In the News

Congress is just starting to ramp up its efforts to regulate artificial intelligence, but one member says he first encountered the technology in the 1990s, when he used neural networks to study physics. Now, Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., is returning to AI as a member of the new bipartisan task force on artificial intelligence, led by Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., which was announced by House leadership earlier this week. 

U.S. Rep Bill Foster, D-Naperville, has announced that union president Matt Frantzen will be his guest at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address on March 7.

Frantzen is president of United Auto Workers Local 1268 in Belvidere and met with Biden during a visit to Belvidere last November to celebrate a planned reopening of the Belvidere Assembly Plant as part of a new labor contract. The UAW workers negotiated with Stellantis to revitalize the plant that was idled last February and laid off 1,200 workers.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has convened high-profile forums on artificial intelligence for months. Now, the two leaders of the House are getting in on the action as lawmakers struggle to regulate the fast-moving technology.

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) applauds the introduction of H.R. 7379, the Patient Matching and Transparency in Certified Health IT (MATCH IT) Act of 2024 by Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Representative Bill Foster (D-IL) in the U.S. House of Representatives today. You can find the bill text here.

Bipartisan celebrations continue following the recent passage of a tax bill on Capitol Hill.

Looking closer to the Stateline area, local representatives Bill Foster (IL-11) and Darin LaHood (IL-16) highlight not only the bill's sprawling consensus, but the potential peek into "how Congress should work."

Almost everyone who drives through Aurora’s East Side has been stuck in delays at the Montgomery Road, Hill Avenue intersection.

That includes U.S. Rep. Bill Foster.

“I’m sure most of us have been stuck in a jam at that intersection,” Foster, D-Naperville, said recently. “I know I have.”

So it was personal for Foster recently when he brought $1 million to the city of Aurora from the Community Funding Project to put toward the long-planned work to improve that intersection.

One day, during a debate on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives approximately five years ago, U.S. Rep Brad Schneider, D-Highland Park, found a spot to sit near U.S. Rep John Lewis, D-Ga.

“I just want to breathe the same air as you,” Schneider said.

From the time Schneider was first elected to Congress in 2012 until Lewis’ death in 2020, Lewis became a colleague, then a mentor and eventually a friend to Schneider as they served together on the House Committee on Ways and Means.

The city of Aurora paid homage to the life and accomplishments of Martin Luther King with a huge celebration Monday at Calvary Church on Route 59 on the border of Aurora and Naperville.

Officials sought a new venue to host the 39th annual Martin Luther King Day event this year after securing two high-profile guest speakers including 17-year-old Dorothy Tillman, who just completed her doctorate from Arizona State University, and award-winning actor Tyler Lepley.