“Ooh, what are you wearing? You’re simply glowing.” That is definitely a compliment, unless, of course, the glow is coming from a radioactive material. One online retailer has had to withdraw a batch of metal-studded belts over claims that they were radioactive, and could cause harm to the wearer after 500 hours. [More]
Transportation & Infrastructure
Online Retailer Pulls Belts Because Radioactive Accessories Are Neither Stylish Nor Healthy
By 5.28.13
Enough People Can Afford Tesla’s $70K Electric Car To Beat Sales Of Audis, BMWs & Mercedes
By 5.15.13
Remember back when the New York Times‘ controversial review of the Tesla Model S (with a starting price tag of $70,000) had the company’s CEO Elon Musk all hot and bothered, and the two sides bickered back and forth a bit? It seems that the brouhaha didn’t ding Tesla too badly — indeed, in the first quarter of this year, more people bought a Tesla Model S than similarly priced cars from fellow luxury brands Audi, Mercedes and BMW. [More]
NTSB Pushing To Lower Drunken Driving Blood-Alcohol Content Threshold To 0.05
By 5.15.13
Right now around the country, if you’re in any of the 50 states and have a legal blood-alcohol content level of 0.08% or above, and you’re driving, you’re considered drunk and can be arrested and perhaps prosecuted for doing so. The National Transportation Safety Board thinks that threshold is too high, and has voted to recommend to states that they lower the BAC level to 0.05. [More]
Whole Foods Warns Of Mix-Up Involving Vegan, Chicken Salads
By 5.13.13
The thing about being a vegan is, you don’t want to eat any animal products. Not an egg, not a chicken, not a thing that is made from or by an animal. To that end, Whole Foods issued a warning to its customers last week, saying it had mixed up the labels on vegan and chicken salads at about 15 locations. Non-vegans could have an allergic reaction to the soy in the vegan salad, whereas vegans could react adversely to the egg in the chicken salad. And also the chicken. [via the Associated Press] [More]
Watch As Consumer Reports Goes Drifting In $90,000 Tesla S
By 5.9.13
Earlier today, our test-track-lovin’ kin at Consumer Reports surprised an awful lot of people by announcing that the completely electric (and completely expensive) Tesla S scored the highest in its latest automobile ratings. But what may surprise even more people is that the seemingly button-down auto-test folks at Consumer Reports also know to cut loose… and go drifting in a $90,000 car. [More]
May Recall Roundup: Don’t Eat The Bunny Forks
By 5.3.13 — Updated: 6.3.13
In this month’s recall roundup, we bring you self-amputating dolly hands, attack lamps, flaming dehyrators, and bats that can score a home run all on their own. [More]
DiGiorno And California Pizza Kitchen Pizzas Recalled Because Plastic Fragments Are Not Desired Toppings
By 5.3.13
People will eat just about anything on a piece of flattened bread and call it a pizza, but most of us draw the line at small plastic fragments. That’s why the Nestlé Pizza Company has issued a recall for some frozen pizzas made under the DiGiorno and California Pizza Kitchen labels. [More]
Target Recalls 150,000 Giada De Laurentiis Lasagna Pans Because Lasagna Should Not Result In Lacerations
By 4.25.13
From knives to food processors, there are plenty of things in the kitchen that could cut you, but lasagna pans have historically been low on the laceration scale. But Target has now recalled nearly 150,000 of ceramic pans branded with the name of visage of celeb chef Giada De Laurentiis out of concern that they could break and cut the user. [More]
Woman Hit With Traffic Ticket For Car She’d Sold To CarMax Months Earlier
By 4.19.13
When you sell your car to a used-car operation like CarMax, you’d assume that anything that occurs with that vehicle after that point is not your problem. But a California woman says she was charged with running through a tollbooth in car she’d handed off to CarMax months earlier. [More]
Toyota To Start Manufacturing Lexus Vehicles In Kentucky
By 4.18.13
Toyota’s plant in Georgetown, KY, is slated to go a bit upscale with the news that the world’s largest car company will be using the plant to manufacture the Lexus ES, which had previously only been produced in Japan. [More]
GM & Ford Decide To Be Best Pals In Order To Build New Transmissions Together
By 4.16.13
Rivalries between car companies run deep, especially when they’re sharing the same American turf. So it’s somewhat surprising, if not sensible, that General Motors and Ford are coming together in order build the best fuel-efficient automatic transmission out there. At least, that’s the goal. [More]
Louisiana Company Recalls 468,000 Pounds Of Meat Over Listeria Concerns
By 4.15.13
There’s a whole lot of meat on the table after a Louisiana meat-packing company extended a recall of 468,000 pounds worth of roast beef, ham, turkey breast, tasso pork, ham shanks, hog headcheese , corned beef and pastrami. Quite an awful lot of sandwiches. [More]
Toyota, Honda & Nissan Recall 3.4M Vehicles Because Air Bags Need To Work
By 4.11.13
The thing about car air bags is it’s quite necessary that they deploy at the right time. Which is why the Japanese maker of safety gear is at the center of a recall of more than three million vehicles, scattered across the Honda, Toyota and Nissan brands. Those companies all have cars that could have defective airbag inflators, causing airbags to possibly deploy abnormally in a crash. [More]
Toyota & Ford Fighting On The Playground Over Who Has The No. 1 Car
By 4.10.13
It’s an all-out slap fight on the playground these days between Toyota and Ford, as both claim they’re No. 1 in the world as the makers of the top-selling car of 2012. Toyota contradicted Ford’s claim of the Focus being the coolest by sayings its Corolla is actually the best around. [More]
April Food And Drug Recall Roundup – Potato Chips With Salt And Vinegar And Metal Fragments
By 4.9.13
Our monthly Recall Roundups have grown so expansive that we’ve had to separate them into two separate roundups: one for consumer goods, and one for consumables. In this edition of the Food and Drug roundup, dangers lurk everywhere, from uneviscerated herring to “all-natural male enhancement supplements” that are pretty much just Viagra. Yes, again. [More]
Warning: Kids Might Eat Expanding Polymer Balls That Look Like Candy
By 4.3.13
Here’s the thing: if you make something that’s brightly colored and looks like candy, kids are going to eat it. Water Balz and other similar expanding, water-absorbing polymer toys seem pretty fun, and are also bright and shiny and look like candy. The problem comes when a pet or a child who is too young to understand gets hold of one of these delicious treats and eats it. [More]
Hyundai And Kia Recall 1.7 Million Vehicles Because Brake Lights Are Supposed To Work When You Brake
By 4.3.13
The entire point of brake lights on a car are to indicate to others that the driver has pressed the brake, so it’s a bit of a problem when that fails to happen, or when pressing the brake doesn’t disengage the vehicle’s cruise control like it should. And thus we have the reason why 1.7 million Kia and Hyundai vehicles are being recalled. [More]
Supreme Court Denies Airline Industry Challenge To Price Advertising Rules
By 4.1.13
Ever since the Transportation Department told U.S. airlines they’d have to advertise the total cost of a ticket when touting their fares, the industry has been fighting back. Back in July a U.S. Appeals Court sided with consumers and ruled that airlines must stick to the new rules, and now the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the industry’s challenge once again, in refusing to hear the case. [More]
