>> Good evening and thanks for joining us on the week in review.

I'm Nick Blumberg.

It's Friday.

We made it and the Chicago teachers Union appears to have made a deal almost.

>> We are doing some of the hardest work in the world, which educating the future generations.

>> After nearly a year of bargaining teachers, union negotiators mall over a potential contract.

>> This is an egregious breach national security that put service men and women's lives on the line in danger.

>> Illinois Democrats joined the chorus of critics over a national security breach that came via group text.

>> We're going to be returning education very simply back to the states where it belongs.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul joins an effort to block the Trump administration from dismantling the Education Department.

>> The Chicago Police Department dramatically under reports traffic stops.

A new study finds well off voters hold more sway over property tax hikes and 1, 2, pitch.

One down 161 to go after a record season in a bad way.

The White Sox win their home opener against the Angels.

8, 2, >> And now to our week in review panel.

Joining us are JaCoby Cochran from City Kass Chicago, our own Heather Sharon of Wt Tw news, 80 Quigg from the Chicago Tribune and joining us from Washington via Zoom is Clarence Page.

Pulitzer-winning contributing columnist also from the Chicago Tribune.

Good to see you all.

Let's get right to Heather.

Sharon, it's been about a week that we've heard a contract deal is imminent.

It's on the precipice.

It's almost here.

We're running out of ways to it.

Where do things actually stand?

Well, there appears to be a deal.

The Chicago Teachers Union is an organization that prides themselves on being incredibly democratic.

So if there is a multiple step process before a contract could be agreed to the first F is for the so-called big bargaining team to look at the steel.

>> Now if passes muster with that big bargaining team, then it goes to the executive Committee of the teachers Union and then and only then does it go to the House of Delegates?

But wait, there's one more step.

It's got to go to the nearly 30,000 strong membership to either ratify or send everybody back to the negotiating table.

However, it is a good sign that the bargaining team thinks that there's a deal on the table that they can take to the membership and ask them to You have to imagine after a year they be pretty loath to present something to their members that they weren't going to get behind.

>> You know, it quick.

There's also the small matter of the 175 million dollar pension payments training that among friends that Chicago Board of Education has not agreed to make, meaning it's still on the city's books.

>> And there's a deadline fast approaching here.

And yes, end of the month is when the city supposed to reconcile their books so decide.

Take this like the last opportunity for revenue to come in expenses to be counted.

>> Between March and June is when they reconcile everything to figure out how big their deficit is.

So the mayor's office is saying we can figure this out basically on an accounting basis, a move, some things around Chicago City Council, which has very little trust in the mayor's administration, especially around budget issue, said not so fast.

You got to everything with us over the next few months.

Like you said one.

75 is a big number.

Citi says we don't know exactly if that will be the deficit number.

We have to make sure what our expenses revenues are.

But regardless, it's a huge number on top of an already structurally balanced budget.

And it's a big change from what we had heard from the mayor, right?

We're months who was saying, look, CPS has to make this this payment I mentioned, they have to make this payment and he really put the full force of his bully pulpit behind sort of getting CPS to agree to a deal where essentially they would refinance about 240 million dollars to not only cover this pension payment, but also yes, pay for that contract.

It is apparently done and complete.

>> Now it's not clear whether the CPS board, which is said basically CPS can't take on any more debt.

They had 9.3 billion dollars worth of But really they don't have any other way of paying for these teacher raises or new staff to do that.

So what do they maybe borrow enough to make some portion of the pension payment?

I don't know.

Maybe and legally.

The city is the one who has to making this payment.

They have an intergovernmental agreement with CPS to do this.

But there's nothing.

Hardin, State law to be clear, the payment will be made.

Those pensioners are getting that amount of money for this year.

But yeah, it's just a matter of who's footing the bill ultimately will endure.

Kobe cocking the fact that the mayor hasn't been able to use that bully pulpit to persuade the board of education to see things his way, even though they've laid out all these different options.

>> You know, is that a bad sign for him here?

Johnson.

I think in this case you do win everything a year ago when these negotiations started, we didn't have a sense of exactly what would be in the contract.

>> We didn't know if CPS CEO Pedro Martinez was long for the job.

We didn't know who would make this pension payment.

We didn't know what the hybrid school board will look like.

Now the mayor is here on the goal line of what seems like a deal that has secured more teachers.

More librarians, more support staff.

We don't know yet if it includes more prep time for elementary school teachers.

But he does look like some of those concessions were May 4% cost of living increases over the duration of it.

Cps CEO Pedro Martinez won't be in this position.

Come next school year.

The school board has already said they want to reinstate a super intended certification for the next leader.

And so you win some you lose some.

But the first time 15 years, we do not have a strike looming or it doesn't seem like we're going to have a strike this time And neither of the 2 mayors could say that.

So you win some and maybe to the tune of 170 million 75 million dollars.

You lose.

So, yeah.

But at least something that the Americans would it take to his base and say, look at all the successes we achieved are remaking Chicago's education system with a new contract, a new leader, a new board.

And so some of those things come through.

Yeah, absolutely.

>> Well, turning to a and altogether very different topic.

Earlier this week, we learned the national security adviser started a group chat on signal accidentally included The Atlantic's editor-in-chief and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in that chat shared details of imminent attacks on Yemen.

Clarence Page, what kind of a reaction are we seeing from the White House from Congress and how different is it to what we might have seen from prior administrations?

>> The sides, my own reaction of jealousy Jeff before I a home on journalism would love to have a major new mayor buy into the center and told So the signal chant that was what happened here to is immediately started a good deal of caution, make cause a nation to say the least.

President was what little less to be advised of it kind help.

he was caught on camera.

reacting to it.

setting at 6 so that the hand of the guy, wonderful and little after live there in front boat was going on that he went into the usual denials PETA done anything wrong.

And been that kind race well, they'll they'll blame face well accustomed to that, but not over There's still the question of whether or not the sum which some kind criminal investigation might be Bundy.

The new attorney general saying that wasn't in the cards right now, but that may be pressure for further investigation than just the just how this pope cooped up at that.

>> Right, because, you know, Trump sort of has this reputation as does his administration that these sorts of things that might have been a scandal for for other folks.

Just kind of slide right off of him.

But, you know, clearance.

Do you think this is the kind of story that has staying power that you know, that it's not just going disappear from the news cycle.

>> Will has an Army veteran.

I certainly think view lot of my friends is it quite the firm about We all know what happened put the pillow renting soldier.

Military personnel made it that the like this, but it's not really a totally clear exactly who look slip out mike walls of who's national security adviser.

purely Jeff Goldberg on the list of people to to be a wired into chant.

That was a complete surprise.

Jeff.

was able to provide transcript layer what was heard after the only denials came in that there was anything classified in discussion and you can see now from the from the transcript been republished, of course, and that this was was like blow by blow of Yemen on Houthi rebels there.

with way details right off us what happened and another question is kind of word leak out like this.

lucky that Bush for American side, side leakage didn't lead to one of our pilots who shot down.

But that the story continues.

>> They have to imagine this is not going away.

And by the way, if any elected officials want to drop any of us in their group chats, please, please feel free to >> I don't think there's well another recent story out of DC.

We're still seeing some fallout from Senator Durbin taking heat from progressives in particular.

>> For voting along with 9 other Democrats to back a GOP budget patch that kept the government open.

Heather Sharon, do you think this kind of heat?

He's taking factors into Durban Zone decision about whether he wants to run again?

I'm sure it does because I think that there are a lot of Democrats that are sort confronting a very different landscape today than the existed a month ago or 2 months ago.

And that has to be sort of part of the decision-making process.

>> Durbin you know, was very reluctant to run for the term that he's serving now.

And I think that if you talk to most Illinois politicos, they will say he is not expected to run for another term.

But we also have said that about 20 freshly girl for Cook County Board president she is running she will be, you know, if she is elected, she will be in her 80's when she finishes this term.

So I think there's a lot of questions about sort of how old is too old.

I also think that, you know, Illinois voters has been very confident, sort of re electing the same person over and over again, that sort of in our DNA as a as a people.

The question is, is the chaos and the upset of the sort of first couple months of the second Trump administration changing that calculus.

And I don't think we know the answer to that question yet.

We also learned this week that the Trump administration planning to make hundreds of millions of dollars in.

>> Cuts to public health funding for things like mental health care, substance abuse treatment, infectious disease prevention.

You know it quick.

Governor Pritzker has been on a media tour kind of lasting all the sorts of different cuts.

Is this the kind of thing that, you know, breaks through to to the average voter that you can understand like what what is disease surveilling?

You know, those sorts of things I think will be.

Tough for people to see and feel immediately.

But >> the more cuts there are 2 more departments.

I think people will start to feel it.

It's just the responsibility of elected officials to point out, hey, this wouldn't have ended if we haven't seen federal cuts the way we have from the Trump administration.

But no, I don't think immediately we will see there a few.

100 fewer people at the Department.

Public health.

They will know it But when we perhaps have a disease outbreak or folks aren't getting vaccinated like they should, then we'll start to see it.

But it's it's going to be up to folks like Pritzker.

Another Trump opponents to point out the nexus of this year.

>> Well, and you know, as we mentioned, Attorney General Roy will joining a lawsuit aimed at preventing the Trump administration from dismantling the Department of Education.

You know, Kobe Cochran, if if you're the attorney general, if you're Governor Pritzker, how do you balance sort of reacting to onslaught of actions coming out of the Trump administration with, you know, trying to run your own agenda?

I don't think you can.

And I think that's the point of this onslaught from the Trump administration put everyone on their back foot.

>> Governors, mayors, attorney general's institutions, even if these attorney generals are successful in reversing some of these actions, hundreds of people have taken buyouts.

Hundreds of people have walked away.

Thousands of people feel a lack of confidence in being able to go back to the federal government.

It's so easy or much easier to dismantle something than it is to rebuild it.

So even if another >> administration comes in years down the road and wants to to rebuild robust systems.

It the public health office at the U.S. Department of Education for U.S. aid.

Will.

How are they going to get that necessary 100 million dollars?

Spending package billion dollar spending package through a gridlocked Congress to say we need to hire the thousands of people who were let go years ago.

And so these consequences will be felt for the long haul.

But I want the governor and the attorney general to in addition to reacting, like you said 2 to balance their messaging and remind people this is a part of a decades long strategy.

They to misinform millions of people to make them feel disconnected from their government so that you can pull this type of funding from underneath them to pull these type of protections and systems from up underneath them while deflecting and scapegoating and arresting political opponents and students, we have to get a better sense of what this four-game planea game plan how long we have been having this game run on and what their ultimate in planning is, which is in many ways to entrench the ruling billionaire class too.

So many organizations are going to be counting to for funding in lieu of hundreds of millions of dollars being cut across these agencies.

>> But to your point about, you know, those arrest of student protesters, things like that, it Clarence Page, you had a column this week where you argue that the GOP has traditionally championed free speech.

But you see the Trump White House really trying to control what people can and cannot say things like Gulf of Mexico versus Gulf of America.

What kind of an effect can those attempts to influence the language people use have on our on our political discourse?

>> Well, it could have big from themselves.

Who will different angles move?

Gulf of America is going to catch frankly, but we see that that was it both ways because international service said it think AP there is a new services are still saying Gulf of Mexico or thing.

Both, but you could go on with them.

But the number changes Donald Trump wants to make in our language recognizing who gets what benefits from the government that certainly and high dei kick in, which virtually anything that have that have racial or other ethnic integration because the enemy doesn't do that.

But doesn't hurt him with his base.

I will say helps them that much, but it doesn't hurt with his base.

>> And creating a whole atmosphere of hostility around the White House or to lot of people are concerned.

So it's going to be one more question of distraction, which is the Trump has often been called the master obstruction.

And we've got a lot of >> Well, and Clarence, in your piece, you mention, you know what Jacoby brought up, as you know, the folks being, you know, rounded up and, you know, detained because of their participation in pro Gaza protest it.

Is it fair to say that you expect to see more of those kinds of tactics?

>> Well, in first 3 of them, I people in a way much aware of that.

But when look at the details people who have been a just a People who have been.

Picked up by ICE who are also one case, is naturalized citizen.

>> But because she participated protests that she's in custody with the fall of the public heard about had tattoos.

there are similar to those street games as far as ICE agents were concerned.

got to hold the way storm because it is far as I know, the kind of stories that kind of horror stories reminds us the days of Stalin and Russia.

But something right here around in our own country This guy's going to go on people try fight court.

But it's just once crisis that says be manufactured.

>> Well, turning to some local news, I have a Sharon you reported this week.

Chicago police and are reported how many traffic stops officers made last year.

couple 100,000 of them.

How did that kind of an error happened?

Well, when Chicago police officers make and traffic stop, they're supposed to do 2 things when they've got a call it into the dispatch center and they've got to fill out what's called a blue card and that card is supposed to record sort of the reason for the stop and the demographic information about the driver.

Now in 200,000 cases, it's not clear that whether blue cards were filled out and submitted to the state as required.

>> Now Chicago police say they made about 300,000 traffic stops and those are documented with the state.

That's almost 45% reduction from the year before.

And Superintendent Larry Snelling said, look, police officers need to be making targeted stops, designed to find violent crime and arrest criminals.

The question is if the police department isn't fully documenting all of those stops, which is what the sort of comparison between the blue cards in the dispatch.

Reports suggest, can this really be reformed?

And that is very much a topic of conversation for the federal court, which, of course, has ordered the Chicago Police Department to address these sort of issues.

What you know for a department that still operating from a trust deficit, you know, with with many Chicagoans.

>> There's a Kobe Cochran to these sorts of reporting failures just make their job that much more difficult or, you know, the folks here, the story and maybe think they they underreported, what Chicago has Chicago's police department has a correctly from around 9% correct compliance with its federal consent decree.

>> And I'll be real.

I joined alongside hundreds and thousands of advocates who, you know, when this consent decree was put in place, said it would not do enough to not only build back trust that I don't know.

At least in my community hasn't been there my entire life.

>> But would push the Chicago Police Department towards some broad sense of reforms and accountability and traffic stops he'd rounded up in that decree in.

So they're not meeting federally mandated reforms.

They're not working to capture what I would think are some of the most basic interactions they have with Chicago traffic stop something I've been trained about since I was 7 in this city.

And when I hear the Chicago Police Department celebrating a 45% reduction and you basically go in their closet and all of the trash that your mom told you to, like cleaning up and organizing put away is just sort of all there's 200,000 arrest on.

Look at those.

I it makes continue the amount of skepticism and frustration that I live with every day.

Yeah.

>> Well, quick Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas is office out with a new study this week on property taxes, particularly the importance of voting.

What did they find this?

Could that wealthy white homeowners are more likely to vote in property tax referenda.

So this could be.

>> Allowing your local government a higher debt limit to borrow more money or specific infrastructure project.

They're going to vote on basically why people turn out more white rich homeowners.

So that means folks with the lowest income aren't voicing their opinion on things that are going to raise their taxes, something that can least afford.

So this is a hobby horse of Treasure Pappas was responsible for mailing out bills and often bears the brunt of people saying why is my bill up so much?

So she she started doing these every year to kind of prove to people how important this could be try to get people to turn out.

So all these municipal elections are coming up next month.

If you care about your property taxes, find out whether your municipality has a property tax involved referendum and go all the way to the bottom of your balance.

Yeah, going up on Tuesday.

I was gonna say time is a flat circle is actually Tuesday.

A lot of us with like it or not ready or not for it.

>> All right.

Well, I want to end on some fun notes.

city cast celebrating its 1000th episode.

Congratulations.

Thank With a list of 1000 things that we love Chicago because if there's one thing we love as much as our city, it's debating a list the idea for this came about.

>> About 5 months ago, our executive producer, Simon, obviously a really just sort of threw it out there.

What if in celebration of 4 years making this podcast and newsletter in the 1000 episodes, we name 1000 things.

And so over the last 5 months we've gathered 2030, 40 things a day, some days less because of how busy we And we ultimately put it together in some of my favorites.

Are calling people goofy.

the Katie got bands dance.

Just relax by King Louis.

remember my mom pick up like a sun times or Tribune paper from the man stand in the Middle Street.

So like bananas, nervous every time want 80, we have a or 2 of our most visited guests over the last 4 years.

And then I heard it to explain everything from corruption trials, the property tax assessments.

And we really appreciate And the list has something for everybody in the city of Chicago.

One of my favorite ones that people about Chicago's Midwest friendliness quick as a non Chicago in Midwestern are your thoughts on that matter?

>> No comment and Carr.

We are pretty nice we give direction.

Yeah, we tell you about and I've traveled quite a bit.

I think Chicago is the nicest, nicest, big city in the country.

you're not saying anything mean about, you well, kuz and then we're gonna I wanted you number one entry.

How How much Chicagoans love Chicago tonight, Anderson, be another one of your entries, which I loved Downing of the year on the Walk from Parking Lot.

G The Kominsky.

Speaking I've been there Sox beat the Angels 8 to one in their home opener yesterday after an abysmal season last year.

All of, OK, so all for the season everything from innings, 3 home runs.

The crowd was Rockin, right.

And when he got the nachos, that right was was a great day on the South side.

It's good to put a W there.

>> I think we should take each one as they come.

We got 100 and, you know, 60 games left just like H w enjoy every ill just like put it in the closet with all way.

gold fish like, you every day, every day, just run and another moment of success.

Bulls with the buzzer Beater win over the Lakers.

It's you know, I'm a phone that that closely.

But 9 out of the last 11 to sitting up and taking notice.

I love that they can win 9 out of the last level.

Players like Kobe White good.

He was at plant.

Amazing and we're steel like fighting for 8, 9, 10 like 7, 8, games under 500 at one of the hottest team in the game.

Right now, the young players look I wish we would just testing invest in they do the best they can with the Yeah.

We're in with decade.

3 of the rebuilding post Jordan thanks to late and hasn't stopped some teams over the last few years.

So maybe we find ourselves in the first matchup in town the and pacemaker while Nick.

Yeah, all right.

Fair enough.

And you know what?

We made LeBron grumpy, even if we don't get any anywhere past the U.S. >> But you are all made us and hopefully that he very happy.

We are out of time.

So.

>> Our thanks to Jacoby Cochran, Heather, sure around quick and from Washington via Zoom, Clarence Page.

We're back to wrap things up right after this.

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

The Pope Brothers Foundation, additional support is provided by.

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

Don't forget, you can get Chicago tonight and the week in review streamed on Facebook, YouTube and our website That's W T Tw Dot com Slash news now for the weekend of you.

I'm Lumber.

Thanks for watching.

Stay healthy, stay safe and stay informed.

Have a great weekend.

A canine of the submissions I counted were about spring, which feels cricket today as we got up into the 70's, any big plans to enjoy this beautiful weather.

It's going to snow.

>> Still all right.

Nice come.

That's that's true.

I have no plans on working morning shift tomorrow or the I think this comes a second pool spring.

Something.

Yeah, 70's.

But yeah, we know it's going to fight back down again.

We just don't know.

I accept proclamations I didn't burned too many that's probably isn't a safe way to >> Closed captioning is made possible by Robert a cliff and Clifford law offices, a Chicago personal injury and wrongful death.

That proud to