Good morning, Chicago. ✶
🔎 Below: In a news conference Monday, Gov. JB Pritzker said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security requested troops to protect federal immigration agents in Chicago.
🗞️ Plus: The final defendant in the Bridgeport bank scandal is sentenced, a Michigan man paddles through Chicago on a 6,000-mile journey and more news you need to know.
📧 Subscribe: Get this newsletter delivered to your inbox weekday mornings.
⏱️: A 7-minute read
TODAY’S WEATHER ☀️
Sunny with a high near 80.
TODAY’S TOP STORIES
Trump administration asks for 100 ‘military troops’ to deploy in Illinois to protect ICE, Pritzker says
By Tina Sfondeles
Calling for backup: After more than a month of threats from President Donald Trump, Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is seeking the deployment of 100 military troops to Illinois “for the protection of ICE personnel and facilities.” Pritzker said the Illinois National Guard obtained a memo that made the request, which DHS sent to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Key context: The governor discussed the memo during a press conference addressing border patrol agents patrolling downtown Chicago with guns and arrests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview.
Unclear escalation: It’s unclear what prompted the memo’s directive — but two people were each charged with forcibly assaulting and resisting federal officers during protests last weekend outside the Broadview facility. Each person charged allegedly carried a loaded 9 mm semiautomatic pistol Saturday, but authorities confirmed they had “lawful permits.”
Police investigation: Broadview police have opened an investigation into federal agents after an allegedly unprovoked attack on a CBS News Chicago reporter’s vehicle Sunday. Federal officers have fired rubber pellets and chemical irritants into crowds of protesters outside the Broadview ICE facility.
More headlines:
- Neighbors near Broadview ICE facility say they’re caught in the middle of clashes between protesters, feds
- Standing up to ICE in suburban Chicago, the People’s Patrol puts its faith in resistance
- ICE arrests tamale vendor in Back of the Yards; online fundraiser launched to assist vendors
✶✶✶✶
Ex-bank worker gets home confinement after helping to hide embezzlement scheme
By Tim Novak
Eight years ago: As federal regulators tried to untangle the financial mess at a crooked Bridgeport bank eight years ago, Alicia Mandujano, Washington Federal Bank for Savings’ top loan officer, revealed she had been helping John Gembara, its CEO, falsify loan records to hide millions looted from the bank. Mandujano was fired. Days later, Gembara was found dead with a rope around his neck inside a bank customer’s home in November 2017.
Final defendant: Mandujano was sentenced Monday to two years supervised release, including 12 months of home detention. She was the last defendant in the long-running Bridgeport bank scandal to be sentenced. That followed her testimony at three trials to help convict four men: Robert M. Kowalski, Marek Matczuk, Miroslaw Krejza and former Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson.
✶✶✶✶
Anchorman Bill Kurtis on new book ‘Whirlwind’ and journalism’s crisis moment
By Courtney Kueppers
Storied career: Bill Kurtis was a mainstay of Chicago’s television news landscape for decades, appearing at the anchor desk alongside Walter Jacobson on WBBM and nationally with Diane Sawyer on CBS Morning News. More recently, he’s lent his signature deep voice to Will Ferrell’s “Anchorman” and NPR’s weekly quiz show “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!”
New book: Earlier this month, Kurtis, 85, released his memoir, “Whirlwind,” a play on his early-career moment in Kansas when, as a tornado approached while he was on air, he looked into the camera and warned, “For God’s sake, take cover!”
GAMES AND CROSSWORDS 🧩
This week’s Chicago-style crossword theme is: Architecture.
Here’s your clue:
1A: Frank Lloyd ___ (architect born and raised in Oak Park)
MORE NEWS YOU NEED
- Watchdogs report: North Side rabbi Moshe Yosef Unger, who oversees an Orthodox Jewish school for children in West Rogers Park, recently wrote to a Michigan court pleading for leniency for a man guilty of child pornography possession.
- City Council clash: Four alderpersons last week voted against a resolution offering Black Chicagoans an apology for America’s enslavement of their ancestors, producing a racially charged clash within the City Council.
- More robots coming: Los Angeles-based Serve Robotics plans to roll out “dozens” of food delivery robots, less than a year after Coco Robotics began a pilot program in Chicago’s 27th and 34th wards.
- Top theater honors: Court Theatre took home the most accolades at Chicago’s 2025 Equity Jeff Awards with nine wins, including two for its co-production of “Falsettos” with Timeline Theatre.
- 3.5 stars for ‘The First Lady of Television’: This production puts Gertrude Berg front and center in a period piece embedded with a razor’s edge of contemporary urgency and spliced through with comedy, writes Catey Sullivan in a review for the Sun-Times.
MUST-READ COMMENTARY 🗣️
Don’t tune out Trump administration’s transgressions
By Natalie Y. Moore
The White House wants the public to crumble into weariness and tune out its shenanigans. But ignoring the problems won’t make them go away.
Modern day blacklists — like in the past — can be thwarted with solidarity
By Ben Jealous
In an age of hyper-partisan media and culture war politics, being blacklisted feels dangerously relevant again. But blacklists lose their power when artists, workers and citizens unite.
Why labor unions aren’t amped about Illinois’ energy legislation
By Rich Miller
The state’s Biometric and Information Privacy Act is stalling construction of new, energy intensive data centers, which generate millions of dollars in local taxes and employ union workers.
FROM THE PRESS BOX ⚾🏈🏒🏀
- Game 1: Cubs pitcher Matthew Boyd will start against the Padres in the first game of the National League wild-card series. Here’s how to watch.
- Bye week agenda: After Bears’ euphoria in Las Vegas, a long to-do list needs coach Ben Johnson’s attention, writes Jason Lieser.
- White Sox shake up: After a 60-102 season, the Sox announced a housecleaning on manager Will Venable’s coaching staff, parting ways with pitching coach Ethan Katz and hitting coach Marcus Thames.
- Hawks check-in: Where the Blackhawks’ roster battles stand entering the last week of training camp.
- Bulls media day: Forward Matas Buzelis saved Bulls media day from mediocre opening acts, writes Joe Cowley.
BRIGHT ONE 🔆
Michigan man’s 6,000-mile paddle passed through Chicago — and inspired thousands
By Bob Chiarito
South Siders may have seen an odd sight earlier this month — a man in homemade clothes and a pirate hat walking along Archer Avenue with a canoe in tow as he traveled between the Des Plaines River and Lake Michigan.
For Peter Frank, it was just another leg on a journey that has spanned more than 450 days as he attempts to complete the 6,000-mile “Great Loop” across several states, the Great Lakes and along the East Coast and back. And he is doing it backwards, or upstream.
Frank has chronicled his journey online and has more than 75,000 followers, along with a legion of admirers.
“People who do things like this bring everyone together,” said Matt Baranko, who met Frank in Lake Michigan near his home in Lake Forest and paddled along side him for a couple of miles.
Frank, who grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, has just more than 250 miles to go to complete his journey. He was in southern Wisconsin over the weekend after heading up the shores of Lake Michigan. The 24-year-old expects to finish his journey within the next month.
While the trip isn’t for a specific cause, he hopes people will be inspired by him.
“I hope people are able to apply what I’m doing to other parts of their lives and be able to do things for themselves,” he said.
YOUR DAILY QUESTION ☕️
Calling all Cubs fans: How are you feeling about the team’s chances in the playoffs? What are your predictions?
Email us (please include your first and last name). We may include your answers in Wednesday’s Morning Edition newsletter.
Thanks for reading the Sun-Times Morning Edition!
Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.
Written and curated by: Matt Moore
Editor: Eydie Cubarrubia
The Chicago Sun-Times is a nonprofit supported by readers like you. Become a member to make stories like these free and available to everyone. Learn more at suntimes.com/member.