NEW YORK (AP) — The operator of New York City’s airports has the legal right to kill migratory birds when necessary to protect planes, a federal appeals court said Tuesday as it rejected a challenge from an animal advocacy group.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was within its rights to kill nearly any migratory bird in emergency situations, including when three snowy owls were killed in December 2013. Exceptions include bald eagles, golden eagles or endangered and threatened species.

The appeals court recounted several “near-catastrophes” over the years at LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy Airport, including the 2009 Hudson River emergency landing after Canada geese went into both engines, causing U.S. Airways Flight 1549 to lose power. No one was killed in the accident that was later referred to as The Miracle on the Hudson.

The ruling upholding a 2014 decision by U.S. District Judge John Gleeson in Brooklyn rejected an appeal from Friends of Animals. The group challenged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s approval of emergency measures to diminish the population of birds at Kennedy airport.

Michael Harris, the legal director for Friends of Animals who argued the appeal, said the group was disappointed.

He said the appeals court was saying the law “legitimizes the indiscriminate, unnecessary killing of animals.”

“When birds that pose little to no risk to airline safety can be lawfully murdered, like those three snowy owls killed in December 2014, it speaks loudly to the nature of our nation’s moral character,” Harris said.

“Migratory birds that congregate near airports pose a well-known threat to human safety,” the 2nd Circuit said in a decision written by Circuit Judge Jose A. Cabranes.

The appeals court noted that the Port Authority has since 1994 annually renewed a permit allowing it to reduce the population of birds around its airports. It rejected an argument that the Port Authority could not reduce the population of species of birds it had not specified in its permit request.

It said the law as currently written “does not place Port Authority officials in the untenable position of having to choose between violating federal law and deliberately ignoring serious threats to human safety.”

Birds, which can shatter windshields, dent fuselages and shut down engines, usually do little or no damage to a plane, though contending with over 10,000 airplane bird strikes a year in the U.S. costs the airline industry about a billion dollars annually.

The post Appeals court: Airports have wide latitude to kill birds appeared first on WTOP.

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (AP) — A police officer has been released from jail after posting bond over allegations that he used a stun gun on a City Council member while arresting him in a small, predominantly black college town in Texas.

The Waller County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday that Prairie View Officer Michael Kelley posted a $3,000 bond after being booked Monday night. Kelley was indicted Friday on a misdemeanor count of official oppression.

Investigators say Kelley was questioning four men outside Prairie View City Councilman Jonathan Miller’s apartment in October about suspicious activity when Miller intervened.

Video of the incident shows Miller didn’t comply with police orders. The indictment contends Kelley, who is white, unlawfully arrested the black councilman.

Kelley’s attorney says the officer will plead not guilty.

The post Texas officer who used Taser on official released from jail appeared first on WTOP.

PHOENIX (AP) — A key witness in a trial against two polygamous towns in Arizona and Utah described Tuesday the elaborate steps the church and communities took to avoid outside law enforcement and help their leader while he was a fugitive, including using “burner” cellphones, encrypted radios and hidden all-terrain vehicles.

Willie Jessop served as a spokesman and head of security for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints before leaving the sect in 2011. He testified about a list of cloak-and-dagger efforts that church leaders and officials in Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, undertook to evade authorities and help their fugitive prophet, Warren Jeffs.

Convinced the local cellphone tower was being monitored, they drove 40 miles from town to make calls. They collected disposable cellphones from around the U.S. and used encrypted radios.

Jessop said church officials received law enforcement training from former Secret Service members and even went to sniper training.

Many of the efforts were designed to assist Jeffs while he was on the FBI’s most-wanted list in 2006, Jessop said. Jeffs was on the run from charges of arranging marriages between girls and older men.

When Jeffs was being moved to a new location, Jessop said he would fly to places around the country to serve as a decoy and throw law enforcement off the trail.

He also said church leaders positioned all-terrain vehicles in various locations as part of their escape plans. When federal and county authorities showed up to serve a subpoena, Jessop said he and Jeffs’ brother — a key church figure — motored away in an ATV that was stashed behind fake walls in a Colorado City building.

He said all of those efforts were made in cooperation with town officials — a central component in the trial before a jury in Phoenix.

Jeffs was captured during a 2006 traffic stop outside Las Vegas. Investigators found more than $50,000, cellphones, laptop computers, a police scanner and wigs inside the SUV in which he was traveling.

Jeffs is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for sexually assaulting one of his 24 underage brides. He is believed to rule the polygamous sect through letters and phone calls from prison.

Jessop also talked about how Jeffs communicates with his followers from behind bars, primarily through coded messages. And he said Jeffs’ wives showed up at visits wearing watches that had recording devices.

The U.S. Justice Department alleges Colorado City and Hildale serve as an enforcement arm of the polygamous sect. The government says the towns have discriminated against nonbelievers by denying them housing, water services and police protection.

The communities deny the allegations and say religion isn’t a motivating factor in their decisions.

Jessop told jurors that residents must have church approval to serve in government in the towns.

He said a turning point occurred in 2004 when 20 men were booted from the church. “It changed from a church to a cartel,” he said.

Lawyers for the towns pressed Jessop on why he remained in the church for seven more years.

Jessop said he turned against church leaders after Texas authorities played him an audio tape in which Jeffs raped a 12-year-old girl. Jessop said he later reviewed another recording in which Jeffs confessed to a rape.

Hildale attorney Blake Hamilton objected to Jessop’s testimony about the allegations against Jeffs.

“This is not the criminal trial of Warren Jeffs,” Hamilton said.

Outside court, Colorado City attorney Jeff Matura said: “The testimony about Warren Jeffs and his criminal conduct is heartbreaking, especially with respect to this treatment of children, but it’s not part of the allegations of this case.”

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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A federal judge has heard from five children and teenagers who say they were pulled out of class to work long hours picking pecans at a Utah ranch while they were growing up in a polygamous group.

The testimony in Salt Lake City on Tuesday comes after labor lawyers asked a judge to sanction the company accused of using 1,400 unpaid laborers, including 175 children, during a 2012 harvest.

The U.S. Department of Labor says Hurricane-based Paragon Contractors has deep connections to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and broke a previous order against using child labor during the harvest taped by news cameras about 300 miles south of Salt Lake City.

The company denies wrongdoing, saying the women and children volunteered to collect fallen nuts and kept some for themselves.

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indianapolis elementary school principal was seen pushing several students out of the way an oncoming bus before the vehicle fatally struck her, authorities said Tuesday.

Susan Jordan, the principal of Amy Beverland Elementary School on the city’s far northeast side, was killed and two 10-year-old children were hospitalized with serious but non-life-threatening injuries when the bus suddenly lurched forward, authorities said.

Buses were lined up outside the school when the accident happened around 2:45 p.m., Indianapolis Fire Department Capt. Rita Reith said.

“At some point, the stationary bus lurched forward and jumped the curb. The bus was not moving at the time directly before it jumped the curb,” Reith said.

The female bus driver told firefighters she was not sure what caused the bus to accelerate, Reith said in a statement Tuesday evening. The driver also said “in the instant that the accident occurred” she saw Jordan push several students out of the way, according to the statement.

The driver and 25 students on the bus were examined by emergency responders but did not require treatment, Reith said.

Jordan, who had been principal of the school for 22 years, was loved by her staff and the school community, Lawrence Township Schools Superintendent Shawn Smith said at a news conference.

“This is a great example of an educational leader in our state and our city. … Just a phenomenal individual that truly cared about children. This is a tragic situation that we have. This loss is going to ripple across our district of 15,000 students,” Smith said.

The district canceled classes at all of its schools Wednesday and said in a statement that four locations, including a transportation center, would be “open for emotional support to our staff and families.”

Indianapolis Police Commander Chris Bailey said the bus driver, whose name was not immediately released, would be given a blood test, a standard procedure in collisions involving fatalities.

___

Associated Press writer Rick Callahan contributed to this report.

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Key takeaways on the decision by Cleveland officials to fire six police officers involved in a 137-shot barrage that killed two unarmed people after a 2012 high-speed chase:

— Thirteen officers had been notified they faced administrative discipline, and one of them retired. Six of those officers face suspensions ranging from 21 to 30 days.

— Those fired include Michael Brelo, the patrolman acquitted of manslaughter charges for having fired the last 15 shots of the barrage in East Cleveland.

— The president of Cleveland’s largest police union, Steve Loomis, vowed to fight the discipline and said grievances appealing the firings were filed with the city. He described the firings as unprecedented and politically motivated action against officers who responded within their training to a tragic situation.

— The shooting occurred after a high-speed chase that involved 62 police cruisers and over 100 officers. It helped prompt an agreement between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice that is aimed at making reforms in the troubled police department.

— The chase began when officers standing outside police headquarters mistook the sound of a beat-up Chevrolet Malibu backfiring as a gunshot. Authorities never learned why the driver didn’t stop.

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge’s ruling Tuesday allows the city to move ahead with plans to remove prominent Confederate monuments from the city’s streets, and delivers a blow to preservationists and a chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled against a collection of groups seeking to block the removal of four monuments, including a towering marble column and bronze statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, a landmark on the cityscape.

In December, the City Council voted 6-1 to remove the monuments. The move is one of the boldest statements yet by an American city to sever ties with its Confederate past, and it has sparked strong emotions in this Deep South city where tensions over the Civil War still run deep.

Barbier, though, said his ruling was based on the law, not on passions.

“The Court is well aware of the emotion and passions that are involved in this case,” Barbier wrote in his 62-page ruling. “The Court does not judge the wisdom, or lack thereof, of the actions taken by the Mayor or the City.”

The city is enforcing an ordinance that allows the removal of monuments considered a public nuisance because they honor ideologies that foster racial, ethnic or religious supremacy and cause vandalism and civic unrest.

Barbier wrote that “the only issue before the Court is a legal one: Does the City’s newly passed ordinance violate Plaintiffs’ statutory or constitutional rights?”

Barbier knocked down each argument the plaintiffs made and said they “have failed to demonstrate that they will likely succeed on the merits of any of their claims.”

The plaintiffs have advanced many arguments; among them, that their constitutional rights had been violated by the process for removal, the ordinance was unlawful and the monuments were protected by historic preservation laws.

The plaintiffs have vowed to pursue appeals and had asked Barbier to allow the monuments to stand until all appeals are exhausted. The lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, Franklin Hardy Jones III, did not return messages seeking comment.

The plaintiffs are the Louisiana Landmarks Society, the Foundation for Historical Louisiana, the Monumental Task Committee Inc. and the Beauregard Camp No. 130.

Besides the Lee monument, also slated for removal are a large equestrian statue of P.G.T. Beauregard, a Louisiana-born Confederate general; a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis; and an obelisk dedicated to a group of white supremacists who sought to topple a biracial Reconstruction government in New Orleans.

Hayne Rainey, the press secretary for Mayor Mitch Landrieu, welcomed the ruling. “We are pleased with the Court’s sound ruling on this issue,” he said in a statement.

He declined to outline the city’s next steps, saying details would be announced “as they become available.”

Once removed, he said, the city plans on storing the monuments in a warehouse until a plan is devised to place them in “a private park or museum site where the monuments can be put in a fuller context.”

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KURE BEACH, N.C. (AP) — A dead humpback whale that washed up in the surf south of Wilmington had parasites in its kidneys.

Scientists tell local media outlets that may have contributed to the death of the whale that was found washed up on the shore in Kure Beach on Wednesday morning.

A necropsy on the 15,000-pound whale was performed but scientists say the exact cause of death won’t be known until results of tests are available in a few days.

The juvenile humpback was between 1 and 2 years old.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Two Tennessee teens died after drinking a mixture of racing fuel and Mountain Dew, and two others were sickened by the mixture they called “Dewshine,” Tennessee Poison Center Medical Director Donna Seger said Wednesday.

The teens evidently thought they could drink poisonous methanol as a substitute for ethanol, the ingredient in alcoholic beverages that causes intoxication, Seger said.

“That was their intent,” she said. “Unfortunately methanol is extremely toxic.”

The U.S. National Library of Medicine, on its website, calls methanol “a nondrinking type of alcohol used for industrial and automotive purposes,” noting it can be found in antifreeze, canned heating sources, paint thinner, and octane boosters.

It’s sometimes called “wood alcohol.”

A toxicology report on one of the teens who died confirmed he had ingested methanol. Seger said she did not know how much of the mixture the teen had drunk, but said it was “a lot.”

Seger said the Robertson County teens didn’t realize drinking methanol could kill them, and she called last week’s poisonings an accident.

She said this is the first time she has seen this type of poisoning. The four cases are the only ones reported in Tennessee, and Seger is not aware of any cases in other states. But she said it is possible “Dewshine” is more widespread.

“If it hadn’t been for the deaths, we probably wouldn’t have noticed,” she said.

Greenbrier Police Chief KD Smith said the teenagers drank the methanol on Jan. 20. One of the teens died the next day while another was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center and died on Monday. The two other teens were treated and released on Thursday or Friday, he said. Police are continuing to investigate.

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SALINAS, Calif. (AP) — A Northern California couple has pleaded not guilty to killing two young children and abusing a third in the woman’s care.

Tami Huntsman and her 17-year-old boyfriend are accused of abusing to death a 6-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, stuffing their bodies in a plastic bin and storing them in a rented storage unit in Redding, California.

The pair is also charged with abusing a 9-year-old girl, who was found starving and with broken bones in the back of an SUV parked in Quincy, California.

The three victims were siblings and in the custody of 39-year-old Huntsman. The three victims lived with Huntsman, her boyfriend and in Salinas. Investigators believe the children were killed in Salinas due to sustained physical abuse and neglect.

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#Breaking: A T-Rex spotted clearing snow from hydrant. Have you? #Snowzilla #Blizzard2016 pic.twitter.com/Qt5hUIV88N

— Arlington Fire (@ACFDPIO) January 23, 2016

As the snow piled up on Saturday, a video from the Arlington County Fire Department took off.

The video, tweeted out by the fire department around noon that day, showed a T-Rex clearing clearing snow from around a fire hydrant. The message was clear: If a predatory dinosaur with  useless little arms can shovel snow, so can you. But here’s a secret: that wasn’t a real T-Rex. And the video wasn’t filmed around here.

“The actual video was not filmed in Arlington,” said Jaime Jill, the Arlington firefighter who originally shared the clip. “It was at my sister’s home in Bethesda.”

And it was Jill’s nine-year-old niece Janelle who played the role of the “civically minded” lizard, he added.

“When she first went out in the suit, there were neighbors out shoveling their cars and everyone started laughing and taking pictures,” Jill said. “She actually didn’t want to do it because she was embarrassed. I had to bribe her with a present.”

Janelle wasn’t as embarrassed when she found out she made the news, Jill said.

“When I showed her the news reports, she said she was going to tell everyone at school,” he added.

Will we see more of the tiny T-Rex in the future? That all depends on whether Janelle will don the dinosaur suit again, Jill said. And if she won’t, Jill added that he “might have to get the fire department to purchase one.”

The post Here’s the Story Behind ACFD’s Snow-Shoveling T-Rex appeared first on WTOP.

DC's plow-tracker site can't be trusted, and the city is sorry Washington Post If you've been obsessively clicking on the District's plow-tracker website to find out what's been plowed you've probably been wasting your time. After being queried about reports of inconsistencies, the city acknowledged its “Snow Response Reporting ...

Earlier this week, a Thai airline made international news by allowing passengers to pay child ticket rates for trendy “child angel” dolls and telling its staff to treat these supposedly supernatural dolls like real passengers. But the country’s aviation authority is not pleased.

AFP reports that the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) is advising airlines in the country that no, these pricey, life-size Look Thep dolls are not passengers — regardless of claims that they have undergone a “spiritualization” process — and are to be treated like any other carry-on item.

The dolls, explains CAAT are “non-human beings that cannot be considered passengers.” As such, they are “must be stored inside overhead lockers or underneath the seat.”

Thai Smile Airways recently explained its policy change by saying that travelers carrying Look Thep dolls had become upset when cabin crew tried to stow the dolls with carry on items. Some passengers insisted on holding the dolls on their laps during takeoff and landings, which the airline felt was a potential safety hazard.

The dolls have soared in popularity in Thailand over the last year after some celebrities claimed that the Look Thep had brought them good luck.

Last year, several major U.S.-based health insurance companies were hit with data breaches that put millions of consumers’ private information at risk. The trend continued this week, with nearly a million health records going missing from Centene Corp.

St. Louis-based Centene announced on Monday that it is conducting an internal search of its IT assets in order to pinpoint the location of six hard drives containing files on 950,000 clients that were unaccounted for in its inventory.

While the company assures consumers that the missing files don’t contain financial or payment details, they do include the names, addresses, birthdates, Social Security numbers, member identification numbers, and health information of patients who received laboratory services between 2009 and 2015.

“Centene takes the privacy and security of our members’ information seriously,” Michael F. Neidorff, Chairman, President and CEO of Centene, said in a statement. “While we don’t believe this information has been used inappropriately, out of abundance of caution and in transparency, we are disclosing an ongoing search for the hard drives.”

The drives were a part of a data project using laboratory results to improve the health outcomes of our members, the company says.

“Consistent with our policies around communication and transparency, we are beginning the process of notifying all affected individuals and all appropriate regulatory agencies as we continue to search and investigate,” Neidorff said, noting that affected individuals will be offered free credit and healthcare monitoring.

The company is also in the process of reinforcing and reviewing its procedures related to the management of its IT assets.

What’s the first thing you do to prepare for a trip to another state? After finalizing your packing list, looking up the law of the land should be on your list — especially if you’re planning on drinking any beer, wine, or liquor while you’re there.

Say you’re some film studio executive traveling to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT, this week. Are you allowed to order two drinks at a time? (Answer: yes, but you can’t order a double) Do you have to have a membership to a bar in order to get your swerve on? (Answer: no, but you may have to order food).

A number of states have laws and regulations you might not expect to run up against when you head out for a night (or afternoon, or morning) on the town, so read up and make your plans accordingly. Or you know, store up some good party conversation starters. Will we cover every weird law out there? Definitely not, but it’s a good start.

Drinking in restaurants: There are a few things you have to know if you’re planning on imbibing at a food establishment.
• You don’t have to physically shove potato skins or chicken fingers down your throat, but if you’re drinking at a restaurant, you will have to order some kind of food if you want alcoholic beverages delivered to the table. It can be a plate of jalapeño poppers for everyone to share, but it has to be there.
• If you’re drinking at a restaurant that opened after July 2012, bartenders will mix your drink where you can’t see it — known jokingly as the “Zion Curtain.” This rule does not apply to bars and clubs.

“Utah beer”: Beer sold in grocery stores is 3.2% alcohol by weight (also known as three-two beer), but is 4.0% by volume, the standard measurement. You can get high-point beer — anything over 4.0% ABV — at most bars and restaurants, but it has to be served in bottles. Any draft beer must be 4.0% ABV.

Booze to go: Full-strength wine, beer, and liquor can be bought from state liquor stores (except on Sundays and major holidays), breweries, distilleries, wineries, and some hotels and resorts.

Double-fisting: Each cocktail can contain up to 2.5 ounces of liquor. Yes, you can have more than one in front of you at a time, but you can’t make it a double or order a sidecar.

The ins and outs of Utah’s drinking rules are available on the state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control page as well.

Afternoon delight: Technically, there are no happy hours in Indiana — while a bar can offer all-day drink specials, state law prohibits retailers from selling alcoholic beverages during a portion of the day for a reduced cost. That 30-year-old ban may change with this year’s legislative session, however: Rep. Tom Dermody has filed a bill [PDF] that would remove the state’s restriction, the Associated Press reported recently.

No cold beer at grocery stores: An appeals court in Indiana recently upheld a state law that says grocery and convenience stores can’t sell cold beer, the Indy Star reported.

Stop in the name of Sundays: Indiana is one of 12 states that currently prohibits the sale of spirits on Sundays — but it’s the only state that also bans wine and beer sales on that day as well. It’s also the sole state that bans carryout sales while allowing bars, restaurants, and sports venues to sell booze.

Grocery stores can’t sell liquor, wine, or full-strength beer: Liquor stores, breweries, vintners, and distilleries are the only places you can legally buy beer and wine that’s full strength in the Rocky Mountain state, with grocery stores and other venues left out of the mix. There’s a coalition pushing to rewrite those alcohol laws, according to the Denver Post, but it won’t try to expand sales of liquor in the state as part of that ballot campaign.

No food can be sold at liquor stores: On the other hand, if you’re looking for a snack while perusing liquor store aisles for booze, you better hope it works as part of a cocktail. Colorado law says liquor stores “are prohibited from the sale of food items except those approved by the State Licensing Authority that are prepackaged, labeled, directly related to the consumption of liquor, and are sold in containers up to 16 ounces for the purpose of cocktail garnish.”

The state runs the show: Pennsylvania allows sales of bottled wine and liquor only through a state-run network of more than 600 “state stores.” Residents are also prohibited from buying alcohol outside the Keystone state and bringing it across the border. There is legislation pending in the state that would allow for some wine to be shipped to Pennsylvania addresses, but there’s been no movement on that bill since mid-2015.

Beer bust: If you want beer, it isn’t sold at grocery stores or those state liquor stores. Instead, you have to go to a beer distributor or beverage outlet, where, until very recently, you could only buy cases or kegs. In late 2015, the state’s liquor authority let distributors know that they could also sell 12-packs. Picking up a six-pack of beer means going to a bar or restaurant, or a bodega with a sit-down eating area. In those cases, each customer is limited to two six-packs (or up to 192 ounces), maximum.

Unhappy hour: Massachusetts law not only bans afterwork happy hours but also any other kind of drink special — fixed-price open bars, all-you-can-drink, free drinks, drinks as prizes. In fact, it was the first state to do so back in 1984, according to Boston Magazine. Private functions aren’t included in the law.

Lawmakers tried and failed in 2014 to get the ban on happy hours repealed.

Portion control: A patron cannot have more than two drinks at any one time, and pitchers aren’t allowed unless you have more than two people. You can order a bottle of wine to go with your meal if you’re dining alone, but if you aren’t eating food that bottle has to be for at least two people.

You’re too big: In 1995, the Texas Legislature [PDF] forbid public companies with more than 35 shareholders from selling hard liquor in the state. That simply won’t do for Walmart, which is currently suing Texas over the law. A court date in that case is currently set for Sept. 2016.

Some businesses have been able to get around the package store law through a loophole that allows closely related family members to pool their package store permits into a single entity and, according to Walmart, “collectively obtain an unlimited number of package store permits.”

St. Patrick’s Day Sundays are special: Like many other states, Maine has rules about when alcohol can be consumed on-premises. For most of the year, alcohol can only be purchased after 9 a.m. on Sundays — unless that day is St. Patrick’s Day, in which case you can start buying booze starting at 6 a.m.

Owners of Irish pubs pushed for the change in state law, so they could serve alcohol for a few more hours on the busiest day of the year. Governor Paul LePage signed that exception into law in March 2013, reported the Bangor Daily News. St. Patrick’s happened to be on a Sunday that year. The next time March 17 falls on a Sunday will be 2019.

Booze is not a game: Any practice designed to get customers to drink more — like, say, a drinking game — is banned from bars and restaurants, and alcoholic beverages can’t be awarded as prizes.

Slow down: Bar and restaurant patrons can’t be served more than two boozy beverages at a time.

No warming up at happy hour: Establishments that sell alcohol can’t peddle drinks at “a price less than the price regularly charged for the beverages during the same calendar week,” private functions excluded, according to state law. Alaskan bartenders also can’t give out free drinks.

Two at a time: Bartenders and other servers can’t deliver a third drink to someone already in possession of two other alcoholic beverages.

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One of the many labels that you’ll see on food at your local food-buying store is “natural.” What marketers want you to think is that “natural” products lack artificial flavor or color additives or preservatives, and maybe even that they’re made with organic ingredients. What it actually means is that the product says “natural” on the label, and that label is probably in shades of tan and light green.

That’s misleading to consumers, who (perhaps naively) expect the words on their food packaging to have a meaning. The Food and Drug Administration has come to realize this, too. They note that there actually is no formal rule about when food marketers are allowed to call something “natural,” though the agency does have a policy of what a “natural” label should say.

The FDA has considered the term “natural” to mean that nothing artificial or synthetic (including all color additives regardless of source) has been included in, or has been added to, a food that would not normally be expected to be in that food.

Wouldn’t that mean that if everyone expects Kraft Macaroni & Cheese to contain Yellow #5 food dye, it’s cool for the “natural” label? That could end up as a circular argument. The soft drink Sierra Mist, marketed as “natural,” contains stevia extract, a processed sweetener that most shoppers wouldn’t expect to find in a “natural” beverage.

Our minimally processed colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports polled a representative sample of Americans on this topic, asking what they think “natural” on a food label actually means. More than 80% of them agreed that a “natural” label should mean that a product isn’t made with synthetic chemicals, artificial additives or colors, toxic pesticides, and genetically modified organisms.

The FDA is reconsidering what “natural” should mean, and wants the public’s input. You can send them your comments until May 10, 2016, or also sign a petition from Consumer Reports that will go to the FDA. The core question is whether the FDA should formally define “natural” and go after companies that violate the rules, or simply ban the term on food packaging altogether, requiring companies to use the organic label, which is government-regulated.

Peeling Back the ‘Natural’ Food Label [Consumer Reports]
Fix the “natural” label! [Petition]
“Natural” on Food Labeling [FDA]

LAUREL, Va. (AP) — Firefighters have rescued three puppies from a Henrico County garage fire.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports (http://bit.ly/1SHPY3k) the fire happened Monday afternoon.

Fire Capt. Daniel Rosenbaum says in a statement that firefighters noticed a puppy in a pen after extinguishing the small blaze.

Rosenbaum says they removed the animal and started giving it oxygen when they discovered two other puppies. Each puppy was having significant trouble breathing.

He says the puppies were transported to the emergency center, where they were treated and their condition improved.

Firefighters believe the fire was caused by a light designed to provide warmth for the animals. Officials say the light may have been placed too close to combustibles.

___

Information from: Richmond Times-Dispatch, http://www.timesdispatch.com

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WASHINGTON — For people, a couple of feet of snow can be fun and frustrating. So what’s it like for a dog?

WTOP Living Editor Rachel Nania takes her four-legged friend Grace for a walk with a GoPro camera in tow.

 

 

WTOP’s Kate Ryan edited the video.

The post Snow from a dog’s perspective appeared first on WTOP.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia authorities say a homeless woman threw a piece of concrete through a window at the General Assembly Building in an apparent attempt to get arrested so she could escape the cold.

Capitol Police said in a news release Tuesday that 51-year-old Sherri Finley has been charged with felony vandalism and assault after the incident Thursday night. No one was injured. Finley is listed on the police report as being homeless.

Capt. Randy Howard of the Capitol Police says it appears Finley was trying to get arrested to have somewhere to stay on the cold night. Howard says Finley is also charged with assault after she punched a Virginia Commonwealth University student just before she threw the concrete. The student wasn’t seriously injured.

An attorney listed in court records did not immediately return a call Tuesday seeking comment.

The post Police: Homeless woman smashed window to escape cold appeared first on WTOP.

WASHINGTON — Here are the phone numbers and websites to report unplowed streets:

D.C.

Report problems online. See live road conditions.

MARYLAND

County Roads Departments across Maryland: Phone numbers for each county 

Maryland State Highway Administration: Report highway emergencies: 1-800-543-2515

Anne Arundel County: Submit a report online.

Charles County: 301-932-3450 or 1-888-460-SNOW

Frederick County, Maryland: 301-600-1564

City of Frederick: Submit a report online

Prince George’s County: 311 or submit online 

Montgomery County: mc311.com or call 311

VIRGINIA

Virginia Department of Transportation:  800-367-7623 or email novainfo@vdot.virginia.gov. See where the plows are.

Alexandria: Submit a report online.

Arlington County: Submit a report online or call 703-228-6485

Fairfax County: Report snow issues to Chair Sharon Bulova’s office at 703-324-2321 or chairman@fairfaxcounty.gov.

 

The post How to report unplowed streets appeared first on WTOP.

Most pay-TV customers use some sort of set-top box, and many of us are paying anywhere from $1-$15/month on top of our programming packages, and that doesn’t include additional fees for things like HD service, DVR service, or whole-home access. Now it looks like FCC Chair Tom Wheeler is set to propose rules aimed at giving consumers more options — and hopefully lowering their cable bills.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Wheeler is set to propose a rule change that would likely require pay-TV providers to allow third party device makers to sell competing set-top boxes.

Earlier this year, a group of U.S. senators sent questionnaires to the nation’s biggest pay-TV providers, asking them for data on how many of these boxes they lease and how much money they make off them. To say that the cable companies were hesitant to respond would be an understatement.

Using what little data they could glean from the pay-TV biggies, the senators calculated that the average cable customer was paying $89/year for a single set-top box, with the typical household being dinged for $232 annually. That comes out to around $20 billion per year, all of which goes to the cable companies. And even if the customer “leases” their box for long enough to pay off the full sticker price, that monthly fee doesn’t go away.

Consumer advocates have said that consumers have too few choices for set-top boxes, which allows the pay-TV providers to continue charging these high lease prices.

Last week, the Consumer Federation of America and Public Knowledge pointed out that prices for set-top boxes have increased by 185% since 1994, while prices for computers, TVs, mobile phones, and other devices have dropped significantly during that time. As a result, consumers are overpaying by anywhere from $6 billion to $14 billion annually for devices that should be less expensive.

The Journal notes that the cable industry is already planning an offense against Wheeler’s upcoming proposal, with more than 40 telecommunications and media groups expected to announce a coalition as soon as today.

They are expected to claim that pay-TV companies will lose billions in revenue if they have to let third parties sell competing set-top boxes. But maybe they should have thought of a business model that didn’t involve forcing customers to pay too much for boxes that other companies could have provided at a more affordable rate?

The Walmart Express experiment was a teeny proportion of the more than 5,000 stores that the retailer claims across the United States: fewer than 150 tiny Walmarts in small towns across the country. Walmart pulling the plug on its experiment has a very real and very terrible effect on the people who live in those small towns. In some places, it leaves them without any local grocery stores or pharmacies.

Bloomberg News visited some of these communities , and found that Walmart’s planned departure is leaving the towns where it built Walmart Express mini-stores even worse off. Take the town of Merkel, Kansas: with no indication that the new Walmart was close to leaving, the town’s grocery store closed only two months ago. There’s a happy ending for them, sort of: the grocery store has announced plans to reopen.

Other communities aren’t so lucky. While small stores might come along at some point to pick up that business, the small grocery stores and pharmacies that tried to compete with Walmart weren’t able to survive. “[Walmart] ruined our lives,” the manager of the local grocery store in Oriental, NC (and the owner’s daughter) told Bloomberg. “They came in here with their experiment and ruined us.”

Wal-Mart: It Came, It Conquered, Now It’s Packing Up and Leaving [Bloomberg[]

Just like humans, some wild animals get the urge to shop — from strolling the aisles of Rite Aid to sauntering into a local watering hole in search of libations. That unsettling trend continued over the weekend when a coyote tried to pick up a few items from a Kohl’s store in Indiana.

The Northwest Indiana Times reports that a wild coyote became stuck in a vestibule Saturday night after it wandered inside the first set of doors at a local Kohl’s store.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources responded to a call that a coyote had become stuck in the store’s entrance around 7:30 p.m.

Employees, who say the animal was wandering around the front of the store earlier in the evening, quickly locked a second set of doors, trapping the coyote inside the entrance vestibule area.

An officer for the Department tells the Times that when she arrived the animal was hiding behind a trash can.

“He wandered in there and realized, ‘This is not where I want to be at all,'” she said. “It was just a matter of trying to direct him.”

With the help of two local police officers, the conservation office was able to steer the coyote out of the entrance, while shoppers looked on.

“He ran out of there very fast and ran across the parking lot and was gone,” she said, noting that the animal was not hurt during the incident.

The officer says that the animal didn’t pose a threat to any shoppers, and likely came from a wooded area around the shopping center.

Coyote pays a visit to Valparaiso Kohl’s [The Northwest Indiana Times]

You generally expect that a company that has your personal information — like your address, recent orders, and billing information — is going to treat that data with some level of care. While you know their privacy policy might still allow some sharing for marketing reasons, you don’t expect their customer service agents to divulge it to anyone who happens to call up and pretend to be you.

Except that’s exactly what happened to one user, Eric, who wrote his story up on Medium. The hacker going after him didn’t do any fancy database work or complicated things with software. Instead, the attacker went after the weakest link in literally every single chain of security out there: the human element.

It all started with one piece of correct information: The attacker going after Eric’s account information had one piece of correct information to start with: a publicly available e-mail address. That let him claim to be Eric, with a level of plausibility.

But after that, it all started to rest on a foundation of lies and careful misdirection. When the Amazon rep asked for “Eric’s” address to verify his identity, the attacker had an address to provide… it just wasn’t the actual billing address.

The address was the one associated with the real Eric’s website, for anyone who ran a WHOIS check on his domain. It was a false address he had given on purpose, knowing that the privacy setting on his domain registration might be vulnerable (an instinct that was apparently correct).

If the Amazon rep had at this point checked that against Eric’s records and said, “I’m sorry, that doesn’t match our information” and pressed for further verification, none of the rest would have happened. But the rep didn’t — strike one against Amazon.

Nor was “Eric” able to verify the last order placed on Amazon, the one about which he was supposedly asking. The attacker claimed (correctly) not to have the order number handy, but just specified twice that it was the “most recent” order. The CSR oh-so-helpfully supplied the missing information, stating the contents of the real Eric’s most recent pending order. Strike two against Amazon.

With Eric’s real address and phone number now obtained, the attacker was able to use it to falsely verify his identity with other businesses.

Eric cleaned up the mess, got a new credit card, gave it a new billing address, and asked Amazon to make a note on his profile that he is often subject to this kind of attack. And all seemed well… until a couple of months later, when exactly the same thing happened again.

This time, the attacker used the address that they’d gotten from Amazon the first time… and amazingly, another Amazon rep once again happily filled in the chat with the items of the most recent order, and the new billing address.

The attacker also pressed the Amazon rep to share the last four digits of the credit card used to place the order, but at least the CSR held firm on that front and refused to provide card data… until a day later, when someone called by phone and seemed successful in obtaining it.

Eric was understandably frustrated after Amazon customer service failed to verify his identity and protect his data three times in as many months.

Unfortunately, this kind of social engineering appears not to be difficult to do with Amazon. After seeing Eric’s post, one reader felt concerned and tried exactly that kind of information fishing on a chat with Amazon customer service, about their own account.

The reader did the same thing Eric’s attacker had done: provided the correct e-mail address but an incorrect physical address, then asked Amazon for the correct address. As he showed in two screencaps, the Amazon rep in that chat made the exact same error, providing the real address and verification of last order placed to the person who provided no verification of their identity.

We’ve asked Amazon for comment on this story and will update if we hear back.

Amazon’s customer service backdoor [Medium]

If your dream vacation is to sleep out under the stars and enjoy the brisk winter air from inside a secluded retreat yet remain right inside the city, the perfect opportunity for you was briefly available for only $200 per night on the rental site Airbnb. Unfortunately, the site immediately pulled the listing, perhaps suspecting that renting out an igloo in a Brooklyn backyard was against housing codes.

The igloo was the product of some dudes living in Brooklyn who thought that making an igloo might be fun, and listing it on Airbnb as an actual vacation rental would be even more fun. They hollowed out a snow pile, took some nice photos, and loaded up the listing with buzzwords. “Boutique Winter Igloo for two,” they called it, since you couldn’t fit any more people in it than that.

Dripping with ingenuity and alt-lifestyle aura lays the Snopocalypse of 2016’s most desirable getaway. Hand-crafted, and built using only natural elements – we’re offering the experience of a lifetime in this chic dome-style bungalow for you and bae.

A helpful Airbnb representative explained the delisting, since the site does have standards. A representative contacted the igloo-keepers, explaining why their listing had been pulled. “Unfortunately, your igloo, while very well constructed, has failed to meet our occupancy standards and has been removed from search results. Be sure to pick a place with running water, electricity, and a roof that doesn’t melt.” If the roof melts, then by definition the lodging has running water!

At least the igloo saga amused people who were snowbound yet still had Internet access.

‘Alt-Lifestyle’ Igloo for Rent (Briefly) on Airbnb After Blizzard [DNAinfo]

Back in 2000, Procter & Gamble tested something interesting: it was a laundry pickup and delivery service called Juvian. That didn’t really take off, but the growth of app-based laundry services has apparently made the company give the idea another try. This time, it’s being tested in one neighborhood in Chicago, and the service is called Tide Spin.

You may have heard of category leader Wash.io, which uses an app to schedule laundry pickups and drop-offs. Wash-and-fold laundry services certainly aren’t a new idea, though, and Tide’s service charges around the average price nationwide. $1.59 per pound.

While you might think of Tide as a detergent company, they’ve made multiple attempts to get into selling services to customers as well as their products. While the Juvian test in Atlanta didn’t work out, Tide Dry Cleaners have survived, with maybe 30 stores scattered across the country.

P&G’s competitor in the consumer goods mega-conglomerate business, Unilever, also tried something similar back in the day, and may be considering partnering with one of the current popular startups instead of starting their own laundry service from scratch.

P&G Tests Tide Pickup Laundry Service in Chicago [AdAge]
P&G, Unilever aim to take consumers to the cleaners [AdAge back in 2001]

The griddle is hot, the batter is tasty and you’re cozy in the kitchen, whipping up a delicious batch of pancakes. But before you cover those fluffy circles of breakfast delight with maple syrup, there are a few things you should learn, as an informed breakfast consumer.

Our resourceful and wise colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports have the lowdown on the sweet stuff, as well as the results of their recent maple syrup tests to help with your foray into the syrup aisle.

1. All syrups aren’t created equal
Pancake syrup and maple syrup occupy the same aisle of the grocery store, and they may both be used atop piles of flapjacks, but they’re completely different products:
• Maple syrup is sap from a maple tree that’s been boiled down to reduce the water content and concentrate the sugars. Caramelized sugars give maple syrup is color and flavor. It takes about 10 gallons of sap to make just one quart of maple syrup.
• Pancake syrup is a highly-processed product made using corn syrup and/or high-fructose corn syrup. You’ll often find added coloring, flavoring, and preservatives in pancake syrup in it as well.

Consumer Reports‘ panel of professional tasters found big flavor differences between pancake syrup and maple syrup in blind tastings: Real maple syrup has a “clean, complex maple flavor with hints of caramel, vanilla, and prune,” while pancake syrups are “singularly sweet with little complexity and noticeable. artificial flavors,” Consumer Reports notes.

2. Grade A isn’t necessarily better than Grade B
What used to be known as Grade B syrup had a darker color and deeper flavor than grade A, but that doesn’t necessarily make it inferior. In order to clear up consumer confusion, as well as align with international standards, the U.S. Department of Agriculture changed the labeling system for syrup in January 2015, so that all maple syrup is now grade A.

Though this change went into effect in March 2015, not all maple syrup producers have switched over so you might still see old grades on labels.

3. It won’t hold indefinitely
Maybe you’re not in the mood for pancakes or waffles all that often, but don’t reach for that bottle you bought a few years ago, the last time you felt like making a breakfast treat. Maple syrup can grow mold so you should keep it in the refrigerator once it’s opened. After that, it’ll last six months to a year.

An unopened bottle can be stored in a cool place for up to two years.

Ready to buy a new bottle for the winter after all that sweet talk? Check out Consumer Reports‘ maple syrup ratings for more information.

Earning calls can be a drag, full of heavily massaged numbers and industry jargon meant to make anyone listening fall asleep. To spice things up, T-Mobile has created a drinking game, but not for their own magenta-hued earnings. Instead, T-Mo is intent on getting everyone drunk while listening to AT&T’s quarterly report.

In advance of today’s earnings news from AT&T, T-Mobile released “AT&T Earnings Call: The Drinking Game,” as a follow-up to a similar libation-heavy game that targeted Verizon.

[To be clear, we at Consumerist do not in any way condone or encourage the idea of drinking (potentially a lot of) alcohol during any earnings calls, even AT&T’s.]

“AT&T and Verizon have lots in common: more love for accountants and lawyers than customers, a fear of T-Mobile and terribly boring and jargon-heavy earnings calls (to name just a few),” T-Mobile said in the announcement. “Since we had so much fun with the Verizon earnings call, we decided to order up another round of drinking game goodness for AT&T’s call on Tuesday.”

The game earnings call, which kicks off at 4:30 p.m. (EST) today, takes the form of many other drinking games with a “take (number of) drink(s) if…” format.

For example, listeners are to take one drink each time AT&T says “profitable growth,” or everyone’s favorite buzzword, “internet of things.”

Two drinks are to be swigged if the company “hides phone losses under a mountain of cheap connected cars and free tablets,” or three drinks if CEO Randall Stephenson “shows up to his own earnings call.”

Players, we mean listeners, are to finish their drink if AT&T “grows a heart and decides to end overages.”

[via The Dallas Morning News]

How many Americans are making money from “on-demand” jobs — like being an Uber driver, selling stuff on Etsy, or renting out a room on Airbnb — that either didn’t exist until a few years ago or have exploded in popularity thanks to technological innovations? No one really knows, with various reports putting it at anywhere from 5% of the workforce to more than a third. So, for the first time in more than a decade, the U.S. Department of Labor will try to get a more accurate headcount on so-called “contingent” workers.

Yesterday, Labor Secretary Tom Perez announced that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will be working with the Census Bureau to produce a “Contingent Worker Supplement” to an upcoming Current Population Survey.

The last time that the federal government collected this sort of data was 2005, when the contingent workforce was still comprised largely of self-employed independent contractors.

At the time, you’d see freelance copywriters and designers using agencies to get work, or hairstylists renting out chairs in salons, but these people didn’t work for those agencies or those salons.

With the rise of the tech-powered gig economy, that line between employer and freelancer has become even blurrier. Your Uber or Lyft driver is not an employee (though some are trying to change that) of either company, but is just a person with a car who uses these ridesharing platforms to make a living. Likewise, homesharing services like Airbnb have allowed people to become semi-pro hoteliers/landlords (though they don’t always follow the rules for those traditional businesses).

As a result of these innovations and cultural changes, many more Americans are at least supplementing their income through contingent work.

“This is an exciting, entrepreneurial development that is tapping into powerful consumer demand while giving workers flexibility and enabling them to monetize existing assets,” writes Perez. “At the same time, the on-demand economy raises important questions about how to continue upholding time-honored labor standards and how to promote economic security for American workers in a changing labor market.”

In addition to the technological changes that have enabled new gig-based economies, many large businesses have tried to cut staffing costs by labeling certain workers as contractors, meaning they receive fewer benefits but may face the same requirements as employees.

For example, a number of delivery drivers for Amazon’s Prime Now service say that they are being treated like employees — told when to work, what to wear, which deliveries to make in which order — but are being miscategorized as contingent workers. A growing number of exotic dancers from around the country have made similar claims about their dubious “independent contractor” status.

Last July, the Dept. of Labor issued guidance to U.S. businesses in the hopes of preventing them from misclassifying workers as “contractors” when they should be considered employees.

Between a worker-side shift toward more flexible contingent work, and the push by companies to unburden themselves of hefty staffing costs, Secretary Perez says there’s a need to get a bead on how large this workforce is.

“It’s important that my team and I understand these trends so we can make good decisions going forward,” he explains, adding that “understanding emerging trends is only possible if we can systematically measure them.”

The announcement was applauded by Sara Horowitz, founder and executive director of the Freelancers Union.

“It’s great to see that the Department of Labor is going to take a real look at the growing independent labor force,” says Horowitz. “These Americans are pioneering a new approach to work and life, one that doesn’t neatly fit into our current 2-category system, and now is the perfect time to explore all the ways they are making a living through the gig economy.”

The new workforce data will be include in the May 2017 Current Population Survey, so mark your calendars now!

Washington Post

This snow plow sat abandoned on a DC street for so long that residents decorated it with Christmas lights Washington Post Christmas in January, courtesy of Snowzilla? A massive snowplow sat abandoned on a Chevy Chase street for so long over the weekend that it became a glimmering neighborhood fixture, festooned with holiday lights. Page Kennedy, a D.C. area attorney, ...