Wal Mart

With the Philadelphia market already brimming with grocery stores and still adjusting to the recent addition of meat, vegetable, and dairy aisles to Target and Wal-Mart outlets, now another competitor wants your shopping allegiance. Bottom Dollar Food, a discount grocer based in Salisbury, N.C., announced plans Wednesday to open at least 17 stores in Philadelphia and the surrounding Pennsylvania and New Jersey suburbs, starting this fall. An additional four are planned in Allentown and Reading.

It was a long journey from the steppes of Ukraine, through the heat of Mexico, and then to the tough streets of Philadelphia. The migrants were hoping for a better life with a job promising $500 a month cleaning stores. Instead, U.S. authorities said, they were beaten, kicked, threatened, and held in virtual bondage by their countrymen. In an act of brutal intimidation, a woman was repeatedly raped, U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger said Wednesday as he announced a racketeering indictment against five Ukrainian brothers on charges that they staffed their cleaning business with illegal workers kept in "involuntary servitude.

The Five Best American Idol: Some great young talent has been forged in this crucible of pressure. Celebrity Rehab: If the sloppy spectacle of Jeff Conaway doesn't scare you straight, there's no hope for you, pardner. The Hills: Beautiful kids in Los Angeles without a care - or a thought - in the world. Jon & Kate Plus 8: The mom was fascinatingly insufferable, but the kids were so cuuuute! The Osbournes: The prince of darkness putters around the house, befuddled by all he encounters.

The Marple Crossroads Shopping Center, riddled by corporate-bankruptcy vacancies, will soon be home to a major new tenant. But its chance for revival has sparked community controversy, as some fear the heavy price the retailer may bring. After talks over the last year, Wal-Mart recently signed a lease with the shopping center's management to open a 110,000-square-foot store, possibly by late 2011. The store will fill vacancies left behind by bankrupt retailers Circuit City and Linens 'n Things.

Two 20-year-old National Guardsmen accused of torching their training facility in Chester County handed investigators a host of clues, according to court records. Dominic Toye Majors and Guy Carlton Jones, both of Royersford, were taken into custody Friday morning in North Wildwood in connection with the fire, which significantly damaged the Pennsylvania National Guard Armory in East Pikeland Township. The arrests stunned longtime friends of the men, who returned in September from Iraq to a heroes' welcome.

A 16-year-old Atlantic County boy arrested after the racially tinged announcement at the Turnersville Wal-Mart this month did the same thing Dec. 28, police reported yesterday. The youth, whose name has not been released because he is a juvenile, is now charged with two counts each of harassment and bias intimidation, Washington Township police said. He is accused of announcing over a Wal-Mart telephone March 14 that "all the black people" should leave the store, on Route 42. Police arrested him after examining surveillance cameras and social Web sites such as Facebook and YouTube.

A racist remark that was broadcast at a Wal-Mart in Turnersville has prompted the national chain to fix intercom systems that have been plagued by bogus store announcements for years. "It's something we're implementing nationwide in all our stores," said Ashley Hardie, a spokeswoman for the discount chain. The majority of 2,800 Wal-Mart supercenters "updated their systems" last weekend, she said, declining to divulge details of what that entailed. Washington Township police Sunday announced they had arrested a 16-year-old Atlantic County boy on harassment and bias intimidation charges for using the intercom at the Turnersville store March 14 to ask "all the black people" to leave.

Washington Township police are widening their inquiry into racial incidents at the Turnersville Wal-Mart after the arrest of a juvenile on charges of harassment and bias intimidation, Chief Rafael Muniz said yesterday. At a noon news conference, Muniz and Gloucester County Prosecutor Sean Dalton announced that they had arrested a 16-year-old Atlantic County boy accused of using a store telephone in the home-and-garden section last Sunday to announce over the public-address system: "Attention, Wal-Mart shoppers: Will all the black people please leave the store.

Victoria Arter was stunned by the loudspeaker announcement. "Attention, Wal-Mart shoppers," she recalled hearing the calm male voice begin. "Will all the black people please leave the store. Thank you. " Her shock turned to anger, Arter said, when more than five awkward and frightening minutes elapsed before management at the Wal-Mart in Turnersville came on the public address system. "We waited and waited. Some people just left their carts in disgust and said they couldn't believe it," said Arter, an African American woman who was shopping at the store on Route 42 when the announcement was made shortly before 7 p.m. Sunday.