Gov. JB Pritzker announced his administration would be filing a new emergency rule Friday allowing health authorities to levy fines on establishments that flout masking and capacity guidelines.

The rules “would provide multiple opportunities for compliance” regarding face mask requirements and capacity limits, including attempts to “educate” and warn the establishment before an order is issued for some patrons to leave the premises. If the establishment is still not in compliance after those steps are taken, health officials can levy a Class A Misdemeanor charge and a fine ranging from $75 to $2,500.

The mayor of southwest suburban Crestwood faces a federal bribery charge in a new indictment made public Friday that centers on the politically connected red-light camera company SafeSpeed, court records show.

Louis Presta, 69, has also been charged with filing false tax returns and lying to the FBI and IRS, allegedly about whether an envelope Presta took during a March 2018 meeting with a SafeSpeed representative had been stuffed full of $5,000 cash.

In 2009, with yet another governor ensnared in scandal, Illinois’ Democratic legislative leaders authored a package of laws they promised would begin to reform Illinois’ culture of corruption.

One of the biggest items in the legislative package would finally establish statewide limits on campaign contributions, a measure Illinois was one of the last states to adopt.

When a potential client approached Douglas Kiffmeyer for financial planning advice in 2013, he told her he had a “very good plan” that would produce extra monthly income and protect her investments should she ever move into a retirement home.

Kiffmeyer, who was a registered broker and investment adviser in southern Illinois at the time, directed the woman to cash in two IRA accounts and one annuity, falsely telling her that the payout would not be taxable. She gave him the $386,487.41 in exchange for a promissory note.

While Chicago city government’s finances flail in the face of a pandemic liable to blast a billion-dollar hole in City Hall’s budget, one part of its treasury is flush with cash — specially designated money that Mayor Lori Lightfoot might see as tempting to tap as she tries to balance the budget.

According to reports filed with the state, at the close of 2019 the city’s 140 tax-increment financing districts, known as TIFs, held a combined $1.79 billion — far above what city officials had projected.

The testimony from State’s Attorney Kim Foxx was distinctly eyebrow-raising.

Appearing before the Cook County Board Finance Committee recently, Foxx said she wanted to dispel the notion that her support of electronic monitoring and other forms of noncash bail has fueled Chicago’s summer of street violence. In fact, she said, of 1,822 people arrested and prosecuted for gun offenses in the first half of the year, just 26 have been rearrested and recharged with gun offenses since then, similar to the levels in 2018 and 2019. The perception that she’s installed a revolving door of sorts at the county jail is “a simplistic narrative”—and it’s wrong, she declared.

Weeks away from the scheduled end to the county’s eviction moratorium on August 22, Cook County has launched a $20 million program to help thousands of renters with financial insecurity due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The program, funded with federal relief money through the CARES Act, will help pay one to three months of overdue or future rent for income-eligible households. “Payments will be made directly to landlords on behalf of tenants up to a total of $4,500,” the county says in a release.