The Latest Breaking News from Illinois

CHICAGO — Illinois politicians reacted swiftly and along party lines to Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, with Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Democratic legislative leaders immediately announcing they plan to call a special legislative session to strengthen the state’s already-stringent protections for reproductive rights.

CHICAGO — In summer 1966, 17-year-old Leta Dally and her mother were driven by a stranger to an undisclosed location on Chicago’s South Side, where the recent high school graduate had an illegal abortion.

Within an hour of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said that he wants to expand the availability of health care professionals to handle an increase in women coming to Illinois to seek abortions and to boost funding for abortion providers.

CHICAGO — Illinois’ role as a haven of abortion care in the Midwest was magnified Friday, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a watershed decision that reverses nearly a half-century of federally protected reproductive freedoms.

Clinics that provide abortion care across Illinois expect an influx of women from surrounding states. All of the adjacent states — Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri and Iowa — are poised to ban or dramatically curtail abortion access.

Welcome to the Friday, June 24, Brew. 

The former president apparently thinks Darren Bailey is “doing a good job,” according to an interview with The Center Square’s Greg Bishop ahead of a planned “Save America” rally on Saturday in central Illinois.

The announcement came rather awkwardly just five days ahead of the June 28 primary — a primary in which Griffin has contributed $53 million to the campaign of Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, who is dropping in the polls.

Outside money is a major factor in the Democratic primary for the new Hispanic plurality 3rd congressional district,

“Many of the major funders ... are checking out. And they’re in Florida. When they leave, their charitable dollars leave,” said a source close to the world of philanthropic and charitable giving in Chicago and Illinois.

Making good on threats, the richest man in Illinois said he is taking his companies to Miami.