U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin on Friday said Donald Trump is “declaring war” on public broadcasting, hours after Congress approved more than $1 billion in cuts to radio and television stations across Illinois and the rest of the country.

The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won’t be the last. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway.

In the past week, 17 immigration court judges across the country have been abruptly fired by the Trump administration — including in Chicago.

After the convictions of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and former Ald. Ed Burke, Chicago politics are falling under renewed scrutiny by those pushing for reform.

Chicago’s top city watchdog Deborah Witzburg announced Thursday she will not be seeking another term.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said tests by the White House medical unit showed that Trump has chronic venous insufficiency, which occurs when little valves inside the veins that normally help move blood against gravity gradually lose the ability to work properly.

The Bloomington-based State Farm Fire and Casualty Company notified the Illinois Department of Insurance that it was raising premiums for residential property casualty insurance in Illinois by an average 27.2%.

“It is intolerable to us that anyone who disgraces the Justice Department would be promoted to one of the highest courts in the land,” the letter states, “as it should be intolerable to anyone committed to maintaining our ordered system of justice.”

The extraordinary disclosure of millions of such personal health data to deportation officials is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which has repeatedly tested legal boundaries in its effort to arrest 3,000 people daily.

The nearly $6.8 billion in frozen federal funds includes more than $240 million in funds meant for Illinois schools, community colleges and adult education providers and students, according to the governor’s office.

In spite of that apparent progress, more people were unhoused in Chicago in January 2025 than at any point since officials began conducting this annual survey in 2005, city officials said.

The National Urban League’s annual State of Black America report accuses the federal government of being “increasingly determined to sacrifice its founding principles” and “threatening to impose a uniform education system and a homogenous workforce that sidelines anyone who doesn’t fit a narrow, exclusionary mold,” according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.

Public television stations will be “forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead,” PBS CEO Paula Kerger said Thursday, after the Senate voted in the middle of the night to approve a bill that cancels all the federal funding for the network and for NPR.

The legislation, which now moves to the House, would have a tiny impact on the nation’s rising debt but could have major ramifications for the targeted spending, from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to U.S. food aid programs abroad.

The failure of at least 34 members of the Chicago City Council to vote to reject Mayor Brandon Johnson’s action means the first mayoral veto in 19 years will stand.

Amid growing global tensions, major gaps in diplomatic relations and fitful efforts to reduce the weapons stockpile, some experts are warning it’s time for world leaders to renew their focus on preventing nuclear war.