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Projects in Carr Square, Old North, Central West End, Bevo, Wells-Goodfellow, and Peabody-Darst-Webbe.

SPRINGFIELD - During a holiday season when families face hardship, any little bit helps to bring festive cheer to those who need it most. This year’s second annual Illinois Lottery Holiday Toy Drive aimed to do just that, by collecting gifts from participants in Chicagoland and Springfield, who opened their hearts to share joy with others. During the two day toy drive, December 8 and 10, the Illinois Lottery collected nearly 1,000 donated toys. The outpour of generosity from participants, along with the Illinois Lottery’s gifting match, means 2,000 new toys will now help bring holiday fun to children affiliated with the Boys & Girls Club Illinois Alliance , the beneficiary of this year’s efforts. “We want to extend a big thank you to everyone who came out to support our holiday toy drive this year, helping us to collect and donate even more toys than last year to provide to families in need,” said Harold Mays, Illinois Lottery Director. “We

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Developer Advantes Group plans 33 new downtown apartments in the Old Judge Building at 704-710 N. Second St.

CHICAGO - Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and New York Attorney General Letitia James today urged the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and the U.S. Soccer Federation to foster a professional environment of respect and accountability after a recent independent investigation found widespread abuse and misconduct in women’s professional soccer. The detailed findings in the Oct. 3, 2022 report allege that NWSL and U.S. Soccer, both headquartered in Chicago, failed to provide adequate oversight, implement appropriate workplace policies or respond to complaints of misconduct in women’s professional soccer. In a letter sent to NWSL and U.S. Soccer, Raoul and James support the recommendations provided in the report to hold wrongdoers accountable, enhance transparency and ensure players are treated with respect. “I was shocked and disappointed to learn of the alarming allegations in women’s professional soccer. Under no circumstance should anyone

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McBride's new development, called St. Andrews Meadows, is located in Union near Highway 50 and St. Andrews Drive.

CHICAGO - Attorney General Kwame Raoul expressed support for the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) proposal to help cut down on unwanted text messages by requiring mobile wireless providers to block texts from invalid, unassigned, or unused numbers, and from numbers on a Do Not Originate (DNO) list. In addition, Raoul and a bipartisan collation of attorneys general are asking the FCC to continue pushing the wireless industry to help protect consumers. “As my office and attorneys general across the country crack down on robocalls, scammers are shifting to sending text messages,” Raoul said. “Robotexts are more than just a nuisance; they cost consumers time and sometimes money. I am committed to protecting the rights of Illinois consumers by fighting against illegal robocalls and robotexts.” Attorneys general work to protect consumers in their states and have long been at the forefront of fighting to reduce the number of robocalls that plague Americans.

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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Grape Growers and Vintners Alliance today encouraged all wine growers and winemakers in Illinois to join its effort to capture the growth of winemaking in the state as it grows in popularity and production here. The IGGVA launched two critical surveys for wine growers and winemakers that can be found on its website . The last time such an audit of the industry was completed was in 2011, and data collection is crucial to the ongoing success of the Illinois wine and grape industry. As a growing tourism attraction in many Illinois communities, from Chicago to Carbondale, the Illinois wine industry has exploded with talent and award-winning wines. The IGGVA survey will capture the growth of the industry and its role as a tourism generator, contributor to local economics and job creator. “Wine growers and winemakers are increasingly turning to Illinois as a home for their wineries and tasting rooms,” said Lisa Ellis, director of the IGGVA.

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The BLS announced CPI figures for November today, and both the headline rate and the core rate declined substantially: Shazam! The headline rate is below the Fed's target of 2% and the core rate is damn close. As always, I'm showing month-over-month rates that have been annualized. If you still insist on following the conventional ...continue reading "Inflation dropped like a stone in November"

St. Louis County Port Authority (Port Authority) announced that it is awarding $2,630,663 from the St. Louis County Port Authority Community Investment Fund to 21 non-profit community groups in St. Louis County.

This featured exhibition in the Great Hall of the St. Louis Public Library – Central Library explores how iconic characters both reflect and influence American culture from the 1960s to

The post America’s Monsters, Superheroes and Villains: Our Culture at Play appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

Opening arguments began in federal court yesterday in a lawsuit being brought by a woman who alleges she was pepper-sprayed and rammed to the ground by police amid a 2017 protest. The civil case centers on the interaction between members of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department's Civil Disobedience Team and Laura Jones, now 68, on September 15, 2017, during protests stemming from the acquittal of former police officer Jason Stockley. Video shows Jones at Clark and Tucker avenues in the early evening when, confronted by a line of police officers marching forward, Jones hits the pavement.

Here is our original coverage of the trade that sent J.D. Drew and Eli Marrero to the Braves for pitchers Jason Marquis, Adam Wainwright and Ray King.

The first 50 customers will get a “Free Chicken for a Year” gift card.

Our source said the 16-year-old Hogan escapee was one of three suspects arrested in the deadly gas station shooting after bailing out of a stolen Hyundai Elantra.

by Mike Reicher and Lulu Ramadan, The Seattle Times

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with The Seattle Times. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Washington state education officials are proposing to expand oversight of private schools for students with disabilities, citing a Seattle Times and ProPublica investigation that revealed that the state failed to intervene despite years of complaints about these schools.

The state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s request for new legislation, which will likely include a budget increase, appears to be welcomed by some lawmakers frustrated with the private special education schools, called “nonpublic agencies,” which accept public school children and tax dollars.

In its monthly special education bulletin, OSPI announced last week it was working on legislation that would expand the agency’s power over the specialty schools. The OSPI bulletin said the Seattle Times and ProPublica reports “show us that more changes are needed” in the system.

The news organizations found OSPI failed to address problems at the largest chain of such schools, the Northwest School of Innovative Learning, despite complaints from parents, school district administrators and others. Allegations against the school, dating back to at least 2014, included unqualified aides struggling with a lack of curriculum, misuse of isolation rooms to manage student behavior and a staffer who repeatedly choked students.

Northwest SOIL is owned by a subsidiary of Universal Health Services, one of the nation’s largest health care corporations. The school accepts only public funds for tuition and took in more than $38 million in taxpayer funds over the five school years ending in 2021.

State Rep. Gerry Pollet, D-Seattle, said publicly funded private schools should be held to higher standards, including requirements for curriculum, certified staffing and special education teacher-to-student ratios.

“I think the reporting showed that they’re operating in their own legal black hole and that is not acceptable,” he said. “We need to have very clear requirements and consequences for nonpublic agencies.”

A representative from the school’s parent company said it had no comment in response to the state’s proposal. Previously, the company defended its program in a statement to the news organizations, writing that it takes students’ complex needs seriously. It denied that Northwest SOIL understaffed campuses and said its hiring practices ensure that “only appropriate and qualified candidates are hired.”

Public school districts across Washington outsource a small but very high-needs segment of their special education population — about 500 students a year — to Northwest SOIL and about 60 other schools. These programs promise tailored therapy and instruction and, in the case of Northwest SOIL, can receive more than $68,000 per child.

While short on specifics, the state education department’s bulletin offered a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes efforts to improve special education ahead of this legislative session, which begins Jan. 9 and lasts 105 days.

The OSPI proposal seeks to improve the agency’s complaint investigations and monitoring of the private schools. It would also create new application and renewal requirements for programs seeking to contract with school districts and instruct the schools to collect student data and report it directly to the state.

Suzie Hanson, the executive director of the Washington Federation of Independent Schools, said private school educators are open to reporting restraint and isolation data and complaints directly to state officials. But it may require collaboration among multiple state agencies, she said. Though all nonpublic agencies are approved by OSPI, some are approved as private schools by the State Board of Education. Others, such as Northwest SOIL, are run by hospitals, which report to the Department of Health.

“I think together we can come up with legislation that would strengthen the communication and care for students with disabilities,” Hanson said. (Northwest SOIL is not a member of the trade group.)

The Seattle Times and ProPublica investigation, detailed in two stories published in the past three weeks, exposed a critical gap in the state’s oversight of such schools. Currently, the system places responsibility for monitoring the private schools not on the state but on individual school districts.

But that arrangement doesn’t address systemic issues at Northwest SOIL or other schools like it. More than 40 districts at a time send students to Northwest SOIL’s three campuses, and each district only receives information about its own students, so no single school district or agency has a complete picture of what’s going on there.

“I think the nonpublic agencies should be directly supervised by the OSPI, that there should be reporting directly to the OSPI and that OSPI should have authority to shut down and close schools based on their own observations and investigations,” said Mary Griffin, a special education attorney at the Northwest Justice Project, which provides legal services to low-income families.

OSPI already has the authority to revoke a nonpublic agency’s status, but the state has been reluctant to act, saying school districts are better positioned to spot and correct problems. Griffin said any new legislation should clearly spell out that OSPI has the duty to investigate problems and force changes at nonpublic agencies.

California law, for instance, requires the state Department of Education to visit and regularly monitor its specialty schools and to investigate if it receives evidence of “a significant deficiency in the quality of educational services” or if there is “substantial reason to believe that there is an immediate danger to the health, safety, or welfare of a child.”

The Times and ProPublica also reported that, unlike some other states, Washington requires just one special education teacher per nonpublic agency school, even though they serve some of the state’s highest-needs students.

Pollet, the state representative, is also spearheading a bill that would overhaul the state’s special education funding model, which has long been a source of contention in Washington state. Currently, the state funds special education services for up to 13.5% of a school district’s student population, regardless of how many students are eligible for services. It leaves school districts to pay the remainder of those education costs — or deny services to students, Pollet said.

The request would cost about $972 million between 2023 and 2025, according to OSPI, which recommended removing the 13.5% cap.

The Times and ProPublica series coincided with efforts by OSPI and advocates to curtail the misuse of restraint and isolation in both public and private schools. The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and Disability Rights Washington, another advocacy group, have been working on a report examining how restraint and isolation is used disproportionately on students of color, disabled students and others from marginalized communities, said Kendrick Washington, policy director at the ACLU of Washington. The groups’ report is expected early next year.

Lawmakers, educators and advocates have been exploring alternatives to isolation and considering banning the practice in the state, Washington said.

An OSPI advisory committee has also been crafting recommendations on changes to restraint and isolation policy. Its report is set to be published later this month.

Sarah Snyder, who complained to state officials after her son Christopher was restrained and isolated at Northwest SOIL in 2017, said she was “cautiously optimistic” about OSPI’s request, noting that parents deserve more transparency from the schools.

“If there’s a problem, we need to know about it,” said Snyder, of Puyallup. “It makes me super happy that they’re finally taking action, but I hope they follow through.”

A witness testified yesterday that Lamar Johnson did not kill Marcus Boyd in 1994. Johnson has maintained his innocence and is trying to clear his name after roughly 30 years behind bars.

A deadly fire in an Urumqi apartment complex has led to something rarely seen in China: massive protests across the nation against the Chinese government’s actually draconian COVID restrictions. Most of the city of Urumqi is on lockdown, with residents banned from leaving their homes. These restrictions may have contributed to the death toll. Witnesses […]

The Grammy Award-winning singer will play at the Enterprise Center this April.