Get the latest news from around Illinois.
WGN: Strike of hundreds of nursing home workers enters second week
It’s been seven days now since 700 nursing home workers with Infinity Health Care first walked off the job and onto the picket line.
Members of the Chicago Teachers Union and other local labor groups joined the striking workers outside Infinity’s Southpoint location Sunday.
SEIU Local 73 leaders are asking Infinity Healthcare’s owner Moishe Gubin to return to the bargaining table.
WBEZ: Chairman Of Illinois Panel Investigating Madigan Has COVID-19
An influential Illinois lawmaker who chairs the committee charged with investigating House Speaker Michael Madigan has tested positive for COVID-19.
Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, said he started feeling symptoms Wednesday and that they remain mild.
“Felt something new each day … so I was tested,” Welch told WBEZ on Sunday.
The Center Square: New report ranks Illinois' state-run roads among nation's worst
A new report puts the cost and condition of Illinois’ state-run roads near the worst in the country.
The 25th Annual Highway Report, compiled by The Reason Foundation, looks at state highways in 13 different categories, including pavement condition, traffic congestion, structurally deficient bridges, traffic fatalities, and spending per mile.
The organization’s placed Illinois at 37th overall, behind all neighboring states, including second-ranked Missouri.
Fox Chicago: Legal group to help Illinoisans clear marijuana convictions
Under the law, people with low-level marijuana convictions can have their records expunged and state officials estimate hundreds of thousands of people are eligible. New Leaf, a state-sponsored program, will help people do that.
Backers say it’s a critical step in undoing the damage done by a half-century of the war on drugs, which has particularly affected minorities, who were likely to be arrested and prosecuted for marijuana offenses.
Chicago Tribune: City dismissed red-light camera tickets against Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s security detail
The city of Chicago dismissed the majority of tickets issued to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s security detail by red-light and speed cameras, including some that were recorded at times when the mayor was scheduled to be attending non-city events, records show.
Since Lightfoot became mayor in May 2019, the police security detail assigned to her protection has received 13 tickets for speed and red-light camera violations, and 10 of those have been dismissed, records show.
Wirepoints: Illinois Unemployment Fund Now Owes $2.6 Billion To U.S. Treasury
To cover its share of exploding cost of unemployment benefits, the State of Illinois has borrowed $2.6 billion from the federal government to prop up its unemployment insurance fund. That’s separate and apart from loans by the Federal Reserve Bank to the state for other purposes that we recently wrote about, which will increase to $3.2 billion when Illinois completes a recently announced addition to its Fed loans.
Unemployment funds in most states are under stress, but Illinois’ is among a few in particularly tough shape, as reported last week by Bloomberg. “A handful of states account for the bulk” of the Treasury borrowing by unemployment funds, which now total $40 billion according to Bloomberg. Through Nov. 9, California has borrowed $15.8 billion, New York $8.4 billion, Texas $5.3 billion, and Illinois $2.6 billion, Bloomberg reported.