The company is renewing its call for passage of the Illinois Coal to Solar and Energy Storage Act to facilitate Vistra’s $550-million repurposing of coal plant sites across central and southern Illinois.

Rapid response vaccination teams will be deployed to Fulton, Tazewell and Woodford counties in central Illinois, with additional vaccine doses being directed to Peoria and McLean counties. The state previously announced that it will send mobile vaccination teams to Kankakee, Vermilion, Livingston, Coles, DeWitt, and White counties this week.

Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Chief of Staff Cara Bader said, “We did not make it a requirement of the program that active good standing had to be confirmed prior to receiving an award because we didn’t want to hold back that essential pandemic relief at the time based on a possible delay in paperwork.”

Chief of Staff Anne Caprara said, “More than any other time within the last 14 months I am more hopeful than I’ve ever been about where we’re headed and hopefully within the next few months see a return to some semblance of normalcy.”

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan will collect $85,000 a year, but in a little more than a year his pension will shoot up to nearly $150,000 a year.

Former Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger said politicians aren’t generally accountants or economists and often approve of mathematical slights-of-hand to claim they’re passing balanced budgets. “It allows them to look at things and think they’re balanced and this is how we end up with a mess.”

A federal judge has not only refused to grant Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s wish to end federal oversight of state employment and hiring practices, but has also granted a modest expansion of that watchdog duty.

Political observers also believe Illinois is set to lose a member of Congress in the remap due to substantial population loss over the past decade. It likely will be a Republican district that gets eliminated, with Reps. Adam Kinzinger from the 16th district and Rodney Davis from the 13th district as names that have been thrown around in political circles for having their homes drawn into another district.

The indictment made public last week was the latest brought in connection with the ongoing federal corruption probe into an alleged bribery scheme by Commonwealth Edison to try to influence then-House Speaker Michael Madigan.

To ensure greater equity and access to the vaccine by those disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, approximately 75% of the funding must be used on specific programs and initiatives to increase vaccine access, acceptance and uptake among racial and ethnic minority communities; and 60% must support local health departments, community-based organizations and community health centers.

“More than a dozen states have at least a two-year prohibition on lobbying,” said Alisa Kaplan, Executive Director of Reform for Illinois. “Thirty-six have at least one year. Only one state that we could find, North Carolina, has a six-month provision.”

Names to be removed from schools include Thomas Jefferson, Charles Lindbergh and Calvin Coolidge, who famously defended the rights of a Black congressional candidate.