COLORADO SPRINGS – Over 12,000 workers represented by UFCW Local 7, a labor union located in Pueblo, work at the 109 King Soopers and City Market stores across Colorado.

The workers’ current contracts ended in January and Local 7 has been engaged in bargaining for new contracts since mid-December with no progress.

More than 150 labor union members showed up Monday for the eighth day of negotiations. King Soopers workers waited for over three hours after the appointed time for the grocery store chain to make its first comprehensive series of proposals for the next contract.

The new proposal includes no pay raises over the next three years for about half of employees, decreased benefits and increased healthcare costs, no service credit for military service, and fewer full-time jobs and fewer hours for part-time workers.

https://koaa.com/news/covering-colorado/2019/02/26/labor-union-workers-and-king-soopers-heading-back-to-the-bargaining-table/

U.S. television news, in particular the cable news channels, are failing the American people by doing a far less than adequate job of informing and educating them on critical issues and problems facing this country. This part of the national media is, indeed, a mere shadow of what it could and should be.

We have the internet, truly one of the wonders of the world of technology, near or at the top of the list of providing information. It is a tremendous educational tool like no other. If one acquires the ability to search the web, using the right keywords, he or she can find almost anything.

But most Americans don’t regularly use the internet to inform themselves about day to day happenings in this country, they use newspapers, radio stations, and television, with most of the information coming from television channels.

One of the main reasons for the poor turnout in our mid-term and presidential elections is that a great many Americans are so poorly educated on the most important issues of the day. When they are uninformed it makes it difficult for them to determine who the best candidates are and, as a result, many of them just stay home.

https://www.nationofchange.org/2019/02/25/cable-tv-news-a-mere-shadow-of-what-it-could-and-should-be/

to get started. Disappointing.

The cheerleaders at Tremper High School in Kenosha, Wisconsin, looked forward to the annual spring banquet as a time to celebrate their hard work in the company of over 100 friends and family members. What they never expected was for the banquet to become a humiliating exercise in body shaming.

In the banquet hall of a Kenosha restaurant in March 2018, the cheer coaches presented some squad members with “most improved” and “hardest worker” awards as the crowd applauded and snapped photos. Yet not all of the awards celebrated the cheerleaders’ hard work and athleticism.

The coaches also presented a “Big Booty Judy” award to the cheerleader with the largest buttocks, “Big Boobie Strube” award to the cheerleader with the largest breasts, and “String Bean” award to the thinnest cheerleader. In video footage obtained by the ACLU, the coaches proclaimed, “We love her butt. Everybody loves her butt” as the recipient of the Big Booty Judy award made her way to the front of the crowded room.

These three young women were not the first to receive objectifying awards. The Big Boobie Strube and Big Booty Judy award were also handed out during the 2017 cheer banquet. Additionally, a cheerleader with brown hair received a blonde wig as an award because she was deemed a “ditzy girl.”

https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/womens-rights-education/wisconsin-school-district-shrugged-after-high-school?fbclid=IwAR2pa_66XToCVKmVgv2EesAYx4_QdcXsX1VVQqcrqfdkpWygZc5ugcaC-rc

This story is part of a collaborative-reporting initiative supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. All stories can be found here: https://taken.pulitzercenter.org/

In the past two decades, the federal government took in $36.5 billion in assets police seized from people on America’s roads and in its poorer neighborhoods, many of whom never were charged with a crime or shown to have drugs.

Most of the money seized by this civil asset-forfeiture process returns to the law-enforcement agencies that seized it, providing funds for a variety of law-enforcement needs and desires, including exercise equipment, squad cars, jails, military equipment and even a margarita maker.

Many of the seizures occur along corridors that carry drugs east to big cities and cash back west. The Interstate-44 corridor through southern Missouri, Interstate 70 through St. Charles County and the network of interstates that connect in Illinois across from the Gateway Arch are prime locations for asset forfeiture and drug traffic.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/no-drugs-no-crime-and-just-pennies-school-how-police-use-civil-asset-forfeiture

Ameren Missouri is planning $5 billion worth of improvements to its energy grid, company officials announced Friday.

The Smart Energy Plan includes 2,000 electric projects to be completed during the next five years, including a new substation in Hazelwood and upgrades to the underground grid that serves downtown St. Louis. The utility also plans to spend $1 billion on wind energy in 2020.

“We’re modernizing this grid to benefit customers today as well as future generations to come,’’ Ameren President Michael Moehn said. “We’re engaging in over 2,000 projects, building a smarter, more reliable, cleaner energy grid.’’

The plan would be Ameren’s largest upgrade in its 100-year history, Moehn said.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/ameren-missouri-invest-5-billion-improve-statewide-electrical-grid

More headwinds in the Retail Sector.


(Meredith) - Payless Inc. is expected to close all of its roughly 2,300 stores when it files for bankruptcy later this month, according to reports.

The Topeka, Kansas-based company has been unsuccessful in finding a buyer and is planning to run going-out-of-business sales as early as next week, Reuters reported, citing sources close to the matter.

This would be the retailer's second trip to bankruptcy court. In April 2017, Payless filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to slash $800 million in debts. A group of creditors then took ownership of the company.

https://www.kmov.com/news/report-payless-expected-to-close-all-stores-after-filing-for/article_57d170da-87d3-59fe-b938-6f8de73446f3.html?fbclid=IwAR1DnIUVHvVWMFnsOAN1b8gRbQvpcwryvZog4NbvwXg0nAkNSMjphNCCprs

Please also take a moment to remember it is Ferris Wheel 🎡 Day!

🙃🙃🙃

given over this last week.