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Jim Dey: “The Illinois State’s Attorney’s Association is apoplectic about the new requirements that expand arrestees’ Miranda rights. It contends that this provision will ‘essentially preclude law enforcement from questioning a suspect once in custody,’ hampering criminal investigations.”
Executive Director Craig Anderson noted that getting proper guidance from the state has at times been challenging. “We had been asking since the early fall, could we know and be able to communicate with our schools what metric we are looking for, where do we have to get to.” Instead, IHSA finds out information when the general public does.
“Families will continue to have the option of remote learning. Some parents, along with the teachers union, have asked CPS to spend more resources to improve remote teaching. There’s room for compromise here, we think. But online learning will always be second-best, and getting students safely back in classrooms must remain the primary goal.”
The mayor’s office has had no presence at these negotiations. Some insiders have viewed that as a positive, allowing for more productive discussions between the district and the union.
“If we were like, ‘Let’s just get all the educators done,’” that would take about five weeks, Arwady said, but added, that would mean “we would stop vaccinating everybody else for about five weeks. … Although we know how critical schools are, that’s why they’re in (the 1b vaccination stage), we wouldn’t be actually vaccinating the people that will get us past COVID as a city, right?”
According to Experian, the average credit card balance in Illinois dropped 14% in 2020 from $6,253 to $5,365. Overall credit card debt in the U.S. dropped as well.
The Illinois House has canceled all but one day for the month of February. That’d leave only six scheduled days in March to advance something before the March 15 deadline for some businesses to file taxes.
Though it’s based on complicated math, the reproduction rate offers a simple gauge of the pandemic’s trajectory. A number above 1 means the epidemic is growing. Below 1 means it’s shrinking.
The Democratic lawmakers wrote to Pritzker, It is unfair to business owners, employees and local residents to remain in a tier of mitigation efforts based on a number that does not accurately show the whole picture of our communities and the availability of healthcare resources that exist regionally.”
Trevor Till, who was hoping to go to the state championships for pole vaulting in his senior year of high school but couldn’t because of coronavirus restrictions, committed suicide in October. His mother believes “100 percent” that the lockdown “changed Trevor from who he was to the person that did this.”
The union has insisted its decision is about safety, adding teachers need to at least have access to a COVID-19 vaccine before returning to the classroom, but it’s a decision that’s also affecting thousands of CPS parents. “That’s not right to me. It’s like this constant barking in-between, and we’re in the middle,” said parent Bridgett White.
The bill was the result of a yearslong effort by a group called the Medicaid Working Group, made up of lawmakers from both parties and both chambers as well as officials from the governor’s office and the Department of Healthcare and Family Services. The group consults with hospitals, clinics and other stakeholders to design Medicaid policy.
More people survive suicide attempts than actually die, IDPH said, though that’s not quantified.
State Sen. Steve McClure, R-Springfield, said it’s unacceptable. “We want to help, we want to be part of the process, we know we can do things to help and yet we’re not allowed to. And then when things go wrong it’s somebody else’s fault, it’s not his fault.”
Illinois’ increased joblessness runs counter to the national trend. Every state but Kansas outpaced Illinois’ anemic recovery last week, according to rankings by WalletHub.
Illinois Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) are among other senate democrats reintroducing legislation that would make Washington D.C. the 51st state.
Read the full statement from the Governor’s office: “…’We are deploying these forces in support of civilian law enforcement based on threat-levels against the U.S. Capitol. These threats were assessed by the FBI and other federal agencies,’ said Maj. Gen. Rich Neely, the Adjutant General of Illinois and Commander of the Illinois National Guard…”
Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs spoke on a wide variety of topics facing Illinoisans. Among them, he said Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been made aware of reports of potential violence at the state Capitol. “Especially during the Impeachment trial the F.B.I has said they have heard reports of possible violence or insurrections around the country.”
The city’s unfunded pensions sat at $325 million as of February 2020, and it’s expected to grow by millions every year. Police and fire department pensions grew by $2.3 million since last year alone.
Illinois’ Constitution states that redistricting done after June 30 is taken away from the state’s majority party and handed to an eight-person committee staffed by four Democrats and four Republicans. If the sides can’t agree on a map, a tie-breaking member is chosen by drawing names out of a replica of Abraham Lincoln’s hat.
“Kinzinger doesn’t doubt that the devil is at work in American politics. He just suspects that the enemy might be lurking in his own house.”
Said Erin Aleman, executive director of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), a regional planning group, “We need to shore up our policies that we need to attract and retain business and identify those places where businesses might want to locate — and then also share with them that we have a skilled workforce.”
Fewer than 17 percent of principals and assistant principals surveyed by the group thought the district was prepared and ready to open schools. Only 28 percent of school leaders thought CPS provided sufficient reopening guidance while 22 percent of respondents thought they had adequate staff to reopen.
For comparison, in Illinois there were 95,472 new unemployment claims filed during the week of Jan. 11, and 94,944 new unemployment claims filed during the week of Jan. 4.
Some six weeks after the first shipments, the U.S. has administered some 53% of distributed vaccines. The gap continues to grow between states that are getting shots into arms, and those arguing over who gets what and when. North Dakota had administered some 84% of its supply as of Jan. 23, and West Virginia about 83%—far better than states like California (45%) or Alabama (47%). Federalism is showing what works—and what doesn’t. Comment: Illinois is currently at 48.2%
The engagement process is not aimed at pressuring school communities into getting rid of on-campus officers, said Jamey Makowski, BUILD’s director of core programs. Safety recommendations that could come out of the series of focus groups could include a shift toward restorative justice practices and greater investment in mental health resources.
“From an owner’s perspective, it’s great and we need the money,” one owner said. “However, from somebody with a 78-year-old father, it does make me nervous.”
“This bill includes brand-new language called the law enforcement misconduct, which defines that an officer who fails to comply with any part of the Body-Worn Camera Act – state law – they are per se committing a Class 3 felony,” Chief Patrick Kreis said. “Never before have a seen a case where a law is passed that criminalizes the act of violating a department policy.”
It would have been easy – yes, easy – to build a simple system that people could understand for making appointments to get the vaccine. That wasn’t done, so the predictable mess has ensued.
In six weeks since the first Illinois shot was given, almost 774,000 doses have been administered and only about 160,000 people have received the required two doses — not even 1.3% of the population.
Written by teacher Kenzo Shibata: “This is not a typical contract campaign. We are fighting for our lives and our neighborhoods. We are often the hubs of the communities we serve. And we are now in a position to stand up to a mayor who has the ultimate authority to make the call on what’s right.”
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