Prices in Illinois are 31.6 cents per gallon higher than a month ago and stand 59.6 cents per gallon lower than a year ago.

“(Former graduate students Maggie) DeJong clearly has the right, as enshrined in the First Amendment, to express her religious, political, and social views on her personal social media account and to engage in mutual conversations with fellow students regarding those opinions without fear of retaliation,” Federal Judge Nancy Rosenstengel wrote.

While Montgomery, Alabama saw the country’s smallest amount of growth in home value at just 59.6%, five cities outside of the Chicago area followed on the list. Springfield, Peoria, Bloomington, Rockford and Decatur followed in the #2 through #6 spots respectively, with price growth ranging from 61.4% to 62.3%.

“Western and southwestern Illinois get a fair amount of hunters that come in from Missouri and Iowa particularly for waterfowl, so it’s already a big issue,” said Josh Witkowski with Illinois Federation of Outdoor Resources. “There’s a potential for firearm seizure, there’s potential for felony involved, it’s going to be a huge issue with the hunting community with that going on.”

IDES chief counsel Kevin Lovellette said overpayment waivers happened because federal guidelines allowed for it. “This was part of the CARES act enacted by Congress, that was fully federally funded,” Lovellette said. “As part of the continued assistance act and then continued in ARPA, Congress allowed for a waiver of overpayments.”

Illinois will get an extra $143 million for lead water line removal this year in the wake of new changes to the federal funding formula that now take into account how bad the lead problem is in each state.

According to a recent report from the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, state spending on higher education in Illinois was cut nearly in half, by $1.8 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars, between 2000 and 2023. That’s despite recent increases in the real dollar amount invested in the state’s universities. “This significant cutback in state funding has really created some fiscal stress, particularly for those public universities that serve more traditionally underrepresented student populations, like low-income kids, rural kids, minority kids,” said Ralph Martire.

Senate Bill 1994 would put a cap on how much money school districts could hold in reserves. Districts that exceed it would be required to file a report with the state. According to the most recent report 70 percent of districts had cash reserves of between 100 and 359 days of expenses. But 197 districts had reserves of 360 to 720 days, and 10 districts had reserves greater than 720 days.

The report estimated trial lawyers have received, on average, $11.5 million in fees from BIPA-related lawsuits. By contrast, class members typically receive $506 each – “and only individuals that affirmatively filed paperwork as part of the claims process received individual payouts,” the report said. The report says the findings should serve as a warning to other states to avoid following the example of Illinois.

Nathan Atkinson, a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin, said that for swing states like Wisconsin and Georgia, where there are a large amount of voters on polar opposite sides of the aisle, this method would make it hard for candidates in the middle to ever get elected. “So to the extent that there’s not actually that many people in the middle, it might not give much of an opportunity for these, these moderate candidates to prevail.”

“We are doing everything we can to improve the things that appeal to folks so we can attract them and keep them,” Jacksonville Mayor Andy Ezard said.

The Illinois State Board of Education is using federal COVID-19 relief funds to match about 1,900 students with about 700 tutors in 59 school districts throughout the state. Said Donovan Community Unit District 3 Superintendent Tony Coates, “Every elementary student receiving tutoring in math has shown math growth from fall to winter. That’s the name of the game — to get kids to catch up from some of the learning loss that occurred during the pandemic.”

In the highest-spending scenario outlined in the three-year forecast from the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, the state could once again face a bill backlog as high as $18 billion. That estimate assumes spending growth at its five-year average of 7.1 percent.

Jurors then heard FBI recordings of Michael McClain — a Michael Madigan confidant who had no obvious role in the matter — brokering the deal in 2018 between Madigan and Anne Pramaggiore, who was then ComEd’s CEO. McClain told Pramaggiore that Madigan “would appreciate it” if Pramaggiore “would keep pressing” to get the deal done.

Even before Amendment 1 passed in November, Illinois was unique in giving some collective bargaining agreements the power to override state law. The amendment and language in the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act together make Illinois the only state that allows government unions to override state and local laws without restriction.