Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday that it could be difficult to address the state’s out-of-balance budget during the short lame-duck legislative session that starts Friday to wrap up the 101st General Assembly.

Whether there’s the urgency to deal with the $4 billion shortfall depends on who you ask.

Statewide Tier 3 COVID-19 mitigations could be lifted within 10 days.

Starting Jan.15, exactly one incubation period from New Year’s Day, any region that has met requirements for a reduction of mitigations will be able to move out of the Tier 3 mitigation plan, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Wednesday.

House Speaker Mike Madigan finally may be facing the major re-election opponent his foes have been looking for.

In an announcement this morning, North Side Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, said she’s running for speaker because the state needs “an experienced, pragmatic leader who can unify our caucus and build a bridge to the future.”

The fewer than 80 adult-use cannabis stores in Illinois sold nearly $670 million in legal weed in all of 2020, according to numbers published by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation this week.

Despite ongoing pandemic restrictions on other businesses, the 79 licensed pot stores in Illinois finished the year in December with $86.9 million in sales. That was more than $10 million more than was sold in November.

An education advocacy group says Illinois schools should plan to make up time lost to the Coronavirus pandemic, perhaps by extending the school day or year.

That’s one recommendation in a recent report from Advance Illinois. Another way to help fill in the gaps could be offering extensive tutoring, according to the report.

An effort to shift much of the property tax burden in Cook County’s north and northwest suburbs from homeowners to commercial properties was largely undone by the Board of Review, a new report issued by Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi asserts.

The report says billions of dollars in higher assessments that Kaegi wanted to impose on business properties were nullified by appeals to the board, which legally has the power to overrule Kaegi. That means the taxes involved—at least tens of millions of dollars a year—instead will be paid by homeowners, not apartment developers, shopping mall operators and the like.