pileofcrapola

Things are difficult for the IRS right now. For the last few years, people contacting the IRS have encountered lengthy phone hold times, and identity theft and refund fraud drain billions of dollars’ worth of tax refunds into the pockets of international criminals. The Government Accountability Office has the job of overseeing government agencies, including the IRS, and it released a new report today about its issues and possible ways to fix them.

The 23-page report is actually quite readable, and worth looking at if you’ve been a victim of identity theft or refund fraud, you’re a tax preparer, or you’re interested in the future of how Americans file our taxes.

1. The IRS paid out $3.1 billion in refunds to scammers last year. We’ve discussed in the past how this scam works: someone with basic information about a U.S. taxpayer files a return with fake information, depositing their refund in the scammer’s own account. It’s a sophisticated operation and very lucrative.

   

   While the IRS was able to stop most fraudsters in tax year 2014, they’re already figuring out how to hack and social engineer their way into more refunds next year. People whose W-2 information was taken in a variation of the Boss Scam this year should be especially vigilant, locking down their IRS e-filing information and filing their real returns as soon as possible.

2. The IRS doesn’t actually have your W-2 information before they issue your refund. Your employer had to send it to them, yes, and you used those numbers to file your taxes, but a previous GAO reprot on the IRS pointed out that the agency doesn’t actually match up the numbers that you put down on your return with the numbers that your employer provided until July.

   This means that if you delay in filing, someone can file a fake return on your behalf and scoop up a fake refund based on whatever information they make up. If you put false information in your tax return, later in the year, the IRS will catch up with you. Scammers who live thousands of miles away don’t care.

3. The IRS could prevent fraud by checking taxpayers’ pay information against what their employers submitted before issuing refunds. This would be theoretically possible if they received W-2s electronically, but anyone with fewer than 250 employees can submit them on paper.

   The GAO suggests that the IRS consider making all employers but the smallest businesses (with 5 to 10 employees) submit their W-2s electronically, and change their workflow to verify returns before cutting metaphorical and literal refund checks.

4. The IRS began an agency-wide information security program to lock things down, but failed to implement all parts of it across the entire massive agency, leaving weak spots. An example: auditing who had access to which systems, and making sure that people only had enough access to do their own jobs.
5. “Improvement” is relative. The IRS did better dealing with taxpayers contacting them by phone this year, but took the average wait time down to an estimated 25.8 minutes, compared to 30.5 minutes last year.

   

6. The most important part of information security at the IRS is users getting access to e-file their returns: methods need to be secure enough that someone who has stolen a taxpayer’s identity can’t easily access their tax history and filing PIN, but easy enough to use that we don’t all forget our passwords from year to year.

IRS Needs a Comprehensive Customer Service Strategy and Needs to Better Combat Identity Theft Refund Fraud and Protect Taxpayer Data [GAO]

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Popular boxer briefs, Stuhrling watches, and your favorite dash cam lead off Wednesday’s best deals.

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Is the Big Mac too big for you? Or maybe you want a bigger Big Mac. In an effort to get its signature sandwich in the hands of as many people as possible, McDonald’s is testing tweaked versions of the iconic Big Mac in a variety of sizes.

Columbus Business First reports that the Golden Arches is trying out the Big Mac in two new sizes: the larger Grand Mac, the smaller Jr. Mac.

The Grand Mac is composed of all the typical Big Mac ingredients, just on a super-sized scale with a third of a pound of beef. That’s compared to the traditional Big Mac, which comes with one fifth pound of beef.

On the other end of the spectrum, the smaller Mac Jr. is simply a Big Mac with just one layer.

More than 125 McDonald’s stores in central Ohio and in the Dallas/Fort Worth area began testing the new burgers on Tuesday. The experiment is slated to run through June 6.

An Ohio-area franchisee says the tests of the different sized Big Macs were initiated after customers asked for them.

McDonald’s testing bigger Big Mac (and a Mac Jr.) in Columbus and Dallas [Columbus Business First]

The price of solid state drives has been on a steady decline for the last year, and they’re already a top pick for easily improving the performance of your laptop , desktop, or even your PS4. But they also make really fantastic external drives—if more expensive than a traditional hard drive.

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If you feel like your resume could use some padding, fear not, you’re probably just selling yourself short. A little job posting exploration can help you find some skills you forgot to add.

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Glassdoor is an excellent way to find out what other companies in your industry are paying for your job. Their new report for 2016 reveals the top 25 highest paying companies in America.

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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia high school discriminated against a transgender teen by forbidding him from using the boys’ restroom, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a case that could have implications for a North Carolina law that critics say discriminates against LGBT people.

The case of Gavin Grimm has been especially closely watched since North Carolina enacted a law last month that bans transgender people from using public restrooms that correspond to their gender identity. That law also bans cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances, a response to an ordinance recently passed in Charlotte.

In the Virginia case, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — which also covers North Carolina — ruled 2-1 to overturn the Gloucester County School Board’s policy. The court said the policy violated Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination in schools. The ruling also said a federal judge who previously rejected Grimm’s discrimination claim ignored a U.S. Department of Education rule that transgender students in public schools must be allowed to use restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

“We agree that it has indeed been commonplace and widely accepted to separate public restrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities on the basis of sex,” the court wrote in its opinion. “It is not apparent to us, however, that the truth of these propositions undermines the conclusion we reach regarding the level of deference due to the department’s interpretation of its own regulations.”

Maxine Eichner, a University of North Carolina law professor who is an expert on sexual orientation and the law, said the ruling — the first of its kind by a federal appeals court — means the provision of North Carolina’s law pertaining to restroom use by transgender students in schools that receive federal funds also is invalid.

“The effects of this decision on North Carolina are clear,” she said, adding that a judge in that state will have no choice but to apply the appeals court’s ruling.

North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, speaking to reporters just after the decision was made public, said he strongly disagrees with what he calls Democratic President Barack Obama’s “objective to force our high schools to allow a boy in a woman’s or girl’s locker room facility.” He said high schools should be allowed to make “appropriate arrangements for those students that have unique circumstances.”

McCrory said the ruling “puts a whole dynamic” on North Carolina’s law.

Other states in the 4th Circuit are Maryland, West Virginia and South Carolina. While those states are directly affected by the appeals court’s ruling, Eichner said the impact will be broader.

“It is a long and well-considered opinion that sets out the issues,” she said. “It will be influential in other circuits.”

Appeals court Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, who was appointed to the appeals court by Republican President George H.W. Bush, wrote in a dissenting opinion that the majority’s opinion “completely tramples on all universally accepted protections of privacy and safety that are based on the anatomical differences between the sexes.”

The majority opinion was written by Judge Henry F. Floyd and joined by Judge Andre M. Davis, both Obama appointees. The Richmond-based court was long considered the nation’s most conservative federal appeals court, but a series of vacancies in the last few years has allowed Obama to reshape it. Including the two senior judges, the court now has 10 judges appointed by Democrats and seven by Republicans.

The school board could appeal the decision to the full appeals court or the U.S. Supreme Court. David Patrick Corrigan, attorney for the school board, did not immediately respond to a telephone message.

Grimm was born female but identifies as male. He was allowed to use the boys’ restrooms at the school for several weeks in 2014. But after some parents complained, the school board adopted a policy requiring students to use either the restroom that corresponds with their biological gender or a private, single-stall restroom.

Grimm called the policy stigmatizing. School officials said the policy respects the privacy of all students.

The 16-year-old Gloucester High School junior said he was “dead to the world asleep” at noon, catching up after a couple of nights of insomnia, when the phone rang with what he called the best news he can remember ever receiving.

Because the school board could appeal further, it’s unclear whether Grimm will be able to use the boys’ room anytime soon — but he said he’s not worried about that.

“Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of the situation,” Grimm said in a telephone interview. “I’m just going to take things one day at a time.”

___

Associated Press writers Jonathan Drew and Gary Robertson contributed to this report from Raleigh, North Carolina.

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WASHINGTON — The National Zoo’s giant panda cub turns 8 months old Friday and is being trained to be well behaved.

Teaching Bei Bei to come inside when called involves keepers using food as rewards, zoo biologist Laurie Thompson writes in the April 19 “Giant Panda Bulletin.”

Bei Bei weighed 37 pounds when last on a scale, so he’s starting more specialized training that will assist keepers and veterinarians as he gets ever larger.

Thompson’s panda family update details how Bei Bei’s older sister, the ever curious Bao Bao, likes to climb trees to spy on keepers when they’re working close to her yard.

Watch of video of Bei Bei climbing a tree in February:

Now that mom, Mei Xiang, has had three cubs, keepers are noticing a trend observed elsewhere — panda moms are more actively engaged with male cubs. Panda experts theorize the extended-play sessions provide the male cubs helpful social lessons for the future.

As for what’s new with the panda family’s dad, Tian Tian, he loves water, getting squirted with a hose and playing in a tub of bubble bath. Tian Tian is getting extra enrichment activities now from zoo keepers because it’s the middle of his rutting, or breeding season, and he can be restless.

Mei Xiang won’t be fertile this year because she’s still nursing Bei Bei.

The post National Zoo giant panda cub Bei Bei growing, learning new behaviors appeared first on WTOP.

196. That’s the number of sporting goods stores that are set to close after two retail companies filed for bankruptcy in recent weeks. While the failures of Vestis Retail Group — the operator of retailers Eastern Mountain Sports, Sport Chalet, and Bob’s — and Sports Authority were accelerated by mountains of debt both incurred in recent years, there’s more at work when it comes to the apparent demise of sporting goods retailers. 

While retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods and REI seem to be riding the top of the sporting good hierarchy with billions of dollars in sales each year, other retailers like Sports Authority and Sport Chalet are being pushed out of what has become a more saturated market.

Analysts say that several factors have played into the success of some retailers and the faltering sales — and eventual closures — of others.

For starters, financial health plays a large role in the viability of retailers. Both Sports Authority, which is closing 140 stores, and Sport Chalet, which is closing all 48 stores, were burdened with unsurmountable debt after being purchased by other firms, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Rather than go further into debt — in the hope of seeing a long-term turnaround — by investing in improvements to their outdated business models, these stores seem to have focused primarily on cutting costs to reduce red ink.

“If a retailer’s got a lot of debt, it means they’re not spending money on stores, they’re not spending money on systems, they’re not spending money on the kinds of things they need to do to drive the business forward,” Matt Powell, an industry analyst at market research firm NPD Group, tells the L.A. Times.

In fact, analysts say that Sport Chalet, which started as a small family owned business before being purchased by Vestis Group, was never able to cultivate its online presence.

That, coupled with a smaller presence — fewer than 50 stores limited to the west coast — and a very specialized outdoor focus, prevented the company from keeping up with competitors.

“I think it’s really hard to do that and be 40 stores. I think maybe if you’re three stores you can do it, or if you’re a hundred stores, you can do it,” Jeff Harbaugh, a consultant for small-to-mid market active outdoor companies tells New Orleans Public Radio WWNO.

Being too small and too focused wasn’t the issue for Sports Authority, which operated 463 stores nationwide, and sold a wide range of sporting goods. It just couldn’t keep pace with more attractive competition.

The big box store is just one of several competing to be the go-to place for shoppers.

National retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods, — which may purchase Sports Authority’s assets — Academy Sports, Cabela’s, and Bass Pro, along with regional retailers like Scheel’s, cut into Sports Authority’s sales by offering customers an experience when shopping.

“They are product generalists rather than product specialists,” Jon Schallert, Longmont retail and marketing consultant, tells the Denver Post. “So many consumers these days who are into sports and outdoor activities really want specialized products. Just like Macy’s and other generalized big-box stores, they’ve found themselves in trouble.”

Analysts tell WWNO that the pending Sports Authority closures also highlight the natural evolution of retail and the limited space for such generalist sporting good retailers.

“There just aren’t many examples where three big box concepts really survive in a single industry,” John Horan, publisher of Sporting Goods Intelligence, tells WWNO. “Retailing’s the most Darwinian business there is. Eventually, somebody gets out there and becomes the most important retailer and becomes the gatekeeper to the consumer for the brand.”

And that wasn’t Sports Authority, analysts say.

The same could be said for the more niche-centered Sport Chalet, which focused primarily on winter sports, diving, marathon running, and hiking.

Other specialized stores have invaded those areas, like REI, and have been able to develop stronger relationships with suppliers and customers, alike, the L.A. Times reports.

“You’ve got way too many stores selling too much similar product. Some of them need to go away,” Harbaugh tells WWNO.

Was this helpful? We’re a non-profit! You can get more stories like this in our twice weekly ad-free newsletter! Click here to sign up.

Are sport retail bankruptcies Darwinism at work? [WWNO]
Why sporting goods retailers are fumbling [The Los Angeles Times]
Why Sports Authority is headed for bankruptcy [Denver Post]

By now, we’ve gotten used to the idea that not all milk on the market comes from cows, which is a great thing for lactose-intolerant people or those who prefer not to consume animal products: there’s soy milk, coconut milk, rice milk, hemp milk, and almond milk, among other things. One non-dairy product we never saw coming? Pea milk — which is now a real thing.

While it apparently doesn’t taste anything like the vegetable, milk made from pea protein is a very real thing that’s heading to grocery stores soon from a company called Ripple Foods, which is the brainchild of one of the founders of sustainable soap brand Method.

It took a year for Ripple to tackle the challenge of making creamy, sweet milk from peas, reports Co.exist, and come out with something that doesn’t actually taste like peas. In fact, Ripple says, it tastes more like dairy milk than the other dairy-alternatives out there.

“The primary challenge is one of flavor,” Ripple Food’s Adam Lowry told Co.exist. “If you just make pea milk the way that you make almond milk, with regular yellow peas, you can get a very high protein beverage, but it frankly tastes terrible. That’s because if you put a lot of peas in the milk, it’s going to taste like peas.”

To create the milk, the company developed a technology that can “separate the good stuff from the peas from all of the stuff that kind of gives it that off-flavor and color,” Lowry explains, leaving all the protein behind and none of the pea taste.

Ripple will be available at Whole Foods as of May 2 for $4.99 per 48-ounce bottle. Eventually the product will expand to other outlets as well.

This Pea-Based Milk Is Healthier Than Almond Milk, And Actually Tastes Almost Like Milk [Co.exist]

Legislators in D.C. are currently considering a law that would compel tech companies to have weak device and software encryption so that law enforcement can snoop when necessary, while federal prosecutors have repeatedly used a 227-year-old law to try to force Apple and Google to work around existing security on their products. A new lawsuit seeks to find out if the government has also been using a highly secretive court to force tech companies to assist in breaking their own encryption.

Created in the late 1970s, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court [FISC] is responsible for reviewing requests from the government for surveillance involving issues of national security. Decisions made by FISC and its appellate kin, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review [FISCR] have long been classified, resulting in secretive programs like the National Security Agency’s sweeping PRISM project, which allowed the NSA to use FISC orders to collect stored data from large Internet companies.

Then, in June 2015, President Obama signed the USA FREEDOM Act [PDF], which includes a requirement that “significant” FISC and FISCR decisions be declassified.

More precisely, Sec. 402(a) of the new law order the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Attorney General to conduct a declassification review of “each decision, order, or opinion issued” by these two courts “that includes a significant construction or interpretation of any provision of law” and to make each document “publicly available to the greatest extent practicable.”

Given the Justice Department’s public efforts to compel Apple and others to unlock devices and weaken encryption, the folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have been trying to figure out whether or not the NSA or other agencies have tried using FISC to secretly make the same demands of these companies.

In Oct. 2015, the EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request with the Justice Department’s National Security Division, seeking any applications to FISC to compel technical assistance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA]; any written FISC opinions or orders regarding these applications; and any related briefings or correspondence with FISC, its staff, or any third party concerning these applications.

Two months later, the DOJ responded, claiming that it could find no applications or orders that fit the EFF’s request, but that there were some pieces of correspondence that may relate. However, the government contends that the sought-after documents were exempt from disclosure under the FOIA guidelines.

EFF subsequently appealed that decision, arguing that the DOJ “had failed to conduct an adequate search for records” and that the government “had improperly withheld records under FOIA.”

In March, before the DOJ responded to that appeal, EFF filed new FOIA requests, effectively seeking access to all of the documentation — from 1978 through June 2015 — that was to be declassified by the USA FREEDOM Act.

Though the DOJ has conversed with EFF about ways to prioritize such a sweeping request, the government has yet to provide any documents or respond in any substantive way. However, in early April it shot down the EFF’s appeal of its initial FOIA query.

And so, today the non-profit advocacy group filed a lawsuit [PDF] in a federal court in California, accusing the DOJ of violating FOIA by “failing to conduct an adequate search for records… failing to produce all records in the agency’s possession responsive to Plaintiff’s request, and by failing to adequately segregate responsive from non-responsive records.”

The EFF is asking the court to order the DOJ to immediately process the FOIA requests in their entirety, and make copies available.

“If the government is obtaining FISC orders to force a company to build backdoors or decrypt their users’ communications, the public has a right to know about those secret demands to compromise people’s phones and computers,” explains the EFF’s Nate Cardozo. “The government should not be able to conscript private companies into weakening the security of these devices, particularly via secret court orders.”

Regardless of whether or not the first FOIA request turns up examples of tech companies being compelled to weaken or bypass encryption, the EFF maintains that the lawsuit is necessary to force the DOJ to comply with the declassification order required by the FREEDOM Act.

“Congress wanted to bring an end to secret surveillance law, so it required that all significant FISC opinions be declassified and released,” says Mark Rumold of the EFF. “Our lawsuit seeks to hold DOJ accountable to the law.”

Earlier this week, Amazon announced that it was making its Prime membership program — which includes access to the Prime library of streaming video and music, discounted and expedited shipping, and other benefits — available on a monthly basis in two different forms. Instead of the annual all-encompassing fee of $99 (which comes out to $8.25/month), shoppers have the option of either $8.99/month for Prime Video only, or $10.99/month for full access to the program. So does it ever make sense to go the monthly route or should Amazon shoppers just ante up for the annual subscription?

There is no clear choice that covers all shoppers, but there are some scenarios in which one plan may be more suited.

1. The Year-Round Amazon Customer

If you’re a regular shopper on Amazon and want the shopping benefits of Prime, it makes more sense to go with the full-year plan instead of the month-to-month option. Yes, you’ve got to pay $99 all at once for that membership, but that ends up significantly less expensive than the $131.88 you’d spend over the course of the year.

Depending on what you buy, and how quickly you need it, you may want to consider ditching Prime altogether. Amazon recently made it more difficult for non-Prime members to qualify for free shipping, raising the minimum order to qualify for free shipping on most (non-book) purchases to $49. Book purchases only need to hit the $25 mark to qualify.

So if you’re regularly making purchases that pass the free-shipping threshold and don’t mind waiting a few extra days for delivery, then maybe the money you’re spending Prime could be put to better use elsewhere.

2. The Holiday Amazon Shopper

Don’t like dealing with holiday shopping crowds, or getting to the store only to find the gift you wanted to buy is out of stock? That’s why online shopping was invented.

Many gift purchases would likely be above that $49 minimum to qualify for free shipping without Prime, but that brings in the other factor: Shipping time.

Maybe it’s a last-minute purchase, or maybe that vague “5 to 8 day” window for non-Prime customers is too big for you, then you’ll either have to pay for expedited shipping or go the monthly Prime route.

For example, two-day shipping on a PlayStation 4 will run you $14.48. Adding a month of Prime for $10.99 would shave more than $2 off that shipping cost.

Add in a copy of Dark Souls III and your non-Prime two-day shipping costs goes up to $22.46. The monthly fee for Prime would cut that in half.

So if you’re only an occasional Amazon shopper who swoops in once or twice a year to buy several items at the same time, the monthly Prime might be the better option of the two. Just remember to cancel when you’re not using it.

3. The Video Game Buyer

Earlier this year, in an effort to compete with the growing online marketplaces for console video games, Amazon began discounting pre-ordered and newly released video games by 20% for Prime members.

That means a new game like the aforementioned Dark Souls III will only cost $47.99, instead of the $59.99 other customers pay.

Avid gamers who regularly purchase new release games throughout the year would probably want to consider the annual Prime membership. But if you’re just looking to save on a particular title, the $10.99 fee for Prime would result in a net savings of one dollar for that game — plus the free release-date delivery.

The one tricky part here is knowing for certain when a video game is being released. Any gamer knows that release dates aren’t terribly reliable, and games are frequently delayed. The 20% video game discount for Prime is applied at shipping, so if you’re going to become a short-term Prime member just to save money on video games, it would be best to wait until shortly before the release date to make sure there isn’t a last-minute schedule change. (We’ve asked Amazon to confirm that this is correct and will update if/when we hear back).

4. Prime Video

If you’re coming to Amazon Prime for the streaming video library, the monthly $10.99 plan makes little sense (unless you’re only going to need access for a few weeks and need to make a bunch of purchases with two-day shipping).

Which is why Amazon also announced a standalone Prime Video-only service for $8.99/month, targeting curious but commitment-phobic cord-cutters. Over the course of a year, you’d pay a total of $8.88 more for the ability to add/drop the service as needed.

Aside from people who want to test Prime Video without having to fork over a whole year’s membership fee, who might be interested in this month-to-month access?

If you’re a fan of an Amazon original show, like Transparent or Catastrophe and just want to pay to binge-watch a new season over the course of a few days, then maybe it’s worth simply paying for access whenever something of interest pops up on Prime.

This could also hold true for some of the cable show catalogs in the Prime library. Want to catch up on Season 3 of Orphan Black but don’t feel like paying $15-20 to purchase the entire season? The $8.99 for a month of Prime Video will cost you less.

Important: Regardless of whether you try the $10.99/month full Prime access or the $8.99/month Prime Video access, make sure to keep track of when that month renews so that you’re not paying for months you don’t want or need.

WASHINGTON — Old Bay maker McCormick & Co. sells plenty of dried herbs, but its newest acquisition is aimed at the fresh herb shopper.

McCormick has acquired Botanical Food Co., maker of the Botanical Gourmet Garden brand of fresh herb pastes, for $114 million and says it will invest in expanding the product’s reach by increased branding.

Gourmet Garden’s products suspend fresh herbs in an oil mixture. A 4-ounce tube of basil stir-in paste contained three bunches of organically grown sweet basil. The products keep, refrigerated, for several weeks.

Gourmet Garden is based in Australia, although the United States is its largest market.

“We expect strong growth for these products, particularly in the U.S. and key international markets where consumers appreciate the value and accessibility of cooking with a more convenient flavoring alternative,” said McCormick Chief Executive Lawrence Kurzius in a written statement. “The Gourmet Garden brand offers a more convenient alternative to consumers who currently buy fresh herbs.”

Gourmet Garden, whose products also include fresh ginger, chili pepper, garlic and cilantro, says its sales are growing at double-digit rates.

McCormick has been expanding beyond traditional dried herbs and spices in recent years with the addition of products like herb grinders and slow cooker sauces and acquisitions that have added prepared rice and pasta dishes.

The company, based in Sparks, Maryland, had $4.3 billion in 2015 sales and about 10,000 employees worldwide.

The post McCormick bets on squeeze-bottle herbs appeared first on WTOP.

CHESTERFIELD, Va. (AP) — Police say a train carrying animals from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus hit a car on the tracks in Virginia.

Chesterfield Police spokeswoman Elizabeth Caroon says the train dragged the car about a half-mile down the tracks late Monday before it came to a stop. She says 22-year-old Teontrey Thomas of Petersburg, the only person in the car, was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. She says Thomas was issued a summons for reckless driving.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey spokesman Stephen Payne says all the people and the animals on the train are fine. He says the tracks were cleared, and the train proceeded about three hours after the crash.

The post Train carrying Ringling Bros. animals hits car on tracks appeared first on WTOP.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — US appeals court in Virginia: Banning transgender teen from boys’ restroom is discriminatory.

The post US appeals court in Virginia: Banning transgender teen from boys’ restroom is discriminatory appeared first on WTOP.

With some serious cost-cutting, it’s possible to make ends meet in an expensive city. Living comfortably, however, is a different story. Using the 50-30-20 budgeting guideline, GOBankingRates calculated the income you need to live comfortably in 50 cities across the United States.

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GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A California couple has pleaded guilty to producing child pornography.

Thirty-five-year-old Jesus Coca and his wife, 36-year-old Caroline Coca, of Hawthorne, California, entered the pleas Monday in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

According to their plea agreements, the Cocas sexually abused a child from age 10 to 14. Prosecutors say Caroline Coca performed sex acts on the child while Jesus Coca watched via FaceTime.

Sentencing is set for Jesus Coca on July 7, and for Caroline Coca on July 8.

The post California couple pleads guilty to producing child porn appeared first on WTOP.

WASHINGTON — The American Eagle Foundation’s Eagle cameras that have been keeping an eye on two bald eagles and their newly hatched eaglets at the National Arboretum have had more than 32 million views in the last month and a half, and now it is time for fans of the baby eagles to choose their names.

The Friends of the National Arboretum has narrowed the choices down to five pairs of names, after getting thousands of suggestions through a social media campaign.

Online voting opened to the public at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Votes will be accepted through 11:59 p.m. April 24.

Here are the finalist names for the two eaglets:

• Stars and Stripes
• Freedom and Liberty
• Anacostia and Potomac
• Honor and Glory
• Cherry and Blossom

They are growing fast. The American Eagle Foundation says they will be as big as their parents by June.

The parents are named Mr. President and The First Lady.

“We hope that by the time the eaglets fledge, viewers will have gained a greater sense of understanding, involvement and enthusiasm when it comes to bald eagle and wildlife conservation,” said Al Cecere, American Eagle Foundation founder and president.

Mr. President and The First Lady chose a Tulip Poplar tree at the National Arboretum for their nest in 2014, the first bald eagle pair to nest there since 1947.

Cast your vote for the eaglets’ names.

The final names will be announced April 26 at the National Arboretum.

The post Help name the National Arboretum eaglets appeared first on WTOP.

Marijuana offers some helpful medical benefits when used well, but thanks its current (and unusual) legal status it’s hard to obtain and use effectively. Once you learn the basics, however, you can overcome these hurdles. Let’s take a look at how medical marijuana works and the laws surrounding it.

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We asked you what household skills people should learn in their 20s , but what about those who are a little older and more experienced in living on their own? What household skills do you think everyone should know how to handle in their 30s?

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When you’ve got a ferocious cold or a clanging headache that won’t go away, sometimes the thought of facing other people is horrible enough to keep you from procuring cough syrup, aspirin, and other comforts at the drug store. If you can handle a car ride, CVS Health will now deliver customers’ orders to them with a new free curbside pick-up service launching nationwide.

CVS Express, in a partnership with a company called Curbside, will let shoppers buy products on an app. Customers will then receive a text or email when their order is ready, about an hour after they place their order. The app notifies the store when the customer arrives to pick it up at their local store, where a worker will bring the goods out to their car, the Associated Press reports.

Customers cannot refill and pick up prescriptions using CVS Express, however; that’s what CVS’ thousands of drive-thru locations are for.

CVS first tested a program that involved customers buying online and then had them going into stores to pick up their orders. That wasn’t doing it for customers.

“We knew we could help the people who are in a rush, or with children or are just sick and can’t get out of their car for whatever reason, so we felt like this was a bigger innovation for the consumer,” Executive Vice President Helena Foulkes told the AP.

CVS started the CVS Express service last December at a dozen stores in San Francisco, and has expanded to Atlanta and Charlotte, NC since then, offering the option in 361 stores. The company plans to roll out the program to the majority of its more than 7,900 retail locations by the end of the year.

The chain isn’t the only retailer trying out the curbside pick-up idea: Walmart added eight new markets to its free curbside service including including Austin, Texas, and Charleston, SC. By the end of this month, it will offer the service in about 200 stores in 30 markets. Farther on down the line, Walmart might even use drones for curbside pickup.

Target has also been working on a curbside program with the same tech firm as CVS, with a test it’s running in five markets that cover 122 stores.

Drugstore chain CVS pushes convenience with curbside pickups [Associated Press]

While banks have issued hundreds of millions of more secure chip-enabled payment cards in the U.S., only around 20% of Visa merchants currently have chip-card readers up and running. If you’ve used one of these cards at a store, you’ve likely experienced the odd, silent wait as your card sits in the reader, seemingly taking forever for approval. An upgrade from Visa aims to shave a significant amount of time off this process.

If Visa’s new “Quick Chip” upgrade — announced this morning — works properly, customers will no longer have to stand there awkwardly for 10-20 seconds with their card sticking out of the reader, waiting for approval. Instead, it would be more akin to the typical ATM experience, where the customer dips the card into the reader for only a second or two.

Once implemented, Visa customers should also be able to dip their chip cards into the reader before the total amount of the transaction has been finalized. Magnetic stripe card readers have long allowed shoppers to do this, but chip-card readers have generally required the customer wait until a total price has been tallied. For a customer who is otherwise standing idly by as a cashier scans and bags items, this could take precious seconds off the entire process.

For shoppers — especially those with children underfoot — it means fewer seconds wasted, wondering if you put the card into the machine correctly while the people behind you think you somehow screwed things up. For retailers, it means happier customers and speedier checkout lines.

The upgrade to Quick Chip is free to merchants and payment processors, and no new technology is required; just a software update.

When a family from near Los Angeles traveled with their toddler to visit family on the other side of the country, they gate-checked a carry-on suitcase that contained family treasures, including their wedding album and their daughter’s baby book. Somewhere during the flight, the bag went missing or was stolen. They assumed that the albums were gone permanently, but then a mysterious car dropped the book on their doorstep and drove away.

Who was in the vehicle? Where did they get the baby book? While the family is very glad to have the book back, the transaction leaves them with a lot of questions. Where is the rest of the stuff from the gate-checked suitcase? How did the woman in the car get the personal items?

The family can guess how the person who found the book or stole the suitcase found them, since their home address had been torn off a greeting card envelope inside the baby book.

The airline, JetBlue, says that they are not responsible for the baby book dropoff. They had already settled with the family mother over the replaceable items in her missing suitcase.

Baby Book Presumed Lost By Airline Mysteriously Returned To Mother’s Doorstep 3 Months Laterc [CBS Los Angeles]

The next time you go for a can of Diet Coke, you might need to look twice to make sure you aren’t grabbing the full-calorie version instead: Coca-Cola is giving all four of its Coke products a makeover it’s calling “One-Brand” packaging that brings to mind the packaging of original Coca-Cola products.

Cans and bottles of Coca-Cola Original, Coca-Cola Zero, Diet Coca-Cola (or Light, depending where you live), and Coca-Cola Life will all prominently feature a bright red disc, on a background of either red (rendering the disc invisible), black, gray, and green, respectively, as well as the product name of each.

The Red Disc is the “signature” element of the company’s new campaign, that it’s using as a unifying color across the brand. Coca-Cola says the move will extend its “One Brand” global marketing strategy to its packaging.

To that end, the new packaging will be the same around the world, starting in Mexico in the first week of May. Similar versions of the Red Disc graphic will launch in additional markets around the world through this year and 2017.

“The unification of the brands through design, marks the first time in our 130-year history that the iconic Coca-Cola visual identity has been shared across products in such a prominent way,” said James Sommerville, Vice President Global Design in a press release.

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