* Gov. JB Pritzker’s campaign…

As Donald Trump marks 100 days in office, the Pritzker political operation is launching a new video series: ‘The Real Cost of Trump’s Cuts.’ The series will feature direct to camera videos highlighting Illinoisans whose lives have been upended by Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s destruction of the federal government.

In just 100 days, workers have lost their jobs, seniors have struggled to get food or access their social security payments, and families have had their childcare jeopardized. As Trump and Musk gut services that working people rely on to give the wealthy a tax break, the new series aims to tell the stories of their destruction and damage.

Moses’ national security job offer was rescinded when Elon Musk’s DOGE team came in and haphazardly cut positions. He has a family history of working in government and was excited to continue the tradition. Instead, Moses is now unemployed and left without insurance as he tries to take care of his ailing mother.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk are ruining people’s lives to fund the largest tax break in history for the wealthiest Americans. Illinoisans across the state are paying the price for Trump and Musk’s’ cruelty, and their stories deserve to be heard,” said JB for Governor Senior Political Advisor Mike Ollen.

* The video…

Thoughts?

*** Statewide ***

* IPM News | The federal library department has put almost all of its staff on leave. What does that mean for your town’s library?: Libraries across rural Illinois rely on federal funding more than their suburban and urban counterparts. According to IMLS data from 2019 for Illinois, federal funding made up about 1.63% of rural library operating budgets, compared to 0.43% of city library budgets. Most of the libraries that received large percentages of their budgets from the federal government in 2019 and 2022 were in rural areas or towns.

*** Downstate ***

* WCIA | ‘Hurting very, very badly’: YNOT founder shares statement on Chatham tragedy: In a post on Facebook, YNOT Founder Jaime Loftus addressed the loss of four female students — some as young as 7-years-old — and also revealed new details about the crash as it was caught on camera. Loftus said the car that hit their building was seen leaving Walnut Street, traveling through a farm field and crossing Breckenridge Road, before hitting the building. Due to the time of the crash, there were students and staff present in the building for the after-school programs.

* WAND | U of I Researchers give update on dust storm study: On April 10, the team shared some of their findings so far through the University of Illinois’ farmdoc project. “The bottom line is bare soil,” reads the article’s conclusion. “It is always the most critical component for any dust storm.” The presence of bare soil at the time of the storm combined with unique weather conditions, which included dry days that turned colder later in April, said Professor Jonathan Coppess in an interview with WAND’s Agribusiness Today.

* WCIA | New manufacturing facility planning to add dozens of jobs to Champaign-Urbana: The company is opening a center near Apollo and Olympian Drives in Champaign. The space is wide open now, as crews start to build power distribution units for data centers. “Our technology essentially takes the power from the utility, brings it into the data center, cleans it up, protects it, and distributes it to the racks appropriately so that the servers that run things like your Google searches are run on clean power and are protected from failure,” Evan El Koury, the company’s president, explained. He said he is excited to work with engineering students at U of I, and others with similar experience, as he expects to add 50-75 jobs in the next few months.

* WCIA | ‘We miss him’; Fallen Illinois State Troopers honored on Workers Memorial Day: In Champaign, two state troopers were honored for making the ultimate sacrifice. Family members sat in the front of the ceremony in Dodds Park. Behind them, a line of state troopers stood honoring their colleagues, 28-year-old Corey Thompsen and 45-year-old Todd Hanneken, whose lives were cut short while on duty in Champaign County. […] “We miss him,” John said. “He was a young man at 28 years old just beginning. He’d been on the force about five, going on six years.”

* WICS | Illinois Secretary of State’s Vehicle Show to celebrate 75th year in 2025: The Illinois Secretary of State’s Vehicle Show is set to celebrate its 75th anniversary this fall, with a special highlight on the 70th anniversary of the iconic Chrysler 300. Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced that the event will take place on Saturday, September 6, 2025, from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in downtown Springfield. A limited number of commemorative license plates featuring the Chrysler 300 are now available for $35 per pair until June 10. Illinois vehicle owners who purchase the plates may display them on their vehicles for up to 60 days before the show, from July 8 to September 6, 2025.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Herald | Highland Park officials settle on permanent memorial sites for July 4 mass shooting: Highland Park city officials are moving forward with the recommendation of two sites for a permanent memorial to the victims of the July 4, 2022, parade mass shooting. Last week, the 24-year-old Highwood man who pleaded guilty to 21 counts of first-degree murder and 48 counts of attempted first-degree murder received seven life sentences for the July 4 shooting. He killed seven people and wounded 48 others that day.

* NBC Chicago | Niles demolishes ‘Leaning Tower’ YMCA building to make way for shopping, entertainment: A big wrecking ball was in suburban Niles Monday morning, right near the suburb’s historic “Leaning Tower of Niles” to make way for a giant new development with shopping and dining and more, according to an announcement. The Leaning Tower YMCA residential building, located at 6300 W. Touhy Ave., was demolished starting at 10 a.m., the announcement said. It’s part of a “significant step” in the village’s plan to revitalize the area, the announcement added.

* Aurora Beacon-News | Oswego trustees discuss options for possible grocery tax: The state tax was a revenue generator for Oswego, Lamberg has said, saying that “using actual 2024 sales tax data received from businesses that sell groceries, staff estimates the village received $1 million to $1.25 million in (state) grocery tax revenue in 2024.” “Implementing a 1% local grocery tax will maintain the village’s revenue base,” she has said.

* Pioneer Press | Morton Grove trustees approve local 1% grocery tax as state one is repealed: Officials said that without imposing the local tax, Morton Grove stands to lose more than $150,000 in sales tax revenue. Village Administrator Charles Meyer explained the ordinance before the board at its April 22 meeting amended a current village code to add a new article entitled “municipal grocery tax.”

* Crain’s | Congress wants to question Northwestern’s president — again: The U.S. House Committee on Education & Workforce is seeking a transcribed interview with Northwestern University President Michael Schill over allegations of antisemitism on campus. In a letter sent to the school, U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., the committee’s chair, accused Schill of failing to fulfill commitments made in front of congressional leaders last year over his plan to combat antisemitism on campus.

* Daily Herald | Rolling Meadows police sergeant on leave after arrest in road rage shooting: Saez, 58, of Elgin, is charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery and one felony count of reckless discharge of a firearm. During a detention hearing Friday, a Kane County judge ordered him to be released with pretrial conditions — including that he must surrender all firearms — pending his next court date June 12. Saez’s attorney Alex Bederka said Monday he is now in the discovery process collecting videos of the incident, including from a nearby gas station and witnesses, and may be prepared to comment further after the next court hearing.

*** Chicago ***

* Tribune | ‘I didn’t take this job because I thought it would be easy’: Chicago’s new U.S. attorney balances office’s tradition with new directives from DC: In his first interview since assuming the powerful law enforcement post three weeks ago, however, Boutros said he’ll be doing it with less manpower than in recent years, as there are now fewer than 100 federal criminal prosecutors and a hiring freeze mandated by the president that has no end in sight. “I didn’t take this job because I thought it would be easy,” Boutros told a group of reporters who cover the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. “I took this job knowing full well that there are tremendous pressures and expectations put on being U.S. attorney. …I expect this to be a tough job. But I believe and continue to believe that I am the right person for this job and I will work tirelessly to carry out the mandate to the best of my ability.”

* Crain’s | Johnson joins lawsuit seeking to prevent Trump’s federal government overhaul: The city of Chicago has joined other cities, unions and nonprofits in filing a lawsuit asking a judge to block President Donald Trump’s administration from firing federal workers and implementing a sweeping reorganization of the government. Arguing that Trump lacks the sole authority to force an overhaul of the federal government without congressional approval, the lawsuit seeks an injunction to prevent the downsizing, which Mayor Brandon Johnson says is already “disrupting vital city services.”

* Sun-Times | Revised teen curfew proposal poised for Council committee approval — over Mayor Johnson’s objections: With 31 co-sponsors, downtown Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) plans to push the compromise through the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety he chairs in hopes of preventing large groups of young people summoned by social media from assembling downtown with violent consequences, known as “teen trends.” “The city should definitely anticipate litigation being filed over this proposal,” said Sheila Bedi, a clinical law professor at Northwestern University. “I’ve heard no amendments that would suggest that any of the constitutional issues have been redressed.”

* Sun-Times | Developer convicted in crooked Bridgeport bank embezzlement scheme get almost 7 years: A real estate developer was sentenced Tuesday to almost seven years in prison for collecting more than $2.6 million as part of a massive embezzlement scheme that caused a clout-heavy Bridgeport bank to fail. Miroslaw Krejza lived off the loans he collected from Washington Federal Bank for Savings from 2005-17, ostensibly to develop several Northwest Side houses, federal prosecutors said.

* Block Club | New DuSable Park Plans Would Bring A Boardwalk, Lush Greenery To The Lakefront: The 3.5-acre park at 401 N. DuSable Lake Shore Drive is on a small peninsula east of Lake Shore Drive. It has been in the works since 1987, when former Mayor Harold Washington gave the land to the Park District to develop a park in honor of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Ross Barney Architects and Brook Architecture, selected as the lead design firms for the park in 2022, submitted their plans this month, two years after being awarded the project.

*** National ***

* AP | UPS to cut 20k jobs, close 70 facilities as it reduces Amazon shipping volume: “The actions we are taking to reconfigure our network and reduce cost across our business could not be timelier,” CEO Carol Tomé said in a statement on Tuesday. “The macro environment may be uncertain, but with our actions, we will emerge as an even stronger, more nimble UPS.” UPS announced three months that it had reached a deal with Amazon to lower its volume by more than 50% by the second half of 2026.

* Crain’s | U.S. Supreme Court rules against Advocate Christ in fight over billions in Medicare payments: In the 7-2 decision on Advocate Christ Medical Center v. Kennedy announced Tuesday, the high court determined the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services does not need to count all beneficiaries enrolled in both Medicare and Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, when tallying how many low-income patients a hospital treats. As a result, health systems will get paid less than they sought.

* Report: A Call to End Daylight Saving Time—Implications for Public Health: Many studies seem to show an acute worsening of health with the spring transition, but not the fall transition, suggesting the health issues are due not only to acute changes in clock time but also to the discrepancy between clock time and circadian rhythm. The effect of a chronic discrepancy between personal schedule and innate circadian rhythm, called social jet lag, is well studied in the sleep medicine literature. This chronic misalignment is associated with obesity, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, and depression. Because studies show that ST aligns better with circadian rhythm, a permanent DST will impose chronic social jet lag on the population.