Eric Stock

Cold and flu season is here just in time for the holidays, and four years after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic health officials are concerned about waving vaccination rates.

The Starbucks store at the Shoppes at College Hills in Normal has formally voted to unionize.

Labor leaders say contractors working on a renovation of the Uptown Normal hotel are violating prevailing wage and other laws for workers at the site.

No arrests have been made in either case. The coroner and Champaign County Sheriff's Office are investigating both incidents. Authorities have not indicated whether these shootings could be related.

The Unit 5 and District 87 School boards and several other districts in McLean County have voted to put a sales tax referendum on the ballot April 1. The proposed 1% sales tax would raise money for school facilities, school resource officers, and mental health programming.

A vast majority of school districts in McLean County have formally endorsed asking voters for a countywide sales tax to support schools.

U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen says he's frustrated it's taken lawmakers so long to come with a plan to fund the government into the new year, but the Quad Cities Democrat says there are several parts of the stop-gap budget bill he supports.

Bloomington-Normal has seen an increase in homegrown musical acts in recent years, yet the number of performance spaces in the community keeps dropping. A live music venue that opened to great fanfare in downtown Bloomington in 2018 will be live one last time this weekend.

Congress is approaching a deadline to pass a bill to fund the government before a possible shutdown this weekend.

Bloomberg News reports Rivian and the UAW have a confidential agreement for the company to take a neutral position on efforts to bring union representation to its plant in Normal.