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Like the drinks you get while gambling, casino parking in Las Vegas is often a “freebie.” But if you’re planning a trip to Vegas soon, be prepared to possibly pay for parking or driving around to find a free garage to dock your ride. Caesars Entertainment Corp. announced Tuesday that it’s putting an end to free parking at eight of its nine properties in Sin City in favor of a a paid valet and self-parking initiative. The changes will roll out in December, though implementation dates will vary by location. Every property besides the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino will now charge for parking: Linq and Harrah’s will start charging for valet services next month and charge for self-parking at a later date when new equipment is installed. Caesars Palace, The Cromwell, Paris, Planet Hollywood, Bally’s, and the Flamingo will implement the new policy in 2017. Guests have reported that parking is scarce at its casinos, Caesars said, with the exception of the Rio, which has a bigger parking...

“Dongguan Qing Xi Juantiway Plastic Factory” isn’t a household name, but you’d probably recognize the products it made for the world’s largest entertainment company: the factory was one of thousands making official products featuring Disney characters. The company put another supplier on notice as well for its own labor violations. Disney doesn’t hire the factories, but licenses its products to suppliers, which in turn contract with the factories. Still, products with its characters on them are an important part of Disney’s image, and customers don’t want to hear that their Moana or Elsa or Snow White toys were made by workers who are underage, suffering, or both. Bloomberg reports that Disney has its own standards for the tens of thousands of factories making its products, called the Disney International Labor Standards Program, and the nonprofit China Labor Watch flagged these two factories as making Disney products and problematic. I n a memorandum made public yesterday , Disney...

He only had about 20 seconds of distraction, but that’s all it took for one thief to walk off with about $1.6 million worth of gold flakes on a busy New York City street. Surveillance video obtained by NBC 4 New York ( warning: link contains autoplay video ) shows how the theft went down on a September afternoon in midtown Manhattan: the suspect is seen dilly-dallying near an armored truck while two guards bustle around it. One guard leaves to make a pickup, and the other goes toward the front seat of the vehicle to grab his phone. In that moment, the suspect walks up to the 86-pound bucket of gold flakes, picks it up, and flees the scene — albeit slowly, as it’s clearly no easy thing to carry off such a heavy haul. Indeed, in the video, you can see as he scurries a few feet, then sets the bucket down to take a breather. He hoists it onto his shoulder, walks, and sets it down again. Eventually, after shuffling along for an hour — taking a route that would normally be just a 10-minu...

Earlier this year, federal vehicle safety regulators reached a voluntary agreement with nearly two dozen car manufacturers to make forward-collision warning and automatic emergency braking features standard in their cars starting in 2022. But some consumer safety advocates believe this is too long a wake and have gone to court in the hope of pressing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration into taking more immediate action. Consumer Watchdog, the Center for Auto Safety, and Public Citizen filed the lawsuit [ PDF ] in federal district court in Washington, D.C. Wednesday claiming NHTSA failed to respond to the groups’ formal request that the agency require automakers to adopt advanced safety technologies. The groups sent NHTSA a petition [ PDF ] back on Jan. 16, asking the regulator to begin the rule-making process to require cars to use Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB). AEB is composed of a set of three technologies that use combinations of radar, reflected laser lig...

Federal safety regulators are hoping the fourth time is the charm for millions of recalled dehumidifiers that have now been linked to 450 fires and more than $19 million in property damage: Gree Electric Appliances — the manufacturer fined a record $15.45 million over the fiery dehumidifiers earlier this year — has re-announced the recall.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission, along with Gree, re-announced the recall — which covers nearly 2.5 million dehumidifiers — Tuesday aiming to get more consumers to replace their defective, and dangerous, machines. Gree manufactured the recalled 20, 25, 30, 40, 45, 50, 65 and 70-pint dehumidifiers with brand names Danby, De’Longhi, Fedders, Fellini, Frigidaire, GE, Gree, Kenmore, Norpole, Premiere, Seabreeze, SoleusAir, and SuperClima. The CPSC originally recalled the devices back in Sept. 2013 after receiving reports of dehumidifiers that overheated and caught on fire. A month later the agency updated the recall. In 2014, Gree and ...

After decades of making money off brands like Marlboro, Philip Morris is looking to shift its focus away from traditional cigarettes and toward smokeless products. As part of that effort, the company’s CEO says it may stop making cigarettes altogether — eventually. CEO Andre Calantzopoulos said as much during an interview with the BBC’s Radio 4 in the United Kingdom, where the company is launching a new heat-not-burn product, IQOS . “There will come a moment in time where I would say we have sufficient adoption of these alternative products… and sufficient awareness to start envisaging together with government a phaseout period for cigarettes, and I hope this time will come soon,” Calantzopoulos said. It won’t happen immediately, however, as there is still a lot of demand for traditional tobacco products. But Calantzopoulos says the company is focused on moving away from cigarettes, admitting that those products “cause disease,” and notes that the company’s “primary responsibility”...

According to those ever-mysterious “people familiar with the matter,” the northeastern grocery chain Price Chopper is in “advanced talks” with national chain Albertsons in an acquisition deal. The acquisition could still fall through, but it would mean that the closely held grocer could have a new owner after more than 80 years as a mostly family-run company. The current mega-Albertsons, the country’s second-largest grocery chain, was formed in the 2014 merger of Albertsons and Safeway, making it the parent company of familiar brands like Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, ACME, Tom Thumb, Randalls, United Supermarkets, Pavilions, Star Market, and Carrs. Reuters reports that the proposed sale price of the chain was $1 billion. If the deal goes through, it would only be the latest in a trend of national mega-chains gobbling up local chains as standalone grocery stores prepare to fight competition from Walmart and potentially from Amazon, as both mega-retailers open online...

It’s been whispered and buzzed about for a long time now, but it’s happening at last: Netflix says it will allow users to download select TV shows and movies to their mobile devices so they can watch them even when they’re not online. Although there were recent rumors that offline viewing might not come to U.S. subscribers , Netflix announced this morning that members worldwide will be able to download some content at no cost. Titles that are available for downloading will feature a download button on the details page. There are some streaming series and movies already available for offline viewing, including Netflix originals like Orange is The New Blac k, Narcos , and The Crown , “with more on the way,” Netflix says. The new feature is available on all plans as well as any phones or tablets running on Android and iOS — you’ll just have to update your Netflix app to the most recent version. Thus far, the download option doesn’t seem to include downloads to a desktop computer or la...

Is there something lurking in your phone that shouldn’t be? Malware designed to look like real Android apps has taken control of more than a million Google accounts since August, according to a new report from security researchers. According to Check Point, the new malware campaign, Gooligan, has been busy breaching accounts since August, slipping in under the radar with names like StopWatch, Perfect Cleaner, and WiFi enhancer. Gooligan is infecting 13,000 devices every day, Check Point says, targeting devices on Android 4 (Jelly Bean, KitKat) and 5 (Lollipop), which amounts to about 74% of Android devices out there. It’s installing at least 30,000 fake apps on breached devices, every day, or more than two million apps since the attacks started. Using stolen information like email addresses and authentication tokens, attackers can gain access to users’ sensitive data from Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, Google Drive, and G Suite. “This theft of over a million Google...

While most federal agencies will soon see a change in leadership and direction after President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is supposed to be shielded from such sudden changes. A recent court decision put that protection — and the future of the CFPB itself — in question, but today a group of 21 federal lawmakers, along with a coalition of consumer advocates and civil rights groups, asked the court to keep the CFPB’s structure intact. A quick round of catch-up for those coming in late: The CFPB has only one director — currently Richard Cordray, who still has a few years left on his term — and under the law that created the Bureau, the CFPB Director can only be removed from office by the President “for cause,” meaning the Director would need to screw up really badly. In most cases where a federal agency has only one director, the President has the authority to remove that director at will. On the other side of the coin are the ag...

The threatened strike of low-paid workers at Chicago’s O’Hare airport didn’t happen at Thanksgiving time as originally proposed , but did occur today as part of a nationwide series of strikes. In some cities, protesters blocking public streets were arrested, but the predicted disruption of air travel at the country’s busiest airports didn’t happen. According to the Chicago Tribune , O’Hare officials say that the protest isn’t having a noticeable effect on travelers. Employees who walked off the job today included janitors, baggage handlers, wheelchair attendants, and cabin cleaners, part of a protest backed by the Service Employees International Union that topped 1,000 people just at O’Hare, about 500 of them airport workers. Organizers of the airport protest told media outlets that they expected to disrupt operations, but airport officials said that they did not expect disruptions for travelers. (If you flew through O’Hare today and observed anything, let us know .) One passenger ...

This is shocking, we know, but: big businesses really like to make money. And when you’re already as huge as, say Comcast, one of the best ways to make oodles more money is to snap up another company and start raking in its revenues, too. Could Comcast snap up Verizon? Charter grab Sprint? At least one tech stock analyst thinks that deals like this, which might sound outlandish today, could be on the table soon. A UBS investor memo, noticed by DSL Reports , shows that for some Wall Street investors, the future looks bright. Based on the transition team President-Elect Donald Trump has named, it seems likely that incoming, as-yet-unnamed FCC leadership will be less focused on consumers and more focused on business than the current Commission has been. (Although the FCC has hardly been hostile to all mergers — AT&T/DirecTV and Charter/TWC/Bright House were approved since 2015, even though Comcast/TWC was blocked.) The full memo [ PDF ] looks at prior mergers in the cable and tele...

Not that long ago, you might have bristled at the notion of paying a stranger to chauffeur you around town in the back of their car, or that you could easily rent out the extra room in your house like a hotel. Is turning your laundry room into a laundromat the next step? Electrolux is testing an Uber-like laundry service that matches people who have dirty clothes with those who have machines in which to wash those clothes. Engadget , citing a Financial Times interview (behind a paywall) with Electrolux CEO Jonas Samuelson, reports that the company is testing a system in which customers would play to clean their clothes at someone else’s house. Samuelson didn’t elaborate on how long the tests had been going on, or if they had been successful so far. The system has a dual purpose: provide a place for machine-less consumers to do their laundry that isn’t a cramped coin-operated room and assist those who own the machines to pay for them. The latter purpose would come in handy, Engadg...

Perhaps you’ve been here before: you’re waiting patiently, albeit a bit anxiously, for the moment when you can buy tickets to a concert or sporting event online. But despite your best efforts and quick action, you find that someone has swooped in and snapped up all the tickets, leaving you to the mercies of online resellers that may jack up the cost of tickets. That scenario could become less frequent now that New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a law that makes using so-called “ticket bots” — software designed to manipulate systems that are designed to limit the numbers of tickets sold to an individual — illegal. Previously, NY law barred the use of ticket bots, but only imposed civil sanctions for brokers who violate that law. Now, using ticket bots, maintaining an interest in or control of bots, and reselling tickets knowingly obtained with bots constitutes a class A misdemeanor. As such, violators could face substantial fines and imprisonment. The new legislation also expan...

After more than a year of waiting, Congress has finally okayed a piece of legislation that, if signed by the president, will stop companies from using so-called “non-disparagement” or “gag” clauses to prevent or discourage customers from writing honest reviews. The Consumer Review Freedom Act gives the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general the authority to take enforcement actions against businesses that attempt to step on customers’ First Amendment rights by requiring that they sign a non-disparagement agreement. These gag clauses generally threaten to punish the customer with financial penalties if they say anything negative about their experience with the company — even if it’s completely honest. Some companies have gone even further, fining customers for merely saying they intend to write something negative , or even encouraging others to give negative feedback . Perhaps the most famous of these instances involves online retailer Kleargear, which tried — unsucc...

This year, both Black Friday and Cyber Monday set sales records… for online shoppers. Americans armed with mobile devices, tablets, and computers pulled out their credit cards and placed orders, turning yesterday into the biggest sales day in the history of online shopping. Apparently, Cyber Monday isn’t as pointless as we thought , and rampant discounting does draw shoppers. Reuters reports that online sales during the non-holiday were up 12% from the Monday after Thanksgiving last year, leading to total online sales of $3.36 billion, the most money ever spent online in a single day. That statistic comes from Adobe, which has access to sales data from the top 100 online retailers, capturing about 80% of all sales. Adobe can also tell us what people bought, noting that big-ticket items included new video game consoles from PlayStation, televisions from Samsung, new iPhones, and tablets from Amazon. LEGO blocks, Barbie dolls, and Nerf dart guns were hot sellers in toys yesterday. C...

While it might be reassuring to see a sign posted in your favorite restaurant or other food establishment that it’s earned the approval of the city health department, that doesn’t necessarily mean health inspectors have actually been by recently to do their job. An audit [ PDF ] of recent health inspections in Chicago found that the city’s Department of Public Health inspection program is “seriously understaffed,” with not even half the number of inspectors it would need to comply with state requirements. In order to complete all the inspections necessary, CDPH would need 94 inspectors. It currently has 38 on staff. Under Illinois law, there are three categories of restaurants, based on the level of risk: High-risk eateries — generally meaning restaurants, hospital kitchens, schools where the food is prepared on-site; Medium-risk — grocery stores, bakeries, delis; and Low-Risk — gas stations, convenience stores and other places where only beverages and pre-packaged foods are served....

What does the term “autopilot” mean to you? For many people, it applies to a machine that can steer itself with minimal human intervention, but for electric carmaker Tesla it’s a marketing term to describe a feature that is decidedly  not  hands-off — and which consumer safety advocates believe can cause potentially dangerous confusion. Consumer Watchdog recently sent a letter [ PDF ] to California DMV director Jean Shiomoto, urging the agency to act on specific regulations proposed in September that would, in part, put restrictions on how carmakers can advertise self-driving vehicles. Under the proposed rules [ PDF ] — which mainly pertain to the future development of self-driving vehicles — no car could be advertised as autonomous unless it meets the definition set forth by vehicle codes and was manufactured by a company that holds a valid autonomous vehicle permit. Additionally, carmakers would not be able to use terms, such as “self-driving,” “automated,” “au...

If you win a $1 million Keno game twice within a matter of minutes, you may be the luckiest person on Earth. Or you could also be trying to take advantage of a computer glitch. This distinction is at the center of a legal dispute between a pair of Keno players and the Delaware Lottery. The News Journal of Wilmington reports that in Dec. 2015, one of the plaintiffs purchased a $1 million winning Keno ticket. Minutes later, he and the other plaintiff bought another ticket that also won — for another $1 million. reports. But when they tried to claim their reward, the Delaware Lottery refused to honor the tickets. Lottery officials said [ PDF ] that there was a computer glitch on that date that lasted for about 20 minute. During that time, the Keno system transmitted the same numbers that had been drawn earlier in the day, rather than randomly drawn numbers. An investigation found that the glitch wasn’t the result of tampering, but that some players noticed the re-transmission of th...

Just days after JCPenney handed out a very limited number of $500 coupons to lure shoppers to stores on Thanksgiving , the retailer’s former CEO made it clear that he believes that similar promotions and sales could ultimately harm department stores.  Former JCPenney CEO Allen Questrom told CNN’s Squawk Box that department stores’ tendency to offer a sale when business goes bad is probably doing more harm than good. “The sale has become a cancer,” he said. “When business gets tough, we add another sale, but you add run out of days and discounts.” Questrom isn’t saying that retailers shouldn’t offer sales at all, they just shouldn’t make it the focus of business. “Sales can not be the only driver [of business], it has to be a part of it,” he said. “I think many department stores have failed, they put too much emphasis in sales. But product, presentation, excitement in the stores, the salespeople in terms of servicing the customer” are part of the equation. “It’s not...

Outdoor outfitter Patagonia attracted positive attention when it announced that it would be open on Black Friday, but donate all of its sales (not its profits: all sales ) from retail stores and its website to environmental charities. Now the sales have been tallied, and the retailer took in a total of $10 million. The idea of closing on Black Friday used to be out of the question, until competing outdoors retailer REI began doing that last year , encouraging customers and employees alike to go enjoy the outdoors. The co-op harvested lots of good publicity for that move. Patagonia, meanwhile, reports that it took in five times what it what expecting (warning: auto-play video at that link), or a total of $10 million in sales for the day. If you want to be crass about it, this is also a good business move: some of those sales may have been to people new to the brand who will return on a day when the company isn’t raising funds for charity. The company’s leaders were surprised and d...

It’s always important to know where the exits are on an aircraft, but it’s also important that you not use the exit until the plane has come to a stop — and even then, you should not take it upon yourself to open the door. These are lessons that one United Airlines passenger apparently forgot. According to Police in Houston, the United flight had just landed from New Orleans at Bush Intercontinental Airport on Monday when a female passenger opened a hatch on the plane to exit and jumped out into an airport operating area, KHOU-11 reports . “I look over and sunlight and I just see a figure essentially step out of it,” one passenger recalled to the news station. “And then I’m like, ‘What was that?’” He posted a video from across the aisle, showing the door open after unexpected exit: Another witness said the woman opened an over-wing exit door, and said nothing before jumping out of the plane, then about 15 feet from the wing to the ground below. Authorities chased her down and det...

Here at Consumerist, we have seen more than our fair share of stories involving unruly or otherwise disruptive passengers who have gotten themselves kicked off flights for bad behavior. But upon hearing that Delta Air Lines had banned a passenger for life after he was caught on video yelling at his fellow travelers, we had to wonder: What do you have to do to get banned from an airline forever, and which U.S. carriers have such a policy in place? On Monday, Delta’s CEO Ed Bastien confirmed in a company memo that a passenger who was filmed shouting politically-charged insults while boarding a flight from Atlanta to Allentown, PA, will no longer be allowed to fly on the airline. “This individual displayed behavior that was loud, rude and disrespectful to his fellow customers. After questioning the customer, our team members made the best decision they could given the information they had and allowed him to remain on the flight,” Bastien wrote. “However, if our colleagues had witnesse...

In yet another attempt to better align its menu with customer tastes, McDonald’s is expanding its year-old test of fresh ground beef — to Oklahoma.  Business Insider reports that the Golden Arches is ditching frozen patties in favor of fresh beef patties at 75 restaurants in Northeast Oklahoma. The patties — used in the fast food giant’s Quarter Pounder burgers and the Bacon Clubhouse Burger — are made from the same grade of beef as the frozen stuff, and are being cooked to order. “These burgers are hotter and juicier than our previous quarter pound patties, and are made with fresh 100% North American beef that’s simply seasoned with a pinch of salt and pepper,” McDonald’s Chef Chad Schafer said in a statement. McDonald’s began testing the fresh beef patties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area back in November 2015. Since then the company says it has received positive feedback from customers and franchisees. Despite the expanded test and apparent acceptance of the fresh patties, t...

The bankruptcy of RadioShack at the beginning of 2015 probably seems like a distant event to you now, but the business entity that used to be the massive electronics chain is still wrapping up its affairs. One of those last pieces of business is the end of gift card redemptions. The Shack’s estate will stop accepting requests on Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. “No one could possibly still have a RadioShack gift card lying around,” you might be saying right now. That’s not true: between Sept. 24 and Nov. 21 of this year, almost one year after RadioShack and state attorneys general negotiated a deal that put RadioShack cardholders first, 269 people apparently found RadioShack cards in their junk drawers and turned them in. A total of $131,491.39 in priority claims, which were gift cards purchased from RadioShack stores or third-party retailers, have been returned to consumers under this program. That doesn’t count cards redeemed just after the bankruptcy. The rest of outstanding cards were...

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As Wells Fargo continues to dig itself out of a years-long — if not decade-long — fake account fiasco perpetrated by employees under strain from high-pressure sales goals, federal regulators are warning other financial institutions that these sorts of programs could harm consumers and possibly lead to stiff penalties. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a compliance bulletin Monday urging supervised financial companies to take steps to ensure their incentive programs for employees and service providers to meet sales goals do not lead to improper — and illegal — actions. According to the CFPB bulletin [ PDF ], tying bonuses or employment status to unrealistic sales goals or to the terms of transactions may intentionally or unintentionally encourage illegal practices such as unauthorized account openings, unauthorized opt-ins to overdraft services, deceptive sales tactics, and steering consumers into less favorable products — all practices that Wells Fargo employees were...

It hasn’t been a banner year for the NFL, with ratings now sagging for what had seemed to be an unstoppable TV sports juggernaut . Now the league is fending off rumors that it has plans to get rid of meh-rated Thursday Night Football when its current TV deals are expired. The Thursday night games are branded under the league’s NFL Network umbrella, but the network also shares broadcasting of many of these games with CBS and NBC. That lack of a dedicated major network may have something to do with Thursday’s low ratings. On Sunday, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio reported that the NFL was looking at whether to reduce or get rid of Thursday Night Football after the 2017 season when its existing Thursday arrangement with CBS and NBC comes up for renewal. Before my Eagles got thumped by Packers last night, the league released a statement, claiming it is “fully committed to Thursday Night Football and any reports to the contrary are unfounded.” The Wall Street Journal notes that the l...

Are we heading toward a future where you control everything in your home by speaking to a disembodied voice? Amazon certainly seems to be going in that direction, with a new report that it’s working on a premium speaker powered by Alexa, a sort of souped-up Echo, featuring a large screen. According to a report from Bloomberg , citing those ever-mysterious “people familiar with the matter,” the new technology will feature a seven-inch touchscreen, which is a departure from Amazon’s current lineup of screen-free Echo devices. A screen will help users access content like weather forecasts, calendars, and news, the insiders said. The device will also be larger, and tilt upwards so the screen is visible when it’s sitting on a counter and the user is standing. Alexa will sound better as well, as the new tech will have high-grade speakers, one of the insiders explained. So when can we expect to see this new speaker hit the market? The screen-speaker combination is expected to be announced ...

We hear that Wisconsin is a pretty good place to live if you like cheese, but a new local offering from McDonald’s has made it an even better one. That’s because as a limited-time offering, the fast food chain is selling deep fried cheese curds in its restaurants across the Badger State. This is the latest in the chain’s local foods promotions, the most successful of which was the Gilroy Garlic Fries that eventually reached 240 restaurants around San Francisco. Wisconsin has the honor of two of these promotions going on at once, since its McDonald’s restaurants are also selling Johnsonville bratwursts now that grilling season is over. They come in a Green Bay Packers box (of course) and look decent, at least. Just had my first #cheesecurds @McDonaldsMKE . Delicious! http://pic.twitter.com/F6He02EFSj — Rodriguez (@Rodriguez77) November 14, 2016 Only in Wisconsin….this is a McDonald's…offering cheese curds and brats. #OnWisconsin http://pic.twitter.com/4oNgW3MlqL — Sc...

Last year, L.L. Bean hired 100 additional workers to ramp up production of their iconic, unglamorous USA-made duck boots. Nonetheless, the popular footwear was quickly put on backorder. Now, the long-time retailer is once again putting some styles on backorder, despite increasing production, hiring additional employees, and making plans for a larger facility.  Boston.com reports that a sense of nostalgia and a desire for functional winter footwear has caused Maine-based L.L. Bean to revamp its production processes, but those efforts haven’t yet done the trick. In fact, sales of the boots have increased from less than 100,000/year a decade ago to an estimated 600,000 this year. The renewed popularity of the boots is part of a larger resurgence in the “what is old is new” mantra, Boston.com reports. “There can be times when true classics become trendy,” Dan Hess, CEO of Merchant Forecast, an independent research company, says. “Teenage girls in Malibu are not always going ...

After months of teasing the eventual launch of DirecTV Now — a live-TV streaming service that doesn’t require a subscription to cable — AT&T has finally announced the important details of the product that will kick off on Nov. 30 at a price ranging from $35 for around 60 channels to $70 for more than 120 channels. The service will launch in four different tiers: $35 (dubbed “Live a Little); $50 (80+ channels, “Just Right”); $60 (100+ channels, “Go Big”); and $70 (Gotta Have It). Each tier will allow users to have two simultaneous streams going at any given time. At launch, the “Go Big” package will sell for only $35/month. AT&T claims that customers who take advantage of this promotion will be grandfathered in after the price increases. For subscribers willing to commit to multiple months, AT&T will offer free Apple TV streaming devices. A single month commitment can also get you an Amazon Fire TV streaming stick for plugging into your TV. We’ll update this post later wh...

The premise of the Golden Ticket promotion in the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the two movies based on it was simple: there were five pieces of gold-colored paper hidden in chocolate bars all over the world, and the bearers of those tickets would get to visit Willy Wonka’s candy factory. The grown-up version of this promotion involves 37,000 golden-colored cans of beer hidden in cases of Budweiser, but only seven winners. Wait… the people who find the golden cans don’t win anything ? Most of them won’t . Finding a can means that you’ll be able to submit your entry by posting a photo with the can on social media or on Budweiser’s website. Six people who enter their photos will receive season tickets for their favorite NFL team for one season. The grand prize winner receives a pair of Super Bowl tickets every year for life, or 51 years. That means Budweiser has a more optimistic view of its customers’ lifespans than Starbucks, where free coffee for life gets you 30 years’...

There’s no way to tap-dance around this one: healthcare access is an incredibly politicized and partisan issue in this country. And yet even while our two major political parties disagree vehemently, at every level, about whether existing healthcare laws are effective or worthwhile, at least one part now proving popular in a surprisingly bipartisan way. The AP reports that Republican-led states that expanded health coverage through Medicaid aren’t necessarily in a hurry to go on and roll that back — even though that’s one of the top promises of the incoming Congress and administration. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), both pejoratively and affectionately called Obamacare, expanded insurance coverage to millions of previously uninsured Americans. But that expansion came with challenges at every step, from getting it through Congress in the first place to a Supreme Court case that sought (and failed) to overturn it. One big component of the ACA was the Medicaid expansion, a push to al...

Since 2005, Cyber Monday has been the end of Thanksgiving week, as office workers’ brains haven’t quite returned to work, and they use the time to shop online. At least, this is what online retailers must themselves as they schedule sales and other promotions for the additional shopping holiday. Yet is Cyber Monday still a thing, or do we all have shopping holiday fatigue by the time it comes around? You probably aren’t in a shopping frenzy right now, and few other people are, because shopping online is now commonplace. We carry small computers full of shopping apps in our pockets, and our email accounts are stuffed full of solicitations from our favorite retailers year-round. Mere discounts aren’t enough. Then there’s the problem specific to the holiday season. Over the last few years, retailers both online and offline have been engaging in Black Friday creep , making their sales start earlier and last longer. Consumers have deal fatigue. This year, according to the Associated Pres...

While Airbnb and New York City continue to battle it out over new restrictions that would penalize hosts with hefty fines for subletting whole apartments for less than 30 days, a California couple says the law — which isn’t currently being enforced — led to a costly and frustrating scenario while visiting the Big Apple.  The New York Post reports that the couple, who were in town for 10 days visiting their daughter, were kicked out of their Airbnb rental after neighbors took issue with the technically illegal stay. Issues began for the couple when they arrived at the $170/night Chelsea apartment Nov. 15 and another tenant of the building began asking questions. The fellow tenant then threatened to call the police, noting that he “would knock on the door all night long and let other tenants know you are here illegally if you don’t leave now.” While the threats didn’t bother the couple, they received an email from the Airbnb host the next day, asking them to leave immediately...