This latest order involves the department repeatedly moving a teenager who has been bouncing between different foster homes, psychiatric hospitals, and shelters. In just six months, DCFS moved her 25 times.

Jim Dey: “Rapping her fist repeatedly on the council dais for emphasis, (council members Alicia) Beck suggested the Morrs — Albert is a retired electrician and Claudia is a retired university employee — were unconcerned about gun violence in Champaign-Urbana until a Feb. 4 shootout near their residence. ‘I want you to come in because you are concerned about Black and Brown babies being shot in the street. And that’s what I want to hear. Period,’ Beck said.”

“It is unclear how far some of these bills will go in the legislature — some are still waiting to be assigned to committee. But the efforts have garnered considerable attention, with thousands of witness slips, and echo debates in school districts across the state and country, where COVID mitigations in schools are seeing pushback from parents and Republican lawmakers.”

Attorney Thomas DeVore, who has a temporary restraining order against the governor’s mask mandates in schools, filed suit against House Speaker Emanual “Chris” Welch in Bond County Circuit Court. The lawsuit is on behalf of his state Rep. Blaine Whilhour and himself as an individual. “Speaker Welch has no authority whatsoever to place quarantine measures on the peoples’ representatives to keep them out of that chamber.”

State Rep. Lakesia Collins made a motion Thursday to eject state Reps. Joe Sosnowski, Tony McCombie, Blaine Wilhour, Brad Halbrook, Adam Niemerg, David Welter, David Friess, Chris Miller, and Andrew Chesney for not wearing masks per the House rules. She made a similar motion Wednesday, but rescinded the proposal.

The report said Illinois is painstakingly building toward a return to the state’s pre-pandemic rating, which according to analyst Eric Kim, was not ideal. “Those concerns are really driven by the fact that Illinois was already at the low end for states from Fitch’s perspective in terms of their fiscal resilience. There really was not much left in the tool box for the state at the start of the pandemic.”

Majority Democrats in the Senate sanctioned Michael McCusky’s appointment despite concerns he was not approved by the bipartisan Legislative Ethics Commission responsible for recommending candidates. “The position of legislative inspector general is too important to stay vacant for as long as it has,” Senate President Don Harmon said. “An impasse is not an option, so we are taking decisive action to move forward with an excellent candidate.”

Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski said he thinks Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office is mishandling the increased crime. “I think it’s a real issue. I hear people say we don’t go down there anymore. People don’t walk around there anymore…It’s really confusing when you hear (authorities) say how much better they’re doing managing felonies when this new report comes out and says just the opposite.”

“The fact that these incentives were laundered partially through jobs does not invalidate the indictment,” U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber wrote. “A company cannot use its payroll line on its accounting ledger to circumvent all Government oversight of public corruption.”

A subsidiary of AT&T led by a former top aide to ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan could face a criminal charge as an apparent offshoot of an ongoing federal investigation into the dethroned Chicago Democrat, the company revealed in a federal regulatory filing.

Currently, people who speed in school zones or pass stopped school buses with its stop arm extended must pay fines ranging from $150 to $1,000, depending on the frequency of their violations.

State Rep. Dan Caulkins called for an overturn of the masking rule but was denied by the House speaker. Caulkins then urged the speaker and the rest of the members to follow the entire rule, which also includes temperature checks before entering the floor.

Under Pritzker’s leadership the state has yet to make any of the significant financial reforms needed to eliminate the structural deficit and reduce Illinois’ economically burdensome taxes. Spending in the state budget actually has increased – significantly – under Pritzker relative to baseline expectations in the state budget.

In terms of overall jobs, Illinois has experienced the worst recovery of any Midwest state, and the eighth worst in the country. Many Illinoisans waited for weeks before their claims were resolved during the height of the pandemic.

House Bill 1772, sponsored by a Republican, would limit the duration of a state of emergency to 60 days unless approved by the legislature to continue, and allow lawmakers to rescind individual emergency orders issued by the governor. According to the Center Square, more than 5,400 people signed up to testify on the bill, the “vast majority” of those supporting the proposed reforms.

Sen. Jil Tracy, who chairs the Ethics Commission, said, “If we value ethics, we’ve gotta follow statutes and procedures. If we want to keep making attempts at being ethical, this gentleman should be acting LIG until he’s vetted, has an FBI check, and then, you’ve gotta open the application process again. That’s how the process is supposed to be in law. I don’t know why the majority party wants continually to rebuke policy and procedures, but apparently you do.”

The pension-buyout program has already cut Illinois’s liability by $1.4 billion, but that still leaves an unfunded obligation of about $130 billion, state data show. “It chips away at a much larger problem,” Eric Kim, an analyst for Fitch Ratings, said in an interview. “But you are paying for it with debt.”

“I can respect Gov. Pritzker doing what is best for his family, as long as he respects my rights to do my best by mine,” said Rep. Deanne Mazzochi. “But he rejected the premise that people deserve their freedom to exercise their best judgment for what is right for their families.”