SPRINGFIELD – In Illinois, the role of state treasurer is that of chief investment officer. Treasurer Michael Frerichs has held that position for two full terms, winning by less than 10,000 votes in 2014 before cruising to an 18 percentage-point victory in 2018. He boasts that Illinois has topped $1.2 billion in interest gains on…
CHAMPAIGN – A business incubator focused on disadvantaged neighborhoods in Champaign is expanding its chess program. The classes started with a handful of teenagers about six weeks ago. Since then, adults have become so interested that the nonprofit, Business Elevator, is planning to start a separate, adult class. The chess coach, Eduardo Carrillo, Jr, uses…
SPRINGFIELD – The 2022 Illinois State Fair set an all-time attendance record with more than 636,700 visitors. Weekend attendance increased by 95,000 from one year ago. Attendance topped 2021 overall by more than 160,000 and 2019 by more than 127,000. There was no fair in 2020 for the first time since World War II due…
If air-conditioning your home felt expensive this summer, get ready, because turning up the heat may cost even more this winter. The rising utility bills are being driven by the surge in the price of natural gas, which generates about 40% of the United States’ electricity. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects this surge to…
A strike that could have halted both freight and passenger trains across the country seems to have been averted. After a marathon negotiating session lasting 20 hours, the White House announced early Thursday that a tentative agreement had been reached between rail companies and the unions representing conductors and engineers. “This agreement is validation –…
CHICAGO – Some Metra trains won’t be running beginning Thursday night as the commuter rail service braces for a possible nationwide work stoppage by freight railroad workers. Those workers are set to go on strike on Friday if an agreement isn’t reached and while Metra is not involved with negotiations, some of its lines are…
CHAMPAIGN – A total of eight Illinois community colleges will soon be certified to do competency-based learning, thanks to $5 million from the U.S. Department of Labor. This means students only need to take classes on new material — instead of sitting through lessons they already know. Nancy Sutton is the vice president for academic…
SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker announced Monday that Illinois taxpayers will soon start receiving rebates of their income and property taxes, either in the mail or by direct bank deposits. Speaking at a news conference in Chicago where he was flanked by other state officials and Democratic leaders of the General Assembly, Pritzker said the…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Student debt has soared in the 21st Century. It went from $520 billion in 2006 to now over $1.7 trillion. The Biden administration recently announced a student loan forgiveness program. Some borrowers could have as much as $20,000 forgiven. The White House estimates that around 43 million borrowers could be eligible for some debt forgiveness. Of those, close to half could…
Mount Rushmore and the Great Lakes are a couple of the Midwest’s tourism magnets, but some states have to work against their reputations to attract visitors. They’re getting creative by highlighting amenities that can be a bit off the beaten path. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s60/audio/2022/08/underdog-tourism-states-web.wav Listen to this story here. Climbing into a cattle water tank and floating…