Stories by Peter Hancock — Capitol News Illinois

There was significant growth in several enrollment categories, including a nearly 20% increase in students enrolled in dual credit programs, which allow high school students to earn college credits.

His remarks came just two days after the agency abruptly laid off 1,300 employees, or about half its workforce, including an estimated 50 workers in its Chicago regional office.

A House committee advanced a bill Wednesday that would give high school student athletes the right to participate in both school-sponsored teams and non-school teams in the same sport at the same time.

The organizations say tens of thousands of students are being denied access to services because the money is not being spent.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, is a set of standardized tests administered every two years to a representative sample of fourth and eighth students nationwide. Because the tests are administered uniformly nationwide, it allows for accurate comparisons between states and over time.

Nearly two centuries after losing its reservation in Illinois in a land sale that most people now concede was illegal, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation could soon get its land back.

Illinois lawmakers passed legislation in 2018 to allow the commercial production of hemp, the same year Congress legalized hemp nationwide through the 2018 Farm Bill.

Pritzker announced plans in 2023 to establish a new agency that would consolidate under one roof a host of state programs currently scattered across several other agencies that serve the needs of families with infants and toddlers. Those include oversight and funding of preschools, childcare centers, home visiting and early intervention programs.

A legislative committee and the Illinois Department of Agriculture agreed recently to delay finalizing new regulations governing hemp production amid an outcry of protests from small, independent producers.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen faces a challenge this year from Republican Judge Joe McGraw in what analysts say is the only "competitive" congressional race in Illinois. Sorensen narrowly won the seat in 2022 after the district was heavily redrawn, but he enjoys a big fundraising advantage over McGraw.

The state’s highest court ruled Illinois can revoke a person’s FOID card once they’ve been charged with a felony and that patients in hospital rooms don’t have a universal expectation of privacy from police searches.

Throughout four days of testimony, a central issue has been whether the weapons and equipment covered under the law are commonly used in American society for lawful purposes such as self-defense, and thus protected under the Second Amendment, or military-grade weapons that state and local governments can more easily keep out of civilian hands.

Illinois lawmakers in 2023 passed the ban on so-called assault weapons following a mass shooting the prior year at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park that left seven people dead and dozens more injured.

Illinois lawmakers passed the ban in 2023 following a mass shooting the prior year at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park that left seven people dead and dozens more injured.

Illinois lawmakers passed the ban in 2023 following a mass shooting the prior year at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park that left seven people dead and dozens more injured.

The first appeal the court heard Tuesday centered on the new law’s early implementation. It involved a Chicago man who was charged with attempted murder and jailed just before the new law took effect, but who later petitioned for release once cash bail officially ended.

In a decision released Friday, Judge Iain D. Johnston said under current U.S. Supreme Court standards, the law violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. 

Adam Kinzinger, from Channahon, served in the U.S. House from 2011 to 2023. He chose not to run for reelection in 2022 after publicly breaking with the Trump administration over Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol.

Illinois Republicans say they are still as united about the upcoming election as they were at their national convention in Milwaukee last month, despite surge of enthusiasm for the Democrats’ new presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Democrats gathered in Springfield Wednesday for their annual rally at the Illinois State Fair amid a surge of enthusiasm and a renewed sense of optimism about their chances of retaining the White House in November.

The legislation puts new controls on the state’s health insurance industry, including bans on certain practices companies have used to reduce costs by controlling the amount of health care services a patient receives.

Bump stocks became the focus of gun control debate following a 2017 mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas. A gunman used weapons equipped with bump stocks to fire more than 1,000 rounds into a crowd in a matter of minutes, killing 60 people and injuring more than 400.

The Prairie Band Potawatomi are now headquartered in northeast Kansas. But they once had a reservation in what is now DeKalb County, a reservation that officials now agree was illegally sold out from under them in 1850.

The Illinois House gave final approval Saturday to a pair of bills that limit the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage or steer individuals toward lower cost, and sometimes less effective, treatments and medications, strategies sometimes referred to as “utilization management.”

The bill is one of several responses Illinois lawmakers have passed in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 that overturned Roe v. Wade. It came in response to legislative efforts in other states to ban or severely limit access to abortion services.

The bill would authorize the state to hand over what is now Shabbona Lake and State Park to the tribe for $1. It also allows the tribe and the Department of Natural Resources to enter into a land management agreement under which the land would remain open to the public for recreational use for an unspecified period.