Days after signing off on a stopgap budget measure, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner says he wanted to provide more funding for higher education, but politics got in the way.

Four unions have reached an agreement with company heads to end the lockout at the Clifford-Jacobs steel forgings plant, north of Champaign.  Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.  The plant opened in 1923, and employees told the News-Gazette's Tom Kacich that it should function for another 100 years. 

This hour on Focus, host Jim Meadows talks politics with Illinois Public Radio’s Amanda Vinicky and the News-Gazette’s Tom Kacich. Then, we’ll hear from Illinois’ new House Minority Leader, Representative Jim Durkin.