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

I'm Brandis Friedman.

Here's what we're looking at.

Consumer advocates push back against State Farm's plans to raise home insurance premiums.

Thousands of birds die in Chicago during migration.

How bird friendly buildings could save lives.

A group of young writers are breaking into the publishing world.

>> And Bo latest edition of WT Tw News explains lays out Chicago's alcohol rules.

First off tonight, Illinois homeowners could soon face a higher insurance Bill.

State Farm is raising its rates by 27% starting next month, which could cost customers an additional $475 on average.

The company says they're hiking prices because of inflation and more severe weather hitting Illinois.

But Governor JB Pritzker and consumer advocates are pushing back and calling for more home insurance regulations.

Joining us with more on the issue is a scar director of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy organization.

We should mention.

We also invited several insurance groups, but they declined or did not respond.

State Farm did send us a statement which we will get to in just a moment.

car.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having So how does a 27% increase compared to previous increases?

Because it sounds like a lot.

It's much bigger scale State Farm itself is insurance rate significantly in recent years.

But it's usually calm.

>> More 5 or 10% increments.

So this is a massive to put it.

In another perspective, it's more than half a billion dollars larger than anything we've ever seen or at least recent memory.

>> Briefly for viewers, explain how rate increases work because seems like for some people seems like it increases every year whether or the insurance agency or company makes a declaration to the state.

>> And here in Illinois, all the insurance companies have to do is file it and then they can put it into place.

There's no check.

There's no regulation on rate increases.

So as long as they file their paperwork, they're allowed to raise rates as much as they want.

And they've done that a lot.

And over the last 3 years, homeowners insurance rates in Illinois have gone up by 50% on average.

That's route from around $2000 for average customer to $3,000.

That's more than any other state.

But Utah in the last 3 years and that's before this massive state from increase, OK?

So it happens regularly, but obviously not typically to the point of 27%.

Yes, cut.

That raises a lot of eyebrows.

Sure.

>> Ok, so your group, you all been pushing for legislation that establishes a rate review process for insurance companies.

Tell us more about how that would work right now in Illinois.

It's legal to charge rates that are excessive.

Almost every state has boilerplate language in their state code that says rates.

>> Should not be excessive, inadequate or unduly discriminatory.

We don't have that language.

There's no standard that regulators could apply to challenge rate hike.

So that's the first thing we need to say that it's against the law to charge excessive insurance rates.

Then we need to give the department the authority to actually investigate these rate increase proposals into rein them in.

If they find him to be excessive, they could either reject them or modify them so that maybe wouldn't be a half-billion-dollar increase.

But nearly a 250 million dollar increase.

>> Governor Pritzker has been pushing legislators to address this and veto session that comes up in the fall.

Do you think the political will exists to take this We'll I'm hopeful.

You know, the General Assembly has passed similar reforms in the health insurance context and the last couple years.

So the department now has this authority when it comes to health insurance rate increases.

And those passed with bipartisan support, of course, Illinois is home to State Farm and Allstate who are the 2 giants of property casualty insurance.

And then a lot of sway in Springfield.

So we'll have to see.

But certainly having Governor Pritzker making this a higher priority will help.

And we're hopeful that we can get something done this fall.

What's likely impact of rate increase like this on homeowners and could all states could other insurance companies fallen as well and filed a massive rate increase?

>> they certainly can.

Again, there's nothing stopping them.

They can file any rate increase and any time without any regulatory oversight and a lot of them already You know, there's been about 215 million dollars of rate increases on top of this massive state farm so far this year.

And we're just a little over halfway through.

So we could see more coming and they have all types of impacts for customers.

A lot of people right now cost of living is a concern.

This is certainly contributes to that.

For some folks, they may have paid off their mortgage.

But, you know, the combination of high insurance costs and property taxes, challenges them to stay in their home.

And for some people, if you're a first-time homebuyer, you know, the mortgage company does require you to purchase insurance and this may be one of the things that makes it more challenging for first time home buyers to purchase that.

can people find themselves switching to may be cheaper insurance with that provides less coverage and find themselves in trouble if they need to file file a claim.

>> That's one way that people can save money is by and insurance coverage that covers Lester that has higher deductibles and that's something that seeing even with the state farm increase.

Not only are they raising rates, but there implementing a mandatory hail and wind deductible on all policy holders.

So what we're seeing in general in the industry is they're forcing us to pay more and get less.

And, you know, you can shop around and we encourage people to shop around.

But when it's a market wide problem, there's only so much you can do by shopping around and that's why we think it's appropriate for the state to have some basic consumer protections.

Virtually every other state has been Illinois, LAX to investigate these rate increases.

So the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Association administration skews me reported 131 tornadoes and 142 instances.

>> Of severe hail in Illinois this year and 139 tornadoes and 303 severe hail incidents last year.

Insurance companies are saying that, you know, the severe weather which is been increased intensified by climate change is the main factor here.

Do you buy that?

Yes, I do.

I think that there's reason to believe that this rise in extreme weather is contributing.

>> To the need to rise insurance premiums using the same source the you just did.

There were 27 billion-dollar disasters in the United States in 2024, that was almost the highest number ever.

The highest was in 2023 with 2020 20 extreme weather disasters and these are impacting us here in the Midwest.

People think about the wildfires and the hurricanes because those are dramatic and of course, cause tremendous damage.

But a lot of catastrophe losses that these insurance companies are seeing come from wind and hail and tornadoes.

The type of extreme weather that impacts us here in Illinois in the Midwest.

Now just because they're that's the case doesn't mean that they necessarily should raise rates by the scale that they're doing.

And that's why we think this regulatory oversight is important in in particular because we should expect there to be ongoing increase is an ongoing extreme weather.

Unfortunately, it's the new normal.

All the more reason we should have some public oversight of these rate increases.

So as I mentioned, we do have a statement from State Farm and it says, quote, Home insurance claims costs are exceeding premiums collected in Illinois.

>> Last year, those total costs amounted to one $1.26 for every dollar in premium we collected such losses are unsustainable, accurate risk based pricing, make sure that insurers like State farm can pay claims during some of life's toughest moments for policyholders.

Or over regulation and refusal to allow companies like ours, the ability to charge accurate rates leads to a less competitive market and fewer choices for consumers.

Opponents of Pritzker's called for legislation and regulation.

They've also got their own recommendations promoting accurate pricing and strengthening homes against severe weather or extreme weather.

What do you say to the argument that a solution should focus more on addressing increased risks and less than insurance companies?

>> I think we can do both.

We do need to do more to lower risks and insurance.

When done the right way should provide cost signal price signals that inform customers about what they can do to lower their risk, which, you benefits that individual.

policyholder is well as all of us by reducing the risk we face collectively so we should be doing that.

Absolutely.

But that does not mean that there's no role for government oversight of these rate hikes.

And just to be clear, what's on the table is nothing onerous.

It's nothing extreme.

In fact, we've called for stronger regulations.

Then what has been put forward by the Department of Insurance, but we think it's a reasonable proposal that makes sense for Illinois.

And the time has come to have some basic fundamental oversight over these rate increases.

What advice do you have for consumers if they should see their their premiums are starting to go up?

>> Well, you can always shop around and I certainly encourage people to do that while being careful not to make sure that you are.

>> Putting yourself in a more risky situation or if you are doing so to understand those risks when you're doing so the other advice or have is to contact your state representative and state senator and asked them to support Governor Pritzker and his calls for Okay.

This will have to leave it.

8 scar Illinois public research, Public Interest Research Group.

Thank you so much for joining Thanks for having me.

>> Up next to young authors on their publishing house just for Gen X-ers.

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

The Pope Brothers Foundation.

And the support of these donors.

>> More than 100 million birds fly through Chicago during migration season.

But thousands of them are killed or injured every year after colliding with the city's buildings.

Wildlife advocates say the city can and should do more to protect birds.

This week the City Council committee heard testimony on what can be done to provide birds with safe passage and what some of the obstacles might be when it comes to passing Bird friendly building ordinance.

Patty Wet Lee joins us now.

Walk through some of these issues Patty.

So what makes Chicago so dangerous for birds?

And what is the current status of Bird friendly building guidelines rate?

So Chicago is the biggest city on a major migratory flyway.

The Mississippi flyway, you know, birds have been using this route for hundreds thousands of years.

And we put buildings in their way.

>> And we like them up and we attract them into our buildings and they wind up colliding with them.

And at the moment, there aren't really a whole lot of protections for birds.

There is under the Department of Planning and development their sustainable development policy which offers developers points for including Bird friendly design in their projects.

But that's voluntary.

And only about 50 to 75 projects in the city every year.

Even need to meet those sustainable guidelines, which is not sufficient.

According to Bird advocates.

>> What would wildlife advocate?

What would they like to see in terms of protection?

They want to see ordinance something like what New York in Toronto and San Francisco have that would make it the law and mandate.

>> Bird friendly designs for both new construction and possibly retrofits for existing buildings.

And those are techniques like putting pattern on glass that birds can actually see.

And they point to a building like McCormick Place Lakeside, which is many of us know 1000 birds were killed in one day.

There.

They put some film on their acres of windows and bird strikes are down about 95% in just one year.

So people say there's the technology.

Let's use it.

>> Yeah, that's impressive.

So what are some of the stumbling blocks to getting legislation passed?

Well, some officials from the Department of Planning and development say they've heard from developers and designers that using some of that bird friendly glass can double the cost of glass.

>> And they also heard from building owners, the trade association that represents a lot of buildings in Chicago.

You know, we've got 29 30% vacancy rate now is not the time to add millions of dollars to building owners budgets to spend on Bird advocates say, wait a minute, the glass only costs, you know, less than a percent of a building's entire cost.

Not as expensive as people say that it is.

And also, if you want to talk economics, the birding burger economy is huge.

A lot of people come to Chicago.

We've got one of the top destinations in the country for burgers.

Those people come here and they spend money to do so.

There's a lot of pros and cons, OK?

So there's that hearing this week.

What's next?

What now?

What now?

I Alderman Maria had the committee, you know, needs to maybe go back to her colleagues and see how much political will is there to actually get something like this done.

But I think that Chicago's birding wildlife advocates have shown that they're not going away and they're not really going to accept anything less than ordinance and burn safe mandates for building design.

So they're going to keep coming We'll be hearing more from when that time comes.

County thanks so much.

Thanks, Prentiss.

And you can read patties full story on our website.

It's all at W T Tw Dot com Slash news.

>> The teenage years are full of firsts, perhaps driving for the first time getting your first paycheck or your first kiss.

>> But publishing your first book probably isn't on a lot of teenagers list of accomplishments, but our next guest did just that at 16 years old, 18 brands wrote his first book exploring the year 2020 from a teenager's point of view and brands didn't stop there.

He wrote us friends into the plot by starting his own publishing company.

Joining us now with more are Aden brands, author and owner of Aden Brands Books and your reads, 80 author of the Short Kid from Pakistan.

Welcome.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having congrats on things.

You all published books.

I haven't published book.

So you've you've got something on us.

>> I mean, it's really fun to do what we're doing.

And I'm so glad we get to talk about it here.

Awesome.

So you wrote your first novel, a ton at 16, 2020 from a teenager is P o V what made you want to write that?

Well, you know, back in 2020, I stayed up all night and >> I was just kind of processing everything that was going on in the world.

And I was drinking a lot of coffee saw as kind of like really energetic.

And I just randomly decided to open a Google document and just start writing what I was feeling and what people my age were going through because at that time, there really wasn't a lot of people talking about the teenage perspective of everything that was happening in 2020 and we can both admit that was a crazy year.

So I just wanted to do something kind of unique and put something out that I really was insane.

And that was really what started it all just from one crazy night.

you go from, like writing, getting it all out.

You know, in that first crazy night to all of those thoughts becoming a book.

>> Well, I worked on it a little Has the has the weeks and months past and I kind of format it to be more like a story instead of just like a giant rant and I put the I put the book out on my own in early 2021.

And it took a took a little bit of time and it was a process, you know, trying to figure out how to do all this stuff.

But once I did, it was like really amazing.

And I got such a good reception from people, especially at my school and in my community in Palatine.

And it was just like a really crazy experience just to go through all of that.

Eventually you got in some of your peers like you read sitting next to whose book the Short Kid from Pakistan, you published.

>> Yuri, tell us about your book.

It's about to show it could from back.

It's about.

>> They showed kid who is with a fictionalized character, but its stories.

My story and it's being put on and he experiences up to learn a new language move across the world and just like.

Follow new traditions not used road conditions like it.

Just learning everything new.

All I want.

And if I really grow legal story and I've had people who are not from Foxconn, but they fed immigrant.

If that I really to story because I went to same thing.

>> What was it like sort of telling your own personal story that way?

>> And with and with knife, I feel like some some of it.

I just needed to get off my chest.

fog pretty good.

But also like being able to share my story, which I don't feed them much media at all about boxed on being represented at all.

I feel like that.

It's very good opportunity for me to represent my country and my story.

>> Done.

Why was it important for you to start your own company?

What it what did you think was missing in the publishing industry?

So I really wanted to just see more authentic stories be told because you look in the mainstream publishers and they're not really doing what we're doing and the whole subtitle of my book, the First One teenager's Poe V I wanted to expand upon that idea.

And I really realize like the world is just bigger than my point view.

And that's why I wanted to give someone like you read chance to share his point of view of the world.

And that's really kind the whole idea.

Just showing a different perspective that people don't really see or they don't really hear and doing that has been such a amazing honor because we're able to tell these great stories that people are connecting with.

And, for example, if someone doesn't connect with what I write, that doesn't mean they can't connect with what your reads writing or maybe even someone like Evelyn, we're just trying to do new things and push the limits to be honest and be unique and embrace our uniqueness.

And you published 6 books, 9 books, 6 offers like we've done a bunch the more than you can which is great.

>> You read what would you say were some of the challenges with being a package?

Some park, a sunny author.

And what did you feel like?

People didn't understand about your experience?

I believe some people definitely do tradition over there.

>> give a lot of different conditions.

Light from and more think the deflect a car holidays, too.

But like that, people didn't understand, but also like, what's it like living in a 3rd world country that poverty and like just like going around you net out control.

>> And also what it's like moving from that to this to hear.

Yeah, we didn't see a moving across the globe.

>> Learning a new language learning how to.

Have new mentors.

>> you guys really warms here, Project shock.

Yeah, very much.

I'm sure.

So according to the National Center for Education Statistics, there been long-term declines in the share of 13 year-old who reported reading for fun almost every day in 2012, it was 27% to 13 year-old.

>> Falling to 17% in 2020 15% in 2023.

And, you know, we've got the 2 of you.

You are currently community college students, but you started doing this when you were in high school.

You know, what do you think needs to be done to encourage the younger generation to read more a tunnel?

Start with you.

>> I think that we got to get our young people to read books that they want to read that they can connect with, because I think sometimes in schools, you know, you the students are kind of forced to read these books that they don't really want to read or they can't really relate to it and they can't connect with what's on the page.

I think that's that's a big aspect of it.

I think there's there's a lot of things that need to be done.

I think I it's an issue that's bigger than just me.

And you read.

I think it's like it's a group effort.

A lot of people are going to have to come together and think of ways to raise those numbers because it's honestly concerning.

I encourage reading.

I think everybody should agree no matter what your age is.

don't know your review.

>> Yeah, no.

I mean, I just wonder what my my point to be the same.

What what's next for you?

You read plan on your state.

You're studying radiology right now.

they plan on writing anywhere books.

Yeah, but you haven't new book coming out soon a publishing that won't forget publishing is going to be called Apollo DART into and then kind not.

Well, It's a sequel to book that he did called Apollo Darwin.

>> And it's about a convicted felon getting out of jail.

And just I'm trying to rebuild his life and it kind of shows how society kinda, it's hard for people who get out of the prison system to kind move forward and it's really it's a it's kind of different from what we do.

But it still shows appeal.

The that I think is super important that well, I look forward to reading it when when that when he's ready to go because I was on the website, I read a couple of pages of some of them and they were paid starters.

I want to see the rest of it.

>> We'll have to leave it there, though.

grand jury JT, thank you so much for joining us.

for so much.

>> Up next, Chicago is liquor laws.

Explain.

And as the weekend approaches, you may be thinking about making some plans.

And if those plans include alcohol, you should know the law where when and how can you drink our Nic Bloomberg has the details in TONIGHTS edition of WT Tw News explains.

>> A Chicago may have become virtually synonymous with speakeasy during prohibition.

But that doesn't mean the Windy City is lawless when it comes to drinking.

In fact, we've got a lot of rules on the books governing when and where we can enjoy an adult beverage.

New York might be the city that never sleeps, but Chicagoans can be night owls rouse is looking to party into the wee hours of the morning.

Just need to keep an eye on the bars can still make or after 02:00AM most nights before 03:00AM on early Sunday morning at the tail end of a wild Saturday course.

That's unless they have a coveted for EM license which actually extends to 05:00AM on Sunday.

If you want to take the party home, you better have a plan to head liquor stores and supermarkets have to stop selling alcohol at midnight every night of the week.

Whether you're I Sunday with a powerful need to chase away a hangover or just your standard Sunday.

Scaries your in luck.

A brunch is just around the corner.

Thanks to a recent move from the city Council restaurants and bars that serve food can start selling alcohol at 9 o'clock on Sunday.

Mornings used to have to wait until after 11.

And if you want to whip up those brunch mimosas at home, the liquor stores can bring you up until 11:00AM Sundays.

But supermarkets can sell you a bottle of bubbly starting at 08:00AM.

>> And some of the barriers to imbibing aren't just about time.

They're also about place.

The city won't issue liquor licenses near most libraries and churches or schools, hospitals and nursing homes and residents can use the power of the ballot box to banish all liquor sales in the precinct where they live.

Perhaps one of the best known know goes is in Chicago's the adult establishments.

Alcohol is prohibited in places that allow fully nude dancing.

>> The City Council did.

He's the rules in recent years to allow alcohol sales in bars and clubs with occasional topless performances with the intention of drawing a crowd more art connoisseur than based.

Boy you or at least so we heard from friend.

So, yeah, we've got rules.

But with nearly 200 breweries, several local distilleries and a questionable obsession with a borderline unpalatable just Chicago is still in drinking It just sometimes takes an ounce or 2 of preparation.

>> And for more W T Tw News explains videos.

Be sure to check out our Web site where we tackle everything from why Chicago's pension debt is so high.

You can't buy cars on Sunday.

And that's our show for this Thursday night.

Join us tomorrow night at 5.37, for the weekend review.

Now for all of us here at Chicago Brandis Friedman, thanks for watching.

Stay healthy and safe and have a good night.

>> Closed caption was made possible by Robert a cliff and Clifford law offices, a personal injury law firm, working to preserve dignity