What a possible White Sox sale could mean for Chicago. And CPS board members skip out on the City Council.

The State Board of Elections said Friday that a record 353,166 people cast ballots at more than 400 early voting sites statewide on Thursday, compared to 348,599 on the first day in October 2020.

Michigan is one of three “blue wall” states that, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, will help decide the election, and the diverse voting blocs are key to winning the state.

The Chicago area’s transit agencies are facing a $730 million fiscal cliff in 2026 when federal COVID relief money runs out, money that’s filling the gap in operating budgets from still-sluggish ridership numbers. Some legislators and advocates back the idea of doing away with RTA, CTA, Metra and Pace in favor of a new regional mega-agency, the Metropolitan Mobility Authority.

A new 311 noise complaint category specifically aimed at catching private haulers flouting the law is live – and the city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation can use those complaints to demand data from companies to prove whether they made unlawful pickups.

No current or former members of the Chicago Board of Education attended Wednesday's marathon session of the City Council’s Education Committee, even after some City Council members threatened to hit them with subpoenas to require them to appear.

“A generation-long persistence in structurally imbalanced budgets, coupled with high pension and debt burdens, mean the city will face enormous budget shortfalls in the coming years,” wrote Joseph Ferguson, the head of the nonpartisan budget watchdog group and the city’s former inspector general.

Roughly 252,000 ballots have been cast Tuesday, Gabe Sterling of the Georgia secretary of state’s office said on X. “Spectacular turnout. We are running out of adjectives for this.” The previous first day record was 136,000 in 2020.

The Harris-Walz plan includes a focus on improving rural health care, such as plans to recruit 10,000 new health care professionals in rural and tribal areas through scholarships, loan forgiveness and new grant programs, as well as economic and agricultural policy priorities. 

Most mainstream economists say Trump’s policy proposals wouldn’t vanquish inflation. They’d make it worse. They warn that his plans to impose huge tariffs on imported goods, deport millions of migrant workers and demand a voice in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policies would likely send prices surging.

Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was pressed on his communication with the Russian president during a wide-ranging — and sometimes contentious — interview with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait at the Economic Club of Chicago.

The Illinois Senate’s Transportation Committee has been meeting since July to grapple with the thorny issue of funding for the Chicago area’s transit system and whether to replace the CTA, Metra, Pace and Regional Transportation Authority with a single agency that will oversee bus, train and paratransit services. The proposal also calls for $1.5 billion in new funding. 

Preckwinkle’s $9.9 billion plan calls for investments in opioid addiction remediation, community violence intervention, firming up how generative artificial intelligence can be used, adding employees at the assessor’s office to help with property valuations and adding solar panels to county properties.  

The Chicago area’s public transit system is approaching the precipice of a $730 million fiscal cliff in just over a year’s time. A group of lawmakers and advocates don’t just want to plug the transit agencies’ budget hole — they’re looking to funnel $1.5 billion in additional state funding each year to create a sustainable, world-class public transportation system.

A thought has circulated among several people close to the former president, they told CNN: If Trump wins, Obama might be seen as the aberration in the history of American politics, rather than Trump and his nativist authoritarianism.

The mayor brings in a new school board while the district faces a budget crunch. And alderpeople jam up City Council, angry over the CPS board and the end of ShotSpotter.