Most smokers start as kids. The FDA wanted the tobacco companies to put gruesome pictures illustrating the health hazards of smoking on all tobacco packages, but the First Amendment got in the way. So, now, according to this AP story, the FDA is running its own ad campaign to warn teens against smoking. Here's an […]
Category Archives: Uncategorized
On February 17, Farmed and Dangerous — Chipotle's four-part comedic, but serious series on corporate farming — begins airing on Hulu. Watch the hilarious trailer here or by clicking on the embedded video below. We posted earlier on Chipotle's unusual and evocative video about the treatment of animals in large-scale farming.
Well, so do some consumers, whose federal antitrust suit against the dominant provider of Internet service on commercial airlines — Gogo, Inc. — has survived a motion to dismiss. Go here for a description of the case and the court's decision denying Gogo's motion to dismiss. The case is pending before federal district judge Edward […]
The folks at EcoNews are reporting on the latest climate change data from NASA. Click here or on the embedded vido below to view a 15-second NASA time-lapse video that depicts the warming of the planet since 1950. Note that parts of the Arctic and Siberia have warmed as much as two to four degrees farenheit […]
The National Consumer Law Center has issued Tax-time consumer troubles, which warns consumers about a host of problems that they may encounter from largely worthless (but expensive) refund-anticipation products and from abuse and incompetence in the tax-preparation industry. We posted last December on NCLC's comprehensive report on that industry, which included specific proposals for reform.
A bit over a year ago, I discussed on this blog a petition that we filed in the Virginia Supreme Court seeking to set aside a preliminary injunction issued by a state trial judge in a defamation suit filed by a Maryland contractor, Christopher Dietz, against a Virginia woman, Jane Perez, who had posted reviews […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau brought an administrative enforcement action yesterday against morgage originator giant PHH Corporation alleging, among other things, violations of the anti-kickback provisions of The Real Estate Settlements Procedures Act (RESPA). To quote the agency's press release: Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) initiated an administrative proceeding against PHH Corporation and […]
A succinct summary of today's opinion in Starr Int'l v. Fed. Reserve Bank of N.Y.: This suit challenges the extraordinary measures taken by FRBNY to rescue AIG from bankruptcy at the height of the direst financial crisis in modern times. In light of the direct conflict these measures created between the private duties imposed by […]
Last week in Nativi v. Deutsche Bank, the California Court of Appeal applied the federal Protecting Tenants Against Foreclosure Act of 2009 (PTFA) to revive two renters' state-law claims against the bank that bought the property they were renting. Rosario Nativi and her son Jose Perez had been living in their home in Sunnyvale, California, […]
William Alden explains that Shiela Bair, former Chair and board member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, has joined the board of the Spanish bank Banco Santander. She left the FDIC in 2011 and said the next year in her book about the financial crisis that “I would like to see financial regulation be viewed […]