* ICYMI: Illinois ‘reviewing’ DOJ’s threat to prosecute state election officials over noncitizen voting. Capitol News Illinois…

- The Illinois State Board of Elections said Wednesday it is “reviewing” a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice threatening criminal prosecution of any official who allows noncitizens to cast ballots and requesting information about how the state intends to prevent noncitizens voting.
- The letter, dated Tuesday, July 7, was addressed to ISBE Executive Director Bernadette Matthews. It was similar to letters reportedly sent to top election officials in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
- In addition to Tuesday’s letter threatening prosecution, DOJ is also suing Illinois and dozens of other states for access to the state’s complete, unredacted voter registration list, including sensitive information such as voters’ dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. The federal government has not been successful in any of those lawsuits thus far.

* Gov. JB Pritzker has no public events scheduled today.

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* Illinois Times | Housing advocates celebrate legislative wins: Bob Palmer, policy director for the statewide housing coalition Housing Action Illinois, said some of the major victories came on the funding front. For one, the General Assembly rejected the governor’s proposed cut of $10 million to the HOME Illinois Program, which aims to prevent and end homelessness in the state. Lawmakers were facing a tight fiscal year, meaning any new funding would be an uphill battle. Even so, David Zoltan, a Chicago-based housing activist, said not increasing funding amid rising inflation is “effectively a cut” for a crucial HOME Illinois program.

* Capitol News Illinois | As Illinois enters 10th year under Evidence-Based Funding model, equity remains an elusive goal: But as Illinois enters the 10th year of financing schools under the Evidence-Based Funding model — a formula adopted in 2017 that was supposed to improve both the adequacy and equity of the state’s school finance system — wide disparities still exist in the property tax system that funds more than half the cost of K-12 education. An analysis of school finance data by Capitol News Illinois covering the nine-year period from 2017 to 2025 shows homeowners in the lowest-wealth districts pay tax rates that are double those in the wealthiest districts. The findings are largely consistent with those of other researchers who follow school finance issues nationally.

* Chalkbeat Chicago | Johnson-aligned Chicago school board members continue push for more funding from Springfield: Schools had to approve their proposed budgets in early June, but the district has yet to release full details around what might be cut. The Chicago Teachers Union joined Mayor Brandon Johnson-aligned board members at Wednesday’s press conference outside the Board of Education headquarters where they called for state lawmakers to again consider raising education funding through progressive tax policies that target wealthy individuals or corporations. Khari Humphries, the city’s deputy mayor of education and youth, also joined elected board member Jitu Brown and appointed members Michilia Blaise, Karen Zaccor, Norma Rios-Sierra, Emma Lozano, Angel Velez, Cydney Wallace, and Debby Pope.

*** Statewide ***

* Crain’s | Illinois ACA health insurance prices set to rise by double digits again in 2027: In Illinois, insurers are seeking rate hikes between 9.2% and nearly 15%. Less than 10% of Americans get their health coverage from the ACA marketplace, or state-run marketplaces like Get Covered Illinois, but the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker points out that factors driving premiums like growth in hospital or pharmaceutical costs are similar across all private plans.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Sun-Times | Cash App parent company agrees to $45 million settlement with Illinois, 44 other states: Illinois will get $1.1 million of a $45 million, 45-state settlement with money transfer app Cash App’s parent company, which was accused of misleading customers about the app’s security. Block Inc. will face $55 million in civil penalties and also have to pay customers nationwide somewhere from $75 million to $120 million as part of the settlement, which includes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

* WGLT | Illinois’ U.S. Senate Republican nominee Don Tracy aims to slow cost-of-living increases: Tracy said the election centers around affordability, and sees that as an advantage for the Republican Party in Illinois. “Democrats … and Republican politicos seem to agree this is a cost-of-living election,” Tracy said in the interview with Capitol News Illinois. “[I] believe that to be a winning message for Republicans, because everything Democrats do increases the cost of living.” “I’m not sure there’s a tax that they didn’t want to increase and that increases the cost of living for all working families,” Tracy said, referring to Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration.

*** Data Center News ***

* Illinois Times | Data center details: Questions remain about effects on nearby animals, soil temperature: Sangamon County’s average residential electricity bill has increased by more than 52% in the past five years when comparing seasonal data, according to a database constructed by Heatmap News and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That’s nearly 15% more than Cook County, and almost 10% more than the state, experienced over the same time frame. Despite utility costs soaring over the past five years, grid operators keep approving more data centers. Utility providers, such as Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative, claim the projects will lower rates for others even in light of the larger amount of power needed to run them.

* Shaw Local | Dixon man accused of threatening Lee County official over data center listing pleads guilty to petty offense: A Dixon man charged with felonies accusing him of threatening a Lee County official pleaded guilty to a petty offense on Wednesday and agreed to complete a court-ordered program to get the four felony charges dismissed. […] The charges accused him of threatening Lee County Industrial Development Association Executive Director Tom Demmer. Those charges were amended on Wednesday to also include one count of obstruction of justice, a Class 4 felony, and one count of barratry, a petty offense, court records show. Under Illinois law, barratry is when a person “wickedly and willfully excites and stirs up actions or quarrels…to promote strife and contention.”

* Texas Tribune | Planned Texas data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than many countries: Including Stargate’s Abilene campus, at least 15 gas plants tied to data centers are planned for Texas, according to Cleanview. Available permits reviewed by Floodlight show that nine of them combined could emit more than 130 million tons of greenhouse gases every year. That’s the equivalent annual emissions of 35 coal-fired power plants, according to an Environmental Protection Agency calculator. While actual emissions are usually lower than estimates, the impact on the climate could still be enormous: If completed, these nine plants have the potential to emit more annual greenhouse gases than most countries do — even if emissions end up being half of what’s permitted.

*** Chicago ***

* Sun-Times | CTA crime has dropped for last 6 consecutive months amid security surge, agency boss says: The Red Line has seen a 47% decline in all crime, and a 76% drop in violent crime through June compared to last year, Leerhsen said. “The perception of safety on CTA is affected by every single incident we have,” Leerhsen said. “But given the importance of our system to the vitality and strength of our city, it is incredibly important to me that we still stop and note this progress, which is real and is continuing to sustain itself.”

* Block Club Chicago | Chicago Police Torture Survivors Break Ground On Monument: ‘More Work To Do’: The memorial — a blend of public art, education, reflection and movement-building guaranteed within a 2015 reparations package — broke ground Wednesday at 5520 S. King Drive in Washington Park, with plans for its completion by early next year. “This memorial is about more than remembering the past,” said Gregory Banks, a member of the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials Foundation and a survivor of beatings, suffocation and racial epithets inflicted on him by officers who extracted his confession in 1983.

* Tribune | Chicago FBI boss forced into early retirement, skips lunch with US Attorney Boutros: Shortly after Douglas DePodesta became head of the FBI’s storied Chicago bureau, he told the Tribune he would love to call it a career in his adopted hometown when he hit the mandatory retirement age in a few years. “I think I have a lot left in my tank,” DePodesta said in May 2025. Instead, DePodesta’s impressive FBI career came to an abrupt end this week. He was forced to retire early due to a falling out with bosses in the Justice Department, apparently over issues with his fealty to the Trump administration’s political agenda, or lack thereof.

* Crain’s | Judge enforces distance rule for cannabis shops in blow to planned South Loop store: Attorneys for Blounts & Moore argued the location 470 feet away from the existing dispensary violates a provision of the state’s Cannabis Regulation & Tax Act that says a new dispensary can’t be within 1,500 feet of a pre-existing one. The ruling for Blounts & Moore appears to be the first time a court has interpreted the setback rule, casting doubt on future efforts to open cannabis shops in the Loop.

* Tribune | Chicago White Sox blanked for the 4th time this season in a 5-0 loss to the Boston Red Sox: Despite the loss, the Sox (47-44) remain alone in first place in the American League Central standings. They are one game ahead of the Cleveland Guardians (47-46), who lost 6-5 to the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday. The Twins (46-47) are two games back.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Southtown | Bolingbrook, Homer Glen mayors urge residents to fight Illinois American Water rate hike: “Water is not a luxury,” Bolingbrook Mayor Mary Alexander-Basta said Wednesday. “It is not a vacation. It is not a new television or a shopping trip that can be postponed. Water, electricity and natural gas are essential services that every family needs to live with dignity, safety and health.” Alexander-Basta, along with state legislators, said Bolingbrook residents pay an average of $220 a month for their water bills. Senior citizens on fixed incomes and households already cash-strapped by rising costs in food, insurance and housing, cannot afford more rate hikes, she said.

* Tribune | Prime Healthcare seeks to permanently close inpatient pediatric unit at St. Joseph hospital in Joliet: St. Joseph, which was bought by Prime last year, said in April 2025 that it was temporarily suspending pediatric inpatient care. At the time, the move drew criticism from nurses union the Illinois Nurses Association, which represents nurses at the hospital. Now, the hospital has filed an application with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board to shutter the 13-bed unit for good upon board approval or by the end of the year. The board will vote on the request at a future meeting.

* Daily Herald | Plan for massive industrial park approved in Vernon Hills: Including an existing warehouse, the 70-acre Vernon hills Industrial Park could total about 1.2 million square feet in five buildings, following approvals Tuesday by the village board. Property owner JCA Hayes LLC has been pursuing the project at 100-230 S. Milwaukee Ave., in the Continental Executive Parke, since late 2024. The approved plan for the site once scouted by Amazon calls for three speculative buildings, use of an existing warehouse and a huge build-to-suit facility for hand2mind, a sister company of tariff-busting Learning Resources

* Aurora Beacon-News | Aurora residents still struggling with storm damage: Residents across Aurora, and particularly in the 4th and 6th Wards, experienced basement flooding, tree damage and power outages Friday and Saturday morning, with varying degrees of damage, said Ald. Jonathan Nunez, 4th Ward. Nunez said some basements flooded twice, including his own, and residents struggled to keep the water out. “It’s disheartening when you spend several hours, you know, trying to save whatever you may have,” he said. “A lot of us had to throw away a ton of different items that you just can’t recover.”

*** Downstate ***

* Capitol City Now | Springfield Mayor supports Flock contract extension: The company has been accused in the past of violating state law regarding data, which led to other cities ending their contracts with Flock. “It’s our job at the city to police our cameras and our contract with Flock, so that’s what we will do and have been doing,” said Buscher. “I can’t speak on what was going on in other communities. But, for the City of Springfield, we will make sure our data is secure.”

* Capitol News Illinois | IDOC worker pleads guilty to padding the payroll of her correctional officer husband: An Illinois Department of Corrections payroll worker admitted in federal court Wednesday that she falsified her correctional officer husband’s overtime and holiday pay, defrauding the state of nearly $125,000. […] According to a stipulation of facts she signed, Tudor doctored her husband’s payroll records for about two and a half years, from July 1, 2022, through Dec. 30, 2024, while he worked as a correctional officer at the Murphysboro Life Skills Re-Entry Center, a satellite facility of the Pinckneyville Correctional Center. Under the plea agreement, the parties calculated an advisory federal sentencing guideline range of 10 to 16 months in prison and a fine of $5,500 to $55,000, but the judge is not bound by that recommendation.

* The Daily Egyptian | SIU board expected to give Lane $65K bonus Thursday: The Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees is set to determine Thursday if Carbondale Chancellor Austin Lane will receive his annual bonus — an additional $65,000 on top of his annual base salary of $378,000. Whether he gets the bonus depends on a series of goals, which for this past academic year included keeping the hiring chill in place and increasing online enrollment. Many of Lane’s goals are focused on improving the university’s enrollment and graduation rate and controlling school spending. A document obtained by the Daily Egyptian through a Freedom of Information Act request outlines 10 goals for the 2025-2026 academic year.

*** National ***

* Post-Tribune | Indiana Gov. Mike Braun says Hammond stadium for Chicago Bears is ‘in the red zone’: “I’m excited by the Bears. I think we’re almost there, but we’re not there yet,” [Northwest Indiana, Family Express President and CEO Gus Olympidis] said. “It is always a little risky to overplay something before it happens because if it doesn’t happen, you have some explaining to do,” he said.

* Wired | Self-Driving Cars Are Interfering With First Responders. Feds Aren’t Happy:Morrison wrote that NHTSA has documented a “clear pattern” of interference over the last few months, including incidents in which the vehicles drove into active emergency scenes, blocked ambulances and firefighters, and didn’t respond in situations involving flashing lights, fire, and traffic cones.