PEORIA — Caterpillar has settled a long-running tax dispute with the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS maintained Caterpillar owes the federal government more than $2.3 billion in unpaid taxes and penalties stemming from the company’s alleged tax avoidance practice of funneling U.S. profits through the Swiss subsidiary CSARL, as of 2018. Caterpillar announced it reached a…
Monday, September 12, 2022 Today’s headlines: Two Illinois lawmakers are pushing legislation that would create a wind farm off the shores of Lake Michigan. University of Illinois officials reported 317 new COVID-19 cases on the Urbana campus last week. That’s much lower than the week before when there were more than one thousand new cases….
NORMAL — Unit 5 has invoked a rarely used state statute that allows school districts to reject teacher resignations in certain circumstances. McLean County’s largest district denied four resignations, submitted by special education teachers weeks before the first day of school. Two of the teachers agreed to stay for the 2022-2023 school year. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s402/audio/2022/09/unit5resign-segment.mp3 Listen…
CHAMPAIGN — Undergraduates at the University of Illinois tested positive for COVID-19 in record numbers last week. Julie Pryde leads the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District (CUPHD). She says that despite appearances, the University of Illinois simply joined the existing wave of cases when it reopened for classes this fall. “We’ve had high transmission for the…
Friday, September 9, 2022 Today’s headlines: Illinois’ Republican gubernatorial candidate now has a positive TV ad running statewide, but it didn’t come until nearly two months before the general election. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said his staff has been unable to coordinate with Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s staff as groups of migrants have appeared in…
SPRINGFIELD – A gun rights group is challenging the city of Highland Park’s ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines like the ones used in a mass shooting there on July 4. The National Association for Gun Rights, based in Loveland, Colorado, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal district court in Chicago at the same…
MONTICELLO — On a hot June day in 2017, the Piatt County Nursing Home in Monticello lost power. “They almost had to evacuate because (it was) 80 degrees, they almost had to evacuate Alzheimer’s residents,” Congressman Rodney Davis (R-Taylorville) said outside the county-owned nursing home on Wednesday. Scott Porter realized then as the nursing home’s…
Thursday, September 8, 2022 Today’s headlines: A cannabis advocacy group is warning the state’s recreational marijuana program has a lot of problems that need immediate attention. Bringing more diversity into the green economy is one of the central goals of Illinois’ Climate and Equitable Jobs Act signed into law last September. Illinois Congressman Rodney Davis…
CHAMPAIGN – Ri’Chard Frazier took his role as a big brother seriously from a young age. By middle school, being the “tough” one started to get him in trouble. He bounced between public and alternative schools. The first time he felt cared for was at FirstFollowers, a nonprofit Champaign recently entrusted with half a million…
SPRINGFIELD – As voters in Illinois prepare to decide on a state constitutional amendment that would guarantee workers the right to organize, a new study shows union membership in the state grew last year for the first time in four years. The study also showed, however, that the overall percentage of the state’s workforce that was in…
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Lee Enterprises, along with Capitol News Illinois. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker called patient abuses at the Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center in rural Anna “awful” and “deeply concerning,” and he said the future of the facility depends on correcting poor conditions. Pritzker’s comments at…
Blue-green algae appears in lakes all over the Midwest during the summers and can make both people and animals ill. Few states have routine testing programs to check for the toxic algae, but some local and volunteer groups are stepping in to fill that gap. LAKE WAWASEE, Ind. — Living on Lake Wawasee, Cindy Peterson…
Wednesday, September 7, 2022 Today’s headlines: Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey continues to blame Governor J.B. Pritzker for crime in the state, but Bailey says he can fix it. Governor J.B. Pritzker made a stop in Decatur yesterday to announce state funding for electric vehicle manufacturing. Undergraduates at the University of Illinois tested positive…
CHICAGO — A kinesiology professor at the University of Illinois recently explored how Latin Dance can benefit the memory of older Latinos. Susan Aguiñaga is a kinesiology professor at U of I. Along with a team, she explored how Latin Dance can benefit the memory of older Latinos. Aguiñaga explained that there were two groups…
SPRINGFIELD – The state on Tuesday announced the award of the first electric vehicle manufacturing-targeted tax incentives made possible by a law signed by Gov. JB Pritzker last year. The incentives come from the Reimagining Electric Vehicles Act, which passed nearly unanimously and became law in November, and will provide an estimated $2.2 million in value…