Chicago Tonight, Tuesday, August 11 2026

It secured the beaches of Normandy. Reported from the front lines, harnessed the power of the atom. Experience it in Women of World War II. More untold stories. Tonight at 7 on WTTW. Revolution. Revolution is not a spectator, for silence. is a noise to. Tonight at 8.30 on WTTW. Hi, Chicago. I'm Patrick. You're watching WTTW. Hello, and thanks for joining us on Chicago. Hello, and thanks for joining us on Chicago tonight. Here's what we're looking at. We don't need to tell you. It's been a wacky weather year for Illinois, today included. So how might a historically strong El Nino impact fall and winter in the Midwest? Development cannot happen at the expense of working people. Mayor Johnson is calling for a temporary moratorium on data centers in Chicago. And Illinois sues over President Trump's latest tariffs. State Attorney General Kwame Raoul joins us tonight to explain. First off tonight, the sun is shining in Chicago now, but darkened skies earlier brought multiple rounds of thunderstorms, damaging winds, and tornado warnings. In the immediate aftermath of those late morning storms, over half a million people in the Chicago and northwestern Indiana region lost power. 230,000 are still without power in the Chicago area. There are numerous reports of wind gusts of 80 miles an hour, which the weather service warns is equivalent to an EF0 tornado, minus the rotation, and can uproot trees and cause structural damage. All flights at both Chicago airports were temporarily stopped. The average delay time at O'Hare is about, as of 5 p.m. today, it's about, excuse me, it's 17 minutes at midway. Two custodians are dead after a shooting at a Chicago public school. Chicago police say a 48-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man were found unresponsive inside Mark Twain Elementary School in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood yesterday afternoon. Both sustained a single gunshot wound to the head and were pronounced dead at Christ Hospital. The Chicago Sun Times reports the man was identified as the shooter in the police report, which stated he was upset about being relocated from the school. No students were in the building at the time. Classes resume on August 24th. Up next, a look at today's odd weather and what to expect this winter right after this. Chicago Tonight is made possible in part by the Alexandra and John Nichols family, the Polk Brothers Foundation, and the support of these donors.

Today's storms were another reminder of extreme summer weather that's becoming more common in the Midwest. But winter is coming, as it always is in Chicago. And meteorologists are predicting this year's El Niño weather pattern to be one of the strongest in decades. Warm waters in the Pacific Ocean could affect weather all around the globe from now until spring. Here to break down what it means and what folks might want to prepare for in Chicago is Scott Collis, an atmospheric scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. Welcome back. Good to see you in person, Scott. Good evening, Brandis. Good to see you again. So before we talk about El Niño, let's talk a little bit about today, this latest round of severe storms this summer. What happened? So the National Weather Service, as of now, has confirmed two tornadoes so far, one in Will County, one in Cook County, and I need to stress crews are still out right now. into Indiana yet and done damage surveys down there. What you said was very apt. The storm as it came through the western suburbs, it became what we call organized, it became basically a wall of storms. That started to spin up tornadoes along the front. As it moved through Chicago, it just became this wall of wind that as you said was equivalent to an EF zero tornado minus the rotation plus the massive area as it went through. I know this morning we had our own tornado warning here at the studio, actually, in this area. What do we know about where that confirmed tornado in Cook County was? I don't know the exact location yet. The weather service will release the tracks when they've finished their surveys. They really just released those counties and locations right now. The way it works is the public give damage reports. We look at where we think those tornadoes touch down according to weather radar and crews are dispatched to... those areas and it is the responsibility of the National Weather Service to determine whether a tornado happened or not. And they've been busy this summer. What's been happening with tornadoes in Illinois this year? Again, this is breaking news. So the last time I looked into this, which was on the 27th after the last tornado outbreak, we're at 191 tornadoes. When we look at the total number of tornadoes in a state, the record number of tornadoes, we came third behind Texas and Texas. So what that means is we've had more tornadoes this season than any other tornado season in a place like Oklahoma or Alabama. For instance, it's been crazy. What does that tell you? Tornadoes are really hard to attribute. What it's told me is all the ingredients for a tornado have existed over this period. It has been wet, it has been hot, and we have had just the right patterns of winds above to make those storms spin up. Now the thing about this kind of weather, this is that we like to research at Argole National Laboratory is it's reinforcing. When it rains a lot, the soils get wet, it becomes very conducive to new storms. and so on and so forth it goes around. Okay. So now let's talk about El Nino. Remind us what it is. It's another one of those self-reinforcing patterns that loads the dice.

for our, especially for our winter. It's really a wintertime phenomenon. What it is, is there is a tongue of water off the equatorial coast of South America, so right along the equator, where the trade winds actually meet. When that gets warmer than about half a degree, and El Nino forms. We're forecasting for it to get up to about 2.5 degrees, what's called a very strong El Nino. What that means is there is a big change in temperatures from the equators to the mid-latitudes or poles. Storm systems like to run along those changes in temperature. It's where the jet stream likes to sit. So when that El Nino is strong, storms shift to our south. They tend to miss Chicago. So we will have a dryer, or sorry, the dice will be loaded for a warmer and drier winter than normal. Now, you mentioned a very strong El Nino. Some folks have thrown around the term super El Nino. Why so much stronger? Superer this year. So they called the 2015-16 El Nino, the Godzilla El Nino. I prefer that one more. Yeah, Super El Nino is not an official meteorological term, but we'll go with it. It happens because there's a set of winds called the trade winds, and when they slacken, when they get weaker, it allows warmer water to form. There's less clouds, there's less storms, there's less pushing of the water back from those winds, unlike the winds that we feel, which normally run out of our west to our east. These actually run from the west towards, sorry, from the east towards the west. So they push that warm water off towards Asia and Australia. But now, because those winds have slackened, that warm tongue has developed. How have passed El Nino's affected. the Chicago area. Yeah, so the 2015-16 El Nino was very typical for the Chicago winter. It was, we actually got a fair bit of precipitation though, but it fell as rain, sleet, and freezing rain during that season rather than snow. We had about normal precipitation that year. Remember, these just load the dice, but we had a much warmer winter that year. Okay. What about globally? Okay, globally the pattern is very interesting. Even across the United States of America, it's quite different. For instance, the southwest, Colorado, Arizona is likely to see... more snow because those storm tracks will go closer to those mountain ranges and because those mountain ranges nicer high they really don't care about it warming up so much it is and this is from where I might tell by the accent originally from Australia it's a portent for droughts and wildfires there down in Australia so it really does

disrupt global patterns. The reason why we use things like El Nino's to do these seasonal prediction is that the oceans change slower than the atmosphere. So again, they can give us an idea of how the dice have been loaded. So we have El Nino forecasts over the coming months from NOAA, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. Can you walk us through what this graph is telling us, Scott? So this is showing us by month or by season the chances of a very strong, strong. moderate or weak El Nino. If you look at that center column there, which is over our winter, which we can see from just by looking at, that's where we're most likely to see in El Nino. There is 0% chance we will not have an El Nino, and there's an 80% chance. It'll be a very strong, like the 15-16 El Nino. Okay. How do scientists forecast El Nino? Very important to note. Scientists do forecast El Nino. There are people involved in this. They use a mixture between statistical relationships between those sea surface temperatures and what normally happens. You basically look during an El Nino year, what did I normally see in Chicago, Boston, Denver. We also use numerical models, numerical simulations where we actually simulate the ocean currents and things like that. It's still state of the art running one of these weather simulations where we actually can join the ocean and atmosphere together and have them talk to each other. There is more... energy moved in the first 10 meters of the ocean in the entire atmosphere. And there are buoys in the ocean that help do all this. Yeah, this is a Tao Titan array. This is a gold standard for collecting this information because the satellites that we normally use to just look at ocean temperatures, they can't penetrate under the surface. So it might be really warm at the surface, but really cold underneath. This Tao Triton array has told us that that warm tongue, it's about 150 meters deep. So that warm water... is not going anywhere anytime soon. All right. There's our meteorology and science lesson for tonight in Chicago tonight. Scott Collis. Thanks so much. I appreciate you. My pleasure anytime. Up next, Mayor Johnson signs an executive order to hit pause on data centers in Chicago. Heather Sharon with that story right after this.

Chicago should stop allowing data centers to set up shop in the city. That's according to Mayor Branton Johnson, who's calling for new rules to prevent the city's air and water from being polluted by the insatiable demand for electricity. Chicagoans have been absolutely clear. They do not want data centers expanding across our city without strong protection for their communities, their utility bills, their air, water, and their quality of life. Our Heather Sharon joins us now. Heather, so Johnson signed his 24th executive order today. What does it do exactly? Well, the mayor said that the city's current rules are outdated and need to be brought into the modern area. In most parts of the city, which is... permitted for commercial uses, data centers can set up shop without special permission from city officials. And Johnson wants that to change. He says city officials should be able to consider these centers cumulative environmental burden to prevent neighborhoods from bearing the cost. What about that, you know, the much needed jobs and tax revenue these developments generate? Isn't the city in the middle of a financial crisis? It sure is. And Johnson says he loves jobs. He loves economic activity, but not at the expense of Chicagoans health and welfare. He is often fond of saying that under his leadership, Chicago is open for business, but not up for sale. So back in 2024, all but one alder person voted for a measure encouraging data centers to come to Chicago. Is the city council likely to reverse course and impose the temporary moratorium that the mayor is calling on today, calling for today? Well, it's not clear what the city council will do, but it's clear that the politics surrounding data centers are very different today than they were back in 2024 when most people thought they were in unalloyed good bringing jobs and new activity. However, as these data... centers have sprouted across the nation, there are real concerns about what it's doing, not just to the environment, but to residents' electricity's bill, which have risen significantly to sort of provide that juice that these centers needs. Now, it's not clear whether Brandon Johnson is going to run for a second term in office, but he is clearly taking a page from other progressive candidates across the nation who have jumped on this issue to fuel their bids for elected office. We'll have to wait and see whether he follows suit. Yeah, of course, an ongoing issue, an ongoing topic of discussion. Heather Sharon, thanks so much. Thanks, Brandis. And you can read Heather's full story on our website. It's all at WTTW.com slash news.

Illinois's tense relationship with the federal government continues. From tariffs to voter data, the state has filed several lawsuits in response to recent proposals from the Trump administration. Now, as the state awaits a response, Illinoisans are wondering how they could be impacted. Joining us to talk more about this is Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. Welcome back, A.G., thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. So last week, your office, along with 22 other attorneys general, announced that you all are filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration over their imposed tariffs for the third time. This time President Trump is alleging that these tariffs are for countries that have not done enough to enforce restrictions on goods that are made by forced labor. What's your response to his reasons this time? The reasons in part are irrelevant. It's the process, right? He does not have the power to impose these tariffs. We've gone through this twice before. He's trying different acts and different portions of acts. First it was IEPA, now it's his trade act, a different section of a trade act that we beat him in tariffs 2.0. But he's still violating the law in how he does this and thereby raising prices. on American consumers, American businesses, at the worst time to be doing so, you know, at a time when this war that he's entered into unnecessarily has already risen prices on American consumers and businesses. That said, and I know you're the Attorney General for Illinois, but if forced labor, labor is the problem, is tariffs how you address forced labor? You know, that wouldn't be my approach. You have to hone in on that directly. We're dealing with terrorists being imposed on 80 countries that comprise about 99, over 99 percent of imports into the United States, either imported products or imported parts that are part of products that are made within the U.S. And so it's punishing. Americans. It's punishing American consumers and it's punishing American businesses. A recent analysis by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York concluded that American consumers and businesses, as you said, paid nearly 90% of the costs of tariffs in 2025. What are some of the main industries where Illinoisans felt the impacts of these tariffs? Well, I think it's in manufacturing. Certainly the farming industry has been impacted by... by tariffs, but it's really across the, across the board when you talk about imports, because these are tariffs on, again, 80 countries that comprise 99% of all imports into the U.S. And so there aren't many industries that are not somehow touched by.

by these tariffs. Right. And you mentioned, of course, the ongoing war with Iran and the impact on costs continuing to rise. Would more tariffs impact these already rising costs? Oh, yeah. It would do so. As you mentioned, 90% of the costs are passed on to American consumers. And so it's like a tax on an increase on taxes on consumers. are already struggling with the affordability crisis. And notwithstanding the fact that the president says that affordability is a new word and the crisis is not real, it is real if you ask American families who are struggling today. A federal judge recently ruled that the Department of Justice does not have the authority to demand Illinois or any other states, for that matter, their unredacted voter registration list. What do you think is wrong? What's the problem with the administration getting their hands on voter registration lists? Well, the main problem is the Constitution. The Constitution gives to the states the authority to... to administer elections in all 50 of the states. And the president seems to have a disregard for the Constitution and the privacy of individuals at that. And so there's a dual problem. This is one of many actions that we've taken to protect the privacy of Americans, but this is also one of many actions we've taken to protect the Constitution. Your office recently published a guide to help Illinois voters in the upcoming midterm election. What did you want them to know with this guide? Well, we want them to know, for instance, to make plans early to vote. You know, there have been concerns raised with regards to, notwithstanding the president's attempts to block mail-in voting. It's another area where we've prevailed over... the president, mail-in voting, does continue to exist here in the state of Illinois as well as in other states. However, we want to caution folks to make their plans to, if they're going to vote by mail, to do so early. They're concerns about how swiftly the Postal Service might process elections, Mel, and we have our eye on that in the event that we need to take actions there. You know, the Attorney General's office has historically had election day duty. We've had to look more broadly than that because there's early voting, there's mail-in voting and so forth. We are collaborating with other states and other advocacy organizations to make sure that the right to vote is protected here in Illinois and throughout the country. You also recently filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after its attempt to cap funding for permanent housing projects to address homelessness in Illinois. Explain for us what this means and how it impacts the people who were depending on those services. Well, it's again an illegal...

cap on grants that would come from HUD to address homelessness in a permanent manner. And so the administration is exceeding its authority to try to impose these caps. And again, at the worst time to be doing so when people are indeed struggling with homelessness and housing insecurity. The heartlessness of this is one thing, but the illegality is the other thing. Well, because, of course, the administration has, their approach to homelessness has been at odds with the state's approach, which has been a housing first approach, and then providing those other services with regards to, you know, mental health or substance abuse treatment versus treat that first, then get the people housing, which has been the approach of the Trump administration. Exactly. You know, housing first establishes a certain stability. in order for you to take care of those other concerns that, whether it's mental health or education or job services and so forth. Okay. You've made several comments urging Congress to restore the temporary protected status of Haitians. You're also, of course, a descendant of Haitian immigrants. What is your response to those that argue that TPS status should end, given that it is temporary? Well, TPS is for circumstances where you might have individuals from another country seeking asylum in the country because of the conditions in their home country. I was disappointed in the Supreme Court's decision because it disregarded the fact that there's a mandate. that the Secretary of Homeland Security consult with the State Department before making any such decision to terminate TPS. Had they done so, they would realize that State Department does not allow commercial flights to fly to Port of Prince Haiti because of conditions in Haiti. There's gang violence, there's lack of medical services. This is all spelled out on the State Department's website. as to what the conditions are in Haiti. So if there were ever a situation where TPS should be continued, it obviously exists with regards to Haitians. The other thing about that lawsuit, it ignored the animus that... The majority in the court said that there was no racial animus in the decision making, notwithstanding the president's statements specifically about Haiti calling it an asshole country and saying, why should we be taking Haitian immigrants instead of taking... immigrants from Sweden and Norway. If there's not a clear racist animus displayed in the president's words, I don't know what racism is. And before we run out of time and let you go, AG,

Some other state news, Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch, who's under some firing for his handling of sexual harassment investigation into now former state lawmaker Harry Benton and some of his own interactions. We understand that your office does not have a role in that investigation, but, you know, as a member of his party as well, do you think that he should step down as speaker? What do you think should happen here? Well, the determination of whose speaker is made in a democratic manner. by members of the House of Representatives. And I think the members of that were coming up on the beginning of another General Assembly, and the members of the House of Representatives will have the ability to assess the situation. And the IG's report has been made public. Our role was to review and to make recommendations on any redactions, but that was our sole role. I think the democratic process should make the determination of who's speaker and who's Senate president. All right. We'll have to leave it there. Attorney General, Aquaman Rule, thanks again for joining us. Thank you. And that's our show for this Tuesday night. Check out our website for our Chicago Summer Festival Guide from street fests and art shows to outdoor concerts and cultural celebrations. We've got you covered. It's all at WTTW.com slash festivals. And join us tomorrow night at 5.30 and 10. A progressive wave of candidates are racking up primary wins at the polls, what it could mean for the midterms and the future of the Democratic Party. Now, for all of us here at Chicago tonight, I'm Brandis Friedman. Thank you for watching. Stay healthy and safe and have a good night.

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