Tagged: illinois

Officials with the Jackson County, Ill., Coroner's Office, say two Hopkinsville, Ky., boys drowned in a swimming pool at a friend’s Carbondale home over the weekend.  Sheriff’s deputies went to the home Saturday evening where they found 12-year-old Alick Monson and 14-year-old Lewis Monson unresponsive.  An adult had pulled the boys from the bottom of the pool.  Paramedics took the brothers to a nearby hospital, where a doctor pronounced them dead. Jackson County Sheriff’s deputies say they view the case as an accidental drowning.

Prisoners at the Tamms Correctional Center in southern Illinois will remain at the facility until Corrections Department union employees have a say in the closure process. Governor Pat Quinn ordered Tamms and other prisons closed in June to save the state money. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has asked for transfers to stop while state and union officials discuss safety measures for the closings. AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall says the two sides will meet an arbitrator Tuesday.

Legislation requiring all Illinois college dorms to have sprinklers installed within two years is one of four new fire safety bills Governor Pat Quinn signed into law yesterday.  The bill beefs up past legislation by instituting tougher penalties for post-secondary schools that don't comply, including a $1,000-a-day fine if sprinklers aren't installed by September 1, 2014.  Quinn also signed legislation encouraging fire protection districts to buy equipment built in the state.

Illinois officials are encouraging school administrators and teachers across the state to talk to students about tornado safety when they return to classes this fall. To help get the message across, the state Emergency Management Agency has just released a video on tornado preparedness and is asking school administrators and others to watch it.  The agency says the video outlines steps such as identifying shelter space within school buildings and plans they can make to move students to shelter if there is a threat of a tornado.

It’s now illegal for Illinois employers to ask job-seekers to hand over passwords to their social networking accounts. Governor Pat Quinn signed the measure into law Wednesday during an event at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In their efforts to vet job applicants, some companies and government agencies ask to log in to a prospective employee's accounts on sites like Facebook and Twitter. The Illinois law does allow bosses to view public information not restricted by privacy settings on a site. Several other states are considering similar bans. Two U.S. senators have asked the U.S.