About 70 skilled workers at Ashland Specialty Chemicals in Texas City ended a 42-day strike after ratifying a new three-year contract.

A raccoon broke into a closed Virginia liquor store and drank alcohol from the bottom shelves over the weekend.

Frank Galati, an actor, director, teacher and adapter who was a pivotal figure in Chicago’s theater community and a two-time Tony Award winner, has died.

For a decade ending last December, ArtPlace America sprinkled $150 million across the nation, backing a kaleidoscope of projects.

The U.S. Forest Service said Friday it’s operating in crisis mode, fully deploying firefighters and maxing out its support system as wildfires continue to break out across the U.S. West.

(KOBI/NBC News) – Investigators say an argument over loud music lead to a fatal shooting outside of an Ashland, Oregon hotel. Ashland Police Chief Tighe O’Meara says the death of victim Aidan Ellison could have easily been avoided. “It was utterly senseless, didn’t need to happen, people getting violent with each other for such stupid reasons,” O’Meara said. O’Meara says Ellison was shot once in the chest and was unable to be saved by paramedics. “Keegan not only obviously murdered the victim, he also recklessly endangered the hotel clerk by discharging the gun near the hotel clerk,” O’Meara explained.

The fatal shooting of Ellison, a young Black man, by Robert Keegan, a white man who complained that Ellison was playing loud music, has roiled Ashland. Keegan, 47, is from the nearby small town of Talent, which was heavily damaged in a wildfire in September. “It’s not a coincidence that a white man, according to police, chose to take the life of a young Black man for the offense of playing his music. Sprinkled with cafes and trendy restaurants, Ashland is considered a hip town in a conservative part of Oregon. Only 1.4% of Ashland residents are Black, and 92.5% are white, according to the census.