Hungary bans slot machines

Hungary bans slot machines

BUDAPEST, Hungary

The government says it’s trying to cure poor Hungarians of a gambling addiction. The gambling industry says that authorities are trying to seize control of a lucrative pastime.

Whatever the case, Hungary’s decision to ban the ubiquitous slot machines seen in pubs, bars and parlors across the country goes against a gambling boom seen elsewhere in Eastern Europe, even as economic times get tougher.

The government announced the ban Monday morning, after an extraordinary Cabinet meeting called by Prime Minister Viktor Orban. It justified the surprise move by saying that tens of thousands of Hungarian families had been ruined by slot machines.

Women file suit against Wal-Mart

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.

When Boca Raton resident Christina Going asked her boss at Walmart what she could do to get a higher-paying position, the answer sounded like it was designed to give her ammunition for a discrimination lawsuit.

“Single mothers like you don’t deserve to make as much. You should be in a two-income household,” Going remembers being told.

On Thursday, Going joined 10 other Florida women in a federal lawsuit, accusing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of intentionally discriminating against women in pay and promotions. The women who lent their names to the lawsuit hope it will help hundreds of thousands of other women who they say were victims of Wal-Mart’s discriminatory employment practices at hundreds of Walmart stores and Sam’s Clubs along the Eastern Seaboard.

KitchenAid tweet stirs outrage

LOS ANGELES

The day after the first presidential debate, it wasn’t Barack Obama or Mitt Romney getting the most attention. It was the maker of colorful kitchen appliances.

KitchenAid spent much of Thursday trying to repair the damage from a wayward tweet about President Obama that whipped up social-media outrage faster than one of its signature blenders can spit out a smoothie.

The tweet, put out by a member of the company’s social-media team during the Obama-Romney faceoff Wednesday in Denver, attacked the president in a particularly personal way.

As Obama reminisced about his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who died shortly before Obama was elected president in 2008, the tweet appeared on KitchenAid’s official Twitter account, KitchenAidUSA: “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ’She died 3 days b4 he became president!”

The appliance maker, which is owned by Whirlpool Corp., quickly deleted the tweet. Cynthia Soledad, a KitchenAid marketing executive, issued a series of apologies via Twitter and Facebook.

Panel urges parole for Manson follower

LOS ANGELES

A former Charles Manson follower imprisoned for 40 years in a double murder engineered by Manson won a recommendation of parole Thursday in his 27th appearance before a parole board panel.

Bruce Davis, convicted with Manson and another man in the killings of a musician and a stuntman, was not involved in the infamous Sharon Tate murders in 1969.

The answer to his plea for freedom came on the eve of his 70th birthday. He was a young man of 30 when he was sentenced to life in prison in 1972 in a case that was a postscript to Manson’s notorious reign as leader of the murderous communal cult known as the Manson family.

Combined dispatches