Asking about tough topics like parental leave or workplace equality can be tough during a job interview. You want to do everything you can to make the interview go well, but you also need to know if a company’s culture is right for you. FairyGodboss can help you scope out potential employers through the reviews left by other women who work or have worked at the companies you’re considering.
Your kitchen knife is quite literally the sharpest tool in your culinary shed, so you should know how to care for and use it. From proper maintenance
, cleaning, and using fancy French cutting techniques, this HowStuffWorks video will help sharpen your knife handling skills.
The “sandwich” method of feedback, where you squish criticism between compliments to smooth it over, is played out and everyone knows it. Most of us cringe when we hear someone suggest it, and even when it works, it’s obvious. Adam Grant, author and professor, says it’s time to just give it up, and we agree.
Sprint, it seems, cannot make up its mind about contracts. In January, the company killed two year contracts, only to bring them back a month later. Now they’ll be leaving again by the end of May. Mostly.
When it’s time to frost a cake, there is one major enemy you need to look out for: crumbs. This simple practice will keep your cake layers intact, and keep crumbs from invading your pristine frosting.
You did it. You gathered up your courage and put in your two weeks notice. You’re ready to make it through your last few workdays, bid your co-workers adieu, and then hit the road for greener pastures. You feel confident that you’re over the hardest part of the process, when suddenly HR contacts you to inquire about a time for your exit interview.
It’s important to wash your face, but it’s even more important to do it right so you don’t actually make things worse for your skin. It all comes down to how often you should wash, and what you wash with.
Yesterday, America got a look at the new overtime rule , which will make millions of people who make less than $47,500 a year eligible for overtime pay. You may be wondering: who, exactly, is responsible for making sure I get paid for all my newfound overtime?
If you’ve ever lost a form you’re filling out because the Backspace key sends you to the previous page, get ready to be happy. In the newest Canary builds of Chrome, Google has added the ability to stop using the Backspace key as a Back browser button.
If you’re in the market for a used car, you might consider going compact. According to a report from Edmunds, even though used car prices have increased overall, prices of used compact and subcompact cars are down.
Noodles & Company [NASDAQ: NDLS], a fast-casual restaurant chain with more than 500 stores in 35 U.S. states, says it has hired outside investigators to probe reports of a credit card breach at some locations.
Over the past weekend, KrebsOnSecurity began hearing from sources at multiple financial institutions who said they’d detected a pattern of fraudulent charges on customer cards that were used at various Noodles & Company locations between January 2016 and the present.
Asked to comment on the reports, Broomfield, Colo.-based Noodles & Company issued the following statement:
“We are currently investigating some unusual activity reported to us Tuesday, May 16, 2016 by our credit card processor. Once we received this report, we alerted law enforcement officials and we are working with third party forensic experts. Our investigation is ongoing and we will continue to share information.”
The investigation comes amid a fairly constant drip of card breaches at main street retailers, restaurant chains and hospitality firms. Wendy’s reported last week that a credit card breach that began in the autumn of 2015 impacted 300 of its 5,500 locations.
Cyber thieves responsible for these attacks use security weaknesses or social engineering to remotely install malicious software on retail point-of-sale systems. This allows the crooks to read account data off a credit or debit card’s magnetic stripe in real time as customers are swiping them at the register.
U.S. banks have been transitioning to providing customers more secure chip-based credit and debit cards, and a greater number of retailers are installing checkout systems that can read customer card data off the chip. The chip encrypts the card data and makes it much more difficult and expensive for thieves to counterfeit cards.
However, most of these chip cards will still hold customer data in plain text on the card’s magnetic stripe, and U.S. merchants that continue to allow customers to swipe the stripe or who do not have chip card readers in place face shouldering all of the liability for any transactions later determined to be fraudulent.
While a great many U.S. retail establishments have already deployed chip-card readers at their checkout lines, relatively few have enabled those readers, and are still asking customers to swipe the stripe. For its part, Noodles & Company says it’s in the process of testing and implementing chip-based readers.
“The ongoing program we have in place to aggressively test and implement chip-based systems across our network is moving forward,” the company said in a statement. “We are actively working with our key business partners to deploy this system as soon as they are ready.”
CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. (AP) — A former Virginia Tech student charged in the kidnap-slaying of a 13-year-old girl called her co-defendant a “sociopath” and referred to herself as a “sociopath in training” a police detective testified Friday.
Also, prosecutors in the case against David Eisenhauer and Natalie Keepers introduced text messages taken from Eisenhauer’s cellphone speculating about the body never being found and talking about engaging in “overkill.”
Eisenhauer, 18, is charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder. Keepers, 19, charged with being an accessory to kidnapping and murder and with helping hide the body of Nicole Lovell, a 7th grader who authorities say sneaked out her window early one morning last January to rendezvous with the older teens.
Montgomery County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Robert Viar Jr. found probable cause to send the case to a grand jury, which will meet in late July to determine whether the two former college students from Maryland should be indicted.
Blacksburg Police detective Ryan Hite testified that Keepers told investigators she and Eisenhauer discussed several ways to kill Nicole: drugging her, making it look like suicide and knocking her unconscious and leaving her to die of exposure. They settled on what she called “the official plan,” Hite said: “Grab her from behind, cover her mouth and slit her throat.”
Keepers insisted to investigators she was not present during the actual killing. At one point in her police interview, she said Eisenhauer forced her involvement but she later said she participated because it made her feel like part of a special, secret club.
“She referred to Eisenhauer as a sociopath and to herself as a sociopath in training,” Hite said.
Hite also said Keepers described in detail how she and Eisenhauer bought a shovel and cleaning supplies, went together to pick out a rural site where Nicole would be killed and dumped her body just over the state line in North Carolina.
Keepers took investigators to those sites, pointing out tire tracks from Eisenhauer’s car and their footprints in the blood-spattered snow, as well as to locations where they disposed of Nicole’s clothes and backpack, Hite said. She could not find the wooded area where Eisenhauer tossed the knife, Hite said, but Nicole’s blanket, emblazoned with “Minions” cartoon figures, which she brought with her when she sneaked out her window, was seized from Keepers’ dorm room.
In the text message conversation about the massive search for Nicole after her disappearance, Eisenhauer said that as long as nobody found the body for a week “it will never be traced.” He also said Nicole “was blackmailing another guy too,” and he and Eisenhauer talked about smelling like cleaning solution. Keepers had told police that she and Eisenhauer had cleaned Nicole’s body with sanitizing wipes and bleach.
“Always go overkill, especially when your life is on the line,” Eisenhauer said in one of the text messages.
Eisenhauer was less talkative in his interview with police while Nicole was still missing. Blacksburg Detective D.L. Twigger testified that Eisenhauer said he arranged to pick Nicole up outside her apartment, but he thought she was much older. He said Nicole did not get in his car and started walking back toward her apartment, and he drove away.
According to Twigger, Eisenhauer said he thought police should focus more on finding the body “rather than interrogate the last person to see her alive. I’m calling a lawyer. I’m done.”
Officials didn’t testify about a possible motive.
However, a friend of Eisenhauer whose cellphone was recently seized by police earlier provided a possible answer.
Bryce Dustin of Pulaski told The Roanoke Times earlier this month that Eisenhauer texted him about meeting a teenage girl at a party and later learning that she was underage. Eisenhauer feared the girl would “expose” him and asked if Dustin knew where he could hide a body, Dustin told the newspaper.
The post Police: Suspect called herself ‘sociopath in training’ appeared first on WTOP.
Prepaid credit cards can serve as a lifeline for millions of unbanked Americans in need of an alternative to traditional banking, but they’re only helpful when users can actually get access to their funds. To that end, thousands of consumers who use Walmart-branded prepaid debit cards say they’ve been stranded without their funds for three days.
Consumers who depend on the Green Dot-based cards to pay bills, buy groceries, and make other purchases began experiencing problems with the system on Monday, with issues persisting as of Wednesday afternoon, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Cardholders say they have been unable to withdraw cash from ATMs, check their account balances, or make purchases.
@greendotcards why can't I access my green dot Wal-Mart money card. It's been three days. They're holding my money without reason
— Michael Cutway (@michael_cutway) May 18, 2016
@greendotcards How about the customers who can't use their cards, your system is down? Fix this already, 3 days now: https://t.co/rGiepyBiLo
— Jackie Hickman (@JackStar) May 18, 2016
Thanks @greendotcards for the constant disappointment smh better off putting money in a mattress
— Andre Smith (@justMMSD) May 18, 2016
What the fuck @greendotcards I can't eat or pay bills because of your system wide meltdown. I and others are considering suing @Walmart
— Red (@rednelson) May 18, 2016
@greendotcards I have not been able to access my balance online for over 3 days now.. What the hell!?!?
— Yomi Gonzales (@Yomi514) May 18, 2016
@greendotcards sure do hope you all plan to compensate us for holding our money hostage. my phone is shut off and i have bills i cant pay!!
— Danielle Nicole♥ (@MissForeverbadd) May 18, 2016
Green Dot, which issues the prepaid debit MoneyCards for Walmart, has blamed the issue on a technical problem.
A post on Twitter explains that a processing partner is “experiencing slowdowns in some of their systems and as a result, we are currently unable to provide card balances online or over the phone.”
— Green Dot (@greendotcards) May 18, 2016
Despite consumers’ complaints that they’ve been unable to make purchases or withdraw cash from ATMs, Green Dot maintained in the Tweet that those actions were not impacted by the glitch.
“We understand the important role we play in the daily financial lives of our loyal customers and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause,” the company said.
Steve Streit, Green Dot Chief Executive, tells the L.A. Times that the issue was expected to be fixed Wednesday night.
As of Thursday morning, MoneyCard users were posting on a Facebook group called “Walmart MoneyCard Exodus” about continuing problems with the cards.
One user said she had tried to withdraw funds at least three times and was continuously declined.
“Going on day 4 soon of no money,” the poster said. “Finally was able to get someone on the phone after trying since Monday. All he could say was he was sorry and that the system update failed and caused a lot of people’s card not to work.”
“So I woke this morning, checked my balance and it say my balance is $0.00 called the 800 number says my account was negative $42.89, talked to a rep and he said I had $289.62, but I cannot use my card until issue is fixed,” another card user said.
The issues with Walmart’s Green Dot cards come months after thousands of consumers using prepaid RushCards were affected by a similar glitch.
Among other things, users reported being locked out of their accounts and that their balances suddenly showed $0.
RushCard recently entered into a settlement agreement in which the company will pay $19 million in compensation for consumers who were affected by the weeks-long outage.
Customers say Walmart-brand prepaid debit cards aren’t working, cutting off access to funds [The Los Angeles Times]
A group of Senators has announced today that they are introducing a new bill into the Senate designed to prevent mass hacking of Americans’ digital devices. But the lawmakers aren’t targeting shadowy collectives or foreign nationals with their proposed legislation; they’re seeking to limit the scope of actual Federal agencies’ powers.
The Stopping Mass Hacking Act — which they are, yes, literally referring to as the SMH Act — seeks to limit changes to a section of law known as Rule 41 from going into effect. Senators Ron Wyden (OR) and Rand Paul (KY) are spearheading the effort, with co-sponsorship from Senators Tammy Baldwin (WI), Steve Daines (MT), and Jon Tester (MT).
The text (PDF) of the bill is as short and blunt as it gets, reading, in full: “The proposed amendments to rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which are set forth in the order entered by the Supreme Court of the United States on April 28, 2016, shall not take effect.”
So what’s rule 41, and what did the Supreme Court change?
The EFF has an in-depth explanation, but the short version is this: the proposed changes to Rule 41 would expand procedural power (so, the things law enforcement can legally, regularly do) to access more people’s stuff.
The proposed change would allow judges to grant search warrants for remote search of accounts and devices — as in, using software to access someone’s phone or computer when it’s miles and miles away and not necessarily in the possession of the entity you’re investigating.
It specifically targets two groups of people and devices. The first are those using certain privacy tools, like VPNs, that virtually hide your device’s location. The EFF surmises that it could even extend to smartphones and apps with location services disabled.
The other group of devices that could be subject to search? Anything that’s part of a botnet which, by definition, is going to include a whole lot of innocent or unrelated persons’ devices running software they don’t know about and don’t intend to run. As the EFF puts it: “This means victims of malware could find themselves doubly infiltrated: their computers infected with malware and used to contribute to a botnet, and then government agents given free rein to remotely access their computers as part of the investigation. Even with the best of intentions, a government agent could well cause as much or even more harm to a computer through remote access than the malware that originally infected the computer.”
Senator Wyden, who has in recent months taken strong stands for consumers rights’ to encryption and privacy, shared his thoughts in a post on Medium.
Speaking partly in *.gif, the language of the internet, Wyden said, “An agency with the record of the Justice Department shouldn’t be able to waive its arms and grant itself entirely new powers.”
“The American public should understand that these changes won’t just affect criminals: computer security experts and civil liberties advocates say the amendments would also dramatically expand the government’s ability to hack the electronic devices of law-abiding Americans if their devices were affected by a computer attack,” Wyden continued. “Devices will be subject to search if their owners were victims of a botnet attack — so the government will be treating victims of hacking the same way they treat the perpetrators.”
The proposal could affect over 500 million computers, Wyden wrote, and the scale matters. “By allowing so many searches with the order of just a single judge, Congress’s failure to act on this issue would be a disaster for law-abiding Americans,” said the Senator, before concluding:
“When the public realizes what is at stake, I think there is going to be a massive outcry: Americans will look at Congress and say, ‘What were you thinking?'”
Each year, some 700,000 people around the world die from antibiotic-resistant infections; that’s more than 1,900 deaths per day. If nothing is done to curb the overuse of antibiotics — in humans, and in livestock and agriculture — these superbugs could eventually kill 1,100 people every hour.
This is according to the final report [PDF] on antimicrobial resistance from UK economist Jim O’Neill, who produced this and previous research at the request of UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
O’Neill contends that the current 700,000 figure for annual deaths attributable to antimicrobial resistance is a conservative number due to poor reporting.
“Nearly 200,000 people die every year from multidrug-resistant and extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis alone,” he writes. “In India, antibiotic-resistant neonatal infections cause the deaths of nearly 60,000 new-borns each year. A current death toll on this scale means that more than one million people have lost their lives to drug-resistant infections in the 19 months since we published our first report.”
Using data on rising drug resistance for six pathogens, O’Neill estimates that by 2050, drug-resistant bacteria could kill 10 million people a year, at a cost of $100 trillion.
“On this basis, by 2050, the death toll could be a staggering one person every three seconds and each person in the world today will be more than $10,000 worse off.”
Antimicrobial resistance occurs naturally and has been seen by researchers since the introduction of antibiotics. However, resistance can be encouraged by the overuse of antibiotics.
Not only are physicians overprescribing antibiotics to treat viral infections and other conditions on which these drugs have no effect, but the overwhelming majority of antibiotics sold in the U.S. and several other countries is being provided to farm animals primarily for the purpose of growth-promotion.
At the same time, no new classes of antibiotics have been created in more than 30 years, meaning we’re continuing to use too many of the same old drugs, giving rise to more resistance.
With the increase in superbugs, doctors have had to turn to drugs of last resort to treat infections that had previously been fought off using traditional antibiotics. Colistin, a harsh antibiotic that had been used only sparingly because it can severely damage the kidneys, is now being used more frequently to treat resistant pathogens.
Of even more concern than the potential damage done by colistin is the fact that colisitin-resistant bacteria has already been found in at least 19 countries on three continents.
When resistance renders a drug of last resort useless, where else do you turn? This is why we simultaneously need to curb the overuse of our current lineup of antibiotics and invest money and time in the development of new treatments.
Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of New York, a trained microbiologist and an outspoken critic of antibiotics overuse, says the O’Neill report spotlights the need for a global response to the problem.
“We cannot fix this issue if we continue to misuse new antibiotics in the same old ways,” says Rep. Slaughter, who has introduced legislation intended to curb the use of these drugs in farm animals. “This single industry consumes 80% of all antibiotics, which is why we must finally end the overuse and abuse of antibiotics in agriculture for nontherapeutic uses.”
Retailers tend to be cautious about rolling out changes nationwide, instead testing out a couple tweaks here and few updates there. Target, however, is using entire stores in California as testing grounds for dozens of new in-store “enhancements.”
The Street [WARNING: Obnoxiously loud auto-play video] reports that as part of a $1 billion initiative to remodel stores, Target has overhauled the look of several departments to create what could be a glimpse into the retailer’s future.
In all, 25 revamped stores in the Los Angeles area put many of the retailer’s top enhancement tests under one roof.
Each location features 35 enhancements that include, among other things, stylish apparel fixtures, better-lit fresh produce sections, an emphasis on organic products, service stations expedited online order pick ups, and department specialists.
The stores will also feature an expanded focus on in-store cafes and restaurants. For example, Starbucks locations will have more floor space, and “healthy” fast-casual restaurant concepts will be added, The Street reports.
“What we are doing with LA25 will influence our next-generation store experience that we are working on — there may also be specific sections from these stores that may help influence the chain quicker,” Mark Schindele, a senior vice president at Target who’s leading LA25, tells The Street.
First Look: Target’s ‘Store of the Future’ Launches in California [The Street]
Last fall, we began hearing reports that Taco Bell was testing taco shells made from fried chicken, because that’s an actual thing that people would definitely eat. The fall test was in Bakersfield, CA, and they also tested them in Kansas City last month. Where do they come from, though? Is it simply a Tex-Mex Double Down?
Buzzfeed’s Venessa Wong was able to learn more about the creation of the shell product, which has since been renamed the Naked Chicken Chalupa. The shell comes from one of Taco Bell’s apparent guiding principles of the last few years: fold a variety of flat foods in half and call them tacos.
The Naked Chicken Chalupa will be going nationwide fairly soon, and the company’s test kitchen wizards explained to Wong how they make these shells in-store. The shells arrive flat, but already breaded and seasoned. They’re fried in the shaping basket contraption that you see above to give them a taco-shell shape, which is also how they turned various breakfast foods into taco shells in-store.
Here’s How Taco Bell Makes A Taco Shell Out Of Fried Chicken [Buzzfeed]
Though it might feel like you can turn a corner without seeing an ad for this ride-hailing app or that on-demand delivery service, Pew Research Center’s first-ever survey of how American adults interact with the new digital economy shows there’s a big difference between how many people have ever tried one of these services and the people who use them on a regular basis.
Pew’s in-depth survey on the digital economy covers commercial services that offer on-demand access, like ride-hailing apps; sharing service that enable people to sell products or expertise like StubHub and TaskRabbit, respectively; and other “collaborative” services that try to connect communities and solve problems by way of crowdsourcing, like Kickstarter.
Pew surveyed 4,787 American adults and asked them their views on a wide range of services, and while for many folks these services are part of their every day lives, there are many others who barely use them — or even know they exist. Here are a few of the results from Pew’s report on the digital economy that we found most interesting:
1. People are picking and choosing among services: While 72% of American adults have used at least one of 11 different shared and on-demand services, many are only using one or a few of them. About 20% have used four or more of such services, and 7% have used six or more.
2. Exposure doesn’t always translate to use: Then there’s the full 28% of Americans who said they’ve never used any of these commercial platforms. For example, though 15% of Americans have used a ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft, about twice that many people haven’t even heard of them in the first place. On those same lines, 11% of people have used Airbnb, VRBO, or similar, but almost half don’t know they exist.
3. Educated, high-income, young people in cities use these services the most: It might come as no surprise, but college graduates are more likely to use four more of these services, Pew found, as well as those with relatively high household incomes and those under the age of 45.
Urban and suburban dwellers are also twice as likely as those living in rural areas to use four or more of these services, Pew found, while about 25% of that same category haven’t used any of the platforms the survey measured.
4. People with cars still use ride-hailing apps: The survey found that 3% of American adults use apps like Uber or Lyft on a daily or weekly basis, and around two-thirds of those people either own their own car or regularly drive a personal vehicle, Pew found. Though this means that regular ride-hailing app users have cars, as a group they’re still less likely to own or drive a car than people who only use such apps occasionally or not at all.
5. Ride-hailing apps are convincing folks they’re not transportation companies: Though many users aren’t sure the relationship between these services and drivers, Pew says that in the abstract, people “tend to view these services as software platforms rather than transportation companies, and they view their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.” About 58% of ride-hailing users see these apps as software companies, 30% view them as transportation companies, and 66% think drivers are independent contractors.
However, 68% of ride-hailing users believe that both drivers and the services themselves should be responsible for making sure drivers are trained properly, and 62% think both drivers and service should make sure cars are clean and safe.
6. About 11% of adults have used something like Airbnb, VRBO, or HomeAway to stay in someone else’s home: Americans of all ages are using home-sharing platforms, Pew found, though folks ages 35-44 are almost twice as likely as people ages 18-24 to have used one.
7. There’s confusion on the employer/worker relationship here, too: Similar to ride-hailing app users, consumers using home-sharing services aren’t quite sure on the relationship between the platform and the people renting out their spaces. About 58% of home-sharing users say such services are just software companies, while 26% see them as hospitality companies that vouch for the quality of the properties they list, and have control over the customer experience.
Again, much like with ride-sharing apps, those who use home-sharing services ascribe varying levels of responsibility on the parties involved when it comes to managing the day-to-day user experience: 67% believe that both homeowners and the home-sharing platforms themselves should make sure properties are like they’re described, while 8% think it all rests on the shoulders of the app or service, and 23% think it’s up to homeowners.
8. One-in-five Americans have given to online fundraising projects: Close to 20% of American adults have given money on sites like Kickstarter and GoFundMe, and 3% have created their own project on such sites. Most of those folks who have contributed have done so only a handful of times — 87% have given to a total of five projects or fewer.
9. People like to donate money to those in need: A full 68% of adults who’ve contributed on crowd funding sites have given money to help someone facing hardship or financial challenges.
Another 34% have given to fund a new product or invention, while others donate money for school projects or fundraisers (32%), to musicians or other creative artists (30%), and to projects for new businesses (10%).
Shared, Collaborative and On Demand: The New Digital Economy [Pew Research Center]
WASHINGTON — A D.C. Fire Department captain has been arrested on gun and drug charges in Fairfax County.
Brian Grace, of Centerville, Maryland, was arrested on Wednesday and charged by the Fairfax County police with possession with intent to manufacture, sell and distribute drugs and possession of two firearms with a Schedule I or II drug, The Washington Post reports.
The D.C. Fire Department says Grace has been in the department since 2000 and has been placed on administrative leave, The Post says.
The post DC fire captain arrested on gun, drug charges appeared first on WTOP.
Whether you aren’t happy with your current pillows, or just need an extra set for your guest room, Amazon’s selling a 4-pack today for $25.
It’s something most of us learned to do decades ago: you see an inviting package on the supermarket shelf. You pick it up, have a look at the front to see if you might like that flavor, and then flip it over to stare intently at the familiar white nutrition label on the back. Well now, finally, after much hemming and hawing, those nutrition labels are getting an overdue upgrade.
The changes look a lot like the proposal the FDA unveiled more than two years ago, in Feb. 2014. But rules don’t change immediately, by fiat; the agency had to go through a whole long process of proposal, comment, and approval in order to make the change.
So what’s going to be different? The white box you’re used to will look pretty similar to the way it has, but some of the contents are going to change, especially when it comes to serving size. Some highlights include:
In short, the FDA says, your new labels are going to look a lot like this:
The full text of the newly updated rules regarding both serving sizes and nutrition will be posted to the Federal Register soon.
Meanwhile, it might still take a while for you to get used to seeing the new label out in the wild; the deadline for manufacturers to get it in use is July 26, 2018.
General Motors isn’t making any new Saturn or Pontiac vehicles, but owners of the many Saturns and Pontiacs still on the road should have some reasonable expectation that their airbags will deploy properly when needed.
This is why the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is working to determine if a full-scale investigation into 91,000 vehicles that contain airbags that may not deploy properly is needed.
The potential investigation, which centers on 91,205 model year 2007 to 2010 Saturn Sky and model year 2006 to 2010 Pontiac Solstice vehicles made under the General Motors banner, was initiated after the agency received more than 900 consumer complaints and a petition from one owner.
According to a notice [PDF] posted with NHTSA, the Office of Defects Investigations received a petition requesting a defect investigation into the vehicles’ airbag systems.
The petition [PDF] alleged that the Passenger Sensing System (PSS) sensor mat can break over time. If this occurs it could lead to a failure in the circuitry of the sensor mat that may lead to the passenger air bag system being inoperative when the seat is occupied by a passenger that would otherwise require air bag protection.
In addition to receiving the petition to open an investigation into the General Motors-made vehicles, NHTSA says it has received 933 complaints from owners over the issue.
“The identified complaints encompass several General Motors vehicle models in addition to the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky,” the agency says. “ODI will evaluate these complaints further to determine if the complaints pertain to the issue cited in the petition.”
Complaints submitted by owners alleged, among other things, that the issue is first noticed when the car’s “service airbag light” comes on. Subsequent visits to dealers for repair have resulted in thousands of dollars worth of repairs.
“As complained by most Saturn Sky owners this should be recalled. HUGE SAFETY ISSUE!! Is it really going to take more deaths to have this considered recall-able? I now have both airbag lights on and estimated cost of repairs is close $1500,” the owner of a 2007 Saturn Sky tells NHTSA in a complaint.
“On the right side airbag is not working, I had it checked out and they said it would be 1,050 dollars to fix it,” the owner of a 2007 Pontiac Solstice owner writes.
“My 2009 Saturn Sky, with less than 50,000 miles, displays the ’service air bag’ light in the instrument panel for no reason,” another owner writes. “The air bags have never deployed and the car has never been in an accident. I am taking it to an authorized GM dealer but this cost and problem is absurd for a car well taken care of and garage kept.”
“Passenger airbag service light came on at 67K,” the owner of a 2009 Solstice says. “The car was never involved in any accident and has no damage. Took it to a GM dealer, they want $900 to fix the faulty sensor. It should be a manufacturer recall.”
NHTSA says in its notice that the Office of Defects Investigations will evaluate the issue and determine if an investigation is warranted.
Patch.com |
Manassas Park Sees Population Decrease: U.S. Census Estimates Patch.com Latest U.S. Census figures suggest the Manassas region is growing, but outside of Manassas Park. Manassas Park, VA. By Greg Hambrick (Patch Staff) - May 19, 2016 1:54 pm ET. ShareTweetGoogle PlusRedditEmailComments0. Manassas Park Sees ... and more » |
Patch.com |
Manassas Sees Population Increase: U.S. Census Estimates Patch.com Latest U.S. Census figures suggest the Manassas region is growing, including inside the municipal boundaries. Manassas, VA. By Greg Hambrick (Patch Staff) - May 19, 2016 1:50 pm ET. ShareTweetGoogle PlusRedditEmailComments0. Manassas Sees ... How fast is Washington growing? Fast, but not as fast as Georgetown — the one in Texas.Washington Post all 126 news articles » |
Huskies are highly energetic working dogs, meaning they need a lot of exercise and activity to be happy.[1] They are loyal and good-natured dogs who have a genuine love for life, and lots of people want them as pets. However, Huskies can also be stubborn and quite difficult to train, so you must be up to the task. If you are considering owning a Husky, decide if you have the time, patience, energy, and dedication to help him live a long, happy, and fulfilled life.
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Honeysuckle is a low maintenance plant. It is available in two varieties: a fragrant climbing honeysuckle or a beautiful woody shrub. Both varieties require full sunshine and yield glorious flowers in yellows, golds, whites, pinks, and reds. The climbing variety is often trained to grow up fences, walls, trellises, and stakes.
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Now that the government has carved out a loophole allowing it to place automated and/or pre-recorded robocalls to consumers to collect any debts owed to the federal government, the FCC is trying to come up with robocall rules that aren’t entirely awful. Consumers have a short window of time to chime in on these rules, so here’s how to share your feelings with the FCC.
The FCC’s proposed rules include a few safeguards intended to minimize the annoyance of these robocalls.
Consumers would retain the right to stop debt collectors from calling them, and the new robocalls would need to clearly disclose this right when the call is made. Debt collectors would not be allowed to place robocalls to friends or family members of the alleged debtor. Robocalls would also be limited to three per month.
Is that enough, or should there be more?
Maybe you think there should be restrictions specific to calls made to cellphones. Perhaps you have an opinion on how robocallers should disclose the ability to stop receiving calls. What about the penalties for robocallers who repeatedly call the wrong number?
As you can see if you read the full notice of proposed rulemaking [PDF], the FCC is seeking comment from the public on a wide variety of issues here. Make sure your voice is heard above the din of the debt collectors clamoring to cash in.
Now is your chance to take advantage of this public comment window, which ends on June 6. Our colleagues at Consumers Union have a helpful and easily filled out form for anyone share their comment directly with the FCC.
Note that any comment filed with the FCC on these matters is in the public record, so all the information you share in the comment will ultimately be published on the FCC’s website.
There’s a new self-driving car on the block, and it’s currently roaming the streets of Pittsburgh. Uber’s first autonomous vehicle, a hybrid Ford Fusion outfitted with sensors, radars, laser scanners, and high-resolution cameras, is on the road.
With a human in the driver’s seat to make sure everything is going according to plan, the car will be pulling double duty on its rounds: while it’s testing self-driving mode, it’ll also be collecting mapping data, Uber says in a blog post.
Uber says the self-driving future is a safer one, noting that 1.3 million people die every year in car collisions, 94% of which involve human error.
“In the future we believe this technology will mean less congestion, more affordable and accessible transportation, and far fewer lives lost in car accidents,” Uber says. “These goals are at the heart of Uber’s mission to make transportation as reliable as running water — everywhere and for everyone.”
The company, which has been working with autonomous vehicle experts at its Advanced Technologies Center, chose to establish its base in Pittsburgh “because of its world-class engineering talent and research facilities.”
“Pittsburgh is an ideal environment to develop and test our technology across a wide variety of road types, traffic patterns and weather conditions,” Uber explains. “The city’s long history of innovation continues today as it helps us shape the future of transportation.”
Need a new swimsuit before you head out to the pool or beach? Amazon’s discounting dozens of them today for men, women, and kids, from a variety of designers as part of a Gold Box deal.
Hear the word “mule” in any context other than the barnyard and you’ll likely think of people shoving illegal drugs or other contraband in bodily cavities in order to smuggle it past the authorities. So when we heard about a new “peer-to-peer” courier service called AirMule, we had to take a closer look.
Promising “affordable express shipping worldwide with trusted travelers,” Airmule urges potential customers to “ship with people, not boxes.” Translation: you give a stranger your package and they get on a flight with it, and then either deliver it in person or ship it using local mailing services to its final destination.
Using the Airmule app, people who want to ship something find others who have listed upcoming trips they’re taking, and connect in the app to discuss package details. There’s a minimum rate of $4 per pound, but folks listing their flights will often price things at an average of around $8 or $10 per pound, Airmule CEO and co-founder Sean Yang tells Consumerist.
The two parties then meet to hand off the item, an encounter that again, is arranged through the app so there’s a record of the exchange. Senders can then track their packages as the carrier travels, and receive real-time notifications until the item arrives at its destination.
The process sounds simple enough, but what happens at the airport when the Airmule user is asked if someone gave them anything to take on the plane with them?
The Transportation Security Administration does have an Indirect Air Carrier program, which requires that “any person or entity within the United States” that doesn’t operate as an air carrier but who wants to “engage indirectly in air transportation of property and uses for all or any part of such transportation the services of an air carrier” must adopt and carry out a security program okayed by TSA, which is renewed every year.
However, Airmule’s Yang claims the company doesn’t need that certification, because (and this might sound familiar) it’s not a courier service; it’s a platform to connect people who have things that need to be carried, and travelers willing to carry those items.
“Airmule is actually not a shipping company, in the same way that Airbnb doesn’t provide accommodation,” Yang tells Consumerist, so the company hasn’t submitted any applications to TSA. In fact, he says they tried to contact TSA, but couldn’t get any direct answers from the government agency.
Yang adds that they checked with airline companies as well, who all said they were fine with it as long as the package doesn’t contain any restricted items — flammable good, drugs, weapons, whathaveyou.
“[When] passengers purchase the ticket, they have the right to sit on the airplane, and they own the luggage they bring in,” Yang explains. “They have the right to bring whatever they want, as long as the item is legal.”
When contacted by Consumerist and asked if the agency was aware of Airmule or whether it had concerns with the platform, TSA could not provide a comment.
Okay, you might be saying, I’ve seen movies — what if the person you hand your package to opens it — as they’re allowed to, under Airmule terms, and instead of inspecting it, they stuff a baggie full of cocaine in that teddy bear? Or what if the traveler doesn’t crack open the stuffed animal’s head and misses the drugs stashed inside?”
It’s all about prevention, Yang tells Consumerist, and in documenting every step of the process through the Airmule app. Travelers have the right to inspect any package they agree to carry, to ensure it doesn’t contain illicit goods.
And if someone is stopped by authorities with something they shouldn’t have, there’s a clear record of who put what, where, because the process is tracked through the Airmule app — as well as the sender’s banking and credit card information and the location they made the handoff — effectively providing a paper trail that documents every step of the package’s journey.
On the traveler’s side, anyone can be a courier. But once you’ve signed up Airmule sends an application to become a “verified” courier, which means uploading your driver’s license and passport to the Airmule platform, which the company keeps encrypted. In the future, Yang says, the company might upgrade some verified couriers to a “professional” level, that would require background checks.
If a traveler is stopped by authorities because of something illegal they’re carrying that they didn’t see when they inspected the package, Yang says Airmule would stand by them and provide authorities with any documentation they might need to have the situation cleared up.
Besides, Airmule talked to some professionals — people who are in jail for actually being drug mules or other drug-trafficking crimes. And they all said they’d never use a system like Airmule, Yang says, because it’d be too easy to get caught.
“Most of these people are cash only, they don’t want to leave any trail,” he explains. “And they only work with people they know — they’re not just going to give their stuff to some stranger just because there’s an app.”
Although he admits that it’s not impossible for some bad actor to figure out a way to send something illegal through Airmule, he says the platform makes it really easy for the company to find them out if it does happen.
Of course, there’s that other elephant, or rather, mule in the room — the company’s name. Why name your business something that conjures up illicit activity? Basically, because the company isn’t afraid of answering questions about whether or not its business is legal, Yang says.
The company wasn’t originally named Airmule, but everyone had the same questions we did, he says, as well as connecting the service to drug mules. He got a bit emotional over the fact that people don’t consider the good in people as well as the bad, so he just decided, fudge that, why not call it Airmule and meet the questions head on?
“Airmule is not really a mule business,” Yang explains. “I just want people to know, if you’re going to challenge me, we’re ready for the challenge, we’re not going to back down just to give a bunch of explanations.”
He adds that it’s a business model that works, with over a thousand shipped items during Airmule’s initial beta testing. Out of all of those, only one package had an issue, when a courier mailed a $600 wallet to the wrong customer on his list. After Airmule contacted the unintended recipient, who has used Airmule herself, she sent it back to be redirected at her own expense.
“This is what we do, and we have faith in delivery, and apparently, it works,” Yang says.
