The financial pinch of inflation is punishing Illinois homeowners and insurers.

According to data from Bankrate.com, the average Illinois homeowner’s monthly premium has gone up 42% since January 2023.

The City Council again rebuked Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plan to rid Chicago of ShotSpotter Wednesday, voting to keep the gunshot detection technology around just days before it was set to go offline.

Aldermen passed in a 33-to-14 vote an ordinance supporters say would compel police Superintendent Larry Snelling to reach a contract to continue using the tool.

Chicago Public Schools officials’ new five-year strategic plan received mixed reviews this week after they doubled down on supporting neighborhood schools, but shied away from more significant proposed changes to the school choice system that had caused a stir earlier this year.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Board of Education unanimously approved the strategic plan during a special board meeting Wednesday at a South Side district office housed in a former school building. It was held in the building’s auditorium, where CPS staff and dozens of parents and community members were invited to celebrate the plan’s approval.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut its benchmark interest rate by an unusually large half-point, a dramatic shift after more than two years of high rates that helped tame inflation but also made borrowing painfully expensive for American consumers.

The rate cut, the Fed’s first in more than four years, reflects its new focus on bolstering the job market, which has shown clear signs of slowing. Coming just weeks before the presidential election, the Fed’s move also has the potential to scramble the economic landscape just as Americans prepare to vote.

Peoria’s public television station overrepresented how much money they received from the community and improperly spent other funds, a watchdog of public broadcasting dollars said in an 82-page report.

The inspector general for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private organization that passes money from the federal government to public broadcasting stations, wrote that WTVP-TV overstated by about $1 million the amount of money they got from non-federal funding support.