No matter what age we are when we lose our parents, we are always children in our grief. Letting go is a swirling confusion of acceptance, relief any suffering is over, and overwhelming sadness that such an important part of ourselves is missing, no longer accessible. This holds true for our beloved father, Paul McCarthy Jr., who passed on Mother's Day, May 14, at age 82, after several years of struggling with heart disease. And even though his passing was imminent, losing him brought a crushing emptiness.

Governor Bruce Rauner has said for the past several days that he’s open to just about any sort of compromise in order to get school funding reform signed into law.

Your article on education funding was one of the most thorough and accurate analyses of the funding problem and the competing bills that I’ve seen.

The only quibble I had with the piece was the reference to a “poison pill” in the budget requiring school funding to be “evidence-based.” Although that provision was included in the budget bill that ultimately passed the General Assembly (see page 433 of the PDF version of the enrolled SB6), that identical language was included in the Republicans’ “Capitol Compromise” budget proposal, SB2214, which the Democrats had no hand in drafting. I’d refer you to page 533 of that bill for the reference to “Evidence-Based Funding.”

Amidst growing outcry against civil asset forfeiture, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Justice Department’s new directive focused on increasing the practice.