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While his giving in Illinois totals more than $650 million, including the $130 million he donated to 40 Chicago organizations as he departed for Miami, Griffin’s philanthropic priorities and donations appear to have shifted to Florida, where his donations now total over $300 million.
The private liberal arts and sciences college was downgraded two notches to BBB-, the lowest investment grade designation, by S&P Global Ratings Friday. It’s the latest salvo to the increasing pressures facing U.S. colleges and universities.
Community organizers won’t stop trying to protect a historic park from the Obama Presidential Center.
U.S. District Judge Marvin E. Aspen specifically declared that the new Illinois law, known as the Civil Rights Remedies Restoration Act (CRRRA), should allow plaintiffs to demand schools and other institutions which receive federal funding under Title IX pay damages for emotional distress. And the judge said those demands can be applied retroactively, to lawsuits filed before the law took effect.
“I represent a community that isn’t sure about this right now, what that means,” said Evanston City Council member Krissie Harris. “We keep talking about tax dollars, and while it isn’t about money, it is. At the end of the day how will we sustain this?”
Johnson’s decision to ask the City Council to amend the city’s 2024 budget is an acknowledgment that city officials’ repeated and impassioned pleas for help from the federal government in addressing the humanitarian crisis engulfing the city had fallen on deaf ears, alderpeople said.
The Chicago Board of Ethics found Conyears-Ervin committed 12 total violations of Chicago’s Governmental Ethics Ordinance for violating her fiduciary duty to the city, for the unauthorized use of city property and prohibited political activity when she used city resources to host a prayer service.
“The number, the number of shell casings that were found at that location for multiple weapons. Right now I believe the number is 76,” Larry Snelling said. “I would really like to know where the outrage is for that. I really like to know where the outrage is for people in this city who had been victimized who had been traumatized who are going to continue to go through that trauma.”
Last year, over $780 million was distributed through SSP and another program that went to organizations and sanctuary cities across the country that provided services to illegal immigrants. Well-known sanctuary cities include Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, New York City, and San Francisco.
“… I don’t think that anybody’s unfamiliar of the protests that have occurred because of the Israel-Hamas war,” the governor said. “But I do think that again, we have to make sure that at all times that people are able to get where they want to go while at the same time respecting the people who were protesting.”
James Montgomery most recently served as the director of administrative services for the Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Sheriff’s Department. He also served two terms as mayor of Montgomery, Illinois, according to the governor’s office.
The demonstration started as a peaceful protest at Federal Plaza but turned chaotic around 4:30 p.m. At one point, police created a barricade on Adams Street near LaSalle and Clark in an attempt to stop the massive crowd from marching too far. The protesters were heard chanting “let us march!”
For fiscal year 2025, Gov. JB Pritzker has pledged $182 in direct support from state taxpayers. Cook County has pledged $70 million in direct support. If the Chicago City Council votes “yes” Wednesday to appropriate $70 million in direct support to the migrants, then the total taxpayer cost of direct support will be $322 million for fiscal year 2025.
The Strengthening Community Media Act as amended would create a student journalism scholarship program and prevent local news organizations from being purchased by out-of-state companies unless there is a written 120-day notice. A separate measure, Senate Bill 3591, to require social media companies pay local news outlets when someone shares their stories on a different platform, has not advanced.
State Rep. Dan Caulkins said it may sound like a good idea, but the legislature must balance priorities especially as he said state agencies are requesting increased budgets across the board. He also warned, taxpayer subsidies to a nonprofit to liquidate select medical debt may not provide the benefits supporters are looking for.
St. Bede School in Ingleside will shut its doors without the support from Invest in Kids scholarships. Even a $500K fundraising effort failed to save the school.
The mayor’s “Cut The Tape” proposal represents a stark departure from the “Bring Chicago Home” initiative in attempting to solve the city’s affordable housing crisis. Most importantly for Chicagoans, the plan does not call for tax hikes but instead seeks to make Chicago a friendlier environment for developers to build housing and commercial properties.
Illinois has already netted nearly $180 million in fiscal year 2024. State lawmakers have full discretion over general funds, so millions of those cannabis dollars likely go to pensions, which took up 20 percent of general funds in the most recent budget.
Israel’s Consulate in Chicago posted to X, “We condemn in the strongest terms this Chicago Alderwoman’s celebration of Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel. This is the same Alderwoman behind the highly controversial ‘ceasefire’ resolution. We see a pattern – not aiming for peace, but for Israel’s destruction.”
In her analysis, Professor Elizabeth Powers said that since the state’s grocery tax is 1 percent, a family would have to spend at least $30,000 on FAH grocery items to save a “few hundred bucks” in one year. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2022 that households’ average annual spending on FAH items ranged from about $3,600 to $8,500.
“With nearly two decades of service as a police officer, Patrick Sheehan brings a wealth of experience and dedication to his role as State Representative,” the 37th Representative District Committee said in a press release. “Additionally, he has served as a Lockport Alderman and former Park Commissioner, illustrating his longstanding commitment to community engagement and leadership.
“There is a tyrant at the border who is looking to create chaos in Black cities,” Johnson said, referencing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. “I get this has been difficult for our people, this migrant [issue] … This is a quintessential example of how a white individual and his [iniquitous behavior] is trying to cause chaos in my city. Almost 11,000 migrant children are being educated. We have moved 37,000 people through our city. That is the size of Maywood, Bellwood, Forest Park … If it was chaotic, you would know by now.”
“On April 8, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its latest opinion that consciously shielded from any judicial oversight the construction of the Obama Presidential Center in historic Jackson Park.”
One example Park Forest officials pointed to was a disparity between two properties located next to each other. With the triennial reassessment, the property’s value at 56 South Street decreased by 45 percent. The value at 49 North Street increased by 59 percent.
The Illinois EPA began testing Illinois community water supplies for PFAS back in 2020. The state agency identified some concentration of PFAS at 149 sites out of the more than 1,400 sites sampled.
“The merits of his proposal are noble and necessary. However, there are too many unknowns — notably, a lack of specificity on the projects — and a tenuous track record on trust to approve the measure as currently drafted. … The current proposal upends the decades-old TIF system to incentivize development and bets big on several questions to which we have no guaranteed answers.”
The number of scheduled trains running across the system is still 20 percent below pre-pandemic levels, said Brandon McFadden, a cybersecurity analyst who tracks CTA reliability, and the agency continues to lose rail operators faster than it can hire them.
During his budget address, the governor proposed eliminating $4 billion of medical debt for more than one million people in Illinois. Loyola Medicine had already announced it was forgiving $112 million in medical debt, helping more than 60,000 people in Illinois.
The last Park District site still being used as a migrant shelter was Broadway Armory Park in Edgewater. It was not clear how soon migrants living there would be moved to other shelters, but the mayor’s office said it expects all five park district sites to be ready for a full slate of summer programming.
Protestors gathered as part of a “multi-city economic blockade” opposing the war in Gaza blocked inbound traffic to O’Hare Airport Monday morning. According to a website designed for the April 15 protest, the action aims to “identify and blockade major choke points in the economy, focusing on points of production and circulation.”
Filed by Senate President Don Harmon, the so-called Office of Public Defense Trial Support bill seeks to create a statewide office that offers public defenders greater support and resources as they strive to defend often indigent criminal defendants.
From addressing the mishandling of human remains at a Carlinville funeral home to establishing a new state mushroom the bills now move to the House.
“For years we’ve had no payroll growth and coming with that means no labor force growth,” said associate professor Richard Funderburg, of the University of Illinois Springfield. “Even before the pandemic I was pointing out while our labor force growth is tepid, our employment growth was pretty healthy. … What’s changed in the economy today is more so is that workers are extremely precious – and have a lot of market value.”
“I believe that leaders have a responsibility to create pathways for every community to meet their basic needs. To foster a fair Illinois and reach true health equity, we must advance racial justice. “
“The divisions within the Democrats’ political universe are by no means as fundamental as those that wracked the party (and the nation) over the Vietnam War, of course. But they are now reaching a level where the possibility of a convention catastrophe cannot be dismissed.”
“Meanwhile, in Illinois, a harbinger of what awaits other states that go deeper into pensions. A proposed Tier 2 pension change may cost taxpayers billions of dollars at a time when the Illinois state pension plan is already on the verge of collapse.”
If you’re frustrated with Illinois’ educational results, you may want to follow the money from teachers unions. In the last four years alone, Illinois lawmakers and political candidates have taken nearly $30 million in contributions from teachers unions and their national affiliates.
He added that the new arrivals should be seen as an investment — not a burden.
About 300 anti-war activists crowded into the basement of the Teamsters Union’s headquarters in Chicago on Saturday to hear organizers from all over the country describe their plans to disrupt the Democratic National Convention this August.
Saturday night, a mass shooting on Chicago’s South Side left at least 11 people shot, including four children, Chicago fire officials said. The victims included seven adults and four children.
“When my fellow lawmakers, including members of the House Democratic Women’s Caucus, voted four years ago to legalize sports betting for professional sports teams in Illinois, we could never imagine that the largest companies in the business would choose to ignore investments in women’s sports. I recognize it’s not my role to tell private companies how to invest their money, but it is our collective responsibility to call those companies out when their decisions are so plainly inequitable.”
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