Washington — A bipartisan bill that would mandate a federal compliance report on an existing law that requires new multiline phone systems to allow direct 911 calls is advancing in the House.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee approved the Kari’s Law Reporting Act (H.R. 5201) without amendment during a Jan. 15 markup, advancing it to the full committee.
LakeComm officials say a “hardware malfunction” is to blame for an hour-long 911 phone outage Thursday afternoon at Lake County’s newest and largest dispatch center that also likely caused Waukegan’s 911 Center to have an outage.
The Lake Consolidated Emergency Communications Center (LakeComm), located inside the Regional Operations and Communications Facility in Libertyville, began experiencing a 911 outage at around 3:40 p.m. on Thursday.
OSSIPEE — Between September and November 2025, more than 70 emergency dispatchers from across New Hampshire participated in a new statewide initiative to strengthen mental health response skills for 911 personnel. The full-day, in-person trainings were offered in Moultonborough (Sept. 24), Concord (Oct. 22), and Derry (Nov. 5), and were led by Forge Health’s Veterans & First Responders Program.
Callers to Akron Police Department’s non-emergency line might already have interacted with the department’s newest piece of technology — an AI-powered virtual assistant named Ava.
Ava’s job is to route callers to the right division — the traffic unit or the detective bureau, for example — and collect important information for dispatchers to relay to officers. But Ava isn’t alone. It’s reinforced by trained dispatchers reviewing the information to ensure it’s complete and accurate.
SPOKANE, Wash. – Mayor Lisa Brown has appointed Stephen Williams as the new Director of Emergency Communications to lead the development of Spokane’s new emergency communications center, the Spokane United 911 Network (SUN).
