Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Chicago Tribune: Illinois child welfare agency chief to step down; Gov. Pritzker conducting national search for replacement
Illinois child welfare chief Beverly “B.J.” Walker told the Tribune late Friday she will step down next month.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker is conducting a national search for a replacement, Walker said, and she has agreed to stay on to help the transition.
Daily Herald: State supreme court: Mom can sue Six Flags over fingerprinting and privacy
In a ruling hailed by privacy rights groups, Illinois Supreme Court justices issued an opinion Friday that allows a suburban mom to continue a lawsuit against Six Flags Great America over its use of fingerprints for season pass holders’ entry.
Citing the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, Stacy Rosenbach sued the Gurnee theme park in 2016 about two years after her son, Alexander, then a minor, was required to be electronically fingerprinted to receive a season pass. The state law is considered by privacy groups to be the nation’s strongest for safeguarding identifiers such as facial features, fingerprints and iris scans.
Chicago Sun-Times: CTA broke law by hiring legislator’s housemate, who rarely showed up: inspector
In 2014, Mayor Rahm Emanuel convinced a federal judge to let City Hall out from under the decades-old Shakman court decree and a costly federal hiring monitor whose job was to prevent the political hiring and firing of city workers.
But a state report Friday said that improper hiring remained under one of the government agencies that reports to Emanuel: the Chicago Transit Authority.
Crain's Chicago Business: Time for an independent inspector general of the City Council
That’s not a line from “Goodfellas.” It’s 19th Ward Ald. Matt O’Shea speaking to veteran Chicago Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman on Jan. 23 as Chicago aldermen absorbed the blockbuster news that one of their longtime colleagues, Daniel Solis, 25th, powerful chairman of the Zoning Committee, had spent two years wearing a wire and recording dozens of conversations that helped federal investigators build a corruption case against his close ally, former Finance Committee chieftain Edward Burke, 14th.
Chicago Tribune: Ed Burke Jr., son of beleaguered alderman, was charged with domestic battery last year — but case dropped days later
Before dawn on a Friday last June, Edward Burke Jr. was arrested at his home in Winnetka after a family member told police he pushed her and authorities reported finding him “highly intoxicated” and “belligerent.”
But by the end of the next business day, the domestic battery charge had been dropped.
Northwest Herald: Kenneally, Reick writing bill to opt out of new bail reform requirements
Bail reform that was designed to lend a hand to indigent jail detainees could be putting opioid users and public safety at risk, McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally said.
The Bail Reform Act took effect Jan. 1, 2018, shifting the focus of pretrial detention from a person’s financial ability to post bond to one’s threat to public safety and likeliness to make court appearances.
State Journal-Register: County board chairman: We won’t consider mayor’s township consolidation proposal
Sangamon County Board chairman Andy Van Meter said the county board will not consider a proposal by Mayor Jim Langfelder in which Capital Township duties would be performed by the county but oversight of the township’s tax levy would include county board and Springfield City Council members.
Van Meter’s remarks came after he and Langfelder participated Friday in a Citizens Club of Springfield debate about the future of the township.