John O'Connor

AP Political Writer

Expanding Opportunities for Minority and Women-Owned Businesses

Expanding Opportunities for Minority and Women-Owned Businesses

The Export-Import Bank of the United States offers a number of tools to assist all U.S. manufacturers, and works to ensure that these opportunities are readily available to businesses owned by minorities and women. Watch video to learn more.

2 Nuclear Plants Saved in Energy Plan Go to Governor

The legislation would also close coal-burning plants.

Illinois House OKs Zero-Carbon Power Plan, Senate Is Next

A compromise allows two coal-fired plants to remain open until 2045.

This undated photo shows the former State Line Generating Plant in Hammond, Ind. In 2018, New York City-based Star America Infrastructure Partners announced a 105,000 square-foot data center on the Lake Michigan site of the shuttered power plant. Illinois Rep. Tom Demmer, R-Dixon, helped negotiate a GOP demand that state budget include a package of tax incentives to lure to Illinois large data centers which house information technology equipment and store, manage, and disseminate digital data for companies. Illinois would join 30 other states in offering such inducements.

IL Hopes to Land Data Centers

Illinois sat up and noticed when Apple announced in 2017 that it would build a $1.4 billion data center west of Des Moines, Iowa.

State Sen. Michael Hastings, D-Tinley Park, right, gets a fist bump from Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Chicago Heights, after delivering his remarks on Senate Bill 1, a bill to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, during debate on the Senate floor at the Illinois State Capitol, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019, in Springfield, Ill.

IL Senate Backs $15 Minimum Wage

The last statewide bump came in 2010 and brought the hourly rate to $8.25.

In this May 16, 2006 file photo, employees and contractors work inside Quad Cities Generating Station at the Exelon Nuclear plant in Cordova, Ill. Exelon Corp. says it will shut two Illinois nuclear plants after the Illinois Legislature declined to act on its request for financial support. The Chicago-based power provider said Thursday June 2, 2016 that it will close the Clinton Power Station in Clinton on June 1, 2017, and the Quad Cities Generating Station in Cordova on June 1, 2018.

Exelon Nuclear Plants Lost $800M

The two plants have lost a combined $800 million since 2009, countering consumer groups' complaints of 'bailout.'