2011 Apr 24 - Headline News

CHICAGO (CBS) - The price for a gallon of gasoline in Chicago is now the highest in the nation.

According to the Lundberg survey, the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline in Chicago now stands at $4.27-a 12 cent increase in the past two weeks. And that’s just the average. Several stations in Chicago were selling gasoline for between $4.60 and $4.70 a gallon, according to chicagogasprices.com.

“I just put in whatever I think [to get] through the week,” Gloria Selgado of Chicago told CBS 2′s Dana Kozlov. “That’s it.”

For Selgado, that rings up to about $130 every seven days-forcing her to consider cutting back on her driving.

“You think about it twice now,” she said.

Across the border in Northwest Indiana, where prices are historically 25 to 30 cents a gallon cheaper, it’s nearly impossible to find a gallon below $4. Higher state and county taxes in Illinois account for the cost difference over the border.

The national average now stands at $3.88-with no signs of a reversal anytime soon.

The highest prices are normally seen in California. In San Francisco, which has held the most expensive title in the past, the average is $4.22.

That makes $5 a gallon in Chicago a very real possibility. And some experts say, if conditions are right, drivers could be paying $6 before the year is out.

Commodities analyst Richard Hastings says don’t look for any relief soon.

“This year, you get more than $4 a gallon … all the way through until September,” he says.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/04/24/gasoline-prices-in-chicago-are-highest-in-nation/

Read more: Could a three-inch lizard collapse the West Texas oil industry? -

Mywesttexas.com: Oil
http://www.mywesttexas.com/business/oil/article_e7f32d45-fab8-5025-afa9-26a00d768910.html#ixzz1Kv2CKSd2

Don't Like a Weak Dollar? Might as Well Get Used to It

Weakness in the US dollar, which is causing everything to go up-including gas prices, food and stocks-is unlikely to go away soon as a selling frenzy hits the currency market.

The greenback is approaching pre-financial crisis lows and threatening to smash through its all-time low when measured against the world's predominant national currencies.

A combination of factors accounts for the weakness, with the Federal Reserve's easy-money policies, huge national debts and deficits and the consequential possibility of a debt downgrade because of the financial mess in Washington leading the way.

In short, as trader Dennis Gartman noted Thursday, "the rout of the US dollar" is in full effect.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42703813

This Day in History:

Apr 24, 1800:
Library of Congress established

President John Adams approves legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress," thus establishing the Library of Congress. The first books, ordered from London, arrived in 1801 and were stored in the U.S. Capitol, the library's first home. The first library catalog, dated April 1802, listed 964 volumes and nine maps. Twelve years later, the British army invaded the city of Washington and burned the Capitol, including the then 3,000-volume Library of Congress.

Former president Thomas Jefferson, who advocated the expansion of the library during his two terms in office, responded to the loss by selling his personal library, the largest and finest in the country, to Congress to "recommence" the library. The purchase of Jefferson's 6,487 volumes was approved in the next year, and a professional librarian, George Watterston, was hired to replace the House clerks in the administration of the library. In 1851, a second major fire at the library destroyed about two-thirds of its 55,000 volumes, including two-thirds of the Thomas Jefferson library. Congress responded quickly and generously to the disaster, and within a few years a majority of the lost books were replaced.

After the Civil War, the collection was greatly expanded, and by the 20th century the Library of Congress had become the de facto national library of the United States and one of the largest in the world. Today, the collection, housed in three enormous buildings in Washington, contains more than 17 million books, as well as millions of maps, manuscripts, photographs, films, audio and video recordings, prints, and drawings.