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ElectionsEarly voting will expand Monday to Chicago's 50 wards and in the suburbs for the midterm election. ByLissette Nuñez Monday, October 19, 2026 10:45AMCOOK COUNTY, Ill. (WLS) -- Early voting will expand Monday to Chicago's 50 wards and in the suburbs for the midterm election. Monday, Chicago election officials are expected to highlight accessibility and languages services for voters. ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24/7. Click here to watchOfficials also shared detail on a new technology over the weekend that will make ballot tracking more detailed. Cook County officials said the new software will better allow them to see when voters check in, monitor polling place activity, and flag locations that may need attention. Top StoriesRELATED | 2026 midterm elections: Voter information in Illinois, Indiana, WisconsinThese are different ways the county hopes to make the voting process more efficient and transparent. "What's good for the public is they have confidence where that mail ballot is going. all the way down to our carrier route and back to our office," Cook County Deputy Clerk for Elections Ed Michalowskisaid.

“They insist that the details will be provided after they have carried out a soft credit check.”

“Computer science isn’t the ticket to the American dream like people thought it was.”

In this week's Wealth Wise column, a 65-year-old couple was pitched $500,000 in life insurance to cover nursing home care. Financial experts weigh in on the catch.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holder, bought $22.1 million of the crypto last week while spending nearly nine times as much repurchasing its STRC preferred stock. Strategy bought 267 Bitcoin at an average price of $82,900 between Oct. 12 and Oct. 16, bringing its holdings to 848,517 BTC, worth $64.02 billion at purchase cost, according to a Monday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Strategy also bought back 1.94 million shares of its Stretch (STRC) preferred stock for $193.1 million. The latest purchase follows Strategy’s acquisition of 250 Bitcoin for $21.5 million during the week ending Oct. 9, when it also spent $192.4 million repurchasing STRC shares. The company said its board increased the authorization for its digital credit securities repurchase program to $3 billion from $2 billion, leaving $1.16 billion available as of Sunday. The company funded its BTC purchases primarily through $22 million in proceeds from selling 140,872 shares of its common stock, MSTR. It used existing cash to fund the STRC repurchases.