A plan to stop all carbon sequestration over the Mahomet aquifer passed the Illinois House committee Tuesday. The Mahomet aquifer is the sole source of water for over one million Central Illinoisans.

The latest report from the Legislative Audit Commission called for IBHE to have stronger internal controls, after the Office of the Auditor General found that the board made late voucher payments to schools 90 percent of the time in fiscal year 2023. The Legislative Audit Commission made 17 compliance recommendations, nine of which were repeat findings.

Illinois Appellate Court Judge James Knecht says the arrest of Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan was “reminiscent of King George, Hitler and Mussolini.” An Illinois constitutional attorney disagrees.

“What we’ve been hearing is that the governor’s office has been waiting for legislative intent,” Susan Stanton, executive director of the advocacy group ACT Now, told the committee. “We’ve kind of heard things back and forth from both the governor’s office and ISBE and legislators. And we’ve yet to get a clear answer on why the money ($50 million) wasn’t released.”

“If a Democratic leader today tells voters that the party just needs to tweak its messaging and strategy, he is also telling them that they don’t have to reexamine their beliefs on the border, and woke, and crime, and other issues on which the party embraces minority views. So, Pritzker was telling the New Hampshire crowd: You don’t have to change a thing — just fight, fight, fight. Some Democrats really like that.”

“Yet another failing governor of a struggling state is creating media excitement with promises of partisan belligerence” — JB Pritzker…. “Outside of the Pritzker household, who looks at Illinois governance as a template? The governor presides over a low-growth, high-unemployment state. The Land of Lincoln’s heavy tax burden would be even heavier if Illinois voters had not thwarted Gov. Pritzker’s effort to rewrite the state’s constitution.”

Dozens of skilled-labor, manufacturing jobs are coming to Champaign as Raptor Power Systems expands.

Chicago Public Schools teachers hired before 2017 only pay 2 percent of the required employee contribution for their pensions. The other 7 percent is picked up by the district, costing $135 million in 2025. And they gave those newer “Tier 2” employees a 7 percent pay increase to offset the lost pickup benefit, which an estimate shows is costing taxpayers $68 million in the current fiscal year.

John Atkinson, Chairman of Intersect Illinois: “Gov. JB Pritzker’s leadership, Illinois is officially on the map as a national leader for business expansion and relocation.”

In addition to targeting federal funding, Trump’s administration has brought lawsuits against Chicago and New York for policies that limit local law-enforcement cooperation with federal immigration officials and, in some cases, block housing of immigration detainees in local jails. The Justice Department argues federal law overrides the city and state when it comes to immigration.

“I’ve seen there’s still foam in the Stratton cafeteria, so I would like to see the state leading by example,” said Jack Darin, director of the Illinois Sierra Club chapter, referring to a state government office building in Springfield that was required to stop procuring foam, or polystyrene, for use by January 2025 under the 2023 law.

The suit alleges the executive branch has disregarded congressional budget extensions, which had allocated funding to the programs through September, as well as the Head Start Act, which has required the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to allocate at least as much funding for Head Start programs as the year before. About 8,700 Illinois residents are employed by the program statewide, according to the suit, serving approximately 28,000 kids across 600 centers.