The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has been operating in the Loop since 1898, just 27 years after the Great Chicago Fire.

The exchange was part of the city’s rebirth and helped establish Chicago as a financial hub. Now, we see the opposite of rebirth with Chicago’s population shrinking.

Friday’s scheduled end of Illinois’ spring legislative session came and went without a budget in sight.

Per the Illinois Constitution, legislators have until May 31 to pass a budget for the coming fiscal year with simple majorities. The next fiscal year begins July 1. At the start of the 103rd General Assembly in January, Democrats in the House and Senate scheduled adjournment for May 19.

While failing to get a budget done by its self-imposed deadline, the Illinois General Assembly passed measures addressing issues ranging from abortion rights to full-day kindergarten during its spring session, which this week goes into overtime.

It was the first full session since the November election, when Democrats won victories in every constitutional office and expanded their overall supermajority in the General Assembly. Despite the single-party control, legislators didn’t complete their work Friday as scheduled and will reconvene Wednesday to get back to work on a spending plan that became complicated by the spiraling costs of a health care program for immigrants.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says he plans to ask the Illinois General Assembly to revoke a reform that allows criminal defendants who are being held on home detention while awaiting trial to get two days of furlough time during which they can leave home to go shopping, do laundry and take care of other personal business.

From the time the reform was enacted on Jan. 1, 2022, until this May 1, 129 people in Cook County have ended up getting arrested while on these furloughs for what’s labeled “essential movement.”

It was supposed to be a weekend of family fun at the annual Armed Forces Carnival in Tinley Park, but that fun was cut short. The carnival was shut down after a chaotic flash mob involving 400 teenagers unfolded, causing police to cancel the final day.

Families coming to take part in the final day of festivities were met with an empty parking lot. Police shut it all down in an effort to avoid a repeat of the chaos that happened 24 hours earlier.

Following heated debate on the Senate and House floors this week, a bill allowing businesses to designate multi-occupancy restrooms as all-gender passed and now heads to the governor’s desk.

House Bill 1286 passed in a 63-40 House concurrence vote Friday after a 35-20 partisan vote in the Senate on Thursday. Several Senate Democrats present in the chambers, including Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield, did not cast a vote.

Lawmakers won’t finish their spring legislative session by Friday’s scheduled adjournment as negotiations over the state budget remain in flux.

The May 19 end to the General Assembly’s spring session had been on the calendar for months, but it’s not a deadline; lawmakers still have until the end of May before a constitutional trigger raises the threshold on the number of votes needed to pass legislation immediately to a three-fifths majority.