* Crain’s…

Illinois representatives have sent a bill to the state House floor that would establish a board to set price limits for expensive prescription drugs.

The legislation is one of a number of health care-related bills pending in Springfield this session, some of which are pitting providers against pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Yesterday, eight democrats on the Health Care Availability & Accessibility Committee voted to pass HB 1443 to the full house, with four republican representatives voting against passing it out of committee.

If passed, the bill would establish a prescription drug affordability board, or PDAB, identify prescription drugs it would subject to cost review and impose upper payment limits on purchases, payments and payor reimbursements for certain high-cost drugs.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Semafor | How a profane anti-Trump ad helped Stratton break through: “The wording was our way of capturing voter sentiment. Our opponent had been on air for eight and a half months before we were about to go up for the first time. How are you going to break through quickly? There is this large, empty lane for where the energy is in the Democratic Party.”

* Press release | Former IEA President Reginald “Reg” Weaver, trailblazer for collective bargaining rights in Illinois, passes away at 86: Reginald “Reg” Weaver died Tuesday at age 86. Weaver was a lifelong educator and organizer who served as president of the Illinois Education Association from 1981 to 1987 and led the battle to ensure collective bargaining rights for Illinois educators. Weaver, who also spent 30 years as a teacher in the Harvey school system, was the first Black person to be elected president of the IEA. After his tenure at IEA, he went on to become the president of the National Education Association, from 2002 to 2008, and later went on to serve in the leadership of Education International, an organization representing 29 million teachers and education workers in 169 countries.

* Tribune | Frankfort man charged with threatening Gov. JB Pritzker pleads to misdemeanor charge: A 71-year-old Frankfort man pleaded guilty Friday to misdemeanor phone harassment charges stemming from an Illinois State Police investigation of numerous voicemail threats to Gov. JB Pritzker’s office March 3. Timothy Shemitis was sentenced to 24 months of court supervision, fees and fines totaling to $525 and an anger management program, meaning a conviction will not be entered if he completes the supervision successfully, according to Will County court records.

* WSIL | Illinois Flags to Fly at Half-Staff Honoring Fallen Chicago Firefighter: In a proclamation issued by Gov. JB Pritzker, the state will lower flags from sunrise Wednesday, March 25, through sunset Friday, March 27, 2026, to remember Firefighter/EMT Michael Altman of the Chicago Fire Department. Altman, 32, died on Tuesday, March 17, while serving his community. According to the proclamation, he had been with the department for nearly two years and was recognized as a dedicated and passionate public servant.

*** Chicago ***

* Sun-Times | Human Relations Commissioner Andrade resigns after concerns antisemitism report draft was ‘whitewashed’: Human Relations Commission member Dan Goldwin said the report triggered by a 58% rise in reported anti-Jewish hate crimes from 2023 to 2024 was completed and focused solely on the surge in incidents of antisemitism in Chicago — and what to do about it. But when the report was forwarded to the mayor’s office in November, a consultant was hired to alter the report and turn it into a broader document on all hate incidents, Goldwin said. “The mayor’s office sent back an edit of it that completely whitewashed it… They had just crossed off anything that had to do with anti-Jewish hate crime and just made it an all-lives matter” report, said Goldwin, who also serves as chief public affairs officer for the Jewish United Fund.

* Sun-Times | Mayor Johnson vetoes plan to freeze subminimum wage for tipped workers: Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday used his third veto to bury an ordinance that would have frozen the hourly pay of Chicago’s tipped workers at 76% of the minimum wage, and he’s likely to make it stick unless there’s a compromise to give struggling restaurants a short break. […] Illinois Restaurant Association President Sam Toia is targeting nine alderpersons who voted against the freeze despite having heavy concentrations of restaurants in their wards, in hopes of convincing at least four of them to change their votes and override the mayor’s veto.

* Block Club | An AI School, With No Teachers, To Open in Chicago This Fall: Alpha Schools will open this fall at 350 E. South Water St. The school will serve 100 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, with plans to expand in the future, Price said in an interview. With tuition of $55,000 a year, it will be one of the most expensive private schools in Chicago.

* Sun-Times | Cook County state’s attorney’s office training new prosecutor task force to focus on CTA crimes: A new internal transit crime task force will train more than 30 prosecutors and provide guidance on seeking court orders to restrict defendants from accessing parts of the CTA, according to State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s office. The prosecutors will receive enhanced training on CTA video evidence, serve as liaisons with Chicago police and CTA on transit-related cases, and track data on transit crimes.

* Crain’s | Chicago Fire buys land for new stadium at the 78 for $69 million: An affiliate of the team paid $69.3 million to buy a parcel of land at 1331 S. Wells St. from developer Related Midwest, according to Illinois property records. The planned 22,000-seat venue will anchor the 78, Related’s 62-acre mega-development in the South Loop. The Fire and Related formally broke ground on the stadium earlier this month, after winning City Council approval for the project in September. The sale of the land to the team was part of the arrangement between the Fire and Related, and the developer will continue to own and develop ancillary uses and buildings around it.

* WGN | Route 66 is getting a new starting point in Chicago: On Wednesday, city officials will formally designate Navy Pier as the new symbolic starting point of historic Route 66. Often called the “Mother Road,” Route 66 was one of the first major highways in the United States. Established on Nov. 11, 1926, the highway runs from Chicago to Santa Monica, California, crossing eight states in between.

Unveiling of Rte. 66 marker at Navy Pier, linking to California’s Santa Monica Pier pic.twitter.com/UFOoJlrRPO

— Lynn Becker (@LynnBecker) March 25, 2026

* Crain’s | South Loop developer lands $83 million construction loan for long-planned Riverline project: The loan is notable in a downtown market where high interest rates, rising construction costs and difficulty attracting institutional investors have stalled many large projects, though a New York developer broke that dry spell last May with a $151 million construction loan for its high-rise project at 370 N. Morgan St. The total costs of CMK’s apartment project at 1010 S. Wells St., or whether the firm has received additional equity to back the development, wasn’t immediately clear. CMK didn’t respond to requests for comment.

* ABC Chicago | Chicago weather: Drastic drop in temperatures Thursday; strong storms to bring hail, damaging winds: There could be a shower or thunderstorm overnight, but most areas will stay dry with temperatures dropping into the 50s. On Thursday, the forecast shows the storms will likely arrive to the Chicago area between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. Some storms could be severe with large hail and wind as the main concerns.

* Sun-Times | The last man at the shoeshine stand: Forty-dollar shoes. Thousand-dollar shoes. And everything in between. Steve Fullerton has cared for them all, the snap of his buffing rags echoing beneath the vaulted marble ceiling of the Cook County Building for the past 20 years. You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat their shoes, says the 57-year-old West Sider. “If you don’t care for your shoes, what other parts of your life aren’t you taking care of?” Fullerton says. “You only live once. God gave you two feet. Be good to them. They take you all over. They walk for you. They help you dance.”

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Sun-Times | West Suburban Medical Center closing temporarily as it runs out of cash to pay employees: The hospital’s owner blamed the electronic medical record system for failing to bill for the hospital’s work. The closure comes months after West Suburban’s sister hospital, Weiss Memorial, shuttered in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.

* Shaw Local | Will County prosecutors release termination letter on staffer after Illinois Attorney General weighs in: The Will County State’s Attorney’s Office released a termination letter regarding one of its employees after they were found to have violated a state transparency law. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s Office issued a rare binding opinion on Feb. 10 that found State’s Attorney James Glasgow’s Office violated the Freedom of Information Act by improperly withholding the termination letter for Amy Burgett-Masse, 44, of Elwood. Burgett-Masse was a legal secretary for Glasgow’s office who was fired May 23, 2025. She faces charges of official misconduct and aggravated computer tampering. Her daughter, Ryane Burgett-Masse, 20, is also charged with aggravated computer tampering.

* Evanston Roundtable | District 65 discusses report projecting $598 million in facilities spending over next 49 years: Board members posed questions to firm co-founder and project executive Patrick Callahan, and Marisa Urbina, the project manager, asking how they should interpret the report’s findings. “This is a tool. This is not a death knell,” Callahan explained. “… This is a set of variables that allows you to make decisions as you look at how students are educated and where they’re educated.”

* CBS Chciago | Berwyn homeowners concerned about more flooding with severe storm risk this week: Repeated basement flooding and property damage is leading homeowners in Berwyn to fear every time it rains, with another severe weather threat on the way. Trucks pumping out sewers and catch basins are a necessary sight in the City of Berwyn. Resident Dave Levy said his basement continues to be ravaged by floods on and off over the past five years. He said that he and other homeowners were frightened to learn that there would be more rain in the forecast this week.

*** Downstate ***

* Illinois Times | New police chief for Leland Grove: The six members of the City Council unanimously voted to terminate the previous police chief, Dan Ryan, retroactively effective Feb. 24. Ryan, whose license was suspended on March 23, is awaiting trial for DUI. He has also been charged with violating open container laws and improper lane usage along with failure to use a turn signal. Mayor Mary Jo Bangert told Illinois Times after the meeting that she could not comment on the decision to terminate Ryan, due to his pending court case.

* WCIA | Is it safe to track your period? U of I law expert collaborating with Cancer Center to establish ‘privacy safe guards’ for users: “From your period, from menopause management, it could be sexual health information, location data, etc. Here, it really depends on where you are living in the US. Unfortunately, so far, fewer than 20 states have comprehensive privacy laws,” Gerke explained. Illinois doesn’t have one yet. However, six bills were recently introduced and are now in committee. Gerke feels there is “some hope” if these are greenlit moving forward.

* WAND | No injuries after small fire in Springfield IDFPR building: The Springfield Fire Department responded to a fire in the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation building Wednesday morning. The department told WAND News that firefighters responded to the building around 9:30 a.m. According to the department, there was a small fire in a storage closet on the 7th floor of the building. The fire is out and nobody was hurt. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

*** National ***

* AP | EPA approves sale of higher ethanol fuel to try to lower gas prices: The sale of E15 is typically discontinued in the summer because it can contribute to harmful air pollution. “President Trump is unleashing American Energy Dominance, and today’s action will directly lower prices at the pump and gives a clear demand signal to our domestic biofuels producers,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement. The summer waiver for E15 has become commonplace in recent years, and both Republicans and Democrats have called for it to become year-round and permanent to lower prices at the pump. In some states it’s already allowed.

* Axios | Mysterious trading patterns follow Trump into war: On Monday, $580 million in oil futures flooded the market in a sudden spike — with no public news to explain it — roughly 16 minutes before Trump announced a pause in strikes on Iranian power plants. On the Friday before the war began, an unusual surge of more than 150 Polymarket accounts placed hundreds of bets predicting a U.S. strike on Iran by the next day, according to a New York Times analysis. On Jan. 2, a trader turned roughly $32,000 into more than $400,000 by betting on the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro before it was announced the next morning.