JB Pritzker

The closest grocery stores for Venice residents are more than four miles away in Granite City, making the community a food desert by the federal government’s standards.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has backed proposed legislation that would ban cellphones in classrooms, with some exceptions. What’s the policy in your local school district?

Executives at Wieland Manufacturing, an international producer of copper and copper alloys, said the investment in a facility that employs 800 will make it viable for the long term.

As many as 770,000 Illinoisans could lose health coverage under GOP federal budget plan, according to the Democratic governor.

The finding comes after Gov. JB Pritzker proposed to defund the larger of the two programs at his Budget Address last week.

The former Illinois governor has been undergoing chemotherapy after a diagnosis last month, he told the Sun-Times. “I’m hopeful that I’ll be around, but you just don’t know at this point. This, historically, has been an extremely deadly cancer.”

The Democratic governor also peppered his seventh budget blueprint — which Republicans derided as the largest in state history — with key policy proposals for the upcoming fiscal year.

It’s not unusual for annual projections to show deficits in future years. Projections could change by the time Pritzker delivers his budget proposal on Feb. 19.

The funding freeze could affect trillions of dollars and cause widespread disruption in health care research, education programs and other initiatives. Grants that have been awarded but not spent are also halted.

The 2019 law was Pritzker’s first major legislative victory.