Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday told school districts to follow safety guidelines in the fall or face consequences.

“Good people with good intentions can disagree on how and when kids should go back to school,” Pritzker said during a news conference in Chicago. “But let me be clear, I wouldn’t let my own children return to a school where masks are not mandatory and serious effort hasn’t been made to keep students distanced during the day. This should not be controversial.”

As Illinois’ rolling COVID-19 test positivity rate saw a modest tick upward Wednesday, Gov. JB Pritzker laid out a new virus mitigation framework dividing the state into 11 regions for purposes of slowing the coronavirus’ spread.

That’s an increase from the four broad regions in the Restore Illinois reopening plan in place before Wednesday’s announcements.

Even though Illinois is facing a budget shortfall in the fiscal year that began this month, a budgetary analyst said the real pain will come when the state’s federal loans come due the year after.

The current 2021 fiscal year is projected to be billions of dollars short, but lawmakers plan to borrow $5 billion from the Federal Reserve Bank’s Municipal Liquidity Facility to cover costs.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot says she won’t hesitate to put Chicago’s reopening in reverse if cases rise above 200 daily.

“Right now our priority is keeping the numbers of new cases as low as possible, especially among our young people,” Lightfoot said this morning, warning Chicago might move back to Phase 3 from its current Phase 4. “Unfortunately, there remain some of you who are not getting the very clear messages we’ve been sending now for months. So hear this: Despite the fact that the weather might be warm, COVID-19 is still here in Chicago and will be part of our future. Yes, our metrics are tracking better than the rest of the country, but that doesn’t mean that we can ever let our guard down.”

Aldermen advanced an agreement Wednesday that will allow anonymous complaints against Chicago police sergeants, lieutenants and captains to be investigated, despite concerns that the agreement does not go far enough to hold police brass accountable for misconduct.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has hailed the decision by an arbitrator to allow complaints against 1,500 of the department’s highest-ranking officers to be investigated without a sworn affidavit an “historic” win in the push for police reforms given new life by the protests touched off by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Champaign City Council members applauded steps by the city’s police department to update its use-of-force policies, but some said more action is needed.

The Champaign Police Department updated its use-of-force policies this month to include de-escalation, the duty for officers to intervene during unlawful use-of-force and an explicit ban on chokeholds.

Community leaders across Illinois are concerned about mounting revenue losses from the COVID-19 pandemic, among other things, according to a new survey conducted by the University of Illinois Extension.

Survey responses were collected in May, during the height of the lockdown, from 163 elected officials, business owners and organization leaders in 58 of the state’s 102 counties.

A record 121,000 Chicagoans have sent in applications to vote by mail in the November election as states across the country are expanding their mail-in ballot offerings due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The situation has prompted a rash of statements and tweets from President Donald Trump, who claims without evidence that the 2020 election will be the “most rigged election in our nations history.”

A City Council committee on Wednesday ratified an arbitrator’s ruling with police supervisors amid claims that the modest disciplinary changes made don’t “rise to the moment” created by the death of George Floyd.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot spent three hours testifying before the arbitrator and has portrayed his ruling as a big victory that ends the 40-year ban on anonymous complaints and will lay the groundwork for similar disciplinary changes with the larger and more militant Fraternal Order of Police.

People who want to open new marijuana stores in Illinois will have to wait a little longer.

It’s likely to be mid-September before any of the 75 new licenses for adult-use dispensaries are awarded. Toi Hutchinson, the state’s top official overseeing the cannabis industry, says scoring of more than 700 dispensary applications still isn’t complete, and a procedural hiccup means rules to break a tie won’t go into effect until at least Sept. 19.

Illinois’ bowling alleys are the latest to cry foul over Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s rules that have left the industry handicapped.

The Illinois State Bowling Proprietors Association, consisting of more than 180 bowling alleys across the state, filed suit in Lee County, says Gov. J.B. Pritzker can’t unilaterally close businesses or restrict them after his original 30-day emergency declaration.