Cook County briefs

Town hall meeting

Cook County Sheriff's Police will conduct a town-hall meeting starting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 28, in the Maine East High School auditorium, 2601 Dempster St., Park Ridge. Sheriff Thomas Dart, other local government officials, business owners, and community groups will be present. The meeting will focus on gang activities in Maine Township, drug awareness, and business and residential security. For more information, call the sheriff's department Deputy Commander Tony Brzezniak at (847) 470-7458.

IMSA team tops in contest

A team of students from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora earned the highest ranking possible at the 11th annual High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling, which attracts teams from all over the world. The team - comprised of Jessica Durden of Lake Barrington, Bohao Liu of Schaumburg and Ilya Nepomnyashchiy and Justin Troyka, both of Carol Stream - was one of only four, out of 270 teams competing, that earned the ranking of "national outstanding." A second IMSA team received the "regional outstanding" commendation. The contest gives participating teams 36 hours to solve a mathematical modeling problem. IMSA's top-ranked team had to build a mathematical model to help understand the national debt and make forecasts based on different taxing and spending scenarios.