Gov. Bruce Rauner has decided to take steps to allow more than 200,000 Illinois residents to remain eligible for food stamps, averting a threatened year-end cutoff that had alarmed social service advocates.

Sources in the Rauner administration said the governor will apply to renew a federal waiver that since 2009 has exempted Illinois from a federal requirement placing a time limit on some food stamp recipients.

Robert Creamer, husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Scott Foval — two little-known but influential Democratic political operatives — have left their jobs after video investigations by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action found them entertaining dark notions about how to win elections.

Foval was laid off on Monday by Americans United for Change, where he had been national field director. Creamer announced Tuesday night that he was “stepping back” from the work he was doing for the unified Democratic campaign for Hillary Clinton.

A documentary about longtime Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan will air at 7 p.m. Wednesday on WEEK-TV, Channel 25.

The hour-long program titled “Madigan: Power. Privilege. Politics.” airs immediately prior to the third presidential debate. It was funded by Illinois Policy Action, an advocacy arm of the right-leaning Illinois Policy Institute.

GE is opening a microfactory in Chicago to turn big industrial ideas into small-batch prototypes.

The Chicago manufacturing facility, set to open in December, will be the first for Fuse, a new GE crowdsourcing initiative to create and build innovative industrial products. One of the first challenges on the Fuse drawing board, for example, is finding a new way to quickly inspect a hot jet engine between flights.

“The idea of reaching out to the online community really accelerates how we introduce new products,” said Axel Grippo, Fuse’s inaugural general manager.