Chicago teachers appear close to a contract deal. Fallout over a shocking national security breach. And Sen. Dick Durbin's political future.

About 3.9 million Illinoisans are enrolled in Medicaid. Of that total, 44% of Medicaid recipients are children, 9% are seniors and 7% are adults with disabilities, according to the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services.

The emergency appeal to the high court follows a rejection of the Republican administration’s plea to the federal appeals court in Washington. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of appellate judges left in place an order temporarily prohibiting deportations of the migrants under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act

Judge Matthew Kennelly of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois halted the Labor Department from requiring federal contractors or grant recipients from certifying that they don’t operate any programs in violation of Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders.

The cuts could force the elimination of more than 100 staff positions, Chicago officials said. 

Residents of the 25th Ward, which includes Little Village and Pilsen, are being asked to participate in a survey to rank their main infrastructure priorities.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies to implement and enforce a nationwide requirement that voters show documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when they register to vote.

IDPH’s funding for infectious disease prevention will see a “debilitating impact,” Director Sameer Vohra said in a statement. IDPH has been using the funding to track the spread of diseases, invest in lab upgrades, build up the public health workforce, and improve vaccination efforts.

Members of a Chicago-based Muslim civil rights organization and advocacy group called on local elected officials to stand up against the Trump administration’s detainment of students who have shown support of Palestinian causes, during a news conference.

U.S. District Judge James Bredar said he had “great reluctance” to issue a sweeping national preliminary injunction in the case, where 19 states and the District of Columbia contend they have been harmed by a large-scale reduction in the federal workforce without warning as required by law.

Sen. Roger Wicker, the Republican chair of the committee, and Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat, signed onto a letter to the acting inspector general at the Department of Defense for an inquiry into the potential “use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know.”

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized the department he oversees as an inefficient “sprawling bureaucracy” in a video announcing the restructuring Thursday. He faulted the department’s 82,000 workers for a decline in Americans’ health.

Mayor Brandon Johnson — who campaigned on promises to transform CPS into a school district that offers a well-rounded education to every Chicago child and security to its employees — is caught in another bruising political battle that has, once again, frustrated his allies and emboldened his critics.

The CTA, Metra and Pace are facing an impending budget gap when federal COVID-19 relief funding runs out next year. Transit labor groups have stopped short of calling for a merging of the transit systems as a funding solution, unlike what some advocacy groups have called for.

The hearing, titled “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the heads of NPR and PBS Accountable,” featured testimony from NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger, as well as a local station operator and a conservative critic of taxpayer-funded media.

The disclosure follows two intense days during which leaders of President Donald Trump’s intelligence and defense agencies have struggled to explain how details that current and former U.S. officials have said would have been classified wound up on an unclassified Signal chat that included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg,