Travel Services

The weekend box office estimates are in, and it appears that The American took the top spot. The George Clooney spy thriller earned close to $13 million and grossed $16 million in its five-day weekend. Last week’s number one movie, Takers , dropped to number two, grossing an additional $11.5 million. Even though critics universally panned the film, it has made $40 million since its August 28 release. Fox’s new release, Machete , nabbed the number three spot with ..read more

President Obama has for months said that rebuilding the economy and creating jobs is his “most urgent task.” And today, despite sagging public confidence in his abilities, he will launch a week of events to again make the case that he means business. n Obama will travel to Milwaukee, where he will begin to explain a “broader package of ideas” to stimulate the economy, including new tax breaks for small businesses, extending a research and development tax credit, and ..read more

Labor Day is the perfect day to explain to kids complaining about going back to school just how much worse things could be for them. In fact, they once were: Kids were forced into back-breaking jobs day and night in mines, textiles, glass factories, canneries and other places where children don’t belong. Labor activists eventually ended child labor — and won better working conditions for adult workers, including the eight-hour work day. Today, though, few schools teach in depth ..read more

Today is Labor Day, the holiday saluting U.S. workers. The following services will be affected: • City, state and federal offices and courts will be closed. No mail will be delivered. • All Chicago libraries will be closed, and there will be no garbage pickup. • City and suburban schools, public and private, will be closed. • Banks and financial markets are closed. • The CTA and Metra will be on Sunday/holiday schedules. • Today is the final day that lifeguards will patrol Chicago’s public ..read more

It’s been more than a century since President Grover Cleveland signed the law that made the first Monday in September a federal holiday for working stiffs, but this Labor Day finds Americans in an economic squeeze that leaves little to celebrate. About 15 million Americans are out of work. Jobs are so scarce that 42 percent of the unemployed have been jobless for more than six months. Even the fortunate 90 percent of Americans who still head to the ..read more

What’s changed since the first local Labor Day parade, in New York in 1882, is the very nature of labor. Go searching for Labor Day history — on the Department of Labor Web site, for instance — and you invariably come across a quotation from one of the founders of the American Federation of Labor, Peter McGuire. Labor Day, he said, was meant to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.” ..read more

NEW YORK — American shoppers, taking advantage of deep discounts and tax-free holidays, opened up their wallets a little more for back-to-school spending compared with last year, giving some retailers better-than expected gains for August. The results provided a sliver of hope for the recovery amid an unrelenting batch of bad news, from slumping home prices and high unemployment, that have pointed to a stalling economy and set up dire expectations for the back-to-school shopping season. Still, the retailers’ ..read more

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO (AP) – 3 days ago NEW YORK — American shoppers, taking advantage of deep discounts and tax-free holidays, opened up their wallets a little more for back-to-school spending compared with last year, giving some retailers better-than expected gains for August. The results provided a sliver of hope for the recovery amid an unrelenting batch of bad news, from slumping home prices and high unemployment, that have pointed to a stalling economy and set up dire expectations ..read more

After days of rumors, we now know what Apple had up its sleeve for its event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco. Steve Jobs was on hand unveiling the new Apple TV , iTunes 10 with social networking, iOS 4.1, a sneek peak at iOS 4.2 and new iPod Shuffles, Nanos, and Touches. Calling it a “hobby” due to its lack of success, Jobs showed the new version of Apple TV , a ..read more

As kids across the country prepare to go back to school from next week, we speak to five celebrities about the most memorable moments from their school days… I felt like Olivia Newton-John Presenter Gail Porter , 39, spent her last year at Portobello High School in Edinburgh strutting the corridors as Grease vixen Sandra Dee. “In my final year of secondary school a group of us teamed up with our music teachers, Mr Leslie and Miss McRoberts, and ..read more