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August 13, 2022

The sweeping spending bill passed by Congress this month includes nearly $370 billion for energy and climate reform, making it the largest federal clean energy investment in the nation's history. Local environmental advocates and representatives say Illinois is uniquely positioned to take advantage of it.

August 12, 2022

Fox Valley United Way kicked off its 100th anniversary celebration with an open house and ribbon cutting on Friday, Aug. 5, at the office in downtown Aurora.

They wish to thank the many board members, staff, volunteers and supporters that joined the celebration. Special thanks for Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, Aurora Alderman Shweta Baid, Edward Bugg, Carl Franco and Ron Woerman, and U.S. Representatives Bill Foster and Lauren Underwood for attending.

August 12, 2022

President Joe Biden has been signing a fair number of bills passed by Congress at White House ceremonies lately. And at recent signing ceremonies and other White House events, there has been at least one Illinois politician among the invited guests.

In fact, there probably haven't been this many Illinoisans on the White House grounds since Barack Obama was in office.

August 8, 2022

Democratic lawmakers in Congress have asked major cryptocurrency and digital asset industry players to provide data on their diversity and inclusion practices.

Specifically, the lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), chair of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, sent the request to the nation's 20 largest crypto, Web3, and digital assets companies, as well as prominent venture capital firms with investments in crypto.

July 26, 2022

US lawmakers have warned that fake research papers risk compromising trust in the entire scientific system, as artificial intelligence (AI) makes it ever easier for so-called paper mills to fool journals into accepting made up articles.

Some estimates suggest hundreds of thousands of fake papers could exist in the human genomics literature alone. Paper mills have also managed to impersonate guest journal editors to wave through hundreds of their own fraudulent articles.

July 26, 2022

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and local congressmen visited Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont Monday to mark the completion of a new facility that will allow a closer look at clean energy sources such as electric vehicle batteries and nuclear energy materials.

"I'm so honored to be here and honored to be here representing an administration that very much believes in science," Granholm said during her visit.

July 25, 2022

Building a robot that can throw Frisbees into a bin is one thing, but that was not what impressed U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm the most.

"You are looking outside just building the robot," Granholm said to the high school-age students, part of a robot-building team at the APS Academy in downtown Aurora.

The students had just told her that in addition to their robot, they were designing an app to help people find places to recycle batteries. It even included incentives to get people to recycle alkaline batteries, and get lifetime lithium batteries instead.

July 22, 2022

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.

July 15, 2022

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.

July 7, 2022

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.