More than 5,000 new jobs will be spread across plants in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.

A virtual power plant is not your typical building or single power plant. Energy experts said it’s a combination of small battery systems that would actually be installed directly in your home.

“Data centers, advanced manufacturing practices and, of course, the efforts we’ve all made toward electrification are generating a lot of demand,” State Rep. Ann Williams said. “Storage is where it’s at.”

State Rep. Ryan Spain said the collaborative process between IDOC and the committee must be accelerated: “When you file emergency rules one day after the August JCAR meeting and then wait 45 days before you begin the implementation of the subject for which the emergency rules were filed, we have now created a problem for the beginning of the year 2026 on where we go next.”

One audit finding was the number of boards and commissions that aren’t fully constituted.

Springfield and Chicago were the only municipalities with more than 100,000 residents that did not enact a tax. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson supported a city tax, but the City Council never approved the ordinance. Going forward without the tax will cost the city $60-80 million, according to the IML.

“They are part of this city that is proud to be a melting pot of culture, languages, histories and beautiful people,” Mayor Sam Cunningham said, leading the march of 300 people for nearly 2 miles. “We’re going to peacefully get ICE out of our city.”

Factors contributing to the budget deficit include the discontinuation of federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the loss of several grants and contracts funded by federal monies, and a decrease in international student enrollment due to new federal visa practices.

Fioretti, a civil rights attorney, is a well-known figure in Chicago politics. He ran for Cook County State’s Attorney twice — the first time as a Democrat, the second as a Republican. He finished a distant fourth running as a Democrat in 2020, and lost to Democrat Elieen O’Neill Burke when he ran as a Republican in 2024.

Asked if he’d like governors in the United States to be tougher, President Trump said “I want it to be stronger and tougher and not allow us to have record breaking crime.”

But it also shows that despite billions of dollars in additional spending on K-12 education, proficiency rates in reading, writing and math have stagnated, and in some cases have declined, a fact that mirrors national trends.

Decades ago, Morgantown was one of a few federal minimum security prisons jokingly referred to as “Club Fed” due to the activities offered. But Prison Consultants of America Executive Director Michael Sabo said it’s been 50 years since the Morgantown facility’s pool was decommissioned amid public outcry in the 1970s and noted its long-dilapidated tennis courts are likely now shuttered too.

“But the municipal pensions demonstrate government pensions can be responsibly administered in Illinois. Among the 3,124 regular municipal retirement fund employers, 949 plans have 100 percent of the money on hand to pay what is owed, and then some.”

“Over the last several years, the Better Government Association Policy team has held dozens of meetings with lawmakers across the political spectrum to discuss our ethics reform agenda. Too many of them seem to believe their work on this front is over — that surely, after the series of scandals that peaked with Madigan’s conviction, significant ethics reform must have taken place. That’s not the case.”