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Wal-Mart stores Inc issued an "urgent agenda" memo to its store managers across the United States last month, laying out guidelines to boost sales of "chilled and fresh" food, the New York Times reported. The memo, marked "highly sensitive", asks Wal-Mart marketing managers to make sure they discount aging meat and baked goods to maximize chances of selling them before their expiration dates, according to the report. Wal-Mart, which has posted six straight quarters of flat or declining same-store sales growth, has been battling a stronger dollar and a reduction in U.S. food stamp benefits, which has eaten into...

Dallas police arrested Diamond Lawrence Thursday after she allegedly stole $11 worth of frozen food from a Walmart and then attacked the employee who stopped her. She scratched him in an attempt to draw blood and infect him with HIV, police said. Then told him, 'You're welcome.'A woman tried to swipe a stack of frozen dinners from a Texas Walmart by threatening a store clerk with HIV, police said. Dallas police arrested 25-year-old Diamond Lawrence Thursday after she allegedly attacked an employee in a bid to give him the virus and make off with $11 worth of stolen food. Lawrence...

One of the chief benefits of living in a capitalist society is seeing those greedy corporations actually compete for your business.  Every so often, we get to enjoy a true cataclysmic battle between titans of commerce, and the one that’s shaping up between Apple and Walmart is a doozy that could put money in your pocket. In Apple’s corner, we have the Visa and MasterCard associations, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Barclays, and soon a host of other card issuers.  In Walmart’s corner, there’s a line-up of heavy-hitter retailers, like CVS, Rite-Aid, Best Buy, Circle K, Lowe’s,...

BENTONVILLE, Ark., Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Big-box superstore Walmart has publicly apologized for listing plus-sized women's Halloween costumes as "Fat Girl Costumes" on its official website, calling the decision to do so "unacceptable." The offensive listing was discovered and reported on by Gawker imprint Jezebel just prior to 10 a.m., about 90 minutes before Walmart began to change their web-copy.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. pushed down prices for some generic prescription drugs to just $4 eight years ago, setting a new industry standard. Now it is trying to do the same for seeing a doctor. On Friday, a Walmart Care Clinic opened in Dalton, Ga., six months after Walmart U.S., the retailer’s WMT, +0.38% biggest unit, entered the business of providing primary health care. It now operates a dozen clinics in rural Texas, South Carolina and Georgia and has increased its target for openings this year to 17. An office visit costs $40, which Walmart U.S. says...

When protesters first swarmed the streets of Ferguson, Mo., earlier this summer, they blamed the death of African-American teenager Michael Brown on racist police brutality and decried law enforcement’s response as evidence of the militarization of police in their community. After another black teenager was shot to death in an altercation with a police officer in the metropolitan St. Louis area earlier this month, protesters again took to the streets.

* Two Walmart stores have locked away bullets as violent clashes escalate. * First time bosses have done this since pulling guns after Sandy Hook. * Protests in Ferguson over Michael Brown's shooting show no sign of ending. * 43 people were arrested in and around the Walmart stores on Monday. * Renewed outrage expected today over leaked report of the officer's account. Ammunition has been pulled from the shelves of two Walmarts in Ferguson amid violent clashes over the police shooting of Michael Brown. Employees were ordered to lock all bullets in a store cupboard on Monday after demonstrators...

Wal-Mart Stores plans to say goodbye to the minimum wage. The huge retailer’s chief executive, Doug McMillon, said Wednesday that the company plans to end minimum-wage pay for its workers in the future. “It is our intention over time that we will be in a situation where we don’t pay minimum wage at all,” he said. That plan would put Wal-Mart in a league with Costco Wholesale and Gap Inc. among employers committing to pay workers more than the minimum wage. President Barack Obama has publicly saluted Costco, Gap and several small businesses for voluntarily raising starting pay. The federal...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. cut its revenue outlook for its current fiscal year as it announced it is scaling back its expansion plans for its supercenters next year and stepping up investments in its online operations. The world’s largest retailer, blaming an overall tough economy, now expects annual sales to be up 2 to 3 percent for its fiscal year ending in January. That is down from its earlier guidance of sales growth at the low end of a 3 to 5 percent range. Wal-Mart’s diminished outlook increases concern about prospects for the critical holiday shopping season that kicks off late...

Protesters in Ferguson and surrounding area have stormed local Walmart, forcing them to shut down or bring in police. In Maplewood, Missouri, west of St. Louis., protesters stormed a Walmart, forcing police to be called: Protesters were also screaming "shut it down" in front of the same Walmart. For some reason, even though Walmart had literally nothing to do with the shooting death of Michael Brown, protesters see it as a capitalistic embodiment of a racist system of oppression. ...A number of protesters at the Maplewood Walmart were arrested. At a Ferguson Walmart, the store was forced to shut down...

As the 800-pound gorilla of retailers, Wal-Mart made national headlines when it announced on Tuesday that it was cutting the health benefits for its 30,000 employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week. A company blog post put the move down to rising healthcare costs, but the 30-hour cut-off gives a clue as to the real cause - President Barack Obama's healthcare reform. Under the Affordable Care Act, large companies are required, starting this January, to provide subsidised healthcare for every employee who works 30-hours a week or more. As the Atlantic's David A Graham notes, many of the...

Walmart announced today that as of the beginning of next year it will be dropping health insurance for 30,000 employees who work less than 30 hours per week. So why is this a good thing? It may involve some hassle for individual employees, as they’ll have to go to the exchange to figure out what plan to get. But most of those Walmart workers will likely come out ahead. Someone who’s earning $9 an hour working 30 hours a week at a Walmart would be making $13,500 a year. Depending on what their spouse makes and what state they’re in,...

Senior Obama administration officials knew about a White House aide's link to the Secret Service prostitution scandal and covered it up, according to a bombshell report that surfaced Wednesday night. Friends of Barack: Jonathan Dach (right) posed with then-Senator Barack Obama during a campaign staff 'family night' event in Springfield, Missouri on November 1, 2008. Also seen are Dach's father Leslie (2nd left), then a Wal-Mart lobbying executive, and his mother Mary Dickie (left) Jonathan Dach, the staffer implicated by the Washington Post, was never disciplined after an investigation found he had a prostitute in his hotel room during a...

Wal-Mart says it's cutting health benefits to part-timers and boosting worker premiums. If a retail empire built on low prices can't find a way around ObamaCare's added costs, we are all doomed.

Everyday Low Benefits Wal-Mart dumps 30,000 part-timers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. Oct. 7, 2014 7:25 p.m. ET Wal-Mart endorsed ObamaCare in 2009 and helped drag the bill through Congress, and so far it hasn’t recanted. By holding back economic growth and incomes, perhaps the law is expanding the retailer’s customer base. Another plus—at least for management—is that Wal-Mart can jettison its employees into the ObamaCare insurance exchanges. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the largest U.S. private employer is dropping health benefits for some 30,000 workers, or about 5% of its part-time workforce. Earlier health-plan eligibility triage in 2011 had...

The next wave of ObamaCare insurance cancellations is under way, flying largely under the national media radar… until Wal-Mart announced it would be dropping coverage for all its part-time employees.

Wal-Mart, the country's largest retailer, is eliminating health benefits for about 30,000 employees to control its rising healthcare costs. The cut applies to part-timers who work fewer than 30 hours a week, Wal-Mart said Tuesday. It impacts 2% of the company's U.S. workforce. More of Wal-Mart's employees signed up for health benefits this year than the company expected, which boosted the company's costs.. Obamacare requires everyone to have coverage, which has prompted people to compare plans available to them at work with plans offered on government exchanges. The cheapest and most popular Wal-Mart plan currently costs employees as little as...

Under the title (only-a-PR-person-could-make-up) "Providing Quality Benefits for Our Associates," Walmart - who employs 1.3 million people in America, has changed its eligibility standards for healthcare benefits. "Like every company," they explain "Walmart faces rising healthcare costs," and so are ending benefits for associates who work less than 30 hours a week. Full Walmart statement In the U.S., the 1.3 million people who work at our stores, clubs and distribution centers are vital to a great experience for the 140 million customers shopping with us each week. We’re in business because our associates bring us their unique skills and talents...

Walmart doesn’t settle for second place: The nation’s #1 retailer just said it wants to be the #1 health care provider in the retail industry, too. The company’s statement came on Monday, alongside an announcement about Walmart’s new health insurance initiative. Under Walmart’s new partnership with DirectHealth.com, about half of 4,300 Walmart’s stores will feature DirectHealth.com licensed agents, who will help consumers shop for health insurance and navigate Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges. The program, known as Healthcare Begins Here, begins on Friday Oct. 10 and will run for two months. Not coincidentally, the Medicare open enrollment period begins next week,...

Wal-Mart is taking one-stop shopping to another area: health insurance. The world’s largest retailer plans to work with DirectHealth.com, an online health insurance comparison site and agency, to allow shoppers to compare coverage options and enroll in Medicare plans or the public exchange plans created under the Affordable Care Act. The strategy is another step into insurance marketing as the retailer tries to use its mammoth size to expand beyond food and other basics at a time of sluggish traffic and sales. It also could help Wal-Mart compete with drugstore chains such as Walgreen and CVS, which are rapidly adding...