The governor institutes a full pre-K through 12 mask mandate. The city’s casino process gets delayed. The governor’s race could get a new entrant. And fire sale Cubs take on the surging Sox.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed legislation Thursday that makes feminine hygiene products available for free at homeless shelters and at public universities and community colleges throughout Illinois. 

Masking will be universally required in Illinois schools, and some state employees must get vaccinated for the coronavirus, according to mandates handed down Wednesday by Gov. J.B. Pritzker — a move that immediately drew rebuke from friends and foes alike.

With classes for students in pre-K through 12th grade set to resume across Illinois in the coming weeks, Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday announced a mask mandate for all students and staff at public and private schools.

Nearly 600 million birds are killed annually in North America due to collisions with buildings. A new Illinois law mandates bird-friendly design for state buildings.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday signed new legislation expanding background checks on all gun sales in the state starting in 2024, a step he touted as “commonsense” and with bipartisan support.

People with HIV can no longer be criminally prosecuted for exposing someone else to the virus without their knowledge. Advocates say the law discouraged testing and treatment for HIV — and the repeal is long overdue.

When recreational marijuana was legalized in Illinois, Gov. J. B. Pritzker’s stated goal was to use the burgeoning industry to reverse the harm done to Black and brown communities during the war on drugs. But those profiting from pot sales are nearly all white men.

As thousands of music lovers flocked to Grant Park for the first day of Lollapalooza, a surge of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Chicago and the suburbs prompted Gov. J.B. Pritzker to reimpose a mask mandate in state facilities for everyone, regardless of their vaccination status.

It’s official: The Chicago Board of Education will transition from being an appointed body to an elected one — over the objections of Mayor Lori Lightfoot. 

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed legislation Thursday that creates new resources and incentives to finance affordable housing across the state and helps low-income residents access assistance for heat and other utilities.

For transgender and gender non-conforming people, the process of changing your name and getting documents to reflect those changes can be a burden. How two new laws in Illinois aim to ease that process.

The number of new COVID-19 infections has been steadily increasing over the past few weeks and on Wednesday surpassed 2,000 for the first time in a single day since early May, according to Illinois Department of Public Health data.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday signed into law a legislation package that aims to advance the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals by, among other provisions, expanding infertility health care coverage for same-sex couples and repealing an HIV criminalization law.

“Access to birth control should never be determined by economic status, education or ZIP code. Birth control is a basic health care service. It should be treated as such and readily available for all,” said state Sen. Melinda Bush, a co-sponsor of the bill. 

Illinois’ governor says he’ll be among thousands of people flocking to Grant Park next week for the massive music festival, even as the delta variant drives a rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in Chicago and across the U.S.