Lake County Record-Bee

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By Aisha Sultan Last week felt so hot that I started blaming my biology. “Am I having a hot flash?” I asked a friend. “No,” she said and reminded me of the sticky, humid heat wave moving through the Midwest. Everyone feels like they’re having hot flashes walking outside into a preheated oven. That’s not great for any of us, but it’s especially bad for some of us. Let me explain. First of all, it’s well-documented that Earth is heating up.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... SACRAMENTO California Comment on Wednesday’s ruling in favor of Small Businesses The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s leading small business advocacy organization, yesterday released a statement in support of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s final rule protecting over 32 million U.S. small businesses from registering their Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By BRIAN MELLEY and KWIYEON HA CLACTON-ON-SEA, England (AP) — Nigel Farage regained his seat in Parliament on Friday, beating a field of fringe candidates led by trash-can-wearing comic Count Binface in a special election boycotted by mainstream parties that called it a farce.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... When California Governor Gray Davis was the subject of a recall effort in 2003, he said in a televised speech at UCLA that he thought the recall would damage “the very fabric of our democracy.” It’s obviously no fun to be on the receiving end of a recall petition, but far from damaging democracy, the power to recall elected officials before their terms have expired is one of the direct democracy powers that California voters have had since 1911.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By ELAINE KURTENBACH and MICHELLE CHAPMAN, AP Business Writers U.S. futures are mixed as Wall Street looks to advance for the week as new retail sales data is released. The future for the S&P 500 edged 0.1% higher Friday while Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%. Nasdaq futures rose 0.1%. The U.S. stock market hit all-time highs Thursday on new data that showed inflation cooled in July, as well as a decline in oil prices.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Americans unexpectedly cut their spending in July as a boost from government tax refunds faded. Retail sales slipped 0.6% last month, the biggest drop since May 2025, from a revised gain of 0.2% in June, according to Commerce Department data released Friday. There was a notable bump in spending in both April and May as Americans dipped into their tax refunds. That affect may have faded last month.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... An New York Police Department officer was convicted by a Bronx jury Thursday of using an illegal chokehold on a suspect, the first time an officer has been tried since a local law prohibiting the tactic was enacted in the wake of murder of George Floyd. The crime, unlawful method of restraint, is a misdemeanor but Officer Omar Habib was also convicted of strangulation, a felony, resulting in his automatic dismissal from the NYPD.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By Eli Kronenberg for The Dispatch There’s no way around it: America is getting older. The country’s median age climbed to a record-high 39.4 in 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau population estimates, up from 35.6 in 2001. Almost one-third of Americans are over the age of 55, compared with roughly a quarter of the population in 2010.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By Anna Claire Vollers, Stateline.org When Rob Stone finished high school in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2018, he was asked to identify three goals for his life. Stone loves art and baseball. He’s cheerful, sports a cheeky mustache, and he’s always up for an adventure. Stone has a rare genetic movement disorder, dystonia-parkinsonism, that limits his mobility and speech.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By MICHAEL R. SISAK, LARRY NEUMEISTER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione is scheduled to be in federal court Friday for a hearing at which he’s expected to plead guilty in connection with the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, according to a person familiar with the matter.