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Facing a possible new tax on imported goods, some of the biggest name in auto manufacturing and retail are calling on lawmakers to rethink the tax, claiming it will hurt their businesses and lead to higher prices. While no actual legislation has been introduced, the proposal that has been kicking around Capitol Hill for the last month or so involves cutting the current corporate income tax rate of 35% to 20%. To make up for that rate drop, companies would no longer be able to deduct the cost of imported goods from their profits. So, for example, imagine a U.S. company that imports $1 million worth of product, and sells them for $2 million stateside after spending about $500,000 domestically, resulting in a profit of $500,000. Under the current tax code, the company deducts the import and domestic expenses, and pays 35% tax, but only on the $500,000 profit. If this proposal is put in place, that company would not be able to deduct the $1 million of import costs, so it would pay the l...

As cable packages have ballooned in both volume and price over the years, a growing segment of consumers has demanded options for unbundled, choose-your-own-channels cable. So far, those cries have gone largely unheard, except for a few streaming, internet-based options. However, it seems the à la carte option has a growing fan base clamoring to be heard: small cable companies themselves. That’s the gist of a recent filing the American Cable Association has made with the FCC. While the ACA membership roster does include some large companies like Comcast and Viacom, it also includes hundreds of smaller cable advertising, programming, and distribution companies. It is on behalf of those small companies that ACA — joined by independent channels Mav TV, Ride TV, and One America News Network — filed its comment [ PDF ]. You know how when you subscribe to cable, you don’t just get Network X, but also Network X1, Network X2, Netwok X3, and so on? That’s bundling, and it’s basically integra...

“Is your drug dealer ripping you off?” That’s a question police in Australia jokingly posed this week, after a woman called authorities to complain about a recent “outrageous” price hike on marijuana in her neighborhood. The Northern Territory Police, Fire and Emergency Services noted the unusual call in a Facebook post , writing that the woman said she was compelled to notify police after her drug dealer instituted an unfair price hike for her weed. “Completely offended, the woman demanded that police investigate this ‘outrageous’ price hike,” the police wrote. “When asked for further details, the woman hung up.” Anyone else who is experiencing similar problems can reach out as well — though you probably won’t score a cheaper price on your pot. “If you know a drug dealer who is ripping you off, give us a call, we’d love to help,” authorities promised. She’s not the first to call the cops when she shouldn’t have, not by a long shot. The 9-1-1 Hall Of Shame • This guy called 9-1...

For years, so-called fast fashion purveyor H&M (which stands for Hennes & Mauritz) has quickly opened store after store around the world to compete with rivals like Zara and others. Now, however, the company says it will slow down its pace of new store openings in order to concentrate on current stores and online sales.  H&M announced Tuesday in its full-year earnings report  that it will no longer work to open 10% to 15% more physical stores each year and instead aim to increase sales at current divisions by the same levels. H&M currently operates more than 4,300 stores in 64 markets around the world. While the company still plans to open hundreds of new stores in 2017, many of these new stores will be for the retailer’s other brands, including COS, & Other Stories, Monki, Weekday, and H&M Home. Additionally, the company says it will aim to increase sales in its current operations by 10% to 15% both online and in-store....

When you’re about to get caught with something you shouldn’t have, trying to get rid of that evidence is only natural. But while flushing that joint down the toilet before your mom catches you in the act makes sense, destroying millions of dollars worth of precious art seems like a pretty extreme reaction. A co-defendant in one of the biggest art heists ever testified in court this week that he destroyed and threw away five masterpieces — by Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Braque, and Fernand Leger — worth more than $100 million, the Associated Press reports. The pieces were allegedly stolen by a thief nicknamed “the spider-man” in 2010 from Paris’ Museum of Modern Art, and have never been found. The man is one of three people who went on trial on Monday. “I threw them into the trash,” he repeated three times while in tears, the AP reports. “I made the worst mistake of my existence.” The investigating judge and other defendants at trial aren’t onboard with those claims, however, as ...

Insulin is an essential hormone, and millions of Americans get the insulin that they need to stay alive and healthy from a vial . With insulin prices on the rise, a group of diabetes patients has filed a federal lawsuit against three drug companies, accusing them of carrying out a fraudulent pricing scheme. Not everyone pays that inflated price, of course. The Washington Post explains that the lawsuit focuses on the practice of rebates , a part of the drug market that consumers don’t see. Drugmakers negotiate with the pharmacy benefit managers that negotiate how much insured patients actually pay for their medications, setting prices but also setting secret rebates. The lawsuit accuses drugmakers of abusing the rebate system by hiking the list prices for insulin so they can offer bigger rebates. This leaves patients with high-deductible insurance plans, participants in Medicare drug plans, and uninsured people with huge bills: a month’s supply of some insulins can cost $900. FURTHE...

One month after DeVry Education Group agreed to pay $100 million to settle federal regulatory charge s that it used deceptive ads to recruit students, the for-profit educator has come to a multimillion-dollar settlement that should close the book on one state-level investigation. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office  announced the $2.75 million settlement this morning. This puts an end to the state’s investigation, which alleged that DeVry used exaggerated claims about its graduates’ job-placement success, and about how much money these DeVry grads had earned. The investigation into DeVry centered on the company’s claim in ads that 90% of students who were actively seeking employment obtained jobs in their field of study within six months of graduation. According to the AG’s office, the 90% claim was misleading because a substantial number of graduates included in the figure were graduates who were already employed prior to graduating or even enrolling at the sc...

Twitter is something of a double edged sword, for its millions of users. On one hand, conversations are fast-flowing, free, and open, and a single retweet can bring that smart thing you said to everyone’s attention. Conversely, a single retweet can bring that smart thing you said to the attention of a roving hate mob, making your life utterly miserable and possibly putting you in actual danger. Twitter’s been saying for years that it needs to improve its tools for mitigating abuse and harassment, and for years users have been finding each new option insufficient at best. But this time, the company’s leadership promises, they’re going to make good changes. For real. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey made the announcement yesterday on — where else? — Twitter. “We’re taking a completely new approach to abuse on Twitter,” he tweeted , “Including having a more open and real-time dialogue about it every step of the way.” That announcement, in turn, led to a series of tweets from Ed Ho, VP of Engi...

Because you will probably wear out your thumb endlessly scrolling and scanning through Netflix offerings to find something to watch, engineers at the company have cooked up a concept that would allow you to do all of that browsing without lifting a finger. During Netflix’s annual Hack Day last week at company headquarters, product developers have 24 hours to collaborate on new ideas and technologies. One team’s contribution was MindFlix, a prototype device that uses a Muse meditation headband to navigate the Netflix menu. “Instead of implanting chips in our brains for Hack Day, we decided to take this brain reading head band to really put it to the test,” one of the four Netflix engineers behind the device explains in a video about the project. Another engineer demonstrates the device, nodding up or down, left or right, to peruse options on the screen. “Now think, ‘play,'” another engineer urges, and lo and behold, the content begins to play. What’s not clear from the video i...

Less than a year after its national launch, Walmart is pulling the plug on its $50/year ShippingPass subscription service that was intended to compete directly with Amazon Prime. In its place, the big box retailer plans to offer free-two day shipping on millions of products with a lower minimum purchase price. This morning, Walmart  announced the end of its ShippingPass service, while also launching a new no-membership shipping option that lowers the minimum purchase amount for free shipping from $50 to $35. The new shipping option will be available on two million items that customers purchase the most, the company says, noting that this includes household essentials, pet products, food, cleaning supplies, beauty products, and toys. If Walmart.com shoppers are willing to go to a Walmart store to pick up their online purchases, there will be no minimum amount required for free shipping. “Two-day free shipping is the first of many moves we will be making to enhance t...

The EpiPen was a perfect symbol of the current state of pharmaceutical companies and health care expenses: It was a life-saving drug that had been around for decades, often used by children, and with a price that kept rising. The controversy over the epinephrine injectors led to news stories, a Congressional hearing , a $465 million settlement for overcharging Medicaid, and investigations by the states of New York and West Virginia . The EpiPen benefited from brand recognition and programs where the company gave away pens, but Mylan was still charging as much as $600 for an auto-injector that hasn’t changed significantly in decades and contains less than $1 worth of the drug epinephrine. Now the Federal Trade Commission is looking into Mylan’s practices around marketing the EpiPen to determine whether the drugmaker acted in an anti-competitive way. Bloomberg News reports that Mylan has received a request for information from the FTC. Possible violations of antitrust laws for the ...

Whether it’s overexertion from shoveling snow, the stress of being stuck inside, or any number of other possible causes, a new study shows that the chance of a cardiovascular-related hospital admission significantly increases two days after a major snowstorm. The report, published Monday in the American Journal of Epidemiology and produced by Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, aimed to take a closer look at the health issues associated with cold weather and cold weather activities. To do so, the researchers analyzed 433,037 admissions from 2010 to 2015 at the four largest hospitals in the Boston area. The report found that the number of cardiovascular-related admissions at the hospitals declined on days when major snowstorms occurred but increased by 23% two days later. In fact, cardiovascular disease admissions decreased by 32% on high snowfall days when more than 10 inches of the white stuff fell. Despite that decrease, the number of similar admissions increased 23% tw...

Steve Mnuchin, President Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, recently told members of the Senate Finance Committee that his former bank OneWest did not use the illegal practice of “robo-signing” when foreclosing on homeowners after the collapse of the housing bubble. However, a new report claims that OneWest repeatedly used robo-signed documents on foreclosures. For those who have forgotten about the whole robo-signing mess, it refers to the practice of speeding up foreclosures by having non-experts sign hundreds affidavits and other documents without actually reviewing them. These documents usually require a thorough review of someone who is not only well-versed in the foreclosure process, but familiar with the loan. Many of the nation’s largest banks and mortgage servicers were caught using robo-signed documents to fast-track foreclosures, resulting in billions of dollars in penalties, settlements, and redress for affected homeowners. As part of Mnuchin’s confirmation process,...

Maybe you can’t afford that bespoke chaise with the walnut legs and expensive upholstery, but that doesn’t mean you have to resign yourself to having the same living room as everyone else who shops at IKEA: in an effort to help customers living in tight spaces more options, the Swedish furniture company is introducing what it calls its first “open source” furniture. IKEA says it will start selling a sofa that’s designed with customization in mind in early 2018, The Wall Street Journal reports: the Delaktig — Swedish for “being part of something” — has an aluminum frame and a slatted base, much like IKEA’s basic flat-packed bed. The company is planning to price it in the middle of its sofa range, which could be anywhere from $399 to $899. It will come in various sizes with a number of accessories that can be clipped onto it, like lamps, a headboard, side table, and arm rests, depending on what the owner wants to use it for. IKEA says it hopes to introduce other accessories as well, ...

Ransomware is a type of malware that infects computers and smartphones, encrypting the data on them and locking up the device, making it unusable. This is pretty bad when it happens to your personal device and you have no backup, but imagine an entire hotel full of guests locked out of their rooms because the hotel staff has been locked out of the computer system. Ransomware is becoming alarmingly common: ordinary people are infected and have to very quickly learn what bitcoin is, and even devices like smart TVs are infected and held for ransom. FURTHER READING: Bitcoin: What The Heck Is It, And How Does It Work? Hospitals, offices, police stations, and even an entire public transit system have been infected with malware, and victims have paid up. One Kansas hospital paid the ransom only to have the perpetrators come back and ask for more money . Another hotel paid $17,000 to get access to its files back. Experts recommend restoring files from a backup (you back up your dev...

Nearly four years ago, federal regulators shut down a debt relief company — Morgan Drexen — accused of deceiving customers with promises of reducing their debt and charging illegal upfront fees to do so. While that company eventually paid $170 million to resolve the allegations, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Monday sued a related company using the same playbook.  The CFPB filed suit [ PDF ] Monday against Howard Law, the Williamson Law Firm, and Williamson & Howard, as well as attorneys Vincent Howard and Lawrence Williamson, accusing the company of running a debt collection scheme that bilked tens of millions of dollars from consumers. According to the lawsuit, the allegedly illegal plot began in 2007 when Howard and Williamson began working with Morgan Drexen to offer debt relief services. Through the connection, the two men developed intake procedures, contracts, document templates, and other components of their debt relief program that were integrated into Mo...

My speedometer must be broken…. You must have me confused with another car… I think your radar gun needs calibrating… I think that super-fast deer over there is the one who should get the ticket… One of these statements is not a common excuse for trying to get out of a speeding ticket. The Newburyport Daily News brings us the story of a Massachusetts man who recently raised the speed-demon deer theory as a reason for why the court should throw out his ticket for allegedly going 40 mph in a 30 mph zone. In court last week he questioned the officer who wrote the ticket, asking him if was 100% sure that his radar device had captured his speed, or perhaps a really fast deer that could have been in the area at the time. “You’re not contending the radar picked up the deer?” the judge asked, as the courtroom giggled. The defendant replied that anything was possible. However, the judge ruled in favor of West Newbury police minutes later and imposed the original $105 fine. “In the 30-plu...

Advertisers love the Super Bowl, since it’s one of the few times that huge numbers of people sit and watch the same thing in real time, while paying attention to the commercials. Some marketers want to increase the impact of their ads even more, by spending over $1 million promoting their Super Bowl commercials. They’re shelling out to advertise their ads. The New York Times introduced us to this phenomenon , learning from a sports and entertainment marketing executive that she tells clients planning a Super Bowl commercial that they should plan to spend another 25% over the cost of running the ad on promoting the spot. This year, commercials during the Super Bowl cost up to $5 million, which means that the marketing budget would be as high as $1.25 million. That doesn’t mean that the companies are running commercials on TV: marketing campaigns include pitches to print and online news outlets and TV commercials. When you see a news item about an upcoming Super Bowl ad, the advertis...

This morning, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that is being described as “two out, one in,” meaning that for each new federal regulation, two existing rules are to be cut. While it might seem like a simple concept, the reality is quite different. While the White House is claiming that this order (full text at the bottom of this story) is about slashing onerous federal regulations, the more likely effect is a slowdown on new rules. That’s because the process for undoing and revising existing rules can be just as time-consuming as creating new ones. The Administrative Procedures Act (APA) provides what is effectively a 4-step process for the executive branch agencies when crafting new federal regulations. 1. Issue a notice of proposed rulemaking: This is when the agency tells the world, “Hey we’re thinking about issuing a rule to do XYZ” with some general details and goals. 2. Get comments on this rule: This is when the public and other various stakeholders in a p...

Several years ago, Apple introduced Activation Lock , a program that allows consumers to render their devices useless once stolen, along with Activation Lock status checker, which allowed customers to determine if their phone had been secured with another user, a sign it may have been stolen. Now, it appears the latter option is no more. Mac Rumors reports that Apple removed the status checker from iCloud in the last week, effectively preventing customers from being able to check if a phone is Activation Locked. Activation Lock is automatically enabled when users turn on Find My Phone and prevents anyone else from using the device unless they can enter the owner’s Apple ID and password. With status checker, iPhone users could enter the serial number or IMEI of iOS devices – including iPads, watches, and iPhones — to find out if Activation Lock was active. For example, if someone purchasing a phone enters the serial number, finds that Activation Lock is enabled, ...

The man responsible for millions of people spending millions of hours glued to video games has gone to that glowing maze in the sky: Masaya Nakamura, founder of the Japanese video game company behind Pac-Man, passed away last week at the age of 91. Nakamura founded Namco, now part of Bandai Namco, in 1955 with two mechanical horse rides on a department store rooftop, the Associated Press reports , before going on to pioneer amusement parks and video game arcades. The company confirmed that he died on Jan. 22. Pac-Man was designed by Namco engineer Toru Iwatani. The signature circular shape of the Pac-Man character is said to have been inspired by the image of a pizza with missing slice. The story is that Nakamura came up with the word “Pac,” or “pakku” in Japanese to mimic the sound of the Pac-Man chewing up his prey. Pac-Man, which debuted in 1980, went on to become one of the most beloved and popular video games of all time, going from arcade game to the Nintendo home console. It ...

When the word “all” appears in an ad, are you supposed to take it literally? That’s a good question, and it’s an important question when it comes to how Walgreens advertises its Balance Rewards program. The store’s marketing claims that “all” prescriptions are part of Balance Rewards, but that is not true. MousePrint noticed this discrepancy in a TV ad promoting the prescription rewards program, noting that the commercial promotes the program by telling customers that they can earn rewards points on all of their prescriptions, with the emphasis on “all.” Only Mouseprint-decipherer-in-chief Edgar Dworsky knows better than to believe the ad , since he has personal experience with which prescriptions earn points, and knows that his maintenance prescriptions don’t earn points. He checked. Prescriptions like his that come from the mail-order service that Walgreens runs to get customers 90-day refills aren’t eligible. This makes sense, of course: the goal of the program is to get custome...

Since the Napster era began in 1999, content creators and distributors have really, really hated it when you share their stuff online without paying up. Industry groups have tried many ways to stem the tide but one, a four-year-old cooperative alert system, is being scrapped after basically proving not to work. Variety reports that the pact among internet service providers, movie and TV studios, and record labels that created the Copyright Alert System is being allowed to expire, and will not be renewed and the end of this particular system has come. The Copyright Alert System (CAS) is also known as the “Six Strikes” program, because that’s how many warnings suspected infringers get. If your ISP participates in Six Strikes, it first gives you two “educational” alerts when you are suspected of unlawfully sharing copyrighted material. After that come two “acknowledgement” alerts, that require you in some way to indicate you received and read them, and after that come two “mitigation”...

Though it’s not uncommon to hear that someone shoved an ungodly amount of cocaine nose-ward, it’s an entirely different story when it’s 31 pounds of the stuff that’s been hidden in the nose gear of a commercial airliner. Workers servicing an American Airlines plane at a maintenance base in Tulsa on Sunday found seven bricks of cocaine in the very front of the aircraft, the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office said . The plane originated from Bogotá, Colombia, and was flagged for maintenance on Sunday night, authorities said, but because the maintenance base in Miami was too busy to service the plane, the Boeing 757 was sent to Tulsa. “A technician went to check the electronics bay near the nose gear and some of the insulation looked new,” the sheriff’s office said. “He moved it and saw one of the bricks and called TCSO.” TCSO says the minimum street value of the cocaine recovered from the plane is $200,000. With an estimated value of $14,000 per pound, the Associated Press estimates it’s...

As someone wise once said, if you don’t have a box that will fit what you want to ship, just figure something out. One of our very own Consumerist readers was the recipient of such necessity-driven creativity recently, when an item she’d ordered online showed up on her doorstep in, shall we say, unexpected packaging. The reader says she ordered the large sifting shovel — ideal for use in chicken coops or large-scale animal rescue operations — last week on Amazon from a third-party seller, and it was left on her porch a few days later. “Yes… this is how it was delivered,” she wrote, adding that she got “quite a kick out of it.” We checked with the seller, Next Day MRO, to verify that they had indeed, shipped a shovel with the handle sticking out of a box, and a representative for the company confirmed that the choice was deliberate. “Yes, this bit of creativity was ours,” the rep wrote, explaining that UPS and FedEx charge for items that aren’t shipped in a box. “Our team would typ...

More than a decade after Macy’s inherited much-adored chocolate brand Frango from Marshall Field & Co., the struggling department store is selling the label to Garrett Popcorn.  Macy’s announced the transaction Monday, noting that Garrett will now “develop, create, sell, and distribute” the chocolate and confectionary brand. Under the deal, for which a price was not disclosed, the Frango Cafe at Macy’s State Street store in Chicago (better known locally as the former flagship location for Marshall Field’s) will remain open and the candies will continue to be sold at more than 350 Macy’s locations. “We are happy to have found such a natural partner in Garrett Brands and are confident they will be great stewards of the Frango brand,” Tim Baxter, chief merchandising officer at Macy’s, said in a statement. “And, given Garrett Brands’ history of thoughtfully growing brands, we are confident that this partnership will introduce new customers to premium Frango chocolates.” Frango...

When you travel with a group, it can be a pain to book adjoining rooms, and even then you all have to cram into one person’s room or lay claim to the lobby bar if you want to get together. This is one reason why groups are increasingly turning to Airbnb and similar services, and why Marriott may try rooms with communal spaces. The Los Angeles Times reports that Marriott International showed off its latest communal lodging concept at The Americas Lodging Investment Summit last week, revealing a setup that appears to be more of an apartment/dorm hybrid than a traditional hotel room. The concept, which the company says could be used at its Element Hotel brand, revamps each floor of the hotel to contain a cluster of rooms around a shared living and kitchen area on each floor of the building. Toni Stoical, vice president for Marriott’s distinctive select brands, tells the L.A. Times that the rooms could be rented by large groups of travelers, such as colleagues on business trips or frie...

Last Friday, Jan. 27, was the deadline for the deal to close in the proposed acquisition of drugstore chain Rite Aid by competitor Walgreens . Today, the companies announced a revised deal with an eye to meeting Federal Trade Commission approval. This deal values Rite Aid at over $2 billion less, and proposes the sale of hundreds more stores to another drugstore chain. The two chains first proposed this deal back in October 2015 , putting the value of Rite Aid and its stores at $9.4 billion. According to The Wall Street Journal , the new proposal lowers the purchase price of the chain, and the final value of the company ranges from $6.50 to $7 per share depending on how many stores Rite Aid divests, or sells to a competitor as a condition of the merger. The lower share price kicks in if the companies divest at least 1,200 stores. Walgriteaid Merger 2.0 expires at the end of July, giving the FTC more time to evaluate the deal and the impact of an additional 335 divested stores. Even a...

Audi’s parent company Volkswagen is kicking off the week in style, announcing two separate recalls — one involving a potential fire risk, the other for faulty airbags — covering a total of nearly 600,000 vehicles. The first recall involves 342, 867 Audi vehicles containing faulty coolant pumps that may be susceptible to fires. Covered models include: • Audi A5 (2013-2016) • A5 Cabriolet (2013-2016) • Q5 (2013-2016) • Allroad (2013-2016) • A4 (2013-2016) • A6 (2012-2015) According to a notice [ PDF ] posted with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the coolant pump in the recalled vehicles could become blocked by debris from the cooling system, which can lead to the pump overheating and the risk of a vehicle fire. VW says it first became aware of the issue in 2015 when Audi received information about an unspecified number of cases in which the engine compartments of vehicles began to smolder. The automaker will notify owners of affected vehicles staring Feb. 20 ...

Amid efforts by the Trump administration to curb immigration, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced over the weekend that his company “will neither stand by, nor stand silent, as the uncertainty around the new Administration’s actions grows with each passing day.” In a statement released Sunday evening, Schultz — who will soon be stepping down as CEO but will remain as Chairman of the Board — said Starbucks will provide job opportunities to thousands of refugees around the world. “There are more than 65 million citizens of the world recognized as refugees by the United Nations, and we are developing plans to hire 10,000 of them over five years in the 75 countries around the world where Starbucks does business,” writes Schultz, adding that the initial focus will be on “individuals who have served with U.S. troops as interpreters and support personnel in the various countries where our military has asked for such support.” This statement was in direct response to an executive order ...

It’s starting to sound like all too familiar a refrain. Due to an IT error, a major airline has to temporarily issue a full ground stop on all its flights nationwide, causing a cascade of problems. Today’s “winner” of systems glitch roulette is Delta, and travelers this morning may have cancellations and delays to look forward to. The problem began around 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. At 9:15 p.m., Delta confirmed that a “systems outage” had resulted in departure delays and cancellations for flights still on the ground. Flights already in the air were not affected, but did experience delays when landing at some airports. At 10:15 p.m., Delta updated its news site to mention that oh, by the way, delays aren’t accurately showing on information screens, the website, the Delta app, or, in fact, for reservations agents — so not only might your flight be delayed or cancelled, but also you can’t actually find that out in advance. Delta later confirmed that it had cancelled 170 flights on Sunday ...

When a retailer files for bankruptcy protection, that typically means that it will stop accepting gift cards, which is very bad news if you happen to hold one. If customers of The Limited didn’t spend their gift cards before the chain shut down its retail stores and its website , they lose the value of their cards. What typically happens in a retail bankruptcy is that the company will secure permission from the bankruptcy court to accept gift cards for at least 30 days after the filing. Shoppers can use their cards up at liquidation sales or on the company’s website. While a retailer or restaurant might accept pre-bankruptcy gift cards after reorganization or under new ownership, it isn’t required to. RadioShack, for example, only allowed customers to cash in their gift cards for up to a year after the bankruptcy filing after numerous state attorneys general, led by the AG in its home state of Texas , Then there are chains like The Limited, which closed all of its stores and its e...

The apparent inescapable death spiral of Sears continued last week when the retailer laid off an unspecified number of full-time employees from its Kmart stores. Business Insider confirmed the layoffs, noting that the ousted employees were full-time managers or department heads in charge of driving, backrooms, and customer-facing services at stores across the country. A spokesman for the company, who declined to say how many people were affected by the layoff, tells Business Insider that not all Kmart stores were affected by the cuts. “Eliminating positions is never an easy decision to make, and we don’t take it lightly as we recognize the valuable contributions affected associates make to the company,” spokesman Howard Riefs said. Citing two anonymous Kmart workers, Business Insider reports that nearly 800 stores were affected by the cuts. Employees of the retailer note on message boards that many of the stores now have “skeletal” staff, and that the company has spun the layoff...