The Illinois Accountability Commission is hearing testimony from Chicago residents on the brutal tactics by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during last fall’s Operation Midway Blitz deportation campaign. Students and workers joined forces this morning to support striking University of Illinois-Chicago graduate employees. New figures show contacts to Illinois’ Domestic Violence Hotline have grown for the fifth consecutive year.

Plus, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday it’s expanding its efforts to seek and implement the death penalty. It’s been fifteen years since Illinois abolished capital punishment for state convictions. One activist who has been instrumental in advocating against the death penalty is Sister Helen Prejean. Sister Helen first started counseling people on death row in the 1980s.