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Videos posted online show officers handcuffing the men in the downtown establishment Thursday

Melissa DePino@missydepino

@Starbucks The police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything. They were waiting for a friend to show up, who did as they were taken out in handcuffs for doing nothing. All the other white ppl are wondering why it’s never happened to us when we do the same thing.

5:12 PM – Apr 12, 2018

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“What did they do,” one man can be heard saying in the video. Another says, “They didn’t do anything, I saw the entire thing.”

Late Saturday, Starbucks’ CEO Kevin Johnson issued a statement saying the situation had a “reprehensible outcome.” He promised the company has “immediately begun a thorough investigation of our practices.”

Johnson insisted “Starbucks stands firmly against discrimination or racial profiling.”

Source: Police chief defends officers’ actions in viral Starbucks arrest video

If you still haven’t filed your tax return (which is due April 17 this year), you’re far from alone

The IRS processes about 152 million individual returns every year. As of April 6, just over 103 million had been filed. That means nearly 50 million taxpayers have either spent the last week scrambling to locate key documents and file their returns, or have scrambled to locate key documents and instead filed for an extension.

Nearly 1 in 10 tax filers takes advantage of an even further delay that IRSautomatically grants: the 6-month extension. About 14 million Americans will get an extension this year, the IRS said in a press release.

An extension, however, only serves to delay any refund you have coming; any tax owed must be paid by Tuesday.

Source: Waiting until the last minute to file taxes? You’re not alone

Most major credit cards are dropping the requirement to sign a receipt or bill, citing changing technology

Credit card signatures are now going the way of old-fashioned carbon copy slips: discarded in favor of streamlined transactions.

The three major credit card companies will stop requiring signatures on purchases this week, with MasterCard, American Express and Discover relaxing their policies on Friday and Visa set to do so on Saturday. It doesn’t mean that you won’t be asked to sign receipts ever again, but the change is likely to result in fewer of your John Hancocks landing on the dotted line.

The reason for the change is due to technology and changing consumer habits. Inan October blog post about the pending changes, MasterCard said that more than 4 out of 5 transactions in North America didn’t require a signature at checkout.

Getting rid of the signature requirement “is another step in the digital evolution of payment and payment security,” MasterCard executive vice president Linda Kirkpatrick wrote in the blog post.

For many years cardholders were required to sign their name when they purchased something by credit or debit card. But think about the purchases you’ve made over the past week or month. How many of them required you to sign on the dotted line? In my case, I made three quick stops on the way into work this morning and didn’t scribble my name for any of those purchases.

Did you know that more than 80 percent of Mastercard in store transactions in North America today do not require a cardholder signature at checkout? That number could now reach 100 percent after April 2018, when we will no longer require signatures at checkout for any credit or debit purchases in Canada and the U.S.

Eliminating the need for signature is another step in the digital evolution of payments and payment security. At first glance, this might sound like a radical proclamation, especially to people who have had credit and debit cards for decades. However, the change matches all of our expectations for fast and convenient shopping experiences. Our consumer research found that a majority of people believe it would be easier to pay and that checkout lines would move faster if they didn’t need to sign when making a purchase.

Source: Why credit card signature requirements are now a thing of the past

​”We don’t know the situation, but to make this choice, to be strong enough to make this choice is wonderful.”

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. —

For the second time in five months, an infant has been left in a baby box at a northwestern Indiana volunteer fire station.

Lt. Chuck Kohler of the Coolspring Township Volunteer Fire Department outside Michigan City said everything worked as planned and he was on scene tending to the baby girl less than a minute after receiving a page Sunday night that the Safe Haven Baby Box’s alarms had been triggered.

WSBT reports the infant still had the umbilical cord attached.

“The whole first responder, father thing kicks in. You want to make sure that the baby is OK,” Kohler said.

He said there are no words to describe how he felt when he heard the child crying inside.

“When I pulled the baby out of the box, actually my first thought was ‘baby Grace’… ‘Saving Grace.’ It just popped into my head,” said Kohler.

Kohler said he wants to thank Grace’s parents for putting the child somewhere safe.

“We don’t know the situation, but to make this choice, to be strong enough to make this choice is wonderful,” said Kohler.

The girl appeared healthy and was taken to a hospital for care. She will be placed in the custody of the Indiana Department of Child Services.

On Nov. 7, another baby girl was safely rescued after being left in the box. She was named “Hope.”

The padded, climate-controlled baby box was installed about two years ago. There’s also one near Fort Wayne.

Source: Newborn safe after being left in ‘baby box’ outside fire department

A body was found in the Allegheny River in Blawnox on Thursday.

According to the Allegheny County Police Department, someone called 911 around 7:30 p.m. to report a male floating in the Allegheny River near Sycamore Island.

 

Source: Body Found In Allegheny River Near Sycamore Island « CBS Pittsburgh