An Illinois lawmaker is making an effort to keep the state government working during statewide emergencies.

Business halted in March, around the same time Gov. J.B. Pritzker declared a statewide disaster. Lawmakers convened in May for a brief special session, but they canceled their fall veto session and have not conducted any officials business since May 24.

When a new year begins in Illinois, there typically are dozens if not hundreds of new laws going into effect.

Not this year. Like so many other things in 2020, the legislative spring session was stunted by COVID-19. Once the global pandemic reached Illinois in March, the General Assembly would meet for only four more days — wrapping up the odd session during masked and socially distanced gatherings at the Capitol and Bank of Springfield Center. The fall veto session was scrapped altogether.

An effort by the Illinois Craft Cannabis Association to force Gov. J.B. Pritzker to award grower licenses to its more than three dozen member has been rebuffed by a Cook County judge.

By law, 40 grower licenses were to be issued by July 1, but Pritzker hasn’t issued them. He initially cited the COVID-19 pandemic for delays in reviewing applications.

Chicago-area home values took their biggest step upward in October since mid-2014, according to an index of the nation’s home prices.

The metro area’s single-family home values rose by 6.3 percent in October from a year earlier, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices released this morning. That’s the biggest increase since June 2014, when values rose 8.2 percent.

Defense attorney Cathryn Crawford said there’s no question her client is innocent, and, besides that, the armed robbery case against him is weak. She’s certain they’d be able to prove his innocence at trial.

But her client wants to plead guilty. He’s tired of waiting on a court system that has been mostly shut down for more than nine months because of the pandemic.

Most of the Chicago Public Schools teachers and staffers who are scheduled to return to classrooms next week for the first time in nine months haven’t raised any qualms about doing so with the district — but almost a third of them requested to work from home or take a leave of absence.

That’s according to data released by the district Tuesday on the 7,002 pre-kindergarten and special education cluster program employees who were asked to return to work Jan. 4 after the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic closure.

The coronanvirus pandemic disrupted the Chicago commercial real estate market in surprising and drastic ways in 2020. Here’s what happened this year and what to look for in 2021.