April 5, 2019 Houston sends layoff notices to fire department cadets to fund voter-mandated firefighter pay hikes Houston will layoff 68 fire department cadets in an effort to implement a voter-approved measure to fund pay raises for firefighters to put them on par with the city’s police force.
March 9, 2019 Houston mayor calls for 400 firefighter layoffs so city can afford voter-mandated pay hikes for the rest Houston officials are planning to lay off 400 firefighters to fund a voter-approved measure to award pay raises to the city fire department.
March 21, 2018 8 air travel perks that have all but disappeared Try not to become misty-eyed at the bygone era of in-flight amenities.
March 20, 2018 McDonald's 10 most spectacular menu flops The McDonald’s that we know and love, identified by those iconic Golden Arches, had humble beginnings. The restaurant first opened as McDonald’s Bar-B-Q Restaurant in San Bernardino, Calif., in 1940, serving a simple menu of hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries, and shakes. Over the next several years, founders Dick and Mac McDonald renovated the restaurant and highlighted their $0.15 hamburger. In 1954, Ray Croc visited the restaurant and talked the McDonald brothers into creating a national burger chain. The first franchised McDonald’s location opened in Des Plaines, Ill., in 1955 incorporating the very first Golden Arches, designed by architect Stanley Meston. Today, McDonald’s is the largest hamburger fast-food chain in the world, and serves more than 58 million customers daily. While McDonald’s continues to have a set staple menu throughout most of their locations, the chain is continuously trying to invent both local, national and international menu items to bolster its offerings. For instance, specialty menu items such as the Big Mac or Chicken McNuggets have been huge commercial successes across the board. But other items have been launched, and have subsequently vanished just as quickly. Items such as the Bacon Bacon McBacon, the Chicken Parmesan Sandwich, and the Home-Fried Chicken never quite caught on with American consumers. In local markets, McDonald’s has even rolled out items like the McLobster on the East Coast, poutine in Canada, and the McCrab in parts of Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia In order to assemble our list of the top 10 McDonald’s flops, we took into account the cost of the (unsuccessful) advertising campaign, the lack of commercial success of an item, as well as the duration of which the particular product or promotion existed. So the least successful of the lot were ones that not only came and went quickly, but wasted plenty of the company’s money as well. McDonald’s continues to roll out new products all the time; some will make it big, others will vanish off the menu without a trace.
June 8, 2017 Pennsylvania pols vote in favor of wide-sweeping pension reform The Pennsylvania State House has passed the country’s most significant pension reform to date.
January 12, 2017 Planes, trains and automobiles: Bureaucrats shouldn't try to force you to live the way I live "Tea party members don't think there's a federal role in transportation!" complained Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, last week, near the site of a $5.8 million highway project.
December 9, 2016 Dallas pension system suspends access to some cash amid run of withdrawals The Dallas Police and Fire Pension system voted Thursday to halt all withdrawals and payments from its deferred retirement program, as a series of mass withdrawals has drained more than $500 million from the fund since August.
May 3, 2016 Workplace chaplain is good business for Illinois company Some businesses just have an angel keeping watch on their daily endeavors. FONA International, a flavoring specialist based near Chicago, is one of them.
May 2, 2016 Illinois Gov. Rauner strikes blow against public sector unions, ends forced dues Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner struck a first official blow on Monday against the public sector labor unions he has frequently criticized by ordering an end to a requirement that workers pay dues even if they decide not to join a union.
