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“The superintendent is asking for this tool, the majority of the Council is asking for this tool to stop all of the shenanigans going on downtown,” Ald. Anthony Beale said. “Doing nothing will not solve this problem.”
“We don’t know how she died. All we know is what he said,” said Jennifer Bos, Megan’s mom. “He said that she came over to do drugs. He said that she overdosed, and he said that he wasn’t in the room. We don’t know if any of that is true. And he’s not being held before we find out if he had a hand in what happened to my daughter.”
“The Illinois School Transportation Association estimates the additional charge for the seat belts on a full-sized bus ranges from $7,000 to $18,000,” said state Rep. Patrick Windhorst.
The state Senate passed House Bill 1189 Wednesday afternoon. The measure calls for Illinois’ prevailing wage to override federal prevailing wage for federal projects if the state wage is higher.
“When you look at the amount of funding being offered for the pay increase, that’s $20 million. And then you look at the amount of the cut from the DSP service hours being cut, that’s $32 million. That amounts to 430 lost Direct Support Professional positions,” said John Pingo, of Rockford’s Goldie B. Floberg Center.
The proposal would remove a requirement for tiny homes to have an inbuilt electric vehicle charging station if the owner is a veteran.
“We have the benefit from being up the street from the Obama Presidential Center,” Ald. Jeanette Taylor said. “People want to develop in our community, so they’ve got to talk to us about our community.”
Special Assistant Attorney General Alan Spellberg defended the judge’s decision to jail Aimee Stewart. “When a judge is satisfied that the evidence shows that the defendant will not appear in court, regardless of the conditions, the judge has the inherent authority to deny pretrial release,” said Spellberg.
If signed into law, it would mandate providers receive one hour of training prior to renewing a state license, starting in July 2026. The training required by House Bill 2517 would educate providers on historic racial discrepancies in maternal care in an effort to reduce implicit biases among providers and combat maternal mortality in marginalized groups
Retire Police Chief Tom Weitzel: “When it comes to vehicle pursuits, Illinois law is woefully inadequate. The state’s statute for fleeing and eluding police has no teeth.”
Illinois has company when it comes to states shifting away from the Obama-era policies. As of 2022, only 30 states still required test scores to be included in teacher evaluation, down from 43 in 2015, according to a report from the National Council on Teacher Quality.
“Here’s an appalling fact: The cost of your car insurance in Illinois isn’t based on your driving record — it’s based on things such as the neighborhood where you live and your credit score. This is shameful.”
“Work requirements are unlikely to drive more people into employment but will certainly result in preventable loss of coverage, illness and death. It will also hit us economically. With fewer healthy people contributing to the economy, The Commonwealth Fund estimates that Illinois could lose up to $2.5 billion in gross domestic product and $214 million in taxes.”
Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke called on Illinois legislators to pass a bill that would amend the terrorism article of the state’s criminal code to include language protecting reproductive health care facilities.
Over the last few weeks, 16 TdA members and associates of the shooters were arrested in Chicago by ICE HSI Chicago on immigration charges, ICE announced Tuesday. On Dec. 2, eight people were shot, three fatally, at a house party primarily attended by Venezuelan nationals in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood.
Rep. Mary Miller’s latest letter asks U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Education Secretary Linda McMahon to specifically look into the Naperville incident and consider pulling federal funding from the state.
“Eighty-five percent of the geographic land mass in the state of Illinois can be used for carbon sequestration. The aquifer is a very small piece of that, it’s just kind of the width of Central Illinois,” state Sen. Chapin Rose said. “You can sequester north or south of this without putting anybody’s water in jeopardy.”
House Bill B3701 and Senate Bill 2187 would have significantly changed state food procurement practices, which advocates say are outdated and divert millions of public dollars out of state each year, instead of going to local farmers. In fact, of all the food consumed in Illinois, 95 percent of it comes from outside the state.
In Weiss v. Chicago Teachers Union, several CTU members are challenging the union’s failure to provide its members with mandated financial audits. The union is required by its own internal rules to provide an audit of its finances every year, but five years have passed since members last saw how union bosses were spending their dues.
A National Business Capital report ranked Illinois the least-efficient state in the Midwest and 14th-least efficient in the country for its governments. Illinois’ inefficiency is driven by almost 7,000 units of local government – the most in the U.S. – and the cost of supporting all that bureaucracy.
In 2023, the General Assembly passed House Bill 2471, an initiative to provide universal school meals to all public school students in Illinois. However, the program remains unfunded. With one in six Illinois children facing hunger, advocates are calling on lawmakers to fulfill the promise of this policy; House Bill 2365 would appropriate $67 million.
“In the context of the Bowa (Bowa Construction, a Black-owned company) contract, Johnson said, ‘One thing I know for sure I have to do over these next two years: every single dime that our people have been robbed of, I’m going to make sure that is returned two-, three-fold.’ Whether he meant it this way or not, the clear implication was that the Johnson administration would attempt to award as much business as possible to Black-owned firms over the rest of his term.”
Join Americans for Prosperity, the Illinois Policy Institute, and Wirepoints today for a roundtable discussion on the proposed tier 2 pension sweetener legislation. Panelists will go over the history of the need for tier 2 and tier 1, why the discussions are happening, and what the implications will be for taxpayers if lawmakers do ‘sweeten’ public sector pensions.
There’s a big push in the state education bureaucracy to lower the school reading standards that determine whether a child in Illinois is considered proficient in reading and math or not. If lowering standards makes no sense to you, you are right to be confused. Lower standards will do nothing to help Illinois kids become more proficient in reading. In fact, it will likely make things worse.
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about Mayor Johnson’s racial rhetoric, the DOJ’s warning letter, the broader political and economic decay throughout Illinois, and more.
The mayor said that what matters most in city hiring is competency, collaboration and diversity. “Why wouldn’t I speak to Black Chicago? Black Chicago and Black people in America have borne the brunt of the type of policies and the maneuvering and the humiliating tactics that are coming from the federal government right now,” he said. Johnson questioned who could possibly “be mad” at his decision to “prioritize” South and West Side neighborhoods that “have been harmed the most” for decades.
“So that we can keep it as it is and people can come and view it. This really is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Village Attorney Burt Odelson said.
“Beyoncé was here for three days, and I just needed her to stay two more days, so she could help solve my budget crisis,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said before going into a spiel about tourists visiting Chicago. “She probably could figure it out because you haven’t!” one online commenter posted. A second posted, “Now that Beyoncé is gone, unfortunately, he’s gonna have to raise your taxes.”
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