It’s hard enough running a profitable small business nowadays. But if you’re a food truck vendor in Chicago it’s getting pretty darn close to impossible.

Back in 2012, the city passed a regulation which established 37 “mobile food vehicle stands” around town, restricted food truck operations to not be within 200 feet of brick-and-mortar restaurants and required them to vacate their location if there for more than two hours. Oh, and they were also required to equip themselves with Global Positioning System devices to track their location. Those are some pretty onerous rules.

Not surprisingly, the ordinance was mostly ignored, and as any Chicagoan can report, food trucks could be found just about anywhere in the city – even a few hundred feet from City Hall and well outside of one of the 37 restricted zones.

The City of Chicago has four pension plans, not counting the teachers’ plan, which is the responsibility of the school district. Combined, these four plans are among the worst funded public pension funds in the country. Worried employees want to be assured that their pensions will be honored. Worried taxpayers want to know what that will cost them.

Some progress has been made. The employees have agreed to some plan modifications, and the city has agreed to substantial tax increases dedicated to funding the pensions.

Mayor Emanuel’s statement excerpted above was occasioned by the latest such agreement. His statement might be read to suggest that the city has finally overcome the challenges of funding its pension commitments. The reality is far worse, as the adjacent graph shows.

Broadening the sales tax base and overhauling property taxes are two components of a legislative agenda the Illinois Manufacturers Association said will help restore manufacturing jobs to the state.

IMA president and CEO Greg Baise said Tuesday the state’s business climate has been devastating to manufacturing, which has seen 300,000 jobs disappear since the turn of the century.

“We have lost jobs in all parts of the state,” Baise said. “Forty percent of the manufacturing jobs in the Chicago region have disappeared. We have seen job losses of 25 to 30 percent in all the major urban areas throughout the state. Yet no one seems to be alarmed at the fact that the loss of these jobs really means a disappearing middle class in this state.”

The average wage paid for a manufacturing job is $75,000 a year.

The faculty union at Chicago State University has called on the board of trustees to resign, and has urged the state to conduct a forensic audit of the school’s finances, in the wake of the controversial ouster of president Thomas Calhoun Jr. and significantly declining enrollment.

John Miller, president of the University Professionals of Illinois, said the board ignored the wishes of faculty, staff, and students, when it removed Calhoun last month. The board agreed to pay Calhoun $600,000 in severance, under a clause in his contract that allowed him to be removed without cause, with him being paid two years’ salary to leave immediately.

The board approved the settlement agreement without explanation, and trustees were heckled by enraged students, faculty, and staff who had supported Calhoun, who was only on the job nine months.

A federal judge Tuesday blocked Election Day voter registration at polling places in Illinois, declaring a state law allowing the practice unconstitutional because it created one set of rules for cities and another for rural areas.

Voters will still be able to register Nov. 8 and cast a ballot for president but only at a limited number of sites, including the county clerk’s office, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections.

The ruling, handed down on National Voter Registration Day, is the latest front in a broader battle between Democrats led by House Speaker Michael Madigan andRepublicans led by Gov. Bruce Rauner.