Current Events in March 2019

Camber Pharmaceuticals is recalling 87 lots of Losartan Tablets, a prescription medication used to treat high blood pressure and congestive heart failure.

Trace amounts of N-Nitroso N-Methyl 4-amino butyric acid (NMBA), a potential human carcinogen, were detected in the product.

There have been no reports of adverse events related to this recall to date.

The following 87 lot numbers are being recalled:

The recalled products were distributed nationwide to wholesalers, distributors, retail pharmacies, and mail order pharmacies.

What to do

Camber’s distributors and other customers are being notified by recall letter and arrangements are being made for return of the recalled products.

Consumers should contact their doctor for further guidance and potential change of treatment before they stop taking the product.

Consumers with questions regarding this recall may contact Camber Pharmaceuticals’ Med Line at (866) 495-1995 Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm (EST).

American Honda Motor Co., is recalling 4,445 model year 2014-2019 Acura ILXs.

The vehicles may have a deformed fuel tank, raising the height of the fuel pump and allowing the fuel level float to stick, possibly causing the fuel gauge to display an inaccurate fuel level.

If the fuel gauge indicates that the vehicle has more gas than it actually does, the vehicle may run out of gas and stall, increasing the risk of a crash.

What to do

Acura will notify owners, and dealers will inspect and -- as necessary -- replace the fuel tank, free of charge.

The recall is expected to begin on March 8, 2019.

Owners may contact Acura customer service at 1-888-234-2138. Acura's number for this recall is H3U, Z3T.

Chrysler (FCA US LLC) is recalling 15 model year 2019 RAM 1500s equipped with a 12-inch touchscreen display and a base-level heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system.

Vehicles with this combination do not have a functioning windshield defrosting and defogging system, which may decrease the driver's visibility, increasing the risk of crash.

What to do

Chrysler will notify owners, and dealers will repurchase the affected vehicles.

The recall is expected to begin on March 15, 2019.

Owners may contact FCA US customer service at 1-800-853-1403. Chrysler's number for this recall is V12.

Is Facebook as we’ve come to know it, kaput? We don’t have a crystal ball, but we do have news that Facebook’s boy wonder, Mark Zuckerberg, has got a new schematic for his social media beast.

We also have new data that says Facebook’s reputation with consumers has plummeted in a big way.

Let’s cover Facebook’s new model, first.

Zuckerberg posted a 3,000-word opus on Wednesday in which he outlined plans for new privacy features. He also spoke about moving the platform’s users away from public posts and toward private, smaller groups.

“I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won't stick around forever,” Zuckerberg wrote. “This is the future I hope we will help bring about.”

Blurred lines

What’s confusing is that he seems to be blurring the lines between the Facebook that the world is used to and the company’s messaging apps, which he appears to want to combine and use as the network’s base layer.

“Today we already see that private messaging, ephemeral stories, and small groups are by far the fastest growing areas of online communication,” he said.

“We plan to build this the way we've developed WhatsApp: focus on the most fundamental and private use case -- messaging -- make it as secure as possible, and then build more ways for people to interact on top of that, including calls, video chats, groups, stories, businesses, payments, commerce, and ultimately a platform for many other kinds of private services.”

Are Facebook’s privacy issues behind this move?

If words count, Zuckerberg referred to the subject of privacy a whopping 50 times in his missive. Stripping things down to smaller, intimate groups and raising the bar on encryption could possibly help Facebook erase the privacy stain it’s beset itself with over the past few years. But is this what Facebook users want?

“Zuck is missing the point here. People don’t just want to have private conversations; mainly, we just don’t want our private data sold to advertisers,” commented one reader on the New York Times’ coverage of Facebook’s change.

“I don’t see any difference between a Facebook focused on public sharing and a Facebook focused on private messaging. Both will collect any data I hand out and use it as a product to sell to advertisers. No thanks!”

Longtime Facebook users bemoaned the next evolution of the platform.

“I joined Facebook in 2005 as a college freshman. ... when Facebook was fun, carefree, and exclusive. It wasn't some malevolent global force used to collect your data and spread misinformation,” wrote one tenured Facebook user.

“The evolution of Facebook from that early concept to what it is now has been insidious and kinda horrifying...It stopped being a fun, comfortable place for you and your friends and became something else entirely, all about getting you to expose and spread as much information about yourself as possible to make for easy harvesting. And we see where that's gotten us.”

Then, there’s Facebook’s reputation

On the same day Zuckerberg rolled out his new blueprint, his company’s reputation score nose-dived 43 points.

In the newly-minted Axios Harris Poll 100, which ranks the reputations of the most visible companies in the U.S., 18,228 Americans were polled to find out “what real people think right now about the companies in our cultural conversation.”

Facebook tumbled from #51 to #94 alongside other consumer confidence basement dwellers like Sears, Dish, Comcast, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, the Trump Organization, Philip Morris, and the U.S. Government.

While not at the bottom like those companies, Tesla, McDonald’s, Target, Nike, Chick-fil-A, and Google were all cited as having the “fastest falling” reputations.

The winners? Even though its footprint is mostly in the northeast, grocery chain Wegman’s landed the #1 overall spot, just ahead of Amazon, Patagonia, L.L. Bean, and Disney. The thread that runs true through those reputation winners is that they seem to care -- about employees and about customers.

In Business Insider’s deep dive into what makes those companies winners, they quoted Kristen Wilkinson, a front-end coordinator at the family-owned Wegman’s, who wrote, "The family feel flows into everything that Wegmans is and does. They truly care about their employees, customers, and communities. I know we all have worked for companies that offer the complete opposite.”

Disney employee Michael Guttman gave his employer the same props. “Yes, lots of hard work and there is stress. Politics? of course, every company has politics. Overall, you are pushed to do your absolute best and attempt to push beyond that. Sometimes it can be draining, but very satisfying. … The culture there is mostly friendly and you get the feeling that your hard work is paying off and appreciated.”

Putting company money where it’s mouth is also has a handsome pay-off.

“The company really holds fast to their mission of sustainability,” one of Patagonia’s retail employees commented on Glassdoor. “It's part of everything they do. Do a great job of hiring people that share that goal.”

Illinois is considering legislation to mandate and enforce minimum staffing requirements at nursing homes operating within the state.

The measure, the Nursing Home Residents' Quality of Care Initiative (SB 1510, SA #1), is the state’s latest response to complaints about the care elderly residents are receiving. It’s not a new issue. In 2016, the governor of Illinois signed a law allowing families to install electronic monitoring systems in residents' rooms.

At the time, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported receiving approximately 19,000 complaints of abuse and neglect by long-term care facilities each year. The sponsors of the proposed law say the situation hasn’t improved.

"It has been both heartbreaking and motivating to me, through my work, to see how devastating it can be for an entire family when a loved one receives inadequate care in a nursing home," said Illinois State Sen. Jacqueline Collins, sponsor of the legislation.

Strict enforcement

Collins’ bill calls for strict enforcement of the state’s minimum staffing requirements, heightened  public transparency of nursing home violations, and enhanced safeguards regarding psychotropic medications and a resident's right to informed consent.

"This initiative sets forth some much- needed measures to ensure that no family has to see their loved one suffer unnecessarily in a place where they are supposed to be cared for," Collins said.

In 2015, 39 percent of Illinois nursing homes received a low-quality rating from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. An AARP survey taken this year found 84 percent of Illinois voters supported legislation increasing the quality of nursing home care.

"Residents of nursing homes are some of Illinois’ most frail whose care needs have unfortunately adjusted their life's path to need skilled nursing care 24 hours a day," said Ryan Gruenenfelder, director of Advocacy and Outreach for AARP Illinois. "Residents and their caregivers need to be able to trust nursing homes at a time when they are more vulnerable than they have ever been."

Public vs. private

A study last year by the University of Illinois at Chicago found differences in the care residents receive at publicly supported nursing homes and those in the for-profit category. The researchers found that residents of for-profit nursing homes were twice as likely to experience clinical signs of neglect compared with those in not-for-profit residencies.

“Those signs of neglect included severe dehydration in clients with feeding tubes which should have been managed, clients with stage three and four bed sores, broken catheters and feeding tubes, and clients whose medication for chronic conditions was not being managed properly,” according to the researchers.

While Illinois has had its well-publicized issues with nursing homes, it may well be a national problem. In 2017, the state of Maryland sued a company operating five nursing homes within the state. Regulators claimed that about 1,000 residents were discharged into inadequate care so their places could be taken with higher-paying residents on Medicaid.

The U.S. economy is on solid footing but would likely be doing much better if not for the more than month-long government shutdown at the beginning of the year.

That’s the conclusion of the Federal Reserve, stated in its latest Beige Book, a regular report on economic conditions around the country.

The Fed policymakers report the economy was expanding in January and February, but the 35-day government shutdown had a big impact on at least half the country. More than 800,000 federal employees missed two pay periods, limiting consumer spending.

Airlines, in particular, were hit hard by the shutdown and the loss of business from government employees and government contractors. Delta Airlines reported the loss of business would cost it at least $25 million in January.

In late January, Southwest Airlines reported that the ongoing shutdown had cost an estimated $10 million to $15 million in lost revenue during the month of January. It also postponed the airline's long-anticipated expansion of service to Hawaii.

Despite the setbacks for the airlines, the Fed reports that 10 of the 12 regions in the U.S. reported “slight to moderate growth” over the past two months. The outliers were Philadelphia and St. Louis, both of which reported conditions were largely unchanged.

The Fed’s playbook

The Beige Book is important because it will be the playbook when Fed policymakers meet later this month to discuss the economy and whether they should raise interest rates. In a recent speech, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell all but said the Fed would hold off on raising rates again this year until the data suggested it was necessary.

In a speech earlier this month, Powell said the short-term economy appears to be in a good place.

“The current economic expansion has been underway for almost 10 years,” Powell said. “This long period of growth has pushed the unemployment rate down near historic lows. The employment gains have been broad-based across all racial and ethnic groups and all levels of educational attainment as well as among the disabled.”

Should the Fed refrain from raising interest rates again this year, it would be good news for consumers with credit card balances. Credit card interest rates are directly tied to the Fed’s federal funds rate and those rates go up each time the Fed hikes that interest rate.

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase have disclosed the name of their joint healthcare venture.

The organization has been named “Haven,” which is intended to reflect the trio’s “goal to be a partner to individuals and families and help them get the care they need, while also working with clinicians and others to make the overall system better for all,” according to a recently launched website.

The formation of the joint healthcare venture was announced in early 2018. However, the project had only been referred to as “ABC” or “ABJ” (the first letters of each company’s name) for the past year.

The nonprofit organization said it aimed to reduce healthcare costs and improve services, but now Amazon and its partners have shared their primary goals for the collaborative healthcare venture with the public.

Three guiding principles

Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon and medical researcher who was brought on as CEO of the joint venture in June 2018, wrote on Haven’s homepage that Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and Jamie Dimon of Chase “believe that we can do better, and in taking this step to form this new organization, they have committed to being a part of the solution.”

Haven says its three key goals are:

• To be an advocate for the patient and an ally with anyone, including physicians, industry leaders, innovators and policymakers, who can improve patient care and contain costs;

• To create new solutions by changing “systems, technologies, contracts, policy;” and

• To be relentless in the pursuit of a better healthcare system.

“We want to change the way people experience health care so that it is simpler, better, and lower cost,” Gawande said in a statement on Wednesday. “We’ll start small, learn from the experience of patients, and continue to expand to meet their needs.”

Initially, the organization will focus on addressing the healthcare needs of 1.2 million Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase workers across the U.S. The partners will take what they learn from the early stages of the venture and use it to create solutions that could improve the healthcare system on a larger scale.

“We know that this work will take time, and we’ll need the help of others, but we will tackle problems step-by-step and make sure that patients remain our top priority,” Gawande wrote.

Nearly 3 million pay TV subscribers cut the cord last year, with AT&T’sDIRECTV taking the biggest hit, according to an industry report.

Leichtman Research reports the largest pay TV providers in the U.S. lost 2.8 million subscribers in 2018 as more consumers increasingly turned to over the top (OTT) sources of video services. The numbers are worrisome for the industry since cord-cutting nearly doubled from 2017.

Much of the attrition occurred among satellite TV providers. DIRECTV lost more than 1.2 million subscribers last year, up from 554,000 the year before.

In all, satellite TV providers accounted for the lion’s share of cord-cutting, losing more than 2.3 million customers last year.

Cable losses were slightly less

Losses were slightly less among the top six cable TV providers. They shed 910,000 customers last year, an increase over the 680,000 they lost in 2017. Top cable providers together lost 1.9 percent of their customers last year, compared to a 1.4 percent loss in 2017.

There were losses across the board except in the telephone companies’ video services. While the overall category lost ground, AT&T’s U-verse actually added 47,000 subscribers. The category saw its total losses fall from 885,000 in 2017 to 245,000 last year.

While traditional sources of programming lost customers, internet-delivered sources continued to see gains. The top publicly reporting internet-delivered (vMVPD) services, Sling TV and DIRECTV NOW, added about 640,000 subscribers in 2018. That’s significantly fewer than the  1.6 million net adds in 2017.

Lost 3.1 percent of its customers

“The pay-TV market saw net losses increase in 2018.  Overall, the top pay-TV providers lost 3.1 percent of subscribers in 2018 compared to a loss of 1.6 percent in 2017,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group.

Leichtman says the pay TV industry peaked in the first quarter of 2012. Since then, he says about 6 million consumers have cut the cord.

“This reflects a decline of about 10,000,000 subscribers for traditional services, offset by the addition of about 4,000,000 subscribers for the publicly reporting vMVPD services,” he said.

The three largest cable companies lost 730,000 customers last year. Comcast lost 371,000; Charter lost 244,000; and Cox lost 115,000 subscribers.

Amazon has announced that it will close all 87 of its pop-up kiosk locations, currently found in stores like Whole Foods, Kohl’s, and in shopping malls, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The move comes as the company is trying to figure out the best route toward expanding its brick-and-mortar footprint. Though Amazon’s pop-up locations are set to close by the end of April, the tech giant currently has several other physical store concepts in the works.

Earlier this week, sources familiar with the company’s plans told the Journal that Amazon is preparing to launch dozens of its own grocery stores. The stores will have separate branding from its Whole Foods stores, which Amazon acquired in 2017.

Amazon is also considering opening as many as 3,000 cashless Amazon Go convenience stores by 2021.

Adding more 4-star locations

Amazon’s pop-up locations let customers try out Amazon products such as Echo smart speakers, Fire tablets, and Kindle e-readers. Customers could also try out Amazon services like Audible, Prime Video, and Kindle Unlimited.

“After much review, we came to the decision to discontinue our pop-up kiosk program,” an Amazon spokeswoman confirmed to the Journal. The e-commerce giant said it will instead be focusing on opening additional Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star locations.

The first Amazon 4-star store was introduced last year in New York. The stores let customers browse and try some of the products that are sold on its marketplace that have earned a customer rating of four stars or more.

Amazon says it will open more 4-star locations and additional Amazon Books stores in 2019.

Blockbuster lives. But only in Oregon.

A Blockbuster store in Perth, Australia is scheduled to close later this month, and once it does, exactly one Blockbuster will remain in the entire world.

Bend, Oregon (population 95,000) is home to ski resorts, natural parks, and the surviving store.

Sandi Harding, the manager of the franchise in Bend, assures the Associated Press that she’s not closing the last Blockbuster anytime soon because tourists regularly visit her store.

Previously, several Blockbuster stores in Alaska gained notoriety for being among the nation’s few survivors. Locals in Alaska had explained that lack of access to fast internet service in much of the state made the stores a necessity.

But last year, the Texas-based owner of the Alaska franchises said that it just didn’t make sense to keep those stores open anymore. Though locals didn’t want them to go, the owners said they had no choice.

"It's tough to tell the customers, it really is," Kevin Daymude, a manager at one of the stores that closed in Alaska, said last July.

Blockbuster already shuttered its corporate-owned stores in 2014, leaving only the franchises. Before the advent of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon streaming, an estimated 9,000 Blockbuster stores were located around the world.

Following a healthy diet can come with a hefty price tag, but a team of researchers has outlined a way for consumers to stick to a healthy diet -- and also stick to their budgets.

According to the team, consumers -- and their families -- can have healthy meals if they focus on buying items in bulk and planning meals in advance.

“This study determines the likelihood that families living in low-income households could create meals that meet the USDA dietary guidelines presented in MyPlate nutrition education materials,” said researcher Karen M. Jetter, PhD. “In addition to food cost, the other factors considered were access to stores, time for meal preparation, and whether the menus included culturally appropriate foods.”

Getting the most for your money

The researchers started the study by working with the Mechoopda Indian Tribe (MIT) of Chico Rancheria and Northern Valley Indian Health, Inc. to help them incorporate healthy, budget-friendly meals into their routines.

They focused on creating menus for the families and then determined where they could purchase the necessary items at a reasonable price.

The majority of the families in the area have an average income of $35,000 or less, and the researchers were adamant about creating meal plans that would be suitable for their budgets, as well as for families with small children. One of the main goals was to incorporate variety so the families weren’t consistently eating the same things. Moreover, the researchers made sure that the meals were all nutritionally sound based on USDA guidelines.

The groups worked together to create a menu that consisted of one healthy meal per day for two weeks, and according to Dr. Jetter, the goal was achieved “by balancing daily [nutrition] targets over two weeks, not every day.”

The researchers then went to 13 local stores and classified them as follows: specialty market, bulk supermarket, discount market, and general supermarket. According to their findings, specialty and discount markets didn’t carry all of the necessary items, and they came with a higher price tag. However, the bulk and general supermarkets provided a larger variety and stayed closer to their budgets.

The researchers found that at a bulk supermarket, the families could stick to their meal plan for $25 a day; at the specialty store, that cost went up to nearly $40 per day.

Despite these positive results, the researchers note that even a slight price increase could make it more difficult for low-income families to put healthy meals on the table.

“This research demonstrates that menus that meet USDA guidelines can be purchased by a family of four when shopping at a bulk supermarket, but any reduction in SNAP benefits or increase in food costs would make it difficult for these economically vulnerable families to maintain a healthy lifestyle,” Dr. Jetter said.

Affecting bodies and wallets

With this study, one of the researchers’ main goals was to keep the meals healthy based on USDA nutritional guidelines. But according to a recent study, many families who receive SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits aren’t getting a healthy diet.

"Even though SNAP is not designed to cover all of the cost of food -- it's meant to be a supplemental food program -- this study makes it clear that there would be many low-income households that would not be able to cover the gap needed to eat a diet consistent with federal dietary guidelines," said study co-author Lindsey Haynes-Maslow.

This can be detrimental for countless reasons -- one of which is the risk of obesity, which researchers have found is increased when access to food is limited.

“Our study highlights the importance of adequate nutrition for health,” said researcher Alexander Testa. “Millions of Americans do not have enough food to eat and live in communities where affordable healthy food options are not available. To combat obesity, it is important to ensure that people have consistent access to nutritious food.”

Though experts say watching TV can be disruptive to sleep, many consumers put a TV in the bedroom to help unwind before bedtime. But according to a new study, the habit could be detrimental for children of preschool age.

Researchers from the University of Montreal recently conducted a study and found that having a TV in the bedroom can affect preschoolers’ development, as too much time in front of the television prohibits children from engaging in more enriching activities.

“The early years are a critical period in a child’s development,” said researcher Linda Pagani. “Intuitively, parents know that how their children spend their leisure time will impact their well-being over the long term. And with TV being the most common pastime, it’s clear that the many hours they spend in front of the screen is having an effect on their growth and development, especially if the TV is in a place like the bedroom.”

Reaching optimal development

To see the effect frequent TV-watching had on young children’s development, the researchers followed a group of nearly 2,000 newborns through early adolescence.

According to Pagani, the group wanted to “examine whether there was a link between having a bedroom TV at age 4, during the neurodevelopmentally critical preschool period, and later physical, mental, and social problems in early adolescence.”

The study ended when the children were 13, and the researchers assessed their body mass indices (BMIs), eating habits, sociability in school, and emotional stressors. They then had the participants complete the Children’s Depression Inventory. Combined, these factors would give the researchers an idea of whether or not the participants would have any issues growing into adulthood.

Ultimately, the researchers found that having a TV in the bedroom led to several unhealthy habits that started in childhood and moved into adolescence.

The children with TVs in their bedrooms had unlimited access to screens, but they were also more likely to have poor eating habits, higher BMIs, greater emotional stress, more symptoms of depression, and lower levels of sociability.

The researchers attribute these traits to the children spending too much time in front of the TV and not enough time engaging in social or physical activities. They suggest that parents follow the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines for screen time, especially from a young age, so children start good habits as early as possible.

“The location of the TV seems to matter,” Pagani said. “Having private access to screen time in the bedroom during the preschool years does not bode well for long-term health. Our research supports a strong stance for parental guidelines on the availability and accessibility of TVs and other devices.”

Regulating screen time for little ones

Researchers have found that screen time among the youngest demographic has more than doubled in the last two decades, and it’s more important than ever for parents to regulate how much time their young children spend in front of screens.

Despite the need to ensure children only spend a certain amount of time in front of screens each day, a recent study found that controlling children’s behavior with screen time can backfire by leading to even more time in front of screens.

“It’s similar to how we wouldn’t use sugary treats as rewards because by doing so we can heighten the attraction to them,” said researcher Jessica Haines. “When you give food as a reward, it makes children like the carrot less and the cake more. Same thing with screen time.”

However, setting some ground rules around what’s appropriate for time in front of an electronic device -- and cutting back on that time -- has been effective in improving children’s cognition.

Arctic Cat of Thief River Falls, Minn., is recalling about 770 Stampede and Rustler off-highway utility vehicles (ROV’s) sold in the U.S. and Canada.

The lower front suspension arm can fail, posing a crash hazard.

The firm has received four reports of front suspension arm failures. No injuries or crashes are reported.

This recall involves all model year 2018 Stampede and Rustler model side by side Arctic Cat off-highway vehicles with VIN number 9003240 through 9004062.

The recalled vehicles were sold in multiple colors, have four wheels and side-by-side seating for two or four people.

The Stampede models have Textron Off Road on each side of the hood area and Stampede on each side of the box. The Rustler models have Rustler 850 on each side of the hood area and 4X4 on each side of the box.

The VIN number is located under the front hood on all models.

The ROVs, manufactured in the U.S., were sold at Textron Off Road and Arctic Cat dealers nationwide from September 2017, through December 2018, for between $13,800 and $16,000.

What to do

Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled ROVs and contact TSV/Arctic Cat to schedule a free repair. Arctic Cat is contacting all known purchasers directly. If you need assistance locating an authorized dealer to conduct this repair, contact Arctic Cat.

Consumers may contact Arctic Cat at (800) 279-6851 from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. (CT) Monday through Friday or online at www.textronoffroad.com and click on Recall Information located at the bottom of the page for more information.

Southern Specialties of Pompano Beach, Fla., is recalling select bags of Marketside brand green beans and butternut squash.

The products may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

There are no reports of any illnesses associated with this recall.

The following Marketside products, which my have reached stores in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, are being recalled:

What to do

Customers who purchased the recalled products should not consume them, but discard them or return them to the place of purchase for a refund.

Consumers with questions regarding the recall may contact the company at (954) 876-2453 or online at www.southernspecialties.com.

Volkswagen Group of America is recalling 74,881 model year 2016-2018 Audi Q7s, A6s & A7s, and model year 2015-2018 A8s.

The left and right fuel rails may leak fuel.

A fuel leak in the presence of an ignition source can increase risk of a fire.

What to do

Audi has notified owners, and dealers will replace the left and right fuel rail, free of charge.

The recall began February 28, 2019.

Owners may contact Audi customer service at 1-800-253-2834. Audi's number for this recall is 24DP.

Uber walked out of an Arizona courtroom on Tuesday, breathing a sigh of relief. On the hot seat for potential liability in a March 2018 crash in Tempe, Arizona -- in which one of the company’s self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian -- the Yavapai County Attorney said that there was “no basis for criminal liability” for Uber.

However, there was a caveat to that dismissal. Apparently, the prosecutors in the case bought the “driver error” argument after a video taken inside the car showed that the backup driver was looking down at his phone, watching an episode of ‘The Voice’ until a nanosecond before hitting a pedestrian, who died from her injuries.

Police called the incident “entirely avoidable,” and now the Uber driver could face charges of vehicular manslaughter, according to reports.

Can autonomous vehicles be trusted?

The Arizona fatality caused Uber to pull back on its autonomous vehicle testing and sent out a warning to other automotive companies wanting in on the driverless technology craze.

In its defense, autonomous car companies blame “driver error” for most of its accidents, but experts suggest the issue may stem from computers actually driving more cautiously than the humans with which it shares the road.

Reuters reports that automotive industry kingpins moaned the loss of consumer confidence, as well as the support of regulators and investors, at an autonomous vehicles conference in Silicon Valley last week. These executives will likely need all of these stakeholders on their side to build consensus for autonomous vehicles.

Uber isn’t throwing in the towel… yet

On the heels of the Arizona accident, state authorities suspended the consent it had given Uber to test self-driving cars. With its hopes seemingly dashed, Uber voluntarily discontinued its autonomous car testing program in Arizona, pulled up stakes, and left to focus on the self-driving notion in San Francisco, Toronto, and Pittsburgh.

That move to Pittsburgh hasn’t worked out particularly well…yet. After pressing pause on the initiative for a year while it fine-tuned things, Uber restarted the program with what it felt was a better, safer plan.

In the company’s new formula, self-driving vehicles are restricted to a small geographical loop, one that can only be used in good weather. Its new plans also require two people in the front seat, and the company says it’s monitoring the safety of its drivers more closely.

Democrats on Wednesday introduced a bill to reinstate net neutrality laws repealed by the Trump administration’s FCC.

The bill, called the Save the Internet Act of 2019, aims to restore laws preventing internet providers from blocking, speeding up, or slowing down access to specific online services.

"This legislation brings the power of the internet to every corner of this country, from rural America and to our cities," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in an announcement Wednesday. "A free and open internet is a pillar in creating opportunities."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the bill a “real bipartisan effort.”

“Last spring, our colleagues in the United States Senate were given that choice to side with the average person, rather than the big special interests, to side with protecting consumers and entrepreneurs,” Schumer said.

“Unfortunately, all but three Senate Republicans voted on behalf of special interests. It passed the Senate, but unfortunately a Republican House of Representatives shelved it. Now we have a Democratic House and Republicans have a second chance to right the Trump Administration’s wrong.”

The Save the Internet Act is being introduced in both the Democrat-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate, with hearings on the bill set to begin next week.

Efforts to restore net neutrality

Net neutrality rules were rolled back in 2017 by a Republican-dominated FCC. The agency’s chairman, Ajit Pai, argued that the “light-touch” regulatory approach that took the place of the Obama-era regulations would give broadband providers more incentive to innovate and build networks.

"In place of that heavy-handed framework, the FCC is returning to the traditional light-touch framework that was in place until 2015," the FCC said. "Moreover, the FCC today also adopted robust transparency requirements that will empower consumers as well as facilitate effective government oversight of broadband providers’ conduct."

In the time since the rules were repealed, several states have voted to reinstate net neutrality laws and 22 state attorneys general have come together to block the FCC’s rollback of net neutrality.

The activist group Fight for the Future has garnered nearly 25,000 signatures in a petition asking legislators to defend net neutrality and "protect the free and open Internet for generations to come."

“With the Save the Internet Act, Democrats are honoring the will of the people,” Pelosi said.

Facing increased public scrutiny over the role that big banks may play in immigration enforcement, JPMorgan has suddenly announced that it will no longer provide loans or other banking services to private prison operators.

The bank didn’t provide an explanation for the change.

“JPMorgan Chase has a robust and well-established process to evaluate the sectors that we serve,” is all a spokesman said of the decision in a statement to Bloomberg. “As part of this process, we will no longer bank the private-prison industry.”

In recent months, immigrant rights protesters have occasionally followed JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon around, telling him to cut ties to Geo Group and CoreCivic, two major private prison contractors in the United States.

Geo Group and CoreCivic run federal and state prisons across the country, as well as some immigrant detention centers. Critics accuse the contractors and the banks that back them of profiting off the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policies.

Regulators turn up the heat

Rep. Maxine Waters, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, recently invited the CEOs of JPMorgan and Bank of America to testify about their funding of private prisons.

More recently, House Financial Services Committee member Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez last week threatened to hold oversight hearings “to make these banks accountable for investing in and making money off of the detention of immigrants.”

A Geo Group spokesman responded to Bloomberg that the divestment campaigns “are politically motivated and based on a deliberate mischaracterization of our role as a long-standing service provider to the government.”