Daywatch: County explores Planned Parenthood partnership in Englewood
Good morning, Chicago.
With Englewood's Planned Parenthood clinic set to shut its doors late next month, Cook County officials hope to figure out how to save the South Side center, which serves thousands of patients seeking reproductive care.
Citing a 'financial shortfall,' Planned Parenthood of Illinois announced in January that it would close four clinics across the state. Besides Englewood, clinics in Ottawa, Bloomington and Decatur are on the closure list.
Illinois, already a haven for reproductive care, saw an influx of out-of-state patients seeking abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. The increase in patients, 'coupled with low reimbursement rates from insurers and rising costs of providing care,' helped contribute to the organization's shortfall, Planned Parenthood said in a previous statement.
Read the full story from the Tribune's A.D. Quig.
Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day.
President Donald Trump's moves to end foreign aid agency hit close to home in Illinois
A federal judge ordered the administration late Thursday to temporarily lift its freeze and allow funding from U.S. aid and development programs to flow for the time being. But uncertainty remains for organizations whose missions rely on government dollars to carry out projects that benefit populations in developing nations while also supporting jobs and the broader economy at home.
Mixed verdict in Madigan case reflects a new, harder reality for federal prosecutors
While former House Speaker Michael Madigan stands as a convicted felon, the verdict was far from the slam dunk often expected — however unfairly — when it comes to major federal political corruption cases in Chicago.
Frigid temperatures expected this week with subzero wind chills
The Chicago area will see bitterly cold weather this week with single-digit temperatures and subzero wind chills, according to the National Weather Service.
Monday and Tuesday may see high temperatures in the low teens, with a potential for a low between zero and minus 10 Monday night.
'Whole different level.' The Illinois-Indiana political divide widens amid Trump 2.0, from immigration to DEI to LGBTQ rights.
The Trump administration's surprise federal funding freeze met widespread condemnation in Illinois, as state leaders scrambled to fight the spending pause that spurred chaos and confusion prior to being temporarily blocked by a federal judge minutes before it was set to go into effect Jan. 28.
Yet just over the border in Indiana, the top state official praised the austerity measure, which was designed to root out progressive agendas, promote efficiency and end 'wokeness' through federal spending nationwide.
Indiana would like to redraw border with Illinois
Federal plan to reduce government office space could be a blow to Chicago, where selling properties wouldn't be easy
The future of the federal government's footprint in Chicago is uncertain as the Trump administration embarks on a plan to shed up to half of all government office space across the nation, while also shrinking the federal workforce.
The federal government owns 19 properties in Chicago, including the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building and the 28-story Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building. It also leases more than 2 million square feet of space throughout the entire metro area.
Cameo giving all Chicago employees $10,000 raises to return to the office
Celebrity video messaging website Cameo is offering its Chicago-area employees a $10,000 raise to return from their scattered spare bedrooms and coffee shops to the company's Fulton Market office full-time beginning today.
Those who opt out, however, may need to find a new job.
Activists anxiously await air monitors, hope Chicago isn't backsliding on pollution promises
Chicago is building what climate scientists say could be the country's best system for monitoring tailpipe pollution from diesel trucks.
The city expects the monitors to go online early next year. But by then, Chicago won't have enough money to keep paying members of a community advisory panel to help operate the monitors and publish the results.
Column: It won't be easy, but the Chicago White Sox hope to earn back their fans' trust day by day
Earning back the trust of Chicago White Sox fans won't be easy after last year's record-setting 121-loss season, writes Paul Sullivan.
The evidence is everywhere. SoxFest was downsized to a South Side theater, and the Sox still couldn't fill that small venue. Fans booed when director of player personnel Gene Watson told them the front office would one day be recognized as 'the best' in baseball, knowing it was way too soon to boast.
White Sox pitching prospects Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith making most of 1st big-league camp
Bobby Jenks, former White Sox All-Star closer, undergoing treatment for stomach cancer
Chess Records, Muddy Waters and the birth of urban blues music
In 1964, the Rolling Stones took a break from their first American tour to record several songs at Chess Records at 2120 S. Michigan Ave.
It was where Chicago's Black blues performers made the records that were revered by the British group, which took its name from a Muddy Waters song, 'Rollin' Stone.'
'Saturday Night Live' celebrates 50 years with comedy, music and show's many, many famous friends
Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter duetted on Simon's 'Homeward Bound' to open the show, five-decade 'Saturday Night Live' luminary Steve Martin delivered the monologue, and Paul McCartney gave an epic closing to a 50th anniversary special celebrating the sketch institution that was overflowing with famous former cast members, superstar hosts and legendary guests.
Chicago Black Restaurant Week marks 10 years of celebrating Black-owned businesses
Chicago Black Restaurant Week, which runs Feb. 9 to 23, brings attention to Black-owned restaurants in the city. Founded by Lauran Smith in 2015, CBRW is celebrating its 10th season and comes shortly after the more well-known Chicago Restaurant Week. For diners, CBRW offers more flexibility and various price points; for restaurateurs, it's another opportunity to tell their story, to refine their customer bases and menus and to connect with other Black-owned businesses.
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Tesla Is Launching Robotaxis in Austin. Safety Advocates Are Concerned
Elon Musk's ugly public spat with former bestie Donald Trump is sure to cause more headaches for the Silicon Valley mogul down the line. Not only has he sacrificed any influence he might have with the White House by blasting the president for his association with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, but some in the administration have floated the idea of reviving regulatory investigations into Musk's corporate empire. The timing of such a threat could hardly be worse. That's because Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle manufacturer, is about to face a make-or-break test of self-driving technology that the CEO believes is key to its future value — yet has been the subject of a years-long probe by the Justice Department into potential securities and wire fraud. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is meanwhile conducting multiple investigations into the possible risks posed by the same tech. More from Rolling Stone The Biggest Boondoggles in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill 'Dejected' Trump Says Relationship With Musk Is Over; Calls Him a 'Big-Time Drug Addict': Report Vance Says 'Trump Didn't Do Anything Wrong With Jeffrey Epstein' Last fall, at a carefully staged event on the Warner Bros. Discovery studio lot in Burbank, California, Musk unveiled what he called a 'Cybercab,' a sleek, two-seat vehicle with no steering wheel. This was the long-awaited prototype of Tesla's robotaxi, or a fully autonomous, driverless passenger vehicle. Back in 2019, Musk had predicted that existing Tesla models would become capable of driving themselves without human oversight once their 'Full Self-Driving' (FSD) driver-assistance software had been adequately updated. Now he was demoing a different, built-to-purpose model, seeming to signal that Teslas already on the road would not be upgraded to robotaxi capability. Then, in a January earnings call, Musk offered one of his typically optimistic predictions about a timetable for a paid robotaxi service, similar Amazon's Zoox, or Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet. 'Teslas will be in the wild, with no one in them, in June, in Austin,' Musk said, referring to the Texas city that has been a base of operations for his businesses in recent years. Investors were skeptical. After all, Musk has a history of overpromising, and the Cybercab unveiled barely three months earlier was essentially a glorified movie prop. By late May, however, Musk was declaring significant progress on a robotaxi launch. 'For the past several days, Tesla has been testing self-driving Model Y cars (no one in driver's seat) on Austin public streets with no incidents,' he posted on X on May 28. 'A month ahead of schedule. Next month, first self-delivery from factory to customer.' It would appear, in this case, that Tesla had defaulted to the original idea of modifying its commercially available models to make them autonomous rather than holding off until it had a fleet of Cybercabs. Aside from stray comments like these, little is known about what Tesla's initial robotaxi program will look like. The company is reportedly targeting a launch date of June 12, with just 10-20 vehicles to start. A Morgan Stanley analyst — not Tesla itself — has claimed that rides will be available by invite only, not to the general public, and that the cars will be remotely supervised by operators prepared to take manual control if needed. That the automaker is keeping most details under wraps has left plenty of room for questions, doubts, and concerns — particularly as Waymo and other competitors tend to collect data and conduct local testing for far longer periods before welcoming passengers aboard. Dan O'Dowd, a software entrepreneur and founder of the tech safety group the Dawn Project, which has routinely showcased the shortcomings of Tesla's FSD tech, predicts that the robotaxi rollout will amount to lackluster stunt. 'Musk's upcoming robotaxi launch will still be nothing more than a bigger version of the 1950s Disneyland ride that Tesla demonstrated at [the Cybercab] event last year, if it even takes place at all,' he says. 'Despite Elon Musk claiming that Tesla was less than a year away from solving autonomy for nearly a decade and decrying the real robotaxi companies for geo-fencing and remote supervision, Tesla plans for its so-called robotaxis to only be able to drive around certain parts of Austin, avoiding intersections that are difficult,' while being remotely supervised,' O'Dowd notes. (Musk admitted in a recent interview that the robotaxis would be 'geo-fenced,' or restricted from certain parts of the city.) 'Tesla has also shown itself incapable of developing a working Cybercab, instead leaning on its Model Y in another backtrack on Elon's many false promises about solving autonomy,' O'Dowd adds. 'The golden Model 3 mules that Tesla is using to develop the Cybercab's software clearly demonstrate that Tesla has put the cart before the horse with the Cybercab.' On June 2, an X user posted a video of a Model 3 in a Tesla lot in San Diego that had seemingly been modified to resemble the Cybercab design, with its side mirrors removed and the rear windshield painted gold along with the body panels. The clip was taken by many Tesla observers as evidence that it was also using Model 3s to run autonomous driving experiments ahead of the robotaxi pilot program. Brett Schreiber, a partner at the San Diego law firm Singleton Schreiber who is currently pursuing multiple injury and wrongful death suits against Tesla over accidents involving its driver-assistance features, agrees that the company is backing down from the Cybercab concept Musk presented last year. 'It is a retreat on the idea that they are going to build out a new vehicle that is capable of autonomy,' he says, though 'a repeat of the continued lies and misrepresentations' from the CEO — namely, that existing Teslas can be turned into robotaxis. 'There is nothing about the vehicle today, whether you slap some lipstick on the pig of a Model Y, or any other vehicle in their production fleet, that [makes it] capable of level four or level five autonomy without driver intervention. They simply haven't gotten there, and just because they keep saying so doesn't make it true.' Levels four and five of driving automation refer to systems in which 'a human driver is not needed,' per NHTSA guidelines. Tesla's FSD is currently classified as level two, meaning that a human driver 'is fully responsible' for operating the vehicle even while assistance features are engaged. Schreiber believes that Tesla brought the robotaxi project to Texas for 'a more lax environment with respect to enforcement,' saying that 'in many states, California being one of them, they would not be allowed to do this in the way that they are doing it. They fled California for a lot of reasons, the least of which was the fact that they felt more constrained by their ability to roll out and continue to use the public roadways as their own personal test track, and use the members of the public as the guinea pigs in the grand experiment.' Indeed, the Texas Department of Transportation does not require any special permits for operating autonomous vehicles — only that these meet the same safety and insurance requirements as other vehicles. In California, by contrast, the Department of Motor Vehicles 'issues permits to manufacturers that test and deploy autonomous vehicles on California public roads.' Tesla, which does not have a press department, did not reply to a request for comment on details of the robotaxi launch or why Austin was chosen as the site. As for regulatory enforcement by NHTSA, it would largely come after the fact, since autonomous vehicle permitting is a state matter, not a federal one. 'Under U.S. law, NHTSA does not pre-approve new technologies or vehicle systems — rather, manufacturers certify that each vehicle meets NHTSA's rigorous safety standards, and the agency investigates incidents involving potential safety defects,' a sposkesperson for the agency tells Rolling Stone. 'Following an assessment of those reports and other relevant information, NHTSA will take any necessary actions to protect road safety.' NHTSA, as it happens, was one of a handful of regulators scrutinizing Musk's businesses to face cuts imposed by his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with at least four percent of staff dismissed. In Schreiber's estimation, the agency's Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) 'has been completely gutted,' hampering its ability to go after Tesla. Even so, the ODI did send a letter to Tesla's director of field quality in May, requesting extensive information about the proposed automated driving system for its robotaxis in order 'to understand Tesla's technologies and operational use cases further, including to assess the ability of Tesla's system to react appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions.' NHTSA's probe into Tesla's FSD involves several accidents in which the system faced conditions such as fog or sun glare, including a 2023 collision in Arizona in which a Model Y struck and killed a pedestrian while driving into direct sunlight. That investigation 'remains open,' the agency spokesperson says. Meanwhile, if Tesla doesn't answer NHTSA's questions about how its robotaxis work and what steps it is taking to ensure their safe operation by a deadline of June 19, or secure a filing extension, it could be subject to civil penalties. By that time, of course, people may already be hailing driverless Teslas in Texas, with passengers, other motorists, and bystanders all at the mercy of a supposed breakthrough in vehicle autonomy. That's what has safety advocates like O'Dowd so alarmed. 'The people of Austin did not sign up to be crash-test dummies for Musk's reckless deployment of Tesla's defective and dangerous Full Self-Driving software,' he says. If the thought has ever bothered Musk, he hasn't said so. Upon stepping down from DOGE, he wrote on X that he would return to a '24/7' focus on his companies, Tesla in particular, as 'we have critical technologies rolling out.' Best of Rolling Stone Every Super Bowl Halftime Show, Ranked From Worst to Best The United States of Weed Gaming Levels Up
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Trump Is Deploying the Marines Against U.S. Citizens
President Trump is sending 500 Marines to Los Angeles, allegedly to help police—who have not asked for it—with protests that have occurred in downtown Los Angeles. This is an extreme escalation from the Trump administration, an aggressive demonstration of force by the against its own citizens. The troops are set to arrive on Monday evening, and without rules of engagement—which puts the lives of countless demonstrators at risk. 'The rules of engagement here, we are told, are still being finalized,' said CNN's Natasha Bertrand. 'And defense department lawyers are also looking at the kinds of rules of engagement these Marines will have as they encounter protesters, possibly on the streets of Los Angeles.' Hundreds of Marines in a city on edge from the impact of ICE's indiscriminate deportation raids is a recipe for a devastating tragedy. The deployment, moreover, almost certainly is illegal. No leader in Los Angeles or California has said that it's necessary—the situation is not out of control, and it certainly does not need hundreds of Marines and National Guard soldiers to maintain order. Instead, this is a blanket display of force, meant to intimidate protesters and municipalities that dare to stand up to an administration that is sweeping thousands of people off the street.
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Trump, Newsom collide over LA unrest
The fight between President Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom over unrest in Los Angeles reached new heights on Monday, with Trump saying he'd support the arrest of one of the top Democrats in the country and a possible presidential contender in 2028. Escalating protests in the City of Angels over raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have pitted the two leaders together in a clash that has obvious political opportunities for Trump and risks for Newsom. For Trump, California provides a reliable foil as he aggressively pushes a crackdown on immigration. The images of burning cars and masked men waving Mexican flags form the perfect backdrop for the 'law and order' message the Trump White House says it will impose on the nation. And the images are weapons to use in Trump's argument that Democrats are too soft and unable to keep cities safe from violent unrest. There are opportunities for Newsom, too, as the battle provides a chance for the high-profile Democrat to stand up to Trump in a way that could bolster his standing the liberal grassroots. 'The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America,' Newsom posted Monday on the social platform X shortly after Trump's comments about arresting him. 'I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.' Yet there are clear risks for Newsom as well if voters see him as too soft on those committing criminal acts in Los Angeles. Team Trump on Monday pushed its argument that the California leader and other Democrats cannot be trusted to keep the peace after Newsom said his state would sue the administration over its decision to send the National Guard to LA without the approval of local officials. 'Gavin Newsom's feckless leadership is directly responsible for the lawless riots and violent attacks on law enforcement in Los Angeles. Instead of filing baseless lawsuits meant to score political points with his left-wing base, Newsom sho/uld focus on protecting Americans by restoring law and order to his state,' White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. If there is a risk for Trump, it is likely a familiar one to past presidents in both parties: overreaching. Trump is beginning the week by becoming the first U.S. president to send the National Guard to a state without the approval of local officials since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, who at the time was seeking to protect civil rights protesters in the segregated South. At the end of the week, Trump plans to hold a full military parade. Both decisions feed into the Democratic narrative that he is a dangerous president with authoritarian impulses, an argument Newsom leaned into Monday. 'This is a real battle for both of them,' said one Democratic strategist before turning to the potential risks for the president. 'Trump thinks this is politically helpful for him and he's marginally right, but he has a tendency to overreach,' the strategist said. On the other hand, Newsom, the strategist said, 'is trying to balance this kind of reshaping of his public narrative as not your average San Francisco liberal. He's trying to position himself as a national liberal. Shaking off some of that image is showing a stiff upper lip in a situation like this.' Trump and Newsom have been political rivals for years, with the dynamic vacillating between fierce criticism and occasional displays of collegiality. Even on Monday, Trump called Newsom a 'nice guy' who he liked before adding that the Californian was 'grossly incompetent.' Newsom has praised Trump during times of crisis, including early in the coronavirus pandemic and during natural disasters that have impacted his state. The two men had a friendly exchange on the tarmac in January when Trump visited California to tour wildfire damage, and Trump hosted Newsom at the White House in February. But their dynamic has more frequently been marked by animosity. Trump and his allies have for years painted California as a symbol of everything wrong with liberal governance, pointing to high taxes, government regulation and issues with homelessness and immigration. Trump frequently berates the governor as 'Newscum' and has threatened to withhold federal funding from the state. Newsom has used his perch as governor of the most populous state in the nation to aggressively criticize Trump and his policies. Democrats and Republicans alike viewed Newsom's emergence as a top Trump critic during the Biden administration as setting himself up for a White House bid of his own. The current situation in LA is a perfect storm for Newsom, said Julian Zelizer, a professor of public affairs and history at Princeton University. 'He has a genuine policy crisis on his hands, a rapid escalation of tensions within Los Angeles and with the president. He is dealing with serious issues of overextension of presidential power,' Zelizer said. 'At the same time as a possible candidate for president, everything is handled through a political prism: If the president turns this against him, makes him look like a candidate who cannot protect law and order, it could be extremely damaging to his own political career.' Trump on Monday would not rule out deploying Marines to California, which would further escalate the situation, though he signaled things seemed to be cooling down. 'We'll see what happens. I think we have it very well under control. I think it would have been a very bad situation,' Trump said at a White House event. 'And we hope to have the support of Gavin, because Gavin is the big beneficiary as we straighten out his problems.' Garry South, a prominent Democratic strategist based in California, said the idea of sending troops to the Golden State is dangerous. 'Newsom is doing the right thing both substantively and politically — by pushing back on Trump's unprecedented militarization of domestic policy,' he said. 'It's a fraught moment for our democracy, for a president to turn troops loose on the American people. 'Like everything Trump does, it's all for political benefit, to make himself look like a tough guy to his MAGA base by taking on California, but it's just another warning sign that we could end up being Chile under Pinochet if he is unchecked,' South added. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
