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Isabel’s afternoon roundup
Tuesday, Apr 21, 2026 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Sun-Times…
Illinois is paying the price for 340B medicine markups. Through the federal 340B program, nonprofit hospitals can buy medicines for pennies, then charge huge markups – even on life-saving medicines. Those markups have become big business for large hospital systems, driving higher costs for Illinois patients, employers and taxpayers. And the problem is getting worse. The program’s lack of oversight has allowed 340B to become a revenue stream for hospitals, PBMs, private equity firms and big chain pharmacies — with no requirement that the money be used to help patients afford medicines. It’s time for Washington to hold hospitals accountable and fix 340B. Read more. * Sun-Times…
* NPR Illinois | Why Illinois needs more prescribed burns — and what’s blocking them: Sanchez said organizations across Illinois are struggling to obtain affordable, reliable insurance coverage for prescribed burns. Some policies are “prohibitively expensive,” while others limit how many burns can be conducted each year or fail to clearly state whether prescribed fire is covered at all. As she put it, this uncertainty has become “a huge barrier in getting more prescribed fire on the ground,” even though it’s a critical land‑management tool. * Capitol News Illinois | Illinois Democrats still weighing budget options as strong revenue mixes with uncertain outlook: “Right now, it’s all about information gathering, and (April 15) was Tax Day,” House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, told reporters after a recent event in Springfield. “The reason a lot of things don’t happen until later is because we need to know the tax receipts. That’s going to be the final way to let you develop a number.” While top leaders are entering May with caution, other rank-and-file Democrats are urging legislative leaders to aggressively raise taxes on high-income earners and businesses. * WGLT | Lawmakers Chung, Koehler look to keep Illinois a beacon of LGBTQ+ support: But Sen. Dave Koehler of Peoria and Rep. Sharon Chung of Bloomington say Illinois’ Democratic supermajority is working to keep the state a beacon of LGBTQ+ support. In fact, much of the legislation they discussed Monday night at an annual legislative town hall hosted by the Prairie Pride Coalition and Equality Illinois is aimed at keeping in place support that’s being scuttled by the Trump administration. “We’re just kind of protecting vulnerable populations against some of the possible attacks that might be coming from the federal government,” said Chung. * WTTW | New CEO Takes Over Chicago Housing Agency Despite Mayor’s Objections: For the first time in a year and a half, the Chicago Housing Authority has a permanent leader, as Keith Pettigrew took over the third largest public housing agency in the nation on Monday, a spokesperson for the agency said. However, the agency that provides more than 65,000 low-income households with public housing, rental vouchers and homeownership programs remains mired in uncertainty and at odds with Mayor Brandon Johnson. Pettigrew, the former head of Washington, D.C.’s Housing Authority, made no mention of the controversy in a statement celebrating his new position. * Tribune | Judge questions special prosecutor appointment in 2 cases involving former Chicago police detective: The matter is among a number of special prosecutor appointments that have come under scrutiny as defense attorneys raise concerns about the potentially lucrative arrangements, including in a case that was reviewed by the Illinois Supreme Court last year. These appointments are made by judges when the state’s attorney has a conflict of interest or appearance of impropriety. Will County Judge Jessica Colon-Sayre is hearing some cases involving former CPD Detective Kriston Kato in lieu of the Cook County judiciary because Kato is married to a sitting Cook County judge, Mary Margaret Brosnahan. Former State’s Attorney Kim Foxx previously followed suit and recused her office, citing an appearance of impropriety because her prosecutors appeared before Brosnahan every day. * Crain’s | Loop office tower owner hit with $223 million foreclosure lawsuit: A Bermuda-based SinOceanic entity that took control of the Madison Street tower in 2023 recently endured a big blow to the property’s bottom line when anchor tenant Northern Trust cut its footprint by 44% to about 225,000 square feet, according to loan data compiled by real estate information company CoStar Group. The debt — which was taken out on the building in late 2019 — was sold to commercial mortgage-backed securities investors, making much of the property’s financial performance data publicly available. With Northern Trust’s space reduction and free rent provided to the Chicago-based bank as part of a lease extension, SinOceanic projected the property would lose money in 2026, and the missed loan payment prompted the foreclosure complaint. The loan has an outstanding balance of more than $223 million and is slated to mature at the end of this year. * Block Club | New Plan For West Loop Development Swaps Community Center For Park Bathrooms, Storage: The community center and field house would have been fully funded, maintained and staffed by Fern Hill. It would have occupied the building’s first three floors, with an open-air field house on the fourth floor. Together, the four floors would have provided 30,000 square feet of “programmable space” for the community, developers previously said. * Tribune | Fewer young Americans are pursuing sewing careers. These Chicago tailors think they know why.: “It’s a problem in that you don’t have the pool that you used to be able to pull from,” she said. “I can’t just post on Indeed anymore. I’ve tried to do that and you just don’t get anything.” A recent analysis of U.S. census data by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, revealed that 41% of all tailors, dressmakers and sewers working in the U.S. were not born here. * NBC Chicago | Billy Donovan ‘stepping away’ as Chicago Bulls head coach, team announces: Donovan marks the latest to leave the team after a front office shakeup earlier this month that saw executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas and general manager Marc Eversley both fired. “I want our fans to know that I hear you and understand the frustration,” Bulls CEO and president Michael Reinsdorf wrote after the earlier firings. * Tribune | Brothers plead guilty to paying off Oakbrook Terrace mayor in red-light camera scheme: The guilty pleas mark the latest — and perhaps the last — convictions stemming from a sweeping federal investigation into bribes and kickbacks involving red-light cameras installed by SafeSpeed LLC, which generates millions of dollars in fines from motorists each year in nearly two dozen Chicago suburbs. They also scuttled a potentially fascinating trial that had been scheduled for later this year and would have featured the testimony of former Oakbrook Terrace Mayor Tony Ragucci, who admitted to starting the kickback scheme with the Colucci brothers’ stepfather, Dennis Colucci, a onetime associate of notorious Outfit hit man Harry Aleman. * Patch | Data Center Moratorium Imposed In Plainfield After Unanimous Village Board Vote: Trustees passed an ordinance placing a 180-day pause on the receipt of applications, the processing and approval, and the issuance of any permit for data centers and warehouses primarily used for storing computing infrastructure. “To go into this mad rush of seeing dollar signs by approving data centers and tearing up valuable farmland … we don’t want to dive into this,” Mayor John Argoudelis told Patch. “It’s a very jarring thing to our community, and we are not interested in going down that route.” * NBC Chicago | A new, ‘faster’ DMV is now open in Des Plaines: The new DMV, Giannoulias said, will be “full service,” which means customers can make appointments for drivers licenses, state IDs, real IDs, behind-the-wheel road tests, vehicle registrations, renewals and more. Unlike most other DMVs, the new location will handle multiple transactions at one counter, Giannoulias said. “No more bouncing from line to line,” Giannoulias said. “It’s faster, simpler and more efficient.” * ABC Chicago | Long Grove bridge hit again, has been struck at least 70 times over past several years: Village Manager Chris Sparkman said the truck collided with the town’s trademark bridge about noon Monday, according to ABC7 Chicago news partner the Daily Herald. Sparkman said the 11-foot-tall vehicle managed to wedge itself in a little farther than many of its predecessors, because the driver kept driving after initial contact. It took more than an hour to remove the vehicle, he added. The bridge suffered no apparent damage, but Sparkman said engineers will be conducting a structural assessment. * WAND | Champaign County Board to vote Thursday on data center moratorium: It will be held Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the Shields-Carter Meeting Room in the Bennett Administrative Center, 102 East Main St. in Downtown Urbana. The original duration for the proposed moratorium was for 12 months. That was amended to 9 months at the April 9 Environmental Land Use Committee meeting. It can be restored to 12 months by the full board. * Daily Egyptian | ‘Profit is their goal’; SIU faculty question university’s partnership with Risepoint, citing allegations of predatory tactics: According to the contract, obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, SIU’s agreement with Risepoint — formerly known as Academic Partnerships — is set to go until 2030. Risepoint, now the largest OPM in the country, was purchased in 2019 by Vistria, a Chicago-based private investment firm. The for-profit company is responsible for recruiting online students to SIU’s degree programs that partner with Risepoint. “Because their profit is their goal, they tend to try to extract as much tuition as they can from students, to pay instructors as little as they can get away with, and the quality of the educational experiences suffers, as do retention rates and graduation rates,” David M. Johnson, the chair to the Faculty Senate budget committee, said in an interview with the Daily Egyptian. * NPR Illinois | It’s been 20 years since the NCAA banned Chief Illiniwek from championship games. Some students want U of I to move on: Gone and half a dozen other Native students at U of I believed they could educate the higher-ups on campus and get the Board of Trustees to eliminate the mascot. “Many of the people we talked to privately acknowledged that those rationales and arguments made sense to them, but they were powerless to do anything,” he said. * SJ-R | Springfield cannabis grower lands $750,000 state equity loan: Lincoln Labs LLC was the only Springfield applicant approved in the latest round of funding, which distributed nearly $32 million statewide to support equity-eligible cannabis businesses. Statewide, 95 loans totaling $31,793,206 were approved across four license categories. Craft growers received the largest share, with 25 businesses awarded $18.74 million, including Lincoln Labs. Adult-use dispensaries were approved for $9.07 million across 37 loans, while infusers received $2.94 million through 12 loans, and transporters received $1.05 million across 21 approvals. * Reuters | Amazon’s collusion drove up consumer prices, California says, citing new evidence: In its filing in San Francisco Superior Court, California described dozens of cases of alleged price-fixing that boosted prices for goods such as khaki pants, fertilizer, eye drops and dog treats. Bonta has said the alleged collusion leads merchants and rivals to raise prices or make products temporarily unavailable so Amazon wouldn’t have to price match. * The Guardian | Palantir manifesto described as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’ amid UK contract fears: “Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive,” wrote Palantir in a 22-point post on X over the weekend, which also called for an end to the “postwar neutering” of Germany and Japan. […] It also predicted a future dominated by autonomous weapons: “The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.”
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- hisgirlfriday - Tuesday, Apr 21, 26 @ 2:44 pm:
I haven’t read the Palantir manifesto but I think any company that names itself after a magical object used for sinister purposes by the villains of the Lord of the Rings should not get govt. contracts.
- Rizz al Ghul - Tuesday, Apr 21, 26 @ 2:50 pm:
The GA doesn’t necessarily need to create a new fund to help with funding for prescribed burns, but it does need to block SB 3422 from passing the House. The Healthy Forests, Wetlands, and Prairies fund can be used for prescribed burns, unless Sen. Ventura’s SB 3422 passes the House.