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LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — UPDATE: Two Kroger customers are being charged with battery after a disagreement led to a shooting inside the grocery store on Wednesday evening. According to a report by the Little Rock Police Department, the incident began at 9 p.m when 48-year-old Yusuf Muhammad began harassing 43-year-old Shearee Jones in the checkout aisle. Witnesses stated that Muhammad was visibly aggressive towards Jones and that she asked him to stop. The report says that he continued after this and assaulted her, leaving an abrasion. In response, Jones brandished a firearm and struck Muhammad with multiple rounds. The report...

In October 2022, I shared a big announcement in the retail world: Two massive, U.S. grocery store chains, Kroger and Albertsons, had agreed to merge, in a deal worth nearly $25 billion:CNBC:Rival grocers Kroger and Albertsons on Friday announced plans to team up.The companies said Kroger agreed to buy Albertsons for $34.10 a share in a deal valued at $24.6 billion. Albertsons shares had closed Thursday at $28.63 after surging on reports that a deal was imminent.Kroger is the second-largest grocer by market share in the United States, behind Walmart, and Albertsons is fourth, after Costco. Together, Kroger and Albertsons...

The Federal Trade Commission on Monday announced that it filed a lawsuit to stop Kroger Company’s proposed $24.6 billion acquisition of Albertsons Companies, Inc. over concerns that the merger would create a monopoly. The FTC said that the deal, which is the largest proposed supermarket merger in U.S. history, is "anticompetitive" and will end competition between the two chains, which would lead to higher grocery prices and lower quality products. "Kroger’s acquisition of Albertsons would lead to additional grocery price hikes for everyday goods, further exacerbating the financial strain consumers across the country face today," FTC's Bureau of Competition Director...

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit to block the proposed merger between Kroger and Albertsons because of the negative ramifications he says it would have for residents, such as fewer options and higher prices. In the suit, filed on Monday, Ferguson argued that the proposed $24.6 billion merger, announced in October 2022, "will likely substantially lessen supermarket competition or tend to create a monopoly in many Washington communities," where both companies currently compete. This would likely increase prices of food and other grocery products in supermarkets offered to Washington consumers while simultaneously decreasing "the quantity and quality...

Three teenagers have been arrested for beating an Ohio father of three to death, police say. Columbus police said the incident happened at 7 p.m. on Dec. 6. The three young men allegedly engaged the victim, 53-year-old Donnie Smith, inside a Kroger grocery store, WSYX-TV reported. The suspects were asked to leave by security after getting into an altercation with patrons inside the store, and then the fight continued outside, police said. Smith was taken to a hospital in critical condition and later died.

As the assault was taking place, a witness with a firearm stepped forward and demanded they stop. At that point, the three suspects fled and drove off in a red car.

A 20-year-old Michigan mother has been charged with assault after police say she punched a grocery store clerk in front of her 1-year-old daughter. Surveillance video caught the incident unfolding Tuesday at a Kroger store in St. Clair Shores. Police say Shelby Parham was in the self-checkout area before walking up to a 49-year-old clerk and hitting her in the face. The woman was knocked flat on the ground, rendered unconscious, and suffered a head injury. “It’s obviously very clear-cut. There’s no questions as to who’s at fault here,” St. Clair Shores Police Detective Gordon Carrier told FOX 2 Detroit.

A Colorado supermarket employee was fired after he recorded three men stealing approximately $500 worth of laundry detergent from the store on Father’s Day. Santino Burrola, the King Soopers employee, was alerted to a theft in progress at the store and the first thing he thought to do was pull out his phone and record it. “When I looked there was already a guy halfway headed out with a food cart full of laundry detergents and scent boosters and what have you,” Burrola told CBS Colorado. “My first instinct, record.” As Burrola, a former military police officer, walked out of...

Opposition to the $24.6 billion Kroger, Albertsons merger does not appear to be dying down as the Teamsters union announced they oppose the deal. The Teamsters, a labor union representing members in the U.S. and Canada, said that some 22,000 of their members work for Kroger and Albertsons, across the companies’ stores, distribution centers, and manufacturing plants. The Teamsters said they had been engaging in talks with both Kroger and Albertsons over the last few months, but little progress was made regarding some of the concerns the union had around the merger deal, including job security. “In our discussions with...

Children are seen looking at sexually explicit merchandise at vendor booth for the 'all ages' event in Dallas A Pride festival in Dallas, Texas, this past weekend advertised for children of all ages featured sexually explicit merchandise for sale, including sex toys and graphic Disney fan art, a video shows. In footage taken by BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales, small children approach the booth for the Dallas chapter of the anti-Catholic drag group, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The camera pans to show a little girl viewing a rack of button pins that have references to sexual positions and phrases like "send...

A Portland Fred Meyer grocery store has fired a black security guard after white Antifa members complained, accusing him of being a Proud Boy and a "white supremacist." On March 3, self-proclaimed "Antifa scum" and "cop hater" Melissa Lewis, who was recently convicted for slashing up a Portland Police vehicle, shared a complaint made by Antifa riot arrestee Dustin B. Ferreira against 28-year-old security guard Andrew Duncomb, tagging Fred Meyer on Twitter.

Kroger is contracting with former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a lobbying push to win approval of its proposed merger with Albertsons, the company said in a press release. Boehner, who works for law and lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs, will “provide strategic counsel” to Kroger executives and won’t register to lobby. Squire Patton Boggs’ Tommy Andrews and David Schnittger, two former Boehner aides, and Caren Street, former chief of staff to then-Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus, will lobby on Kroger’s behalf. Kroger is hiring several well-connected lobbyists as it seeks to dissuade...

Big Food is making its move into the “digital health space” as grocery chain giant Albertsons announced the roll-out of its “Sincerely Health” platform along with a new app where customers “can connect data from wearables, integrate prescriptions, design their diet and make telehealth or vaccination appointments.” Albertsons, which includes other mega grocery chains such as Safeway, Vons, Shaw’s, Jewel-Osco, Acme and Tom Thumb, among others, is currently in talks to merger with Kroger, another mega grocery chain, which would give them 36% control over the grocery supermarket business in the United States. Walmart, the largest grocery chain in the...

Tyler Borys said his wife, 26-year-old Alexandria Cress Borys, was loading groceries into her car at the Kroger in Irmo, South Carolina, when she got into an argument with a woman she didn't know, according to FOX 57 Columbia. After the argument was over, the stranger, later identified by Irmo police as 23-year-old Christina Harrison, allegedly pulled out a gun and shot Borys in the back. The couple's children, a 2-year-old and an infant, were in the car when she was shot.

The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate’s antitrust committee led a grilling of the CEOs of Kroger and Albertsons on Tuesday over their planned $25 billion grocery megamerger, which comes after months of rising inflation that has hit consumers hard. “The companies assure us that this is the merger that will make everything better,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights.

Kroger has agreed to pay $180,000 to settle a lawsuit that involved two employees who say they were fired for refusing to wear LGBT-themed aprons due to their religious beliefs. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the women by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the final months of the Trump administration. The EEOC is a bipartisan commission that includes appointees of both President Biden and former President Donald Trump. According to the suit, a Conway, Ark., grocery store “engaged in religious discrimination when it disciplined and ultimately fired the employees for refusing to wear an apron...

The combined sales of the two grocery store chains are nearly $210 billion, putting Kroger about $10 billion shy of U.S. food sales at Walmart, the world’s largest grocer. Kroger and Albertsons are expected to divest 100 to 375 stores to pacify antitrust concerns, leaving Kroger to operate more than 4,500 stores nationwide, according to the Enquirer. Albertsons’ investors will own a separate company that includes the divested stores. Both stores currently employ a combined 710,000 associates and operate 4,996 stores, 66 distribution centers, 52 manufacturing plants, 3,972 pharmacies and 2,015 fuel centers in 48 states and Washington D.C.

The Kroger Company, a supermarket giant, published an “allyship guide” that told employees to use “inclusive language,” celebrate transgender holidays, and even support an organization that bails violent criminals out of prison.

My local Krogar grocery employee told me today that ID Scanning would become mandatory on 8/31 to buy alcohol I tried nicely to explain to her that it would violate my privacy rights and that it would be illegal under my state law. She told me not so nicely that she would enjoy refusing to sell me alcohol in a few days. I went to a few other stores and talked to the employees and they said pretty much the same thing. None of the workers were told that it was not legally required, probably so they could be thrown...

"I'm a federal agent."