* The Komatsu’s mining truck was named The Coolest Thing Made in Illinois…

Illinois Manufacturers’ Association…

Chosen by voters from an initial field of more than 200 entries, the Komatsu mining truck made by Komatsu in Peoria has been crowned the winner of the 2024 “Makers Madness” contest, earning the title of The Coolest Thing Made in Illinois.

Hosted by the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association and sponsored by Comcast Business, the bracket-style competition celebrates the incredible work of manufacturers across Illinois. Manufacturers have long served as the backbone of our state’s economy and produce everything from nutritious food and snacks to life-saving vaccines and medical treatments. Manufacturers also make electric vehicles, sporting equipment and structural products like steel, rebar and motors, as well as chemicals, high-tech gadgets used for national defense, and energy to power homes and businesses. Manufacturing is the largest contributor of any industry to the state’s Gross Domestic Product, supporting nearly a third of all jobs in Illinois and contributing more than $580 billion to the state’s economy each year.

With nearly 315,000 votes cast throughout the eight-week competition, the Komatsu mining truck was awarded the title of The Coolest Thing Made in Illinois by Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday during a ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion in Springfield. Manufactured by Komatsu, a leading maker of construction, mining, forestry, and industrial heavy equipment in Peoria, the truck is a rugged, large capacity vehicle used for construction and mining. With a capacity ranging from 30 to 400 tons, the Komatsu truck is built for meeting productivity targets and it comes equipped with new innovations in suspension, transmission, electric drive technology and autonomous operation. It is engineered for reliability, operator efficiency, high performance, fuel efficiency and has a reduced carbon footprint, meeting U.S. EPA Tier 4 emission standards.

“Congratulations to Komatsu’s mining truck for being named the 2024 Coolest Thing Made in Illinois. This magnificent construction and mining vehicle is a shining example of the innovation and creativity that drives the manufacturing sector, where big ideas become products that can change the world,” saidMark Denzler, President and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association. “We applaud all the manufacturers that participated in this year’s competition and commend the skilled workers on our shop floors whose contributions guarantee that these fantastic products are made to the highest standards.”

“Komatsu’s ‘Coolest Thing in Illinois’ mining and construction truck takes something fundamental to our economy and infrastructure and continues to improve and innovate on a basic and essential concept—the absolute best of what manufacturing does for our state and a truly exceptional product,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Congratulations to the team of Komatsu and to all the contestants for your exceptional work in continuing to elevate our state’s manufacturing industry.” […]

Other finalists for the title included the Mullen’s Imitation French Dressing, a delicious food dressing based made by Mullen’s in Palestine; the MQ-25 Stingray (Drone Refueler), an unmanned aircraft with aerial refueling capabilities built by Boeing in Mascoutah and Mod Box by Enviro Buildings, a strong, insulated outdoor building with standardized panel sizes manufactured by Craig Industries in Quincy. […]

To ensure the state’s manufacturing sector remains strong, the IMA is advocating for the passage of several measures this legislative session. Priorities include proposals to support students and families entering the workforce through student loan employer tax credits and scholarships, advancing the development of cutting-edge technology by modernizing the state’s Research & Development tax credit, and allowing carbon capture and sequestration to help the state reach its clean energy goals.

* CHANGE Illinois…

Voters in Rock Island, Proviso and Oak Park townships will have the opportunity to vote for Fair Maps this November. At last night’s annual township meetings, residents brought forth non-binding referendums and successfully put those on the ballot for the upcoming General Election.

Fair Maps continues to speak directly to the needs of voters and their preference to pick their elected representatives, instead of politicians choosing voters. Gerrymandering in Illinois and across the country has stifled the will of voters because those with the power draw maps they directly benefit from by including certain voters in their districts and excluding others.

In the last election, voters in Peoria showed their strong support for Fair Maps through the same non-binding referendum process. Once again, this election, voters in Illinois can show their strong support for an independent commission drawing a truly fair map for Illinois. […]

Over the coming months CHANGE Illinois’ Road to Redistricting Reform initiative will be focused on educating residents in these three townships about what is at stake in the November election and continue building community-led, grassroots support for Fair Maps across the state.

* Speaker Chris Welch offers a resolution to honor Lee Milner…

* San Francisco Chronicle…

According to Google Trends, which tracks the volume of certain search terms, “my eyes hurt” and “why do my eyes hurt” spiked significantly as the solar eclipse’s shadow passed over the country.

Searches for “my eyes hurt” reached their peak around 3 p.m. EST. The eclipse’s path terminated in Maine shortly around 3:30 p.m.

Searches for “my eyes hurt” surged strongest among Google users in states on the path of totality from Texas to Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Vermont. Searches also ticked up, though not as quickly, in California, where about a third of the sun was covered by the time the peak eclipse hit at 11:13 a.m.

More from Payless Power via PR firm Fractl…

Yesterday, concern for eye damage skyrocketed in the United States:

Our data revealed that Google searches for “My eyes hurt” increased by 502% in the past 24 hours, and Google searches for “Eyes hurt after looking at eclipse” increased by 5,740% in the last day!

Since the solar eclipse, Americans nationwide have been worried about the potential effects of looking at the sun after not heeding the warnings to wear protective sunglasses during the phenomenon.

Searches for “my eyes hurt” have skyrocketed in these 25 states, with the top three states NOT in the path of totality on April 9, 2024:

1. Georgia - 4,006%
2. New Jersey - 3,121%
3. Florida - 2,747%
4. New York - 2,606%
5. Illinois - 2,046%
6. Massachusetts - 1,843%
7. Ohio - 1,820%
8. Missouri - 1,780%
9. Connecticut - 1,589%
10. Arizona - 1,350%
11. Virginia - 1,312%
12. North Carolina - 1,289%
13. Michigan - 1,281%
14. Indiana - 1,054%
15. Nevada - 1,005%
16. Pennsylvania - 892%
17. California - 867%
18. Alabama - 625%
19. Iowa - 622%
20. Maryland - 559%
21. Texas - 358%
22. Oklahoma - 352%
23. Delaware - 307%
24. Mississippi - 290%
25. Tennessee - 225%

*Bolded state in the path of totality

From Rich: What the heck is going on in Georgia?

* Here’s the rest…

* Tribune | Biden EPA limits toxic forever chemicals in drinking water for the first time: New regulations to be announced Wednesday will require every U.S. water utility to begin routinely testing for several of the chemicals. Any that exceed federal limits will get five years to overhaul their treatment plants to reduce, if not eliminate, alarming concentrations of the compounds in tap water. More than 100 million Americans are expected to benefit, including at least 660,000 in Illinois who get their drinking water from a utility that violates the new standards for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS.

* BND | Army Corps shelved a plan to address southwest IL flooding decades ago, lawmakers say: U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski said the Army Corps shelved 14 flood control measures authorized in 1965 for the area because of “low cost-benefit ratios.” They noted that decades later, the communities experience frequent flooding.

* SJ-R | Voter data released for nearly 30K Springfield residents by far right publication: At least 29,000 Springfield residents have had their personal voter information published this year, an analysis from The State Journal-Register found. The data has been released by the far-right The Sangamon Sun, published by Local Government Information Services, where the Illinois State Board of Elections is now asking the publisher to remove the information from its 20 websites and 11 print publications.

* WCIA | Champaign Schools: No interviews for Board of Education applicants: Monday night was another fiery night for the Champaign School Board. Members are divided as they try to decide the best way to fill open seats. […] On Tuesday night, 10 of them were hoping for interviews and answers, but because the board did not meet quorum, that meeting couldn’t move forward.

* Crain’s | Amid drastic downsizing, VillageMD brings on new exec: The Chicago-based company today announced that Jim Murray, a former health insurance and managed care executive, joined VillageMD as president and chief operating officer on April 1. In this role, Murray will lead operations across VillageMD’s enterprise, which includes clinics under the Village Medical brand, as well as dozens under Summit Health and CityMD, which VillageMD acquired at the beginning of last year.

* Daily Herald | Officials say they didn’t know religious group was behind land buy until after it was completed: South Barrington Park District officials didn’t learn a religious group was behind the winning bid for 34 acres of public parkland until two weeks after the $2.3 million sale was finalized, they revealed Tuesday. […] Area N Development was created in Delaware about a week before the auction, public records show. It wasn’t until March 22 that Schaumburg-based Fourth Avenue Gospel, which is owned and operated by members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church and was behind a failed effort to acquire the property in 2023, publicly admitted it invented Area N Development to buy the land.

* Block Club | Chicago Pride Parade Will Be Smaller This Year Due To ‘Safety And Logistical Concerns’: The celebration — which includes floats, performance groups, marching bands and more — will be capped at 125 entries, organizers said. This is about a 37 percent decrease from last year’s 199 entries. Organizers were notified of the changes from the city in mid-March, they said. Concerns include “the city’s capacity to manage a range of large events throughout the summer,” organizers said.

* Sun-Times | FDA panel reviewing Abbott heart device included 10 doctors with financial ties to the north suburban health giant: One member of the FDA advisory committee was linked to hundreds of payments from Abbott totaling almost $200,000, according to the database maintained by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Another was connected to 100 payments, totaling about $100,000, and conducted research supported by about $50,000 from Abbott. A third member of the committee worked on research supported by more than $180,000 from the company.

* Crain’s | Bears recruit Andrea Zopp as a legal adviser as stadium push rolls on: Andrea Zopp, a veteran litigator well connected in Chicago business and political circles, is taking on an advisory role in the Bears’ push for a new stadium — and new stadium financing. Zopp, now managing partner of Cleveland Avenue, the venture-capital firm founded by McDonald’s ex-CEO Don Thompson, will work alongside Bears CEO Kevin Warren and the team’s newly named chief legal officer, Krista Whitaker, as the team scopes out its options.

* Sun-Times | There’s nothing surprising about the White Sox’ awful start — not the losses, not the injuries: Did no one think to tell hit-starved, run-famished White Sox players to stare at the eclipse without sunglasses? It only could have improved their vision at the plate. The Sox are the butt of a lot of bad jokes these days because they’re butt ugly as a baseball team. Everyone knew they were going to be feeble this season but few people expected them to be this feeble, which explains the level of anger around town.

* Crain’s | A new rooftop battle emerges for the Cubs: In a victory for the Cubs’ long-running effort to extract more revenue out of the Friendly Confines and its environs, the City Council Zoning Committee approved an ordinance yesterday allowing the team to install two large LED signs on the rooftops of buildings that Cubs ownership controls just beyond the ballpark’s bleachers. The team unveiled plans last month to put a large Coca-Cola sign atop the building at 1040 W. Waveland Ave. and another for paint company Benjamin Moore on the roof of 3623 N. Sheffield Ave., two locations that are highly visible from inside the stadium.

* NYT | The History Behind Arizona’s 160-Year-Old Abortion Ban: After the American Medical Association, which would eventually become the largest doctors’ organization in the country, formed in 1847, its members — all male and white at that time — sought to curtail medical activities by midwives and other nondoctors, most of whom were women. Pregnancy termination methods were often provided by people in those vocations, and historians say that was one reason for the association’s desire to ban abortion. A campaign that became known as the Physicians’ Crusade Against Abortion began in 1857 to urge states to pass anti-abortion laws. Its leader, Dr. Horatio Robinson Storer, wrote a paper against abortion that was officially adopted by the A.M.A. and later published as a book titled “On Criminal Abortion in America.”

* WBEZ | NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public’s trust: A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR’s former CEO, John Lansing, has fed “the absence of viewpoint diversity,” Berliner writes. NPR’s chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner’s assessment.

* CBS | Memorial service this weekend for Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough: The public memorial service will take place on April 14, at the Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago. Doors will open at 2:30 p.m. in advance of the 3 p.m. memorial service. Yarbrough was remembered as a trailblazer. She had a career that spanned local and state politics over three decades.