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Isabel’s afternoon roundup
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Sun-Times…
* At least some national Republican lawmakers are hoping to introduce legislation to revoke the federal charter of the National Education Association…
* WCIS | American Cancer Society seeks more Illinois Road to Recovery drivers: A program known as the Road to Recovery allows volunteer drivers to take patients to their doctor’s appointments free of charge. […] Some patients said they have built relationships they will never forget. “I didn’t feel like I was being picked up off the curb and dropped off at the curb,” cancer patient Marcus Ford said. “He rode with me. Literally rode with me through the entire process.” * WCIA | Illinois AG files lawsuit against Trump admin over education grant freeze: In the lawsuit, Raoul and the coalition argue that the Trump administration’s actions violate federal funding statutes. These include the Anti-deficiency Act, the Appropriations Act, the Administrative Procedure Act and the Impoundment Control Act, as well as multiple provisions of the U.S. Constitution. This coalition is calling the Trump administration’s decision to freeze billions of dollars in funding for six longstanding education grants, “unconstitutional, unlawful and arbitrary.” The administration’s decision comes just weeks before the start of the new school year. * WAND | Illinois lawmaker proposes ban on foreign clean energy components to protect grid, national security: An Illinois Republican lawmaker has filed a bill to ban the use of renewable energy components made by foreign adversaries in any Illinois energy projects. Senate Deputy Minority Leader Sue Rezin told WAND News her plan could protect the state’s energy grid and national security. The Morris Republican said she is concerned about security risks tied to inverters, batteries and other components of solar panels and wind turbines. * Center Square | State reps counter Lt. Gov. candidate’s claim that ethics led Illinois energy legislation: Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s candidate for lieutenant governor, former State Rep. Christian Mitchell, D-Chicago, addressed a question about ethics at a campaign stop with the governor in Chicago earlier this month. “Listen, when we passed the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), we led with ethics. The governor said ethics was his first principle, and so we worked to make sure that how energy legislation was done, instead of being done in a conference room of our largest energy provider, was done in the light of day in large working groups. We made sure that we ended the formula rates that ended up getting a lot of people in legal trouble,” Mitchell said. […] State Rep. Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis, said it was evident in this year’s legislative session that the General Assembly’s supermajority Democrats have no desire to pass meaningful ethics reform. “The things that Mr. Mitchell pointed to in CEJA are very minor changes to our ethics laws. They do not do really anything that I think an objective observer would say is meaningful change to our ethics laws,” Windhorst told The Center Square. * Sun-Times | City Council fails to override Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s snap curfew veto: Johnson frequently points to the tangible progress being made by his “holistic” strategy of having police work with community-based “violence interrupters” while investing more in young people to confront the “root causes” of crime. He reiterated that point again Wednesday, saying Chicago is coming off the “safest Memorial Day weekend in 16 years” and the “least violent July Fourth weekend” in six years. * Crain’s | Union standoff delays $1.1B riverfront project near Bally’s site again: Utilizing a mechanism to require action if the developer’s zoning change request fails to receive a vote in the Zoning Committee, the project was set to be considered at today’s City Council meeting, but allies of the union used a parliamentary maneuver to block the vote. Ald. Michael Rodriguez, 22nd, and Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, motioned to defer and publish the measure, pushing off a vote until the next City Council meeting. * Block Club | Push To Allow New Coach Houses, Basement Units Citywide Advances — With Restrictions: The ordinance, which includes coach houses, basement apartments and so-called granny flats, must still be approved by the full City Council, which meets Wednesday. Under the amended legislation, however, some districts zoned for residential use would see a limit on how many ADUs could be built on specific blocks. That change was added at the last minute to win over support from hesitant City Council members. * WTTW | Chicago Park District’s Internal Review of Douglass Park Pool Shooting Identifies ‘Gaps’ in Oversight: “To date, the Park District’s review has not identified a specific warning that Leto would commit such a violent act,” officials said in a statement. At the same time, the internal investigation “identified gaps in employee oversight, communication and documentation,” according to the statement. Several emails, texts and incident reports relevant to the investigation have been posted online by the Park District for the public to access. These documents show that at least two patrons lodged complaints about Leto in the past. Both involved verbal altercations that were resolved on site by supervisors, and never formally documented in the district’s centralized human resources files, which may have escalated disciplinary action. * WTTW | Chicago to Pay $35.2M to Settle 4 Police Misconduct Cases: Less than seven months into the year, Chicago taxpayers have spent at least $224.5 million to resolve nearly two and a half dozen lawsuits, exceeding the city’s budget to resolve lawsuits alleging police misconduct by more than $142 million, city records show. It is unclear how the city will find the money to make the payments approved Wednesday by the City Council, since it has already exhausted the $82 million officials set aside to cover police misconduct settlements and judgments in 2025. * Crain’s | Tribune staffers brace for layoffs as buyout offer falls flat: The union representing Chicago Tribune newsroom employees expects layoffs to begin soon after buyouts announced last month failed to get many takers. The Chicago Tribune Guild, a unit of The NewsGuild, told members in a July 10 email that “layoffs will come soon” but had few other details after a July 9 meeting with management. Just one person took the buyout, according to the email: Longtime political reporter Ray Long, who announced his retirement last month after more than 27 years at the paper. His coverage included corruption scandals involving former Speaker of the Illinois House Mike Madigan, which he chronicled in a 2022 book. * Tribune | Man working as peacekeeper shot in South Shore: ‘We got a long way to go’: Duncan watched an orange cat step between the shell casings as detectives and evidence technicians examined nearby cars and buildings. He wore khaki shorts, sneakers and a t-shirt that read #MakePeaceCool. “People who are trying to help create peace are still victims of violence,” he said. “We got a long way to go as a city.” Ald. Desmon Yancy, 5th, was disappointed to find himself at the scene of shooting, especially given how the year had been going. “That stretch of 71st Street had actually been much quieter than in previous summers,” he said. “So there was some comfort and some hope that that bad behavior was behind us.” * Tribune | Chicago creating index to identify neighborhoods most vulnerable to heat waves: The team, the Defusing Disasters Working Group, compiled data on citywide heat deaths to produce Chicago’s first heat vulnerability index. The tool shows which Chicago neighborhoods are at the highest risk during heat waves, based on not only their history of heat-related deaths but also on several other factors, including demographics, land use and air conditioning access. This initial version of the map shows a band of neighborhoods stretching from Chatham and Englewood in the south to Austin and Portage Park farther north where heat vulnerability is the highest. Neighborhoods closer to Lake Michigan tended to have lower scores, while those farther inland often had higher scores. * CBS | U.S. Senate panel holds hearing on cargo thefts, a serious problem in Chicago and beyond: Chris Spear, president of the American Trucking Associations cargo thefts have been growing more and more sophisticated. He said he has noticed a shift from opportunistic thieves to highly organized criminal enterprises that use identify theft, fraud, and cyber capabilities to steal or redirect cargo. The money in some cases fuels cartels, terrorists, and human traffickers. “We’re talking about transnational organizations that are operating from Eastern Europe, Russia, hacking into our systems, redirecting the most valuable cargo,” Spear said. * Tribune | Angel Reese sits out Chicago Sky loss with a leg injury. Will she be able to play in the All-Star Game?: Coach Tyler Marsh described Reese’s absence as “precautionary,” but the injury throws some uncertainty into Reese’s availability for the WNBA All-Star Game on Saturday in Indianapolis. “I think she should be OK, but I’m not sure,” Marsh said. “She’s taking it day by day. She’s feeling better today.” Reese was selected as an All-Star reserve for the second consecutive season. The 6-foot-3 forward is averaging 14 points and a league-high 12.6 rebounds and leads the Sky with 31.7 minutes per game, which ranks 13th in the league. * Shaw Local | Lifting Joliet residency rule for city workers stirs more debate: Mayor Terry D’Arcy on Tuesday said Joliet needs more apartments if it wants a residency requirement for city workers. D’Arcy’s comments came as the City Council approved a second union contract allowing city workers to live as far a 50 miles away. One resident called the vote “anti-Joliet” as debate continued over whether the city should keep a residency requirement. D’Arcy repeated his argument that the city lacks the available housing, especially apartments, needed to hire workers with a residency rule in place. * Daily Southtown | The south suburban world where Pope Leo XIV grew up now very much changed: But restoring the world Prevost grew up in and around Dolton is not possible. The village has evolved, and many of the boyhood haunts that he and children his age may have frequented, including movie theaters and dime stores, are now empty buildings and photos in history books. * Chicago Mag | Jackman & Co. Will Bring English Pub Favorites to Glenview: O’Donnell is very firm that Jackman & Co. is not one of those replica pubs with mass-produced antiques on the walls and mediocre fish and chips on the menu. While it’s very much inspired by the great pubs of the United Kingdom, it’s also a Midwestern restaurant. “I’m not trying to make everything ‘proper’,” he says. Now, some things are absolutely proper, including British chips and aioli, but don’t expect a theme restaurant. The menu is broken down into four sections — snacks, small, medium, and large. Snacks include Devils on Horseback (cheddar-stuffed dates with bacon and maple) and hand-cut chips. Small plates include English peas and bacon with leek cream, spiced lamb samosas, and a Peekytoe crab toast with dill. Larger dishes, like red curry prawns or a spatchcocked Cornish hen with figs and roasted olives round out the menu, and of course fish and chips are a highlight. * WIFR | Measles case confirmed in Jo Daviess County: Daviess County health officials sound the alarm after a confirmed case of measles is reported in the county. If you were at The Country Store at Eagle Ridge Resort and Spa, 109 Eagle Ridge Dr., any time between 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 6, and you are unvaccinated or unsure of your vaccination status, you are encouraged to contact your healthcare provider. * WCIA | Homelessness up in Champaign County; CSPH pushes for investment in community: A total of 355 people were identified as homeless in the county in this year’s PIT count in January. This number is up from the 279 homeless people accounted for in Jan. 2024. The count was conducted by the Champaign County Continuum of Services Providers to the Homeless (CSPH) on Jan. 22, with more than 40 volunteers helping. * WGLT | Judge cites Aaron Rossi’s ‘hubris and unlimited greed’ in giving 3 more years in prison for COVID fraud: Former Reditus Labs CEO Aaron Rossi’s “fast-paced disruptor mentality” got the best of him when he defrauded the State of Illinois and public and private insurers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars at the height of the COVID pandemic. That’s the phrase Rossi used to describe his actions during a sentencing hearing Tuesday in front of Chief Judge Sara Darrow in Peoria. Those actions resulted in a 37-month prison sentence handed down by Darrow. Rossi faced a maximum of 30 years. * WSIL | Mine collapse reported in Perry County, two hospitalized: Two people were hospitalized after emergency crews responded to a report of a mine collapse in Perry County on Monday night. The Pinckneyville Ambulance Service said they sent crews out to the Knight Hawk Coal mine at around 10 p.m. on July 14. Dan Wilkerson, Assistant Coordinator with the Pinckneyville Ambulance Service said two people were flown out for treatment of their injuries. One flown by Arch helicopter to SLU Hospital and Air Evac to a hospital in Carbondale. * WIFR | Several Winnebago Co. tornado sirens out of order, community worries about safety: Berry adds it will just take time. Schomber, however, worries mobile alerts may not be feasible for everyone, namely those who have difficulty using their phones. She suggests people get a weather radio. “Other people that I’ve said, you know, they’re not watching the local stations. They might be streaming something, so they’re not getting the alerts on TV,” Schomber said. “So we need something, you know, in the community to tell our people.” * WSIL | Funding now available for senior farmers’ market coupons, senior representative says: This information comes from the Egyptian Area Agency on Aging Executive Director Becky Salazar. On July 9, Salazar said funding wasn’t available for vendors when redeeming coupons in connection with the 2025 Illinois Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program. Therefore, senior facilities held onto the coupon booklets and did not distribute them to area seniors until the money was available. On July 16, Salazar said the funding came into the account and the vendors at area farmers’ markets who honor the coupons, are now able to be reimbursed by the state. * WGLT | B-N street minister and author shares experiences through homeless outreach book: This past winter, Bloomington-Normal street outreach teams visited unhoused people living outside and provided supplies to get them through the freezing temperatures. While providing this type of care to unhoused individuals, Bloomington-Normal street minister Bobby Jovanović said it inspired him to write a book. “I just think this past winter was pretty rough,” Jovanović said, “and in one encampment particularly that sat on the water, it’s obviously colder there, you’re beating the elements [and] there’s no transportation [to services.]” * Gizmodo | Billionaires Convince Themselves AI Chatbots Are Close to Making New Scientific Discoveries: Generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok have exploded in popularity as AI becomes mainstream. These tools don’t have the ability to make new scientific discoveries on their own, but billionaires are convinced that AI is on the cusp of doing just that. And the latest episode of the All-In podcast helps explain why these guys think AI is extremely close to revolutionizing scientific knowledge. * Apple | The Illusion of Thinking: Understanding the Strengths and Limitations of Reasoning Models via the Lens of Problem Complexity: Recent generations of frontier language models have introduced Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) that generate detailed thinking processes before providing answers. While these models demonstrate improved performance on reasoning benchmarks, their fundamental capabilities, scaling properties, and limitations remain insufficiently understood. Current evaluations primarily focus on established mathematical and coding benchmarks, emphasizing final answer accuracy. However, this evaluation paradigm often suffers from data contamination and does not provide insights into the reasoning traces’ structure and quality. * Study Finds | Musical Training May Hold The Key To Fighting Age-Related Brain Decline: Scientists have discovered that lifelong musical training appears to shield the brain against one of aging’s most common challenges: understanding speech in noisy environments. The study, published in PLOS Biology, found that older musicians’ brains maintain remarkably youthful patterns of neural connectivity, essentially preventing the typical age-related changes that make it harder to follow conversations when there’s background noise. * NYT | Kennedy Fires Two Top Aides in Health Department Shake-Up: The firings included Heather Flick Melanson, his chief of staff, and Hannah Anderson, his deputy chief of staff for policy, according to two people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the personnel changes. Both Ms. Flick Melanson and Ms. Anderson were seen as steady and effective government veterans. During a recent Senate hearing, Mr. Kennedy indicated that they were the people in his office to call to get things done. When one lawmaker raised a concern about regulations governing the amount of sugar in orange juice, Mr. Kennedy advised: “Why don’t you call Heather Flick or Hannah Anderson this week? And we will act on that as quickly as we can.” * CBS | Can female crash test dummies improve safety? A bipartisan group of senators push for equality in testing: Women make up more than half of U.S. drivers, but are 73% more likely to suffer serious injuries in a crash than men, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They are 17% more likely to be killed, data shows. … Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois added, “So there are all those moms and daughters and sisters and best friends come home.” Duckworth and Fischer, along with Sens. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, and Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, are sponsoring the “She Drives Act” to update federal crashworthiness tests by requiring the use of advanced test dummies that better reflect the driving public, including one simulating a woman who’s 4′11″ and 108 pounds.
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TFI analysis: Transit’s fiscal cliff will be $225 million smaller than expected because of state’s online sales tax expansion
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * From an RTA document…
* I told subscribers several months ago that transit’s $771 million “fiscal cliff” might not be that high because of those aforementioned tax changes. The Illinois Department of Revenue was skeptical at the time. But the numbers have held up. So far since April (there’s a three-month reporting lag), the tax has brought in about $94 million extra for the RTA, including the state match, according to an analysis by the Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois. * From Crain’s…
So, the RTA will receive $150-156 million extra this year, before the fiscal cliff begins; and then as much as $225 million every year after that cliff is triggered by the loss of federal funding. You’d think the RTA would put those unexpected 2025 dollars aside to help the agency deal with the coming troubles, but they want to spend that money now. But, yeah, no need for governance reform. * Speaking of reform, Mayors Johnson and Rotering say they will be working with other mayors this summer to come up with a plan. That could’ve been done a year ago, but I suppose better late than never. Press release…
* Roundup by Isabel…
* Chicago Reader | CPD, CTA expand surveillance: At a mid-July press event, the CPD claimed an upgraded surveillance center was necessary to address robberies on public transit. As part of its efforts to expand the First District SDSC, detectives from the CPD’s robbery task force will join officers from the public transportation unit to monitor the CTA’s roughly 40,000 cameras. Crime on CTA property has fallen from its peak at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when ridership plummeted. That mirrors a similar trend of falling violent crime rates citywide. * Journal & Topics | Union Pacific Northwest Metra Line’s Future Uncertain As Negotiations Continue: In mid-May, Metra officially assumed the responsibility for operating the three lines that Union Pacific previously operated under contract. The one remaining issue has been how much Metra would pay Union Pacific to continue to use the tracks. On May 21, the freight railroad announced that, if the agreement isn’t reached, it will impose one effective July 1. On June 30, Metra asked the U.S. Surface Transportation Board for an injunction to keep the previous arrangement in place until the two sides could finalize an agreement, even while saying that it wouldn’t recognize the Union Pacific-imposed agreement. The Surface Board denied the request, saying that Metra failed to show that there was an imminent danger of Metra’s service being disrupted. But it was dubious about Union Pacific trying to impose an agreement unilaterally, and encouraged both sides to keep negotiating. * Block Club | Lincoln Square Construction Unearths A Piece Of Pre-CTA History: “Those tracks would have been installed in 1895, when electric streetcar service on Lincoln Avenue was extended north from Irving Park to Foster,” said Graham Garfield, whose Chicago “L” website documents the transit system’s history. “Though maybe not those specific rails, as they were likely replaced at some point as part of regular maintenance — though you never know.” * NBC Chicago | Lollapalooza, CTA release streetwear merch in collaboration with local artist: The festival and the CTA partnered to release a three-piece collection designed by Ellen Ma, a local artist and creative director of Leaders 1354, according to the CTA. “This year, Lollapalooza reached out to CTA to collaborate on official concert merchandise. As some of the city’s most recognizable institutions, the partnership felt natural,” the CTA said in a news release. “Lollapalooza is the concert in Chicago and CTA is how Chicago gets there.”
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Reform activist calls Harmon ‘one of our state’s most prolific abusers of Illinois’ self-funding loophole’
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * Alisa Kaplan, executive director of Reform for Illinois, writing in the Tribune…
* From Harmon’s self defense…
Discuss.
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Comptroller Mendoza won’t seek 4th term, leaves door open for mayoral bid (Updated x2)
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Click here for some background. Comptroller Susana Mendoza held a press conference this morning to “announce her plans for the 2026 election.” WTTW…
* In her remarks, Mendoza kept her plans for the future vague…
* Mendoza was pressed on whether she’ll run for Mayor of Chicago…
* NBC Chicago…
* NBC Chicago’s Mary Ann Ahern has the latest fundraising numbers for potential mayoral candidates…
Mary Ann yesterday…
…Adding… Lake County Treasurer Holly Kim…
…Adding… Representative Margaret Croke…
I’ve been told Croke plans to attend slating and will make a more formal announcement next week. * More… * Tribune | Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza announces she’s not running for reelection, keeps door open for Chicago mayoral run: Mendoza may not be the only statewide elected official looking at a Chicago mayoral run. Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is also believed to be considering a bid for mayor. Giannoulias is scheduled to appear on Friday before Cook County Democrats as he runs for a second term. * WTTW | State Comptroller Susana Mendoza Says She Won’t Run for Reelection, Setting Up 2027 Chicago Mayoral Bid: Mendoza had already launched a bid for a third term as comptroller when Emanuel announced he would not run for reelection in 2019, setting off a massive scramble. Mendoza finished fifth, winning just 9% of the vote, trailing former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, former U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley and businessman Willie Wilson in the first round of voting. Mendoza’s campaign was hobbled by her connection to now-convicted former Ald. Ed Burke (14th Ward). Burke supported Mendoza’s election as city clerk, and she often referred to his wife, former Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, as her “mentor.” * Fox Chicago | Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza says she won’t seek re-election: Mendoza, 53, made the announcement Wednesday at Los Comales restaurant in Little Village. Mendoza has served as state comptroller since 2016. “I know I leave the comptroller’s office in our state in a much, much better spot and I’m definitely not done serving moving forward,” Mendoza said.
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Question of the day
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * Tribune…
* The Question: Do you think anyone else will jump in? Bonus question: Who would you like to see join the fray? Explain either way.
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C’mon, man
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * CNN last month…
* The paid professional critics weigh in…
Sigh.
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SB 328 Puts Illinois’s Economy At Risk
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Advertising Department [The following is a paid advertisement.] In the final hours of the state’s legislative session, SB 328 was quietly introduced and passed giving lawmakers and the public little time to review and debate this legislation. Now, it’s sitting on the Governor’s desk. If signed, it will allow trial lawyers to drag companies into Illinois courts for lawsuits that have nothing to do with Illinois. Businesses could be sued here simply for being registered in the state — even if the alleged harm occurred elsewhere. And it puts jobs and our state’s economy at risk. Even New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a nearly identical bill twice, calling it a “massive expansion” of jurisdiction that would deter job creation and burden the courts. Governor Pritzker has a choice: Veto the legislation to protect Illinois jobs and businesses — or signal to employers that Illinois is open season for out-of-state lawsuits. Learn more and make your voice heard: 
Comments Off |
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Your tax dollars at work
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * State mailer from Rep. Blaine Wilhour… 
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Catching up with the federal candidates (Updated)
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Add one more to the 9th Congressional District’s growing roster. The Daily Northwestern…
* The video…
* Kat Abughazaleh raised nearly $526,000 in the second quarter. But she’s lagging behind Biss in in-state support…
* Evanston Now…
* Biss also picked up an endorsement from Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Tribune…
* Moving on to the 2nd Congressional District. Sun-Times…
* A quick look at fundraising in the race for Sen. Dick Durbin’s seat, via the Pantagraph’s Brenden Moore…
* Juliana Stratton’s US Senate campaign announced more endorsements this morning…
…Adding… From the Junaid Ahmed campaign…
* More… * Evanston Now | Former prosecutor joins congressional race: Pyati called his now-opponents “great progressives” with “very inspiring life stories,” but said he didn’t “see the leadership we need … to actually get us out of this era [of Trump].” * Evanston Roundtable | Evanstonian Nick Pyati jumps in race to succeed Schakowsky: “Since November, I’ve been extremely disappointed and dismayed by what’s happening in the country as the Trump administration blazes a path through all of our democratic norms and basic freedoms,” Pyati said in an interview with the RoundTable. “I’ve been disappointed in the Democratic Party’s inability to find a vision or a plan forward for ending this mess.”
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Open thread
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * I was once so sick of goodbyes years ago that I bought a house… The sun drags locomotives to the ocean Your local report?
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Isabel’s morning briefing
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * ICYMI: A race for mayor — or re-run as state comptroller. Mendoza is making her move today. Greg Hinz…
-Other statewide Democrats have long ago announced their intentions, with the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization set to hold slating sessions tomorrow and Friday. That has fueled speculation that Mendoza wants to move on to City Hall. - Also eyeing the mayor’s seat is another state official, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias. Unlike Mendoza, he is seeking re-election to that job, but has kept his city options open, with associates expecting him to join the mayoral fray, too. * Related stories…
∙ NBC Chicago: Answers on Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s future could come soon ∙ WJOL: State Comptroller Eyes Mayoral Race * WGLT | After Pritzker’s attacks on State Farm, insurance industry sees another push for rate review coming to Springfield: The head of Illinois’ insurance industry trade group said Tuesday that Gov. JB Pritzker’s attacks on State Farm were “unfortunate” and likely part of a push to give state regulators new power to reject rate increases. Kevin Martin has led the Illinois Insurance Association [IIA] for 31 years. During that time, he said he’s never seen a governor publicly go after a single insurer over a rate hike in the way Pritzker has. “It’s unfortunate. I kind of wish that the governor or his staff would’ve reached out to have that conversation directly with State Farm before issuing a public statement like that, because I don’t think it does anybody any good,” said Martin, the IIA’s executive director. * Chalkbeat Chicago | Report: Illinois graduates who earn college degrees make more money, but racial disparities persist: The report found that students from low-income households were less likely to obtain bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, doctoral degrees, or professional licenses than their peers from higher-income households. The report also found that the state’s high school students whose parents were among the highest earners went on to earn about 48% more than those whose parents were in the lowest-earning group. Among those who came from the same socioeconomic background, Black and Latino students earned less than Asian American and white students, the report found. * Tribune | Illinois public broadcasters in Chicago, and especially downstate, fear impact as Senate vote to cut funding looms: Chicago’s public media outlets — WBEZ and WTTW — will undoubtedly get hit by the President Donald Trump-endorsed plan to take away $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting over the next two years. But the cuts would have a far greater impact on smaller stations that rely more on federal funding and predominantly serve rural areas. * Sun-Times | After years of poor care, preventable deaths, Illinois is changing its prison health care provider: In 2023, IDOC awarded a new $4 billion contract to Wexford Health Sources. The move drew outcry from attorneys who represent incarcerated people because the private company has a track record of substandard care and preventable deaths. Now, in recent memos sent to correctional staff and people in custody, IDOC says negotiations over that contract have stalled. The state revoked its selection of Wexford and inked a short-term emergency contract with another provider, Centurion Health, to run the department’s troubled health care system. * Tribune | Swarms of fireflies in Illinois this summer give enthusiasts hope that insect can overcome population decline: “I do think it is safe to say that many species of fireflies, their population have declined in the past few decades, just based on habitat loss, because that’s kind of a good proxy for firefly populations, in lieu of actually having data from people trapping or or counting fireflies out in the field,” Joyce said. While also hard to track, the 26 firefly species found in Illinois may not be in immediate danger, according to the Firefly Atlas. However, the cypress firefly species is listed as vulnerable as of 2020 and six other species are listed as data deficient on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. * Evanston Now | State senate race fundraising neck and neck: The two candidates seeking to replace Laura Fine in the state senate are running close to each other in the fundraising race. But Patrick Hanley of Winnetka held a slight lead over Rachel Ruttenberg of Evanston. By Tuesday’s deadline to report second quarter contributions, Hanley showed $106,000 raised to Ruttenberg’s $93,532. About $26,500 of Hanley’s funds came from sources other than individual contributors, including a $13,800 check from a group called the Illinois Community Organizing Project and another $10,000 from the North Shore Organizing, a group linked to Hanley’s home address, records show. * WAND | IDFPR launches 24 additional license types to new licensing system: According to the IDFPR, Phase 2 aims to incorporate additional license types into CORE that are currently limited to paper applications and aren’t supported by the legacy online licensing system. This initiative will eliminate the necessity for paper applications, which often lead to longer processing times due to the review of submitted materials. * Capitol News Illinois | Intoxicating hemp remains unregulated in Illinois following legislative inaction: A spokesperson from the governor’s office said his position has not changed since he called for greater regulation. “I think that it’s agreed that, from the speaker of the House, the governor and the Republicans and myself, and the industry, everyone agrees that we should regulate this,” Ford said. “Over the months, we should be able to get something. It’s a priority.” * WGIL | Dan Swanson launches re-election campaign for Illinois’ 71st District: “I have stood strong in opposing budgets that include pay hikes for politicians and overspending,” Swanson said. “Illinois families deserve safe communities, educational freedom, and a state government free from corruption. Taxpayers don’t need the tax-and-spend attitude of many Chicago politicians.” * Sun-Times | Report shows big drop in Chicago police traffic stops, but sharp racial disparities persist: Chicago police traffic stops plummeted last year, but the drop varied wildly across the city and sharp racial disparities persisted, a WBEZ analysis of Illinois Department of Transportation data has found. Compared to the previous year, 2024 vehicle stops by the Chicago Police Department fell 45% citywide with declines in all 22 police districts, according to the analysis. Yet while seven districts reduced their traffic stops by more than 60%, four others cut them by less than 20%. * ABC Chicago | DOJ fires assistant chief judge overseeing Chicago’s immigration court: Judge Jennifer Peyton was the Assistant Chief Immigration Judge for Chicago’s immigration court for nearly nine years and says the past six months have been “brutal.” “I kept telling myself, and my husband kept saying, like, ‘They’re going to have to fire me. I’m not quitting,’” Peyton said. Peyton is still reeling after being terminated in an email over the 4th of July weekend while on vacation with her family. “There’s three complete sentences,” Peyton said. “No reason, no cause. And I’m not trying to flex, but I have a pretty spotless record.” * Sun-Times | Mayor Johnson’s crackdown on retail window signs stalls: Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plan to improve both public safety and retail corridor aesthetics by cracking down on businesses that cover or block more than 25% of their “public-facing window space” ran into a buzz saw of opposition Tuesday amid concern about the impact on struggling retailers. The opposition was so universal, mayoral ally and Rules Committee Chair Ald. Michelle Harris (8th) called off a vote by the City Council’s Zoning Committee to avoid what could have been a mayoral defeat. * Sun-Times | Another crooked Bridgeport bank official gets home confinement, will be paying restitution the rest of her life: Caught by the feds, Jane Tran Iriondo pleaded guilty. She admitted her role in the embezzlement scheme at Washington Federal Bank for Savings that led to a rare government shutdown of a bank. And she worked with authorities to make their cases against her colleagues and bank customers whose insider connections got them millions of dollars in loans that never were meant to be repaid. […] Iriondo also was must pay 10% of any wages she makes for the rest of her life to help repay $27,899,991. * Tribune | NASCAR Chicago Street Race sees lower national TV ratings as city explores keeping event: While attendance figures for the event have yet to be released, TV ratings for the Grant Park 165 on July 6 were down for the third consecutive year, averaging 2.1 million viewers on cable channel TNT, according to Nielsen. The races were broadcast on NBC during the first two years. In 2023, the debut Cup Series street race averaged nearly 4.8 million viewers despite a torrential rain delay. Last year’s race, also plagued by rain delays, averaged 3.87 million viewers, according to Nielsen data. Whether declining ratings for the Cup Series event reflect the shift from a broadcast to a cable network or perhaps waning interest in NASCAR’s first urban street race, it does represent diminished media value for Chicago, which provided the telegenic backdrop for the pop-up street course. * Tribune | Aurora finds high lead levels in drinking water of some homes: Between January and June, 100 samples were collected and tested for lead using recently-heightened federal sampling and monitoring requirements, according to a city news release. More than 10% of the samples contained lead readings above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “action level,” meaning the city is now required to take certain actions, such as replacing lead service lines, adjusting water treatment practices and implementing public education programs. * Daily Herald | District 214 puts prime Arlington Heights Road real estate up for sale, again: The school district is seeking a minimum of $5.5 million for the nearly 6.5-acre parcel at 2123 S. Arlington Heights Road in Arlington Heights. The site contains a two-story, 24,000-square-foot building — the former Elk Grove Township Elementary District 59 headquarters — where District 214 administrative offices relocated during renovations to its Forest View Educational Center just a few blocks away. * Tribune | Northwestern Medicine research finding opens the door to a viral link to Parkinson’s disease: A Northwestern Medicine research lab has found a usually harmless virus in brain samples from Parkinson’s patients. The idea that Parkinson’s could be linked to a virus had been theorized for years, but this is the first study to pinpoint a specific virus as more common in Parkinson’s patients. “The message that we want to give to the general public is, it opens a new field of investigation, something that we didn’t know about,” said Dr. Igor Koralnik, Northwestern’s chief of neuroinfectious diseases and global neurology and lead author of the study. * NBC Chicago | Animal shelter gets $200K thanks to Illinois’ unclaimed property program: Orphans of the Storm in Riverwoods has been in the community for nearly 100 years. It’s beloved by many, so much so that a Lake County woman left behind hundreds of thousands of dollars for them via a life insurance policy when she died. The problem was the shelter wasn’t aware, and the money went unclaimed. * WCIA | Mattoon issues another ‘do not drink’ order: On Tuesday night at 9:10 p.m., Jeff Hilligoss, Mattoon Fire Chief, said the order was reissued because the harmful algal bloom neurological toxin was found at 0.38 parts per billion level. The advisory level for a “do not drink” order is 0.3 parts per billion. Both the Coles County Health Department and the City of Mattoon Water Treatment Plant said that residents should not use tap water for drinking and cooking until further notice. * 25News Now | PPS Board of Education votes down security system with metal detectors for district’s high schools: The Board of Education for Peoria Public Schools opposes a new security system that includes metal detectors at Peoria, Manual, and Richwoods high schools. The equipment, called Evolv, also includes an x-ray system to check bags, and advanced software that can detect various kinds of weapons. Evolv was tested out at Richwoods High School for four days in May and comes with a price tag of $121,000 per year to rent and utilize the software. * WSIL | Benton healthcare facility unveils new mental health treatments at open house event: A local healthcare facility is inviting the public out to see their new state-of-the-art medical equipment and new advanced treatment options for mental health in early August. This is taking place at the Benton Mental Health Wellness Center at 107 East Smith Street, Suite B in Benton, Illinois, on August 6, from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. * WCIA | Champaign County Fair gears up to bring mix of classic, new events this year: The Champaign County Fair is nearly here, and organizers are looking forward to bringing nine days of classic fair activities like games, rides, and live music to the community. But, organizers also said they’ll be bringing a brand new event to the fair’s lineup this year. The fair kicks off on July 18 and events include a 4-H Horse Show, pro rodeo and live music by the band Philo Country Opry. * AP | The tariff-driven inflation that economists feared begins to emerge: Consumer prices rose 2.7% in June from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Tuesday, up from an annual increase of 2.4% in May. On a monthly basis, prices climbed 0.3% from May to June, after rising just 0.1% the previous month. * AP | Robot umpires to make All-Star Game debut, another step toward possible regular-season use in 2026: MLB has been experimenting with the automated ball-strike system in the minor leagues since 2019 and will use it in an All-Star Game for the first time this summer. Each team gets two challenges and retains the challenge if it is successful. “Pitchers think everything is a strike. Then you go back and look at it, and it’s two, three balls off,” Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes, starting his second straight All-Star Game for the National League, said Monday. “We should not be the ones that are challenging it.”
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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Today’s edition of Capitol Fax (use all CAPS in password)
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller
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Selected press releases (Live updates)
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller
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Live coverage
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Click here and/or here to follow breaking news. Hopefully, enough reporters and news outlets migrate to BlueSky so we can hopefully resume live-posting.
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Isabel’s afternoon roundup (Updated)
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller …Adding… Austin Weekly News…
* Tribune…
* Patrick Daley Thompson makes an appearance at City Hall…
* Former state Senator Richard Guidice has passed away…
* Daily Herald | Why the races to succeed Krishnamoorthi, Schakowsky in Congress are packed: Kent Redfield, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois Springfield, said the departure of an incumbent almost always increases the number of primary candidates. But in addition to that, Illinois is experiencing a weakening of party organizations that historically have limited competition by slating candidates and enforcing party loyalty. “This encourages individuals to try to take advantage of opportunities to run in races where incumbency is not a factor,” Redfield said. “Social media also facilitates both communication and fundraising outside of the traditional political party network.” * Advantage News | Measure raising minimum detainment age in Illinois remains in committee: Juvenile Justice Initiative Founder Elizabeth Clarke says minimum detainment age legislation in Illinois could prove to be a critical early step in the fight to steer more minors on the right course. But the bill remains in committee. Billing it as a measure that gives young people a fairer chance by working to prevent early criminalization, the Illinois House advanced Senate Bill 2418 by a 73-41 vote before legislators adjourned spring session. The Senate didn’t take the bill up on concurrence, and it remains in a Senate committee. * Sun-Times | Inspector general’s quarterly report chock-full of wrongdoing by city employees: Deborah Witzburg’s second quarter report accuses a pair of city employees—including a Chicago Police officer and an assistant housing commissioner—of fraudulently obtaining Payroll Protection Program loans for side businesses that did not exist. * South Side Weekly | June 4 Calls Show CPD Knew Federal Immigration Agents Were Asking for Help: “I am calling from a program that is contracted through ICE, and we are seeing people here for visits, but I have a crowd of protesters that are on private property,” the caller said. She told the dispatcher that twenty to thirty protesters were outside the facility, blocking its entrances. “It’s a program called ISAP; we are contracted with ICE,” the caller said. The dispatcher asked if any in the crowd had weapons. “No, no, it looks like they’re peaceful, just screaming and yelling, but they’re blocking—we can’t get in, we can’t get out. I need to be able to have all my participants coming into the [ISAP] program and not feel, not feel intimidated.” * Block Club | Traffic Spillover From Kennedy Construction Has Been A ‘Nightmare’ This Year. Can Anything Be Done?: Officials with the Illinois Department of Transportation — which is overseeing the construction project — and the Chicago Department of Transportation said they are working together to improve signal timings, add signs and assess traffic-calming measures to alleviate neighborhood congestion. That includes adding “No Thru Traffic” signs in certain residential areas, with more to be installed this week to prohibit truck drivers from using the Keeler Avenue/Irving Park Road exit ramp. But the problems persist, and neighbors have been left wondering if there’s any possible solution or even partial fix — or if they’ll just have to accept the traffic snarls until construction wraps up. * Block Club | Rush Medical Center Rolls Back Gender-Affirming Care For Minors: Rush has ended its puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy treatments for new patients under 18, making it the latest local hospital to curb gender-affirming care for minors amid ongoing threats from the Trump administration. * Block Club | Ald. Harris Moves To Rezone Properties Near Regal Mile Studios Development, Drawing Pushback: More than 100 people have signed a petition against Harris’ proposal to rezone parts of 79th Street from commercial to residential — a move that could hamper plans to restore “desolate” properties, a developer said. * Crain’s | Granny flats plan moves forward — but aldermanic control is the real sticking point: The Zoning Committee advanced the amended ordinance in a 13 to 7 vote, but approval in the full City Council is far from certain. A vote is likely to be delayed further if opponents use a parliamentary maneuver to block consideration of the measure when it comes up for a vote tomorrow. Supporters argue the new housing, which would come in the form of coach houses and conversions of basements or attics, is needed to chip away at an estimated 120,000-unit shortage of affordable housing in the city. […] But opponents say the policy is a direct attack on the City Council’s long-standing tradition of deferring to local aldermen on zoning policy in their wards. * Oak Park Journal | Nurses escorted out of West Sub amid Family Birthplace closure : The afternoon of July 3, six staff members in the middle of their shifts at West Suburban Medical Center’s Family Birthplace were escorted out of the hospital by security, according to multiple sources who work on the floor that consists of the labor and delivery, postpartum and nursery units. West Suburban staff said they were told the three units would be closed indefinitely, and they would be suspended without pay, because of a shortage of nurses. But timesheets shared with Wednesday Journal show nurses were fully staffed on Thursday, July 3 and through that weekend. * Daily Herald | Mount Prospect mulling ban on unregulated THC products, Kratom and Tianeptine: The proposed measure, which will be discussed at Tuesday’s village board meeting, comes in response to what village officials describe as a “rapid increase” in the sale of such products in local stores. If approved, the ordinance would prohibit the sale and possession of “illicit THC products,” including Delta-8, as well as such psychoactive substances as Kratom and Tianeptine. There would be a 90-day grace period for retailers to sell or safely dispose of their current inventory to those aged 21 and above. * Daily Southtown | Lifelong resident Bart Holzhauser sworn in as Homer Glen village trustee: Holzhauser said there are a lot of issues to tackle, including preserving the village’s motto of community and nature in harmony, fighting against the expansion of 143rd Street and standing up for residents who have long complained about high water bills and customer service from Illinois American Water. He said ensuring residents are not victims of price gouging on their water bills is one of the top challenges, adding some residents have bills that are unaffordable. * Crain’s | Downtown Wheaton apartment development lands $124M in financing: Chicago-based Banner Real Estate Group has secured an $84 million construction loan from PNC Bank and about $40 million in joint venture equity from a blue-chip insurance company to develop The Faywell, a seven-story, 334-unit rental building, according to brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle, which worked with Banner to secure the debt and equity. Banner’s project will capitalize on strong demand for apartments in the Chicago suburbs, which is boosted by people staying in the renter pool for longer as they put off home ownership due to high borrowing costs and economic uncertainty. The median net rent in the suburbs was $2.14 per square foot in the first quarter of 2025, up 4% from the same time frame in 2024, according to data from Integra Realty Resources. * Daily Herald | Chaperone policy to be reinstated at Six Flags Great America and Hurricane Harbor Chicago: A chaperone policy is being reactivated beginning Thursday at Six Flags Great America and Hurricane Harbor in Gurnee. Visitors 15 years old and younger must be accompanied by a parent, guardian or adult chaperone who is at least 21 years old to enter or remain in the park, the company announced on its Instagram account. The policy will be in effect all day Thursday through Sunday. On all days following, it will begin at 5 p.m. until the park closes. It applies to all park guests including single-day ticket and season pass holders and members. * Chicago Mag | How to Eat (and Drink) Your Way Through the Suburbs: From doughnuts with global flair to refreshing lychee martinis, there’s no shortage of bold flavors beyond the city limits. Here are our new favorites. * BND | How will Trump administration’s $6B school funding freeze impact Belleville?: This $219 million, which were allocated for the coming school year, are composed of five core programs, Illinois State Board of Education spokesperson Jackie Matthews explained. […] Instead, the U.S. Department of Education notified states on June 30 that it is “reviewing” this previously promised funding. * WSIL | New Era for SIU Housing: Old Dorms Out, Saluki Village In: The demolition will make room for “Saluki Village,” a multi-million dollar project in partnership with the SIU Foundation. The future village draft plans to offer 898 new beds, a community building, and four to five houses designated for special interest housing, particularly fraternities and sororities. * WCIA | Mattoon’s Lytle Pool reopens after closing for toxic water: “Amazing. I mean, this pool is really just a gem for Mattoon, and the fact that we’ve had hiccup after hiccup last year with a whole motor breaking, as well as this year following into now this pool being shut down for a few days,” said head lifeguard Ethan Schmohe. “Our biggest goal is just to make sure that we don’t have to close any more this season. And the fact that we’re back and we’re up and running — I’m ecstatic to see it.” * WCIA | Iroquois County Fair kicks off: Other headlining activities throughout the week include a tractor pull on Wednesday, demolition derby on Thursday, a rodeo on Friday and a country music concert on Saturday, featuring Chris Cagle and Craig Campbell. Many more activities will take place each day. * WCIA | U of I getting $3M from state for tech incubator project: In Central Illinois, $3 million is going to EnterpriseWorks 2.0 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Their project is a new construction building in Research Park for startup companies with an emphasis on laboratory and manufacturing commercial spaces for scaling companies. This would grow the capacity and capabilities of the existing EnterpriseWorks incubator. * The Hollywood Reporter | Broadcast Falls Below 20 Percent of TV Use for the First Time: TV use across all platforms grew by 3 percent in June compared to a month earlier, with increases among kids and teenagers driving most of that increase as summer breaks from school kicked in. People ages 6-17 spent 27 percent more time on TV screens in June than they did in May, with streaming accounting for two thirds of their viewing. Accordingly, streaming set another monthly high with 46 percent of all use and beat the combined total for broadcast (18.5 percent) and cable (23.4 percent) for a second straight month. * AP | A lockout is looming over MLB in December 2026, with a salary cap fight possibly at the center: “No one’s talking about it, but we all know that they’re going to lock us out for it, and then we’re going to miss time,” New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game. “We’re definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the league’s obviously not going to like that.” Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks. Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one. * The Guardian | Irish tourist jailed by Ice for months after overstaying US visit by three days: ‘Nobody is safe’: He had planned to return to Ireland in December, but was briefly unable to fly due to a health issue, his medical records show. He was only three days overdue to leave the US when an encounter with police landed him in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody. From there, what should have been a minor incident became a nightmarish ordeal: he was detained by Ice in three different facilities, ultimately spending roughly 100 days behind bars with little understanding of why he was being held – or when he’d get out. * BBC | WeTransfer says files not used to train AI after backlash: The file sharing company had received lots of criticism from customers on social media after changing its terms of service, which some interpreted as allowing it the right to use files for AI training. A WeTransfer spokeswoman told BBC News: “We don’t use machine learning or any form of AI to process content shared via WeTransfer, nor do we sell content or data to any third parties.” The firm has now updated its terms, saying it has “made the language easier to understand” to avoid confusion. * Stereogum | Hear John Prine’s Previously Unreleased “Hey Ah Nothin” From New Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings Deluxe Reissue: John Prine’s Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings is getting a deluxe reissue for its 30th anniversary, which will bring the beloved 1995 album (produced by Howie Epstein of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers) to vinyl for the first time. You know what that means: We’re about to enjoy some previously unreleased music from the late legend’s vault.
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When PURPOSE Guides Progress Across Illinois And Around The World
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 - Posted by Advertising Department [The following is a paid advertisement.] Hexaware, a leading global IT services company with deep local roots, exists to empower organizations from Springfield to Singapore with innovative technology and unwavering partnership. Our Purpose Statement Video reveals how we align our mission with your goals—driving digital transformation, fostering inclusive growth, and delivering measurable outcomes for every community we serve.
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‘That makes quality of life a business imperative’
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * CNBC…
Your thoughts on ways to improve Illinois’ quality of life?
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SB 328: Separating Lies From Truth
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 - Posted by Advertising Department
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Some campaign stuff: Mendoza; CD9; GOP; Senate
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * Politico…
As I told you back in May, Comptroller Susana Mendoza has committed to running for either reelection or Chicago mayor, but not both. I would expect others to jump in if Mendoza doesn’t run again. Just to pull a name out of a hat, Lake County Treasurer Holly Kim would be an interesting candidate. * More on this office from the Tribune…
* Speaking of this week’s slating…
Majority Leader Lightford endorsed Stratton at Speaker Welch’s event yesterday. * The 47th Ward Dems are going with Biss in CD9…
* Back to Politico…
“Conservative-leaning media company.” I guess that’s one way to describe it. I told subscribers about Dabrowski a while ago and the Del Mar thing is already common knowledge. Usually, folks like that would be encouraged to run down-ballot, but the party appears to have no marquee candidates waiting in the wings. And we still have no word on Republican down-ballot statewide hopefuls. * Interview with Robin Kelly…
* Raja interview…
Is it just me or do all three of these US Senate candidates appear to be taking very safe, even boring paths? [I had to make some edits of this post, but I have a Zoom in a few minutes and don’t have time to explain until later.]
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Question of the day
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Forbes…
Illinois let the Invest in Kids Act program sunset in 2023, ending income tax credits for donations to private school scholarship funds.
* The Question: Do you think Illinois should opt in to the new federal private school tax credit program? Make sure to explain your answer.
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Open thread
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * Take my picture off the wall… It don’t matter to me at all What’s going on in your part of the world?
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Isabel’s morning briefing
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * ICYMI: Illinois clean energy hit hard by Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ tax bill: ‘An incredibly damaging blow’. Tribune…
- Under the bill, Illinois will see about 30% to 60% less clean power added to the grid by 2035, according to an analysis of a similar scenario by the Rhodium Group, a financial research firm. - The firm also found that there would be about 16% to 38% fewer electric vehicles on the road nationwide in 2035. * Related stories…
∙ WGN: Illinois Boys & Girls Clubs face funding crisis amid federal cuts * Capitol News Illinois | John Hooker, first of ‘ComEd Four’ to be sentenced, gets 1½ years in prison: In sentencing Hooker on Monday, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah zoomed out from the specific actions that led to across-the-board guilty verdicts for the ComEd Four, convicted in 2023 for orchestrating a yearslong bribery scheme targeted at Madigan to grease the wheels for major legislation the utility was pushing in Springfield. “Corruption fuels a power that is wielded not for representative democracy by the will of the people, but things like oligarchy, autocracy, even kleptocracy, all while keeping up appearance of democracy,” Shah said. “To do business with corrupt power encourages it, and that’s what you did here.” * WTVO | ATF agrees not to distribute machine-gun conversion ‘switch’ devices in Illinois: Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced Monday that the ATF will not redistribute forced reset triggers (FRTs) in Illinois, “switch devices” that convert semi-automatic weapons to machine guns. The federal government signed a settlement agreement promising to stop enforcing federal law that prohibits FRTs and to redistribute the thousands of devices seized by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Raoul said switch devices are illegal under Illinois law and noted their increased use in crimes. * Crain’s | Chicago transit’s $771M fiscal cliff could shrink because of extra sales tax: The Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois says the Regional Transportation Authority, which coordinates mass transit across the metropolitan area, could get over $200 million more a year than it previously received if the rate of spending holds up. That would take a substantial bite out of the projected $771 million shortfall in annual funding for the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace rail and bus services once the pandemic-era relief funds from the federal government dries up next year. * WTTW | The Median Time in Restrictive Housing in Illinois Prisons is 1 Week. But Some Assigned More Than 600 Days: In May, there were 2,483 placements into restrictive housing, or what’s commonly known as solitary confinement or segregation. The longest time spent in restrictive housing were two men who had each spent over 600 days in assignment, despite IDOC directives capping extended restrictive housing to a year. The median time in restrictive housing in May was seven days. * WSIL | Illinois state police bring back historic Sam Browne belts: Starting with Cadet Class 150, ISP Director Kelly ordered the return of the traditional Sam Browne belts for the dress uniform. “The belts remind us of our history and the professionalism all ISP officers display,” said an ISP spokesperson. * Daily Herald | Illinois firefighters join disaster response in Texas: Thirty-nine firefighters representing 25 agencies deployed to Texas as Illinois Task Force 1. All are from departments participating in the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, a statewide disaster response program based in Wheeling. They come from nine counties, most in northeast Illinois, said MABAS Operations Section Chief Kevin Lyne. * Sun-Times | Ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan asks judge for freedom while he appeals his conviction: The motion filed Monday by Madigan’s lawyers is no surprise — they warned U.S. District Judge John Blakey it’d be coming after Blakey handed down the harsh sentence June 13. But it formally kicks off Madigan’s bid to remain a free man as the clock ticks down toward his surrender date. Blakey ordered Madigan to report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons Oct. 13. * Shaw Local | Dixon’s Fritts will seek third term in Illinois House: State Rep. Bradley Fritts, R-Dixon, has announced he will seek a third term to represent the 74th House District in the Illinois House of Representatives. “Serving the people of this district has been the honor of a lifetime,” Fritts said when making his announcement Monday, July 14. * Crain’s | Granny flat legislation set for key vote after Johnson makes concession: A proposed compromise that would legalize coach houses citywide while limiting the amount built in single-family housing blocks is set for a committee vote tomorrow. The draft amendment, obtained by Crain’s, would accomplish Johnson’s goal of allowing accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, to be built across Chicago without the need for the owner to obtain a costly and protracted zoning change at City Hall. * Block Club | After Cutting Program, City Can’t Meet Demand For Home Repair Help: During the city’s designated registration period for its Home Repair program from March 10-21, the Department of Housing received online applications and calls from 6,818 interested homeowners, but the department only expects to serve 250-300 households this year, spokesperson Michael Cox said. The flood of people seeking home repair assistance comes after the housing department in December halted a different program called Small Accessible Repairs for Seniors, or SARFS. SARFS relied on eight community groups to provide minor repairs and accessibility upgrades for older homeowners. In contrast, the Home Repair program used general contractors, not community partners, for roof and porch repairs. * Block Club | Family Wants Justice After Bodycam Footage Shows Police Fatally Shoot 19-Year-Old In Back Of Head: Police have said Fejerang had a gun, and that a gun went off and wounded an officer as police attempted to arrest Fejerang, leading to an officer shooting Fejerang in the back of his head and neck while he was on the ground. That officer was identified in reports as officer Oscar Asilis. But the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which investigates police shootings, has not yet said who fired that initial shot — or why police were stopping Fejerang, 19, to begin with. Video of the shooting does not clearly show who fired the shot, which rang out as officers were scrambling around and on top of Fejerang. * Tribune | CPD officers reporting use of force more often, as video becomes important training tool: A new report from CPD shows a sizable year-over-year increase in reports of both use-of-force and firearm-pointing incidents by Chicago cops. The upticks come as the department continues its efforts to gather and analyze internal data in its march toward compliance with the city’s federal consent decree. After a use-of-force incident, CPD officers are required to fill out and submit a Tactical Response Report, or TRR. Those reports are used to detail the exact circumstances an officer faced when force was used: Was a suspect armed? Were other officers or civilians facing a threat? What were the weather and lighting conditions at the scene? The CPD Tactical Review and Evaluation Division, or TRED, last year recorded 6,413 TRRs submitted by officers. That was a nearly 30% increase from 2023, when officers submitted 4,960 such reports. * Crain’s | BlackRock marks Chicago milestone with new office — and plans to grow: “I have always viewed our Chicago presence as almost a melting pot of the broader organization,” Neetika Singh, a BlackRock managing director and head of its Chicago office, told Crain’s in an interview. “We have an important client segment and business here. We have invested in entities here. We engage with clients here.” Back in 2005, the firm staffed the office with about 10 employees, a total it has grown to nearly 200, said Singh, one of the office’s pioneers who moved to Chicago with BlackRock. Singh also is co-head of the firm’s global consultant relations business as well as head of platform and scaled distribution for the Americas institutional business. * Tribune | Mayor Brandon Johnson, inspector general reach compromise on ethics reform: The City Council Ethics Committee on Monday advanced an ordinance that restricts when the city’s Law Department can attend investigative interviews and lays out when city attorneys can claim attorney-client privilege to avoid sharing records sought by the inspector general. “The crux of the policy proposal is still there to ensure that we are protecting the integrity of these investigations,” Ethics Committee chair Ald. Matt Martin, 47th, said after the unanimous vote. “At the end of the day, if we can land on a compromise that both sides are satisfied with, that’s a job well done.” * Tribune | HUD Chicago office taking on more public housing authority oversight as staff dwindles regionally, nationally: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Chicago office will now oversee 65 public housing authorities in Wisconsin because of staffing shortages in the agency’s Milwaukee office. This represents a roughly 62% increase in the number of public housing authorities the Chicago office is responsible for holding accountable to their missions, potentially stretching staff thin amid national cuts. The office had previously been limited to the oversight of Illinois’ 105 housing authorities. Those public housing authorities’ budgets combined, according to HUD, are more than $1.9 billion in federal dollars. * Block Club | City Adds 6 More Speed Cameras. Here’s Where They Are: The cameras will not begin issuing tickets until next month, according to a Chicago Department of Transportation news release. Monday’s announcement brings the total number of cameras installed in 2025 to 40. […] Expected revenue from the 50 new cameras was earmarked in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2025 budget, which narrowly passed City Council in December. They were added to pay for about $11 million in Police Department positions related to a federal consent decree, according to the Tribune. * Sun-Times | Smoke from Canadian wildfires prompts air-quality alert across Chicago: The Chicago area recorded ozone levels of 156 late Monday afternoon. Levels above 100 are considered unhealthy. Residents with respiratory issues, children and the elderly are advised to stay indoors and limit exposure to air outside until Tuesday evening. * Sun-Times | Meet Chicago’s last bike messengers. Here’s how they survive: The pandemic was devastating to the courier business, but it survived. The industry is a far cry from where it was in its heyday a few decades ago, but the culture and camaraderie remain, couriers say. * WGN | How Tiffany Henyard’s successor at Thornton Township maneuvered to keep earning six-figure salary: But WGN Investigates found that Harris — even before he won the township office — introduced legislation in the Illinois General Assembly to protect the payment perk. His bill didn’t pass. But we found legislation with the same language was later advanced and passed by a different Democratic legislator. It was signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker last year. Thanks to the legislative maneuver, Harris stands to collect the same benefits as Henyard. That’s in addition to $123,971 he is to be paid as a state senator. * Aurora Beacon-News | Aurora considers extending grocery tax that would otherwise expire: Aurora receives around $4.5 million in revenue through the grocery sales tax each year. Without those funds, which help pay for public safety, road maintenance, public works, community programs and environmental services, the city would likely need to look to alternative funding sources or make cuts to services, according to Stacey Peterson, Aurora’s director of financial operations. Peterson proposed continuing the 1% grocery sales tax within the city at a meeting of the Aurora City Council’s Finance Committee last week. * Daily Herald | ‘Near and dear to my heart’: Retired Metra CEO leaves board, union leader joins: Not that many transit executives can shift from spreadsheets and scheduling to operating a train in a pinch. Retired Metra CEO and outgoing board Director Don Orseno is one of those select few. June marked Orseno’s last board meeting and Wednesday will be the first for replacement Brian Shanahan, railroad coordinator for the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM) and a former Metra employee. * Daily Herald | ‘A fun one’: Why Chicago band Sincere Engineer’s show at a South Elgin strip mall restaurant is a big deal: Deanna Belos said it’s no big deal to be playing a concert at a restaurant in a strip mall in South Elgin. Her band played an earlier iteration of Legit Dogs & Ice in 2018, and with her boyfriend living nearby in Elgin, she occasionally pops in for a bite at the new Legit Dogs & Ice, 322 S. Randall Road. Despite Belos’ claim, the Saturday, July 19, show is a big deal. Since she started as a solo act in 2015 under the pseudonym Sincere Engineer and added Crystal Lake musicians Nick Arvanitis and Kyle Geib and Highland Park’s Adam Beck to record their first album in 2017, the punky outfit is as exciting as any current Chicago band. * Naperville Sun | With big influx of animals, A.D.O.P.T. Pet Shelter cutting dog adoption fees by 50% through Aug. 1: A.D.O.P.T. Pet Shelter in Naperville, which is now partnering with Will County Animal Control, is trying to reduce the overflow of animals they now have by offering a 50% reduction for all dog adoption fees through Aug. 1. Because Will County wants to expand its facilities to humanely house more animals, A.D.O.P.T. agreed to take in some of their stray animals as part of the new arrangement, according to Chris Yelle, executive director of A.D.O.P.T. Pet Shelter. * WGLT | McLean County Board to consider audit of mental health, public safety sales tax fund: All members of the committee voted to move the resolution forward, except District 10 member Corey Beirne. Vice Chair Jim Rogal was absent. The audit will be capped at $50,000 to review the expenditures of the sales tax fund. The committee also considered a resolution to suspend collection of the 1% sales tax for one year, but members opted not to move the proposal forward. * WCIA | Former CS Johnson Factory in Champaign could have new future: The Champaign City Council is voting Tuesday night to turn the lots that hold the old CS Johnson factory into residential property. The city said this would be the biggest development agreement the city has ever entered into Champaign would reimburse any increases in property taxes up to ten years or $6.6 million — whatever comes first — to prepare the site. * NYT | What Would Funding Cuts Do to NPR and PBS?: Yes. NPR gets about 2 percent of its annual budget directly from federal grants, including from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; for PBS, that amount is about 15 percent. Both organizations also get federal money indirectly, through payments from member stations across the country that receive government funding, though it’s difficult to estimate how much. The real pain will be felt by local stations in far-flung locations like Unalakleet, Alaska, and Pendleton, Ore. Those broadcasters often rely disproportionately on federal grants for their operations because of a funding formula that takes into account the fact that they have fewer donors and programming sponsors. * WIRED | AI ‘Nudify’ Websites Are Raking in Millions of Dollars: An analysis of 85 nudify and “undress” websites—which allow people to upload photos and use AI to generate “nude” pictures of the subjects with just a few clicks—has found that most of the sites rely on tech services from Google, Amazon, and Cloudflare to operate and stay online. The findings, revealed by Indicator, a publication investigating digital deception, say that the websites had a combined average of 18.5 million visitors for each of the past six months and collectively may be making up to $36 million per year. * KFF Health News | Vested Interests. Influence Muscle. At RFK Jr.’s HHS, It’s Not Pharma. It’s Wellness: While Kennedy lambastes federal agencies he says are overly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, he and some other figures of the “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, movement — such as siblings Calley and Casey Means, Robert Malone, and Peter McCullough — have their own financial ties to a vast and largely unregulated $6.3 trillion global wellness industry they also support and promote. Kennedy and those four advisers — three of whom have been tapped for official government roles — earned at least $3.2 million in fees and salaries from their work opposing Big Pharma and promoting wellness in 2022 and 2023, according to a KFF Health News review of financial disclosure forms filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and the Department of Health and Human Services; published media reports; and tax forms filed with the IRS.
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Rate the first TV ad of the US Senate Democratic primary
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * I’m told this spot is on both broadcast and streaming. Half a million dollars during the first week. Press release…
* The spot…
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Selected press releases (Live updates)
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller
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Live coverage
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Click here and/or here to follow breaking news. Hopefully, enough reporters and news outlets migrate to BlueSky so we can hopefully resume live-posting.
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Isabel’s afternoon roundup
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * WGN…
* Raja Krishnamoorthi also announced endorsements from across the state…
* Illinois State Board of Education…
* Crain’s…
* Press Release | Governor Pritzker Announces $7 Million Tech Incubator Enhancement Grants: This program will enable the State of Illinois to provide capital grants to support facilities and equipment to establish new incubators in parts of the state where entrepreneurs do not have access to these services. By supporting existing incubators’ adaptation to a changing business environment, the State is increasing their resilience so they can continue to play a foundational role in Illinois. * WBEZ | Chicago was supposed to warn residents about toxic lead pipes. It’s barely started: Months past a federal deadline, more than 90% of at-risk Chicagoans haven’t been told their drinking water could be unsafe. Of the 10 cities with the most lead pipes, only Chicago has confirmed it hasn’t finished sending out notices. * Block Club | ‘Call Me Red’: Walter Burnett’s Son Wants His Own Legacy As Alderman: The younger Burnett is aware his appointment could be viewed as classic Chicago nepotism. But, he said, he’s earned his place at the table through his community involvement. “I’m not a slouch,” Burnett said. “I’ve done a lot to participate within my community … I am a steward of this community, regardless of if I’m afforded the opportunity to be in this aldermanic seat or not.” * Tribune | Chicago-area officials are bracing as summer storms roll in following Texas tragedy and weather service budget cuts: So far, the Chicago area has felt less of an impact from those staffing reductions than other regions, particularly less-populated areas served by weather service offices in the Quad Cities and downstate Lincoln, 30 miles northeast of Springfield. But Trump’s budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts in October, calls for further cuts at other agencies within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including the elimination of research centers that study climate. While Chicago has so far been spared, Illinois Democrats in Washington, D.C., remain critical of the cuts and note that any trims to weather service offices downstate will have an impact on Illinois residents. * Tribune | Man charged with threatening to bomb West Side alderman’s office on Fourth of July: Kenneth Weddington, 28, faces one count of threatening a public official and one count of felony disorderly conduct via a false bomb threat, Chicago police said. He is accused of posting on Facebook on July 4, “BOMB PLANTED AT YOUR OFFICE FOR SUPPORT THIS (expletive) AND BEING A FOLLOWER,” according to the police report, which says Weddington was referring to Ervin. Weddington was arrested Friday evening on the sidewalk in the 200 block of South Michigan Avenue “without incident” and due in court Monday afternoon, police said. In 2021, Weddington was sentenced to two years of probation after pleading guilty to one count of aggravated battery to a peace officer, court records show. * Crain’s | Johnson avoids financial rebuke as City Council committee rejects stricter bond rules: The ordinance would have required a two-thirds majority vote in the City Council to issue city bonds, up from the simple majority needed under current law. But in a 17-16 vote, the Finance Committee rejected the measure, with opponents arguing they needed more time to consider the proposal or that, if approved, it would allow a small group of aldermen to grind city spending to a halt during the final years of Johnson’s first term. * Dan McGrath | The joy and agony of waxing nostalgic for the ‘05 White Sox: But anyone who witnessed it would agree that El Duque’s cold-blooded Fenway shutdown set the stage for all of it. And as the weekend’s festivities unfolded at Rate Field, an underlying question was why didn’t the magic last? Why couldn’t a talented, balanced, undeniably appealing team make some inroads into the Cubs’ market domination at a time when the North Side Nine was vulnerable? * Tribune | From fast casual to fine dining: 50 years of the American gyro, and a look at the dish’s Chicago history: In 1974 and 1975, only a few years after Dengeos first opened, two Chicago-based companies, Grecian Delights and Kronos Foods, began mass-producing the world’s first hydraulically pressed gyro cones. This modern marvel of rotisserie meat allowed for a more consistent, and therefore easier-to-sell, product. Eventually, the two companies merged in 2020, but in the years prior, they helped turn an ancient dish (some estimate the cooking techniques behind the gyro could be at least 2,000 years old) into a fast-casual staple, one that launched as many Dengeos-style Greek eateries as Helen launched ships from Troy. * Sun-Times | Scream Club Chicago offers a safe release of bottled-up energy: On a breezy evening at the North Avenue Beach, a small group gathered for an unusual Sunday night ritual: screaming toward the lake. The new weekly event, dubbed Scream Club Chicago, was created by Manny Hernandez, who recently moved to the city from Los Angeles. Hernandez is a breath work practitioner and men’s transformational coach, and he said the idea for a Sunday night scream session came from his own experience with breath work and the emotional release he has witnessed with clients. * Daily Herald | Citing safety risks for election officials, McHenry County clerk seeking 35% pay hike: McHenry County Clerk Joe Tirio went in front of a county board committee last week to make the case for a raise in salary for his position and others. Among the offices being reviewed for salary increases are treasurer, sheriff and clerk, who also handles the responsibilities of the recorder. All three seats are up for election next year, and the incumbents — Tirio, Sheriff Robb Tadelman and Treasurer Donna Kurtz, all Republicans — are seeking reelection. Salary changes would go into effect after the next election and, historically, the county has approved them before the primary election for those offices, Tirio said. The 2026 primary is March 17. * Crain’s | Suburban office vacancy hits another record — but not for everyone: The share of available workspace in the suburbs inched up during the second quarter to an all-time high of 32.4% from 32.2% at the end of March, according to data from real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle. The suburban office vacancy rate is up from 31.3% one year ago and 22.1% at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, having now hit new record highs every quarter for 4 1/2 years. […] The end of the post-pandemic pain looks closer for owners of top-tier, or Class A, suburban office properties, where the vacancy rate has dropped slightly since the end of 2024, JLL data shows. Companies trying to encourage in-person work keep gravitating to buildings updated with modern amenities, which is why 73% of leases signed over the past three months were in Class A buildings, according to JLL research. * Tribune | E-bike laws a confusing patchwork for suburban riders: Illinois law divides e-bikes into three classes based on their maximum assisted speed and whether the motor requires the rider to pedal. No one under 16 is allowed to ride a bike that can reach more than 20 mph under Illinois law. State regulations also require riders to label their bikes with the motor wattage and classification type. Elk Grove Village officials, however, believe it’s more important for riders to follow the rules of the road, said Scott Eisenmenger, the deputy police chief. * Daily Herald | Carpentersville honored for project to remove lead water lines: Construction on the project began in October 2023 and involved replacing 400 lead water sources in the community. Lead in water sources has been shown to cause several health issues, including cognitive and learning disabilities, developmental problems, and kidney damage, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In June 2023, the village received $4 million from the Illinois EPA’s Public Water Supply Loan Program. The funding ensured the entire program came at zero cost to village residents. * Daily Southtown | Work continues, but Tinley Park’s Harmony Square still set to debut on Friday: Amanda Gaus, Tinley Park events specialist, said Friday the square’s turf still needs to be finalized, mulch needs to be put down and items for the stage, such as speakers and lighting, need to finished. Eventually, she said, there will be more landscaping, such as perennial flowers plants, outside of the mulch and turf planned for the 2-acre square. The property is 6 acres total, including the planned townhouses and apartments, according to the village. * Daily Herald | St. Charles philanthropic group aims to expand giving: The Fox River Business Alliance raised $27,000 for Kane County charities in 2024, and group members hope to outdo that record this year as efforts expand. The FRBA, a philanthropic group of business people based in St. Charles, established an advisory fund in 2021 to support local charities that benefit the group’s families, friends and neighbors in the Fox Valley. FRBA treasurer Lee Kolodziej said the fund starts from scratch each year, since 100% of the funds raised get donated and no management fees or costs are incurred. * BND | DCFS visited Fairview Heights foster home two days before death, report shows: A 2024 report by the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services Office of Inspector General says the placement worker made “regular visits” and last saw Felmlee on May 9, two days before she died. During pretrial hearings for Williams and Reid in June, St. Clair County prosecutors described their treatment of Felmlee as “torture” and showed photos taken from Williams’ cellphone documenting what they called a pattern of abuse. They included pictures of Felmlee sitting in a car with clear bruising and abrasions to her face, head, shoulder and arm, which were taken on May 7, two days before the placement worker’s final visit. * The 21st Show in Vermilion County | Why are young people leaving small towns in Illinois?: On the Friday, July 11, 2025 edition of The 21st Show, we took our program on the road to Vermilion County, which sits on the Illinois/Indiana border. We talked to a panel of students about why they are less likely to stay in the small communities where they grew up. It’s something we’ve heard before in Carbondale and Peoria. Our conversation took place at Danville Area Community College. * BND | Metro-east shut out of federal radiation exposure compensation funds: However, residents of Venice, Madison and Granite City will again be stuck waiting to be included in the fund for people with radiation-related illnesses tied to Manhattan Project-era nuclear bomb making, after their single Illinois ZIP code didn’t make it in the final bill. The latest action by Congress serves as yet another example of the metro-east victims going unnoticed in their fight for compensation. “This small group of people here in Venice and Madison in Illinois have been left out once again,” said Larry Burgan, a former employee of the factory that processed uranium and thorium and a longtime advocate for RECA. “In part, I believe it’s because of their status, where they stand in life: They’re a poor Black community.” * WGLT | 50+ supporters write letters for Aaron Rossi ahead of sentencing in criminal case: Lawyers for former Reditus Labs CEO Aaron Rossi are pointing to his traumatic childhood and a desire to “prove his worth to everyone” in seeking leniency from a judge sentencing him this week. Rossi will be sentenced Tuesday on health care fraud and wire fraud charges, to which he pleaded guilty in April. It’s among the last steps in resolving multiple criminal investigations into Rossi’s alleged profiteering during the pandemic, when Pekin-based Reditus became a major player in COVID-19 testing. A federal civil lawsuit is also nearing a settlement. […] Reditus made hundreds of millions of dollars from state contracts for COVID-19 testing and brought hundreds of jobs to Pekin. Reditus had testing contracts with the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Illinois Department of Corrections. It ran the COVID testing site at Bloomington’s Interstate Center for much of the pandemic. * WIFR | Part of Illinois 72 to close for a week for maintenance: The Illinois Department of Transportation announces Illinois Route 72 will be closed at the Illinois Railway crossing in Davis Junction in Ogle County beginning on Monday, July 14. The crossing is located nearly a mile west of Illinois 251. The closure will allow the railroad to perform needed maintenance to their at-grade crossing. The road is anticipated to be closed for a week. A detour will be posted directing traffic to use Illinois 251, Illinois 64 and Meridian Road. * NYT | Chinese Students Flocked to Central Illinois. Their Food Followed.: Surrounded by miles of flat, green fields of soy and grain corn, the cities have a combined population of about 127,000 people and a skyline that rarely pokes above 15 stories. The area isn’t anybody’s idea of a major metropolitan center. It certainly isn’t the first place you’d think to look when you are in the mood for serious Chinese food. After a quick walk from the university’s main quad, though, you can sit down to a faithful rendition of spicy bullfrog hot pot in a Sichuanese broth studded with green peppercorns. A nearby restaurant serves yangrou paomo, a Shaanxi lamb soup with floating scraps of flatbread that is a favorite in Xi’an. If you are struck by a late-night craving for stinky tofu in the style of Changsha, you can get it after 8:30 p.m. from a chef who dresses fried black cubes of fermented bean curd in a glistening orange chile oil, the way vendors do on the streets of Hunan’s capital city. * Muddy River News | Fanning the flames: Local coach builds a homegrown Special Olympics team from the ground up: Since fall of 2024, the Quincy Embers have grown from a small group of seven players into a full team of fifteen, competing in tournaments across the region. But their story isn’t just about wins and losses. It’s about second chances, belief, and the power of community. “I was told once during an anger management course that sometimes there’s only one shot at a particular opportunity,” said Hinkamper. “When I found out the only thing stopping Joshua Hill, a close family friend, from playing was needing a coach, I said, ‘Is that all?’” * AP | Trump appointees have ties to companies that stand to benefit from privatizing weather forecasts: “It’s the most insidious aspect of this: Are we really talking about making weather products available only to those who can afford it?” said Rick Spinrad, who served as NOAA administrator under President Joe Biden, a Democrat. “Basically turning the weather service into a subscription streaming service? As a taxpayer, I don’t want to be in the position of saying, ‘I get a better weather forecast because I’m willing to pay for it.’” * WaPo | Defense Department to begin using Grok, Musk’s controversial AI model: On Monday, xAI said its products will be “available to purchase via the General Services Administration (GSA) schedule,” allowing “every federal government department, agency, or office” to buy them. In a news release, the Defense Department said the contract award is worth up to $200 million. The department issued similar awards to Google, Anthropic and OpenAI, it said. […] Grok came under fire last week after launching into an antisemitic rant and invoking Adolf Hitler after it was a programmed to be less politically correct. The incident prompted the company to say it would improve its model. A day later, xAI unveiled a sweeping update that it claimed put Grok on the cutting edge of AI development. * The Atlantic | The AI Mirage: It turns out that I would have needed an entirely new phone for Siri to have surmised that I wanted to go to the store. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said in an interview last month that the latest version of Siri has “better conversational context”—the sort of thing that should help the software know when I’m asking to be guided to the home-improvement store rather than to a guy called Lowe. But my iPhone apparently isn’t new enough for this update. I would need cutting-edge artificial intelligence to get directions to Lowe’s. * 404 Media | The Media’s Pivot to AI Is Not Real and Not Going to Work: Despite the fact that generative AI has been a destructive force against their businesses, their industry, and the truth more broadly, media executives still see AI as a business opportunity and a shiny object that they can tell investors and their staffs that they are very bullish on. They have to say this, I guess, because everything else they have tried hasn’t worked, and pretending that they are forward thinking or have any clue what they are doing will perhaps allow a specific type of media executive to squeeze out a few more months of salary. * Harper’s Magazine | Shadow of a Doubt: How OCD came to haunt American life: The disorder has racked some of Western civilization’s most luminous minds. Martin Luther, who some historians suspect had OCD, was hijacked by thoughts of cursing Jesus and mental images of Satan’s ass, which moved him to take confession with such frequency that he alienated his fellow priests. When the artist William Hogarth met Samuel Johnson, another apparent sufferer, around 1750 at the house of Samuel Richardson, he found the lexicographer standing at a window “shaking his head and rolling himself about in a strange ridiculous manner” and, not knowing who he was, figured Johnson “an idiot” who’d been entrusted to Richardson’s care. Then Johnson opened his mouth, displaying “such a power of eloquence” that Hogarth sat astonished, concluding that he had been divinely inspired.
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Pritzker signs tariff-related EO
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * Click here for the full EO. Click here for a press release containing actions by other Democratic governors. Press release…
Regarding that last sentence, as we discussed earlier, Illinois won’t have to backfill all of the SNAP costs if the state lowers its SNAP payment error rate.
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Today’s quotable
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * Block Club Chicago…
Discuss.
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First of the ‘ComEd Four’ sentenced: Hooker gets 1.5 years in Madigan bribery case
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * First, some background from the Tribune…
* Sun-Times Federal Courts Reporter Jon Seidel is in the courtoom…
* Capitol News Illinois’ Hannah Meisel…
* Earlier in the hearing, Judge Shah focused on testimony Hooker gave in 2023. Tribune…
* The Tribune’s Jason Meisner… 
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SB 328 Puts Illinois’s Economy At Risk
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Advertising Department [The following is a paid advertisement.] In the final hours of the state’s legislative session, SB 328 was quietly introduced and passed giving lawmakers and the public little time to review and debate this legislation. Now, it’s sitting on the Governor’s desk. If signed, it will allow trial lawyers to drag companies into Illinois courts for lawsuits that have nothing to do with Illinois. Businesses could be sued here simply for being registered in the state — even if the alleged harm occurred elsewhere. And it puts jobs and our state’s economy at risk. Even New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a nearly identical bill twice, calling it a “massive expansion” of jurisdiction that would deter job creation and burden the courts. Governor Pritzker has a choice: Veto the legislation to protect Illinois jobs and businesses — or signal to employers that Illinois is open season for out-of-state lawsuits. Learn more and make your voice heard:
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It’s time for an all hands on deck response from Pritzker
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller * My weekly syndicated newspaper column…
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When RETAIL Succeeds, Illinois Succeeds
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Advertising Department [The following is a paid advertisement.] Findings of a recent economic study were clear — the retail sector is a cornerstone of the state’s economy and crucial to our everyday lives. Retail in Illinois directly contributes more than $112 billion in economic investment annually – more than 10 percent of the state’s total Gross Domestic Product. Retailers like Chris in DeKalb enrich our economy and strengthen our communities. We Are Retail and IRMA showcase the retailers who make Illinois work.
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Open thread
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller
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Isabel’s morning briefing
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * ICYMI: Illinois Head Start leader tells providers to hold off on Trump edict. Sun-Times…
- The Trump administration on Thursday announced that it’s reinterpreting a 1996 law to shut off access to a series of federal programs to anyone who can’t prove they’re legal immigrants — including the Head Start early childcare and education programs for babies and toddlers — kids too little for kindergarten. - “We have never asked for [the] status of our children that we’re serving, and to do so creates fear and anxiety among our community,” said Lauri Morrison-Frichtl, head of the Illinois Head Start Association, which supports about 600 centers statewide serving the 28,000 students in Head Start in the state. * Related stories…
∙ LA Times: New Trump rule immediately bans undocumented immigrants from Head Start child care ∙ Fortune: RFK Jr. says HHS will cut off Head Start preschool program for immigrants without legal status * Capitol News Illinois | Trump’s ‘big bill’ takes center stage in Illinois’ U.S. Senate race: “In polling and different things that we’ve done, half of the population doesn’t even realize what’s going on,” Kelly said. Kelly played up her relationship with U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, saying she has been part of a coalition of House Democrats that have been traveling the country holding town hall meetings about federal spending cuts. * WGLT | State Farm says Pritzker’s rate hike claims are ‘factually incorrect’ political rhetoric: The Bloomington-based company has responded forcefully to Pritzker’s claims, which became public Thursday in a statement to the media. Pritzker claims an Illinois Department of Insurance analysis suggests “State Farm is shifting out-of-state costs onto the homeowners in our state.” He called the rate increase “unfair and arbitrary.” In a statement Friday, State Farm said that “Illinois families deserve an honest conversation about insurance economics rather than political rhetoric.” “Governor Pritzker’s statements are factually incorrect. State Farm does not shift costs between states, and we have provided information to the Illinois Department of Insurance to demonstrate this fact. Our Illinois rates reflect Illinois-specific claims and risks,” the company said. * Gallup | Surge in U.S. Concern About Immigration Has Abated: Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country. These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups. * Proviso Democrats…
* QC Times | Illinois State Senator Neil Anderson announces reelection bid: Illinois State Senator Neil Anderson, R-Andalusia, has announced he is running for reelection for the Illinois 47th District. Anderson, who is the Senate Republican Caucus Chair, said he remains focused on providing constituent service to the 15 counties he serves across Western Illinois and focused, effective leadership in the General Assembly. * Daily Herald | Legislation prompted by Mundelein impact fee fight awaits Gov. Pritzker’s signature: The bill’s primary champion, Democratic state Rep. Daniel Didech of Buffalo Grove, confirmed this week that he’s lifted a procedural hold that had been in place since it cleared the General Assembly in May. Pritzker has until Aug. 23 to sign the bill into law. A spokesperson this week said it’s under review. “I trust the governor and his team to give this matter thoughtful consideration,” Didech said. “Regardless, we will continue to evaluate any necessary next steps to protect taxpayers and support our local schools.” * Naperville Sun | Will County Board member from Naperville announces bid for Senate seat: Will County Board member Julie Berkowicz, a Naperville Republican, has announced plans to run in the 2026 primary for the state senate seat representing District 21, which covers portions of Will and DuPage counties. The position is currently held by Sen. Laura Ellman, a Naperville Democrat elected to the post in November 2018. Berkowicz said at the county level, she advocates for lower taxes and smaller government and has been frustrated in recent years with the increased tax levies that have been approved. Financial votes tend to break along party lines, she said. * WICS | Unknown powder found in Stratton Building deemed non-hazardous by officials: An unknown powder substance discovered in the U.S. Mail on the 7th floor of the Stratton Building on Friday afternoon prompted an immediate response from authorities. […] After conducting tests, the Springfield Fire Department Hazardous Materials Unit determined that the powder was non-hazardous. * Sun-Times | Illinois opioid settlements share could be at least $23 million: Illinois could get up to $23 million from settlements with pharmaceutical companies that used deceptive practices to increase opioid prescriptions, helping fuel the nationwide opioid crisis. The settlements, totaling $720 million, will go to nine states in a deal with eight pharmaceutical companies, with each company paying different amounts over varying periods, Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced. “As long as Illinois families continue to experience the devastating impacts of opioid addiction, my office will continue to work with other attorneys general to hold companies responsible for fueling the opioid crisis,” Raoul said. * Tribune | Upcoming Chicago budget ‘grimmest picture of all’ for Mayor Brandon Johnson, aldermen: Two days after that roundtable, Johnson’s finance team would disclose the city ended 2024 with a $161 million deficit, emptying one of its key emergency funds. Adding to the bad tidings last week was a final $7 billion estimate for the cost of a state bill boosting benefits for police and fire pensioners through 2055. That zeroed out “unallocated” reserve balance is even lower than the depths of the 2008 recession, when it held just $226,000, according to the city’s annual financial reports. It represents a serious financial alarm for the cash-strapped city, according to Justin Marlowe, the director of the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago “I don’t think we can overstate how important that is,” Marlowe said. “It is the single most closely watched number in all of municipal finance.” * ABC Chicago | Mayor Johnson discusses crime, budget deficit, sanctuary city lawsuit after church chat: The Chicago Teachers Union said it wants Governor JB Pritzker to allocate more than $1 billion to CPS. Mayor Johnson supported that move on Sunday during his church discussion. “The city of Chicago and districts across the state are not fully funded by the state of Illinois,” Johnson said. “It’s one of those areas where I’m gonna need more people to get active, to challenge not just city government, but the state government as well to fully fund our schools, because the crisis that we are experiencing is a crisis of the result of failures of the past.” * Tribune | Chicago’s safety net hospitals face potential service cuts, layoffs after signing of ‘big, beautiful’ tax bill: Humboldt Park Health will likely see an additional $5 million to $7 million in losses annually once the changes go into effect, said CEO Jose Sanchez. The hospital typically has an operating margin of about $1 million annually. “I came in this morning and met with senior leaders and said, ‘We’ve got to begin to think about how do we position ourselves to face the potential cuts we’ll have,’” Sanchez said earlier this week. * Tribune | Chicago father becomes face of lawsuit against ICE as judge hears challenge to warrantless arrests: Abel Orozco was getting home after buying tamales for his family, like he did most weekends for the past 30 years. They would have breakfast and head to church. Instead, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained the Mexican immigrant outside his home in suburban Lyons without a federal warrant. Now, nearly six months later, he is still detained. Immigration and civil rights attorneys argue that his arrest was not only unfair but illegal. Thanks to the video his son recorded of the arrest, Orozco has become the face of a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Attorneys say the two government agencies violated the constitutional rights of Orozco and at least 25 other people, including one U.S. citizen, during the first week of increased immigration enforcement in the Chicago area after President Donald Trump took office. * Block Club | Activists Call On State To Fill Nearly $1 Billion Transit Funding Gap: ‘I Don’t Know How I’m Going To Get Around’: At Saturday’s rally, transit advocates and local leaders demanded Pritzker call legislators back to Springfield to solve the transit budget deficit, with some protesters questioning the Democratic Party’s allegiance to their constituency. “What do we need?” demonstrators chanted. “A special session! When do we need it? Now!” * CBS Chicago | Record turnout at Barrio Arts Festival in Chicago after fears of potential ICE raids: “I think people wanted to send a strong message to the administration that we’re going to stand together,” said Billy Ocasio, executive director of the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and a former Chicago alderman. “I think that’s the reason we have so many people here.” * CBS | Children Harmed: The children left behind and the hidden toll of domestic violence in Chicago : According to an analysis by the CBS News Data Team, the number of children present during domestic violence crimes in Chicago jumped 35% the first year of the pandemic, from about 8,200 kids in 2020 to about 11,000 kids in 2021. Most of the crimes children were present for were domestic batteries, but they were also exposed to nonviolent domestic crimes such as phone threats, stalking, property damage to homes and cars, and violating orders of protection. * New Yorker | What We Get Wrong About Violent Crime: The Chicago Police Department estimates that arguments lie behind seventy to eighty per cent of homicides. The numbers for Philadelphia and Milwaukee are similar. And that proportion has held remarkably steady over time. Drawing on data from Houston in 1969, the sociologist Donald Black concluded that barely more than a tenth of homicides occurred during predatory crimes like burglary or robbery. The rest, he found, arose from emotionally charged disputes—over infidelity, household finances, drinking, child custody. Not calculated acts of gain, in other words, but eruptions rooted in contested ideas of right and wrong. * Shaw Local | Chicago Bears reportedly extend general manager Ryan Poles: Bears general manager Ryan Poles is set to stay in Chicago. The Bears reportedly signed Poles to an extension that will keep him in town through the 2029 season. ESPN’s Adam Schefter was the first to report the extension. According to Schefter, Poles had two years remaining on his contract before the Bears added three more with the extension. * Streets Blog Chicago | Why the Suburban Mayors Coalition’s claims about proposed development policies in state transit reform/funding legislation are bogus: Local planning goals are documented in a municipality’s comprehensive plan, which guides future development by shaping zoning ordinances. Again, the area around transit that NITA would be able to build on is limited, hardly the “broad swaths” that the signees mention. In this limited area, a suburb would have almost total control over what NITA could build, just like the municipality has for any other (also unelected) private developer. * Daily Herald | Delays and declining revenue: Are red-light cameras in the suburbs on their last legs?: Several suburbs are finding it increasingly difficult to bring red-light cameras back online after they’ve been deactivated for construction projects or a change of equipment vendors. Gurnee officials announced last week they were scuttling their red-light program after 16 years due to what Village Manager Pat Muetz called “operational challenges we’ve faced combined with expiration of the contract.” Muetz said the operational challenges largely were caused by the Illinois Department of Transportation taking the cameras offline for road construction projects in the area and keeping them down even after construction was complete. He said driver behavior and a reduction of crashes at intersections where the cameras were located also played a part in the village’s decision to end the program. * Daily Herald | Police chief ‘not going anywhere,’ despite vote of no-confidence: There’s a big rift in small-town Gilberts’ police department. At least that’s according to a letter sent to the Kane County community’s village board last month outlining why the rank-and-file passed a vote of no confidence against Chief Todd Block. Submitted by Metropolitan Alliance of Police Lodge 423, the 18-page memo is a scathing critique of Block, portraying him as rude, mean and sexist. * Daily Herald | Slowed by obsolete toll plaza infrastructure? Tollway is removing gates and barriers: The initiative will “convert our system to a barrier-free system to improve traffic operations at these plazas, as well as remove the aging infrastructure that we no longer need because we’re not collecting cash,” Chief Engineer Manar Nashif said Wednesday. It should save time for drivers and money for the tollway by slashing maintenance costs. “At the end of the day, it will be a much more open field. Ultimately, with no barriers, there’s fewer obstacles as traffic passes through it,” Nashif noted. * Daily Southtown | New Governors State University president sees opportunity in her return to region: Since her July 1 start date as president of Governors State University, Joyce Ester says she has been busy meeting with campus community members and embracing change in the south suburbs. Ester, originally from Phoenix and a graduate of Thornridge High School in Dolton, recently moved back to the region after ending her tenure as president of Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota. “This area is very different physically than when I left almost 20 years ago,” Ester said. “When I was a young girl in this community, there wasn’t a lot out here. Seeing new stores and new developments and new businesses that weren’t here when I was a child — it’s really nice to be able to see that and see the pride that people have in this institution.” * Daily Herald | Prospect to remove first principal’s name from theater over ties to controversial teachings: The last name of Prospect High School’s first principal will be removed from the entrance to the school’s theater, Northwest Suburban High School District 214 school board members have decided. The unanimous decision late last week to rescind the honorary naming follows publication of a student journalist’s investigation into former Principal Alvin Kulieke’s ties to a fringe religious group and its early embrace of eugenics principles. Superintendent Scott Rowe said sophomore Sage Gilliland’s reporting, published in the May 16 edition of The Prospector school newspaper, shined a light on historical information about the theater’s namesake that is “not in line with the beliefs of Prospect High School or District 214 today.” * Daily Southtown | Animal Welfare League defends annual six-figure payments for legal services: The nonprofit, led by President Chris Higens, reported on its most recent tax form from 2023 that bills to Nixon Peabody law firm made up about 15% all its expenses that year. Animal Welfare League paid Nixon Peabody about $212,000 in 2020, $348,000 in 2021 and $489,000 in 2022. It is unclear whether Animal Welfare League contracted exclusively with Nixon Peabody before 2020, as tax forms did not require the organization to write in the name of their contractor. Higens on Friday defended the nonprofit’s spending on legal services, saying in an emailed statement to the Daily Southtown that “every cent received is being spent wisely.” * WCIA | ‘We can survive this’: Mattoon community reflects following days without tap water: Mattoon has lifted the “do not drink order” after test results came back on Sunday and showed that the city’s water is safe. But over the last four days — without water from the taps — people realized the value of modern convenience and of community. […] Beyond Mattoon, surrounding cities have also stepped up — offering showers and the chance to do laundry for those in need. “When somebody’s in crisis, people will jump in in a heartbeat,” Love said. * 25News Now | Millions of dollars in sales taxes to fund McLean County mental health and public safety programs called into question: A pair of resolutions presented to the county board’s executive committee also calls for an auditor to determine how the sales tax dollars are being spent. Bloomington and Normal have been collecting a 1% sales tax since 2016 and sending that money to the county. However, the resolutions indicate the county’s “Special Mental Health and Public Safety Fund” currently has a balance of about $20 million, which Normal Town Councilwoman Kathleen Lorenz said is excessive. * Press Release | Carbondale Police Department adds new technology to investigate gun crimes: The new technology will reduce the time required for shell casings found at the scenes of shooting incidents to be analyzed. In the past, fired shell casings found at shooting scenes were sent to the Illinois State Police Crime Lab to be analyzed. Due to large caseloads statewide, this process could take weeks or months. Now, Carbondale officers and investigators can quickly determine that a particular firearm fired the cartridge casing in question within hours or days of the incident. * WGEM | Teachers and students reconnect at historic school tour of Adams County: “It was wonderful to teach out here, and the thing is that the students, their parents, their grandparents were all a part of an educational family, and it was so joyful, it was so rewarding when I started in 1972,” said Bob Winkeljohn, Former Payson-Seymour Elementary 3rd Grade Teacher. Winkeljohn said being able to see his former students on Saturday was a full-circle moment for him, and it makes him feel like he’s made a difference. * Herald-Whig | Feature-length movie set to film in Quincy: Set in the late 19th century, the independent feature-length film “Death of a Brewer” is based on a true story from Iowa and explores the complexities of the brewing industry in the lead-up to Prohibition. “As much as it’s an Iowa City story, it’s an Americana Midwest story. The more I hear about towns that did have breweries, I start to hear stories that are so similar,” said Mokotsi Rukundo, the film’s Los Angeles-based director and writer * WTVO | Rockford organization revitalizes Civil War veterans’ graves: Sunday wasn’t the first time the group of volunteers has cleaned the graves. Jenkin said they frequent Cedar Bluff Cemetary, and she said outsiders have noticed their work. “I’ve had a family in California reach out to me saying ‘Hey I saw that you cleaned the gravestone, thank you so much for doing that,’” Jenkin said. The organization also works to replace or repair damaged graves. Jenkin said they have built stones headstones for fallen veterans that didn’t previously have one. * The Pantagraph | Lincoln’s Bloomington speech ‘lost,’ but legacy lives on: Greg Koos, executive director emeritus of the museum, delivered a presentation on the “Lost Speech” in 2008 titled, “Lost or Not.” Referencing the “Lost Speech” memorial on the corner of East and Front streets in Bloomington, he said, “When we made an effort to publicly commemorate the most important event ever to take place locally — we lost the fact that it was about African American people.” The original 1946 plaques included no reference to enslaved or African American people. In 2009, the Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition established a series of new outdoor wayside exhibits that addressed this issue. * Fox Chicago | USPS raises stamp prices again — What to know: The new rates include a 5-cent increase in the price of a First-Class Mail Forever stamp from 73 cents to 78 cents. The changes would also increase domestic shipping rates by about 6.3% for Priority Mail, 7.1% for USPS Ground Advantage, and 7.6% for Parcel Select, while rates for Priority Mail Express would remain unchanged. * NPR | When The U.S. Government Tried To Replace Migrant Farmworkers With High Schoolers: Problems arose immediately for the A-TEAM nationwide. In California’s Salinas Valley, 200 teenagers from New Mexico, Kansas and Wyoming quit after just two weeks on the job. “We worked three days and all of us are broke,” the Associated Press quoted one teen as saying. Students elsewhere staged strikes. At the end, the A-TEAM was considered a giant failure and was never tried again. This experiment quickly disappeared into the proverbial dustbin of history. In fact, when Stony Brook University history professor Lori A. Flores did research for what became her award-winning 2016 book, Grounds for Dreaming: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the California Farmworker Movement, she discovered the controversy for the first time. Until then, the only time she had heard of any A-TEAM, she now says with a laugh, “was the TV show.” * Bloomberg | Invenergy urges Trump not to kill $11 billion power line: The Grain Belt line would carry electricity generated by wind farms and other energy sources in Kansas across Missouri and Illinois to Indiana. The project is capable of delivering four nuclear power plants’ worth of electricity and would be the highest capacity and second longest line in US history, according to the company. […] The request comes a day after Republican Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said in a statement that he had gotten a commitment from Wright to stop the project and end a $4.9 billion conditional federal loan guarantee offered in the final months of the Biden administration. The Energy Department and Senator Hawley’s office didn’t immediately return requests for comment. * AP | Judge orders Trump administration to halt indiscriminate immigration stops, arrests in California: Judge Maame E. Frimpong also issued a separate order barring the federal government from restricting attorney access at a Los Angeles immigration detention facility in response to a request from nonprofit law firm Public Counsel. Frimpong issued the emergency orders, which are a temporary measure while the lawsuit proceeds, the day after a hearing during which advocacy groups argued that the government was violating the Fourth and Fifth amendments of the Constitution. * CBS | 18-year-old U.S. citizen detained by border officials said conditions were so bad he lost 26 pounds, almost self-deported: The teen said he lost 26 pounds during his time in the immigrant detention center, and said officers didn’t provide him with enough food. He was crammed into an overcrowded holding area with 60 other men. They slept on the floor with aluminum-foil blankets — some even had to sleep in the bathroom area, he said. Some of the men were very sick and were bitten by ticks, but were afraid to ask for a doctor because CBP officers told them their stay would start over if they did, Galicia said. * Democracy Docket | Election Officials Have Been Under Attack For Years. Now The DOJ Wants to Criminally Charge Them: In recent months, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sent letters to states including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona, and Colorado, pressing for information about voter roll management, demanding to see state voter rolls, and threatening to sue over alleged voting law violations. But the department’s campaign has gone much further. Criminal prosecutors at DOJ sent separate broad requests for information to election officials in at least two states, people who have seen the requests told Democracy Docket.
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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Supplement to today’s edition
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller
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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Today’s edition of Capitol Fax (use all CAPS in password)
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller
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Selected press releases (Live updates)
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller
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Live coverage
Monday, Jul 14, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Click here and/or here to follow breaking news. Hopefully, enough reporters and news outlets migrate to BlueSky so we can hopefully resume live-posting.
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