Author: Voxtrend News
WASHINGTON — Inflation rose last month as the price of gas, groceries and airfares jumped while new data showed applications for unemployment aid soared, putting the Federal Reserve in an increasingly tough spot as it prepares to cut rates at its meeting next week despite persistent price pressures. Consumer prices increased 2.9% in August from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Thursday, up from 2.7% the previous month and the biggest jump since January. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 3.1%, the same as in July. Both figures are above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.…
Fall is in the air. Chicago evenings have a crisp breeze. But something has been bugging Annie Andrews. Specifically, bees and wasps and a whole lot of sneezing. “It’s gotten to a point, like, I couldn’t stop sneezing during a shift,” said the 28-year-old restaurant server. Earlier this week, she thought, “I need to take an allergy pill again.” When she waits tables outside, the insects swarm patrons, who desperately ask her to be moved elsewhere, anywhere the bees and the wasps aren’t. Chicagoans from all over can likely relate. Pollen has concentrated in the city over the past three…
Gov. JB Pritzker called for transparency after a federal immigration agent fatally shot a man in northwest suburban Franklin Park after the agency reported the man tried to flee a traffic stop and struck the officer with his vehicle. The man who was killed was identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, 38. DHS said in a written statement that Villegas-Gonzalez is a citizen of Mexico and was in the U.S. illegally, though further details were not provided. Pritzker on Friday afternoon said in a social media post he was “aware of the troubling incident that has…
NEW YORK — The Republican governor of Tennessee said Friday he was working with the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops to Memphis as part of a new crime-fighting mission, hours after the president said the city was the latest target for his unprecedented military deployments. Gov. Bill Lee said the plan will bring in the National Guard alongside the FBI, state troopers and local police, building on an FBI task force. Lee said he planned to speak with the president on Friday to work out details of the mission. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story…
On a quiet street in Wilmette, native plants bloom in broad sweeps and bright bursts, bringing color and life to what was once an ordinary strip of lawn separating the sidewalk from the curb. The violet blossoms of blue vervain hover above clusters of frosty-white mountain mint, golden lanceleaf coreopsis, orange butterfly weed and pink poppy mallow. Monarch butterflies visit the buffet of pollen and nectar, as do wasps, bees, bugs and moths. Humans pause as well, with a passing bicyclist turning her head to look and a man in an orange Kia pulling to a full stop. “Awesome!” the…
Taste of Chicago will return to its long-held July slot in Grant Park next summer, the city’s cultural commissioner told aldermen this week. The free, city-run food and music festival had been bounced from the spot by NASCAR three years ago. But with the race not taking place in 2026, the once-iconic public pig-out is returning to its marquee mid-summer perch, said Clinee Hedspeth, commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. “I think overwhelmingly, the citizens want it back in July, and so we’re excited to do that in 2026,” Hedspeth told aldermen during mid-year budget hearings…
Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications warned of heightened traffic downtown this weekend as the city prepares to celebrate Mexican Independence Day. The city said multiple events and parades will begin Friday and continue through Tuesday, including Mexican Independence Day parades in the Little Village neighborhood and on Commercial Avenue on Sunday. Other large events include the Lakeview East Festival of the Arts on Saturday and Sunday, and Lady Gaga concerts at the United Center next week. As the threat of an immigration crackdown has escalated under President Donald Trump’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” the fate of the city’s large…
Ashley Camp and her fiancé, Cody Wallenius, have an anniversary tradition of going to the gravesites of famous tattoo artists to get rubbings. Tuesday, the couple, who own Easy Tiger Tattoo in Merrillville, ventured to Watseka, Illinois, as they did a few years ago, to visit the gravesite of Roy “Roy Boy” Cooper, the legendary tiger-owning owner of The Badlands at 3844 Broadway in Gary. “We knew where it was,” Camp said of Cooper’s headstone, which features a tiger and the quote, “3 can keep a secret if 2 are dead.” “We walked right over to it and we’re walking…
Washington — More than 300 lawsuits challenging many of President Trump’s second-term plans and his administration’s actions have been winding through the federal courts over the past few months. But a handful now may be poised for review by the Supreme Court, or are getting close to it. The cases involve major policies enacted by Mr. Trump in the months since he returned to the White House, and several of them have already been before the high court, though during earlier stages in the proceedings. In those instances, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to grant it emergency relief,…
This weekend, athletes will take to the Cooper River for the 42nd annual Bayada Regatta, the nation’s longest-running adaptive rowing competition. 2025 will mark the first time the race — billed as one of the largest adaptive rowing events in the world — will be held on the Cooper River after decades on the Schuylkill. Adaptive rowing, also called para rowing, is a form of the sport available to athletes with a range of physical and intellectual disabilities. As she practiced on the Schuylkill, Alexis Atwood powers her boat forward using only her arms and shoulders. “I feel like a…