The votes are in — the people of Illinois would like to keep the state flag as it is.
The public had nearly a month to vote on 10 proposed state flag designs, along with two former state flags and the existing flag, as part of the Illinois Flag Commission’s contest that could have led to a new flag to represent the Land of Lincoln.
While the state’s flag did not receive a majority of the vote, it won with more than 165,000 votes, with the second-place finisher collecting less than 33,000.
“Some may call it an SOB — a seal on a bedsheet — and the vexillogical community may hate it, but people overwhelmingly prefer our current state flag,” Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said in a news release announcing the contest results.
Ted Kaye, a vexillologist, or person who studies flags, has disparaged Illinois’ flag and told the Tribune earlier this year that the design contest should be seen as suspect because the votes of residents who wanted a change were split among more than 10 options.
The possibility of a new flag is not completely closed. The commission will submit a report to the Illinois General Assembly by April 1, and Tim Butler, a commission member and former Republican state representative, said it will most likely contain information on the other finalists. The final decision is up to the legislators.
“It is absolutely up to the lawmakers,” Butler said. “State law would need to be changed, so that’s them.”
Sen. Doris Turner, a Springfield Democrat who sponsored the 2023 bill leading to the design contest, said in a January interview that the flag competition process did not cost the state any money, noting that the commission was made up of volunteers who selected the design finalists, which were disclosed in December, from nearly 5,000 submissions.
Butler expects the commission to meet again before the April 1 deadline, as the Secretary of State’s office has inquired about the commission’s availability in March.
A new report
from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released on Wednesday proves that Republicans were lying when they downplayed the effect that the House’s budget blueprint
would have on Medicaid.
Republicans have been claiming
that their budget—which calls for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut $880 billion in order to partly pay for the tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest taxpayers—would not target Medicaid.
“The word Medicaid is not even in this bill,” Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana said
at a news conference on Capitol Hill the day the budget passed. “Democrats are lying about what’s in the bill.”
Calling their bluff, Democrats on the House Budget Committee asked
the CBO to determine the breakdown of funding the House Energy and Commerce Committee oversees.
And indeed, the CBO report determined that—excluding Medicare, which Trump and Republicans wouldn’t touch—Medicaid accounts for 93% of the funding the committee oversees. That means in order to find $880 billion in cuts, the vast majority of that would need to come from Medicaid
(or Medicare).
Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee
“I keep hearing Republicans claim their budget doesn’t cut Medicaid. We all know that’s a lie — so I asked the nonpartisan CBO to look into it,” Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, wrote in a post on X
. “Their analysis confirms it: the Republican budget delivers the largest Medicaid cuts in history to pay for giveaways to billionaires.”
Cutting Medicaid—which provides health insurance to 72 million low-income Americans—is deeply unpopular
.
A Civiqs poll
conducted for Daily Kos from Feb. 28 to March 3 found that 63% of registered voters oppose cutting Medicaid and food stamps—another social safety net program that the Republican-passed budget blueprint is also expected to cut. The poll found that every demographic group sampled opposes cutting Medicaid and food stamps—except for Republican voters.
The fact that Republicans want to slash Medicaid and food assistance to pay for Trump’s tax cuts has led to backlash from voters, who are showing up at Republican town halls
to voice their anger.
The town halls have been so ugly for Republicans that GOP leaders have ordered
their members to stop holding in-person events so that they cannot be dressed down by their constituents.
Of course, the budget blueprint Republicans passed is not final. The House Energy and Commerce Committee now has to lay out the specifics of what they will cut to achieve the $880 billion reduction. And given that we now know the cuts would have to come largely from Medicaid (or Medicare), it’s unclear whether House Republicans can cobble together support from their vulnerable members to get those cuts passed.
“This letter from CBO confirms what we’ve been saying all along: the math doesn’t work without devastating Medicaid cuts,” Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey said in a statement
. “Republicans know their spin is a lie, and the truth is they have no problem taking health care away from millions of Americans so that the rich can get richer and pay less in taxes than they already do.”
The measure would legalize medical aid in dying, often referred to as physician-assisted suicide or medically-assisted death, allowing mentally competent, terminally ill adults the right to access life-ending prescription medication.
Luis Santiago, center right, with the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, speaks to community members about an accelerated moving event for residents of Gompers Park’s homeless encampment on March 5, 2025. (Audrey Richardson/Chicago Tribune)
City officials began the painstaking process Wednesday of finding apartments for about 30 people living at a contentious Gompers Park homeless encampment. For Calixto Rodriguez, a resident who clutched a postcard listing available resources, it was a welcome plan. Read more here.
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick speaks with reporters after President Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington, March 4, 2025. (Ben Curtis/AP)
This is the second one-month postponement Trump has announced since first unveiling the import taxes in early February. The reprieve would apply to goods that are compliant with the trade agreement Trump negotiated with Canada and Mexico in his first term. Read more here.
Dolphins tight end Durham Smythe is tackled by Bills linebacker Tremaine Edmunds during a wild-card game on Jan. 15, 2023, in Orchard Park, NY. (Matt Durisko/AP)
The Bears have 27 players with expiring contracts, most notably wide receiver Keenan Allen, offensive linemen Teven Jenkins, Matt Pryor and Coleman Shelton, long snapper Patrick Scales and running back/special teams ace Travis Homer. The Tribune is tracking and analyzing the latest developments in free agency. Read more here.
This summer’s schedule of music festivals and city events was announced today, including the return of Blues Fest, Jazz Fest and other summer favorites, including the Chicago Air and Water Show and Taste of Chicago. Read more here.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson makes his opening statement alongside New York City Eric Adams, far left, and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on March 5, 2025, in Washington. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
The hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform lasted nearly six hours and grew increasingly confrontational. Republicans accused the Democratic leaders of New York, Chicago, Denver and Boston of sheltering dangerous criminals, while several of the mayors pointed to inaction in Washington. Read more here.
WASHINGTON — Ukraine was given “fair warning” by the White House before President Donald Trump this week ordered a pause on U.S. military assistance and intelligence sharing with Kyiv, a senior administration official said Thursday.
The Republican administration announced the pauses this week after Trump and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Oval Office meeting devolved into a shouting match, with the U.S. president and Vice President JD Vance excoriating the Ukrainian leader for being insufficiently grateful for the tens of billions of dollars in U.S. assistance sent to Ukraine since Russia invaded three years ago.
Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, said the pause is already having an impact on Kyiv, adding that the Ukrainians “brought it on themselves.”
“The best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose,” Kellogg said at an event Thursday at the Council on Foreign Relations. “You got their attention.”
Kellogg said it was made clear to the Ukrainians before last week’s Oval Office meeting that the talks would focus on signing a critical minerals deal. The agreement, which the two sides still have not signed, would give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth deposits and could be of value to U.S. aerospace, electric vehicle and medical manufacturing.
Trump administration officials have said the economic pact would bind the U.S. and Ukraine closer together and would give Russian President Vladimir Putin pause before considering malign action against Ukraine in the future. Zelenskyy had been pressing the White House for explicit security guarantees, to no avail.
Kellogg said last week’s talks went sideways because Zelenskyy pressed Trump — who is trying to play the role of intermediary to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia — to side with Kyiv.
Zelenskyy later called the heated words “regrettable” and said he’s ready to sign an agreement. He told European leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday he was grateful for their support and said the teams from the U.S. and Ukraine had resumed their work and hoped to have ”a meaningful meeting” next week.
“Ukraine has been seeking peace since the very first second of the war, and we have always said that the only reason why the war continues is because of Russia,” Zelenskyy said in his speech, which was published on the Ukrainian president’s website.
Another Trump special envoy, Steve Witkoff, confirmed that senior administration officials are arranging to hold talks next week with senior Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia. Witkoff noted that Zelenskyy has been apologetic in recent days about the White House blowup and expressed gratitude. He was circumspect about whether the minerals deal would be signed during the expected meeting in Saudi Arabia. “We’ll see if he follows through,” Witkoff said.
But Kellogg said he couldn’t guarantee a resumption of weapons deliveries even if Zelenskyy accepts the deal.
“That’s up to the president,” Kellogg said. He added, “You don’t negotiate peace discussions in public. You don’t try to challenge the president of the United States in the Oval Office.”
Trump said in a speech before Congress on Tuesday that Zelenskyy had written to him to say he appreciates U.S. support for his country in its war with Russia. Trump said Zelenskyy told him that Ukraine is ready to negotiate a peace deal with Russia as soon as possible and would accept the minerals agreement with the U.S. to facilitate that.
Although Trump said he “appreciated” getting the letter, he did not say if it would affect his policy toward Ukraine.
The suspension of U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine will damage Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against ongoing Russian attacks against military and civilian targets, according to an assessment by the Institute for the Study of War. The research group said suspension of all U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine would also allow Russian forces to intensify their drone and missile strikes against the Ukrainian rear, affecting millions of Ukrainian civilians and the growth of Ukraine’s defense industrial base.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the private prison company CoreCivic announced that they would be reopening a notorious family detention center in South Texas, under an amended
