The Illinois Senate plans to take the first major step in trying to enact a graduated income tax — with an amendment that would remove the flat income tax structure from the state’s constitution to be heard in a committee as soon as Wednesday.

The amendment to a previous Senate resolution is the first part in getting the Illinois Constitution to require a “fair” or graduated income tax — Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s No. 1 priority. The Illinois General Assembly must first approve putting a constitutional amendment on the 2020 ballot to ask voters if they want to change that portion of the constitution.

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritkzer waged his campaign partly on the promise of moving Illinois to a graduated income tax system, and he’s talked about it a lot since he was elected governor.

But for the first time, we now have actual language for the proposal.

Just more than a week after Lori Lightfoot won the Chicago mayor’s race in a landslide victory, she’s headed to Springfield on Wednesday for meetings with state lawmakers.

Lightfoot is scheduled to speak with Gov. J.B. Pritzker at his Illinois Capitol office. Then, she’s expected to head over to the House, where she’ll meet with Speaker Michael Madigan and House GOP leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs before addressing the Illinois House.

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker remains one of the biggest proponents of legalizing recreational marijuana, which he said could bring in $170 million in tax revenue, to start, by next year.

And on Tuesday he took it a step further, saying he’s also in support of “home grow” — marijuana — to an extent. The discussion about how many marijuana plants would be allowed in a household remains part of ongoing negotiations about marijuana legalization in the state.

Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot will throw her support behind big public tax subsidies for two massive, controversial developments after developers agreed to increase the amount of construction work going to minority- and women-owned firms.

Sterling Bay and Related Midwest will give an additional $80 million to $400 million overall in contracts to such firms, Lightfoot announced Tuesday night.

A City Council committee agreed Monday to make Lyft the exclusive operator of Chicago’s Divvy bike-sharing system over the strenuous objections of arch-rival Uber.

Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot has expressed reservations about the agreement and the process by which retiring Mayor Rahm Emanuel negotiated a deal that “seemingly came out of nowhere without proper vetting and transparency.”

former Rich Township High School District 227 administrator claims in a whistleblower lawsuit that she lost her job last year because she reported a female student’s allegations of abuse and harassment against a superintendent’s relative, a student in the district.

Adrienne LaCour, associate principal of curriculum and instruction at Rich South High School in Richton Park from 2015 to 2018, said her successful tenure at the high school, which was marked by a tripling of student achievement scores and “excellent” evaluations, ended abruptly in May after she went to bat for a female student who claimed a relative of the superintendent had physically threatened and harassed her.

Algonquin Township Highway Commissioner Andrew Gasser avoided jail time for a civil contempt charge when a judge decided Tuesday that Gasser took steps to select arbitrators in an ongoing dispute with the labor union representing his employees.

In March, Lake County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Jasica found Gasser in indirect civil contempt after failing to comply with a court order requiring him to engage in the arbitration process to sort out grievances with International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150, the union representing three employees Gasser fired without cause within minutes of taking office in 2017.

Mount Prospect village board members Tuesday night approved a controversial, massive $110 million redevelopment for the south side of downtown.

Trustees voted 5-1 in favor of Maple Street Lofts, which will have a six-story, 192-unit apartment building with 14,000 square feet of retail space; a seven-story, 65-unit apartment building; nine structures with 56 row homes; and a 268-space parking deck, all along Prospect Avenue near the downtown Metra station.

Aldermen on Monday night gave their blessing to the Rockford Public Library Board to continue working with Davenport, Iowa-based Bush Construction to develop a $22 million, six-story development on property north of a planned new library.

City Council on a 10-1 vote chose to approve a resolution supporting Bush’s proposed 146,000-square-foot, mixed-use redevelopment project. Preliminary plans call for a riverfront restaurant, retail space, business incubator, underground parking and 80 apartments.