Get the latest news from around Illinois.
The Center Square: RICO lawsuit filed against Madigan, ComEd in federal court
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and utility ComEd have been hit with a civil racketeering lawsuit filed in federal court.
The suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District Eastern Division by a group of attorneys asks for ComEd customers to get payments of at least $450 million in damages, including $150 million in “ill-gotten gains ComEd has admitted to.”
Capitol News Illinois: Appeals court allows lawsuit challenging bond issues to move forward
A lawsuit seeking to force the state to default on billions of dollars in outstanding bonds should move forward, a state appellate court said last week.
A three-judge panel of the 4th District Illinois Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that a lower court acted prematurely in dismissing the suit by John Tillman, CEO of the conservative think tank Illinois Policy Institute.
State Journal-Register: Rent, mortgage help available for victims of pandemic
Illinois is now taking applications from people needing help to pay their rent because they’ve lost income from the coronavirus pandemic.
The advice from Gov. JB Pritzker is to not waste any time if you need help because the $150 million allocated to the program isn’t not expected to be enough to help everyone who needs it.
Chicago Sun-Times: CPS to slash school police budget by more than half, to $15 million
Chicago Public Schools will budget less than half as much money this year to pay police officers stationed in schools than it did last year, according to a new proposed district spending plan released Monday.
The reduction in spending on Chicago police officers in public schools comes in the middle of heated debate over whether cops should remain at the more than 70 schools at which they were stationed last year.
Chicago Tribune: Kim Foxx drops more felony cases as Cook County state’s attorney than her predecessor, Tribune analysis shows
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is dropping felony cases involving charges of murder and other serious offenses at a higher rate than her predecessor, according to a Tribune analysis that comes amid a growing debate over criminal justice reform.
During Foxx’s first three years as the county’s top prosecutor, her office dropped all charges against 29.9% of felony defendants, a dramatic increase over her predecessor, the Tribune found. For the last three years of Anita Alvarez’s tenure, the rate was 19.4%.