Businesses of all sizes have struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has been especially difficult for smaller businesses.

Using data from the Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker, a project of Harvard University, an analysis from the nonpartisan Illinois Policy Institute found that 35% of small businesses in Illinois are closed now compared to before the pandemic.

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan, who resigned amid an ongoing federal investigation, just collected his first pension check — the initial payment in what could become one of the richest retirement payouts to any Illinois legislator.

Disgraced former Ald. Danny Solis has gotten nearly $170,000 in retirement pay since he quit the Chicago City Council two years ago after the Chicago Sun-Times revealed he’d been an FBI mole, secretly recording conversations with now-indicted Ald. Edward M. Burke and others at City Hall as part of a widespread investigation into government corruption.

State education officials made their case Thursday for a funding increase above and beyond what Gov. JB Pritzker has recommended, arguing that schools need the additional money to overcome the effects the COVID-19 pandemic has had on student learning.

“While this recommendation does not represent the full need of education, and we clearly understand that, it’s made in recognition of the state’s current fiscal condition,” Illinois State Board of Education chairman Darren Reisberg told lawmakers Thursday. “We strongly believe this budget recommendation is necessary to provide the resources our schools, educators and students need to continue to recover equitably from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The agency that investigates Chicago police shootings said it is trying to figure out a way to legally release body camera video of an officer fatally shooting a 13-year-old earlier this week.

Ephrain Eaddy, a spokesman for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, said in a statement late Thursday that the agency was “making every effort and researching all legal avenues” that would allow for the public release of all video that might have captured the early Monday shooting of Adam Toledo.

A number of universities in Illinois didn’t require standardized test scores when students applied for the upcoming fall semester given the disruption COVID-19 had on high schools.

One state lawmaker is looking to extend this policy indefinitely for all public universities throughout the state.

Green Thumb Industries’ image suffered a serious blow when the Chicago Tribune reported March 29 that the company is under federal investigation for possible “pay-to-play” violations. The Tribune story, based on unnamed sources, didn’t say exactly what potential crimes the feds are investigating, only that they “have been scrutinizing campaign donations and other steps Green Thumb Industries took as it sought to secure growing and distribution licenses in Illinois and several other states.”

Federal and state officials want to take a deeper dive into the future of digital currencies and the backbone of what makes them work.

Digital currencies like Bitcoin work on what’s called the blockchain. That’s a distributed digital ledger U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, says is non-falsifiable.