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Transit leaders could vote to create a regional transit police force next January, and new “transit ambassadors” could be monitoring the CTA, Metra and Pace by July of next year. By this November, commuters should have a regional transit app to file complaints and report crimes.
Chief Judge Charles Beach’s office was asked whether evaluating or improving the SAFE-T Act is part of the assignment given to the electronic monitoring panel and whether the chief judge was preparing a separate report with recommendations for changes to the law. “The answer to both questions,” a spokesperson for the chief judge said, “is, simply, no.”
While Bally’s was flat, new facilities led a boom in casino revenue last year in Illinois. The state’s 17 casinos generated more than $1.9 billion in adjusted gross receipts in 2025, a 15 percent year-over-year gain, according to data published by the Illinois Gaming Board.
Gov. JB Pritzker signed Senate Bill 25 on Jan. 8. Starting in 2030, the law adds a charge to consumer electric bills for battery storage.
One new rule, which took effect Dec. 24, states that the date a postmark is applied to a piece of mail may not reflect the day it was received by the Postal Service. Currently, 14 states, including Illinois, will accept mail-in ballots if they are received within a certain period after Election Day if they are postmarked on or before Election Day.
Renovations on the stadium in 2003 were supposed to be paid off with a tax on hotel stays, but the pandemic limited that revenue. The city has paid nearly $52 million since 2022 to cover the costs and $356 million in debt still remains. When considering the interest and total amount to be paid over the life of the bonds, it is closer to $534 million. The Bears team already paid their share, so the rest is entirely on Chicago taxpayers.
The case centers on whether Illinois’ Minimum Wage Law offers broader worker protections than federal law. A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs could affect employers statewide by expanding what activities must be paid under Illinois law, while a ruling for Amazon would reinforce alignment with federal standards.
“Judge (James) Brown was a private citizen when he wrote his column for me and appeared on the podcast. The very bar groups asking for removal from the bench found him fair and impartial in prior evaluations. … Now they’re passively-aggressively implying Brown was transphobic and racist. They have no shame. And they expect the Illinois Supreme Court to do their dirty work.”
“Preckwinkle is a far-left Democrat, and she is largely responsible for the county party’s embracement of radical policies, such as the enactment of Illinois’ no-cash bail SAFE-T Act and the abrupt about-face from established law enforcement practices that have protected people for decades. … Boss Toni uses her power as party leader and County Board president to get her way, while generally remaining in the background.”
Illinois state agencies stood to lose nearly $6 million that goes toward behavioral health and suicide prevention, the agencies said in a joint news release. In the release Gov. JB Pritzker called the terminations “nothing short of abject cruelty.”
The figures are slightly higher than a national poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in mid-October.
The mayor’s office says Chicago receives more than three billion dollars in federal grants annually, spending about $1 billion each year. “First of all, he can’t do that, right?” Johnson said. “So, I just wanted to level set this president has threatened our city and other cities across America on multiple fronts. I just want to name the fact how unnatural this person’s behavior is.”
Public records show Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, or the United Workers Center, received more than $3.6 million from the state of Illinois since 2015, most of that coming since 2023. “It’s a situation where we have tax payers from Illinois paying for an organization that is actively impeding federal law, and they have a mission statement to do just that,” state Rep. Adam Niemerg said.
“Candidates, in short, are not ‘mere bystanders’ in their own elections,” U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority decision. “They have an obvious personal stake in how the result is determined and regarded. Departures from the preordained rules cause them particularized and concrete harm. … An unlawful extension of vote counting deprives candidates of the opportunity to compete for election under the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
Joe Abraham said he was taken aback when Gov. JB Pritzker spoke publicly after the Minnesota shooting despite staying silent following his daughter Katie’s death.
The coalition of progressive unions that helped put him in office remains fractured. His tax-the-rich agenda has produced more rhetoric than results. Animosity lingers from tactics the Chicago Teachers Union used to intimidate alderpersons who rejected Johnson’s proposed corporate head tax.
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