The four Democratic and Republican legislative leaders said Thursday that they have reached a tentative agreement with Gov. Bruce Rauner on a plan to fund schools, though the sides warn a deal is not yet final.

The leaders recently held several closed-door meetings in search of a compromise after the Republican governor vetoed Democrats’ plan to change the way state money is distributed to local school districts. Rauner said the bill unfairly benefited the financially struggling Chicago Public Schools, and he rewrote it, setting up a standoff with Democrats.

All of Illinois’ metro areas saw their unemployment rates decline in July compared to a year earlier, but state officials continued to attribute the drop to people leaving the labor force.

The greatest unemployment rate drop was in the Chicago metro area, where it fell to 4.8 percent from 6 percent a year ago, the lowest rate for July since 2006, according to preliminary data from the Illinois Department of Employment Security. The numbers are not adjusted to take into account seasonal fluctuations in hiring and must be compared year-to-year rather than month-to-month.

Illinois police officers will no longer be able to participate in multiple law enforcement pension programs.

Thursday, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed legislation that outlaws a practice he described as “double dipping.”

The Chicago Police Department plans to own as many as 6,900 Tasers by the end of 2017, a ninefold increase from just two years ago and enough to give every officer on patrol an electric shock weapon that can drop a person in an instant.

Saying Tasers were part of his plan to “ensure the safety of every resident,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel embraced the devices as an alternative to guns after Laquan McDonald’s fatal shooting by an officer sparked widespread outrage in late 2015.

Disgraced former Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett reports to prison in just a few days.

Byrd-Bennett will be serving her 4-and-a-half year prison sentence at the Federal Prison Camp Alderson in West Virginia.

Special windows installed by city contractors in homes around Chicago’s Midway Airport were intended to muffle the noise of jets roaring overhead.

But dozens of homeowners are now saying that the sound-deadening windows are emitting a foul odor, like burning plastic, when heated by the sun. And they are worried that the smell could be making them sick.

The potentially high costs of reconfiguring streets around the Barack Obama Presidential Center are a small price for the city to pay given the opportunity the project represents for the South Side and Chicago as a whole, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday.

The Chicago Department of Transportation on Wednesday unveiled plans to possibly add a lane to Lake Shore Drive near the Jackson Park site of the library and two extra lanes to part of Stony Island Avenue in a bid to offset traffic problems from the proposed closure of Cornell Drive nearby.

The overdose caseload is climbing in McHenry County Coroner Anne Majewski’s office these days.

The costs to run her office are rising as well.

The Cary Village Board is looking to new taxes to try to fill a $700,000 budget deficit for fiscal 2019.

At a recent Committee of the Whole meeting, the board heard ways to increase revenue through new taxes; license and permit fee increases; or by capturing new growth in the village’s property tax levy.

As Kane County officials seek to close a $5.6 million projected budget gap for 2018, Kane County Supervisor of Assessments Mark Armstrong on Thursday suggested halting spending tax dollars in local newspapers.

The $1.26 million budget for Armstrong’s office is only about 2 percent of the county’s $60 million general fund budget. But Armstrong earmarks about 8 percent of his expenses, some $106,000 this year, to publish changes in property assessments in local newspapers, including the Daily Herald.

A Quincy committee recommends that $120,000 be provided for the redevelopment of five apartments in four downtown buildings.

The $120,000 investment through the city’s tax increment financing rental rehab program would include private investment of more than $154,000.