-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Top Illinois Stories
Tyson Foods on Thursday announced it is closing its beef facility in Joslin, Illinois. The closure will impact more than 2,500 workers, according to area politicians.
A state agency under Gov. JB Pritzker's purview paid a Kansas-based staffing contractor $78.5 million for time its employees spent on standby rather than actually working, part of a broader failure to properly oversee contractor billing, according to a report issued by a state watchdog.
"The Chicago Teachers Union’s cupidity in enriching itself, and the dismal results of Chicago’s public schools, have drained the public’s reservoir of goodwill. Among the reasons for the CTU’s downfall is a school named for someone who, as a slave, taught himself to read — a skill poorly imparted by Chicago teachers, when they teach."
More Highlighted Illinois Stories
"As Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Johnson push this project through, they are continuing to make the people of Chicago complicit in war crimes across the globe. Do Illinois politicians want this escalation in Big Tech militarism to be their legacy? More importantly, are we as Chicago residents at ease with the unprecedented horrors of quantum and AI warfare coming out of our own backyards?"
Phil Melin, executive director of Illinois Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, pointed to two issues with the legislation. “It adds a new surcharge on successful, profitable workers' compensation insurance companies, and then it adds new restrictions on potential liability on employers,” Melin told The Center Square.
Last year, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch convened working groups on property taxes and pensions. Not much actually changed. Welch’s most recent iteration is a new “culture and accountability” working group. And the wheels are already falling off.
"I’m not advocating here for reducing the term limits to six years or whatever. But what I am saying is that Illinois government will not crash and burn if Welch and Harmon don’t serve their full five two-year General Assemblies as their chambers’ leaders."
The automaker announced Friday, Aug. 14, the next-generation Jeep Cherokee, slated to be built in Belvidere, will be the first U.S. vehicle assembled on Stellantis’ new STLA One platform.
"For 30 years, I wore a badge. Recently, I have observed a coordinated, well-funded misinformation campaign aimed at convincing Americans that automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, or "Flock cameras," constitute illegal surveillance. They are not. It is time for someone with real law enforcement experience to state this clearly."
Robert Reed: "There aren’t enough ominous adjectives to describe what’s happened at a Far South Side funeral chapel, where authorities found 56 bodies improperly stored and decomposed. Abhorrent, horrific, degrading, disrespectful, even blasphemous don’t go far enough to describe what’s occurred, nor do they gauge the lasting impact this catastrophe will have on the victims’ families, 
An $11 billion Amazon Web Services data center campus The most recent assessment results show that 53.1% of third- through eighth-grade students met proficiency standards in English language arts on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness in 2025. Just 38.5% were proficient in math. Those rates are troubling on their own. They’re even more concerning because the state lowered the performance levels used on the IAR in 2025.
"Five years of gains, and Illinois' largest teacher fund still can't cover half of what it owes," Rogers writes disdainfully.
On July 24, a federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump struck down parts of three Illinois laws that allowed eligible undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates at community colleges and public universities and to receive state financial aid.
The Illinois Federation of Teachers is now calling on lawmakers to return for a special session as soon as possible to address the issue.
A group of medical professionals, a nursing home and a Catholic bishop from Illinois are suing two state department heads in an attempt to block a law set to take effect next month they say forces doctors to promote assisted suicide to terminally ill patients.
Numerous welfare programs have steep benefit cliffs, where increased earnings lead to a greater loss of benefits. For example, a worker in Illinois could lose over $25,000 in benefits by accepting a raise from a $54,000 annual salary to $55,000 per year. The federal Upward Mobility Act, sponsored in the House of Representatives by Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT) and in the Senate by Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), would help address this issue.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker tells Erin Burnett 'he did not need to put his staff and those reporters in harm's way' after President Trump secretly hid inside a catering truck and switched to a different plane as Air Force One faced a threat from Iran.
Pritzker said he would love to cap property taxes. “Here’s the problem: You have to pay for your parks, your libraries, your schools and your local government,” Pritzker said.
A circuit court judge in Sangamon County threatened Tuesday to begin assessing daily fines against the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services for its repeated failure to appear in court or comply with orders to hand over documents related to the death of a teenager who was in the agency’s care.
The program, dubbed the Illinois Housing Supply Accelerator, will bring local decision-makers and housing stakeholders together to examine barriers to boosting housing supply, such as zoning restrictions, permitting delays, impact fees, infrastructure costs and financing gaps. Since creation of the Illinois’ Special Prosecution Unit in the 1980s, the unit has been the primary way criminal cases in Illinois are handled when local state’s attorneys are disqualified because of conflicts. Its prosecutors took on more than 1,000 cases in 2024, far more than were pursued through other methods of appointing special prosecutors, including referrals to the state attorney general, private attorneys, or prosecutors from neighboring counties. But an Injustice Watch investigation shows the Special Prosecution Unit has been responsible for miscarriages of justice including withholding evidence and favorable treatment of political insiders, as well as conflicts
Governor JB Pritzker signed House Bill 5487 on August 10, adding Illinois to a growing list of states seeking to preserve lawyers’ professional independence while addressing the rising role of private equity and other investors in the legal industry.
Over half of Illinoisans say they would leave the state if given the opportunity, and among those who would leave, nearly 69% cited high taxes as one of their top two reasons. Many Illinoisans already have one foot out the door as state leaders continue to rack up taxes and increase economic strain on families and businesses. From July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025, 40,000 residents left Illinois for other states.
For all candidates, it’s a largely unregulated space that opens the door to overly fawning coverage, or even misinformation. Social media platforms do little to help viewers distinguish a campaign’s unpaid supporters from its paid contractors, and some politicians have turned to influencers to get their message out without facing the scrutiny and pesky questions provided by more traditional news outlets.
Top Chicago Stories
More than $600 million in federal funding announced Friday could open up a 47-acre parcel that Ishbia has considered for a potential Sox stadium, sources said.
He operates Englewood First Responders, a nonprofit identified as a partner agency with the city of Chicago in its violence prevention efforts, according to the city's website. A review by NBC Chicago found the organization received state contracts
More Highlighted Chicago Area Stories
Including a forum with distinguished panelists.
How Chicago Spent Millions on Migrant Shelters While Woodlawn's Obama Presidential Center Housing Promises Went Mostly Ignored
"The city is unique in how little public finance expertise lives outside the mayor’s office."
Bally's warned of “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern as the casino operator risks failing to meet requirements under its lending agreements. The company, which is controlled by investment firm Standard General, has also secured approvals to develop major casino resorts in Chicago and the New York City area.
"Although the FY2027 CPS budget has passed, it lacks clarity on whether and how it can be implemented, and we do not yet know the final impacts that it will have on the District."
The move is the latest by the administration to emphasize “biological sex” and investigate access to gender-affirming care and other services to transgender individuals, ranging from HHS rulemaking to DOJ and Federal Trade Commission probes of medical groups that support transgender health services. On Tuesday, HHS finalized a rule that would restrict federal Medicaid funding from covering forms of gender-affirming care for minors.
What mayor in his right mind would want to send such a negative signal to an acquirer of a local company that went far out of its way to create economic opportunity in a part of the city where the cost of doing business is so high that retail giants like Walmart, Target and Walgreens have shuttered multiple stores?
A Chicago investor’s plan to convert part of a landmarked Loop office building into a data center received its first city approval last week, a move Chicago’s leading preservationist group called “a dangerous precedent.” 
“What the mayor has to do… is to say to our union partners, `We’re not gonna take away your pension, but it will fail,’” Quigley said. “You call the unions in and tell them,`I want you to come to this meeting and I want the word `yes’ in your vocabulary… If we don’t make some honest trade-offs” — including “how much people pay in, when they start collecting” — then a “slight blip in the economy” could jeopardize their retirement checks altogether.
The Chicago Transit Authority’s board of directors approved an array of new efforts aimed at aiding passengers who need shelter or healthcare, as well as new crisis and community violence intervention programs. Calling the approvals a “historic moment,” acting CTA President Nora Leerhsen said the agency is positioning itself as a national leader on alternative interventions. Directors approved pilot programs with four different nonprofits for a total of $9 million.
"Who is worthy of a monument? That question circulated across the United States six years ago as the country reckoned with racial injustice in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, including who is represented by, or excluded from, our public symbols.... Chicago has offered its own answer: to commission new monuments or respond to existing ones, based on internal research that found the city had gaps in representation of gender
The woman who served as Kim Foxx’s top assistant in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office must sit for an under-oath deposition to explain why her office decided not to object to people convicted of murder receiving certificates of innocence even though Foxx personally believed some of the recipients were guilty.
Politicians keep talking about affordability. But they refuse to talk about the reason so much affordable housing has become undesirable
The city and CPS' crises are inseparable and both threaten to worsen the city’s financial situation. The pathway to surviving runs through the CTU
The fund was included in then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2017 budget as a way to bridge the funding gap between Downtown and the rest of the city. But the fund never generated a penny of outside investments.
"When it passed, the funding formula called for the state to fully fund it within 10 years, which would be this year. But that hasn’t happened. In fact, the aggregate shortfall in K-12 funding has increased each of the last three years and currently sits at $4.2 billion. That means most Illinois school districts — including CPS — still don’t have the resources needed to fund those educational practices the research shows work."
Chicago is hiring Ashlee Gabrysch, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, as its next chief financial officer, according to a person familiar with the matter.Her appointment comes amid a series of high-profile exits from Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration this year. It follows Acting CFO Steven Mahr’s recent departure from the role after about six months. Mahr had taken the position following the departure of predecessor Jill Jaworski in early 2026. The city’s budget director also recently left.
By 2030, tax buying will be eliminated, and Cook County expects to hold all liens for overdue property taxes. This way the county will be able to offer payment plans, longer payback periods and reduced interest rates. Gov. JB Pritzker signed the bill last month.
A group of activists and elected officials filed reports with the Chicago Police Department on Monday, alleging crimes committed by federal agents during Operation Midway Blitz last fall.
But in Cook County, owners of vacant buildings can apply for tax relief and receive up to an 80% break on property taxes. That relief is intended to provide assistance to property owners who experience an unintended vacancy to help them get back on their feet.
Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration has informed aldermen that a proposed sale of outstanding debts owed to the city of Chicago, which was supposed to net $90 million in this year's budget, is garnering no interest from banks or other financial services firms. The apparent failure of the debt sale looks like it will blow a hole in the current year's budget that will need to be addressed, although the size of that shortfall is yet to be determined.
The clash unfolded after the Chicago Department of Public Health’s 2025 review into the recipients of its community violence interruption grants found issues with collecting data from Acclivus Inc. It followed health Commissioner Dr. Olusimbo Ige’s complaints that the organization sought to circumvent the city’s required contracting and payment protocols before she was pushed out of the administration.
As part of the "sustainable schools" program, a local school contracts with a community non-profit to provide the services, but NBC 5 Investigates found there are few guardrails, and no concrete ways to measure the success of the program.
Wirepoints Research and Commentary
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. 
Illinois paid the price for embracing Fauci's "science." Here's the retrospective. 
Presented without comment. Take a look here SIGN UP HERE FOR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
FOLLOW US
WE’RE A NONPROFIT AND YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS ARE DEDUCTIBLE.
MORE WIREPOINTS ORIGINAL STORIES
The Chicago News Guild had a choice. It chose solidarity with a leftist propaganda operation over even the appearance of independence.
Whether you work for the public or private sector and have any view you would like to share, please do so in the comment section below.
Recent Comments