Illinois appears to be heading south in more ways than one, a financial expert said on a Chicago-based radio show recently.

The Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in early May, is a positive move, a health care policy advisor for the Heartland Institute in Chicago said recently.

After two years without a budget and a failed attempt to compromise on a "grand bargain," some in Illinois are asking whether bankruptcy is a viable way out of the state's financial morass.

Patricia "Trish" Glees, candidate for Dundee Township Supervisor, vows she would develop programs in the community and increase social media presence if elected to office.

Jeanette Ward, a member of Elgin's U-46 Board of Education, voted against the inclusion of the textbook Macgruder's American Government for the district's seventh- and eighth-grade social studies curriculum recently, arguing that it promotes racism and sexism and contains "pervasive liberal bias."

Thanks to a compromise plan worked out by Democratic Senate President John Cullerton and Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno, the Illinois Senate has proposed its first state budget in two years.