How Home-Grown Tomatoes And Misread Tea Leaves Led To Pointless Police Raid On Innocent Family’s Home

When Bob Harte took his two young kids shopping with him at an organic gardening store in Kansas City, Missouri, he had no idea that he had inadvertently set in motion a series of events that would — eight months later — lead to the Harte family watching helplessly as armed sheriff’s deputies searched every corner of their house for nonexistent evidence of a marijuana grow operation.

Let’s go back to August 2011. Bob, a former CIA officer who had moved from D.C. to the Kansas City suburbs in 1999, was working on a hydroponic vegetable garden in his basement. One day, he packed his son and daughter into the car and drove across the river to shop at a Missouri store that sells hydroponic gardening supplies.

As he left the store, he was unaware that a Missouri Highway Patrol sergeant was staking out this store under the presumption that hydroponic farmers are likely to be cultivating illegal marijuana.

At home, Bob’s wife Adlynn — also a former CIA officer and now an attorney — was indulging her tea habit, brewing tea the way that many tea fanatics do: with loose tea leaves.

The sergeant who’d added Bob to his list of potential reefer kingpins did nothing with this information for several months. Like others, he was hoping to launch a high-profile operation that would take down multiple marijuana growers on April 20 (because heaven forbid anyone do something pot-related not on this day), but when he realized he didn’t have enough possible targets, he shared his intel, including Harte’s info, with the Johnson County (Kansas) Sheriff’s Department, which was ramping up for its “Operation Constant Gardener” on that same date.

(Side note: Presumably the “Operation Constant Gardener” title is a reference to the John LeCarré novel/film, even though that story is about corruption in the legal prescription drug industry.)

Misreading The Tea Leaves

In the weeks leading up to the raids, sheriff’s deputies collected three separate trash samples from the Hartes’ curb. They determined that the wet tea leaves found in the garbage were actually “saturated plant material” meaning it was marijuana that had been processed to extract THC, the plant’s active ingredient.

Even though tea leaves looked nothing like pot, police performed field tests on these samples that they claim turned up positive for THC. However, the test they used can not conclusively determine if a substance is marijuana; it can only provide a “presumptive” positive for THC. The Hartes’ attorney notes that this test also has a 70% false positive rate, particularly with food items like peppermint, vanilla, cinnamon, basil, ginger, oregano, lavender, and tea.

“What deputies did not do was conduct any type of drug investigation — no surveillance, no interviews with neighbors, no searching their files for any tips, no thermal imaging, and no checking of electrical records or anything else that might suggest an indoor grow operation,” noted their lawyer.

With only a shopping trip to a completely legal gardening store, and some wet tea leaves, the sheriff still managed to obtain a warrant, though the affidavit given in support of that warrant made no mention of the field test’s high false positive rate, the fact that the “plant material” did not in any way resemble marijuana, or that it was found in the kitchen trash.

The Raid

On the morning of April 20, 2012, the sheriff’s office carried out “Operation Constant Gardener,” which included a 7:30 a.m. raid on the Harte home by deputies “garbed in raid gear and armed with assault rifles.”

Adlynn says she came downstairs to find Bob on the floor surrounded by officers. Their son, 13, came out of his room with his hands up, while their 7-year-old daughter had no idea what was going on.

The family was forced to sit on the couch — in full view of passersby — while police searched the hydroponic garden in the basement, finding only a half-dozen tomato, squash, and melon plants. Tests of the plant material in the garden came up negative for evidence of marijuana, which the Hartes contend should have been enough to satisfy deputies given that their entire warrant had been based on Bob’s shopping trip and Adlynn’s tea leaves. But the search continued for hours.

“The deputies searched every room of the Hartes’ residence, going through closets and dresser drawers, containers, and even Mr. Harte’s toilet kit bag,” says the family’s attorney. “After 2.5 hours, they found absolutely nothing — no drugs, no drug paraphernalia, no evidence of any illegal activity. It was obvious after the discovery of the vegetable plants that the prolonged and illegal search was aimed simply at uncovering something that would get the deputies off the hook for their improper actions. But the Hartes had never used any type of drugs, and there was nothing to find.”

The family says that while the fruitless search — which included bringing in a drug-sniffing dog conscripted from the Overland Park, KS, police — continued, officers initially refused to show the search warrant to the Hartes or describe its contents. The family also claims that one deputy told them that police “knew” there were “narcotics” in the house.

Officers later suggested that the Hartes’ teen son was responsible for the marijuana they didn’t find, then recommended taking the young man to a doctor for drug testing and that the Hartes have a “family meeting.”

When the Hartes finally did see the search warrant, it mentioned that the search was looking for evidence of a “major grow operation,” and not for evidence of pot production for personal use.

It wasn’t until nearly a year later, and after the sheriff had rejected multiple requests, that the Hartes were finally able to get the full picture of the half-baked investigation that led to the search warrant.

Then in March 2013, they were finally able to see the whole story: Bob daring to shop at a hydroponics store; the multiple searches of the Harte family garbage; the fact that police had actually discarded the first supposed marijuana sample taken from the garbage after determining it was “misidentified”; the revelation that the Sheriff’s Department did not use its crime lab to do a conclusive tests on these samples until after the raid; or that those tests identified “no controlled substances.”

The Legal Battle Begins

In 2013, Hartes sued the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department, sheriff and more than 10 deputies and other officers. They also sued the Missouri Highway Patrol sergeant who not only provided the tip to the sheriff, but who also trained many of the Johnson County deputies on drug-related matters. The county’s Board of Commissioners was also named in the complaint [PDF].

The lawsuit alleges that the law enforcement officers violated the Hartes’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment protections by conducting a search without sufficient probable cause, relying on a warrant based on materially false or misleading statements, detaining the family after it was clear that there was no probable cause for the search, and excessive use of force, among other claims.

But their case appeared to hit a dead end in 2015, when a federal court judge in Kansas granted summary judgment [PDF] in favor of all of the defendants, finding that the officers and the board members had each made valid “qualified immunity” claims. Qualified immunity protects law enforcement officers and other public officials from being held liable for reasonable errors made in the commission of their duties.

“Tea Drinkers & Gardeners Beware!”

Many of those claims of qualified immunity went out the window this week, when a three-judge panel at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed most of the lower court’s grant of summary judgment.

“Law-abiding tea drinkers and gardeners beware,” writes Judge Carlos Lucero in his opinion [PDF]. “One visit to a garden store and some loose tea leaves in your trash may subject you to an early-morning, SWAT-style raid, complete with battering ram, bulletproof vests, and assault rifles.”

In their appeal, the Hartes argued that the search warrant was invalid because the officers who obtained it failed to take photographic evidence of the supposed pot samples collected from the trash, didn’t use a drug-sniffing dog at their disposal, didn’t immediately turn the samples over to the lab for confirmation of the positive field tests, and did no further investigation into the Hartes.

The judges didn’t all agree on the validity of the search warrant. Lucero joined Judge Nancy Moritz in finding that the Hartes should be allowed to make the case that officers provided false or misleading information to the judge who signed the warrant. Judge Gregory Phillips, dissenting, countered that while the evidence provided by the Hartes points to lazy police work, it doesn’t appear to rise to the level of taking away the officers’ qualified immunity.

Thus, the appeals court majority reversed this aspect of the lower court decision, ruling that the Hartes can move forward with their claim of unlawful search and seizure against the sheriff’s deputies, but they are limited to arguing that officers lied about the results of the field tests in order to obtain the warrant.

The panel also reversed the District Court’s dismissal of state-law claims alleged by the Hartes, including Trespass, Assault, and False Arrest.

The appeals court affirmed the lower court’s summary judgment in favor of the county Board, the sheriff, and the Missouri Highway Patrol sergeant. The allegations of excessive force are also off the table.

Unless either side appeals this matter to the Supreme Court, this case now goes back to the District Court.

[h/t Washington Post]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Report: 25,000 Wells Fargo Customers Lost Vehicles After Bank Charged For Unwanted Insurance

Nearly 25,000 Wells Fargo customers, including many servicemembers, lost their vehicles after failing to pay for unneeded, unwanted insurance the bank charged them for, according to a new report suggests. 

The New York Times reports that a 60-page internal report prepared for Wells Fargo executives details the bank’s latest customer service fiasco involving hundreds of thousands of people who were charged for unneeded insurance.

According to the report, more than 800,000 people who received car loans from Wells Fargo from Jan. 2012 through July 2016 were charged for unneeded insurance policies underwritten by National General Insurance.

Expensive Insurance

The insurance, which the bank required on auto loans beginning in 2006, was automatically added to customers’ tabs through Wells Fargo’s Dealer services unit.

When a customer came to Wells Fargo for an auto loan their information was sent to National General Insurance. While the company was supposed to check to see if the customer already had insurance, that didn’t always happen.

Instead, a new insurance policy — often more expensive than the auto insurance customers had already acquired — would be added to the borrower’s account.

The Times reports that several states’ insurance regulations require Wells Fargo to notify customers that the insurance was added. However, the report suggests that nearly 100,000 people did not receive proper disclosure.

Defaults and Repossessions

Of those pushed into the coverage, the report notes that 274,000 Wells Fargo customers were unable to pay for the insurance, eventually entering delinquency.

This, the Times reports, occurred because of the way Wells Fargo charged customers for the insurance.

In some cases, the report found that customers who agreed to have their monthly loan payments deducted from their bank account automatically weren’t notified that the insurance payment would be added to that amount. As a result, some accounts could become overdrawn.

In complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau some customers reported that despite proving to Wells Fargo that they already had insurance, they continued to receive calls seeking payment on the bank-provided insurance policies.

This, despite the fact that Wells Fargo was supposed to cancel the policies and refund borrowers for the unneeded insurance.

In all, the report estimates that the bank owed customers $73 million, a figure that includes late fees, repossession costs, and insufficient fund fees charged when an account is overdrawn.

Difference In Figures

For its part, Wells Fargo tells the Times that the bank’s own determination found that just 570,000 customers were affected by the issues, and only 20,000 repossessions occurred.

“We take full responsibility for these errors and are deeply sorry for any harm we caused customers,” a rep for the bank said.

National General Insurance, which split commission on the policies with Wells Fargo until 2013, declined to provide comment to the Times.

A rep for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the regulator in charge of overseeing Wells Fargo, tell the Times that he could not comment on any action pending from the issues.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Please Do Not Buy Counterfeit Solar Eclipse Glasses

There’s a total solar eclipse coming across much of the country on Aug. 21, which will be amazing to watch. However, use caution, and make sure not to risk your eyesight to see it. Not only should you wear special eclipse-viewing glasses when you look at the sun, but you should make sure that those glasses aren’t counterfeit.

Counterfeit eclipse glasses are a thing?

Yes, there’s an online market for counterfeit eclipse glasses, and it’s a very robust one. In response to the demand for eclipse glasses, companies have popped up to meet that demand.

The glasses are essential because they let us safely look at the sun while it’s in partial eclipse, before the moon moves in front of it fully.

You can find hundreds of listings on Amazon, but just because a company says that they’re selling eclipse glasses, or throw around the correct ISO number, that doesn’t mean their products are safe.

A writer for Quartz bought some glasses on Amazon, and later learned that they were counterfeit, even though they claimed to be certified.

NASA has put the word out about these fake lens slingers, and named a few companies that are trustworthy providers of lenses or glasses. Here’s what you need to look for:

• The glasses should have certification information, with a designated ISO 12312-2 international standard.
• The actual manufacturer’s name and address should be printed somewhere on the glasses.
• Don’t use glasses that are wrinkled, scratched, or more than three years old.
• Don’t use regular sunglasses, no matter how dark they are.

NASA recommends buying glasses from from one of five manufacturers:

• American Paper Optics
• Baader Planetarium (AstroSolar Silver/Gold film only)
• Rainbow Symphony
• Thousand Oaks Optical
• TSE 17

This is not a money grab on the part of these manufacturers. “There are a zillion companies putting out the same product and they all have different names,” a representative of Rainbow Symphony told Quartz. “And this isn’t because I don’t want competition in the marketplace. We’re oversold and on backorder. It’s not my motive to keep competitors out of the market.”

Unfortunately, just looking for those five names on Amazon isn’t enough, since the counterfeiters are using names of the approved companies. NASA says that it will release more information before the eclipse, incuding the names of more approved vendors.

So far, experts haven’t found any counterfeit glasses that are inadequate or harmful, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any out there. It’s one thing to buy sketchy fidget spinners, but do you really want to risk your eyesight?

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

United Kingdom Discovers 2,529 Products Hit By Grocery Shrink Ray, Calls It ‘Shrinkflation’

The grocery shrink ray is a phenomenon that you may have noticed, where companies make their packaged products slightly smaller, charge the same price, and hope that no one notices. It’s not a new phenomenon, but the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom recently tallied up shrunken products in the last five years.

Toblerone and toilet paper

The best-publicized shrunken product during that period was, of course, the Toblerone from Mondelēz. The manufacturer shrank the chocolate bar’s distinctive triangles, angering its fans.

However, that’s just one of the 2,529 products that the government noted. Toilet paper brand Andrex, which uses the same puppy-centric marketing as its American cousin brand Cottonelle, shrank its rolls from 280 sheets to 221, but claims to have improved its quality while reducing the number of sheets, balancing things out. Maybe.

On the plus side, 614 consumer products got bigger during the same period.

Not buying companies’ excuses

The ONS dismissed the reasons that companies traditionally give for shrink raying products, noting that the cost of raw materials hasn’t increased recently, and that the impending Brexit of the U.K. from the European Union also wouldn’t have an effect on inflation or on costs. It actually became cheaper to import sugar into Europe over the period that the study covered.

It also wouldn’t explain items that shrank between 2012 and 2016.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Your Tank Of Colorful Coral Could Pose A Toxic Danger

Installing a massive water-filled tank full of colorful floral and different species of fish might sound like great way to give your home that enormous little touch of pizzazz you always envisioned. Or could prove to be a dangerous addition, as some species of floral can emit deadly chemicals.

The Washington Post reports that while poisonings related to in-home coral reefs are rare, they do occur.

Certain species of corals, including zoanthid corals, release potent toxins when they feel they are being attacked by a predator.

The most dangerous of these toxins is palytoxin, a chemical that burns the skin and eyes on contact, while also irritating an individual’s throat and lungs.

This is likely what occurred to an Australian family earlier this year. The Post reports that all seven members of the family were hospitalized after waking in the middle of the night, having trouble breathing.

Authorities believe that when the family cleaned its coral tank that night, the coral reacted by spewing a chemical that spread through the home.

The family’s home had to be quarantined and cleaning teams had to wear breathing apparatuses and hazmat suits to clean the chemical with bleach and vacuuming the remaining particles.

How Did We Get Here?

While it’s not uncommon to find a home with a large tank full of exotic fish, snails, sea horses, and other water animals, a coral reef tank is more unique.

According to the Post, it wasn’t until after the 1980s that home aquariums were able to sustain life aside of fish.

Not content with this, however, companies developed technology and tanks that mimicked the sun and other atmospheric requirements for coral to grow. Once this technology was in place, companies began importing live stony coral, at a rate that grew around 8% each year.

This availability, coupled with the popularity of films like Finding Nemo, and the Post reports the coral business peaked in 2005 when importers brought in 600,000 pieces of live coral into the U.S.

Still, in some cases the Post reports the toxic corals aren’t actually purchased by reef hobbyists, they instead grow from rocks put in tanks.

Knowing The Dangers

Although the import of live coral has decreased since the great recession, plenty of the live aquatic life enters the U.S. each year.

For the most part, the Post reports, these corals don’t undergo comprehensive tests for toxins by the Food and Drug Administration.

For this reason, it’s important for hobbyists — often likened to master gardeners — to understand the dangers of the corals’ toxins.

When the hobby began to grow, those interested in joining the fray turned to groups online, where others exchanged information about their corals and other tank life.

“The sharing of information has really helped,” one hobbyist tells the Post, noting that those that have been dealing with corals for years make it easier for others to get involved.

Additionally, hobbyists attending industry events and conferences have become aware of the dangers through lectures.

Still, the Post reports that even the most seasoned coral growers have fallen victim to the dangerous toxins.

For instance, one reefer who tried to kill a zoanthid by boiling it, was overcome by the emitted chemical. He received a runny nose that turned into coughing fits. He visited the emergency room for treatment, but asthma-like symptoms continue.

In another sad incident, one hobbyist warned others on a forum that his dog had stuck its head into a tub of zoanthid coral. The dog died a few hours later.

The Post notes that no one has died from palytoxin inhalation.

Outside Of Coral

Palytoxin isn’t relegated to just coral, the Post reports, as the chemical has also been known to be a food contaminant.

For example, in 2000, 11 people in Japan became ill after eating fish. While those individuals recovered, the toxin was linked to the death of a man who ate a tainted crab.

According to scientists, food contamination stems from algae, not corals. That’s not an uncommon occurrence, as an algae named Ostrepsis ovata bloomed in the Mediterranean Sea sickening about 200 people in Italy.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

So Is Congress’ Effort To Repeal Obamacare Actually Dead For Real, Or What?

It’s been a heck of a week in D.C. On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate held a high-drama, high-stakes vote to move on a proposal to repeal and/or replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). That kicked off a frankly bonkers week of politics and politicking, with debate — and Senators’ support — all over the map. In the wee small hours of Friday morning, that effort finally shambled to a halt, fatally collapsing on itself. But is this actually the end of Congressional efforts to undo the ACA?

In many ways, covering or reading about D.C. right now calls to mind a monster B-movie. At the end, the vampire gets a wooden stake through its heart and falls into its casket. The lid falls down dramatically, the credits roll, and you know that the monster will remain out of the picture — until the inevitable Return of… film a couple of years later.

That shambling, undead interpretation of this particular initiative is as good an analogy of any other. In more literal terms, here’s where it stands.

Okay, what actually happened?

This all kicked into high gear on Tuesday, July 25, when the Senate narrowly voted, 51-50, to open debate on a healthcare bill.

That bill was the House’s American Health Care Act, but it was used effectively as a placeholder text while the Senate crafted its own plan to repeal and/or replace the ACA.

The rules the Senate was operating under set a 20-hour clock ticking as soon as the Tuesday vote was finished, and so Senators lined up a number of potential alternative bills to see who could agree on what during that debate window.

The first Senate alternative to come to a vote was effectively the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) — the bill that was basically deemed too dead to vote on merely a week earlier. It did indeed fail on Tuesday, 43-57.

On Wednesday, the Senate then moved on to its next option, which was functionally the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act (ORRA) — a straight “repeal” plan. That, too, failed to advance, only securing 45 of the necessary 51 votes.

By Thursday, the time crunch was on. One Senator proposed an amendment that would basically create a national single-payer option, expanding Medicaid universally; the Senate immediately voted that down, 57-0.

That led us to the so-called “skinny repeal,” a slapdash effort that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shopped around on Thursday in a final effort to gain the support of at least 50 Republican senators.

However, support for that option was tepid and confused at best, and when the Senate finally voted on it in the middle of the might, it did not pass.

So this actual attempt is for-really dead?

This week’s effort is done, toast, kaput, pining for the fjords, ringing down the curtain, joining the choir invisible, d-e-a-d dead.

Nothing was resolved during the allotted 20 hours of debate allowed or mandated by the procedure they were using, and so now Senate business has to move on to something else.

But while this particular effort is over, there is absolutely nothing saying McConnell can’t try again with another bill. He, or another member of the Senate, can introduce a bill do to basically anything at any time, and it could be nearly verbatim to any of the ones that the Senate tried and failed to move through this week.

How likely are they to try again, though?

McConnell absolutely can try again. Whether or not he wants to, though, is an entirely different issue.

Passing a proper bill, without using budget reconciliation tactics, will require 60 Senators to come on board in order to be filibuster-proof and get past procedural thresholds. In the sharply split Senate we currently have, no repeal bill is going to get that far.

Reconciliation tactics, though, only require a simple 51-vote majority to succeed. But using reconciliation to squeeze something through has now proven challenging, to say the least.

While Republican members of Congress have been vowing to “repeal and replace Obamacare” for years, the reality is that they don’t agree on how or why. All through the whole long saga, Senate Republicans were fractured into a couple of different camps.

One camp, the more conservative, wanted to flat-out fully repeal the ACA and everything in it. As they worked toward a middle ground, the hardliners who wanted a repeal objected to the middle ground more and more.

Meanwhile the other camp, considered more moderate, wanted to preserve more Americans’ coverage and especially prevent Medicaid from suffering deep cuts. As proposal after proposal failed to meet their standards, they held the ground on their objection.

Reconciling “this goes too far” with “this doesn’t go far enough” is an uphill battle at best — and that key split in ideology and desired outcome still remains.

In remarks on the Senate floor after the vote failed, McConnell seemed willing to throw in the towel on that particular fight for now, saying, “it’s time to move on.”

But in 2017’s politics, you never know.

Aside from healthcare, though, we’re now six months into a new administration — one that is politically aligned with both chambers of Congress, and yet has no major policy wins to show.

Members of the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives — which narrowly passed its repeal and replace resolution in May — are unhappy with the Senate’s failure to do the same, Politico reports, with the far-right Freedom Caucus is particularly displeased.

“If they’re going to quit, well then by God, maybe they ought to start at the top with Mitch McConnell leaving his position and letting somebody new, somebody bold, somebody conservative take the reins,” Rep. Mo Brooks (AL) , told CNN on Friday.

Other House Freedom Caucus members were more optimistic, with North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan telling Fox News that they were “staying in” and ready to try again, with “a little bit of a shift” in approach.

It is, in short, a giant question mark. With some members of Congress wanting to double down, and leadership clearly wanting to move on to other priority items on the party’s agenda, all that we can really guess for sure is that this was not going to be the last high-drama week of the year for Congress.

by Kate Cox via Consumerist

Players In New Professional Esports League Could Make As Much As Major League Soccer Players

Not only can competitive video game players now receive scholarships to the University of Utah, they could parlay that love into a pretty well-paying professional esports career, where players will receive a salary and benefits rivaling other professional sport athletes. 

Activision Blizzard announced Wednesday additional details of its professional esports Overwatch League set to begin play this fall, including player salaries and potential bonus awards.

Players in the league, which was crafted to resemble other professional sport leagues such as the NFL and MLB, will make a minimum salary of $50,000 per year. At this rate, Bloomberg notes, the salary for Overwatch players rivals that of Major League Soccer players, who receive a minimum salary of $53,000.

However, Overwatch players stand to earn more than just their base salary. The League says that players can earn as much as 50% of their team bonuses. These bonuses, Activation Blizzard notes, will total $3.5 million in the first year, with the championship team receiving $1 million.

Additionally, players, who are singed to a one-year guaranteed contract, will receive health insurance and a retirement savings plan.

The League

Teams for The Overwatch League have already been confirmed in Boston, Los Angeles, Miami-Orlando, New York City, San Francisco, Seoul, and Shanghai. Activision Blizzard is expected to add additional host cities over time.

Teams will be built using a roster of the more than 30 million eligible Overwatch players. Teams will be able to add players during a signing window from Aug. 1 until Oct. 30.

Teams will also provide players with housing and practice facilities during the season, the company said.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

FDA Considering Lowering Level Of Nicotine Allowed In Cigarettes To Reduce Addiction

Could your future cigarette purchase come with a little less nicotine? It’s possible, as the FDA revealed today a new multi-year roadmap intended to protect kids and reduce tobacco-related disease and death.

The FDA announced today a comprehensive regulatory plan that moves the issues of addiction and its relation to nicotine to the forefront of the agency’s efforts to implement the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

“Congress gave FDA powerful tools to help reduce the harms caused by tobacco use when it passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said today. “And it sent a strong signal by calling it the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.  To put it simply: it’s all about kids and families. Congress made that clear in the law. And we take that responsibility very seriously.”

To this end, the agency says it will use its rule-making authority and seek input on public health issues in determining how it should move forward with the regulation of nicotine.

Tackling Addiction

According to the FDA, tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S., with more than 480,000 deaths occurring each year.

To reduce this number, the FDA plans to create a greater awareness that nicotine is addictive.

“The overwhelming amount of death and disease attributable to tobacco is caused by addiction to cigarettes – the only legal consumer product that, when used as intended, will kill half of all long-term users,” Gottlieb said.

Related: You Still Can’t Fire Up An E-Cigarette On Your Flight

Gottlieb claimed that unless the FDA does something, 5.6 million young people could die prematurely later in life from tobacco use.

“Envisioning a world where cigarettes would no longer create or sustain addiction, and where adults who still need or want nicotine could get it from alternative and less harmful sources, needs to be the cornerstone of our efforts – and we believe it’s vital that we pursue this common ground,” he added.

Reducing Nicotine

One step the FDA plans to pursue in order to reduce the prevalence of nicotine addiction is reducing the amount of nicotine found in cigarettes.

“Nicotine is astonishingly addictive,” Gottlieb said. “And when nicotine is attached to cigarette smoke particles, it’s not only highly addictive, but an addictive chemical mix of disease and death. So we need to take a fresh look at nicotine itself, and how the addiction that it causes relates to the potential harm of its delivery mechanism.”

The agency says it plans to begin a public dialogue about lowering the permissible nicotine levels in combustible cigarettes to non-addictive levels. This would involve reducing the amount of nicotine in cigarettes through product standards.

FDA intends to issue an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) to seek input on the potential public health benefits and any possible adverse effects of lowering nicotine in cigarettes.

By lowering the level of nicotine in cigarettes, the FDA believes it can decrease the likelihood that future generations become addicted to cigarettes, while also assisting those currently addicted to kick the habit.

“Because nicotine lives at the core of both the problem and the solution to the question of addiction, addressing the addictive levels of nicotine in combustible cigarettes must be part of the FDA’s strategy for addressing the devastating, addiction crisis that is threatening American families,” Gottlieb said. “Our approach to nicotine must be accompanied by a firm foundation of rules and standards for newly regulated products. To be successful all of these steps must be done in concert and not in isolation.”

Looking To Other Options

In addition to exploring a decrease in nicotine found in cigarettes, the FDA says it is committed to finding other innovative ways to influence public health changes.

The agency said today that it intends to extend timelines to submit tobacco product review applications for newly regulated tobacco products that were on the market as of Aug. 8, 2016.

Related: FDA Quietly Delays Stricter Rules On E-Cigarettes, Cigars

This action, the FDA said, will afford the agency time to explore clear and meaningful measures to make tobacco products less toxic, appealing and addictive.

For example, the FDA intends to develop product standards to protect against known public health risks such as e-cigarette battery issues and concerns about children’s exposure to liquid nicotine.

Additionally, the expanded timeframe will allow manufacturers to develop higher quality, more complete applications informed by additional guidance from the agency, the agency said.

Under expected revised timelines, applications for newly regulated combustible products, such as cigars, pipe tobacco and hookah tobacco, would be submitted by Aug. 8, 2021, and applications for non-combustible products like e-cigarettes would be submitted by Aug. 8, 2022.

Getting Input

The FDA says that it also plans to seek public input on other ways it can help protect public health related to new tobacco products.

This, the agency says, will insult looking for input on approaches to regulating kid-appealing flavors in e-cigarettes and cigars.

By seeking public input on the issues, the FDA says it will ensure that it has proper science-based policies in place to meaningfully reduce the harms caused by tobacco use.

“This comprehensive plan and sweeping approach to tobacco and nicotine allows the FDA to apply the powerful tools given by Congress to achieve the most significant public health impact,” Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said.

 

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Apple Puts iPod Nano And iPod Shuffle Out To Pasture

So long, old friends: After many redesigns and colors, Apple has dropped the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle from its lineup. Why drop the teeny devices now? Their ancestor the iPod Classic is now gone, and the two devices were the only music players left that don’t use iOS. Worse, the iPod Shuffle doesn’t have Bluetooth.

Yesterday brought the death of the two older models of iPod, and the surviving model is what used to be called the iPod Touch.

This marks the first time since 2001 that Apple won’t sell a standalone music player. The iPod Touch is really a tiny tablet that runs iOS, the operating system of Apple’s phones and tablets. It only connects to WiFi, not mobile data, but otherwise resembles an iPhone.

Here’s where the death of the smaller iPods comes in. Like its cousin, the iPhone 7, the newest version of the iPod doesn’t have a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. How can Apple sell you Beats wireless headphones and AirPods if the Shuffle doesn’t even have Bluetooth?

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Starbucks Closing All Teavana Stores

It was almost five years ago that Starbucks paid $620 million to acquire mall tea chain Teavana, politely declining the $800 million tea tin upsell. While Teavana products are now for sale in every Starbucks cafe, including fruit-infused iced teas, the company announced this week that it will be closing the remaining Teavana retail stores over the coming year.

The retail tea biz

There are 379 Teavana stores in shopping malls, where employees brew very strong samples to entice shoppers to buy tasty loose teas.

Starbucks had also opened a few standalone Teavana-branded tea bars, but ended the experiment by converting these businesses into Starbucks cafes or closing them. Instead, Teavana products began to show up on the standard Starbucks menu, including an Oprah-endorsed chai and a piña colada-themed tea drink.

Starbucks will keep distributing Teavana drinks in grocery stores as well as selling the brand’s teas and brewed products in its cafes.

This is becoming a trend with Starbucks, which acquired the bakery La Boulange and began putting its baked goods in stores, later closing all of the chain’s standalone stores.

All the espresso in China

In the same earnings report where the company shared the Teavana news, it also said that it would be buying its entire business in China, buying the the other half of its business in that country from joint venture partners that own 50%. If you count that as an acquisition, it’s the company’s largest ever at $1.3 billion.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Honda Investigating Another Death Possibly Tied To Takata Airbag

Federal safety regulators and Honda have opened investigations into what could be the 13th U.S.-based death linked to recalled shrapnel-shooting Takata airbags.

Honda announced Thursday that a Takata airbag inflator ruptured during the crash of a 2002 Honda Accord in Florida last week, in which a 34-year-old woman was killed, Reuters reports. 

While an official cause of death has not been confirmed, Honda and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are investigating whether the ruptured airbag played a part in the woman’s death.

The crash occurred around 6:40 p.m. July 19 in Holiday, FL, when a 19-year-old in a Pontiac Firebird turned into the woman’s path, WTSP10 reports.

Consumerist has reached out to Takata for additional information on the crash and investigation. We’ll update this post if we hear back.

If the death is confirmed to be a result of the Takata airbag rupture it would become the 13th in the U.S. and 18th worldwide.

It would also be the 12th such death in the U.S. to occur in a Honda vehicle. Ford is the only other carmaker to have a vehicle involved in a Takata-related death. Earlier this year, the Dec. 22 death of a Georgia man driving a Ford Ranger pickup was linked to airbag shrapnel.

To find out if a vehicle is affected by the recall owners are urged to enter their individual VIN on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Safercar.gov/vin database.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds

Here are eight of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness.

Want to see your pictures on our site? Our Flickr pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

GOP Finally Releases ‘Skinny’ Repeal Bill: The Health Care Freedom Act

After several days of mystery and voting for and against amendments on a bill that doesn’t really exist, Republican leadership in the Senate has finally released the text of the Health Care Freedom Act, better known as the “skinny” Obamacare repeal bill.

The Senate Budget Committee released the bill [PDF] via Twitter shortly after 10 p.m. ET on Thursday night. We presume they were waiting to see who was evicted from Big Brother.

The 8-page bill does the following:

• Negates the “individual mandate” — the requirement that all people must have some form of insurance or pay a penalty — by reducing the penalty for not having insurance to $0. This appears to be effective immediately and retroactive to the beginning of 2016.

• Negates the “employer mandate” — the requirement that businesses of a certain size must provide full-time employees with qualifying coverage — by reducing the penalty for not having insurance to $0. This appears to be effective immediately and retroactive to the beginning of 2016.

• Delays the current tax on medical device manufacturers, retroactively to the beginning of 2017, and through 2020.

• Allows for increased maximums on Health Savings Accounts, starting in 2018.

• Denies federal funds to Planned Parenthood (or any similar program, but the definition is so specific that it’s really just Planned Parenthood) for one year.

• Shuts down all funding to the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which provides funding to a variety of public health concerns, like Alzheimer’s research, diabetes prevention, heart disease prevention, anti-smoking initiatives, immunization, scientific support for state and local officials to detect and respond to outbreaks, and much more. This fund is about 15% of the entire budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Funding would end starting in 2018, with no replacement offered.

• Allows states to seek “innovation” waivers. These waivers would give states the option of allowing insurers to not comply with several aspects of Obamcare, including the requirement that all plans must cover certain “Essential Health Benefits.”

• Additional funding for the Community Health Center Fund for 2017.

We are still reading the bill and will continue to update. More to come…

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Judge Rules That Politician Violated First Amendment By Banning Critical Commenter

With politicians — most notably our current President — using social media to communicate directly to the world, the question is now being asked whether a lawmaker is violating the First Amendment when they actively block people from following them online. One federal court has chimed in, finding that a politician in Virginia crossed the line when she temporarily banned a constituent from commenting on her Facebook page.

The case at hand involves the government of Loudon County, VA, just northwest of D.C., where Phyllis Randall, Chair of the county’s Board of Supervisors barred the plaintiff, a local man named Brian Davison, from commenting on her Facebook page because his statements were critical of her actions while in office.

Davison sued Randall and the Board in federal court, arguing that his ban from the Facebook page was an illegal prior restraint based solely on his point of view.

A bench trial was held in May, and this week the judge in the case ruled against Randall, finding that even though she set up her “Chair Phyllis J. Randall” page herself and outside of the county’s existing social media accounts, Randall was indeed acting in in a governmental capacity while operating that page. That means the page is a forum for protected, free speech under both federal and Virginia state law, notes the judge in his opinion [PDF].

The judge points out that the “about” section of Randall’s page describes her as a “Government official,” that it links to the county website, and provides only her official government contact information.

Additionally, though the page does contain some personal posts, it is largely mostly used to communicate county business or other matters directly related to her position as Chair of the county board. Randall keeps both a personal Facebook account and a separate “Friends of…” page.

“The impetus for Defendant’s creation of the ‘Chair Phyllis J. Randall’ Facebook page was, self-evidently, Defendant’s election to public office,” notes the judge. “She created the page in collaboration with her Chief of Staff the day before she took office, and did so for the purpose of addressing her new constituents.”

The judge also pointed out that, by using her Chief of Staff to set up and maintain the page, Randall is effectively using county resources. Randall tried to argue that her Chief of Staff did this Facebook work separately from her job and out of her personal friendship with Randall, but that argument didn’t win over the court.

At a public meeting in 2016, Davison submitted a question which, when read aloud by Randall, she referred to it as a “set-up” question that she did not appreciate. When Randall later posted about this meeting on her Facebook page, Davison included a comment raising questions of possible corruption and familial conflicts on interest at the county School Board.

Randall said the comment was “probably not something” she wanted to have on her page, but rather than challenge Davison by offering a rebuttal, she simply deleted the entire post, taking Davison’s comment with it.

She then banned him from her page, after deciding that Davison “was the type of person that would make comments about people’s family members,” and she didn’t want such people on her page.

Randall removed the ban after about 12 hours, so the damage done was minimal, but the court said the removal of Davison’s comment and the brief ban still had the effect of being a prior restraint.

“Plaintiff’s comment regarding alleged misconduct by County officials was obviously related to a question Defendant had fielded at a town hall earlier that evening,” explains the judge. “Defendant banned Plaintiff from her Facebook page due to this criticism of her ‘colleagues’ in the County government.”

Some have argued that government officials blocking accounts on social media does not amount to censorship because there are multiple other ways for blocked individuals to express their opinions. However, the judge in this case says the court can’t treat the “vital, developing forum” of social media any differently “simply because technology has made it easier to find alternative channels through which to disseminate one’s message.”

The judge said his ruling is not to be interpreted as a prohibition on moderation of social media comments, and that there may be justifiable reasons for an elected official to ban an account on social media. But such moderation policies must be “neutral” and “comprehensive.”

The issue of government officials blocking and banning social media accounts has been pushed to the forefront by President Trump, who has blocked a number of Twitter users from accessing his @realDonaldTrump account, including author Stephen King and model/TV host Chrissy Teigen.

The President had this Twitter popular account long before he was voted into the White House, but he’s continued to use it as his primary way of communicating directly with the public, often about political matters.

The Knight First Amendment Institute sued Trump earlier this month [PDF] on behalf of a handful of blocked Twitter users, arguing that the President is not only violating everyone’s rights by cherry-picking what sort of responses to his Tweets are or aren’t acceptable.

“The White House is transforming a public forum into an echo chamber,” said Katie Fallow, a senior staff attorney at the Knight Institute at the time of the filing. “Its actions violate the rights of the people who’ve been blocked and the rights of those who haven’t been blocked but who now participate in a forum that’s being sanitized of dissent.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist