* ICYMI: Illinois federal workers heavily stressed as government shutdown yanks paychecks. Sun-Times…

- The U.S. government shut down after the Senate failed to approve a short-term funding bill Tuesday night, jeopardizing the pay and employment of thousands of workers across Illinois and the country, and scaling back operations at federal facilities, such as national parks.
- More than 153,000 federal workers lived in Illinois last year, according to the 2024 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.
- Federal workers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement were on the job at a suburban Broadview facility Wednesday. When asked if they were getting paid Wednesday, one agent shook his head. He didn’t share his thoughts on the shutdown when asked, but said it “happens all the time.”

* Related stories…

• PJ Star: The US government is shut down. See how Pritzker, other Illinois leaders responded
• NBC Chicago: Chicago’s federal workers face uncertainty amid government shutdown
• Fox Illinois: Illinois leaders address government shutdown impact on Central Illinois communities

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*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* SJ-R | New program looks to address lawyer shortage in Illinois: The Illinois Supreme Court has greenlit a commission to develop a program that would allow people who are not lawyers to offer limited legal advice, citing a shortage of lawyers. With the Community Justice Program, the top court in the state looks to address the shortage as well as a lack of affordability for many Illinoisans.

* WCIA | Insurance company seeking $4M reimbursement for ‘fraudulent’ claim made by Wyndham Hotel: In a counterclaim filed in federal court on Sept. 4, Affiliated FM Insurance said that a lightning claim filed on March 14, 2024, by Al Rajabi, owner of the now-closed Wyndham Hotel, was both “minimal” in damages and “fraudulent.” As a result, the insurance company is seeking the $4,054,000 payout they made to the hotel, as well as $12.162 million plus attorney fees under Illinois insurance fraud statute, which is triple the damages.

* Crain’s | Illinois counties on thin ice with property tax sales, judge says: A federal judge’s opinion this week made the ice even thinner under Illinois’ already precarious method of recouping delinquent property taxes, which has been under fire since a 2023 Supreme Court decision found the method unconstitutional. Hanging in the balance is the millions of dollars — or more — that Illinois counties could be required to repay former property owners, if the opinion by U.S. District Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel of the Southern District of Illinois leads to a court decision against the counties. Her decision allows a proposed class-action lawsuit to move forward, against the request of the treasurers of five Illinois counties.

* Press release | AG Raoul leads lawsuit against DOJ to protect services for crime survivors: Attorney General Kwame Raoul, along with New York Attorney General Letitia James, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, led a coalition of 22 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to block new restrictions on federal funding that supports survivors of domestic violence and other violent crimes.

*** Statehouse News ***

* WBBM | Pritzker spells out potential support for Bears stadium: During an unrelated event Wednesday at the UIC School of Public Health on Chicago’s West side, the Governor said he hadn’t looked over details of the proposal, but said he was open to state assistance for those kinds of projects. “The state will help where we can on infrastructure and other things that are the job of the state,” the governor said. “We do that for businesses all over the state.”

* WTVO | Bill to reduce energy costs in Illinois faces renewed scrutiny: “We need to be careful about it. We need to take our time. We need to make sure that we have an entire regulatory framework before we just wholesale let all of these data centers locate in Illinois,” said Jennifer Walling, executive director for the Illinois Environmental Council.

* WQAD | Illinois ranks second nationwide in sports betting taxes: Since a 2018 Supreme Court decision opened the gates for sports betting at a state level, Americans have wagered well over $500 billion through licensed sportsbooks. That activity has generated more than $9.3 billion in state taxes, fueling general budgets, public services and infrastructure projects nationwide. Jack Caporal, research director at The Motley Fool, said Illinois is the first state to adopt a progressive sports betting tax. Rates start at 20% and rise to 40% for the highest-earning sportsbooks. On July 1, the state also added a new per-bet fee: 25 cents on the first 20 million wagers each year, and 50 cents after that. The fee alone generated more than $5 million in its first month, prompting FanDuel to add a 50-cent surcharge to every Illinois bet. Most of Illinois’ betting tax revenue flows into the state’s general revenue fund, which supports schools, healthcare and pensions.

* WMBD | Property taxes are forcing senior citizens out of their homes, a state bill could change that: A Democratic plan in Springfield could help some senior citizens. The proposal would allow more people to get into the Homestead program. This program allows seniors in Illinois to freeze their property tax rate. However, that exemption only applies to people who earned $65,000 or less a year. This bill would increase that exemption to $80,000. While that sounds like a small jump, there are a significant amount of the elderly population who fall into that price bracket. “I think this is a way to at least keep them in their homes, which is I think, very, very important,” said Dave Vella, a Rockford Democrat who’s championing the bill.

*** Chicago ***

* NYT | Drones, Helicopters, Hundreds of Arrests: Trump’s Immigration Crackdown in Chicago So Far: And early on Tuesday, federal agents, using drones, helicopters, trucks and dozens of vehicles, conducted a middle-of-the-night raid on a rundown apartment building on the South Side of Chicago, leaving the building mostly empty of residents by morning and neighbors stunned. “It felt like we were under siege,” said one bystander, Darrell Ballard, 63, showing videos on his cellphone of officers entering the apartment building in the dark.

* Tribune | Mother and children detained in Millennium Park released from ICE custody, father flown to Texas detention center: ‘We’re praying for a miracle’: The move came after a federal judge ordered that the family, including Noemi Chavez and their 8 year-old daughter and 3-year-old son, are protected from deportation or removal from Illinois while the government responds to a habeas corpus petition filed by attorneys with the National Immigrant Justice Center. However, the children’s father, Jaime Ramirez, remains in a Texas immigration facility after being transferred from Illinois earlier this week.

* Sun-Times | Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: ‘I feel defeated’: Dan Jones was jolted awake around 1 a.m. Tuesday to the sound of federal agents trying to break through his apartment door. They couldn’t get past his double lock, so he went back to bed. But when he woke up hours later for work, he walked out and found broken doors littering the hallway — and his neighbors missing.

* Crain’s | Logan Square homeowner takes unusual route to getting new affordable housing built: In Logan Square, where rapidly rising housing costs threaten to price many long-term residents out, one homeowner chose an unusual way of ensuring new affordable units are added to the neighborhood. He bought the run-down three-unit building next door to his three-flat, demolished it and donated the land — for which he had paid $575,000 — to a community land trust that will build six new units of affordable housing.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Sun-Times | ICE’s Broadview facility has become a de facto detention center, minus the rules and oversight: For sleeping, crowded cold floors or scant plastic chairs for dozens of men. For eating, sandwiches and water. For bathroom needs, a toilet out in the open, no soap or toothpaste. “The cell is gross, extremely dirty, I never lay down on the floor, it was so filthy,” Yushell, 38, said from Mexico City, days after he was grabbed by immigration officers in Mount Prospect on Sept. 24 on his way to work from an exercise class. “Still, sleeping while sitting on the floor was impossible.

* Tribune | Black babies die suddenly, unexpectedly at 14 times the rate of white babies in Cook County, report says: In all, 208 infants in Cook County died suddenly and unexpectedly while sleeping between 2019 and 2023, with 99% of those deaths occurring in sleeping situations that are considered unsafe for babies, such as sleeping with another person, or sleeping with soft bedding items including pillows, blankets or stuffed animals, according to the report.

* Evanston RoundTable | Northwestern says it will fund research through end of 2025: As the university’s federal grants remain frozen by the Trump administration, Northwestern said Tuesday it will continue to fund student and faculty research on its own “at least through the end of the calendar year,” according to a press release published on the university website. […] In April, the federal government froze $790 million in grants and government contracts previously allocated to Northwestern. That same week, the university announced that it would continue to fund existing projects as long as it could.

* Daily Southtown | Tinley Park District 146 reaches tentative contract with teachers’ union without strike: A spokesperson for the District 146 Educators Council declined to provide information on the agreement ahead of a vote by union members Wednesday and Thursday. The union earlier this month voted to strike as early as Sept. 22 if an agreement could not be reached, with 230 of 232 members voting in favor of the authorization. “We are so glad that we can now put this process behind us,” District 146 Educators Council President Eileen Von Borstel said in a statement through the Illinois Federation of Teachers. “It took longer than expected” to reach a fair contract.

* Tribune | Chicago-area contractor gets 7½ years in prison in ‘staggering’ scheme to bribe Amtrak official in Philadelphia: The owner of a Chicago-area construction company was sentenced Wednesday to 7½ years in federal prison in a scheme to bribe a corrupt Amtrak official overseeing a $58 million contract to renovate a historic train station in Philadelphia with hundreds of thousands of dollars in lavish gifts, including trips, meals, jewelry and a German shepherd puppy. Mark Snedden, 69, of Munster, Indiana, the founder and president of Dolton-based MARK 1 Restoration Co., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia earlier this year to one count each of conspiracy to commit federal program bribery and making a false claim. In addition to a 90-month prison term, U.S. District Chief Judge Wendy Beetlestone fined Snedden $250,000 and ordered him to pay just over $2 million in restitution, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

*** Downstate ***

* The Southern | Southern Illinois doctor warns of federal healthcare policies impact: A Southern Illinois doctor says recent federal health policies will make it harder for patients to get care and could push small hospitals in the region to the brink. Dr. Jeff Ripperda, a local physician, is urging residents to speak out, including at a demonstration scheduled for Oct. 1 at noon outside U.S. Rep. Mike Bost’s Murphysboro office.

* WGLT | Normal Township supervisor addresses concerns in town hall, will step down from McLean County Board: The head of Normal Township told constituents at a town hall meeting Wednesday that her primary focus is getting its general assistance fund spending under control. Supervisor Krystle Able said expenditures for the township’s public aid fund obligations far exceeded their revenue when she took over in May. “There have been townships that have gone bankrupt because they have paid general assistance without having the funds to actually pay it,” she said Wednesday at the Normal Activity and Recreation Center [ARC], which is operated by the township. “We don’t want to get into a situation like that here.”

* WSIL | Eldorado embraces agrivoltaics with massive solar project: Sol Systems has announced its largest project to date, the 342MW Eldorado Solar project in southeastern Illinois. The project, built in partnership with Nextracker and SOLV Energy, includes a pioneering agrivoltaics initiative. The initiative involves a collaboration with the American Farmland Trust to plant Kernza, a perennial grain, beneath the solar panels. This approach seeks to demonstrate how solar and agriculture can coexist and thrive.

* WCIA | Piatt Co. non-profit raising awareness about domestic violence: “We help in crisis and long term safety planning, leaving a domestic violence situation, and everything in between,” Willow Tree Mission’s Director of Services, Andrea Kocher, said. The store is opening in a timely way. October is National Domestic Violence Awareness month. “We’re able to utilize it as a platform to get our mission out, that we truly are here to support people going through a domestic violence situation,” Kocher said.

* WSIL | Vienna High School expands breakfast program with $10K grant: Vienna High School has received a School Breakfast Expansion Grant of $10,000 for the second consecutive year. The grant supports Project Better Start, an initiative aimed at providing students with healthy breakfast options. […] Last year, the funds were used to establish a coffee bar. This year, the grant will create a grab-and-go breakfast nook for students with limited time.

*** National ***

* Politico | Trump targets states that voted for Harris in shutdown fight: Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said Wednesday the Trump administration is cancelling nearly $8 billion in funding for energy programs he characterized as part of “the Left’s climate agenda.” The cuts will impact 16 states — all of which voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election. Vought did not identify exactly which programs would be cut in the social media announcement.

* Slate | There’s a New Lawsuit Against “Kavanaugh Stops.” It’s Absolutely Devastating.: Perhaps the most comprehensive account of Kavanaugh stops so far arrived last Thursday, in the form of a new lawsuit against the Trump administration brought by victims of racial profiling in the District of Columbia. The plaintiffs, a group of citizens and legal residents, describe ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents detaining them for hours—or even overnight—because they happen to be Latino. These accounts make a mockery of Kavanaugh’s insistence that these stops are brief and painless for those who have a right to live in this country.