With more than half of the state’s total COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes, state public health officials said they are making progress to address the issues.

U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Evanston, criticized U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration’s handling of reporting nursing home data during an Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing on Tuesday.

Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara on Wednesday called Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s bluff — saying if she’s serious about making disciplinary changes to the police contract, she’ll eliminate the requirement that Chicago Police officers live in the city and give them the right to strike.

One proposed disciplinary change would allow anonymous complaints — without a sworn affidavit.

When the coronavirus pandemic upended the U.S. economy, many states halted or limited construction work. While real estate development is beginning to resume, recently released data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed an unprecedented drop in residential building permits comparing April of this year to April of 2019. Nationally, there was a 20 percent decline in new housing units authorized by building permits, a drop that represents nearly $4.4 billion in value.

According to the New Residential Construction Report, COVID-19 negatively affected all stages of housing construction, but new building permit authorizations and housing starts fell further than completions of existing projects. At the national level, both new building permits and housing starts decreased to their lowest levels in half a decade.

A central Illinois Republican state senate candidate who does not have enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot asked a federal judge Tuesday to also apply loosened election requirements to him.

After the March 17 primary election, Alexander Ruggieri was chosen to fill the Republican Party’s nomination vacancy for the 52nd senate district race. To succeed in qualifying for the general election ballot, where he would challenge incumbent Scott Bennett (D-Champaign), Ruggieri needed to collect 1,000 voter signatures and submit his petition to the Illinois State Board of Elections by June 1.

Gov. JB Pritzker traveled to the Henry County town of Geneseo on Wednesday to announce the awarding of $50 million in grants to 28 projects aimed at expanding broadband internet access across the state.

The $50 million is part of the “Connect Illinois” program that was included in the state’s recently-passed “Rebuild Illinois” capital improvements program. The state funds are being matched with more than $65 million in non-state funds for a total investment of over $115 million.

In a tight vote, the Chicago Board of Education voted on Wednesday to continue the controversial practice of assigning nearly 200 police officers to city schools.

The 4-to-3 vote came after a lengthy and intense discussion, with students, parents, aldermen and others speaking out on both sides of the issue. The majority spoke in favor of ending the Chicago Police Department program.

Nearly two years after an audit by the city’s watchdog found significant problems with allowing Chicago police officers to patrol schools, aldermen will hold a hearing on the program at the center of the debate over defunding the police department.

A joint session of the City Council’s Public Safety and Education committees will examine the program at 10 a.m. July 2 — nine months after the chairs of the committees demanded answers about the original audit, issued in September 2018.

City council members made last-minute changes to Urbana’s budget Tuesday to reduce spending on police by about $120,000.

After not getting to the budget during Monday’s 4.5-hour meeting, aldermen reconvened Tuesday, approving amendments to reduce funding for patrol officers’ salaries by 2 percent and to not replace the K9 squad car, as had been planned.

With the second installment of Cook County property taxes being mailed this week, residents and property owners are reminded that the county board has waived late penalties on payments scheduled to be due on Aug. 3.

Under a measure approved by the board in May, the county will not impose the 1.5% per month late fee on bills paid until after Oct. 1, effectively giving property owners an additional two months to make payments.

Champaign County Executive Darlene Kloeppel has turned to the courts to settle an ongoing dispute with the county board over the extent of her authority.

Kloeppel filed a lawsuit June 19 asking a judge to affirm that she is the presiding officer of the county board and that the office of county board chairman doesn’t exist in the county-executive form of government.

A large group of cabinet-level personnel and others from Springfield School District 186 and Springfield Education Association stakeholders is digging into the nuts and bolts of how in-person school attendance will play out when classes start Aug. 24.

The Illinois State Board of Education issued a 63-page guideline for all the state’s school districts Tuesday, but each school district has to come up with its own plan for adapting markers.