* ICYMI: Many Illinois public colleges fail to follow law to protect immigrant students from federal agents on campus. WBEZ…

- Illinois legislators passed a law last December aimed at protecting students like Bakytbekova. It requires public colleges and universities to establish protocols for what to do if immigration agents come on campus, and to provide students with certain information about how to respond.
- But a Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ investigation found that four months after requirements for public colleges went into effect, many fell short of meeting its conditions.
- Three colleges failed to list a contact on their website to report immigration agents on campus, perhaps the most useful piece of the law for students. And many college students said they had no idea their school was supposed to have these protocols in place by Jan. 1.

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Even in a challenging fiscal environment — perhaps especially during such times — we must prioritize public investments that can put Illinois’ economy on its best footing. Child care and early childhood priorities are central to such hopes, as a new analysis indicates.

Child care insufficiencies cost Illinois’ economy $6.2 billion a year according to this report, whose projections were based on a statewide survey of 400+ working parents of young children. About 80% of those costs reflect lost earnings and other impacts felt by parents; the remainder comes from employers’ own struggles with lower productivity and higher workforce turnover.

The ripple effects extend throughout our economy: Working parents turning-down promotions — and curbing their own career trajectories — due to child care challenges. Households with diminishing earning power, spending less at supermarkets and retail stores. Young children going without the developmental services that help lay a skills foundation for success in classrooms and careers.

Policymakers can improve on this picture by increasing FY27 investments in child care and related early childhood programs that parents seek for their children, but often can’t find — priorities that nine out of 10 employers and managers called an economic priority for greater public investment, in another Illinois poll.

Improving early childhood investments: It’s good for kids, good for working families, good for business.

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* Gov. JB Pritzker has no public events scheduled today.

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

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* Capitol News Illinois | Pritzker urges feds to release $1B in broadband funds to Illinois: Gov. JB Pritzker sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday, urging him to approve Illinois’ proposal for federal broadband infrastructure funds. The $1 billion proposal would connect roughly 383,000 people, mostly in rural areas, to high-speed internet. However, Illinois and California lag months behind other states in the approval process — leading to speculation that the funds have been withheld from the two blue states for political punishment or leverage.

* Sun-Times | Illinois nears 3 years without an illegally abandoned baby, almost 25 years after ‘Safe Haven’ law passed: A baby hasn’t been illegally surrendered in Illinois since July 2023, according to the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation. That’s a total of more than 1,000 days and counting, nearly double the previous record of 577 days from October 2017 to May 2019. Dawn Geras, the group’s executive chair, said the milestone made her emotional as she thought back to when Illinois’ version of the bill, inspired by headlines she had read about abandoned children who died, was drafted around her kitchen table before it was passed in 2001.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Capitol News Illinois | Giannoulias pushes Chicago mayoral conversations off to after session: “I think after session we’ll have a little more time to have those conversations,” Giannoulias told me after speaking at the Illinois Manufacturers Association and Illinois Retail Merchants Association’s annual business day event in Springfield. “I’m not trying to be evasive. It’s just my focus is on a couple of these bills right now.”

* Capitol News Illinois | Illinois firefighters honored for service in annual ceremony, memorial: The honorees included Chicago Fire Department Captain David Meyer, who died from injuries sustained while battling a garage fire in April 2025. Meyer was remembered in a memorial service at the Illinois Fallen Firefighter Memorial on the state Capitol grounds. “It’s my sincere honor to stand with you today as we remember your brothers and sisters who lost their lives in the line of duty,” state Attorney General Kwame Raoul said at the memorial. “May the valor and profound sacrifices shine as a legacy for future firefighters. Our prayers are with you for your strength and continued fortitude.”

* Center Square | Lawmakers tussle over impacts of ‘equitable’ school funding in Illinois: Matt Seaton from ISBE said that the funding formula may have implied less funds were needed for schools to reach equitable funding levels statewide. “Every one of those proposals demonstrated that a $300 million investment annually for 10 years would not get us to 90% adequacy. It was always going to be a little more expensive. It’s perhaps the case that the introductory language that leads off the EBS statute was not revisited once we started running the numbers,” Seaton said. Since 2017, $3.36 billion has been put toward the formula, and an additional $3 billion is required to reach the proposed adequacy target, according to Seaton.

* Capitol City Now | Tracy speaks to manufacturers, merchant groups in Springfield: [US Senate candidate Don Tracy] told the annual joint conference of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association and the Illinois Retail Merchants Association in Springfield that growing up in a family business was a key experience in preparing him to become a senator – and he said it’s the sort of experience Stratton doesn’t have. Tracy also railed against people whose job it is to set policy for businesses but have not been in business themselves. […] Tracy finished his speech by saying, “Don’t vote crazy; vote for Tracy!” Organizers said Stratton was invited but couldn’t make it.

*** Chicago ***

* WBEZ | CPS plans to cut teacher positions, raise class sizes in bid to shrink $732 million deficit: CPS is raising the student-to-teacher ratio it uses to provide funding to schools by 1 for every grade. For example, high-poverty elementary schools will get one teacher for every 23 students in the coming school year, up from one for 22 students this year. It marks the first time in three years that CPS, facing a deficit, is proposing cuts that will directly hit classrooms. Prior to that, the school district was flush with federal COVID relief funding and did not face big shortfalls.

* Sun-Times | Subminimum wage would be frozen at 76% of the minimum pay, but only temporarily, Council panel proposes: Burnett acknowledged having gone around the mayor who appointed him to replace his father, retired City Council dean and former Zoning Chair Walter Burnett Jr. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to the mayor about this, but I imagine he’s pretty steadfast on his stance” that Black and Brown women who hold a large share of jobs in the restaurant industry deserve an immediate pay hike, Burnett said.

* Poynter | ICE raids overtook Chicago for months. Tribune reporters chased the story day and night: “It was every single morning trying to figure out which neighborhood we had to be in and listening to what the community was — what they were seeing,” said Rodríguez Presa. “And so deciding what we were going to do next, right? Because a lot of the time, it was just really uncertain. The drones would be flying over Rogers Park, but then they’ll show up in Little Village and it was just being ready.” And then, there was the fact that Pratt and Rodríguez Presa, among other journalists, were reporting on their own communities. Rodríguez Presa is a Mexican immigrant and Pratt is the son of a Mexican immigrant. “It hit me personally because it’s my neighborhood and it’s my community and I was very concerned every single day about that,” Pratt said.

* South Side Weekly | UChicago Trauma Center saved lives by cutting travel time for shooting victims, study finds: The study, published in February in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Surgery, found that the trauma center’s 2018 opening was associated with a nearly 4% decrease in shooting deaths within the center’s service area. The rest of the city saw no significant change over the same period. Researchers analyzed publicly available data on more than 45,000 shooting incidents in Chicago between 2010 and 2024, comparing outcomes before and after the trauma center opened in May 2018. They found that after its opening, shooting victims within the center’s service area traveled an average of 3.4 fewer miles and arrived at care roughly 9.5 minutes faster. The study estimates those gains translated to roughly 40 lives saved for every 1,000 shootings.

* Tribune | Former Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas fined $214,000 by ethics board for campaign finance violations: Former mayoral candidate Paul Vallas is being fined $214,000 for violating campaign finance rules by accepting excessive contributions from people who were doing business with the city, the Chicago Board of Ethics announced Tuesday. The board unanimously found this month that an unnamed “unsuccessful candidate” in the 2023 city elections broke rules by accepting $202,000 in contributions from 12 people doing business with the city, even though city law limits such contributors to giving no more than $1,500 annually to candidates seeking city office and elected officials, according to a statement the board released Tuesday.

* Crain’s | McDonald’s, Chicago Fire strike naming rights deal for South Loop stadium: It’s McDonald’s first-ever naming-rights partnership for a major U.S. pro sports stadium and an impactful commercial endorsement for the Fire well ahead of the 22,000-seat venue’s planned 2028 debut. McDonald’s becomes the club’s largest single corporate partner, solidifying a massive new revenue source previously unavailable to the Fire as tenants at Soldier Field and in suburban Bridgeview.

* ABC Chicago | Chicago exploring ways to use AI in road operations in effort to improve safety: The company Samsara is providing the technology. They demonstrated their new pothole detection tool, which includes sensors and video technology, so the city can accurately log where potholes are at any given point across the area and fill them swiftly.

* Tribune | Chicago Media Report: Fox 32’s new sports anchor, WGN’s stalled merger and final bell for CBS Radio at WBBM: Fox 32, which lost two prominent reporters this year to NBC 5, has filled one of its on-air openings. Cassie Carlson, who joined the station in April 2022, was recently promoted to replace Lou Canellis as lead sports anchor on WFLD-Ch. 32. It’s game on for Carlson, 30, who dreamed of becoming a sportscaster while growing up in the northwest suburbs and hopes to bring a fan’s passion and a “breath of fresh air” to one of the highest-profile positions in Chicago TV. “I think it’s a great opportunity to make it my own and bring my own personality,” Carlson said.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Herald | End of an aura: $900k settlement wraps neighbors’ long fight with smelly Mount Prospect factory: Under the new settlement, Prestige Feed Products LLC and Cereal Byproducts Co. Inc. are released from further claims. They deny any wrongdoing and say they settled to avoid the costs of ongoing litigation. The defendants or their insurers will pay $900,000 into a settlement fund. Anyone who owned, leased or rented residential property within a half-mile of the facility will have until June 5 to opt out or object. They have until June 20 to submit a claim for a share of the settlement.

* Daily Herald | Kane County tax bill angering some residents, but it’s not why you think: “Mr. Lauzen, who is running for reelection, has seen fit to abuse the power of his office to send an overt campaign message to over 200,000 homes and businesses,” Elburn resident Todd Olson told county board members Tuesday. “He has used your tax bills as a Trojan horse to distribute his campaign literature.” In an interview, Lauzen, a Republican seeking reelection in the fall, flatly denied the claims. “We’re very proud of the work we do here,” he said. “It is all straightforward, and it’s not campaigning.”

* Aurora Beacon-News | Kane County Board OKs more reallocations of COVID-19 relief funds, with spending deadline approaching: With the deadline to spend the funds approaching at the end of 2026, the Kane County Board is continuing to reallocate its remaining COVID-19 relief money to county projects. Several transfers approved Tuesday at the board’s regular meeting total over $600,000 and direct funds toward projects in building management, IT and the State’s Attorney’s Office.

* Pioneer Press | Skokie mayor floats ‘preliminary talks’ of CTA Yellow Line extension: Mayor Ann Tennes floated the potential extension during her State of the Village address Friday at the Skokie Chamber of Commerce’s 101-year anniversary celebration. “I’m happy to tell you we’ve begun very preliminary conversations with the governor’s office and community partners about the possibility of extending the CTA Yellow Line, the ‘Skokie Swift,’ to the Old Orchard corridor,” Tennes said to the nearly 150 event attendees.

* Evanston Now | ETHS eliminates ‘no-credit’ policy for absences: The Evanston Township High School board struck down a no-credit policy Monday night that penalizes students with six or more unexcused absences saying an internal review showed the policy was inequitably enforced. Student Services Director Munirah Bolis and Principal Quiana McNeal presented the findings of a policy review to the school board Monday night, describing racial inequalities in the enforcement of the policy.

* Daily Southtown | Boys and Girls Club of Ford Heights reopens after being shuttered last year by canceled federal funds: In the months since it was shuttered, staff, community members and local leaders helped secure new funding, including a state Teen Reach grant, and a Community Development Block Grant through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, along with private donations. That has helped bridge the funding gap and provide the roughly $150,000 needed to keep the building and its programs in motion this summer. It also helped fund cleaning, a coat of fresh paint and new floors at the facility in Ford Heights, a village that lacks many resources.

*** Downstate ***

* Daily Herald | IDPH: Illinois resident being tested for hantavirus strain different from cruise ship infections: The individual, who lives in Winnebago County and is not seriously ill, is suspected to have acquired a North American strain of hantavirus while cleaning a home where rodent droppings were present, the IDPH said Tuesday. The virus is typically caused by contact with rats or mice and their droppings. But the North American strain is not known to be spread from person-to-person, unlike the Andes strain that circulated on the cruise ship, state officials said. “The risk of contracting hantavirus of any kind remains very low for Illinois residents,” they noted.

* WGLT | McLean County proposes stricter guidelines for data centers while waiting for the state to act: The state’s inaction on new data center rules has prompted McLean County government to consider restrictions that would be the most stringent in Illinois. Lea Cline chairs the county board’s Land Use and Transportation Committee. Cline drafted the rules which the committee unanimously endorsed last week and the county board will consider next month. They would require data center companies to account for their own electricity and water use. Cline said she proposed the new rules because she’s not convinced state lawmakers are going to adopt any restrictions soon.

* WCBU | OSF HealthCare to end St. Jude affiliation in Peoria: Zakrzewski said affiliate statuses are reviewed every year. When asked why the change was made now, Zakrzewski replied: “It was just a natural course and conversation as we’re continuing on with destination care.” Zakrzewski noted OSF is the largest children’s hospital in downstate Illinois. As OSF takes over an independent operation, families may naturally wonder if they would still receive charity care. Families who come to OSF not under the care of St. Jude will receive charity care of some kind, but Zakrzewski did not specify how they may qualify.

* BND | Port district buying up metro-east land for future development: A group of about two dozen people protested outside the port district’s office on Monday morning before sharing their complaints about a possible data center with the board at a public meeting. […] “I want this board to slow down,” Charles McCoy said, suggesting the board wait until the federal government has implemented regulations. The state legislature is also in the process of writing rules designed to protect residents from shouldering the costs of data center infrastructure.

* WCIA | Champaign school board prepares for big changes as end of school year approaches: Board President Tony Bruno said the new administrators will bring a more focused cabinet, and clear responsibilities. Board member Justin Michael Hendrix said he isn’t convinced the new hires will adjust to the demands of the district, and board member Grace Kang said new Chief Academic Officer Jake Flowers’ compensation does not match his time in education.

* WGLT | Two Normal firefighters receive state’s Medal of Valor for pulling child from mobile home fire: Two Normal firefighters were awarded the Illinois Fire Service Medal of Valor in Springfield on Tuesday for trying to saving a child from a fire. The 13-year-old boy later died from his injuries. Firefighter lieutenant Matt Hill and firefighter paramedic Nathan Riordan rescued the boy, Edder Diaz, from a fire in the Northmeadow Village mobile home park last November. Due to a misunderstanding they thought another child was in the building and went back in, checking the whole home.

* WICS | Springfield discusses possible BOS Center expansion: Talks began with an amendment that scrapped the demand that the proposed board in the bill would demand the city gets three people on the 5-person board instead of one. […] The ordinance passed says the city supports the expansion project of the BOS Center and does not include any stipulations. The final vote for the resolution was 6 yes votes to 4 no votes.

* Muddy River News | Emergency call interrupts “Blessing of the Helmets” at Quincy Fire Department: As the names rang out, the dispatch call could also be heard over the loudspeaker. The firefighters assembled on each side of the podium containing the memorial bell raised their helmets as the blessing began. “Let us pray,” Deacon Harry Cramer began. “Dear God, through the prayer of St. Florian (the Catholic Patron Saint of firefighters and protector of fire and water disasters), have mercy on the souls of our comrades.” Several firefighters had to break ranks, remove the wheel chocks, and get the engine truck in gear.

*** National ***

* NPR | Former private prison official to serve as acting ICE chief: David Venturella is expected to be the next acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed to NPR on Tuesday. Venturella most recently worked for the department overseeing contracts between ICE and various detention facilities. He previously worked for ICE during the Obama and George W. Bush administrations. He left the agency in 2012 to work for Geo Group, a private prison company that contracts with the federal government, including for immigration detention. Venturella was at Geo Group for a little over a decade.

* NBC Chicago | Waymo recalls nearly 4,000 autonomous taxis over risk of driving into flooded roads: Nearly 4,000 of Waymo’s autonomous taxis were recalled after the company’s software may have allowed the vehicles to drive into flooded roads, according to a letter from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration obtained by NBC Chicago. […] The recall was issued after a Waymo in San Antonio entered a flooded lane during extreme weather. The vehicle was empty at the time, however, the incident led Waymo to review their technology, specifically in scenarios involving both high-speed areas and flooded roadways.