State Rep. Will Davis, said the governor should be doing more to help minority-owned companies get state contracts. “If we can’t get our IDOT, capital development board, tollway, to just be better at making sure that … they give those opportunities to businesses in those spaces, I mean we’re just continually fighting an uphill battle,” he said. “When we talk about the budget document, that is the government’s blueprint. We heard [Pritzker] say a lot of things that he wants to do for the Black community, the migrant community, we heard him say that. But when it comes to some

“Significant and structural tax relief or reforms were absent from the (governor’s budget) proposal. Instead, we heard about new programs, and the expansion of existing programs that put further pressure on an already tight fiscal picture.”

The amendment would forbid manufacturers and retailers of electronic cigarettes from marketing them in a way that “is likely to cause a parent, legal guardian, teacher, or other adult to mistake the electronic cigarette for a product that is not a tobacco product.” School officials have reported finding vaping devices on school property that are designed to look like highlighters, erasers and pencil sharpeners, according to state Sen. Julie Morrison.

The 50 most at-risk counties included five in the Chicago metropolitan area – De Kalb, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties – and two near St. Louis: Saint Clair and Madison counties in Illinois.

It’s year two of a first-in-the-nation law requiring all Illinois public high schools to teach media literacy, teaching students how to access information; evaluate the source’s accuracy; making their own media messages; assessing how media messages trigger emotions and behavior; and social responsibility. According to the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of U.S. adults ages 18-29 routinely rely on Tik Tok for news — by far the highest consumption of any age demographic.

Jim Dey: “It was all too much for former Urbana Alderwoman Esther Patt, who charged that the city’s attention is being distracted by a problem the city can’t fix when it needs ‘to do other things.’ Patt pointed out that the council is being asked to bring peace between two warring parties. ‘While you’re at it, when are you going to cure cancer?’ she asked.”

The bill does carve out an exception for political media that includes a disclaimer informing people that the content was manipulated with the help of technology, or by disclosing what was said or what occurred in the content didn’t actually happen.

The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers said federal and state governments are fast tracking policies to limit consumer choice and end the availability of new gas cars. “The fact that consumers in a couple years are literally going to be robbed of their ability to choose the cars that are most popular and most meet their needs, that is not something that people are happy about,” AFPM President and CEO Chet Thompson said.

PatientRightsAdvocate.org found in its semi-annual Hospital Price Transparency Report that only 39 percent of hospitals in Illinois are in compliance with the hospital price transparency rule.

State Reps. Adam Niemerg and Blaine Wilhour need to be taught a lesson — at least that’s the message being sent by the state’s powerful teachers unions and other allies in organized labor as they bankroll primary challenges of the arch-conservative incumbents.

Robin Steans, president of Advance Illinois, said the funding formula laid out in the report is much like a funding formula executed in Illinois K-12 schools. Steans said K-12 is seeing success despite Illinois students experiencing record low literacy rates and math proficiency rates.