Illinois legislators grilled officials from the Department of Employment Security Tuesday regarding the more than $5 billion lost to fraud during the pandemic.

A performance audit released by the Office of the Auditor General showed that overpayments of $5.2 billion in the Unemployment Insurance and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance programs were the result of fraud, non-fraud and identity theft between 2020 to 2022.

A plan for Chicago’s newly elected school board has reached a stalemate in the waning days of the veto session.

And with the clock ticking, it appears a private school scholarship tax credit program will sunset by the end of the year, despite strong pressure from Republican lawmakers and activists surrounding the Illinois State Capitol this week.

When Steve Hess learned about a plan to send a $3.4 billion carbon dioxide pipeline through five states —and Hess’ own corn and soybean fields in western Illinois — the 68-year-old farmer knew two things:

He knew he would fight the project, which he viewed as a threat to his family’s health, safety and property rights.

With one scheduled day left in the General Assembly’s fall veto session, lawmakers advanced measures that would allow new nuclear power construction in Illinois and usher in the electrification of government vehicles in the next decade.

The two-week veto session has seen heated debate over these and other subjects, including regulating the yet-to-be-formed elected Chicago School Board and the controversial Invest in Kids tax credit program – measures that have seen little legislative movement thus far.