In the News
For years, Jorge toiled in the kitchen of a Mexican restaurant.
In the midst of hot ovens and the frantic pace of food preparation, where the long hours tortured his feet and racked his lower back, Jorge, a native of Mexico, dreamed of one day getting his legal resident papers, which would permit him to join the U.S. Army.
NEWPORT NEWS -- In August 2010, Sgt. 1st Class Angela Dees sent her stepson off to college, a move made possible because she transferred her benefits to him under the GI Bill.
Or that's what she thought.
Halfway through the semester, Christopher hadn't received any money. Dees stretched her credit card to pay his living expenses, bus fare and other bills. She was confident the GI Bill benefits would come through because the Defense Department had OK'd the transfer.
In November, the Department of Veterans Affairs said the money wasn't coming.
U.S. Congressman Bill Foster visited B.J. Ward Elementary School Thursday, talking with students about the importance of going to college and also taking a tour of the school's computer lab.
A handful of Illinois Democratic members of Congress Tuesday outlined county-by-county numbers of people who will lose unemployment benefits Dec. 28.
Their numbers come from the the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
Last week, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Evanston Democrat, was the only House member from Illinois to vote against a bipartisan budget deal, saying lawmakers should have extended unemployment benefits.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster is looking to constituents for answers when it comes to the federal government's budget deficit.
"There are no easy choices to be made here," Foster said Monday at Calvary Church in Naperville, before putting about 50 people through a 90-minute workshop on which items should have priority in the federal budget.
An Illinois congressman wants children of soldiers to avoid a case of educationus interruptus. Sgt. First Class Angela Dees of Joliet, now stationed in Virginia, says the Defense Department reversed itself on her son's tuition and demanded a refund. "The only thing the VA website or any of the other literature concerning the Post-9-11 GI Bill stated was that it could be transferred to spouses and dependent children that had to be in (a military dependents' reporting system)," Dees said on a conference call arranged for reporters by the office of U.S. Rep.
At least seven legislative proposals are pending in Congress to improve the new GI Bill for large swaths of beneficiaries, including active-duty and reserve troops, wounded warriors and families.
The four-year-old Post-9/11 GI Bill has served 1 million students at a cost of almost $35 billion — but some lawmakers clearly think it could be doing more to serve troops, veterans and their families.
A bill crafted with the help of The American Legion would, if enacted, correct a "bureaucratic nightmare" that has caused some servicemembers' children to be billed for thousands of dollars in educational benefits for which they were originally approved. The Legion-backed corrective legislation, "GI Education Benefits Fairness Act", was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 22 by Rep. Bill Foster, a Democrat, and Rep.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL, 11) kept his word and donated the pay he earned during the government shutdown to the Northern Illinois Food Bank on Friday.
"I do not believe Members of Congress should receive a paycheck while people in Illinois and throughout the country were suffering because Congress failed to do their job," said Foster in a press release. "I was pleased to be able to donate my pay to the Northern Illinois Food Bank and support the important work they do feeding the hungry throughout northern Illinois."
Vicki Foley can trace her son Chris' drug use back to junior high, when he started smoking cigarettes.
The cigarettes led to marijuana and the marijuana eventually led to heroin.
The heroin led to his death.
"Heroin took his life," Foley said of the 27-year-old. "And it left a big hole in ours."
Foley, president of Chris Walk Against Substance Abuse, joined representatives of other community groups Wednesday at Community Christian Church in Naperville to discuss ways they are fighting the growing tide of heroin use from prevention to treatment.