* KFVS…

A sudden rise in illnesses cancels classes at a growing number of Heartland schools.

Scott City, New Madrid County and eight other districts are dealing with the flu, COVID and more.

Anna School District #37 in Illinois canceled classes for two days because of the number of sick students. Now, leaders say they are using that time to deep clean school buildings for the protection of all students and staff.

“We’re going through. We’re wiping down all the lockers, the handles, all the doorknobs on the table tops, anywhere we can go,” said Superintendent Brent Boren. “We’re seeing Type A influenza, COVID and norovirus and it seems to hit all at once.”

*** It’s Just A Bill ***

* WTTW | Companies That Participated in the Slave Trade Could Face New Rules in Illinois Under Proposal: Companies that participated in the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries could have to fess up and pay up if they want to do business with Illinois in the 21st century. State Rep. Sonya Harper (D-Chicago), sponsor of the Enslavement Era Disclosure and Redress Act (House Bill 1227), said it’s a way for corporations that profited on the backs of enslaved people to help repair the legacy of harm caused for generations of Black Americans.

*** Chicago ***

* Daily Line | Ethics board recommends end to decades-old ‘unwritten’ practice after OIG report on mayor’s acceptance of expensive gifts: Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office failed to make a record of gifts the office has accepted publicly available and denied the Chicago Office of the Inspector General (OIG) access to a “gift room” where items such as luxury handbags and nice shoes were being stored, the OIG alleged in an advisory issued Wednesday. As a result, the OIG and Board of Ethics have advised the mayor’s office to no longer follow an “unwritten agreement” with the ethics board that has allowed the mayor’s office to skirt government transparency rules for decades.

* Chalkbeat Chicago | How are Chicago schools responding to increased immigration enforcement? Here are five examples.: In Brighton Park, a majority Latino neighborhood on the city’s southwest side, an elementary school principal has been sharing his experience as an immigrant, so that families feel more comfortable. In Pilsen, a predominantly Latino neighborhood and historically a neighborhood where Mexican families have immigrated to, a high school launched an emergency immigration chat and told parents that it’s OK for students with immigration concerns to stay home.

* NBC Chicago | Former Chicago Ald. Ed Burke requests commutation, reducing prison sentence: According to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney, Burke has filed an application for a commutation of his sentence. A clemency case has been opened, and the petition is under review, according to the department’s website. The petition was filed in 2025, but it is unclear what date. That application is now up for President Donald Trump’s administration to grant or deny. It can take months, even years, before a sentence commutation is granted or denied. The application goes through several levels before it reaches the president’s desk.

* Block Club | Rogers Park Business Alliance Expands Classes For Entrepreneurs With New State Funding: The Rogers Park Business Alliance, a local chamber of commerce, was recently awarded a grant through the state’s Economic Empowerment Centers Program, which gives money to groups that provide local business support. With the infusion of $250,000 in state funding, the Rogers Park Business Alliance is rolling out Grow More/Progresando Más, a bilingual program to assist minority-owned small businesses in the neighborhood, said executive director Sandi Price. The money will be used for personnel to lead classes and events at no cost to business owners, she said.

* WBEZ | Charlie Trotter’s son fires up the stoves at his father’s legendary Chicago restaurant: “People under the age of 40 don’t know who Charlie Trotter was, and my goal is to change that,” Dylan said. Charlie died of a stroke in 2013, less than a year after closing the restaurant. “This is a historic Chicago landmark that should be known by everyone, young and old,” said Dylan. “I think the younger generation should look back at history and see: How did we get to where we are now?”

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Tribune | Cook County state’s attorney to push for prison sentences in machine-gun cases: According to the policy, prosecutors on their own cannot enter into a plea agreement for a probation term or other punishments that do not involve prison time in cases where the defendant used or possessed “any machine gun conversion device, extended magazine, drum magazine, automatic switch, as well as a privately made firearm, ghost gun and/or defaced firearm.” Assistant state’s attorneys can seek permission from a supervisor if they believe the policy should be modified in individual cases, but officials said supervisors would likely only waive the terms in specific circumstances.

* WGN | ‘It got real crazy:’ The inside story of bad blood that boiled over into a brawl during a Thornton Township board meeting: Seconds after making slurs about Tiffany Henyard’s sex life and parenting, a fight erupted on the floor of the township meeting, with community activist Jedidiah Brown and Henyard’s boyfriend, Kamal Woods, coming to blows. Henyard herself even jumped in. “She ran from behind the table with a microphone in her hand and she hit me with it while another one of her staff members was kicking me in the head and I was defending myself against Kamal and other individuals,” Brown said.

*** Downstate ***

* WMBD | UPDATE: I-155 still closed in Logan County as ISP crisis team negotiates with driver: The Illinois State Police is asking drivers to avoid a five-mile stretch of Interstate 155 on Thursday, saying there has been “an incident.” […] The Illinois State Police has provided more information on the “incident” that is ongoing in Logan County. According to the state police, at 10 p.m., troopers responded to a motorist assist call on Interstate 155 northbound near Emden, milepost 9, in Logan County. The motorist then and now is refusing to leave the vehicle.

* KHQA | Western CUSD 12 shuts down for the week amid Influenza A outbreak: Western Community Unit School District 12 in Barry, Illinois will not hold classes the rest of the week due to an outbreak of Influenza A and other illnesses. On Tuesday, January 28th, when they made the announcement, nearly half of the students and a third of the staff were out sick in some buildings.

* NPR | Criminal records of Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump include rape, domestic violence: Theodore Middendorf was accused by Illinois prosecutors of “Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault of a Child.” Prosecutors said in a court filing obtained by NPR that Middendorf “committed an act of sexual penetration.” Indiana state records indicate that Middendorf’s victim was 7 years old. Middendorf entered a guilty plea in that case in May 2024 and was sentenced to 19 years in prison. He is currently registered as a sex offender in the state and remains in custody on those charges. Separately, Middendorf pleaded guilty to destruction of government property for striking a window at the U.S. Capitol with a flagpole on Jan. 6. He had not yet been sentenced for his role in the Capitol riot when the Justice Department moved to dismiss his case following Trump’s order.

* SJ-R | All of Springfield’s McDonald’s soon to be owned by same person: As of Feb. 1, Mike Kasprzyk will own all 11 Golden Arches in the Capital City after purchasing two stores from to other franchise operators, Dr. Paul and Mary Breznay and Kim Derringer, in December. The back-to-back acquisitions doubled Kasprzyk’s Springfield footprint after only entering the market last year.

*** National ***

* NYT | Staffing was ‘not normal’ at airport tower, according to a preliminary F.A.A. report.: The controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways. Those jobs typically are assigned to two controllers, rather than one. This increases the workload for the air traffic controller and can complicate the job. One reason is that the controllers can use different radio frequencies to communicate with pilots flying planes and pilots flying helicopters. While the controller is communicating with pilots of the helicopter and the jet, the two sets of pilots may not be able to hear each other.

* Chalkbeat | Trump executive order seeks to steer federal funds to private school vouchers: The executive order cites disheartening national test scores released Wednesday as one justification, saying families need options outside the public system. Securing federal funding has been a longtime goal of supporters of vouchers and educational savings accounts, which families can tap to pay for private education. Until now, with the exception of a voucher program in Washington, D.C., the use of taxpayer dollars for private education largely has expanded through state policy. A proposal to use federal tax credits to fund private school scholarships has not advanced in Congress — though new versions were recently introduced.

* The Atlantic | Why States Took a Gamble on Sports Betting: “I interviewed Charlie Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts who signed the bill legalizing bookmaking there in 2022, and then a few months later became president of the NCAA and has become a really vocal champion for limiting the amount of betting on college sports, particularly in light of the brutal harassment that college athletes and coaches get whenever their performance costs someone a bet,” Funt recalled. “It’s honestly horrifying, the sort of stuff they see on social media and in real life. And he has said point-blank, ‘I wish, in hindsight, this had stayed in Las Vegas.’”

* AP | Trump administration revokes deportation protections for 600,000 Venezuelans: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday that the Trump administration has revoked a decision that would have protected roughly 600,000 people from Venezuela from deportation, putting some at risk of being removed from the country in about two months. Noem signed a notice reversing a move by her predecessor, Alejandro Mayorkas, in the waning days of the Biden administration to extend Temporary Protected Status. The change is effective immediately and comes amid a slew of actions as the Trump administration works to make good on promises to crack down on illegal immigration and carry out the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history.