Good morning, Chicago. ✶
🔎 Below: Federal immigration agents are using a powerful facial recognition app, while their IDs are mismatched, illegible or missing altogether — despite a judge’s order.
🗞️ Plus: Illinois lawmakers’ late-night transit save, a toast to the Empty Bottle and more news you need to know.
📝 Keeping score: The Blackhawks fell to the Jets, 6-3.
⏰ Clock it: Here’s your friendly reminder — clocks will move back an hour as most of America returns from daylight saving to standard time as each time zone hits 2 a.m. Sunday.
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⏱️: An 8-minute read
TODAY’S WEATHER 🌤️
Mostly sunny with a high near 54.
TODAY’S TOP STORY
ICE has facial recognition app Illinois cops aren’t allowed to use — with little apparent oversight
By Tom Schuba
Troubled tech: The Trump administration has wiped a facial recognition policy from its website while further embracing the controversial technology and securing a $9 million contract with a company barred from selling to Illinois law enforcement agencies.
Illinois ban: The ban was the result of a lawsuit filed in Cook County that alleged Clearview AI’s massive database of photographs, pulled from across the internet, violated a landmark state law protecting people’s personal information.
Feds exempt: A settlement didn’t apply to federal law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its immigration agents. ICE has long been monitoring immigrants in Chicago using facial recognition technology. Clearview can be used in Chicago by federal authorities carrying out President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign.
MORE ON IMMIGRATION ✶
IDs mismatched, illegible or still missing 3 weeks after judge’s order to immigration officers
By Lauren FitzPatrick, Anthony Vazquez, Ashlee Rezin and Jon Seidel
Judge’s order: Three weeks ago, a federal judge in Chicago ordered federal immigration officers who have been sweeping area streets to add individual IDs to their uniforms, an order she repeated Tuesday in court directly to the Trump administration’s top immigration enforcer here.
Invisible IDs: But dozens of photographs of uniformed immigration agents, snapped by Sun-Times photojournalists in four separate locations since the court order, show how the feds have fallen short. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis on Oct. 9 ordered “visible identification” that is “prominently displayed.” This contradicts what Border Patrol boss Gregory Bovino told the judge Tuesday, when he claimed he had already ordered officers from various divisions of Customs and Border Protection to display individual badges.
More headlines:
- Noem suggests Chicago immigration blitz includes 5 other states, claims no U.S. citizens detained
- Family distraught after feds detain Chicago Uber driver despite protected status, asylum application
- Feds detain two men at Gurnee high school after 10-minute car chase
- Judge orders father of teen battling rare cancer released from ICE custody
- Sun-Times demands DHS remove social posts using its photos without permission
FALL VETO SESSION ☑️
Illinois lawmakers approve $1.5B legislative package to buoy mass transit
By Mitchell Armentrout, David Struett and Brett Chase
Transit bill passed: State lawmakers finally reached their destination, passing a transit bill to save the Chicago area’s ailing transit agencies early Friday, which capped the final night of the Illinois General Assembly’s fall veto session. The new bill, which now heads to Gov. Pritzker’s desk for his signature, includes a number of new revenue sources.
Energy bill OKd: State lawmakers also passed a plan to bring more power online in Illinois to meet high demand from big data centers and potentially help curb rising electric bills.
Bears fall short: Representatives for the Bears were poised to leave Springfield Thursday yet again without any help from state lawmakers in their drive for a new stadium in Arlington Heights.
Other late session action: Lawmakers also passed legislation intended to curb federal immigration authorities from carrying out deportations in or near hospitals, public universities, day cares or courthouses.
EDUCATION 🍎
State grad rate hits new high even as ACT scores lag and students continue to miss class
By Sarah Karp
New data: Graduation rates for the class of 2025 reached a 15-year high in Illinois. But performance on the ACT exam is below the national average and, compared to before the pandemic, a lot of students are considered chronically absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year.
Board behavior: The Chicago Board of Education approved an agreement Thursday that promises to give the city up to $175 million to cover a pension payment, but only if City Council approves taking a massive amount of money out of special taxing districts called TIFs — a move that would result in Chicago Public Schools receiving hundreds of millions in additional revenue.
MORE NEWS YOU NEED 🗞️
- SNAP cutoff looms: The Rich Township Food Pantry drew hundreds Thursday, as SNAP recipients are set to lose their benefits amid the federal government shutdown.
- Lyons mayor’s share?: In a highly unusual move, Lyons Mayor Chris Getty took $245,000 from his campaign committee to pay personal tax liability.
- Head tax headwinds: A majority of City Council is opposing Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed $21 monthly per-employee head tax, urging him to find a $100 million-a-year replacement.
- IG fire alarm: The Chicago Fire Department still doesn’t accurately measure response times to fire and medical emergencies, twelve years after the inspector general’s office sounded the first of multiple alarms on the issue, a new report concludes.
- Help for farmers: Gov. JB Pritzker this week signed an executive order that directs Illinois’ Department of Agriculture and Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to take immediate action to enhance domestic markets for agricultural commodities and to continue state investment in mental health support for farm families.
WEEKEND PLANS 🎉
👻 ¡Noche de Fantasmas!
5-7:45 p.m. Friday
📍Douglass Park Cultural and Community Center, 1401 S. Sacramento Drive
A Halloween mini concert of punk, rock, goth, emo and metal bands.
Admission: Free
🎃 Haunted Halsted
6:30-10 p.m. Friday
📍Halsted Street from Belmont to Brompton avenues
Drag superstar Raven will serve as grand marshal and host of the beloved Halloween parade and costume contest.
Admission: Free
🎥 Chicago Home Movie Day
11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday
📍Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark St.
See a selection of home movies with accompaniment by pianist David Drazin.
Admission: Free
🖌️ The Other Art Fair
5-10 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. Sunday
📍Artifact Events, 4325 N. Ravenswood Ave.
Art lovers can discover and buy works directly from more than 100 emerging artists and also explore interactive installations and performances.
Admission: $18+
FROM THE PRESS BOX 🏈🏀
- Bears predictions: Sunday’s game will see the Bears take on the Bengals. Here’s how our sports reporters think it will go down.
- Sky greats honored: Former Sky stars Candace Parker and Elena Delle Donne will be inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
- Remote learning: Former Bull Zach LaVine was one of Matas Buzelis’ biggest fans last season and also one of his more famous tutors. LaVine is with the Kings now, but he’s still invested in Buzelis.
- High school football preview: The first round of the IHSA playoffs features some stellar matchups including the Lyons vs. York rematch.
GAMES AND CROSSWORDS 🧩
This week’s Chicago-style crossword theme is: Halloween 🎃
Here’s your clue:
9A: ___-or-Treat (Trick-or-Treat alternative)
BRIGHT ONE 🔆
Empty Bottle celebrates 33 & 1/3 anniversary and its place in Chicago’s live music community
By Selena Fragassi
When Empty Bottle opened in 1992, the venue quickly earned a reputation as a “cat-ridden hole-in-the-wall bar.”
While some things have stayed the same — there’s still cheap drinks and a house cat, Peg, who has filled the gap of the late OG Radley — by now the Bottle has become more than a hole-in-the-wall. It’s a huge launching pad for future stars and other live music venues in the city.
It’s where Lady Gaga, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Strokes and The White Stripes cut their teeth. It’s where people have met and gotten married. It’s where chili cook-offs, craft and gear sales, and adult proms have added to the nearly daily entertainment at the intimate 400-cap room.
Starting Friday, the Bottle celebrates all those past and future spins for its apropos 33 & 1/3 anniversary — the speed that full-length record albums are played — with a slate of 11 show dates flexing the breadth of musicians who have graced its stage.
“This is an opportunity for us to actually put a stick in the ground and say we’re celebrating this moment from this period on and drawing some attention to the fact that we’re extremely proud of what we do,” Empty Bottle owner Bruce Finkelman told the Sun-Times.
DAILY QUESTION ☕️
Yesterday, we asked you: What is your defining memory of Halloween growing up in Chicago?
Here’s some of what you said…
“Egging everything and everyone in 1970s West Town.”— Jesse Rocha
“Going trick or treating all down 26th Street in Little Village with my mom and siblings every year … it would be snowing sometimes, we would be cold as hell, but we were walking.” — Veronica Nunez
“One house handed out bags of Jays potato chips.” — Stephanie Benander
“Going to the haunted house at the local park district.” — Tressa Hernandez
“Row houses and bungalows were decked out with simple decorations like carved pumpkins, paper skeletons from Woolworth’s, and orange and black crepe paper streamers.” — Scott Sandberg
“Having to wear a thick coat under the costume!” — Karen Mathey
Thanks for reading the Sun-Times Morning Edition!
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Written and curated by: Matt Moore
Editor: Eydie Cubarrubia
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