Newman backs Starbucks unionization
Local News
Ailing eagle on the mend
Spread the loveSeveral blocks northwest of Garfield Ridge—just west of 47th and Harlem–motorists late last month noticed an eagle flying low and acting erratically. The Villa Park-based Chicago Bird Collision Monitors was contacted, and its volunteers found and captured the majestic bird. It was transported to a facility owned and operated by Glen Ellyn-based Willowbrook…
Can’t we just fast-forward to spring?
Spread the loveBy Joan Hadac Your correspondent in Clearing and Garfield Ridge (708) 496-0265 • joan.hadac@gmail.com Hi everyone. Is it spring yet? Is the pandemic over yet? Not that I’m impatient or anything. I want to move forward past all the negative COVID-19 has brought to my life and everyone else’s life. I want to see…
Scavenger Sale different this year, Pappas says
Spread the loveFrom staff reports Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas’ 2022 Scavenger Sale will look different, as the Treasurer’s Office takes steps to help small developers, homeowners and investors rebuild neighborhoods and create generational wealth. Under Illinois law, the Treasurer’s Office is required to conduct a Scavenger Sale every two years, offering at auction the…
College Report: Division I schools listening to Heard
Spread the loveBy Jeff Vorva Staff Writer Tadriana Heard is ready for a second round of Division I basketball. The former Argo star is playing her second season for Morton College, and heading into this week’s action was first in the nation among National Junior College Athletic Association players with 64 3-pointers. She was also…
Honored for service to business
Spread the loveFabis earns UBAM award By Dermot Connolly The United Business Association of Midway recently honored founding member Mary Fabis with a Lifetime Membership Award for Outstanding Service for her 35 years of work with the business organization she continues to serve as a board member. Fabis, now 92, has owned and operated Archer…
Fire and ice
Spread the love December was unseasonably dry and warm, but it was cold enough late in the month to form icicles on a Bedford Park Fire Department truck– even after it returned from a blaze that gutted a warehouse in the 6500 block of South Lavergne, just steps south of Clearing. The weather forecast for…
Neighbors
Just weeks before Republican National Convention, Illinois GOP chair announces resignation
By HANNAH MEISEL Capitol News Illinois hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com Halfway through the 2024 election cycle and just a few weeks away from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Illinois GOP Chair Don Tracy on Wednesday announced his resignation as head of the state Republican Party. Tracy, who’d held the job since February 2021, explained his resignation in…
As Illinois session ends, lawmakers’ attempt to reinstate wetland protections fails
by JENNIFER BAMBERG Investigate Midwest jennifer.bamberg@investigatemidwest.org In 2006, 19-year-old Jessica Whinston inherited 20 acres of land that her grandparents once farmed in Quincy, Illinois. The land had sat dormant since the 1980s and was overgrown, but Whinston and her husband Bradley worked to turn it into a productive farm. The couple were eventually able to…
Elections board dismisses illegal campaign coordination complaint, declines to clarify law
By HANNAH MEISEL Capitol News Illinois hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com CHICAGO – State elections officials on Tuesday indicated they were unlikely to step in to clarify what constitutes illegal campaign coordination after voting to dismiss a complaint alleging such coordination in the 2022 campaign for governor. At their monthly meeting in Chicago, Illinois State Board of Elections members…
Illinois’ ban on ‘bump stocks’ remains in place despite U.S. Supreme Court decision
By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – An Illinois law banning the sale and use of “bump stocks” and other devices that increase the firing power of semiautomatic weapons remains in place, at least for now, despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision Friday striking down a federal ban on such items. “Illinois law…
Lawmakers pass on oversight vote for Pritzker’s prison closure, rebuild plan
By HANNAH MEISEL & DILPREET RAJU Capitol News Illinois news@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – For the last two decades, each time a governor has moved to close a large state-run facility like a prison or mental health center, a legislative oversight panel has voted on the plan. That changed on Friday – at least for now –…
‘We don’t really know what we’re voting on,’ top Dem says of Pritzker’s prison plan
By HANNAH MEISEL Capitol News Illinois hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com LINCOLN – On the eve of a scheduled vote to advise Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration on plans to close and rebuild a pair of dilapidated state prisons, hundreds filed into a junior high school gymnasium Thursday evening clad in matching green T-shirts. Printed on the shirts was a…
Illinois child tax credit: who gets it, how much is it?
By ANDREW ADAMS Capitol News Illinois aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com In the final hours of their spring legislative session, Illinois lawmakers approved a tax credit of up to about $300 for families with young children. The credit is available to Illinoisans with children under age 12 who qualify for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC. Although…
Members of House speaker’s staff sue over ongoing unionization conflict
By HANNAH MEISEL Capitol News Illinois hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – Members of a would-be union representing staffers in House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s office filed suit against their boss on Friday, asking a Cook County judge to force recognition of the union. The Illinois Legislative Staff Association, which formed in the fall of 2022, claims Welch’s…
Elections board urged to dismiss complaint that Bailey illegally coordinated in 2022 campaign
By HANNAH MEISEL Capitol News Illinois hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com A hearing officer is recommending the Illinois State Board of Elections dismiss a complaint that alleged conservative radio host and political operative Dan Proft illegally coordinated with former Republican state Sen. Darren Bailey during his 2022 campaign for governor. Proft, a one-time gubernatorial candidate himself, is behind an…
Communities, commission push Pritzker admin for more prison plan details
By DILPREET RAJU Capitol News Illinois news@capitolnewsillinois.com Jimmy Soto spent more than 42 years wrongfully imprisoned in Illinois Department of Corrections facilities. In 2020, he was moved to the “F-House” at Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, a condemned unit, not because he was being punished, but because it was where the facility was housing individuals…