Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Chicago Tribune: New depositions reveal Team Madigan’s ‘strange’ request: Help a candidate run against the speaker
Southeast Side mechanic Joseph Nasella has heard a lot the last three decades as he’s jumped on and off a bunch of government payrolls and worked on political campaigns.
Even so, the request from House Speaker Michael Madigan’s team struck him as “strange.”
State Journal-Register: 19-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase fuels drivers’ anger
Steve Young called it “a ceremonial fill up” as he pumped gas into his car on Sunday at the Shell station on West Washington Street, just off Veterans Parkway.
Like a lot of Illinois drivers, Young, a Springfield retiree, was eyeing the motor fuel tax increase that goes into effect Monday. The state tax doubles to 38 cents from 19 cents per gallon.
Daily Herald: Today's driving double whammy: Gas tax hike, texting crackdown
You’re sweltering in holiday traffic dreaming of cottage country, when the fuel warning goes off. Do not — repeat — do not grab your smartphone and type “cheap gas near me,” or “how many miles to Indiana?”
That’s because today represents a double whammy for Illinois drivers: a gas hike, and a crackdown on distracted driving.
Rockford Register-Star: Tobacco 21, other laws take effect Monday
Efforts to curtail smoking will get a double boost Monday when higher taxes and a new age restriction become law.
Tobacco 21 takes effect Monday, raising the age at which tobacco can be legally purchased in Illinois from 18 to 21.
Champaign News-Gazette: Pension solutions hard to come by
Playing hot potato with pension problems hardly qualifies as a solution.
The people of Illinois are, no doubt, sick and tired of hearing about the financial problems surrounding public pension systems in Illinois.
Too bad — they ain’t seen nothing yet.
Chicago Tribune: Despite plummeting enrollment and layoffs, Western Illinois gives outgoing president generous exit: ‘He did much better than the university did’
Even in the context of recent big exit packages for Illinois college leaders, the terms of Jack Thomas’ departure from Western Illinois University are generous.
After stepping down as president at the Macomb-based school on Sunday, he now will be on leave for two years while continuing to receive his $270,528 salary, plus benefits. Then he’ll be allowed to return as a professor, teaching two classes per year, for a salary well above that of any other faculty member at the school — though there appears to be some internal confusion about exactly what that salary will be.
Crain's Chicago Business: Meet Chicago's newest, most connected banker
Emanuel is opening the Chicago office of New York-based Centerview Partners, the most successful billion-dollar-deal boutique in America last year. It’s a latecomer to the Chicago market, with a parade of 21st-century-style non-bank firms preceding it, but its powerhouse hire in Emanuel portends an ambitious growth agenda. Wall Street incumbents, boutiques and regional players in Chicago will need to guard their books of business.