free annual book reuse and recycling event June 2-4

The Will County Land Use Department’s Resource Recovery and Energy (RRE) Division will host its annual three-day book reuse and recycling event from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., June 2-4, at Joliet Park District’s Pilcher Park Nature Center, 2501 Highland Park Drive.

“Our goal for this event is twofold: to promote literacy and improve the environment through recycling,” said Dave Hartke, Director of the RRE Division of Will County’s Land Use Department. “This is a popular annual event, and I’m grateful for Joliet Park District for hosting it again.”

Schools, libraries, and individuals may bring unused and unwanted books for reuse and recycling. Hardcover and paperback books will be accepted and shared for free to attendees. Categories include fiction, non-fiction, children’s, romance, hobby, travel, health and living, religion, textbooks, periodicals, and cookbooks.

The annual event prevents thousands of books from going unused or dumped into landfills. Books are redistributed at no charge to promote literacy in the community. Books that are not reused will be shipped for recycling at the end of the three-day event.

The event is sponsored by the Resource Recovery and Energy Di- vision of the Will County Land Use Department and is hosted by the Joliet Park District. allow a court to grant the victim temporary restraining orders and injunctions ordering the defendant to cease publication of the images in question.

For more information, residents can call event coordinator Tim Anderson at (815) 727-8834 or visit www.willcountygreen.com.

A previous version of the bill passed unanimously in the House in March. Because it was amended in the Senate, it now awaits further consideration in the House.

Sen. Mary Edly-Allen, D-Libertyville, sponsored the bill and said that the deepfake porn is part of a long history of gender-based harassment.

“This is a way to silence women,” Edly-Allen said of deepfakes.

Republicans voiced support for the bill and its previous versions in both chambers of the Statehouse.

“We have to ensure that people’s privacy rights are protected and this bill helps to do that,” Sen. Steve McClure, R-Springfield, said during debate.

Edly-Allen said in an interview that the bill is a first step in a broader conversation about the impact of evolving technologies like artificial intelligence. She said she hopes to work with others in the legislature to hold a hearing on the subject later this year.

“It can’t just be legislation,” Edly-Allen said in an interview. “We also need literacy in schools. How do you tell what’s true and not true?”

The ACLU of Illinois also opposed the deepfake porn bill. When the measure was introduced, it would have allowed the subjects of any digital forgery to sue the forgeries’ creators if they intended to cause harm, incite violence or acted with reckless disregard toward the subject. Amendments to the bill have since narrowed its scope to include only sexually explicit images and videos.

“The bill has been markedly improved since it was introduced, but we still have some concerns,” ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka told Capitol News Illinois. Yohnka said one potential free speech concern stems from the proposal’s provision allowing temporary restraining orders prior to adjudication.

• The Senate last week also passed House Bill 3563, which would create a task force to investigate natural language processing and generative artificial intelligence. These technologies have drawn significant attention in recent months thanks to services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.

The task force would be managed by the state’s Department of Innovation and Technology and would include representatives from the agency, the legislative caucuses, the state board of education, business associations, labor associations and the attorney general’s office, among others.

“It is a broad, broad task force because it is a broad, broad issue,” bill sponsor Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, said.

The bill now awaits concurrence in the House.