Get the latest news from around Illinois.
State Journal-Register: AFSCME strike authorization vote outcome to be revealed this week
Results on whether members of the largest state employee union will authorize a strike will be released later this week, the union’s spokesman said Monday.
Sunday marked the final day of the three-week voting period for American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees members to weigh in on whether the union’s bargaining committee should call a strike.
News-Gazette: Budget deadline could be problem
Time isn’t on the state of Illinois’ side.
The state’s budget mess just keeps getting worse and worse.
Multibillion-dollar budget deficits grow even larger the longer the state goes without a broad-based solution to its fiscal and economic growth woes. Pension underfunding levels increase by multiple billions of dollars. Unpaid bills rise by multiple billions of dollars.
State Journal-Register: Illinois bill would rein in pro athletes' worker comp claims
Should injured pro athletes be allowed to earn worker compensation benefits until they are 67 years old, like other workers, even if their athletic careers normally would have ended more than 30 years earlier?
That issue is being debated between the Chicago Bears and the NFL Players Association in the Illinois Legislature as one unlikely element of a compromise proposal to end a nearly two-year-long fight over the state’s budget.
Associated Press: Bears lead Chicago sports franchises in backing measure reducing injured players' workers' compensation
Should injured pro athletes be allowed to earn workers’ compensation benefits until they are 67 years old, like other workers, even if their athletic careers normally would have ended more than 30 years earlier?
That issue is being debated between the Chicago Bears and the NFL Players Association in the Illinois Legislature as one unlikely element of a compromise proposal to end a nearly two-year fight over the state’s budget.
Chicago Tribune: Does Illinois' official seal get the state's birthday wrong?
A state lawmaker wants to change the date that appears on Illinois’ official seal, saying the date it’s featured since the 1800s isn’t when the state joined the union.
The seal displays the date Aug. 26, 1818, on the outer ring. But a measure sponsored by Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, would change the date to Dec. 3, 1818.
Peoria Journal-Star: Pulling a fast one to raise speed limit to 75 mph
State lawmakers need something to do.
Maybe hand them orange vests and garbage bags, and let them collect litter along the roadside. Give them some sort of busy work. Otherwise, they’ll keep proposing silly bills.
Chicago Tribune: Democratic U.S. Rep. Bustos won't run for Illinois governor in 2018
U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos announced Monday she will not run for Illinois governor next year, leaving the Democratic field without a major Downstate candidate.
The 55-year-old, three-term congresswoman from East Moline said after several months of considering a bid that she was calling supporters to say she instead will seek re-election to the House in 2018.
Chicago Tribune: Slaughtering Illinois coyotes in contest hunts is poor sport
Coyotes are clever, adaptable animals that once roamed the western two-thirds of North America. A determined federal government extermination campaign in the 1940s and ’50s led to the killing of more than 6 million of them. But in recent decades, coyotes have made a comeback, expanding beyond their historic range. They’ve even taken up residence in Chicago, which hosts upward of 2,000.
Many people, however, still regard them with suspicion and contempt. Mark Twain contributed to this view by describing the coyote as a “slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton” with a “furtive and evil eye” and “a general slinking expression all over.” The belief that the only good coyote is a dead coyote persists among some people in some places.
Chicago Sun-Times: Hispanic CPS schools’ budgets cut twice the rate of white ones
When Chicago Public Schools just put a freeze on half of every school’s remaining discretionary money to save $46 million, CEO Forrest Claypool blamed Gov. Bruce Rauner for the cuts, saying he has no regard for the city’s impoverished black and brown children.
Claypool even filed a lawsuit last week, accusing Rauner of violating the civil rights of the minority children who make up nine of 10 CPS students by giving them less funding than their mostly white counterparts elsewhere in the state.
Chicago Sun-Times: Emanuel’s share-the-wealth fund generates $4 million so far
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to let downtown developers build bigger and taller projects provided they share the wealth with impoverished neighborhoods has already generated $4 million and City Hall is preparing to dole out the first round of grants.
Starting Feb. 27 and continuing until late April, applications will be accepted for grants covering up to 65 percent of total costs. Interested applicants are asked to visit the city’s website at www.neighborhoodopportunityfund.com.
Chicago Sun-Times: ASPIRA teachers plan to take strike vote on Wednesday
Teachers in the ASPIRA network of charter schools on the Northwest Side will vote Wednesday on whether or not to strike after 10 months of “stalled” contract negotiations.
“Negotiations have stalled over [a] lack of transparency and accountability in finances and foundering leadership at the network’s most senior levels, threatening conditions in classrooms,” ASPIRA teachers, who are members of the ChiACTS Local 4343, said in a statement Monday.
WBEZ: Chicago Aldermen Consider Crackdown On Street Performers
On a recent sunny afternoon, at the corner of State and Washington streets, streams of people walked by a group of young men pounding out beats on plastic buckets.
The street performers, commonly called bucket boys, attracted an audience on the sidewalk. But some downtown residents and workers want the performances to stop, and they are hoping aldermen will approve a proposed crackdown that’s slated for a vote at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.
Chicago Tribune: Petcoke piles gone, but another dangerous pollutant discovered in the air
Dusty mounds of petroleum coke are gone from Chicago, but federal and city officials discovered a potentially more dangerous type of pollution while investigating the black piles that once towered above the East Side neighborhood.
Air monitors posted around two storage terminals on the Calumet River during 2014 and 2015 detected alarming levels of manganese, a heavy metal used in steelmaking that can permanently damage the nervous system and trigger learning difficulties, memory loss and anxiety.
Fox Illinois: Springfield Police, Firefighters Look Into Potential Layoffs
Mayor Jim Langfelder has asked city department heads, including the police and fire departments, to look into potential cuts in case the city can’t solve its financial issues.
City leaders estimate these cuts would result in about 10 police officers and 18 firefighters being laid off. Mayor Jim Langfelder says that would be a worst-case scenario that he and aldermen are working to avoid at all costs.
Belleville News-Democrat: Land of strippers, drugs needs knight or fairy godmother
Once upon a time, there was a village of nearly 10,000 people. It was diverse. It had trim homes and tidy yards. No one was all that rich, but no one was all that poor, either.
But then a blight fell across the land. About 6,000 of the residents moved away to escape the scourge. The trim homes became so neglected that in some places a bulldozer could drive two blocks and never hit anything but burned-out shells. Brother killed brother over scraps. Sisters sold themselves cheaply.