicago school board renews charters amid revamped oversight: The vote was delayed last week after many board members pushed district officials for more information on how they planned to tighten charter oversight. Those board members, who are aligned with Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union, a sharp critic of charters, raised concerns that a network like Acero would earn one of the longest contract terms after several of its schools closed last year.

* Block Club | The City Spent Millions On A Flailing Domestic Violence Program No One Asked For, Advocates Say: Mike Milstein, deputy director of the Office of Victim Services, said last year’s $3.9 million funding increase was intended to help reverse the city’s spike in domestic violence. […] For several years, advocates have urged city officials to boost funding for resources survivors urgently need, such as emergency housing and attorneys to help them file orders of protection. At the same time, long-standing community service providers say they are struggling to provide basic services to survivors due to funding constraints and the spike in domestic violence cases. What’s more, the expanded police unit has touched a nerve because it’s produced few documented results.

* Crain’s | Baker Tilly moving headquarters out of Chicago with acquisition of New York’s Anchin: The move is part of its acquisition of Anchin, Block & Anchin, a New York-based accounting, tax and advisory firm, according to today’s announcement. The firm did not immediately respond to questions about potential job losses in Chicago. Baker Tilly recently cut the size of its local office space in half when it moved its headquarters to Fulton Market from Michigan Avenue.

* Block Club | Ex-Loretto Hospital Exec Pushes For Charges To Be Dropped In $300 Million Fraud Case: A motion filed in late May on behalf of Khan argues that a federal prosecutor who has been accused of misconduct during grand jury proceedings in the Broadview protesters’ case also committed misconduct before the same grand jury to secure an indictment against them. His attorneys have asked that the charges against him be dismissed in light of that. Chaudhry quickly moved to join the motion, and Ahmed made the same request Tuesday.

* WGN | First Rainbow PUSH Coalition Conference since death of Rev. Jesse Jackson underway on Chicago’s South Side: The opening day Wednesday is Youth Day, with hundreds of people gathering inside the building at 930 East 50th Street to focus on this year’s theme, “Fulfilling the American Promise,” including a defining moment for civil rights, democracy and social justice in America. The annual conference has certainly taken on a bittersweet tone this year after the death of Jackson, the civil rights icon, in February at age 84. Students from across Chicago and speakers from far beyond the city are participating Wednesday, as attendees focus on the future while also recognizing the past.

* Sun-Times | Chicago gets $22.1 million to replace lead pipes in Austin neighborhood: The announcement comes just weeks after Duckworth and Durbin announced more than $316 million in federal funding for clean water projects across Illinois. The funding included $295,551,000 for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and $21,335,000 through the EPA’s Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities grant program to help communities address PFAS and other emerging contaminants in their water systems.

* Block Club | Ald. Andre Vasquez Reviving Rap Career With Set At Andersonville’s Midsommarfest: Vasquez is a former battle rapper who spent part of the ’90s as a member of storied underground hip-hop collective the Molemen, the face of underground hip-hop in Chicago at the time, according to a Reader profile of Vasquez. Hip-hop was how Vasquez found his voice and built community growing up in Chicago, he said.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Southtown | ‘Wasteful spending cannot do this to a budget’: Calumet City seeks $8 million loan to pay backlog of bills: The city’s financial consultant, John Kasperek, said taking out a loan, either through a bank or public offering, is the only viable option to quickly reimburse vendors that have in some cases waited for two years to receive payment for provided services. “These vendors are constantly threatening the city with legal action,” Kasperek said. Kasperek said he hopes to convince Fifth Third Bank or other investors to allow the city to use revenues from its 1% grocery tax as collateral. Otherwise, the city will agree to raise property taxes as needed to pay off the debt.

* Daily Southtown | Blue Island Beer company pours final beer after 11 years: “We made great beer for people to enjoy while we made friends, celebrated family milestones and brought entertainment to the area they didn’t have to drive to the city for,” he said. The brewery held a closing garage sale over the weekend, where people could purchase brewery memorabilia, vintage signage, branded glassware, tap handles, decor, equipment, merch, oddities and pieces of Blue Island Beer Co. history, according to a company’s Facebook post.

* Daily Herald | Northwest suburban minister charged in $2 million fraud scheme: Federal prosecutors said he defrauded roughly 40 victims, most of them members of a church identified as “Church A,” over a more than five-year period. According to court documents, Batino’s scheme ran from February 2020 through May 2025. Prosecutors allege he told victims their money would be invested in non-existent luxury rehabilitation facilities and signed agreements promising to repay investors in full.

*** Downstate ***

* Illinois Times | Area data center updates: Project proposed for Christian County; Sangamon plan moves forward while Logan stalls: Some details have emerged about what would be a multibillion-dollar data center two miles west of Taylorville during June 2 listening sessions held by Eagle Rock, a privately held company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Critics have alleged that the Christian County Board and Eagle Rock have been less than forthcoming about their private discussions and the potential impact of the project, which hasn’t been formally proposed to the county but which the developer says would create 500 permanent jobs.

* Capitol City Now | Activist: Springfield is positioning itself to sneak a data center into town: Lori McKiernan, who frequently speaks to the council on utility matters, says she has enough information to be skeptical of Springfield’s ability to, and / or interest in, reining in the growth of large-scale data centers. “I’ve heard too many stories from around the state where townspeople and county and city residents have been deceived by these elected officials and data center developers.”

* Times Tribune | Maintaining 100% staffing level priority for Madison County State’s Attorney’s office: Efforts to stay fully staffed in the office of Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Haine, a high priority for him, are supported by a new one-year subscription agreement with an area marketing business administering a recruitment campaign for this purpose. As approved by the county board judiciary committee recently, this $20,000 agreement with The Fource Group, LLC of O’Fallon, Illinois represents the second year in succession that this approach is being implemented because, according to Haine, his office was short by six (or about 20% of the total of 32 needed) qualified legal professionals to help handle the heavy case load there.

* WAND | Internet provider hosts groundbreaking ceremony for Urbana project: Internet service provider Volo hosted a groundbreaking celebration on Tuesday for its rural fiber internet project in Urbana. One farmer said the faster, more reliable internet will serve people like him in more ways than one. […] Volo said the five-year project will have three phases and bring fiber internet to nearly 3,000 homes in Champaign County.

* STLPR | Cahokia Mounds museum reopens to the public after 4 years of repairs: The gift shop, site model, canoe exhibit and a new temporary exhibit are all open and will be available Wednesday-Sunday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., according to a Facebook post by the organization. Remaining work to finish renovations to the gallery will be completed and will open to the public in late summer. […] The site’s interpretive center shut down in March 2022 for what was expected to be $5.5 million worth of renovations that would take 12 to 18 months to complete. However, replacing the roof and updating the site’s mechanical and electrical systems cost roughly $12.8 million, which had ballooned thanks to delays and inflation, according to KMOV.

*** National ***

* AP | US households, businesses stung by higher energy prices that have pushed inflation above 4%: Outside energy costs, price increases last month were not as dramatic, a sign that sharply higher inflation hasn’t yet spread throughout the economy. Should the Iran war end and oil and gas prices decline, headline inflation could begin to cool. Gas prices have fallen this month, though they remain elevated. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose at a more modest pace. On a monthly basis, they climbed just 0.2%, down from a 0.4% gain in April. Compared with a year ago, they have rise 2.9%, up from 2.8% in April.

* 404 Media | FCC Wants to Kill Burner Phones By Forcing Telecoms to Get All Customers’ IDs: The proposed change would drastically shake up how people obtain phone plans in the U.S., and have all sorts of privacy and cybersecurity knock-on effects. The FCC is proposing the data collection partly as a way to combat scammers, with telecoms being required to collect other information on business and foreign customers like the intended use case of their bulk phone plan purchase and their IP address. But the changes would mean telecoms collect data on all new and renewing customers, and the FCC provides a long list of other things that the collected data could help authorities with.