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Shoplifters are using tinfoil-lined bags to get stolen merchandise past security sensors. The foil lining blocks the sensors at store exits from reading the security tags attached to the items. Police stationed at Concord (N.C.) Mills, a 1.4 million-square-foot retail and entertainment center, made more than 200 arrests at two anchor stores alone during the winter holidays. … Several churches have been getting into the shopping center business lately. The First Assembly Ministries of Concord, Piedmont, N.C., purchased a nearby shopping center, and a conglomeration of churches in Houston recently bought and refurbished an old Wal-Mart store. In Los Angeles, meanwhile, a megachurch took over an old U.S. Department of Defense complex, turning it into part church sanctuary and part shopping center. … The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee in July demanded that 13 troubled companies, including Troy, Mich.-based Kmart Corp., turn over documents on their management and financial practices. The committee is investigating the nation’s widening accounting scandals. … Wal-Mart marked its 40th anniversary in July, inviting actor Barry Williams, who played Greg Brady in the 1970s TV series The Brady Bunch, and other entertainers to a celebration. Staff also installed a commemorative stone at the first-ever Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Ark., now Shelby Lane Mall, which lies just south of Wal-Mart’s Bentonville, Ark., headquarters. Founded by Sam Walton in 1962, the store employed 25 people. The company now has 1.3 million workers and revenues of $220 billion, more than any company in history. It recently topped the list of Fortune Global 500 companies, the first service firm ever to do so. … General Growth Properties will appeal a recent decision of the Sacramento (Calif.) Superior Court striking down approvals for development of the 1.3 million-square-foot Lent Ranch Marketplace, Elk Grove, Calif. The lawsuit, filed by activists and partially funded by Westfield America, which owns two competing projects, claimed that the project’s proximity to U.S. Highway 99 and some large propane tanks make it too dangerous. … Two Serbian entrepreneurs are converting a Belgrade skyscraper that formerly had served as the headquarters for the country’s Communist Party and of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic into a mixed-use complex that will feature a mall, cinemas and offices.

— Donna Mitchell