Stories by Amanda Vinicky

In their final days of the annual spring session, members of Illinois’ General Assembly approved a series of bills targeting public safety.

Illinois voters may have been asleep from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. Saturday morning as members of the General Assembly passed a new state budget, but lawmakers designed it to grab their attention in an election year.

It’s getting down to the wire for state lawmakers. They’re supposed to finish their work for this session Friday. And just before the deadline, Democrats are out with a deal.

Democrats, who control the General Assembly, and therefore the budget process in the House, Senate and governor’s office have each offered different proposals with various forms of tax breaks. They aim to have their differences reconciled before Friday’s end, when the spring session is scheduled to adjourn.

On Monday, Democrats unveiled a series of bills they described as “pro law enforcement,” even as a top Republican rebuffed the effort as “trying to rewrite history.” Legislators are set to adjourn their spring session nearly two months earlier than normal, in order to spend spring and summer on the campaign trail. 

With a week to go before the Illinois legislature’s planned April 8 adjournment, Democrats in the state Senate on Friday introduced an election-year “inflation-busting” plan offering tax breaks to low-income workers, homeowners, parents, teachers, drivers and even volunteer first responders. 

President Joe Biden has moved to ease price pressures through opening oil reserves. Some governors, including Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, have called on the federal government to temporarily lift its tax on gasoline, though Illinois’ Gov. J.B. Pritzker was not a signatory to a letter making that request.

Starting Monday, Metra has added five train trips – 91 up from 87 – to its popular BNSF Line, which runs between Aurora and Chicago along stations including Downers Grove, Hinsdale and Brookfield.

Illinois will close its community, free COVID-19 testing sites within the next week. The Illinois Department of Public Health cites a “sharp increase in demand” that dropped “precipitously in recent weeks” as its reason for closing the testing locations, as well as an “anticipated end of federal funding.”

When COVID-19 shutdowns left a record number of people suddenly out of work, Illinois saw record applications for unemployment benefits. That increase drained the state fund that pays out those benefits, the Illinois Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.

The Senate Judiciary Committee that U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin chairs begins a series of hearings Monday into President Joe Biden’s nominee for the high court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. 

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx announced Tuesday that while officers Eric Stillman and Evan Solano erred and “escalated” the situations in their pursuits of Toledo, there’s insufficient evidence and facts to justify criminal charges. 

The $1 trillion federal infrastructure package includes spending on construction projects and puts the U.S. on the path toward transitioning to electric-powered and hybrid vehicles. It also contains a variety of safety provisions, including impaired driver monitors.

There were no major surprises as the window closed, with no big names mounting a surprise challenge to Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker. With Petersburg’s Jesse Sullivan getting his petitions in before the 5 p.m. deadline, all five of the high-profile Republicans seeking their party’s nomination for governor have filed to run in what’s expected to be a contentious race.

The former Illinois House Speaker and longtime chairperson of the Democratic Party of Illinois faces multiple counts that carry prison sentences of up to 20 years each. And advocates say Mike Madigan’s indictment should be a call for reform of state government.

It’s a new front as the U.S. attempts from afar to influence what’s happening in Ukraine. President Biden Tuesday announced a ban on all imports of oil from Russia. What consequences that may have abroad and here at home.

Anyone in line to file their petitions by the time election authorities opened their doors has a chance to be listed first on the ballot for their race, a position that could make a difference by attracting voters’ eyeballs in a close contest.

For nearly 40 years, former Illinois House Speaker and state Democratic Party chairman Michael Madigan was at the epicenter of politics in Chicago and Illinois. Now, he’s at the epicenter of a corruption investigation. The news has Springfield reeling.

Both locally and nationally, carjackings are on the rise. In Chicago, they have tripled over the last decade, according to the Cook County sheriff’s office. Other cities including New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. have also seen similar upticks.

As expected, Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday issued a new executive order that lifts the requirement for masking in most indoor public settings, citing a “vast improvement” in COVID-related hospitalizations and transmissions. 

For some Chicago areas residents, what’s happening in Ukraine is personal. They’ve got relatives suddenly living in a war zone. They’re trying to draw Americans’ attention to the Russian invasion — including with a rally Thursday afternoon in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village.

A new report estimates an additional 111-thousand voter registration applications have been processed at Illinois Secretary of State facilities annually, thanks to a 2018 automatic voter registration law. But advocates say Illinois can — and should — do better.

Illinois state legislators are considering a proposal that would help facilitate carpet recycling, but the effort has what one might call wall-to-wall complications.

Five years since the #MeToo movement took off, comes a change that will give women more protections in the workplace, and – a rarity for Washington – the measure has bipartisan backing. 

The nephew of former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and the grandson of Mayor Richard J. Daley, Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson will have to resign his City Council seat given his convictions Monday for lying to the IRS and filing false tax returns.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Wednesday afternoon address from the Old State Capitol was delivered to a mostly virtual audience after a snowstorm thwarted plans for an in-person session of the General Assembly.