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House Bill 4205 would allow students who graduate from an Illinois high school and subsequently complete a higher education program, and then live and work in Illinois for at least four years, to apply for loan repayment.
Comment: Falsehoods and name-calling from Manar. We will print our response shortly.
The U.S. Treasury said this week that it is redirecting unspent funding from some more rural states to places where it’s desperately needed. The Illinois Housing Development Authority used more than $800 million in federal aid, $571 million through its Rental Payment Program and about $231 million through an earlier funding, the spokesman said.
As of Thursday, COVID metrics continued to surge across Illinois with over 11,500 cases reported in the last 24 hours. That’s an increase from just over 6,000 the day before.
With Illinois retiree health insurance shortfalls at $55 billion, according to Wirepoints, taxpayers in the state are on the hook for a total of $530 billion. That means the average tax-paying Illinois household owes $110,000 toward that shortfall, an increase of $20,000 per household since 2018.
The airline plans to make a new complex in Arlington Heights its primary nerve center effective April 1, with Willis serving as a back-up. The move would affect about 900 employees such as managers and technical support staff; About 400 flight dispatchers could eventually join them.
While Chicago will have to compete against other transit agencies for the funding, CTA President Dorval Carter and U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth agreed that the fact the provision is based on the city’s All Stations Accessibility Program makes it likely the CTA will land a substantial grant.
In Chicago Public Schools, about 18% of third graders met or exceeded standards in English and math this year, compared to 2019 when 39.4% were proficient in English and 32.9% in math.
Gov. JB Pritzker said the relief grants reached more than 5,000 providers in 2020, and 90% of those recipients have kept their facilities open today. Additionally, $100 million worth of bonuses are being sent to workers in child care facilities.
“What we submitted was a reflection of the city of Chicago: 16 African-American wards, 15 Latino wards, 15 Caucasian wards, 3 minority majority wards, and for the first time ever an Asian majority ward,” said Ald. Gilbert Villegas.
Asked if he’ll order hospitals to cancel elective medical procedures as New York recently did, Gov. Pritzker said that’s a situation peculiar to New York. “When they implemented their requirement that healthcare workers get vaccinated, many healthcare workers in New York decided that they would no longer work. And so they’ve had a reduction of staffed beds even before omicron came along.”
“This is probably why people are leaving Illinois,” author Jason Soren said. “They see these economic problems, they see that economic freedom has declined, and they see the increase in taxes.”
“8th graders passing Algebra 1 dipped 5.9% compared to 2019.” The Algebra metric “is an important indicator because Algebra 1 is a gateway to higher level math and science courses,” ISBE’s Brenda Dixon said. Among the myriad metrics for other subjects are more general statistics like whether students are on track for 9th grade, of which the average was around 80%.
City public health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said schools do not appear to play a major role in spreading the virus. Nonetheless, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said they’ll continue to ramp up testing to reach 10% of students per school per week, with additional testing depending on the omicron variant’s trajectory.
“What’s potentially going on is a shift in the types of cases that are getting made or arrests that are being made,” said David Olson, a criminology professor at Loyola University Chicago.
Left-leaning states, particularly Illinois, have long been trying to strong-arm the financial sector into enforcing their social justice agenda. Now, more conservative states are responding by using the same tool. Nobody will end up winning. Blame those who started it.
The Obama Presidential Foundation released few details on the visit, saying in a release that there will be meetings with “groups of community leaders” — none named — “whose work embodies the Obama Foundation’s approach to civic leadership and who are working in their communities to build effective solutions to a range of challenges ranging from mental health, LGBTQ advocacy, violence, food insecurity, economic opportunities and more.”
Lynn Sweet: “The mayor is here because she’s following the money, a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the city and related governments and agencies to grab tons of new federal cash from the $1 trillion infrastructure bill. If the Senate can pass President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better social spending and climate change bill, there will be lots more. Getting this money takes a lot of work, especially when it comes to figuring out how to make successful applications for discretionary, competitive federal grants.”
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