Illinois transportation officials unveiled a six-year, $21.3-billion upgrade program recently, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the gas tax shortfalls expected from it.

Deferred prosecution agreement says major energy infrastructure bills were voted on and passed as a result of favors to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's associates. ComEd will pay a $200-million fine.

All of ENR Midwest's coverage of how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the regional construction industry.

Davenport, Iowa and the Quad Cities area prepares for expected flooding, while the Bonnet Carre Spillway was opened in Louisiana.

As cases increase in Illinois, the state has fast-tracked a 200-bed veterans home to be used as a hospital. McCormick Place convention center also is undergoing a $71-million rehab to become an acute-care treatment facility.

Construction in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin is seen as essential infrastructure, so work continues on most sites in those states. Minnesota, Kentucky, Missouri and Kansas's orders broadly exempt outdoor activities. Michigan's order includes public works construction as essential.

The Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters was awarded its largest-ever backpay award by the Illinois Department of Labor in ruling that a developer and two subcontractors must pay $1.1 million for violating prevailing wage law on a senior housing project in Northbrook, Ill.

Related Midwest says construction will begin by early 2021 on The 78, the developer's $7-billion, 62-acre megaproject in Chicago's South Loop.

Measure proposed by House members from the flood-battered Midwest,would establish a fund to support loans for resilience projects.

Even though flood water has fallen to levels that make some bridges and channel roads passable in the tiny island town of Kaskaskia, Ill., local officials still don't have a good idea of how much damage more than three months of being submerged has done.