State & Local News Headlines

The data posted on George Cardenas's website included voting histories and personal addresses for what appears to be every registered voter in Chicago, including Gov. JB Pritzker, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Cardenas himself. The data also included the addresses and voting histories of judges whose personal information is […]

"In Chicago, one of America’s prized and wealthiest cities, only 23% of its fourth graders scored proficient or higher in reading on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress … I see the damage from this illiteracy epidemic on the South Side of Chicago every day. I see young people who cannot fill out a […]

Alderpeople Pat Dowell, Scott Waguespack and Nicole Lee want to compel Mayor Brandon Johnson to use the $75 million up-front payment from Stonepeak they negotiated in the parking meter deal without the mayor’s help to be applied to the 2026 city budget as an extra payment that chips away at the city’s $36 billion pension […]

Officials said the paperwork error – a result of accidentally counting some capital expenditures twice – does not mean D65 has more money to work with; Without the $20 million structural deficit reduction plan (budget cuts, staff layoffs, eliminating School Age Child Care, and closing two schools), District 65 would run out of its fund […]

Movement leaders say while the 2015 ordinance legalizing street vending in Chicago marked a major victory for local vendors, the law still requires food to be pre-cut and pre-packaged in a licensed commercial kitchen . They say the law prevents vendors from preparing or seasoning food to order and subjects them to citations and potential […]

Judge Rivanda Doss Beal ordered Obon Akpan, 34, of Park Forest, detained while the charges are pending.

The evidence shows the program attracts money and erects buildings more reliably than it lifts the people already living there, and it’s performed especially unimpressively in Illinois.

At least 27 questions on whether to increase property taxes will be on ballots in Illinois, whether by authorizing a property tax levy increase or approving an entirely new levy. A new 1 percent sales tax will be on the ballot in Adams, Lake and Tazewell counties.

"Here we are again, Frankfort residents. Four years later, another government taxing district is asking property owners to reach deeper into their pockets."

At the first of nine City Council hearings aimed at popping the hood on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $17.6 billion 2027 budget, aldermen today encountered an unusual degree of candor from the mayor’s finance team.