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Skilling: Possible showers, thunderstorms this Lollapalooza weekend

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:24:30 GMT

Another beautiful summer day with 94% of the day's possible sunshine as well as moderate air quality and humidities. The high reached 86 at O'Hare and 85 at Midway.  Dew points were in the low and mid 60s—except closer to 70 in surrounding agricultural areas where crops were transpiring added moisture into the atmosphere.  The haze is a combination of some moisture in the air—but also a some wildfire smoke sweeping into the area from the Western U.S. and Canada where fires are burning.Every day this week has featured highs in the mid 80s with the exception of Tuesday with its high of 90.  The week (the 7day period ending midnight Sat night) will post a modest 1-deg surplus.Easterly winds as high as 20 mph produced 2 to 4 ft. waves on Lake Michigan and prompted a BEACH HAZARDS STATEMENT which continues into Saturday morning.The weekend is to see a number of rain-free hours (more Saturday than Sunday). But there are  several weather challenges which are to arise and will hav...

Insomnia Cookies giving away free cookies this weekend

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:24:30 GMT

(KTVI) — Free cookies just seem to taste better. Starting Friday, which is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, Insomnia Cookies is celebrating by giving some of them away. The chain is known for serving warm cookies and other treats all day and late into the night.Customers can get a free classic cookie with any in-store or local delivery purchase of $5 or more. This deal is good at all 240 locations nationwide through Sunday, August 6. RECALL: Baby monitors sold at Walmart, Toys ‘R’ Us pose fire risk National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day pays homage to a sweet treat that's beloved around the world. Observed on August 4, this day indulges our taste buds with the combination of soft, chewy dough and the rich sweetness of chocolate chips. Whether enjoyed with a glass of milk, shared among friends, or savored in solitary bliss, the chocolate chip cookie holds a special place in the hearts of dessert enthusiasts everywhere.

Imitation In-N-Out restaurant opens in Mexico

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:24:30 GMT

(KTLA) – A new fast food restaurant that recently opened in Mexico is making In-N-Out Burger fans do a double-double take.The Mexico-based restaurant, known as In-I-Nout, has 1950s-era artwork featuring roller skating waitresses, red trays, double-double burgers and even its own apparent "animal-style" topping option for fries, just like In-N-Out. In-N-Out Burger employees barred from wearing masks A video of the Sinaloa restaurant made its rounds on TikTok in early July and has garnered about 1 million views and more than 53,000 likes.The real In-N-Out Burger doesn’t seem too happy with the surprise pop-up restaurant, telling KTLA that they are unable to comment "due to ongoing litigation" — signaling that the restaurant is pursuing legal action against the copycat.In-N-Out Burger opened in 1948 as a tiny stand at Francisquito and Garvey avenues in Baldwin Park. Harry and Esther Snyder, the company’s founders, are credited with inventing the world’s first drive-thru with a two-wa...

Are your COVID-19 tests out of date?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:24:30 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicting a COVID-19 wave at the end of summer and the start of school in Texas, at-home tests will be many people's first point of detecting infection.The last government-provided tests arrived at homes in June. How long do they last? Wastewater data shows increase in COVID, Austin Public Health says Madison Taff, a pharmacy resident at Tarrytown Pharmacy, said that the date printed on a test's packaging may not be accurate."A lot of companies are extending the expiration date on the older test," Taff said. "They typically last anywhere from a year, to a year and a half."The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a webpage that catalogs at-home tests. Users can search for the maker of a test, then click the link "Extended Expiration Date" for a PDF with new dates.A Flowflex at-home COVID-19 test, with a pouch labeled as expired on February 2023. Its lot number (top right corner of the box) is COV 2020006,...

Raw water supplier issues drought warning, these Central Texas cities are affected

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:24:30 GMT

ROUND ROCK, Texas (KXAN) — The Brazos River Authority advised customers of a Stage 2 drought warning for communities that get water from Lake Stillhouse Hollow and Lake Georgetown. Water restrictions evident for Williamson County as lake levels decrease, says water supplier Friday, the BRA said the conservation measures are due to declining water availability from the two lakes. These Stage 2 restrictions will require customers to reduce all water use by 10%.The BRA said the cities of Harker Heights, Lampasas, Georgetown, and Round Rock are affected.As well as Central Texas, Bell County Water Control & Improvement District No.1, Kempner, Jarrell-Schwertner, High Gabriel and Salado Water Supply Corporations.The Brushy Creek Municipal Utility District and several agricultural irrigators are also impacted by the restrictions.BRA Water Resource Planner Peyton Lisenby said a lot more water would need to be lost to plunge the area into Stage 3 restrictions."There's plenty of water i...

Task force efficiently helps manage assets after recent fires in Williamson County

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:24:30 GMT

Editor's Note: The video above shows KXAN Live's top headlines for Aug. 4, 2023WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — The Williamson County Fire Chief’s Association said the Williamson County Wildfire Task Force Regional Procedure, established in March, was a way to streamline requests for additional resources at wildfires.“Mutual cooperation has always been a priority for Williamson County first responders, but never so much as during the summer wildfire season from August through October,” Williamson County said. RELATED: Fire near Georgetown burns estimated 60 acres According to a release, the procedure breaks the county into four quadrants, with the dividing lines being Interstate 35 and State Highway 29.“When a wildfire occurs in one quadrant that requires additional resources for the response, a task force from a different quadrant is activated to respond,” the county said.According to the release, a Task Force consisted of three Type-6 engines from paid fire departments, one Typ...

Sec. Buttigieg cuts ribbon on Houston port expansion

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:24:30 GMT

HOUSTON (Nexstar) -- U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg joined local leaders Friday to commemorate the addition of Wharf 6 to Port Houston."By making sure Port Houston is ready for the increased demand that we already know is coming, we're able to support the economic growth that matters not just to this region and the Gulf Coast, but really to the competitiveness of the entire United States economy," Sec. Buttigieg told Nexstar Friday.The Houston Ship Channel is one of the busiest waterways in the world and home to Port Houston, the busiest port by tonnage in the country. It is completing a new area for container deliveries, including a 1,000 foot long landing area outfitted with three massive cranes.The addition is thanks, in part, to a $22 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. It's a slice of the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021. The total cost of the Wharf 6 project is about $92 million."This is exactly the kind of proje...

Charges: Men were playing with guns before fatal shooting on St. Paul’s North End

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:24:30 GMT

The brother of 21-year-old Jonathan Andrew Wade, who died of a gunshot to his head Wednesday in St. Paul, told police that Wade and another man had been playing with guns and the shooting was an accident, according to a criminal complaint against the shooter.Ramsey County prosecutors on Friday charged Damound Jahema Franks, 22, of Maple Grove, with second-degree manslaughter, unlawful possession of a firearm and receiving stolen property in connection with the shooting at a house on the city’s North End.An autopsy showed that Wade, of St. Cloud, also had a through-and-through bullet wound to his right hand, “indicating that the fired shot went through his hand before entering his head,” the criminal complaint states.Franks was reportedly grazed in the head by a bullet and paramedics took him to Regions Hospital with a non-life threatening injury.His girlfriend, Andrea Marie Thomas, 20, of St. Paul, was charged Friday with two counts of felony aiding an offender for taking a bag with...

Minnesota man on the loose after escape from Dakota County deputies in Georgia

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:24:30 GMT

A Minnesota man with a lengthy criminal record is on the loose after he escaped deputies who were bringing him from a Georgia jail back to Minnesota on a felony warrant.On Thursday, two Dakota County deputies traveled to Bulloch County, Ga., to take custody of Joseph Harrison Baynes, 35, on a warrant for felony harassment, according to the Dakota County sheriff’s office.Joseph Harrison Baynes (Courtesy of the Bulloch County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office)The deputies took Baynes into their custody at 11:45 a.m. On the way to the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport, Baynes escaped, according to a press release by Dakota County sheriff Joe Leko.Local, state and federal authorities searched for Baynes in a “heavily wooded area on airport property” for several hours but did not find him. According to the press release, the deputies were not harmed and Baynes did not have a weapon.Baynes has a lengthy criminal history, according to Minnesota court records.He has fi...

Citing rent control, West Seventh Street tenant sues Housing Hub for 48 percent rent increase

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:24:30 GMT

Amy Farah and her adult daughter Breanna Knott have rented a ground-floor apartment in a duplex off St. Paul’s West Seventh Street since 2016, and they were taken aback when new owners last year raised their rent by almost 50 percent, far above the 3 percent limit set by the city’s new rent control policy.Farah, in a lawsuit filed this month against her landlord, said she has continued to pay the elevated rent on the Daly Street residence in order to stay current.Repeated attempts to convince her new property manager, Housing Hub, to lower the leasing costs — including letters from the city — have have gone nowhere, even as basic maintenance concerns are neglected and marked as “completed” despite workers allegedly never showing up, according to the lawsuit.Her lawsuit, dated Aug. 1 and running more than 100 pages with photos and legal exhibits, was filed against both St. Paul-based Housing Hub and property owner Lawrence Kasella, Jr. in Ramsey Co...