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(NEW YORK) — BrandStorm Inc. has announced a voluntary recall of two lots of its organic freeze-dried blueberry pouches due to “the presence or potential presence of lead above the FDA’s recommended limits; per the serving size specified on the nutritional facts panel.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration shared the company’s recall announcement on Thursday, stating that the two affected products were sold under the brand Natierra.

The recalled items include Natierra Organic Freeze-Dried Blueberries in 1.2-ounce packages and the issue was isolated to products with “best by” dates 12/2024 and 01/2025. According to BrandStorm Inc., the products used the following codes:

• Lot 2021363-1, Best By Date: 12/2024; 1 serving, 1.2oz (34g), UPC 812907011160
• Lot 2022026-1, Best By Date: 01/2025; 1 serving, 1.2oz (34g), UPC 812907011160

Both batches were distributed in the U.S. through retail and online stores services, according to the company.

Click here for more information on how to identify the label, lot codes and UPC numbers from the FDA recall notice.

“The concern was identified upon testing conducted by a lab in Maryland,” BrandStorm Inc. stated Thursday. “An investigation was conducted by the packing site. The original heavy metal reports received for the crop year showed no presence of lead and-or cause for batch testing. After further investigation it was found that the products’ [country] of Origin is Lithuania and aggressive monitoring of heavy metals may be deemed necessary.”

The company added that “as an immediate action, the packing site is actively working to enhance food safety system by implementing mandatory batch testing for heavy metal.”

According to the Food and Drug Administration, lead in the environment may be “naturally occurring,” but is often present due to “past industrial uses that contributed to environmental contamination.”

“Most intentional uses of lead in products and processes are banned in the United States, including the use of lead solder to seal the external seams of metal cans,” the FDA states on its website. “However, lead does not disappear from the environment over time and therefore these past uses can combine with natural levels to contaminate our food supply.”

Exposure to larger amounts may cause lead poisoning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lead exposure is particularly harmful to children, the CDC states on its website.

“No safe blood lead level in children has been identified,” it says. “Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to negatively affect a child’s intelligence, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement.”

To date, BrandStorm Inc. said it “has not received any reports of adverse events related to use of the product as part of this proactive recall.”

The company has urged consumers who purchased the two impacted Natierra Organic Freeze-Dried Blueberries to discard and not consume the product.

Refunds will be available to customers at the location of purchase, provided at the point of sale through validation of lot codes on the affected pouches.

For online purchases, BrandStorm Inc. stated that customers may email salesadmin@BrandStormInc.com to request a refund. Those with additional questions may call 310-559-0259 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. PT and email salesadmin@BrandStormInc.com or send a direct message through the product website.

Consumers who experience any symptoms listed on the FDA recall should seek immediate medical advice from a physician.

“First and foremost, we remain focused on the health and welfare of our employees, customers, and partners,” BrandStorm said in Thursday’s recall announcement. “We are committed to taking the appropriate steps to ensure our network and services continue to operate seamlessly for our customers.”

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(NEW YORK) — Federal prosecutors in New York and the Department of Labor are inspecting Amazon warehouses around the country as part of a civil investigation into unsafe and unseemly workplace conditions.

The inspections began Monday morning, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

“This morning, the United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration entered Amazon warehouses outside New York City, Chicago and Orlando to conduct workplace safety inspections in response to referrals received from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York concerning potential workplace hazards related, among other things, to Amazon’s required pace of work for its warehouse employees,” a spokesman for the office, Nicholas Biase, said in a statement provided to ABC News.

“The Civil Division of the SDNY is investigating potential worker safety hazards at Amazon warehouses across the country, as well as possible fraudulent conduct designed to hide injuries from OSHA and others,” Biase added.

Workers at Amazon warehouses, which the company calls fulfillment centers, have complained of a grueling pace, uncomfortable heat and the potential for injury.

In recent years, Amazon has also confronted a lawsuit by New York State Attorney General Letitia James that alleged the company failed to protect workers from COVID-19.

Drivers have said the demand to meet quotas caused them to skip bathroom breaks and urinate in plastic bottles, a practice first reported in a 2018 book, “Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain,” by James Bloodworth.

After first denying the claim, Amazon wrote in a 2021 blog post, “We know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this has been especially the case during COVID when many public restrooms have been closed.”

The complaints led some Amazon employees to seek to unionize, with mixed results.

The U.S. Attorney’s office pointed members of the public who want to report workplace safety and injury-related issues at Amazon warehouses to the Justice Department’s website.

Current and former Amazon warehouse workers who have information about safety issues — including safety issues related to the pace of work — or a failure to report injuries, or who were injured and did not receive adequate care at Amazon’s onsite first-aid center or at a clinic recommended by Amazon, were urged to share that information with the SDNY.

Amazon did not immediately respond to ABC News about the inspections and investigation.

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(NEW YORK) — You won’t find many electric vehicles on the back roads in Alabama and Tennessee yet thousands of residents in these states are building them to meet growing demand.

Automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, Ford and Volkswagen are investing billions of dollars in high-tech plants that will supply the battery packs necessary for the transition to EVs.

Last month, Volkswagen of America opened a $22 million Battery Engineering Lab (BEL), a 32,000-square-foot facility located near its Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant. Engineers at the lab test batteries for safety, durability and quality in extreme climate conditions and the company’s compact ID.4 SUV, currently imported from Germany, will roll off assembly lines for U.S. consumers later this year. More than 4,000 workers are employed at the Chattanooga plant and Volkswagen plans to hire 1,000 new production team members by year-end.

Producing battery packs locally “makes us faster,” Wolfgang Maluche, vice president of engineering at Volkswagen of America, told ABC News. “Chattanooga [will] become Volkswagen’s hub for electric mobility in the United States.”

More battery plants are coming and southern states will continue to benefit, according to Arun Kumar, a managing director at consulting firm AlixPartners, which forecasts a 54% EV market share globally by 2035.

“Southern states are definitely aggressive … 46% of vehicle production in the U.S. currently happens in the South. It’s not a surprise to me that more investment is going there,” Kumar told ABC News. “This is just a start. The EV era is real.”

Gil Tal of UC Davis’ Institute of Transportation Studies said southern states are “fighting hard” to be chosen by automakers, offering attractive tax incentives and favorable investment packages. As the Biden administration pushes consumers toward EVs, setting an ambitious target to make half of all new vehicles sold by 2030 electric, Tal, like Kumar, expects automakers to diversify their supply chain.

“Demand is going up for EVs and there will be new regulations that mandate sales of them,” Tal told ABC News. “Battery production is changing and getting better and more efficient. Any company that sells a significant amount of cars in the U.S. will build battery plants here.”

Producing these highly technological batteries within the U.S. solves many of the headaches plaguing automakers in recent years, Kumar argued. Tesla, the No. 1 seller of EVs in the country, produces batteries and electric motors for the Model 3 at its Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, which broke ground in June 2014. The site currently produces more batteries in terms of kWh than all other carmakers combined, making it the highest-volume battery plant in the world, according to Tesla.

Mercedes, which said it would go all electric by the end of the decade, will invest over 40 billion euros into battery electric vehicles between 2022 and 2030. The Bibb County plant joins the company’s global battery production network with factories on three continents.

In September, Ford Motor said it would construct twin battery plants in central Kentucky to power a new lineup of Lincoln and Ford EVs. Another battery campus in Tennessee will focus on next-generation electric F-Series pickups like the F-150 Lightning. The two projects will cost $11.4 billion and create nearly 11,000 new jobs, Ford said. The Dearborn automaker expects 40% to 50% of its global vehicle volume to be fully electric by 2030.

BMW expanded its battery facility at Plant Spartanburg in South Carolina in late 2019, more than doubling its capacity for battery assembly. Higher performing, fourth-generation batteries are assembled on-site for the BMW X5 and BMW X3 plug-in hybrid electric variants and 120 employees were specially trained to work the new line, having completed an extensive program in battery production, robotics and electrical inline quality inspection along with end-of-line testing, BMW said.

States in the traditional “auto belt” are still vying for automakers’ investment dollars. Panasonic, a major supplier to Tesla, announced this week it would build a new U.S. lithium-ion battery cell factory in De Soto, Kansas, investing $4 billion and creating up to 4,000 new jobs. The plant will primarily supply batteries to Tesla but is not limited to the company, Reuters reported.

Stellantis said it would build an EV battery plant in Kokomo, Indiana, with its partner Samsung SDI. The plant, on target for a 2025 launch, would create 1,400 jobs in Kokomo and the surrounding area, Stellantis said, for a total investment of $2.5 billion.

Ultium Cells, a joint venture of LG Energy Solution and General Motors, will open a new 2.8 million-square-foot facility in Lansing, Michigan, its third battery cell manufacturing plant in the country. At least 1,700 manufacturing jobs will be available at the location and workers will supply battery cells to Orion Assembly in Michigan and other GM EV assembly plants.

The southern shift by automakers and intense focus on EVs has some long-time industry workers worried about their future. EVs take 40% less powertrain assembly hours than a gas-powered vehicle, according to Kumar. Workers with core skills in combustion engine technology would need significant retraining to work in a battery plant, he noted. EVs in general are less complicated to manufacture, are not labor intensive and many parts of the process are automated.

“Workers are worried about job security and concerned their sons and daughters won’t have jobs” in the industry, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. “Working in an auto plant is often a family affair — and these are pretty good jobs.”

The U.S. may be viewed as a laggard in EV battery production compared to China, where EVs caught on early with consumers and government leaders deemed batteries to be a critical industry. Gordon argued that automakers are tackling U.S. battery production at the right time and any earlier could have been a foolhardy move.

“People would have been laughing 10 years ago if automakers wanted to build these plants,” Gordon said. “They would be obsolete today. The underlining tech is changing so quickly and for the better.”

What will happen to these plants and the workers if EV sales in the U.S. hit the brakes in the next five, 10 years?

“The interest in EVs won’t die off,” Tal said. “Automakers have a secure EV market. All this investment won’t go away.”

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(NEW YORK) — Elon Musk asked a Delaware court on Friday to reject Twitter’s attempt to put the $44 billion merger case on trial in September, arguing it’s an “unjustifiable” timeframe.

Twitter sued Musk in an attempt to force him to complete his purchase of the company, after declaring he was walking away from the deal.

Twitter sought a four-day trial in September, arguing the deal faces an October deadline to close.

“Twitter’s bid for extreme expedition rests on the false premise that the Termination Date in the merger agreement is October 24, glossing over that this date is automatically stayed if either party files litigation. By filing its complaint, Plaintiff has rendered its supposed need for a September trial moot,” Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, wrote in a Friday court filing.

Delaware Chancery Court will determine whether Musk remains obligated to purchase Twitter or whether he was entitled to walk away because the company failed to provide him data he requested.

“Twitter’s sudden request for warp speed after two months of foot-dragging and obfuscation is its latest tactic to shroud the truth about spam accounts long enough to railroad Defendants into closing,” the filing said.

Musk has claimed Twitter failed to disclose the number of fake accounts on the platform. Twitter has said 5% of active users are bots but Musk has said he does not believe the figure.

“Post-signing, Defendants promptly sought to understand Twitter’s process for identifying false or spam accounts. In a May 6 meeting with Twitter executives, Musk was flabbergasted to learn just how meager Twitter’s process was,” Musk’s filing said.

Musk asked the court to set a trial date no earlier than mid-February.

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(NEW YORK) — Car manufacturer Ford is recalling over 100,000 SUVs and trucks because of fire risks in the engine, nearly a month after recalling millions of its vehicles.

The company is recalling some of its 2020-2022 Ford Escapes, 2021-2022 Lincoln Corsairs and 2022 Mavericks equipped with 2.5-liter hybrid or plug-in hybrid powertrains, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

If engine failure occurs, engine oil and fuel vapor could be released into the chamber where the engine is stored and collected around ignition sources such as the engine and exhaust components.

People who own any of the vehicles affected should park and turn off the engines “as quickly as possible” when they hear “unexpected engine noises, notice a reduction in vehicle power, or see smoke,” NHTSA said.

There have been no reported injuries, Ford said.

In May, Ford recalled over 39,000 Ford Expeditions and Lincoln Navigators because they ran the risk of catching fire under the hood even when parked or turned off. The company expanded that recall to include 66,000 more vehicles after it received reports of five more fires, according to the Associated Press.

Last month, the company recalled 2.9 million vehicles with transmission issues that increased the risk of rolling away even when parked.

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(NEW YORK, NY) — Uber is being sued by approximately 550 female passengers who claim they were attacked by their drivers, according to the law firm Slater, Slater, Schulman, LLP, which filed a legal complaint against Uber in a San Francisco court on Wednesday.

The women, who live in multiple states, “were kidnapped, sexually assaulted, sexually battered, raped, falsely imprisoned, stalked, harassed, or otherwise attacked by Uber drivers with whom they had been paired through the Uber application,” according to allegations in a statement from Slater, Slater, Schulman, LLP.

The abuse at issue took place between 2015 and this year, Adam Slater, founding partner of Slater, Slater, Schulman, LLP, told ABC News. The firm has filed roughly 25 lawsuits so far and plans to file the remainder within the next several months, he added.

The legal complaint comes about two weeks after Uber released a safety report that revealed at least 3,824 incidences of sexual assault in 2019 and 2020, ranging from “non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual body part” to “non-consensual sexual penetration.”

The company said in a prior report that the number of such sexual assault reports had declined 38% for the years 2017 and 2018.

The new safety report acknowledged that the number of sexual assault claims may have been impacted by a shift in overall usage of the platform amid the COVID pandemic. For instance, bookings on Uber’s core ride-sharing service declined 73% over a three-month period ending in June 2020 compared to the same period a year prior, according to a company earnings report.

“Uber’s whole business model is predicated on giving people a safe ride home, but rider safety was never their concern – growth was at the expense of their passengers’ safety,” Slater, the founding partner of Slater, Slater, Schulman, LLP, said in a statement.

“While the company has acknowledged this crisis of sexual assault in recent years, its actual response has been slow and inadequate, with horrific consequences,” he added.

In a statement, Uber told ABC News that safety is its top priority.

“Sexual assault is a horrific crime and we take every single report seriously,” the company said. “There is nothing more important than safety, which is why Uber has built new safety features, established survivor-centric policies, and been more transparent about serious incidents. While we can’t comment on pending litigation, we will continue to keep safety at the heart of our work.”

Uber’s report points to a set of safety measures that include background checks for prospective drivers, tools for passengers in the app and emergency response from the company.

A feature that allows drivers and passengers to record audio of their trips is available in 14 countries, including Mexico and Brazil, Uber said in December. A pilot program of that safety feature was set to begin in three U.S. cities the following month, the company added.

In the complaint, Slater, Slater, Schulman, LLP allege that Uber first became aware of assault allegations from female Uber passengers as early as 2014.

In 2018, Uber acknowledged that it is not “immune to this deeply rooted problem” of sexual assault.

Travis Kalanick, the founder and former CEO of Uber, resigned in 2017 after a former Uber employee Susan Fowler said she had been sexually harassed while working there and a passenger in India brought a lawsuit against the company tied to her rape by an Uber driver. The case was later settled.

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(NEW YORK) — The richest person in the world said he wanted to own one of the most popular social media platforms — until he said he didn’t.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Friday moved to terminate his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. In response, Twitter sued Musk on Tuesday to force him to complete the deal.

The standoff marks the latest chapter in a monthslong saga that began in January when Musk started investing in Twitter.

Musk reached an acquisition deal with Twitter in April, but over the weeks since, he has raised concerns over spam accounts on the platform, claiming Twitter has not provided him with an accurate estimate of their number. Twitter has rebuked that claim, saying it has provided Musk with information in accordance with conditions set out in the acquisition deal.

In May, when Musk said the deal was on “temporary hold” over bot concerns, Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at Wedbush, an investment firm, told ABC News the grievance could serve as a pretext for Musk to renegotiate or abandon the deal amid a market downturn that had proven especially pronounced for tech stocks.

Over the course of the saga, Musk has been cast as a suitor, critic and now legal adversary of Twitter, where he boasts more than 100 million followers. Below is a timeline of Musk’s bid to acquire the social media platform.

Late January – Musk begins investing in Twitter, according to information filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in April.

March 14 – Musk’s stake in Twitter reaches 9.2%, making him the largest shareholder in the company, according to a securities filing.

April 4 – In a securities filing, Musk discloses his stake in Twitter. Based on the price of Twitter shares at close of the previous trading day, his stake was worth $2.89 billion. Twitter shares rise more than 27% on the announcement.

April 5 – Twitter announces Musk will join the company’s board of directors.

“He’s both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service which is exactly what we need on @Twitter, and in the boardroom, to make us stronger in the long-term,” Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said on the platform. “Welcome Elon!”

April 10 – Musk says he will not join the Twitter board after all.

“There will be distractions ahead but our goals and priorities remain unchanged,” Agrawal said in a statement announcing Musk’s choice. “The decisions we make and how we make them remain in our hands, no one else’s.”

April 14 – Musk offers to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share, valuing the company at about $43 billion, according to a securities filing. The offer amounts to a 38% premium above where the price stood a day before Musk’s investment in Twitter became public.

“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”

April 15 – Twitter adopts a poison pill provision to prevent the Musk acquisition. A poison pill allows current stockholders to purchase additional shares at a discounted price, diluting the shares owned by Musk and making it more expensive for him to buy the company. In an announcement, Twitter said the poison pill will be triggered if any individual or entity acquires at least 15% of the company’s shares.

April 21 – Musk says in a securities filing that he has garnered commitments of about $46.5 billion in financing for a possible Twitter acquisition.

April 25 – Twitter accepts Musk’s offer to acquire the company and values the deal at $44 billion, according to an announcement from the company.
MORE: Twitter says it will sue Elon Musk to complete the $44B merger he just rejected and is “confident” it will prevail

April 29 – Over a three-day period after Musk and Twitter reach a deal, and he sells about $8.5 billion worth in Tesla stock to help finance the bid.

May 4 – Musk secures more than $7 billion in financing for the deal, including commitments from Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and cryptocurrency exchange Binance, according to a securities filing.

May 6 – In a pitch deck for investors, Musk says he will quintuple Twitter’s revenue by 2028, increasing annual earnings to $26.4 billion, the New York Times reports.

May 10 – Musk says he would reverse Twitter’s ban of the account that belongs to former President Donald Trump. The remarks from Musk were made virtually at an auto conference.

May 12 – Twitter announces a temporary hiring freeze, pending Musk’s acquisition; and two top executives leave the company.

May 13 – Musk tweets that the Twitter deal is “temporarily on hold,” ​​citing concern over what he says is the prevalence of bot and spam accounts on the platform.

Along with his tweet, Musk posts a Reuters report about a public filing from Twitter earlier in May that said fake accounts made up less than 5% of users on the platform. Apparently skeptical of the finding, Musk says he wants “details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.”

Roughly two hours later, Musk says he’s “still committed” to the deal.

At the time, market analysts told ABC News the worry over fake accounts could serve as a pretext for Musk to bargain a lower price for the acquisition or abandon the effort altogether.

May 26 – Twitter shareholders bring a class-action lawsuit against Musk over alleged stock manipulation tied to the tumultuous acquisition process. At the time, Twitter’s stock had fallen more than 12% since Musk announced his bid.

June 6 – Musk threatens to pull out of the deal if Twitter doesn’t provide additional information about the prevalence of bots on its platform. In a statement, Twitter said it had been sharing information with Musk “in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement.”

July 8 – Musk moves to terminate his acquisition of Twitter, pointing to the issue of fake accounts.

“Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform'” and did not receive it, a securities filing said.

In an email on disclosed in a securities filing on Sunday, an attorney representing Twitter rejected Musk’s effort to abandon the acquisition. “The purported termination is invalid,” the attorney wrote, arguing that Musk had “knowingly, intentionally, willfully, and materially breached the Agreement.”

“As it has done, Twitter will continue to provide information reasonably requested by Mr. Musk under the Agreement,” the attorneys added.

July 12 – Twitter sues Musk in Chancery Court in Delaware to force him to complete the deal.

“Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests,” Twitter said in the lawsuit. “Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.”

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

If permitted to abandon the deal, Musk may be forced to pay a $1 billion termination fee.

Shares in Twitter were up more than 7% in early trading on Wednesday morning.

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(NEW YORK) — Popular social media platform TikTok on Wednesday announced plans for a rating system aimed at protecting young users from inappropriate content.

The move comes after sharp criticism from lawmakers and advocates in recent months over the prevalence of harmful posts on the app, especially those that appear in the feeds of young users.

The rating system, called “Content Levels,” will categorize videos based on the age-appropriateness of their material, preventing users under 18 from seeing certain content deemed mature, the company said. The system will be launched in the coming weeks and operate like similar approaches in the film and gaming industries, TikTok added.

“We want to play a positive role in the lives of the people who use our app, and we’re committed to fostering an environment where people can express themselves on a variety of topics, while also protecting against potentially challenging or triggering viewing experiences,” the company said.

In February, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, both Democrats, sent a letter to TikTok saying its “algorithm of ‘nonstop stream of videos’ increases the likelihood that viewers will encounter harmful content even without seeking it out.”

The letter followed an investigation from The Wall Street Journal in December that found the platform surfaced tens of thousands of weight loss videos to a dozen automated accounts registered as 13 year olds within a few weeks of their joining the app.

Since last year, TikTok has been testing solutions that prevent users from seeing a flood of content focused on sensitive topics like dieting and sadness, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. In addition to the ratings system, the company is readying to launch a feature that will recognize and limit such sensitive topics from appearing in a user’s feed, it said.

In general, scrutiny over the harmful effects of content on social media, especially for young people, has intensified since leaks from whistleblower Frances Haugen last year revealed that an internal Facebook study had shown damaging mental health effects of Instagram for teen girls.

In September, Facebook suspended plans to offer a version of Instagram for kids.

The following month, officials from Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube told lawmakers they would work with them on proposals to help protect young users from harmful content on their platforms.

A bipartisan Senate bill introduced in February aims to tackle the harmful effects of social media for young people through a variety of measures, including mandatory privacy options that would allow users to disable addictive features and a tool for parents to track time spent on apps. So far, eight senators have signed on in support of the legislation.

A separate bipartisan Senate bill would fund a study of the effects of social media. Six senators have formally supported the bill.

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(NEW YORK) — A family alleges American Airlines tried to force them to pay roughly $30,000 to change their itinerary after the airline switched the family’s return ticket to leave from an airport in another country, according to a complaint filed by the family with the Department of Transportation and American Airlines.

Sam Taussig also claims his family was forced to charter a plane at their own expense to another island in order to return to the United States on American Airlines.

American involuntarily changed the family’s flights multiple times over the course of several months after the family purchased their tickets in January for their summer vacation, Taussig said. It wasn’t until July 4 when Taussig said he wanted to ensure his family was sitting together for their upcoming trip that he noticed not only was the family not together, but their flight was leaving from St. Lucia instead of Saint Vincent. There are no scheduled flights or ferries between St. Lucia and Saint Vincent.

“I called American Airlines thinking this must be some sort of clerical error and spent nearly three hours with the American Airlines customer service teams learning that I have, in fact, been bumped and seven of the nine family members were bumped to another flight departing from a different country at a different airport because of an oversold situation,” Taussig said in an exclusive interview with ABC News.

Taussig said he did receive an email from the airline that there had been a change to his flight, but he said the airport change notification was in tiny, fine print.
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“American Airlines was not very apologetic at all. They blamed me, the customer, for not catching this sooner,” Taussig said. “American Airlines offered a couple of different, I think, absolutely insane solutions where they said, well, we’ll have to split up part of your family and put most of you on a flight a week later, if not longer. And to do that, we’re going to charge you change fees, reissuing fees, certain other fees, which were not clear to me, and new fares, which totaled about $30,000 to get all of us back. And we’d be stuck on the island for a week with no offer of compensation for hotels or meal vouchers or anything like that.”

The airline ultimately found a flight leaving a day later from Barbados and asked him to pay thousands in fees, he said. Taussig said he refused to pay the fees, but was forced to book a private charter flight to get his family to Barbados.

“We researched a private charter to get us to a third country, Barbados, where American Airlines might be able to get us out the next day from our original departure day, where they then told us that it would be $3,000 in change fees to make that happen. And [American told us] we should be so lucky because this whole situation was putting the company out $3,000, even though they originally bumped us for an overbooking situation. So all in all, where we are today is out a couple of thousand dollars. On our dime, we’re flying to yet a different country to meet American Airlines to get back to the U.S.,” Taussig said.

In a statement to ABC News, American Airlines said: “We are concerned by the experience our customer is reporting. A member of our team has reached out to discuss their travel.”

“In this situation, there was obviously a significant change by the airline and the person could get an involuntary refund. And if they could construe it as being bumped, which is a little unclear, then they would also be entitled to bump in compensation. Now, in the United States, that means if it’s one to four hours, you get 200% of the one-way fare up to $775. If it’s all or four hours difference in delay from the original flight, you can get 400% of the one-way fare up to a maximum of $1,550,” Paul Hudson, president of Flyers Rights, a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for airline customers, told ABC News.

Taussig says he’s grateful he discovered this error before the family plans to leave for their vacation later this week, and says American Airlines still has not provided any compensation.

Taussig said he hopes his story fosters change at the airline and serves as a warning to other travelers.

“I hope American Airlines uses this as an opportunity to learn about the inefficiencies and arbitrary decisions that are just crazy for passengers and how their customer service agents either can’t or are unwilling to solve this situation. I hope American learns from this,” Taussig said. “I tell fellow passengers, fellow travelers, really pay attention to those schedule changes. Try to invoke your rights for travel waivers. Call the airline to make sure that you are flying out of the correct place at the correct time, that you’ll make your connections and get to where you’re going or where you’re coming home to on time and all together.”

The Department of Transportation says consumer complaints against airlines are soaring, up more than 300% compared to pre-pandemic levels. DOT regulations say passengers are entitled to a full cash refund if an airline cancels or makes a significant change to a ticket.

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(NEW YORK) — As U.S. policymakers walk a tightrope in an attempt to dial back sky-high prices while averting an economic recession, new inflation data on Wednesday showed a significant acceleration of price hikes.

Prices rose even faster in June, jumping at the highest rate in four decades and prolonging a bout of inflation that has strained household budgets nationwide, according to data released by the federal government.

The consumer price index, or CPI, stood at 9.1% in June, a significant increase from 8.6% in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is the largest 12-month increase since December 1981.

On a monthly basis, the consumer price index rose 1.3% in June, far outpacing the 1% rise seen in April, according to the bureau.

The new data arrives as the Federal Reserve pursues a series of rate hikes that aim to tackle inflation by slowing down the economy and slashing demand. The moves, however, risk tipping the economy into a recession.

The high inflation figure could spur the Fed to seek a more aggressive approach to raising interest rates. The new inflation data comes days after employment data showed stronger than expected hiring last month, suggesting that employers remain undeterred by borrowing cost increases from the Fed.

“The million dollar question is how hard the Fed has to apply the brakes,” Hernan Moscoso Boedo, an economist at the University of Cincinnati, told ABC News.

Inflation data that shows continued acceleration of inflation “will put more pressure on the Fed to increase the interest rate more than expected, and that increases the possibility that the U.S. is going to enter a recession,” Moscoso Boedo added.

President Joe Biden, in a statement on Wednesday, called the new inflation data “unacceptably high” but downplayed the report as “out of date.” Gas prices, which made up almost half of the monthly increase in inflation, have declined since last month, Biden said. “Those savings are providing important breathing room for American families,” he added.

Over the past month, the national average gas price has decreased about 35 cents, reaching $4.65 a gallon, according to data from AAA.

But more needs to be done to bring down inflation, which remains “the most pressing economic challenge,” Biden said.

“Tackling inflation is my top priority,” he added. “We need to make more progress, more quickly, in getting price increases under control.”

At a Fed meeting last month, just days after the release of inflation data for May, the central bank raised its benchmark interest rate 0.75%, its largest rate hike since 1994. The increase brought the interest rate to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%

At a meeting later this month, the Fed is expected to raise the interest rate again. Fed officials are considering a 0.50% or 0.75% hike at the next meeting, according to minutes from the past meeting that were released July 6.

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