In the News
The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic is creating talk of tax relief from the halls of Congress to county treasurer's offices.
Policymakers seem to want to offer relief to businesses fighting to stay afloat during stay-at-home orders and homeowners struggling to pay bills amid record unemployment. Several county boards and the Illinois General Assembly in the past week have approved various forms of property tax relief.
WASHINGTON — House Democrats slammed federal health officials Wednesday, calling a report on the racial breakdown of cases and deaths from the coronavirus "pitiful" and saying it hurts efforts to target resources to communities of color.
Congresswomen Karen Bass of California and Robin Kelly of Illinois say the Centers for Disease Control "should have been ashamed" to release the 2.5-page report on coronavirus victim demographics without any new data.
U.S. Reps. Bobby Rush (D-1st) and Robin Kelly (D-2nd) touted federal money for state and local resources in the House-passed HEROES Act while Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to begin negotiations for another round of federal support.
CHICAGO (WLS) -- U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin will tour a COVID-19 testing site at UI Health's Mile Square Health Center-South Shore Friday morning.
The facility at 7037 S. Stony Island Ave. allows testing by appointment.
U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., and U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., will also join Durbin Friday.
Durbin joined Cook County officials to tour the testing facility at Stroger Hospital last Friday.
The testing facility at 1969 W. Ogden Ave. allows for both drive-thru and walkup testing for coronavirus.
Democrats in the US House of Representatives have demanded answers from Google on reported cuts to its diversity and inclusion programs — particularly for staff working in AI.
Ten Democrats led by Congresswoman Robin Kelly of Illinois state sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking which initiatives had been scaled back, and what diversity training Google now provides to its global workforce.
The letter was written in response to an NBC News investigation alleging that Google had scaled back its diversity programs to avoid accusations of an anti-conservative bias.
Hundreds of U.S. citizens in Illinois who file taxes with a spouse who lacks a Social Security number are seeking to join a class action lawsuit against the Trump administration for being excluded from receiving stimulus checks under the CARES Act.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act enabled the IRS to hand out $1,200 to Americans earning up to $75,000 a year, $2,400 to married couples who jointly file and make less than $150,000 year, and another $500 for every child under the age of 17.
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit African American and Hispanic and Latino communities especially hard in terms of infection and death.
Hispanic and Latino residents account for 24.2% of the state's confirmed cases, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health; black residents account for 19.4% of reported cases. People who tested positive but left their racial descriptions blank made up of 27.4% of the cases as of Tuesday. Individuals who self-identify as white account for 21.6% of cases.
Weeks ago, as it became clear that a deadly pandemic was spreading to the U.S. and that individuals with underlying medical conditions are more at risk, I worried that African American and Latinos would be hard hit due to long-standing disparities.
As of early April, around 72 percent of the people who had died from the coronavirus in Chicago were African-American. Rep. Robin Kelly, whose district includes Chicago's South Side, is working on legislation to require the federal government to collect and report racial and ethnic data associated with COVID-19.