SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker will propose a roughly $1 billion package of tax relief measures aimed at mitigating the impact of inflation on Illinois consumers when he gives his budget address Wednesday.

The “Illinois Family Relief Plan,” as it’s being called, would suspend the 1% grocery tax for one year, suspend the automatic inflation-adjusted increase in the motor fuel tax and provide a 5% property tax rebate to qualifying property owners.

“At the same time of what has been record growth in the economy, and dramatically different revenue forecasts for the state, we're experiencing a surge of inflation,” Deputy Gov. Andy Manar said in an interview with Capitol News Illinois. “And this decline in purchasing power has hit working families in the state and the governor recognizes that.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 12-month inflation rate in the United States in December stood at 7%, the highest rate in nearly 40 years. That included a 29.3% increase in energy prices and a 6.3% increase in food prices.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/economy-business/2022-01-31/pritzker-to-propose-grocery-motor-fuel-and-property-tax-relief-for-illinoisans

Thirty people filed into a lounge area of a building not far from the Tinker Air Force Base chapel in Oklahoma last September. They sat for roughly an hour as an increasingly impatient lieutenant colonel, a doctor who frequently checked his watch, tried to answer questions from skeptics of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to participants.

What he didn't realize is that his briefing would help forge an underground support network for service members who had refused the vaccine, putting like-minded troops in one room. The meeting was intended to convince those who were skeptical to get the vaccine, but two airmen who attended said it instead helped them find allies and compatriots in their drive to remain unvaccinated.

"I thank God every day that they had this briefing and [it] wasn't just a one-on-one thing," one of the attendees, an Air Force captain, told Military.com.

After the Air Force doctor finished his presentation and had left, the captain and many of the other attendees stayed behind to compare notes, chuckling at the presentation and joking that the doctor had nothing prepared but "what the Air Force was telling him to say."

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/01/31/inside-secretive-networks-of-military-covid-19-vaccine-refusers.html

BEIRUT — A U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force said Monday that a prison overrun by the Islamic State group in northeastern Syria was now fully under its control, thwarting a dangerous plot by the extremists to launch further, multiple attacks across the volatile region.

It also appealed for the international community's help in taking responsibility for the tens of thousands of ISIS fighters and their families in detention centers and camps under its control.

The Syrian Democratic Forces said more than 120 of their fighters and prison workers died in the 10-day standoff at the Gweiran prison, also known as al-Sinaa prison, which houses at least 3,000 Islamic State group detainees. Some 374 IS militants, including the initial attackers, were also killed, it added.

The Jan. 20 assault on one of the largest detention facilities in Syria has turned the city of Hassakeh into a conflict zone and forced thousands of residents to flee. The fighting drew in the U.S.-led coalition, which carried out airstrikes and deployed American personnel in Bradley Fighting Vehicles to the scene.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/01/31/us-allied-syria-force-says-it-foiled-major-isis-comeback-plot.html

NEW BLOOMFIELD — Chad Crilley had the previous update for us. You can take a look at his article here before reading the latest below.

A major winter storm is headed for mid-Missouri starting late Tuesday night and wrapping up late in the day on Thursday. Winter storm watches have been issued for this reason ahead of the storm. Heavy snowfall, sleet, and freezing rain are all on the table for this storm.

We know quite a bit of what this system will be capable of. What is going to be tricky is timing when cold air starts to help transition rain and a wintry mix, over to all snow. And, if the cold air layer in the atmosphere will be enough to support snow, or more sleet and freezing rain mixed in. These two variations could impact totals of ice and snow, but won't change the overall impacts we are expecting.

Tuesday looks to be a non-impact day. We will be seeing rain showers starting in the afternoon, remaining off and on into late Tuesday night. This is when we are expecting cold air to start moving in and switch precipitation from rain to wintry mix/snow gradually from north to south overnight.

https://krcgtv.com/news/local/major-winter-storm-on-the-way-to-mid-missouri

LUTHER, Okla. (KOKH)—- The Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office announced the arrests of three people believed to be connected to a large Amazon theft ring involving thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.

The sheriff's office says deputies received a complaint of illegal dumping.

When they arrived at the location, deputies found about 600 empty Amazon packages dumped on the ground. All of the packages were supposed to arrive at their destinations by Christmas.

A garbage bag containing an envelope with an address and a receipt from a local store was also found.

https://krcgtv.com/news/nation-world/thousands-of-packages-found-3-arrested-in-amazon-package-theft-ring

SAN ANTONIO (WOAI) — New details have been released in the brutal attack on a mother that police say was at the hands of her two children.

The woman's 13-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter are accused of stabbing and beating her.

The assault happened around 5 a.m. Wednesday at an apartment complex off W. Military Drive near Pinn Road. Police said she was stabbed multiple times and possibly hit with a baseball bat.

WOAI learned Wednesday's attack also marked the boy's 13th birthday.

https://krcgtv.com/news/nation-world/brutal-attack-on-mother-at-hands-of-her-2-children-happened-on-13-year-old-boys-birthday-assault-kids-baseball-bat-knife-hospital-court-zoom-hearing-sanantonio-texas-bexar-county

A sub-variant of the highly contagious Omicron Coronavirus strain is even more infectious than the original version, according to a Danish study.

Sub-variant BA.2 - also called "stealth Omicron" - was detected earlier this year and has displaced the first Omicron variant, known as BA.1, as the dominant strain in Denmark.

A person infected with BA.2 has a 39% chance of transmitting the virus to someone else in their household within a week, compared to a 29% risk with BA.1, Denmark's SSI health authority said in a statement.

The study by SSI researchers and Danish universities involved 18,000 people and was carried out between 20 December and 18 January.

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/0131/1276998-stealth-omicron/

A British woman who was accused of falsely claiming she was gang-raped by up to 12 Israeli tourists in a Cyprus holiday resort had her conviction overturned today by the country's Supreme Court.

Defence lawyers successfully argued there had been a miscarriage of justice when a district court found her guilty in January 2020 of public mischief, and handed her a suspended four-month jail term.

The woman, now aged 21 and not publicly identified, had told police in July 2019 that she had been raped by the Israelis, aged 15 to 22, in a hotel room in the Mediterranean island's party resort town of Ayia Napa.

Aged 19 at the time of her arrest, she was charged after she retracted her initial complaint, but later said she had been pressured to do so by local police in lengthy questioning without a lawyer or translator present.

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/0131/1276929-cyprus-court-case/

A new scheme is being opened today which will allow thousands of undocumented migrants and their families official permission to reside in Ireland.

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has described it as a "once in a generation scheme" that would improve the lives of thousands of people who contributed to society but who still lived in the legal shadows.

According to the Department of Justice, there could be up to 17,000 undocumented people living in Ireland, including up to 3,000 children.

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms McEntee said that the scheme is not an open ended one and people will need to fit certain criteria in order to apply.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0131/1276809-undocumented-migrants/

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man has pleaded guilty to using his twin brother's stolen identity to obtain tens of thousands of dollars in military veterans benefits.

Wayne Bowen, 64, of Jacksonville, pleaded guilty Wednesday to aggravated identity theft in Jacksonville federal court, according to court records. He faces a mandatory two years in federal prison. He must also pay $63,773 in restitution as part of his plea agreement.

According to the plea agreement, Bowen used the name, Social Security card and military discharge papers of his estranged twin brother in 2014 to apply for federally subsidized housing benefits intended for indigent military veterans. The program was administered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Bowen admitted to federal agents that he had been using his brother’s identity for years, prosecutors said. Bowen had obtained a Florida identification card using his twin’s identity and had been arrested and convicted of felony offenses under his twin’s name. Bowen initially told the agents that he and his twin had served in and been honorably discharged from the U.S. Army but later admitted those were lies.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/01/29/florida-man-guilty-of-using-twins-id-veterans-benefits.html