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Top Illinois Stories
Between one-third and half of police departments surveyed said their use-of-force policies are missing at least one requirement under the SAFE-T Act, the report found. In a separate review of 10 agencies, only one had fully incorporated the law’s standards.
"If they are teaching sexual orientation and gender ideology-related content, the investigations will examine whether the schools have notified parents of their right to opt their children out of such instruction. The investigation will also assess whether the Illinois School Districts limit access to single-sex intimate spaces (such as bathrooms and locker rooms) and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex," the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said in a release. In total, 36 school districts across the state are being investigated.
The bill, the “Living Wage for All Act,” was introduced by Reps. Delia Ramirez and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, both Democrats from Illinois, along with Reps. Analilia Mejia (D‑N.J.) and Lateefah Simon (D-Cali.). If enacted, the bill would raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour, would more than triple the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
The ruling leaves Illinois partisan gerrymandering practices untouched, but it means the racial district requirement of HJRCA 28 would violate the 14th Amendment.
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Opioid settlements with other companies linked to the nationwide crisis have totaled more than $58 billion, with Illinois so far earmarked for $1.6 billion. Settlement funds are dedicated to addiction treatment, prevention and recovery programs.
The utility says the added costs were related to connecting data centers and other new businesses, as well as electrification efforts such as building out EV charging infrastructure in 2025. If approved, the cost reconciliation would add $2.97 per month to the distribution charges on the average residential customer bill beginning in January 2027.
“Believe me, every mayor wants more effective, affordable... [middle class] housing in our communities,” said Mark Kownick, mayor of northwest suburban Cary “But in order for this to happen, you’ve got to work with the municipalities.”
"Armed with whistles and phone cameras, the people of Illinois reminded the nation that everyday people of conscience do still have power in America. That’s the Illinois playbook. The Illinois Accountability Commission honors Illinoisans’ bravery with action."
"Pritzker, who Forbes estimates is worth about $4 billion, is also well aware of the backlash against billionaires in his party and has over the years been accused of "buying" public office. In the run-up to the midterms and 2028, the top-versus-bottom messaging popularized by Sen. Bernie Sanders, is already proving to be a dominant narrative. "
"Sen. Karina Villa, for example, had this to say about the House action on Bears/megaprojects and its refusal to take up a millionaire’s income tax surcharge: 'Illinois families were told there was not enough time to ask the wealthiest few to pay more. Yet there was time to move a Bears package that even the Bears management themselves say still needs changes. When Springfield decides something is urgent, it finds the time. Working families deserve to be treated as urgent too.'"
"This would apply when federal law enforcement comes with a valid, enforceable federal warrant," Rose said. "That's critical. This is not a question of, 'hey, we just picked up some guy off the street.' This is a valid, enforceable federal warrant. It's a big deal."
State Rep. Regan Deering, who also serves on the Mt. Zion school board, praised the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision to examine school policies across Illinois, arguing that parents have been sidelined in key educational decisions.
The General Assembly created the independent tribunal in 2013, with the stated purposes of increasing fairness in the tax system and resolving disputes between taxpayers and the Illinois Department of Revenue. The tribunal’s jurisdiction is limited to certain Illinois statutes and it generally hears cases involving more than $15,000 of interest and penalties.
Illinois currently counts low-income students based on their enrollment in federal support programs, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. However, under new eligibility rules that were part of the federal budget law Congress passed last year, the number of people enrolled in those programs is expected to decline.
Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday underwent a “routine outpatient urology procedure” and will be stepping back from public duties next week.
The settlement, which still requires approval from the Illinois Commerce Commission, would give affected customers an estimated bill credit of $50 in 2026, $40 in 2027 and $40 in 2028.
Among the 3,086 bills introduced this year in Springfield, Senate Bill 2832 would require the State Board of Education to establish a pilot program to provide Illinois students developmental etiquette education beginning with the 2027-2028 school year. By the 2028-2029 school year, each student in grade 12 would have to complete the program to receive a high school diploma.
Abigail Jackson, a spokesperson for the White House, said in response to the report, “If JB Pritzker spent this much time and energy addressing crime and supporting the arrest of criminal illegal aliens instead of providing them with sanctuary, Illinois residents would be much safer.”
Jim Dey: "If, as (Illinois House Speaker Chris) Welch said, 'everyone knows it needs a lot more work,' why were Welch and a host of others pushing to get the measure on the ballot just a week ago? Perhaps it was because Illinois has a rich history of majority-party leaders ramming controversial, complicated pieces of legislation through the General Assembly before all legislators, the public and the news media have a chance to review it. Call it the 'fait accompli' approach to public policy."
“Documenting this was easy,” Commission Chair Rubén Castillo said. “The record is overwhelming; the video tapes are overwhelming. They’re devastating. They’re shameful. They’re brutal.” Body camera footage released by the commission shows the agents proceeded to use teargas on a street of onlookers in the Far Southeast Side neighborhood, including more than a dozen Chicago police officers who had explicitly asked agents not to deploy the gas.
"It’s not crazy to be worried about sacrificing local control. And these opponents are a powerful constituency that has helped kill prior housing reforms."
Data from the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) shows that the unemployment rate was 5.1 percent in March, which is up .1 percent from February and up .5 percent from last March.
Thefts where retail workers are threatened with weapons, or someone is hurt have risen 7 percent in the last year.
House Republican Leader Tony McCombie and Senate Republican Leader John Curran are proposing a specific solution in response to the recent killing of Chicago Police Officer John Bartholomew. They want people who are on electronic monitoring pretrial and commit a new crime to automatically have pretrial release revoked until the case is resolved.
University of Illinois Springfield Professor Ken Kriz spoke to the committee from a neutral stance, based on his 20 years of experience researching and advising cities on pensions. “In general when restrictions are put in place, what we see is poor risk-adjusted returns,” Kriz said. “You have to have increased costs of monitoring to make sure there’s no investments going into a certain asset. Increasing the cost just reduces the benefits you can offer or increases the cost to the taxpayers.”
Testosterone was classified as a Schedule III controlled substance in the 1990 Anabolic Steroids Control Act to crack down on performance enhancing drug use in sports. “Tracking individuals for seeking hormone replacement therapy undermines both medical confidentiality and personal freedom,” state Sen. Adriane Johnson said. “Everyone deserves the ability to make informed healthcare choices without unnecessary intrusion.”
The board says the overhaul will make school ratings clearer and fairer. The changes also remove some key measures and reshape how performance is judged. Yet at a time when nearly half of Illinois students can’t read at grade level and even fewer are proficient in math, the board’s overhaul will change how schools are labeled but not how they perform.
"Use the law. Use the courts. Use your voice. Make sure Republican leaders know we will not rest until they end their decades-long effort to silence voters of color. This moment calls for a new generation of civil rights heroes."
Pritzker said on MS NOW, “I’m so proud of the people of Illinois who really wrote the playbook. They’re the ones who went out and bought whistles and people in neighborhoods all across the state, because it wasn’t just Chicago. They attacked all across the state. People came out of their homes when they saw these unmarked vehicles, these masked men jumping out of cars, attacking people."
Illinois state courts remained America's top destination for asbestos-related personal injury lawsuits in 2025, with Madison County (872 asbestos-related lawsuits) and St. Clair County (657 asbestos injury lawsuits) again accounting for the lion's share of such filings, a new report has indicated.
Top Chicago Stories
Buses took students to a rally at Operation PUSH on the South Side and other community-based events, while others transported students to an afternoon rally in Union Park that marched to Daley Plaza. Ultimately, 40 field trips were approved, allowing 2,200 students to participate in off-campus activities. 
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. 
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That lesson became abundantly clear with the renovation of Soldier Field in 2003. The team kicked in $200 million toward the $632 million project. The public still owes $467 million for the job, which, once it was completed, drew widespread criticism. Another lesson in taxpayer costs, Rate Field cost about $137 million to build when it opened in 1991. It cost another $118 million in renovations in the 2000s — all of it paid by taxpayers. The public still owes another $45 million for the ball field
Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie L. Mosser, president of the Illinois State’s Attorneys Association, said prosecutors need to look at every case individually. “I do agree with State’s Attorney O’Neill Burke’s process now, because I think they’re doing what is just in every case, which is making sure that if a certificate of innocence is going to be granted, it is going to be based on the fact that they were actually innocent,” she said.
A DePaul University journalism institute focused on “racial justice” is drawing scrutiny from media experts who say it contributes to skepticism of the news.
"Thousands of residents live in fear and are often terrorized by violent habitual offenders who are on the streets because of pretrial release and are reluctant to help police because they fear retaliation."
"In fact, nearly 9 in 10 parents in Chicago and nationally believe their child is at or above grade level, even though closer to only 3 in 10 Chicago students are on grade level in reading and only 2 in 10 in math. When families believe their child is doing fine, they may be less likely to see attendance as urgent."
All drivers — even those who stay in the car — face charges of $4.07 to $23.39 after a 15-minute grace period. Park district officials expect the new automated system to generate about $9.4 million in revenue this year.
Chicago budget director Annette Guzman left Cook County Assessor Fritz’s staff in January 2020 to take a job as budget director for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, then left that post in May 2023 when Brandon Johnson made her the city of Chicago budget director.
Illinois African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission Chair Marvin Slaughter, Jr. told students at Kennedy King College, "We want the government that is responsible for enslaving our ancestors and responsible for the gaps that we see in everything from mother and infant mortality, education, educational attainment, wealth. They're responsible for all of these things."
Last week, Gov. JB Pritzker signed an executive order barring state employees from using insider information to bet on prediction market apps, citing highly accurate bets made in February regarding U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, an anonymous trader who earned more than $400,000 after placing large bets on the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and a user who placed a $40,000 bet that OpenAI would launch an AI web browser before the end of the month.
They started as young attorneys on opposite sides of the courtroom — John Lyke as a prosecutor, Charles Beach on the defense — and years later found themselves on the bench in the Pretrial Division at 26th and California, one of the most grueling assignments in the building, where 50, 70, sometimes 100 defendants a day cycled through to have bail amounts set on charges ranging from pot possession to murder.
"Imagine if city decision-makers had walked the Grand Avenue bridge at 8:15 on a Tuesday morning in October 2024, stood at Grand and Halsted and Milwaukee, and watched the No. 65 inch forward. Watched the cyclist’s narrow choice. Watched the parent with a stroller. And said: Maybe all of this at once is not a good idea. Let’s go back to the planning table with CDOT, the CTA, the departments of Buildings and Water Management, the Gaming Board and the casino, together, and center our citizens instead of our regulations."
Roughly 2,290 student workers, represented by the UIC Graduate Employees Organization, went on strike Monday after months of stalled contract talks. The union’s three-year contract expired last August.
"It absolutely needs to be amended because I think while the intention was good, not forcing people to sit in jail because they couldn't afford bond on minor crimes, it has been utterly manipulated and abused by dangerous violent repeat offenders who have no regard for the sanctity of human life, no regard for property, and no intention of ever following the law," Ald. Ray Lopez said.
Joseph Graciosa, a computer science teacher at Solorio Academy High School, said that May 1 at his building will begin with an assembly about the history of May Day and the power of students in education reform. Discussions will highlight the impact of recent immigration raids on the school’s community.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
“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."
Wirepoints Research and Commentary
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
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Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do. 
The state's existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis. 
Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them. 
Borrowing for current and past operating expenses, blanks for use of funds and more make Chicago's bond sale planned for next week smell mighty bad. Mark Glennon's interview is in the first ten minutes starting here.
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