* Sun-Times…

Surely, there has been a new crop of viewers drawn to a team that socked 211 home runs this season and produces at least one viral video clip per week. By and large, however, the Sox’ fan base simply has endured the wait for meaningful baseball.

For that reason, ensuring a home playoff game was a rallying cry for the Sox, something celebrated in the locker room in Houston after a sweep of the Wild Card Series.

‘‘We’re expecting the most rowdy crowd I’ve ever played before in my entire life,’’ said right-hander Sean Burke, who made his big league debut in 2024. […]

Maybe a historic release of fan energy is the key ingredient. By the admission of the players and coaches, the Sox have been more comfortable as an underdog than as a front-runner. A slate of road playoff games as the lower seed found them back in a comfortable mindset. They could use an extra jolt.

*** Statewide ***

* Center Square | School districts shifted funds, planned for higher fuel costs for buses: Last year, Illinois schools spent $1.86 billion on transportation to get students to and from school each day. In the wake of increased fuel prices, especially for diesel that school buses typically run on, school districts across the country began bracing for even higher costs. Noelle Ellerson Ng, chief advocacy and governance officer with the American Association of School Administrators, discussed a survey she conducted alongside other national organizations in May about those impacts with The Center Square.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Capitol News Illinois | Bailey trying to stay on message as attacks from Pritzker mount: Much of the air in the governor’s race has been taken up by Pritzker’s ads that claim Bailey believes dinosaurs and humans coexisted. The ads point to a biblical textbook purportedly used at Full Armor Christian Academy, the private school Bailey founded with his wife. He declined to say Pritzker’s characterization is wrong. “The proposition of answering that question is so silly,” Bailey said. “I’m not addressing it. I want to talk about high property taxes. I want to talk about high utility costs, and right here, this is a perfect example of JB Pritzker being successful by diverting the message and I’m not going to allow it.” Bailey said Pritzker’s campaign created this claim because he visited the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, which claims dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark. “I encourage anyone to go there,” Bailey said.

* WMBD | On the Record: Illinois independent makes case to become next governor: It’s largely a supply-and-demand issue. Data centers came on the scene, demanding huge amounts of energy, while not enough power was added to the supply, like new nuclear reactors and other coal-fired power plants were taken offline, Corbett said. “The bills that have been passed on in Springfield over the last 8 plus years have moved us too quickly into our green energy, our clean energy future,” he said. “I’ve got a two year old boy and another baby on the way. I want to pass down to them an environment and an Earth that they can enjoy.

* Block Club Chicago | Criminal Records Can Follow Chicagoans For Years. A New Law Aims To Help: Part of the Clean Slate Act took effect June 1, changing eligibility and waiting-period rules. The law also eliminated a drug-testing requirement for some people seeking to seal or expunge records, and it changed rules that previously could automatically disqualify someone from sealing a felony because of a separate felony conviction.

* Daily Herald | ‘Everyday’ reality, ever-present danger: New law aims to familiarize kids on train risks: With nearly 8,000 public railway grade crossings statewide, most located on local roads, it’s crucial to educate kids about how a familiar scenario can turn deadly in seconds, advocates say. The DRSC and Illinois Operation Lifesaver teamed up to advance the legislation in the General Assembly. The organizations spent months lobbying lawmakers to pass the measure. It unanimously cleared the House in April 2025, passed the Senate with just one “no” vote in May, and was signed by Gov. JB Pritzker in July.

* Press release | Ready for the Fight Launches New Ads Taking the Fight to MAGA Republicans Across the Country: Ready for the Fight PAC launched four new ads across Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, and New Mexico, expanding its national campaign to hold MAGA Republicans accountable for raising costs for working families while putting fealty to Donald Trump ahead of the people they are supposed to represent. The new ads are part of Ready for the Fight’s commitment to compete aggressively in places Democrats too often write off and make Republicans answer for the MAGA agenda that has raised costs, threatened health care and left working families paying the price. Click here to watch the new ads.

*** Chicago ***

* Tribune | Mayor Brandon Johnson says he supports embattled school board president candidate: And pressed on whether the red line he and Dominguez share against school closures is more important than the story of the woman who said Dominguez sexually harassed her when she was 17, Johnson responded, “First of all, let’s just separate the two.” “Those are two separate matters, and I want to be emphatically clear that the OIG’s responsibility in this moment, to answer questions with expediency, is an imperative.” Johnson said. “And on a separate note, having a school district that invests in working people, it’s important to me, and that’s important to Chicagoans across this city.”

* Brandon Johnson | My fiscal case for a second term: And these efforts are producing results. The overperformance of our progressive revenues drove the bulk of the nearly $300 million decrease in this year’s projected budget deficit. While we are always looking at ways to improve government, it is unrealistic to believe that we can “cut” our way out of decades of bad decisions. Chicago’s fiscal challenges did not arise overnight. They are driven by decades of neglect and irresponsible decisions that saw our pension systems chronically underfunded while past administrations kicked the can down the road on legacy costs and sold our public assets away for pennies on the dollar.

* Crain’s | Downtown office vacancy falls for second straight quarter: The share of available workspace in the city’s central business district ticked down during the third quarter to 27.9% from 28% midway through the year, according to data from real estate services firm CBRE. The metric is still far from the 13.8% office vacancy rate downtown when the COVID-19 pandemic began, but vacancy has now edged lower for two straight quarters after a historic run of 15 straight quarters in which the rate hit a new all-time high.

* Tribune | Crypto coin founder charged in Chicago with scamming investors in ‘rug pull’ scheme: A founder of the cryptocurrency Kishu Inu has been indicted in Chicago on federal charges alleging he and his associates bilked investors of nearly $10 million through a “rug pull” scheme that used public statements and ads to drive up market prices while selling off coins they had secretly distributed to themselves. Alexander Sisemore, 28, of Fayetteville, Arkansas, was charged in a 13-page indictment made public in U.S. District Court on Wednesday with three counts of wire fraud. Sisemore was expected to self-surrender to authorities and appear for an arraignment at a later date, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

* Tribune | Obama Foundation workers move to unionize: Those workers said they face increasing workloads, rolled back benefits and high turnover, according to the letter. “Due to this unsustainable work environment, many of our skilled, passionate colleagues continue to leave, taking with them their institutional knowledge and expertise.” Some 68 museum visitor services employees, collections and exhibitions workers, custodians, receptionists and people working on the foundation’s global programming signed the letter urging senior leadership of the foundation to voluntarily recognize the union and “not waste resources on anti-union messaging, anti-union lawyers, or anti-union meetings,” citing Obama’s own historic support for organized labor.

* Tribune | A quartet of new music festivals take root in Chicago this month: Last fall, composer and soprano Liza Sobel Crane and violinist Dan Galat performed selections from Kurtág’s “Kafka Fragments.” They expected to beat out a surge of programming for the composer’s 100th birthday last February. But February came and went, with surprisingly little local fanfare. Crane and Galat decided to fix that. They teamed up with Fulcrum Point Music, New Music Chicago, Constellation, Experimental Sound Studio and the Bridgeport Music Collective for Kurtag@100, featuring Chicago’s leading new-music practitioners.

* Block Club | Chicago Named Best Big City In U.S. For 10th Straight Year: Condé Nast Traveler magazine announced its Readers’ Choice Awards on Tuesday with Chicago clinching the top spot, making it the first and only city to hold the title for a decade consecutively since the travel magazine debuted the annual award in 1988. Condé Nast Traveler’s website praises the city’s “impressive architecture, first-rate museums, brilliant chefs, and massive brewing scene.”

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Sun-Times | Former Itasca, West Chicago police officers charged with felony misuse of Flock cameras: Between June 2025 and May 2026, Ciccola is alleged to have made unauthorized searches while Solis was accused of doing so at least once between Dec. 18, 2024, and Jan. 15, 2025, according to prosecutors. Both of their respective former police agencies said they will cooperate with investigators.

* Daily Southtown | Orland Park holds off on speed cameras, allows fines for parents after teen takeovers: After proposing multiple public safety policy changes Sept. 21, the board agreed Monday to take more time before purchasing speed cameras. As state law prohibits municipalities outside Chicago from issuing traffic citations based on speed camera data, Orland Park attorneys plan to look closer at officials’ plan to issue fines under the village’s nuisance ordinance. “There were a lot of people that were in favor of the speed enforcement cameras,” board member John Lawler said. “So it’s not gone, we’re just tabling it for now until we do more research.”

* Daily Southtown | Tinley Park will allow library workers to stay on village healthcare, but at sharply increased cost: The difference in premiums for the village if the library employees remained on the village healthcare was significant, Arrigo said, amounting to $290,322. The library already covers its own premiums in full, Arrigo said, but its inclusion would still cost the village by causing premiums to go up across the board. Library and village officials met last week to discuss options, Arrigo said, and the library asked for a plan allowing its employees to remain on the village healthcare. The village agreed the library could stay if it covered the $290,322 difference in premiums, she said.

*** Downstate ***

* WCIA | Champaign Co. data center task force moves forward on ordinance after Mahomet cuts talks with Clean Cloud: “We can try and make it as tough of a ordinance as we can, but that’s only Champaign County’s ordinance. As we’ve seen with Mahomet, Champaign … any incorporated village, town, city in this county could potentially enter talks in into talks with hyperscale data center developers,” Esry said.

* WAND | Illinois refinery helping United lower emissions with sustainable aviation fuel: Illinois is making major strides in developing sustainable aviation fuel. Gov. JB Pritzker said the Wood River Refinery in Roxana is creating opportunities for farmers, producers, manufacturers and airlines. The Metro East facility provides gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel to St. Louis, Chicago and other Midwest markets. However, the refinery has a special unit that produces conventional jet fuel that blends to make sustainable aviation fuel.

* WPSD | Southern Illinois nonprofit looks to convert abandoned rail lines to hiking trails: Nonprofit organization Rails to Trails Union County is currently searching for grant funding to expand the hiking trails across Union County and Southern Illinois as a whole. Katrina Renzaglia, the chair of the organization, said the organization already has plans to expand the Quetil Trail in Alto Pass. “It would go through our village and then across, hopefully under 127, and then around behind Alto Vineyards, and then eventually Alto Clay Works too, and eventually connect to Rendleman’s Orchard. And this is just Phase 1,” Renzaglia said.

*** National ***

* Bloomberg | Deere shares tumble as feds widen scrutiny of farm equipment industry: The public inquiry, announced Wednesday, seeks to address a “growing number of complaints” from farmers that they “face other barriers to acquiring agricultural equipment and the services required to keep equipment operating.” Deere dropped as much as 5.7%, the most intraday in three months, while rivals AGCO Corp. and CNH Industrial NV tumbled 8.4% and 7.5%, respectively. Caterpillar Inc. shares fell as much as 6.6%.

* NYT | Subway Gates Deterred Fare Evasion, M.T.A. Says. More Will Be Installed.: Gov. Kathy Hochul and transit officials announced on Wednesday that the first batch of whooshing, beeping, metal-and-glass fare gates installed in New York City’s century-old subway system may be turning the tide on fare evasion. The new saloon-style doors — part of a pilot program that started last year to replace decades-old turnstiles at 20 stations — have led to an average of 35 percent less fare beating, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that runs the subway. (The M.T.A. compared fare gate data with the last full month of turnstile data at each station.)

* Politico | Trump administration unveils plan to tie high birth and marriage rates to transit funding: Communities with high birth and marriage rates could soon gain an advantage in securing federal transit money — a long-sought goal of the Trump administration but one that a top Democratic appropriator calls “bizarre and dystopian.” The Federal Transit Administration wants to revamp a multibillion-dollar program that helps state and local authorities fund infrastructure projects such as rail improvements and new bus lanes. Public feedback on the administration’s plan, which was rolled out Oct. 1, is being accepted through mid-November.