By now you probably know that those tiny microbeads in your facewash do more than just clean your face – they have a sneaky way of entering our waterways and turning up inside the stomach of our seafood. While a few states have acted to end the use of microbeads in health and beauty products, little has been done on a national level, until now.

The Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2014, which was introduced by New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. on Wednesday, would prohibit the sale or distribution of personal care products that contain synthetic microbeads nationwide by 2018.

“These tiny plastic particles that are polluting our environment are found in products specifically designed to be washed down shower drains,” Pallone says in a news release. “And many people buying these products are unaware of their damaging effects… By phasing out the use of plastic microbeads and transitioning to non-synthetic alternatives, we can protect U.S. waters before it’s too late.”

The small bits of plastic, often found in face washes, soaps and toothpaste, have become a hot topic for lawmakers and environmentalists in recent years.

Earlier this month, Illinois became the first state to pass an ordinance that would gradually fade out the use of microbeads beginning in 2017 and ending in 2019.

The Associated Press reports that the state bill, which was first introduced earlier this year, even had the cooperation of product manufacturers.

An official with the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois says the quick deal resulted from unique circumstances, and the availability of substitute ingredients, such as oatmeal and sea salt.

However, things don’t seem to be going as smoothly for similar bills in New York, California and Ohio.

The New York bill, which was introduced in February, has passed the state’s Assembly, but is still waiting action in the senate, the AP reports. That bill is a bit more aggressive – banning the use of microbeads by 2016.

Still, New York has often been in the forefront of the fight to ban microbeads for commonly used products. Officials with the state estimate that 19 tons of the tiny beads enter the states waterways each year.

A report issued earlier this year by the New York Environmental Protection Bureau outlined just how unsafe the microbeads can be.

According to the report, after microbeads are washed from our bathrooms, they easily travel through wastewater treatment plants and enter our waterways. The tiny beads then act as sponges for toxic chemical pollutants and become an attractive snack for marine wildlife. And because we humans often like to eat seafood, that means there’s a pretty good chance microbeads could end up in your stomach.

Additionally, a 2012 survey of New York’s Great Lakes revealed that some of the highest concentrations of microplastics were prevalent in the water. Researchers used a mesh collector to gather 21 samples from the water. It was then determined that Lake Erie accounted for the vast majority of plastic collected with nearly 1 million particles present.

The issue hasn’t just been on the minds of activists, either. Several major manufacturers, such as Proctor & Gamble, Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive, have pledged to phase out use of plastic microbeads.

In February, L’Oréal said it would begin phasing out the materials this year in their Biotherm products and continue with Body Shop products in 2015. All of the company’s products are expected to be microbead-free by 2017.

As for the bill to ban microbeads nationwide, its been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. GovTrack gives the measure a 4% chance of passing committee and just 1% change of being enacted.

Plastic microbead ban OK with manufacturers [The Associated Press]

Pallone Introduces Legislation to Ban Use of Plastic Microbeads in Cosmetics [Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.]

Imagine you’re just working at a Walmart in the retailer’s Arkansas hometown when a customer hands you a note that she’s been kidnapped by two National Guard members. Your day suddenly got a lot more interesting.

5newsonline.com reports that a woman from Dallas was in the ladies room of a Bentonville, AR, Walmart last Saturday when she handed a store employee a napkin containing a handwritten plea for help.

The store contacted the police, who found the woman still hiding in the store bathroom.

She said she’d been kidnapped from her home in Dallas by an ex-boyfriend and a friend of his from the National Guard, who had initially identified himself as an FBI agent.

After allegedly assaulting her, she claims the ex gave her the choice of coming with him back to Arkansas or dying. So she started packing her bags. According to the woman, she was forced to leave her roommate a note saying she’d gone to China to se a sick family member, but she also left a “Call 911″ note on the fridge.

When the trio ate a restaurant in Dallas, she left another note for anyone who might find it, using a makeup pen to write on a napkin.

She tried again at a gas station in Oklahoma, leaving a note with her ex’s license plate number. 5news says that this attempt did result in a call to authorities.

But it was the Walmart note that finally led to her rescue and to the arrest of her alleged kidnappers.

The ex and his pal were located and arrested two days later on suspicion of aggravated kidnapping, felony kidnapping, intimidating a witness and coercion. The friend faces the added charge of conspiracy to commit murder.

The woman says she was kidnapped to stop her from testifying against him for previous threatening actions.

“They were going to keep her until the court proceedings were over,” reads the police affidavit.

When you examine the bananas in the produce aisle of your local Walmart, one is usually looking at the ripeness of the fruit. But one man found out the hard way, you should probably look for scorpions (and deadly Brazilian spiders), too.

The Pennsylvania man was shopping with his two- and three-year-old children at a local Walmart when he grabbed a bunch of bananas from a display box and felt a pinching sensation, CBS Pittsburgh reports.

“I yanked my arm out and flung it, and this scorpion flopped to the ground,” he said. “I was standing there in disbelief looking and there was another shopper there and people started to converge, and sure enough it was a scorpion.”

After standing in a state of disbelief for a moment (who wouldn’t?), the man jumped into action – covering the scorpion with a lid and killing it.

The man wasn’t seriously hurt, just a bit shaken-up (and rightfully so). However, he did visit a doctor as a precaution.

So, just how could a scorpion show up in a box of bananas in the middle of Pennsylvania? We don’t know for sure, but it may have hitched a ride all the way from the grower.

The man says a Walmart representative told him that even the fruit company was surprised the scorpion was able to survive the long journey in the box. Walmart did not return a request for comment to CBS Pittsburgh.

In all, the man says the experience has taught him to think twice before reaching into a box of bananas.

Man Pinched By Scorpion In Box Of Bananas At South Hills Wal-Mart (CBS Pittsburgh)

Oprah’s favorite alternative medicine mouthpiece Dr. Oz got little love during Tuesday’s Senate subcommittee hearing on the misleading marketing of diet products, with the TV personality admitting that his use of terms like “miracle” for unproven treatments had provided fodder to scammers out to make a quick buck off people desperate to shed pounds. Last night, the Doc went on Facebook to give his fans his perspective on the issue.

“For years I felt that because I did not sell any products that I could be enthusiastic in my coverage,” wrote Doc Oz, who was chastised — most notably by Missouri Senator Clair McCaskill — for shows where he called certain weight-loss products “the number one miracle in a bottle” or “the magic weight-loss solution for every body type,” in spite of little to no peer-reviewed scientific evidence to back up such claims.

“I believe the research surrounding the products I cover has value,” writes Oz, without naming any particular studies. “I took part in the hearing because I am accountable for my role in the proliferation of these scams and I recognize that my enthusiastic language has made the problem worse at times.”

As he stated during the hearing, Dr. Oz defended his choice to air programs about these unproven products by saying that the discussion is going to happen anyway so it should happen on his show.

“To not have the conversation about supplements at all, however, would be a disservice to the viewer,” he explains. “In addition to exercising an abundance of caution in discussing promising research and products in the future, I look forward to working with all those present yesterday in finding a way to deal with the problems of weight loss scams.”

The problem isn’t that Oz mentions these alternative treatments on his show. It’s that he’s often talked about such products with minimal questioning, and those caveats tend to only come later in the segment after he’s finished talking up a treatment’s purported benefits.

If you’re constantly streaming songs from Pandora, Rhapsody, Spotify or other services on your phone, it can eat away at your monthly data cap pretty quickly. In an attempt to lure music-lovers to its wireless service T-Mobile announced last night that it will no longer count data from these and other services against users’ 4G LTE allotments.

In addition to the three services mentioned above, T-Mobile lists iHeartRadio, Slacker, and iTunes Radio as services users can enjoy without having to worry about having their monthly data dinged. The company is taking an online poll to let users vote on what streaming service(s) — like Amazon Prime, Google Access, Rdio, Beats, etc. — should be added to the list. People can also vote on Twitter by using the #musicfreedom hashtag.

“As a committed music freak, I’m personally outraged at the way the other guys are using the music you love to lure you into over-priced plans with sweet ‘promotional offers’ that quickly roll into higher prices or trigger those absurd overage charges,” said T-Mobile CEO and President John Legere. “Music should be free of all that. Music should have no limits.”

Existing T-Mobile customers apparently don’t need to do anything to activate this option. The only condition is that you must have a data plan worth at least $50/month, meaning the bargain Simple Starter plan is not eligible.

Earlier this year, AT&T launched a Subsidized Data program, where certain content companies agreed to foot the bill for users’ data when accessing their online services, though none of the companies involved in that offer anything as bandwidth heavy as streaming audio.

It’s unclear whether the streaming services in the T-Mobile announcement are subsidizing the data or if T-Mobile is just eating that data itself in the hopes of signing up more customers. In the end, the effect for the consumer is the same regardless of who is paying for the data.

It does, however, bring up the question of potentially unfair competition. One could argue that T-Mobile is effectively pushing its customers to use these services and discouraging users from using services not involved in the discount.

In addition to the streaming music news, T-Mobile announced on Tuesday that it is offering 7-day loaner phones to potential new customers so they can test the service out without having to leave their current provider.

It works like this. You sign up for the Test Drive program online. T-Mobile sends you a new iPhone 5S to try out for 7 days with an unlimited data plan. If you don’t like it, return it within 7 days to a T-Mobile store.

BUT, be cautioned that T-Mobile puts a $700 (plus tax) hold on your credit/debit card when you sign up for the program, so if you miss that 7-day deadline, your card will be charged the full retail price.

Additionally, if the iPhone is returned with a cracked screen, damaged screen display, water damage, active Find My iPhone feature, or can’t be powered on, you’ll be hit with a $100 fee.

The already heated debate over the continued use of the term “Redskins” by the Washington, D.C., NFL team got hotter this morning, with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceling the team’s trademark registration, saying it is “disparaging of Native Americans.”

The trademark cancellation doesn’t mean that the team has to change its name. It just means that — pending inevitable appeals — the team could lose its exclusive use of the controversial word on football-related items. The trademark will remain in effect while the team goes through the appeals process, which could take several years.

Given how much the team could lose on licensing deals and merchandise, it might behoove the organization to consider a name change to a name that isn’t offensive to an entire section of the population.

It’s against the law to register trademarks that “may disparage” individuals or groups or “bring them into contempt or disrepute.” A group of five Native Americans challenged the registration eight years ago, marking the second time this has been done.

This is also the second time the Trademark office has canceled the registration. Fifteen years ago, the USPTO agreed with petitioners that the trademark was offensive, but a federal court ultimately ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing to file their complaint.

A lawyer who has repped the team since before the previous challenge tells the Washington Post that “just like last time, today’s ruling will have no effect at all on the team’s ownership of and right to use the Redskins name and logo.”

The team has been under increased pressure to change the name, which many Native Americans but owner Dan Snyder maintains that it honors the very people who are calling for the name to be changed.

I consider mashed potatoes to be a major food group, but had never thought of them as a fast-food burger topping. It makes a lot more sense than putting fries on a burger, though, and Carl’s Jr. is forging ahead with this beautiful idea in some test markets.

A Brand Eating reader spotted this vision of ‘taterness on a drive-thru menu in southern California. The idea of a potato-topped burger wasn’t beautiful enough by itself: the potatoes are garlic mashed potatoes, and the topping is in turn topped with onion straws and gravy. Well, of course, gravy. That’s a given.

There’s a variety of “mashers,” as they’re called. Your meat options include a regular old beef patty, a chicken patty, or the larger beef patty from the Six Dollar Burger. Inexplicably, this last option costs $5, while the basic burger costs $2.99. Upgrading your sandwich to a fresh-baked bun runs $6.99.

News: Carl’s Jr. Testing New Mashed Potato-Topped Burgers [Brand Eating]

Tens days after being caught on camera tossing a bag of dog poop onto the lawn of a man in his neighborhood, the mayor of an upscale Southern California town has tendered his resignation.

Back on June 7, Mayor Dennis Kneier of San Marino in Los Angeles County was walking home from the park with his wife when he claims he spotted a bag of dog feces resting against the lamppost of the house he was passing. Inexplicably, the mayor picked up the bag and then casually tossed it toward the front step of the home.

The homeowner caught the incident on his home security camera and contacted the police, who identified Kneier as the doodie-tosser.

The mayor then attempted to apologize to the homeowner, saying he made a mistake in picking up the poo in the first place.

“I should have walked on by or disposed of it properly,” he said at the time.

However, the homeowner was not impressed with the apology and alleged that the incident may have been a response to his opposition to the mayor’s plan for a dog park in San Marino.

Things got worse for the mayor when the story became national news. The Pasadena Star-News reports that around 100 people showed up at the June 11 city council meeting to discuss the incident.

Kneier provided the council with his resignation letter on Tuesday, saying he will step down from his position as mayor effective immediately but that he will continue his work as a councilman.

“I have apologized to my neighbor for my action, and I will pay a fine for littering,” the two-term mayor wrote. “These events continue to be embarrassing to me and to the city… I was elected to serve as a city councilman, and I will continue to serve in the position that I was elected. I’m not going to let the voters down. I’m not going to let our city down, and I think I can be an effective member of the city council.”

Fairfax City's 29 Diner is getting a makeover; fans of late night eggs and ... Washington Post The 29 Diner on Lee Highway in Fairfax City. It opened in 1947. It closed recently but will reopen under new ownership. (John Kelly/The Washington Post). John Kelly Columnist. John Kelly writes "John Kelly's Washington," a daily look at Washington's ...

Fairfax County Animal Watch Washington Post The following incident was reported by the Animal Control Division of the Fairfax County Police Department. For information, call 703-246-2253. Dogs quarantined: Cortez Dr., 4400 block, 11:16 a.m. June 4. An animal control officer responded to a report ... and more »

Police: Man in red pickup approached girls in Manassas Leesburg Today Manassas police are investigating two incidents of a man in a red pickup approaching young girls in the Godwin Drive area and ordering them into his truck. Both happened on June 11, the first around 6:15 p.m. A 16-year-old girl told police she was ... and more »

India is cracking down on foreign-funded charities after receiving an internal report alleging they are costing the country up to 3 percent of its GDP by rallying communities against polluting industries.

erzegovina (AP) -- A century after Gavrilo Princip ignited World War I with a shot from his handgun, the baby-faced Serb teenager who assassinated the Austro-Hungarian crown prince in Sarajevo in 1914 still provokes controversy.

£5 sterling coins will be manufactured in honor of Prince George's first birthday.

It was the moment that humanity learned we had the awesome power to erase an entire species off the face of the Earth in the scientific equivalent of a blink of an eye: The passenger pigeon went from billions of birds to extinct before our very eyes.

Police in Chesterfield County say a 2-year-old girl died after her head and neck became trapped in the window of a car where she was left unattended.

Dogs can easily overheat if left in a car on a hot day or left in a backyard with no shade.

Baltimore police say an officer has been accused of cutting the throat of a dog that had already been subdued after it was reported to have bitten a woman.

Once you’ve been certified by the Guinness folks as the owner of the world’s largest video game collection, you can either sit around looking at your library… or you can auction it off in the hopes of making a pile of cash.

A Buffalo, NY, man who owns more than 11,000 individual titles (covering 21 different consoles) got the Guinness stamp of world-record-ness back in December. At the time, he estimated its value at somewhere between $700,000 and $800,000 and now he’s testing the market to see if he can get anywhere near that much.

“While I do not wish to part with these games, I have responsibilities that I have made to others and this [auction] is how I will help meet them,” writes the seller in the auction listing on GameGavel.com [via Polygon].

The bidding started last Wednesday at $1, but quickly escalated, jumping from $51,000 to $90,0001 in a single bid on Friday afternoon. As of early Monday morning, the bidding stands at $90,751.

That’s a pretty sizable number, but the listing states that the seller’s reserve price has not been met. There are still several days remaining before the auction closes on Sunday June 15, at 10:30 P.M. ET.

If any of you ends up buying this lot, we hope you’ll be a pal and invite us over for an afternoon of Ninja Golf. We’ll bring the generic ginger ale and rice cakes.

Whether it’s for financial, academic or personal reasons, a traditional four-year college isn’t in the cards for everyone. Community colleges have long offered the opportunity for people to get started (or restart) their education without having to go into debt, so why have so many Americans recently opted for more expensive for-profit colleges that are regularly criticized for spending more on acquiring students than they do on teaching them?

With so many for-profit colleges under scrutiny by state and federal regulators for deceptive marketing practices, low graduation numbers and the highest rates of student loan delinquency, you might think it would be a simple decision to choose a community college.

But according to the College Board, between 2000 and 2009, the for-profit college sector went from enrolling just 3% of all post-secondary students in to accounting for 9% of all students. During that same time period, two-year public colleges’ share of students dropped from 43% to 40%.

While two-year schools have a reputation as a place to get started on a longer college career, both for-profit schools and community colleges are full of students who are not fresh out of high school, with the majority of students at both types of college being between 25 to 40 years old.

Where one can see a difference in the demographics between community colleges and for-profit schools is income.

According to research [PDF] from the Institute for Higher Education Policy, community colleges are split almost evenly between students coming from poverty and those from above the poverty line. Meanwhile, low-income students at for-profit schools outnumber the rest of the income groups by more than three to one:

So how do expensive for-profit colleges convince so many low-income students to take out loans rather than just sign up at the local community college?

The decision to go with a for-profit school often comes down to three things:

1. Marketing: For-profit schools outspend all other types of schools on advertising and marketing by a factor of more than 20:1

2. Convenience: For-profit colleges make it as easy as possible to enroll for classes and qualify for loans

3. Flexibility: Features like online classes and multiple campuses make for-profit schools more attractive to students with families and busy schedules

For-profit schools and community colleges may have a significant amount of overlap in certain course and program offerings, but the for-profit industry has managed to position itself as providing something different — and more “college”-like — than you’d expect to get from your local CC.

Scary Numbers About For-Profit Colleges

• Less Than 50% of all students at for-profit colleges graduate with a degree or certificate .

• More Than 20% of for-profit graduates default on their student loans.

• Only 13% of college students attend for-profit schools, but this small group Likewise, a accounts for around 47% of student loan defaults.

• 23% of the average for-profit school’s budget goes toward marketing, while the average public college spends less than 1% of its budget on marketing.

• $35,000 will buy you an associate’s degree at a for-profit school. That’s more than four times the cost of the same degree at a community college.

Community colleges are often viewed as a stepping stone for students who would like to attend four-year universities in the future and many of these schools grant associate degrees, in addition to non-credit programs like English as Second Language or continuing education courses for people just looking to expand their educational experiences without committing to a specific program.

Meanwhile, for-profit schools market themselves not as starter schools or places for curious folks to dabble in new topics, but as colleges that provide start-to-finish education, with some offering everything from non-degree certificates to PhDs.

For-profit colleges also tend to have names that sound more like a traditional university — some even have “university” in their names — which has a certain aspirational appeal to it. The phrase, “I went to Heald College” may have a better ring to it than “I went to Bucks County Community College,” even if the student got the same or better education at the school with the clunkier name.

The marketing savvy of for-profit colleges is likely a result of the types of people who operate these schools.

According to one paper [PDF] from researchers at Ellis University and Drexel University, for-profit institutions are generally helmed by business professionals with limited academic expertise, while not-for-profit institutions are usually governed by highly successful academics with little or no training in strategic management.

“The former are more effective at managing an institution to meet changing landscapes, but rarely have the educational experience or insights to build and sustain strong academic programs,” reads the paper. “The latter have greater capacity to build strong academic programs, but often lack the managerial excellence to support institutional foresight and agile responsiveness to change.”

Students deciding between a community college or a for-profit education typically aren’t comparison shoppers, one community college official tells Consumerist. Instead, these students are looking for what’s most important to them: their time.

For example, if there are three local colleges in a student’s area — one community and two for-profit colleges — these students are more likely to seek a school that offers their desired course at times convenient to them, rather than compare the institution’s prices or completion rates.

The aggressive use of print, TV and online advertising by for-profit colleges gives these schools an upper hand over community colleges.

In 2013, Consumerist reported that the 15 largest for-profit education companies spent $3.7 billion on advertising and marketing in 2009; that’s 23% of their budget. Meanwhile, non-profit schools tend to spend less than 1% of their budgets on advertising and marketing.

A majority of the funds used by for-profit colleges in their marketing campaigns come from taxpayers in the form of federal student aid. In fact, these schools receive nearly 90% of their revenue from federal aid of some form.

The days of using persuasive, and often costly, advertising to lure students to for-profit colleges may be numbered. Legislators have tried several times to limit the amount of federal dollars these institutions can use to create their advertisements.

“Taxpayer dollars should not be used on out-of-control marketing, advertising and recruitment budgets,” said Senator Kay Hagan in a statement regarding a 2013 bill that would have put a limit on the use of taxpayer money for marketing.

Students who look to attend for-profit colleges often see a more convenient and flexible learning experience, according to a report [PDF] from Stanford’s National Center For Post Secondary Improvement.

“Critics of community colleges contrast the entrepreneurial spirit of the for-profits with the supposedly tradition-bound inflexibility of colleges, reads the report. “According to this perspective, freed from the traditional academic schedules and even from many of the fixed costs of infrastructure and expensive facilities, the [school] is able to offer courses at more convenient times and in more convenient locations.”

Community colleges have long been known to provide education to adult, part-time and returning students, but the for-profit industry has quickly learned how to cater to these needs in a way that may be more attractive to some potential students.

One industry insider claims that for-profit institutions are “ahead of the game” in regards to online courses; something that has likely propelled it into a more enticing option than community colleges for working adults.

Additionally, for-profit schools can be seen as a more structured, or direct avenue, to a career field.

According to the Ellis/Drexel report, for-profit colleges use a high degree of centralization, while community colleges are composed of mostly “loosely coordinated, organically developed curricula,” meaning that a student at a for-profit school with multiple campuses can hop around as needed or take online courses and have similar experiences in all places. At the same time, this can result in a homogenized curriculum without the idiosyncrasies that can make a college class memorable.

A big selling point of many for-profit colleges is the ease of entry into some programs.

Students, especially those who didn’t do well in high school or who are averse to standardized tests, considering a community college may be turned off by the idea of taking an assessment test. These tests are often used to determine if a student needs to take remedial classes before starting in their desired program.

A number of for-profit colleges require some form of assessment before starting classes, but remedial classes are generally integrated into their chosen field courses so there is less of a stigma attached.

While it might be easier to see why for-profit colleges seems to be a viable, attractive option for prospective students, there are a number of devastating consequences associated with attending these types of institutions.

The very things that make for-profit schools attractive to new students are precisely what leads to problems for students down the road. The marketing, the TV ads, the promises of free computers and iPads, offering online courses and tutoring; these all cost money. And since these schools are primarily businesses that promise profits to investors, the savings have to come from the one place where there isn’t a direct correlation to the bottom line: the classroom. You’ve already paid for your courses; whether you got your money’s worth is another matter.

The business of a for-profit college is to sign up as many students as possible and to get those students to borrow as much money as possible from the government and other lenders. The school gets paid, and the students are left with loan debt that may haunt them for decades.

In February, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a federal lawsuit against well-known for-profit college chain ITT Technical Institute alleging the company exploited students and pushed them into high-cost private student loans that were likely to end in default.

That same month, former employees of a for-profit college filed a federal lawsuit against Premier Education Group alleging officials at the schools made false promises of gainful employment to entice students into high cost programs.

“At the end of the day, the numbers tell the story: two-year programs at for-profit schools cost four times what they cost at community colleges,” explains our colleague Suzanne Martindale, staff attorney at Consumers Union. “Only 35% of community college students take out loans to pay for school, while 86% of for-profit college students take out loans.”

Last fall, we posted a handy cheat sheet to price tag codes that can tell you whether an item is on its first or last markdown, or even whether it’s on clearance or just plain on sale. Want to learn some more codes? Of course you do!

You can also find more info on codes for Kohl’s, Land’s End, American Eagle, and other retailers on the constantly updated post over at Rather-Be-Shopping.

TARGET

Target’s price tag codes have been the subject of some controversy, and there’s a lot of information floating around that has since been debunked. What you should know is that prices ending in .99 are full price. Prices ending in .98 are items on clearance, which is why you sometimes see “clearance” items marked down only a penny. One interesting bit of information that Snopes uncovered since our last post on this subject is that prices ending in .04 are no longer necessarily final markdowns, but they can be.

Also, look at the upper right corner of markdown price tags at Target for a two-digit number:

That’s the percentage discount on a clearance item. You can use this to check Target’s math, since we know that their calculations can be a little shaky.

PETSMART

Their system is pretty simple: Prices that end in 9 are regular retail. Prices that end in a 7 are items on clearance. These will usually have a “Reduced to Clear” shelf tag, but not always.

SEARS

Yes, some people still shop at Sears. If you’re going to, now that full prices end in .99, first markdown prices end in .97, and final markdown prices end in .88.

JCPENNEY

Things remain kind of in flux at JCPenney, but a store manager sent in these price guidelines to Rather-Be-Shopping:

Price ends in .00: Full price.
Price ends in .99: Initial clearance price.
Price ends in .97: Further price reduction. According to the manager, every two weeks these prices will be cut in half. “The .97 is lowered EVERY 2 weeks to 1/2 (half) of the current ticket price. Items will go as low as $2.97 before they’re shipped out of the store,” she explains.
Price ends in .98: A buy one, get one free deal.

Retailer’s Big Secret: Crack the Price Tag Code [Rather-Be-Shopping]

We don’t need to go outside, look at a thermometer, or even to peek outside the skylights of the Consumerist Bunker: we can tell when temperatures are beginning to climb in much of the United States, because search engine traffic begins to pour in to old posts about how to figure out how many BTUs you need when shopping for a room air conditioner. Fear not, overheated Consumerists: we’re always here to help.

Here’s a handy chart based on information from the cool people over at EnergyStar. It’s not a precise measurement: according to our breezy and cool colleagues over at Consumer Reports, the type of appliance you might need will also depend on what you use the room for, and how many people are usually in it. For example, if you’re buying a unit for a kitchen or a an open-plan room that includes a kitchen, you’ll need about 4,000 additional BTUs to compensate for that whole “cooking” thing that happens in kitchens.

Consumer Reports also offers suggested models for different types of sizes of rooms, and broad ranges of capacities that might work for different room types ranging from tiny bedrooms to huge living rooms.

You’ll need 10% more capacity for rooms that are very sunny, and 10% less if there’s no sunlight coming in the windows at all.

If

Here at Consumerist, we enjoy bringing you the very latest in useless appliances that are glorified toasters or waffle makers. Cupcakes? Pies? Dog treats? Pretzels? Hot dogs? If you’re really into any of these products, you can find a dedicated electric countertop cooker for them. Should you? We don’t know, but now there’s an electric ice cream sandwich maker that you can set on your counter as well.

If you’re so into ice cream sandwiches that you need a dedicated appliance for them, we are somewhat concerned on your behalf. Come to think of it, this monotasker makes even less sense than the pretzel machine or the cake pop machine, since you still have to go to the effort of combining the cookies and the ice cream into a sandwich-like object.

We must be wrong, though, because Amazon reviews for this product declare it to be “great for kids.”

Nostalgia Electrics ICS-100 Electric Ice Cream Sandwich Maker [Amazon]
ATTENTION: This is a Real-Life Ice Cream Sandwich Maker [Foodbeast]

NN DURBIN AP Auto Writer

In what truly epitomized the title of his TV show, "My Cat From Hell," feline behaviorist Jackson Galaxy is calling his attempt to tame the Portland cat notorious for attacking a baby and boxing his panicked owners into a bedroom "the hardest case I have ever worked."

You've been cutting your cake all wrong. Watch a video about the best way to do it.

Four of the acrobats seriously injured in a hair-hanging stunt gone awry are planning a lawsuit and are coming to terms with the idea their lives might never be the same, they said Tuesday from the hospital where they're recovering.

Harris Teeter customers in Northern Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland and Delaware will soon see the prices on popular products drop, thanks to an expansion of the grocery store's lower price campaign.

Political leaders in the nation's capital are praising a decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the trademark for the Washington Redskins' nickname.

Some of the 135 residents of Washington, Virginia were not happy when they opened The Washington Post last week and learned a D.C. developer had plans to "remake" their town.