Illinois is reporting its lowest number of COVID-related hospitalizations in nearly three months.

As of Tuesday, there are nearly 1,200 people hospitalized across the state, the smallest number reported since Aug. 3.

The latest congressional map proposed by Democrats for Illinois would further split communities, including those in the Springfield area, into sections represented by different members of Congress, a local lawmaker said Tuesday.

The interests of those communities would suffer by diminishing voting power and splitting the communities among multiple members of Congress, according to state Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield.

Illinoisans may soon be able to sue those that use a fake COVID-19 vaccination card.

That’s the intent of a new House bill (HB4192) filed on Monday, Oct. 25.

Gov. JB Pritzker set out his plan Monday to get 1.1 million children in Illinois vaccinated against COVID-19.

Illinois and Chicago are making plans to get shots into arms as quickly as possible.

At age 14, Brian Harrington was convicted and sentenced to prison as an adult. Over the course of his 13 years of incarceration, Harrington watched as juvenile justice legislation repeatedly came before lawmakers and consistently failed to pass. As an incarcerated individual, he knew that his letter-writing outreach would only go so far, and because he was unable to vote, Harrington was unable to hold elected officials accountable to hearing his needs.

Those of us who are incarcerated do not leave our humanity at the prison gate. We bring with us the need to represent our children, our aging parents, our communities and ourselves to lawmakers who still wield great power over our lives. Right now, Illinois has the opportunity to set an example for the rest of the country on voting rights, and state lawmakers should take this chance to act with humanity and restore the right to vote for people incarcerated in Illinois prisons.