While people may disagree about the best ingredients for their favorite barbecue dishes, everyone can agree that pieces of plastic do not belong in pulled beef. That’s why grocery chain H-E-B is recalling 6.4 tons of shredded beef with barbecue sauce shipped to its stores. [More]
texas
Limited Flights To Houston Resume; Full Service Will Take Several More Days
By 8.31.17
You can fly over floods… but only if there’s a place to take off and a place to land. Houston’s airports, like the rest of the city, have been dealing with high water and torrential rain caused by Hurricane Harvey, and while the runways are dry, it’s going to take some time for air travel to and through the area to get anything like back to normal. [More]
Hurricane Harvey Cancels Thousands Of Flights, Disrupts Shipping
By 8.29.17
Flooding in the Houston area continues today, as remnants of Hurricane Harvey continue to unleash unfathomable torrents of rain on the Gulf Coast. In addition to the destruction facing local homes and businesses, all travel into or out of the nation’s fourth-largest city — both for people and for things — has been hampered, and will likely continue to be for some time. [More]
Owner Of Houston Furniture Stores Turns Them Into Shelters For Residents Stranded By Hurricane
By 8.28.17
Thousands of Texas residents have been displaced following Hurricane Harvey’s landfall over the weekend. While many of these people no doubt traveled to stay with friends and family outside of the affected areas, others don’t have those options. Instead, they’ve sought refuge from rising flood waters at community centers, shelters… and furniture stores. [More]
New Drivers In Texas Have To Take Online Class About Distracted Driving
By 8.4.17
An average of nine people die every day from crashes caused by distracted drivers, a statistic that’s especially tragic when those deaths could be preventable. That’s why Texas is expanding its requirement for new drivers to learn more about what they shouldn’t be doing behind the wheel. [More]
Stopping Dark Stores: The Fight To Prevent Thriving Retailers From Being Taxed Like Vacant Lots
By 7.10.17
There’s a neat trick that big-box stores like Lowe’s have pulled off in some states. They claim that for tax purposes, their open, thriving businesses should be valued the same as empty property, so that they pay way less. In one state, though, a lawmaker being called back for a special session of the legislature is hoping he can end the practice locally. [More]
Small Cable Company Accuses Comcast Of Destroying Its Cable Lines After It Said No To Sale
By 6.21.17
A former local cable and broadband provider in Texas alleges that after it turned down Comcast’s offer to acquire the company’s customers, Comcast contractors repeatedly severed the smaller business’s cable lines, ultimately driving it out of business. [More]
Law Professor Files Discrimination Complaint Over Women-Only ‘Wonder Woman’ Showing
By 6.2.17
Alamo Drafthouse, a small movie theater chain known for its anti-texting stance and general coolness, scheduled a special women-only showing of the summer superhero film Wonder Woman. This seemed like a fun one-off idea, but the idea has met some resistance, particularly online. Now a law professor who specializes in employment discrimination and sexual orientation law is filing a complaint with the city, claiming that the showing may be violating the city’s own laws. [More]
Customer Accuses Chipotle Of Covering Up For Manager Who Put Spy Cam In Bathroom
By 5.25.17
A woman in Texas claims that not only did a manager at her local Chipotle repeatedly install spy cameras in the restaurant’s female restroom, but that the restaurant and its corporate office covered up the peeping; a charge the Chipotle HQ denies. [More]
Man Behind $1.1M Home Depot Receipt Scam Gets Two-Year Prison Sentence
By 5.16.17
A Texas man who used Home Depot’s program for tax-exempt business purchases to scam more than $1.1 million from the retailer has been sentenced to two years in federal prison and ordered to repay all his ill-gotten gains. [More]
American Airlines Workers Targeted In $16.7M Hearing Aid Scheme
By 4.21.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
Thousands of American Airlines employees unknowingly became the targets of a multi-million dollar insurance fraud scheme carried out by a father-son duo who claimed to provide the airline workers with free hearing aids for simply taking a test. [More]
Man Stole $11,000 In Stuff From Home Depot, Then Returned It All For Refunds
By 4.18.17
Most practitioners of the “hot exchange” — the retail grift where a fraudster steals an item then “returns” it to the store for a refund — are happy to chisel away a criminal living, earning $50 here, $100 there. But one Texas man was thinking big when he stole — and then returned — more than $11,000 from Home Depot stores. [More]
Uber’s Plan To Let Drivers Ask For Tips May Be Illegal In Some States
By 3.22.17
Unlike traditional taxis, Uber passengers aren’t expected to tip; you can’t even add a tip on the app. However, Uber did recently settle a class-action lawsuit by allowing drivers to solicit and receive tips, but only in cash. One big problem: This policy appears to be illegal in multiple states. [More]
Bank Employee Stole $1.25M From Bank… Very, Very Slowly
By 2.1.17
When you think of a bank robbery, you probably imagine some heavily armed crew trying to run off with as much money as possible in a very short window of time. But one Texas bank employee almost managed to get away with stealing more than $1 million, by chiseling away at her employer over the course of a decade. [More]
Free-Standing Emergency Rooms Accused Of Duping Patients Into Paying “Facilities Fees”
By 1.13.17
The country’s largest operator of free-standing emergency rooms — urgent medical care providers that are not physically connected to any hospital — has been accused of deceiving their patients into paying fees of several thousand dollars. [More]
Parents Of Child Killed By Distracted Driver Sue Apple For Not Blocking FaceTime While Driving
By 12.29.16
On Christmas Eve 2014, a driver distracted by using FaceTime on his iPhone crashed into another vehicle on I-35 in Texas, killing the 5-year-old girl in the back seat. The child’s parents and her older sister — all also injured in the collision — are now suing Apple, alleging that the company was negligent in not deploying safeguards that would restrict the use of FaceTime while driving. [More]
Man Kicked Out Of Six Flags For Being An Unapproved Santa Lookalike
By 12.14.16
A lot of white-haired bearded guys look like Santa Claus. Some of them play up that resemblance during the Christmas season, whether it’s by getting hired to be a Santa for an event, or by just spreading goodwill and holiday cheer. However, one unofficial Santa says he was booted from a Six Flags amusement park because he looked too much like the big-bellied bearded gift-giver. [More]
Even $3 Million Isn’t Enough To Get Supermarkets In Dallas’s Food Deserts
By 12.1.16
In a desert, there’s not very much water to go around. In a food desert, the problem is groceries: reliable, affordable supermarkets with fresh, healthy, decent-quality offerings get farther apart and harder to find as you head into some regions. One Texas city has been trying to solve the problem for thousands of its residents by ooffering large amounts of cash to supermarket retailers, but even the lure of free millions has resulted in no takers. [More]
