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It’s Friday. Head into the weekend with these stories from WTTW News.
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(WTTW News)
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Community advocates are pushing for two recently shuttered safety-net hospitals in the Chicago area to reopen their doors.
Oak Park’s West Suburban Medical Center and Uptown’s Weiss Hospital both closed this year following federal funding cuts and reports of poor infrastructure and working conditions. However, there may still be hope for the hospitals as a judge weighs a proposed deal that could pave the way for new ownership.
Hospital management company Resilience Healthcare acquired West Suburban and Weiss in 2022. The last four years have been defined by controversies including the hospital closures, allegations of failing management and crippling financial issues.
“The first warning sign was a few years back when the parking lot sale happened for Weiss Hospital,” said Lilly Le, community organizing director of the Vietnamese Association of Illinois. The lot was redeveloped into high-income luxury apartment buildings shortly after the sale.
“The community had warned back then that this was the beginning of the end for the Weiss Hospital,” Le continued. “We saw the current owner, Dr. Prasad, step in and run the hospital to the ground — no proper management, the facility is now shut down as it’s no longer meeting the code, and a few months later, West Suburban also shuts down. We’re seeing this as a private equity, private business owner coming in, exploiting the resources of these two major institutions in our communities.”
More context:
Resilience Healthcare CEO Manoj Prasad and Rathnaker Patlola, the landlord who owns the hospital properties, sued each other earlier this year. The two sides reached a tentative agreement in court that would remove Prasad and Resilience Healthcare from managing the hospitals and allow Insight Health, which operates Mercy Hospital in Bronzeville, to take over management of West Suburban and Weiss and potentially create a path to reopening both hospitals under new leadership.
Both hospitals served thousands of patients who come predominantly from Black, Brown and immigrant communities.
Other hospitals on the West and North sides — like Austin’s Loretto Hospital, Community First Medical Center in Portage Park, and Rush Oak Park Hospital — are absorbing the patient surge, straining the already understaffed healthcare system.
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Children play during aftercare for the Head Start program at Easterseals South Florida, in Miami, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP Photo / Rebecca Blackwell, File)
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An Illinois advocate for Head Start is denouncing the Trump administration’s proposed overhaul of the federal early childcare and education program, which aims to support the poorest and most vulnerable children.
Illinois Head Start Association Executive Director Lauri Morrison-Frichtl argued the proposed changes, announced Thursday, undercut the model of Head Start and would lower the quality of its programs.
“Standards are a floor — they’re not the ceiling — so removing that floor puts every program at risk,” Morrison-Frichtl said. “Head Start works because of our high standards.”
What would change?
Head Start is currently governed by more than 100 pages of regulations that require centers to have low staff-to-student ratios and a research-backed curriculum, among other things. The regulations ensure centers are providing wraparound services that are critical to children in poverty, including medical and dental screenings and parent coaching.
The Trump administration’s proposal would toss out nearly all of that rule book. Instead, Head Start’s 1,600 operators across the U.S. — which include nonprofits and school districts — would look to state and local childcare licensing requirements for guidance on many aspects of the program.
Officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the federally funded program, said the proposed changes would encourage more local decision-making and give Head Start centers the flexibility to change the way they operate.
“Federal mandates can certainly hinder local decision-making, drive up costs and limit the program’s reach,” Alex J. Adams, an assistant secretary at HHS, said on a call with reporters.
The Trump administration’s proposal also adds new Head Start requirements, such as staffers having to deliver all instruction in English, except in tribal communities that run immersion programs in native languages. Morrison-Frichtl said that requirement would prevent dual language learning in classrooms.
In Illinois, Head Start supports more than 600 childcare and classroom centers and 28,000 children, in addition to about 9,000 employees, according to Morrison-Frichtl.
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Gov. JB Pritzker delivers his 2026 State of the State address in the Illinois Capitol on Feb. 18, 2026. (Jerry Nowicki / Capitol News Illinois)
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Gov. JB Pritzker is demanding the Trump administration reimburse Illinois residents who were forced to pay higher prices caused by tariffs that were later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Pritzker in a letter to President Donald Trump on Thursday noted that while his administration has returned nearly half of the $166 billion it collected through the tariffs, those refunds have gone to the “biggest and wealthiest corporations” instead of Illinois residents, who have received nothing.
Some backstory:
Apple received an estimated $2.2 billion tariff refund last quarter, according to CNN. Pritzker’s office said Amazon received $600 million in one quarter while Nike has received nearly $1 billion after the Supreme Court struck down the president’s most sweeping levies earlier this year.
American consumers are getting almost nothing back.
The tariff refund system is structured so that only the parties who directly paid the tariffs — or the customs brokers acting on their behalf — can file for a refund. That means that if you bought, for example, a pair of Nike sneakers that became more expensive as the company passed along some of its increased tariff costs, you have no legal way to get that money back.
According to the Tax Foundation, the tariffs cost households an estimated $1,000 on average last year. Pritzker in his letter called on Trump to direct the U.S. Treasury to enact direct payments of $1,700 per family to Illinois households — totaling more than $8.6 billion.
“The invoice remains unpaid,” Pritzker said. “Illinois families are still waiting.”
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More From WTTW News:
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Back in the Day: August 7, 2016 - Manny Machado Homers Three Times in First Three Innings Vs. Sox
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In the entirety of Major League Baseball’s history, a player has hit three home runs in a single game just 709 times (most recently being the Cardinals’ Alec Burleson on Aug. 3). But on this day 10 years ago, the Baltimore Orioles infielder Manny Machado became only the ninth to do so in three
consecutive innings in a game against the Chicago White Sox. Even rarer, he did so in the first three innings of the game (at the time, he was only the third to do so). The O’s won 10-2 against the Sox. In 2023, Jose Altuve became the fourth player to smack a dinger in each of the first three innings in a 14-1 rout of the Texas Rangers. No player has accomplished the feat since.
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What’s your favorite bookstore in Chicago? Tell us why.
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Email DailyChicagoan@wttw.com with your responses and your answers might be published.
"Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Hyde Park. It has a great selection, attracts serious readers and projects an intellectual atmosphere." — Craig Barner
"Bucket O' Blood Books and Records Great selection and they have musics and movies too. The owners are lovely people." — Beth Beppy B
"The Last Chapter Chicago, it's such a warm welcoming as soon as you go in. The staff is super friendly and always so helpful. They have such a great selection of romance books and the cutest merchandise. Don't get me started about all their amazing events. Can't wait for Romancing Roscoe on August 15, the last chapter got the whole community involved!" — Marilyn Anderson
“I’m going to go with Unabridged in Lakeview as it’s the first one I fell in love with and their discount section has some cheap bangers.” — @marinovic.bsky.social
"Exile in Bookville for the win! I love being able to find an extensive selection of books that I can't find anywhere else." Eric Lindahl
“Bookie's in Beverly - friendly independent that had both new and used books. Great selection. Author and community events.” — Silvie C.
“Since Perpetual Books opened in my neighborhood, I haven’t wanted to go anywhere else. It’s got a perfect selection, the friendliest staff and it’s always nearly impossible to leave empty-handed.” — Josh Terry, newsletter producer
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