* ICYMI: Darren Bailey blasts Trump’s remarks on Pope Leo amid controversy. NBC Chicago…

- In a conversation with NBC Chicago’s Charlie Wojciechowski on Monday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey said he hoped Trump would apologize for his actions in recent days.
- Bailey, who also criticized Trump after he said Iran’s “whole civilization would die” in a heated social media post, said he has consciously been trying to represent all of Illinois with his remarks since winning the Republican primary for governor in March.
- Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also defended the pope in a social media post, joining a growing chorus of critics of Trump’s remarks.

* Related stories…

• Tribune: Local Catholic leaders express support for Chicago native Pope Leo after Trump calls him ‘weak’ and ‘terrible’
• WGLT: Pope Leo tells Bloomington-Normal mayors they have a duty to reduce suffering
• Sun-Times: Pope Leo brushes off Trump attack as a Chicago Catholic leader says president is ‘waking up a sleeping giant’

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Sponsored by The Association of Safety-Net Community Hospitals

No Cuts. No Closures. Fund Safety-Net Hospitals.

For decades, Illinois has underfunded safety-net hospitals, the lifelines for Black and Brown communities. Now, the “Safety-Net Moonshot” and the Medicaid-defunding legislation it has spawned, threatens deeper cuts to these critical health providers. Any reduction inspired by the “Moonshot” would be a killshot to the care our most vulnerable residents rely on.

Weakening safety-net hospitals won’t improve care. It will slash essential services, eliminate jobs, and push entire communities into healthcare deserts and economic instability.

The state cannot balance its budget on the backs of Black and Brown community hospitals. These institutions are not line items to cut, they are the foundation of care for families who have nowhere else to turn. Disinvestment will deepen inequities and worsen outcomes.

When safety-net hospitals are funded, communities are healthier, workforces are stronger, and economies are more resilient.

Illinois must fully fund safety-net hospitals. For the communities they serve, it is life or death.

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* At 10:30 am, Gov. JB Pritzker will deliver remarks at the Illinois Realtors Association’s Capitol Conference highlighting his BUILD initiative. Click here to watch.

* BlueRoomStream.com’s coverage of today’s press conferences and committee hearings can be found here.

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* Capitol News Illinois | High energy prices, federal dollars turn nuke subsidies into ratepayer relief in northern Illinois: Instead, the program has provided a net benefit to ratepayers exceeding $1.8 billion since 2022, as ratepayers contributed $795 million to keep nuclear plants running but saw over $2.6 billion flow back to them. The initiative has saved ComEd’s 3.8 million residential customers an average of $177 since it commenced, according to the Illinois Power Agency, which oversees procurement of the credits. The deal was not about giving a “free lunch” to the nuclear plant operators, according to Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, but about supporting the grid in a “responsible and equitable” way.

* Daily Herald | Rosemont’s Stephens is latest player in Bears stadium talks:
House Minority Leader Tony McCombie asked Stephens — mayor of the Northwest suburban sports, entertainment and business mecca since 2007 — to be point person for House Republicans on stadium negotiations. “I’m sure some of my minor development skills can help,” Stephens said Monday after his monthly village board meeting, and before he returns to Springfield for session Tuesday.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Center Square | Illinois has most government units, but consolidation brings challenges: The report author, Civic Federation Senior Policy and Research Associate Lily Padula, said Illinois statute makes it easy to create governments but difficult to consolidate or remove them. “Many of these governments were created decades ago to meet specific needs and instead of replacing them, we just added new layers,” Padula told The Center Square.

* WAND | Illinois Innocence Project highlights impact, growth at 25-year milestone: Founded in 2001, the organization began as a small effort rooted in student involvement, at a time when awareness of wrongful convictions was just beginning to grow nationwide. “When the project started officially in 2001… wrongful conviction… was just becoming something that we were all aware of,” said founding director Larry Golden. Over the past two and a half decades, the project has evolved into a statewide operation, now handling cases across Illinois and employing a growing team of attorneys, paralegals, and investigators.

*** Chicago ***

* Tribune | Chicago video gambling terminal fight continues as aldermen try to jump-start approval: For the gambling terminals legalized in December, the decision marks a critical step toward their arrival by the hundreds in bars, restaurants and other establishments across Chicago neighborhoods. By speeding up the city’s permitting process, aldermen hope to jump-start operations delayed by the state’s slow-moving approval system — and allow the city to start earning fees and tax revenue.

* Sun-Times | Council committee backs raising Chicago cab fares by 20% to save ailing taxi industry: Chicago taxicab fares could soon rise by 20% — the first rate hike in a decade — to save a once-dominant industry whose monopoly was, as one City Council member put it, “eviscerated” by Uber and Lyft. Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) cast the only dissenting vote as the measure won backing from the Committee on License and Consumer Protection Monday, even after he acknowledged that the city’s failure to raise cab fare rates has made it “increasingly difficult for drivers to maintain their livelihood and meet regulatory standards” imposed by the city.

* Crain’s | City Hall veteran set to lead board managing Chicago’s new $135M housing loan fund: Tim Jeffries, managing deputy commissioner at the Department of Planning and Development, is leaving his role overseeing the department’s economic development team to take the reins at the Chicago Residential Investment Fund, according to sources familiar with the hire. The appointment will become official at the board’s April 14 meeting. […] Funded by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $1.25 billion economic development and housing bond that Jeffries helped create, the nonprofit board will serve as a lender to private residential developers in deals that will eventually see the city taking ownership of property.

* Fox Chicago | Chicago leaders push Meta for stronger action on teen gatherings: After meeting with Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Ald. William Hall (6th Ward) said both sides are now focused on creating a clearer, faster response to posts that promote these events. The goal is to stop gatherings before they happen by addressing how information spreads online. City leaders said the plan could eventually be turned into law.

* WTTW | First Piping Plovers Have Landed at Montrose Beach, Birders Welcome Imani and Pippin Home to Chicago: “Imani and Pipping are already right back at scrapping with each other to establish territory,” plover monitors said. According to Chicago Piping Plovers, Pippin is missing his right foot, which observers had noted was tangled in debris last year. “He has a slight limp, but otherwise appears healthy, strong and is working the beach like he owns it,” the group shared on social media.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* ABC Chicago | Illinois departments probing West Suburban hospital’s finances after abrupt closure, state rep. says: This while the I-Team has learned the current CEO of West Suburban Medical Center was served an eviction notice last week from the property’s owner, citing millions of dollars in debt owed. Through a spokesperson, CEO Manoj Prasad told the I-Team the eviction notice, “is without merit,” and that he would “address this matter through the appropriate legal channels.”

* Oak Park Journal | Eviction notice posted at West Suburban’s River Forest campus: The evection notice also follows a public split between Prasad and Ramco owner Reddy Rathnaker. Through a press representative, Rathnaker called for West Sub to continue without Prasad’s involvement as he reportedly courted a deal with Insight Chicago, a non-profit agency that’s taken over operations of Mercy Hospital, a failing institution in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood.

* Tribune | Inside an Earthrise peaker plant, a key to connecting Will County solar farms to the grid: The facilities in Will County and near Champaign are so-called peaker plants that Illinois, in an effort to limit air pollution, now allows the company to run only during times of maximum demand for electricity. For the next half century, Earthrise plans to use the peaker plants’ existing connections to the state’s power grid to ship electricity from the solar farms it’s building nearby, bypassing a lengthy approval process to connect to the grid.

* Sun-Times | Remaining ‘Broadview Six’ defendants want conspiracy charge tossed, argue protesting isn’t a crime: The “Broadview Six” are now down to four, after prosecutors dropped the charges against two of the defendants last week. Those who remain say the government’s allegations of conspiracy — a felony that could lead to a prison sentence of up to six years — enhances a misdemeanor charge based on the defendants’ “exercise of their First Amendment rights of assembly and association.”

* Daily Herald | With eye toward revenue sharing at Bears redevelopment, school districts to retain financial adviser: Chicago-based consultant Joe Pilewski would get a seat at the table during negotiations with the NFL club and village over revenue-sharing opportunities stemming from the stadium-anchored mixed-use district at the former 326-acre Arlington Park racetrack. Palatine Township Elementary District 15, Northwest Suburban High School District 214 and Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 plan to split the cost of Pilewski’s $470 hourly rate.

* Crain’s | Logistics firm RJW extends suburban warehouse leasing tear: That spree comes amid a tight market for local industrial space, with vacancy near an all-time low and new supply curbed by high borrowing costs and a lack of compelling development sites. Last year was the slowest year for new Chicago-area industrial development in over a decade. RJW’s decision to build in Montgomery shows the relative scarcity of newly-built local warehouse space, adding another data point that could help push developers and lenders to kickstart new industrial projects.

*** Downstate ***

* WGLT | Bloomington approves ‘historic’ $370 million budget and Connect Transit transfer: The Bloomington City Council unanimously approved a $370.5 million fiscal year 2027 budget Monday night, the largest in the city’s history. The city council also approved an agreement to transfer the Market Street parking garage property to Connect Transit that will convert it into a new bus transfer center.

* Journal-Courier | Jacksonville alderwoman cites health for resignation, doesn’t count out a return to council: “My husband’s not in the best of health, my father’s not in the best of health,” White-Williams said. “I have two special needs children, so everything’s on my mind, and I just want to focus on family and myself, as well.”[…] “I’m not stepping totally away from the city,” she said Monday. “I’m still going to be an active voice in this town and this ward, so I’ll still be around.”

* Capitol News Illinois | Faculty strike at University of Illinois Springfield continues into second week: “The current median salary for bargaining unit members with a nine-month contract (approximately 20 workdays per month) is approximately $86,000, not including summer stipends or service-in-excess agreements, which can substantially increase an individual’s earnings,” the university said in an email to students on Sunday. “Approximately 1/3 of the faculty members in this union earn over $100,000 annually.” Powell responded that the union is fighting for the interests of its members who fall below those numbers.

* SJ-R | ‘A most worthy initiative’: Complex for former homeless persons to open: The latest development that will serve as permanent supportive housing for 22 individuals exiting homelessness welcomes its first clients on the near north side of Springfield next week. Officials from Heartland Housed held an open house and ribbon cutting ceremony at Mason Street Apartments in the 200 block of West Mason Street on April 13.

* WICS | Breaking down Springfield public works winter spending: This winter Fuchs said there were 4, 587 hours of overtime, for a total expense of 231,000 dollars. That’s compared to last year, with 2, 740 hours of overtime, with a total of 130,000 dollars. Fuchs said the increase in overtime was likely due to more snow events this year, especially those falling on weekends, and more snowfall.

*** National ***

* Politico | Missouri town fires half its city council over data center deal: The rout of half the Festus City Council was fueled by a surge in voter turnout and widespread frustration with the data center approval process. “It’s really the way the deal was handled that led to this kind of uprising,” said Rick Belleville, who won the nonpartisan race for Ward 4 councilman by more than 40 percentage points over incumbent Jim Tinnin, who’d voted to approve the data center.

* Bloomberg | United Airlines CEO has pitched a possible combo with rival American: US airline mergers have to be reviewed and approved by the Transportation Department, as well as the Department of Justice. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the government would look at a number of factors when considering potential tie-ups, including the impact on competition — both domestically and globally — and ticket prices. “President Trump, he loves to see big deals happen,” Duffy told CNBC on April 7. “Is there room for some mergers in the aviation industry? Yeah, I think there is,” he said.