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Isabel’s morning briefing
Wednesday, Aug 12, 2026 - Posted by Isabel Miller * ICYMI: New Illinois law empowering sexual assault survivors runs into shortage of female officers. WGLT…
- The Illinois State University Police Department currently works with a staff of 32 sworn officers. Seven are women. However, Deputy Chief Nichol Bleichner is the only female investigator, and she would have to do any and all interviews should someone reporting a sexual assault request a female. - The bill does have a caveat, It states the procedure should be enforced at police stations that employ officers of more than one sex or gender. * At 3 pm, Gov. JB Pritzker will attend the butter cow unveiling at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield. Click here to watch. * Capitol News Illinois | Judge orders DCFS director to answer for repeated failures to release public documents in child death: In March, Springfield attorney Don Craven filed suit on behalf of CNI and reporter Beth Hundsdorfer, alleging DCFS violated the Illinois Freedom of Information Act and asking for an order to compel DCFS to produce the records. DCFS did not respond to that lawsuit and, when the case was called for a hearing in June, attorneys for the agency did not appear. On June 10, Judge Davis issued an order finding DCFS “willfully and intentionally violated” the Freedom of Information Act when it failed to release the requested information. He also ordered DCFS to produce the records within five days and to pay CNI’s costs, attorney fees and a $5,000 civil penalty. * Race and Equity Project | Nowhere to go: Chicago teens on ‘takeovers,’ curfews, and lost community spaces: The Investigative Project spent the past few weeks visiting South Side beaches to talk to teens and hear their opinions on what the adults are calling teen takeovers and the city officials’ response to them. The teens — who grew up during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic — told us that youth gatherings provide them with a chance to socialize offline and blow off steam, and that city officials need to do more to provide alternative spaces for them to gather. Many teens also pointed to issues of equity when it comes to the availability of “third spaces” — gathering places outside of the home and work or school. * 21st Show | Illinois Governor JB Pritzker makes his case for a third term on The 21st Show: Last week, Pritzker sat down with Brian Mackey, host of The 21st Show, at Illinois Public Media’s studio in Urbana. They discussed issues in Illinois prisons, public distrust of billionaires, and what he hopes to accomplish if voters elect him to another term. * Canary Media | Solar on storage units? Here’s how Illinois is making it happen: The 763-kilowatt array, which went online in March, is one of 60 planned projects for the rooftops of Public Storage facilities in Illinois. Ten such projects are now online, and once completed, the portfolio will cover 5 million square feet of roof space, provide 44 megawatts of solar capacity, deliver $36 million total savings, and create 300 construction jobs, according to Solar Landscape, a leading developer of rooftop community solar sites nationwide. * Center Square | Vacant State Armory renamed to honor former Gov. Edgar amid $122M remodel: The remodel of the building, now known as the Jim Edgar Executive Office Building, will result in a new office building that will house offices for staff of state agencies and Governor’s support staff. The building is being renamed after former Republican Gov. Jim Edgar, who died in September. Edgar served as a state representative beginning in 1977 before being appointed as the state’s 35th secretary of state, followed by a governorship from 1991 to 1999. * Tribune | Nonprofit CEO appealed to Mayor Brandon Johnson over city anti-violence grant, records show: Acclivus Inc. CEO LeVon Stone sent then-Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Olusimbo Ige a “Notice of Protest” letter on Nov. 25, 2024, and copied Johnson on it, according to a copy obtained by the Tribune through a Freedom of Information Act request. The correspondence came five days after Johnson’s campaign donated $25,000 to the community violence intervention group and a week before the deadline for organizations to apply for the city grant money. * Crain’s | Johnson’s data center moratorium adds uncertainty to a market already losing ground: Power-hungry data centers have become political powder kegs with the advent of artificial intelligence, growing as essential parts of how businesses are run while drawing public scrutiny over their impact on communities. The reality is most data centers are built outside Chicago city limits, where land is cheaper. “It’s kind of short-sighted,” says Bob Heiderscheidt, CEO of MDI Access in Alsip, which designs data centers here and across the country. “There’s not a lot going on in downtown Chicago. There are only so many apartments you can put into vacant buildings.” * Tribune | Feds: Man shot by Chicago police officer during ATF gun sting in Country Club Hills had been misidentified: A criminal complaint made public Tuesday charged a new suspect, Dontrell Gordon, with participating in the June 9 incident, which resulted in two people being shot by law enforcement, including Demond Edwards. In an unusual footnote in the 13-page complaint against Gordon, the U.S. attorney’s office said Edwards had been incorrectly identified in previous charges as one of the people who had approached the undercover agents’ car during the undercover operation dressed in all black and with weapons drawn. * Tribune | Severe storms bring two tornadoes and up to 99 mph winds to Chicago area, weather service says: Weather officials confirmed Tuesday night that two tornadoes had touched down during the storms, one in southern Cook County and another in eastern Will County. Officials said they were still surveying the extent of damage, and a challenging survey environment was prolonging the process. * Daily Herald | Arlington Heights to hire a dozen more cops, restoring staffing to prerecession levels: Village board members have endorsed police department brass’ proposal to increase the number of authorized sworn staff from 110 to 122 — a recommendation that was formally unveiled Monday, but has been considered by a village hall working group for years. It would restore the department’s full-time roster from recession-era cuts made two decades ago — and add one more position — for a total of 151 employees, including civilian social workers and records staff. * Daily Herald | Gasoline-powered cars parked in EV spots in Mundelein now can be ticketed, towed: The rules only apply to charging stations on public property. […] The regulations were prompted by the repeated discovery of cars parked at charging stations that weren’t using them, Deputy Village Administrator Lynne Monroe said in a memo. * Evanston Now | Uihlein family giving $35M to NU football: Northwestern’s football program will receive a $35 million gift commitment from the family of Liz and Dick Uihlein, the billionaire owners of Uline supply company and heirs to the Schlitz Brewing Company fortune, the university announced Tuesday. Northwestern said the donation will “support student-athlete development, operational priorities, recruiting, and strategic investments designed to position Northwestern Football for sustained success in the Big Ten and on the national stage.” * Muddy River News | ‘You can’t untape their mouths,’ Denman School parents say their children still struggle with what happened in gym class: Goodapple’s child was among those in the gym class of Jennifer Oitker and Kimberly Kirby, who were suspended without pay on Tuesday by the Quincy school board, pending their dismissal. The decision comes nearly two years after complaints about the pair forcing birthday spankings on students and taping students’ mouths shut to keep them quiet. * Alton Telegraph | Investigation involving former Bethalto police chief sent to Illinois attorney general: Lamb has been on administrative leave since March 4. Deputy Chief Scott Hale was placed on administrative leave in March. Mayor Gary Bost confirmed that the two had been placed on leave and that Lamb was the subject of an outside investigation, but he has provided no additional information. In May, Bufford confirmed an active investigation, but did not provide additional information “to protect the integrity of the active investigation.” * WAND | Springfield Ward 8 candidate receives threats after announcing run for city council: When Teresa Tran decided to run for Springfield City Council, she knew there could be hate comments online and people who didn’t agree with her platform. What she didn’t expect was threats from someone else in politics. Tran said a man who identified himself as a committeeperson for Sangamon County Democratic Party Precinct 15 called her multiple times at her nonprofit workplace. When she called him back, the phone call included insults, racial remarks and ultimatums to drop out of the race. * BND | He defied police and won in court. Now he’s suing Belleville for trying to evict him: Now the father of four has filed a $2 million lawsuit in federal court, accusing the city of violating his constitutional due process rights while trying to enforce its Crime-Free Housing ordinance. […] The ordinance is designed to reduce crime in the city by requiring landlords to conduct criminal background checks on potential tenants and remove those who commit felonies or Class A misdemeanors or repeatedly violate local ordinances on their property. * WAND | Illinois State Fair introducing official merchandise stand: The fair will now have an official merchandise stand on the fairgrounds. It will be located on Illinois Avenue across from the Sky Glide, offering visitors the opportunity to shop for exclusive Illinois State Fair apparel and merchandise from that evening’s Grandstand concert. * AP | ICE plans to give officers gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks: ICE plans to spend up to $20 million to purchase thousands of “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices” for officers and agents by March, according to a notice published Monday by the Department of Homeland Security. The devices are known as the G.L.O.V.E., which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, and are manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC of Lexington, Kentucky. They have been used in recent years by some jails and police departments.
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- Jack in Chatham - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 7:55 am:
The remodel of the State Armory on Second Street and Monroe is $140,000 per employee work space or $388 per square foot.
- Candy Dogood - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 8:19 am:
=== DCFS “willfully and intentionally violated” the Freedom of Information Act when it failed to release the requested information.===
Governor JB Pritzker’s administration is over here willfully and intentionally violating the law. I wonder what the cause of that is. I wonder if he cares. I wonder if he will hold anyone accountable.
- Excitable Boy - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 8:34 am:
- $140,000 per employee work space or $388 per square fo -
So? It’s a historic building, should it have been left continuing to rot like the rest of downtown?
Typical Springfield attitude.
- H-W - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 8:54 am:
Re: BND Crime-Free Housing Ordinance in Belleville
=== requiring landlords to conduct criminal background checks on potential tenants and remove those who commit felonies or Class A misdemeanors ===
=== all owners, landlords and/or managing agents shall conduct a U.S. comprehensive criminal search prior to executing a rental agreement. ===
It would appear the idea of “eliminating the box” in order to allow past offenders access to jobs does not apply equally to housing in Belleville. If you cannot live in Belleville, you cannot work there. Institutional discrimination at its finest.
- JS Mill - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 8:57 am:
= and that city officials need to do more to provide alternative spaces for them to gather. Many teens also pointed to issues of equity when it comes to the availability of “third spaces” — gathering places outside of the home and work or school.=
Sorry, no. The City’s job is not and has never been to entertain peoples kids. It does not matter what era you grew up or are growing up in. Kids, especially teens, have always been bored no matter how many or what options existed.
- Excitable Boy - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 9:14 am:
- The City’s job is not and has never been to entertain peoples kids. -
Can you not read? They’re asking for more parks, basketball courts, soccer fields, etc. This isn’t rocket science.
- H-W - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 9:30 am:
I am going to disagree with you JS Mill.
There is a significant difference between “most children” in McDonough County finding a place to hang out in McDonough County, and most children in Sangamon finding a place to hang out in Springfield. This is even more so a concern regarding the Northern Suburbs and Chicago. While the amount of land in each county is not significantly different, then number of children is vastly different.
Children do have a moral right to use public spaces and parks designed for not just the adults, but for the children as well. Taking away those rights because there are too many children in some places is unethical, and an abdication of the concept that we live in communities.
I would argue there are better ways to regulate children than to deny them freedom of movement in public spaces. Community organizations and cities can do better. Mind you I am not excusing bad behavior. That should be corrected. And I recognize the differences in the economies of scale in doing so, comparing your and my rural communities with the suburbs and true cities.
But most kids are not acting illegally (save where we require them to be in their homes at an arbitrary hour called curfew). If we are unwilling to require all adults to self- quarantine in the evenings and nights because adults commit crime at in the evenings and at night, then requiring students to quarantine in the evenings and nights because some teens commit crimes in the evenings is punishing all because of the few.
Just my two cents.
Also, the race issue seems worthy of consideration. I’ll not do so here, but I do support the argument that unintentional racial disparities do exist and do need to be openly addressed.
- Ducky - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 9:34 am:
You see what you want to see Excitable Boy. I see folks who want to be left alone to gather without assumptions that their gathering is negative. To gather without being harassed by police and banned by officials.
It makes you wonder if the police were again permitted to go more aggressively after troublemakers whether it would be easier to permit the teen takeovers because a clear standard of what is unacceptable (and swiftly dealt with) would already be known by those involved (Police and residents).
- RNUG - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 9:43 am:
== most data centers are built outside Chicago city limits ==
Having built data centers in Chicago, there are numerous reasons to not build there. Between the electrical code that is the strictest anywhere and the virtual impossibility of getting permanent backup generators approved, there is a lot of extra infrastructure costs to building a data center in Chicago. It’s quite cost prohibitive.
- Google is Your Friend - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 9:51 am:
==- Excitable Boy - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 8:34 am:==
Part of the cost is that it was allowed to rot almost completely. It was so bad, the first part of the renovation can be fairly described as connecting a giant vacuum to suck out hazardous materials.
- RNUG - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 9:59 am:
== The fair will now have an official merchandise stand on the fairgrounds ==
The fair has had a booth inside the northwest end of the grandstand for as long as I can remember. Admittedly it was that visible, but this is just a location change, not really something new.
- Think Again - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 10:14 am:
=youth …“third spaces” — gathering places outside of the home and work or school.=
Public libraries are a great “third” space - CPL has spent millions on upgrading neighborhood branches - fun materials, spaces, and programs are available to all. Give em a try
- Jibba - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 10:22 am:
“There’s not a lot going on in downtown Chicago. ”
And putting a data center in an office building will ensure that nothing ever happens there again.
- Huh? - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 10:34 am:
I like the idea of placing solar panels on the storage unit roof tops. Have thought for a long time that warehouse roof tops are a perfect place for solar panels.
- Steve Rogers - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 10:38 am:
@Jack in Chatham, what’s your point? Or are you just trolling?
Would it have been more cost effective to tear it down for another parking lot? Or maybe we should have torn it down and put up a $200,000 Morton Building and called it good?
- Huh? - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 10:59 am:
I with JS Mill on city’s do not have a responsibility to entertain anyone. As for more parks and places of congregation, the park system in Chicago is next to none. It is superb.
The linked article interviewed people on the 57th Street beach. The incident mentioned in the story indicates that police got involved after violence commenced.
The story mentions the Ford City mall as a place where teens used to congregate. Is it the city’s fault the mall closed?
There are plenty of places where teens can go for their entertainment.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 11:22 am:
===do not have a responsibility to entertain anyone===
Sheesh. Recreation has been part of local municipal life forever.
It’s what separates great towns and cities from glum spaces occupied solely by houses and strip malls.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 11:33 am:
===Typical Springfield attitude. ===
Agreed.
- Amalia - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 11:36 am:
so no data centers in Chicago. what about that far South Side project that the Governor is touting? does it include that? also how many of these facilities are in Chicago and where are they located? jumping right to no data centers not thought through.
- Two Left Feet - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 11:48 am:
Laws without enforcement are just suggestions. There are plenty of current laws that may apply: Statewide and Chicago curfew, Illinois Public Demonstrations Law, Chicago assemble restrictions, traffic laws, noise laws, Parental Responsibility Law, Improper Supervision of Children Act, parental responsibility for shoplifting, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, etc.
100s of people with 53 arrests is a problem. Enforcement is one of the answers.
- btowntruth from forgottonia - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 12:05 pm:
“Would it have been more cost effective to tear it down for another parking lot? Or maybe we should have torn it down and put up a $200,000 Morton Building and called it good?”
Stop giving them ideas Steve.
- Candy Dogood - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 12:10 pm:
Some of y’all ain’t never been to Europe and it shows.
===Laws without enforcement are just suggestions.===
I think part of the problem with enforcement is that some elected officials came along and decided to criminalize being a ‘youth.’ The laws have stretched far beyond what our individual childhood experiences were. Where I grew up there were curfews in place. This did not stop me from leaving the house or being out of the house at all hours. My parents, if they had been aware, would have truly had no capacity to stop me because they had to sleep at some point in time.
In the United States we have people who both celebrate and fondly remember sneaking off to fields and parks to break laws, including underage drinking, and then seek to criminalize all aspects of the behavior — not just the drinking. Which by the way, there is less of than back in the day.
We both complain about younger generations never leaving the house, not developing social skills, not developing job skills, and then make it illegal for them to leave the basement to hang out with their friends in person.
===has never been to entertain peoples kids.===
Where I lived had publicly supported swimming lessons, publicly supported youth theater programs, publicly supported athletic programs, all manner of programs through the YMCA, et al, which received grants, along with parks, bike paths, steeply discounted access to public pools, and similar things.
We’ve made it literally illegal for a 12 year old to walk to a swimming pool with a group of similarly aged friends and made the cost of entering the swimming pools (in most places I am aware of) incredibly high and somewhat unaffordable.
I am certain I am not the only person commenting here whose summers were defined largely by unsupervised time while trying to stay out of the way of adults, and frequently visiting public or open to the public “3rd Spaces.”
The fact that some of you are here condemning your parents as criminals (but not really, right?) and turning a blind eye to the public funds that were spent improving your younger lives is absurd.
The same people who don’t want to pay taxes to keep a swimming pool cheap certainly don’t want to pay taxes for locking up more kids and parents, and really need to look at the horrific things that we are responsible for when kids get locked up.
And some of y’all wanted to make it cost more for a kid to go swimming so that the “wrong kind of kids” don’t show up at the pool.
- Friendly Bob Adams - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 1:12 pm:
So…. Chicago cops working with the feds shoot a guy that had nothing to do with the sting operation. Shouldn’t they at least have some idea who it is they’re shooting?
- Demoralized - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 1:35 pm:
==Sorry, no.==
For someone who’s ENTIRE job is to look out for the welfare of kids that’s an odd stance to take.
- Demoralized - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 3:10 pm:
==whose parents want to abdicate the responsibility==
That is a dumb argument. The parents obviously aren’t doing it. So apparently we should just ignore it according to you because it “isn’t your job.” Again, for someone who has dedicated their life to children I find some of your stances to be baffling when it comes to kids. You seem to take the position far to often that it’s not your responsibility.
- Excitable Boy - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 3:55 pm:
- not hear to raise your kids too bad -
You apparently can’t write well either.
As for reading, the kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods say they don’t have enough places to go socialize and play, are they lying? Are you intimately familiar with the recreation opportunities in these neighborhoods?
No one is talking about government raising kids (except thinly veiled racists), but as Rich pointed out good municipalities put effort into providing recreational opportunities.
- Google is Your Friend - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 4:38 pm:
==- Friendly Bob Adams - Wednesday, Aug 12, 26 @ 1:12 pm:==
One of the Justice Department investigation findings underpinning CPD’s consent decree is that they were training cops for a shooting standard that had been unconstitutional for decades. To say their standard is, “shoot first, ask questions later,” is a severe understatement.