A federal judge on Wednesday cleared the way for President Donald Trump ’s plan to downsize the federal workforce with a deferred resignation program.

Critics complain the independent agency, funded by the Federal Reserve System, lacks sufficient supervision and regularly exceeds its regulatory authority. Defenders argue the bureau’s watchdog mission has strong bipartisan support.

A 20-second video released Wednesday by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office of a small City Hall room crammed with gifts his office accepted on behalf of the city is “not a substitute for public access to public property,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said.

“By applying the sales tax only to goods and a small number of services, Illinois is missing the ability to tax much of the spending within its borders,” the nonpartisan Civic Federation said in its latest report.

“I support President Trump in many ways,” state Sen. Jil Tracy (R-Quincy) said, “but I don’t think he understands that this just signals that the corruption in Illinois is just accepted, rather than it has to stop.”

No longer will gifts accepted by Chicago’s mayor on behalf of the city be covered by an “unwritten arrangement” dating back to the late 1980s during the administration of former Mayor Eugene Sawyer, Board President William Conlon said.

The state of Illinois has pressed pause on a barrier designed to keep invasive carp from entering the Great Lakes, saying it can no longer count on the federal government to honor its funding obligation to the $1.15 billion project.

The proposed policy “impermissibly allows officers to use race, ethnicity, and other protected characteristics when making decisions on whether to stop, frisk or search people, in violation of federal and state law,” according to the coalition led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.

The federal government is the second largest employer in Illinois, with 82,000 federal workers in the state.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has lost almost all ability to track $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian aid following the Trump administration’s foreign funding freeze and idling of staffers, a government watchdog warned Monday.

Lurie Children’s Hospital will continue to provide hormone therapy and puberty blockers, a hospital spokesperson confirmed, and specifically noted that mental health care will also continue as part of the hospital’s gender care program.

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted on charges that included seeking to sell an appointment to then-President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat and trying to shake down a children’s hospital.

President Donald Trump says he has ordered the U.S. Mint to stop making pennies, which he correctly says cost more than one cent to produce.

Karina Gonzalez and her 15-year-old daughter Daniela were shot and killed on Fourth of July weekend in 2023 at their Chicago home, allegedly by her husband. After more than a year of negotiations, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill in her honor that is designed to remove guns from domestic violence situations.

President Donald Trump will need the Supreme Court, with three justices he appointed, to enable the most aggressive of the many actions he has taken in just the first few weeks of his second White House term. But even a conservative majority with a robust view of presidential power might balk at some of what the president wants to do.

Finance Committee Chair Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd Ward) failed to hold a vote on the agreement as scheduled Monday, an indication that the deal does not have enough support to advance to the full City Council.