Gas Prices Jump to New High

CHICAGO – Summer vacations are just around the corner, and once again soaring gasoline prices are driving some motorists around the bend.

U.S. pump prices have hit record highs, topping the $2-a-gallon mark again in Chicago and California and spurring talk of a possible $3 a gallon sometime after the peak driving season begins on Memorial Day.

Adam Sieminski, an analyst for Deutsche Banc Alex Brown, says that would happen ``only if something goes seriously wrong'' with supplies. But even where prices are now, consumers are having unhappy flashbacks to last year when prices also climbed more than $2 a gallon.