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President Obama's election victory ensured his Affordable Care Act would remain the centerpiece of his first term in power - but that has left some business owners baulking at the extra cost Obamcare will bring.
Florida based restaurant boss John Metz, who runs approximately 40 Denny's and owns the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise has decided to offset that by adding a five percent surcharge to customers' bills and will reduce his employees' hours.
With Obamacare due to be fully implemented in January 2014, Metz has justified his move by claiming it is 'the only alternative. I've got to pass on the cost to the customer.'
The fast-food business owner is set to hold meetings at his restaurants in December where he will tell employees, 'that because of Obamacare, we are going to be cutting front-of-the-house employees to under 30 hours, effective immediately.'
Obamacare requires businesses or franchises with more than 50 workers must offer an approved insurance plan or pay a penalty of $2,000 for each full-time worker over 30 workers.
The program mandates that only employees working more than 30 hours a week are covered under their employers health insurance plan, chains like Olive Garden and Red Lobster are already considering reduced worker hours.
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From a workshop on whether Jesus' salvation would apply to aliens to determining the color of the feathers on a 150-million-year-old creature deemed the Earth's first bird, the Pentagon has spent money on some questionable projects, according to Sen. Tom Coburn.
At a time when many Republicans argue the Defense Department cannot afford new spending cuts, Mr. Coburn, Congress's top waste-watcher, released a report Thursday arguing that in fact the Pentagon is awash in billions of dollars of non-security spending that should be cut.
Among the more curious spending was:
• $300,000 spent by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to fund Brown University's research into archaeopteryx, the 150-million-year-old early bird, in which the researchers determined the creature likely had black feathers.
• an Office of Naval Research research project that helped spawn Caffeine Zone 2, an iPhone application that tells people how to schedule their coffee breaks.
• $1.5 million to develop a special new roll-up beef jerky, which Mr. Coburn said was funded by taking money out of a weapons program.
• $100,000 for a 2011 workshop on interstellar space travel that included a session entitled "Did Jesus die for Klingons too?" The session probed how Christian theology would apply in the event of the discovery of aliens.
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An added benefit of America's growing obesity problem: shoplifting high dollar items in your fat rolls
PURCELL, Okla. – Walmart has a large selection of cameras, from about $40 to nearly $2,000.
Purcell police said two mystery men had their eyes on the high-dollar digital cameras.
Surveillance video captures the large men scanning the aisles and focusing on the locked cabinet for about 15 minutes.
They return to the empty photo department with a shopping cart and a backpack.
Purcell detective Scott Stephens said, "They get them in a backpack and take them to an area that is not observable by cameras. They take them out of the packages. They left the packages and went out of the store, through the checkout line. They did pay for some smaller items."
Store security found those empty boxes shortly after the men left the store.
Investigators said they suspect the men used their girth to smuggle out thousands of dollars in stolen merchandise.
