I’ve changed the name to encourage debate on topics you choose, but here are the short bits:

· “State lawmakers and education officials said they want to free up more money for textbooks, restrict schools’ ability to mark up book prices and develop a better state monitoring system after a Tribune investigation revealed that outdated and decrepit textbooks are being used in public schools across the state.”

· Madigan Sues NJ Firm Over Cell Phone Record Sales

· State joins others, sues over tobacco money

· Local Republicans react to Ryan verdict

· Zorn: Ryan verdict should be death knell for perks

· Editorial: The new immigration politics

· Campaign steams ahead with major Blagojevich fundraiser

· Editorial: School junk food ban gets its just desserts

· SIUE professor to help plan Lincoln’s 200th. More here.

· And then there’s this, but read the whole thing:

Medicaid providers from throughout Western Illinois are writing letters to lawmakers to complain about a deadbeat that is months behind in payments — the state of Illinois.

North Adams Home Inc. Administrator Greg Sandidge said the state owes more than $600,000 in outstanding bills. North Adams received a check in February for its October billings. He has been told the next payment is likely in May, when debts incurred seven months earlier should be settled.

“Last year we got payments within 90 to 120 days. Now it’s over 150 days,” Sandidge said. […]

Officials at the LaHarpe Davier Healthcare Center is trying to collect enough donations in the next month to pay bills. WGEM-TV reports that if the home cannot raise $150,000 by Monday, it will have to file a 90-day closing notice and the 32 residents will need to find a new care facility.

UPDATES:

· An Illinois town is held captive by a still-empty prison

· Crain’s: State pipeline-safety inspectors have concluded that recent safety records submitted to state regulators by Peoples Energy Corp. can’t be relied upon as an accurate gauge of the condition of the underground natural gas pipes in Chicago.

· llinois House OKs strict limits on property seizure

· Editorial: Let voters decide stem cell issue

· I guess I can announce it here. The Sun-Times has asked for two columns a month from me instead of just the one I was writing. The next column will appear a week from tomorrow. (I actually did two columns last month because of the primary election.)

· How Ryan could lose his pension.

· After logging just a single vote, candidate contests election results

· Ray Hanania is on a Middle Eastern comedy tour. I am not making that up. Check out his blog.

· Collin Hitt: End of ‘business as usual’? Audits will tell the tale

· Another great toon from Chris Britt. (jpg file)

· Durbin says Obama shouldn’t rule out national office

· Bernie: For the fourth year in a row while in office, Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH didn’t file his family tax returns by the April deadline, opting to get an extension until mid-October. “He’s busy running the state,” said gubernatorial spokeswoman REBECCA RAUSCH. (Abe has more.)

· Black-owned businesses booming.