In the News
WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm hits the Chicago area Monday with stops at Argonne National Laboratory and Hyzon Motors, which makes zero-emission vehicles, to highlight the Biden administration's initiatives to combat climate change and spur development of clean energy.
Granholm, a former Michigan governor, made her first visit as energy secretary to the Chicago area in December, where, among other stops, she toured Fermilab in Batavia, the national particle physics and accelerator laboratory.
A bill meant to ramp up federal government participation in the digital identity ecosystem is inching closer to passage. The bill is poised to be advanced by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and a Senate version was just introduced.
The bipartisan "Improving Digital Identity Act" was first introduced by Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) in 2020, but never never voted out of committee. It also didn't get a Senate version in that session of Congress. Foster reintroduced the measure last year.
Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) has spent more than a decade in Congress and is the only current lawmaker to hold a PhD in physics. "One of the reasons I feel occasionally useful in Congress is actually having some background in business and technology, I have some idea of where the puck is going,'' says the 66-year-old lawmaker representing the state's 11th congressional district, which includes parts of five counties roughly 30 miles west of Chicago.
The reversal of Roe v. Wade is expanding the conversation in Congress around biometric data and data privacy.
The U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight held a hearing Wednesday to discuss privacy issues around biometric data, and the benefit of biometric technology. Biometric data is information such as facial IDs and fingerprints.
Congress is working through numerous recycling-related bills meant to prevent plastic pollution and reduce single-use plastic use. Here are a few of the most recent updates.
More than a hundred protesters of all ages lined Washington Street in downtown Naperville on Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The protest was organized by the Illinois National Organization for Women, American Association of University Women, the League of Women Voters and the National Council of Jewish Women in Illinois.
The Supreme Court on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. in 1973.
The decision comes more than a month after the leak of a draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito indicating the court was prepared to take this momentous step.
The court's ruling means that individual states will now have the power to set their own abortion laws without concern of running afoul of Roe.
Congressmen Joe Neguse of Colorado, Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Bill Foster of Illinois have introduced legislation to identify national composting infrastructure challenges and improve recycling data measurement and reporting. Called the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act (RCAA), the bill is designed to fill information gaps in America's recycling and composting systems.
It's impossible to determine who was the happiest person at Saturday's Juneteenth celebration in Naperville.
But a good guess would be Ginger Grant-Del Valle, a Naperville resident by way of New Orleans and Chicago.
Toward the middle of the three-hour event, held at Rotary Hill Park and put on by the Naperville Neighbors United group, about 20 people decided to move closer to the stage and dance to the music by performers of the Mays Music Centre of Excellence.
In a local response to the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, about 60 people gathered Saturday afternoon at the WWII memorial on Washington Street in downtown Naperville. The group was there in protest of the recent wave of mass shootings in the U.S. and to urge elected officials to take action. The crowd chanted "enough is enough," "end the violence now," and "no more guns."
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