One of the quintessentially American parts of childhood is the good old-fashioned road trip. The whole family packs into the car and heads to their vacation destination, perhaps to a national park for a camping trip or something a little more fun like Walley World. But traveling with the whole family isn’t always a simple task!
If you’ve ever thought about getting into carpentry or any other type of woodworking, here’s a chance to learn a thing or two from Ron Swanson himself.
We’ve written a lot about sleep —from how a lack of sleep can undermine your weight loss and productivity to how sleeping too much can be counterproductive . Still, misconceptions about sleep persist. This video by Mental Floss helps clear up a few of them.
I’ve tried nearly every trick imaginable to get more restful sleep. For a long time, nothing worked: not a regular bedtime, herbal supplements, turning computers off before bed, or even a weekend away from work.
I’m a big fan of super crispy pizza crusts. Shredded hash browns provide that perfect base for a crispity, crunchity bottom of a breakfast or anytime pizza. All you need is a bag of frozen shredded hash browns and the almighty waffle iron.
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania school teacher has apologized for writing emails saying that accommodating a special needs student was similar to appeasing Adolf Hitler.
The (Wilkes-Barre) Citizens’ Voice (http://bit.ly/1WCpT7Z ) says Wyoming Area School District teacher Amy Kosko issued the apology Monday.
The elementary school teacher is apologizing for emails sent in 2014 when school officials were following up on an educational plan for the girl, who has a learning disability.
The girl is now a 12-year-old seventh grader. Her mother obtained the emails through an open records request as part of the ongoing dispute about her daughter’s education.
Kosco apologized for the Hitler comparison and for writing, “It would be nice if we spent this much extra time” on students who “are going to amount to something.” She also said sorry for calling the girl “ignorant and insolent.”
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This story has been corrected to show the spelling Hitler’s first name is Adolf, not Adolph.
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Information from: The Citizens’ Voice, http://www.citizensvoice.com
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BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — A federal judge said Tuesday she will decide soon whether Georgia agencies are immune from a lawsuit claiming discrimination and neglect have eroded one of the last Gullah-Geechee communities of slave descendants on the Southeast coast.
Residents and landowners from the tiny Hogg Hummock community on remote Sapelo Island filed a suit against the state and McIntosh County last December in U.S. District Court. The suit says the enclave of about 50 black residents is shrinking rapidly as landowners are pressured to sell because they pay high property taxes yet receive few basic services. Reachable only by boat from the mainland, Sapelo Island has no schools, police, fire department or trash collection.
Attorneys for the state have asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit. They argue the Department of Natural Resources, which manages most of Sapelo Island, and other agencies are immune under the 11th Amendment, which grants states broad protection from lawsuits in federal court.
U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood told attorneys during a short hearing Tuesday that she planned to rule on the immunity issue within 30 days. Other arguments for dismissal, including county attorneys’ claim that whites on Sapelo Island deal with the same tax rates and lack of services as black residents, will be decided later if necessary.
“By June 16, you will know where you stand as far as the immunity defenses,” Wood said.
Lawyers for the Sapelo Island landowners have argued in court filings that Georgia agencies have given up their constitutional immunity rights by accepting federal funding for Community Development Block Grants and other programs that by law prohibit discrimination.
They also say immunity should not apply to the McIntosh County sheriff and board of tax assessors, which are also named in the lawsuit. The county’s attorneys argue the sheriff and assessors should be considered “arms of the state.”
Slave descendants known as Gullah, or as Geechee in Georgia, live in small island communities scattered over 425 miles of the Southern Atlantic coast, where their ancestors worked on plantations before they were freed by the Civil War. Hogg Hummock, also known as Hog Hammock, is one of the last such communities from North Carolina to Florida.
Scholars say separation from the mainland caused these people to retain much of their African heritage, from a unique dialect to skills and crafts such as cast-net fishing and basket weaving. But isolation also caused Gullah communities to shrink.
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DENVER (AP) — A baby sitter is accused of using two children she was watching to help her rob a bank — a heist allegedly planned to help her pay back money stolen from her employers.
Rachel Einspahr, 28, went to the drive through at the Colorado East Bank & Trust in Severance — about 65 miles north of Denver — on Friday after picking two sisters after school, according to the Weld County Sheriff’s Office.
She allegedly sent a note through the vacuum tube demanding money for a man in the back of her Nissan Pathfinder threatening to hurt the girls, who are 7 and 1½ years old. The teller, believing the children were in danger, gave her $500, sheriff’s spokesman Matt Turner said.
The girls were not hurt, and one told investigators there never was a man in the vehicle with them.
According to an arrest affidavit, first reported by the Greeley Tribune (http://bit.ly/1rRxhQm ) Tuesday, Einspahr allegedly told investigators she wanted to rob the bank to pay back $15,000 of the money she previously stole under a possible plea agreement. Court documents don’t list who is representing her in the bank robbery case, but lawyers who have represented her in the previous cases didn’t return calls seeking comment.
According to the document, Einspahr, who is in jail, told detectives she first considered robbing a bank in larger nearby Greeley but then went back to Severance to pick up the children. She said she drove around for a while, bought the girls lollipops at a gas station and then removed her license plates and wrote a note for the teller on a side street before going ahead with the alleged robbery at a bank about a half mile from her home, the document said. After the robbery, investigators said she took the children to a park to play so she could put the plates back on.
Deputies, using surveillance video from the bank, found Einspahr’s SUV parked in front of her house and arrested her.
She is scheduled to appear in court in the theft cases on Wednesday, when prosecutors are also expected to file charges against her in the bank robbery.
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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A government wildlife researcher has found that rabbits and skunks can become infected with the bird flu virus and shed it enough to infect ducks — offering scientists one more clue about how bird flu may move in the environment and spread between farms, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.
Experiments done last year demonstrated that striped skunks and cottontail rabbits in a laboratory transmitted a strain of bird flu to mallard ducks after they shared food and water sources, National Wildlife Research Center biologist Jeff Root said in a statement.
“When wildlife and poultry interact and both can carry and spread a potentially damaging agricultural pathogen, it’s cause for concern,” he said.
Last year bird flu resulted in the death of 48 million birds in 15 states, sending egg prices soaring to record highs, increasing turkey meat prices and hurting exports of poultry products. Scientists hope to find how the virus gets from wild birds to farms and spreads, and Root said it’s now important to figure out how likely it is that such transmission across species happens in the wild.
His study results offer the first significant confirmation that mammals can transmit the virus to birds. Skunks and rabbits are common visitors to farms across the country. They also are frequently found at the riverbanks and wetlands where waterfowl gather.
Scientists studying bird flu who weren’t involved in the research said it’s a noteworthy finding, but more study is needed about how transmission is occurring.
“These viruses, we’ve always known that they get very eagerly into turkeys. Turkeys and ducks exchange viruses but skunks and rabbits? Who knew? So this is really exciting that way,” said Carol Cardona, an avian health professor at the University of Minnesota who studies domestic poultry viral disease. “It tells us little bit more about an ecosystem we weren’t fully understanding.”
Iowa State University veterinary microbiology professor James A. Roth said it’s an unexpected development, but it’s not clear whether these animals can spread bird flu virus into commercial turkey and chicken barns.
“Those animals would have to pick it up from an infected waterfowl and then have contact with domestic poultry,” he said. “It’s an important experimental observation that needs to be followed up on.”
Scientists have been studying how the virus gets from wild birds into largely enclosed commercial chicken and turkey farms and then spreads between farms miles apart. Studies have concluded the virus is introduced to an area by migrating wild birds then likely spread by vehicles or workers moving between barns on neighboring farms. The belief has been that the risk of small mammals carrying the disease into commercial bird flocks is small.
In his research, Root inoculated skunks and rabbits with a low pathogenic version of the bird flu — a milder strain that could make a bird sick but not kill them. He kept skunks in one set of pens and kept mallard ducks identical pens. After several days the skunks and the ducks switched pens. One out of four ducks became infected.
In another experiment, rabbits were housed in pens with ducks sharing food and water sources. One of five ducks living with rabbits became infected.
Root said the rabbits and skunks most likely shed the virus through their oral and nasal secretions, which contaminated food, water and the environment shared with the ducks.
The discovery also helps farmers understand another risk they may be able to minimize by finding ways to keep small mammals away from poultry barns.
Poultry and egg producers are still recovering and restocking barns with new birds after last year’s bird flu, which hit Minnesota’s turkey population and Iowa’s egg-laying hen flocks hardest. The USDA said the outbreak cost the federal government more than $950 million, making it the largest U.S. animal health disaster on record.
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Follow David Pitt on Twitter at https://twitter.com/davepitt
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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York would be the first state to ban the declawing of cats under a legislative proposal that has divided veterinarians.
Several vets — along with a spokescat named Rubio — came to the state Capitol on Tuesday to lobby for the ban. They say the declawing procedure, which involves cutting through bone, tendon and nerves to amputate the first segment of a cat’s toes, is unnecessary and cruel. Australia, Britain and several European countries already ban the practice. It’s also illegal in Los Angeles and some other California cities.
“It’s a disfiguring, inhumane and misguided procedure,” said Eileen Jefferson, an Ulster County veterinarian who does not perform the procedure. She said about 25 percent of cats will be declawed.
While Jefferson and the other vets discussed the bill at a press conference in the Capitol, Rubio roamed the room, sniffing the reporters and occasionally offering a meow as greeting. The 11-year-old Abyssinian has his claws but chose not to use them on the journalists.
The state’s Veterinary Medical Society opposes the legislation, saying the surgical procedure can often save cats with destructive scratching behavior from being euthanized. In a memo of opposition, the society argues that declawing is a decision best left to cat owners and veterinarians and not lawmakers.
“It is the veterinarian’s obligation to provide cat owners a complete education with regard to normal scratching behavior of cats, the procedure itself, and potential risks to the patient,” the society’s memo reads. “Declawing of domestic cats should be considered only after attempts have been made to prevent the cat from using its claws destructively.”
The bill is before both the Senate and Assembly, but no vote has been scheduled. Assembly sponsor Linda Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat, says support is growing as more cat owners learn the details of the procedure. Unlike clipping nails in a human, or even removing the entire fingernail, declawing a cat involves amputating the first segment of each toe on each paw.
Supporters of the ban say destructive clawing can often be dealt with through nail clipping, nail caps or scratching posts. And the vets lobbying for the legislation on Tuesday said that declawing a cat can often lead to worse behavior problems, including difficulty using a litterbox or biting — something disputed by the veterinary society.
“In most cases declawing is performed as a convenience to the owner,” Rosenthal said. “I’ve heard so many times: ‘I have expensive furniture! I have nice drapes!’ If your standard is ‘I need pristine furniture,’ don’t get a cat.”
The post New York could become 1st state to ban declawing of cats appeared first on WTOP.
Birds pose a danger to commercial aircraft, but unauthorized drones are also a threat. Fortunately for everyone, we don’t yet know what would happen if a solid unmanned aerial vehicle collided with a jet or flew into its engine. The Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t want to find out, which is one of the reasons why they tested an FBI drone-detection system to prevent crashes.
A coalition that includes the FAA, other government agencies, people in the industry, and academics are all part of the effort to ensure that people flying drones for fun don’t damage commercial aircraft and threaten the safety of people on them. The other government agencies included the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Queens District Attorney’s Office, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Federal law enforcement (DHS and FBI) is involved because one of the goals of a drone detection system is to actually catch the owners of errant mini-copters.
The system was tested on a government/industry official drone range in upstate New York, and the agencies conducted forty tests using five aircraft, which had both fixed wings and rotors.
So we all remember what’s at stake, here’s a simulation of a drone striking a jet.
FAA Tests FBI Drone Detection System at JFK [FAA] (via CNET)
Supply and demand: the push and pull of time, money, materials, and desire that influences the price and availability of all commodities. An overreaction to a shortage today can result in a glut a few years from now, and vice versa. So how did we end up with the current overabundance of cheese, meat, and grains in the U.S.?
You might remember that just a few years ago, the prices for such goods was on the rise. This led farmers, ranchers, and others to increase their herds, the Wall Street Journal reports.
But two years later, when the prices of these items dropped, the newly expanded operations has caused supplies to pile up in the U.S.
“Farmers have had every reason to expand because of strong global demand,” Shayle Shagam, livestock analyst with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, tells the WSJ. “But now we have a lot of products looking for a home in a smaller number of places.”
In fact, there is so much cheese available in the U.S. that each consumer would have to eat an additional three pounds — in addition to the 36 pounds they already consume — this year just to bring the supply to normal levels.
The oversupply of cheese likely won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Dairy farmers are expected to produce 212.4 billion pounds of milk this year — the most in history, according to the WSJ.
To make matters worse for these farmers, dairy prices have continuously dropped in recent years.
One Wisconsin cheesemaker says his company invested millions of dollars to expand their plant in 2014 when prices were above $2 a pound.
Now, he tells the WSJ, that instead of using space to make specialty cheese, he’s had to expand his standard cheddar product in order to sell more at a lower price to make up for costs.
While the excess supply of meat, cheese, and other products puts a pinch on companies who make the goods, it also translates into better prices for consumers, the WSJ points out.
The USDA estimates that retail prices for beef products will fall as much as 2% this year, while cheese prices were down 4.3% year over year.
A Cheese Glut Is Overtaking America [The Wall Street Journal]
While regular customers and employees may have hoped that the competitors of bankrupt sporting goods chain Sports Authority would bid on its stores and inventory, taking over and keeping the branches open so they could expand into new markets. While Dick’s Sporting Goods and Modell’s did bid, ultimately the winner of all remaining stores was a group of three notorious liquidators bidding together: Tiger Capital Group, Hilco Global, and Gordon Brothers.
Yes, this means that all Sports Authority stores will close, and the brand will die out. Their leases will sell later to raise more cash for lenders, and it’s possible that other sporting goods stores could take over those leases. The liquidators are more interested in the merchandise: they reportedly bid 101% of the original cost of the stores’ inventory, plus $1.8 million, a source told the Wall Street Journal.
At least one of the members of that trio has probably run a particularly annoying liquidation sale that you’ve attended at some point. Hilco and Gordon Brothers together have handled liquidation sales for CompUSA, Circuit City, Linens-N-Things, Borders, Hollywood Video, Coldwater Creek, and Deb.
The three liquidators together worked with one of RadioShack’s lenders to bid on all the remaining RadioShack stores and liquidate them. Instead, the bankruptcy judge in RadioShack’s case allowed a different lender to use the retailer’s debt as currency for their bid, winning 1,740 stores and the company’s trademarks and intellectual property. That lender, Standard General, kept the RadioShack brand going by teaming up with Sprint to keep stores open and preserve thousands of jobs.
There wasn’t a chance for that in the Sports Authority auction: market leader Dick’s bid on maybe twenty stores, according to a source, and Modell’s bid on even fewer.
What didn’t sell was the former retail chain’s name, and the naming rights to the stadium where the Denver Broncos play haven’t been sold, either. Sports Authority missed its payment on the sponsorship deal that was due on May 1. The Broncos said in a court filing that they don’t want the name of their home sold without their approval.
Sports Authority Bankruptcy Auction Won by Tiger Capital-Led Group [Wall Street Journal]
Over the last few months, we’ve reviewed cable and internet service bills for seven of the nation’s largest providers in an attempt to make sense of all those fees and charges. So what did we learn from these bills covering cable, satellite, and fiber customers from Connecticut to California?
The fees! The fees are everywhere!
As a rule of thumb, the collection of taxes, fees, and surcharges above the stated subscription price ranged from about 15% to 30% of any given customer’s total bill (including bills we looked at but didn’t publish).
Taxes and state charges are, of course, highly variable. State and local taxes ranged from 0% to about 9%, depending on where subscribers live. Likewise, some states charge telecom taxes or franchise fees, while others don’t; all told, it makes for one big mess to compare different locations in any apples-to-apples way.
Similarly, some fees that are technically added by the companies — to recoup state or federal charges — are fixed by other entities, and so the cable companies don’t have much to do with it.
But then there are the pure revenue fees — those times where cable companies are making bank by charging you money they could just have put in their packages. The biggest bugaboos we saw?
There’s a reason the FCC is going after the set-top box market: the vast majority of customers we saw are paying between $10 and $20 for their primary cable or satellite receiver, let alone second and subsequent units.
For the pay-TV companies, this is a big source of revenue — even pro-industry estimates put it at $13 billion a year — so of course these companies hate the proposal.
Even if cable box fees are limited, they will find a way to make up the charges to customers.
Some fees, like cable modem rental, you can eliminate by buying your own. But this one, at this time, you’re basically stuck with unless you cut the cord entirely.
Sometimes these were rolled into the set-top box fees, and sometimes they were broken out. But let’s be real here: HD broadcasting started in 1996 and the TiVo launched in 1999 — respectively 20 and 17 years ago.
High-definition television uses more bandwidth than standard-def does, it’s true, but when a technology is nearly old enough to go buy itself a celebratory birthday drink at the bar, perhaps the time to charge extra for it as a “feature” has truly come and gone.
If you have something like a TiVo or other DVR, you don’t need to subscribe to DVR service from your cable company, but opting out of HD television in 2016 kind of defeats the point of having programming at all, for the majority of consumers.
Let’s make a bet: you pay me $5 a month against the chance of needing my help. If you don’t pay me, and do need help, I’m going to charge you $50 to help. If you do pay me, and need help, I will charge you $10 to help. And if you don’t need my help at all, I pocket all that cash in perpetuity.
It’s how all insurance works, really, and when it comes to really expensive or important things (your house, your car, your health), insurance is important to have, as you could be out thousands of dollars or even left homeless otherwise.
As part of your cable bill, though, maybe not so much. The satellite companies charge $8 per month for their protection plans, and Charter charges $5. If you don’t want to take the bet, you can opt out of these plans.
Last but not least, the “Broadcast TV fee” is probably the most egregious of the whole set, with the “regional sports” fee running right behind.
When the telecommunications act got its big fat upgrade in the 1990s, so did the rules pertaining to the carriage agreements between local broadcast stations (your NBC, NBC, and CBS affiliates and so on — the whole UHF and VHF gamut) and cable carriers.
That change in regulation opened up the opportunity for broadcast stations to negotiate their own retransmission rates rates with cable companies. Since 1994, the cable companies have been permitted to pass those costs through to consumers.
Similarly, companies charge extra for recouping the cost of carrying regional sports networks in your package, whether or not you want them. (Sometimes it can be almost impossible to get a bundle without.) Those are the “regional sports fees,” and cable companies say that it’s simply too expensive to carry whatever channel is playing baseball in your neighborhood.
As a bonus: if you’re a Comcast customer, you’re paying regional sports fees for them to bring you… Comcast-owned stations. That is some chutzpah.
The thing is, though, there’s already a pass-through charge for recouping retransmission fees, and it’s called “your entire cable bill.”
Because that’s exactly how the system works: content companies, like Disney and Discovery and Viacom and so on, make agreements with distribution companies, like Comcast and Charter. For every cable subscriber that receives Channel X in their bundle, Cable Company Y will pay the content company that owns Channel X a small monthly fee. If the agreement is for $0.50, and 10 million subscribers receive that channel, then the cable company pays the content company $5 million per month.
The cable company recoups those fees by getting paying subscribers in the door. So if you pay $100 per month for your cable bill, and you get Channel X, then nominally about $0.50 of your bill goes to that company. It’s not that direct, of course, and the cable company is using giant pools of fungible money on both ends, but that’s the idea.
With “Broadcast” and “regional sports” fees added on — which can run $8 per month or more, combined — cable companies are simply increasing the rate you pay for cable TV while claiming not to be increasing the rate you pay for cable. It’s impressive, in its own way.
Some companies, like Dish and Charter, are particularly opaque about the various taxes you might need to pay.
Dish has a line item for “tax” but rolls various state and local taxes into one line item so you can’t see what the real charges are. And when it comes to voice service, Charter completely fails to break out any line items and instead just rolls them all into your monthly fee. Convenient? Sure, maybe, if you’re trying to save space on the bill — but that makes it very hard to tell what the real cost of service is, and where your money goes.
On the other end of the spectrum, AT&T Uverse goes so transparent with its invoice details that it loops right back around to being opaque.
By breaking out literally every charge into a separate fee, and putting them all in separate sections of the bill, AT&T generates confusion and make it look, incorrectly, like some fees are being assessed twice.
The best bills are a happy medium, which — don’t count this as an endorsement — Comcast strikes fairly well.
One recurring theme we noticed: new customers are getting better packages, for less money, than existing customers.
When pricing out comparable bundles for the bill guides, we generally saw that new customers were being offered the same or better service for $10-$20 less than our current customer. We even found one ten-year Charter customer, whose bill we did not publish, paying roughly $75 per month more than a brand-new customer, getting similar service, in their neighborhood would.
Customers who do happen to live in competitive markets might as well shop around, check with other businesses, and see who’s offering the best deal. Competition has this way of dropping prices and improving available service, after all.
Unfortunately, a huge percentage of us live in markets where we are stuck with a cable/broadband monopoly, so switching is off the table.
The conventional wisdom says that if you can’t quit, you may as well negotiate. And for a long time, that was good advice.
As recently as 2014, our siblings at Consumer Reports put together a handy list of tips for negotiating a better deal with your cable company. Even in a 2015 survey Consumer Reports still found that by and large, the 42% of customers who tried to negotiate were able either to reduce their bills or to get more services included for the prices they were paying.
Anecdotally, however, it appears that the big companies — especially Comcast — aren’t as interested in negotiating with you as they used to be. Consumerist readers who have tried to negotiate better TV or triple-play rates with Comcast in recent months tell Consumerist that the company is simply not playing anymore, and the calls are ending either with rates unchanged or with Comcast calling a would-be cord-cutter’s bluff, and cheerfully snipping their service.
Why the turn-around from extreme efforts at retention to a “don’t let the door hit’cha on the way out” attitude?
Perhaps the wave of high profile, awkward, painful, retention-related PR disasters the company endured in 2014 and early 2015 has finally pushed it in that direction.
Or maybe they’re just reading the writing on the wall: pay-TV has been losing customers for a while, after all, while broadband subscriptions are going up, up, up. And pay TV costs a lot more to provide, and has much thinner profit margins on it, than broadband service does.
So, friends and readers, we leave you with a parting curiosity. We want to know: if you think your bills are too dang high, have you tried negotiating, and how has that worked out for you?
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Whether you’re hitting the beach, doing yard work, or just out and about in the sun this summer, using sunscreen to protect your skin is generally a good idea. But not all products provide the same level of protection, and some don’t live up to the promises on their packaging.
That’s according to an annual report from our colleagues at Consumer Reports, who tested 65 water-resistant lotions, sprays, and sticks with SPF of 30 or higher.
In all, 28 of the sunscreen products tested failed to meet the SPF claim printed on their label.
“Yet again, our sunscreen testing has shown that consumers may not be getting the protection they’re paying for,” Trisha Calvo, Deputy Editor of Health and Food for Consumer Reports, said in a statement. “Just because a sunscreen claims to offer a certain level of protection doesn’t mean it does. We create and release these ratings to ensure that consumers are informed about what sunscreens work best so they can protect themselves and their families from damaging sun exposure.”
In addition to determining that 43% of sunscreens tested failed to meet their stated SPF standards, CR’s report looked at why these sunscreens fall short and what types of sunscreens were more likely to protect consumers.
As we prepare to enjoy our time in the sun, here are the five things we learned about sunscreen from CR.
1. Trouble With Mineral-based Sunscreens: Over the years, CR has tested 104 different sunscreen products. Through those tests the organization has determined that mineral products – often called “natural” and containing titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, or both as active ingredients — don’t work well.
When CR looked at four years of its sunscreen testing data, it found that 74% of the 19 mineral sunscreens tested did not meet their SPF claim.
Additionally, only 20% of mineral sunscreens that claimed to have an SPF of 40-110 tested above 30 SPF.
2. Chemical-based Sunscreens More Accurate: Over four years, CR has tested 85 chemical sunscreens. Of those products, 42% failed to meet their SPF claims.
Nearly 80% of the chemical sunscreens that claimed to have an SPF of 40-110 tested above a 30 SPF.
3. Falling Below The Label: When CR separated the sunscreens into categories based SPF claims, they found a significant percentage tested below their label.
Nearly 70% of sunscreens labeled SPF 40-110 tested SPF 30 or higher, while only 65% of sunscreens that claimed SPF 30-39 met the mark.
4. Don’t Rely On Marketing: While CR did not test UVO, a drink that claims to provide sun protection for three to five hours after consumption — the publication found no independent research that backed up the claims.
5. Use More Than Sunscreen: While sunscreen can be a great protectant from the sun, CR and the Food & Drug Administration urge consumers seek out additional means, like hats and protective clothing.
“To stay safe in the sun, we encourage consumers to use one of the 17 sunscreens that performed well in our tests,” Calvo said. “If a consumer can’t find one of our recommended sunscreens, their best bet is to use a chemical sunscreen with a claimed SPF of 40 or higher, as it increases the likelihood that it will deliver at least the minimum protection recommended by dermatologists.”
Get the Best Sun Protection [Consumer Reports]
Hearing the news that Google is taking another stab at social media with a new group-chatting app dubbed “Spaces” may feel like deja vu for anyone paying attention to the tech giant’s previous, mostly unsuccessful efforts to gain traction in the social media world with Google+. But Google isn’t the only big name in the tech world that’s tried and failed to popularize a new tech product, not by a long shot.
Companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix are generally known for their successes, but even the most wildly successful companies occasionally make incredibly stupid mistakes, rushing fledgling products out of the nest — whether to beat a competitor to market or out of a misguided understanding of what consumers want — only to have them hit the ground with a resounding splat.
Here are just a few examples of ill-guided hubris from otherwise successful tech companies:
Zune: One of our most frequent submissions to Consumerist’s Raiders of the Lost Walmart hall of infamy, Microsoft’s attempt to slay the iPod giant in 2006 with its own MP3 player was, by all accounts, a complete and humiliating failure that the company stopped making in 2011. It limped along for a few years, until Microsoft finally put it out of its misery by shuttering the streaming service connected to the device last year.
Qwikster: The well-chronicled debacle, which saw Netflix hiking prices and briefly separating its disc-rental arm into a different company in 2011 before reconsidering, resulted in diving stock prices and a massive pay cut for its CEO.
Fire Phone: Amazon, greedy to expand beyond its online shopping services and line of Kindles, flew too close to the sun with its Fire Phone which failed to catch on in a big way: not even two months after it first went on sale in the fall of 2014, Amazon knocked down the price of the phone to only $0.99 with a two-year AT&T contract. A year later, the device was longer for sale and Amazon said it had sold off its global supply. The company disclosed to investors the next month that it was taking a charge of $170 million related to the costs getting the phone stocked and sold, The Verge reported at the time.
Slingshot: What, you don’t remember Slingshot? Yeah, we’re not surprised. Facebook wanted Slingshot to compete with Snapchat, but it got off to a rocky start right from the beginning with a premature launch in June 2015. We didn’t hear much about it until Facebook killed off the photo-sharing app late last year.
Yahoo Screen: You may be vaguely aware that a streaming service called Yahoo Screen once existed, after Yahoo plunked millions of dollars into original programming original programming, including its attempt to fulfill Community‘s “six seasons and a movie” destiny after NBC axed the critically loved sitcom. All that money went straight down the drain when , the company pulled the plug on Yahoo Screen in January this year.
Glass: You’d have to have been living under a rock in 2013 to avoid the news about Google Glass, a wearable smart device that was touted as The Next Big Thing. But after a few years on the market and a few controversies about where and how it could and should be used, Googled stopped selling Glass in January 2015. It’s only mostly dead for the time being, however, as the company is reportedly working on a new version.
Buzz: Google Buzz debuted in 2010 and almost immediately ticked everyone off. At least, it felt like everyone was annoyed with the Facebook wannabe when it made private contact information private right off the bat. Things only got worse from there, and the company killed the ill-fated social network in October 2011.
Stroll around your favorite supermarket and you’ll see a cornucopia of deadlines stamped and printed on your food. That carton of milk says “Sell By,” the box of mac and cheese says “Best Before,” and the jar of horseradish has a “Use By,” none of which are official or necessarily an indicator of safety or quality, resulting in millions of pounds of food being wasted every year based on sometimes arbitrary dates. New legislation coming this week in both the House and Senate hopes to clear up the confusion over the many expiration date labels you find on food.
Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree from Maine are expected to announce their respective bills on Wednesday morning, setting down a path to establish a national standard for date labels.
A 2014 Harvard study found that 90% of Americans have discarded food simply because of the date stamped on the packaging, even though the food is often perfectly safe.
It’s not just consumers that are unnecessarily throwing out food based on these dates. Nearly half the states have laws restricting or outlawing the sale of foods after these dates have passed.
At the same time, some expiration dates are indeed a reflection of that food’s safety. However, the lack of a standardized use for this information means that consumers may be eating unsafe food because they have no faith in the labels.
Food producers also have the burden of dealing with different labeling compliance requirements for each of the 41 states that mandate this information.
The Blumenthal and Pingree legislation is hoping to both establish a single nationwide standard for labeling, and distinguish between a date that indicates a product’s quality and one that indicates the food may no longer be safe to eat.
For example, most cookies don’t pose a threat to your safety if eaten months after they’re sold (though you might chip a tooth), so a date label on a pack of snickerdoodles is generally intended to indicate when you the product will begin to decline in quality.
Under the new bill, these cookies would not require a date label, but if the manufacturer chose to employ one, it would be stamped with a “best if used by” date. According to Walmart, this is the phrase that customers most associate with being an indicator of quality.
Twenty states restrict the sale of food past the date stamped on the label, even if that date is purely a quality reference. The proposed law would override those rules with regard to foods where the date is only an indicator of quality.
Truly perishable foods — dairy, meat, eggs — that do pose a health threat if consumed after a certain date would get the more explicit “expires on” date label.
In an effort to make sure this date isn’t arbitrary, the bill directs the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to identify those ready-to-eat foods with a risk of microbial contamination if not consumed after a certain date.
States would be allowed to continue barring the sale of past-date food if it bears the “expires on” date label.
EAST POINT, Ga. (AP) — Police in the Atlanta area have identified four people seen fighting in a video of a Mother’s Day brawl that went viral.
East Point police Capt. Cliff Chandler tells local news outlets that 26-year-old Devecc Bilingslea, 25-year-old Zacarli Dalcoe, 26-year-old Willis Jumario Hall and 21-year-old Demonte Harrison were cited for disorderly conduct in connection with the May 8 fight at Kiku Japanese Steakhouse.
A police report says Harrison, a busboy, was cleaning tables when a female customer berated him for smiling. Harrison replied that it was his job to smile, and a male customer got up and punched Harrison. The fight escalated from there.
Attorney Charles Webb is representing Hall, Billingslea and Dalcoe. He says the video of the fight doesn’t tell the whole story, and that he believes his clients will be exonerated.
It’s unclear if Harrison has an attorney.
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SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Conservationists anticipate another strong year for nesting by rare sea turtles on the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas after nest totals last year neared or surpassed record numbers.
As of Monday, preliminary numbers showed at least 62 nests filled with loggerhead sea turtle eggs had been recorded on beaches in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina since the nesting season began May 1. The giant turtles, a federally protected species that can grow to weigh up to 300 pounds, typically lay eggs through the end of August.
Sea turtle experts in all three states said the nest counts for the past two weeks don’t give many clues about whether the final 2016 numbers will be high or low. But based on past trends, there may be reason for optimism.
“We would expect to see an above average year this year,” said Mark Dodd, the wildlife biologist who coordinates Georgia’s sea turtle recovery program for the state Department of Natural Resources.
Because sea turtles don’t lay eggs every year, nesting in the region often fluctuates in three-year cycles — two strong years followed by a decline, Dodd said. All three states saw numbers dip in 2014, only to rebound last year. Georgia counted a record 2,292 nests in 2015, with South Carolina and North Carolina reporting numbers just shy of their state records.
Turtle nests began popping up a week to 10 days earlier than normal in the Carolinas this year, likely because of warmer ocean temperatures.
“That might signal that we could get more nests this year,” said Matthew Godfrey, sea turtle program coordinator for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. “But it’s still pretty early.”
The vast majority of loggerhead turtle nesting in the U.S. takes place in Florida, which counted 89,295 total nests last year. With 216 beaches reporting nest numbers statewide, Florida doesn’t keep a running tally, said Anne Meylan, statewide nesting program coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.
As of Monday afternoon, Georgia and South Carolina had reported 27 loggerhead nests apiece this year, while North Carolina’s count was eight.
During the sea turtle nesting season, federal and state wildlife agencies and a small army of volunteers comb beaches in the region each morning for freshly dug turtle nests filled with eggs. The workers catalog each nests and typically put up a protective mesh to foil predators.
For the third year in a row, Georgia’s first nest of 2016 was found on federally protected Cumberland Island, where National Park Service biologist Doug Hoffman and his interns recorded a whopping 583 nests last year.
It’s a sign of progress, Hoffman said, considering Cumberland Island averaged about 225 nests per year from the 1990s until 2009.
“If we continue our trend, we could have 600 nests this year,” Hoffman said. “You just can’t tell until it’s over.”
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HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A bison calf that tourists loaded into their vehicle at Yellowstone National Park because they were concerned for its welfare could not be reunited with its herd and had to be euthanized, park officials said Monday as they reasserted the importance of avoiding wildlife.
The incident last week and several other recent cases led to fresh warnings that park rules require visitors to stay at least 25 yards from all wildlife and 100 yards from bears and wolves.
Visitors brought the newborn calf to a park facility on May 9, which officials called a dangerous move because adult bison are protective and will attack to defend their young. Rangers took the animal back to where it was picked up, but they could not get it back with the herd after several tries.
“The bison calf was later euthanized because it was abandoned and causing a dangerous situation by continually approaching people and cars along the roadway,” the park said in a statement.
The visitors were cited for touching park wildlife and fined $110, Yellowstone spokeswoman Charissa Reid said. She declined to name the visitors or issue a copy of the citation amid the investigation.
In another recent high-profile case, a woman was seen on video trying to pet an adult bison as it rested on the boardwalk around Old Faithful. In another, tourists posed for photos dangerously close to bison that had caused a traffic jam on a road.
Five visitors were seriously injured last year after getting too close to the massive animals.
Approaching wildlife also can affect their well-being and survival, possibly causing mothers to reject their offspring, park officials said.
Such reminders are included on Yellowstone’s website, in information handed to visitors as they come in and on signs throughout the park, Reid said.
“This year we’ve added translations of the safety signage and provide park newspaper translations in a number of different languages,” she said in a statement.
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VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — A retired Navy veteran must pay for two flags after stealing one from his Virginia Beach neighbor because it wasn’t being illuminated at night.
News outlets report a judge on Monday found John Parmele Jr. guilty of three misdemeanors after Parmele’s neighbor Mike Anderson presented footage of the crime being committed.
Parmele said he took the American flag to the Veterans of Foreign Wars to give it a proper retirement.
Parmele says he had tried in vain to get Michael to illuminate the flag on his mailbox at night so it would be in accordance with federal code.
Parmele was found guilty of stealing the flag, trespassing and destruction of property. He was ordered to pay a $300 fine and reimburse Anderson about $100. His 90-day jail sentence was suspended.
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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Fido and Spot may not have to cower under the bed this summer when fireworks and thunderstorms hit, thanks to the first prescription medicine for treating anxiety over loud noises — a widespread problem linked to property destruction, terrified dogs running away and even life-threatening injuries to some.
Veterinary medicine maker Zoetis of Florham Park, New Jersey, says recently approved Sileo (SILL’-lee-oh) will be available through U.S. veterinarians within a week.
It gives dog owners an alternative to human anti-anxiety pills, tranquilizers that sedate dogs for many hours and generally unsuccessful behavioral treatments.
Owners of a third of the 70 million dogs in the U.S. report problems with fear of loud noises. Dogs are sometimes so frightened they jump through windows or run into traffic, getting hit by cars.
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LEXINGTON, Va. (AP) — Virginia’s attorney general’s office says George Mason University does not need state approval to name its law school for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, or SCHEV, was scheduled to vote on the proposal Tuesday. Mason announced plans to name the school for Scalia in conjunction with a $20 million anonymous donation. The $20 million is contingent on renaming the law school, which has a reputation as one of the nation’s most conservative.
At a SCHEV meeting Monday, staffers said a recent opinion for the attorney general’s office concluded that Mason does not need approval from SCHEV.
The council now plans to vote Tuesday on whether it has the authority to vote on the name change.
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CHICAGO (AP) — Add one remarkable case to the 30,000-plus organ transplants expected to be performed nationwide this year: A cancer patient who received a donor penis.
Worldwide, there have been faces, tongues, hands, legs, uteruses — and now the third penis transplant, a first in the U.S. Could any body part be left to transplant? Research is ongoing for eyeballs and an Italian doctor has raised eyebrows with talk of a brain transplant.
Still, the vast majority of operations involve more conventional organs.
Since the nation’s first successful human organ transplant in 1954, involving a kidney, more than 700,000 organ transplants have been done nationwide. Kidneys are the most commonly transplanted organ — almost 18,000 U.S. operations were done last year, followed by livers — about 7,000, and hearts — nearly 3,000, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.
Some of the more rare transplants:
FACE
Since the world’s first face transplant in France in 2005 on a woman mauled by family dog, about 30 more have been done. These include a 26-hour operation last August at NYU Langone Medical Center on a Mississippi firefighter whose face was charred in a fire. Other U.S. cases include a Connecticut woman who got a new face after a 2009 attack by a friend’s chimpanzee.
UTERUS
The first U.S. uterus transplant failed shortly after the Feb. 24 operation at the Cleveland Clinic, but others are planned. About 14 have been done worldwide, said Dr. Vijay Gorantla, medical director of the University of Pittsburgh reconstructive transplant program. These include a 2013 operation in Sweden resulting in the first reported live birth from a transplanted uterus.
HAND AND ARM
Hand and/or arm transplants have been done in more than 85 people globally, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, a leading transplant center. Its patients include the first U.S. soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, who had a double-arm transplant in 2013.
Gorantla said the first U.S. patient, a New Jersey man injured in a firecracker accident, still has total use of his donor hand 17 years after an operation at Louisville’s Jewish Hospital.
LEG
Only three total leg-foot operations have been done worldwide, Gorantla said, but the operations are still experimental. U.S. centers researching the procedure include Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where doctors say potential candidates could include amputees injured in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
TONGUE
Tongues have been transplanted in total face transplants and in at least one case, alone in an Austrian patient with mouth cancer.
FUTURE
Gorantla and his team have a $1 million-plus military grant to establish the nation’s first whole eyeball transplant program, with injured veterans among the potential candidates. He calls this the “holy grail” in transplant medicine, but the operations would be tricky because they would require regenerating the optic nerve, which sends signals to the brain. Success in animal research suggests the procedure will work in humans, he said.
A doctor in Italy has talked of attempting human head and brain transplants but that raises complicated ethical issues and many mainstream scientists are skeptical.
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Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner. Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/lindsey-tanner
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BILOXI, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi grand jury has indicted a former firefighter on a first-degree murder charge in the shooting of a waitress who had asked him not to smoke.
Harrison County Assistant District Attorney Crosby Parker tells The Sun Herald (http://bit.ly/1rQgFIG ) that 45-year-old Johnny Max Mount will be arraigned the week of June 6.
Mount is accused in the slaying of Julie Brightwell, who was shot to death Nov. 27 in Biloxi. Police have said Mount was sitting at the Waffle House counter when Brightwell told him he couldn’t smoke in the restaurant. Testimony at a preliminary hearing shows he was smoking an e-cigarette.
Mount is held on a $2 million bond. He resigned from the Biloxi Fire Department in 2002 after he was hit by a car and lost a leg.
___
Information from: The Sun Herald, http://www.sunherald.com
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WASHINGTON — A dump truck driver has pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted first-degree murder of Prince George’s County police officers, but has been found not criminally responsible and will remain in a mental health facility.
Gene Thomas Brandon was behind the wheel of a 2007 GMC dump truck when he approached officers Jeffrey Bragg and Rodney Lauchman on Jan. 7, 2015, as the officers stood between their parked cruisers at Woodmore Towne Centre, in Glenarden, Maryland.
Brandon told the officers they killed his brother. The officers told Brandon they did not kill his brother, and he would have to move his truck because it was blocking traffic.
When Brandon repeated the accusation, the officers again replied they had not harmed his brother, ordered him to move his vehicle, and told him to have a nice day.
After telling the officers they were about to have a nice day, Brandon drove the truck a short distance, turned around, and accelerated toward the officers.
Brag and Lauchman dashed to a nearby field to avoid being hit, while Brandon struck Lauchman’s cruiser, which hit Brag’s cruiser.
Prince George’s County Police Chief Hank Stawinski praised the officers’ handling of the situation.
“They used incredible restraint, remained calm, and took an individual who was subsequently found to be mentally ill into custody,” Stawinski told News Channel 8.
State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks said Brandon’s mental health status will be re-evaluated every six months.
“Certainly I would like him to be held responsible for his actions that put two of our officers’ lives in jeopardy,” Stawinski said.
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What’s more likely to get you to pay a questionable debt: A notice from some debt collection company you’ve never heard of, or a letter from your state’s attorney general about that same debt? Some states allow certain private, for-profit debt collectors to use prosecutors’ letterhead in correspondence with consumers about debts, even though the American Bar Association looks down on the practice. This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court chimed in on the debate, unanimously giving its SCOTUS seal of approval, at least when it’s done with the state’s approval.
The particular case, Sheriff v. Gillie, before the Supremes involved an Ohio state practice, whereby the Ohio Attorney General appoints private attorneys as “special counsel” to collect debts on the Attorney General’s behalf.
Being deemed a special counsel in Ohio doesn’t just allow a debt collector to use the state AG’s letterhead in dealing with a consumer; the collector is actually required to use the letterhead when trying to get that debt paid.
Two Ohio women sued a couple of these special counsel, alleging that the use of the letterhead violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act’s prohibition against false or misleading representations.
At the District Court level, the Ohio AG’s office successfully intervened on the debt collector defendants’ behalf, arguing that they were effectively officers of the state and therefore exempted from the FDCPA.
However, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently disagreed, vacating the lower court ruling. The appeals panel didn’t rule on whether or not the letterhead was misleading; only that the debt collectors are independent contractors (and not officers of the state).
The pendulum swung the other way once again this morning, with the Supreme Court agreeing that yes, these collectors are independent contractors, but no, the use of the letterhead doesn’t rise to a violation of the law.
In the opinion [PDF] for a unanimous SCOTUS, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explains that it doesn’t really matter whether or not you consider the special counsel to be state officials, because “their use of the Attorney General’s letterhead accurately conveys that special counsel act on behalf of the Attorney General.”
The special counsel are collecting debts owed to the state, and doing so on the state’s behalf, so SCOTUS concluded that it only makes sense that the Ohio AG be identified in the letterhead.
Justice Ginsburg writes that the use of the AG’s letterhead is really the same as a bold-face statement declaring, “We write to you as special counsel to the [A]ttorney [G]eneral who has authorized us to collect a debt you owe to [the State or an instrumentality thereof].”
“If that representation is accurate… it would make scant sense to rank as unlawful use of a letterhead conveying the very same message,” explains the court, noting that the signature blocks of the letters sent identify the signers as “special” or “outside” counsel.
“Special counsel do not employ a false name when using the Attorney General’s letterhead at his instruction,” reads the opinion. “Far from misrepresenting special counsel’s identity, letters sent by special counsel accurately identify the office primarily responsible for collection of the debt (the Attorney General), special counsel’s affiliation with that office, and the address (special counsel’s law firm) to which payment should be sent.”
One concern with programs like this is the potential for abuse. In 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau accused one collector of using prosecutors’ letterhead to create the false impression that consumers may be prosecuted for writing bounced checks – before their cases were ever reviewed by the proper authorities.
The Transportation Safety Administration has been taking quite a beating lately over exceedingly long wait times at screening checkpoints in the nation’s airports. American Airlines now says its employees will be pitching in to help speed things up, after security delays stranded 450 of the carrier’s passengers overnight at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
American brought out cots for folks who missed their flights after waiting in line for two hours at security and were forced to spend Sunday night at O’Hare, ABC-7 reports.
“Got here two and a half hours before my flight and security took two to three (hours) to get through,” one stranded traveler told the news station.
A spokesperson said American will be deploying its own employees over the next week to help with non-security functions. Delta Air Lines announced a similar plan last week.
“(They will be) standing in line, telling people to take shoes off, take electronics out and bag of liquids out,” the spokesperson said.
TSA has been scrambling to add more workers to security checkpoints in time for the busy summer season, as well as encouraging travelers to enroll in TSA Pre-Check in order to alleviate congestion and long lines that customers, airlines, lawmakers, industry trade groups, and airports have been railing against in a united chorus over the last few weeks.
In the meantime, airlines are urging travelers to arrive at the airport at least two hours ahead of their flight in the event that they’re caught in a long line to get through security.
PASSENGERS STRANDED AT O’HARE AIRPORT DUE TO LONG TSA LINES [ABC-7]
The Philadelphia 76ers are arguably the perfect choice for a company looking to test the waters by being the first to advertise on an NBA jersey. The team has been awful for the last few seasons, so most fans’ opinion of the Sixers can’t sink any lower. And those fans who still have some reserve venom in the tank now have a new reason to scream at the team.
Of course, there is no small degree of irony in StubHub — a service associated with getting tickets to sold-out sporting events — sponsoring a team that won a total of 47 games over the last three seasons. Even if all those wins had been this season, the Sixers would have barely eked into the playoffs.
“We are an organization that takes pride in breaking new ground and being innovative,” says Scott O’Neil, CEO of the Sixers (presumably he tells his family he’s something more respected, like a debt collector or an IRS auditor). “We are fortunate to have found a partner with whom we share similar values.”
Again: 47 games in three seasons. I live in Philadelphia. The only time you’d need StubHub to attend a Sixers game in recent years was when they were repeatedly pushing toward record-breaking loss streaks.
Mismatched advertiser aside, the Sixers/StubHub deal is the first of what will likely be universal adoption by all NBA teams for next season.
The ad itself is inoffensive and smallish enough to be ignored. If it’s successful, expect to see another. Then expect to see it repeated in the NHL, then probably the NFL, then the MLB… then we’ll be the past the point of no return. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
There has been no shortage of lawsuits filed against Wells Fargo in recent years, from accusations the bank pushed mortgages on borrowers who couldn’t repay them to claims the company pressed employees to engage in fraudulent conduct with regard to customer accounts. Now, a recently unsealed whistleblower lawsuit melds together those issues, claiming the bank encouraged employees to withhold information from customers that could potentially lead to foreclosure proceedings.
The former employee claims in the suit, originally filed in 2015, that he was terminated in 2014 after he learned the bank had repeatedly collected on mortgages that it didn’t have proper documentation for.
According to the lawsuit [PDF] — unsealed last week when the Department of Justice declined [PDF] to intervene in the case — the employee claims Wells Fargo defrauded the government by collecting $1.4 billion in federal foreclosure-prevention funding for loans the bank knew lacked proper documentation during the housing crisis.
The employee, who had worked for the company for 10 years, testified that he discovered Wells Fargo’s allegedly illegal action in December 2013 while assisting a customer.
The couple, the lawsuit states, were afraid their home was going to be foreclosed on, as they were overdue on their second mortgage and the bank was demanding a balloon payment.
When the employee looked in the company’s computer system for the couple’s contract he realized it was missing or nonexistent. He told the couple of his findings.
“[The employee] promptly reported the issue with the customers to his supervisor and others within Wells Fargo,” the suit states. “The next day, [he] received multiple emails from Wells Fargo headquarters that the loan documents were missing and that the company did not have the customers’ contract. Despite this, Wells Fargo directed [he] to deceive the customers and treat the loan like a balloon payment was due.”
The man says he was not comfortable with the directive, believing it to be unethical and illegal. He says he was “berated” by a supervisor for telling customers the truth about their loan documents.
After the incident the worker says he received several of the same calls and later noticed that many of the loans with missing documentation had been acquired by Wells Fargo from First Union or Sun Trust Bank.
Three months after the first incident, the complaint alleges the employee and others received an email about a company policy that stated when “Wells Fargo has lost loan documents, especially those securing a home, employees are to not share this information with customers under any circumstance.”
In the following months, the man claims he was treated poorly by supervisors and unfairly criticized for his work performance. In November 2014 he was fired.
With the lawsuit, the employee claims Wells Fargo violated the False Claims Act.
A spokesperson for Wells Fargo tells the Oregonian that the company did not violate the law.
“We believe that our claims submitted to the government under the Home Affordable Modification Program were proper and were subject to substantial oversight and review, and will be prepared to defend our record against the claims in the lawsuit,” the spokesperson said.
A lawyer for the former employee says that his client is hopeful that other employees will come forward and join the lawsuit.
Whistleblower claims Wells Fargo misled borrowers, government [The Oregonian]
