* Sun-Times…

Many Illinois colleges and schools are scrambling after the online learning platform Canvas went offline Thursday following a cyberattack on its parent company.

The shutdown forced the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to postpone all final exams and assignments scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, leaders told students in a message sent Thursday night.

Thousands of K-12 school districts and colleges use Canvas nationwide, including U. of I. and Northwestern University, to manage classes, post assignments and communicate with students. Chicago Public Schools said Friday that it does not use Canvas and the district was not affected. City Colleges of Chicago does not use the learning platform, either. […]

It is unclear exactly what information hackers were able to access from local schools. Illinois State University officials said on Friday that they were still “working to determine if data such as enrollment or activity contained in our Canvas courses were compromised.”

The University of Chicago’s student newspaper, the Chicago Maroon, reported that Canvas users at the university briefly saw a message from the hacking group on Thursday that said affected schools could reach out and negotiate a settlement before May 12, when they threatened to release private data.

NPR has reported that Canvas is back online. What a mess.

* Crain’s…

A federal appeals court sent the banking industry’s lawsuit over Illinois’ credit card swipe fee law back to a lower court today, saying a new rule from federal banking regulators preempting the law needs further adjudication.

“The district court should address these matters, and any related issues, before this court attempts to do so,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said in a ruling. “We therefore vacate the judgment of the district court and remand for appropriate further proceedings.” […]

“The court sent a clear message that states cannot impose conflicting requirements on the national payments system,” said Richard Hunt, executive chairman of the Electronic Payments Coalition, one of the co-plaintiffs in the case. “IFPA remains unworkable, disruptive, and a recipe for confusion for consumers, small businesses, community banks, and credit unions.”

But retailers said the district court had already taken into account the OCC’s opinion, which it had filed in a friend of the court briefing to the original case.

* WCIA | One year after making cuts, NWS looking to bring employees back; including in Illinois: Employees, like first year electricians, IT Staff, and scientists were just fired. In the fall, the National Weather Service got a public safety exemption, that provided funding allowing them to rehire more than one hundred people.

* Tribune | Prime Healthcare hospitals will stay in-network with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, after months of uncertainty: Prime Healthcare, which owns nine Illinois hospitals, will remain in-network with the state’s largest health insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois for now, following months of uncertainty over whether the two companies would reach a contract agreement, the health system announced Thursday evening. Had they been unable to reach an agreement, Prime would have been out-of-network for people with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois health insurance, which would have meant those patients would have had to find new doctors who took their insurance or, in some cases, pay more for care. The current agreement will now continue into next year.

* North Dakota Monitor | North Dakota medication access law unconstitutional, judge says: A federal judge in North Dakota ruled against a state law intended to protect healthcare access for low-income patients, finding it unconstitutional. North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Dan Traynor in a Monday order criticized the 2025 law as “an infringement on federal programs masquerading as state governance.” He said it enriches hospitals and pharmacies at patients’ expense. House Bill 1473 is intended to make sure North Dakota has unhindered access to medication subsidies under a federal program called 340B.

* Center Square | Illinois weighing a ban on sale of some smoke detectors over safety concerns: Legislators and Public Safety Officials called Thursday for the state Senate to make progress on House Bill 4328, which would ban the sale of some smoke detectors in Illinois. A previous law, passed in 2017, changed the requirements for what smoke detectors could be installed in homes and buildings. A smoke detector must be hard-wired to a home and have a tamper-proof battery with a 10-year lifespan.

* The Nation | Illinois Is Helping People Awaiting Trial Get Back to Court and Stay Out of Jail: Radical Hospitality Ministries, which runs the pilot site in DuPage County, in the northeast of the state, served its first client the first week of August last year. He was a man in his late 70s who uses a walker to get around and had been arrested for failing to appear in court. The man suffered from memory loss caused by a fall years earlier; he forgot about his case. He lived more than an hour away from the courthouse, but when he was released after his arrest, he wasn’t given a walker, didn’t have a phone, and had no way to get home. The organization offered him free transportation back to where he lives. “What would have happened to that person without a program like ours?” asked James Baugh, cofounder of Radical Hospitality Ministries. “Would he have died on the streets? Would he have been reincarcerated because he did something out of desperation?”

* Chalkbeat Chicago | A Chicago school board investigation failed to uncover source of media leaks: Released by the board office Thursday evening, the law firm’s report says there was insufficient evidence to find the source of the leaks, noting the refusal by multiple board members to turn over their personal cell phones for examination. Two of the 21 board members, Che “Rhymefest” Smith and Ellen Rosenfeld, declined to cooperate with the investigation entirely and did not speak with the attorneys. Two reporters the firm asked to interview — WBEZ’s Sarah Karp and Paris Schutz, at FOX at the time — also refused.

* NBC Chicago’s Paris Schutz…

* Sun-Times | 2nd man charged with hate crime in 2024 attack of Jewish DePaul students: At the hearing, prosecutors laid out their version of events. Noubani and Erkan met up before the attack in face masks. Erkan talked with Long and Kaminsky while Noubani attacked them from behind, DePaul surveillance video showed, according to prosecutors. Erkan fled in a silver SUV and Noubani ran away and threw his sweatshirt and face mask in the trash. DNA taken from the sweatshirt and mask during the investigation matched Noubani, prosecutors said. […] Months before the attack, Noubani had pleaded guilty to a trespassing charge during the 2024 Democratic National Convention. He was part of a group that breached a fence that was part of the security perimeter during the convention, held during pro-Palestinian protests that summer.

* Block Club | Chicago’s Efforts To Keep Housing Affordable in Woodlawn Fall Short As Obama Center Nears Opening: The city of Chicago was supposed to have created a safety net for residents like Bolden and Butler, as they faced the threat of being priced out of their neighborhood with the opening of the nearby Obama Presidential Center in June, and all the real estate speculation that followed it. Adopted in 2020, the city’s anti-displacement ordinance for Woodlawn was designed to protect long-term tenants from surprise sales and increased affordable housing options in the neighborhood. But a review of hundreds of pages of city records and dozens of interviews with residents, organizers and experts by the Illinois Answer Project shows that the city’s promises often fell short of reality as it failed to spend enough money to run some programs, provided little supervision and abandoned others.

* WTTW | ‘It Was His Calling’: Mourners Gather to Say Goodbye at Funeral for Chicago Police Officer John Bartholomew: Chicago police Commander Alison Christian, who spent years working with Officer John Bartholomew in the city’s 24th District, reflected Friday on the “passion he felt for life” and the way he was able to make people feel appreciated on the job. “He would go into jobs and he would worry about everybody’s feelings,” she said. “He would worry about the victim, the offender, the police officer. At the end of a job that he was on, he made sure that everybody felt good. He just had this overwhelming ability and it was his calling.”

* ESPN | How White Sox’s Munetaka Murakami became an instant sensation: “All we know is the way he’s hitting here is different from the way he was hitting in Japan,” Thompson told ESPN not long after giving up that 451-foot blast to Murakami. “His holes are not his holes anymore. Maybe why other teams weren’t pursuing him is because he had different holes when he was with Japan. He’s changed his approach.”

* Chicago Reader | Cook County state’s attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s complicated relationship with the Pretrial Fairness Act: “We seek pretrial detention in the most serious violent offenses where the offender poses a clear and present danger to the community,” Burke’s office told the Reader in a statement. “When defendants who exhibit dangerous and reckless behavior are held in pretrial custody, they are not released into the community where they pose the risk of committing additional crimes and threatening others.” Her critics say Burke’s heightened pursuit of pretrial detention violates the spirit of the landmark Pretrial Fairness Act, which abolished cash bail in Illinois in September 2023 and sought to reduce the number of people incarcerated before trial.

* WGN | ‘They’re like bugs’: Trucker charged $46K for tow, until WGN got involved: Tim Smith said the towing firm quoted his company, DPW Trucking, a few thousand dollars over the phone and he agreed. But when he went to pick up the trailer, the price had surged to $46,000. “It was like: ‘You have to be kidding me! How do you come up with $46,000!” Smith recalled thinking.

* Daily Herald | Judge denies release for teen charged with taking police officer’s gun from school: The firearm was loaded with live rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber, said Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney John Scanlon. After receiving an urgent phone call, the officer exited the stall, leaving the firearm behind, he said. About 25 minutes later, the juvenile entered the restroom, saw the gun and told the defendant about it, Scanlon said. Sanchez Jaramillo then got the weapon, placed it in his backpack and left campus, he said.

* WGLT | Rep. Sorensen says DOJ investigation against D87, Ridgeview is a distraction from gas prices, community schools cuts: The Department of Justice [DOJ] named District 87 and Ridgeview schools along with 34 others in an investigation accusing them of teaching content about sexual orientation and gender ideology. “They’re going to try to give us anything to look at other than the gas approaching $5 a gallon,” Eric Sorensen said during a visit to Normal this week announcing plans to pursue funding for flood mitigation in Uptown.

* Capitol News Illinois | Carterville assistant football coach arrested on criminal sexual abuse charges: The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office is holding a press conference later today, Friday, May 9, to provide more details on the arrest. The Carterville Board of Education is holding a special meeting on Tuesday, May 12 at 5 p.m. to take action on the “discipline and/or dismissal of a licensed employee of the District,” according to the meeting agenda. The arrest comes less than three months after the Willamson County Sheriff’s Office announced it had opened a criminal sexual abuse investigation into an unnamed Carterville school district employee, and nearly 18 months since the FBI first received the original tip.

* WGLT | ISU trustees approve $84 million for new science complex facilities: The project will include a five-story STEM building, a new research and teaching greenhouse, and a three-story Science Laboratory Building addition with teaching and research labs and faculty offices. These will all happen around the current Science Laboratory Building. Project funding comes from a combination of academic enhancement fees [AEF], fees all students pay which are dedicated to infrastructure projects, and state funding. ISU will issue debt for the projects and repay it with the AEF revenue.

* WCIA | City of Marshall institutes a ban on the sale of Kratom: “We felt at the time Marshall needed to lead rather than follow and do the best we can to make things better for our people here,” Hasten said. Marshall Police Chief Brian Jaeger has seen his department deal with a couple of issues that were the result of someone taking Kratom. “We’d never seen it up until about the last year or two,” Jeager said. We’ve actually noticed a couple incidents in town. One of those was an employee that was on break had a medical episode in the business and we had to call an ambulance, but was showing some high impairment signs while in the business. Then, we later on, had a person that was driving a vehicle and became unresponsive during the operation of the vehicle and required medical assistance. They were found to be under the influence of Kratom.”

* NYT | ABC Accuses Government of Violating First Amendment: The company said in a filing with the agency that regulators had a “chilling effect” on free speech by trying to punish political content they disagreed with. The filing, made public on Friday, is the most aggressive defense from any television network since President Trump kicked off an extended campaign last year to bring media organizations to heel. It represented a striking departure for ABC. The network, under the corporate stewardship of the Walt Disney Company, set an early tone of compliance toward Mr. Trump when it settled a defamation lawsuit with him for $15 million in December 2024. Many legal experts considered Mr. Trump’s case unlikely to succeed in court.

* AP | Canvas system is online after a cyberattack disrupted thousands of schools: A hacking group called ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach at Canvas, said Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. Instructure, the company behind Canvas, said in an update late Thursday that the system was available for most users. Canvas is used to manage grades, course notes, assignments, lecture videos and more. The hacking group posted online that nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were affected, with billions of private messages and other records accessed, Connolly said.

* WJS | Trump Is Planning to Fire FDA Commissioner Marty Makary: Makary, a former Johns Hopkins surgeon who became a frequent Make America Healthy Again surrogate on television news programs, is seen by other top administration leaders as struggling to manage his agency, sparring frequently with health department officials and at times the White House. His tenure has also been dogged by the aftereffects of layoffs led by the Department of Government Efficiency and rapid turnover in the FDA’s leadership ranks.