In what was a surprise to many, the Illinois Commerce Commission rejected the requested rate hikes proposed by the state’s major utilities.

Members of the ICC approved rate hikes for the four major natural gas utilities, but the board slashed the requested rate increases by as much as 50%.

The countdown has begun for all migrants entering city shelters to find housing within 60 days or be forced to leave under a new rule issued by Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Migrants who entered shelters Friday will have to be out by mid-January, according to the mayor’s office. However, exceptions will be made for “medical crises or extreme cold weather.”

When Mayor Brandon Johnson introduced his 2024 budget, he noted the city had for too long balanced such spending plans on the backs of working people and vowed to end the practice.

A “$95 city sticker or a $100 parking ticket weighs more heavily on the family that earns $30,000 a year versus a family that earns $150,000 a year,” he said, and the city had “relied too long on a tax structure that heavily burdens our lowest income residents, and is too reliant on property taxes, fees and fines and rates.”

The National Transportation Safety Board preliminarily concluded that a “design problem” with the train’s braking system led to Thursday’s CTA Yellow Line collision that left more than 30 people injured – the agency’s worst crash in decades.

At around 10:30 a.m. that day, the train was traveling between Evanston and Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood when it collided with a snow fighter machine, which had been placed on the tracks for employee training, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the NTSB, said at a news conference on Saturday afternoon.

Opening statements continued Friday in the Ed Burke federal corruption trial.

At this point, Jurors in Burke’s trial have heard starkly different descriptions of the once powerful alderman — federal prosecutors called him a “bribe-taker” and an “extortionist,” while defense attorneys painted him as an “old school, hard working public servant.”

Each year, Campbell’s releases its “State of the Sides” which shows each state’s favorite side dishes.

The report said the top dish in the United States is mashed potatoes, which is up from second place in 2022. Stuffing/dressing dropped from the national favorite into second place for this year.