>> Good >> evening and thanks for joining us on the weekend of you.

I'm the lumber.

Dangerously hot weather hits the Chicago area again and snarls downtown traffic for hours.

The Dusable Lakeshore Drive Bridge goes haywire after high temps caused the metal to expand preventing it from closing after a lift.

>> people picking You know, folks were treated terribly body, bad actors, the city of Chicago sues a Southside funeral home where dozens of bodies were discovered decomposing last month with a WBEZ sometimes investigation.

Turning up a slew of failures over the years to hold the chapel owners accountable.

>> Meantime, the former Loretto Hospital executive pleads not guilty to a sprawling COVID testing fraud scheme.

Mayor Brandon Johnson announces next year's budget deficit smaller than expected, but still nearly 900 million dollars and the Trump administration lifts a stop work order on a billion-dollar barrier and to keeping invasive carp out of the Great Lakes.

>> And now to our week in review panel.

Joining us are just buckholts of WBBM NewsRadio freelance journalist Kimbell where right?

Well full of WBEZ and Manny Ramos of Block Club.

Chicago, thank you all for being here, Streets get right to it.

So it was quite the hometown yesterday.

Jeff, from your vantage point, able to see any of the little bridge that could draw couldn't that's something that was crazy.

It's looks like it's like a physics lesson come to life.

Hot weather plus medal equals no one's going anywhere on the drive for like 2, 3, And believe me.

Our traffic people were thrilled because everybody was tuning in.

like what's going on in a draw you can if there's the risk of the bridge getting stuck in the heat like that.

>> Heat, we have to expect more and more of in the coming years.

You have to wonder why city officials approved that left.

That was a such a big question.

You know, as for the spirit of Chicago cruise liner to get through, everybody's wondering, was it worth it?

But this is a question that we're going to have to keep confronting because temperatures are going to keep getting hotter.

It seems.

Yeah, I just have to say I happened to be passing over that bridge one day before and I was very happy not to be doing so.

Yesterday I was on Lake Shore Drive going to Navy Pier and I had to get off for deer and then that's when it I got up at North Avenue luckily and did not get stuck on the bridge.

And I was very happy and many from so happy for that.

I do feel for the folks that were stuck there.

Missing appointments are missing where they needed to be such a, you know, an artery to get around the city that it's, you know, it's it's kind of funny to look at, but not so fun if you're stuck on We have a lot of those lifting bridges to absolutely.

Yeah.

There was another bridge that got stuck on the far side.

Yes.

So this is going to be an issue and in the coming years and may get less and less funny.

It's time.

>> Alright, Mariah, you and your colleague midterm interest.

You dug into the record of that South Chicago chapel where bodies were found decomposing.

The facility in disarray.

The owners had a long history of documented problems.

Why does it seem like it's sort of slipped through the cracks for so long?

Yeah.

I talked to former Inspector General Joe Ferguson, who kind of has a good handle on, you know, the the municipal and state government bodies involved here and he kind of explained it as like.

>> Everyone is doing their core missions of their agency.

There are so many agencies that oversee funeral homes crematory is and then just buildings in general in the city of Chicago and all those agencies are so focused on their excuse me, specific mission.

There was very little communications are reporting just looked at records to see all of these different read flags across agencies leans on the owner's property failure to pay property taxes on their building, failed building inspections by the city of Chicago for mundane things like not having smoke alarms.

Carbon monoxide detectors you know, some of those more like regulatory, maybe boring of violations to the very severe violations of having their crematory shut down in 2025.

And so we were raising the questions and putting all of the information out there.

But I think those are questions that state legislators and the city of Chicago are gonna have to come together.

An answer of what is communication and collaboration.

Gonna look like going forward for such a high stakes industry.

Yeah.

Obviously something that's that's so close to so many families during a difficult time.

You know, those owners, you mentioned the city, they're now facing a lawsuit from the city of Chicago.

What's that case alleging?

>> Yeah.

So what we found we looked at building department inspections throughout the few decades that were records were available and from 2006 to 2021, the city was doing annual inspections of this building.

This is before the Morgans bought the building in 2023, but still regular inspections that were almost all of them were failed for, like I said, minor violations.

The city tried to take the owners at the time to court in 2016.

It's long been a funeral home.

So those annual failed inspections should have raised red flags for the city to say, hey, this is a building that, you know, sear it like clearly has a history of neglect of on, you know, neglectful owners and maybe we should take a harder look at it.

Instead from 2022.

To 2026, there was 0 annual building inspections at the building.

The buildings Department.

Kind of alluded to the fact that they've switched to a more complaint based my already based system and understaffed department, like many across the city.

But still you have to wonder, you know, there's this building the entire time the Morgans were operating there.

There wasn't a building inspection of the building and, you know, hindsight 2020, we can't predict what that could have stopped, but it was just another agency that could have maybe mean, yeah, hopefully this is the kind of thing that can spark change, you know, down the road.

>> another case this week centering on, you know, public trust allegations of, you know, serious violations.

This is one of the former Laredo hospital executives that is caught up in a COVID testing case.

Remind us that who he is and how he plead.

Yeah.

So X CFO, COO and It was extradited from Serbia back to Chicago last week.

>> Where he faces a pair of federal indictments.

And just to quickly catch folks up on what those indictments are, the first one he's facing accusations that he embezzled 15 million dollars out of the cash strapped hospital on the West side.

The second indictment comes in regards to a scheme to defraud the federal government.

Nearly 700 million dollars threw fake COVID-19 testing.

He appeared front of a federal judge on Monday where he pled not guilty to those crimes.

He also pled not guilty to the first indictment last Friday.

But, you know, he also didn't challenge his current detention at the Metropolitan Correction Center in downtown.

Now U.S.

Sorry, he's he's defense attorney.

Dan Webb, former U.S.

attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said that, you know, they plan on holding a right to sort of like, you know, challenge that the tension at a later time.

But they're in the process of trying to resolve this as quickly as possible.

that look like unknown at this time?

He mentioned trying to hint that they might work out some type of deal with the prosecution team and also hinted at the fact that they might look to dismiss the case under the fallout of the broad view, 6 case.

Yeah, that that grand jury is having a, you know, kind of a long tail.

But, you know, it seems like in in this instance, >> at least from the outside, there is significant amount of evidence that prosecutors have brought to bear.

Fair to say.

I think so.

I mean, I mean, there there's countless, you know, they have wire fraud indicating that, you know, these transactions were happening.

>> But of course, that's all going to be handled court whether or not to come up with a deal.

I will say, you know, some of his co-defendants have worked out, please with the prosecution team.

I mean, you have the X CEO CEO George Miller who was accused of accepting nearly 700 million dollars in bribes.

He accepted a sort of, you know, deferred prosecution agreement as long as he sort of follow terms for the next year.

So that will be dropped.

Another CTO had a bird dog.

She accepted a similar plea are similar agreement.

I should say.

So these cases are kind of getting ramped up.

Yeah, it seems like the you know, some of these potentially heading to trial.

You know, do we do we know about the schedule Ed's case?

Its case next time he is court hearing.

I think it's September 10th.

I want to say, OK, then his co defendant who also is, you know, accused of of partnering with this is in a long-running scandal there and one block club has been following closely.

Now you can, too, will continue to do so, Jeff, it seems like just about every resident of the city of Chicago has announced a run for mayor except for the incumbent himself.

Some think there could be some movement on that in just a couple of days.

Yeah.

And I know, Nick, you are planning to invite the mayor over to your place on September 13th.

The that We're going to have rigged alert to tell you, man.

>> His political arm sent an e-mail out to supporters >> announcing a promising an announcement promise asking people they want to make history by attending an announcement on Sunday September 13th at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

It is my former colleague and friend of the show, Craig, do more reminded me.

You do things on Sunday when you want to get into the paper on So it's a fairly safe bet that the mayor is going to take another run at this and he is certainly sounded in.

Rye has been in as many of these briefings as I have.

He certainly sounded like a guy who wants to keep the job that he has based on the talking points that we hear him deliver all the time.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it starts by saying focused on.

>> Building a bigger, better, stronger, safer Chicago.

But if I were on it seems that voters but certainly have a good reason to reelect me and in some language like that and then goes on tout the crime is down that they have invest in affordable housing and, >> you know, Johnson's long list of of what he sees as his accomplishments.

Yeah.

Well, I think we'll see it in the paper on Monday.

Your on this show Craig that.

That's correct.

But I you know, Kim, are you surprised to see the mayor take this long to announce another runner?

Was he may be just kind of waiting for the, you know, the cavalcade of other folks to get out of the way.

I think I was as surprised as anybody that it's taken so long.

And also as you've seen the work chest that's being built up.

>> By those seeking to replace him, you know, he's much further behind than some of these better-funded candidates that have already thrown their hat into the ring.

So it's you know, you're kind of wondering, but we also know from when he first won office, he had the backing of the Chicago teachers union and he was far outspent by his opponent, Paul Vallas.

And he still took it because they had good discipline, organization.

So he did prove that money isn't everything.

So maybe he's, you know, sleeping easy knowing that he has that support to count on.

Well, and he reminds us of that about every chance outspent 3 to one.

And he's the mayor of Chicago in Kim's right?

>> The Chicago Teachers Union organization is going to give him a massive ground game and >> machine like political organization run by his good friend Stacy Davis.

Gates, the head of that union and the Illinois Federation of Teachers yet.

But it is looking like he may be losing SEIU support, which also gave him millions in his first campaign.

Obviously, he's boost a little bit about by just his name recognition and his record.

And, you know, he has.

>> The advantage of being an incumbent.

But also came with foot soldiers who knocked on doors and phone banks.

And so that's a big question of where SEIU is going to throw its support.

But the money thing is a real thing like we the most recent, the two's that we polled, he's got about 600 some $1000 in cash in his campaign fund.

A Lexington, your lease is up over 20, even Joe Holbert who was like the first guy to get in.

Right?

As like a million dollars.

so I mean, it's you know, at some point the money has to happen and, >> you know, he doesn't seem to be all that concerned about it, but we'll see also had well.

He just he has to be able to get on TV.

He's going to have to be on TV.

He's going to have to be.

>> You know, for lack of better word trashing his opponents.

And and and he is going to have to speak about why he is better than that.

Just takes money.

And you just to Kim's point lose daylight every time every day you wait to announce because you can't start fundraising like in earnest until you an outright.

And I just want to say, like mean, all of that to add on today's doing it on opener of the Chicago Bears season.

And I may be a huge homer here by feel like that's going to take the wind out of his sails a little bit because they're going to be so much excitement going into the season.

>> And when you want to sort of dominate that Monday cycle, if the bears come out really strong as that challenge at cheese.

I didn't even think it's a even occur to me you're welcome to be home totally one of the things that the mayor is touting in his official capacity.

Is that.

>> This year's budget deficit is 882 million dollars.

Not pretty, but less than expected.

He's kind of taking that as a win.

Fair to say, yeah, that's definitely how he's painting it.

you know, it's interesting because usually with with mayors, you see them announce a really big deficit their first year to kind of blame their predecessor.

And then you kind of see that shrink year after year.

>> Johnson has, you know, kind of he's refused to cut service is he's invested a lot in in youth and youth programming and violence intervention.

And he has struggled to work with the city council to cut that deficit.

And so the reality is, is that the city is now facing again, one of the largest deficit since we started seeing structural deficits in the city about 2 decades, 2 and a half decades ago.

And so, yeah, it's not.

You know, 1.2 billion dollars like it was last year.

But 882 million dollars is a lot.

And it's going to be another really contentious, really tough budget season.

He's going to try again to push for progress in revenue.

He's going to face pushback and the budget forecast message was really clear.

>> About it again, sort the talking points about his reelection run.

My staff worked their stuff, didn't the progressive revenue options that he likes the social media tax the kind of thing as all made more money than expected.

Everything proposed by what's now known as the Budget Accountability Coalition did not.

Of course, the Budget Accountability Coalition couldn't let that go in.

Said.

The reason our stuff didn't make any money is because you put a brake on it.

Basically, even though it's part of the budget.

Therefore, it's a city ordinance that you have to follow.

So it certainly doesn't look as though we're going to any kind of a kumbaya moment at City Hall when it comes to the budget, which means that, you know more I and I are probably going to still be working right up to Christmas getting about you.

What watching them try to put a budget together.

only thing you can hope for is that everyone is going to be on their best behavior because it's an election year and aldermen are up for re-election to.

And so they're all walking political tight ropes right now, especially when >> voters are dim like affordability is a winning message.

And that's certainly Yeah.

Well, I very much wish that for you, my friend, but I'm not necessarily going right, Kim.

This week, Indiana's governor officially announced the launch of an investigation of the power company Nipsco after some residents went without electricity for weeks after really damaging storms.

What's he looking to find out he's looking to find out really what the utilities obligation is, how much they had been staying on top of maintenance.

That was the big issue as wasn't their responsibility to do things like.

>> Trump she know foliage clearing kind of maintaining some of these areas because we had trees falling on power lines.

We had poll utility poles that were snapping.

mean, obviously this is something that kept the entire city in the dark for more than 2 weeks.

In some cases, some people I think are still struggling to get reconnected because there are final points of power delivery that the individual homeowners responsible for.

>> But all the while Nipsco has also been increasing rates and the governor is surely hearing from his constituents in the northwest part of the state.

They're very unhappy that they're getting this.

You know what, they perceived to be this really bad service, the utility not maintaining its obligations that led to how how severe this was on top of that.

being asked to pay more as a former nipsco customer.

I can just say I've seen those rates rise for the past 2 decades.

You know, they don't seem to be flat lining at any point.

So the governor really wants to figure out, you know, where is this money going and how are you maintaining this utility for this community?

Yeah, and of course, a lot of, you know, Gary and some of the surrounding communities, you know, face historic disinvestment so that, you know, that that has effect on infrastructure as well.

I was surprised when I was in Gary a couple of weeks ago.

>> talking to residents at the big relief event.

The keithley the food influencer put together.

>> And on my drive their I was surprised that the condition of a lot of the trees in those yeah could stay just, you know, and union here.

We used to see dry, rot and have.

Now we get used to seeing ComEd crews in the city.

Forestry Department is on it.

You know, trimming trees back all the time.

None of that appears to have happened in some of these neighborhoods around this park where this thing happened.

I was really surprised that such a big city relative to, you know, the population now it's not as dense, but Gary covers a lot of area and especially if you're out more near the county line and no further from the city centre like things were looking pretty rough.

And that's still it's goes responsibility be very interesting to see what this investigation potentially turns up.

Some some change may be in the offing.

>> Alright, jumping back to the Chicago mayoral race.

Mariah John Kelly was.

>> Is under investigation.

I should say by the Ethics Board for campaign videos in fire stations which pretty clearly seems to violate prohibitions against using public property for politicking, but he's still making some visits there.

It seems like there's a bit of a workaround he sees.

Yeah, Wbtw has been reporting on this keeping track of it greatly.

>> It looks like that he is still making videos that involve fire department stations.

But as may be blurring out the logo, which I don't know constitutes as not using city property for campaign video.

So word we'll see how that to give him points for the mayor is also facing an ethics hearing and city Council for some of these world business, Chicago tourism videos.

>> His critics or at least all those who are skeptical say the sort out to campaign ads essentially.

Yeah, yeah.

So and to be clear Ethics Committee is different than the ethics board, which is an official investigation into John Kelly.

What happened here was that this week, 8 of Johnson's most vocal critics on the city council who also served on the ethics committee, sent a letter to the Ethics Committee chair Matt Meagher and and said we have questions about these series of videos that world business Chicago, which is a public-private entity.

They get public funding from the city, but also, you know, private funding and they're the city's tourism, our economic development arm chaired by the mayor.

They have released a series of videos.

Some of them are narrated by Johnson touting economic development.

You know, they defend that has Johnson is the city's elected leader and he appropriate narrator.

And our job is to drive economic development in Chicago.

So, yeah, we're going to brag about the accomplishments of the past 4 years.

Critics say this is, you know, this is using taxpayer funding to kind of save money on campaign videos that can be shared by the campaign and were shared by a friend Johnson's campaign political account World Business.

Chicago is not a new development being Rich Daley.

>> Invented world business Chicago in 2000 and it for a long time has had the sort of murky this sort of public-private partnership thing is always been a little bit murky about who are they really marketing?

And indeed, a lot of the questions about these ads are, well, they don't feel like ads directed at getting business to come here.

It feels more like touting stuff in the city and when reporters asked audience is internal records exactly is the call is coming reporters asked the mayor about it last week, he was like, how can we tell people what's great about Chicago if we don't show them?

What's great about Chicago, Ines, right.

can be very interesting to see if anything comes of that committee object matter hearing most likely where they'll hear from ideally world business, Chicago and >> and I don't that much will come of it.

I look forward to reading your coverage of >> Alright, Kim, the Trump administration has finally lifted a stop work order on that barrier and to keeping invasive carp out of the Great Lakes.

You know, the president certainly no fan of some Great Lakes, governors, for example, I mean, do you think this is just such an economic component to this?

Do you think that the damage that the collapse of the Great Lakes could cause, you know, maybe which would also Certainly some of the president's own supporters.

Could that have played a part in finally swaying this they just lose attention?

I mean, we don't know why the stop work order was issued by the time the Army Corps of Engineers, why they stopped this work.

And then on the same day, Governor Pritzker sent a letter and then also Governor Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan who has.

>> Maybe a hot and cold relationship, but certainly more than a absolutely frozen relationship.

That Pritzker has she enjoys of a better relationship with Trump.

She makes the call.

That's probably he's responding to not to Pritzker's letter.

So was it that there was some of the president is willing to listen to?

That was persuaded by that.

But some of the president's decision-making is just so erratic that even when we know that it's going to cause economic harm.

The has now is prompt the quick action that you think it will.

You know, it's good that the order has been lifted, but also we've been fighting invasive, you know, invasive carp for more than 15 years.

This is the closest they've been upstream.

I think since 2010 and you know, it could absolutely devastate the economy of the region if they get in here and was the right call.

But there's just so much unknown when you can't really count on these decision makers being transparent about the decisions or when they make the changes to yet.

But I think a lot of folks very happy to see that project back up and running.

>> You know, many other federal judge just this week refused to kick out the case of a Border Patrol agents accused of assaults.

That indictment came from the same grand jury that you mentioned with with Broadview 6 with Loretto.

Does it feel like the long tail of that really troubled grand jury has a quite fully reveal itself.

Could this, you know, continue to complicate things for federal judges, prosecutors defendants, it definitely does feel that way, especially as we're talking about everything that ice related at this time.

>> But more than that, I mean, this case is also affecting, you know, the case, which is offshoot of the probably 6 and the grand jury, you know, for example, when Nash amid the CFO that we were just talking about, you know, when he was brought back from Serbia, they had to file a new indictment with a new grand jury just to kind of avoid any kind of missteps in that regard.

So imagine this is is an issue that's going plague the department for a while.

Yeah, and this I mean, this case of this Border Patrol agent is it's really, you know, if the charges are proved Israeli city, it's really it's really terrible.

Yeah, and it certainly goes along with.

>> The what city and state leaders are talking about in terms of the sort of >> wide path of operation, Midway Blitz caused in this area.

And the governor even referred to it this week in responding to President Trump's messages on social media about crime in Chicago and detailing that and suggesting that the president makes it hard makes it hard to tamp down violence.

No love lost there between the 2 of them.

But it's all love here at this table.

But unfortunately, we are out of time.

>> So our thanks to Geoff Buckholts Kimbell where right willful and Manny Ramos.

And we're back to wrap things up right after this.

>> Tonight's presentation of Week in review is made possible in part by an and rich com BNSF railway.

And Francine and Doctor Anthony Brown.

Chicago tonight is made possible in part by the Alexander and John Nichols.

Fate.

The Pope Brothers Foundation, additional support is provided by.

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

Be sure to sign up for our free email newsletter, the Daily Chicago and at W T Tw Dot Com Slash newsletter.

Now for all of us here at the week in review, I'm Nick Lumber.

Thank you for watching.

Stay healthy, stay safe and stay informed.

Have a great weekend.

>> All right, Jeff, there's a new proposal out of city council aimed delivering.

What are the details?

first of all, show of hands who does want work with A once in a while is what this is, what they're talking about mayor issues, the all the in the southwest.

Has raised concerns about the livery drivers don't really know the driving >> speeding in there sometimes for personal cars.

Dropping stuff off and speeding out and there are families walking in these areas and concern is.

These workers are trying to meet.

By not only Amazon.

third-party delivery right and so close caption News made possible by Robert, a cliff Clifford law offices, Chicago personal injury and wrongful death.