Thursday marked Pritzker’s 40th daily televised update, and the 29th in a row from his office in downtown Chicago. Some people complain that he’s neglected the rest of Illinois, even as it shares in the economic pain and social disruption from measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Quentin Fulks, a spokesman for the Vote Yes for Fairness campaign, which is backing the measure, told Law360 that he considered the call to remove the question a political talking point pushed by the question’s opponents.

The state can test nearly 1,800 people a day at its three open drive-thru facilities, with two more opening in coming days. Pritzker said people still need to call ahead to those sites before showing up.

Fantasy sports, the court ruled, are games dominated by skill, not by chance.

The Federal Reserve announced unprecedented plans to directly purchase up to $500 billion in state and local government bonds. States with poorly managed finances, such as Illinois, stand to benefit most, but long-term threats loom without structural reforms.

The IDPH is advising hospital staff not to use the KN95 masks during higher-risk environments, and rely on N95 masks instead. Additionally, in new guidance issued Thursday night the IDPH said they would not recall any previously-distributed masks and advised first responders they could be used as “crisis alternatives.”

“I don’t think the decrease should be taken as good news because the figures are near record numbers of newly unemployed people filing for benefits,” one economist said. “All those people who previously filed for benefits, it’s probably safe to assume that they are still unemployed.”

“I don’t disagree with those that say there are those within our prison system that should probably be released,” Kankakee County Sheriff Mike Downey said. “We were told that these were going to be nonviolent. When you’re talking about armed robberies, murders, criminal sexual assaults, those individuals should not get released early based on the possibility that they could contract COVID.”

The states involved with Illinois include Indiana, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Minnesota. Border states not listed in the compact are Iowa and Missouri – Iowa still has not imposed a stay-at-home order, and Missouri only did so earlier this month. Both are led by Republican governors.

Mackey: Do you have a sense yet as to how high the backlog will get and when?

Mendoza: Not yet, but we are closely monitoring that. You can see it’s been ticking up. What I can assure you is that this last year’s budget did not give us significant tools to chip away at the bill backlog.

“Illinoisans are all too familiar with the pain the lack of a state budget can cause, so let me just say up front: we will not go without a state budget,” Pritzker said in a statement, referring to a two-year budget impasse under his predecessor that deepened the state’s fiscal problems.

The state total was down from a record-setting 201,041 the week of April 4, which in turn broke the mark set the week before that of 178,421. Previously, the high mark in Illinois was just 25,800 on Jan. 9, 1982.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act authorizes $14 billion for higher education institutions. The U.S. Department of Education last week released the online paperwork for colleges to accept the student aid portion. The institutional portion will be released later.

“The critical metric now is — and always has been — the capacity of our hospital system to handle the influx of COVID-19 cases that we know is coming. Therefore, your daily briefings should always include an update from the Illinois Hospital Association on the availability of hospital beds, ICU beds, and ventilators, broken down by region.”