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A team of local real estate investors has raised its bet on a downtown office recovery, buying a distressed Loop office building loan for roughly 84% less than the property was worth over a decade ago. It’s the 23-story office property at 200 W. Monroe St.
McLean County Judge Rebecca Foley said the Strikebreakers Act does not apply to public universities, noting it was illegal for state employees to strike when the law was enacted. Further, Foley said denying the university the ability to provide clean, hygienic public spaces and dorms would compromise the health and welfare of students and employees. “It doesn’t take a lot of imagination,” she said, to predict what might happen without janitorial services over the course of a strike.
The company will in turn be subject to tax breaks under the state’s EDGE, or Economic Development for a Growing Economy, tax credit program. Those would amount to $19 million over 10 years.
Springfield received just under $34 million. Ramona Metzger, director of the office of budget and management, listed some of those projects: “There were water fund capital projects, lead service line, tourism, Olde Towne Apartments, the demolition for that. The library, we replaced the elevators. There was also the firehouse and fire equipment.”
“It’s not a mask mandate,” state Sen. Graciela Guzmán said. “It does not require anyone to wear a mask or any protective equipment. It protects the right of people who choose, need, or use protective medical equipment to do so without punishment or discrimination.”
State Rep. Kam Buckner said, “I’ve heard many of my colleagues say this is a ballooning budget, but the truth is a balloon floats away when it has no anchor. … (This budget is) anchored in schools, anchored in healthcare, anchored in pensions, public safety, human services.”
Logan County zoning officer and planning director Alan Green said the ordinance will introduce restrictions on all data center projects in Logan County. Some of those restrictions will include energy generation, the type of properties used for the data center, noise level parameters, and more.
Illinois’ gas tax is currently 48.3 cents per gallon, and another annual increase is slated to take effect on July 1.
“This Supreme Court decision addresses the very gerrymandering efforts the Democrats are hoping to codify into Illinois law with this Constitutional Amendment,” the Illinois Freedom Caucus, a group of far-right Republicans, said in a statement. “(House Joint Constitutional Amendment 28) is now, very clearly, unconstitutional.”
The surprise move in one of the most well-known cases to emerge from Operation Midway Blitz transforms a high-stakes felony prosecution into a misdemeanor matter. Each of the remaining four defendants, including former congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, is now looking at a maximum of one year in prison if convicted.
“Mayor Panic Attack, tipping is an American tradition. More specifically, it’s a Chicago way of life, we all know it and many of us do it with panache. Do us in the hospitality industry a favor and find another madeup grievance to cry about.”
Venezuelan migrant Jose Medina, 25, is charged with first-degree murder and other lesser charges for the shooting that killed Sheridan Gorman on a Rogers Park pier March 19. Gorman’s father said, “She is gone because systems that are supposed to protect the public did not do their job.” Medina’s attorney said he was bused to Chicago from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbot, and has been in the U.S. with his mother on asylum.
The Illinois Economic Policy Institute estimated a 3 percent surtax on millionaires would affect 41,000 taxpayers in the state and generate $3.8 billion during its first year. That total would ramp up to $4.2 billion by 2030. The House Revenue and Finance Committee approved the resolution April 21, but it failed to get a vote in the full chamber. There is no similar proposal in the Senate.
“What I was talking about was the fact that a constitutional republic was torn apart in 53 days in Germany in the 1930s, and that we need to watch out for that in this country” and “much of what I said has been proven to be true, that the institutions of this democracy are being attacked by the Republicans and by Donald Trump,” Gov. JB Pritzker said on CNN.
“Defendants claim Judge (James) Brown undermined public confidence in the judiciary,” attorneys wrote in the latest filing. “Yet Defendants allow other sitting judges to publicly speak on matters of public concern,” the attorneys argued, before summarizing some of Judge Ramon Ocasio’s comments. “His columns discuss myriad matters of public concern, including: the ‘abolition of policing’ through the lens of the Native American ‘indigenous resistance’ who view police officers as ‘foot soldiers of U.S. occupation, racism, and misogyny,” the filing stated.
Chicago’s home prices grew at more than five times the pace of the nation’s in February, according to today’s report from the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Indices. Home prices here were up 5.04% in February, the index reports, compared with growth of 0.7% nationwide.
The bill now under consideration in the Illinois House of Representatives would allow workers to begin receiving unemployment benefits after two
“CPS says it ‘must divert between $400 and $500 million from the classroom annually to pay for debt service to fund school construction and repairs.’ That makes little sense for a system with so many empty seats. Until CPS aligns its footprint with the number of students it actually serves, deficits will persist.”
In 2026, CPD has a budget of $200 million for overtime. To finish 2026 on budget, CPD must reduce its spending on overtime by 30 percent as compared with what the department spent in 2025.
“But (Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson) argued the governor can get more credit than he deserves for being a progressive champion. ‘Wealthy white men have a lot of cover,’ Johnson says. ‘The expectations of individuals of privilege are different than women and people of color, and I think that more politicians need to be challenged to push an agenda that’s responsive to the people who have been stuck in the margins.'”
The proposal has gotten a lukewarm reception by the Illinois Federation of Teachers. Though they are not actively opposing the bill, union leaders have raised concerns about the possible cost and logistics of implementing the restrictions.
The plan shifts care into schools, transit hubs, community centers, and other nonclinical spaces while sending teams directly to residents who live outside traditional care networks. The dollars come from a mix of corporate contributions, state opioid settlement funds, and Ryan White Part A money that typically supports HIV care, and the rollout is expected to involve dozens of community and health partners.
If the proposal, House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 28, gets at least 36 of the 59 votes in the Senate before the May 3 deadline, it will appear on the November ballot. But the proposed language simply codifies the state’s current poor redistricting practice.
“Electronic monitoring is not an alternative to detention. It does not keep people safe,” Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke said. “The states attorney’s office is going to continue to ask for detention each and every time we believe someone presents a danger.”
The $2.8 billion in federal emergency funding that CPS received starting in 2020 helped mask continued structural funding problems.
Andrew S. Boutros, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Christopher C. Amon, special agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Chicago Field Division: “The next shooting will not be prevented by a case that will be indicted three years from now. It will be prevented by what happens in the next 24 to 72 hours.”
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