Job creation in April bounced back from a disappointing March, with nonfarm payrolls growing by 211,000 while the unemployment rate fell to 4.4 percent, its lowest since May 2007.

Economists surveyed by Reuters had been expecting payroll growth of 185,000 and the headline jobless rate to tick up one-tenth to 4.6 percent. The payroll increase nearly tripled the dismal March number.

Market experts believe the report likely cements an imminent interest rate hike.

Puerto Rico is the terrifying Ghost of Illinois Future: a worst-case example of what happens when a government no longer can pay its bills.

The island, an American territory, is weighed down by $123 billion in bond and pension debt it cannot afford. Illinois, meanwhile, has about $130 billion in unfunded pension obligations alone, plus billions more in retiree health care and other liabilities. The circumstances are different, but no government can function properly — indefinitely — under ever-rising debt. Eventually something gives.

Gov. Bruce Rauner’s plan to sell the hulking James R. Thompson Center in the Loop is caught up in the triangular finger-pointing found at the core of many unresolved issues in Illinois government these days.

The Republican governor blames Democratic Speaker Michael Madigan for standing in the way. Madigan says Rauner is being disingenuous and insists lawmakers are working on the idea. And Mayor Rahm Emanuel says a deal should be easy, but Rauner is the one making it unnecessarily difficult.

A year to the date that Illinois human service providers first went to court, a  coalition including First Lady Diana Rauner’s Ounce of Prevention organization again asked the judicial branch to force the state to make good on its contracts.

A Cook County judge initially tossed the case, but Thursday Pay Now had another shot before a three-judge Appellate Court.

Legislation that would ensure payment to individuals who were wrongly convicted passed unanimously in committee on Thursday.

The bill sponsored by Sen. Donne Trotter, D-Chicago, would provide continuing funds — even without a state budget — for payments for time unjustly served in Illinois prisons.

Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s office said Thursday it has placed on hold rent payments for warehouse space in Springfield that’s been criticized by state lawmakers.

The matter involves a state lease for the old Barney’s Furniture building on South Grand Avenue East that is now being used as warehouse space.

A Democratic candidate for Illinois governor has failed to get Senate approval for a plan to provide taxpayer funds to match small contributions to political candidates.

State Sen. Daniel Biss of Evanston is a 2018 candidate for the Democratic nomination that includes two independently wealthy candidates: Chris Kennedy and J.B. Pritzker. He is running as a candidate reliant on small-dollar gifts.

University of Illinois Springfield Chancellor Susan Koch said Thursday that her team would negotiate through the weekend if necessary in order to end the union faculty’s strike before final exams next week.

UIS professors hit the picket lines Tuesday morning after they were unable to come to an agreement on how the university handles reappointment, tenure and promotion of faculty members.

The Chicago airport cops who dragged a passenger from a United Airlines flight violated department directives, a conclusion City Hall’s top watchdog is now weighing as he considers whether to recommend disciplining or firing four officers, the city’s top aviation official told U.S. senators Thursday.

Three aviation officers and a supervisor involved in the April 9 incident — in which a bloodied Dr. David Dao was dragged from a United flight to make room for airline employees — have been suspended pending the outcome of a probe by the city’s inspector general, Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans said.

A 16-month-old girl living in squalor doesn’t see squalor. She just sees home.

Judging by appearances, the small, beige house on Louis Road in Will County’s Joliet Township had a dearth of the nurture that a home for a toddler should have. A room with mounds of clothes piled up against an upturned mattress. Soiled carpets. A kitchen with stacks of food in foil pans on a stove that didn’t work, and below the countertop, cabinets with doors missing. In another room, an exposed outlet not far from a high chair. And, everywhere, roaches and bedbugs.

Spare bedrooms are bringing in decent money for some Chicago residents.

According to vacation rental website Airbnb, the average Chicago-area host earned $4,100 in 2016 for offering guests a room or access to their home. This adds up to $67 million in annual income.

City Hall has again delayed its decision on what to do with the old Michael Reese Medical Center site, now saying it intends to announce the winning development team “by the end of the month.”

The extra time is needed to give new 4th Ward Ald. Sophia King an adequate opportunity to review what is being proposed, said city Planning & Development Commissioner David Reifman.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday danced around the most controversial element of former President Barack Obama’s Presidential Center in Jackson Park: The proposal to close Cornell Drive at the expense of thousands of daily commuters.

One day after his former boss unveiled the library in a campus design, Emanuel was asked whether he supports the plan to close Cornell Drive between 60th and 67th Streets to add as much as 5 acres of new parkland.

Educators at a North Side charter school voted Thursday in favor of going on strike.

After negotiating for a new labor contract for nearly a year, 43 teachers, paraprofessionals and teacher assistants at the Passages Charter School in Edgewater unanimously said they are in favor of going on strike.

A criminally indicted Cook County judge could face trial as soon as August — and maybe even sooner.

Cook County Judge Jessica Arong O’Brien appeared in federal court for the second week in a row Thursday, where her lawyer said she hopes to get the case quickly behind her.

Plans for the new Will County courthouse have come within the budgeted amount of $195 million, but officials said they may consider adding items that were omitted if it makes financial sense.

The board’s capital improvements committee was given a list of $2.2 million in optional items, that the full board will consider at a Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting May 11.

McHenry County Board Chairman Jack Franks is getting police protection after he received what he interpreted as death threats on a local political activist’s blog.

Franks, a former Democratic State Representative, says the threats were posted after a March County Board meeting, where a local official made a statement comparing the goings-on at the County Board to weasels terrorizing chickens.

If there were any mistaking who politically benefits from the strip clubs, potholes and poverty in Washington Park, the new administration and mayor underscored it by being sworn in by St. Clair County Democratic Committee Chairman Bob Sprague.

Then they hired his law firm to represent the village for $3,000 a month.