There’s plenty of room at the inn in Illinois, as the state continues to see population declines year after year.

New census data analyzed by Illinois Policy Institute Chief Economist Orphe Divounguy show the state shrank by nearly 80,000 people in the year ending July 2020, the second largest population loss among U.S. states over the year, and nearly 22,000 more than was lost the year before.

The top public health official in the United States said Tuesday that the COVID-19 trends in Illinois are improving and he urged the public to get vaccinated as soon as the doses become available to them.

“The numbers here in Illinois are moving in the right direction and we have a finish line in sight with these two vaccines,” U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said during a news conference in Chicago.

As the coronavirus ravages chronically understaffed Illinois nursing homes, state fines to enforce decade-old staffing minimums are supposed to take effect next week. But a lawmaker who helped broker administrative rules for the penalties says the enforcement will wait awhile longer.

A 2010 law established minimum hours of direct daily care for residents who need skilled nursing. Lawmakers did not enact the fines until 18 months ago. That measure says “monetary penalties shall be imposed beginning no later than Jan. 1, 2021.”

Several Chicago aldermen said Tuesday that the systems of accountability created in the wake of the Laquan McDonald murder failed Anjanette Young in 2019 when police entered her home and handcuffed her while she was naked and screaming that they had the wrong house.

That was the main takeaway from some aldermen who took part in a day-long hearing questioning Chicago Police Supt. David Brown, Civilian Office of Police Accountability Chief Administrator Sydney Roberts and others tasked with investigating police misconduct.

As furious aldermen demanded answers on Tuesday about the February 2019 raid that left a Chicago woman handcuffed and naked, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said he would tighten the rules governing the department’s use of search warrants.

The at-times contentious hearing started shortly after Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced she had tapped retired Judge Ann Claire Williams to conduct an outside investigation into the raid and the way the mayor’s office, the city’s Law Department and the police department handled the raid and its fallout, which touched off a political firestorm.

The staff at Lincoln’s Logan Correctional Center felt down last week when they learned Gov. JB Pritzker was imposing a state government hiring freeze and looking into potential furloughs of state workers and other “personnel cost adjustments.”

“The reaction is there is underappreciation for what our staff is subjected to,” said Shaun Dawson, a correctional sergeant at the women’s prison and president of the prison’s 700-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2073.

The massive federal spending bill Congress passed this week has lots of spending for Illinois, just not to cover the state’s budget deficit.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, said the $900 billion stimulus bill that passed Congress late Monday has a lot of spending, just not for state and local government budget deficits. But there are a lot of funds for government services like public schools and more.

Illinois lawmakers have not officially met for a full legislative session day since late May — more than 200 days ago.

But a pair of Democrats on Monday introduced a bill that would allow the General Assembly to meet remotely throughout the duration of the pandemic, something lawmakers tried but ultimately couldn’t pass in the spring.

Springfield School District 186 board members said Monday they liked where a set of metrics governing the in-person return of students Jan. 12 is headed, but remained leery about a post-Christmas and New Year’s spike.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Jennifer Gill will be sending a letter to the 1,300-member Springfield Education Association notifying the union of the district’s intent to return to a hybrid model on Jan. 12, a date the board voted on Dec. 7 as a goal of a starting date.

More than 1,500 employees of Cook County’s health care and sheriff’s departments walked off the job Tuesday morning after their union was unable to come to an agreement with the county over pandemic pay and working conditions.

Outside of Stroger Hospital, chants of workers demanding hazard pay nearly drowned out Joseph Richert, SEIU Local 73 secretary treasurer, as he said it is unconscionable that 10 months into a global pandemic that union members were still demanding proper protective gear.