Fallen Aurora firefighter honored at state’s annual memorial ceremony

Capitol News Illinois SPRINGFIELD — Fallen Aurora firefighter Cristian Medrano was honored at the state’s 32nd annual Fallen Firefighter Memorial held outside the Statehouse on Tuesday. The memorial is held each May in front of the commemorative statue on the Statehouse’s back lawn as a tribute to Illinois firefighters who have died in the line…

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Illinois seeks to prevent feds from tying funding for states to immigration enforcement

Capitol News Illinois Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and 19 other Democratic attorneys general filed a pair of lawsuits Tuesday against Trump administration policies designed to block federal funding to states that don’t carry out U.S. immigration enforcement. According to the lawsuits, recently enacted policies at the U.S. departments of Homeland Security and Transportation illegally…

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State on track to end health coverage program for immigrant adults

Capitol News Illinois SPRINGFIELD — State officials are on track to shut down a program at the end of June that provides publicly funded health care coverage to more than 30,000 non-U.S. citizens in Illinois, including many who are in the country without legal authorization. A legislative oversight committee took no action Tuesday on a…

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Capitol News Illinois reporters win prestigious Peter Lisagor awards

Capitol News Illinois Capitol News Illinois, a nonprofit news service, is proud to announce three of its reporters were nominated in four categories for the prestigious Lisagor Awards. These awards celebrate journalistic excellence across Illinois and northwest Indiana, spanning print, digital and broadcast media. CNI’s Beth Hundsdorfer was selected as winner in the Best Public…

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Immigrant health care programs boosted hospital bottom lines, study suggests

Capitol News Illinois SPRINGFIELD – Two state-run health care programs that extend Medicaid-like coverage to noncitizens may have provided significant financial benefits for Illinois hospitals. That’s according to preliminary results of an ongoing study at the University of Chicago that suggests the programs corresponded, at least in part, to a 15% reduction in the amount…

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What Trump’s cuts to federal climate research could mean for Illinois

Capitol News Illinois CHICAGO — The Trump administration took the unprecedented step of halting work on the next National Climate Assessment last week, dismissing all 400 volunteer scientists who were tasked with writing the new version of the report. Illinois State Climatologist Trent Ford was among those dismissed in his volunteer capacity with the federal…

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