For the first time, proof emerged that Gov. Pat Quinn’s 2010 Neighborhood Recovery Initiative factored into his election strategy that year in personal emails from the governor’s former top aide that were released Wednesday by a legislative panel investigating the program.

The emails from ex-Quinn chief of staff Jack Lavin represented a key highlight from the opening of two more days of hearings on the $54.5 million anti-violence grant program that is now under federal investigation. The former head of the now abolished agency that Quinn put in charge of implementing the program, Barbara Shaw, was at the witness table all morning. Dave McKinney has the story in the Chicago SunTimes.

A church closely connected to former top gubernatorial aide Billy Ocasio was awarded a contract for up to $100,000 from Gov. Pat Quinn's embattled Neighborhood Recovery Initiative — even though Mr. Ocasio had helped supervise NRI grant-making as Mr. Quinn's senior adviser.

New Life Covenant Church, where Mr. Ocasio's wife, Veronica Ocasio, works as chief of staff, received the contract and ultimately was paid just under $43,000 for developing a youth employment program, according to records compiled by the Illinois Auditor General's office and information obtained from state records by Crain's.

Chicago – NRI 
General Assembly panel to resume hearings on Quinn NRI scandal. The Legislative Audit Commission (LAC) will be holding hearings on Wednesday, October 8 and Thursday, October 9 in Chicago. The panel will continue its inquiries into the scandal-ridden “Neighborhood Recovery Initiative” (NRI), a $54.5 million taxpayer-funded program. Revelations since the program’s operation in 2010 indicate that money officially allocated to violence-reduction initiatives in challenged neighborhoods may actually have been expended as political walking-around money. The physical focus of the NRI program was on urban neighborhoods in the city of Chicago. The NRI program peaked during the weeks just before and after the November 2010 gubernatorial election, in which Pat Quinn won election to a full term by a margin of less than 1 percent of the statewide electorate.

"I am ready to get to work with all stakeholders to guarantee
Chicagoland is chosen to host the event in the future.”
~ Rep. Michael McAuliffe last Spring

Last Spring Rep. Michael McAuliffe carried HR 1096 inviting the NFL to select Chicagoland as a site and headquarters for the NFL Draft. McAuliffe stated at the time that "The NFL Draft would be a major win to our area by creating jobs, benefiting tourism, and encouraging economic development."

Today Illinois received the news that the NFL draft will indeed be moving to Chicago in 2015.

From today's Chicago Tribune: Nothing sells hope to fans of all 32 NFL teams like the draft, and next year the league will bring that hope -- and all the accompanying hoopla -- to Chicago.

The Los Angeles Times and Yahoo Sports reported Thursday that the draft, which for the last nine years has been conducted in New York's Radio City Music Hall, will move to Chicago next spring and be held from April 30 through May 2. Read the rest of the story by Brad Biggs.

More about Rep. McAuliffe's efforts to bring the NFL to Chicagoland.

More breaches are likely. The Department of Homeland Security Department warned last month that more than 1,000 retailers could have malware in their cash-register computers.

USA posted 5 ways to protect yourself from data breaches

1. Consider another way to pay
2. Sign it, don't pin it
3. Beware of Email scammers
4. Keep up with statements
5. Go old school. Pay with Cash

Read the details on USA Today.

Rep.  Brown and others urge officials to reopen Eagle Creek

Republican legislators are putting the heat on state officials to get moving on the redevelopment of the long-vacant Eagle Creek Resort on Lake Shelbyville.

The 138-room resort and conference center has been closed since the summer of 2009 when mold was found inside its guest rooms.

Later the state awarded the resort lease to another vendor, the Ballinger family of Decatur, operating as BMDD Resorts, But BMDD abandoned the redevelopment project in March, and state officials pledged a month later to renew their work toward reopening the resort.

"The bottom line is they've done nothing since the Ballingers left," state Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said Tuesday of the state Department of Natural Resources, which lease the lakefront property from the Army Corps of Engineers. "I think the director himself needs to come to the community and clear the air. But frankly I'm done dealing with DNR. I'm a member of the appropriations committee that has their budget and today I'm directing my staff to review their budget with a fine tooth comb." Read more by Tom Kacich in the News-Gazette.

Like previous retailers hurt by data breaches, Home Depot started offering free credit monitoring once it discovered that its security had been compromised. We wanted to know whether affected customers would welcome the move, so we took to Facebook and asked our followers.

Adrianne Clark, from Reedsburg, Wis., had been through data breaches before. “I signed up for Target's, last year, and seeing as that will be up soon, it would be beneficial to sign up for Home Depot's,” she wrote.

Other commenters were relying on their own vigilance to keep them safe—and, for the record, they weren’t impressed by Home Depot’s efforts. Joseph Gillis, Jr., who lives in Bridgewater, Mass., wrote: “No, have not signed up for specific credit monitoring. But, I do actively watch all transactions on my cards. By the way, offering credit monitoring is rather lame; shouldn't the penalty be much more severe for Home Depot and Target?” Read more at Consumer Reports.