pileofcrapola

Earlier today, we wondered why the communications people over at Mattel hadn’t answered any questions about a book starring Barbie as a computer engineer. Barbie’s “engineering” job consisted of designing puppies while having male colleagues code the game and reboot her computer. This isn’t just sexist, but an inaccurate representation of what computer engineers do. Good news: Steven and Brian managed to get the virus off PR Barbie’s computer, and the book’s author has spoken up as well. UPDATE: Amazon also appears to have pulled the e-book version of this title.

Susan Marenco has written lots of stories about established characters, especially for Disney. According to her personal website, she wrote the dialogue for all of the Barbie “I Can Be” books, including the problematic title about Computer Engineer Barbie. She told ABC News that the issue may have been a miscommunication between her and her editors: she claims that she was told to write a book about Barbie as a “designer,” and Barbie in the book does design a cute puppy game.

Yet Marenco admitted that she sees how this book is problematic. It’s not that she’s never worked with engineers: she is a technical editor, and spent twenty years working for Microsoft as an editor and usability designer.

“If I was on deadline, it’s possible stuff slipped out or I quietly abided by Mattel without questioning it,” she told ABC. “Maybe I should have pushed back, and I usually I do, but I didn’t this time.” Mattel hasn’t confirmed this account with ABC yet. She could have easily made one of the engineer characters in the book female.

That’s a problem not just in feminism, but in life in general: the need to get an assignment done so you can go to sleep or out to dinner or to your third job, balanced with the need to fight back against putting potentially harmful messages in a book for little girls. She may not even have realized how harmful the messages were, given that her assignment wasn’t to write a book about an “engineer.”

For its part, Mattel is sorry, too. They sent a statement to ABC News attributed to Lori Pantel, vice president of Barbie’s global brand marketing, explaining that the book was written in 2010. That’s not much of an excuse.

Since that time, we have reworked our Barbie books. The portrayal of Barbie in this specific story doesn’t reflect the Brand’s vision for what Barbie stands for. We believe girls should be empowered to understand that anything is possible and believe they live in a world without limits. We apologize that this book didn’t reflect that belief. All Barbie titles moving forward will be written to inspire girls’ imaginations and portray an empowered Barbie character.

That’s not to say that a woman who enjoys games about pink puppies, or who needs help to remove a virus from her computer, isn’t empowered in other areas of her life. It’s just that to women who work with technology, this book read a little bit like a story about Barbie as a doctor who runs to a male colleague for help when she gets a paper cut.

Don’t sweat it, though, Mattel: Over at the site Feminist Hacker Barbie, a whole team of helpful volunteers are rewriting the book for you.

PREVIOUSLY:
We Guess Public Relations Barbie Can’t Use Email Any Better Than Computer Engineer Barbie
Computer Engineer Barbie Needs Men To Write Code, Can’t Reboot Computer

Yesterday we found out that Computer Engineer Barbie has no idea what computer engineering is, and can’t write code for a game she’s designing without men to do it for her, much less email or reboot her computer successfully. We reached out to Mattel’s media relations team to comment on the book all about Barbie’s brush with a computer virus and subsequent saving by her guy friends, but it would seem the PR team also has trouble using email. Better ask Steven and Brian for help.

Thus far Mattel has remained silent on the recent outrage over I Can Be A Computer Engineer, a book that people have been complaining about in the Amazon reviews for the title since January. Consumerist has yet to get a reply to our inquiry yesterday, and it doesn’t appear that Mattel has issued a public statement or comment on the controversy.

This, despite a renewed and steady flow of complaints in the reviews on Amazon. There are currently 97 one-star reviews, eight five-star reviews (at least one of which appears to be sarcastic) and only a few other ratings in between:

Content communicates the opposite of what the title promises
This review is for Barbie I can be a computer engineer; How did Mattel fail so badly at creating this book? Clearly parents who have a genuine interest in getting their daughters involved in STEM would purchase a book with this title. Problem is, it communicates the exact opposite of what the title promises to little girls. Mattel- if you wanted to contribute positively to the women in STEM movement you should have at least done your research. A BASIC test group perhaps? Speak to a woman software engineer perhaps?

Small girls can code!
My daughter who is 9 can program with Scratch (the puppy and blocks that are mentioned in the book), and finish her video game with no male help. This book is awful, please do not buy it for girls (or boys).

I am very glad this book was NOT available when I was younger, just imagine where I’d be then.
As an awesome computer engineering female, I find this book insulting and rediculously terrible. There is no way the content actually came from anyone who knew anything about computer engineering – and literally any woman who was actually a computer engineer could have come up with an inspiring message or at least a decent storyline. This probably does more harm than good – I can’t believe someone released this.

Sexist rant tells girls they CANNOT be Computer Engineers
I can’t believe anyone would think this is appropriate for children. This is nothing but a tasteless way for the author to discourage girls from learning how to be self sufficient people and rely on boys instead.

Barbie is supposed to be a computer engineer and yet she seems to know less about computers than my mom (no offense, Mom). She wants to design a game, but doesn’t seem to understand really basic things, like virus protection.

Don’t waste your money or your time on this POS

the computer engineer book is not just bad – it is harmful
if you show the so-called computer engineer book to your daughter, or son, be sure to point out that it is ridiculous. one of the first things she does is say she needs some boys to do her coding – that she can NOT be a computer engineer. it doesn’t improve. she is not portrayed as a competent computer user much less a computer engineer. i recommend you NOT buy it at all but if you are in a bookshop, and see it, tell the manager that all copies should be taken from the shelves and sent back to the publisher.

Great gift idea for the holidays
Great gift idea for the holidays! Little girls now know to think only of cute puppies, colored blocks, and asking for help from the boys. And little boys will churn out the next WoW and buy up San Francisco. Thanks so much, Amazon, for carrying such strong products!

Fanfic? Please?
Please.. please tell me this is an unlicensed and the author is about to get a knock on their door from Mattel’s lawyers to have a little word with the person about copyright infringement and harming their brand.

Poison for the soul
This book is pure poison for the mind of any child. Barbie herself would be enraged that her corporate overseers have misrepresented her capabilities and motivations. Mattel should be ashamed to have betrayed their own ward.

Gross.
This book is bad primarily because it is inexcusably sexist (it is extremely clear that the sexism was purposefully written in, not overlooked by accident).

As if that weren’t bad enough, it’s also laughably technically inaccurate.

We’ll let you know if PR Barbie figures out how to use email.

Here at Consumerist, we’re fascinated with holiday mashups: items that we associate with one holiday re-purposed for another, usually for marketing reasons. Items like pumpkin spice egg nog and Independence Day candy corn exist because the makers of candy corn and egg nog want to expand these festive treats out to other holidays. Now let’s welcome Christmas jelly beans to the holiday mashup fold.

Christmas jelly beans? Yes, Christmas jelly beans. Starburst brand jelly beans are very tasty, we admit, but we have some trepidation about expanding jelly beans to non-Easter holidays. When the Easter candy is out on display before Christmas in some stores, why are we even bothering to have special foods for different holidays at all? Let’s have Halloween baskets and go around to our neighbors’ houses demanding candy on Valentine’s Day, too.

Spotted On Shelves – 11/19/2014 [The Impulsive Buy]

In the past year, nearly 10 million vehicles have been recalled in areas of high humidity – generally the southern United States – related to defective Takata-produced airbags. That number could increase significantly now that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has urged the Japanese auto parts maker and car manufacturers to expand the recall to cover the entire United States.

On Tuesday, NHTSA called for a national recall of vehicles with certain driver’s side frontal airbags made by Takata.

Officials with the agency say the decision to call for an expanded recall was based on NHTSA’s evaluation of a recent driver’s side airbag failure in a vehicle outside the current regional recall area.

Reuters reports the incident involved a 2007 Ford Mustang in North Carolina. Investigators with NHTSA say that all other incidents of Takata airbag ruptures have occurred in areas of the regional recall.

Regulators believe that issues with the airbags have been caused by the presence of moisture, which led automakers to initiate recalls in areas of high humidity such as southern Florida, along the Gulf Coast, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Saipan and American Samoa.

Based on the new information, unless Takata and the ten manufacturers that use its airbags quickly agree to the national recall, NHTSA officials say they will use the full extent of the agency’s statutory powers to ensure vehicles that use the same or similar airbags inflators are recalled.

As part of NHTSA ongoing investigation into the defective airbags, the agency issued a General Order to Takata and all 10 vehicle manufacturers – BMW, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, and Toyota – requiring them to file, under oath, a detailed report and produce all related documents about completed, ongoing or planned testing of Takata inflators outside the current regional recall area.

“The agency is demanding this information to compel Takata and the affected industry to be frank with not only NHTSA, but the American public, as to what testing and additional steps they have done and plan to do to control and mitigate the risk associated with Takata’s defective inflators,” a statement from NHTSA reads.

Reuters reports that officials with Honda, Ford, Mazda, and Chrysler have said they would continue to cooperate with NHTSA and plan to evaluate their call for a national recall.

However, each company stopped short os saying they would expand bend the current set of cars they are fixing. Reuters reports that BMW’s initial recall was already of national scope.

A spokesperson for Takata tells Reuters that the company will cooperate with regulators and automakers if a national recall is required, but that of the “almost 1,000 passenger and driver inflators from outside the high humidity areas that have been evaluated to date, none have ruptured.”

“Takata is concerned that a national recall could potentially divert replacement air bags from where they’re needed, putting lives at risk,” the company said in a statement.

In addition to the request for documents and an expanded recall, NHTSA issued a Special Order to Takata – the second regarding the defective airbags – asking the company to provide documents and detailed information related to the propellant used in the inflators.

It was previously reported that Takata uses an unusual chemical explosive – ammonium nitrate – for the chemical’s ability to make airbags inflate in a matter of milliseconds. Since then the company notified NHTSA of a change in its chemical compound.

Officials with NHTSA say they want to analyze the information received from Takata regarding the chemical to determine if its composition may be the cause or a contributing factor to the airbag inflator ruptures.

Legislators who previously criticized NHTSA for their allowance of regional recalls and called for a criminal investigation into Takata say the new push is welcomed, but may not be large enough in scope.

Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Ed Markey of Massachusetts tell Reuters that NHTSA’s call should also include replacement of passenger side airbags, as well as the driver’s side airbags.

Earlier this month the lawmakers called on the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into Takata after news revealed the company secretly tested airbags four years before the first recall was announced.

“Reports that Takata concealed and destroyed test results revealing fatal air bag defects, along with other evidence that the company was aware of these deadly problems, clearly require a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice,” Blumenthal and Markey say in a news release. “If the reports are true, the company must be held accountable for the horrific deaths and injuries that its wrongdoing caused. These allegations are credible and shocking — plainly warranting a prompt and aggressive criminal probe.”

Legislators will have their chance to grill Takata executives and officials from several car manufacturers during a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing tomorrow afternoon.

USDOT Calls for National Recall of Defective Takata Driver Side Air Bags [NHTSA]
U.S. auto regulator seeks nationwide recall of Takata air bags [Reuters]

There are bad consumers, and then there are shoppers who allow their dogs to do their bathroom business inside the store. And we’re not talking a little “oops” of a light sprinkle, but New Jersey police say one Lane Bryant shopper let her little pet pee on $2,000 worth of store merchandise.

Police are looking for a 35-year-old suspect who’s accused of allegedly allowing her pooch to tinkle on 14 dresses and 11 pairs of pants at a Lane Bryant store, reports the Smoking Gun.

Investigators say the woman and her dog entered the store on Monday afternoon, whereupon the canine went about urinating on the clothing, which totaled about $2,000 in soiled products.

That wasn’t cool with store personnel, who reportedly asked the woman to leave the store. She “became belligerent and refused,” the police report says, so workers called 9-1-1.

But before officers could nab the suspect, she drove off, running several red lights while police followed her. Cops called off the chase upon encountering a wet roadway, concerned that the chase could turn out dangerous for others.

The suspect was identified through her license plate and a physical description, and is now wanted on counts of eluding police and obstruction.

New Jersey Cops Hunt Woman Who Let Her Dog Urinate On $2000 Worth Of Clothing In Lane Bryant Store [The Smoking Gun]

While placing feces on the doorstep of someone who has offended you is a time-honored insult, it’s now possible, for about the cost of a pizza and wings, to have a steaming pile delievered to the address of your choice. Well, maybe not so much a “steaming pile,” and more of a “room-temperature sealed plastic container.” Is this service all it’s advertised to be? There’s nothing quite like a first-hand review when a new product or service hits the market.

We at Consumerist haven’t tested the service, because we prefer to find other ways to nauseate our colleagues. Instead, we will go by the review of Pando Daily, where they received poo in minimalist packaging from someone in Slovenia. Slovenia? What did they put on the customs form, I wonder?

Motherboard has a video review (Warning: auto-play video) that will make you thankful that technology to transmit smell over the Internet is not yet a thing. They found the merchandise satisfactorily smelly, but the container sent to Pando was stale. Quality and customer service are important: while Shit Express has the latter down, they might have some quality control issues. No one wants to spend good money sending stale, non-smelly feces to … whoever it is you send feces to.

I am not 100% satisfied with the box of shit I received in the mail [PandoDaily]

It’s taken the media at large many months to catch on, but Amazon reviewers have been up in arms over a book from Mattel’s “I Can Be” Barbie series, I Can Be A Computer Engineer (Mattel created a Computer Engineer Barbie in 2010 as well) for months now. Why? Because Barbie doesn’t seem to actually do anything a computer engineer does, only has the skills to design a game and needs the help of men to code it and heck, she can’t even reboot her computer right.

Let’s set the scene, as noted by Pamie.com yesterday and subsequently posted to Reddit: Barbie is working on her laptop one morning, eating yogurt as one does in front of computers, and Skipper asks what she’s up to. She’s busy computering, it seems.

“I’m designing a game that shows kids how computers work,” explains Barbie. “You can make a robot puppy do cute tricks by matching up colored blocks!”

Right on, girl power! Wait — designing adorable puppies is one thing, but they need to be coded.

“Your robot puppy is so sweet,” says Skipper. “Can I play your game?”

“I’m only creating the design ideas,” Barbie says, laughing. “I’ll need Steven and Brian’s help to turn it into a real game!”

Yes, really.

She then proceeds to give her computer a virus while failing to email her design ideas to the boys who must help her, and can’t figure out to reboot her computer. If that’s not bad enough, she also puts a virus on Skipper’s laptop, losing all her important homework files.

And yes, there’s more — a whole lot, including a scene where the boys tell Barbie she can fix things faster if they help, and the end where Barbie takes the credit for all the work she didn’t do and gets extra credit to boot: ” ‘I guess I can be a computer engineer!” says Barbie happily.’ “

Those are not the messages parents say they want their daughters to hear, as reviewers have been noting on the Amazon reviews of the book since January. It’s part of a two-pack offering along with I Can Be An Actress.

Of course there’s been an avalanche of negative reviews since yesterday, but the bad reviews stretch back 11 months.

January 31, 2014:

I found the sexist drivel that this book portays[sic] to be especially inflammatory, so much so that I’ve placed it near my fireplace for emergency use during a power outage. The demeaning words add extra fuel as they certainly come from the fire of hell itself.

Also wonderful for starting your backyard grill.

February 11, 2014:

I just read this book, and it’s incomprehensible how misogynistic it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if it got removed from the shelves soon.

Still on virtual shelves by February 13, 2014:

An appalling representation of how women act in the world of technology.
Lessons you learn from “I Can Be a Computer Engineer”:

A girl needs a boy to do anything of value.
Women are not able to fix their own computer problems.
Girls need boys to do their work for them but can simply take the credit and no one will worry about who really did the work since, duh! a girl couldn’t have done it by herself.

Basically this book enforces all the bad stereotypes about women/girls not being capable enough to compete with men/boys when it comes to careers in technology. Fantastic.

November 17, 2014, people are catching on even more:

To add insult to misogynist injury, the depiction of “computer engineer” has nothing to do with either engineering or computer science. As far as I can tell, this story seems to think “computer engineer” means being utterly ignorant of how computers work, and not actually using them to write software.

Do your daughter a favor, and just download the past year of @SwiftOnSecurity’s tweets, instead. She’ll learn far more about computer security, engineering, and girl power from a real fake girl than from this waste of tree carcasses.

Which brings us to today:

Wow, and here to think I’ve been foolish enough to do my own work all these years when I could have just found some boys to do it for me. Where were Steven and Brian when I had to write my dissertation?

Seriously, with all the hard work so many are putting in to make sure that girls know that computing can be a great career for them it’s absolutely appalling to see something like this out there to reinforce the gender stereotypes.

I wish I could say this is the first time we’ve seen a major company send a message like this, but of course there was “Math is hard” Barbie, followed by a slew of bad retailer decisions that, intentionally or not, tell girls they can’t do something boys can do, or should like only stereotypically girl things like shopping and the color pink.

We’ve reached out to Mattel for comment and will update this post if we get a response.

You may not have heard of the clothing store chain Christopher & Banks/C.J. Banks, but that’s probably because you’re not a woman of a certain age or a certain dress size. They’re a chain that sells clothing aimed at mature women. The important thing to know, other than that they sell some nice corduroys, is that the chain is defying the malls where it rents and staying closed on Thanksgiving Day this year.

We learned this not because the company is making a big deal of their stance, but because a memo sent out to all stores yesterday was leaked to the Facebook page Boycott Black Thursday. An employee snapped a picture of it and shared it, to overwhelmingly positive feedback.

In part, the memo, signed by the company CEO and the senior vice president for store operations, says:

[W]e have made the decision that all stores will be closed on Thanksgiving day, regardless of the mall requirements. Thanksgiving is a special time and the opportunity to share time and memories with your family and friends. We hope that you take some time to rest, relax and eat a bountiful meal (or two).

We have much business to do over the Holiday Season, and we know you’re up to the challenge. Again, we thank you for all that you do.

We checked out this information, which the page has turned into an easily-shareable image meme. A different bit of retail information also became a Boycott Black Thursday meme, the allegation that property management company Simon Malls plans to charge its tenants fines of $1,150 per hour if they don’t open on Thanksgiving. Simon denies that it will fine stores that stay closed on Thanksgiving. One retailer at the Walden Galleria in Buffalo, NY went public and told a local news outlet that the mall owners would fine them $200 per hour if they didn’t open for the holiday, but the owner of this mall has not confirmed that figure.

Sources at the Christopher & Banks, meanwhile, confirmed that the memo is real, and that the chain doesn’t plan to open on Thanksgiving Day even if the malls where it has stores do open.

Feedback from random people on Facebook has been overwhelmingly positive, with people making supportive posts and comments on unrelated posts…even though they have not officially announced the planned pro-holiday stance on the company Facebook page. Will this show of support translate to pleased customers showing up in their stores on days that are definitely not Thanksgiving? The chain will find out later this year.

Have you ever made a shopping list, driven to the store and then realized they were out of certain items? Apparently, Target has an answer to that frustrating experience in the form of an app update that can tell consumers what’s in stock and where to find those items inside the store.

VentureBeat reports that Target’s new service, which was implemented by Washington-based tech company Point Inside, makes it possible to offer in-store functions for all 1,801 of its U.S. locations for the first time.

The company’s updated app allows a shopper to start their list using a type-ahead function that includes brand named items. The app will then notify the customer if the product is available at their chosen store location and what aisle they can find it in.

The new function uses Point Inside’s StoreMode platform which digitizes stores’ layouts for electronic use.

Once inside the store, the app uses the digitized model of the store to create a map showing the user the aisle location of each of the items on their shopping list. During Black Friday the app will reportedly alert consumers to the location of doorbuster items.

While the map can pinpoint the location of products, Target lacks the in-store beacons or similar communication capabilities that would enable Point Inside to provide shoppers with the exact route to those locations, VentureBeat reports.

Additionally, because GPS is lost inside the retail stores the new service can’t show shoppers where they are in relation to their desired items.

Josh Marti, CEO of Point Inside, tells VentureBeat that the service’s platform does not support personal information; meaning that if the system were to get hacked it would only produce an unnamed person’s shopping list.

Attention, shoppers: Now you can target anything inside a Target store [VentureBeat]

Using hit songs to sell shoes, food, insurance, cars, and many other items is nothing new, but because those tunes don’t always fit precisely into the super-tight confines of a 30-second TV ad, the songs are often either butchered by editors or re-recorded specifically for the commercial. In an effort to make their music more easily shoehorned into ads and other media, The Who has remixed more than a dozen classic songs.

AdAge reports that the band’s guitarist and primary songwriter Pete Townshend recently told his music publisher that he still possessed the original multitrack tapes for many of the band’s hits from the ’60s and ’70s.

Thus, music production agency Mophonics was able to do Townshend-approved, ad- and movie-ready remixes of 15 classics, including “My Generation,” “Baba O’Riley” and “I’m Free.”

With the growth of online subscription services like Beats, Spotify, Google All Access, and others, actual sales of music have dropped in recent years, and will likely continue to decrease. Thus, artists need to keep making money through other means, and licensing for ads and entertainment is an incredibly lucrative business, earning $750 million a year for the American music industry.

Rather than allowing some anonymous editor slice and dice these classics or have some unknown band do a sound-alike knock-off of a song they think is titled “Teenage Wasteland,” Townshend says the approved remixes gives him some control and involvement in the final product.

“A lot of work [went] into these,” Townshend tells AdAge of the tweaked tunes, “especially because the respect shown by the remixes to the original songs and song shapes. I know that makes remixing harder, and less fun for them, but a lot of fun for me.”

Consumers used to having the ability to make hotel cancellations the day of arrival for free had better get their wallets out next time they try to do so at Hilton or Marriott hotels. The two chains are apparently taking a lesson from the airline industry and implementing a fee for last-minute reservation cancellations.

The New York Times reports that starting January 1 both hotel chains will charge guests a penalty of one night’s room rate if they fail to cancel their reservation by the day before their scheduled arrival.

Officials with Hilton say the change was made so the hotel could provide consumers with a more consistent booking process and to make rooms available for when guests are in need of last-minute travel accommodations.

The new fee charge and last-minute cancellation policy will not affect some of the brands’ smaller chains. Current cancellation policies won’t change for hotels that already require a two-day, four-day or longer advanced notice, the Times reports.

“Some hotels have more restrictive policies in place, so please refer to your individual conformations to verify their policy,” officials with Hilton say in a statement.

Bjorn Hanson, an official with the New York University Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism, says hotels’ once standard policy of having until 6 p.m. on the day of arrival to cancel are long gone.

Instead, he says, hotels’ tighter cancelation policies are a response to an increasing trend in which business travelers cancel accommodations more than they used to.

The Times reports that the policy change for Hilton and Marriott could also be a sign that the hotel industry is taking a page from the airline industry which charges additional fees for any number of things including canceling and rebooking flights.

According to estimates from IdeaWorksCompany.com, the airline industry earned $2.81 billion in cancellation penalty fees in 2013, up from $1.67 billion just five years ago.

For years, hotels have earned ancillary revenue through fees for Wi-Fi and so-called resort charges. With the addition of tighter cancellation policies and penalties, those fees are sure to account for a large chunk of the industry’s earnings.

In fact, Hanson projects that hotels will accrue a record $2.25 billion in fees and surcharges this year.

Still, the industry has a long way to go to catch up with airlines, which raised about $14.3 billion in total ancillary revenue last year, the Times reports.

Inspired by Airlines, Hotels Increase Fees [The New York Times]

Fairfax County Animal Watch Washington Post No incidents were reported by the Animal Control Division of the Fairfax County Police Department. For information, call 703-246-2253. FAIRFAX CITY. The following incidents were reported by the animal control section of the Fairfax City Police Department. and more »

A keeper at Britain's largest zoo has been seriously injured in an incident involving a rhino.

British film authorities have managed to find dangerous behavior and sexual innuendo in a film about Paddington Bear -- a development that the bear's 88-year-old creator says leaves him "totally amazed."

If your favorite bottle of Mediterranean olive oil starts costing more, blame unseasonable European weather -- and tiny insects.

Pet owners looking to launch the next Internet sensation or just longing for a new view of their dog's dashing and digging won't have to shop for long to find the perfect holiday gift. Wrap up a dog harness that holds GoPro's durable cameras and watch Frisbee fetch, lazy lap naps and every memory in between come alive.

The Chesapeake health department says a cat that recently attacked three people tested positive for rabies.

Rescuers euthanized a whale after it was found stranded along the Chesapeake Bay shore in Virginia Beach.

Their distinctive howl is ubiquitous in old western movies, but the coyotes that once roamed the prairies are no longer limited to the west. Coyotes, members of the dog family, are now found throughout North America, including our area.

The D.C. Council has voted to overhaul the way city police seize money and property from people who aren't charged with crimes.

A wild turkey has taken up residence near U.S. 11 in Strasburg.

Woodbridge, Virginia, became home to a new hunting, fishing and outdoor sports retailer Tuesday when a Gander Mountain store opened its doors to customers.

Henrico County police are investigating fetal remains found at a wastewater treatment facility.

Environmentalists and energy boosters alike welcomed a federal compromise announced Tuesday that will allow fracking in the largest national forest in the eastern United States, but make most of its woods off-limits to drilling.

Mass murderer Charles Manson plans to marry a 26-year-old woman who left her Midwestern home and spent the past nine years trying to help exonerate him.

One of Alaska's most active volcanos has calmed down since spewing ash up to 35,000 feet into the air over the weekend, but scientists said Monday the volcano has a pattern of prolonged eruptions of varying intensity. They're not ready to consider this explosion over.

A key polar bear population fell nearly by half in the past decade, a new U.S.-Canada study found, with scientists seeing a dramatic increase in young cubs starving and dying.

It’s no longer surprising news when hackers infiltrate the systems of a brick-and-mortar retailer and run off with our credit card numbers. Shoppers have come to expect that kind of thing as a normal part of shopping. However, it’s interesting (and a bit scary) to note that two relatively small breaches at national chains could be linked.

How can two breaches at different retailers be linked? Criminals write or buy the programs that they use to infiltrate payment systems and dump payment card numbers so they can sell or use them. (Sellers in these markets do not, as you might expect, accept credit cards.) If two breaches use the same malware and dump credit card data in the same place, they are probably linked. Security reporter Brian Krebs has many sources in the banking industry, and has learned that the breach at Staples used similar “criminal infrastructure” to the earlier Michaels breach. Specifically, the networks used to control the malware from afar.

This could mean that the attackers in the two different breaches were the same people, or associates of those people. It could also simply mean that two separate attackers are using the same tools. What we do know is that banks have been alerted that cards used at Staples may have been compromised, yet the company says that it is still investigating whether any customers’ payment data was lost.

Link Found in Staples, Michaels Breaches [Krebs on Security]

Everyone knows that the “genuine designer handbag” going for $20 from a street vendor is neither genuine nor designer, and indeed may not even hold up as a bag. But when you go to a reputable retailer and spend what it costs to replace the tires on your car, you expect to get what the real goods. Alas, Consumer Reports has found: just because there’s a brand name you know on the outside of a tire, doesn’t mean you’re getting what you should be.

Consumer Reports (our parent organization) discovered the counterfeit tires while conducting otherwise routine tire performance tests. One tire brand, American Pacific Industries’ Pegasus Advanta for SUVs, performed very poorly in the tests and received a low rating.

The company then contacted Consumer Reports to ask about the way the tires were tested and to ask which batch CR had used.

That’s when the story gets interesting. It turned out that the tires being sold under API’s Pegasus brand were not what they appeared to be. The legally required date codes stamped into the tires indicated they had been made for API in a specific Chinese factory in August and December 2012.

To which API replied: “American Pacific Industries’ relationship with this factory ended in 2011 [and] our records indicate the last shipment of these tires in the SUV pattern was in December of 2011.”

Further, API said, the factory had been destroyed after that contract concluded, and many of their molds went missing. “We have no idea who may have made these tires nor what they put in them,” the company’s COO told Consumer Reports.

Counterfeit tires pose two big challenges for consumers. One is that their quality may be lacking — as these were — and consumers aren’t getting what they paid for. And the other challenge is that in the event of a safety defect or a recall, consumers don’t really have any recourse.

Ordinarily, if there is a safety complaint about tires the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issues a recall and the manufacturer has to replace the item. But if the problem with the item is that the manufacturer did not in fact actually manufacture them… then who would be responsible for a recall? It’s not an action that NHTSA could actually take.

But there are federal actions available. It turns out that counterfeited imported goods fall under the purview of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. An ICE official told Consumer Reports, that if counterfeit tires are being made and smuggled, “We would investigate and try to mount an interdiction and seize the tires. We would work with our Customs and Border Protection partners to seize future imports at the port. We would bring evidence to prosecutors at the Department of Justice or to a local District Attorney, and there could be criminal charges. The U.S. Attorney would be the one to decide whether to bring [federal] criminal charges.”

In the meantime, though, a consumer with a bad set of wheels is up a dirt road without a tire, so to speak. Consumer Reports followed up with the retailer they’d bought the tires from, who in turn led them to the importer he’d bought them from. And that’s where the trail went cold, when the importer stopped returning CR’s calls.

So what can a consumer do? Try not to get taken in the first place, at least as best you can. If a price seems too good to be true, Consumer Reports reminds us, it probably is.

‘Counterfeit’ tires pose consumer risk [Consumer Reports]

T-Mobile just doesn’t want to let its customers go. We’ve shared stories of customers whose survivors couldn’t get a line shut down after they died, and survivors asked to keep a phone line open so they could hear a loved one’s voice. This isn’t a problem unique to T-Mobile USA, apparently: a widow in Cardiff, Wales brought her late husband’s ashes to the store after they refused to close out her husband’s line.

She didn’t just bring the cremains, of course: that was just to prove a point. In addition, she brought bills for funeral expenses and his death certificate. Was this enough to convince T-Mobile to stop sending her collection notices? Of course not.

It’s not like the family waited around: the son of the deceased called T-Mobile the day after he died to get the process started. The company needed a death certificate: fine. Yet the collection notices started and didn’t stop, and the company wanted his widow to pay an early termination fee.

“We apologise to Mrs Raybould for any distress caused at this difficult time. We can confirm that the account has been closed and the balance cleared,” a T-Mobile spokesperson told the Telegraph. The company blames the letters and refusal to accept their customer’s death on an automated process that employees are apparently powerless to stop until the company is threatened with public shaming.

Widow takes dead husband’s ashes into mobile phone shop after firm refuses to cancel contract [Telegraph] (via our British spiritual siblings BitterWallet)