Current Events in May 2014

Everybody's heard of low-fat diets. And everybody's heard of the "caveman diet," which cuts carbs and emphasizes animal protein. Now, researchers at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto have shown for the first time that, in addition to weight loss, a specific low-carbohydrate diet may also reduce the risk of heart disease by 10% over 10 years.

The diet, often called "Eco-Atkins," is a low-carbohydrate vegan diet. Many low-carbohydrate diets have been proven to improve weight loss but most emphasize eating animal proteins and fats, which may raise cholesterol. Diets that are high in vegetable proteins and oils may reduce the risk of heart disease by lowering "bad cholesterol."

"We killed two birds with one stone – or, rather, with one diet," explained lead author Dr. David Jenkins, a Nutritional Sciences professor at the University of Toronto. "We designed a diet that combined both vegan and low-carb elements to get the weight loss and cholesterol-lowering benefits of both."

The findings, which were published in British Medical Journal Open, compared Eco-Atkins to a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet. The Eco-Atkins diet reduced cholesterol by 10% while also helping participants lose an average of four more pounds than the high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet over six months.

"We could expect similar results in the real world because study participants selected their own diets and were able to adjust to their needs and preferences," said Dr. Jenkins, who is a vegan.

Menu plans

Participants were given menu plans that outlined food items and amounts. Rather than requiring fixed meals, the menus served as a reference guide and participants were given a list of suitable food alternatives. With an exchange list of interchangeable food items, participants were better able to adapt the diet to their personal tastes – which helped to encourage adherence to the diet.

Twenty-three obese men and women completed the six-month diet. Participants were encouraged to eat only 60% of their estimated caloric requirements – the amount of calories that should be consumed daily to maintain their current weight.

Eco-Atkins participants aimed for a balance of 26% of calories from carbohydrates, 31% from proteins and 43% from fat – coming primarily vegetable oils.

Carbohydrate sources included high-fibre foods such as oats and barley and low-starch vegetables such as okra and eggplant. Proteins came from gluten, soy, vegetables, nuts and cereals. Predominant fat sources for the Eco-Atkins diet were nuts, vegetable oils, soy products and avocado.

After falling in March and February, sales of new single-family homes rose 6.4% in April to seasonally adjusted annual rate of 433,000.

Despite last month's advance, the sales pace remains 4.2% below the April 2013 rate of 452,000.

Falling prices

The joint release from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban also puts the median sales price of new houses sold in April at $275,800 – down $5,900 from March. The median is the point at which half of the prices are higher and half are lower. The average sales price also fell -- to $320,100 from $336,700 the month before.

Economists at Briefing.com believe that as higher rates and soft income growth erode affordability conditions, the drop in prices should help new home sales growth.

Inventories, meanwhile, were on the rise. The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of last month rose 0.5% -- to 192,000, representing a supply of 5.3 months at the current sales rate.

The full new-home sales report is available on the Commerce Department website.

Suzuki Motor of America is recalling184,244 model year 2004-2008 Forenza vehicles, and 2005-2008 Reno vehicles manufactured from September 1, 2003, through July 30, 2008.

Heat may be generated in the headlamp switch or daytime running light (DRL) module of the affected vehicles, which could melt the headlamp switch or the DRL module, increasing the risk of a fire.

Suzuki will notify owners but the manufacturer has not yet provided a notification schedule. The remedy for this recall campaign is still under development.

Owners may contact Suzuki at 1-800-934-0934. Suzuki's number for this recall is XA.

Sherman Produce of St. Louis, Mo., is recalling 241 cases of bulk walnuts packaged in 25-lb bulk cardboard boxes and Schnucks brand 10-oz trays with UPC 00338390032 with best by dates 03/15 and 04/15.

The products have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

No illnesses have been reported to date.

The products were sold to retailers in Missouri and Illinois from March – May 2014.

Consumers who have purchased these walnuts are urged not to consume them, but to dispose of them or return them to the place of purchase for a full refund.

Consumers with questions may call Sherman Produce at 314-231-2896, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST weekdays.

Airbnb has agreed to comply with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's demand that it turn over user data. The peer-to-peer rental service will also warn future hosts that they may be violating New York laws.

Schneiderman's office agreed that Airbnb could "anonymize" the data by blanking out names, Social Security numbers and other personal data and replacing them with a numerical identifier, at least for now. 

However, Airbnb agreed that it will turn over identification data in any case the AG's office decides to investigate after examining the anonymized data.

The settlement basically leaves Airbnb in the clear while subjecting its hosts to what could be a grueling series of demands for payment of back taxes, fees, penalties and interest. 

“Airbnb and the Office of the Attorney General have worked tirelessly over the past six months to come to an agreement that appropriately balances Attorney General Schneiderman’s commitment to protecting New York’s residents and tourists from illegal hotels with Airbnb’s concerns about the privacy of thousands of other hosts," a statement issued by Schneiderman's office said. "The arrangement we have reached today ... strikes this balance.” 

Warning to be posted, finally

Besides agreeing to give up the information, Airbnb agreed to post a notice that will be displayed to any potential host seeking to rent a New York property through the service, warning that the practice may be illegal under city and state laws -- something critics say it should have done from Day One.

The city and Airbnb have been at loggerheads for months over allegations that Airbnb is in violation of multiple laws and regulations, including:

• The New York State Multiple Dwelling Law. This law prohibits short-term rentals in multiple dwelling buildings unless the owner is present;
• Hotel taxes. Both New York City and the state have multiple hotel occupancy taxes, sales taxes and use taxes that may apply to Airbnb users.
• Rent regulation. Both the city and state have laws that regulate how much rent a property owner can charge. New York City also has a complex rent control law. Short-term rentals can't exceed the limits set by these regulations.
• Zoning laws. City zoning laws regulate how property may be used in the city.
• Business licenses. Whether it's a newstand or the New York Stock Exchange, every business must have a license.  

It adds up

While some of this may sound petty, ask any small business owner how much time and money goes into keeping up with the many taxes, fees and regulations imposed by local and state governments.

What the agreement seems to say is that the AG's office can rummage through Airbnb's records and pick out the individuals who have taken in the most money or rented out their property the most times and then go afrer those individuals for payment of back taxes and fees.

There's major money at stake. Airbnb has reportedly told the AG's office that its top 100 hosts in New York have taken in more than $54 million over the past three years. 

Rights of other tenants

Schneiderman and officials in other cities and states have been under pressure from tenants' groups, landlords and the hotel industry, all demanding that Airbnb be reined in.

Tenants have complained that their quiet residential buildings are potentially turned into hotels, with strangers coming and going at all hours, potentially creating a security hazard. Condominium and co-op managers have noted that their homeowners' and shareholders' agreements generally prohibit short-term rentals. 

Hotels are irate for obvious reasons. They argue that the Airbnb hosts are unfairly undercutting established hotels because they don't pay the applicable fees and taxes and don't have to meet the building, health and zoning regulations that apply to hotels.

In the clear

If this all sounds familiar, it's because it's similar to the complaints raised about Uber, Lyft and other so-called peer-to-peer services that put customer and service provider together via the Internet. 

In each such service, it's the independent contractor service providers -- the drivers, rental hosts and grocery deliverer -- who are at most risk. Customers are in the clear, since it's not generally illegal to patronize unlicensed businesses.

And while the middleman sites -- Airbnb, Uber, etc. -- may be threatened, subpoenaed and even sued by cities, states and other aggrieved parties, it's the service providers who will feel the harsh Iron Boot of the State on their necks, as they wade through demands that they document every transaction, and pay a mountain of overdue taxes, fees, penalties and interest.

Service providers also need to hope that Uber, Airbnb, et al, have properly submitted 1099s to the Internal Revenue Service, which is traditionally the last but most tenacious and feared agency to land on businesses that have run afoul of the law. 

The "victim" in these cases may technically be New York City but in reality, it is the individual who thought short-term rentals would be a cool and easy way to make a few bucks.

Rent out your apartment for two nights for $500 with practically no work or expenses -- wow, sounds too good to be true. Exactly.

It always happens. Conventional wisdom determines that some threat is inevitable, generating much fear and angst. Then someone comes along and says maybe things aren't so dire after all.

It may be happening in the field of retirement planning. In recent years we've been warned that Americans aren't saving enough to support themselves in retirement.

While we should all try to heed the advice to save, some are suggesting the fear is a bit overdone. Ben Steveman, writing in his Bloomberg personal finance blog “Ventured & Gained,” says fear is a poor motivator. Besides, he says, he may not be headed toward a “retirement apocalypse” after all.

“Once retired, Americans will likely find it easier to plot out their budgets. Policymakers and retirement plan providers are working on ways for workers to convert savings into a stream of "lifetime income” that also makes planning simple,” Steveman writes. “While historically low interest rates mean annuities and longevity insurance are expensive now, they should become a better deal when rates inevitably rise.”

Plenty to worry about

Much of the current fear no doubt stems from the poor performance of the stock market in the first decade of the 21st century. Retirement plans heavily invested in stocks barely treaded water for years.

Then along came 2009 and the terrifying plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average to below 7,000. While it is true that retirement savers who didn't panic but just rode out the sell-off enjoyed a sharp rebound after mid 2009, the fact remains that years of growth were lost.

Another unsettling factor is how retirement has changed. In previous generations people retired at 65 and started drawing Social Security and a defined benefit pension. They were probably going to die at 70, so they didn't really have to worry about paying for a long retirement.

Today, many retirees have tax-deferred retirement accounts that are finite. The money, supplemented by Social Security and other sources, has to last the rest of their lives. With people now routinely living into their 90s, that's a long time to stretch a dollar.

There's still time

Still, plenty of financial planners say it isn't as bleak as it has been painted. If you are 10 to 15 years away from retirement, you still have time to prepare and there is plenty of free help to advise you through the process.

In 2012 AARP launched a website, Ready for Retirement, featuring planning tools and answers to the more than 11,000 questions AARP has received on the issue. It was a response to an AARP survey that found 65% of people believe they won't have enough to retire.

“As pensions disappear for many American families, preparing for a successful retirement has become increasingly important, and AARP wants to ensure people have the tools they need to save for their futures,” Jean Setzfand, AARP Vice President for Financial Security said at the launch.

More free help is available from the U.S. Department of Labor, which has published an online booklet to offer tips on taking control of your financial life. The important thing is to start now.

“In those approximately 10 to 15 years, you will have time to put more of your paycheck to work in a retirement account,” the agency says. “It will grow, not only from your additional savings, but also from the 'miracle of compounding,' the world's greatest math discovery, according to everyone's favorite genius, Albert Einstein. This is the result of earnings from interest and from investments continually increasing the base amount.”

Define retirement for yourself

It's also important to define for yourself what retirement is going to be. If you hate your job you might not want to hear that you should continue working, but no one says you have to stay in the job you hate.

What if you had a part-time job doing something you love? After age 66 you can earn money without it affecting your Social Security payments. Social Security, income from your investments and a regular paycheck might make for a comfortable retirement, as long as housing and medical expenses are under control.

The take home from all of this, says Steveman, is not to be paralyzed by fear but to start planning and start saving right away.  

A common complaint which Facebook users have had almost as long as there's been a Facebook is this: its confusing and oft-changing privacy policies make it extremely easy to overshare without realizing it — in other words, you post something you think will be visible only to a small select group of people, only to learn it's visible to anybody with an Internet connection.

That's because Facebook accounts used to default to a public setting — in other words, any post you made was visible to everybody unless you specifically changed your settings to make them private. And for years, Facebook mostly hand-waved away any complaints about its confusing privacy policies.

Indeed, a few years ago Mark Zuckerberg went so far as to call privacy an obsolete value. “When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was 'Why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?'”

Sharing is noble?

Of course, that idea didn't need long to change, and Zuckerberg seemed to feel that ending privacy altogether was a cause worth working toward:

“People have gotten really comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people …. That social norm is just something that evolved over time. We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.”

If Facebook's privacy settings were any indication, Zuckerberg seemed to think those “current social norms” included “Sharing more and different information is synonymous with sharing all information” or “Sharing information with more people should entail sharing information with all people” or “When I tell my friends about my wild-n-crazy weekend, I always hope my boss and my super-strict grandmother hear about it, too” and other things which nobody actually believes, which is why pretty much everybody who's not Mark Zuckerberg always hated Facebook's public-default system.

But Facebook is finally paying attention to those complaints. On May 22, Facebook announced that it was changing its default settings, in part because of user complaints: “We've … received the feedback that [Facebook users] are sometimes worried about sharing something by accident, or sharing with the wrong audience.”

Set to "private"

As a result of these changes, new Facebook accounts will automatically be set to “private,” and you'll have to deliberately change the settings to make your posts public. For people already on Facebook, the company will start giving what it calls “privacy checkups” over the next few weeks, especially for people with “public” settings: try making a post and first, a pop-up window will remind you that this post will be publicly visible, and ask if you want to change that.

Regular Facebook users should also expect to see occasional pop-ups offering tutorials about other aspects of Facebook settings.

For awhile there, making phone calls via the Internet was the unquestioned way to avoid expensive international and roaming rates. There were plenty of ways for the tech-at-heart to do it but then Skype came along at just the right time and made it quick and easy, not to mention cheap.

But every dog has its day and now there's a new calling app called Ringo that is claiming to offer lower rates, better quality and greater ease of use. How does it do it?

Well, quite honestly, we're not quite sure. The easy answer is that it assigns a local number to all of your international contacts. So if you live in Paris, Texas and want to call your Aunt Marie in Paris, France you enter her in your contacts list, Ringo assigns a local Texas number for Marie and routes the call to her via France. The recipient does not need to have the Ringo app.

Ringo says the call zings its way to (and from) Paris via undersea cable, with none of the drop-outs and weird sound effects that plague Internet calls and without asking you to turn on roaming.

Ringo claims its rates are about 25% cheaper than Skype. Ringo is available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone in 16 countries including Australia, UK, the U.S and Canada. The video below is Ringo's explanation for how it all hangs together.

Story continues below video

Really?

Whether Ringo is successful, of course, remains to be seen. The company isn't saying much about its finances or, more particularly, about the hoops it has jumped through to get space on undersea cables and to arrange the local switching arrangement that makes it all possible.

Technically, the set-up appears fairly straightforward but whether embedded carriers will sit still for it is another question. It would be reasonable to expect legal challenges if Ringo becomes enough of a factor to be noticed by the large telecom companies. 

For as long as Internet news sites have existed, they have periodically reported the story “Post office having financial problems again.”

That's not a coincidence. The Internet (alongside other inexpensive new communication technologies) is the main reason why the post office is having financial problems.

The post office used to make most of its income from First Class mail delivery—you know, delivering letters. For the bulk of history that happened before the Internet, writing and mailing letters was the best and most convenient way for ordinary Americans to keep in touch with friends and relatives who lived more than a few miles away, just as writing and mailing checks was the most convenient way to pay your utility, mortgage and other bills each month, before online payment became a thing.

Granted, phone calls were much faster than letters — instantaneous, in fact — but in those days, if you called anybody more than a few miles away you had to pay by-the-minute “long distance” fees significantly higher than average wages.

Talking to Grandma for an hour could cost you several hours' worth of pretax pay, so it was much cheaper to write Grandma a letter and wait for her to write back, when a postage stamp cost less than one or two minutes' worth of long-distance chat.

It's obvious why innovations ranging from “free unlimited long-distance calling” to “free unlimited email or messaging” killed most of the market for First Class mail. In 2005, the post office passed an unhappy milestone — that year, after many years of steady decline, the volume of First Class mail delivery fell below that of direct-marketing [read: “junk mail”] delivery for the first time.

That explains why you get so much junk mail today — because the post office is trying to make up for lost letter revenue. That also explains why U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donohoe has allegedly said “American citizens aren’t our customers — about 400 junk mailers are our customers,” and that any effort to reduce the amount of unwanted junk mail Americans receive “hurts our ability to serve those customers.”

No more mail slots?

Now Congress is considering a measure that would allow the post office to stop door-to-door delivery to millions of Americans, in delivering instead to curbside or communal mailboxes (although people with disabilities could get waivers, and anyone else would have the option to pay an extra fee to continue personal delivery).

The measure -- H.R. 4670, Secure Delivery for America Act of 2014 -- was approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on an 18-13 vote. Introduced by Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the bill would require the Postal Service to convert 1.5 million addresses per year over the next 10 years from “to the door” delivery to more cost-effective modes of delivery, including secure centralized delivery. 

Supporters of the proposal all make the same basic point: having postal carriers make deliveries to mailbox clusters would cost vastly less money than continuing door-to-door service which the post office simply cannot afford.

However, opponents cite a variety of objections, ranging from “in crowded urban areas, where will we find room to install cluster mailboxes?” to “forget about cutting services; if you want to fix the USPS' financial problems, try reforming its prefunded pension requirements or other financial shenanigans instead.”

Supporters say that replacing 15 million addresses form personal to communal delivery could save the post office $2 billion per year. Issa's measure now faces action by the full House and Senate. Its passage is by no means assured, so don't putty up your mail slot just yet.

Germs are everywhere. There's a reason most supermarkets now provide anti-bacterial hand wipes when you walk through the door.

But public spaces that are also enclosed spaces, such as an airliner cabin, can be a particularly rich environment for germs to thrive. Now there's a new scientific report finding disease-causing bacterial can live on the surfaces found in airline cabins for days – even up to a week.

"Many air travelers are concerned about the risks of catching a disease from other passengers given the long time spent in crowded air cabins," said Kiril Vaglenov, an Auburn University researcher. "This report describes the results of our first step in investigating this potential problem."

Vaglenov presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American Society of Microbiology.

Should you worry?

But how much of a concern is this? Just because the bacteria is present, does it mean that it can be passed on to another person? In many cases, yes.

The research team looked at two common pathogens – methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and E. coli O157:H7 – and tested their ability to survive on surfaces in an airline cabin under normal flight conditions.

The scientists obtained 6 types of material from an actual jetliner – an armrest, plastic tray table, metal toilet button, window shade, seat pocket cloth, and leather. Next they placed them in a lab and subjected them to the bacteria, exposing them to typical airplane conditions.

The discovered that MRSA was the more hardy of the bacteria, lasing 168 hours when placed on material from the seat-back pocket. When applied to the armrest, the E. coli bacteria lasted 96 hours.

Passing it on...and on

That means an ill passenger can infect perhaps dozens of others who sit in that same seat over the next several days. Vaglenov says the bacteria pose a significant risk just through skin contact.

"Our future plans include the exploration of effective cleaning and disinfection strategies, as well as testing surfaces that have natural antimicrobial properties to determine whether these surfaces help reduce the persistence of disease-causing bacteria in the passenger aircraft cabin," he said.

The research confirms what many germ-conscious travelers have long suspected. And it turns out MRSA and E. coli aren't the only nasty bugs lurking at 30,000 feet.

In 2012 a Dallas TV station randomly swabbed surfaces on a commercial airliner and reported the presence of 3,000 germs.

Germ heaven

The worst places for germs, the station reported, were in the seatback pocket and the bathroom.

Is there any way to fly and not get sick. Well, yes. People do it every day. But then, they may be pushing their luck.

You might improve your odds by following the advice of one germ-o-phobe interviewed by The New York Times. His pre-flight checklist includes wiping down the cushions, armrests and tray table. He won't touch a magazine in the seatback pocket and avoids the restroom at all costs.

Don't want to appear obsessive/compulsive to your fellow passengers? At the very least, using hand sanitizer or anti-bacterial wipes during the flight – and especially before eating and after you disembark, might keep you a little healthier.

The outfit behind the the dietary supplement Pure Green Coffee is being accused of using bogus weight loss claims and fake news websites to market the product.

Popularized on the syndicated talk show The Dr. Oz Show, green coffee bean extract is touted as a potent weight loss treatment that supposedly burns fat.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) contends that weeks after green coffee was first promoted on the program, defendants Nicholas Congleton, Paul Pascual, Bryan Walsh, and the companies they control began selling their Pure Green Coffee extract, charging about $50 for a one-month supply.

A marketing blitz

According to the commission, they marketed the dietary supplement through ads on their own sales websites -- with names such as buypuregreencoffee.com, buygreenweightloss.com, greencoffeeweightcontrol.com.

The sites featured footage from The Dr. Oz Show, supposed consumer endorsements, and purported clinical proof that dieters could lose weight rapidly without changing their diet or exercise regimens. They also ran paid banner and text ads that appeared on search engines and contained phony weight loss claims.

The defendants made similar claims on websites they set up to look like legitimate news sites or blogs, but were in fact advertisements, and on other “fake news” sites run by affiliate marketers whom they paid to advertise the Pure Green Coffee product, according to the complaint.

The fake news sites featured mastheads of fictitious news organizations such as Women’s Health Journal and Healthy Living Reviewed, as well as logos they appropriated from actual news organizations, like CNN and MSNBC.

“Not only did these defendants trick consumers with their phony weight loss claims,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, “they also compounded the deception by advertising on pretend news sites, making it impossible for people to know whether they were seeing news or an ad.”

Charges filed

The FTC charged the defendants with false and unsupported advertising claims, including:

• that consumers using Pure Green Coffee can lose 20 pounds in four weeks; 16% of body fat in 12 weeks; and 30 pounds and 4-to-6 inches of belly fat in 3-to-5 months.
• that studies prove Pure Green Coffee use can result in average weight loss of 17 pounds in 12 weeks or 22 weeks, weight loss of 10.5%, and body fat loss of 16% without diet or exercise.
• that certain websites linked to the defendants’ sites are objective news sites with articles written by objective news reporters and that the comments following the supposed articles reflected views of independent consumers.

The FTC also charged the defendants with deceptively failing to disclose that consumers who endorsed the supplement had received it for free and were paid to provide a video testimonial.

Also named as defendants the companies used by Congleton, Pascual, and Walsh to market this operation are: NPB Advertising, Inc./dba Pure Green Coffee; Nationwide Ventures, LLC; Olympus Advertising, Inc.; JMD Advertising, Inc.; and Signature Group, LLC.

Americans know more about nutrition than ever before. Despite the sluggish economy, most are well able to afford to buy fresh, healthful food. And, thanks to constantly evolving efficiencies in agriculture, marketing and transportation, there is plenty of food available in just about any form anytime we want it.

It's that last item that may hold the clue to the continuing epidemic of obesity in the U.S. and other Western nations, a new RAND study finds.

After all, it's not just one group that's the problem -- we're all getting fatter. Old, young, educated, not so educated, active, sedentary, rich, poor, black, white and brown, we've been getting fatter at about the same rate for the past 25 years. 

More food, more often

Since 1970, the average per capita consumption of calories of Americans has risen by about 20 percent, while at the same time there has been a sharp drop in the cost of food as a proportion of disposable income, according to a report published online by the journal CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

"Not only has food been getting cheaper, but it is easier to acquire and easier to prepare," said Roland Sturm, lead author of the report and a senior economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "It's not just that we may be eating more high-calorie food, but we are eating more of all types of food."

Analyzing economic factors that contribute to obesity, Sturm and co-author Ruopeng An of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that weight gain was surprisingly similar across sociodemographic groups and geographic areas, rather than specific to some groups. The findings suggest that the cause of obesity is driven by environmental factors that affect all groups, not just a few.

The RAND researchers say that Americans now have the cheapest food in history, when measured as a fraction of disposal income. During the 1930s, American spent about one-quarter of their disposal income on food, dropping to one-fifth during the 1950s. Today, Americans spend about one-tenth of their disposable income on food.

"Not only has the cost of food dropped, but it has become even more available," An said. "So a smaller share of Americans' disposable income now buys many more calories."

Meanwhile, Sturm and An say that effective economic policies to curb obesity remain elusive.

Imposing taxes on foods with low-nutritional value could nudge behavior toward healthier diets, as might subsidies or discounts for healthier foods. But political and popular support for such approaches has been low.

"The high cost of healthy food may not be the problem as far as obesity is concerned, rather it is the excess availability and affordability of all types of food," Sturm said. "We need to consider strategies that replace calorie-dense foods with fruits and vegetables, rather than just add fruits and vegetables to the diet."

Sales of previously-owned homes rose in April for the first time this year.

Figures released by the National Association of Realtors show existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, were up 1.3% from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.65 million. Still, sales are 6.8% below their year-ago level of 4.99 million units.

At the same time, inventory showed a substantial increase and home price growth moderated.

The improvement was not unexpected. “Some growth was inevitable after sub-par housing activity in the first quarter, but improved inventory is expanding choices and sales should generally trend upward from this point,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “Annual home sales, however, due to a sluggish first quarter, will likely be lower than last year.”

Inventory and prices

Total housing inventory at the end of April shot up 16.8% to 2.29 million existing homes available for sale, representing a 5.9-month supply at the current sales pace. Unsold inventory is 6.5% higher than a year ago, when there was a 5.2-month supply.

The median existing-home price for all housing types was $201,700 last month -- 5.2% above April 2013; in the first quarter the median price was 8.6% above a year earlier.

Regional results

• Existing-home sales in the Northeast were unchanged at an annual rate of 600,000 in April, but are 6.3% a year ago. The median price was $244,000 -- down 0.4% from the same time last year.
• In the Midwest, sales slipped 1.0% to a pace of 1.03 million, and are 9.6% below a year ago. The median price was $157,200 -- 5.8 percent above April 2013.
• Sales in the South, rose 1.0% to an annual level of 1.94 million, but are 3.5% below April 2013. The median price rose 3.2% from a year earlier -- to $173,200.
• Existing-home sales in the West were up 4.9% to a 1.08 million annual rate, but off 10.0% from last year. The median price was $291,200 -- 9.7% above April 2013.

Initial jobless claims

In a separate report, the Labor Department (DOL) says the number of people applying for unemployment benefits for the first time rose by 28,000 in the week ending May 17 to a seasonally adjusted total of 326,000. That's about 21,000 higher than the consensus estimate of economist surveyed by Briefing.com.

Analysts say claims at this level would suggest monthly payroll growth of about, 200,000, which is described as generally “lackluster.”

Sterne Agee Chief Economist Lindsey Piegza notes that in many cases, businesses that are willing to hire continue to search for low-cost, flexible labor. She explains that means “a growing number of temporary and part-time employees rather than full-time workers.”

The 4-week moving average, which is less volatile than the weekly number and considered a better barometer of the labor market, dipped 1,000 from the previous week -- to 322,500.

The full jobless claims report is available on the DOL website.

Prime Pak Foods of Gainesville, Ga., is recalling approximately 23,250 pounds of fully cooked breaded chicken breast and tender products.

The products were formulated with eggs, milk and wheat, known allergens which are not declared on the product label.

There are no reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products.

The following products are subject to recall:

• Two 5-lb. bags in a 10-lb. box of “Wegmans Fully Cooked Breaded Chicken Breast Strips” with the product code “77064” printed on the box.
• Two 5-lb. bags in a 10-lb. box of “Wegmans Fully Cooked Breaded Chicken Breast Strips” with the product code “77065” printed on the box.
• Two 5-lb. bags in a 10-lb. box of “Sugar Lake Farms Fully Cooked Breaded Chicken Tender” with the product code “77409” printed on the box.
• Two 5-lb. bags in a 10-lb. box of “Wegmans Fully Cooked Breaded Chicken Breast Fillets” with the product code “77425” printed on the box.

The recalled products were mislabeled by Prime Pak Foods and were not sold at Wegmans or other retail stores. They were distributed to hotels, restaurants and institutions nationwide.

The products, produced from June 5, 2013, to March 21, 2014, bear the establishment number “P-9165” inside the USDA mark of inspection.

Consumers with questions should contact John Appling at (770) 536-8708, ext. 1105, or by email at jappling@primepakfoods.com.

Lakeshore Learning Materials of Carson, Calif., is recalling about 2,000 Bristle Builders for Toddlers play sets.

The base of the three animal figures can detach, posing a choking hazard to young children.

No incidents or injuries have been reported.

The recall includes the Bristle Builders for Toddlers sets sold with 52 plastic pieces consisting of building pieces and three animal figures.

The animal figures include a yellow duck with a purple round base, a brown horse with a blue round base and a pink pig with a round green base. The building pieces include circle, rectangle, square and triangle-shaped pieces in different colors with a green 8” by 4.5” rectangle base.

Pieces are covered with plastic bristle pegs which allow all the pieces to connect. Production number EC559597 is printed on the smooth side of the green baseplate.

The play sets, manufactured in China, were sold exclusively at Lakeshore retail stores, Lakeshore Learning Materials’ Early Childhood catalog and online at www.lakeshorelearning.com from December 2013 to April 2014 for about $30.

Consumers should immediately take the three animal figures away from children and contact the company to receive a free replacement set of the three animal figures.

Consumers may contact Lakeshore Learning Materials at (800) 428-4414 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT Monday through Friday.

Office Depot of Boca Raton, Fla., is recalling about 1.4 million Office Depot Gibson Leather Task Chairs.

The mounting plate weld can break and separate the seat from the base of the chair, posing a fall hazard to consumers.

The company has received about 153 reports of the seat plate weld cracking or breaking, including 25 reports of contusions, abrasions and reports of injuries to the head, neck and a fractured back and hip which required medical attention.

This recall involves Office Depot Gibson Leather Task Chairs. The black, armless, adjustable chairs have a black base with five wheels. The affected chairs have the SKU number 105479 and the registration numbers PA 27248 (CN), PA 25498 (CN), PA 25276 (HK) or CA 35181 (RC) that can be found next to the words “Made in China” which is printed on a label located on the underside of the seats.

The chairs, manufactured in China were sold exclusively at Office Depot retail stores and online from 2003 through 2012 for about $40.

Consumers should immediately stop using the chairs and return them to any Office Depot store location for a $55 store merchandise credit.

Consumers may contact Office Depot toll-free at (866) 403-3763 from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET Monday through Friday.

If you happen to live in one of New York City's older apartments, you may have noticed a recent upgrade to the smoke alarms in your unit.

A new law now requires owners of multi-family dwellings to replace non-working, expired, battery-operated smoke alarms with alarms featuring sealed, 10-year batteries. The requirement does not apply to alarms that are hard-wired, or powered by the building's electric current.

The apartment buildings getting the most attention were the ones built before 1982 that have not been updated since then. Those dwellings are currently exempt from building codes requiring hard-wired alarms in virtually all other housing.

Dead batteries can be lethal

The switch to the sealed-battery smoke alarms addresses a long-standing problem noted by fire inspectors. In case after case, inspectors have found that deaths, injuries and extensive fire damage might have been prevented except for non-working smoke alarms.

"Each year nearly 3,000 Americans die from home fires — the vast majority in homes where a working smoke alarm is absent or disabled," said Deborah Hanson, director of external affairs for First Alert, which manufacturers smoke alarms. "For homes without hard-wired alarms, this law will help ensure that all New Yorkers have better protection against such avoidable tragedies."

Early smoke detectors were very expensive and found only in commercial buildings. It wasn't until the mid to late 1960s that affordable smoke alarms began to show up in the U.S. market.

Firefighters were among the first to notice a difference. First responders were notified earlier in the fire outbreak, reducing the risk both to the building's occupants as well as to the firefighters who had to battle the blaze.

Cuts death risk 50%

Today, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is among the strongest supporters of residential smoke alarms. It says having a working smoke alarm cuts the chances of dying in a fire by 50%. It says nearly two-thirds of home fire deaths resulted from fires in homes with no smoke alarms or smoke alarms that didn't work.

These days a traditional battery-powered smoke alarm is cheap, starting at under $10. It's powered by a 9-volt battery that must be replaced, on average, twice a year. And therein lies the rub.

Time passes quickly, people get busy and before long, the smoke alarm begins the annoying “chirp” that lets you know the battery is dying. But instead of replacing it, many consumers simply remove the battery, planning to replace it – eventually.

New generation

The new generation of residential smoke alarms last for 10 years once they are installed. The lithium battery is sealed inside the plastic housing and never needs replacing. After 10 years of use, you simply discard the alarm and replace it.

Most new residential construction comes with a hybrid smoke alarm. The unit is hard-wired into the dwellings electric system but also contains a battery back-up, in case the home loses power.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says a home can't have too many smoke alarms. It recommends installing units on every level of the home, outside sleeping areas, and inside bedrooms.

Even if you are using an old-school replaceable battery smoke alarm, CPSC says you should replace it after 10 years of use. The agency says the smoke detection capability of most smoke alarms begins to degrade after a decade.

It's no exaggeration to say that if you live in modern America, there's a good chance anytime you leave your house, your movements and whereabouts are being recorded in real-time and stored in a permanent record accessible to – well, anybody willing to pay.

Right now, it appears that this business of being recorded anytime you're in public will remain the status quo. Indeed, given the affordability and ubiquitousness of recording technology these days, in everything from stationary security cameras to cellphone video recorders, it probably isn't possible to change that. At least those cellphone recordings (usually) aren't being updated to a real-time spy database.

But license plate scanner recordings are. Earlier this week, a California state senator supported a bill which, if passed, would limit the ability of private companies (though not police departments or other organizations) in that state to not only collect such information, but sell it to anyone willing to pay.

State Senator Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo), in order to illustrate the depth of the problem, hired a private detective to track his wife's activities (presumably with her consent). The detective was easily able to get a fairly inclusive record of whatever she did – including a visit to a gym 100 miles away from home – without having to personally “track” her at all; he merely paid to access a database of license plate scans and used them to reconstruct her whereabouts.

Even worse, it appears that in many cases, the private companies who make these scanners impose quotas on the police departments who buy them. The Los Angeles Times reported on May 16 that:

Last year, [private scanner/data company] Vigilant Solutions offered police in Tempe, Ariz., license plate scanners for free. But there was a catch, according to a copy of the offer obtained by The Times.

To keep the freebies, the Tempe department had to go after at least 25 outstanding "Vigilant provided" warrants each month. In general, such arrangements are paid for by private collection companies, which profit by going after warrants that result from people failing to pay municipal fines, said Brian Shockley, a vice president at Vigilant.

In the document, Vigilant assured the Tempe department that the offer was not an attempt to "unduly influence" its police work. But the company also warned that the free cameras would be taken away if the police department failed to meet its monthly quota.

Not always accurate

So there's definite privacy and civil liberty concerns regarding license plate scanners and their ability to effortlessly and accurately compile an ever-growing database of your movements and whereabouts in realtime. But what about when the database is not accurate? What happens when license plate scanners falsely identify innocent people as dangerous criminals?

“San Francisco woman pulled out of car at gunpoint because of license plate reader error,” says a May 13 ACLU report about a lawsuit stemming from a disturbing incident dating back to March 2009:

A lawsuit pertaining to the use of license plate readers in San Francisco illustrates how dangerous it can be when police officers turn off their eyes, ears, and brains, and mistakenly rely on imperfect technologies to tell them who’s up to no good.

On March 30, 2009, Denise Green, a 47 year-old black woman, was pulled over by multiple SFPD squad cars. Between four and six officers pointed their guns at her—one had a shotgun, she says—and told her to raise her hands above her head and exit her car. She was ordered to kneel, and she was handcuffed. Green, who suffered from knee problems, complied with all of their orders....

Green was not allowed to leave for 20 minutes, after cops finished searching her car and found nothing incriminating. Despite the incorrect license plate reading, the ACLU report suggests police should've known better than to harass Green:

It turns out that Denise Green was stopped because police, acting on a tip from a controversial piece of law enforcement surveillance technology, mistakenly thought she was driving a stolen car. A license plate reader had misread her plate and alerted officers that her car, a Lexus, was stolen. But if police officers had performed the most basic, visual check to ensure the information coming from the license plate reader system was accurate, they would have realized that her license plate wasn't a match, and that the stolen car in question was a gray GMC truck, while Denise Green was driving a burgundy Lexus.

More recently: last month, the Prairie Village Post in Kansas reported the unsettling experience of an innocent motorist in that town who suffered from a false police scanner reading:

Mark Molner, whose law office is just north of the intersection of 75th Street and State Line Road, was driving back from a sonographer’s appointment with his wife around 5:15 p.m. Monday when a Prairie Village police car pulled up behind him.

“As there were tons of cars around me, I was not certain who they were pulling over, but as I had been at the light some time, I did not think that I had had the opportunity to do anything to interest the officers, so when traffic permitted, I pulled forward with it, slowly,” Molner said. “At that time, the cruiser darted in front of me and attempted to pin me by parking diagonally across both lanes of traffic, and the motorcycle took up a place directly behind me.”

As one of the officers approached Molner’s car, Molner noticed that he had his gun out.

“He did not point it at me, but it was definitely out of the holster,” he said. “I am guessing that he saw the shock and horror on my face, and realized that I was unlikely to make (more of) a scene.”

Acceptable protocol

Despite being an attorney, Molner said at the time that he's not interested in suing the police, but does want police to reconsider whether unholstering their guns is “acceptable protocol” in such situations.

But here's the problem: acceptable protocol according to whom? From the perspective of an innocent citizen in a presumably free country, if you've done nothing wrong, acceptable protocol says the police aren't supposed to bother you in the first place, let alone threaten your physical safety. But if you're a police officer whose in-car anti-crime computer just told you “That vehicle over there's being driven by a felon on the run,” then of course you want to unholster your weapon, because you might genuinely need it.

A week after the Prairie Village incident, KansasWatchdog.org reported that “Police won’t discuss innocent driver flagged by license plate reader error”; and said:

Capt. Wes Lovett, PVPD patrol commander, acknowledged that he did exchange emails with the Prairie Village Post about the matter early last week, but said he didn’t like the tone of Publisher Jay Senter’s article [excerpted above]. Since then Lovett said he has declined to speak with other media about the traffic stop, and believed it wouldn’t be fair to discuss the matter with Kansas Watchdog.

Last December, police in Boston “indefinitely suspended” use of their license plate scanners, partially due to the vast privacy implications raised by such wholesale collection of data, largely pertaining to innocent people.

But – supporters of the scanners might say – for all the innocent people who have their privacy violated and maybe suffer the occasional cop-gun aimed unjustifiably in their direction, at least these scanners help police catch genuine crooks too, right?

Not necessarily. As the Boston Globe reported:

The police inadvertently released to the Globe the license plate numbers of more than 68,000 vehicles that had tripped alarms on automated license plate readers over a six-month period. Many of the vehicles were scanned dozens of times in that period alone.

The accidental release triggered immediate doubts about whether the police could reliably protect the sensitive data. It also raised questions about whether police were following up on the scans, since numerous vehicles repeatedly triggered alarms for the same offenses. One motorcycle that had been reported stolen triggered scanner alerts 59 times over six months, while another plate with lapsed insurance was scanned a total of 97 times in the same span.

So Boston PD's backing away from scanner use only came about by accident; apparently police didn't intend to let anyone know just how far-reaching their license-plate-scanning program actually was.

While Boston is giving scanners a break, other cities across America are quickly adopting their use. Last year, for example, the city council in Dallas, Texas, approved funding for police to equip their own cars with the technology. Then, just last month, the Dallas Observer reported that the city is now equipping its school buses – well, one bus, thus far – with all sorts of new spy technology including fingerprint scanners (for keeping track of the kids on the bus), interior security cameras (ditto), and a rear-mounded security camera dubbed the “Pedophile Finder,” which records the license plates of whatever car gets stuck behind the school bus in traffic.

Prediction: while being the victim of a false reading from an ordinary police license plate scanner is bad enough, becoming the victim of a false reading from a so-called “Pedophile Finder” will be even worse.

Here's the latest in the never-ending chain of cyberattacks: eBay says it has been hacked and is asking its eBay and PayPal users to immediately change their passwords.

The company said that attackers compromised "a small number of employee log-in credentials," allowing unauthorized access to eBay's corporate network and compromising a database containing encrypted passwords and other non-financial data.

"After conducting extensive tests on its networks, the company said it has no evidence of the compromise resulting in unauthorized activity for eBay users, and no evidence of any unauthorized access to financial or credit card information, which is stored separately in encrypted formats," eBay said in a statement, adding that "changing passwords is a best practice and will help enhance security for eBay users."

eBay said the affected database, which was compromised between late February and early March, included eBay customers' name, encrypted password, email address, physical address, phone number and date of birth.

The break-in was detected about two weeks ago, eBay said.

The company said it has seen no indication of increased fraudulent account activity on eBay. The company also said it has no evidence of unauthorized access or compromises to personal or financial information for PayPal users. PayPal data is stored separately on a secure network, and all PayPal financial information is encrypted.

eBay and PayPal users will be notified by email and asked to change their password. Also, anyone who used their eBay/PayPal password on other sites should change the password on those sites as well.

The same password should never be used on multiple sites.

eBay said it is working with law enforcement to try to identify those responsible for the break-in.