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Some slow cooker recipes call for sautéing ingredients beforehand to release the aromatics. To keep the flavor going, preheat your slow cooker while you sauté.

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With the right approach, anyone has the ability to turn small talk into an engrossing conversation. These 10 essential rules will help.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A well-known mountain lion that prowls a sprawling Los Angeles park may have made a meal of a koala found mauled to death at the city’s zoo.

Los Angeles Zoo officials say the koala went missing on March 3 and its bloody, partially eaten remains were found a short time later found outside the zoo.

The night before the koala was found, a 7-year-old male puma known as P-22 was seen on black and white surveillance video near the zoo inside Griffith Park, the sprawling urban wilderness that he calls home.

The big cat may have managed to leap a 9-foot-high fence to reach the koala enclosure and snatch Killarney, a 14-year-old female that was the oldest koala in the exhibit.

She had a habit of leaving the trees and wandering around on the ground at night, zookeepers said.

However, the evidence is circumstantial, zoo director John Lewis and other officials acknowledged Thursday.

The attack itself wasn’t recorded, and there are other predators, such as bobcats and coyotes, that were capable of killing the koala.

The remaining 10 koalas have been removed from the outside enclosure. Zoo workers are taking extra precautions, such as locking up smaller animals in barns at night.

“Unfortunately, these types of incidents happen when we have a zoo in such close proximity to one of the largest urban parks in the country,” Barbara Romero, Los Angeles deputy mayor for city services, said in a statement.

P-22 wears a tracking collar and was famously photographed near the Hollywood sign for National Geographic. The 130-pound cat crossed two freeways to enter the 4,355-acre park several years ago.

It’s a lonely life with little chance of finding a mate. Cougars typically need ranges of 75 to 200 square miles for hunting and breeding, while P-22’s habitat is around 8 square miles.

The attack is just one more reason that P-22 should move, City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell said.

“Regardless of what predator killed the koala, this tragedy just emphasizes the need to contemplate relocating P-22 to a safer, more remote wild area where he has adequate space to roam without the possibility of human interaction,” O’Farrell said.

Last year, P-22 wandered out of the park and lolled under a crawlspace of a home in the nearby Los Feliz neighborhood, attracting a media frenzy until he finally wandered home.

“P-22 is maturing, will continue to wander and runs the risk of a fatal freeway crossing as he searches for a mate. … We should consider resettling him in the environment he needs,” Mitchell said.

But fellow Councilman David Ryu said it would be a mistake to evict P-22. “Mountain lions are a part of the natural habitat of Griffith Park and the adjacent hillsides” Ryu said.

The zoo’s director also disagreed.

“There’s a lot of native wildlife in this area. This is their home,” Lewis said. “So we’ll learn to adapt to P-22 just like he’s learned to adapt to us.”

The post Famous mountain lion may have killed Los Angeles Zoo koala appeared first on WTOP.

NEW YORK (AP) — A probe by the Justice Department has determined that Iran was responsible for a 2013 cyberattack on a dam in the suburbs outside of New York City, and an indictment is expected soon, a U.S. official told The Associated Press Thursday.

The official, who was briefed on the investigation, spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing criminal investigation.

In 2013, hackers accessed the control system at the Bowman Avenue Dam, a small structure in Rye Brook, about 20 miles north of New York City, that’s used for flood control.

The intrusion allowed the hackers to probe the system, prompting a federal investigation.

The official told the AP that investigators have determined Iran was responsible for the cyberattack and that an indictment is expected to be handed down in the case from the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. It wasn’t clear whether the indictment would charge specific people within the Iranian government or publicly name Iran as being behind the attack. A formal announcement was expected to be made as soon as mid-April, the official said.

Officials in Rye said in December that they had been alerted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about unauthorized access to the city’s computer system.

At a news briefing Thursday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner declined to specifically comment on the prospects that Iran would be charged in the cyberattack, but said: “I would say broadly that we obviously take all, seriously all such malicious activity in cyberspace. We’re going to continue to use all the tools at our disposal to deter, detect, counter, and mitigate that kind of activity.”

A spokesman for the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Permeant Mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night.

The post US official: Iran responsible for cyberattack at NY dam appeared first on WTOP.

(BINGHAMTON, N.Y.) — Two teenage girls from upstate New York who had been missing for nearly a year were found Wednesday night, New York State Police said Thursday.

Sisters Ky-Lea Fortner and Shaeleen Fitch-Fortner were reported missing on April 27, 2015, when they were ages 15 and 13, respectively. At the time, the girls were living with their foster family in the town of Binghamton.

Police said that Amanda Hellman, 29, of Vestal, N.Y. — located less than 10 miles west of Binghamton — was charged Thursday with second degree kidnapping. Police said Hellman is “a family acquaintance of the victims.”

Hellman was arraigned and held at Broome County Jail without bail.

During the course of the New York State Police’s 11-month investigation, the department said it “received and investigated numerous investigative leads relative to the girl’s location.”

It was not immediately clear if Hellman had an attorney.

Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

The post Two teens missing for nearly a year found alive in upstate New York appeared first on WTOP.

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) — What could be a plentiful peach crop is shaping up in orchards across South Carolina.

Growers and agriculture officials say that during the winter there was just enough cold weather to insure a good crop and so far there have been no late-season cold snaps to damage fragile peach blossoms.

Clemson University extension agent Andy Rollins said it’s been warmer and wetter than usual in recent months in the state, but there were still enough cold nights during February to insure a good crop.

Rollins says peach trees need between 800 and 1,000 hours of temperatures below 45 degrees during the winter to grow a good crop. Many areas received just about 1,000 hours.

“We still were able to get in all of our chilling hours,” he said in a release. “This year could be one of the best years ever for our peach crop.”

Jeff Hopkins, manager of Clemson’s Musser Fruit Research Farm, tells The Independent Mail of Anderson (http://bit.ly/1SFSve5 ) there’s been enough cold for a potentially strong crop.

“We wound up with 1,000 (hours) on the nose, and we’re good with that,” Hopkins said.

Peach growers across the state were concerned at the end of December because most orchards had received only about 250 chill hours. That’s about half the amount normally received by the end of December.

But colder weather in February helped out.

The number of chill hours also affect when peaches are ready.

In the unusually cold winter of 2014-15 more than 1,600 chill hours were measured at the research farm. That meant an earlier-than-normal crop. In the same way, this year’s more mild weather should translate into a later crop.

South Carolina produced about 70,000 tons of peaches last year, second in the nation only to California.

The post Plentiful peach crop expected in South Carolina this year appeared first on WTOP.

SALEM, Va. (AP) — A Virginia jail is no longer allowing inmates to receive personal photographs after officials found inmates were chewing on pictures that had been soaked in a drug.

Western Virginia Regional Jail Superintendent Bobby Russell tells The Roanoke Times (http://bit.ly/1RBJYnC) that the pictures were saturated in a liquid form of the narcotic-addiction treatment drug suboxone. Those receiving the photos could chew on them to absorb the contents.

Russell says it can be difficult for investigators to detect suboxone, especially on photos. On white paper, it leaves a slight yellow stain.

The jail had already banned all nonwhite paper and any papers containing drawings or paintings because of the trend.

Russell says they’re currently looking into other ways for inmates to receive pictures.

___

Information from: The Roanoke Times, http://www.roanoke.com

The post Jail bans photos after drug-soaked pictures discovered appeared first on WTOP.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The military plans to examine hundreds of sites nationwide to determine whether chemicals from foam used to fight fires have contaminated groundwater and spread to drinking water, the Defense Department said.

The checks are planned for 664 sites where the military has conducted fire or crash training, military officials told The Associated Press this week.

Since December, tests have been carried out at 28 naval sites in mostly coastal areas. Drinking water at a landing field in Virginia and the groundwater at another site in New Jersey have been found to contain levels above the guidance given by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Navy said. Results of the other tests have either come up under federally acceptable levels or are pending.

The Navy is giving bottled water to its personnel at the Naval Auxiliary Landing Field Fentress in Chesapeake, Virginia, and is testing wells in a nearby rural area after the discovery of perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water, which the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says may be associated with prostate, kidney and testicular cancer, along with other health issues.

The Navy found perfluorinated chemicals in the groundwater monitoring wells at Naval Weapons Station Earle in Colts Neck, New Jersey, but not in the drinking water supply. Test results from off-base drinking water wells are expected this month.

And several congressmen are raising concerns about the safety of drinking water near two former Navy bases in suburban Philadelphia. The lawmakers say firefighting foams might be the source of chemicals found in nearly 100 public and private wells near the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Willow Grove and the Naval Air Warfare Center in Warminster.

The foam is used where potentially catastrophic fuel fires can occur, such as in a plane crash, because it can rapidly extinguish them. It contains perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOS and PFOA, both considered emerging contaminants by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Defense Department said that until foam without perfluorinated chemicals can be certified for military use, it is removing stocks of it in some places and also trying to prevent any uncontrolled releases during training exercises.

The military is beginning to assess the risk to groundwater at the training sites not only to determine the extent of contamination, but also to identify any action the Defense Department needs to take, said Lt. Col. Eric D. Badger, a department spokesman.

California has the most sites, with 85, followed by Texas, with 57, Florida, with 38, and Alaska and South Carolina, each with 26, according to a list provided to the AP. Each state has at least one site.

Knowledge about the chemicals’ effects has been evolving, and the EPA does not regulate them. The agency in 2009 issued guidance on the level at which they are considered harmful to health, but it was only an advisory — not a standard that could be legally enforced.

The EPA said then that it was assessing the potential risk from short-term exposure through drinking water. It later began studying the health effects from a lifetime of exposure. Those studies remain in progress.

The Navy started handing out bottled water in January to about 50 people at the contaminated Virginia site, and it worked with the city to set up a water station for concerned property owners after it found perfluorinated chemicals in on-base drinking water wells above the concentrations in the EPA advisory.

The Navy is testing private wells of nearby property owners; those results are due next week.

Chris Evans, of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, credited the Navy with being proactive but said he’s concerned anytime there’s a potential threat to human health and the environment.

Some states have established their own drinking water and groundwater guidelines for the maximum allowable concentrations of the chemicals; Virginia uses the EPA’s.

“We’ll follow EPA’s lead as this develops,” Evans said.

There’s a lot of evolving science around perfluorinated chemicals, said Lawrence Hajna, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

“The more that we hear, the more that we realize that this is a very important health concern,” he said.

___

Online:

A list of the fire and crash training sites where the military is assessing the risk of groundwater contamination from firefighting foam: http://bit.ly/1LUHt32

The post Military to check for water contamination at 664 sites appeared first on WTOP.

WASHINGTON — The 13 bald eagles that died in Federalsburg, Maryland, last month did not die of natural causes, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services announced Thursday.

The agency’s forensics lab ran tests and ruled out diseases such as avian influenza — an important step on the Eastern Shore where there are many poultry farms and migratory birds.

The tests were conducted after 13 bald eagles were found dead at a farm on Feb. 20.

The investigation is now focusing on human causes for the eagle deaths. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services is working with Maryland Natural Resources Police to find those responsible.

A $25,000 reward is available for information leading to the arrest and conviction of suspected wildlife offenders.

Anyone with information can call the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 410-228-2476 or Maryland Natural Resources Police at 800-628-9944.

The post Lab results: Humans caused deaths of 13 eagles appeared first on WTOP.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The Maryland Agriculture Department says the heightened risk of bird flu makes it a bad idea to buy baby chickens and ducks as Eastertime gifts for children.

The agency said in a statement Tuesday that handling live poultry can cause serious illness from germs that also include salmonella.

The department says people who choose to purchase live poultry should get the birds only from hatcheries certified by the U.S. Agriculture Departments’ National Poultry Improvement Plan.

The agency says the birds should not be handled by children under 5, elderly people or those with weak immune systems.

The department also says the birds should not be brought indoors, and people should not snuggle or kiss the birds or eat or drink around them.

The post Don’t kiss that chick! State frowns on Easter chick gifting appeared first on WTOP.

WUSA9.com

Manassas school volunteer convicted of child porn possession WTOP ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A former volunteer at a Manassas middle school has been convicted of producing child pornography. A jury at federal court in Alexandria on Thursday convicted 24-year-old David Alexander Battle II of multiple counts that carry a ... Manassas School Volunteer Convicted of Producing and Distributing Child PornNBC4 Washington all 20 news articles »

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Breakfast: it’s what all the cool kids are offering these days. In order to keep up with the crowd Taco Bell is amping up its breakfast efforts, with a new “Morning Value Menu,” offering most items for $1.

Taco Bell has had breakfast items since 2014, but in order to keep up with the morning rush, it’s switching out some items and offering new, cheaper options.

Included on the menu are 10 breakfast items, some of which are new, for $1 each.

“When we first launched breakfast in 2014, our goal was to give our consumers classic breakfast tastes — in a uniquely Taco Bell way,” Marisa Thalberg, chief marketing officer for Taco Bell, said in a statement. “Now, we’re launching our new $1 Morning Value Menu to give people a terrific array of breakfast options they want, all at this incredible price point.”

The fuel behind this new breakfast fire? Taco Bell says it wants to offer customers cheaper items, but the fact that McDonald’s is having such success in the breakfast arena likely isn’t going unnoticed, either.

Other additions to the breakfast menu board: Mini Skillet Bowl with seasoned breakfast potatoes, scrambled eggs, cheese and pico de gallo in a bowl; Breakfast Soft Taco, a flour tortilla filled with scrambled eggs, bacon or sausage and cheese; and Sausage Flatbread Quesadilla, which is a grilled flatbread filled with three cheeses, sausage, and scrambled eggs.

Still on the menu: the Grilled Breakfast Burrito,Hash Brown, and Cinnabon Delights. There are a few casualties, however, in the interest of time — as in, how long it takes to prepare the items — the Biscuit Taco and Country Breakfast Crunchwrap with Gravy.

Passengers on a Spirit Airlines flight from Baltimore to Los Angeles had ringside seats to quite a brawl, reports say, after five women apparently got in a fight over a loud boom box. Yes, a boom box.

The Los Angeles Times reports that two intoxicated women were enjoying the loud strains of music from their personal sound system when other passengers complained that it was too loud.

Spirit Airlines spokesman Paul Berry told the LAT that several other customers asked the women to turn down the music, but they refused. Instead, they asked, “What are you going to do?”

“Then to provoke the other customer they were holding up their boom box in the air, waving it around,” Berry said.

That reportedly set off the five-passenger brawl.

Video taken by another passenger on the flight shows how serious things get — the women get out of their seats, fists are flying, hair is getting grabbed, and everyone is watching.

LAX police were called and met the crew when it landed, a police representative said. The five women involved in the “mutual combat situation” were taken off the plane. Though the FBI was called in, no one was charged in the fight.

Complaint over loud ‘boom box’ music leads to 5-woman brawl on Spirit Airlines flight [Los Angeles Times]

If you’re dipping into a bag of pistachios as you read this, take a pause and check to make sure your nuts aren’t among those recalled after 11 people in nine states became ill from salmonella-tainted nuts. 

Wonderful Pistachios — which also makes nuts under the Trader Joe’s and Paramount Farms brands — announced a recall of a variety of flavors and sizes of in-shell pistachios after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked a multi-state Salmonella Montevideo outbreak to the nuts grown in Lost Hill, CA.

According to the CDC, two people each in Washington and Arizona, as well as one person each in North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, and Connecticut reported becoming ill between Dec. 12, 2015 and Feb. 9, 2016.

Eight of the nine people interviewed by the CDC say they ate pistachios in the week before becoming ill, and five of those eight people reported eating Wonderful brand pistachios.

“Recent laboratory testing isolated the outbreak strain of Salmonella Montevideo from samples of raw pistachios collected from Paramount Farms, where Wonderful pistachios are grown,” the CDC said in a statement.

As a result of the CDC’s findings, Wonderful Pistachios voluntarily recalled several types of its nuts on Wednesday.

“Wonderful Pistachios takes food safety matters very seriously and is working closely with health officials to identify the source of the problem,” the company said in a statement. “In an effort to further enhance our food safety program and ensure the health and well being of our consumers, we have, effective immediately, proactively increased our sampling frequencies and lot size testing.”

According to a notice from the Food and Drug Administration, the nuts, which were distributed through several retailers nationwide and Canada, can be identified by a 13-digit lot code number [PDF] that can be found on the lower back or bottom panel of the package.

Consumers who have purchased Wonderful Pistachios tied the to recall can return the product to the company via mail or to the store where they were purchased for a refund.

When you’re flying through the air at hundreds of miles per hour, every little bit of wind resistance can result in the use of additional fuel. So if there’s a way to stop aircraft from becoming covered in dead bug goo, it could end up saving the airline industry a lot of money.

Bloomberg reports on new airplane technology being developed by NASA that would prevent dead bugs from clinging to jet surfaces, reducing drag and improving fuel efficiency.

NASA says it has wind-tunnel tested dozens of materials on Boeing 757 wings and has whittled it down to two options that it is preparing to make commercially available. But even the best of those two options only prevented around 40% of blug splatter from clinging to the wings.

While NASA admits that more work needs to be done, any improvement of the airflow could result in noticeable fuel cost savings. The space agency contends that wing design can be tweaked to take advantage of the bug-less surface, resulting in a fuel efficiency improvement of more than 1%.

That might not seem like a lot, but that would be an annual savings of more than $300 million in the U.S. alone. Not to mention the environmental benefit of using less fuel and emitting fewer toxins into the air.

Boeing has already begun designing surfaces to cash in on the new material, which takes some of its inspiration from the water-repelling lotus leaf.

Because we know our readers aren’t the type to pass up free money, now would be a good time for you to check and make sure you claimed your 2012 tax refund: according to the Internal Revenue Service, about a million taxpayers have yet to collect almost a billion dollars in federal refunds from that tax year. And the clock is ticking.

Federal law gives most taxpayers a three-year window to claim an IRS refund, which means if you didn’t file your return for 2012, you’ve only got until April 18 (or April 19, in Massachusetts and Maine) to do so.

“The clock is ticking for taxpayers who didn’t file a 2012 federal income tax return, leaving nearly $1 billing in refunds unclaimed,” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. “We especially encourage students and others who didn’t earn much money to look into this situation because they may still be entitled to a refund.”

It’s likely a good chunk of change you’d be missing out on, too: the IRS estimates the midpoint for potential refunds for 2012 is around $718, with half being worth more than $718 and half being worth less.

Before you try for that money, know this: refund checks will be held if the taxpayers haven’t filed returns for 2013 and 2014. The funds will also be applied to any amounts you owe to the IRS or state tax agencies, as well, and could be used to offset unpaid child support or overdue federal debts, including student loans.

Any money that isn’t claimed in time will go into the U.S. Treasury, never to be seen again, except by the magical goblins that work there. Wait, that’s Gringotts Bank from Harry Potter. But still, it’ll be gone.

Target isn’t exactly a brand most people associate with the mysterious codename-shrouded antics of Silicon Valley, but the retailer is cooking up something fishy with a new super-secret project in California.

The startup project, dubbed “Goldfish,” is part of the company’s attempt to dream up new, innovative ways to keep Target moving forward, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

Target is looking to hire around 20 engineers and product managers to be based in California. A listing for one of those positions, while sparse on details about Goldfish, reveals that the project is “ambitious and bent on disrupting the way people shop.”

According to the Star Tribune, Goldfish is the brainchild of West Stringfellow, who doesn’t just have a name straight out of a freshman fiction writing seminar, but is also one of Target’s three resident entrepreneurs. This trio has been tasked with making sure the retailer remains vital in an increasingly tech-savvy market.

Stringfellow told the Star Tribune back in October that he was working on ideas — codenamed “goldfish” and “bling” — that could either be folded into the retailer’s current operations or spun off into their own companies.

“It will make sense in the future,” he said then. “I’m being cryptic because I can’t talk about it yet.”

A spokesperson for Target confirmed that the retailer was hiring for the project, but declined to provide further details, stating that it was “confidential.”

If any Target employees have any inside info on Goldfish — or anything else about Target the public should know — drop us a line at tips@consumerist.com. Your identity will never be made public without your permission.

Target looking to hire 20 people for mysterious start-up called Goldfish [The Minneapolis Star Tribune]

Update: Shortly after 2:40 p.m. ET, Amazon appeared to leap back to life, without any of the company’s media or social media accounts even acknowledging the outage. If we get any sort of explanation from the e-tailer, we’ll be sure to share it.

===Original Post ===

In the last few minutes, Amazon.com has gone down without explanation. Both the website and the app only tell visitors that “An error occurred when we tried to process your request. Rest assured, we’re working to resolve the problem as soon as possible.” Reports of the site being unavailable have spiked on DownDetector, which — in a matter of minutes — they received more than 10,000 complaints about the e-commerce giant being down, and where a map of Amazon outages looks like much of the continental U.S. has gone up in red and yellow flames. We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment and will update.

Your friends’ posts on Facebook are about to get a bit more cartoon-like now that the social media company has acquired selfie-altering startup Masquerade Technologies. 

The Snapchat-like filter company announced the deal on its website Wednesday, noting that while it will integrate its technology with Facebook, its current app will continue running as is.

Financial aspects of the deal weren’t immediately available. It was also unclear if Facebook would charge members for using the filters, a practice employed by Snapchat when it comes to its photo changing lenses. 

Much like Snapchat, Masquerade allows users to place filters on their selfies and videos so that the image is distorted or made to look like someone else, such as celebrities, the President, or zombies.

The MSQRD app can be connected to several different social media apps outside of Facebook.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Facebook’s purchase of Masquerade comes after the company offered to buy Snapchat for $3 billion in 2013.

After that failed venture, the company worked on several disappearing message projects, including Poke and Slingshot.

Facebook tells the L.A. Times that Masquerade’s “world-class imaging technology for video is a welcome addition.”

Facebook buys Masquerade, app company that competes with Snapchat’s Lenses [The Los Angeles Times]

Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) is an organic chemical derived from coconut oil and it is commonly found in everything from laundry detergent to toothpaste. SLS is also one of the ingredients that Jessica Alba’s Honest Co. pledges to avoid using in its products. However, a new study claims that tests turned up SLS in Honest laundry detergent — an allegation the company is now denying.

The Wall Street Journal reports that it commissioned tests of Honest detergent from two independent labs, and that both tests confirmed the presence of SLS.

One lab noted that it was a “significant amount” of the chemical, while the other told the Journal that it was “not a trace amount” of SLS.

In a blog post in response to the Journal story, Honest accuses the newspaper of “harming the reputation and good will that we are so proud to have built here at Honest.”

Honest contends that it doesn’t use SLS, but sodium coco sulfate (SCS), which it claims is less potentially irritating than SLS.

However, the Journal counters that the scientists it interviewed for the story explained that SCS “is a mixture of various cleaning agents that includes a significant amount of SLS.”

The report notes that Honest changed its “Honestly Free Guarantee” while the Journal was researching the story. The guarantee had stated that products were “Honestly free of” the listed ingredients, including SLS, but that it now states that the products are “Honestly made without” those same ingredients.

Honest does not manufacture its own detergent, but partners with a manufacturer of eco-friendly detergent. The Journal tested the detergent that company makes for its own brand and also claims to have turned up significant levels of SLS, even though the manufacturer maintains it only uses SCS.

Both chemicals are potential irritants, but have been generally considered safe when used properly.

When it comes to products with labels reading “all natural,” are you willing to pay more than you would otherwise? Whole Foods customers who have filed lawsuits against the grocery chain said they paid a premium price for baked goods that were falsely labeled as natural, as they actually contained synthetic ingredients.

Whole Foods Market wants a judge to dismiss two class actions brought against the company by a lead plaintiff who said she and other customers paid a pretty penny for “all natural” cookies, muffins, and other baked goods that had synthetic ingredients, Courthouse News reports.

In a hearing on Whole Foods’ request for summary judgement — which is when a court enters a judgement for one party and against another without a full trial — the company’s lawyers said the plaintiffs failed to show how much they allegedly overpaid for the products bearing the “all natural” label.

“The plaintiffs must satisfy all elements of their claims, including damages,” a Whole Foods attorney said. “There’s no evidence of a price premium attributable to the all-natural label.”

On the other hand, attorneys for the class say the evidence is in the clients’ deposition testimony, where they say they paid anywhere from $3 to $6 more for products that thought only had natural ingredients. Though because there is no federal standard for what a “natural” ingredient is, that could be open to interpretation.

Another attorney for the plaintiffs rejected Whole Foods’ assertion that the lawsuits should be tossed because the plaintiffs didn’t take the extra step of computing the damages at an early stage in the litigation, a move that would have been expensive.

“We didn’t pay our expert an extra $50,000 to calculate the amount, and the defendants want to rake us over the coals for that,” the attorney told U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria.

Whole Foods’ lawyer says that just claiming they wouldn’t have paid more for another product without that label isn’t enough.

“They have to at least show there was a price premium,” he said.

His team points to a 2011 ruling involving Snapple, where a judge granted summary judgment to the defendants, as the plaintiffs had only “vague recollections” of where and when they bought “all natural”-labeled beverages and how much they paid for them.

But the judge in this case says things are different, because Whole Foods has records on how much it charged for the products at the heart of the issue, and how much consumers usually pay for comparable items that don’t have the “all natural” label.

On the other hand, the plaintiffs will have to figure out a way to establish damages they suffered as a result of overpaying for those products, the judge noted.

“I’ve never seen an opposition to summary judgment be successful when saying, ‘I don’t have the evidence now, but we will have it,'” Chhabria said.

It’s unclear on how the judge might rule, but in the meantime, he told the parties to try to mediate their issue again before he rules on the request for summary judgement.

Whole Foods Fights Labeling Class Actions [Courthouse News]

A night cream is exactly what it sounds like: a cream that you apply to your face overnight to moisturize while you sleep. Yet some users of a night cream from Dr. Brandt report that more than wrinkle-softening is happening when they use it: they report incredibly vivid dreams, some of which are scary.

We learned about the strangeness from Racked, The cream costs $135 for 1.7 ounces, which is a nightmare in itself, but Sephora recently sent out large samples of it to customers to try, and received a flood of reviews in return. The good: the cream made fine lines disappear and improved most users’ skin. The bad: the strange dreams.

Multiple users have reported similar experiences in their reviews.

The first review mentioning strange dreams came on December 1, 2015:

This product definitely works as advertised. My skin felt better and looked better after using consistently for 10 days. However, some ingredient in his gave me strange and vivid dreams. The dreams stopped as soon as I discontinued using this product. Absolutely befuddling.

One reviewer in late December wrote:

After a few nights of use, I started having really vivid, creepy dreams where I honestly could not wake up. I thought I was hallucinating. They were the kinds of dream where you need a while to recover after you wake up. I don’t know if it gets better once you adjust, but I don’t think it’s worth the $135 for scary dreams.

Strange dreams continued to happen into February:

One morning last week, I woke up feeling incredibly happy. I had the most amazingly vivid dream that actually affected my mood all day long. I even told a few people about it (it was that good). Then, I had similar experiences the following two nights.
…
When I read the reviews about this product, I stopped dead in my tracks. The dreams — other people are having them, too! How on earth can this be explained? A facial moisturizer causing vivid dreams? Well, I was intrigued, so I used it again last night. This morning, I woke up feeling very shaken. I had another dream, but this one was very upsetting. Wow, I don’t know what to say. It makes me feel crazy to write this. But it is 100% true.

In a statement to Racked, a representative for the brand said:

During the testing phase, Do Not Age with Dr. Brandt™ Dream Night Cream was used by consumers once a day for 28 days, during the nighttime and no concerns or side effects were reported. Following this inquiry, we have looked into the product again, consulting with our ingredient manufacturer to investigate the claim’s validity. We have found no scientific backing for this claim.

The thing is, though, there’s not really any requirement for cosmetic ingredients to be tested: the Dr. Brandt brand claims to have run a test on 30 women to see how they liked the results, but didn’t appear to ask them about dreams. Customers who read other reviews could also find themselves paying closer attention to their dreams once they begin using the product.

Is This Night Cream Causing Night Terrors? [Racked]
Do Not Age with Dr. Brandt™ Dream Night Cream [Sephora]

United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz returns to work on Monday only two months after a heart transplant. Was the airline exec’s speedy recovery spurred by a desire to get back to business, or did Munoz return earlier than planned because it was the only way to earn his full bonus?

United announced last week that Munoz would return to the helm on Monday, weeks before his previously anticipated return date of the end of the first quarter.

Los Angeles Times columnist David Lazarus uncovered a regulatory filing from the airline, made just a day after Munoz’s January heart transplant, that details an extensive list of what the airline head could get if he returned to work sooner rather than later. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot of money.

According to the filing [PDF], the employment agreement between United and Munoz was signed on Dec. 31, just a week before his heart transplant, but two months after he suffered a major heart attack that took him away from his corporate duties.

Under the agreement, Munoz would received a bonus of $10.5 million if he put in six straight months of work. If he works for a full year, he’ll receive a base salary of $1.25 million and a signing bonus of $5.2 million. He would also become eligible for an annual performance bonus of at least $3.75 million.

All of these incentives and salary marks began with the start of the 2016 calendar year. And with three months already passed, that gives Munoz just nine months to meet the stringent requirements.

For example, the $10.5 million six-month employment bonus stipulates that Munoz is not eligible for the bonus until “such date as he has been in continuous active service as President and Chief Executive Officer for a period of six months.”

Kevin Murphy, an executive-compensation expert at USC’s Marshall School of Business who reviewed the filing, tells Lazarus that the airline clearly knew what it was doing with the employment agreement.

“That six-month thing is clearly giving Munoz a strong incentive to be back at the firm,” he said. “If he doesn’t work six straight months, he doesn’t get the money. United is saying here that if he returns to work quickly, he gets rich. If he doesn’t, he gets relatively little.”

In addition to incentivizing Munoz expedited return to the airline, the agreement also warns of what could happen if the CEO doesn’t return soon.

Munoz’s employment can be terminated due to disability if he is “incapacitated for a period of at least 180 days by accident, sickness or other circumstance that renders [Munoz] mentally or physically incapable of performing the material duties as President and Chief Executive Officer.”

While Munoz has been out of the office since October recovering from a heart attack and then heart transplant, he’s only been absent for less than three months of 2016. That would mean if the agreement’s 180 days started Jan. 1, he still would have several weeks before he faced termination due to disability.

It’s not unheard of for relatively healthy people to recover from major surgery quickly, according to cardiologists who spoke with the Tribune’s Lazarus. But that doesn’t mean they should jump back into the hot seat of a major airline that’s been fighting to improve its image.

“Two months is very fast,” said Dr. Morton Kern, a cardiologist at UC Irvine and the Long Beach Veterans Affairs Medical Center. “If I was a heart-transplant patient, I’d wait six months, a year, before going back to work.”

Munoz, who quickly began trying to repair United’s relationship with employees and passengers after taking over when former CEO Jeff Smisek abruptly stepped down, has a lot on his plate when he heads back to the office. The New York Times reported last week rumblings began to surface that some United shareholders were ready to shake the board up, tasking former Continental CEO Gordon Bethune as chairman to oversee Munoz’s performance.

Two months after a heart transplant, airline wants him back at work — or else [The Chicago Tribune]

While it’s surely useful to direct the Amazon Echo’s Alexa to turn down the smart lights, what happens if the digital personal assistant starts hearing other voices commanding her to complete tasks? She just might obey, as one radio show recently found out after it aired a segment covering the Amazon Echo.

Alexa apparently heard the story about herself during a recent broadcast on NPR, host Rachel Martin said in an update. Devices in the homes of several listeners apparently interacted with the radio segment.

“Well, some of you out there already own an Amazon Echo, and our story activated your Alexas. I guess her ears were burning,” Martin said.

One listener wrote in to say Alexa reset his thermostat to 70 degrees, while another couldn’t hear the story too well because his radio was close to his Echo speaker. When Alexa heard her name, she started to play an NPR News summary, the listener said.

As we noted in another recent story about Alexa, some functions she performs, like connecting to a user’s credit card, can be locked by using a personal identification key.

But because for the most part, Alexa is always on and always listening, it’s probably best to keep her out of earshot of anyone who might be talking about her.

Listen Up: Your AI Assistant Goes Crazy For NPR Too [Listen Up]

Have you heard of Pet Gate Gate? It was the big scandal about pet gates. 

Supposedly, a group of rogue pet gates were not only keeping pets out of the kitchen but people too! Really stupid people only, though; like, we're people so stupid that we don't understand gates doop-de-doop-doop but still, it was a huge scandal.

It didn't help that some people tried to sweep the whole thing under the rug. Because all it took was someone else stepping on the rug and being like, "What the heck is under the rug?" and then lifting it up to find the pet gate.

The press got involved and the courts got involved and the police got involved and then they were all like, "Wait, what's this all about? Pet gates? Seriously? Why are we talking so much about pet gates?" But they liked hanging out with each other, so they decided to start a band.

The moral of the story is that pet gates make things happen.

Extra Tall Metal  Walk Through Pet Gate 0941PW Specifications
Overall Dimensions:	41" H x 29-34" W (40" width with extension)
Pet Door:	10" H x 7" W
Includes:	6-inch extension to create a 40-inch expansion

Super Wide Metal Walk Through Pet Gate 0930PW Specifications
Overall Dimensions:	30" H x 29-34" W (44" W with extensions)
Pet Door:	10" H x 7" W
Includes:	4-inch and 6-inch extension to create a 44-inch expansion

Easy Close Gate in New Zealand Pine 1130DS Specifications
Overall Dimensions:	29-44"L x 31"H
Includes:	4-inch and 6-inch extension to create a 44-inch expansion

In the Box:

Select From:

• (1) Extra Tall Metal  Walk Through Pet Gate 0941PW

~or~

• (1) Super Wide Metal Walk Through Pet Gate 0930PW

~or~

• (1) Home Accent Easy Close Gate in New Zealand Pine 1130DS

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — A report says some of the most-traveled bridges in Virginia may be structurally deficient.

The Daily Press (http://bit.ly/1LchAMg) reports that a report by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association found that 1,063 bridges across the state fail to meet structural and design standards.

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association is an organization of contractors, transportation officials and equipment manufacturers. The association says deficiencies include key elements such as deck and substructures that have been classified as poor.

With about 7.7 percent of the state’s bridges failing to meet standards, Virginia places 21st in the nation for deficient bridges. According to the report, the percentage of statewide deficient bridges is lower than the national rate of 9.6 percent.

State Secretary of Transportation Aubrey L. Layne Jr. says officials are planning to address updates to bridges.

___

Information from: Daily Press, http://www.dailypress.com/

The post Report: Bridges around Virginia don’t meet design standards appeared first on WTOP.

WASHINGTON — A controversial bill designed to protect religious organizations from being penalized for their beliefs has passed the Virginia General Assembly.

The House of Delegates approved Senate Bill 41 Wednesday on a 59-38 vote. The Senate passed the measure last month.

“We’re establishing a state religion,” Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax, stated on the House floor.

“We are saying we are going to prefer this specific set of beliefs above all others.”

Simon added that pastors, priests and rabbis already had the right to not perform any marriage ceremony as they wish.

“There are Catholic priests that won’t marry people that are divorced. There are rabbis that won’t marry people that are interfaith couples. There are people that won’t marry people after sundown on Friday night,” Simon said.

“Nobody has ever tried to make those people marry anybody they didn’t want to.”

Del. Robert Marshall said opposition to the bill comes from an effort to “want to excise out from the public square individuals who accept and practice only what marriage was understood for millennia.”

“If you want to protect what has been the common understanding for people as different as Napoleon or Socrates or anybody, marriage is between one man and one woman, and to say anything else and to punish with the public power of either tax status or licensure or recognition or derecognition in any way, I think, is improper,” he said.

“But it is telling how far people want to go with the quote, ‘freedom to marry.'”

The bill doesn’t just apply to individuals or organizations who refuse to officiate or offer services for a marriage ceremony. The legislation also protects other institutions, like religious schools, from being penalized by the government for its beliefs.

“Of course that is correct, that is the whole point,” said bill supporter Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, when asked by a colleague to clarify.

“Religious institutions have these deeply held religious beliefs that they do mean something to these religious institutions just as has been contemplated throughout our history that we respect those beliefs.”

After the Senate and House work out minor changes made to the bill in the House, the legislation will go to the governor’s office to be signed.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe is expected to veto the measure.

The post Controversial religious rights bill passes in Virginia appeared first on WTOP.

Prince William County community calendar, March 10-16, 2016 Washington Post AARP income-tax preparation help Thursdays and Tuesdays 11 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Chinn Park Regional Library, 13065 Chinn Park Dr., Woodbridge. 703-792-4800; and Thursdays noon-8 p.m. Mondays 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Bull Run Regional Library, 8051 Ashton ... and more »

California Violates Federal Donor Privacy Law Christian News Wire (press release) MANASSAS, Va., March 9, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- American Target Advertising, Inc., America's largest and oldest conservative direct marketing and fundraising consulting agency, filed comments this week with California Attorney General Kamala ...