Daywatch: Illinois' 9th Congressional District race heats up
The race to replace longtime U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky is getting more crowded.
State Sen. Mike Simmons will launch his campaign Tuesday, he told the Tribune, joining recently announced state Rep. Hoan Huynh — who also planned a campaign kickoff event Tuesday evening — and some 10 other Democratic candidates vying for the seat.
The latest campaign announcements come just ahead of the Cook County Democratic Party's planned slating meetings next week, when the party is expected to endorse candidates ahead of the 2026 primary.
But the 9th District isn't the only congressional race to watch next year — at least three other seats could be open for the 2026 election. See what candidates have announced their campaigns in each district.
Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day, including: what to know about the flash floods in Texas, why adult education programs are in limbo and when 'NBC Nightly News' anchor Tom Llamas is bringing the national broadcast to Chicago.
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Flash floods in Texas killed more than 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and left others still missing, including girls attending a summer camp. The devastation along the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, has drawn a massive search effort as officials face questions over their preparedness and the speed of their initial actions.
Here's what to know about the deadly flooding, the colossal weather system that drove it in and around Kerr County and ongoing efforts to identify victims.
As Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg expands his ravenous data centers, he's agreed to take over subsidies that Illinois ratepayers have been providing to a nuclear power station in central Illinois since 2017. The move could be the first step in a Silicon Valley bailout of nuclear power stations that supply half the electricity generated in Illinois.
Adult education programs in Chicago and across the nation are in limbo after the Trump administration abruptly froze nearly $7 billion in already-approved federal education grants last week. State agencies were notified the night before funds were set to be disbursed July 1, with little explanation from the Education Department.
It's the latest in President Donald Trump's sweeping offensive to cut back the federal government's role in education, leaving schools and nonprofits scrambling to stretch funding.
An attorney for Illinois Senate President Don Harmon's political operation says state election authorities reached an 'absurd' conclusion earlier this year in issuing nearly $10 million in penalties against Harmon's campaign fund after determining he violated campaign fundraising limits.
The Illinois-based American Academy of Pediatrics and five other prominent medical groups are suing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., over changes made to COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant women.
Tom Llamas, the new 'NBC Nightly News' anchor, is headed to Chicago this week to participate in the annual National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference, which is taking place Wednesday through Saturday at the Hilton Chicago on South Michigan Avenue.
While in town, Llamas is planning to anchor Thursday's 5:30 p.m. national newscast live from downtown Chicago.
The Chicago Bears raised some eyebrows when they selected Michigan tight end Colston Loveland with the No. 10 draft pick in April. It wasn't that Loveland wasn't deserving of being a top-10 pick but more so the notion that the team had bigger needs at offensive tackle or on the defensive line.
But the Bears are doing things differently under coach Ben Johnson. The tight end position is a priority. Here's what Bears fans need to know about Loveland ahead of his rookie season.
It's a rare occasion when fans of the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals agree on anything, writes Paul Sullivan.
But the longtime rival fan bases found some common ground Sunday night at Wrigley Field when almost everyone in the crowd of 40,319 booed the performance of seventh-inning stretch singer Alex Cooper, a prominent podcaster.
Mike Tyson's fame was, as writer Mark Kriegel puts it, 'a lethal dose of a peculiarly American disease, a form of insanity whose victims include Elvis, Marilyn and Tupac.'
Those words come early in Kriegel's remarkable new book, 'Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson,' writes Rick Kogan. The book moves from the boxer's birth in 1966 to 1988, what Kriegel calls 'the year of (Tyson's) first public crack-up.'
Potential solutions to combat and mitigate climate change abound, but there's one thing that we can all do. We can support our local farmers. This year, Martin Sorge will be buying and baking with as many Michigan apricots as he can and toasting their appearance with a bottle of Stranger Wine Co.'s 2024 'Yeastie Boys' sparkling wine.
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The Hill
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Khanna: ‘Time has come' to recognize Palestinian state
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Democrats slam Trump firing of labor statistics head: ‘Insane,' ‘Soviet,' ‘authoritarian'
Senate Democrats reacted with outrage and disbelief to the news that President Trump fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics hours after the agency released a weaker-than-expected jobs report that showed the economy gained only 73,000 jobs in July and did far worse than previously reported in May and June. 'Just absolutely insane, absolutely nuts. The economy is tanking and he's terrified and he's acting like a dictator,' Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said of Trump 'That's some weird Soviet s—,' Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said. 'Blaming the messenger? Nothing's ever his fault.' 'Speaks for itself,' he said. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said 'it sounds very Soviet, very authoritarian, very 1984.' Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on X that, 'Instead of helping people get good jobs, Donald Trump just fired the statistician who reported bad jobs data that the wanna-be king doesn't like.' Trump accused Erika McEntarfer, whom Biden appointed to head the Labor Department agency that produces jobs reports, of manipulating the data for political purposes. 'I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,' Trump said. His decision came after the Labor Department revised down its estimate of jobs gains for May and June to less than 20,000 for each month, 258,000 fewer jobs than it initially reported. The weaker jobs report rattled the stock markets, which dropped sharply on Friday. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Trump of shooting the messenger. 'What does a bad leader do when they get bad news? Shoot the messenger. That's just what happened with the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics,' he said. 'Today we got some of the worst labor numbers that we've gotten in a long time.'
