Students who are car riders headed to school at Alan Shepard in Bourbonnais this coming year will be leaving with style on a daily basis with the addition of a brand new canopy! Students can now wait outside and be protected from the elements at the school.

Governor JB Pritzker has signed into law an amendment to the Illinois Equal Pay Act that bans employers and employment agencies from asking about applicants’ past wage and compensation histories or using such information to screen candidates for a job. The new law takes effect on September 29, 2019.

Gordon L. Lambert, 85, of Watseka passed away on Saturday, August 10, 2019. Visitation is 1:00 PM until the memorial service at 3:00 PM, Tuesday, August 20, 2019, at Knapp Funeral Home in Watseka.

In June the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) set aside a plot on the Illinois State Fairgrounds to educate fairgoers on hemp. Eight CBD plants and 100 Industrial Hemp plants were planted next to the U of I Master Gardner’s located on 8th Street, behind the Swine Barn.

House Bill 3435, signed last Friday by Governor Pritzker, requires insurance companies to cover epinephrine injectors, most commonly prescribed as EpiPens, for children with severe allergies. The cost of an EpiPen has skyrocketed over the last decade, rising by more than 400% for the two-pen injector pack.

Mayor Chasity Wells-Armstrong was one of many mayors and local leaders throughout the nation to attend the Mayors Innovation Project Annual Summer Meeting earlier this month. The Mayors Innovation Project is a non-profit, non-partisan learning network specifically created for mayors committed to equity, environmental sustainability and transparent democracy. The Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) is a progressive policy institute housed on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was founded in 1991 by UW Professor Joel Rogers. The organization says that its core values are democracy, sustainability and equality.