Weeks after a former inspector general blamed ousted Mike Madigan chief of staff Tim Mapes for ruling through a culture of fear and intimidation, the powerful speaker has told his staff and Democratic primary candidates “no person should be pressured” into volunteering for a campaign.

It’s another clean-up effort for Madigan after a series of negative headlines from a string of workplace culture and harassment issues in his government and political organizations.

Officials in the administration of Gov. J.B. Pritzker are telling state agency directors to identify ways of cutting operating expenses by 6.5 percent as they begin drafting their budget plans for next year.

In a memo from Deputy Governor Dan Hynes and Budget Director Alexis Sturm, directors were also told to identify “at least two significant efficiency and savings” ideas that can be implemented next year and identify boards and commissions that can be eliminated.

Chicago aldermen who also work as attorneys can’t handle criminal cases involving the city’s Police Department, a local ethics panel concluded in a decision made public Friday.

The ruling from the Chicago Board of Ethics has a limited effect on the City Council’s few practicing attorneys, but it adds a new level of nuance to how the city will enforce an ethics ordinance Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration overhauled in one of the biggest early actions of her first term.

An outbreak of unexplained, sometimes deadly illnesses has cast a cloud over the marijuana business just as it gears up for a big expansion with legalized sales for recreational use in Illinois.

A half-dozen people in the U.S. have died from vaping, often involving marijuana extracts, including one in Illinois. And the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention is investigating nearly 400 serious respiratory illnesses linked to use of vaping pens, or electronic cigarettes. Vaping-related sales already have started slipping at some weed shops after the Food & Drug Administration’s unusual move Sept. 6 to advise people against vaping anything containing THC, the compound that produces the high associated with marijuana.

In 2013, an attorney for then-Chicago Police Officer Laura Kubiak sent a letter to city attorneys. In it she said Kubiak had been the victim of “egregious” and illegal retaliation by her police bosses and was considering a lawsuit. However, Kubiak’s attorney offered a simple, and free, resolution: If the city would undo its retaliatory action against her, Kubiak would drop the issue.

The city refused, and now that decision has Chicago taxpayers on the hook for $4.5 million and counting.