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Full list of Marks & Spencer stores closing in 2023 – one beloved shop to shut imminently

by www.express.co.uk Leave a Comment

Marks & Spencer, Interior of the Mall shopping center, Cribbs Causeway, Patchway, Bristol, England, UK

Beloved M&S store to close imminently but it’s not all bad news – stores affected in 2023 (Image: Getty)

is set to close a popular store but exciting innovations are set to follow.

Customers who shop at the Eagles Meadow M&S in Wrexham, Wales, will be saying goodbye to their local branch this autumn after 15 years.

But it’s not all bad news, with LeaderLive – which shares the latest news from Wrexham and Flintshire – revealing back in February that it will be replaced by a new M&S in Plas Coch Retail Park.

David Hughes, Regional Manager for M&S, commented earlier this year: “Today we are announcing plans to open a brand-new M&S Foodhall in the Plas Coch Retail Park – offering our customers in Wrexham a brilliant food shopping experience with a fresh marketplace design, almost 50 percent more space for food and a range of exciting new features including a cheese barge, digital wine-tasting and a bigger in-store bakery.

“Shopping habits are changing, and we are reshaping our store estate across M&S to focus our investment on the right stores in the right places.

M&S food hall

A new M&S food hall will open in Wrexham (Image: Getty)

“Our investment in this new store means we will be closing our existing store in Eagles Meadow Shopping Centre in the city centre when the lease expires later this year.

“We have today informed our colleagues of our relocation plans and our priority is to support them through these changes.

“Many colleagues will transfer over to the new Foodhall and there will also be opportunities to work in other stores. Our new M&S Wrexham Foodhall will open in autumn 2023 and we will keep our current store open until this time.”

M&S previously revealed that it wants to reduce its clothing and home stores across the country from 247 to 180. This means a total of 67 branches will be affected.

Marks and Spencer

‘Our store rotation and investment programme is about making sure we have the right stores’ (Image: Getty)

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But customers need not fret, as the popular will also open new food stores.

A spokesperson previously told Express.co.uk: “We recently announced that we are investing £480million in bigger, better stores across the UK.

“Our store rotation and investment programme is about making sure we have the right stores, in the right place, with the right space. Whilst our store rotation programme involves closing some stores, it also means relocating and opening new stores in locations across the country.

“In this coming year alone, we are opening 20 new stores across the UK, including brand new M&S stores in Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Thurrock and Purley.”

Trending

M&S stores already closed this year

  • East Kilbride Shopping Centre – closed February 25
  • Fenchurch Street, London – closed March 31
  • Meadowbank retail park, Edinburgh – closed April 1
  • Linthorpe Road, Middlesbrough – closed April 15
  • Carlton Street, Castleford – closed April 22
  • Newport Road, Cardiff – closed in May
  • Deansgate, Bolton – closed in May

Six Takeaways From a New York Judge’s Ruling Against Donald J. Trump

by www.nytimes.com Leave a Comment

A New York State Supreme Court judge issued a ruling on Tuesday that, if it stands, would have major consequences for Donald J. Trump.

The ruling came as part of the New York attorney general’s civil case against Mr. Trump. The attorney general, Letitia James, has accused the former president of fraudulently overstating the value of his assets on annual financial statements by as much as $2.2 billion a year in order to receive favorable terms on loans and benefits.

In the ruling, the judge, Arthur F. Engoron, agreed that Mr. Trump committed fraud when he sent those statements to banks and insurance firms. A trial in the case could start as soon as Monday; if Mr. Trump does not successfully have the ruling reversed before then, the proceeding will largely focus on the size of the penalty against him. Ms. James is seeking a fine of $250 million.

The financial statements are deceptive, Justice Engoron wrote, and he punctuated his order with harsh criticisms of the legal strategies deployed by Mr. Trump’s lawyers, whom he fined $7,500 each for using arguments that he had already rejected.

Mr. Trump, a Republican, has denied all wrongdoing and accused Ms. James, a Democrat, of political persecution. He noted Tuesday in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, that Justice Engoron was also a Democrat.

One of his lawyers, Christopher M. Kise, indicated that he might appeal the ruling, which he called “outrageous” and “completely disconnected from the facts and governing law.”

Here are some takeaways from Justice Engoron’s decision.

The decision dealt Mr. Trump a major blow.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers were preparing to challenge Ms. James’s accusation that he had fraudulently inflated his net worth by billions of dollars, but Justice Engoron has short-circuited that aspect of the trial. In effect, Justice Engoron ruled that no trial was necessary to determine that Mr. Trump’s financial statements were fraudulent.

In his ruling, Justice Engoron wrote that the statements that Mr. Trump had submitted to banks and insurance companies “clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business.”

Mr. Trump’s lawyers had planned to argue that the banks that lent Mr. Trump money were hardly victims — they turned profits on their dealings with the Trump Organization — and that valuing property can be subjective.

Consequences for his company may be serious.

Ms. James had sought to bar Mr. Trump from doing business in New York, in part by canceling certificates that allow his properties to operate there. Justice Engoron granted that punishment, which could have enormous repercussions for the Trump Organization.

For example, Mr. Trump could lose control of several properties, including Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan and a flagship commercial building at 40 Wall Street. His grip over his Westchester County golf club is also threatened. At one point in his order, Justice Engoron referred to the limited liability companies that he had shut down as “the canceled LLCs.”

Mr. Trump’s family business itself has not been dissolved. Although popularly known as the Trump Organization, it actually comprises hundreds of entities, many of which were not named as defendants in the lawsuit. But the decision could still have a sweeping impact, with the potential to shut down an entity that employs hundreds of people working for Mr. Trump in New York.

The ruling is a victory for New York’s attorney general.

Ms. James’s investigation into Mr. Trump opened in 2019 and heated up after he left the White House. Mr. Trump was deposed twice: In the first instance, he avoided answering questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment rights; in the second instance, he answered questions and claimed that as president he had helped the world avoid a nuclear holocaust.

Nonetheless, Ms. James sued him in September 2022, accusing him of “staggering” fraud. She has said in legal filings that the undisputed facts show that Mr. Trump overvalued his assets by as much as $2.2 billion each year.

On Tuesday, Ms. James said in a statement, “We look forward to presenting the rest of our case at trial.”

Criminal cases against Mr. Trump are not affected.

Ms. James’s case is civil. She does not have the authority to indict Mr. Trump.

Yet the former president has been indicted in four other cases, two brought by a federal special counsel and one each by local prosecutors in Manhattan and Georgia. Those cases are separate from Ms. James’s lawsuit and will not be directly affected by Justice Engoron’s ruling.

The first of the criminal cases, which involves Mr. Trump’s effort to remain in power after losing the 2020 election, is scheduled to go to trial in March.

The judge was harsh with Mr. Trump’s lawyers.

There is little love lost between Justice Engoron and Mr. Trump’s lawyers, who tried to move the case to another judge and more recently sued the judge himself.

He has often expressed impatience with them. In an appearance last week, he appeared to grow tired of a particular line of argument advanced by Mr. Kise and, pounding on the bench, said, “You cannot make false statements and use them in business.”

In his order on Tuesday, he took the unusual step of fining each of Mr. Trump’s lawyers $7,500, writing that their continued assertion of arguments he had previously rejected was “indefensible.”

That sum was more than what Ms. James was seeking when she asked the judge to penalize them.

At one point, he criticized the arguments of Mr. Trump’s lawyers as straining credulity, including the notion that the square footage of an apartment could be subjective.

“That is a fantasy world, not the real world,” he wrote.

Trump is not out of options.

Mr. Trump has at least two routes left to challenge Justice Engoron. He can appeal the ruling and seek an emergency stay of the trial, a move that Mr. Trump’s lawyers indicated they might pursue.

Even if that does not work, Mr. Trump is awaiting a decision from an appeals court on the lawsuit he filed against Justice Engoron. In it, Mr. Trump argued that the judge had ignored an earlier appeals court ruling that raised the prospect that some evidence against the former president was too dated to be used at trial.

The appeals court is expected to rule as soon as Thursday.

What’s new on Shudder in October 2023 | Digital Trends

by www.digitaltrends.com Leave a Comment

October is near, so what better way to celebrate than watching a good horror movie or series? While virtually every streamer has a horror selection, with some of the best being the best horror movies on Netflix , there’s only one service that is synonymous with the genre: Shudder.

In October 2023, the streamer’s programming includes the latest installment of the well-liked V/H/S franchise, one of the best entries in the celebrated Evil Dead movie series (no, it’s not Evil Dead Rise ), and new seasons of Creepshow and Boulet Brothers’ Dragula . Halloween is fast approaching, so it’s time to subscribe to Shudder and get scared out of your wits.

New Movies

October 6

V/H/S/85

Directed by David Bruckner, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Natasha Kermani, Scott Derrickson, Mike P. Nelson

(Available in U.S., CA, UKI, ANZ)

The next installment in the infamous found footage anthology franchise, V/H/S/85 is an ominous mixtape blending never-before-seen snuff footage with nightmarish newscasts and disturbing home video to create a surreal, analog mashup of the forgotten 80s. Starring Freddy Rodriguez, Dani Deetté, Justen Jones and Rolando Davila-Beltran.

October 13

The Puppetman

Directed by Brandon Christensen

(Available in U.S., CA, UKI, ANZ)

The Puppetman is a convicted killer on death row. He has always maintained his innocence saying it was an evil force controlling his body as he slaughtered his victims. Now Michal, the killer’s daughter, begins to suspect that there may be some truth to her father’s claim when those around her begin to die in brutal ways. All hope rests on her shoulders to break The Puppetman’s curse. Written and directed by Brandon Christensen and starring Michael Paré, Caryn Richman, Alyson Gorske.

October 20

Night of the Hunted

Directed by Franck Khalfoun

(Available in U.S., CA, UKI, ANZ)

When an unsuspecting woman (Camille Rowe, No Limit) stops at a remote gas station in the dead of night, she’s made the plaything of a sociopathic sniper with a secret vendetta. To survive she must not only dodge his bullets and fight for her life, but also figure out who wants her dead and why…

October 27

When Evil Lurks

Directed by Demián Rugna

(Available in U.S., CA, UKI, ANZ)

Shudder’s first Spanish-language Original from Demián Rugna (Terrified) is a rural possession thriller revolving around timeless horror concepts and adding contemporary twists. Set in a remote village, two brothers find a demon-infected man just about to give birth to evil itself. After warning the neighbors in town, they decide to get rid of the man but merely succeed in helping him to deliver the inferno. Starring Ezequiel Rodríguez, Eduardo Salomón and Silvia Sabater.

October 30

Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor

Directed by Stephen Cognetti

(Available in U.S., CA, UKI, ANZ)

In 2021, a group of internet sleuths travels to the remote Carmichael Manor, deep in the woods of Rockland County, NY, the site of the infamous 1989 Carmichael family murders that have gone unsolved to this day. What they discover are secrets that have been hidden away for decades and a terror that has been lurking in the shadows long before Hell House LLC.

Shudder original series and specials

October 10

The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs: Halloween (1978) – Shudder Original Special

Joe Bob celebrates the 45th anniversary of this iconic horror film.

October 13

Creepshow – Shudder Original Series

Based on the 1982 horror comedy classic returns for a new season and is still the most fun you’ll ever have being scared. Executive produced by showrunner Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead), Creepshow is a comic book coming to life in a series of vignettes, exploring terrors ranging from murder, creatures, monsters, and delusions to the supernatural and unexplainable. You never know what will be on the next page…

October 20

Joe Bob’s Helloween – Shudder Original Special

Horror legend Joe Bob Briggs and his co-host Darcy the Mail Girl celebrate the spooky season in style – with a demonic double-feature sure to get your blood pumping and one very scary special guest.

October 31

Boulet Brothers’ Dragula – Shudder Original Series

Horror’s new icons The Boulet Brothers’ are on the hunt to find the world’s next drag monster superstar in this brand new, star-studded fifth season of their hit reality competition show. With new competitors, the challenges, special effects makeup, costumes, and performances promise to be truly terrifying and out-of-this-world.

Shudder resurrected

**Repertory Titles New to Shudder**

October 1

Dead End

Christmas Eve. On his way to his in-laws with his family, Frank Harrington decides to try a shortcut for the first time in 20 years. It turns out to be the biggest mistake of his life.

The Gate

Kids left home alone accidentally unleash a horde of malevolent demons from a mysterious hole in their suburban backyard.

Lake Mungo

Strange things start happening after a girl is found drowned in a lake.

May

A socially awkward veterinary assistant with a lazy eye and obsession with perfection descends into depravity after developing a crush on a boy with perfect hands.

Lords of Salem

Radio DJ Heidi is sent a box containing a record – a “gift from the Lords.” The sounds within the grooves trigger flashbacks of her town’s violent past. Is Heidi going mad, or are the Lords back to take revenge on Salem, Massachusetts?

Killer Clowns from Outer Space

Aliens who look like clowns come from outer space and terrorize a small town.

Evil Dead II

The lone survivor of an onslaught of flesh-possessing spirits holes up in a cabin with a group of strangers while the demons continue their attack.

October 2

Spirit Halloween

When a Halloween store opens in a deserted strip mall, three friends, thinking they’ve outgrown trick or treating, decide to spend the night locked inside. But their night of spook-filled fun soon turns to outlandish survival.

Hell House LLC: The Director’s Cut

Stephen Cognetti presents his Director’s Cut of one of the most popular found footage horror films in the last decade. The special edition has eight additional minutes of footage, a director’s intro, deleted scenes, cast auditions, a location scout of the Abaddon Hotel, and outtakes.

Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel

It’s been eight years since the opening night tragedy of Hell House, LLC and still many unanswered questions remain. Thanks to an anonymous tip, investigative journalist Jessica Fox is convinced key evidence is hidden inside the abandoned Abaddon Hotel.

Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire

The Abaddon Hotel will once again be open to the public. Russell Wynn has taken his audience-interactive show, Insomnia into the abandoned hotel that is rumored to be haunted.

October 9

Dog Soldiers

A routine military exercise turns into a nightmare in the Scotland wilderness.

All Hallows’ Eve

A babysitter finds a VHS tape that features various sinister murders performed by a psychotic clown.

All Hallows’ Eve 2

A woman finds a VHS tape on her doorstep that shows a series of gruesome tales that could be real. But the true danger is the pumpkin-faced killer that’s using the tape to find his next victim.

October 16

Lockdown Tower

The inhabitants of a tower wake up one morning to find that their building is shrouded in an opaque fog, obstructing doors and windows – a strange dark matter that devours anything that tries to pass through it.

October 23

Kidnapped

Three hooded Eastern-European criminals burst into a home in a Madrid gated community, holding the family hostage in their own home, and forcing the father to empty his credit cards.

The Midnight Man

A girl and her friends find a game in the attic that summons a creature known as The Midnight Man, who uses their worst fears against them.

October 31

Saw

Two strangers awaken in a room with no recollection of how they got there, and soon discover they’re pawns in a deadly game perpetrated by a notorious serial killer.

Saw II

A detective and his team must rescue 8 people trapped in a factory by the twister serial killer known as Jigsaw.

Saw III

Jigsaw abducts a doctor in order to keep himself alive while he watches his new apprentice put an unlucky citizen named Jeff through a brutal test.

Saw IV

Despite Jigsaw’s death, and in order to save the lives of two of his colleagues, Lieutenant Rigg is forced to take part in a new game, which promises to test him to the limit.

Saw V

Following Jigsaw’s grisly demise, Mark Hoffman is commended as a hero but Agent Strahm is suspicious and delves into Hoffman’s past. Meanwhile, another group of people are put through a series of gruesome tests.

Saw VI

Agent Strahm is dead and FBI agent Erickson draws nearer to Hoffman. Meanwhile, a pair of insurance executives find themselves in another game set by Jigsaw.

Saw 3D

As a deadly battle rages over Jigsaw’s brutal legacy, a group of Jigsaw survivors gathers to seek the support of self-help guru and fellow survivor Bobby Dagen, a man whose own dark secrets unleash a new wave of terror.

Editors’ Recommendations

Target to close 9 stores over theft that ‘threatens’ workers and shoppers

by www.independent.co.uk Leave a Comment

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Target will close nine store in four states, including one in East Harlem, New York and three in San Francisco , saying that theft and organized retail crime have threatened the safety of its workers and customers.

The closings, which will be effective Oct. 21, also include three stores in Portland , Oregon, and two in Seattle. Target said that it still will have a combined 150 stores open in the markets where the closures are taking place. Target will offer affected workers the opportunity to transfer to other stores.

Target described the decision as “difficult.”

“We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all,” Target said in a statement on Tuesday.

Before making the decision, Target said it had invested heavily in strategies to prevent and stop theft such as adding more security team workers, using third-party guard services and installing theft deterrent tools like locking up merchandise. It also has trained store leaders and security team members to protect themselves and de-escalate potential safety issues. But it noted that despite those efforts, it continued to face “fundamental challenges” to operate the stores safely — and the business performance at these locations was unsustainable.

While the store closings account for just a fraction of the 1,900 stores Target operates nationwide, the move is significant. It underscores the big challenges that retailers like Target face in reducing theft in stores as they wrestle with protecting their workers and customers while trying to serve the community, particularly low-income and minority groups who rely on the local stores for necessities.

For example, the Target store in East Harlem is located in a heavily Hispanic area, and residents have few choices to buy good quality healthy foods. In San Francisco, one of the stores slated to close is located at 13th Street and Folsom under a busy overpass with homeless tents in a largely commercial neighborhood with auto shops. In Seattle, one of the stores is located on a busy avenue near the University of Washington.

Target CEO Brian Cornell has been one of a handful of retail CEOs flagging what they described as rising theft over the past year or so. Cornell had held steadfast he didn’t want to resort to closing stores even despite mounting losses. Target said in May that theft was cutting into its bottom line and it expected related losses could be $500 million more than last year, when losses from theft were estimated to be anywhere from $700 million to $800 million. So that means losses could top $1.2 billion this fiscal year.

Moreover, Cornell told analysts in August that violent incidents against workers at Target stores increased 120% for the first five months of the year compared with the same period a year ago.

“Our team continues to face an unacceptable amount of retail theft and organized retail crime,” Cornell told analysts. “Unfortunately, safety incidents associated with theft are moving in the wrong direction.”

The announcement also comes as Target is still reeling from being targeted for its LGBTQ+ support, in particular, its displays of Pride Month merchandise. In late May, ahead of Pride Month, Target pulled some items in particular regions and made other changes after encountering hostility from some customers who confronted workers and tipped over displays. Target said the moves were made to protect workers in the store.

It’s unclear how much money retailers broadly are losing due to organized retail crime — or if the problem has substantially increased. But the issue has received more notice in the past few years as high-profile smash-and-grab retail thefts and flash mob robberies have garnered national media attention. Over the past few quarters, an increasing number of retailers including Dick’s Sporting Goods and Ulta Beauty have been calling out rising theft, calling it a factor in shrinking profits.

The National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, said its latest security survey of roughly 177 retailers found that inventory loss — called shrink — clocked in at an average rate of 1.6 % last year, representing $112.1 billion in losses. That’s up from 1.4% the previous year.

The greatest portion of shrink — 65% — came from external theft, including products taken during organized shoplifting incidents, the trade group said Tuesday. More than two-thirds of respondents said they were seeing even more violence and aggression from perpetrators of organized retail crime compared with a year ago.

The NRF said that even though retailers continue to improve their loss-prevention measures, sometimes more drastic action must be taken. Nearly 30% of retailers surveyed reported being forced to close a specific store location, and 45% said they needed to reduce operating hours. Roughly 30% said they needed to change or reduce product selection in stores as a direct result of retail crime.

Late last year, Congress passed a bill, called the INFORM ACT, that seeks to combat sales of counterfeit goods and dangerous products by compelling online marketplaces to verify different types of information – including bank account, tax ID and contact details – for sellers who make at least 200 unique sales and earn a minimum of $5,000 in a given year.

Target said Tuesday that it’s making significant investments in cyber defense to combat retail theft and fraud and has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations division to combat retail theft.

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Follow Anne D’Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio

Xbox 360 Store to Become a Thing of the Past Starting in 2024

by gizmodo.com Leave a Comment

Microsoft is bringing an end to its Xbox 360 Store and Xbox 360 Marketplace starting July 29, 2024, the company announced on Thursday. The closure brings an end to Xbox 360’s 18-year run of bringing video games and other content to players everywhere.

After the July cutoff, Microsoft confirmed in a blog post that customers won’t be able to buy new games, expansions, videos, or anything else on the console or Marketplace. Gamers concerned that they won’t be able to access their existing content won’t have to worry, for the foreseeable future at least, as they will still have access to existing content in their library. Similarly, the TV and Movie apps will be removed from the Xbox 360 but users will still be able to access their downloaded movies and shows on the Movies Anywhere app or site.

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Microsoft declined to provide further information about the change in an email to Gizmodo and instead referred to its blog post where customers can access general questions.

The shift away from the gaming console and Marketplace will allow Microsoft to focus on its Xbox Series X|S which will become “the best place to play now and in the future,” the blog post says. Advancing technology has had an impact on gaming devices, Microsoft said in its blog post. “A lot has changed since the Xbox 360 launch in 2005,” the company said, adding that “technology has evolved” and “expectations from players have shifted.”

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While Microsoft will no longer produce new games for the Xbox 360, the company says customers will still be able to purchase older games that will also be compatible with the new series. Dave McCarthy, corporate vice president of Xbox player services told The Verge ,

“You will still be able to purchase hundreds of great backward-compatible Xbox 360 and Original Xbox games and DLC on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox.com.”

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Microsoft has listed all of its games that will still be available on its website spanning all the way back to the beginning.