A spokesperson for the Illinois Federation of Teachers, said the union has a host of expectations if schools reopen for in-person instruction in the fall: limiting classroom capacity to 15, allowing instructors to choose whether to teach in-person or remote, required 2-week quarantine upon exposure, special paid leave for employees who need to quarantine, testing availability and revamping of building ventilation systems.

Of the agency’s five commissioners, only Sadzi Oliva questioned Zalewski’s participation in the hearing. Oliva, a former state prosecutor, said she would feel “complicit” if she sat silent and allowed the proceedings to continue unchallenged.

The lawsuit says the Illinois Municipal League asked the state Board of Elections and lawmakers who sponsored the bill for clarification, but didn’t receive an answer. “This is not an antagonistic effort,” said IML Executive Director Brad Cole. “We are just asking for an answer and we can’t get one.

The Monday filing came less than 24 hours before a scheduled hearing on a lawsuit filed in Logan County against Pritzker and IDOC Director Rob Jefferys on behalf of 89 Illinois sheriffs.

As of Tuesday night, 1,491 people were hospitalized with coronavirus in Illinois, including 355 people in the ICU and 152 on ventilators. “Not only have we started to see an increase in the number of cases … but we’re also seeing a slight increase in hospital admissions,” said Dr. Ngozi Ezike, head of the Illinois Department of Public Health.

A spokesperson for Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) wrote in an email that “the Senate has no plans at this time to reconvene before the scheduled veto session in November.”

The ICC leader’s husband, Democratic state Rep. Michael J. Zalewski of Riverside, has spent nearly $75,000 in campaign funds on legal services since his father’s home was visited by agents armed with a search warrant, records show.

Sports which are considered “medium-risk” like basketball and soccer will be limited to inter-team scrimmages only. “High-risk” sports like football will be limited to no-contact practices and training only.

After nearly 50 years, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the Governor’s Office no longer needs federal oversight to halt patronage hiring. His request came three days before federal prosecutors said Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan turned public utilities into patronage havens.

The multimillion-dollar contract the state awarded Deloitte for “telephone agent services” lists the four subcontractors Deloitte then signed-up to man the IDES call center. One is based in Illinois. More than $2 million were estimated for a company in Texas, more than $4 million for a company in Pennsylvania, and more than $1.7 million for a third in Indiana.

With high unemployment and an economy ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, some first responders said calls for suicide attempts are becoming far too familiar. “Historically, increases in rates of severe mental illnesses have often followed in the aftermath of national crisis,” Dr. James Lake wrote. “For example, during the decade of the Great Depression from 1929 to 1929, the suicide rate rose from 13.9 to 17.4 per 100,000.”

Unexpectedly, Pritzker’s Friday executive order — number 47 of 2020 — allowed for the opening of schools for in-person learning for the fall term in accordance with Illinois Department of Public Health guidelines.

The state and most of its urban areas are failing to get residents back to work at rates matching the national average.

In that new count and the five new lawsuits (filed in Clinton, Richland, Edgar, Bond and Sangamon counties), state Rep. Darren Bailey and the other plaintiffs now assert Pritzker has improperly based his assertion of emergency powers on a pandemic that has not produced a statewide health disaster that is as disastrous as the governor has asserted.