Illinois
Hemp regulation bill stalls amid Democratic infighting; Pritzker criticizes Welch over no vote
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A bill that would have imposed regulations on new types of intoxicating substances derived from hemp stalled in the Illinois House Tuesday, dealing a political setback to Gov. JB Pritzker after he strongly supported the legislation.
“I was tremendously disappointed,” Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference Tuesday, after it became clear the bill would not be called for a vote in the House. “This is a demonstration, from my perspective, of the power of special interests and the money that they spread around to thwart health and safety of the public.”
But the bill also created rifts within the House Democratic caucus. According to several sources, the hemp regulation bill was the focus of a three-hour closed-door caucus meeting Monday that some House members described afterwards as “spirited” but others described as “raucous.”
Pritzker also called Democratic House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s decision not to call the bill “irresponsible,” saying he believed it would have passed with a bipartisan majority had he done so. And he criticized House Democrats for the treatment of members of his staff who appeared at Monday’s caucus meeting.
But Welch’s spokesperson noted that he is a cosponsor of the bill and would continue working to pass it in the new legislative session that begins Wednesday.
“A lengthy caucus discussion found that the bill in its current form did not have enough support within the House Democratic Caucus,” the spokesperson said. “He is committed to continuing discussions so that when the bill ultimately passes, it is the best possible piece of legislation for the state of Illinois.”
‘Intoxicating’ hemp
The bill targeted a new category of products that have so far been able to bypass the regulatory framework Illinois set up when it legalized industrial hemp in 2018 and recreational marijuana the following year.
The two crops are closely related biologically. Both are classified as a form of cannabis but the major distinction between them is the amount of the intoxicating chemical THC they contain.
Hemp is defined as having a THC content not more than 0.3% by weight. It is primarily used to make a variety of consumer products, such as CBD oils, that are thought to have health benefits. The plant can also be used to make a variety of industrial products such as textile fabrics and building materials.
Both the hemp and marijuana industries are heavily regulated by the state, from the planting and growing of the crops to the transportation and processing of plants into various products. In addition, marijuana and related cannabis products can only be sold through licensed dispensaries.
In recent years, however, a new category of intoxicating products has emerged in what some people call a “gray market” that lies just outside the existing regulatory framework. Those products are made using THC that is extracted or synthesized from hemp plants and are often sold in gas stations and convenience stores, sometimes in packaging that closely resembles candy, snacks or other products commonly sold to children.
“And I talked to a mother of a daughter who took one of these packages, didn’t understand how intoxicating the package was, and ended up passed out, ended up in the hospital, has been in and out of the hospital now for eight months as a result of just this product that looked, in all respects, as if it were candy,” Pritzker said.
House Bill 4293, known as the Hemp Consumer Products Act, would have closed the existing loophole by defining any product meant for human or animal consumption with a THC content greater than that of consumer CBD products as “cannabis.” It would have done so regardless of where the THC came from or how it was derived, and it would have subjected those products to all the regulations that apply to the cannabis industry.
That bill passed the Senate during the regular 2024 session in May by a vote of 54-1. But the House did not consider the bill during the final days of the spring session, nor did the bill come up for a vote during the fall veto session in November.
Industry concerns
In December, Pritzker held a news conference and issued a news release announcing his support for the bill while urging lawmakers to pass it during the upcoming lame duck session in January.
But the bill ran into stiff opposition from some hemp-related businesses argued the bill would cast too wide of a net over the industry, putting small, independent businesses and farms at risk while cutting off consumers’ access to health products like CBD oil.
“This bill, as currently written, would wipe out thousands of jobs and criminalize CBD products to the benefit of billion-dollar cannabis corporations,” the lobby group Illinois Healthy Alternatives Association said in a statement Jan. 5.
But other industry advocates disagreed, arguing the new regulations were needed to close a regulatory loophole in Illinois law that allows certain businesses to sell products that are essentially cannabis, without going through the state’s cannabis regulatory process.
“What these guys are trying to do is that they’re trying to cement themselves in a separate category that allows them to sell the exact same product at a whole different rate because they don’t have to follow any of the regulations,” Ted Parks, a licensed cannabis transporter and executive director of the Illinois Third Party Carriers Association, told Capitol News Illinois in an interview.
Democratic rift
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Pritzker openly complained that officials from state agencies that would be involved in the regulatory process were verbally abused by Democratic lawmakers, and he specifically blamed Welch for not intervening.
“There was a raucous meeting of the Democratic House caucus, in which there was a lot of yelling at staff by people who were opposed to the bill that the speaker did not intervene about,” Pritzker said. “And you shouldn’t let staff get berated like that. You just shouldn’t.”
A spokesperson for Welch issued a statement later Tuesday saying he expects House members to conduct themselves with “proper decorum and respect, especially on contentious topics amidst tight deadlines.”
“Speaker Welch spoke individually with certain members immediately following the discussion yesterday, as well as to the entire Caucus today, reiterating these expectations,” the spokesperson said. “It is his understanding that at least one member has reached out to offer an apology to the Governor’s staff, and has also apologized to members of the Democratic Caucus.”
The bill did not come up for a vote Tuesday, the final day of the lame duck session, due to an unwritten procedural rule in the House commonly known as the “rule of 60,” which says no bill can advance to final action on the House floor unless at least 60 members of the majority caucus have signed on to support it.
Sixty is the minimum number of votes needed to pass legislation in the House. Democrats currently hold 78 of the House’s 118 seats.
“It came up a few votes short,” Rep. Bob Rita, D-Blue Island, said in an interview. “We’re in the lame duck (session) and this is a time when there are a lot of things going on, but it’s a measure that we need to address as we go into the 104th General Assembly. I believe this is going to be at the forefront of one of the agenda items.”
Chicago concerns
Some House members speculated that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who was known to oppose the bill, may have been a factor in some Democrats’ refusal to support the bill, but Pritzker said he doubted that was the case.
“My impression is he didn’t have much to do with this,” he said. “There’s a powerful lobby that has been working against this bill for quite some time. This was not an easy bill. If it had been, it would have passed last May.”
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
The Illinois Polymer Maker Lab, Beckman’s newest core facility, will open soon in the institute’s basement. The lab will be the first-of-its-kind facility for the automated formulation and testing of polymer-based materials and will soon be open to researchers across campus and across the nation.
The lab will help researchers accelerate the development of materials and products related to paints and coatings, adhesives, personal care items, composites, and materials for 3D printing. It could also help researchers design resins for energy-efficient manufacturing and products in the food science industry. It’s funded by a Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation.
“The core capabilities will be pretty unique,” said Dan Krogstad, the lab’s manager and a research professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “The IPML facility at Beckman provides researchers with an incredible opportunity to accelerate the development of polymer-based formulations through the creation of rich, digital datasets using automated equipment and workflows.”
The lab joins four other Beckman core research facilities: the Biomedical Imaging Center, Microscopy Suite, Molecular Imaging Lab and Visualization Lab.
“The Illinois Polymer Maker Lab is another example of how Beckman provides cutting-edge facilities that you can’t find anywhere else,” said Beckman Director Steve Maren. “This facility will fuel materials discovery for our researchers and especially allow them to push the boundaries of knowledge through AI.”
The Anton Paar high-throughput rheometer, an HTR 7000, was the first instrument to be installed in IPML earlier this spring. It’s a robotic instrument capable of dispensing polymers and measuring their flow behavior automatically.
For example, the rheological properties tell us whether a paint will drip after being applied to a surface, how easy it is to squeeze toothpaste out of a tube or how well the materials will flow through pipes in a factory.
However, while the rheological properties are important in the development of new materials, collecting related data can require a lot of time. High-throughput systems, like IMPL’s Anton Paar HTR 7000, help overcome this limitation.
Sam Tawfick, a co-leader of the Autonomous Materials Systems group, said his Beckman research colleagues are researching how to better manufacture advanced materials through 3D printing or resins for polymers reinforced with carbon fibers
“The flow behavior of polymers is critical to assess their manufacturability,” said Tawfick, the Anderson Family Scholar and professor of mechanical science and engineering, adding that the IPML rheometer’s usefulness is in how it dispenses polymers and automatically measures their flow.
“This changes the students’ workflow in the lab by minimizing sample preparation steps and enabling the equipment to run and take measurements 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For the students, this means higher productivity and the ability to focus on interpretation of the results.”
Beyond reducing the time required, automating rheological measurements promotes machine learning by making procedures more uniform, creating organized digital datasets and increasing the amount of data that can be collected.
Tawfick believes access to the lab will have incredible implications for both expanding knowledge and offering new materials to the public.
“I personally think students will achieve more during the same timeline of a Ph.D. or postdoctoral training, connecting more dots around their discovery and tightening both the scientific understanding and the reliability of their discoveries,” he said.
In the past, it’s taken up to 20 years for a new polymer, like a high temperature resistant silicone or high strength composite, to be ready for commercial use. Material readiness is ranked on a scale (called the Technology Readiness Level, or TRL) between 0 and 9, the latter which describes a material that’s commercially established.
“It takes about 10 years to move the concept of a material from TRL 0 to TRL 3 in a lab,” Tawfick said. “IPML is targeting this stage, with the aim of shortening it from a decade to potentially weeks.”
And because the lab will be a Beckman core facility, knowledge can transfer among users thanks to the help of expert staff members and the creation of institutional knowledge, Tawfick said.
“Groups from campus and external users from the private sector will benefit from and contribute to this institutional knowledge,” he said. “This will be accomplished by gradually optimizing the workflows and the AI models used in the facility.”
The LA Clippers selected Illinois guard Keaton Wagler with the No. 5 overall pick in the 2026 NBA draft on Tuesday at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Wagler became the first Illini freshman to be named a consensus All-American after averaging 17.9 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.2 assists while shooting 39.7% from 3-point range. He set numerous freshman program records, including points (663), field goals (202) and 3s (87).
The 6-foot-6 Wagler is the first player in franchise history to be taken with the fifth pick and the highest player drafted since Blake Griffin went No. 1 in 2009. He is Illinois’ third top-10 pick in the draft era (1966), joining Kendall Gill (1990, No. 5) and Deron Williams (2005, No. 3).
Wagler is highly touted because of his shooting, feel and ability to convert difficult finishes at the rim. He had a monumental rise up draft boards throughout the year after leading Illinois to its first Final Four appearance since 2005.
The 19-year-old was heavily linked to the Clippers throughout the predraft process after visiting only with them and the Chicago Bulls (No. 4). He eventually canceled his remaining workouts after those meetings, an indication that he felt he wouldn’t fall below the Clippers.
Wagler was the fifth straight freshman to hear his name called on Tuesday, following AJ Dybantsa (Washington), Darryn Peterson (Utah), Cameron Boozer (Memphis) and Caleb Wilson (Chicago).
Illinois
Ex-Illinois teacher awaiting deportation linked to Tren de Aragua mass shooting in Chicago: DHS
CHICAGO – A former Illinois teacher living in the United States illegally, who was allegedly involved in a 2024 Tren de Aragua mass shooting that killed three people at a Chicago house party, was arrested by federal authorities, officials said Monday.
Giovanna Mercedes Moreno Occhipinti, 32, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela with dual citizenship in Italy, was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on May 13, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said.
Occhipinti entered the U.S. in October 2021 under the Visa Waiver Program and was supposed to leave by Jan. 2, 2022. She overstayed her visa, DHS said.
On the night of the Dec. 2, 2024, shooting, she allegedly drove the two gunmen—Ricardo Granadillo Padilla and Edward Martinez Cermeno—to the scene of the crime, where five people were injured in addition to the three fatalities, authorities said.
“Although Chicago police arrested this illegal alien shortly after the shooting, sanctuary politicians released her from jail without notifying ICE,” DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement. “Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, DHS is doing the job that sanctuary politicians in Illinois refuse to do: putting the American people first and removing these dangerous criminals from our communities.”
Martinez Cermeno was released from ICE custody in January 2025 after a federal judge determined that federal prosecutors failed to meet their burden of proof to keep him incarcerated while awaiting trial.
Immediately after the shooting, authorities found multiple weapons in Occhipinti’s vehicle, DHS said. Authorities believe she helped Granadillo Padilla and Martinez Cermeno evade law enforcement after the attack.
The Chicago Police Department arrested Occhipinti on Dec. 5, 2024, on charges of unlawful use of weapons and other weapons offenses. However, she was released without ICE ever being notified under Chicago’s sanctuary policies, which protect illegal immigrants from federal immigration authorities.
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s office decided not to prosecute the suspects, DHS said, and Granadillo Padilla and Martinez Cermeno were eventually deported.
“Giovanna Mercedes Moreno Occhipinti’s actions were calculated and deliberate, leading to the loss of three lives,” said HSI Chicago Special Agent in Charge Matthew Scarpino. “I’m proud of our agents for pursuing this case to the end, ensuring that everyone who helped facilitate this mass homicide is brought to justice.”
Fox News was told by DHS that Occhipinti was a teacher at an unspecified school in the Chicago suburb of Elgin. Illinois officials have refused to cooperate with federal authorities and will not tell DHS the name of the school, Fox News has learned.
Occhipinti is being held at the Grayson County Detention Center in Leitchfield, Kentucky.
Read more at FoxNews.com
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