Get the latest news from around Illinois.
State Journal-Register: Additional state police, National Guard troops assigned across state
Hundreds of additional Illinois National Guard troops and Illinois State Police officers will be assigned to assist communities around the state in dealing with riots and looting that began over the weekend.
In addition, Sangamon County is one of nine counties that Gov. JB Pritzker designated disaster areas after the weekend protests. Pritzker said the designation will expedite the use of state resources, personnel and equipment to restore public safety in those counties.
The Center Square: Group questions contract for firm that removed toilets for Pritzker
A political action group is raising questions over the selection of a firm for a multi-million-dollar contract in Illinois.
Illinois Rising Action said Chicago-based Bulley & Andrews scored a taxpayer-funded, firm-fixed contract worth nearly $9 million to convert the former WestLake Hospital in Melrose Park into an acute-care facility for COVID-19. The facility has not been used during the pandemic.
Crain's Chicago Business: Lockdowns, curfews limit access to hospitals
Health systems are limiting services, offering tips on how to clear police checkpoints and working with law enforcement to help staff and patients get to their facilities.
The Center Square: U.S. Supreme Court schedules conference in followup to landmark Janus case
The U.S. Supreme Court has scheduled for conference a case that could determine whether public employees will be refunded hundreds of millions of dollars in union dues taken out of their paychecks against their will.
At the conference, scheduled for June 18, justices could discuss whether to schedule a hearing for oral arguments in the followup to the court’s historic Janus vs. AFSCME decision.
Capitol News Illinois: It’s official: Restaurants, bars can serve cocktails to go
Illinois restaurants and bars can serve cocktails to go Tuesday after Gov. JB Pritzker signed an initiative designed by lawmakers to provide establishments with financial relief in the wake of COVID-19 challenges.
Those businesses are “some of the hardest hit” by the public health emergency, the governor said in a press release after signing the bill into law.
The Center Square: Illinois Attorney General calling businesses about social distancing violations
The Illinois Attorney General’s office has responded to more 2,000 calls during the pandemic it said were focused on things such social distancing violations, but a lawyer representing businesses challenging the governor’s executive orders said that goes too far.
Attorney Thomas DeVore, who represents businesses and individuals in counties across the state suing the governor, said one of his clients told him she got a call that put her on edge.
The Center Square: Child care centers guidelines issued late Friday keeping many in Illinois from reopening as parents return to work
Conversions continue over how to best reopen child care centers in Illinois for parents who are heading back to work in Phase 3 of the governor’s reopening plan.
At one point there were nearly 10,000 licensed child care centers in Illinois, but government-imposed shutdowns to reduce the spread of COVID-19 reduced that number to about 2,500 centers operating on emergency licenses to care for the children of frontline workers.
Crain's Chicago Business: Chicago Police pension plan sees funded status fall to 22.3 percent
Among the reasons for the decline in CPABF’s funded status was the shift to a 6.75 percent assumed rate of return beginning in 2020, down from 7.2 percent, as well as updated mortality tables, said Lance Weiss, senior consultant at actuary Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Co., during a meeting Friday of the $2.4 billion fund’s board of trustees.
Chicago Tribune: Divvy bikes suspended in wake of mass looting; activists decry cutbacks to public transit
Divvy bikes haven’t been available since Sunday afternoon because of mass looting and clashes with police downtown and in other areas.
On Tuesday, a local advocacy group for biking and transit launched a petition to bring back Divvy, as well as full CTA service. But Mayor Lori Lightfoot said both the CTA and Divvy bikes have been used to commit crimes, and she could not turn a “blind eye” to the issue.