Android/iOS: My Incredible Body is a free, high-quality app with an interactive tour of the human body, which is educational for kids and probably their parents too.

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Store bought fabric softener can be expensive and contains a bunch of different chemicals. Lindsey Johnson at weblog Henry Happened shows you how to make a cheap, natural alternative with standard salt and essential oils.

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Regardless of where you're staying, hotel Wi-Fi always seems like a crapshoot. Sometimes it's free, sometimes it's expensive, and oftentimes it's so slow it doesn't matter. Over on Hotel WiFi Test, they take a look at which hotels tend to have the fastest, cheapest Wi-Fi.

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If you're not a fan of the newest version of Google Maps, Google Operating System found a quick way to access the old version of maps from an old URL.

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It's that time again. When the clock strikes midnight tonight—or sometime around then—dozens of movies will disappear from Netflix's streaming larders. Fortunately, you've still got time to plow through a few of your favorites. Here's a list of the very best movies that'll be gone come July.

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The right advice can dramatically change your career. But to get that insight, you need to talk to the right people. Build a network of people with different roles and your professional life will benefit from diverse perspectives. Here are a few people you should regularly connect with.

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Imagine you’re one of only a handful of businesses in the U.S. making a very profitable and lucrative product. Then come new rules that should have the effect of slashing your business drastically and probably weeding out what little competition there is in the market. You’d fight back, especially if you’re part of an industry that is known for tossing money around to get what you want. So why is the drug industry not up in arms about the FDA policy aimed at curbing the use of antibiotics in farm animals? Because it’s not doing anything.

Let’s take a moment to compare the drug industry’s non-reaction to the FDA guidance on antibiotics to the TV industry’s overheated response to streaming video startup Aereo.

The major TV networks, which give their product away for free to anyone with an antenna, spent huge amounts of money filing lawsuits and getting their case before the Supreme Court, all in an effort to stop a startup with a small customer base and service in a limited number of markets.

The networks acted immediately and disproportionately to an incredibly minor threat because in the long run it could have set a precedent that may have resulted in a larger loss to the broadcasters. Just the notion of an Aereo victory led top network execs to speak publicly about actually pulling their channels from the airwaves and going cable-only. This sort of all-out blitz is what most of us have come to expect from industries that sniff any possible harm in the form of competition or regulation.

Meanwhile, antibiotics for farm animals account for around 80% of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. each year. And most of these drugs are purchased solely for the purpose of promoting tissue growth in the animals; they also have the effect of sometimes allowing animals to exist in filthy, cramped conditions (at least until the drugs are rendered ineffective by antibiotic-resistant microbes).

But when the FDA announced last fall that it was finally doing something about the overuse of these drugs, the pharmaceuticals industry didn’t run to the Supreme Court; it didn’t drop a few pills in a politician’s pocket to introduce new legislation to override the guidance. In fact, the pharma pholks not only agreed to the guidance, they said it was no big deal.

The CEO of Zoetis actually said at the time that the FDA guidelines — which are completely voluntary — “will not have a significant impact on our revenues.”

As you can see below, Zoetis’s stock price is virtually the same as it was six months ago, and has actually improved since April, implying that investors aren’t freaking out about the company losing a lot of business from the new FDA guidelines:

And while most of the 26 companies involved in this guidance are privately held, none of the public companies — like ADM, PAHC, Merck, Eli Lilly, Novartis — impacted by the FDA policy appear to be worse for wear:

PAHC

ADM

Merck

Eli Lilly

Novartis

Granted, most of these businesses have many other sources in addition to antibiotics, and many of them do business outside of the U.S., but the fact that not one of them has taken a hit to their stock prices indicates to us that investors are not concerned about the longterm effect that the FDA guidance will have.

So it’s with a huge grain of salt that we take today’s happy report from the FDA that every company that it believes to be impacted by the guidance has “agreed to fully engage” in the FDA phase-out of medically unnecessary drugs and phasing in of veterinary oversight.

But again, one has to wonder why drug companies that would ostensibly be harmed by stricter regulation be playing along so complacently.

“If something sounds too good to be true – it usually is,” says Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of New York, who has been a very vocal critic of the FDA guidance. “It would take an extraordinary leap of faith to believe that asking pharmaceutical companies to change the labeling on packages of antibiotics will result in a tangible reduction of antibiotic overuse on the farm.”

The Congresswoman points out that the guidance has no sort of reporting requirement, nor does it set any quantitative limits on the use of these drugs; it just requires farmers to change the reason they use for buying the antibiotics.

“Until the FDA comes up with an enforceable, measurable guidance that will actually limit the amount of antibiotics used in agriculture production, we will continue to erode the effectiveness of antibiotics until we reach a point where routine infections like strep throat become fatal and life-saving surgeries that require antibiotics to stave off infection become obsolete,” explains Slaughter.

Pretty soon there won’t be any General Motors vehicles left on the roadways that haven’t been part of a 2014 recall. On Monday, the company announced the recall of 7.6 million vehicles in the United States – 8.4 million worldwide– most of them for the same inadvertent ignition key rotation that has been linked to at least three fatalities.

In the first campaign, GM is recalling 6.8 million sedans because the ignition switch may inadvertently move out of the run position if the key is carrying extra weight and experiences a jarring event such as hitting a pothole or crossing railroad tracks.

Affected vehicles include:
•1997-2005 Chevrolet Malibu
•1998-2002 Oldsmobile Intrique
•1999-2004 Oldsmobile Alero
•1999-2005 Pontiac Grand Am
•2000-2005 Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo
•2004-2008 Pontiac Grand Prix

The second announced recall includes 554,328 model year 2003-2014 Cadillac CTS and model year 2004-2006 Cadillac SRX vehicles for the same unintended ignition rotation issue.

The company says it is aware of seven crashes, eight injuries and three fatalities related to the new recalls. The three fatalities occurred in late-model full-sized sedans being recalled for inadvertent ignition key rotation.

Consumers who drive the affected vehicles are asked to remove all items from their key ring until repairs can be performed.

In early June, GM recalled 3.2 million vehicles for a related issue. There were no reported fatalities with those vehicles.

While the issue sounds eerily similar to the massive ignition switch defect plaguing GM in recent months, the company says there is no conclusive evidence that the two issues are related.

The latest ignition-related recalls comes just hours after the car manufacturer announced the details of a compensation plan for victims of the unrelated ignition switch defect that killed at least 13 people.

Monday’s additional recalls include:

•181,000 model year 2005-2007 Buick Rainier, Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy, Isuzu Ascender, Saab 9-7x vehicles, and the 2006 Chevrolet TrailBlazer EXT and GMC Envoy XL SUVs were recalled for a possible electrical short in the driver’s door module. The short could disable the power door lock and window switches and, in rare cases, overheat the module.

•9,371 model year 2007-2011 Chevrolet Silverado HD, GMC Sierra HD trucks equipped with an auxiliary battery, because an overload in the feed may cause the under hood fusible link to melt. If that were to occur, smoke or flames could damage the electoral center cover or nearby wiring conduit.

•2,990 model year 2011-2014 Chevrolet Cruze, model year 2012-2014 Chevrolet Sonic, 2013-2014 Chevrolet Trax, Buick Enclave and Verano vehicles because insulation on the engine block heater power cord may become damaged during very cold conditions.

•106 model year 2014 Chevrolet Camera and Impala, Buick Regal and Cadillac XTS vehicles because some may not have had a “Superhold” joint fastener torqued to specification at the assembly plants.

“We have worked aggressively to identify and address the major outstanding issues that could impact the safety of our customers,” GM CEO Mary Barra says in a news release. “If any other issues come to our attention, we will act appropriately and without hesitation.”

Officials with GM say the company will increase the amount it is setting aside to cover recall repairs to $2.5 billion in the first half of the year.

So far in 2014, GM has recalled nearly 25 million vehicles in the United States through more than 50 recall campaigns.

A quick look at GM’s sales records for the past ten years, shows that the company has now officially recalled in the first six months of 2014 more cars that it has sold from 2007 to 2013.

GM Announces Six Safety Recalls [General Motors]

The battle over the highly controversial topic of fracking — a mining technique that has gained popular use as a method of extracting natural gas from the earth — continues as New York state’s highest court has ruled that towns can use zoning laws to effectively ban the practice.

According to the Wall Street Journal, there are already some 170 municipalities in New York that are currently keeping fracking at bay with the use of zoning laws, much to the dismay of the companies that want to get at the gas and to the landowners who would be paid handsomely for access for drilling.

Fracking proponents claimed that municipalities were trying to override state law by outlawing a legal practice, but the towns maintain that they are not issuing outright bans on fracking; they are just zoning it out of existence.

This is the third victory for the two towns who were sued by an energy company and a landowner after the towns changed their zoning laws in 2011 to drive out fracking.

The practice of fracking in New York has stalled out in recent years as it undergoes review by both the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation and Department of Health.

Using zoning laws to prohibit certain types of businesses is nothing new, especially in towns that are attempting to drive out or prevent industries that they deem harmful to a town’s image or property values. One of the more infamous examples was NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s effective eviction of almost all of the strip clubs and porn shops from Manhattan with the use of zoning laws that severely limited how close these businesses could be to homes, houses of worship, schools, day-care centers or one another.

Even under the best of circumstances, choosing to take out a reverse mortgage is a difficult and often costly decision for many senior citizens and their families. But when you throw in a number of half-truths and marketing materials designed to mislead consumers into thinking they are taking part in a government-run program, well, that’s just wrong. And the state of New York won’t stand for it as one company recent found out.

On Monday, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced his office reached a settlement with New View Mortgage Corp. over the company’s alleged deceptive reverse mortgage direct mailing solicitations.

Reverse mortgages allow a borrower, 62 years or older, to convert the equity on their home into either a lump sum or monthly payments. The funds are not required to be paid back until the borrower moves or dies.

More than 10,000 consumers received reverse mortgage solicitations from New View that were allegedly designed to look like official government notices from the Federal Housing Administration.

According to Schneiderman’s office, the envelopes were labeled with “Economic Stimulus Notice” and “Government Lending Division,” while the body of the solicitation identified the sender as “Federal Housing Administration Home Benefit HECM Program.”

Additionally, the mailing included a section about facts consumers should know about the HECM mortgages. The attorney general’s office concluded that the “facts” presented only the benefits of reverse mortgages and none of the risks associated with the practice.

Among the false “facts” was the statement that “Your Heirs WILL inherit all remaining equity.” The section failed to disclose that heirs have to pay off the mortgage loan in order to keep the home, an issue that has garnered national attention this year.

Under the settlement, the company must pay $12,500 and may not represent the features, benefits, and eligibility requirements of reverse mortgages in future solicitations.

“Making New York more affordable for the middle class includes protecting consumers from false and misleading advertising practices,” Schneiderman says in a news release.

The New York Attorney General’s office provides several tips for consumers considering a reverse mortgage.

A.G. Schneiderman Announces Settlement With Reverse Mortgage Provider Over Misleading Advertising Targeting Seniors [New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman]

While it might be hard to believe now, especially if you’re currently staring at the fabric-covered walls of a corporate enclosure — cubicles were first intended as a form of salvation in the workplace. Having three walls to call your own seemed like paradise compared to steno pools filled with clacking typewriters and workers crowded together.

And now it seems the circle of office life is continuing, Bloomberg points out in an interesting video about the history of cubicles, featuring Nikil Saval, author of Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace.

When the cubicle debuted in 1968, it was meant to provide a refuge from the crowded, open workspaces of its day. Yes, you’re thinking of Mad Men right now.

“The idea was to give workers something of their own, that they could personalize,” Saval explains.

But anyone who’s ever worked in one of those things or seen the movie Office Space is likely to cringe at the thought of those micro-offices, which ended up filling the floors of companies with as many workers as could possibly be squeezed in.

As soon as cubicles became synonymous with big, dumb companies, and “one of the most reviled objects in the workplace,” open work spaces were seen as the path to freedom.

But despite that roundabout trip and our collective loathing of cubicles, Saval cites research that says people who leave cubicles for open workspaces often miss those very same walls that once fenced them in.

Basically, we can’t make up our minds and will probably go back and forth between the two styles forever, because all of this has happened before, and will happen again.

Cubicles Were Once Awesome. So What Went Wrong? [Bloomberg]

As if SeaWorld didn’t have enough issues, a fun day at the park turned into an anxiety filled nightmare for nearly 50 people who were stuck more than 200 feet in the air for hours when the ride they were on Sunday lost power.

A power outage at the San Diego park left 46 patrons and two employees stranded on the enclosed Skytower ride, which stands 400 feet tall and allows guests to see panoramic views of the surrounding area, FOX5 San Diego reports.

The ordeal lasted nearly three hours. During that time, employees passed out snacks and water for the trapped patrons. San Diego Fire and Rescue crews were called to the park and placed on standby.

Eventually, SeaWorld employees were able to restore power to the ride and got all passengers off safely.

Fire officials tell FOX5 that a teenager and a child needed medical assistance. One was rushed to the hospital by ambulance to be treated for anxiety.

SeaWorld released a statement Sunday evening about the earlier event:

SeaWorld’s San Diego’s Skytower ride experience a power failure this afternoon. With guest safety as our top priority, park engineers spent four hours trouble-shooting the problem before restoring power to the Skytower and safely returning the 46 guests to the ride loading area. The guests were never in danger and park officials were in constant communication with them while the power failure was being addressed. Two SeaWorld employees were also in the Skytower providing guests with water and snacks. The San Diego Fire Department was on scene, however, there was no requirement for an emergency evacuation. We greatly appreciate the patience of our guests, and they received return admission and other park amenities. The cause of the power failure is under investigation.

Dozens stranded on SeaWorld ride after power outage [FOX5 San Diego]

You never want to be a in a situation where the inflatable emergency exit slide on your airplane deploys, as its “emergency exit” name implies there is an emergency and you should be exiting. But what about when that slide is the emergency?

That was the dilemma facing the passengers and crew of a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Orange County, CA, on Sunday night, when one of the plane’s exit slides deployed in midflight, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Wichita, Kansas.

“I heard a kind of loud pop and hissing noise,” one passenger tells the Wichita Eagle. “I turned around to the back and that slide that would normally go outside the plane so you can slide down in an emergency had for some odd reason deployed inside the plane while we were flying. Fortunately nobody was back there.”

In case you’re wondering, they exited the plane via a portable stairway instead of down a slide.

No one was injured but the incident — the cause of which is currently unknown — threw a huge wrench in the travel plans of the nearly 100 passengers on board the flight.

“It took off on time but it sure didn’t land on time,” said the passenger. “My theory about flying is any landing you walk away from is a good one.”

Sears Holdings Corporation, the company that runs Sears and Kmart, has a problem. They have a lot of real estate, and not enough sales to keep all of that real estate busy. One solution is to close stores as they underperform or as their leases expire, which is what the company has been doing. Another solution? Rent out that space. For the right customer, virtually every Sears and Kmart store is up for grabs.

Not the whole stores, of course. While there are a few closed buildings available to anyone interested in opening their own big box, most space available is inside Sears or Kmart stores that are already operating and plan to stay in business after you move in. It’s the retail equivalent of renting out your spare bedroom or in-law apartment for extra cash.

It doesn’t take extensive retail experience to figure out what’s going on here. Sears Holdings owns a lot of buildings, and they hold long-term leases on a lot more. They’re not doing enough business to fill all of that space with merchandise and employees. In a press release from earlier this year, a Sears executive said this about a deal signed with Dick’s Sporting Goods:

“We have executed a number of these transactions that serve as an additional revenue stream, drive efficiency in our store operations and bring in increased customer traffic.”

Want to rent some space next to a Kmart store? How about some empty space inside a Sears store? Maybe you’d be interested in a Sears Automotive building out in the parking lot. All of that and more is available at Sears Holdings Realty.

What would this look like in practice? There are a few examples of subdivided Searses already up and operating. While the Whole Foods store that opened in Albany, NY earlier this month inspired this post, there are plenty of other examples in the Whole Foods chain alone. The first was in Colorado, and there are also Whole Foods stores carved out of Sears anchors in Greensboro, North Carolina, and in Clearwater, Florida.

There are other examples, too: at the King of Prussia Mall near Philadelphia, Dick’s Sporting Goods agreed to be roommates with Sears, subleasing part of the 215,000-foot anchor store’s second story. “This project will bring more energy and activity to this area of the mall, where customers will also find easy access to restaurants and other dining choices,” an executive with Simon, the mall’s owner, said at the time. Translation: the mall’s customers hadn’t yet figured out that there’s always parking at Sears.

Out of curiosity, we checked the Sears store directory against the Sears Holdings Realty site listings for the state of New York. Every Sears store has space up for grabs, and Auto centers that are attached to buildings or detached are available as well. (Would a car-related business open up in a spot so closely associated with the Sears brand? Guess we’ll find out.)

Go ahead and check the listings yourself: surely there are Sears and Kmart stores in your market, and surely they’re up for rent unless their leases explicitly prohibit subleases. Filter by state or by market. There you will find every Sears-owned store, open for non-Sears business.

It’s possible, of course, that Sears will be much better at being a landlord than it currently is at being a retailer. Having less space to fill will certainly cut back on sad empty shelves and spaces filled with random junk that some Sears stores are currently filled with.

Analysis from last fall by The Motley Fool points out that if this was Sears’ plan all along, maybe they were wise not to spend cash on a JCPenney-style extreme makeover: if parts of those stores were going to be redeveloped for other retailers anyway, why bother?

Prince William County news in brief Washington Post The Manassas Public Works and Utilities Department recently installed an Automated Metered Infrastructure (AMI), a system that automatically collects consumption and diagnostic information from water and electric metering devices. The information is ...

Washington Post

NVFS honors Manassas man for volunteer work at SERVE food pantry Washington Post Manassas resident Ralph Lickey went to the headquarters of the SERVE food pantry six years ago and asked about volunteering. Staff members checked his driving record and then handed him the keys to one of the food pickup vans. Lickey was tasked with ...

Body found near Bull Run Regional Library Inside NoVA Police have not yet identified the man, but say there are no signs of foul play in his death. There is a homeless camp nearby, but it's not yet known if the man was a resident of the camp. It's the second time in the last few days of remains found in ... and more »

ASTI Associated Press

Police in North Carolina say a man clung to the back of a moving car as it drove down an interstate highway.

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for enforcement of a first-of-its-kind California law that bars psychological counseling aimed at turning gay minors straight.

The White House says women's health will be jeopardized by a Supreme Court's decision that allows corporations with religious objections to opt out of a requirement that they cover contraceptives.

A Marine corporal who was declared a deserter nearly 10 years ago after disappearing in Iraq under mysterious circumstances was held Monday at a North Carolina brig after being apprehended in the Middle East, a spokesman said.

Authorities say a woman led law enforcers on a high-speed chase from Delaware to Maryland with her 4-year-old son in the car.

A ban on grain alcohol sales and new laws aimed at helping victims of crime and their family members are taking effect in Maryland.

A host of new Virginia state laws goes into effect Tuesday, including new rules affecting hunting on Sundays and treatment for the mentally ill.

Subway is a 2-year-old from Mississippi, and he's looking for his forever home.

Catching a liar in person usually just means looking for a variety of nonverbal cues , but that's not as easy when it's written in a text message or email. For that, The Wall Street Journal suggests looking for subtle changes in how someone words things.

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At this year's Maker Faire, DIY legend and Mythbuster Adam Savage gave a speech with his 10 commandments of making, and the advice he wished he had gotten when he was starting out. If you're a DIYer, it's well worth watching.

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We've talked to death about keyboard shortcuts in apps like Gmail , but Wired reminds us that Google Calendar has shortcuts too—and they're really darn handy.

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Dryer sheets are remarkably versatile outside the laundry room . Give a used dryer sheet new purpose as a shower door cleaning cloth.

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