This Week: Several Unpleasant Smells
Tues | JULY 1 As summer gas prices continue to rise, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports on a nationwide surge in grave-robbing, spurred by rising scrap-metal prices and good old-fashioned envy for the dead. Police admitted that preventing such crime is difficult because department budgets tend to prioritize the needs of [...]

Officials say no-tipping policy protects students
A state judge Thursday hit Seattle-based Starbucks with a $100 million fine after she found the coffee giant illegally forced California baristas to share tips with their managers. There’ll be no such squabble at the Starbucks on the Long Beach State campus—where tipping is banned. School officials who run the [...]

Or twice, I don’t remember exactly. But I’m not proud of it, believing as I do that there are certain businesses – record shops, flower shops, running-shoe stores, breakfast spots and coffee houses — that just ought to be indie operations. But a story in Slate presents evidence that the proliferation of Starbucks (15,000 stores and expanding [...]