Current Events in June 2018

More than a 160 million Office 365 and Office.com users around the world woke up to a host of new features in Microsoft Office on Wednesday.

With its eyes set on being the "go-to place to get stuff done" Microsoft’s slimdown makeover went after cleaning up visual clutter while perking up the feel of the software with new colors and more contrast.

Word is the first of the Office apps to get a facelift. But, remembering the adverse reaction it suffered when it rolled out a new Office "ribbon" in 2010, Microsoft is being cautious and wants to make sure it takes to heart user feedback and gets all the bugs worked out before going any further with the release of other Office apps.

The new bells and whistles

"As we were making these changes, we were focused on three things: Customer input, context, and giving people control over their experience," said Jon Friedman, Chief Designer, Microsoft Office.

How does that play out?

• Speed. The new version of Office was built on a modern platform and promises to be faster than it’s ever been.

• New icons and color. Office users will also see a more contemporary look in the apps’ icons and colors, all built as scalable graphics so no matter whether you’re on a mobile device or a desktop computer, all the buttons will adjust accordingly.

• Simplified ribbon/toolbar. The updated version of the ribbon was fashioned to help Office users focus on their work and, when the need arises, collaborate naturally with others. If a user would rather have the expanded ribbon like the current version of Office, all they have to do is click and expand it.

• Search. Microsoft is putting extra effort into search and hoping to give users better access to commands, content, and people. With "zero query search" simply placing your cursor in the search box will bring up recommendations powered by artificial intelligence and the Microsoft Graph.

"Based on the user’s work patterns, the new search tool makes suggestions on content you may be looking for, actions you can take, and people you might want to connect with. All made to happen using machine learning and Microsoft Artificial Intelligence," explained Friedman.

What else you can expect

Context is getting a major push at Microsoft. When the company was put in the position of playing catch-up to Apple’s Siri, it started investing in artificial intelligence by slowly integrating it into its software, such as with the “Designer” feature in PowerPoint.

How will context play out in the updated Office? In Microsoft’s press release about the new Office, it explained that it wants the ”new designs to understand the context that you are working in so that you can focus on your content. That means both surfacing the most relevant commands based on the work you are doing and making it easy to connect and collaborate with others."

User feedback is also moving up to top-of-mind status. In the new Office environment, the user becomes an integral part of Office’s new features as they’re being developed. When users have the "Coming Soon" feature turned on, a user can learn about the upcoming changes and offer their feedback so the Office team can update its designs and integrations as necessary.

After the first wave of features is introduced, Microsoft will roll out the remaining features over the next couple of months with a goal of having everything in place by the end of summer.

You can find more information on the new Office design by visiting Microsoft’s site here.

Homes sold at the fastest rate on record in May, according to real estate broker Redfin.

The typical home went under contract in just 34 days, two fewer days than in April, which had set the previous record. Denver was the fastest market, with the average listing spending just six days on the market before going under contract.

With homes selling that quickly, there was very little bargaining on price. The national median home sale price rose to $305,600, up 6.3 percent from May 2017, across the 174 markets that Redfin tracks.

More than 27 percent of the homes that sold last month went for more than the list price, but another 25 percent of homes sold after dropping the price, the highest percentage since last September. That suggests some markets are hotter than others. In San Jose, Calif., nearly 84 percent of homes sold above the list price.

"Prices are still increasing, but not at the same rate we saw earlier in the spring," said Redfin senior economist Taylor Marr. "The record percentage of homes sold above list price is at odds with the higher percentage of price drops in May. This tells us that while it's still very much a seller's market, price growth and rising mortgage rates may be pushing buyers to the limit of what they're able to pay."

Rising interest rates

After unexpectedly falling in late May, mortgage rates are rising once again. Freddie Mac reports rates have risen to their second-highest level of the year.

“The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage climbed eight basis points to 4.62 percent, and the Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday raised the federal funds rate by 25 basis points,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “The good news is that the impact on consumer budgets will be smaller than past rate hike cycles. That is because a much smaller segment of mortgage loans in today’s market are pegged to short-term rate movements.”

Despite some improvement, home inventory levels continue to pose a challenge to buyers. The number of newly listed homes for sale increased 4.3 percent, compared to May of last year, helping to drive a 3.6 percent increase in home sales.

However, the overall supply of homes fell 5.4 percent during the same time period. While a six-month supply of homes is considered a balanced housing market, Redfin counted only a 2.5-month supply at the end of May.

Chrysler (FCA US LLC) is recalling 539 model year 2018 Jeep Wranglers.

The intermediate steering shaft may not have been properly welded causing a split where the external spline is formed.

If the weld seam splits, the steering wheel may lose center positioning causing a loss of steering responsiveness and increasing the risk of a crash.

What to do

Chrysler will notify owners, and dealers will inspect and, as necessary, replace the intermediate steering shaft, free of charge.

The recall is expected to begin July 14, 2018.

Owners may contact Chrysler customer service at 1-800-853-1403. Chrysler's number for this recall is U48.

A federal judge in Washington has dismissed a Justice Department suit that sought to block the merger between AT&T and Time Warner, allowing the deal to proceed without conditions.

AT&T said that it plans to begin steps to close on the deal immediately now that it has won the case.

In a lengthy opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon said the government did not prove its case, either with its arguments or its witness testimony. While the government can appeal the ruling, the judge, in very strong language, urged the government not to seek a stay that would block the two companies from proceeding with their merger.

Opposition from Trump

AT&T announced its intention to merge with Time Warner in 2016, as the presidential campaign was getting into high gear. It became a political issue right from the start.

Both Republican hopeful Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders came out against the deal. Trump said the merger would create a company too big and too powerful. Sanders echoed that, telling the U.S. Justice Department that the deal "represents a gross concentration of power that runs counter to the public good."

AT&T argued that the merger represented a “vertical integration,” meaning it and Time Warner are not competitors. It was seeking Time Warner because it is a giant content producer, giving the telecom firm a huge addition to its programming library.

Critics of the deal said they worried AT&T would favor content from Time Warner on its network, particularly now that it is legal to do so with the demise of net neutrality.

The Trump administration Justice Department sided with those critics, filing its suit to block the merger back in March and claiming the union would be harmful to competition. The government said AT&T is not only a huge wireless provider, it has a foot firmly planted in content production. Time Warner is already a huge content provider. It owns Warner Brothers Studios, along with cable channels like HBO, CNN, and TNT.

AT&T's argument

Lawyers for AT&T stayed with the argument that the two companies are not competitors, and that their services merely overlap. In the end, that argument prevailed.

There are other winners and losers in the case other than the parties to the suit. Because the government lost in its bid to stop the merger of the media giants, Comcast is now expected to enter a bidding war with Disney for the assets of Fox.

Netflix could be a loser, since it faces a potential new content competitor that is in control of a major distribution system.

The decision may also change the media landscape in other ways, prompting Verizon to go shopping for a major content producer so that it can better compete with AT&T.

The value of cryptocurrency’s ringleader Bitcoin fell below $7,000 after two University of Texas academics released a paper on Wednesday claiming that 2017’s high of $19,000 was the result of artificial market manipulation.

In their report “Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered?,” finance professor John M. Griffin and graduate student Amin Shams propose that transaction patterns show Tether -- a cryptocurrency token claimed by its creators to be backed by one U.S. dollar for each token issued -- was “used to provide price support and manipulate cryptocurrency prices.”

“Using algorithms to analyze the blockchain data, we find that purchases with Tether are timed following market downturns and result in sizable increases in Bitcoin prices,” Griffin and Shams wrote.

“Less than 1% of hours with such heavy Tether transactions are associated with 50% of the meteoric rise in Bitcoin and 64% of other top cryptocurrencies.” In a nutshell, trades of Tether were “timed following market downturns” triggering “sizable increases in Bitcoin prices.”

A few players pushing around a whole lot of money

Griffin and Shams’ study shines a light on the possibility that Bitcoin’s price manipulation was precipitated by a handful of cloak-and-dagger players and not genuine demand from investors.

Their analysis of the flow of coins on Bitcoin’s blockchain found that the three main Tether exchanges for most of 2017 -- Bitfinex, Bittrex, and Poloniex -- also created substantial cross-exchange Bitcoin flows among themselves. The Texas researchers concluded that “dubious activities are not just a by-product of price appreciation, but can substantially contribute to price distortions and capital misallocation.”

Bitfinex has been regarded as the largest Bitcoin exchange platform since 2014, with an estimated $700 million daily trading volume. Bitfinex and Tether are also sister companies sharing the same CEO and with “a minority percentage of overlap in shareholders,” according to CoinTelegraph.

The SEC should be happy to hear this

With this report, investors’ patience with cryptocurrency’s rollercoaster ride may have finally hit bottom. Probably to the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) liking, these findings advocate that market monitoring and oversight may be a requisite component of a truly free market.

The SEC’s formation of a cryptocurrency “czar” couldn’t come at a better time, and they’ll have a lot on their plate given this this study’s findings, Apple putting the kibosh on apps that mine cryptocurrency, and the cryptohack of a digital currency exchange that wiped out billions.

This November, Californians will be able to vote on whether the state should be separated into three different states: California, Northern California, and Southern California.

The idea for three separate states came from venture capitalist Tim Draper, who calls the move Cal 3. The initiative received more than 400,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot -- surpassing what’s required by state law -- though the final decision will come from Congress.

Why split up the state?

Draper believes dividing California will ultimately be the most beneficial move for the state’s residents. With three smaller states, regional communities will have the resources to address the state’s most pressing issues, including strained government, deteriorating infrastructure, school systems, and high taxes.

“The California government isn’t too big to fail, because it is already failing its citizens in so many crucial ways,” said Peggy Grande, spokeswoman for Citizens for Cal 3. “The reality is that for an overmatched, overstretched, and overwrought state-government structure, it is too big to succeed. Californians deserve a better future.”

“Californians deserve a more effective education system that isn’t failing our families, more reliable infrastructure that isn’t fracturing our communities, and more sensible taxes that aren’t stifling our opportunities,” the Cal 3 website states. “That is the fresh start Cal 3 will deliver.”

What the split will look like

With Cal 3, California would be divided into California, Northern California, and Southern California. Draper is confident it would mirror the current way other states are structured in order to be more manageable.

“It will simply divide the state into smaller, more manageable populations,” the Cal 3 website states. “Think of North California and South California; North Dakota and South Dakota; West Virginia and Virginia -- California is already known for its Northern and Southern identities.”

Northern California would have 40 counties, including the San Francisco Bay area and the remaining counties of north Sacramento, comprised of 13.3 million people; California would have 12.3 million people in six counties (Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and San Benito); and Southern California would have 13.9 million people in 12 counties: San Diego, San Bernadino, Orange, Riverside, Mono, Madera, Inyo, Tulare, Fresno, Kings, Kern, and Imperial.

Californians deserve more

Draper and Cal 3 are confident this plan would have countless benefits for residents of all three new California states.

Currently, according to U.S. News & World Report and McKinsey’s “Leading States Index,” out of 50 states, California ranked last -- or close to it -- in many leading categories. The state is currently ranked #44 in K-12 education, #46 in low tax burden, #49 in road quality, #50 in urban air quality, #50 in quality of life, #49 in housing affordability, and #48 in cost of living.

However, Cal 3 has plans to drastically take aim at these problem areas.

“Rather than being managed remotely -- and ineffectively -- from Sacramento, each state will have the autonomy to make choices based on the most pressing needs and opportunities close to home,” the Cal 3 site states.

“Cal 3 uses our region’s natural geographic boundaries to emphasize local identity, while retaining existing county lines in order to preserve Californians’ natural pride in our diverse population. The needs of local communities can be brought into the spotlight and communities can elect officials that will best represent them.”

A new report by the California Nurses Association shows that the state’s 170 major nonprofit hospitals are cutting back on charity care. The hospitals provided $651 million worth of charity care to uninsured or underinsured patients in 2016, a significant drop from the $985 million they provided in 2011.

Over the same time period, the hospitals reported net income of more than $3 billion.

“Charity care” is defined by the IRS as subsidized hospital care provided to people who meet certain income guidelines. Federal law requires hospitals with nonprofit status to provide charity care to low-income patients, but the law doesn’t specify the exact amount of charity care that hospitals must provide.

In statements to the Los Angeles Times, the hospitals defended their charity care cutbacks by pointing to the Affordable Care Act, claiming that Obama’s signature law helped the uninsured so well that charity care is not needed as much.

“We absolutely celebrate the fact that less charity care is required in the community,” an executive with the California Hospitals Association told the Times.

Cutting back on charity care

Cedars-Sinai, often characterized as the hospital-of-choice for Hollywood’s elite, told the paper that the nursing group’s report “is not reflective of the true picture of our charitable mission .”

However, the charity care donated by Cedars-Sinai dropped 76 percent between 2011 and 2016 even as the hospital’s total net income, or the amount of money that a nonprofit has left after costs are paid out, reached $1.8 billion.

The California Nurses Association, which is often in the crosshairs of the healthcare industry and is currently lobbying for legislation to bring free, socialized healthcare to California, says that the troubling health coverage statistics in the state tell a different story than what the hospitals claim.

According to a 2016 report by the Commonwealth Fund, 21 percent of Californians remained underinsured, or unable to afford adequate insurance plans.

In April, just as taxes were due, three California hospitals asked the state’s Attorney General to exempt them from IRS charity care obligations. But their proposals were rejected, and the hospitals were ordered to pay millions to other nonprofits to make up for charity care that they had failed to provide patients the previous year.  

Nursing unions at the state and federal level have long called out hospitals for trying to cut back on charity care.

In 2012, National Nurses United reported that California’s non-profit hospitals received more than $1.8 billion in government subsidies and benefits from their tax exempt status. But three-fourths of those hospitals simply “harvested” the government subsidies rather than putting them back into charity care, the nurses said.

Whoever came up with the phrase “Tacoma Aroma” probably wouldn't have predicted that the Washington town famous for unleashing a stinky, sulphur-like smell on all of its inhabitants would one day have some of the highest rents in the nation.

In 2017, nearly three decades after New Jersey’s Bruce Springsteen publicly complained that the smell of Tacoma made him sick, Tacoma was found by Trulia to have the highest rent appreciation in the entire nation, or a median rent that rose from $1,650 a month in 2016  to $1795 a month last year.

The reason? A booming tech sector 32 miles away in Seattle, Washington and a massive uptick in rents there to go with it. Tacoma looked relatively affordable by comparison. (It probably doesn't hurt that Tacoma’s leaders and polluting businesses also worked to eliminate the smell over the past few decades).  

In Seattle, rents have risen nearly 40 percent over the past five years, driven largely by the presence of major employers like Amazon and Microsoft, sending rents and homeless rates in the city and in neighboring towns soaring.

To those on the Seattle City Council, Amazon’s record-breaking profits, Jeff Bezos’ enormous net worth, and the area’s unprecedented affordable housing shortage and homeless crisis presented an obvious solution: tax big businesses like Amazon to pay for homeless services.

The Seattle City Council voted unanimously last month to implement a $275-per-employee tax on Seattle companies that earn $20 million or more in profits. City leaders enthusiastically said that the tax would raise $47 million in revenue.

But now the measure appears destined to fail. After intensive lobbying from the business community, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and seven of Seattle's nine City Council members announced on Monday that they plan to pass a new law to repeal the tax.

Their about-face comes after Amazon and Starbucks led a $200,000 signature-gathering referendum campaign to get the law overturned. Amazon also suspended plans to expand its campus, a project that was expected to add 7,000 new jobs to the city, as Seattle began debating homeless tax proposals earlier this year.

A “backroom betrayal”

The new announcement on Monday marks a significant departure from mid-May, when all nine of Seattle’s City Council had voted to support the tax.

“It is clear that the ordinance will lead to a prolonged, expensive political fight over the next five months that will do nothing to tackle our urgent housing and homelessness crisis,” Seattle’s mayor and the majority of City Council members announced in a public statement.

“We heard you,” they added. “This week, the City Council is moving forward with the consideration of legislation to repeal the current tax on large businesses to address the homelessness crisis.”

The majority of Seattle’s city council now argues that the tax would hurt businesses and the homeless problem more than it would help, but Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who wants to keep the tax in place, characterised the reversal in an interview with the Seattle Times as a “backroom betrayal.”

The lobbying campaign and tax fight comes as cities across the continent are offering Amazon tax breaks and other incentives as part of a competition to be the new headquarters of HQ2, the second Amazon campus.

Rising homeless population

Though Seattle faces a severe affordable housing shortage, with home price growth more than double that of nearly every other American city, about half of the city’s residents still earn less than $50,000 annually, according to IRS filings.

Meanwhile, Seattle’s homeless population increased 44 percent in the past two years, and the town and surrounding county have the nation’s third-largest concentration of people sleeping on the streets, according to a count done in 2017.

In the past, Amazon has agreed to use its resources to open a temporary homeless shelter. When asked by shareholders about the company’s otherwise lack of participation in philanthropy, Bezos responded that "our core business activities are probably the most important thing we do to contribute, as well as our employment in the area."

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee has ended its June meeting and, as expected, announced a quarter percent rise in its key interest rate.

The Fed's discount rate will now fluctuate between 1.75 percent and 2.0 percent. The Fed is taking that action because the economy continues to improve, the unemployment rate continues to fall, and inflation is slowly creeping back into the economy.

Earlier this week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported consumer prices rose 2 percent in May, with inflation at 2.8 percent over the last 12 months. The Fed wants to see some inflation in the economy, but it is hiking rates to keep it under control.

Interest rates that are affected

The rise in the Fed's discount rate affects several types of consumer loans. Most affected are credit card rates, which are already near an all-time high. Most credit card rates are based on the cardholder's credit rating, but nearly all rates are likely to rise to match the Fed's latest increase.

Consumers with home equity lines of credit should also expect to see the interest rate on their balance go higher. The same is true for homeowners with variable rate mortgages.

Those rates are almost always lower than the rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, but they're going up; however, the fixed-rate mortgage, which is keyed to the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, is not.

The Fed's discount rate also affects auto loan interest rates, but right now the effect may be minimal. That's because dealers are having to offer attractive incentives to sell cars and may be willing to subsidize rates for buyers with good credit. Buyers with poor credit, however, may feel the full effect of the Fed's latest rate hike.

Second hike of the year

The rate hike is the second one this year, and the seventh since the Fed began “normalizing” rates after years of keeping the discount rate at zero percent. Economists predict the Fed will raise rates at least one more time this year, and perhaps two more times before it’s through.

The rising rates cloud may hold a small silver lining for savers. The latest Fed hike puts rates at a level where banks may offer higher interest rates on savings accounts and certificates of deposit (CD) to draw customers.

It would reverse the common practice of the last nine years of paying practically nothing, because the Fed was holding rates at near zero percent. A recent analysis by Value Penguin found the most common interest rate on a savings account in 2018 was 0.01 percent. Ally Bank paid the highest among the banks in the survey – 1.45 percent.

A new U.S. study shows that more than one-third of American adults take prescription drugs that have the potential to cause depression.

The researchers found that more than 200 commonly used medications include depression as a possible side effect. The list includes certain proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) used to treat acid reflux, beta blockers, painkillers (including ibuprofen), anti-convulsant drugs, ACE inhibitors used to treat high blood pressure, and anxiety drugs. The risk for depression also increases when taking several of these drugs at the same time.

“The more of these medications you’re taking, the more likely you are to report depression,” says Mark Olfson, author of the study and professor of psychiatry at Columbia University.

“It was both surprising and worrisome to see how any medications have depression or suicidal symptoms as a side effect, given the burden of depression and suicide rates in the country, said Dima Mazen Qato, an assistant professor and pharmacist at the University of Illinois at Chicago and lead author of the study.

A look at the study

The study was published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and featured the results of 26,192 adults who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

At the time of the survey, all participants listed the medications they were taking and completed a depression screening that measured mood, sleep, and appetite.

Over one-third of participants were taking medications that had depression as a possible side effect. The goal of the study was to determine whether these individuals were more or less likely to experience depression compared to those who didn’t take any of these medications.

The study found that not only are individuals on these medications more likely to experience depression, but when taking multiple medications, they are three times more likely to be depressed.

Fifteen percent of participants who used three or more of these drugs at once were depressed compared to lower rates for those who only used one. Conversely, only five percent of participants who didn’t use any of these medications were depressed.

Despite the results, the researchers say they didn’t prove the medications cause depression.

“We didn’t prove that using these medications could cause someone who was otherwise healthy to develop depression or suicidal symptoms. But we see a worrisome dose-response pattern: the more of these medications that have these adverse effects that you’re taking concurrently, the higher the risk of depression,” said Dr. Qato.

The researchers also accounted for other risk factors that can cause depression when doing the study, including marital status, unemployment, poverty, and medical conditions like chronic pain.

“The study is an important reminder that all medicines have risks, and most medicines have rare but serious risks -- yet another reason that even commonly used medicines such as beta-blockers or proton pump inhibitors should not be used cavalierly,” said Dr. Caleb Alexander, co-director of the Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

What the study means for the future

The researchers hope that the findings from this study urge people to have important conversations with their healthcare providers when taking medication.

“People should always be ready to ask, ‘What are the risks and benefits of me taking this medication?’” says Don Mordecai, a psychiatrist with Kaiser Permanente. “People who don’t have a history of depression and then, suddenly, start to have symptoms of depression should be concerned that it’s potentially due to a side effect, or potentially, an interaction.”

“With depression as one of the leading causes of disability and increasing national suicide rates, we need to think innovatively about depression as a public health issue,” Dr. Qato said.

In an effort to crack down on bad businesses that lie to consumers, Facebook has launched a tool that will enable users to review businesses after they make a purchase.

Facebook said in a blog post on Tuesday that it would ban businesses that receive enough customer complaints from advertising.

“Bad shopping experiences aren’t good for anyone,” Facebook said. “When items take a long time to arrive or don’t meet your expectations, it can cost you time and money. And if these things happen after purchasing something from a business’ ad on Facebook, it can sour your overall impression of Facebook.”

Reducing advertising abuse

Companies that fail to “improve customer satisfaction and better meet customer expectations” after receiving feedback could have their ads banned from the platform.

“We spoke with people who have purchased things from Facebook advertisers, and the two biggest frustrations we heard were that people don’t like ads that quote inaccurate shipping times or that misrepresent products,” Facebook said.

The new tool is intended to identify and mitigate these common user frustrations by letting people review businesses, with the ultimate goal of “connecting more people with businesses that meet their expectations.”

Facebook users can leave feedback for ads they’ve recently viewed under the 'Ads Activity' tab, the company said. From there, users can click on the 'Leave Feedback' button and respond to a brief questionnaire that asks for ratings on various ads.

'We believe this tool will give people more confidence in the businesses they interact with and help hold businesses more accountable for customer experiences they provide,' Facebook said.

Follows efforts to fight ‘fake news’

News of Facebook’s new user review tool follows the company’s announcement that it would begin allowing advertising on Marketplace. The company is aiming to provide users with a better ad model “by strengthening privacy and choice, while giving businesses of all sizes new and better tools to help them grow.”

The company has also taken several steps to keep false news off its platform, as well as give users greater control over what personal data is shared with the site.

Chinese telecommunications equipment maker ZTE announced that it has resumed trading following a two-month suspension, which ended last week.

Back in April, ZTE was hit with a seven-year ban on buying U.S. components after it was caught illegally trading with Iran and North Korea. The company said the ban would threaten its survival and likely hurt many U.S. companies.

As part of a deal to keep the company in business, ZTE agreed to pay up to $1.4 billion in penalties to the U.S. government and $400 million in escrow to cover any future violations. ZTE also agreed to replace its management team within 30 days, open itself up to U.S. inspections of its sites, and improve public disclosure of its supply chain.

The company said in filings on Tuesday that it would restart business operations “as soon as practicable,” but the sales ban will not be lifted until ZTE pays the fines.

The company added that it would re-publish its first-quarter financial results after assessing the impact of the seven-year ban and the settlement agreement.

Shares of ZTE Corp reportedly tumbled 42 percent as it resumed trading in Hong Kong following the two-month trading halt, which began April 17.

“While the nightmare is now over, ZTE will likely have to deal with many changes,” analysts Edison Lee and Timothy Chau at Jefferies told Bloomberg. “We expect significant near-term selling pressure and a volatile stock price.”

As much as 9 percent of Tesla’s workforce is leaving the company as part of a reorganization effort intended to achieve profitability during the second half of the year, CEO Elon Musk announced in a memo to staff.

"We are a small company in one of the toughest and most competitive industries on Earth," Musk wrote, adding that trimming costs is necessary to turn Tesla into a sustainably profitable company.

The employees that are being let go are "almost entirely" in salaried positions -- no production associates will be let go, Musk said, noting that the reorganization effort won't impact Tesla's efforts to increase Model 3 production.

Cutting non-critical positions

“We made these decisions by evaluating the criticality of each position, whether certain jobs could be done more efficiently and productively, and by assessing the specific skills and abilities of each individual in the company,” the CEO said.

The electric car maker’s announcement comes a month after Musk announced a plan to flatten management and restructure the company to make it less bureaucratic.

“To ensure that Tesla is well prepared for the future, we have been undertaking a thorough reorganization of our company,” he wrote. “As part of the reorg, we are flattening the management structure to improve communication, combining functions where sensible and trimming activities that are not vital to the success of our mission.”

Tesla didn’t say how many employees would be laid off in the restructuring, but current figures peg Tesla’s workforce at over 30,000 employees -- a dramatic increase from 2015, when the company employed 14,000 people. A nine-percent cut means Tesla could let more than 3,000 workers go.

Consumers who have been squeezed by rapidly rising gasoline prices may soon get some relief.

A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts the recent spike in world oil prices is pretty much over, with crude oil prices moderating for the rest of 2018. That could keep gasoline prices from going even higher.

“Oil prices are unlikely to increase as sharply as they did from mid-2017 onward and thus the dampening effect on demand will be reduced,” the IEA said in its report. “Demand might also receive support from measures under consideration in some countries, e.g. Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Russia and Turkey, to help consumers cope with higher prices.”

Production is increasing

The report anticipates increased demand in 2019, but the authors say increased production from non-OPEC countries like the U.S. and Russia should keep demand and supply in balance.

“As far as supply is concerned, we have revised upwards our estimate for 2018 non-OPEC production growth to 2 million barrels a day, and in 2019 we will also see bumper growth, albeit slightly reduced, of 1.7 million barrels a day,” the authors write. “The United States shows by far the biggest gain.”

Already, the extra production is paying off for consumers at the gas pump. The AAA Fuel Gauge Survey shows the national average price of regular gas is $2.90 a gallon, down four cents in the last seven days. It's still four cents higher than a month ago, when prices surged ahead of the Memorial Day weekend.

An extra $69 a month

Earlier this week, AAA reported that the rise in fuel prices was costing consumers an average of $69 a month more to fill their tanks. The auto club estimates that gasoline expenses are accounting, on average, for 7 percent of the typical consumer’s 2018 annual income.

The recent easing of fuel prices has come earlier than expected. Normally, prices rise through the Independence Day holiday before beginning to ease. After Labor Day, refineries return to producing winter grade fuel blends, which cost less.

Hawaii has the highest average gasoline price in the nation, at $3.73 a gallon, but California is a close second, at $3.71. According to AAA, Mono County, Calif., is the costliest place to fill up, with an average gas price of $4.41 per gallon.

The cheapest fuel in the nation is found in South Carolina, where the statewide average is $2.57 a gallon.

A police agency in rural North Carolina is asking federal regulators to investigate a driver’s claims that the Lexus he was renting took off by itself before crashing into eight vehicles.

Giles Troy Page Jr, 83, was traveling to his vacation home in Boone, North Carolina, he told local police, when the engine on his rental surged as he approached a red light.

“When I mashed the brake, it wouldn't stop. It wouldn't slow down. And actually, the engine accelerated,” Boone Police Department Lieutenant Danny Houck tells ConsumerAffairs, relating the story that the driver told him.

(Reached by the telephone, Page declined to be interviewed by ConsumerAffairs, saying that he does not talk to people he does not know.)

Page hit eight vehicles until a final impact with a Chevy Truck sent the Lexus on its side. He was reportedly transported to a local hospital and later released without serious injuries.

Boone Police declined to issue him any citations. Johnson Lexus, the dealership who rented out the vehicle, later told police that their review of black box data showed the car did not have anything mechanically wrong with it that would have caused it to accelerate by itself, Houck says.

However, Boone Police were not able to inspect the car’s black box data themselves, even though Houck says his department is capable of doing so.

“Lexus asked us not to,” he tells ConsumerAffairs.

Black box data and computer glitches

Houck says that the Lexus dealership expressed concerns that police could accidentally corrupt or erase the files on the car’s computer.

“If it messed something up, there would be nothing there for them to read.” Houck says. “We said, ‘Okay. we're going to do the right thing.”

Regardless of whether Lexus provided a correct reading of the black box data, Houck says he is concerned that the black box may not have captured Page’s attempts to brake, if the brakes were indeed failing as he claimed to police.

“On a Lexus, your brake pedal isn't attached to a pedal, it’s attached a computer. So if the computer is not reading input from the driver, it's not going to be in the black box,” he adds.

While Lexus claimed that it found nothing wrong with the vehicle (besides it being totaled as a result of the crash), Houck said he wants the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the agency that investigates consumer grievances about vehicle defects, to look into the accident.

Johnson Lexus directed questions from ConsumerAffairs to Toyota headquarters, where a Toyota spokesman stated via email that “we need to review this further and don’t have any comment at this time.”

“My driver is also an airplane pilot,” Houck adds, “who works with controls, has worked with foot pedals and knows the ins and outs of electronics, and especially a car.”

Toyota’s history of unintended acceleration

California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor was also driving a rental Lexus when, in 2009, his brother-in law called 911 from the backseat to report that the vehicle was accelerating unprompted and would not respond to the brakes.

Moments later, the car, going as fast as 120 miles per hour, slammed into a Ford at the dead end of a highway, sending the Lexus flying into the air and into a dry riverbed, where it burst into flames. All of the vehicle’s occupants died at the scene.  

The public release of that 911 tape led to what became known as the Toyota sudden unintended acceleration scandal, which finally ended in 2014 when Toyota paid a record $1.2 billion fine to the Department of Justice.

As part of the investigation, Toyota recalled millions of vehicles for what it described as sticky accelerator pedals and ill-fitting floor mats, problems executives later admitted that they failed to correct in a timely manner.  

The feds were eventually satisfied, determining that Toyota’s massive recall and subsequent Department of Justice settlement had solved its unintended acceleration issues.

But a whistleblower who contracted for Toyota executives as a company translator, as well as numerous engineers and personal injury attorneys who have sued Toyota, alleged that Toyota failed to address the root cause of the problem, which they say could be a defect in the car’s computers, as ConsumerAffairs detailed in a story last year.

Blaming the driver

Drivers who claim that their cars took off unprompted typically do not have the sympathy of law enforcement officers.

Last year, Boston cab driver Lutant Clenord jumped a curb, knocked down a bench, and injured several coworkers with his Toyota Prius. Clenord maintained in interviews with local news and with the local police that his vehicle took off by itself and would not respond to brakes.

Police, though describing the case as a “tragic accident,” later determined that operator error caused the crash and charged Clenord with operating to endanger. This baffled other cab drivers who felt that Clenord should not have to face criminal charges for what was either a vehicle defect or a horrible mistake.  

“In most cases the police have not considered the possibility of the car is at fault. They automatically blame the driver,” Carnegie Mellon engineer Phil Koopman, who has testified in lawsuits against Toyota, told ConsumerAffairs at the time.

“There are a large number of vehicles [with the defect] that Toyota never did anything to,” Koopman added.

Toyota, like other automotive companies hit with reports of sudden acceleration, has maintained that there is nothing defective with its software or computer technology that would cause cars to simply take off on their own.

Seeking a federal investigation

Houck, the police lieutenant, said that he is familiar with Toyota’s previous sudden unintended acceleration controversy that made national news. He says he has no proof that something went haywire in Page’s rental Lexus car -- ”I don’t want to slam Lexus,” he adds -- but he simply wants an independent third-party to investigate further.

Another reason for his concern, he says, is that a former Lexus owner, a woman in Virginia, contacted Boone Police to share her own story about a Lexus that took off by itself, causing her to hit three cars in a Lowe's parking lot last year.

Diana Kegley came across the story from Boone on the internet. She then told Boone Police that her Lexus GX460 took off in March 2017 as she was about to park.

Kegley, who also filed a report with NHTSA describing the crash, tells ConsumerAffairs that she hit two parked cars before a final impact with a third parked car brought her Lexus to a stop. A tow truck driver took the car to a local mechanic, where she says the shop owner was instructed by Toyota not to touch the black box data, citing concerns that he could corrupt the car’s files.

Toyota later determined that she had accidentally pressed the gas pedal at 100 percent, Kegley recalls. She maintains that her foot was on the brake.

Kegley refused to drive the car afterward and traded it in. In the glovebox, she says she left a note warning future owners about the defect she believes she experienced.

"We never want Toyota products again,” she says.

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the way Ohio purges its voter registration rolls.

The justices voted 5-4 that the state's practice of removing voters who do not vote, and then fail to respond to a mailed notice, is constitutionally valid.

Court observers say the ruling is important because it may prompt other states to adopt measures similar to Ohio's, as a way to keep their voter registration rolls accurate and up to date. The court majority, in its decision, said nearly one in eight voter registrations is “either invalid or significantly inaccurate.”

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the court's decision could result in many eligible voters being removed from voter rolls, disproportionately affecting the poor, elderly, and minorities.

Ohio voter challenged the law

The case that made its way to the nation's high court stemmed from an Ohio resident who was turned away from his local precinct for a 2015 election because he had been removed from the voter rolls.

Larry Harmon said he had lived at the same address for 16 years, but state election officials said they removed him from the voter rolls after he didn't vote in 2009 and 2010, then failed to respond to a written notice sent to his home by mail. Harmon said he did not remember receiving the notice and went to court to challenge the state's election law.

Democrats had criticized Ohio's practice, saying it was a way to suppress voting, and took to social media to denounce the Supreme Court's ruling.

“Ohio should be working to make voting easier, not harder,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). “Instead, today’s decision empowers Ohio to further strip away the right to vote for thousands of Ohioans, threatening the integrity of our state’s election process.”

Brown notes the Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling last year that found Ohio's system of purging voters from its rolls violated federal election law. Brown is on the Ohio ballot for reelection to the Senate in November.

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said federal law specifically allows states to remove voters who don't respond to a notice and who have “not voted or appeared to vote.” In fact, he said federal law not only allows it but makes it mandatory.

Apple is banning any and all cryptocurrency mining on the company’s products, including iPhones and Macbooks, and is taking that stand in no uncertain terms. The goal, according to the company, is to preserve battery life and avoid "unnecessary strain on device resources."

Earlier this year, ConsumerAffairs reported how much of an energy hog cryptocurrency Bitcoin is, reporting that it uses as much energy as the entire country of Ireland.

The new rule is part of Apple’s latest App Store developer guidelines and represents a swift response to deceitful programmers who tried to pad unconnected ads and apps with software that mines cryptocurrency.

The ban is as black and white as any company could make it. In Apple’s updated policy, the "hardware compatibility" section drives home its mantra to all app developers:

"Design your app to use power efficiently. Apps should not rapidly drain battery, generate excessive heat, or put unnecessary strain on device resources. Apps, including any third party advertisements displayed within them, may not run unrelated background processes, such as cryptocurrency mining."

Setting rules and standards

As many iPhone owners know, Apple’s iPhone batteries have had a rough go over the last six months.

Nonetheless, Apple left the door ajar for apps that deal with cryptocurrency above board and outside of Apple’s products and platforms. The company’s new policy clearly defines what it does -- and does not -- find acceptable:

• Wallets: Apps may facilitate virtual currency storage, provided they are offered by developers enrolled as an organization.

• Mining: Apps may not mine for cryptocurrencies unless the processing is performed off device (e.g. cloud-based mining).

• Exchanges: Apps may facilitate transactions or transmissions of cryptocurrency on an approved exchange, provided they are offered by the exchange itself.

• Initial Coin Offerings: Apps facilitating Initial Coin Offerings ("ICOs"), cryptocurrency futures trading, and other crypto-securities or quasi-securities trading must come from established banks, securities firms, futures commission merchants ("FCM"), or other approved financial institutions and must comply with all applicable law.

• Restricting incentives: Cryptocurrency apps may not offer currency for completing tasks, such as downloading other apps, encouraging other users to download, posting to social networks, etc.

The app that pushed Apple over the edge is reported to be Qbix’ "Calendar 2" (also known as "Calendar 2: The Scheduling"), an app that mined a virtual currency called Monero in the background on users’ Apple products. Apple yanked the app from the App Store but gave it a reprieve after Qbix removed the mining feature from the software.

Not a one-time incident

While it’s not exactly clear how many apps on Apple’s App store contain cryptomining features, experts say they have found several -- all of which can be problematic to users.

"Market leaders Bitcoin and to a lesser extent Ethereum require powerful and expensive specialized hardware to mine profitably,” explained cryptojacking watcher Jordan Pearson. “The CPUs found in iPhones and the generally weak GPUs that ship with most Macs, on the other hand, can really only feasibly mine coins like Monero and other lesser-known offerings."

Last year, computer security software company Avast found an app on the Google Play store passing itself off as the "Cooee" game that also mined the Monero cryptocurrency.  

"As with many malicious trends, the cybercriminals have quickly moved from PC to mobile," wrote Avast upon discovering the rogue app. "It’s important to understand that mining cryptocurrency is actually a legit business. Since mining cryptocurrencies is expensive, miners are resorting to abusing the processing power of other devices and are spreading mining programs through apps and websites."

It’s unknown whether other manufacturers and platforms will follow Apple’s decision on cryptocurrency-mining apps. Earlier this year, Facebook, Google, and Twitter closed the door on any advertising for initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency wallets, and some cryptocurrency exchanges.

A new study finds that kitchen towels can harbor harmful pathogens that could potentially lead to food poisoning.

Researchers from the University of Mauritius tested 100 kitchen towels that had been used for a month and found that 49 percent had bacterial growth.

Of the 49 towels that carried pathogens, almost three-quarters grew coliform bacteria (a type that may include E. coli); 36.7 percent grew Enterococcus; and 14.3 percent grew staphylococcus aureus, a type of staph that can cause serious infections.

These findings were presented at the annual meeting for the American Society for Microbiology, which concluded yesterday.

Risk factors

The researchers said the amount of bacteria found on towels was influenced by several factors, including family size and the type of food consumed.

Non-vegetarian diets were found to increase the risk of contamination by bacteria such as E. coli. Towels that were used for multiple purposes -- such as those used for wiping utensils, drying hands, holding hot implements, and cleaning surfaces -- also had a higher risk of contamination.

Towels that were damp showed higher bacterial counts than dry ones, and S. aureus was more likely to be found on towels from bigger families and those of lower socioeconomic status.

"The data indicated that unhygienic practices while handling non-vegetarian food could be common in the kitchen," said lead author Dr. Susheela D. Biranjia-Hurdoyal, a senior lecturer in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Mauritius, in a statement.

Clean kitchen towels regularly

To keep germs from spreading, health experts recommend washing or changing kitchen towels, sponges, and oven gloves regularly and letting them dry before using them again.

The USDA also recommends taking several precautions when preparing food in the kitchen in order to prevent the spread of germs that could make you or your family sick. These include:

• Washing hands with soap and warm water for 20 seconds before and after handling food, and after using the bathroom, changing diapers, or handling pets;

• Using hot, soapy water and paper towels or clean cloths to wipe up kitchen surfaces or spills;

• Washing cutting boards, dishes, and countertops with hot, soapy water after preparing each food item and before you go on to the next item; and

• Using a solution of 1 tablespoon of unscented, liquid chlorine bleach per gallon of water to sanitize surfaces and utensils.

On Monday, Chase and Starbucks announced a brand new prepaid Visa debit card -- the first prepaid or debit product that allows customers to collect “Stars” outside of Starbucks. Customers who have the card can link it to their Starbucks loyalty account and redeem the Stars they’ve earned at Starbucks retailers.

Starbucks is touting the new card as the first -- and only -- prepaid card that lets consumers earn Stars with any purchase, whether inside or outside of Starbucks. Chase customers can use the debit card at any retailer that accepts Visa, both in stores and online.

“We want to offer Starbucks customers a flexible card that delivers more Star-earning potential in the fastest way possible,” said Jennifer Roberts, head of Digital Products for Chase.

Customer benefits

The new card offers many new customer benefits that Starbucks lovers won’t want to miss out on. For starters, once enrolling, customers will automatically be promoted to Gold Status in Starbucks’ rewards program. This allows customers to redeem a free drink or food item each time they reach 125 stars.

Additionally, upon enrollment, customers will receive 125 bonus stars once they use their Visa card to load $10 to their registered Starbucks card. From then on, they will receive one star for every $10 spent with the card. Other perks include birthday rewards, the ability to order ahead, and free refills in stores. Also, Gold Star status allows customers to earn double stars on select days each month.

“This reloadable Visa Prepaid card is a unique and modern option that gives customers one more way to earn more stars and rewards through everyday spend, in a way they haven’t been able to before,” said Matt Ryan, chief marketing officer for Starbucks. “As we continue to expand and strengthen our digital relationship with customers, we want to make sure we’re providing choices that are both rewarding and meet their preferences in how they engage with us.”

Another card from Starbucks

This new Visa prepaid card comes after the coffee chain announced a partnership with Chase -- and a different credit card -- earlier this year.

This past February, Starbucks and Chase launched a Visa credit card that can be integrated into Starbucks’ rewards program. While the card offered customers a number of perks to help them earn rewards at Starbucks locations, it also came with a $49 annual fee.

“The catch is that Stars can only be redeemed at Starbucks, which is far more limiting than rewards cards that offer cash back or travel rewards,” said Kimberly Palmer, NerdWallet’s credit card expert. “The Starbucks card will likely appeal only to the most die-hard Starbucks fans who would get enough value out of their Stars to justify the annual fee.”