Get the latest news from around Illinois.
News Gazette: New life for gerrymandering fight
As that great legal theorist Yogi Berra once said, it ain’t over till it’s over.
So even as the Independent Maps organization is closing up shop and paying off its final bills, a three-judge federal panel earlier this week took the first step in resurrecting the movement to end gerrymandering in Illinois, by finding similar gerrymandering in Wisconsin to be unconstitutional.
Chicago Tribune: Illinois' higher education board to send $17M to Chicago State, WIU, EIU
Three of the state’s most financially vulnerable public universities are set to receive a combined $17 million in emergency funding to support operations through the end of the year.
Members of the Illinois Board of Higher Education voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the last-minute cash for Western Illinois, Eastern Illinois and Chicago State universities. Under the agreement, Western would receive about $8.4 million, Eastern about $5.6 million and Chicago State just more than $3 million.
Belleville News-Democrat: Police power abuse, cell phone spying cost taxpayers big
Columbia just settled Carla Edwards’ lawsuit against the city for $150,000. Now she is in federal court suing the Columbia school district, where she works as an elementary school teacher aide, because someone there took information on a flash drive from Joe Edwards and took her cell phone to obtain information from it that was used to try to get her fired and in trouble with state authorities.
Whatever the motives, Joe Edwards had no business investigating his ex-wife. His officer had no business investigating their chief’s ex-wife. This case screams conflict of interest, and all involved with persecuting Carla Edwards need to make this right.
Chicago Tribune: Chicago employers in limbo after court blocks Obama's overtime pay rule
Employers that have been preparing for months to comply with a major change to overtime regulations — raising salaries, implementing time-tracking tools, restructuring promotion ladders — find themselves in an awkward limbo after a federal judge on Tuesday blocked the change a week before it was to take effect.
“I feel like a student who studied every day only to see the test canceled at the last minute,” said Michael Santoro, president of Walker Sands, a Chicago-based public relations and digital marketing firm.
The rule is delayed while a Texas federal judge considers whether to overturn a signature initiative of the Obama administration meant to put more money in middle-class pockets and prevent employers from overworking employees for free.
The Times: Unemployment falls in Indiana, rises in Illinois
Indiana’s jobless rate dropped by 0.1 percent to 4.4 percent last month, while unemployment in Illinois rose 0.1 percent to 5.5 percent.
The Hoosier State has the seventh highest jobless rate out of the 12 U.S. Census-designated Midwestern states, while Illinois has the highest unemployment rate in the Midwest and the 43rd highest in the country.
“While Indiana’s low unemployment rate is a positive economic indicator, it has also created a challenge for Hoosier businesses to find skilled workers, particularly in fields like information technology and advanced manufacturing,” Indiana Department of Workforce Development Commissioner Steven Braun said.
Chicago Tribune: Rauner wish list down to 5 main issues with stopgap plan set to expire
When Gov. Bruce Rauner took office nearly two years ago, he unveiled an ambitious, 44-point agenda that promised to transform state government through measures that included overhauling the sales and gas tax, lifting the cap on charter schools and giving struggling towns the ability to declare bankruptcy.
The rookie Republican politician also laid out plans to gradually increase the minimum wage, amend the state constitution to make it easier to limit costs associated with the state’s employee pension system, limit expensive payouts in personal injury lawsuits, and set term limits for lawmakers and statewide officers.
Several items on that agenda have since been shelved, as Rauner and the Democrats who control the General Assembly remain deadlocked on a state budget. The historic impasse has squeezed budgets at state universities, threatened social service providers and sent the state’s debt soaring — and there’s little indication the stalemate will end anytime soon.