Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Thursday set out guidelines governing a transition to a post-COVID-19 state as more and more people are vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Proclaiming that he is “more optimistic today than I have been at any time” since the deadly pandemic crossed state lines in February 2020, the Democratic governor unveiled what he called a dial-up return to a return to a sense of normalcy based on percentages of the population having been fully vaccinated.

The first of more than a dozen hearings about redrawing Illinois’ maps is underway, but questions remain about what data will be used to draw the maps.

The Illinois Senate Redistricting Committee held its first of a series of hearings Wednesday in Springfield. The House has yet to announce its Redistricting Committee hearings.

It’s as if the Commonwealth Edison scandal last year never happened.

Exelon CEO Chris Crane, along with other top executives, paid no price in terms of their 2020 compensation for the breath-taking corruption confessed by the company’s largest utility subsidiary, according to the company proxy, filed yesterday with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Chicago voters would be asked to approve a binding referendum empowering a civilian police oversight commission to hire and fire the police superintendent, negotiate police contracts and set the Chicago Police Department’s budget, under a compromise ordinance circulated Thursday.

Two groups that have long pushed dramatically different versions of civilian police oversight followed through on their promise to join forces on a revised ordinance certain to encounter stiff resistance. That’s because it would strip both Lightfoot and the City Council of coveted authority over police issues.

A state senator from Centreville made nearly $58,500 last year for a position that doesn’t have a job description at a controversial water and sewer district.

Democratic state Sen. Christopher Belt is listed as superintendent of Commonfields of Cahokia Public Water and Sewage District in 2020 documents. He did not respond to the BND’s 12 phone calls, text messages and emails over more than a week requesting information about what he does there.

Fox River Grove Elementary School District 3 plans to transition to a fully in-person learning model beginning in April.

Currently, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, students in District 3 have been doing a mixture of remote and in-person learning, but starting April 6, all students will be in school five days a week for the entire academic day.

Threats of frost and snow be damned, Chicago gardeners are dreaming of visits to the local nursery, mentally planning purchases of flowers and shrubs. While many will reach for those tried-and-true friends — hostas, hydrangeas, lilacs, impatiens, geraniums, rose bushes — a growing number of gardeners are opting to incorporate native plants into their landscaping.

It wouldn’t occur to folks in the latter group to think of plants sold at a garden center as nuisance weeds, but that’s how some city inspectors view natives. And gardeners have the expensive tickets to show for it.