Illinois Public Media News

The Illinois House has approved a 1.2 percentage-point increase in the state income tax. Last night, more than a dozen Republicans joined the majority Democrats to pass the legislation, despite the objections of Governor Bruce Rauner.

The Illinois House of Representatives on Sunday passed both a budget and a tax increase to pay for it, but both still must clear the state Senate. And the tax increase was met with an immediate promise of a veto from Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

The Illinois House will vote Sunday on a revenue plan after all. House Speaker Michael Madigan issued a statement saying he was "encouraged by the progress we continue to make." 

 The FBI has made an arrest in the Yingying Zhang case, and the agency believes that the 26-year-old University of Illinois visiting scholar from China is dead. The FBI said in a news release that agents arrested 27-year-old Brendt Christensen of Champaign, a former University of Illinois graduate student, on Friday.

Work on two federally funded road construction projects in Champaign-Urbana will have to halt --- unless state lawmakers and the governor act quickly this weekend to pass a budget to authorize the state to spend the money on the projects in the new fiscal year.