* ICYMI: ‘Broadview Six’ judge wants to put prosecutors under oath, keeps contempt charges on the table. Sun-Times…

- Judge Perry concluded Thursday that further “under oath” fact-finding is needed in the tainted case of the “Broadview Six” — leaving open the possibility that she’ll name a special prosecutor to investigate U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros and others.
- She did so at the end of an hourlong hearing in which she asked an attorney for Boutros’ office, point-blank, whether any of the prosecutors who worked on the politically charged case would invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He said he didn’t know.
- She told Boutros’ team she’d be compiling a list of issues for which she wanted more evidence. Their response could come in the form of live testimony or in writing, she said. Regardless, the judge added, it “has to be under oath, under penalties of perjury.”

* Related stories…

• Sun-Times: ‘Broadview Six’ judge raises specter of a ‘cover-up’ while pushing forward with inquiry
• WTTW: ‘Broadview Six’ Judge Says More Answers Needed About Prosecutors’ Conduct in the Botched Case
• Evanston Now: ‘Tables have turned’ in Broadview Six case

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

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* ABC Chicago | Illinois Supreme Court asked to review DUI conviction tied to troubled UIC lab testing: Lee is seeking exoneration from the Illinois Supreme Court after his latest post-conviction appeal was rejected. According to the appellate court ruling, Lee’s legal team missed a filing deadline. While the court acknowledged the laboratory had admitted problems with its cannabis testing, it found disputes remained over the facts of the case and concluded: “We affirm the trial court’s judgement.”

* Crain’s | Labor ready to block Johnson’s data center moratorium: “We are hotly opposed to any moratorium where a politician wants to take the lazy way out and not actually put a pen to paper, or get staff to put a pen to paper, to solve a problem,” said Marc Poulos, executive director for labor management relations with the Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers. “If you’re going to legislate by polls, then you should probably find a new job.”

*** Statehouse News ***

* Subscribers know more. Capitol City Now | Acting legislative inspector general Risley lays out his priorities: David Risley has the job on an acting basis. And, in a ten-minute video message posted on the office’s web site, he didn’t mention his predecessor’s name, but he did spend a lot of time talking about priorities which at the end were not attributed to Mike McCuskey.

* Cook County Record | State contractor exemption doesn’t shield UP from truckers’ IL fingerprint scan suit: On Sept. 30, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of named plaintiff Ernest Payton and many other truck drivers over the question of the reach of an exemption in the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), shielding government contractors from being sued under the law. In the decision, the appeals court judges said the case comes down to the question of what the phrase “while working” means for the purposes of deciding which businesses should be shielded from lawsuits worth many millions of dollars or more, and which ones should not.

* QC Times | Illinois gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey, running mate stump at Black Hawk College: Darren Bailey said that if he is elected Governor of Illinois, his first act will be to suspend the state’s gasoline tax and roll back toll increases to make Illinois more affordable for its residents.

* Tribune | Illinois attorney general files motion to halt operations at South Deering plant accused of excessive odors: The motion for a temporary restraining order aims to stop operations at the plant while a motion for a preliminary injunction would require the company to address the odors and violations of environmental law and its operating permit.

*** Chicago ***

* Tribune | $261 million mass settlement for Guevara police misconduct, Mayor Brandon Johnson proposes: The mass deal pitched by Johnson’s Law Department appears to be the largest single police misconduct settlement in U.S. history. And it will leave a deep and costly mark on the city’s finances as City Hall faces the daunting challenge of crafting a 2027 budget — even as Johnson and key aldermen praise it as a move that will save taxpayers a fortune. And as expensive as it is, it covers roughly half of the outstanding Guevara-tied police misconduct lawsuits. Chicago taxpayers will almost certainly be on the hook for more huge payouts in the not-too-distant future to people suing on the grounds that Guevara framed them for murder.

* Tribune | Chicago joins lawsuit over Trump’s EPA repealing rule that limits emissions from power plants: Twenty-one states, led by New York, are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s power plant rule. The coalition also includes Pennsylvania’s governor, the District of Columbia, New York City, Chicago and the city and county of Denver. They argue that “gutting one of the country’s most significant climate protections” will set the nation back decades and worsen the climate crisis.

* Tribune | World Business Chicago skips City Council ethics hearing about videos featuring Mayor Brandon Johnson: Members of the City Council’s ethics committee addressed empty chairs Thursday after officials from World Business Chicago — the city’s public-private economic development organization — didn’t show up to a hearing on the group’s videos featuring Mayor Brandon Johnson. Eight committee members, many of them Johnson critics, had asked WBC officials to explain the organization’s “communications and advertising practices” after it posted several videos prominently featuring the mayor touting neighborhood investments and affordable housing.

* Block Club | Council Hearing On City Domestic Violence Program Canceled After Not Enough Alders Show Up: The hearing was in direct response to a Block Club report published in June that revealed the office has struggled to be effective. The program, which was expanded last year, has touched a nerve because it has produced few documented results for domestic violence survivors, Block Club reported at the time. Advocates and survivors on Thursday hoped to provide comment on their experiences with the program and hear more information from city officials. Some survivors and advocates have been critical of the office, while others said they have found it to be helpful.

* Sun-Times | Chicago parking rate hikes should be tied to inflation, and out-of-towners should pay more, Ald. Dowell says: “We haven’t raised parking rates since 2022… It makes sense to do an escalator… Making it more predictable helps everybody…Anytime we can take some revenue and put it in a lockbox and put it towards our pension liabilities, we should do that,” Dowell said. “It may [also] be time to look at… different rates between Chicago residents — giving them a break — and charging suburbanites who use our parking system more… Suburbanites put wear and tear on our streets and use our system, and they don’t pay anything towards that.”

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Herald | Lake County GOP launches opposition to school sales tax referendum: On Thursday, the Lake County Republican Central Committee launched a campaign against the measure, saying families already are stretched thin by rising costs and high taxes. “This is not a Democrat issue or a Republican issue,” said committee Chair Dawn Abernathy. “This is a resident of Lake County issue.” Volunteers are knocking on doors and distributing information in all 18 county townships to ensure voters understand the potential impact of a sales tax hike before heading to the polls.

* Daily Southtown | Supporters of laid-off custodians rally in Crestwood, cite ‘gross stuff’ at District 130 schools: Diaz said she’s still heartbroken that she and 30 other custodians were forced out two days after classes resumed, having worked extremely hard over the summer to ensure all 12 schools were clean and welcoming for students. “Others of my co-workers, they were here for 28 years, and they were still outsourced,” she said. Six maintenance staff were retained, expected to handle the work until custodians from a new company started work Sept. 7.

* Daily Southtown | Judge appoints receiver to manage Calumet City’s River Oaks West shopping center in foreclosure lawsuit: Less than a month after a $45.6 million foreclosure lawsuit was filed against the owner of River Oaks West shopping center in Calumet City, a Cook County judge has appointed a receiver to manage the struggling property. Frontline Real Estate Partners was chosen to manage day-to-day operations of the shopping center at 410 to 500 River Oaks West Road as of Sept. 3, the same company currently overseeing operations of the dilapidated Autumn Ridge apartment complex in south suburban Park Forest.

* NBC Chicago | David Braun, Northwestern thrilled for new Ryan Field’s debut: “My goodness. I don’t think words do it justice,” Braun said on NBC Chicago’s ‘Tonight With Lou Canellis.’ “It’s in a lot of ways unbelievable. What we do understand is we’re moving into the best stadium in all of college football.” Braun called the stadium the “best homefield advantage in the Big Ten,” and it will be in the spotlight on Friday night, with the sold-out game airing nationally on Fox.

*** Downstate ***

* WCBU | Plans for Peoria riverfront amphitheater move forward despite death of benefactor: “It’s just something he wanted to do for his wife, and he wanted to call it ‘the Dee;’ he didn’t want to put his name on it. It was kind of a late-in-life love story.” Hengst is survived by his nephew Mark Hengst and Dee Hengst’s daughter, Michelle Lott. The philanthropic foundation announced Hengst’s death in a media release sent this week to WCBU.

* WAND | Sarah Bush Lincoln Regional Cancer Center expands to better serve Coles County: Director Leigh Cheney says the expansion will create more future opportunities to serve patients. “This is basically going to help increase our clinic area by over 50%, as well as our infusion oncology area by the same amount,” Cheney said. “We’re adding additional chairs for infusions, and we’re also going to be moving our medical infusions over into that same area.”

* WGLT | Documentation Project highlights how Trump policies are impacting higher ed, museums and health care in McLean County: Spalding spoke about the loss of various science grants and the impact on universities. Illinois Wesleyan participation in National Science Foundation [NSF] grants previously included Step Up, for professional development to high school physics teachers; OPTYCs, which addressed disciplinary isolation among two-year college faculty; Physics and Astronomy SEA Change that improved environments for retention of undergraduate students; and a NASA HEAT grant for developing research-based instructional materials. For each cancelled grant, there was no opportunity provided for IWU or other similarly-affected universities to appeal, he said.

*** National ***

* NYT | Taking On Trump Immigration Agenda, Justices Will Review Migrant Detention Policy: The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to review the Trump administration’s policy of indefinitely detaining immigrants who crossed the border illegally years ago, signaling the court plans to weigh in on major pieces of President Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda as it begins its new term on Monday. The policy is a departure from past practice, when such migrants were generally allowed an opportunity to seek release after a hearing before a judge.

* New Republic | Trump Uses Decades-Old Law to Collect Flock Data Nationwide: Thanks to a 1980s anti–drug trafficking program, cities across the U.S. are being forced to turn over their license plate reader data to the Trump administration. 404 Media reports that the federal government is using the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program to collect data from Flock, Axon, and other cameras used by local police, so that it can be used for a national surveillance program. The plan is to centralize the data on the government’s servers and make it available to other law enforcement agencies. Data collected by HIDTA can also be shared with the National License Plate Reader Program run by the Drug Enforcement Agency.