Chinese drywall on trial in New Orleans By WINK News Story Created: Mar 15, 2010 at 5:13 AM EDT Story Updated: Mar 15, 2010 at 5:13 AM EDT Toxic chinese drywall is going on trial Monday in New Orleans. The lawsuit is one of more than 3,000 filed nationwide. Homeowners say the defective material is corroding their pipes and causing health problems. The decision in this federal case could set a precedent for future lawsuits. Previous article Runaway Prius: Views split on story Next article SUV drives into Cape Coral apartment building
March 15, 2010 | Posted in
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SUV drives into Cape Coral apartment building By WINK News Story Created: Mar 15, 2010 at 5:07 AM EDT Story Updated: Mar 15, 2010 at 5:07 AM EDT Cape Coral police are investigating an overnight crash in which an SUV drove into an apartment building. It happened around 2:30 a.m. in the 4700 block of SE 1st Place, near Santa Barbara Boulevard and Cape Coral Parkway. The crash left a hole in the building. No one was hurt in the crash. Previous article Chinese drywall on trial in New Orleans Next article Naples area home sales up 50%
March 15, 2010 | Posted in
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Cape Council to appoint Eric Grill’s replacement By WINK News Story Created: Mar 15, 2010 at 5:42 AM EDT Story Updated: Mar 15, 2010 at 5:42 AM EDT The Cape Coral City Council will choose a new member today to replace Eric Grill. The Governor removed Grill from his seat after being charged with a felony. 17 people have applied to represent District 5. The Council will interview the applicants in a special meeting at 4 p.m., then pick a new member and swear them in. Previous article Addicted to Facebook? You’re not alone Next article Runaway Prius: Views split on story
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Runaway Prius: Views split on story By WINK News By Associated Press Story Created: Mar 15, 2010 at 5:37 AM EDT Story Updated: Mar 15, 2010 at 5:37 AM EDT SAN DIEGO (AP) — This much is not in dispute: Inspectors could not duplicate the sudden, unintended acceleration that a motorist reported last week when his Toyota Prius reached 94 mph on a California freeway. They tried during a two-hour test drive. Disagreements begin over what that means. John Gomez, an attorney for the motorist, James Sikes, says it is insignificant and not surprising. “They have never been able to replicate an incident of sudden acceleration. Mr. Sikes never had a problem in the three years he owned this vehicle,” he said Sunday. But Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the failure to duplicate the stuck accelerator, along with a vehicle design to prevent such occurrences, raises questions about the driver’s story. “We’re not saying Mr. Sikes is wrong or that he lied, we’re saying that questions have arisen in the investigation,” Bardella said. Toyota Motor Corp. planned to announce preliminary findings of its investigation at a news conference Monday in San Diego. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is looking into claims from more than 60 Toyota owners that their vehicles continue to accelerate unexpectedly despite having their vehicles repaired. Technicians with the NHTSA and Toyota could not duplicate what Sikes said he experienced March 8 on a mountainous but lightly traveled stretch of Interstate 8 east of San Diego, according to a congressional staffer’s memo prepared for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “Every time the technician placed the gas pedal to the floor and the brake pedal to the floor the engine shut off and the car immediately started to slow down,” the memo read. According to the memo, a Toyota official who was at the two-day inspection last week in suburban San Diego explained that an electric motor would “completely seize” if a system to shut off the gas when the brake is pressed fails, and there was no evidence to support that happened. “In this case, knowing that we are able to push the car around the shop, it does not appear to be feasibly possible, both electronically and mechanically that his gas pedal was stuck to the floor and he was slamming on the brake at the same time,” according to the memo. Toyota has recalled millions of cars because of floor mats that can snag gas pedals or accelerators that can sometimes stick. Sikes’ car was covered by the floor mat recall but not the one for sticky accelerators. He later told reporters that he tried to pull on the gas pedal during his harrowing ride, but it didn’t “move at all.” The Prius is powered by two electric motor-generators and a small gasoline engine, all connected by transmission gears. A computer, which Toyota calls the “hybrid control computer” determines what combination of motors is needed and which would be most efficient. Craig Hoff, a professor of mechanical engineering at Kettering University in Flint, Mich., said that for the Prius to accelerate out of control, at least two systems would have to fail simultaneously. They are the sensor signal that tracks the brake and gas pedal positions when the driver presses on them and the hybrid control computers. “The chance of them both going wrong, plus the fact that the signal is bad, it just seems very, very, very remote,” Hoff said. “Could it happen? Statistically, yes. But it just doesn’t seem very likely.” Several events usually combine to cause problems with cars, and it’s difficult to reproduce them, Hoff said. “It’s going to make it really hard to find, because you’ve got to line up the multiple effects,” he said. The congressional memo said both the front and rear brakes were worn and damaged by heat, consistent with Sikes saying that he stood on the brake pedal with both feet and was unable to stop the car. But if the fail-safe system worked properly, the brakes wouldn’t have been damaged because power would have been cut to the wheels. Gomez said the best evidence that his client was frantically slamming the brakes is that a California Highway Patrol officer who was giving Sikes instructions over a loudspeaker smelled burning brakes and saw the lights on. Previous article Cape Council to appoint Eric Grill’s replacement Next article Chinese drywall on trial in New Orleans
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Addicted to Facebook? You’re not alone By WINK News By Josh Carroll Story Created: Mar 15, 2010 at 5:51 AM EDT Story Updated: Mar 15, 2010 at 5:51 AM EDT If you find yourself having a tough time tearing yourself away from Facebook or other social networking websites, you’re not alone. Many people find it convenient to interact online, but some call themselves addicted to Facebook. Recent studies show Internet Addicts may be in the millions. Now scientists are actually studying the affects of Internet Addiction. Dr. Gabriel Newman is a Psychotherapist who says social networking sites can make it more difficult to interact with people socially. Facebook addiction is not listed as such in a medical book, because science still needs to catch up with technology. But Dr. Newman says it may be diagnosable soon. Next article Cape Council to appoint Eric Grill’s replacement
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DETROIT (AP) — Change is in the air for Detroit city workers. City employees will be urged not to wear perfume, cologne or aftershave as a result of a settlement in a federal lawsuit. Officials plan to place warning placards in three city buildings. The signs will warn workers to avoid “wearing scented products, including … colognes, aftershave lotions, perfumes, deodorants, body/face lotions … (and) the use of scented candles, perfume samples from magazines, spray or solid air fresheners.” The employee handbook and Americans with Disabilities Act training also will bear warnings. The Detroit News reports the move stems from a $100,000 settlement in a federal lawsuit filed in 2008 by a city employee who said a colleague’s perfume made it challenging for her to do her job. — Information from: The Detroit News, http://www.detnews.com
March 15, 2010 | Posted in
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DENVER (AP) — Kristie McNealy blogs from her suburban Denver home about raising four children and health issues. Her husband, Rob, a floor installer, runs another Web site offering product reviews and advice on hardwood floors. It’s not just for fun. Whenever someone clicks on a link to buy a book or product that their sites mention from an online seller, the McNealys get a commission. And if that customer comes back the next day to that same retailer and buys a television, they get a cut of that, too. Last week, the McNealys, along with at least 4,000 others like them, lost a chunk of their business when Amazon.com announced it was cutting ties with its Colorado-based affiliate marketers – Web sites and bloggers that help it sell products. In severing those ties, Amazon blamed a new state law requiring it to collect up to an estimated $4.6 million in online sales taxes a year, which will help the state close a $1.3 billion budget shortfall. Kristie McNealy said the move will mean a loss of roughly $300 a month, money that has helped make up for a drop in her husband’s income during the recession and enabled her to stay home and homeschool her children. She worries other companies may follow Amazon’s lead. “Losing the Amazon account has been a financial blow, but losing the rest of our accounts will change the way my husband and I do business and provide for our family,” McNealy said. Amazon has dropped affiliates in two other states – North Carolina and Rhode Island – that passed laws requiring the company to collect state sales tax on online purchases. Those states claimed that in-state affiliates were akin to outposts for online retailers, and therefore the companies had to collect sales tax. Getting rid of the affiliates got Amazon off the hook from doing so. In Colorado, the situation is different. The state’s new law doesn’t link paying the tax to the presence of affiliates; instead, it requires out-of-state retailers to help enforce collection of the 2.9 percent state tax that online consumers in Colorado are technically supposed to pay already, though few know about it or do it. Each year, retailers would have to tell their customers what taxable items they bought and that they need to pay the tax to Colorado. Retailers also would have to turn over those documents to the state to help enforce the law. State revenue officials have acknowledged that retailers may want to avoid all of that, and just collect the tax themselves. Backers of the law say that Amazon still will have to comply, whether it has affiliates in Colorado or not. So why did Amazon fire the affiliates? To make a point in a larger battle over online sales taxes, and to deter other states from adopting Colorado’s approach, they believe. Democratic state Sen. Michael Johnston of Denver said the affiliates are being used as hostages by Amazon. “They’re punishing the one hostage they can kill, so they’re killing them,” he said. Katharine Leppert, a Denver freelance writer who uses money earned on her blogs to cover costs and justify the time spent on her hobby, said she’s angry at Amazon for dropping her. “They are throwing their weight around and using power that no corporation should have,” she said. An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment on the issue. In an e-mail to Colorado affiliates, Amazon didn’t directly say what cutting them had to do with the new tax. The company said the law was aimed at inducing it to collect taxes itself and that it would reinstate the affiliates if the law was repealed or if Colorado followed a “constitutional” approach to collecting taxes. A 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found that states can only make companies collect sales tax if they have a physical presence in the state to prevent out-of-state sellers from having to deal with thousands of separate tax jurisdiction. Republican Sen. Greg Brophy of Wray thinks Amazon might be trying to avoid possible liability for paying back taxes in case it loses a pending legal challenge to New York’s online sales tax. That first “Amazon law,” passed in 2008, does link the requirement to pay to online affiliates based in New York. Brophy said it doesn’t really matter why Amazon did what it did and that he wants Colorado’s law repealed to help affiliates. Majority Democrats aren’t inclined to do so, saying that would reward what they see as corporate bullying. There are signs that other states are interested in Colorado’s approach. Joe Huddleston, executive director of the Multistate Tax Commission, which advises states on tax policy, said officials from about 20 states participated in meetings in person and by phone in Denver last week to discuss the Colorado law. He said they’re interested in any approach that’s successful in helping plug budget deficits and protect in-state retailers who make up a big part of their tax base. “I would be very surprised if there weren’t any number of states that will consider what Colorado has done in this legislative year,” he said. The National Council of State Legislatures, meanwhile, has been working for the last decade to get Congress to help states collect online sales taxes. A bill could be introduced in the coming weeks, said Neal Osten, NCSL’s federal affairs counsel, but it would only help the 23 states that have aligned their tax laws so that, for example, they all have the same definitions of what items of clothing are taxable and which aren’t. That would leave out Colorado and some of the largest states, including California, that haven’t joined the effort. California lawmakers are once again considering a New York-style Amazon law that was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year. The Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation says similar bills are pending in Iowa, New Mexico, Vermont and Virginia. Rhode Island is considering repealing its law after failing to collect any revenue by the end of 2009. Fred Nicely, tax counsel for the Council on State Taxation, a nonprofit trade organization Amazon belongs to, said his group favors a national solution. If other states adopt Colorado’s approach on their own, he said the confusion over what is taxed and what isn’t will grow. “The potential for it to spread, it is definitely a possibility,” he said.
March 15, 2010 | Posted in
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GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man who says his Green Bay Packers loyalties helped save his life has been voted into the team’s Fan Hall of Fame. The team announced the honor Saturday for 79-year-old Jim Becker. He attended Packers games for 56 years. Becker says his passion for his team helped save his life. He and his wife raised 11 kids, so money was tight. To afford his season tickets without taking money from his family, he began selling his blood for $15 per pint. His doctor later found that Becker’s father died at age 43 of a condition in which the blood retains too much iron. The only treatment is to remove the iron by giving blood. By that time Becker had sold 145 pints to pay for his season tickets. He says if he hadn’t, he too may have died young.
March 14, 2010 | Posted in
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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called for regulation of the Internet on Saturday while demanding authorities crack down on a critical news Web site that he accused of spreading false information. In a televised speech, Chavez said: “The Internet can’t be something free where anything can be done and said. No, every country has to impose its rules and regulations,” Chavez said. He singled out the Venezuelan news site Noticiero Digital, saying it had posted false information that some of his close allies had been killed. Chavez called for Venezuela’s attorney general to take action immediately against the Web site. “This is a crime,” he said of the site’s reports. There was no immediate reaction from the Web site, which is a popular outlet for critical news and commentary in Venezuela. Chavez has regularly clashed with critical broadcasters and newspapers. One anti-Chavez channel, Radio Caracas Television, was forced to move to cable in 2007 after the president refused to renew its license. In January, cable and satellite TV providers also stopped transmitting that channel under government orders after it defied regulations requiring it to televise some of Chavez’s speeches. Referring to satellite TV channels, Chavez said, “It can’t be that they transmit whatever they want poisoning the minds of many people – regulation, regulation, the laws!” The last anti-Chavez channel on the open airwaves, Globovision, faces multiple investigations by government regulators for alleged violations of broadcast regulations. Chavez called for authorities to take action against Globovision, saying one recent panelist on the channel “has the nerve to say that Chavez, the president of this country, supports drug trafficking and also has the nerve to say there is evidence that here in Venezuela … a bunch of courses have been given to terrorists from ETA and the FARC.” “That’s very serious. That can’t be permitted,” Chavez said. “I can’t put anyone in jail. There are the branches of government that should act, and the people themselves have to act.” The interview that Chavez mentioned came during tensions between Spain and Venezuela after a Spanish judge said he has evidence of Venezuelan government links to the Basque separatist group ETA and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC – both of which are classified as terrorist organizations by the European Union and the United States. Chavez’s government testily denied having links to the two groups, and the two countries have since tried to ease tensions with a joint statement pledging to work together against ETA. — On the Net: Noticiero Digital: http://www.noticierodigital.com
March 14, 2010 | Posted in
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Naples area home sales up 50% By Haley Hinds, WINK News Story Created: Mar 13, 2010 at 11:48 PM EST Story Updated: Mar 13, 2010 at 11:48 PM EST COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. – More positive signs for southwest Florida’s housing market. According to a new report, home sales have doubled. This time last year, “down” would have been an understatement to describe the local housing market. But fast forward to 2010, and the only number that’s down according to the Naples Area Board of Realtors, is the inventory. Home sales are up, pending condo sales are up, and buyers are not afraid to spend the big bucks. “The markets between $300,000 and $500,000, $500,000 and 1 million, 1 million and 2 million, all those markets were up between 60% and 65% in February,” said Brett Brown, 2009 NABOR President This time last year, for the 12 months ending in February, overall home sales were at 4,951 compared to an astounding 7,426 this year. The overall median closed price dropped only 3% from $185,000 in 2009 to $179,000 in 2010. Another new trend realtors and developers in both Lee and Collier are seeing is homebuyers coming down from foreign countries, especially our neighbors to the north. “Last year, there were a lot more lookers and nobody was buying,” said local developer Ray Ambrozy. “Since January, I’ve probably had a half a dozen other Canadian couples come through which seems to be the people with the money looking for a wonderful winter residence.” More sales mean fewer for sale signs – a welcome sight for local homeowners. “Absolutely, it’s good we’re having a high turnover of sales, that’s great,” said Ron Nash. With dropping inventory and the First Time Homebuyer Credit expiring at the end of April, realtors say the stage could be set for a continued upswing. “It’s a bright sign for us to look at to see things start to come around,” said Brown. Next article Prevent child pool drownings
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