* Crain’s…

The city of Rolling Meadows and the village of Palatine today issued a public call for the Illinois General Assembly to tweak the stadium authority bill it may take up in next week’s legislative veto session. The bill — passed in the Senate at the 11th hour of the spring legislative session but never considered by the House — would allow the village of Arlington Heights to form a municipal stadium authority that would own a potential Bears venue on the former racetrack property. […]

“We want the Bears to stay in Illinois, and keeping them here should include the communities that will live next door,” Rolling Meadows Mayor Lara Sanoica said in a statement. “We are asking for a seat at the table on decisions our residents will live with for decades.”

Arlington Park’s unique geography is at the heart of the issue. The site is within Arlington Heights boundaries, but is largely bordered by Rolling Meadows and Palatine. An analysis prepared by Rolling Meadows said Arlington Heights controls only 28% of the land within one mile of the potential stadium site.

Neighboring communities, meanwhile, “would live with the stadium’s impact on traffic, public safety, infrastructure and municipal services” with no formal seat at the table in how the venue is operated, the statement said.

* Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition…

Today, Decatur residents, advocates, and the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition delivered a letter signed by 43 organizations calling on Google to cancel its contract with dirty gas to power their energy-hungry data centers and invest instead in clean energy resources. Google plans to purchase most of the power the 452 MW Broadwing methane gas plant will produce on Archer Daniels Midland’s (ADM) campus in Decatur, Illinois, to power its Midwest data centers. Advocates made clear that Big Tech should not be allowed to power their massive data centers with dirty fossil fuels and called on the Illinois General Assembly to pass the POWER Act to hold Big Tech accountable and protect consumers from skyrocketing utility bills. […]

The sign-on letter delivered today urges Google to withdraw from its agreement with Broadwing Energy and meet with Decatur residents and advocates to discuss how investments in real, renewable energy solutions will earn local trust, reduce pollution burdens, and deliver affordability benefits for Illinois families. Advocates are also calling on Google to help pass the POWER Act–nation-leading legislation that would enact guardrails on data centers and reduce pollution in communities like Decatur.

“Our state is at a crossroads, and how Illinois requires data centers to power their operations will define our climate legacy. Illinois can choose to cede its climate leadership to further the interests of the data center industry, or we can ditch dirty fossil fuels and establish the strongest clean energy requirements in the nation. The choice is clear: it’s time to hold Big Tech companies like Google accountable, and it’s time for the Illinois legislature to pass the POWER Act,” said Kavi Chintam, Illinois Campaign Manager with Vote Solar and a member of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Crain’s | Pritzker has $156M to tackle Illinois’ housing crunch. Here’s where it’s going: $25 million to restart SmartBuy, a program the IHDA launched in 2021 to help accelerate young adults’ move into homeownership by helping pay off their student loans. With student loan debt wiped out or reduced, buyers have a debt-to-income ratio that is more likely to get them approved for a mortgage.

* Center Square | Legislative leaders circle top priorities ahead of veto session: “We agree there needs to be a regulatory framework in place looking at water – regulating how much water is used, how it’s used, transparency, ethics, all of those things. And then also, most importantly is the power that goes along with it,” Rezin said. As for the Democratic side, Rep. Edgar González Jr., D-Chicago, said he thinks the previously considered POWER Act just has parts that “need to be tinkered out,” and he really hopes to see the proposed legislation pass before the end of session.

*** Chicago ***

* ABC Chicago | Commission set to vote on Chicago Police Department superintendent finalists: Mayor Brandon Johnson will then have 30 days to pick one, or reject the list. There is a push by some to wait until after February’s mayoral election. CCPSA President Remel Terry said 46 candidates from around the country applied for the job. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Malcolm X College.

* Sun-Times | Ferrara Candy Co. to close Little Village plant, lay off 154 workers: Ferrara, whose brands include SweeTARTS, Brach’s and Nerds, began as a bakery in Little Italy in 1908 and has operated in Chicago for nearly 120 years. The confectioner was acquired by Ferrero in 2017 but remains a privately held company under common ownership. Ferrara operates three other Chicago-area manufacturing facilities — in Bellwood, Forest Park and Itasca — and a fourth in DeKalb. Ferrara said employees can continue working at the plant until it closes. Workers also have the opportunity to apply for open positions across Ferrara and its affiliate network.

* Chalkbeat Chicago | Chicago’s Black Student Achievement Committee is meeting for the first time: Almost three years after Illinois lawmakers required a committee to drive academic progress for Chicago’s Black students, the new group will hold its first meeting Thursday evening. The committee is tasked with overseeing the rollout of the district’s Black Student Success Plan, a five-year blueprint unveiled in February 2025 to improve the educational experiences and outcomes of the district’s Black students, who make up roughly a third of the student body. The effort became a target of the Trump administration’s anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion push and remains under federal investigation.

* Block Club | Chicago Could See First Snow Of The Season Thursday, But It’s Unlikely To Stick: Precipitation is set to move into the area Thursday afternoon, and it is forecast to turn into snow as temperatures drop that evening, which could see a low temperature of 28 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. But any accumulation of snow is “not likely,” according to WGN weather producer Bill Snyder.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* ABC Chicago | Waukegan’s Vista Medical Center placed on EMS bypass after owner fails to make payroll: Ambulance trips from Waukegan could take four to five times longer after the state placed Vista Medical Center East on full EMS bypass following another failure by its owner to make payroll. Vista Medical is the only acute care hospital in Waukegan, leaving ambulances to transport patients to facilities outside the city. Waukegan officials are adding staff and ambulances to ensure a unit remains available when emergency calls come in.

* Daily Herald | DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek’s plans to take case to Illinois Supreme Court fall flat: Outgoing DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek’s request for an attorney to take her legal fight with the county to the Illinois Supreme Court has been denied. Kaczmarek sought the appointment of an attorney to challenge a recent appellate court decision that upheld DuPage County Judge Bryan Chapman’s rulings that the clerk’s office must follow the county’s accounting procedures and complete budget transfers.

* Pioneer Press | Lake County approves ‘challenging’ budget due to rising insurance costs: The 2027 budget, including all funds, is $732.2 million, an 8.21% increase from last year, according to a county presentation on the budget. The property tax operating funds — which pay for most government services — are $409.3 million, a nearly 5% increase from 2026. […] For Lake County, renewal premiums are about 20% higher, the presentation said. According to Sutton, that was a roughly $7 million operating expense the county had to absorb. But the budget has “no reliance on reserves for ongoing expenses,” with ongoing expenses funded by ongoing revenues, according to the presentation.

*** Downstate ***

* WGLT | Investors funding developments in parts of northwest Normal, Uptown and Downtown Bloomington will get a tax break starting in 2027: Bloomington-Normal’s Economic Development Council [EDC] is hopeful a new federal program giving tax breaks to investors will be yet another incentive to get developers building. Two spots in Normal and one area of Bloomington will be considered “opportunity zones” starting next year, offering federal tax benefits to investors putting up funds. The state of Illinois nominated more than 500 census tracts to be federal opportunity zones this year, and the U.S. Treasury Department approved 240 of them across the state.

* WNIJ | Several northern Illinois school districts had referendums on the ballot to borrow hundreds of millions. Why did some pass and some fail?:
She says Oswego spent the better part of three years planning this, from facility tours to a task force including staff and families that helped build the $317 million proposal, which Komitas says will take eight years to fully implement. Across northern Illinois, some referendums passed and some failed. The ones voters confirmed seemed to be the plans that promised no property tax increases — especially since the economy was one of the most important issues for many voters.

* Capitol City Now | New ALPLM acquisition details Lincoln’s dry-goods purchases: A Petersburg family has donated to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum a ledger from a local dry-goods store documenting sales for thirteen months in 1836-37. A young lawyer and lawmaker named Abraham Lincoln was a frequent customer, buying, among other things, clothing materials — buttons, fabric, and thread – to likely either make a suit or repair an existing one “Lincoln understood that with so much change on the horizon, he needed to shed the image of the rough-and-tumble frontiersman and adopt a more formal personage,” said Ian Hunt, the ALPLM’s head of acquisitions. “It’s likely that Lincoln’s decision to augment his wardrobe came both from seeing how his colleagues in the General Assembly dressed, but also preparing for a future in courtrooms, now that he was a licensed attorney.”

* Illinois Times | Writer for “The Simpsons” to appear in Springfield as part of presidential campaign: To kick off his campaign, Greaney is visiting 17 Springfields in the U.S. The tour started Nov. 5 in New Hampshire and will continue through Nov. 24. Saturday’s visit to UIS will follow a visit to Springfield, West Virginia.

*** National ***

* AP | CDC eliminates $29 million for HIV prevention in Texas: The federal government has cut $29.2 million from Texas health organizations that test thousands of people for HIV directly in their communities, the latest in a series of public health funding cuts statewide. Texas was the nation’s largest beneficiary of PS21-2102 funding, with grant money going to 11 community-based organizations (CBOs), mostly in urban areas, over the last five years. […] Rolled out in 2021, PS21-2102 provided $239 million to community-based organizations across the country. Its elimination comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has launched a far-reaching offensive targeting HIV-eradication efforts both domestically and abroad.

* Reuters | US existing home sales slump to more than 16-year low in October: Home sales dropped 5.5% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate ‌of 3.75 million units, the National Association of Realtors said on Thursday. That was the lowest level since August 2010, when sales were declining following the end of a homebuyers tax credit. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast home resales falling to a 3.85 million unit rate. Sales plunged 8.8% on a year-over-year basis in October.

* Bloomberg | United Airlines blocks AI agents from booking flights ahead of holidays: The move comes as travelers increasingly turn to AI tools to plan trips, compare fares and make reservations. About 33% of adults have used generative AI to research upcoming travel, according to booking platform Hopper, which expects more travelers to use the technology this holiday season. Hopper found that domestic airfares for Thanksgiving and Christmas are up 31% and 23%, respectively, from a year earlier.