Get the latest news from around Illinois.
The Center Square: Audit: Illinois unemployment agency made $5.2 billion in 'overpayments' during COVID-19
Illinois lawmakers are calling for accountability into the state’s handling of unemployment payments during the COVID-19 pandemic after an audit showed $5.2 billion was overpaid, including tens of millions to some who were incarcerated or deceased.
Unemployment spiked at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 after Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued stay-at-home orders impacting the economy in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.
Chicago Tribune: Need to renew your driver’s license? Starting Sept. 1, you’ll need an appointment.
Illinois residents will be required to make appointments to renew driver’s licenses or deal with state ID business at more than 40 of the busiest drivers’ services facilities starting Sept. 1 under a “skip-the-line” program aimed at cutting wait times.
Customers seeking title and registration services, including license plate sticker renewals, will not be required to make appointments.
Chicago Sun-Times: ‘No rule of law’: City Council members decry criminal activity outside migrant shelters
City Council members on Wednesday decried the lawlessness — including sex trafficking and drug dealing — they say is occurring outside Chicago’s migrant shelters and demanded a crackdown before the behavior devolves into violence.
Education Committee Chair Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) represents the impoverished Woodlawn neighborhood where 584 migrants are staying in the former Wadsworth Elementary School.
Daily Herald: Pritzker signs bill he says will help bring state's homelessness to 'functional zero'
Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed legislation Wednesday that seeks to effectively end homelessness in Illinois by marshaling the resources of multiple agencies into one effort.
House Bill 2831 codifies an executive order Pritzker signed in 2021 that established the Illinois Interagency Task Force on Homelessness and the Community Advisory Council on Homelessness. It centralizes programs across 17 state departments and agencies to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to combat homelessness.
State Journal-Register: More central Illinois counties added to disaster proclamation
More central Illinois residents affected by the derecho storm will be eligible for late tax payment penalty protections following an expanded disaster proclamation by Gov. JB Pritzker.
If they cannot file on-time, taxpayers in an additional 13 counties can now receive an exemption from late penalties and interest for income, withholding, sales, specialty, and excise taxes. Joining Sangamon County are Christian, Logan, Macon and Scott counties.
Cook County Record: Appeals court: IL Supreme Court must rein in lawmakers' abuse of legislative process
Saying the Illinois Supreme Court has offered little more than “bluster,” another panel of Illinois state appellate judges has called for action to rein in repeat abuses by Illinois state lawmakers, who regularly appear to outright ignore the state constitution’s rules requiring them to give time for fellow lawmakers and the people to learn the content of new laws before they are enacted.
The call came from the Illinois Fourth District Appellate Court in Springfield, in a decision otherwise upholding the constitutionality of a controversial state law allowing plaintiffs to boost significantly the value of their winnings in court by tacking on potentially big money to jury verdicts through so-called “prejudgment interest.”