Blowing Up Hoverboards on Purpose
Northbrook, Ill. — The sign on the reinforced door read “Projectile Testing” and the crowd gathered in the corridor outside had been warned to expect a small explosion. But when the hoverboard battery blew up with an almighty BANG and a flash of yellow flame, Barbara Guthrie flinched all the same. “Huh!,” UL’s chief public safety officer said with a nervous laugh as she adjusted her safety glasses. “Would you say that’s something you...
McDonald’s Fights ‘Joint-Employer’ Label by NLRB
Chicago — McDonald’s tells its franchisees how to staff restaurants, when to clean the bathrooms and where partially completed orders should be placed on counters, an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board said Thursday. That operational nitty-gritty, along with the business consultants, scheduling systems and hiring software provided to franchisees shows the Chicago-area company calls the shots and is ultimately responsible...
A Hybrid With All the Essentials
The all-new 2017 Kia Niro could be described as a hybrid utility vehicle, which Kia prefers, or it could be classified as a subcompact crossover, which is the hottest new segment, or we could just call it a Subaru look-alike with Prius economy. Now that sounds pretty cool. Seriously. The Niro is one of 11 Eco Dynamics models that Kia has planned by 2020. The 2017 Kia Optima Hybrid and Kia Optima Plug-in Hybrid preceded the Niro on...
In Hot Rental Market, Appeal Of Attic Apartments Growing
Chicago — Nate King, 23, came to Chicago in search of an adventure. Timothy Englert, 25, wanted to pursue a career in improv. From the same small town in New Hampshire, the two moved out of their parents’ homes and stuffed their belongings into Englert’s Hyundai Sonata last spring hoping for new opportunities. The only problem was neither of them had jobs, and neither had a place to live. “A lot of the places fell through when they...
Good Old-Fashioned Hard Work
Chicago — Jimmy John Liautaud, the founder of the sandwich chain bearing his name, is a passionate salesman of a simple philosophy: Work hard. Push forward. Learn from mistakes. It’s a philosophy that has served him well since he took a $25,000 loan from his father in 1983 to open his first sandwich shop in the downstate Illinois city of Charleston after high school. He enrolled at Eastern Illinois University only to drop out before...
