Home improvement retailer Menards is postponing its plans to enter the Kansas City market over concerns that “economic conditions will worsen,” according to an article in The Kansas City Star.

Company spokesman Jeff Abbott told the newspaper the Eau Claire, Wis.-based company will not be building planned units in Belton, Mo.; Kansas City Northland and Overland Park, Kan. 

Home improvement retailer Menards has decided not to open a store in O'Fallon, Mo., because of President Barack Obama's economic policies, according to a company spokesman interviewed on KMOV, a Missouri television station. 

Menards, based in Eau Claire, Wis., had planned to open several stores in the St. Louis market over the next six months.

Linn, Mo.-based Patio Living Concepts named four new independent representatives with a combined 100 years of sales experience to its sales team. 

Three representatives were announced for U.S. territories and one for the Ontario, Canada, region. 

Beacon Roofing Supply announced Friday that it has acquired Contractors Roofing & Supply Co., a distributor of residential roofing products and related accessories with one location in the St. Louis suburb of O'Fallon, Mo., and annual sales of approximately $14 million.

GAF, one of North America’s largest roofing manufacturers, has announced plans to open a new asphalt roofing shingle manufacturing facility in eastern Missouri or southern Illinois, with an anticipated start-up in 2015. 

Westlake Hardware will close an underperforming store in St. Charles, Mo., on July 1, according to an article in St. Louis Today.

In a statement, the company said that "financial performance has not been at the level necessary to enter into a new long-term lease agreement."

The store opened in 2007.

The second annual list of Home Channel News Hardware Store All-Stars winds through Missouri, Montana and Nebraska with stores that feature special items, unusual brands and unique departments. 

Springfield, Mass.-based Rocky’s Ace Hardware, a family-owned business with 33 stores has engaged in a partnership with Nutro Pet Foods and its customers to help homeless and abandoned pets.

Stanley Black & Decker has made a $350,000 tool donation to the Joplin, Mo., rebuilding efforts. The tools, which are being used on the “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” Joplin project, include Stanley, Bostitch, DeWalt, Porter-Cable and more. Following this project, the Home Builders Association of Southwest Missouri will gather, inventory and distribute the tools to the building trades classes at Franklin Technology Center and other area technical schools that lost their tools in the May 22 storm.

A 2-year-old boy became trapped in a large gun safe in a Lowe’s store in Missouri before firefighters used tools to free the toddler, according to an article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

The child, who was not identified, wandered away from his parents at the Wentzville store on July 30, climbed into the open safe, and somehow closed the door, which locked him inside.

A 25-year-old firefighter was charged with misdemeanor theft In Joplin, Mo., for allegedly looting a Home Depot store after a tornado destroyed the building, according to an article in the Joplin Globe. 

Matthew Page was one of three firefighters dismissed June 9 by the town of Baxter Springs, Kan., for alleged misconduct during the emergency response to the tornado. But Joplin authorities said they only had enough evidence to charge one of the suspects.