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Jim Dey: “Republicans and Hispanics make up an unlikely coalition because the Hispanics in the General Assembly are Democrats. However, Hispanics have been arguing for years that their growing numbers in Illinois require greater representation in Springfield.”
Gov. JB Pritzker rejected arguments that the added financial support was keeping people from returning to the workforce. Rather, he cited a lack of available child care as a major factor keeping people out of the labor force, particularly women.
“I truly believe, had we asked that question, the opposition to that would have been identical across the board,” Ald. Brian Hopkins said. “It isn’t about DuSable when people are saying they’re opposed to the name change. It’s about their fondness for the name. They don’t want to change it for anybody or anything.”
NRG Energy said it decided to close its coal plants in Romeoville and Waukegan by June 2022 after it secured lower-than-expected prices during a recent auction for supplying electricity to a region that stretches from Illinois to the East Coast.
She said. “As part of the city’s recovery, many organizations are doubling down on their commitment to Chicago, and we expect the Chicago Bears to follow suit. The Bears are locked into a lease at Soldier Field until 2033…And like most Bears fans, we want the organization to focus on…being relevant past October. Everything else is just noise.”
Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, said the legislature should either revisit legislation and shift the pension obligations to the district or provide more state funding. “If the Illinois legislature doesn’t want the mayor to be in control of the Chicago Public Schools, it would start treating it like every other municipality,” Msall said, pointing out that no other city is required to pay for its school employees’ pensions.
Her department will begin to shift some of its focus to areas of public health that haven’t received the usual level of attention. Among them are maternal mortality, substance abuse and opioids, and the state’s response to the HIV epidemic.
In addition to fixing the budget bill, lawmakers also passed legislation this week to ensure that people who, through no fault of their own, received more unemployment benefits than they were entitled to will not be required to pay back those overpayments.
Illinois Policy said what is missing from the budget are fiscal reforms. Without them, lawmakers are unable to stabilize the country’s worst pension crisis, as high as $317 billion by one estimate. In addition, the Unemployment Insurance Trust fund continues to be around $5 billion in the red.
The majority of Illinois-based metropolitan areas – 8 out of 13 – shed jobs during the month. Rockford lost 3.2% of its payroll positions, a total of 4,500 jobs.
The largest job losses came from the government sector, which shed 10,000 (-1.3%) jobs and the construction industry which lost 5,600 (-2.5%) of its jobs last month.
The lack of transparency also allowed Pritzker and legislative leaders to claim they passed a balanced budget without tax increases. A closer look showed both claims were false: the budget contains at least a $482 million hole and a $655 million tax hike.
On May 16, she embarked on a hunger strike on behalf of one of the most ambitious and elusive goals of the U.S. racial justice movement: reparations — or making amends through payments or policy — to Black people for slavery. Bright-eyed and energetic during a recent interview, Rachelle Zola has made it to Day
“It’s our obligation to explore every possible option to ensure we’re doing what’s best for our organization and its future,” team President and CEO Ted Phillips said in a statement. “If selected, this step allows us to further evaluate the property and its potential.”
“We’ve got to address some of the obvious deficiencies in the bill,” Lightfoot said, adding that those include the size of the board and a lack of campaign finance “guardrails” to prevent exorbitant political spending.
Defining such incidents as those involving at least four shooting victims or deaths — excluding the shooter — the city has seen 124 such events since Jan. 1, 2019. That’s at least twice as many as the city with the second-highest tally, Philadelphia.
The attack was the third mass shooting in Chicago in little over a week and came at the end of a burst of violence that saw more than 25 people shot across the city in 10 hours.
Officials from Springfield’s municipally owned City Water, Light and Power didn’t comment specifically on the proposed easing of the original 2035 closure dates for all Illinois coal-fired plants, but said, “It was disappointing that it took so long for Springfield’s concerns to be heard beyond our local delegation, but we are grateful that at the 11th hour, they were noticed.”
Hynes will be replaced by former state Sen. Andy Manar, whom the governor said will “provide immeasurably important perspective.”
Senate Bill 2122, which makes statements by juveniles obtained through deceptive interrogation practices inadmissible in court, received support from both Democrats and Republicans including Republican Leader and former prosecutor Jim Durkin.
State Sen. Jason Barickman said the governor should have used his amendatory veto to cancel pay raises and pork projects. “But yet again, the governor caved to the political class to help out the majority who passed a budget in the middle of the night that was so wrecked and damaged that we had to evidently come back to fix it.”
On Tuesday, Metra had more than 56,000 passenger trips, still well below the weekday average of 287,000 back in June 2019.
There were 29,231 new unemployment claims filed during the week of May 31, and 23,516 new unemployment claims during the week of May 24.
The governor said, “It’s a balanced budget that achieves a level of fiscal prudence not seen in our state for two decades. For the first time since 2001, Illinois is paying its bills on time. We are also paying off pandemic borrowing early, we’re meeting our full pension obligation, and we’re saving taxpayers tens of millions of taxpayer dollars along the way.”
As part of that strategy, CDPH said the department will allocate $9.6 million in COVID-19 relief funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish what officials call Healthy Chicago Equity Zones.
Congressman Bobby Rush called for Wanda Prater’s resignation back in February 2020 after an audit found the delayed delivery of thousands of letters and packages at four postal stations in Rush’s district.
The fate of a $1.3 billion natural gas plant under construction in Grundy County is mainly what kept the Senate from acting yesterday on the most ambitious state energy bill in 25 years.
“It might feel like it’s early in the summer, but the planning has to happen now,” said Wheaton-Warrenville Community Unit School District 200 Superintendent Jeff Schuler.
Andy Wheeler works families impacted by gun violence at Stroger Hospital of Cook County. “The symptoms of post-traumatic stress and acute stress are high among trauma surgeons and trauma medical staff. The true victims here are patients and families and their communities.”
Ted Dabrowski appears on Newsmax to talk about Wirepoints research of IRS data showing people are fleeing blue states for red states.
Will the exodus from big cities that occurred during the pandemic persist or reverse? The final verdict isn’t in, but here are some new insights.
Board President Miguel del Valle said he “hears the frustration in people that are out there. And it may be not exactly what your advocacy group has advocated for, but I think we’re close in terms of what it is that folks are demanding, and rightfully so.”
“Lightfoot’s spotty record on a signature issue of her political career has led activists and advocates for change to conclude that she either lacks political will or was only masquerading as a progressive reformer.”
The Chicago Teachers Union said the bill “…is the culmination of a generation of work by parents, rank-and-file educators and activists, who recognized the shortcomings of mayoral control of our schools and demanded better for our children.”
The host addresses the mayor’s priorities and the spike in Chicago crime.
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