Free Republic

America is bracing for a mass exodus of retail stores across the nation this year, with more than 800 big box locations set to close from California to New York. Among the iconic names to announce they are downsizing includes Bed Bath & Beyond, Walmart, Gap and Party City. At least 803 stores are set to be shuttered over the rest of 2023, with many forced into desperate cost cutting measures amid rampant inflation and declining bottom lines.

A Florida Best Buy delivery driver has been found guilty of bludgeoning a 75-year-old customer to death with a rubber hammer and setting her on fire. Jorge Dupre Lachazo, 24, was convicted by a Palm Beach County circuit judge Wednesday of first-degree murder, burglary and arson following a three-day bench trial, according to court records. Lachazo faces mandatory life in prison when he’s sentenced on April 5. Lachazo and another man delivered a washer and dryer purchased from Best Buy to Evelyn Smith Udell’s Boca Raton home on Aug. 19, 2019, officials said. After installing the appliances, the other man...

Sam Bankman-Fried: I don’t know where $10 billion went. The Pentagon: We don’t know where $2.2 trillion went. The IRS: You just sent $601.37 don’t forget to report it.” The Biden administration is recruiting 87,000 IRS agents, allegedly to keep an eye on billionaires. .. aiming at the little fish of the gig economy instead. Taking payments for a side hustle via PayPal or Venmo? Not only is the IRS reminding you those payments are taxable income, it’s deputizing those payment companies to snitch on you. ... But wait — it gets worse. People get payments through these companies for...

International firm KTGY architecture + planning proposes re-habit, a plan to convert vacant, big box stores into smaller retail spaces and units to provide housing, employment, and support for homeless individuals. developed by the firm’s research + development studio, the project brings together two ongoing issues in the US, the homelessness crisis and the record number of closing big box stores, such as macy’s JC penney, and sears, repurposing those into self-supporting, mixed-use transitional housing. According to the US department of housing and urban development, the country’s homeless population has increased significantly between 2016 and 2017, counting 553,742 homeless individuals....

Walmart and other major retailers made headlines last week with a new requirement for customers to wear masks in its US stores. But the new rules only go so far. Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walgreens, CVS and others say they still won’t prohibit customers who refuse to wear a mask from shopping in stores. The issue, they say, is they want to avoid confrontations between angry customers and employees.

While state legislators pay lip service to local decision-making, they also claim a divine right to intervene in local conflicts by siding with one faction or the other, even when it means overturning ordinary governmental and legal processes. Sen. Juan Vargas, who made it back into the Legislature last year by the skin of his teeth, embraces that dubious, time-dishonored practice with measures that would intervene in two local development flaps. ... Meanwhile, another Vargas bill, SB 469, inserts the state into a long-running controversy in San Diego over development of "superstores" by Wal-Mart and other big retailers, taking the...

The state Senate barely passed today a labor-sponsored bill aimed at Wal-Mart and other large retailers by requiring cities and counties to review an economic impact report before deciding whether to approve superstore projects. The law would apply to retail projects greater than 90,000 square feet that devote significant space to selling groceries. Affected retailers such as Wal-Mart would have to pay for the city or a city contractor to do the report, which would have to give local officials insight into the expected revenues from the new store, the net impact on jobs in the area and the long-term...

A small group of West African men who came to the Rockies in search of economic opportunity are embroiled in a dispute with Wal-Mart, accusing it of a raft of discriminatory actions. Most say they were dismissed because supervisors wanted to give their jobs to local people in need of work.

(STNG) CHICAGO Chicago’s controversial big-box ordinance has produced its first casualty: Target has pulled out of a 32-acre shopping mall at 119th Street and Marshfield Avenue and will likely cut and run from the North Side’s Wilson Yards project as well, city officials said Wednesday. Target’s decision to follow through on its threat to avoid Chicago comes just one week after a bitterly divided City Council defied Daley by requiring retailing giants to pay their employees a “living wage” of at least $10 an hour and $3 in benefits by 2010.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- About 8 percent of Ohio Wal-Mart employees enroll for Medicaid for themselves or their children, costing the state about $11 million, data from a state report released Friday indicate. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and McDonald's Corp. and its franchises are the biggest employers of Ohio Medicaid recipients, even though they represent just 1 percent of the program's costs, the state Department of Job and Family Services said after analyzing the rolls at the request of media outlets and lawmakers. The world's largest retailer and fast food giant also accounted for the most employed people who get food stamps....