Located in western Nebraska, a couple hours’ drive to either Denver or Cheyenne, WY, the small city of Sidney has been home to outdoors outfitter Cabela’s for more than 50 years, as it grew from a little catalog operation to a retail chain with billions of dollars in annual sales. But now that Cabela’s has been purchased by Bass Pro Shops, what will happen to the 2,000 jobs that the company had provided to the local economy? [More]
missouri
How Home-Grown Tomatoes And Misread Tea Leaves Led To Pointless Police Raid On Innocent Family’s Home
By 7.28.17
When Bob Harte took his two young kids shopping with him at an organic gardening store in Kansas City, Missouri, he had no idea that he had inadvertently set in motion a series of events that would — eight months later — lead to the Harte family watching helplessly as armed sheriff’s deputies searched every corner of their house for nonexistent evidence of a marijuana grow operation. [More]
Feds Say Landlords Offered Reduced Rent For Sex, Evicted Tenants When They Refused
By 9.1.16
Tenants of homes owned by a pair of St. Louis landlords say the weren’t just subjected to inappropriate sexual comments, but that one landlord also offered to look the other way on the rent if tenants would sleep with him. When the renters refused these advances, they claim the landlords tried to throw them out on the streets. [More]
Missouri Lawmakers Sneak Municipal Broadband Restrictions Into Traffic Ticket Bill
By 5.5.16
The legislative process, in theory, brings us laws that have been robustly debated, discussed, compromised on, and perfected. But in reality, legislatures have this thing where lawmakers can often add completely unrelated amendments or riders to bills to accomplish, well, basically any pet goal they want. That’s what’s happened in Missouri this week, and now municipal broadband in the state is under fire from a law about… traffic tickets. [More]
If Home Depot Employees Think You’re Buying Parts For A Pipe Bomb, Expect A Visit From The Police
By 4.15.16
There are possibly non-bomb reasons for going into a hardware store, buying a length of metal pipe, having it divided up into smaller pieces, and then having each of those pieces threaded for caps on both ends — but it’s definitely the sort of purchase that will probably result in the police knocking on your door. [More]
Monsanto: Missouri’s Religious Freedom Law Would Let Any Business Discriminate Against LGBT Community
By 4.13.16
With North Carolina and Mississippi already passing bills that respectively, limit protections against gay and transgender people, and explicitly allow discrimination against the LGBT community, another coalition of big-name companies are hoping to stop Missouri lawmakers from going down the same path, with seed giant Monsanto telling Congress that such rules are bad for business. [More]
Missouri Attorney General Suing Walgreens Over Pricing Practices… Again
By 9.22.15
Barely a year after Walgreens reached a deal with the Missouri attorney general to close the state’s investigation into allegations of overcharging and deceptive advertising, the state’s top prosecutor is taking the drugstore chain back to court. [More]
Jury Hits Debt Collector With $83 Million Verdict Over Bogus $1,130 Debt
By 5.19.15
A jury in Missouri recently awarded $251,000 in damages to a local woman who was wrongfully sued by a debt collector — more than 222 times the amount she’d been sued over — but that’s nothing compared to the additional $82.99 million in punitive damages assessed against the collection company. [More]
Missouri AG Shuts Down Eight Online Payday Lenders Operating From South Dakota Reservation
By 3.6.15
More than 6,300 Missouri residents will receive refunds or have their debts voided after the state’s attorney general reached an agreement with an online payday lender based on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota. [More]
Missouri Auto Dealers Sue State For Letting Tesla Sell Directly To Consumers
By 1.23.15
While many states have essentially banned the sale of Tesla vehicles, Missouri appeared to welcome the electric car company with open arms. Of course, not everyone is as pleased to have the car maker tallying sales in the Show Me State. And so to show its displeasure, the Missouri Auto Dealers Association filed a lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Revenue and its director for allowing the electric car company to sell vehicles directly to consumers. [More]
Cracker Barrel Waitress Scores Ultimate Tip: A Car
By 12.5.14
After seeing the woeful state of their waitress’s car parked outside the Branson, MO, Cracker Barrel where she worked, a couple from Arkansas decided to leave her a pretty nice tip — in the form of a car. [More]
States’ Attempts To Reform Payday Lending Are Often Just Smoke & Mirrors
By 3.12.14
Payday lending has been getting a makeover of sorts recently. A number of banks, including Wells Fargo, have discontinued their payday-like direct deposit advance programs after federal regulators tightened their guidance over the high-cost products. Now, a number of state legislatures are discussing payday lending reform bills, which they say will make short-term loans safer for consumers. But are they truly helpful to those who need them? Not quite, say consumer advocates. [More]
Judge Stops Town From Punishing Drivers Who Use Headlights To Warn Others Of Speed Traps
By 2.5.14
Flashing your headlights is a well-established means of communicating any number of things to other drivers on the road. It could be a reminder for the other driver to turn on their lights (or turn off their brights). Maybe it’s a call to your traveling partners in another car to pull off at the next exit. It’s also a way for some people to alert other drivers about a police speed trap up ahead. Some towns have outlawed that practice, but a federal judge says that’s going too far. [More]
Brewpub Shows Starbucks “The F Word” After Legal Demand To Stop Selling “Frappicino” Beer
By 12.31.13
Still stinging from yet another legal defeat against a small New Hampshire coffee company over the “Charbucks” brand, the Starbucks legal team appears to be going after lower-hanging fruit, sending a cease-and-desist letter to a small Missouri brewpub that dared to sell something called Frappicino beer. [More]
How Does A $1,000 Loan Blow Up Into $40,000 Of Debt?
By 12.13.13
We’ll never advise that anyone take out a payday or installment loan with an interest rate of 240%, but if you do find yourself taking out one of these ridiculously high-interest loans, know that defaulting on the payments can land you in the courthouse, where you could end up buried beneath a mountain of debt from which you’ll never dig out. [More]
Sonic Is Really, Really Sorry About That “Scalp The Redskins/Feed Them Whiskey” Sign
By 12.9.13
Someone at a Missouri Sonic Drive-in chose to express both their support for the Kansas City Chiefs and their utter ignorance by using the restaurant’s sign to post a message that combined nearly every offensive Native American stereotype into one garbled statement. [More]
Scammer Charged With Renting Out Home She Didn’t Own Six Times In A Few Weeks
By 11.5.13
While we don’t condone scamming in any form, we’ve written enough about inept scammers over the years to pick up a few tips on how to avoid being caught so easily. For example, if you’re going to try to swindle people out of thousands of dollars in bogus rental deposits, don’t get greedy and try to hoodwink six different tenants in just a matter of a few weeks. [More]
Jury Awards Former Student $13 Million In Lawsuit Against For-Profit College
By 6.21.13
One of the more common complaints against for-profit colleges is that the institutions make promises to prospective students about job placement and salary that the schools don’t make good on. A woman in Missouri recently sued one such for-profit school, saying it misled her about its medical assistant program. She had been seeking somewhere between $2-4 million in damages, but the jury went ahead and awarded her $13 million. [More]
