>> Hello and thanks for joining us on Chicago tonight.

I'm Nick Blumberg.

Brandis Friedman has the evening off.

Here's what we're looking at.

The Adams County sheriff has been cooperating with ICE.

Does that violate Illinois law?

Wbtw News investigates.

As kids head back to the classroom.

Chicago Public Schools tries to balance its budget.

And Argonne National laboratory's.

Advanced Photon source gets an 815 million dollar upgrade.

We explain what it does.

>> First off tonight, some of today's top stories.

Summer isn't over yet.

But summer break is today marks the return to the classroom for Chicago public School students.

It comes at a time of uncertainty with the district under investigation by the Trump administration for alleged civil rights violations.

And with the still unresolved budget deficit of more than 700 million dollars, several school board members pushed back last week on a budget proposal that did not authorize borrowing and makes a hefty pension payment contingent on additional revenue.

The district also cut more than 1200 custodians hired 2 private contract in an effort to close the budget gap saying it would re-hire a smaller number of janitors as CPS employees.

Earlier today, Union members rallied in the South loop, slamming that decision.

>> Are starting the school year, not knowing if If I from our mortgage.

will be able to acquire.

I sure ours of living.

Only been rising.

>> And will discuss the CPS budget with 2 members of Chicago's school board in just a moment.

Construction of a new concourse at O'Hare Airport is under way city.

An airline officials came together this morning to break ground on Concourse D a new 19 gates satellite concourse.

It'll service international and domestic flights and is one part of the major O'Hare modernization effort.

>> Every time visit this airport and every time we invest in this airport, we invest in jobs.

We invest in our neighborhoods.

We invested working families, we invest in the next generation of Chicagoans.

next next program complete.

Injected to support 618,000 jobs.

>> The 1.3 billion dollar Concourse D is set to open in 2028.

Up next, we dig into the CPS budget.

That's right after this.

>> Chicago tonight is made possible in part why the Alexandra and John Nichols family.

The gym and K maybe family.

The Pope Brothers Foundation and the support of these donors.

>> It's the first day of classes for Chicago public school kids.

And as the new academic year kicks off, the district faces a 734 million dollar budget shortfall.

Leaders say they crafted a budget proposal to keep cuts out of the classroom.

But the plan to fill the whole leans heavily on one-time funding, raising questions about long-term stability.

Joining us to discuss more Army Kyla Blaze, the CPS board member representing district 5 be with constituents in neighborhoods like North Lawndale and Garfield Park and CPS Board member G to Brown who represents District 5, a which includes neighborhoods like Austin and Ukrainian Village.

Thank you both for being here.

We appreciate it.

Thank you having as we mentioned, that that massive budget shortfall CPS is facing down the proposal that came out last week includes 126 million dollars in savings from things like Central office.

Staff reductions.

It project delays, hiring freezes.

As we mentioned, an effort to keep cuts from classrooms Micaela blaze.

Are you concerned those cuts might still have ripple effects on students?

>> And I know focus.

We tried to focus on keeping cuts from classrooms, but we've already cut safe passage workers some cross and guides so and the community I represent it really does impact what happens outside impacts the classroom.

So I things comprehensive the end, it made some cuts that are going to be tough fast, yeah, affecting the overall set of school community even if it's not classroom specific.

>> Well, you know, another portion of the budget plan, a is a 79 million dollar bump revenue assumptions, bringing the total expected from the city to nearly 379 million dollars JT Brown.

Do you think CPS should be relying on tips, money?

>> I think that.

Yes, those resources are available as we as the process for disentangle man happens, that can change in the future.

But while we are dramatically underfunded by the state of Illinois, every dollar we can get money that we need.

Yes, maybe not.

What you want to see long-term been done in the moment year.

It kind of lays how about that or to funding as part of the budget.

>> as one of the Brown said, more of a tourniquet to stop what's happening.

We are.

According to the state's own funding from 1.6 billion dollars and the state's time they gave us an additional 300 million this year But at this rate we won't get to fully funded schools until 2037.

So we're hoping they can ramp up the schedule there and really start giving our kids what they need to be successful.

Yeah, I mean, you know, lawmakers have said obviously they want to see schools fully funded, you know, under that sort of that, you know, the current formula that is in place, but, >> you know, the CPS isn't the only district not receiving its its full freight from the state of Illinois.

Absolute.

Do you have any expectations that we'll see, you know, full funding or at least an increase in funding before It's gotten not necessarily great signals from lawmakers on that.

Well, I think.

You prioritize what is important to you.

>> We have the money to make presence.

We have the money to do a variety of things to help football teams.

We lots of money to do.

Lots of things and I always say that our schools, our economic engine, if we can really solve particularly CPS, lots of people come to Chicago when they're younger grow up here.

And then when they have children, they move to the suburbs because they're a little nervous about whether their kids are safe.

But if we can keep them in to keep father tax revenue in Chicago will all be better >> And you think about this, you know, with the 5th largest economy in the United States, if the decades we will 49th and public education funding.

So due to some good work that was done around 2017 in a hostile state of Illinois.

We moved up the 37th.

The 37th is not enough.

So calling for is not is not a bailout is not a handout because of funding schools equitably across the state of Illinois me because, well, we have a crisis Chicago is also a crisis in the St. Louis.

It's also a crisis Robbins, Cairo, right?

And so we believe to to help Chicago grow to help state of Illinois we support the Illinois Revenue alliances, proposals which are are some short and long-term solutions.

For example, attacks on digital right?

And several of the proposals that the killer might revenue alliance has that we that with political will.

Can actually land us you know, quickly actually, McCollough said.

Tight turn to get in the.

But then also you which is has not been done in previous administrations right.

Loans have been taken out for years, right, with no states strategy to really address the structural deficit we're doing.

We're with saying that we have to turning it into But then we also have to, you >> Well, you know, one of the controversial parts of this plan is deferring that 175 million dollar pension payment unless CPS gets, you know, additional to funding or money from the state.

You know, Kelly said this was a foolhardy approach.

What are your concerns there?

>> I'm concerned about CPS being a good partner.

The situation that we're in right now, we are 734 million dollars in the hall and we need to make as many friends as we can to make sure that we keep the ship sailing the city council had gave us the most TIF money that is ever been given to CPS last year and they asked for some of it back and we didn't do that.

I'm concerned that we are creating Elwell and that they're not going to be willing bail us out as as we as we get stronger and as we grow and as we get the funding that we need to stand on feet, we've got to learn how to play nice with everybody.

>> Gita ground.

How about that suffering that pension payment?

No, I agree with board member Blaise.

I there was a commitment made to city council which resulted in the largest have surplus effort to Chicago public schools.

And I think it's naive to think that if we if we don't provide that agreed upon support.

We know that is not mandatory, but that agreed upon support, then its full hard to think that their point to not spend their tips, things, that we would have a large to surplus.

Again.

So I think as board member Blay said is being a good partner.

But it's also, you know.

Politics, one-on-one pride.

It's Just to be clear, the entire and the >> Pension payment as a billion dollars.

Half of that is CPS employees.

So we'd say roughly half a billion dollars should be our portion.

And the city's only asking for us to put in 175 9.

What's they're giving us in 10th.

So if you look at it comprehensively, we still end up on the plus side and we are we also have skin in the game and we're taking care of our employees.

Well, this plan also, you know, doesn't include any borrowing to cover.

Pension costs are teacher salaries.

GT Brown, would you want to see alone and final budget plan?

>> I don't think anybody wants to see alone, but I think to guarantee that we will not have cuts in the classroom.

>> Because historically, those cuts have been palatable and he's been on the backs of black and brown children in the city of Chicago.

So saying absolutely no way are we accepting cuts and additional cuts in the classroom.

So we want to see.

The language that says the painting will be made, not contingent.

It will be made by either the money and revenue race in the state or if necessary battle again, this the product that does entanglement is not like a quickie divorce.

It's a process that we have to go through in order.

And so and part of that process, it's taking on the responsibility of working with our partners in the state house and coming up with solid solutions like raising our tax so that we're able to actually use income taxes to bring additional revenue into the district.

I'm bringing that up because many of critics of this approach don't address the fact that there was no states strategy in the past.

Right.

And we can get the pass right?

Because that that is reflective of what you believe.

And so it's going to really be important that we make sure that we do the work on the back in to long-term correction of the structural deficit.

And you can have a whole show how deaths several from holidays all the way.

And now right.

>> But I think it's really important for us to realize.

This board is not the robust and bullets of the pastor.

This board has elected.

And appointed members.

All like me.

You know, we both have children in Chicago, public We have that.

She skin in the game.

So this is our ports.

We with this board will not pass a budget that does not get routine, that they won't be mid-year.

>> We've got a little less than a minute left, but I want to ask, you know, CPS is currently operating with an interim leader Macklin king after the firing of Pedro Martinez late last year Micaela blaze.

How do you think she's handling the role so far?

I think So I was brought in to the board the other board quit.

>> So I can tell you, this is a tough position to be.

And I know there's lots of forces putting lots of pressure on her.

But I'm excited that she's going to calm and she's going to bring decisive leader said, I'm I'm very excited to be working with Certainly a lot of CPS, parents and families looking for calm in the district right now to All right.

Well, much more to say, but unfortunately, we are out of time.

So my thanks to McKay, LaPlace and JT Brown.

We appreciate it.

Thank you having >> Up next, A W T Tw News investigation finds down state officials violating Illinois law.

The sheriff of Adams County, Illinois says he'll collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

That's despite state law generally prohibiting local law enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities.

And according to records obtained by W T Tw News, the sheriff has made good on his promise.

Our Blair Paddock joins us now with more on our investigation.

So Blair, how has the sheriff here follow through?

Yeah, we found 3 ways that the sheriff on the West side, the state has collaborated with ice.

>> The first way is that they transferred a man who was in their custody into ICE custody.

We know that through a nice affidavit that we acquired the second instance through jail booking records.

We know that Adams County held a man on on a civil immigration detainer and then transferred that man and ICE custody.

The 3rd instance is through a contract that Adams County Jail has through U.S.

Marshal Services.

That contract has a car about specifically for ICE to detain people at Adams County Jail for $80 a day.

>> So some pretty clear documentation there.

You spoke with a lawyer who helped work on Illinois sanctuary laws.

Would he have to say yeah, I spoke to Mark Fleming.

He's with the National Immigrant Justice Center and he helped work on the 2 sanctuary laws and state Illinois Way Forward Act and the trust Act.

>> Then he said that these appear to be violations of these acts.

You know, Illinois law enforcement is not prohibited or is prohibited.

Sorry aid federal immigration authorities in civil immigration enforcement.

And as for the contract, this has been litigated before.

It seems Adams County has this contract with U.S. marshals and he said there's a similar contract between.

Mchenry County in Kankakee County that had carve-outs for ICE to detain people.

Those 2 counties sued to try and stop killing our way forward acts to keep these contracts.

But a federal judge ruled that, you know, Illinois for duct is sound and they had to cancel those contracts.

>> So, you know, the attorney general's office oversees compliance of the slaws.

What did you hear from that office?

Yeah, well, I didn't hear anything after repeated requests for comment, but Fleming did say that the AG has broad authority to investigate.

>> And that could lead to, you know, reporting requirements for officials that are allegedly breaking the trust act or further training and more serious instances.

It we to contempt proceedings against officials, interest and will play.

I know you'll be keeping an eye on it.

Great work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And you can read Blair's full story on our website.

That's all it.

W t Tw dot com slash news.

>> Since 1995 Argonne National Laboratory located just southwest of Chicago has been at the forefront of atomic scale research in the United States at the heart of that research is the advanced photon source or APS a huge particle accelerator that generates super bright x-rays by accelerating electrons to near light speed in a circular storage ring.

Those X-rays controlled by powerful magnets are then diverted to more than 70 separate being lines, which have been used to probe all manner of things from the structure of the COVID virus to microscopic defects in a jet engine turbine blade.

2 new battery designs.

But after nearly 3 decades and thousands of experiments, the APS was beginning to show its age.

And in April 2023, it went offline to allow for an 815 million Dollar Department of Energy funded upgrade Chicago.

Tonight.

Producer Paul came has the story.

>> We started planning for over 10 years ago.

>> only people's Evans, who we first met in 2023. is responsible for choreographing the complex, logistical engineering and technical dance required to complete the project.

>> The upgrade came about as a way to take the existing APS facility to the next level we wanted by machine.

They wanted to do different techniques and enhance the capabilities that we had here.

And so that we compete on a worldwide stage.

We want to keep APS as a world leading machine.

>> As the new bride to lines come online already.

Scientists of benefiting from the improvements that have been made.

Chevy Kelly lead suspect Rusty crews at all gone.

>> The old theme was typically about a millimeter high, but maybe 10 millimeters wide.

So now we've taken all of those X-rays that we had before and squeeze them into one millimeter by one Millimeter Square area.

So in that one moment by 1 million, we have like 500 times the brightness that we had before.

>> That great.

A brightness allows scientists from the Midwest and across the globe to study materials with much high precision and it much faster speeds.

We have the most brilliant X-rays in the world.

>> Especially in the high energy X-ray regime.

So if people need to push the limits of time and space, which many want to they need to come here because this is the only place where they can do certain amount of research.

The biggest change is in how orders of magnitude of skate intimate who can access.

>> And so you can follow the changes in the material right from the addict on skin all the way up to the microscope you can do this in what we call a multi-modal fashion, which means you can study different aspects of the mature the same time.

So it's a difference between watching a movie in black and white and Washington >> And each year more than 5,000 research is used APS to advance knowledge in all fields of science at the nanoscale.

>> We have people doing a lot of chemistry looking at new batteries.

We have a lot of users and the biological field.

So they're looking at proteins and new drugs for drug discovery.

>> And we have people looking in material, science and engineering and they come in with a lot of energy and interesting problems.

And from the different scientific domains.

>> But what gone special on not just the tools that are available to scientists.

>> I would say the number one thing that makes this facility special is the staff that work here.

And their ability to get right in with the scientists that come here from all over the world measurements.

And so we learn about the problems that they're trying to stall and then we help them design their experiments here to get the most out of their data.

>> The upgrade also includes the construction of additional long being lines.

This I believe is the largest enclosure in the world for extreme measurements like this, the whole room is lead line.

So this is a very big construction project that was done about 2 years ago.

And so basically we built the house earlier.

Now we're putting in the furniture.

>> For allowing atomic-scale analysis with the real world applications so we can take our x-ray beams and we can bring them down in this beam.

One to about one Micron.

>> That's 100th of a human here.

Very small.

Right now.

We're looking at a turbine blade.

This is titanium way that could be used in jet engines, research, scientists and engineers.

>> Are interested in looking at the mechanical properties of these materials as you fly.

You have stresses and temperatures that these things are subjected to.

So almost all materials are made of multiple grains.

Crystallographic grains, like all metals and ceramics.

And what this allows you to do.

It's green by green.

See how the stresses develop.

See how they're related.

See how cracks form.

>> The fascinating thing about materials is that the concerted motion of a few 100 happens or so can eventually lead to materials.

Figure.

So if you have start moving together, they form what's called a dislocation.

These dislocations bind up the cause of stress buildup in the material leads to formation for crack grows and then a bridge collapses are not engine fails.

>> Because the upgraded APS can see and so much greater detail.

That also means far more data to analyze, come researches youth, Aurora, one of the world's fastest supercomputers capable of 2 billion 1 1 billion calculations per second along with artificial intelligence to focus and refine their inquiries.

>> We have a pipe essentially that come next.

The instruments at the APS to computing resources.

We produce a lot of data.

Hundreds of petabytes say put that in perspective, that's 10's of DVD's full of data every minute.

And hidden in the data is insight into the problems trying to we could end up at the state up, but it would take become PETA crunching the numbers for a long period of time.

that to hit will do this in near real time.

And so providing feedback to the scientists and to take experiment, stop experiment pause Sunday, in a bin in more detail and so on.

I lettuces parcel of that data very quickly and find these because estimate of failure helps understand why these materials fail help of design at the materials.

We haven't even started scratching the surface of how high and computing is going to help us lot capabilities from our facility.

>> People's Evans says the project is about 98% done and hopes to complete the final elements of the great by the end of September.

>> Working on a PSU has been challenging and I think it's been probably the most thrilling thing done over my career.

been there downs, but I don't think there's much that I would change how it all came together.

>> For Chicago tonight on poll came.

Pretty fascinating stuff.

You can read more about the Argonne advanced photon source upgrade on our website.

>> And that's our show for this Monday night.

Be sure to sign up for our free email newsletter.

The Daily Chicago and that's a W t Tw Dot Com Slash newsletter and join us tomorrow night at 5, 30 10 now for all of us here Chicago tonight.

I'm Nick Lumber.

Thank you for watching.

Stay healthy and safe and have a good night.

>> Closed captioning is made possible by Clifford and Clifford Law offices, a Chicago personal injury and wrongful death that