Erin Allen: Good morning, it's Thursday. I'm Erin Allen and this is The Rundown. 

Within the Illinois Department of Corrections investigators are there to make sure staff are doing their jobs properly and weed out any wrongdoing employees inside the prisons. When things are going as they should, investigators are a major key for a department that has a history of serious abuse, including one man who died after a beating from officers. But my colleague Shannon Heffernan is reporting that the department has mismanaged how it fills some of these investigative positions. A recent report from the Illinois office of executive Inspector General found that the positions are vulnerable to favoritism, because they don't go through a formal hiring process, and they're just assigned to the positions without much oversight. Jenny Vollen-Katz is with the prison watchdog group, the John Howard Association.

Jennifer Vollen-Katz: If they're not selecting people based on integrity and qualification and ability to be objective, but instead relying on a system of patronage, that doesn't bode well for fair and full investigations.

Erin Allen: The IDOC said it is making changes after the report including improvements and how it evaluates investigators. 

So this is a time of year when some of us are sadly reminded that as dazzling as they are, holiday lights don't last forever, and when they die, we need to get rid of them. Apparently just like those live Christmas trees I talked about earlier this week, there are recycling options for lights too. My colleague Indi Khera is reporting that when lights are recycled, some of those valuable metals like copper can get reused. She talked to a solid waste coordinator in Evanston, Brian Zimmerman.

Brian Zimmerman: What keeps the life of those resources alive and also reduces the amount of natural resources that we have to excavate to make those new products.

Erin Allen: Now you can't just toss the lights into a recycling bin because they might cause the machines that break them down to malfunction. So Zimmerman is encouraging folks to take the lights to designated drop off sites in their municipalities. You can find a list of those sites at blockclubchicago.org. Despite some concerns from community members, Governor JB Pritzker went ahead and sold 23 acres of industrial land along the southern part of the Chicago River, including those large Damen grain silos. 

My colleague Mawa Iqbal is reporting that the land went to one Michael Tadin Junior for $6.5 million. Now under Illinois law, the government is entitled to sell land to the highest bidder regardless of its intended use. But Jerry Adelmann with Open Lands, a conservation group, feels like the process is lacking transparency.

Jerry Adelmann: The community wants to know what its ultimate use is going to be. So that's what we're going to have to go to Springfield on to get new legislation passed.

Erin Allen: Tadin Junior also co-owns a large asphalt plant on the south side. He told the Chicago Sun-Times he doesn't have plans for the site just yet. 

One of the reasons I prefer transit and biking over driving is because I know I'm not a good driver. In particular, I got the need for speed. If you do too, just know that a slew of laws will be going into effect January 1, and a few of them are driving related. Blockclub Chicago is reporting that, for one, community service could be required if you're caught going more than 20 miles per hour in a school zone. Or if you don't stop for a school bus picking up or dropping off students. And as the carjackings stay on the rise in Chicago and surrounding areas, victims will no longer have to take on all the financial burden that comes with them. The city is reimbursing towing and storage fees up to $1,000 if you're a car owner or lessee, and you show proof that you filed a police report. There are a few more updates too, you can find those and some other state laws that go into effect January 1st at the Illinois General Assembly website, iga.gov. 

And before we get to weather, a few quick hits. In Kankakee county a judge has ruled that the part of the SAFE-T Act that eliminates cash bail is unconstitutional because it violates the Constitution separation of powers and quote impaired the courts ability to keep crime victims safe, which runs afoul of the crime victims Bill of Rights. As it stands now, that particular provision won't go into effect on January 1st in the 65 counties that filed a lawsuit against it. By the way, this does not include Cook County. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul says he'll be appealing the ruling to the state Supreme Court. 

And aviation officials in Chicago say Southwest Airlines will be back to full capacity by this weekend. At first they blame the weather, but now Southwest is taking responsibility for canceled flights and they'll reimburse stranded travelers for quote reasonable expenses such as hotels car rentals and last minute flights on other airlines. And minimum wage in Illinois is going up again on January 1, it'll go to $13 an hour for non tipped employees. It'll keep going up $1 an hour per year until 2025 when it'll reach $15 an hour. As for tipped employees, they'll get at least $7.80 an hour as of January 1st. 

And now for weather, today is giving spring in December. Cloudy with a high in the mid 50s. Low tonight in the lower 50s and some rain expected overnight. And that's it for The Rundown today. Thanks for listening. I'm Erin Allen and I'll talk to you early tomorrow morning.

WBEZ transcripts are generated by an automatic speech recognition service. We do our best to edit for misspellings and typos, but mistakes do come through.