pileofcrapola

Whether vegetable, cheese, or prosciutto, few things hit the savory snack spot quite like a crisp. To make a whole bunch of ‘em at once, just grab two sheet pans.

Read more...

Alton Brown is the undisputed king of kitchen hacks , and this one, from his Instagram account, is so simple it’s genius. The next time you want to grill kebabs, keep your skewers in a recycled water bottle full of water. It keeps the skewers moist, prevents burning, and a squeeze pushes them up so you can snag one when you need it.

Read more...

If you don’t know your way around a kitchen very well (guilty), it may never have occurred to you to freeze flour. But it’s possible, and not only is it possible, if you’re dealing with whole-grain flour, you should freeze it.

Read more...

WASHINGTON — The National Zoo’s baby panda Bei Bei has new competition in the cuteness department.

A litter of cheetah cubs was born at the zoo’s facility in Front Royal to a first-time mom named Sanurra.

The three cubs were born Oct. 16.

“Mom and the babies are all doing very well,” says Adrienne Crosier, a biologist with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

“They’re just adorable. They really are. They’re very active. Their eyes are already open, they’re very precocious.”

Sanurra was born at a facility in South Africa, and was brought to the region in 2011.

“She is very genetically valuable not only to our collection, but to the entire managed collection in North America. So this [birth] is a very big deal.”

Crosier says scientists haven’t handled the cubs yet to weigh them and determine their gender, because they don’t want to disturb Sanurra.

“We don’t have a timeline for that right now because she’s being very, very attentive and also a bit protective. She doesn’t leave them very much at all. So we’re just waiting for her to be more comfortable to leave them for a little bit of time. So we’ll work up to that slowly,” Crosier says.

You might notice the cubs don’t look like they have as many spots as mom.

“They have what’s called a mantle when they’re first born. That is very long, kind of grayish hair that covers most of their back. They will have that for many months. The theory is that it makes them look possibly like a honey badger, and other predators are supposed to avoid honey badgers in the wild.”

Crosier says right now, the cubs are making chirping sounds.

“Once they’re out of the den, which will probably be maybe five weeks from now, they’ll also use a vocalization called a stutter. Females use that to kind of talk to their cubs. It’s also a vocalization that males use during mating introduction.”

Cheetahs are also the largest cats that purr.

“The larger cats, lions and tigers, don’t have that same capability. Cheetahs purr just like your cat at home purrs, so when they’re happy and content they make a purring noise.”

Crosier says cheetah populations in the wild are decreasing very rapidly.

“They estimate there’s only 8,000 left in the wild right now, and this is down from an estimate of about 100,000 only 100 years ago.”

It’s not clear yet if any of the new cubs will end up at the National Zoo in D.C., but Crosier says Sanurra will likely remain in Front Royal.

Watch a video of the baby cheetahs:

The post National Zoo says litter of cheetah cubs born appeared first on WTOP.

SOMERSET, Va. (AP) _ Officials in Orange County investigating the neglect and mistreatment of dozens of animals at an animal rescue farm say a dozen horses were either found dead or have been put down.

A volunteer with an equine rescue group said horses at Peaceable Farm looked like “skin stretched over a skeleton.”

Media reports say Hope’s Legacy Equine Rescue is sheltering 29 horses and a donkey that were removed from the farm amid an investigation by the sheriff’s office.

The farm surrendered more than 70 horses and 35 cats and dogs. Armed with a search warrant, the sheriff’s office went to the property on Monday.

The farm owner still has 18 horses, two donkeys, a bull and several cats. The owner had not been charged with any crimes.

The post Neglect of animals investigated after Va. horses found dead appeared first on WTOP.

BOWLING GREEN, Va. (AP) — A Virginia man has been sentenced to prison for his role in dogfighting.

Forty-year-old Darryl Lamont Hawkins was convicted in June in Caroline County. This week a judge sentenced him to a four-year prison term.

The Free Lance-Star (http://bit.ly/1Nr4VSK ) reports that an investigation began in 2012 when police found marijuana growing near Hawkins’ property in Woodford. During that investigation, police noticed evidence of dogfighting.

A subsequent search found dogfighting magazines and medicine for treating dog wounds.

While a prosecutor said none of Hawkins’ pit bulls had any wounds or scarring, it was clear he was breeding, training and selling dogs for dogfighting.

___

Information from: The Free Lance-Star, http://www.fredericksburg.com/

The post Virginia man gets prison for dogfighting conviction appeared first on WTOP.

NBC4 Washington

UPDATED: Two teens found dead in van in Dale City Inside NoVA Two teenagers reported missing by their families were found dead in a van off Hillendale Road in Dale City early Saturday evening. Indya Davis and Lyle Ferringer, both 17 and both from the Woodbridge area, were found in a van in the 4400 block of ... Two Teens Found Dead in Minivan in Dale CityNBC4 Washington Police: Missing Woodbridge juveniles found dead in vanW*USA 9 Two Teens Found Dead Near ParkPatch.com all 6 news articles »

Police shoot dog after fight, attempted stabbing in Lake Jackson Inside NoVA Police shot and killed a pit bull late Friday after a violent dispute in the Lake Jackson area of Manassas. Officers were called to Hilltop Drive at 9:43 p.m., where it was reported the suspect assaulted one victim and attempted to stab another in an ... and more »

PotomacLocal.com

City Council OKs Manassas Gateway waterfront development PotomacLocal.com Manassas will move ahead with a plan make old farmland into a new waterfront development. The City Council this week with a vote of 5-2 to instruct the city's Economic Development Authority to sell 40 acres of land on Gateway Drive, between Prince ...

Inside NoVA

Manassas police issue lookout for shooting suspect Inside NoVA Martin Allen Boyce, 21, is wanted in connection with a September shooting in Manassas that left a 24-year-old man critically wounded. App promo 300x250. Posted: Friday, October 23, 2015 12:58 pm | Updated: 1:15 pm, Fri Oct 23, 2015. Manassas police ... and more »

NBC4 Washington

More Than 100 Firefighters Battle Silver Spring Fire NBC4 Washington More than 100 firefighters responded to a two-alarm fire at a Silver Spring apartment building Thursday morning, where several people had to be helped out of the building. The fire was reported at 11:20 a.m. at the Park Wayne Apartments at 11 ... and more »

Washington Post

The gang's all here: Group living has grown in popularity in the DC area Washington Post With affordable-housing options in the Washington area seemingly getting scarcer by the day, an unconventional array of 20- and 30-somethings is finding a creative way to become homeowners and renters: group living. For those willing to live the ...

David and his daughter took a trip to Petco this week to buy a fish for her aquarium. After choosing a nice one, they took a lap around the store to look at the other animals. That’s when they ran into the cleanup cart… and the tarantula chillaxing on the corner. At least, that’s what it looked like. (Please note: this post contains pictures of a spider. Proceed with caution if you do not like spiders.)

The cleanup cart was blocking an aisle but with no employees nearby, so he just moved it out of the way. “I went to push it aside when I noticed the guy in the picture – just hanging out on the cart doing his thing,” he told Consumerist. “I jumped about a foot and almost dropped my kid.”

For the arachnid fans in the audience, here’s the full-resolution photo from David’s phone.

Now, it is possible that this is not a spider. No, not that it’s a plastic Halloween decoration, but it could be a molted skin from one of the store’s tarantulas. A molted skin looks just like, well, the outside of a tarantula. (You can watch a sped-up molting video here.) David was actually the one who suggested that possibility––I don’t know a lot about spiders––but he was still very startled.

This arrangement couldn’t be very safe for the alleged tarantula or the store’s customers, so David sought out an employee and explained the problem. The following exchange is according to David’s memory:

“We’re cleaning the terrariums,” the employee told him. “So yeah, it’s fine.”

“Aren’t you worried that it will get away?” David asked, concerned for the pet as well as for fellow shoppers.

“No, the lid will keep it from getting away,” the employee replied, apparently not understanding where the critter actually was.

David gave up. Maybe the spider-like object was a molted skin after all. He, his daughter, and their new fish left the store, vowing not to come back on cleaning days at Petco anymore.

He wrote to us about his misadventure, and we contacted Petco. If this was a live spider, a company representative explained, that was not an approved location for it to hang out while its habitat was being cleaned.

“Having the spider not contained like that during maintenance of the habitat is definitely outside of our policy,” a Petco spokesperson explained to Consumerist. “Our policy is that the animal should be contained in a specific carrier during cleaning, so we are following up with the store.”

If it was just a molt, it evidently still has the potential to seriously freak out customers, and probably shouldn’t be stored on the edge of a cart. Even as Halloween approaches.

Last year, owners of vehicles equipped with shrapnel-shooting Takata airbags shared their point of view of the massive safety device recall, likening the situation to driving around with an explosive device in their steering wheel and dashboard. Their description was no doubt frightening, but seeing one of the airbags rupture in real time is even more so. 

Research organization Battelle – which was hired by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to develop tests to analyze Takata’s airbag defect, not to pinpoint the root cause of the issue – filmed a rupture in slow motion in order to better show the effects of the explosion, WIRED reports. 

The test centers mostly on the small canister found inside an airbag. The canister holds chemicals that eventually cause the airbag to deploy in the event of a crash.

In the case of Takata’s airbags, the canisters contain an ammonium nitrate compound, that some investigators believe could be tied to the excessively violent ruptures.

The video shows the canister suspended between wires.  Soon after, the canister explodes, sending pieces of metal flying in every direction.

While the test obviously wasn’t performed in a vehicle with a person behind the wheel, after seeing the metal spray across the screen one can only imagine the injuries – or worse – that could be sustained.

Battelle tells WIRED that the filmed video, which was shown during a NHTSA hearing on Thursday, is just one example of a Takata airbag rupture.

The company is actually working on large lot tests that allow dozens of airbags to be tested in rapid succession.

“With such a catastrophic potential for failure, the only option is to test a large number of inflators,” Ben Pierce, who runs Battelle’s transportation research group, said.

To further assist in determining the root cause of the airbag ruptures, the organization’s domed testing facility is equipped with pressure sensors and slow-motion cameras, and each canister is given a CT scan before tests.

NHTSA officials said on Thursday that they continue to investigate why the airbags are susceptible to such forceful ruptures.

Watch Takata’s Defective Airbags Explode In Slow Motion  [WIRED]

It’s always a good idea to purchase insurance for your packages, especially if you’re mailing something valuable. But even having that protection didn’t keep one USPS customer from ending up with broken equipment and no insurance payment to cover the cost of replacing or fixing it.

A woman living in Salt Lake City sold a portable power supply online to a buyer in New York and shipped it with USPS. She wanted to make sure the item got to its destination intact, reports KUTV.com.

“I went and actually bought a very sturdy box, extra packaging, since this is a heavy item, I took great care in packaging it,” she said.

As a fail-safe, she also paid $22 to purchase a $1,600 policy against loss or damage. And wouldn’t you know — the package arrived at its destination damaged.

She contacted the USPS, who told her to ask the buyer to return the package to the local post office for inspection, which he did. He received a stamped letter confirming that he’d left it with a clerk. But when the woman submitted her insurance claim, USPS denied it, saying the package hadn’t been dropped off at the post office.

So she appealed the denial, sending in the stamped letter as proof, but her efforts were rebuffed twice more. The USPS kept telling her they didn’t have her package.

“They’ve damaged my item. They’ve lost my item. But they’re not willing to pay,” she said.

Finally when KUTV’s Get Gephardt reached out to USPS to ask how a package that was lost while in the hands of the USPS could lead to a denied insurance claim, the power supply was miraculously discovered at the post office and shipped back to her.

But despite the fact that the power supply is bent and some of its pieces are shattered, USPS won’t approve her claim: she was told that she only gets three chances to appeal, and she’d used them all up trying to chase down her package… which USPS kept insisting it didn’t have.

Get Gephardt reached out again to USPS to ask why it wouldn’t let her appeal since it was their fault the box was misplaced, which resulted in the denials, but did not receive an answer.

USPS’ bizarre reason for denying insurance claim [KUTV.com]

When a college student seeks medical treatment at a campus healthcare facility, they probably expect they will be afforded the same discretion as all consumer are under HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). But thanks to a separate, often conflicting federal law, that isn’t always the case.

Much like HIPAA’s goal is to provide patient privacy, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was intended to protect the privacy of student education records. However, a new report from ProPublica highlights how HIPAA and FERPA often leave patient privacy vulnerable when students seek treatment at their on-campus health centers.

That was the case for a Yale University graduate who shared her story with ProPublica.

Just weeks before graduation, the student found herself struggling with depression and anxiety and seeking help from the on-campus facility. Eventually, she was hospitalized against her will at the Yale-New Haven Hospital, which is off campus.

Although she was 21 at the time, the University contacted her parents to let them know of the situation. Soon after, the woman says she flew back home with her parents where they refused to accept her situation or allow her to see a psychiatrist or therapist.

Under normal circumstances, a 21-year-old’s medical history wouldn’t have been shared with others – even her parents – without her consent. But, as ProPublica goes on to explore, because she happened to be a student, her information was subject not to HIPAA, but to FERPA.

The issue goes back several decades when the government enacted FERPA in 1974 as a way to give students and parents access to their education records. The law also dictates when and how universities can obtain or share information that identifies individual students.

For example, if a student is under 18 or is claimed as a dependent for tax purposes, the law allows colleges to share their education information with parents, even without the students’ consent.

Additionally, the law provides a health-and-safety exemption, that states if a student is seen to be in danger, or to be putting others in danger, health information can be shared with “appropriate parties,” such as parents.

The story is different off-campus, though, according to ProPublica. In those cases, HIPAA applies, not FERPA, meaning the student has near full discretion on who their records can be shared with.

But the water is further muddied when a student is transferred to an off-campus facility from an on-campus one, as was the case for the Yale student. While she was eventually seen at the Yale-New Haven Hospital, a private institution – a stay that was covered by HIPAA – the information from the health clinicians that first helped her at Yale was only covered by FERPA.

And for the most part, it’s up to the college to determine when and how to use FERPA’s health-and-safety exception.

While Yale says it informs parents they can’t access their child’s health information without a signed written consent form, the student says she doesn’t remember signing such a document. And when she asked about its existence, she was told there wasn’t one for her case.

“Most of what happened while I was in the hospital happened without my knowing it,” she said. “I got an update every day or two about where my life was going.”

According to ProPublica, the woman’s story depicts the fine line universities walk when providing needed medical treatment for students: if they share too little they’re liable to be blamed if something happens, but if they share too much they’ll be accused of invading one’s privacy.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the schools are trying to strike the right balance,” Paul Lannon, a Boston lawyer who advises colleges on legal issues, tells ProPublica. “They care for the students. They want the students to do well. They want the students to be healthy.”

Although the issue of student privacy may seem straight forward, it’s been cause for controversy in the past, particularly in the cases of high-profile campus shootings and sexual assault cases.

In an attempt to better guide schools on their responsibilities, while protecting students’ privacy, the Department of Education issued proposed guidelines over the summer concerning student counseling records, ProPublica reports.

Under the proposal [PDF], the Dept. directs university lawyers to only view counseling records if the treatment itself is at issue in a legal case, if they have permission, or if a judge’s order gives them access.

“Institutions of higher education have a strong interest in ensuring that students have uncompromised access to the support they need, without fear that the information they share will be disclosed inappropriately,” the Dept. wrote in a blog post on the issue.

The Dept. sought consumer input on the issue until Oct. 2; it’s unclear what the next steps will be.

When Students Become Patients, Privacy Suffers [ProPublica]

To advertise entire categories of food, like “potatoes” or “beef” or “eggs,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture collects money from all producers of that commodity, which the Hass Avocado Board or Mushroom Council then uses to advertise those foods to the public. Now the CEO of the American Egg Board will step down a few months early after e-mails revealed that the American Egg Board was working to keep a new eggless mayonnaise product out of stores.

The Egg Board’s CEO was planning to retire at the end of 2015, but instead left her position at the end of September, the Associated Press reports. The USDA is investigating the Egg Board’s actions, noting that the point of the program is not to tear down competing products.

As it turned out, the Food and Drug Administration has its own issues with the product, called Just Mayo, which substitutes pea protein for the eggs normally used to make mayonnaise. Unilever, the maker of Hellmann’s and Best Foods mayonnaises, had filed a federal lawsuit against the company as well.

The reason why the Egg Board exists is to promote eggs through advertising, recipes, and other activities. However, e-mails that Just Mayo maker Hampton Creek obtained and shared with the Associated Press showed that the CEO of the American Egg Board asked a consultant to keep Just Mayo out of Whole Foods stores, which would be an impediment in launching a vegan condiment nationally.

The brand name of Just Mayo remains an important question for Hampton Creek and the FDA to sort out, but you can definitely find the product on the shelves of Whole Foods.

Egg industry group CEO steps down after vegan mayo scramble [AP]

Best Buy won’t be alone in offering free shipping on anything customers order online this holiday season, as Target has also apparently jumped on the special deal bandwagon: a screenshot from their leaked toy catalog shows the Minnesota-based company will offer free shipping and returns.

BestBlackFriday.com spotted the promotion in Target’s toy catalog today, which notes that the offer is valid from Nov. 1 through Dec. 25. There are no minimum price restrictions, though it may exclude oversized items (as we know, it now costs retailers more to ship those products). Standard shipping to the 48 contiguous states applies.

This isn’t totally a surprise, as Target was the first of the big stores to offer free shipping on their online orders with no minimum last holiday season.

When we asked Target for confirmation, a spokeswoman told Consumerist: “We have not yet shared any of our holiday plans. We’ll be sharing holiday news in the coming weeks.”

Your turn, Walmart, Kmart and Sears.

Target to Offer Free Shipping With No Minimum? [BestBlackFriday.com]

A little more than three months ago, a class-action lawsuit filed against Major League Baseball called for the installation of safety nets that would extend all the way to both of the foul poles. The lead plaintiff in that complaint had not actually been struck by any errant balls or bats, but a newly amended complaint includes details on numerous recent fan injuries and near-misses, including 90 that have occurred since this lawsuit was first filed.

The lawsuit has been amended to include all 32 MLB teams as defendants. It also adds a new named plaintiff in the form of a woman who was struck by a foul ball at a Los Angeles Dodgers game on June 7. She had field level seats along the third base line and says she was hit in the stomach by a stray ball. The suit alleges that this incident resulted in broken ribs, and partial collapse of her lung. Thus far, according to the complaint, she’s tallied up $4,300 in medical bills.

The Dodgers have denied any liability for her injuries, which is to be expected, as all professional sports teams in the U.S. have liability waivers included on their tickets.

But as the complaint notes, these sorts of injuries happen with some frequency. In fact, on the same day this plaintiff was injured, another Dodgers fan was hit with a foul ball.

The rundown of incidents begins on page 45 of the amended complaint [PDF] and continues onto page 79, so obviously we can’t go through them all.

The same week the lawsuit was filed, a fan at a Yankees/Red Sox game at Fenway Park was sent to the hospital and needed 30 stitches after getting thumped in the forehead by a foul ball.

“I was paying attention to the game,” she told WMUR afterward. “I saw the ball in the air and thought ‘Which way is that ball going?’ I didn’t have time for that entire thought. I saw the ball and it hit me, bang bang.”

Only weeks earlier, another Fenway fan had to be carried out of the stadium on a stretcher and hospitalized for a week after being hit in the head with a shattered bat. Her injuries were initially described as “life threatening.”

On July 6, a Brewers fan at Milwaukee’s Miller Park suffered irreversible nerve damage that has reportedly resulted in permanent numbness to the left side of her scalp, face and mouth. And a dislocated lens has left one pupil constantly dilated.

“She’s pretty much in the worst-case scenario of being hit by a ball and surviving,” her daughter told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “Doctors told her if her head was turned a millimeter to the left or the right, she would have been dead on the spot.”

According to the complaint, between July 26 and July 31, at least six people were injured — including three foul balls to fans’ eyes — while watching an MLB game. And on July 31, a 10-year-old girl was hospitalized after being hit in the face by a foul ball at a minor league Durham Bulls game.

And while Chase “the handsomest man in baseball” Utley made headlines for breaking Rubén Tejada’s leg on the field, one of his foul balls hit a young girl in the face on Aug. 4 (though he did sign the ball for the fan). That was the same day that foul balls hit fans at three other stadiums around the league.

The injuries and near-misses go on like this, even into the playoffs. On Oct. 12, a young fan at the playoff game between the Houston Astros and the Kansas City Royals had to be taken out of Minute Maid Park after being struck by a foul ball.

We can think of many reasons not to buy a home — cracks in the foundation, snake infestations, a satanic murder pit in the basement, what have you — but apparently the possibility that a house might be booby-trapped wasn’t a deal-breaker for one new property owner in New Hampshire.

Two properties that were involved in a standoff between federal agents and a couple convicted of tax evasion were auctioned off on Thursday, reports WCVB.com, after failing to sell in an earlier auction.

That might’ve had something to do with the history of the properties — a 100-acre compound with a house and other buildings, as well as a dental office: the former owners were convicted in 2009 of amassing weapons, explosives and booby traps and plotting to kill federal agents who came to arrest them.

During the 2007 standoff, the man told law enforcement and the public that there were booby traps and explosives hidden throughout his property during a radio interview. And before last year’s auction, federal agencies weren’t 100% certain that there weren’t any pesky booby traps still hanging around somewhere, though the house and grounds up to the tree line had been searched and declared free of improvised explosive devices.

“They can’t guarantee that they’ve found everything,” an IRS liquidation specialist explained to WMUR 9 News last week, adding that the potential of explosive devices on the property was included in the notice of sale.

But the businessman who bought the properties apparently isn’t too worried about an explosive surprise down the line, scooping up the compound and house for $205,000 and the dental office for $415,000; minimum bids were $125,000 and $250,000, respectively.

Booby-trapped Brown home sold at auction [WCVB]

For about as long as we can remember, McDoanld’s has been known for their over salted French fries. While the staple item has undergone a few makeovers in the past – remember the shaken’ flavor seasoned fries? – the fast food giant is gearing up for perhaps its biggest starch transformation: adding sweet potato fries to the menu. 

Several McDonald’s restaurants in Texas have added the sweeter side to the menu as part of a test run for the “Create Your Taste” pilot, Eater reports.

News of the new side addition came after a local McDonald’s spread the love on Twitter.

A spokesperson for the fast food company confirmed that sweet potato fries are currently available in the Amarillo, TX market for a limited time.

Eater points out that this isn’t McDonald’s first foray into the sweeter side of starch: restaurants in Australia and Singapore also offer sweet potato fries.

McDonald’s Is Testing Sweet Potato Fries in Texas [Eater]

There’s a fight heating up between U-Haul and Chicago-area towing companies, with the former accusing the latter in a new lawsuit of fraudulently hauling away its trucks and trailers and then making the company pay thousands in fees to get the vehicles back.

The lawsuit names 14 towing companies and individuals, alleging that the scheme took place all over the city and in suburbs during the past year, reports the Chicago Tribune.

Here’s how the alleged scheme went down, according to the complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court: customers using U-Haul to move stuff were offered money to claim that their vehicles had broken down — when they hadn’t — and request towing. Though U-Haul has roadside assistance numbers listed on the contract and posted on vehicles, customers instead called the named towing companies, which weren’t authorized by U-Haul, the company claims.

One customer involved said she was offered $500 by one of the defendants to rent a vehicle from U-Haul in the northwest suburbs, and then claim it was damaged, necessitating a towing service. She says she reported backing into a light pole but later admitted to U-Haul that nothing had happened.

U-Haul started an investigation as the towing incidents piled up, but it didn’t say in the lawsuit how many vehicles were involved.

“U-Haul filed the lawsuit after an extensive investigation following an increasing number of U-Haul rental equipment had been towed in the region under suspicious circumstances,” Steve Hansen, a U-Haul vice president, said in a statement.

U-Haul of Illinois is seeking more than $50,000 in damages and injunctive relief to prevent the defendants from towing their vehicles again.

U-Haul sues Chicago-area companies in alleged towing scheme [Chicago Tribune]

If you have an older Mazda that still runs like a champ, listen up: the car company is recalling nearly 1.2 million vehicles made in the 1990s because of defective ignition switches. 

Mazda announced this week that it would recall several models of cars after determining that the ignition switch can overheat and potentially cause a fire.

According to a notice [PDF] filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an excessive amount of grease may be present at the contact points inside the ignition switch. The substance can accumulate and carbonize between the points, reducing electrical insulation performance inside the switch.

If this happens, continuous use may lead the points to become conductive and overheat, resulting in smoke or fire, Mazda says.

Vehicles included in the recall are: model year 1990-96 323/Protégé, model year 1989-1998 MPV, model year 1993-98 626, model year 1993-95 929, model year 1993-97 MX-6 and the model year 1992-93 MX-3.

The issue dates back to May 2001, when the company first received reports of short circuits in ignition switches in vehicles sold in Japan.

In 2008, the company investigated the switch failures and determined an accumulation of grease could lead to smoke and short circuits. Two years later, the company had determined that the cause was likely grease injected into the switch as a result of normal wear-and-tear.

Then in 2015, the company decided it was unable to determine how the vehicles collected excessive grease, but understood it could be a safety hazard and recalled the vehicles.

Mazda will notify owners, and dealers will replace the ignition switch, free of charge. The company also says it has changed the crease used in the ignition switch to be less susceptible to fires.

How can someone work part-time for a national chain restaurant for the better part of a year and not receive any pay? What happened to a young adult in Rhode Island was a unique situation where the employee worked in an unpaid training program through a state-funded nonprofit, then was supposed to be moved onto the payroll. Only he never was.

The 21-year-old’s parents say that he worked three days per week for most of the last year. A local nonprofit that works with people who have developmental disabilities placed him in an unpaid training program, then in a part-time job with the restaurant.

His parents kept checking back with the nonprofit that had placed him in the job, and filled out new pre-employment paperwork every few months. Finally, they took their concerns to a local TV station. Now there’s supposedly a check on its way. It’s amazing what happens when a TV station starts making phone calls.

The Rhode Island Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals is investigating what happened and how it’s possible that someone could work for months without pay, somehow escaping the notice of the restaurant, the nonprofit, and state government.

The family estimates that he has worked at least 350 hours in the last year, yet the restaurant’s records show only 166 hours per week. Helping with those records is supposed to be part of the duties of job coaches who work with developmentally disabled workers.

State investigating case of autistic man who wasn’t paid for hundreds of hours of work [WPRI]

A croissant is a crescent-shaped, flaky pastry that consists of butter incidentally held together with some flour and egg. Taco Bell is a restaurant with a menu of inexpensive Tex-Mex food and a very loose definition of what a “taco” is. Put them together and you end up with… flat croissants folded in half to form breakfast tacos?

The chain’s breakfast tacos so far have consisted of waffles and biscuits folded and half and filled with eggs and sausage. Yet Taco Bell remains unsatisfied, looking for more things to fold in half and call “tacos.” Since May, reports have been surfacing that they’re testing croissant tacos. We learned about it this week from Brand Eating.

Early versions were regular-shaped croissants cut most of the way down the center with food stuffed inside. The more advanced version in these promo photos looks like a round, flat bread made from croissant dough and then folded in half like the waffles and biscuits.

What bread should Taco Bell taco-ify next? French toast or pancakes would be easy enough to try this with, but if they move on to other breakfast bread-like objects, I can’t wait to see them try to fold a bagel in half.

Taco Bell Tests Croissant Tacos [Brand Eating]

Because there aren’t enough Lego bricks out there waiting for you to step on them, yesterday the Internet flipped out over news that the toy company wouldn’t have enough of the plastic pieces to meet demand this holiday season. “Nooooooo!” the masses wailed, “How can anyone be expected to take such an injustice?” Settle down, guys. LEGO says there’s no reason to freak out — at least, if you live in the U.S.

The Danish toy maker is going to have issues meeting demand in European markets, but the U.S. will be replete with LEGO bricks for the holiday, a company spokesman with the coolest name ever told MarketWatch.

“We don’t anticipate a problem in the American market. This has quickly been touted as a global problem, but it’s only an issue some places in Europe,” Roar Rude Trangbæk said.

LEGO is right on top of things in America, and has made sure it’s ready to meet the kind of demand it’s come to expect during the holiday season, he added.

Europeans are out of luck because of where LEGO’s factories are: U.S. bricks come from a company plant in Monterrey, Mexico, while the blocks on the continent are made in Denmark, Hungary and the Czech republic. Those factories can’t keep up with demand at the moment, amidst a spike in popularity due to a recent LEGO movie and themed toys like Batman and Star Wars.

“Our factories are running on maximum capacity globally, but the demand has been bigger than we expected,” Trangbæk said. “There isn’t capacity to meet the demand for replenishment orders on some European markets, but that doesn’t mean we’re running out of Lego bricks globally.”

This isn’t the first time LEGO has had trouble keeping up during the holidays — it had a rough time meeting demand in 2010, 2012 and 2014 as well — so it’s been working on expanding factories. Facilities in Mexico, Hungary and Denmark will be the next slated for expansion, LEGO said earlier this week. They won’t be ready in time for the holidays in Europe, however.

Lego shortage to hit Europe, but not U.S. [MarketWatch]

This may come as a surprise, and I’m sorry if you’re not ready to hear this, but some of-the-moment Halloween costumes that make headlines exist mostly to attract media attention for their marketers. It’s true: last year, apparently no Sexy Ebola Containment Suit costumes were sold, and the same might apply to this year’s Sexy Pizza Rat costume.

Pizza Rat, Consumerist’s unofficial staff mascot of 2015, appeared in a viral video dragging a slice of pizza as long as its body down the stairs of a subway station in New York, and we all identified with the rat on some level. The rat became a topical “sexy” Halloween costume when the lingerie retailer Yandy.com took an existing mouse costume and slapped a few fabric pizza slice-shaped pockets on it.

Another costume that’s apparently meant to attract attention and controversy but not actual sales is one portraying Olympic champion and reality TV background character Caitlyn Jenner. The costume is loosely based on the Vanity Fair cover where Jenner re-introduced herself to the American public as a woman, but adds a sash that says “I AM CAIT” in case anyone mistakes the wearer for someone randomly wearing a blonde wig and white bustier.

Yet while the costume is on display in one seasonal store in Manhattan and attracts attention, store employees told Bloomberg News that no one was actually buying it. The display was just there to attract attention. Adults love to wear costumes involving figures in the news or in politics, but a viral video from September might not even be memorable by the end of October.

The People Behind Sexy Pizza Rat Know You Won’t Buy Their Costume [Bloomberg News]

Sometimes it’s just easier to bypass the hustle and bustle of the local mall and do all your holiday shopping from the comfort of your own home. One big problem with that: the sometimes costly shipping fees. Best Buy is hoping free shipping turns into more online sales this year. 

The retailer announced Thursday that it will offer free shipping on all items for the duration of the holiday season, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

The deal, which runs from Sunday until Jan. 2, makes Best Buy the first major retailer to offer free shipping for the holidays.

Best Buy has previously offered free shipping on purchases of over $35.

In addition to its shipping deal, Best Buy also announced on Thursday that it would offer a feature in its mobile app that allows shoppers to have a live chat with employees.

It will also offer free Geek Squad setup on many of the company’s top tech items like iPads, Bose headphone and TVs.

Best Buy to offer free shipping on all purchases through holidays [The Minneapolis Star Tribune]

Everyone’s favorite (or not) cable, internet and telephone provider, Comcast, could soon be handling your cell service, too. 

Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reports that Comcast is inching closer to introducing its own wireless service by reselling Verizon’s wireless service that it acquired back in 2012.

As part of that deal, in which Comcast and other cable companies sold spectrum licenses to Verizon for $3.6 billion, the cable company secured the rights to resell Verizon’s wireless services.

If Comcast’s plans move forward, the company would offer a hybrid cellular and WiFi service using Verizon’s network and hotspots, Bloomberg reports.

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo confirmed that the company had been informed by unnamed cable companies of the plans.

“Obviously, the industry is moving,” Shammo said. “Cable is going to do what they’re going to do, and we’re going to do what we’re going to do.”

A spokesperson for Comcast declined to provide comment on the issue.

Analysts tell Bloomberg that if Comcast has indeed notified Verizon of its intention to resell wireless services, it could start as soon as six months from now.

Because the network has already been built, Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst with New Street Research LLC, says the consumer cost for the service could start at $25 to $30 per month.

Comcast Said to Be Planning Wireless Push With Verizon’s Network [Bloomberg]

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — A 6,000-pound buoy tossed up from the sea and onto the sands of Virginia Beach following Hurricane Joaquin is about to lose its place on the beach.

The Coast Guard, Navy and city workers are scheduled to remove the green ocean marker on Thursday. The buoy is nearly 20 feet tall, but it’s resting on its side and has the appearance of a stubby pencil.

While the early October hurricane rolled out to sea, it brought high winds, drenching rain and flooding to the state.

The severe weather deposited the buoy between 6th and 7th street in the resort city.

The post So long, big buoy: Beached marker leaving Virginia Beach appeared first on WTOP.