*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* Tribune | Experts say anti-immigrant rhetoric led to viral — and incorrect — allegations of a migrant takeover: Immigration experts — who pointed to similar incidents that have unfolded across the country in recent days — said some people are spreading misleading content about migrants on social media to sway voters for anti-immigrant candidates and causes. Panic over the emergence of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua spread in Colorado last week after Fox News in Denver aired a surveillance video. The footage, which also went viral, showed a group of men armed with semi-automatic long guns and pistols in an apartment complex in the city of Aurora.

* WTTW | Illinois Doesn’t Have Parole. A Group of Incarcerated Men is Working to Change That: At 46 years old, Raúl Dorado is 26 years into a life sentence at Stateville Correctional Center. […] “All of us who formed this nonprofit, we all either had a life without parole sentence or we had a de facto life sentence, or virtual life, which means you have so much time, you can’t outlive your sentence,” he said before his Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project (PNAP) class in Stateville’s education building.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Fox 2 Now | Illinois to soon ban mini shampoo bottles in hotel rooms: The law goes into effect beginning July 1, 2025, for hotels with 50 rooms or more and beginning Jan. 1, 2026, for hotels with less than 50 rooms. […] However, the law says a hotel may still provide personal-care products in small, single-use plastic bottles at no charge to a person, but only upon request at a place other than a room or public bathroom.

*** Statewide ***

* KHQA | Union leaders demand overhaul of Illinois job posting system amid vacancies: Representatives from the local AFSCME took to the streets to let their voices be heard about the frustrations with the Illinois Central Management Services. The Illinois CMS posts job openings for state workers, but has seen some issues in the recent months. Since February, CMShas failed to post job openings for union related positions.

* WICS | Doctors scramble for solutions amid mental health worker shortage: “The whole mental health system suffers, and the whole healthcare suffers when you don’t have access to psychiatrists,” said Dr. Kari Wolf, Chair of Psychiatry for the SIU School of Medicine. Many doctors have been feeling the impact of not having enough mental health professionals, which has been declining since before the pandemic. “Other professionals are left trying to manage psychiatric conditions,” Wolf said, “and they just don’t have the training or expertise.”

*** Chicago ***

* Sun-Times | Zone offense? Cardona says he has votes to become Zoning Committee chair — with or without mayor’s support: Business and labor leaders opposed to the mayor’s choice, Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, drafted Ald. Felix Cardona to run as a compromise candidate. The Northwest Side alderperson is so confident he has enough support, he’s advising Mayor Brandon Johnson to back off or risk an embarrassing defeat. Sigcho-Lopez is not so sure.

* Sun-Times | City Council’s Budget Committee chair to summon CPS CEO Martinez to explain pension defiance: Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) called it borderline “malfeasance” for Schools CEO Pedro Martinez to push through a $9.9 billion school budget that does not include the pension payment the city had absorbed until then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot shifted the cost to CPS.

* Tribune | Safe Passage workers honored for protecting CPS students on walks to and from school: Glenda Rivera’s teenage son was shot while walking just across the street from his high school in Hermosa. Rivera’s son survived. But eight years later, when her daughter enrolled in the same school, Rivera felt that she needed to do something to protect the children in her neighborhood from violence on their way to get an education. So she joined her local Safe Passage team, donning a neon vest and standing guard every morning and afternoon as local students walked to and from class. She has now worked for Chicago Public Schools’ Safe Passage program for seven years and counting, she said.

* Sun-Times | Pace, CPS paratransit drivers reach tentative contract deal, potentially ending weekslong strike: Nearly 800 drivers walked off the job Aug. 16 in protest of what they said were unfair wages. After reaching a tentative deal with SCR Medical Transportation, they could be back at work by the end of the week if they vote to ratify the contract Thursday. […] Chicago Public Schools said it is “encouraged” that a new deal could soon be reached.

* Tribune | Obama Foundation fundraising slows; new museum teaser video released: The foundation raised $129 million in 2023, its lowest sum of the last seven years, according to IRS Form 990 filings, which are required annually from nonprofits. The year before, it raised $311 million, though the bulk of that sum came from tech titans Jeff Bezos and Brian Chesky. The development team raised $1.5 billion through the end of 2023, foundation spokeswoman Gloria Nlewedim told the Tribune in a statement, but “we saw fewer gifts of $25M+ than in previous years, which led to slightly below-average results,” last year.

* Block Club | Chicago’s Getting A Picture-Perfect Weekend With Sunny Skies, Cooler Temperatures: Thursday is expected to be mostly sunny and warm, with a high near 85 degrees, while Friday will top out at 69 degrees and could see isolated showers, according to the National Weather Service. But the good weather really kicks in Saturday, when the skies are expected to be sunny and temperatures will hit 65 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

* WBEZ | What’s That Building? Old Town School of Folk Music: In the 1990s, a Chicago public library building that had sat unused for a decade got a second life. Or maybe, because of the traditions at the Old Town School of Folk Music, which took over the Art Deco building, it’s more accurate to say it got a Second Half. The building is now a fine place to watch live music — or make some. In the main auditorium, 450-seat Maurer Hall, nobody’s more than 45 feet from the stage, and over that stage hangs a mural from the WPA era.

* Sun-Times | White Sox top Orioles, halt 12-game losing streak: Producing a formula not seen in weeks — three homers, a strong effort from the starting pitcher, scoreless relief pitching and two excellent defensive plays — the Sox improved to 5-38 since the All-Star break. At 32-109, they need to finish 11-10 in their last 21 games against the Red Sox, Guardians, Athletics, Angels, Padres and Tigers to avoid the 1962 Mets’ record of 120 losses.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Southtown | Attorney for embattled Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard labels trustees corrupt, says she has ‘not committed any crimes’: At what was to have been a regularly scheduled Village Board meeting, Beau Brindley, an attorney hired some weeks ago by Henyard, said trustees who are at odds with her have “taken it upon themselves to try to take away the power of the mayor,” and labeled it “political corruption of the worst kind.” Brindley said that Henyard “is under attack by a corrupt board of trustees that believe they can subvert the will of the people.”

* Fox Chicago | Dolton’s new Village Administrator faces scrutiny over past allegations: The latest appointment by Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard has sparked significant controversy, as newly hired Village Administrator Michael A. Smith faces questions about his past legal troubles, including allegations of sexual harassment involving a 15-year-old girl and a history of multiple criminal charges.

* WGN | Tiffany Henyard’s party goes on, despite trustees’ efforts to stop it: “Let me make sure I’m crystal clear about this: I ain’t never took a goddam thing in my life,” Henyard told Facebook viewers during a livestream from the outdoor gathering. The event was promoted as the “Friends of Tiffany A. Henyard Picnic,” which immediately set off alarm bells among her opponents, who noted that “Friends of Tiffany A. Henyard” is also the name of the embattled politician’s campaign fund.

* Daily Herald | DuPage County clerk sued in dispute over how her bills are paid: The DuPage County state’s attorney’s office has asked a judge to order DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek to comply with county regulations regarding the payment of her bills so vendors can be paid in a timely manner. The lawsuit, called a writ of mandamus, was filed Wednesday. It claims the clerk is breaking state law when she refuses to indicate from where in her budget a bill should be paid when the budget line item for the expense does not have enough money for the payment.

* Daily Herald | Kane County free speech zone questioned by board members, public: Kane County Board Chairman Corinne Pierog said Wednesday that a First Amendment zone was created at the Kane County Government Center to ensure people had a place to speak — not to prohibit them from doing so anywhere else on the campus. But people who have been handing out leaflets at the county campus in Geneva say Pierog established the zone last week because the materials criticized her.

* Daily Herald | Fox River to flow freely through Carpentersville with dam removal: The Fox River will soon flow freely from Algonquin to Elgin. Crews will begin work on a $1.2 million project to remove the Carpentersville Dam this month. The project, which will be finished in November, will create a 10.2-mile unimpeded flow of the Fox River — the longest free-flowing stretch through Kane County. “May this be the model and lead domino in a movement that carries river restoration efforts progressively downstream,” said Friends of the Fox River President Gary Swick at a ribbon-tying event Wednesday to celebrate the start of the project.

* Daily Herald | How a nonprofit is tackling math anxiety in girls: Now Mission:MathMinds has entered into a partnership with the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund and the Herman + Rasiej Mathematics Initiative to further its mission and support innovative programs addressing math anxiety in girls. Programs include mentoring, scholar camps, national conferences, a global literacy campaign, and STEM kit donations to schools, as well as working with partners around the globe.

*** Downstate ***

* KWQC | East Moline mayor helps save veteran’s life after heart attack: Mayor Freeman says he was attending the Rock Island County Democrats Labor Day Picnic at Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council in East Moline. His friend, who is a 76-year-old Navy veteran was also in attendance and collapsed after he had a heart attack. Mayor Freeman’s friend’s grandson alerted him that his grandfather was having a heart attack, and that’s when he jumped in to perform CPR.

* WCIA | ‘We have made no progress on the issues that we organized around:’ UIS non-tenured faculty union file deamand for federal mediation: The non-tenured faculty union at UIS is fairly new, forming at the beginning of the year. Now, they’re hoping to create a more productive conversation to get a new contract. “Many of our non-tenured faculty were suddenly given contracts that asked them to teach additional classes without any additional compensation,” Fenton said.

* Pantagraph | Illinois State University rally denounces discrimination after hate crime report: ozens of students, faculty, staff and others at Illinois State University demonstrated Wednesday afternoon against discrimination of queer students on the Redbird campus. The rally came 10 days after the ISU Police Department issued an advisory on Facebook stating that four suspects confronted a student and knocked him off his scooter in the early morning hours of Aug. 24 outside the Bone Student Center. Investigators said the student was repeatedly punched in the face and called offensive, homophobic terms, prompting the police department to investigate the incident as a hate crime.

* Journal Gazette | Charleston, Mattoon wastewater treatment plants getting solar power: The cities of Charleston and Mattoon are pursuing the construction of solar arrays at their wastewater treatment plants with the goal of helping save money on powering these facilities. In Charleston, construction is underway for the array across from the wastewater treatment plant at 1200 W. Madison Ave. In Mattoon, the City Council voted Tuesday night to approve a power purchase agreement for the planned array at the 820 S. Fifth Place plant. Both cities are working with Renewable Energy Evolution and Commercial Electric Inc. of Lake Forest on these projects.

* WSIL | Low water levels in the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers impact local businesses: With lower water levels, Golcanda’s Marina Manager Keith Collier says they could see fewer people stopping by. “We have a lot of visitors, river traffic, pleasure crafts that come from the Evansville area down here regularly. So if they’re having issues north of us or south of us, it could affect us,” Collier said.

*** National ***

* AP | Right-wing influencers were duped to work for covert Russian influence operation, US says: An indictment filed Wednesday alleges a media company linked to six conservative influencers — including well-known personalities Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson — was secretly funded by Russian state media employees to churn out English-language videos that were “often consistent” with the Kremlin’s “interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition” to Russian interests, like its war in Ukraine.