President Joe Biden delivered a defiant argument for a second term in his State of the Union speech Thursday night, lacing into GOP front-runner Donald Trump for espousing “resentment, revenge and retribution" and for jeopardizing freedom at home and abroad.

State Rep. Bob Morgan said banning guns at polling places is necessary given rising security concerns surrounding elections. Gun rights advocates said the proposal is an answer in search of a problem.

A plan headed to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk will allow voters in November to choose half of the Chicago Board of Education. Johnson will appoint the other half, plus its president.

The Obama Presidential Center, which broke ground in September 2021, had been slated to open in October 2025.

During a brief sentencing hearing, the 76-year-old Terry Link made a public apology. Speaking slowly and with a tremor borne of a neurological condition that has worsened since he left office in 2020, Link said he’d made a mistake and “did not intend to cheat the government.”

Chicago is on the path to getting the hybrid school board preferred by Mayor Brandon Johnson, with the Illinois Senate’s begrudging approval of legislation Tuesday finalizing the transition to an elected school board.

A three-judge panel of the 1st District Appellate Court unanimously overturned the Feb. 23 decision by a Cook County judge that invalidated the binding ballot question known as Bring Chicago Home. The ruling could still be appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.

U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, a 55-year-old multimillionaire who is among the richest members of Congress, built his White House bid around calls for a new generation of Democratic leadership while spending freely from his personal fortune.

Some teenagers in Illinois who are too young to vote for this year's primary and general election are already preparing for their first chance to vote in other future elections.

Haley didn’t endorse the former president in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina. Instead, she challenged him to win the support of the moderate Republicans and independent voters who supported her.

Tim Mapes was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison, though U.S. District Judge John Kness told Mapes he had “zero hesitation in agreeing, wholeheartedly, that you are a good man,” after reading dozens of letters written to the court on Mapes’ behalf.

A Republican proposal that would give citizens the ability to propose ethics-related constitutional amendments on the ballot received a bipartisan boost Tuesday when former Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn endorsed it.

For Eileen O’Neill Burke, locked in a fierce fight for the Democratic nomination for Cook County state’s attorney against Clayton Harris III, her last name has turned out to be a double-edged sword.

A recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling is raising questions about IVF. In Illinois, the Reproductive Health Act protects the increasingly popular path to parenthood while establishing people’s right to make decisions about their own reproductive health.

Illinois is the only state in the country to require behind-the-wheel road tests for seniors renewing their licenses. Proposed legislation in Springfield is looking to eliminate that mandate despite conflicting research from some national safety groups.

More money for migrants, increased access to preschool, a break on grocery bills and a prescription for how the state could wipe out medical debt — those are some of the spending plans in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s nearly $53 billion state budget.