Good morning, Chicago. ✶
🔎 Below: A federal judge ordered Border Patrol boss Gregory Bovino to appear for daily check-ins and wear a body cam — and requested all use-of-force reports from his agency’s federal immigration blitz — as part of a lawsuit over the feds’ treatment of protesters and journalists.
🗞️ Plus: Illinois House Democrats consider taxes on streaming services and billionaires, a new Uptown theater takes shape, and more news you need to know.
📝 Keeping score: The Blackhawks beat the Senators, 7-3.
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⏱️: An 8-minute read
TODAY’S WEATHER ☀️
Sunny and breezy with a high near 55.
TODAY’S TOP STORIES
Judge orders Border Patrol’s Bovino to return to court daily, wear bodycam, follow tear gas rules
By Jon Seidel and Tina Sfondeles
Border in the court: U.S. Border Patrol Commander-At-Large Gregory Bovino appeared Tuesday at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, where he spent an hour on the stand responding to U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis’ concerns about how federal agents have handled themselves, people they’ve detained, protesters and journalists.
Daily briefings: Judge Ellis ordered Bovino to meet her every weeknight over the next seven days for briefings about federal immigration agents’ actions amid their ongoing deportation campaign in the Chicago area. Ellis has in her back pocket a request that she fully ban the feds from using tear gas amid the immigration blitz. The judge said if agents continue to deploy gas, “They’d better be able to back it up … or they will lose that as something they can use.”
Body-worn camera: Bovino has no body-worn camera, nor the training to use one, Tuesday’s hearing revealed. Bovino admitted that fact even after telling the judge 99% of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents here have the technology. The judge told him to find himself a body-worn camera by Friday.
Use-of-force reports: The judge also wants the feds to deliver all use-of-force reports from their so-called “Operation Midway Blitz” dating back to Sept. 2, as well as any available bodycam footage. And she wants a chart of “everyone who has been arrested, that has not been arrested for anything immigration-related.”
Key context: The judge is presiding over a lawsuit about the feds’ treatment of protesters during the deportation campaign. The suit was brought by media organizations including the Chicago Headline Club, Block Club Chicago and the Chicago Newspaper Guild, which represents journalists at the Sun-Times.
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Murder case of ex-cop who fatally shot Sonya Massey goes to jurors
By Mawa Iqbal
Jury decides: The murder case of former Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson, accused of killing Sonya Massey as she was unarmed in her Springfield-area home, is now before a jury after lawyers on both sides presented closing arguments Tuesday.
The arguments: Prosecutors characterized Grayson as a chronic liar about events that happened the night of Massey’s death, noting discrepancies between his testimony last week and what his partner’s bodycam footage revealed — and said Massey would have survived had Grayson rendered aid after shooting her. Grayson’s attorneys said he fired in self-defense.
Deliberations continue: Grayson, 31, is facing three counts of first-degree murder for fatally shooting 36-year-old Massey. Jurors began deliberating Grayson’s fate around lunchtime and ended the day without reaching a verdict. They will resume deliberations Wednesday.
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Illinois, dozens of states sue Trump administration over planned SNAP funding cuts
By Kade Heather and Lauren FitzPatrick
States sue: Illinois joined two dozen states in a lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Trump administration’s intention to withhold food stamp funding as the government shutdown continues. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys general from 22 states — including Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul — and Washington, as well as by three state governors.
SNAP deadline: About 2 million Illinois residents will lose their benefits in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP, in addition to about 40 million people across the country, starting Nov. 1, unless the government shutdown ends. The states want a federal judge to order the Trump administration to use contingency reserve money to continue funding the program so families can still buy food throughout November.
Head Start status: In other shutdown news, some 65,000 children and their families nationwide stand to lose Head Start early childcare and preschool services as soon as next week. None are in the Chicago area, the Illinois Head Start Association says, as local families have a longer runway because budget years vary for recipients of Head Start grants. But Dec. 1, Head Start budgets could end for programs serving 6,300 Chicago area children.
WATCH: TRIAL RECAP ▶️
MORE IN POLITICS ✶
Illinois House Democrats float taxes on streaming services, billionaires to fund transit reform
By Mitchell Armentrout
Search for funding: Lawmakers are still laboring to get a bill on track in Springfield to overhaul and fund the Chicago area’s cash-strapped mass transit agencies as the fall veto session rumbles to a conclusion.
Transit talks: Illinois Democrats leading transit talks floated several potential taxes in a bill filed late Tuesday to generate $1.5 billion to help the CTA, Metra and Pace avoid a $200 million-plus fiscal cliff approaching next year.
Floating taxes: The proposal from Chicago Democratic state Reps. Kam Buckner and Eva-Dina Delgado includes a 7% amusement tax on streaming services, a $5 surcharge on tickets for large concerts and other performances, and an expansion of ticket-issuing speed cameras in the suburbs.
More headlines:
- Remap retreat? Illinois Democrats won’t vote on redistricting effort by end of veto session
- Mayor Johnson ramps up pressure on state lawmakers to help him save working people from Trump cuts
MORE NEWS YOU NEED 🗞️
- Remembering Nanci Koschman: Twenty-one years after her son was killed by former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew, Ms. Koschman died Monday at 77. In the face of a Chicago police cover-up, she couldn’t get answers until a Sun-Times investigation prompted the appointment of a special prosecutor — and Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko’s conviction.
- Doctors win contract: Resident doctors and fellows at the University of Chicago Medical Center reached their first-ever contract with the health system following nearly a year of negotiations.
- Realty check: The median sale price for a home in Chicago reportedly rose last month to $360,000, up 3.6% over September 2024. We found five listings to illustrate what that pricetag will get you.
- ‘Rattiest city’ no more: For the last 10 years, studies from Orkin dubbed Chicago the “rattiest city” in America — but the pest control company’s latest survey revealed Los Angeles now holds the unsavory title.
- 2.5 stars for ‘Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars’: Centering an immigrant whose dreams of citizenship are upended, this production is a tale of heart-wrenching urgency mired by production bells and whistles, writes Catey Sullivan in a review for the Sun-Times.
EXPLORING THE CITY 🎨
‘Ono-palooza’ makes only U.S. stop at MCA
By Courtney Kueppers
New exhibit: Earlier this month, the Museum of Contemporary Art opened a giant retrospective of Yoko Ono’s career, titled “Music of the Mind,” showing through Feb. 22. After opening at London’s Tate Modern and stopping in Germany, Chicago is set to be the show’s only U.S. stop.
What you see: The exhibit features more than 200 items that showcase the breadth of Ono’s prolific artistic output and activism over seven decades, including her avant-garde films, original music and participatory pieces. It all challenges a once-popular perception of Ono that limited her to being associated with her late husband, John Lennon.
Want more art?: From galleries to museums, we’ve created a fall art calendar to guide you to interesting, edgy and extraordinary works — dive in here.
FROM THE PRESS BOX 🏒🏀🏈
- Bedard above the noise: How did Blackhawks star Connor Bedard find his voice? By realizing it doesn’t matter what people think.
- Bullish behavior: The Bulls are building something special, and it starts off the court, writes Joe Cowley.
- High school football: In his IHSA Class 7A state football playoffs preview, Michael O’Brien looks at who’s the favorite, who’s the darkhorse — and who has the toughest road to the title game.
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 🔆
TimeLine Theatre is pulling off the improbable and building a new theater amid arts slump
By Stefano Esposito
Few outside of TimeLine Theatre could have predicted a new $46 million project would be rising now along North Broadway in Uptown.
Not after a pandemic darkened Chicago theaters, plunging into full-blown crisis an industry already troubled by declining philanthropy and changing viewer habits. Even now, theaters across the city are struggling to sell tickets.
TimeLine’s new theater, scheduled to open next spring, is a big risk, but it also speaks to the company’s faith in entertainment. For almost three decades, the theater has pulled in sell-out crowds with plays that reach into the past to illuminate present-day social and political issues.
TimeLine’s new five-story theater will feature a 250-seat black box theater, exhibit galleries, and a combined bar and cafe. The theater will more than double the capacity of TimeLine’s previous Lake View home.
“To build a building like this, it required public investment, it required private investment, and it required a lot of belief through those dark days of the pandemic,” TimeLine’s artistic director PJ Powers said.
YOUR DAILY QUESTION ☕️
How has your neighborhood been affected by the presence of federal immigration agents? How have you and your neighbors responded?
Email us (please include your first and last name). We may run your answers in Thursday’s Morning Edition newsletter or a Sun-Times article.
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Written and curated by: Matt Moore
Editor: Eydie Cubarrubia
Hat tip: Sun-Times’ Joel Carlson for “Border in the court,” which you’ll find on the front page of today’s Sun-Times print edition. Members and home delivery subscribers can access the e-paper here.
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