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Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Check out these headlines from WTTW News. |
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A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent takes part in an early morning operation in Park Ridge, Ill., Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo / Erin Hooley) |
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Two federal officials Monday defended a series of increasingly aggressive raids across Chicago and the suburbs to a federal judge, saying agents were forced to deploy tear gas and pepper balls in the face of intense opposition from residents.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis did not rule on whether federal agents violated her order not to use tear gas and other weapons against journalists, protesters and anyone not posing an immediate threat to immigration enforcement agents.
As she ended the five-hour hearing, Ellis told lawyers for the Trump administration that federal agents “should simply follow the law.”
Saying she needed more information to evaluate the conduct of federal agents, Ellis ordered Gregory Bovino, commander-at-large of the U.S. Border Patrol, Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Daniel Parra and Russell Hott, the former field director for ICE operations in Chicago, to answer questions about their agencies’ operations in Chicago, saying some of the answers she got during the five-hour hearing on Monday were unsatisfactory.
Ellis also asked for detailed records about the policies governing the use of force by ICE and Border Patrol agents and how they are trained to follow those rules. Ellis also ordered ICE officials to preserve any video of the clashes between protestors and federal agents.
Ellis scheduled a hearing on whether to make her still-temporary order permanent for Nov. 5.
Some backstory:
In the past 17 days, Department of Homeland Security agents have deployed tear gas against Chicagoans who gathered to protest their efforts to detain people they believe to be in the country illegally four times: in Logan Square on Oct. 3; in Brighton Park on Oct. 4; in Albany Park Oct. 12 and in East Side last Tuesday.
Two of those incidents came after Ellis ordered agents to issue two warnings before using tear gas and other types of chemical sprays in a case brought by the Chicago Headline Club, Chicago Newspaper Guild Local 34071, Block Club Chicago and other media organizations. |
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Military personnel in uniform, with the Texas National Guard patch on, are seen at the U.S. Army Reserve Center, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, in Elwood, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. (AP Photo / Laura Bargfeld) |
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Attorneys for the state of Illinois on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a request by the Trump administration to allow the immediate deployment of 700 National Guard troops into Chicago.
The filing comes after the Trump Administration last week filed an emergency appeal days after a federal judge temporarily blocked “the federalization and deployment” of 300 members of the Illinois National Guard, 200 members of the Texas National Guard and 14 members of the California National Guard into Illinois.
“Applicants’ contrary arguments rest on mischaracterizations of the factual record or the lower courts’ views of the legal principles,” the state said in its response. “As the district court found, state and local law enforcement officers have handled isolated protest activities in Illinois, and there is no credible evidence to the contrary.”
The state claimed that while the Trump administration is seeking further relief, it “cannot show that such extraordinary relief is warranted” and called on the Supreme Court to deny the administration’s “dramatic step of permitting deployment of National Guard troops over Illinois’s objection.”
More context:
While hundreds of National Guard troops have already arrived in Illinois, their deployment was halted earlier this month by an order from U.S. District Judge April Perry, who said she found federal officials’ assertions that federal agents had been subjected to serious and coordinated violence by protestors “unreliable.”
The Trump administration appealed that order to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a three-judge appeals court panel last week rejected the Trump administration’s request to overturn Perry’s order, prompting them to move on to the U.S. Supreme Court. |
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Courtney Thomas, left, and Salvador Ramirez, right, practice their basketball skills at the UIC Flames Athletic Center on Oct. 16, 2025. (Eunice Alpasan / WTTW News) |
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The number of local news deserts in the U.S. — areas with extremely limited access to local news — has jumped to record levels this year amid federal funding cuts to public broadcasting that could worsen the problem, according to a new report.
The annual report, “State of Local News,” is published by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. The report found 50 million Americans have limited to no access to local news. News deserts, on average, tend to be poorer counties, with populations that are less well educated, according to the report. They also tend to be in more rural areas.
The number of news desert counties rose to 213 this year, a jump from 206 in last year’s report. Another 1,524 counties have only one remaining news source. The rise in news deserts coincides with an increase in newspaper closures, which ticked up to 136 this past year, or a rate of more than two per week, according to the report.
“The journalism industry faces new and intensified challenges including: shrinking circulation and steep losses of revenue from changes to search and the adoption of AI technologies, while political attacks against public broadcasters threaten to leave large swaths of rural America without local news,” the report reads. |
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Back in the Day: October 21, 1985 - Bears Defensive Lineman William Perry Scores First Career Touchdown |
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Before the Bears historic 1985 season, they drafted defensive lineman William Perry with the 22nd pick in the first round of the NFL draft. The 6-foot-2-inch, 335-pound Clemson alum was nicknamed the Refrigerator for his massive size and wall-like ability as a defensive tackle. In his rookie season, he was occasionally deployed at fullback — despite being a defensive player — in goal line situations. On this day 40 years ago, William Perry scored the winning touchdown against the Green Bay Packers to keep the Chicago Bears undefeated at 7-0. He broke a 7-7 tie with a 1-yard run in the second quarter, becoming the heaviest player to score a touchdown. “I said I wanted to help the team any way I could,” said Perry to the Chicago Tribune. Perry would score three touchdowns during his rookie season, including one in the Super Bowl. He retired in 1994. |
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This Week’s Staff Recommendations |
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Every Tuesday, WTTW News staffers highlight their favorite things about Chicago. This week, it’s reporter Heather Cherone on local political haunts.
Heather Cherone: Chicago is a six-sport city: baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, football and politics. With the Cubs (all-too-short) playoff run over and spooky season in full effect, these are a few of my favorite places in Chicago said to be haunted by the ghosts of politicians – and their scandals.
Congress Hotel: Presidents Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt all made the Congress Hotel at Michigan Avenue and Harrison Street their political headquarters while in town during their time in the White House. For years, Al Capone played cards every Friday night in a meeting room overlooking Grant Park, ensuring that the ghosts of his victims mingled with those wronged by the eight presidents who called the hotel their home away from home.
The Iroquois Theatre: More than 600 people died and another 250 were injured when curtains caught fire during a December 1903 performance at the Iroquois Theatre, which touted the new structure along Randolph Street between State and Dearborn streets as totally fireproof. When it turned out to be anything but, officials overhauled building and fire codes and theaters closed all over the world for renovations. Mayor Carter Harrison IV was arrested and charged with looking the other way when theater owners bribed unqualified city inspectors with free tickets. Harrison was not convicted, but his ambitions for higher office were among the casualties of the fire.
Camp Douglas: Chicago’s South Side was home to one of the largest Union Army prisoner-of-war camps for Confederate soldiers taken prisoner during the American Civil War. From what is now Cottage Grove Avenue to the west and Martin Luther King Drive to the east, and between 31st and 33rd streets, 10 acres of land once owned by U.S. Sen. Stephen A. Douglas were used to house thousands of prisoners of war captured by the Union Army. Amid squalid conditions, the official death toll lists more than 4,400 people who died there. But it is likely more than 6,100 people actually died while imprisoned there, with many saying the clanging of their irons can still be heard amid the newly built condos. |
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What's your favorite gameday meal in Chicago for watching the Bears? |
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Email DailyChicagoan@wttw.com with your responses and your answers might be published. |
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