Immigrant rights and artificial intelligence were two of the hot-button issues that influenced public education in 2025. They are also the subject of new education-related laws that will take effect at the start of the new year.

The CTA must pay $3 million to a woman who killed and dismembered her North Side landlord after an Illinois appeals court ruled that a trial judge properly shielded jurors from learning about the then-pending murder case during her personal injury lawsuit against the transit agency.

Nearly 300 Illinois laws took effect Jan. 1. The Illinois’ 1% statewide grocery tax is eliminated, but more than half the state’s cities and towns have passed an ordinance establishing their own grocery tax.

A new law will ease auditing requirements on Illinois’ smallest local governments, sparing taxpayers the expense of preparing those investigations.

A federal grand jury indicted six alleged members and associates of a Chicago street gang for participating in a criminal organization that murdered rivals, committed armed robberies and carjackings, and violently protected their perceived territory on the South Side of Chicago, the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois said in a news release Monday.

A Markham police officer who found a loaded firearm in a vehicle owned and operated by a convicted murderer, only to be fired when CWBChicago asked the city’s police chief why he ordered the cop to let the convicted felon go, filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the chief and the city on Monday morning.

Illinois employers would need to provide notice to employees and prospective employees when artificial intelligence (AI) is used “to influence or facilitate” hiring or promotion decisions under new draft regulations unveiled by the Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR) to implement the state’s ban on AI discrimination set to take effect on January 1, 2026. While the rules are in draft form, they signal the regulatory direction the IDHR will take and the types of new compliance obligations employers in the state will face as emerging technology develops.

Plaintiffs represented by the Liberty Justice Center are asking the Illinois Supreme Court to hear a case challenging limits to where Illinoisans may challenge state law on the grounds they violate the Illinois Constitution.