Current Events in November 2019

No sooner had Boeing conceded that there were imperfections in its safety audit of the 737 MAX, than the company is facing yet another 737-related issue -- hairline cracks in Boeing’s 737NG aircraft. 

As ConsumerAffairs reported in early October, Boeing’s latest round of headaches began with Brazilian carrier Gol Transportes Aéreos grounded all 11 of its 737NG planes. Stateside, Southwest Airlines reported it grounded two of the planes, noting that it didn’t find any issues in the “vast majority” of planes.

Now there’s news that Australian carrier Qantas has discovered the same cracks in three of the 33 aircraft it inspected. Those planes were immediately pulled from service and sent out for repairs.

“We would never fly an aircraft that wasn’t safe,” said Andrew David, Qantas Domestic’s CEO. “Even where these hairline cracks are present they’re not an immediate risk, which is clear from the fact [that] the checks were not required for at least seven months.”

Not everyone is in agreement

The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) took exception with David’s position. It urged Qantas to ground its entire 737 fleet until checks were complete.

"These aircraft should be kept safe on the ground until urgent inspections are completed," the ALAEA’s Steve Purvinas said in a statement. Purvinas primary reason behind his call for a total grounding started with Boeing’s original thinking that the cracks were occurring on aircraft with over 35,000 landings. However, in Qantas’ situation, the cracks were found on aircraft with under 27,000 landings -- a serious enough distinction that, in Purvinas’ estimation, warrants a system-wide grounding. However, Qantas’ David thinks Purvinas is off-base.

“Unfortunately, there were some irresponsible comments from one engineering union yesterday, which completely misrepresented the facts. Those comments were especially disappointing given the fantastic job our engineers have done to inspect these aircraft well ahead of schedule, and the priority they give to safety every day of the week,” David said.

What does Boeing have to say?

In comments to CBSNews, a Boeing spokesperson said the company "regrets the impact" the issue was having on its customers and was "working around the clock" to fix the problem.

"Boeing is actively working with customers that have airplanes in their fleets with inspection findings to develop a repair plan, and to provide parts and technical support as necessary.”

Are you booked on a 737NG?

The “NG” in Boeing’s 737NG name stands for “Next Generation,” and as of May 31, 2019, more than 7,000 aircraft of that model have been delivered to airlines around the world. Primary users of the 737NG include Qantas, Gol Transportes Aéreos, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Ryan Air, and United Airlines. 

If a traveler is concerned about whether they’ll be on one of the potentially affected aircraft, they can always go to FlightAware, type in the flight number, and the “aircraft type” will be listed under “flight information.” The airline’s help desk can also provide pertinent information.

The Trump administration looks to be abandoning its plan to freeze the fuel efficiency standards of cars at 2020 levels and may instead push for an increase in fuel efficiency standards, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Citing sources familiar with the matter, the Journal said the White House is now considering requiring a 1.5 percent annual increase in fuel efficiency instead of the 5 percent increase called for under Obama-era rules.

Back in September, Trump announced that he was revoking California’s ability to set its own emissions standards for vehicles. California and the leaders of more than two dozen other states have already sued over the decision. 

However, General Motors, Toyota, and Fiat Chrysler agreed over the summer to get on board with the administration’s policy after being called to the White House to discuss the matter. 

Carmakers divided on the issue

Earlier this week, the four automakers filed a lawsuit reiterating that they are siding with Trump and backing the claim that he is allowed to block states from setting their own emissions standards.

Trump expressed his gratitude to the automakers on Twitter, thanking them for “standing with us for Better, Cheaper, Safer Cars for Americans.” He added that “California has treated the Auto Industry very poorly for many years, harming Workers and Consumers. We are fixing this problem!” 

The automakers that have sided with California in the debate over efficiency standards are Ford, Honda, BMW, and Volkswagen.

Trump’s rumored new plan to back away from the plan leaves the automakers that have sided with him “in a lurch” because they have “squandered a lot of goodwill and damaged their reputations without getting what Trump promised,” The Verge noted. 

The administration’s change of plans -- which is expected to be announced by the end of the year -- is said to involve a 1.5 percent increase in fuel efficiency every year “using an industry measure that takes both gas mileage and emissions reductions into account,” the Journal said. 

As the vaping death toll continues to rise among younger consumers, it may come as a surprise to many that the younger demographic has lessened its cannabis use. 

Researchers from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health found that the number of teens and young adults affected by cannabis use disorder declined between 2002 and 2016. 

“Contrary to expectations, the frequency of cannabis use disorder among people reporting daily/almost daily use decreased significantly between 2002 and 2016,” said researcher Dr. Silvia Martins. “The findings contradict the predominating hypothesis that the prevalence of DSM-IV CUD would be stable, or increase, among those using with regularity.” 

Lower rates of cannabis use

The researchers analyzed over 22,000 responses to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health to better understand the cannabis habits of those in three age groups: 12-17 years old, 18-25 years old, and over 26 years old. 

For the purposes of the study, the researchers used the DSM-IV definition for cannabis use disorder. While there are several factors that come into play, cannabis use becomes cause for concern when a person becomes dependent on the drug or uses it in a way that’s harmful to the body. 

The survey responses showed that every age bracket they observed had lowered their rates cannabis use disorder. Those 26 and older used the substance less than any others, dropping nearly 40 percent over the span of the study. 

Across the board, the motivation to quit wasn’t associated with any physical or mental health concerns. Those who dropped the habit said they didn’t do so out of necessity, and their health wasn’t compromised in any way. 

While the researchers noted that social and societal changes may have made an impact on some young people’s decision to stop using the drug, it is interesting to know that young people’s health -- either mental or physical -- was not on the line and didn’t affect their decision. 

“First, the new national cannabis policy environment, with 33 states legalizing medical use and 10 states allowing recreational use of cannabis may have played a role in reducing stigma and perceptions of risk associated with cannabis use,” said Dr. Martins. “Secondly, increasing legalization may be associated with changes in social attitudes resulting in fewer conflicts with relatives and friends around cannabis use.”

Vaping is a stark contrast

While the social aspect associated with cannabis use may be behind the sharp decline in use among young people, these findings do come in stark contrast to teens’ e-cigarette use, which has become problematic. 

Despite several warnings about health-related concerns, teens have not altered their vaping habits. One recent study found that flavored e-cigarettes, which have been under fire recently, are associated with higher teen use of vaping devices.

“While many children try e-cigarettes, not all become regular users,” said researcher Adam Leventhal. “Teens who use e-cigarettes may be more inclined to continue vaping rather than just temporarily experiment with e-cigs. Whether or not children continue vaping is important -- the longer and more frequently you vape, the more you’re exposing yourself to toxins in e-cigarette aerosol and put yourself at risk of nicotine addiction.”

On Thursday, Google issued a Chrome security alert and urged users to update their browsers as soon as possible in light of the discovery of two high-severity security vulnerabilities. 

In a blog post, Google engineers said an exploit for one of the two vulnerabilities has already been spotted in the wild.

"Google is aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2019-13720 exists in the wild," the company said in announcing the release of Chrome version 78.0.3904.87.

Both vulnerabilities -- CVE-2019-13720 and CVE-2019-13721 -- were uncovered by Kaspersky researchers Anton Ivanov and Alexey Kulaev. They’re classified as “use-after-free” vulnerabilities, meaning they allow for “corruption or modification of data in the memory. This allows an unprivileged user to escalate privileges on an affected system or software,” according to the National Cyber Security website.  

Manually check for updates

Google added that public access to bug details and links “may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix.” 

Although Chrome users are notified automatically when the latest update becomes available, Google is recommending that users manually check for the update by going to “Help” and tapping “About Google Chrome” from the menu.

The update rolled out by Google “addresses vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit to take control of an affected system," the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a statement.

In recent years, avocados have become a more popular food choice for many consumers. But the results of a recent study may increase that enthusiasm even further.

Researchers from the University of Guelph found that the nutritional make-up of avocados can help consumers fight obesity and prevent diabetes. The team says their work could help consumers make changes to their diets to improve health outcomes.

How avocados do the work

The researchers conducted two complementary studies to see how good avocados were for consumers’ health. One was performed on mice and the other was conducted on humans. 

For the mice-led study, the researchers’ goal was to have the animals develop obesity and insulin resistance, as these conditions would test the effectiveness of the avocados with the most accuracy. Half of the mice were given avocatin B (AvoB) to supplement their diets, which is a fat compound found only in avocados, while the other half of the mice carried on solely with high-fat diets. AvoB was the prime component of the human-focused study as well, as the researchers had the human participants take an AvoB supplement in addition to their regular diets. 

According to the researchers, during obesity and diabetes, the body is unable to properly burn fatty acids when a person is obese or is combating diabetes. In previous studies, AvoB was found to improve these body functions that had been compromised. 

In both the mice and human studies, the researchers found that adding AvoB to their diets was beneficial in both reducing overall weight gain and increasing insulin sensitivity, which is crucial to preventing diabetes. 

The researchers do note that more research is needed in this area before they can start recommending that consumers wildly increase their avocado intake, but these findings do hold a lot of promise for future projects in this area. 

“We advocate healthy eating and exercise as solutions to the problem, but that’s difficult for some people” said researcher Nawaz Ahmed. “We’ve known this for decades, and obesity and diabetes are still a significant health problem.” 

During an earnings call with analysts this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook signaled that the company is open to the idea of launching a subscription-style model for paying for iPhones, CNBC reported.

“We are cognizant that there are lots of users out there that want sort of a recurring payment like that and the receipt of new products on some sort of standard kind of basis and we are committed to make that easier to do than perhaps it is today,” Cook said. 

During the call, Cook said Apple sees subscriptions as a major growth area and pointed out that it’s already catering to customers who want to bundle services.

“In terms of hardware as a service or as a bundle, if you will, there are customers today that essentially view the hardware like that because they’re on upgrade plans and so forth. So, to some degree, that exists today,” Cook said in response to a question on the matter from analyst Toni Sacconagi. 

Laying the foundation

CNBC noted that Apple has been “laying the groundwork” for a subscription model for its iPhones for years.

In 2015, the company began allowing its users to pay off their iPhones on a monthly basis. The tech giant also offers an iPhone Upgrade Program, which includes an AppleCare warranty and an option to upgrade to the latest iPhone once the user has paid a minimum of 12 monthly installments for the older model of the device. 

Additionally, Apple currently offers trade-ins, which enable consumers to sell their older iPhone back to Apple in order to receive a discount on a newer model.

“We also continued to see great results from our trade-in program with more than five times the iPhone trade-in volume we had a year ago,” Apple CFO Luca Maestri said. 

Paying with Apple Card

Cook announced on the call that Apple is also set to launch a program that lets consumers buy an iPhone with their Apple Card and pay no interest on the sum for two years.

“I am very pleased to announce today that later this year, we are adding another great feature to Apple Card,” Cook said on the call. “Customers will be able to purchase their new iPhone and pay for it over it over 24 months with zero interest. And they will continue to enjoy all the benefits of Apple Card, including 3% cash back on the total cost of their iPhone with absolutely no fees and the ability to simply manage their payments right in the Apple Wallet app on iPhone.”

The Apple executive added that “one of the things we are doing is trying to make it simpler and simpler for people to get on these sort of monthly financing kind of things.” 

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an investigation into Altria and its role, if any, in the resignation of the CEO of Juul, its e-cigarette subsidiary that has come under close regulatory scrutiny in recent months.

According to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, Altria has received a demand from regulators seeking information about any role Atria played in the resignation of Juul’s CEO. At the end of September, Juul announced it was replacing its CEO Kevin Burns with Altria executive K.C. Crosthwaite.

Regulators are interested because within days of taking the top job, Crosthwaite hired Altria colleague Joe Murillo as Juul’s chief regulatory officer. 

Juul has been at the center of controversy over its marketing efforts and whether it targeted underage consumers with its vaping products. The company has also been in the crosshairs of the government’s efforts to stop underage use of vaping products.

In April, former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb accused Juul of being largely responsible for the spike in teen vaping. The FDA has cited research that shows an estimated 37 percent of high school seniors have tried e-cigarettes. A quarter of youth users told researchers they didn’t realize the products contain nicotine.

Attractive to minors

The agency has said products manufactured by Juul have been shown to be especially attractive to minors because they come in fruity flavors such as mango, mint, and fruit and creme. In January, Gottlieb warned that e-cigarettes could be taken off the market unless marketers made efforts to stop sales to minors.

Since then, Juul and its products have come under increasing scrutiny. In September, an official art the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called out Juul for allegedly using dangerous salts in its products.

In its SEC filing, Altria disclosed that the agency is conducting an antitrust review of Altria’s investment in the e-cigarette maker. Specifically, the agency is seeking information about any Altria role in the resignation of Juul’s CEO and his replacement with a long-time Altria executive.

In its filing, Altria also disclosed that the FTC and possibly other regulatory agencies are investigating Juul’s marketing practices. The company has been accused of targeting underage consumers -- something Juul vigorously denies.

The job market is a lot stronger than most economists thought. The Labor Department reports the economy added 128,000 jobs in October, far more than most experts expected.

In addition, the government revised the jobs numbers for August and September, showing the economy actually produced 90,000 more jobs than initially reported. Recent reports that the economy was slowing were based in part on slower hiring, which now turns out not to be so slow.

Better than expected

The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.6 percent in October, largely because the labor participation rate increased, meaning more people were actively looking for work. Economist Joel Naroff, of Naroff Economic Advisors, says it was a better than expected jobs report in many ways.

“Not only did the overall number come in stronger than expected, given the GM strike, but the large revisions to August and September change the discussion from a job market that is softening to one that is stable and solid,” Naroff told ConsumerAffairs. 

Most of the new jobs were found in bars and restaurants, along with social assistance agencies and financial services. Automotive manufacturing lost jobs because of the strike against General Motors. Federal government employment was down because of a drop in the hiring of temporary census workers.

Workers’ incomes continued to rise last month. The survey shows average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by six cents to $28.18. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3 percent. 

Where the jobs are

Bars and restaurants added 48,000 jobs last month, a sharp pickup from earlier in the year. Industry job growth has averaged 38,000 over the past three months, compared with an average monthly gain of 16,000 in the first seven months of the year.

Jobs in companies and agencies providing social assistance services increased by 20,000 last month, a higher than normal increase. This sector has averaged 11,500 new jobs each month over the last 12 months.

The professional and business services sector has been a job creation leader in 2019, and October was no exception. The sector added 22,000 jobs last month, a little below its average of 33,000 per month for the rest of 2019.

Health care continued to add jobs, but at a much slower rate. The sector’s payrolls increased by 15,000 in October, well below its 12-month average of 33,500.

The price of gasoline has leveled off in the last week -- higher in some places and lower in others. As a result, there was little change in the average of what consumers are paying at the pump.

The AAA Fuel Gauge Survey shows the national average price of regular is $2.61 a gallon, the same as last week. Prices are still about four cents lower than they were a month ago. The average price of premium is $3.21 a gallon, a penny lower than seven days ago. The average price of diesel fuel is $3 a gallon, less than a penny a gallon more than last week.

Consumer demand for gasoline remains high, even though the summer driving season is well behind us. That demand reduces supplies and keeps the price from going down.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Thursday that gasoline demand rose slightly during the previous week. Gasoline supplies fell for a fifth consecutive week and are now about 6 million barrels lower than at this time last year.

But prices around the nation vary widely. Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, reported this week that Michigan gas prices are at their lowest level since early February. 

The statewide average in Michigan has dropped to below $2.45 a gallon -- 11 cents lower than a week ago and 16 cents cheaper than at this time last month. However, prices are rising in neighboring Ohio. The statewide average is $2.56 a gallon, eight cents higher than last week. The spread between the most expensive and cheapest states is $1.83, skewed by abnormally high prices in California.

The states with the most expensive regular gas

These states currently have the highest prices for regular gas, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Survey:

• California ($4.06)

• Hawaii ($3.66)

• Washington ($3.43) 

• Nevada ($3.37)

• Oregon ($3.34) 

• Alaska ($3.20)

• Idaho ($2.93) 

• Arizona ($2.89)

• Utah ($2.81)

• Colorado ($2.78)

The states with the cheapest regular gas

The survey found these states currently have the lowest prices for regular gas:

• Louisiana ($2.23)

• Mississippi ($2.24)

• Texas ($2.25)

• Alabama ($2.27)

• South Carolina ($2.27)

• Missouri ($2.28)

• Arkansas ($2.30)

• Tennessee ($2.30)

• Virginia ($2.30)

• Oklahoma ($2.32)

Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing of Maryville, Mo., is recalling about 1,100 lawn mower engines.

The high pressure fuel line can get damaged causing a fuel leak, posing burn and fire hazards.

No incidents or injuries are reported.

This recall involves Kawasaki engines used in riding lawn mowers sold under the Ferris brand name with mower model numbers IS® 700Z ZTR and ISX 800Z ZTR.

The recalled engines are model year 2018 and 2019 Kawasaki FT730V-EFI series, including models FT730V-AS41 with serial number range FT730VA00107-FT730VA00593 and FT730V-BS41 with serial number range FT730VA02330-FT730VA05073.

“Kawasaki FT730V EFI” is printed on the engine air filter cover. The engine model and serial number are located on the engine fan housing.

The engines, manufactured in the U.S., were sold at Kawasaki dealers and lawn and garden stores nationwide from November 2017, through September 2019, for about $8,000 for mowers with the engines.

What to do

Consumers should immediately stop using mowers with the recalled engines and contact Kawasaki or a Kawasaki dealer to schedule a free repair. Kawasaki is contacting all known purchasers directly.

Consumers may contact Kawasaki Motors toll-free at (866) 836-4463 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (ET) Monday through Friday or online at www.kawasakienginesusa.com and click on “Product Recall” at the bottom of the page for more information.

Taylor’s Sausage of Cave Junction, Ore., is recalling approximately 1,086 pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry sausages.

The products contain a pork or sheep casing not declared on the label.

There are no confirmed reports of adverse reactions.

The recalled items packaged from June 26 though October 10, 2019, are being recalled:

• 16-oz. vacuum-sealed packages containing fully cooked, ready-to-eat, "TAYLOR’S Sausage Smoked Chicken and Apple Sausage" with lot code numbers 19217, 19176, 19282, 19273, 19259 and 19252.
• 16-oz. vacuum-sealed packages containing fully cooked, ready-to-eat, “TAYLOR’S Sausage Cheddar Dogs” with lot code numbers 19247 and 19217.

The recalled products, bearing establishment number "6172" or "P-6172" inside the USDA mark of inspection, were sold at retail locations in California and Oregon.

What to do

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

Consumers with questions may contact Yvette Pendleton at (541) 592-4185.