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SPRINGFIELD - The novel coronavirus could "create long-lasting, devastating damage" to Illinois health care facilities that serve vulnerable communities. Community health centers are treating fewer patients than normal after all 390 locations around the state canceled routine and preventative medical visits to slow the spread of COVID-19 per guidance from federal and state officials. That means fewer government reimbursements for facilities that use them to pay staff salaries...
SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois National Guard is assisting the state's COVID-19 response by setting up testing centers and other civil action, not preparing for military action as has been rumored on social media, its adjutant general said during a news briefing on the virus Monday. Brig. Gen. Richard Neely, adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard, reassured Illinoisans at Gov. JB Pritzker's daily coronavirus news conference in Chicago. "We're not doing any policing a...
SPRINGFIELD – Meat has been among the most in-demand items at supermarkets as people stock up on essentials amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That has people up and down Illinois' livestock supply chain – especially producers of beef and pork – trying to keep up. Industry leaders say the Illinois factories processing beef and pork are running at normal capacity with multiple shifts a day to keep shelves and meat cases stocked. "There has been and continues to be a steady suppl...
Due to the hardships on liquor license holders as a result of the COVID-19 virus outbreak, all licenses expiring on March 31, 2020, April 30, 2020, and May 31, 2020 are extended until July 31, 2020. Unless otherwise directed, all license holders with March, April, and May expiration dates will be required to renew licenses no later than July 31, 2020. Late fees will not be accessed for license holders with a March 31, 2020, April 30, 2020 and May 31, 2020 expiration date as lo...
According to a social media post by the Joliet Police Department, the Walmart COVID-19 testing site for first responders and healthcare workers, located at 2424 West Jefferson St in Joliet, was full at roughly 8:30 a.m. - 90 minutes before it opened. The pop up facility can handle 70 tests per day and hours run from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. daily....
SPRINGFIELD – Toilet paper and hand sanitizer are in short supply at Illinois supermarkets. At gun shops, firearms and ammunition are flying off the shelves, too. As the outbreak of novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, spreads through the state and the country, Illinois firearms retailers say sales of guns and ammunition have substantially increased over the past two weeks and especially in recent days. "It's a lot of a panic situation," said Jim Feagans, who owns J. Gooch S...
SPRINGFIELD - The number of confirmed cases of novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in Illinois almost doubled overnight, from 160 cases to 288, the state's Department of Public Health announced Wednesday. The "novel severe acute respiratory illness" has now been confirmed in 17 counties, including new cases in Kendall and Madison counties. Among the updated count are 20 new cases at a long-term care facility in DuPage County that first reported a confirmed case Saturday. "I know how...
Just after it opened this morning at 10 a.m., a day after Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker issued an Executive Order requiring all residents to stay in their homes to prevent the further spread of COVID-19, the Walmart on Jefferson Street had a line of cars driven by healthcare professionals and first responders waiting to be tested for the virus¬ Joliet Mayor Bob O’Dekirk released information last week at his press conference that Walmart had approached the city and of...
SPRINGFIELD - Public and private Illinois schools will be closed for two weeks, starting Tuesday, March 17, and reopening Tuesday, March 31, per a Friday order from Gov. JB Pritzker. The move is the latest in a string of social distancing efforts aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, by limiting contact among large groups of people. Yesterday, the governor mandated the cancellation of events with more than 1,000 people and strongly encouraged...
SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Gaming Board has ordered all 10 casinos in the state to suspend operations for 14 days starting Monday, citing public health concerns over the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19 "The public health of patrons, casino employees, IGB staff, and others is of paramount importance," the board said in a statement late Friday. "The board is continuously monitoring developments and will update licensees and the public as frequently as p...
Gov. JB Pritzker banned events with more than 1,000 attendees for the next 30 days and urged businesses to allow employees to work from home as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state reached 32. At a daily news media briefing on the spread of the novel coronavirus Thursday, the governor noted authorities would "break up" any large gatherings exceeding that number. He also said the ban applies to large religious congregations, and noted he asked all professional...
Members of the 32-lawmaker Illinois Legislative Black Caucus said Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget proposal for the fiscal year starting in July is a good start but needs more money and support for people of color. “I was so pleased to hear so many things that the governor mentioned that have been issues that the black caucus has fought for for many years,” said black caucus chair Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood. Every member of the black caucus is a Democrat, the same party of Pritzker, who delivered his second annual budge...
Illinois leaders reacted to news Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump commuted the prison sentence of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich which he received for corruption convictions. ABC News confirmed the commutation had occurred Tuesday. Blagojevich began serving a 14-year federal prison sentence in 2012. He was convicted on 11 criminal counts related to his effort to sell the former U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama when he became president. Blagojevich was also convicted on six counts related to campaign contribution...
Two Chicago-area residents who tested positive for novel coronavirus earlier this year have recovered and were released from home isolation this weekend, according to public health officials. Federal, state and local health officials made the announcement in a news release Saturday, noting that the risk to the general public remains low and the two patients caused no further spread of the virus. "Based on what is currently known about the virus, and after close consultation wi...
The Illinois State Police director said this week that his department has stepped up illegal firearm ownership enforcement methods, but it needs greater resources to continue the job - including fingerprints of Firearm Owner Identification Card applicants. During a news conference Thursday, ISP Director Brendan Kelly gave an update about enforcement efforts and announced support for Senate Bill 1966, a measure that would increase FOID card fees and mandate fingerprinting of ap...
Illinois U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is accusing the U.S. Department of Agriculture of playing favorites with trade war aid payments by giving more money to southern cotton farmers who were less affected by the trade war than Illinois soybean farmers. “USDA has overcompensated southern cotton growers, whose market losses are small and whose prices have gone up, with more aid on a county-by-county basis than Illinois’ soybean farmers,” Durbin said in a statement Monday. Durbin, a Democrat who sits on the Senate agriculture committee...
On Feb. 5, Congressman Bill Foster (D-IL) issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Senate's final votes on the Articles of Impeachment against President Donald J. Trump: "With this vote, the complicity of congressional Republicans in President Trump's corruption, abuse of power, and undermining of our Constitution is complete. Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans placed protecting the President above their duty to uphold the Constitution and to do impartial...
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Robert Thomas, a former placekicker with the Chicago Bears, will retire from his seat on the bench effective Feb. 29. He plans to join the Chicago-based Power Rogers law firm, which successfully represented him in a defamation suit against the Kane County Chronicle in 2006. In a news release Monday, Thomas said “the Lord has truly blessed me” with family — his wife, three kids and soon-to-be nine grandchildren; a former college and profe...
All three people who have held the position of legislative inspector general in Illinois told a joint ethics panel Thursday the office needs more independence to police the General Assembly and maintain the public's confidence in the process. Carol Pope, the current officeholder, and former Inspectors General Julie Porter and Tom Homer appeared before the Joint Commission on Ethics and Lobbying Reform, a group that is to make recommendations for governmental ethics reform in...
A programming error in Illinois' automatic voter registration system that mistakenly enrolled more than 500 people was a "wakeup call," the state's top elections official said Wednesday. One string of code among 8.5 million others controlling the "hundreds of functions" of the secretary of state's office resulted in 574 people who identified themselves as non-U.S. citizens being registered to vote, the agency's senior legal advisor, Nathan Maddox, said. Of those people, 15...
The state is accepting applications for the first $50 million in disbursements of a $420 million grant program aimed at increasing internet access across the state. Gov. JB Pritzker announced the release of funding Wednesday at Ridgely Elementary School in Springfield, noting that the rights to “health care and education and economic opportunity” are all “tied to digital connectivity” in the 21st century. “I want to be clear though,” he said, “this isn't about a person's ability to go online and just look at their Faceboo...
Former state Sen. Martin Sandoval and SafeSpeed LLC, the red light camera company at the center of federal corruption charges against him, are now the targets of a racketeering lawsuit that seeks to void tens of thousands of traffic citations issued through the company's devices. Lawrence Gress, a Downers Grove resident and lead plaintiff in the case, filed the suit Monday under the federal Racketeering, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a law most often used...
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and two other state attorneys general filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday to ensure the Equal Rights Amendment officially becomes the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "Americans have long agreed that discrimination based on sex is unacceptable," Raoul said. "But by enshrining that shared value in our Constitution, we have made a commitment never to go back." The states filing suit – Illinois, Virginia and Nevada – were the fi...
When an Illinois Senate panel met last March to discuss the state’s backlog of untested forensic evidence, there were more than 70 DNA samples in murder cases more than a year old awaiting action from Illinois State Police forensic investigators. That number is down to 14, representatives of the Illinois State Police told the same Senate Public Health Committee on Tuesday, but they noted the number is still too high and standard wait times for DNA processing are still too long. “We know that there’s a lot of DNA evide...
New Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, announced his leadership team Tuesday on the first day of the 2020 legislative session. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, will remain the chamber’s majority leader, while Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, will become an assistant majority leader and president pro tempore — a position once held by Harmon under former President John Cullerton before he changed the caucus’ leadership structure. Sen. Laura Murphy, D-Des Plaines, will serve in another newly created position — that of...