jikShoplifter Arrested After Shoving Steak Down His Pantsde

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(Coyoty)

A 53-year-old man in Arkansas was arrested last week for shoplifting. His crime was one that has long fascinated us here at Consumerist: he is accused of trying to steal steaks from a Food Giant grocery store by shoving them down his pants. While this might seem like a logical and delicious enough crime, it’s also kind of a noticeable one. Also, no one will want to eat the meat.

The total value of the stolen meat was $57, and police report that $157 worth of other merchandise was damaged in this incident. The suspect pushed a shopping cart into the shin of a store employee and tried to run out of the store, but the employee was still able to stop the suspect from running out of the store.

We don’t know what it is about steak that makes people want to stuff it down their pants. Criminals have been known to shove other meats down their pants too, including steak and lobster, a deli turkey breast, a non-kosher trifecta with lobster, shrimp, and pork, beef tongue, bacon, but steak is the most popular by far.

Man Arrested after Stuffing Steaks Into His Pants [NWA Homepage]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikNintendo Announces Plans To Make Games For Mobile Devicesde

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(kenfagerdotcom)

Have a hankering to play Super Mario at the bus stop but don’t have the portable gaming console to satisfy that urge? Soon video games from Nintendo will make the move from consoles to mobile devices, as the company announces a partnership with an online gaming firm to develop and operate new apps.

Nintendo’s console sales have been struggling, but this mobile venture with online company DeNA doesn’t signal the end of the company’s business in that area entirely, reports Reuters.

“This will allow us to build a bridge between smart devices and gaming consoles,” Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said. “It doesn’t mean smart devices will eat away at gaming consoles, it will create an entirely new type of demand.”

He didn’t reveal which games will be the first to hit the mobile market, but did say that it wouldn’t be one of the classic titles we already know like Super Mario or the Legend of Zelda.

As part of the new partnership between the companies, Nintendo and DeNA will also debut an online membership service to work with games on its mobile devices, as well as the Wii U console and the 3DS portable device.

Super Mario to go mobile as Nintendo ventures into smartphone games [Reuters]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikYou Can’t Discharge Your Student Loans In Bankruptcy Because Of Panicked 1970s Legislationde

jikUnited Airlines Flight Forced To Turn Around After Passenger Reportedly Makes Run For Cockpit Doorde

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(afagen)

A United Airways flight bound for Denver was forced to turn back to Washington Dulles Airport after a passenger reportedly made a rush for the cockpit door, and had to be restrained. An airline spokesman says the passenger “failed to comply with crew instructions” last night.

According to audio of air traffic control transmissions from LiveATC.net (via USA Today), the pilot alerted controllers to the troublesome passenger.

“We had a passenger becoming violent. No weapons involved. He’s restrained by other passengers now, though,” the pilot says in the recording. “We don’t know his mental health condition. Sounds like he’s restrained for now. We just need to get on the ground.”

The pilot says he ran towards the cockpit, but that the cockpit was secure and the crew wanted to return to the airport to have authorities deal with him, reports FOX 31 Denver.

One passenger said two men grabbed the unruly man and held him to the floor.

“One held his feet and the other one kind of laid on top of him and then the flight attendants went and got some plastic restraints for his arms,” she told FOX 31. “At one point when his head was down he said there were jihadists in the cargo hold and he did say jihad a couple times.”

A phone video uploaded to YouTube shows the man being held down by his fellow passengers, as one tries to reassure him while he struggles.

“Don’t move,” the other passenger says. “You’re okay. We’re going to get you off this plane, buddy.”

The plane landed back at Dulles around 10:40 last night, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said, adding that no passengers were injured and there were no weapons found.

“A passenger was removed from the plane and transported to a local hospital for evaluation,” she said.

Though the plane went on to Denver, no passengers were on it as the flight attendants reportedly didn’t want to fly after the incident. Travelers instead will be on Denver-bound flights this morning, United said.

‘Violent’ passenger forces flight to return to Dulles [USA Today]

Denver-bound United Airlines flight turns around after passenger reportedly runs toward cockpit [FOX 31]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikGameStop Dumpster Diver Accuses Employees Of Deliberately Destroying Usable Productsde

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Stuff breaks, and sometimes you have to throw it out. That’s life. However, when a dumpster diver discovered a batch of games and equipment thrown away outside of a GameStop store, he was angry when he discovered that many of the items had been deliberately destroyed. Why scratch up games that could be donated to a hospital games room or some other place where people in need could have fun?

That was the key question of this video taken back in February that somehow only attracted GameStop’s attention this week. In the video, discoverer JayPee shows us deliberately scratched games and controllers with their cords cut.

The video finally attracted GameStop’s attention last week, and late Friday afternoon they posted a response on Facebook.

Hey GameStop fans. We completely agree with the suggestions of donating games or accessories to charitable organizations. We do that routinely with our partners Ronald McDonald House Charities, Make-A-Wish Foundation and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Regarding the Dumpster Video: It is our company practice to discard or destroy products that are damaged, defective, no longer work, or cannot be repaired. It is our understanding that this was the case with the product shown in the video.

JayPee questions this statement, wondering why store employees had clearly cut cords and gouged discs. Had those items been returned as defective and they just weren’t visibly damaged? That’s possible.

Even so, JayPee wonders why the items, many of which contain batteries that could become dangerous over time instead of recycling them as e-waste.

GameStop Responds to Dumpster Video [Gamespot]

GameStop Statement [Facebook]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikWhy Do Makeup Brands Keep Naming Red Lipsticks ‘Underage’?de

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The controversy over the name of a red lipstick started yesterday when writer Parker Molloy went to Sephora and noticed some odd product names. We sympathize with the people in charge of naming makeup colors, but maybe it’s a little inappropriate to call a bright red lipstick “Underage.”

The offending shade is part of a tattoo-themed makeup collection branded with the name of tattoo artist Kat Von D. The same collection drew controversy in 2012 when another lipstick shade was named “Celebutard.” That didn’t offend celebrities, but disability activists who find the word “retard” extra inappropriate when applied to a person.

Went shopping for some makeup. How on earth is this a lipstick color? http://ift.tt/1x8YOy9

— Parker Marie Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) March 15, 2015

When Molloy’s tweet brought the world’s attention to the shade, some people were horrified and disgusted.

The shade isn’t just available in stores, of course: you can buy it from Sephora’s site and other online vendors. This isn’t anything new, though: competitor MAC also has a lip gloss named “Underage,” but it’s pale pink.

We’re not sure what this says about the brands’ respective beliefs about what, precisely, underage girls are up to.

Sephora is selling an inappropriately named lipstick that has people disgusted [Business Insider] (via Jezebel)

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikRitz-Carlton Investigated For Adding Surcharge During Basketball Tournamentde

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In late February, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the oldest African-American athletic conference in the U.S., held its annual basketball tournament in Charlotte, where visitors to the Ritz-Carlton found that they were being subject to an automatic 15% “CIAA Service” surcharge on their bills at the lobby bar.

The surcharge, which specifically calls out the CIAA, irked a number of the lounge patrons, especially those who questioned whether the imposition of a steep service charge may have been racially motivated. It was originally reported by WBTV.

Last week, the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority confirmed to the Charlotte Observer that no other hotels in the city tacked on a similar surcharge during the tournament.

“Due to the size of the CIAA event, we instituted a modest 15% service charge for our lobby beverage servers, on whom the event places significant demands throughout the weekend,” the hotel said in a statement at the time.

However, what remains unclear is whether the Ritz-Carlton has previously used the surcharge for similarly large events, and whether this surcharge was indeed provided to the employees for whom it was collected.

The hotel is only saying that “The service charge was not intended to single out any particular group or organization and we deeply regret any misunderstanding this may have caused.”

But these assurances apparently didn’t do much to convince the North Carolina Attorney General’s office, which has sent the hotel a request [PDF] for more information about the reasons for the surcharge, whether it was uniformly applied, and where the collected money went.

A rep for the AG’s office tells the Observer that at least three written complaints and two phone calls have been received regarding this surcharge.

The CIAA has been holding its basketball tournament in Charlotte since 2006 and recently agreed to continue its partnership with the city for several years to come.

[via NPR]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist