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Chicago’s homicide rate has skyrocketed nearly 40 percent since Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office in 2019, watchdog group Wirepoints found.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said his initial reaction to the new report that Crow paid for the boarding school tuition of Thomas’s great-nephew was a “combination of sadness and rage…Sadness to think that this situation is getting worse by the day and justices’ failure to disclose is aggravating the situation.”
“It’s great campaign rhetoric and for speeches, when they say that we’re a sanctuary city or a welcoming city when you’re thousands of miles from the border. But then when they’re at our doorstep, they don’t have a plan, and they haven’t come up with a plan,” Lt. John Garrido said. At one police station, “you can’t even walk in the lobby. There are so many migrants there and there’s many health issues. Some of them are sick, they’re vomiting, there’s not enough bathrooms.”
Illinois lawmakers are being urged to slow down as they consider pension mandates for Chicago that Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration warns could add $3 billion to the city’s long-term payment tab for its firefighters’ fund.
Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law allowing healthcare workers with temporary out-of-state licenses to be able to continue practicing in Illinois. This new law comes as hospitals across the state are still struggling to maintain and recruit staff.
Sen. Bill Cunningham said his bill could expand education and job training credits for incarcerated people to become eligible for mandatory supervised release sooner.
“McCormick Place has lots of different facilities. If we had a large space that could accommodate like thousands of people, then we wouldn’t have to spend as much time kind of playing whack-a-mole on a bunch of smaller facilities…” said Ald. Maria Hadden. “There’s a reason that McCormick Place was stood up and put together as a COVID response place. Because from a logistics and emergency management perspective, it just would be ideal.”
The decades-old law was meant to prevent drivers from having an obstructed view. But state Rep. La Shawn Ford believes that in some cases, the so-called air-freshener law has resulted in racial profiling.
In the order, Judge Frank Easterbrook gave the plaintiffs until May 9 to file a response. He notably directed them to include in their response a discussion on “the bearing of” two prior decisions from the Seventh Circuit addressing the constitutionality of “assault weapons” bans.
Illinois lawmakers are laying out their agendas for the end of the legislative session, including addressing education, energy pricing issues and looking to fix the many problems facing the Department of Child and Family Services.
Exelon Corp., Commonwealth Edison’s parent company, continues to spend money on lawsuits after a bribery scandal and is preparing to pay out another $173 million. That’s on top of the $200 million ComEd paid in July 2020 to resolve a criminal investigation into the years-long bribery scheme centered around former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
IDHFS chief of staff Ben Winick told the committee that the original estimate relied on the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data to estimate the eligible population, then assumed a certain percentage would enroll. But both the cost of providing care and the number of enrollees have far outpaced estimates.
Illinois has the second-largest collection of unrepatriated Native American remains in the U.S., housed at the Illinois State Museum. House Bill 3413 would streamline the process in which Illinois returns Native American remains and materials to their communities.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot told Gov. Greg Abbott she is sympathetic to border communities, but said the situation his busing practices have put her in is “completely untenable” and “the national immigration problem will not be solved by passing on the responsibility to other cities.”
The legislation would prohibit state authorities from delivering personal information, including immigration status, to federal officials when individuals apply for a standard driver’s license. The bill would also eliminate the current requirement that noncitizens either possess an unexpired passport or be able to prove residency in the state for a year before taking the driving exam.
Under the proposed amendment, investors could still argue there has been an error made by the county, but the error would have to be significant, a call that would be made by a judge, the treasurer’s office said.
Paul O’Conor: “We all know you [Mayor-Elect Johnson] have mobilized a progress-hungry, activist base who must lead the charge into the neighborhoods, but who honestly don’t have the chops to pull off transformation at the necessary scale. If they think they can do so without Chicago’s capitalists, they are wrong.”
Jim Dey: “(O)ne juror’s post-verdict comment reflected a widespread public attitude. ‘I would speak for the jury when I would say we want politics to run in a correct manner … without any shady business that either skirts the rules or blatantly disregards them,’ she said. Those are fine sentiments. This being Illinois, a relevant aphorism comes to mind: ‘People in the nether regions want ice water. That’s doesn’t mean they’re going to get it.'”
“Too many of our young people are not reading or writing at grade level. A recent Wirepoints report that analyzed Illinois State Board of Education data concluded that in 53 Illinois schools, not a single student could do math at grade level. And in 30 schools, no students were able to read at grade level, Wirepoints reported. It’s very troubling that the majority of students who can’t read at grade level are in CPS, according to Wirepoints, especially considering CPS was allocated $1.8 billion through the American Rescue Plan Act.”
The Southwest Guaranteed Home Equity Program is one of three Chicago programs created under a 1988 Illinois law out of fear white homeowners would flee the city after the election of Harold Washington. The programs on the Southwest and Northwest sides are funded by nominal property taxes collected from every homeowner in their respective districts. SWGHE has stockpiled almost $4 million since its creation.
Guggenheim Partners would be the sixth large company and second investment firm to move out of Illinois in the past year. The firm directs $300 billion in assets, making it one of the city’s largest money managers.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle says the county needs an additional $1.8 million a month to run the Cook County Health system that has been caring for the thousands of migrants who have landed in Chicago – in addition to the $1.8 million that the county already kicks in. Preckwinkle’s request is separate from Mayor Lori Lightfoot urging the state to help Chicago care for asylum seekers.
Migrants taking shelter in Chicago police stations this week said they want to find work and provide for themselves, but need temporary shelter and assistance navigating a new country. But they have been caught up in the city’s struggle to provide shelter to so many. “Every day they tell us the same thing, there’s no shelter, that we need to wait,” said Ibo Brandelli, who left Venezuela with his wife and their two daughters in January.
One measure introduced by House Republicans was House Bill 2986, which would limit the growth of state spending to the rate of growth to the medium household income. But as Halbrook said, the bill never saw the light of day.
An audit found Local 731’s board gave itself nearly $304,000 in bonuses over five years without the required approval of membership, as well as $924,000 in donations and contributions the union made in recent years without membership approval.
Recently, the city agreed to its first water contract in almost 40 years with the Grand Prairie Water Commission, a collective of six southwest suburban communities including Joliet. The city’s chief financial officer, Jennie Bennett, hopes to secure more deals, stating that it puts “the water system back into a growth mode.”
“Illinois Senate President Don Harmon likewise maintains that killing innocent people is the ‘only intent’ of the rifles his state banned. Ascribing intent to inanimate objects reflects the magical thinking of politicians who argue that certain guns are inherently evil. That position is plainly at odds with a reality that courts may no longer be able to ignore.”
“General Funds revenues took a dramatic turn in April 2023 as receipts fell a stunning $1.844 billion as compared to the same month the year prior.”
Even a discussion about central principles of The Enlightenment — reason, logic, evidence and tolerance of competing ideas — gets censored by the thought police.
Wirepoints joined FOX 32’s GoodDay Chicago to talk about the challenges facing Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, including Illinois and Chicago’s loss of residents (which Gov. Pritzker continues to deny), the increasingly empty downtown, why high taxes, growing crime and a lack of opportunity are forcing people and businesses out, and more.
“A lot of these decisions to move aren’t being made willfully. Chicago is losing a lot of the working class and blue collar jobs,” said Iván Arenas of UIC’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy. “The rent burden of the Black community is, for example, very high. They are paying a lot more than 30% of their income on rent.”
On Tuesday, when parents picked up their children who attend after school programs at Brands Park, they learned the program is being relocated abruptly. Even worse, parents were told the summer programs they and other families rely heavily on have been canceled.
The impetus for the legislation came from newly elected Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, whose office oversees library systems and their funding – some $62 million to libraries around the state each year. “All these efforts to curb reading materials have absolutely nothing to do with books. They are about restricting the freedom of ideas that certain individuals disagree with and that certain individuals think others should have access to,” Giannoulias said.
There are 33 migrants at the 24th District police station on the North Side and they might relocate soon. The fieldhouse at Leone Park on the North Side is currently full, but the migrants already there may be moved soon to a permanent shelter and those staying at the police station will move in at the fieldhouse.