* Still no official call in either race, but Republican incumbents Sen. Dave Syverson (R-Cherry Valley) and Rep. Jeff Keicher (R-Sycamore) are holding on to their leads…

* New York Times…

The Supreme Court received an unusual request late last week in one of its biggest cases this term, a challenge to state and local bans on AR-15s and other semiautomatic weapons.

In a one-paragraph filing, the lead plaintiff, Cutberto Viramontes, asked to be dismissed from the case. The 36-year-old Illinois resident had sued officials in Cook County in 2021, arguing that a local ban on semiautomatic rifles violated his Second Amendment rights, a dispute that spiraled into the Supreme Court case the justices have agreed to hear next month.

Mr. Viramontes’s court filing offered no explanation for his decision. It is also unlikely to derail the challenge, in which the justices will weigh the constitutionality of such gun bans. That’s because the court agreed to consider two similar cases, Mr. Viramontes’s challenge to Cook County’s restrictions and a parallel case from Connecticut.

But the last-minute shake-up, less than a month before the Dec. 2 argument, injects questions and chaos into what is shaping up to be a landmark Second Amendment case. In recent years, the court’s conservative majority have announced a series of rulings expanding gun rights, and people on both sides of the debate have long been anticipating the showdown over assault weapons bans. […]

Cook County officials responded to Mr. Viramontes’s request with one of their own. On Thursday, they asked the justices to drop the Cook County case altogether, arguing that there is no one left in the Illinois matter who even wants to own an AR-15-style rifle. If the justices agree, that would leave the Connecticut case standing alone to test the issue for the nation.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Politico | Inside Democrats’ 2028 brainstorm on AI safety: Four potential Democratic presidential candidates — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and California Rep. Ro Khanna — met over the weekend in San Francisco with artificial intelligence safety advocates and Democratic Party veterans, according to exclusive details obtained by Decoded by POLITICO. The two-day event held just days after the midterm election underscores how 2028 hopefuls are viewing AI as a crucial part of their potential presidential bids after voter discontent over issues like AI data centers played a role in Democrats’ sweeping wins last week.

* WTVO | New Illinois laws taking effect in 2027: What residents should know: Illinois residents will see new rules affecting rental fees, jury-duty pay, job postings, consumer returns and interactions between law enforcement and drivers with autism beginning in 2027. The measures are among dozens of public acts outlined by the Illinois Municipal League. Most of the laws highlighted below take effect January 1, although several begin later in the year.

*** Statewide ***

* WQAD | More than 101,000 pounds of pork headed to 8 Illinois food banks:
The Illinois Pork Producers Association, Feeding Illinois and several agricultural organizations are partnering through the 2026 Pork Power: Partnering to Fight Hunger in Illinois campaign to distribute ground pork to eight regional food banks across the state. For the second consecutive year, Feeding Illinois matched the monetary contribution made by IPPA, effectively doubling the amount of ground pork available for donation through the program. In addition to financial contributions, Illinois hog farmers can donate animals directly to the initiative. This year, those donations accounted for more than 7,000 pounds of ground pork.

*** Chicago ***

* Sun-Times | Michilla ‘Kyla’ Blaise wins West Side District 5b Chicago School Board race: Blaise, a political aide backed by the Chicago Teachers Union, received just over 52% of the vote, with all precincts reporting Monday, according to the Associated Press. Election officials have until Nov. 17 to finish counting mail-in ballots and provisional ballots. Final official results are due on Nov. 24.

* Bloomberg | Uber debuts parking reservation feature after buying SpotHero: Uber Technologies Inc. introduced a new feature that lets users reserve parking spots, its first move in this arena after buying Chicago-based parking app developer SpotHero earlier this year. Uber app users can use the new service — marked with a ‘P’ icon on the home screen — to find garages, lots and valets for a specified date and time, the company said Monday in a statement. The option will initially be available in 15 US cities, including Chicago, San Francisco, Austin, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia and DC, with more markets to follow later.

* Sun-Times | Brief gush of ‘much colder air’ may usher in first snowflakes of season for Chicago area Friday: The lows Thursday and Friday are 33 and 30 degrees respectively, which could create conditions for lake effect snowflakes mixed in with rain and thunderstorms but not accumulating snow, according to the National Weather Service. “It will be a relatively short-lived period of colder weather there before we warm back up,” said Kevin Birk, a meteorologist with the weather service.

* WBEz | Doggonit! City dog licensing hits an all-time low: Chicago’s bark has long been worse than its bite when it comes to cracking down on owners of unlicensed dogs, but there now appears to be no bite at all. That much was obvious Friday when City Clerk Anna Valencia revealed during City Council budget hearings that her office has issued only 4,100 dog licenses this year in a city with an estimated dog population of more than 650,000.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Lake County News-Sun | Waukegan mayor calls for sale of Vista Medical Center East: ‘Enough is enough’: Amid new reports of payroll delays at Vista Medical Center East and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) no longer allowing ambulances to transport patients there, Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham said he has run out of patience with Vista owner American Healthcare Systems (AHS). Cunningham wants hospital healthcare workers at Vista not to have to worry about the financial stability of AHS as they care for patients from the Waukegan area. He believes a new owner for the hospital is the best solution.

* Daily Herald | Twelve Election Day complaints in Kane County: All were resolved that day by assistant state’s attorneys. Two callers reported people electioneering inside the 100-foot campaign-free zone at polling places. Two callers reported campaign signs that appeared to be in campaign-free zones. […] One caller reported that a ballot looked different from expected. ASAs and election judges verified that the voter had received the correct ballot style.

* WTTW | Cook County’s Top Prosecutor Bars Vendor From Sharing Data With ICE: State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke on Monday announced her office revised its contract with Appriss Inc. — a vendor company that handles statutorily mandated victim notifications — to “explicitly prohibit” the company from disclosing any personal data with federal law enforcement officials or third-party databases that may be used to support immigration enforcement. “Everyone participating in the justice system — regardless of immigration status — should be able to trust that their personal information will be protected,” O’Neill Burke said in a statement. “We will continue to stand up for our immigrant communities and try to reduce the harm that’s been caused by ICE’s reckless actions.”

* Evanston Roundtable | District 65 lawyer calls parent suit threat ‘premature,’ says no final decisions have been made: At the Oct. 26 school board meeting, District 65 administrators said that despite accidentally overstating spending by millions in their five-year financial projections, they are not making any significant changes to their plan to close Lincolnwood and Dewey elementary schools. Subsequent reporting by the RoundTable found that the initial error from the district was larger than previously reported, and that savings from school closures would be smaller than previously reported. A vote is scheduled for Monday to approve the budget plan, which would trigger state-mandated hearings ahead of official school closure votes.

* Elgin Courier-News | Huge weekend turnout for holiday meal boxes handed out at ECC: The early arrivals were not a surprise for Colleen Colleen, the food bank’s chief philanthropy and marketing officer. The organization is experiencing a historic and sustained demand for food assistance that exceeds what it saw during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, she said. “The demand is no longer a temporary surge,” Ahearn said.

* Daily Herald | Indictment announced against Palatine teen charged with plotting Aurora shooting: Alexandros Paporakis, 19, is charged with making a terrorist threat and unlawful use of a weapon. In convicted on those charges, he faces a minimum six and up to 30 years in prison. Paporakis is scheduled for arraignment Nov. 19 at the Cook County courthouse in Rolling Meadows. He remains in custody at the county jail while his case is pending.

*** Downstate ***

* IPM Newsroom | U of I board to vote on design of new, up-to-date residence hall amid student housing shortage: The Taft and Van Doren residence halls on Fourth Street do not have air conditioning and are not wheelchair accessible, according to the university’s online housing search tool. The U of I’s Board of Trustees will decide Thursday whether the campus can move forward with demolishing them after the spring semester ends. Demolition was predicted to cost $1.5 million at a presentation at a university senate committee meeting in 2025. U of I has been planning to replace them with a new residence hall, which was expected to cost $181.5 million. The board will also decide Thursday whether to approve the design.

* WCIA | EIU reopens, some systems available after ‘electrical outages’ in IT system: The Eastern Illinois campus has reopened after electrical outages affected the university’s IT systems, but some systems remain unavailable. University spokesperson Josh Reinhart provided an update on the situation late Monday morning. He said that at approximately 10:30 a.m., a message was sent to students and employees to announce the reopening of campus. EIU Mail, DL2, Qualitric and Microsoft Teams are available, but websites and applications hosted at eiu.edu remain unavailable.

*** National ***

* Democracy Docket | ‘All about the machines’: Trump claims Democrats’ midterm wins not ‘honest’: The president has pushed false claims about rigged voting machines since he lost the 2020 election. And many prominent election deniers in the MAGA movement promoted conspiracy theories before the midterms that Democrats would rig election equipment to steal the election — and pressured the president to take preemptive action to take control of voting.

* NYT | Immigrants Are Being Systematically Returned Home Despite Court Orders: The Times identified more than 110 people who had court-ordered protections and were handed over to foreign governments, only to then be passed on to home countries where they risked torture, sexual abuse or persecution — risks that have been validated by American courts. In these cases, America’s partners served only as intermediaries. Officers roughed up immigrants or forced them onto airplanes. Some were threatened with imprisonment or confronted by armed police officers until they “volunteered” to return. Some now live in hiding. Others have simply vanished.