Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has stepped in with significant financial support for a super PAC aiding the Senate campaign of his lieutenant governor, Juliana Stratton, as she seeks to gain traction in next month’s Democratic primary for an open seat.

Pritzker donated $5 million in December to Illinois Future PAC, according to a campaign finance report posted on the Federal Election Commission website.

NBC News reported that contributions from Pritzker and his family members – including more than $1 million contributed by cousin Jennifer Pritzker – made up nearly the entirety of the super PAC’s $6.3 million raised last year. 

The primary elections for the crowded Senate race are scheduled for March 17.

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Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker takes questions at the Illinois Capitol during the legislative session in Springfield, Oct. 30, 2025. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Stratton and Democratic Illinois Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly participated in a debate hosted by WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times, the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics and International House in late January.

The trio discussed a range of topics including whether they would support Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer if elected.

Krishnamoorthi said he was undecided and would “hear his pitch.” “I haven’t decided,” he told the moderators at the debate.

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Democratic U.S. Senate primary contenders U.S. Reps. Robin Kelly and Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton take the stage for a debate on Jan. 26, 2026, at the University of Chicago. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Kelly said her support would depend on who might run against Schumer.

Stratton, however, delivered a firm rejection, saying she has already made her position public.

“No, and I’ve already said that I will not support Chuck Schumer as leader in the Senate, and I’m the only person on this stage that has said so,” she said.

Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton speaks during a press conference on reports of federal deployments in Chicago, Illinois, on Sept. 2, 2025. (Jim Vondruska/Reuters)

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Stratton received Pritzker’s endorsement in April as she campaigns to succeed Sen. Dick Durbin, who has said he will not seek a sixth term.

NBC News reported that Krishnamoorthi, the leading Democratic candidate in the Senate race, has built a massive war chest, pouring roughly $20.5 million into television advertising since July, according to data from AdImpact.

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2 – Photo: Amar Ujala

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A reward of Rs 1 lakh was declared on the betel nut killer Banarasi Yadav who murdered Mahendra Gautam in Sarnath police station area. Today there was an encounter with the STF team on Bariasanpur Ring Road under Chaubepur police station. After the encounter, he was sent to the nearest hospital in injured condition, where the doctor declared him dead. More than two dozen serious cases are registered against Banarasi. Two pistols and a large number of cartridges have been recovered from the spot.

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Two people have died after a light aircraft crash in Greater Manchester.

The crash happened in a farmland area in Littleborough, Rochdale, shortly after 11am.

Greater Manchester Police said two men were found and they were pronounced dead at the scene.

It is not believed there was anyone else on board and there were no reported injuries on the ground.

Chief Superintendent Danny Inglis said: “This is a devastating incident where two people have lost their lives and our thoughts are with their families and friends.

“We have been working closely with emergency service colleagues and partner agencies throughout the day to establish the full circumstances and we will be on scene overnight and into tomorrow.

“There will be an enhanced presence as officers and investigators comprehensively survey the area and ensure all available evidence is recovered.

“If anyone has any information, or witnessed the crash, we would urge you to get in touch with us.”

Photos shared on social media appear to show a yellow parachute partly wrapped around the base of an electricity pylon.

There are reports that the aircraft which crashed is a Cirrus SR20, a plane which is fitted with a parachute system designed to deploy in an emergency.

The flight tracking website, flightradar24, posted a message on X showing an image of a Cirrus aircraft, believed to be involved in the accident.

It said a plane departed Birmingham Airport at 9.59am and the last signal was received at around 10.39am “south of the M62 motorway near Marsden”. It has not officially been confirmed whether this is the aircraft which crashed.

A Birmingham Airport spokesman confirmed a private light aircraft left its XLR Executive Jet Centre at around 10am on Tuesday.

Other images from the scene show a large response from the emergency services, with several fire engines, police and ambulance vehicles.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) issued a statement related to the crash.

“An accident involving a light aircraft which occurred today (3 February) near Rochdale, Greater Manchester has been notified to the AAIB.

“An investigation has been launched and a multidisciplinary team of inspectors are on their way to the accident site.”

Anti–Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agitators in Minneapolis have set up a makeshift street checkpoint to track federal agents, stopping vehicles and questioning drivers to determine whether they are ICE officers, video shows.

Agitators could be seen standing in the roadway near makeshift barricades and traffic cones while they stopped or flagged down passing vehicles.

In one clip, an agitator dressed in a black coat and black mask was seen approaching a stopped vehicle and directly asking the driver if they were “ICE,” before allowing the car to proceed.

“It looks like in our system that your plates come up as an ICE plate,” the agitator said to the driver.

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Agitators at a barricade on Cedar Avenue near 34th Street as a checkpoint to vet ICE and federal immigration enforcement vehicles entering the Powderhorn neighborhood in south Minneapolis (Richard Tsong-Taatari/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)

“That doesn’t seem like it’s the case,” he added. “I just want to come through and ask what’s up and see how you’re doing.”

The agitator also asked the driver for his name. 

“He’s clearly Somalian,” someone is also heard saying.

Journalist Jorge Ventura captured the video from the scene. Ventura asked the agitator what system they were using, pressing him on how the group were identifying vehicles and noting that the driver was not a federal agent.

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An anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agitator approaches a vehicle and questions the driver during a makeshift checkpoint on a residential street in Minneapolis, video shows. (X / @VenturaReport)

The agitator responded that ICE agents were renting a large number of vehicles and said the car would be taken “off the list.”

The agitator acknowledged that the encounter was being posted on social media, but said many nearby residents supported the effort. 

“A lot of the neighbors support what we’re doing,” the agitator said. “So happy to be here.”

Ventura said the agitators were stopping vehicles on Cedar Avenue, which runs through the Somali-dense Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, known as “Little Mogadishu.” He said they were stopping vehicles, checking drivers’ identification and running license plates through what they described as a “database,” adding that he did not observe any Minneapolis police officers at the scene.

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Agitators build a barricade on Cedar Avenue near 34th Street as a checkpoint to vet ICE and federal immigration enforcement vehicles entering the Powderhorn neighborhood in south Minneapolis. (Richard Tsong-Taatari/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)

The activity appeared to take place entirely on a public street, with agitators effectively setting up what resembled an informal checkpoint aimed at identifying or tracking federal immigration agents operating in the city.

The Minneapolis Police Department told Fox News Digital that the roadblocks were removed. It is unclear if any arrests were made. 

“The Public Works team — with assistance from the Minneapolis Police Department — cleared debris and homemade roadblocks yesterday,” the department said. “Given the high-traffic and high-speed block of roadways on Cedar Ave., the City cleared the streets to ensure public safety for the neighborhoods and emergency vehicles.”

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The video surfaced amid heightened tensions surrounding immigration enforcement in Minnesota, as anti-ICE activists have staged repeated protests and confrontations tied to federal operations in recent weeks.

It comes after the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis during separate federal enforcement actions, incidents that intensified unrest and scrutiny surrounding ICE activity in the city.

Investigators looking into the disappearance of US TV host Savannah Guthrie’s mother have found signs of forced entry at her Arizona home.

Savannah Guthrie is a main co-anchor on Today, the morning show on NBC News, the US sister network of Sky News.

A person familiar with the inquiry told the Associated Press that evidence in the home of Nancy Guthrie, 84, indicated that she had been kidnapped during the night.

They said that several of Nancy Guthrie’s personal items, including her mobile phone, wallet and her car, had been left in her property.

Investigators do not believe at this point that the abduction was part of a robbery, home invasion or kidnapping-for-ransom plot, the person said.

Police officers are currently reviewing information from licence plate cameras and surveillance video from nearby homes while working to analyse data from local phone towers.

Nancy Guthrie was first reported missing by her family after she failed to appear at church on Sunday.

She was last seen at her home near Tucson, Arizona, the night before at around 9.30pm.

In a social media post made on Monday, Savannah Guthrie described her mother as “a woman of deep conviction, a good and faithful servant”.

She asked supporters to “raise your prayers with us and believe with us that she will be lifted by them in this very moment. Bring her home”.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos urged whoever has Nancy Guthrie to free her because she could die without access to medication.

He said: “If she’s alive right now, her meds are vital. I can’t stress that enough. It’s been better than 24 hours, and the family tells us if she doesn’t have those meds, it can become fatal.”

He added that investigators has taken samples that they hoped would provide at least part of a DNA profile.

People searching for Nancy Guthrie used drones and search dogs and were supported by volunteers and Border Patrol.

Search crews have now been pulled back, however.

Mr Nanos said: “We don’t see this as a search mission so much as it is a crime scene.”

He previously said that Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance was not “dementia related”.

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“She’s as sharp as a tack,” he said. “The family wants everyone to know that this isn’t someone who just wandered off.”

Savannah Guthrie often brought her mother on Today as a guest.

Speaking on the show in 2022 on Nancy Guthrie’s 80th birthday, she said: “She has met unthinkable challenges in her life with grit, without self-pity, with determination and always, always with unshakeable faith.

“She loves us, her family, fiercely, and her selflessness and sacrifice for us, her steadfastness and her unmovable confidence is the reason any of us grew up to do anything.”

The House of Representatives passed a federal funding bill aimed at ending the partial government shutdown on Tuesday, which will bring the four-day standoff to a close shortly after the legislation gets to President Donald Trump’s desk.

The funding bill is a compromise struck between Senate Democrats and the White House that would fund roughly 97% of the federal government through the end of fiscal 2026.

Trump played an integral role in hashing out the new deal and quelling a subsequent rebellion by conservative lawmakers to get it over the finish line.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., signaled he was strongly against the plan, despite his Senate counterpart’s role in putting it together. But several Democrats bucked his concerns in the end to vote in favor of it.

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The House of Representatives sent a bill to end the government shutdown to President Donald Trump’s desk after several Democrats bucked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ warnings the left would not support it. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Democrats had initially walked away from a bipartisan House deal to finish funding the federal government through the end of fiscal 2026 on Sept. 30, rebelling against a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over Trump’s handling of unrest in Minneapolis.

Their mutiny left roughly 78% of the government’s yearly funding hanging in the balance because the DHS bill was lumped into a wider package authorizing budgets for the departments of War, Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Education.

The deal struck between Senate Democrats and the White House would fully fund those remaining areas while only extending current funding levels for DHS through Feb. 13, in order to give Democrats and Republicans time to hash out a longer-term bipartisan plan.

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Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters on Tuesday that the legislation would succeed, though he hinted at some dissatisfaction with how negotiations played out.

“This is not my preferred route. I wanted to keep all six bills together,” Johnson said. “But listen, the president agreed with Schumer that they would separate Homeland, and we’ll do that, and we’ll handle it. … The Republicans are going to do the responsible thing.”

The Senate’s federal funding deal survived an important hurdle late Tuesday morning, clearing a House-wide “rule vote” to allow for lawmakers to debate the measure and set up a vote on final passage by early afternoon.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., walks from the chamber to speak with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Nov. 12, 2025. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

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It comes after a pair of House conservatives announced they would be backing off their threats to sink the legislation during the rule vote if the legislation was not paired with an unrelated election integrity bill called the SAVE America Act.

Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., and Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., warned they would not support the bill during the rule vote without the SAVE America Act attached but pivoted on Monday night after a conversation with the White House.

“As of right now, with the current agreement that we have, as well as discussions, we will both be a yes on the rule,” Luna said. “There is something called a standing filibuster that would effectively allow Sen. Thune to put voter ID on the floor of the Senate. We are hearing that that is going well, and he is considering that…so we are very happy about that.”

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The SAVE America Act would require voter ID at the polls and create a new proof of citizenship mandate in the voter registration process.

But Luna’s insistence that Thune had embraced the standing filibuster, a little-known and antiquated legislative maneuver, appears it was not quite accurate.

Still, Thune said that there were Senate Republicans who “expressed an interest in that, so we’re going to have a conversation about it. But there weren’t any commitments made.”

He noted that forcing the standing filibuster to try and pass the SAVE America Act, or any of its variations coming from the House, would be a massive drain on time in the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks at a press conference with other members of Senate Republican leadership following a policy luncheon in Washington, Oct. 28, 2025. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Doing so “ties up floor time indefinitely,” Thune said. That’s because of rules that guarantee any senator gets up to two speeches on a bill. That, coupled with the clock being reset by amendments to the bill, means that the Senate could effectively be paralyzed for months as Republicans chip away at Democratic opposition.

“There’s always an opportunity cost,” Thune said.

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“Well, at any time there’s an amendment offered, and that amendment is tabled, it resets the clock,” he continued. “The two-speech rule kicks in again. So let’s say, you know, every Democrat enator talks for two hours. That’s 940 hours on the floor.”

It’s not immediately clear when Trump will sign the funding bill, but it’s expected the White House will want to move fast. The longest government shutdown in history, which lasted 43 days, just ended in November.