Beyond working on balancing the state’s budget, lawmakers in the Capitol are focused on passing “legislation that brings down costs for households, that brings good jobs, grows wages and opportunities,” Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said. Legislators are also “pushing for ‘real structural reform’ surrounding affordability” following a report that grocery costs in Illinois rose by $1,781 last year.

At one point, the land on which Hillwood wants to build its $20 billion data center comes within a quarter mile of where NorthPoint purchased land for dozens of warehouses: a hodgepodge of fields stretching 3½ miles south from the data center and a mile to both the east and west. “This is not slow and steady growth we can adjust to,” said Mike Adrieansen, mayor of Manhattan, a village of 11,000 people. “It’s very large parcels of land being developed all around us, all at once.”

The average student loan balance for borrowers in Illinois is $40,243, greater than the national average of $37,000.

House Bill 4334 comes as new translation technologies and artificial intelligence tools continue to develop.“Technology changes and as technology changes, we should adapt to make sure we’re providing our students the best education that they can have based on the most recent data of what the future is going to look like,” state Rep. Travis Weaver said.

Women are 27 percent less likely than men to receive bystander CPR because of hesitancy to follow protocol, fueled by fears of inappropriate touching, exposing the chest or drawing accusations of sexual assault, according to the Journal of the American Heart Association. House Bill 4788, sponsored by Rep. Maura Hirschauer, aims normalize CPR performance on women by introducing female manikins in secondary school CPR training.

All 118 state House seats are on the ballot, in addition to 39 of the 59 state Senate seats, and the fight to fill those seats has drawn an influx of political action committees. That includes a PAC co-founded by gun-violence-prevention activist David Hogg and a $50,000 cash infusion from the state attorney general.

Foundation officials told Fox News Digital the volunteers will complement about 300 full- and part-time employees at the long-delayed center, which the organization is promoting as a $3.1 billion economic catalyst for the Windy City’s South Side.

Former gun store owner Jeff Regnier and wife Greta Keranen say prosecutors abused their power when they used Illinois’s civil asset forfeiture laws to try to take ownership of their property even though they weren’t convicted of crimes. A judge called the tactics “authoritarian,” but prosecutors say they were following the law.