Death of Self-Checkout, Walmart Charges for it in Some Locations

 Theft and complaints are taking a toll on self-checkout. Now, Walmart (WMT) wants you to pay $98 a year for Walmart⁺ for the self-checkout privilege at some stores.

Retailers Scale Back Self-Checkouts

The Wall Street Journal reports Retailers Scale Back Self-Checkouts to Curb Irritation and Theft

Attention, shoppers: Retailers are rethinking your cashier job.

Store operators are modifying how they use self-checkout stations in a bid to boost their bottom lines and improve the shopping experience for customers.

Some retailers are pulling kiosks out of stores as a way to keep a lid on theft. Others, including Target (TGT), Dollar General (DG) and the regional grocery chain Schnucks, have limited how many items customers can bring to self-checkouts to avoid bottlenecks and alleviate headaches for staff.

Schnucks now limits its self-checkout lanes to 10 items or fewer. While the primary intention is to improve customer service and checkout efficiency, Simon said the company expects some reduction of theft as well. “This item limit will help us maintain our costs while keeping the prices lower for our customers,” he said.

About a fifth of people who used self-checkouts said they accidentally took an item without paying for it, according to a survey of 2,000 shoppers last year by LendingTree. Some 15% of self-checkout users admitted to stealing an item on purpose.

Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, said it removed self-checkout lanes and replaced them with cashier-staffed lanes at locations including stores in Cleveland and Shrewsbury, Mo. When checkout access is limited, some stores are designating self-checkout lanes for Walmart+ customers, who pay a membership fee of $98 a year.

In 2022, Dollar General said self-checkout was so successful and popular with customers that it tried making some stores entirely self-checkout. A year later, CEO Todd Vasos pulled back on those plans.

“We had relied and started to rely too much this year on self-checkout in our stores,” Vasos said on a December earnings call. “We should be using self-checkout as a secondary checkout vehicle, not a primary.”

In March, the company said it would remove self-checkout for stores with the highest levels of shrink. For remaining stores with self-checkout, it would limit customers to scanning five items or fewer.

Do You Like Self-Checkout?

I cannot stand it. My wife prefers it.

Something always seems to go wrong for me. You cannot scan beer or wine, the bar code won’t read, and Costco has a limit on the cost amount.

The latter hit me at Costco this week when I tried to scan a whole beef tenderloin. I had to call an attendant a second time for beer. Loose produce is generally an issue.

Besides, trained clerks are faster, assuming you can find one. But it’s theft issue that will kill self-checkout at grocery stores. Double up a package of T-bone steaks and poof, the store just lost over $30.

RFIDs can take care of general merchandise, but RFIDs in hamburger?

Now Walmart wants you to pay for the agony of self-checkout. No thanks.

A Rise in the Incentive to Steal

Real Income and spending data from the BEA, chart by Mish

On April 27, I noted Growth in Spending Exceeds Growth in Income for Most of the Last 10 Months

A deeper dive into personal income and outlays for March shows significant signs of consumer stress to maintain standards of living.

Only twice in the last 10 months has growth in real income been greater than growth in real spending.

Count dishonest folks struggling with food or rent among those who like self-checkout. The number is sure to rise as the economy slows.

https://mishtalk.com/economics/death-of-self-checkout-walmart-charges-for-it-in-some-locations/

Floating Russian Oil Base Off Greece Abruptly Shifts South

 Traders and shipping companies have ensured millions of barrels of Russian crude and crude products flow around the world despite European Union sanctions against Moscow for its 'special operation' in Ukraine. One method to ensure the flow has been cargo switching at sea, known by traders as ship-to-ship or STS transfers. 

One of the hottest STS transfer spots for Russian crude and crude products was in Greece's Laconian Gulf, a gulf in the south-eastern Peloponnese. Now, research firm TankerTrackers reports that Russian oil transfers in the area have "completely vacated" the area this week. 

"For reasons unknown, the Laconian Gulf in Greece, used as a transshipment point for Russian oil; was completely vacated of major tankers on the afternoon of 2024-05-01. The STS transfers are now taking place directly south of the gulf," TankerTrackers wrote on X. 

STS Russian transfers from the Laconian Gulf have ended up thousands of miles away in Asia. However, according to the Black Sea Group, some of it ended up at European ports because of Brussels' poor sanction management: 

"68% of the oil was brought to the Laconian Gulf in Greece for transshipment, while the rest was directly exported to the EU ports amid poor sanctions management," researcher Bohdan Ben wrote in a note. 

TankerTrackers pointed out that the STS transfers in the Laconian Gulf have shifted just south. The firm used maritime data from Marine Traffic and satellite imagery data from Kpler.

Bloomberg notes STS transfers of Russian crude could be shifting to the Red Sea: 

There are other signs of change in how Russian oil is moving. One tanker also flipped a cargo of crude onto another vessel in the Red Sea last month. The Panta Rei 1 transfered its cargo onto the Odysseus, which then transported its consignment to India. That's the first ever switch observed in that location in ship tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

What is evident is that, despite Western sanctions on Moscow, Russian crude oil and crude products continue to circulate globally. The puzzling thing here is why the abrupt shift away from the Laconian Gulf region? 

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/reasons-unknown-floating-russian-oil-base-greece-abruptly-shifts-south

Ukraine Struggles To Build New Defensive Lines As Its Forces Retreat

 by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

Russian forces are advancing in several places across the 600-mile frontline in Ukraine, straining Kiev’s ability to build rear fortifications. Some in the Ukrainian military fault the country’s leadership for not building stronger second and third-line defenses last year while Russian troops were stalled. 

According to a dozen Ukrainian soldiers, government officials, and construction company directors who spoke with the Associated Press, Kiev is struggling to set up new defensive lines as its forces retreat. The officials cited several issues including decision-making last year, bureaucracy in doling out military contracts, and ammunition shortages. 

A deputy infantry commander fighting near Avdiivka explained that the defensive line needed to be built last year during Ukraine’s offensive. "There was an absence of responsibility. … People didn’t understand that fortifications can save your life if you do it in advance," he stated. "Many people thought we … wouldn’t need to prepare such lines. They didn’t expect a new Russian offensive."

Last summer, at Washington’s insistence, Kiev launched a counteroffensive that failed to retake much territory due to deeply entrenched Russian defensive lines. Ukraine lost a significant number of troops and military equipment during the failed assault. 

The AP notes that "Ukraine’s lack of adequate defensive lines has helped Russia make significant military gains, and constant enemy fire hinders building."

In a Telegram post on Sunday, Kiev’s Commander in Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said the situation at the front had "escalated," adding, "Trying to seize the strategic initiative and break through the front line, the enemy has concentrated its main efforts in several directions, creating a significant advantage in forces and in means."

In the battle for Chasiv Yar, a city in Donetsk, a Ukrainian soldier said the lack of fortified positions allowed Russian forces to prevail, with over 100 men killed or missing after a major withdrawal from the area.

"We lost department commanders, platoon commanders, company commanders, and sergeants. That is, we lost the entire skeleton of the brigade," the soldier explained to the AP. 

Rather than use military engineers to complete the projects, Kiev elected to pay construction companies to build third-line defenses. Ukraine awarded the contracts without following the typical bidding process, raising fears of corruption. Additionally, one contractor said the reported progress on the fortifications has been exaggerated to satisfy the government’s demands.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-struggles-build-new-defensive-lines-its-forces-retreat

DOJ Admits To Evidence Tampering In Trump Classified Docs Case

 Special Counsel Jack Smith's team admitted on Friday that key evidence in Trump's classified documents case was altered or manipulated - leaving two different chronologies; one that was digitally scanned vs. what's in the actual boxes.

Smith also misled the court, after originally telling U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the boxes remained "in their original, intact form as seized," when in a footnote they conceded that they removed classified documents and left placeholder sheets, which prosecutors acknowledged has created an "inconsistent" record - in which some of the documents are no longer in the same order as they appear in digital scans made in the fall of 2022.

"The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court," the footnote reads, according to Just the News.

The finding comes after Cannon ordered a review into whether the FBI may have seized legally privileged records in response to a request from Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta.

"Since the boxes were seized and stored, appropriate personnel have had access to the boxes for several reasons, including to comply with orders issued by this Court in the civil proceedings noted above, for investigative purposes, and to facilitate the defendants' review of the boxes," wrote Smith's team in the Friday filing.

"There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans," the filing continues.

The organization of the documents in storage boxes at Mar-a-Lago is likely to be an important part of Trump‘s defense. His team is expected to argue the documents were stored in the White House in chronological order on the days that Trump received them, and that staff simply boxed them up and sent them to his home without him accessing them or knowing they contained classified information.

Smith’s team tried to downplay the problem and argued it’s not a reason for a delay in Trump’s case.

But several legal experts told Just the News the court filing essentially is an admission of evidence tampering, and could be problematic. -Just the News

"Prosecutors and investigators should never tamper with or alter evidence in their possession, including the order of documents in a box because one never knows what may become relevant or crucial to a court or jury later in a case," Alan Dershowitz told Just the News.

"This admission is stunning on multiple levels," said defense attorney Tim Parlatore, who worked on Trump’s team earlier in the classified documents case but no longer is involved, adding that the revelation "reinforces the incompetence" of prosecutors "in conducting basic criminal investigations and prosecutions that I observed when I was on the team.

"But at a deeper level, the loss of specific document locations is a destruction of exculpatory evidence," Parlatore added. "I went through all of the boxes at NARA and the document order was important because it was clear to us that the boxes had been untouched since leaving the White House.

"For prosecutors who are trying to prove that the defendants knowingly possessed these documents to then destroy the evidence that would undermine that claim is a very serious violation," he said.

In response to the filing, Trump said on Truth Social that "Deranged Jack has admitted in a filing in front of Judge Cannon to what I have been saying happened since the Illegal RAID on my home ... that he and his team committed blatant Evidence Tampering by mishandling the very Boxes they used as a pretext to bring this Fake Case."

Smith's Excuses

The prosecution offered several explanations for the manipulated evidence.

"There are several possible explanations, including the above-described instances in which the boxes were accessed, as well as the size and shape of certain items in the boxes possibly leading to movement of items," reads the filing. "For example, the boxes contain items smaller than standard paper such as index cards, books, and stationary, which shift easily when the boxes are carried, especially because many of the boxes are not full."

That said, Just the News also notes that altered evidence has featured prominently in previous political scandals.

Erasure of an 18 1/2 minute segment of Richard Nixon’s White House tapes became a very important aspect of the Watergate scandal.

The Iran-Contra scandal exploded during the Reagan years with the revelation that documents were shredded before they could be obtained by investigators.

The Hillary Clinton classified email scandal became more complicated in 2015 with the revelation that her team used a "Bleach Bit" program to erase emails on her secret computer server, and had email devices destroyed. 

As Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton suggests, this is "Yet more reason to throw out this sham prosecution."

And as the Epoch Times notes, the case was brought against President Trump and others over their alleged violation of federal law in handling documents marked classified. Defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Neither Mr. Nauta nor other defendants in the case have responded yet to the new filing.

Mr. Nauta’s request for an extension is one of many documents that are under seal, or unavailable for perusal.

In another recent filing, President Trump’s team said that the case should be dismissed because prosecutors are motivated by “improper political animus,” pointing in part to how White House lawyers worked with the National Archives and Records Administration on its referral to the Department of Justice and how President Joe Biden has said that he was “making sure” President Trump “does not become the next president again.”

Prosecutors opposed the dismissal request but their opposition was filed under seal.

Read the filing below (via Just the News): 

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/stunning-multiple-levels-doj-admits-evidence-tampering-trump-classified-docs-case

White House shakes up its immigration team

 The White House is shaking up its roster of immigration advisers, bringing in a top border enforcement policy leader and a development expert to round out its team.

Blas Nuñez-Neto comes to the White House from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where he served as the assistant secretary for border and immigration policy and was a key negotiator on a failed bipartisan Senate deal on immigration.

Marcela Escobari has left her post at USAID, where she served as the head of the Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The dual hires reflect the Biden administration’s approach to immigration at large — which stresses restricting migration at the border while opening up legal pathways and investing heavily in development throughout Latin America in the hopes of quelling migratory flows.

Nuñez-Neto, who immigrated to the U.S. from Argentina as a child, has been central in crafting policies he sees as a middle ground on immigration. 

His position on the enforcement side of immigration and border security has earned him scant praise from immigrant advocates — some of the policies he’s shepherded have been the focal point of tensions between advocates and the Biden administration.

He helped develop the Biden administration’s response to the lifting of Title 42, pushing conditions on asylum similar to those used under former President Trump, though they were paired with a program that would allow temporary entry for migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti if they could secure a U.S.-based financial sponsor.

He also helped negotiate the resumption of deportation flights to Venezuela.

In the border negotiations in the Senate, he was part of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas’s team, providing technical groundwork for negotiators to craft that defunct bill’s crackdown on asylum rights.

“We are looking forward to DHS Assistant Secretary Blas Nuñez-Neto joining the White House and continuing his work implementing the Administration’s vision across the border security and immigration spaces,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said in a statement.

“The Administration will continue to fight to fix the broken immigration system and to push Republicans in Congress to pass the historic bipartisan border security agreement that they rejected for partisan political reasons.” 

At the DHS, Nuñez-Neto played a key role in tackling migration policy domestically and internationally, becoming a regular face before Congress and in international negotiations.

“Blas Nuñez-Neto is a remarkably talented and devoted colleague. With commanding knowledge of immigration policy and deep expertise in foreign relations, he brings unique and invaluable perspective to some of the most complex issues we face. He is deeply admired and beloved, and, while we will miss him here at DHS, we look forward to working closely with him in his richly-deserved new role in the White House,” Mayorkas said in a statement.

Escobari’s role in the Biden administration has been less public-facing than Nuñez-Neto’s, but the Bolivia-born development professional has built a deep corpus of publications on both foreign and domestic issues.

At USAID, she ran the agency’s bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, a position she also held in 2016 under former President Obama.

“Marcela has had such a tremendous impact on USAID’s work across Latin America and the Caribbean. We are grateful that she will take her vision, and her commitment to USAID, to the White House — where she’ll no doubt work tirelessly to drive policy change,” said USAID Acting Deputy Administrator Dennis Vega.

The agency described her portfolio as “spearheading USAID’s efforts to advance a collaborative, regional response to the historic displacement of seven million people across” the region, as well as fighting the “economic contraction” felt deeply across Latin America following the COVID pandemic.

“We often draw lines between so-called developed and developing, between the Global North and Global South. … But in truth, there is no bright line when it comes to the crippling effects of poverty,” Escobari wrote in her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for confirmation to her post in 2021.

“The need for inclusive, sustainable growth is as real in Appalachia as it is in Antigua.”

Escobari is replacing Katie Tobin, a National Security Council immigration adviser who in January announced her departure from the administration.

Between her two stints at USAID — during the Trump administration — Escobari was a fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she published extensive research on modernizing the American workforce.

At USAID, Escobari faced internal challenges, including the response to a 2021 Office of Inspector General report that found the agency had caved to undue political pressure from the Trump administration in its efforts to provide humanitarian aid to Venezuela.

USAID also faced external headwinds in the Americas, including from U.S. allies like Mexico, where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has railed against the agency for “financing organizations openly against the legal and legitimate government I represent,” in reference to USAID’s funding of anti-corruption civil society groups.

In her new role, Escobari will necessarily interact with López Obrador’s government or policy decisions, as the Mexican president is a key player in regional migration.

On Escobari’s area of expertise, development, the Biden administration has openly indulged López Obrador’s rhetoric prioritizing a humanitarian approach, though the U.S. has cherished López Obrador’s cooperation on Núñez-Neto’s turf — enforcement.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4641960-white-house-shakes-up-its-immigration-team/

Fetterman mocks students protesting on college campuses over Houthi offer

 Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) mocked the students protesting on college campuses after a report was released stating a Houthi-run university in Yemen will offer slots to those suspended at U.S. universities.

“If a homicidal, Iranian-funded, terrorism proxy wants to pick up your college education tab, you really, really might want to reevaluate things,” Fetterman posted on social platform X.

His post included a screenshot of a report from Reuters that details Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi offer to students as protests persist on college campuses across the country, resulting in more than 2,000 arrests.

“We are serious about welcoming students that have been suspended from U.S. universities for supporting Palestinians,” an official at Sanaa University told Reuters. “We are fighting this battle with Palestine in every way we can.”

The university released a statement applauding the “humanitarian” position of the U.S. students demonstrating nationwide and said they could continue their education in Yemen.

“The board of the university condemns what academics and students of the U.S. and European universities are being subjected to, suppression of freedom of expression,” the school’s board said in a statement.

The Biden administration has labeled the Houthis as a Specifically Designated Terrorist Group in response to attacks it launched against international shipping companies in the Red Sea amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Since the start of the war, Fetterman has unequivocally backed Israel and its right to defend itself. He criticized the protests, admitting that it’s a “great American value to protest” but thinks the demonstrations are “pup tents” for Hamas.

The protesters have rejected that characterization, saying they are merely exercising their freedom of speech to protest Israel’s war crimes against Palestinian civilians.

Fetterman was among a group of lawmakers last week who called on the president of Columbia University to do “her job or resign” amid the ongoing unrest.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4641488-fetterman-student-protests-israel-hamas-gaza-houthi-yemen/

Nebraska governor says state ‘will not comply’ with new Title IX rules

 Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) said his state “will not comply” with recent changes to Title IX by the Biden administration, The Nebraska Examiner reported Friday.

“Protecting our kids and women’s athletics is my duty,” Pillen said in a statement, according to The Nebraska Examiner. “The president’s new rules threaten the safety of women and their right to participate in women’s sports. Nebraska will not comply.”

The Biden administration unveiled a final set of changes to Title IX last month that add protections for transgender students to the federal civil rights law on sex-based discrimination. The changes will take effect in early August.

“These final regulations build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

Pillen’s statement comes along with other Republican-led states pushing back against the new Title IX rules, including Florida, Louisiana, Wyoming, South Carolina and Oklahoma.

Last Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said his state “will not comply” with changes to the federal civil rights law in a video on the social platform X.

“Florida rejects [President Biden’s] attempt to rewrite Title IX,” DeSantis said. “We will not comply, and we will fight back.”

“We are not gonna let Joe Biden try to inject men into women’s activities,” DeSantis continued. “We are not gonna let Joe Biden undermine the rights of parents, and we are not gonna let Joe Biden abuse his constitutional authority to try to impose these policies on us here in Florida.”

In a statement to The Hill, the national press secretary for the LGBTQ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign said that “already, politicians in Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma and elsewhere are leaping to oppose crucial protections for students in America’s schools.”

“These MAGA politicians are choosing theatrics and hateful rhetoric over protecting and furthering the needs of their state’s students,” Brandon Wolf said in the statement. “Refusing to comply with Title IX could have damaging consequences for schools, including significant loss in funding on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars — dollars that should be going to helping young people achieve academic excellence. 

A U.S. Department of Education (DOE) spokesperson has also said in a statement to The Hill that the DOE “crafted the final Title IX regulations following a rigorous process to give complete effect to the Title IX statutory guarantee that no person experiences sex discrimination in federally funded education.”

“As a condition of receiving federal funds, all federally funded schools are obligated to comply with these final regulations and we look forward to working with school communities all across the country to ensure the Title IX guarantee of nondiscrimination in school is every student’s experience.”

The Hill has reached out to Pillen’s office. 

https://thehill.com/homenews/lgbtq/4642964-jim-pillen-nebraska-will-not-comply-new-title-ix-rules/