Current Events in March 2015

How tough has this winter been? People in the home-bulding business know.

According to figures released by the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, privately-owned housing starts in February were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 897,000 -- down 17.0% from January and 3.3% the same month a year ago.

A major contributor to the decline was a slide of 14.9% in single-family construction to an annual rate of 593,000. The February rate for units in buildings with 5 units or more was 297,000, down 82,000 units from January.

Analysts at Briefing.com point out that record snowfall in the Northeast and extreme cold in the Midwest likely played a large part in curtailing new construction. "Housing starts in these regions declined 45.0% in February, from 262,000 in January to 144,000," they said. "Those regions," they note, "accounted for 64% of the entire February decline in housing starts."

"Housing clearly remains under pressure," said Sterne Agee Chief Economist Lindsey M. Piegza, adding, "With consumers struggling amid minimal wage growth, housing is unlikely to be a sizable contribution to headline growth in the near term."

Building permit applications

The outlook for improvement in the months ahead is a little brighter, though.

Applications for building permits rose 3.0% last month to 1,092,000 00 7.7% (±2.0%) above the year-ago level.

Breaking that down, authorizations for single-family homes were at a rate of 620,000, down 6.2% from January, while permits for of units in buildings with 5 units came in at 445,000 a gain of 74,000 from the month before.

The complete report may be found on the Commerce Department website.

Airline passengers saw their chances of getting to their designation on time improve during January.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Air Travel Consumer Report shows the nation’s largest airlines had an on-time arrival rate of 76.8% in January, compared with 67.7% a year earlier and 75.3% in December.

Additionally, the reporting carriers canceled 2.5% of their scheduled domestic flights in January – 4% improvement over the 6.5% cancellation rate posted the previous January, but worse than the 1.4% rate in December.

In and out

January marked the first month in which Spirit Airlines was required to report on-time performance and mishandled baggage data as it became a ranked carrier in those sections of the report. However, AirTran Airways no longer appears as a ranked carrier in the report as result of the completion of its merger with Southwest Airlines in December 2014.

Meanwhile, American Airlines and US Airways -- following their December 2013 merger announcement -- will report separately until DOT approves single carrier reporting and a single economic certificate is issued.

Other areas of interest

The Air Travel Consumer Report report also includes data on tarmac delays, chronically delayed flights, and the causes of flight delays filed with the Bureau of Transportation Statistics by the reporting carriers.

In addition, the consumer report contains statistics on mishandled baggage, as well as consumer service, disability, and discrimination complaints received by the Aviation Consumer Protection Division.

Also included are reports of incidents involving the loss, death, or injury of animals traveling by air.

The full report is available on the DOT website

Frontier Co-op is recalling several of its products manufactured with organic garlic powder and sold under its Frontier and Simply Organic brands, and one product sold under the Whole Foods Market brand.

The products may be contaminated with Salmonella

To date, no illnesses have been associated with these products.

The following products are being recalled:

The recalled products were sold to distributors, retailers and consumers in all 50 states and in some parts of Canada.

On foil bulk packages, the four-digit lot code will be found on the front label directly above the UPC code. On bottled items, the four-digit lot code is found on the bottom of the bottle. On seasoning mixes, the four-digit lot code is embossed on the right side of the packet.

Consumers should not consume these products, but should either throw away any remaining products or return them to the place of purchase for a refund.

Consumers may contact Frontier Co-op at 1- 800-669-3275 Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CT.

After a long hard winter in much of the U.S. most people are looking forward to spring. But for allergy sufferers, the change in seasons may bring a new set of miseries.

AFC/Doctors Express, a company operating urgent care centers across the U.S., reports its physicians are already seeing an increase in patients seeking allergy relief. It says the spring of 2015 has the potential to become “the worst allergy season ever.”

The company says the unusually warm fall, followed by an unusually wet winter, has ratcheted up pollen production. When plants are under stress they make more flowers and fewer leaves, resulting in more pollen.

Other clinics and doctors offices are also seeing an uptick in allergy symptoms – mostly sneezing, watery eyes and fatigue.

March through May

“Our area of the country typically experiences high tree pollen levels from March through May,” said Dr. Marjorie Slankard, Director of Allergy and Immunology at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, N.J. “This year’s colder weather may have delayed the process a bit, but now that the warmer weather has hit pollen levels are expected to shoot up.”

The American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) says more than 40 million Americans suffer from seasonal allergies and agrees with AFC/Doctors Express that this could be one of the worst seasons we have seen for tree pollen.

The good news for those with allergies is there are ways to reduce your symptoms and suffering. Slankard offers these tips:

Tips

• Know your triggers. It may not be pollen that is making you sneeze. Talk to your doctor, who may refer you to an allergist who can conduct tests to narrow down the source of your symptoms.
• Treat before you sneeze. If allergy symptoms are a rite of spring for you, start taking over the counter medication about a week before they typically start, or as soon as the pollen count starts to rise in your area.
• Keep up with the pollen and mold counts. Many media sources report this information during allergy seasons so make it part of your daily news diet, along with weather and traffic reports.
• Keep indoor air clean. Your home should remain your refuge from the pollen outdoors. Use air conditioning and keep windows and doors shut at home, and in your car during allergy season.
• Avoid the great outdoors. You can't become a hermit but staying inside as much as you can from 6 to 10 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m., when pollen counts are highest, will help.
• Keep the pollen outside. When you've been outside for extended periods of time, take a shower, wash hair and change clothing when you come inside.
• Delegate outdoor chores. Most people like this advice. Hire someone to mow the lawn, or if you have to do it at least wear a mask.
• Stay properly medicated. If over-the-counter remedies aren't enough, see your doctor. For many people, avoiding allergens and taking over-the-counter medications is enough to ease symptoms. But if your seasonal allergies are still bothersome, you may need additional treatment.

Consumer advocates hate them. Personal financial advisors and debt counselors warn consumers to avoid them like the plague. We're talking about subprime auto loans, especially the ones that stretch payments over seven years.

So if everybody hates them so much, why are they so popular? The obvious answer is that consumers like them. So do car dealers. And loan companies.

Face it -- cars are expensive. It's hard to find anything with four wheels and an engine for less than $35,000 or so. If you're working one or two low-paying jobs, that may be more than you bring home in a year.

A used car is the obvious answer but most consumers have had bad experiences with used cars and prefer to avoid them.

Enter the 84-month car loan. Yep, seven long years of payments. They sound good. After all, you can get a more expensive car than you'd be able to afford otherwise even though the monthly payment may be less than it would be if you bought a cheaper car with a five-year loan.

There's a catch, of course. You'll pay more -- a lot more -- over the life of the loan and you'll likely spend more on maintenance in the latter years as the car turns slowly into a fledgling antique.

Do the math

We went to Bankrate.com's online calculator to look at a couple of scenarios. Let's say your credit score's not great so you get stuck with a 10 percent loan. You have a trade-in that's worth $5,000, leaving $30,000 to finance. 

On a five-year loan, you'll have a stiff monthly payment of $637. But hey! Extend it to seven years and the payment magically goes down to $498. 

Good deal? Not necessarily. Do the math and you'll see that the total cost of the five-year loan is $38,220, the seven-year $41,832 -- an extra $3,612 in interest payments on the seven-year loan. 

In fact, on the seven-year loan, you end up paying more than 25 percent of the purchase price in interest -- $11,832 interest on a $30,000 car. 

What's the worry?

While a lengthy loan may not sound "subprime" -- meaning high-risk -- think about it a minute: Seven years is a long time. Lower-income consumers can lose their job, fall ill, get divorced or suffer some other misfortune that causes them to fall behind on their payments. (The rest of us can too, although we may be better able to recover quickly).Quite simply, other than being skinned alive in interest costs, the fear is that long-term subprime car loans will do to the economy what subprime, variable-rate mortgages did just a few short years ago -- tank it.

And although cars are lasting longer than ever, there's always the possibility that after seven years, the thing will need frequent and expensive repairs.

The risk the lender takes on is that the loan may not be fully repaid. The risk the consumer takes on is that if he falls behind on the loan, his car may be repossessed, in turn causing problems up to and including job loss.

Keep in mind that repossession is a lot simpler and faster than it used to be. Many lenders are equipping their cars with GPS and software that allows them to shut the car down if the borrower tries to take it out of the country or stops making payments. You could be stuck in Mexico with no car.

While you may not have much sympathy for lenders -- or for low-income consumers for that matter -- you should worry about this anyway. A massive number of defaults could spell big trouble for the economy, putting us back into the subprime-caused recession that we're still trying to climb out of.

Ally wades in

So far, only a few lenders have been offering 84-month loans. Ford, Volvo and Nissan's captive finance companies have all stayed away from them, partly because the automakers want to sell you a car more often than every seven years.

Chrysler began offering zero percent 84-month loans in some parts of the country last year, Cars.com reported. Nationwide Insurance and several other insurers are doing the same. Credit unions are also getting in on the act in a big way. 

Subprime giant Santander aggressively pushes long-term loans but, to its credit, offers tips for subprime borrowers that recommend shorter terms.

And now Ally Financial -- formerly owned by General Motors -- says it is offering 84-month loans to "well-qualified" buyers, Automotive News reported.

Some aren't worried

Not everyone thinks this is a huge problem. For one thing, most lenders report writing a very small percentage of seven-year loans, and they say most long-term loans are going to consumers with credit scores above 680, which is considered prime by most lenders.

At a recent conference, Cristian deRitis, a senior director at Moody’s Analytics, noted the small percentage of ultra-lengthy loans and said it was encouraging that credit unions were making many of the loans, Automotive News reported. Credit unions tend to have fewer delinquencies than commercial lenders and are generally regarded as being relatively conservative in their lending practices.

Obviously, everyone's situation is different. Consumers who drive a lot, whether because of long commutes or because they use their car or truck in their work, may save money in the long run by buying a new fuel-efficient vehicle, even if it does mean they pay an extra year or two of interest.

You can't make a similar argument, though, for buying a sports car or luxury vehicle. That's like the under-employed consumer who buys a big expensive house on a variable-rate mortgage. We remember how that turned out.

On Sunday, two high-ranking Facebook employees published a lengthy post on Facebook's Newsroom page, “Explaining Our Community Standards and Approach to Government Requests.” To an untrained eye it might appear that Facebook's announcement entailed some actual changes to its policies, even though Sunday's Newsroom post said that “our policies and standards themselves are not changing.”

For example, even though Facebook has always banned pornography and sexually explicit content, Facebook's “Community Standards,” under the heading “Encouraging Respectful Behavior” and subheading “Nudity,” says that “We remove photographs of people displaying genitals or focusing in on fully exposed buttocks. We also restrict some images of female breasts if they include the nipple, but we always allow photos of women actively engaged in breast-feeding or showing breasts with post-mastectomy scarring.”

Facebook's claim to “always” allow such photos might come as a surprise to the countless women who were banned for posting photos of themselves breastfeeding children; a cursory online search for recent instances of this brings back such headlines as “Mumsnet outraged as breastfeeding photo banned by Facebook” (December 2014) and “Facebook bans ANOTHER breastfeeding photo” (February 2015), not to mention the Facebook community “FB vs. Breastfeeding” (9,927 “likes” as of press time).

Nothing new

Nonetheless, Facebook's pro-breastfeeding stance is nothing new since Facebook says it isn't changing any policies, merely clarifying policies already in existence. Facebook did something similar late last November, when it announced that, starting in January, it was “updating our terms and policies” even though “Nothing is changing with these updates.”

Another one of Facebook's Sunday clarifications involves “revenge porn,” the posting of people's nude pictures without their permission, usually to hurt or humiliate those people. Revenge porn was already banned under Facebook's no-nudity policy, but with Sunday's clarification, Facebook specifically disallowed “images shared in revenge or without permissions from the people in the images.”

Perhaps coincidentally, Facebook's announcement about revenge porn came only a few days after Twitter updated its terms of service to disallow revenge porn, too.

Government snooping

In addition to clarifying its policies, Facebook also published a link to its “Global Government Requests Report,” or transparency report, which offers information about “the government requests we received for content removal and account data as well as national security requests under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and through National Security Letters.”

Facebook says that “we continue to see an increase in government requests for data and content restrictions.” The United States topped the list, with “United States Law Enforcement” making 14,274 requests for information on 21,731 accounts; Facebook agreed to turn over the information in 79.14% percent of these cases.

Facebook even went further and divided those 14,000 law enforcement requests into seven types: search warrant; subpoena; “emergency disclosures”; Court Order (18 USC 2703(d)); Court Order (Other); Pen Register/Trap and Trace; and Title III.

However, Facebook was considerably less detailed regarding “United States National Security Requests for Data”:

The chart below reflects the ranges for National Security Letters (NSLs) received during the reporting period and the ranges for all accounts specified in the requests. We are limited to reporting this data in bands of 1000.

We are required to wait six months to disclose Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests. If you would like to know past details of the number (within ranges) and nature of orders that seek the content of accounts and those requesting non-content information (such as subscriber name), all within ranges of 1000, the most recent information is available here.

What follows is a chart saying that the total number of NSL requests Facebook received was somewhere between 0 and 999, on a number of users or accounts somewhere between 0 and 999. Facebook is not to be blamed for offering such uselessly vague information here; the company is legally obligated to be useless and vague, under United States law.

There is no question that consumers are more concerned than every about whether the food they are buying is good for them. Health factors are influencing buying decisions as never before.

According to Berkley Wellness, a service of the University of California, the essential steps to a healthy diet are to eat mostly foods derived from plants — vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes, while limiting highly processed foods.

The Institute of Food Technologists has recently highlighted 9 seeds and fruits that provide maximum nutrition while minimizing processed food.

Fruits and seeds

The first is Chia seeds, which are often used in yogurt, homemade trail mixes, baked goods, commercial nutrition bars, beverages and snacks. They are high in omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Flaxseeds are another good source of protein, fiber, antioxidants, and phytoestrogens in the form of lignans and omega-3 fatty acids. A Canadian study has also linked eating ground whole flaxseed to lowering blood cholesterol.

Sunflower Seeds are often considered a traditional ballpark snack but they provide monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, protein, fiber, vitamin E, and phytochemicals like choline, lignan, phenolic acids and betaine.

Pumpkin seeds are packed with protein, fiber, manganese, magnesium, and phosphorus. They are another “snack” that provides a powerful nutritional punch between meals.

New respect for blueberries

Blueberries have garnered increase nutritional accolades in recent years. Daily blueberry consumption may reduce blood pressure and arterial stiffness. They are also packed with fiber, vitamins, minerals, fructose, and antioxidants. Antioxidants in blueberries are linked to the prevention/delaying of diseases such as cancer, heart disease and the aging process.

Acai berry extracts have been linked to dubious claims in recent years but the berries themselves are an indisputably rich source of anthocyanin and have a fatty acid ratio similar to olive oil. They have been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties.

Tart cherries are healthy because they are high in anthocyanin and have high antioxidant activity. Studies have shown they can help you sleep, reduce inflammation in arthritis and gout, and promote recovery from sports injury.

Avocados

Avocados should also be on your shopping list. More than just the main ingredient in guacamole, avocados have beneficial effects on cardio-metabolic risk factors that extend beyond their heart-healthy fatty acid profile.

For example, a study of 45 overweight or obese subjects who ate a moderate-fat diet including an avocado daily found avocado consumption had a positive impact on cholesterol than those on a similar diet without the avocado or those on a lower-fat diet.

Finally, cranberries can promote improved health when you work them into your diet. Cranberries have long been associated with benefiting urinary tract health but have also shown to benefit heart health, cancer prevention, oral health, and glycemic response.

Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes fell in March following declines the two previous months.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) dipped two points to a level of 53 after an identical decline in February and slipping 1 point in January

“The drop in builder confidence is largely attributable to supply chain issues, such as lot and labor shortages as well as tight underwriting standards,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “These obstacles notwithstanding, we are expecting solid gains in the housing market this year, buoyed by sustained job growth, low mortgage interest rates and pent-up demand.”

The index gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next 6 months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.”

Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.

Mixed results

Two of the 3 HMI components posted losses this month. The component gauging current sales conditions fell 3 points to 58, while the component measuring buyer traffic dropped 2 points to 37. The gauge charting sales expectations in the next six months was unchanged at 59.

Looking at the 3-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the Northeast and South each posted a 2-point drop to 43 and 55, respectively. The Midwest rose 2 points to 56, while the West fell 7 points to 61.

Even with the March slip, said NAHB Chairman Tom Woods, a home builder from Blue Springs, Mo., “the HMI remains in positive territory and we expect the market to improve as we enter the spring buying season.”  

Gourmet Kitchen of Neptune, N.J., is recalling approximately 16,722 pounds of various beef and chicken products.

The products contain peanuts, an allergen not listed on the label.

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

The The following ready-to-cook beef and chicken appetizer items, produced on various dates between October 15, 2014 and March 2, 2015, are being recalled:

• Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Beef Wellington Puff.” The boxes will bear the case code B2018.
• Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Beef Satay.” The boxes will bear the case code B2028.
• Bulk packages of 0.6 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Large Beef Wellington.” The boxes will bear the case code B2032.
• Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Beef Wellington Puff with Bleu Cheese.” The boxes will bear the case code B2078.
• Bulk packages of 0.4 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Petite Beef Wellington.” The boxes will bear the case code B2148.
• Bulk packages of 0.6 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Macadamia Chicken Skewer.” The boxes will bear the case code C2036.
• Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Chicken Wellington Puff.” The boxes will bear the case code C2050.
• Bulk packages of 0.6 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Pistachio Chicken Pinwheel.” The boxes will bear the case code C2054.
• Bulk packages of 0.6 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Oahu Chicken Pinwheel.” The boxes will bear the case code C2084.
• Bulk packages of 0.4 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Petite Chicken Wellington Puff.” The boxes will bear the case code C2290.
• Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Foods of Arizona Beef Wellington.” The boxes will bear the case code GFB2018.
• Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Foods of Arizona Beef Wellington with Bleu Cheese and Duxelle.” The boxes will bear the case code GFB2078.
• Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Impromptu Petite Beef Wellington.” The boxes will bear the case code IM70021.
• Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Beef Kabob.” The boxes will bear the case code K1002.
• Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Beef Wellington Puff.” The boxes will bear the case code MSB2018.
• Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “MacKenzie Limited Beef Wellington.”

The recalled products bear the establishment number “EST. 18450” or “EST. 18450 P” inside the USDA mark of inspection, and were shipped to institutional and food service locations nationwide.

Consumers and media with questions about the recall can contact Patricia Duffy, at (732) 775-5222.

Bon Appetizers of Lakewood, N.J., is recalling approximately 10,429 pounds of chicken products.

The products contain peanuts, an allergen not listed on the label.

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

The following products are being recalled:

• Various weight bulk packages of “CUISINE INNOVATIONS CHICKEN EMPANADA” with production dates of 8/12/14.
• Various weight bulk packages of “CUISINE INNOVATIONS CHICKEN QUESADILLA CORNUCOPIA (CHICKEN AND CHEESE FILLING IN FLOUR TORTILLA)” with production dates of 7/3/14, 10/14/14 and 10/15/14.
• Various weight bulk packages of “RIDGECREST CHICKEN QUESADILLA CORNUCOPIA (CHICKEN AND CHEESE FILLING IN FLOUR TORTILLA)” with production dates of 7/16/14, 7/17/14, 11/18/14, 11/19/14 and 11/20/14.
• Various weight bulk packages of “CULINARY SECRETS CHICKEN QUESADILLA CORNUCOPIA” with production dates of 7/1/14, 7/2/14, 7/3/14, 7/24/14, 7/26/14, 11/24/14, 11/25/15, 12/4/14 and 12/8/14.

The products bear the establishment number “P-32068” inside the USDA mark of inspection, and were scheduled for food service and institutional use in Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey and Texas.

Consumers with questions about the recall may contact Bon Appetizers General Manager Philip Decker at (732) 730-9310 or by email at info@cuisinellc.com.

There is more than $1 trillion in student loan debt in the U.S. By and large, the young consumers carrying this load are doing so at the most vulnerable point in their financial lives.

They are just starting their careers. If they are lucky, they have a job. In most cases, however, their salaries are on the low end. Yet a big chunk of their paycheck goes to making payments on their student loans.

President Obama took this concern to Georgia Tech this week, where he told students that, as valuable as a college education is, paying for it has become a crushing burden.

“The average undergrad who borrows money to pay for college graduates with about $28,000 in student loan debt,” Obama said. “That’s just the average; some students end up with a lot more than that.”

Student aid bill of rights

Obama signed a “student aid bill of rights” designed to make the student loan repayment process easier to understand and manage.

“We're going to require that the businesses that service your loans provide clear information about how much you owe, what your options are for repaying it, and if you're falling behind, help you get back in good standing with reasonable fees on a reasonable timeline,” Obama told the students.

Just as with any other loan, such as a car payment or mortgage, you need to make payments to your loan servicer, the entity that loaned the money. Each servicer has its own payment process, so you should check with your servicer if you aren’t sure how or when to make a payment.

Remember, it's your responsibility to stay in touch with your servicer and make your payments, even if you do not receive a bill.

When payments begin

You don’t have to begin repaying most federal student loans until after you leave college or drop below the minimum requirement of half-time enrollment. The exception is PLUS loans, whose repayment begins once you have received the full amount of your loan.

Your lender is required to provide you with a loan repayment schedule that details when your first payment is due, the number and frequency of payments, and the amount of each payment. Your loan may have a grace period that gives you a little extra time before starting the repayment process.

Grace period

The grace period gives you time to get your feet under you financially and to select your repayment plan. Not all federal student loans have a grace period and keep in mind, even during a grace period interest charges will accrue on most loans.

If you are called to active duty military service for more than 30 days before the end of your grace period, you will get the full 6-month grace period when you return from active duty.

Private student loans – obtained from a bank, credit union or university – have different terms that vary from lender to lender.

For example, Wells Fargo says payments begin 6 months after the borrower leaves school. However, some loans like Student Loan for Parents and the Wells Fargo Private Consolidation loan, payments begin once the loan funds have been received.

Regardless of the source of the loan, Obama said students need clearer instructions on the repayment process.

International health researchers are expressing concern about the H7N9 strain of the bird flu virus that has spread through chicken flocks in China. They worry that the virus is mutating, possibly enabling it to be passed from human to human.

This week the bird flu virus was confirmed on some poultry farms in the U.S. U.S. inspectors confirmed the presence of a different bird flu strain -- H5N2 -- in turkeys in Arkansas.

At present, bird flu is only passed from bird to bird or bird to human. And the only way humans can become infected is to have contact with an infected bird.

Researchers at the University of Hong Kong, in a report in the journal Nature, also warn that the virus is exchanging genes with other types of flu bugs, raising the possibility of new strains of the virus in the future.

Deja vu

If this all sounds familiar, it should. The same fears of a mutating bird flu virus arose exactly 2 years ago when the H7N9 strain killed at least 24 people in China. The virus didn't mutate and health officials breathed a sigh of relief.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in February that 2 Canadian travelers are the first cases of H7N9 in North America. The Canadians had recently visited China, the CDC said.

The CDC says people traveling to China are safe as long as they avoid contact with poultry, including poultry markets and farms, wild birds and their droppings. There are no recommendations against travel to China.

Human infections from the new avian influenza A H7N9 virus were first reported in China in March 2013. Most were believed to be the result of exposure to infected poultry or contaminated environments.

Potentially lethal

There have been some mild illnesses in human H7N9 cases but most patients have had severe respiratory illness, with about one-third resulting in death.

“No evidence of sustained person-to-person spread of H7N9 has been found, though some evidence points to limited person-to-person spread in rare circumstances,” the CDC said in an advisory.

The new H7N9 virus has not been detected in people or birds in the United States. Still, the cautionary research paper from the University of Hong Kong has placed health officials on alert.

In their study the international team of scientists analyzed the spread of the virus over a wide area of China. They determined that the H7N9 virus is, in fact, mutating on a regular basis, taking on genetic changes that could increase its threat of causing a widespread outbreak.

But mutations in general do not necessarily pose a threat. Only a mutation of the virus that allows it to be passed from human to human.

So far, the scientists say, there has been no sign of that.

A tobacco control expert says there's plenty of evidence to justify regulating e-cigarettes immediately. Meanwhile, a new study says that e-cigarette advertising makes consumers crave -- guess what? -- tobacco. 

Writing in the March issue of Food and Drug Law Journal, Georgetown Law Professor Eric N. Lindblom says enough is already known about e-cigarettes to regulate them effectively without any further research or delay. 

"We already know that using e-cigarettes is less harmful than smoking, but more harmful than not using any tobacco or nicotine at all, and that's enough to figure out how to regulate them both to protect and promote the public health," says Lindblom, the former director of the Office of Policy at the Center for Tobacco Products at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

He says his approach would minimize the threats e-cigarettes pose to public health while still enabling them to potentially help reduce smoking.

"This approach could help to heal the current split in the public health community over e-cigarettes by addressing the concerns of both sides," Lindblom says.

"Because e-cigarette use, by itself, is neither beneficial nor benign to users and nonusers, the only public health justification for allowing their marketing would be if doing so would help smokers quit completely or provide them with a less harmful way to obtain the nicotine they crave, without causing any offsetting public health harms," Lindblom wrote.

Based on that observation, Lindblom suggests that an effective regulatory scheme would

1) make e-cigarettes less harmful to users and non-users;

2) increase their use as a cessation aid and as a less harmful alternative for smokers who would not otherwise quit; and

3) minimize e-cigarette use among everyone else.

Lindblom notes that the proposal faces challenges in the United States, primarily from First Amendment constraints on government action to regulate e-cigarette advertising. His paper suggests, however, that "some helpful text and established procedures in the Tobacco Control Act reduce those constraints in this context, providing the FDA with a tremendous opportunity to place the kinds of careful restrictions and requirements on e-cigarette advertising necessary to minimize their harmful aspects and maximize their potential to produce substantial net public health gains."

Advertising what?

As Lindblom notes, e-cigarette advertising is not currently regulated the way tobacco advertising is, and a new study by University of Pennsylvania researchers finds that TV advertisements for e-cigarettes may be enticing current and even former tobacco smokers to reach for another cigarette.

The researchers studied more than 800 daily, intermittent, and former smokers who watched e-cigarette advertising, and who then took a survey to determine smoking urges, intentions, and behaviors.

Using a standard test to measure the urge to smoke a cigarette, people who smoke tobacco cigarettes daily and who watched e-cigarette advertisements with someone inhaling or holding an e-cigarette ("vaping") showed a greater urge to smoke than regular smokers who did not see the vaping, as reported in the journal Health Communication.

Former smokers who watched e-cigarette advertisements with vaping had less confidence that they could refrain from smoking tobacco cigarettes than former smokers seeing e-cigarette ads without vaping.

The findings are significant, considering that tobacco advertising on television went up in smoke over four decades ago by way of a federal ban. Moreover, e-cigarette advertising is stoked by big tobacco companies. Estimates peg e-cigarette ad spending at more than $1 billion this year. That number is expected to grow at a 50 percent rate over the next four years.

"We know that exposure to smoking cues such as visual depictions of cigarettes, ashtrays, matches, lighters, and smoke heightens smokers' urge to smoke a cigarette, and decreases former smokers' confidence in their ability to refrain from smoking a cigarette," said Erin K. Maloney, Ph.D., one of the lead researchers.

Maloney and Joseph N. Cappella, Ph.D., pulled together more than a dozen e-cigarette advertisements via searches of Google, YouTube, and e-cigarette web sites. 

Maloney and Cappella observed a trend that more daily smokers who viewed ads with vaping smoked a tobacco cigarette during the experiment than daily smokers who viewed ads without vaping and daily smokers who did not view ads.

Over 35 percent of the daily smokers in the condition that showed vaping reported having a tobacco cigarette during the study versus 22 percent of daily smokers who saw ads without vaping, and about 23 percent of daily smokers who did not see any advertising.

"Given the sophistication of cigarette marketing in the past and the exponential increase in advertising dollars allotted to e-cigarette promotion in the past year, it should be expected that advertisements for these products created by big tobacco companies will maximize smoking cues in their advertisements, and if not regulated, individuals will be exposed to much more e-cigarette advertising on a daily basis," Maloney and Cappella wrote.

The Producer Price Index (PPI) fell 0.5% in February -- the fourth consecutive decline – due largely to the largest decrease in demand for services since December 2009.

Figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show the PPI is down 0.6% for the past 12 months.

The drop in prices for services was led by margins for final demand trade services and transportation and warehousing services. Both were down 1.5%. Prices for final demand services less trade, transportation, and warehousing rose 0.3%.

Prices for goods fell 0.4%, the eighth consecutive decrease. Over two-thirds of the decline came in food, which was down 1.6 percent. A quarter of that can be laid to fresh and dry vegetables, which dropped 17.1%. Energy prices were unchanged, even though gasoline rose 1.5%.

The core PPI, which strips out the volatile food and energy sectors edged down 0.1%.

The full PPI report is available on the Labor Department website.  

Levels of Discovery of Overland Park, Kan., is recalling about 150 Fly Boy Airplane Rockers

The red wooden knobs on the rocker’s steering panel console can detach, posing a small parts choking hazard to young children.

The firm has received two reports of knobs on the rocker’s steering panel detaching from the chair. No injuries have been reported.

The Levels of Discovery Fly Boy Airplane Rockers are wooden children’s rocking chairs with red wooden spindle frames and red wing-shaped arm rests. Hinged to the front of the chair is a light blue U-shaped airplane steering yoke and a console with red wooden knobs with blue painted circular controls and a red propeller.

The light blue seat of the chair has a navy blue fabric seat cushion and seat back with red buttons. “FLY BOY” is printed on the top frame of the seat back with a printed picture of a red airplane.

The chairs weigh about 17 pounds and measures 29 inches tall by 16 inches deep by 23 inches wide. Model number RAB00038 is printed on the underside of the rocker seat.

The rockers, manufactured in China, were sold at independent juvenile product retail stores nationwide and online at www.LevelsofDiscovery.com from June 2014, through November 2014, for about $160.

Consumers should immediately take the recalled rocker away from young children and contact the firm to receive a replacement console.

Consumers may contact Levels of Discovery toll-free at (866) 980-2536 ext. 9 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. CT Monday through Friday.

If your operating system is Windows 7, be warned: one of the updates Microsoft released this Tuesday might put your computer into an endless reboot loop.

Security expert Brian Krebs notes that one of the operating system updates Microsoft released lthis week – KB3033929, to be specific – does not seem to patch any major security vulnerabilities, but does put Windows 7 users into a reboot loop, thus making it impossible to start their computers.

As of press time, neither Microsoft nor any tech support forums have posted a solution to this problem. For now, the safest thing for Windows users to do is avoid applying update 3033929, if they haven't already.