Tyson Foods says it’s closing plants in Chicago and Jefferson, Wisconsin, in a move that will affect 880 workers.

Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson said in a statement Thursday the closures are due to changing product needs, the age of both facilities and prohibitive costs of renovations, as well as the distance of the Chicago plant from its raw material suppliers.

Job losses at the Chicago plant, which makes prepared foods for the hospitality industry, will total around 480 people. Another 400 positions will be lost at the Jefferson plant, which makes sliced pepperoni and ham for pizza toppings, as well as sliced pepperoni and salami for deli and food service applications.

The company expects to close the plants in the second half of its fiscal year, which ends Oct 1, 2016.

Five state airplane pilots spent the first quarter of Illinois’ fiscal year showing up at their jobs with little chance of leaving the ground.

The reason: Beginning in July, Gov. Bruce Rauner grounded the state air shuttle that ferried state workers and lawmakers between Springfield and Chicago as part of a budget-cutting plan designed to save an estimated $3 million.

Data provided by the transportation agency through a Freedom of Information Act request shows the shuttles flew 136 times in the three months leading up to Rauner’s decree. Afterwards, records show the planes took off zero times.

New research shows blue collar workers in the state are among the worst paid in the Midwest.

“We got new employees that we hope will be here over 30-years and, the fact is, that we, as a family organization, we don’t want to lose those folks or have them not be able to make it either.”

Mark Salvaggio has seen the ups-and-downs of running a business, but has never faced the impact of potentially losing workers and projects.

Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office said Wednesday that it has reached agreement on new contracts with 11 more labor unions, most of them trade unions, representing about 500 state workers.

The Republican’s administration used the announcement to once again criticize the largest state employee union — Council 31 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — for failing to come to an agreement on a new contract after months of negotiations.

“These developments stand in stark contrast to the ongoing negotiations with AFSCME Council 31,” the administration said in a prepared statement. “Despite being offered substantially the same material terms as the Teamsters and the Trades, AFSCME has to date rejected the governor’s chief proposals.”

Fox Lake police personnel will get structured performance evaluations and be given more training opportunities, and the department will strengthen its accountability and procedures — only the beginning of what could be a complete revamp of the department, village officials told the Daily Herald Editorial Board on Wednesday.

Village Administrator Anne Marrin and police spokesman Christopher Covelli said the investigation into the Fox Lake Police Department so far has turned up serious administrative problems, including a lack of basic communication.

Marrin said the village will hire a temporary chief of police who will be tasked with shaking things up, a “real change agent,” she promised.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is defending the worth of the city’s speed camera program in the face of of nearly $2.5 million in erroneous tickets being issued, reports WBBM Political Editor Craig Dellimore.

At first, Mayor Emanuel responded to the Tribune reports of being issued when the speed cameras weren’t supposed to be operating with assertions that the program is still about safety, not revenue.

“We always got to be pretty vigilant in…the operation of it, but the fact of the matter is, it is achieving the goal of bringing safety in and around our parks and schools and the data is clear about that,” Emanuel said.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle always called her $4.5 billion budget – which will tag an additional tax on everything from hotels and e-cigarettes to bullets and lawsuits — “difficult.”

But the budget, which will increase spending by the county by nearly $500 million, met 12-5 approval by commissioners on Wednesday. The budget factors in a penny-on-the-dollar sales tax, which will go into effect in January. The total sales tax will rise to 10.25 percent — among the highest in the nation — when state and other taxing bodies’ portions are added in.

“I cautioned almost exactly a year ago — when the Board passed the FY 15 budget — that FY 16 would be extremely difficult. And developing this budget was indeed difficult. But we managed to close a preliminary $198 million gap through a variety of expense cuts, smart management initiatives and with only modest tax and fee hikes,” Preckwinkle said in a statement.

The College Football Playoff rankings are intensely contested by teams and their fans. This week the Tax Foundation released its tax policy equivalent, which ought to be a major embarrassment for the blue state conference.

Leading the Tax Foundation’s annual business tax climate index are traditional low-tax powerhouses Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska, Florida and Nevada. A major reason for their perennial dominance is their lack of a personal income tax and low corporate tax burdens. Their sales and property taxes are also relatively modest.

At the back of the pack are, in ascending order from the bottom, New Jersey, New York, California, Minnesota, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Ohio and Maryland. The only state to recently break out of this hall of tax shame is North Carolina, which in 2013 slashed its top 7.75% income tax to a flat 5.75% and its corporate rate to 5% from 6.9%. The former 44th is now ranked 15th.

Illinois is taking another step forward in the nationwide rush to equip police officers with body cameras.

In response to a new law going into effect on Jan. 1, officials are seeking a company to supply 1,000 body cameras and 1,000 patrol car cameras to state and local law enforcement agencies.

The bidding process comes as police-worn cameras have jumped in popularity after events such as the police shootings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Freddie Gray in Baltimore.