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Top Illinois Stories
Gov. JB Pritzker called the decision “deeply troubling." He continued: "We are weeks away from voting in the midterms and the President is trying to put fear in Americans about the security of our elections, rewrite the rules, and put the federal government between voters and their ballots. Illinois will continue to administer free and fair elections in our state while fighting every attack on voter’s rights.”
Hal Dardick, director of research for the Cook County Treasurer’s Office, said that if homeowners in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs want hope for lower tax bills in the future, local governments have to pinch pennies and bring in more people and businesses. Added Treasurer Maria Pappas: “It depends on whether the city, county and the state can be seen as a business-friendly place.”
State Sen. Chris Balkema said companies ultimately have to make decisions based on where it is most financially beneficial to operate: “When they make those restructuring decisions based on market indicators, business environment, they look at where it costs the least to produce their goods and services. In this case, Illinois clearly did not make that list. Illinois is lagging all of its Midwestern counterparts."
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The bill allows Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs to invest in the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (AFL-CIO HIT), which focuses on building and preserving affordable and workforce housing, creating union construction jobs and generating returns for investors. AFL-CIO HIT has nine projects under construction in Illinois that will add 1,466 housing units, nearly two-thirds of which will be affordable housing, with an investment of almost $150 million.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul also filed a lawsuit against TikTok in 2024 for addictive features, harmful business practices targeting children and alleging the company also deceived the public about the platform's dangers. And, he recently joined other states in suing xAI, which owns social media platform X and its AI chatbot Grok, over AI-generated nonconsensual sexual images and child sex abuse material.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 25 states, argues that the Postal Service’s rule violates the Constitution, which makes clear that states have the primary authority to administer elections, and upends successful, longstanding vote-by-mail procedures. The lawsuit argues the rule is inconsistent with the Postal Service’s governing statutes, ignores the Postal Service’s procedural requirements, violates the Privacy Act and is inconsistent with federal voting rights law.
State Sen. Laura Murphy said election-securing efforts have been made at the state level. “I want every voter to know in the state of Illinois we're doing everything possible to protect your vote,” Murphy said. State lawmakers won’t return to work in Springfield until two weeks after the election.
And from 2020 to 2025, Illinois’ population of residents under 20 fell by 6.8 percent, more than three times faster than the national average of 2 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Taxpayers must add back Section 1202 gains when calculating Illinois taxable income, even if the gains remain fully excluded for federal purposes. Illinois’ decoupling isn’t limited to newly issued stock and applies retroactively to 2026 transactions, including sales completed before the law was enacted.
The video, recorded in black and white, features Gov. JB Pritzker making a variety of model-like expressions at the camera behind a caption that reads "when you’re in an aura-farming contest and your opponent in JB." Aura-farming is a common piece of slang used to describe the taking of certain actions with the explicit goal of acquiring swag.
Local and state officials are reassuring Illinoisans about the safety of mail-in voting, while also encouraging them to return their ballots early after a new ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court could cause “chaos” ahead of the November election.
"In the first 15 months following President Donald Trump’s return to office, local officials from at least 75 agencies across Illinois fed information to federal immigration agents, sometimes in apparent violation of state law. In over a third of Illinois counties, at least one police department, sheriff’s office, or state’s attorney’s office collaborated with federal agents. At least 150 people in Illinois were swept into the immigration system this way, in a state that presented itself as a shield against it."
“I did not start this coalition to hand anybody a list of tax breaks,” Tracy said. “I started it because the people who know what a rule actually costs are never in the room when it gets written. A workforce shortage. A permitting delay. An energy bill that doubled. Those show up on a shop floor in Quincy a year before they show up in a hearing room in Washington. The fix is not complicated. Ask the people who do the work, and then write it down in language they can read.”
Completion is expected in 2041, which dovetails with the expiry of the commission’s contract with the City of Chicago, officials said. “They don’t put anything back into the system; that’s the problem,” DuPage Water Commission board Chair Jim Zay said. “This year we’ll pay them $130 million, and they put nothing in for infrastructure.”
“Let’s be clear. We want to make sure that our roads are pothole-free, that we’re making sure to build more so we can build our economy across the state of Illinois,” Gov. JB Pritzker said of the rate increases.
A group of Catholic doctors, a Lutheran skilled nursing facility and Thomas J. Paprocki — a Springfield Bishop — sued the state and argued the law requires medical professionals to help facilitate patient suicides “in violation of the Hippocratic Oath, centuries of legal and medical tradition, and their deeply held religious convictions.”
Laura Jackson, Briel’s former chief of staff and campaign staffer, went public Thursday through the campaign of Liz Bishop, the GOP nominee for the 76th Illinois House district, with allegations that the lawmaker acted inappropriately in office.
In Kyiv, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi met with embassy officials to discuss the battlefield situation as Ukraine enters year five of Russian attacks. The congressman also visited a Ukrainian drone-defense production site — a stop that inspired him to introduce the LESSONS from Ukraine Act, which would require the Pentagon to study how Ukraine has adapted to the use of drones, including the use of unmanned systems for combat, intelligence and logistics.
Maryland’s tax court found last week that the state’s digital advertising gross revenues tax violates the Tax Freedom Act, the Commerce Clause and the Due Process Clause. Andrew Wilford, director of state policy for the National Taxpayers Union Foundation said Illinois’ 10 percent targeted advertising services tax has one of the same fatal flaws. Wilford said federal law does not allow discrimination against digital products.
"The federal government’s new school-choice program, the Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC), is the latest step on this long journey. ... Over the next few months, the uncommitted Democratic governors of about a dozen reliably blue states (including California, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) will have to choose: opt in or opt out?"
“Head Start has gotten a lot of criticism for a lot of its benefits fading out by the time kids get to first grade or second grade or third grade,” said Ted Dabrowski, formerly of Wirepoints. “And that’s what I’m obsessed about. … We can do all the Head Start programs we want, but if we don’t figure out how to get accountability in our schools … then I don’t want to say we’re wasting time, but we are wasting money.” Dabrowski said the way success is measured also needs to change.
"In practical terms, a creditor challenged under this statute must demonstrate both that the practice at issue serves a substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory objective and that no less discriminatory alternative would adequately serve that objective."
The tax has been estimated to potentially raise $60 million for the state budget, and critics have noted that it will be imposed even if the taxpayer has lost money on crypto, because it's based on transactions. "Illinois cannot impose a novel tax regime that discriminates against digital commerce, creates uncertainty for consumers and businesses, and threatens to fragment a rapidly growing national market," said Summer Mersinger, CEO of the Blockchain Association.
A Glendale Heights man accused of stealing and vandalizing several of the suburb’s Flock cameras had a notepad in his car containing writings in which he vowed to “dispatch the vermin” and declared that “this world needs someone to do the dirty work,” according to DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin.
“CUB’s review of these statistics shows once again that going with an alternative electricity supplier is a gamble. Consumers should beware of bad deals,” Moskowitz said in a statement. “As the losses mount, we urge the Illinois General Assembly to pass reforms to better protect Illinois consumers from rip-offs.”
Kirk Dillard, the RTA’s chairman since 2014, was not appointed to the NITA board.
Top Chicago Stories
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration hopes to close a lingering 2026 budget gap by refinancing bonds and possibly dipping into remaining COVID relief dollars. 
Chicago’s main financial anchor is its pension obligations. For decades, the city shirked on contributions to pension funds for police officers, firefighters and city employees, leaving them severely underfunded. 
Nearly all taxing agencies across the county raised their property tax levies this year, the analysis found. About 60 percent increased them by more than the 3.1 percent rate of inflation. More Highlighted Chicago Area Stories
He pointed to the work of the city’s Youth Commission, which has paid more than 40 teens a stipend for their ideas. “We actually pay young people to develop activations, safe spaces for them to participate, because the last thing that they want is a 50-year-old mayor of Chicago to tell young people what’s fun, even though I think I know how to have a good time,” he said.
"More fundamentally, it also just strikes me as a terrible idea for our pension funds to double down on investment strategies - like a Chicago-specific infrastructure fund - whose risks and returns are highly correlated with the success of the city itself. If those investments don’t pan out, it’s probably because Chicago is struggling in some way. ... Our city’s fiscal health and pension solvency would become even more correlated than they are today. I’m sure you could come up with a worse plan, but I’d have to think a little bit on how."
"The exoneration of killers like Solache and Reyes, then making them rich through lawsuits, is the lifeblood of the modern radical Democratic Party, having originated in Chicago but now spreading across American cities like a cancer."
“Chicago has utilized this program far more than any other major American city,” said Juan González, a senior research fellow with the Great Cities Institute. “Over the decades, the program morphed into a runaway development tool with little accountability to the public. ... Instead of reducing the city’s historic economic inequities, it has exacerbated them."
"The city has trailed the nation under every mayor from Richard M. Daley onward. Compounded, the U.S. economy grew 64 percent over that stretch. Ours grew only 25 percent."
Executive Order 2026-06 prohibits contracts with companies that have committed workplace discrimination or wage theft and also requires the disclosure of contracts with immigration agencies. Those with more than $100,000 in city contracts will also be required to disclose “certain workplace antidiscrimination violations, worker protection violations, board composition and charitable giving.”
When asked how budget negotiations could be less contentious this year, Mayor Brandon Johnson responded: "For them (alders) to be in agreement with me."
Awake Illinois recently highlighted the school’s “Contemporary Social Themes” course, which focuses on “social engagement and ethical reasoning.” The curriculum examines how gender, class, sexual orientation and race shape how people experience and understand the world. Students also explore “unexamined assumptions, prejudices, and invisible systems,” consider their “universe of obligation” and discuss ways to initiate change when societal assumptions and biases result in injustice.
The letter is the latest salvo in an escalating dispute over a casino and hotel complex that is central to Chicago’s financial future. With the city counting on the project to generate hundreds of millions of dollars to help address its underfunded pension system, Bally’s argues VGTs will undermine the very revenue stream the city expects.
In Elk Grove Village, Northlake and Franklin Park combined, assessment reductions and incentives shaved the taxable property value of the data centers by $2 billion. The figure translates to $100 million in tax savings for data centers that would’ve helped suburban property owners out.
"“We cannot continue to govern by searching for loose change in the couch or, every time there’s a budget challenge, we revert back to proclivities that have caused tremendous harm to working people in this city,” the mayor said."
"For the past several years, I have been building this massive Leadership and Economic Opportunity Center to teach young people the trades as a way out of poverty and violence. And I’m sitting here, wondering if I made a mistake. Have I created something that is outdated?"
Introduced to the community in 2016, the project received enough Chicago Housing Authority vouchers to earmark 61 apartments for tenants earning 60-80 percent of the area median income. The project was awarded $18 million in tax-exempt bonds by the city in 2022.
"My kids went to Francis Parker School in Chicago. One of the school's mottos is “everything to help, nothing to hinder”. The city of Chicago’s motto should be 'everything to hinder, nothing to help.' Especially true of infrastructure or capitalistic enterprises."
“I love this city, even though I left skidmarks and blood on the ground as I left the Tribune. The fact is I love this city and I love the politics of the city," Kass said
Judge Joan Lefkow ruled that was reasonable for lead attorney Jon Loevy to demand the city compensate him for his time at a rate of $1,500 per hour, citing his “exceptional record as a trial attorney, and his unique role as a market leader within the context of civil rights litigation. ... In the end, plaintiffs won handily, the city lost badly, and the city spent 3,000 more attorney hours than plaintiffs in the process,” Lefkow wrote.
State law requires that school districts inside cities with more than 500,000 people develop recommendations and strategies to improve outcomes for Black students — but the state provides no funding for the plans. And a few months after CPS announced its initiative last year, the Trump administration denied the district nearly $6 million in funding for refusing to abandon this plan and other equity-focused policies, including protections for transgender students.
"It would be easy to dismiss this as mere political expediency. Yet, it represents the latest example of a troubling pattern of behavior and rhetoric that borders on anti-Semitism, the byproduct of which is the further demonization of the Jewish community."
Issues around AI and kids are driving lawsuits, statewide education protocols and even a petition to curb the technology's use in CPS — one that has already been signed by half of school board candidates. Last week, teachers learned CPS scrapped plans to give high school students Gemini chatbots on their Google Classroom accounts this year.
“We’re also going into a season where we have to demand more from those who have the ability to give more to actually do more,” he said at George Leland Elementary, adding that throughout his tenure as mayor, he’s released more than $1 billion in Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) dollars into CPS. “I’ve done my part, the state of Illinois has to do theirs.”
"With teen takeovers spreading and youth apathy running at what looks like an all-time high, the devil’s workshop shouldn’t be the only trade Chicago’s public schools have left to offer. Two things used to exist in a Chicago public school that don't anymore: an officer whose face a kid knew before anything went wrong, and a shop class that led somewhere."
With a moratorium on Chicago school closures soon to end, the first fully elected school board will have the opportunity to address the district’s over 250 underused schools.
Chicago-area homeowners are facing another outsized property tax hit this year as the pandemic’s lingering effects on commercial buildings keep reshaping who picks up the tab for local government.
"Why can’t I find anybody who supports the CTU’s side?"
Wirepoints Research and Commentary
Most of Illinois' local municipal pensions are distressed and hundreds are deeply distressed, imposing a costly drag on the towns and cities that sponsor them. 
There's an irony surrounding the battles over solar farms in Illinois. Residents are being forced – through mandatory surcharges in their electric bills – to pay for the very subsidies that help make solar projects profitable. Their own money is being used to finance solar farms that many residents don’t want. That’s exactly what’s playing out in Effingham today. 
Summary and audio 
Much of the routine trade and investment between China and America is entirely appropriate and in America's interest. But inserting the Chinese Communist Party into America's pay-to-play system and its economic development strategy isn't just crossing a line. It's a leap into an abyss of stupidity. SIGN UP HERE FOR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
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Illinois paid the price for embracing Fauci's "science." Here's the retrospective. 
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