Illinois/ mass job losses mostly spare central Illinois

In late January, eight companies announced closings that will affect about 1,900 Illinois workers, and another 192 were laid off by employers who remain in operation, according to the most recent mandatory notices to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity’s Illinois Work Net Center,

This follows closures eliminating 560 jobs reported in December, with 143 jobs lost through layoffs.

In south-central Illinois, Alton Steel Inc. on Jan. 26 abruptly announced to United Steelworkers Local 3643  that the manufacturer is ceasing operations after almost 25 years producing steel in metro St. Louis. More than 250 workers will lose their jobs.

The union last negotiated a contract in 2024.

The employer – which said all 401(k) accounts will remain secure and accessible – cited insurmountable challenges such as aging infrastructure, market competition and industry consolidation as reasons for the closure, according to Riverbender.com.

“Our employees have shown exceptional dedication and skill for more than two decades of production,” said CEO Chris Ervin. “But we’ve reached a point where the fundamental structural challenges cannot be overcome.”

Alton Steel emerged from Laclede Steel Co., which halted operations in 1998 after 87 years of operation. Laclede went bankrupt in 2001 but partnered with former Laclede workers and J&J Ventures to reorganize as Alton Steel in 2003.

Illinois’ Dept. of Labor says Alton Steel violated the state’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requiring employers with 75 or more full-time employees to provide 60 days' advance notice of plant closures or mass layoffs.

Elsewhere, Amazon Fresh is closing 10 Illinois locations –all in Chicagoland except for one store in Normal –next month, when more than 1,500 employees will lose their jobs. T-Mobile in Schaumburg and Founders Insurance Co. in Des Plaines are laying off 109 and 43 workers, respectively.

U.S. workers’ unionization up last year – and the news is even better than the numbers

New data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows union representation grew by 463,000 in 2025, bringing the total number of workers represented by union contracts to 16.5 million.

Beyond the statistics, related trends show other good news for organized labor.

“Thanks to years of sustained organizing, 11.2% of all wage and salary workers in the United States are now covered under union contracts, up from 2024 and the highest in 16 years,” the AFL-CIO said.

Last year’s numbers show the highest number of unionized workers in the U.S. in 16 years, reported the Economic Policy Institute.

“The increase is a departure from prior years’ downward trend in union density,” write EPI’s Celine McNicholas, Margaret Poydock and Heidi Shierholz. “It demonstrates working people’s desire for greater agency in their workplaces and in shaping the policies that affect their lives. In a time of fear, uncertainty and hardship, the importance and benefits of unionization are especially clear. Further, this increase occurred despite the nation’s broken system of labor law and the most anti-union president in history. It is a testament to working people’s resolve and the fact that unions are increasingly viewed favorably and recognized as critical instruments for building a just economy.”

The growth in unionization in 2025 occurred despite President Trump’s relentless attacks on workers and their unions. Since returning to office, President Trump has engaged in a consistent campaign against U.S. workers, making their lives less affordable in the process. From stripping federal workers’ collective bargaining rights to canceling federal collective bargaining contracts.

“Billionaire bosses and union-busting politicians have tried to throw the kitchen sink at working people and their unions – slashing our jobs and rigging the rules to scare us out of organizing— but they are failing,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “Working people are experiencing relentless attacks on our freedoms and our livelihoods. These numbers confirm what we’ve seen in the labor movement: Workers have felt President Trump’s billionaire-first agenda in action and are hungry to take back their power.

“Workers know that the best check on a bad boss is a strong union contract,” she continued. “In 2026, workers will continue to organize in every corner of the country and build power to fight for the lives they deserve.”

Unionization among state and local government workers increased  from 37.1% to 37.6%, an increase of 196,000 unionized workers. (BLS’ reference to “unionization,” it should be noted, means representation, not membership. In other words, the number includes non-member “free riders” in the public sector and Right To Work [for less] states, where workers are permitted to benefit from union representation in bargaining wages,

However, private-sector union coverage last year also rose – by 227,000, pushing the unionization rate up from 6.7% to 6.8%. Within the private sector, there were particularly large gains in health care and social assistance, retail trade, and educational services. In addition, organized labor overall is made up of a cross-section of the nation: About one-third (32%) of unionized workers are white non-Hispanic men, and roughly two-thirds (68%) are women and racial minorities. Also, younger workers have a “heightened organizing activity,” EPI said. “Union coverage among workers under age 45 increased by 428,000, compared with an increase of 35,000 among workers age 45 and over.”

Elsewhere, labor scholar and historian Lane Windham of Georgetown University, a former labor organizer, stresses significant positives beyond BLS data.
“There are promising developments rumbling through unions and other worker-justice organizations that the BLS union survey doesn’t capture,” she wrote in In These Times magazine, listing five:

* “First, many unions have been on the front lines of the pushback to the Trump administration’s policies. Unions like UNITE HERE, SEIU and AFT have been at the head of the march, sponsoring the large-scale No Kings rallies and pushing back against crackdowns by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Unions helped organize and lead the Minneapolis march and strike against ICE in January 23, negotiating with employers to shut down work and filling the streets. After Customs and Border Patrol agents murdered AFGE member and nurse Alex Pretti the day after the march, National Nurses United held a week of vigils and called for the abolishment of ICE. The Sheet Metal Workers joined with others to demand union apprentice Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return after the Trump administration wrongly deported him to El Salvador.

* “Second, there’s even more organizing happening because these [BLS] statistics only capture people who have secured an actual union contract.

* “Third, the union membership statistics don’t capture all of the people who would like to join unions, but who haven’t yet had a chance to do so.

* “Fourth, the BLS union membership statistics do nothing to demonstrate the new forms of worker-justice organizing that have blossomed. The statistics don’t count any of the thousands of workers who marched in the Fight for $15 movement and inspired dozens of states to raise their minimum wage, helping to put as much as $150 billion in workers’ pockets since 2012.

* “Finally, the union member statistics do not capture the widespread changes happening in America’s labor leadership. Over the last five years, more women and people of color have stepped into leadership roles, including at the top of organizations.”

The economic and social climate has helped, and promises to continue.

“Unions have record high public favorability in the United States,” EPI said. “Since 2021, approval for unions has remained high, with over 68% of people in the U.S. viewing unions favorably. This positive view of unions is shared across generations, with majorities of Boomers (59%), Gen X (58%), Millennials (61%), and Gen Z (63%) viewing unions favorably. Young adults (ages 18–35) have the highest favorability rate at 72%. Unions are viewed positively across party lines with Democrats (90%) and Independents (69%) having high favorability rates for unions, and over 40% of Republicans approving of labor unions.”

Of course, legal and political reform is still needed.

Shuler said, “We call on Congress to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, and to reverse the single largest act of union-busting in American history by passing the Protect America's Workforce Act in the Senate.”

EPI added a few more targets for labor, including:

Ensuring workers can reach a first contract. “Congress should pass legislation that encourages unions and employers to reach a first contract in a timely manner. The National Labor Relations Act requires unions and management to bargain in good faith but does not require that the two sides reach an agreement. As a result, most unions fail to reach a first contract within a year of unionizing. The bipartisan Faster Labor Contracts Act would establish a mediation-and-binding-arbitration process when employers refuse to bargain in good faith.”

Expand collective bargaining rights to domestic workers, agricultural workers, and app-based/gig workers.

Eliminate so-called right-to-work (RTW) laws. “Twenty-six states currently have anti-union so-called RTW laws, which diminish workers’ collective power by prohibiting unions and employers from negotiating union-security clauses into collective bargaining agreements. This makes it harder for workers to join, form and sustain unions. More states should restore private-sector workers’ full bargaining rights by repealing these anti-union state laws, as Michigan did in 2023

Trump’s Iran War: bullets over ballots?

Americans appreciate the right to vote, and union members especially recognize the value of a voice – the opportunity to organize, elect officials, ratify proposed contracts, endorse candidates and other actions.

Actions such as voting to authorize strikes.

If only President Trump let Americans’ representative in Congress vote to authorize military strikes before a war is launched, as the U.S. Constitution requires.

Trump attacked with no explanation, even contradicting his and mediators’ claims that negotiations with Iran were progressing. Once hostilities started, the news media predictably have focused on the war. Longtime journalist Margaret Sullivan said, “That means that you’re seeing far less about some of the things Trump wants to blot out from existence.” .

Generally, Americans are against the war. A Washington Post poll found 52% of us oppose it, and 74% are concerned about a full-scale conflict.

Specifically, Americans also are concerned about the war’s effect on the cost of living. It feels wrong to think about money while lives are at risk as the war spreads. However, you can be sad, worried or angry and still be anxious about your bills. After all, shipping is disrupted, Wall Street stocks are falling and gas prices re rising. (AAA on March 5 reported the national average for a gallon of gas was $3.251, up from $2.891 a month earlier.)

Economist Paul Krugman pointed out costly tradeoffs. The price tag for one F-15 fighter jet: $97 million.

“There are many reasons to be disturbed by Operation Epic Fury,” he said. “One of the reasons is the extraordinary amount of money the U.S. government is either laying out now or will have to lay out in the future to replace the spent munitions.

“Just replacing those three jets shot down over Kuwait [March 1] is almost $300 million lost,” he continued.  “That will cost about as much as providing 125,000 Americans with crucial food aid or providing health care to 100,000 American children. And the war might very well end up costing 100 times as much as the price of those jets.”

Joining most progressives against the Iran War are some conservatives, including Tucker Carlson, Rand Paul and Max Boot. Boot wrote “There is no reason to think this war with Iran is necessary.”

 

                                            RATIONALES: WHO KNOWS?

Real reasons could be about oil (either seizing it or choking off oil China needs), helping billionaire buddies in Saudi Arabia and the U.S. arms industry, or benefiting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. (Ryan Cooper, editor of The American Prospect, wrote, “For a long time the relationship has been entirely one-directional: benefiting Israel and harming America. With Donald Trump starting yet another war in the Middle East—this time explicitly for Israel’s benefit, according to his own cabinet—it is time to reconsider that relationship.”)

Other justifications are so inconsistent as to hint that no one’s sure. (After all, people remember Trump’s 2024 campaign promises: cracking down on “the worst of the worst” immigrants, getting prices down “on Day One,” and avoiding foreign wars.) Supposed reasons: nuclear arms (despite after the June 2025 U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran, Trump saying it had “obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”); “long-range missiles” or short-range, depending on the day; an unstated “imminent threat”; revenge on supposed assassination attempts; regime change

Of course, the United States HAD a treaty with Iran. The 2015 Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) may not have been perfect, but it provided for the United States and global partners to limit Iran's nuclear capabilities in exchange for lifting economic sanctions. Iran agreed to reduce centrifuges and uranium stockpiles 97% to prevent nuclear weapon development, and to let monitors inspect operations. Trump withdrew from the international agreement soon after his 2016 election.

The real reasons for starting the war may be unknown, but many suspect Trump’s war is his desperate attempt to distract from his problems. Major Gen. (ret.) Randy Manner, who spoke to CNN from the United Arab Emirates (where he was stranded), said, “It seems to me that the purpose and mission have been shifting over the past few days and the past few weeks.”               

Consider:

* Homeland Security’s ICE and FEMA have so disappointed Americans that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was demoted

* a public-health crisis (exemplified by measles outbreaks)

* upsetting allies, killing people on small boats without proof they’re drug smugglers, and threatening Panama and Cuba with takeovers

* Trump’s lawsuit vendetta trying to punish political foes failing to exact the revenge he sought

* the Supreme Court ruling that Trump’s tariffs were unconstitutional

* his popular support tanking to 38%, according to The Economist, YouGov and CNN.

* also, obviously, the Epstein files. Indeed, despite the war dominating media, some non-war coverage is too important to be ignored, such as the release this month of “missing” Epstein pages – FBI reports from 2019, when investigators interviewed a woman who claimed when she was about 13 Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Trump, who assaulted her.

 

“But hey,” wrote conservative Bill Kristol, “at least economic numbers stink. The United States lost 92,000 jobs in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said, while the unemployment rate ticked back up to 4.4%.”

Maybe Trump is less obsessed with hiding from the limelight than demanding the spotlight despite incompetence.

“He has no endgame,” said author Robert Reich, Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration. “He has no f*cking clue what he’s doing in Iran. He loves to create chaos because chaos allows him to improvise — to impose his own narrative on a flood of events, dodge responsibility for failures, take credit for successes, and create illusions of glory and victory.”

 

                            A COUP?

Or – back to the idea of free and fair elections and the dangers without them – Trump and election-deniers might declare (another) “national emergency” to control states’ elections, again claiming 2020 election interference that didn’t exist. (Conservative columnist George Will called it “a complex conspiracy for which there is no evidence.”)

The claims have been refuted in 64 lawsuits and were proven false in recounts in states such as Georgia and Arizona, where Republican state officials said the results showed Biden defeated Trump, plus Trump’s first-term Attorney General William Barr saying the rigged election claim was “bullshit,” and GOP Vice President Mike Pence flatly commenting, “The Georgia election was not stolen.”

Pennsylvania Judge Stephanos Bibas, appointed by Trump, said, “Calling an election unfair does not make it so.” (The best debunking was by eight conservative judges and other Republicans, published in 2022 as “Lost, Not Stolen,” examining 187 counts in all those lawsuits.)

The new scheme follows the Supreme Court flirting with gutting the Voting Rights Act, and Trump’s Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would make voting harder for seniors, married women, students, low-income citizens and others. (The House approved it last April, 220-208, with Illinois’ three Republican Representatives, including Darin LaHood, voting for it, but the Senate hasn’t approved it.)

Election deniers are reportedly circulating a 17-page draft of an Executive Order requiring a burdensome proof of citizenship and banning mail-in ballots and even voting machines. Last month, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Michael Flynn – Trump’s former national security adviser who after the 2020 election took part in plans to seize voting machines and advocated military intervention to overturn the results – held a meeting in Washington that brought together co-conspirators and officials tied to the White House, DOJ, and DHS, reported ProPublica, which said the agenda was to advance plans for a federal takeover of the midterm elections.

In Illinois, the legislature is considering a state Voting Rights Act, making the federal law also Illinois’ statute.. If passed, the measure sponsored by Sen. Graciela Guzman (D-Chicago) would be enacted before November’s midterm elections.

“The last year has made one thing remarkably clear,” Guzman said, “— democracy does not run on autopilot. It only survives if people are willing to protect it, and at the center of that responsibility is a fundamental right to vote.”

Meanwhile, on March 8, Trump threatened to not sign any bills into law until the SAVE America Act passes the U.S. Senate.

Defendant’s lawyer seeks dismissal in insurer suit against ex-WTVP execs

In a Jan. 29 motion, the lawyer representing Linda McLaughlin, WTVP’s ex-Director of Finance and Human Resources, is seeking Judge Timothy Cusack to dismiss much of the lawsuit brought by the Cincinnati Insurance Co. to recover the $250,000 the company paid the TV station as part of WTVP’s claim of financial losses between 2019 and 2023.

Peoria attorney Philip O’Donnell’s combined motion to dismiss two counts of the suit says that the insurer’s amended complaint filed Dec. 29 “abandons all prior allegations of theft, unjust enrichment, fraud and conspiracy against [McLaughlin. It] now asserts claims against her solely for ordinary negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.

“Plaintiff [Cincinnati Insurance] now alleges that it was only Lesley Matuszak, WTVP’s Chief Executive Officer, who engaged in fraud and misappropriation of funds,” he says.

Matuszak died shortly after WTVP’s board questioned spending. She’s been accused of having improperly taken station funds for personal use and theft of WTVP funds. McLaughlin resigned the same week, when the board announced “questionable, unauthorized, or improper” spending.

O’Donnell writes that Illinois law doesn’t allow an employer or indemnifier to recover from an employee for mere carelessness or poor decision-making, especially without proof that the employee benefited from the act.

“Inadequate job performance, lapses in oversight and poor judgment do not create civil liability,” O’Donnell says. “Under Illinois law, poor employee performance is addressed through termination.”

Among other criticisms of the insurer’s amended complaint, O’Donnell said the insurer “alleges that a police investigation implicated Lesley Matuszak [but] does not include any similar allegation that Linda was the subject of a criminal investigation or accused of criminal wrongdoing.

However, the Peoria police investigation –which did find probable cause to charge Matuszak (and declined to bring charges since she was dead) – seemed to reference and possibly implicate McLaughlin, but police decided that “probable cause has not been reached for her arrest, unless she is able to be communicated with,” the police report stated.

The insurer claims WTVP’s insurance policy provided coverage for employee theft, fraud and embezzlement, but the amended complaint didn’t attach the actual policy.

In November, Cusack granted O’Donnell’s motion to dismiss the suit because it lack specificity, but the judge gave Cincinnati Insurance’s counsel time to amend its original complaint.

Matuszak’s estate also is named as a defendant in the suit, but no response has been filed on the estate’s behalf.

The next appearance is a case management conference on March 13.

HOW SWEET THE SOUND: Peorian’s music career is good and getting better

You never know when someone you meet is special – a quiet creative soul with depth. It could be a librarian, bricklayer or barber.

On the other hand, maybe everyone’s special.

One Arctic morning with temps in the single digits, bundled-up Emily How unwraps herself from a long, insulated coat, wipes frost from an eyelash and remembers writing one of her songs on a day like this: “I Hope I Die Inside a Fire.”

“It was the dead of winter and I hate winter,” she says, smiling some. “I was having a bad day and I was feeling dramatic and, almost spontaneously, it all sort of came together.”

However, her music and voice – whether on NBC-TV’s “The Voice,” public radio’s “Tiny Desk Concert” competition, or her album (“How Are You Lately?”, out last June), various online offerings and live shows – can also be reminiscent of philosopher and writer Albert Camus’ line, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

A graduate of PORTA High School in Petersburg, Ill., where she grew up before attending UIUC for a while, How evolved with some consistency.

“I started singing when I was about 7, and I was really into Taylor Swift until I was 13 or so,” she says.

Her 2018 appearance on “The Voice” with Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine’s team was a nice turn. Then she played in the Champaign area and eventually moved to Peorim, where she works at a coffee shop as well as further developing he talents as a singer, lyricist and guitarist (“I just got a new guitar, a Reverend,” she says with some delight.).

How is often slotted into the “indie” music label – like Americana, emo, shoegaze or other hard-to-define terms. But How is independent, creating, producing and presenting material on her terms.

Some hybrid comparisons to her music are thrown out: Lucinda Williams and Teddy Swims? Alanis Morissette and Tom Morello? Or, for readers from a different time, Grace Slick and Mike Bloomfield?

She seems flattered. (Or indulgent.)

On or all the mark, such parallels feature an infinite, intimate blend of thoughtful and electrifying words and riffs with fury and fear, confidence and confusion, a coming of age or disappointment about a static state.

“I write what I’m thinking, almost like a diary – sorting through my brain. Maybe I’m a little ADHD,” she added, laughing. “I use my creative muscles and write what I feel strongly about, and I can overreact and kind of throw a tantrum, musically.”

She fronts a tight band that includes Jacob Hill (lead guitar and producer), Bowie Adams (bass) and

Matt Filarski (drums). Together, they’re gritty, with growling vocals one moment, a plaintive, plea the next, and then a shriek like dolphin fleeing a shark.

Elsewhere, the 23 year old has been praised by the likes of the Chicago Reader newspaper, where Jamie Ludwig wrote, “ ‘I Hope I Die Inside a Fire”\’ goes from zero to 60 and back again; it starts with even-keeled indie pop and slacker rock, builds to an impassioned climax flooded with layers of haunting vocals, and drops off that cliff into a sparse, hair-raisingly lovely outro.”

Some may hear a sweet sigh but recall troubled, tortured singing here and there about daydreams and nightmares. Then How muses about life beyond writing, recording and performing, conceding she’s headed to work out at the Riverplex and noting that she’s listened to a Mixmaster mess of artists, from Nirvana and Ed Sheeran to the Lumineers and Big Thief, and has a bit of a green thumb and fascination with houseplants.

The group is busy via online platforms, earning thousands of views or Spotify, etc., plus posting on Instagram, Tik Tok, etc. They’ve issued some EPs (Extended Play records) and while she may not always wear her emotions on her sleeve, she carries them on her shoulders.

Some of the group’s repertoire stands out: Their number “Useless,” a melodic yet primitive song of frustration, was the tune voted in the Top 20 of more than 7,000 entrees in a 2024 contest for “Tiny Desk.” “Flight Behavior” has a delicate rage; the jaunty rhythm of “Brain Cells” is oddly cleansing; and her lyrics from the unreleased “Moss Avenue” offer a charming commentary on class differences along that storied neighborhood.

 

How has wowed crowds not only at Chillicothe’s Summer Camp festival or its next incarnation, Solshine, but at Kenny’s Westside Pub and the 3300 Event Center – and throughout the Midwest. Last month she played Book Club in Chicago, King’s Crossing in Normal, and the Brass Rail in Fort Wayne, Ind.

“On stage, I push myself,” she says. “Our last tour came out better than break-even, so that was good.” says.

In a nod to different organization or professionalism, they’ve added help to build on the regional success they’ve achieved.

“As far as a career goes, we just hired a manager, so that might give us more access,” How says. “Right now, it feels like we’re more in control, absolutely – like we’re in charge. Maybe we’ll decide to work with a label, but we want to protect ourselves [and] the music.

 “So far, so good.”

‘No Kings 3.0’ March 28 could be even bigger

If the Trump administration’s detention-deportation approach was to scare Americans to shut up and go home, it backfired, say people helping to arrange another coast-co-coast rally this month.

National and local organizers think the public will respond with greater involvement in reaction to tactics used by armed and masked federal agents seizing, fighting or even killing people without warrants or proof of their targets being the “worst of the worst” criminals.

Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-director of Indivisible, one of the groups behind the nationwide “No Kings” protests, recently spoke to Katie Herchenroeder, a contributor at Mother Jones magazine, and he said the next “No Kings” protest could have the largest turnout of the three, which started last June.

Organizers in metro Peoria commenting to the Community Word agreed.

“[The first] ‘No Kings’ was an effort to provide a stark narrative contrast to Trump’s version of reality,” Levin said. “He was throwing himself a ridiculous military birthday parade for himself, as authoritarians do. We wanted to make clear that he was small and weak and that the people were against him. The second ‘No Kings’ [in October] was largely in response to sending the National Guard to invade and occupy American cities. I think the third ‘No Kings’ is a response to the secret police force that’s terrorizing American communities.

“We had 147,000 people register for the ‘Eyes on ICE’ training in January. These 147,000 people saw secret police force assault and murder fellow Americans, and one natural response you could imagine would be that people could do what the regime wants them to do, which is to be quiet and go home and not show up. Instead, we have the largest number of people ever to attend a training to learn how to do exactly what Renee Good and Alex Pretti were doing. The attendance tells me that there’s real demand for this.”

Indeed, after that training of protesters on exercising First Amendment rights in nonviolent ways, the final number of participants was more than 200,000.

In Peoria, where some 6,000 people participated in “No Kings” Oct. 18, Ann Schreifels of Peoria’s Democracy 309 group of activists says, “There are a lot of people who, for the last year, may have been upset about what was happening, may have opposed what was happening, but may have not been actively engaged in pushing back.”

Levin feels the same way.      

“I think we all feel powerless watching our government lie, cheat, steal and kill. But when we come together in a public display of solidarity we show the world that the citizens of the United States are not supporting the authoritarian regime headed by an addled, racist old man in the White House.

“It’s not all about just a one-day protest,” he continued. “We are developing organizational capacity that allows us to pull off historic levels of engagement in between these tentpole events. The ‘No Kings’ coalition is not just Indivisible, not just 5051, or MoveOn, or Working Families Party, or ACLU. We’ve all been working together.

“This is a movement that is being led and directed at the local level,” he added, “and I think that’s why it’s been so successful. When it comes to actually defending your community, you should not be looking to some talking head on TV. You should be gathering community with your neighbors and figuring it out yourself, because nobody’s going to save you but you.”

Peorian Jim Haptonstahl says, “Given the growing public sentiment against the lawlessness, cruelty, corruption and racism of the fascist regime, we at Peoria 50501 expect turnout for No Kings 3.0 will well-exceed that of our October event, and we’re planning accordingly for a major outpouring for democracy.”

In Tazewell County, Mari Osborne of the Fired Up! group, says, “I am 100% optimistic about the upcoming No Kings protest. Every day we wake up to this Republican administration's created chaos, stress, fear and anger – people are ready to make some noise and stand together in unity. We have plenty of time to plan and get the word out; it's going to be HUGE.

“I really am Fired Up about it!”

Insurer files amended complaint against ex-WTVP execs

The Cincinnati Insurance Co. on  Dec. 29 filed an amended complaint against two former WTVP-TV executives, changing the specific allegations against Linda McLaughlin and the late Lesley Matuszak.

In a suit filed last March, the insurer is seeking to recover the $250,000 the company paid the TV station as part of WTVP’s claim of financial losses between 2019 and 2023. WTVP’s insurance policy provided coverage for employee theft, fraud and embezzlement, the insurance company said.

Matuszak, WTVP’s former Chief Executive Officer, died shortly after WTVP’s board questioned spending. She’s accused of having improperly taken station funds for personal use (“conversion”) and theft of WTVP funds (“unjust enrichment”). Matuszak’s estate is the named defendant; no response has been filed on the estate’s behalf. McLaughlin, WTVP’s ex-Director of Finance and Human Resources, resigned the week the board announced “questionable, unauthorized, or improper” spending.

In November, Judge Timothy Cusack granted a defense motion to dismiss the suit because it lack specificity but gave the insurer time to amend its initial complaint.

The amended complaint seems to link McLaughlin’s responsibilities with the financial loss, which the station said totaled more than $870,000. A Peoria police investigation said embezzlement occurred and found probable cause to charge Matuszak, but declined to file charges since she was dead. Although implicated, McLaughlin never faced charges and “probable cause has not been reached for her arrest, unless she is able to be communicated with,” police reported. Police declined to comment further.

Concerning McLaughlin, the complaint now accuses the former Director of Finance of negligence and breach of her fiduciary duty “by virtue of her position. McLaughlin owed WTVP a duty to exercise reasonable care in the management, oversight and protection of WTVP's financial assets, accounts, credit cards, and internal financial controls.

The new complaint asserts, “McLaughlin further owed WTVP a duty to act reasonably in monitoring company credit card usage, bank accounts, lines of credit, investment accounts, and financial reporting, and to prevent unauthorized or improper use of company funds.

“McLaughlin was negligent and breached her duties in the following ways,” it continues. She failed “to properly monitor and review company credit card statements and transactions [and]  to ensure that credit card charges were supported by proper receipts and approvals; allowed unauthorized and improper personal expenditures to be charged to WTVP accounts; failed to properly monitor and audit and prevent the dishonest and fraudulent activity; to timely report irregular, excessive and/or suspicious financial transactions; to properly perform her duties and responsibilities as the Director of Finance, thereby allowing the misuse and loss of funds; to implement and/or follow reasonable internal controls designed to safeguard WTVP's funds; to properly perform her duties and responsibilities as the Director of Human Resources, and to properly supervise and oversee the officers and employees; and was otherwise negligent in the performance of her duties and responsibilities as the Director of Finance and Human Resources.

“As a direct and proximate result of McLaughlin's negligence, WTVP suffered a substantial financial loss in the amount of $375,017.29 [and] as a direct and proximate result of McLaughlin's negligence, Cincinnati Insurance paid $250,000.00 to WTVP pursuant to its insurance policy as reimbursement for a portion of the loss.”

McLaughlin’s attorney, Philip O’Donnell of Peoria, had not filed a response to the amended complaint as of press time. Judge Cusack gave the defense until Jan. 30 to file an answer.

The next appearance is a case management conference on March 13.