In the News
At a ceremony on Monday, Kane County officials formally accepted a federal grant of nearly $1 million to help build a regional forensics laboratory.
The goals of the Kane County Forensic Laboratory are to rapidly generate leads for criminal investigations, streamline the process of obtaining information for pending court cases and determine cause of death in a timely manner for grieving families, according to a presentation given at the ceremony.
In several parts of Asia, the harvest season is celebrated with the Moon Festival. Last Saturday, Pacifica Square in Aurora held its own version.
Dozens of vendors set up tents for face painting, food, and art, while different organizations took the opportunity to reach out to their communities.
The Moon Festival tradition brings people together
“The Moon Festival has always been about unity and celebration,” said Eddie Ni, CEO of Windfall Group. “The tradition brings us together and closer.”
From behind the scenes to the floor of Chicago’s United Center, volunteers, delegates and elected officials representing Naperville and DuPage County made the rounds on the first day of the Democratic National Convention.
They basked in the fervor, helped the hubbub run and exuded local pride.
Oh, and there was some wonder, too. At the experience itself and the company they found themselves in.
Creating an inclusive financial system will require effective ways to verify people’s identities and prevent fraud. A recent event from the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program (Aspen FSP) discussed the role of digital identity in the financial system and the state of identity in the United States. Special attention was given to mobile driving licenses (mDLs) which have been spreading across the U.S.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is leading a push for USDA to boost the percentage of conservation funds sent to Illinois to match the state’s status as a top farming state.
In a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, Durbin, D-Springfield, and a dozen others from Illinois’ congressional delegation, said the state receives a “disproportionate” share of funds from USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for critical farm conservation initiatives.
In response to the address Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered to Congress Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Bill Foster denounced the leader’s actions in Israel’s war in Gaza as “incompetent, self-destructive and anti-democratic.”
The Naperville Democrat attended the speech — which prompted boycotts by many top Democratic lawmakers and drew thousands to the U.S. Capitol to protest Israel’s war with Hamas — out of respect “for the country of Israel and its people at a particularly challenging moment,” he said in a statement following the address.
A major government-backed quantum research project in Illinois will test the limits of quantum computing — and also how much America is willing to invest in a still very experimental technology.
The city of Batavia is looking to expand its stretch of the Fox River Bike Trail, with the $8 million project being recommended last month for some federal funding.
The project plans to connect two sections of trail on the river’s west side that were disconnected during the city’s $136 million upgrade of its wastewater treatment facility, according to Batavia City Administrator Laura Newman.
The diversion of funds from the Transportation Security Administration is harming its adoption of advanced security screening technologies, including facial biometrics, several House lawmakers told Nextgov/FCW.
Following the September 11th terrorist attacks, Congress created the TSA and authorized the agency to charge travelers a tax — commonly known as the 9/11 security fee — to help fund its operations.
Bipartisan legislation that would study the Transportation Security Administration's use of digital identification systems is headed to the House floor after making it through a key committee last week.
During a House Homeland Security Committee markup on June 12, the panel’s members favorably advanced legislation introduced by Reps. Clay Higgins, R-La., and Bill Foster, D-Ill., that would require TSA to compile a report on how its acceptance of digital IDs impacts U.S. homeland security.