(NEW YORK) — A now-defunct e-cigarette retailer has agreed to pay $50 million to resolve allegations it marketed and sold vaping products to minors by appealing to their social media preferences, taste for fruit flavors and penchant to listen to influencers.
The settlement agreement was announced Thursday by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, whose office accused Eonsmoke of “a coordinated advertising campaign intentionally targeted at consumers who were not of the minimum legal purchase age to purchase tobacco products” — which in Massachusetts is 21.
Eonsmoke directly sold e-cigarette products — including electronic nicotine devices, e-liquids, and nicotine pods — to underage consumers via its website, without conducting any age verification at the time of sale or delivery, the state said.
“Eonsmoke coordinated a campaign that intentionally targeted young people and sold dangerous and addictive vaping products directly to minors through their website,” Healey said in a news release announcing the settlement. “We were the first to take action against this company and its owners, and today we are holding them accountable and permanently stopping them from conducting these illegal practices in our state.”
Eonsmoke shut down in April 2020 amid increased regulatory scrutiny. Its co-owners, Gregory Grishayev and Michael Tolmach, have agreed to pay a combined $750,000 as part of the settlement. If either man wants to sell tobacco products in Massachusetts in the future, they must get authorization from the Food and Drug Administration and give notice to the state attorney general’s office.
Eonsmoke’s products contained some of the highest nicotine concentrations on the commercial market and came in a variety of sweet and fruit flavors.
Healey alleged it directly marketed vaping products to young people through social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube, and included youth popular culture references, social media influencers, celebrity endorsers, cartoons and internet memes that intentionally minimized or omitted the fact that the vaping products contained nicotine.
Between 2015 and 2018, the company did not conduct any age verification of consumers purchasing vaping products from its website, according to the investigation. Until September 2018, when the attorney general’s office sent a cease-and-desist letter ordering Eonsmoke to stop selling its products in Massachusetts, underage youth across the state were able to freely purchase unlimited quantities of vaping products — some of whom were 15.
(NEW YORK) — A year and a half into the global pandemic, with the Omicron variant lurking and holiday travel looming, many flight attendants say they’ve reached their breaking point with unruly passengers, many of whom still refuse to respect mask mandates.
“My job is not to manage you, the one passenger that constantly needs to be reminded to put their mask on. My job is to manage getting people where they need to go as quickly and safely as possible,” said Mitra Amirzadeh, a low-cost carrier flight attendant and Association of Flight Attendants member.
This @TSA sign at airport security checkpoints says it all. To sum it up: Act like a jerk and you’ll pay for it. pic.twitter.com/0Cp35mdBJl
— Lisa Farbstein, TSA Spokesperson (@TSA_Northeast) December 8, 2021
Dozens of videos over the past year have shown customers assaulting flight attendants, including one in which several passengers had to use duct tape to restrain an unruly man in his seat on a Frontier flight after he caused a disturbance with a flight attendant.
“Since the FAA started keeping track of reports of incidents like this on board, we’ve had more events in 2021 than we’ve had in the entire history of that record keeping in aviation,” Sara Nelson, president of the AFA and a flight attendant for two decades, told ABC News. That record keeping began in 1995.
About 85% of nearly 5,000 U.S. flight attendants said they’ve dealt with an unruly passenger in 2021, and 17% said they’ve been physically assaulted, according to a survey conducted by the AFA-CWA, AFL-CIO.
Since Jan. 1, the Federal Aviation Administration has received at least 5,114 reports of unruly passengers and 3,710 reports of passengers refusing to wear a mask. Out of some 973 investigations, 239 resulted in penalties.
“Air rage has unfortunately become all too common. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been insulted or threatened on a flight simply for doing my job,” Teddy Andrews, an American Airlines flight attendant, said during testimony before Congress in September. “On this flight, my colleague on the verge of tears came to the galley after a passenger refused to wear a mask and had been giving her a hard time. He said: ‘N-word,’ I don’t have to listen to a damn thing you say, this is a free country.'”
In addition to the ongoing abuse, flight attendants also fear for increased health risks to passengers — and to themselves.
“I don’t think that most passengers recognize that we’re not just waiters and waitresses in the sky. Our primary role is safety,” Andrews said.
In January, the FAA announced a Zero Tolerance Campaign that warned potential on-flight violators they could face fines and/or jail time.
“The truth of the matter is, every day that I go to work I’m putting my life at risk. I’m putting my family’s life at risk,” Amirzadeh added.
In July, the AFA urged the Department of Justice to make the policy permanent, saying that although incidents have “dropped sharply” since the FAA announced the policy “the rate remains too high.”
The politicization of mask-wearing and passengers consuming too much alcohol have created additional dangers, experts told ABC News.
“Inside our airline,” said Paul Hartshorn, national communications chair for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants at American Airlines, “we’ve never seen so many disruption reports on a daily basis. A lot of them due to mask compliance, but a lot of them due to other reasons.”
“What we see going on now on the aircraft is what’s happening in society,” added Andrews, the flight attendant from American. “This play on masks has become so politicized and so polarized, that people are now acting out on the aircraft. We’ve always asked people to comply — we ask you to wear seatbelts, we ask you to stay seated.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland warned U.S. attorneys across the country to be on alert for unruly passengers on airplanes during the holiday season. After Thanksgiving, the FAA issued more than $161,000 in fines to eight passengers accused of alcohol-related in-flight disturbances.
“As airports continue to push alcohol,” Nelson added, “it’s just getting worse and around the holidays, when we have more and more people traveling and more in the spirit of that celebratory vibe.”
Travel volumes are expected to continue reaching or exceeding pre-pandemic levels through December, according to a recent report by the Transportation Security Administration. Those working on planes said they’re expecting full flights.
“The holiday season will be great but not without challenges as the mask mandates will remain in place,” Andrews said. “As the passenger count increases, so might the incidence of air rage.”
“All we want to do,” Andrews added, “is come to work and do our job.”
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Workers with at least one Starbucks outpost in Buffalo, New York, voted on Thursday to form the coffee chain’s first labor union in the U.S., according to results of the vote count from the National Labor Relations Board.
The labor board still has to certify the vote, but the preliminary results are seen as a milestone win for the languishing organized labor movement in the U.S. Workers at a second location in Buffalo voted not to form a union, according the NLRB tally on Thursday. The results of the union election for a third Starbucks location in Buffalo were not available Thursday as the amount of ballots challenged by either the union or the company were large enough to sway the overall vote.
A total of 19 employees at the Elmwood Starbucks cafe, however, voted “yes” for a union, and eight voted “no,” according to the NLRB’s live count of the votes. This represents a majority of the 27 ballots counted from the Elmwood location.
The union vote count for the three Starbucks locations was scheduled for Thursday afternoon despite resistance from Starbucks, which filed a request for a review with the NLRB and sought to have all Buffalo-area stores included in the election. On Tuesday, the NLRB denied Starbucks’ request for a review, setting the stage for the votes from the three separate stores in the area that have filed for union elections to be counted. Each of the three stores voted for a unionization bid individually.
The efforts to unionize in Buffalo also come amid unique labor market conditions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the number of workers quitting their jobs hovers at record-high levels and major companies have struggled to fill service industry roles. The apparent labor shortage has given workers an edge in negotiating in the workplace, and been linked to the new labor force activism seen across the country in recent months.
The workers seek to unionize with Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, and call their group the Starbucks Workers United. The employees have received support from progressive lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
“Once again Starbucks tried to stop partners from voting, and once again they failed. At this point the company has strayed so far from its original values it’s hard to recognize the company I started with,” Michelle Eisen, a barista at a Buffalo-area Starbucks, said in a statement released by Starbucks Workers United. “This is exactly why we need a union — so our voices can be heard and we can work to make Starbucks the company we used to love.”
In a letter to employees, whom Starbucks calls “partners,” CEO Kevin Johnson reiterated the company’s wish to have all Starbucks locations in the Buffalo-area be included in the vote.
“Unlike others in our industry who operate a franchise model, we have a network of company-operated stores that work together to create a better partner experience,” Johnson wrote on Tuesday. “Why does this matter? Many of you have told me you greatly value the flexibility to work between stores, to swap and pick up shifts, giving you the opportunity to connect with partners across different stores as one community.”
“Because of this, we feel strongly that all partners in Buffalo should have a voice in the elections, which may unfortunately not be the case,” Johnson added. “While we recognize this creates some level of uncertainty, we respect the process that is underway and, independent of any outcome in these elections, we will continue to stay true to our Mission and Values.”
Johnson also touted the company’s investments in staffing, saying it’s “investing an unprecedented $1 billion in wages, training, and hours, deploying new equipment and technology and continuing to support leaders in markets across the country.”
In late October, as unionization efforts in Buffalo were in full swing, Starbucks announced it would be raising wages and making other changes to improve working conditions. By summer 2022, all hourly employees will make an average of $17 per hour, the company said in its fourth quarter earnings release, with hourly rates for baristas in the U.S. ranging from $15 to $23.The unionization bid comes after Starbucks reported record fourth-quarter consolidated net revenues of $8.1 billion.
Overall union membership has dwindled in recent decades, falling to 10.8% in 2020 among salaried and wage-earning workers in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 1983, the first year the BLS collected this data, that figure was 20.1%.
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — History could be made for Starbucks workers in labor-friendly Buffalo, New York, on Thursday.
The National Labor Relations Board is set to count votes for a union election collected from three Starbucks outposts in upstate New York as the workers seek to form the coffee chain’s first union in the U.S.
The vote count is scheduled for Thursday afternoon despite resistance from Starbucks, which filed a request for a review with the NLRB and sought to have all Buffalo-area stores included in the election. On Tuesday, the NLRB denied Starbucks’ request for a review, setting the stage for the votes from the three separate stores in the area that have filed for union elections to be counted. Each of the three stores will be voting for a unionization bid individually.
The efforts to unionize in Buffalo also come amid unique labor market conditions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the number of workers quitting their jobs hovers at record-high levels and major companies have struggled to fill service industry roles. The apparent labor shortage has given workers an edge in negotiating in the workplace, and been linked to the new labor force activism seen across the country in recent months.
The workers are seeking to unionize with Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, and call their group the Starbucks Workers United. The employees have received support from progressive lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
“Once again Starbucks tried to stop partners from voting, and once again they failed. At this point the company has strayed so far from its original values it’s hard to recognize the company I started with,” Michelle Eisen, a barista at a Buffalo-area Starbucks, said in a statement released by Starbucks Workers United. “This is exactly why we need a union — so our voices can be heard and we can work to make Starbucks the company we used to love.”
In a letter to employees, whom Starbucks calls “partners,” CEO Kevin Johnson reiterated the company’s wish to have all Starbucks locations in the Buffalo-area be included in the vote.
“Unlike others in our industry who operate a franchise model, we have a network of company-operated stores that work together to create a better partner experience,” Johnson wrote on Tuesday. “Why does this matter? Many of you have told me you greatly value the flexibility to work between stores, to swap and pick up shifts, giving you the opportunity to connect with partners across different stores as one community.”
“Because of this, we feel strongly that all partners in Buffalo should have a voice in the elections, which may unfortunately not be the case,” Johnson added. “While we recognize this creates some level of uncertainty, we respect the process that is underway and, independent of any outcome in these elections, we will continue to stay true to our Mission and Values.”
Johnson also touted the company’s investments in staffing, saying it’s “investing an unprecedented $1 billion in wages, training, and hours, deploying new equipment and technology and continuing to support leaders in markets across the country.”
In late October, as unionization efforts in Buffalo were in full swing, Starbucks announced it would be raising wages and making other changes to improve working conditions. By summer 2022, all hourly employees will make an average of $17 per hour, the company said in its fourth quarter earnings release, with hourly rates for baristas in the U.S. ranging from $15 to $23.The unionization bid comes after Starbucks reported record fourth-quarter consolidated net revenues of $8.1 billion.
(SAN JOSE, Calif.) — Elizabeth Holmes finished her testimony on Wednesday and her defense team rested their case in her criminal fraud trial.
All that’s left now are closing arguments. Then the jury will begin its deliberations.
For the jury to convict Holmes, the founder of the now defunct blood-testing startup Theranos, prosecutors must prove she knowingly misled investors about her company’s technology — a key element in the 11 fraud charges she faces.
Holmes could be sentenced to decades in prison if convicted. The 37-year-old has pleaded not guilty.
As both sides prepare for the last leg of the trial, here’s a look at some of what we’ve learned from the former Theranos CEO.
The buck stopped with her
Throughout the trial, Holmes’ team has suggested that her coworkers — namely the lab directors and her ex-boyfriend and former company COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani — were responsible for certain aspects of the company.
But prosecutors got Holmes to acknowledge that when it came to making decisions at Theranos, the buck stopped with her.
“But, ultimately all roads, as the CEO, lead to you?” U.S. Attorney Robert Leach asked Holmes on day five of her testimony.
“Yes,” Holmes said.
“And is it fair [to say] that the buck stops with you?” Leach continued.
“I felt that,” she replied.
On redirect, Holmes told her attorney Kevin Downey that she felt the buck stopped with her, but said she was not aware of all the decisions that were made at the company.
Relationship with Sunny Balwani
Holmes held back tears during her last day of direct examination as she told jurors that Balwani had repeatedly abused her during their near decade-long relationship. Balwani, her co-defendant in the case, had his trial severed from Holmes earlier this year after learning of the abuse allegations. He has denied those allegations.
On cross examination, Leach sought to poke holes in Holmes’ narrative. He said the couple had texted each other the word “love” at least 594 times in the more than 12,000 messages they exchanged.
“Was just thinking about you and meditating on my tigress,” Balwani texted Holmes in 2015, a message she read aloud in court at Leach’s behest, fighting back tears as she spoke.
Trade secrets
The government called investors to the stand and asked if they knew Theranos used third-party machines to conduct their blood testing. None of the former shareholders testified they did. But many of them said they were sold on the smaller blood-testing device Holmes had coined the “Edison” or the “miniLab.”
Holmes admitted on direct examination her “3.5” device could never run more than 12 clinical tests. Many of the company’s tests offered to patients at Theranos Wellness Centers in Walgreens stores were run on modified third-party machines, she said.
Asked why Holmes never shared that information with her investors, or even Walgreens, she chalked it up to trade secrets.
If Theranos’ proprietary info got out, “the big medical device companies like Siemens could easily reproduce what we had done,” Holmes testified. “They had more engineers than we did and a lot more resources.”
On cross examination, Leach barely broached the topic. But he did get Holmes to admit that it would be wrong if Theranos told investors that the company was not using modified third-party devices.
Holmes said she informed the FDA, her board of directors and the federal lab regulator, CMS, that she was running tests on third-party devices because, unlike the investors, they could assure protection of her intellectual property. Although, during the cross-examination, Leach pointed out that Gen. James Mattis, a then-Theranos board member, testified he was unaware of the modified third-party devices.
Altered documents
Prosecutors have repeatedly suggested Holmes doctored documents while she was running Theranos. In her testimony, Holmes owned up to — but reframed — some of those allegations.
On her second day of direct examination, she said she placed the logos of two pharmaceutical companies on blood-testing validation reports. She acknowledged she did this without the drugmakers’ permission and before she sent them to Walgreens.
“I wish I had done it differently,” she said on the stand Nov. 23 while being questioned by her attorney.
Leach later used that very same phrase six times on Nov. 30, the first day of his cross examination.
“Is that another thing you wish you had done differently?” he asked Holmes.
“One hundred percent,” she replied before later saying, “There are many things I wish I did differently.”
Leach also pointed to a third altered pharma report, which had been originally created by the drugmaker, GlaxoSmithKline, after the company evaluated Theranos’ technology. Like the other reports, the changes Holmes said she made to this document included the company’s logo.
Downey characterized the issue of doctoring documents as a “sideshow” on Tuesday, suggesting that Holmes did not conceal the reports because two of the three altered versions were sent directly to the drugmakers.
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, will face lawmakers Wednesday for a hearing about the potential harms of social media use for young people.
The Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security will convene the hearing at 2:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, and it will mark the first time Mosseri has testified before Congress.
“After bombshell reports about Instagram’s toxic impacts, we want to hear straight from the company’s leadership why it uses powerful algorithms that push poisonous content to children, driving them down rabbit holes to dark places, and what it will do to make its platform safer,” subcommittee Chair Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in a statement.
“I appreciate Mr. Mosseri voluntarily coming to the subcommittee and hope that he will support specific legislative reforms and solutions, particularly in its immensely potent algorithms,” Blumenthal added. “My conversations with parents have deeply moved me to fight for such reforms and demand answers that the whole nation is seeking.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), ranking member of the subcommittee, added, “Instagram’s repeated failures to protect children’s privacy have already been exposed before the U.S. Senate.”
“Now, it is time for action,” Blackburn said. “I look forward to discussing tangible solutions to improve safety and data security for our children and grandchildren.”
The hearing comes amid mounting controversies for Instagram and its parent company, Meta, after a whistleblower alleged blatant disregard from company executives over the potential harms of the social media platform for young users. Documents leaked to the Wall Street Journal earlier this year by whistleblower Frances Haugen cited the company’s own internal research that reportedly said Instagram made body image worse for one in three teenage girls.
On Tuesday, just ahead of the hearing, Mosseri announced a slew of updates to Instagram that aim to protect teens and young users on the app. Among them is the “Take a Break” feature — which encourages young users to take a break from Instagram if they have spent a long time scrolling — and a hub of tools for parents and guardians set to roll out early next year.
In late September, Instagram announced plans to pause development of its “Instagram Kids” platform meant for children under the age of 13 in the wake of the Wall Street Journal investigation.
“While we stand by the need to develop this experience, we’ve decided to pause this project,” Mosseri said in a statement at the time. “This will give us time to work with parents, experts, policymakers and regulators to listen to their concerns and to demonstrate the value and importance of this project for younger teens online today.”
Wednesday’s hearing is the fifth in a series led by Blackburn and Blumenthal specifically related to social media companies and the potential dangers children face online. The hearing will be live-streamed on the Senate commerce committee’s website.
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Lawmakers on Wednesday grilled Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, in a wide-ranging hearing on the potential harms of social media use for young people. The senators pledged that the age of “self-regulation” for Big Tech is over and bipartisan legislation to protect kids online is imminent.
Mosseri claimed a lot of the issues raised by the lawmakers are not unique to Instagram but are an “industry-wide challenge” that requires “industry-wide solutions and industry-wide standards.”
Mosseri called for an “industry body” to determine best practices when it comes to young peoples’ safety online, focusing on verifying age, building age-appropriate experiences and parental controls. He said he hopes Instagram can work together with lawmakers to reach the goal of keeping children safe online.
The hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security marked the first time Mosseri has testified before Congress and came amid a spate of scandals plaguing social media giant Meta, the newly named parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
A company whistleblower, Frances Haugen, alleged blatant disregard from company executives over the potential harms of the social media platform for young users during a hearing before lawmakers in early October. Documents leaked to the Wall Street Journal earlier this year by Haugen cited the company’s own internal research that reportedly said Instagram made body image worse for one in three teenage girls.
“In this series of hearings, we’ve heard some pretty powerful and compelling evidence about the dangers of Big Tech to children’s health, well-being and futures,” subcommittee Chair Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said during his opening remarks. “Our nation is in the midst of a teen mental health crisis. Social media didn’t create it, but it’s certainly fanned the fuel and the flames.”
The senator cited a surgeon general report issued Tuesday that found depression and anxiety among young people has doubled worldwide during the pandemic.
Blumenthal accused Big Tech of contributing to this mental health crisis “with addictive products and sophisticated algorithms that can exploit and profit from children’s insecurities and anxieties.”
He pledged that the time for “self-policing and self-regulation is over.”
Finally, Blumenthal blasted a set of proposals aimed at protecting young people on the platform — that Instagram unveiled just Tuesday — saying it “looks more like a public relations tactic brought on by our hearings.”
Mosseri defended Instagram in his testimony, saying the internet has “changed what it’s like to be a teenager.”
“Teenagers have always spent time with their friends, developed new interests and explored their identities. Today they’re doing those things on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat,” Mosseri told the senators. “I firmly believe that Instagram and the internet more broadly can be a positive force in young people’s lives. I’m inspired every day by teens on Instagram.”
He said he believes Instagram can actually help young people “dealing with difficult things in their lives.”
“Now I recognize that many in this room have deep reservations about our company, but I want to assure you that we do have the same goal. We all want teens to be safe online,” he said. “The internet isn’t going away, and I believe there’s important work that we can do together, industry and policymakers, to raise the standards across the internet to better serve and protect young people.”
“We have a specific proposal,” Mosseri said. “We believe there should be an industry body that will determine the best practices when it comes to what I think are the three most important questions with regards to safety: How to verify age, how to build age-appropriate experiences and how to build parental controls.”
On Tuesday, just ahead of the hearing, Mosseri announced a slew of updates to Instagram that aim to protect teens and young users on the app. Among them is the “Take a Break” feature — which encourages young users to take a break from Instagram if they have spent a long time scrolling — and a hub of tools for parents and guardians set to roll out early next year.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), ranking member of the subcommittee, also blasted these updates during her opening remarks, calling them “half-measures.”
“While telling teens to take a break might seem helpful on the face of things, it’s probably not going to get most teenagers to stop doing what they’re doing and take a break,” the senator said. “Educational tools for parents can be helpful, but frankly, I’m more concerned about the things we know kids and teens are hiding from their parents.”
“This is a case of too little too late, because now there is bipartisan momentum both here and in the House to tackle these problems we are seeing with Big Tech,” Blackburn warned.
When pressed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) over whether spending three hours on Instagram per day is a good idea for young people, which Klobuchar said was put in the new policies as an option for parents, Mosseri said he believes it’s the individual parent’s decision.
“I’m a parent, and I can understand that parents have concerns about how much screen time their kids have,” Mosseri said. “I ultimately think that it’s a parent that knows best what’s best for their teen. So the appropriate amount of time should be a decision by a parent about the specific teen. If one parent wants to set that limit at 10 minutes, and another parent wants to set that limit at three hours, who am I to say they don’t know what’s best for their children?”
In late September, Instagram announced plans to pause development of its “Instagram Kids” platform meant for children under the age of 13 in the wake of the Wall Street Journal investigation.
“While we stand by the need to develop this experience, we’ve decided to pause this project,” Mosseri said in a statement at the time. “This will give us time to work with parents, experts, policymakers and regulators to listen to their concerns and to demonstrate the value and importance of this project for younger teens online today.”
When pressed about Instagram Kids during the hearing Wednesday, Mosseri stopped short of permanently committing to stopping development of Instagram Kids. “What I can commit to today is that no child between the ages of 10 and 12, should we ever manage to build Instagram for 10- to 12-year-olds, will have access to that without their explicit parental consent,” Mosseri told the lawmakers.
Wednesday’s hearing is the fifth in a series led by Blackburn and Blumenthal specifically related to social media companies and the potential dangers children face online, leading many predict a bipartisan crackdown on Big Tech’s dominance now looms large.
(NEW YORK) — Instagram announced a slew of updates on Tuesday that aim to protect teens on the app, in an announcement that notably comes one day before Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri is set to testify before lawmakers on social media’s impact on young users.
Mosseri announced the new features in a company blog post on Tuesday, which includes launching the “Take a Break” feature in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
“If someone has been scrolling for a certain amount of time, we’ll ask them to take a break from Instagram and suggest that they set reminders to take more breaks in the future,” Monserri said. “We’ll also show them expert-backed tips to help them reflect and reset.”
Mosseri said they will also be taking a stricter approach to what they recommend to teens on the app via search, explore, hashtags and suggested accounts and will stop people from tagging or mentioning teens that don’t follow them. Instagram will also start nudging teens towards different topics if they’ve been dwelling on one topic for a long time.
“We’ll also be launching our first tools for parents and guardians early next year to help them get more involved in their teen’s experiences on Instagram,” Mosseri said. “Parents and guardians will be able to see how much time their teens spend on Instagram and set time limits. And we’ll have a new educational hub for parents and guardians.”
The first tools for parents and guardians are set to launch in March, and will allow them to view how much time their teens spend on Instagram and set time limits. Teens can also notify their parents if they report someone, which Monserri says can give parents the opportunity to talk with their children about it. The educational hub for parents will also include additional resources like tutorials and tips from experts to help them discuss and understand their teens’ social media use.
“As always, I’m grateful to the experts and researchers who lend us their expertise in critical areas like child development, teen mental health and online safety, and I continue to welcome productive collaboration with lawmakers and policymakers on our shared goal of creating an online world that both benefits and protects many generations to come,” Mosseri said.
The updates come in the wake of a former Facebook employee testifying before lawmakers in October. Whistleblower Frances Haugen alleged blatant disregard from company executives when they learned their platforms could have harmful effects on the mental health of young people.
Documents leaked to the Wall Street Journal by Haugen cited the company’s own internal research said that Instagram made body image worse for 1 in 3 teenage girls.
Mosseri, meanwhile, is scheduled to testify on Wednesday before a Senate panel for a hearing titled “Protecting Kids Online: Instagram and Reforms for Young Users.” The hearing will commence at 2:30 p.m. ET.
(NEW YORK) — Charging an electric vehicle is simple and painless — if you have a charger installed at home.
Automakers are producing EVs at a feverish pace with government backing. Yet the number of public charging stations, critical for mass EV adoption, is lacking.
There are fewer than 46,000 EV public charging sites currently in the U.S., according to Department of Energy data. In comparison, the number of gasoline fueling stations in the country totals more than 150,000.
There are several EV-charging network providers currently in the market: EVgo, Blink, ChargePoint, Volta, Wallbox and Electrify America, which is owned by Volkswagen. These companies maintain, build, operate or lease their equipment to businesses, individuals and governments and offer subscription services to members.
The Biden administration has targeted half of all new car sales in the U.S. to be electric in less than 10 years. To reach this goal, at least 1 million fast-charging stations will be required, according to Cathy Zoi, the CEO of EVgo. There are currently 5,627 fast-charging sites in the nation.
At-home EV charging allows drivers to plug in their vehicles at night and wake up in the morning to a full battery charge. Many apartment and condo dwellers though are dependent on public charging stations to juice their emissions-free vehicles, a scenario that can mean long wait and charging times.
“Thirty percent of Americans do not have access to home chargers,” Zoi told ABC News. “We need the infrastructure to get the consumer confidence.”
EVgo has been partnering with major retailers like Safeway, Albertsons, Whole Foods and Kroger to install charging stations in their shopping parking lots. The company also teamed up with General Motors in 2020 to build 2,700 new fast stations over the next five years.
“We’ve identified 40 metro areas in America’s heartland that are part of this program,” Zoi explained. “The Biden infrastructure money can get us into places even farther afield in rural America.”
President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure package, which was recently passed by Congress, includes $7.5 billion toward a nationwide network of 500,000 EV charging stations by 2030.
Michael Farkas, CEO of EV charging operator and provider Blink, said the $7.5 billion — half of Biden’s $15 billion proposal as presidential candidate — will not be enough to accomplish the electrification goals cited by automakers and government officials.
“It will push things along but it will take substantially more [money] than that,” he told ABC News. “Every state is lacking in infrastructure — even California. We have a massive need for chargers both in the U.S. and globally.”
Construction of an EV station can take four to eight weeks, according to Zoi, and the cost depends on the type of charger. A Level 2 charger, commonly found in residential and commercial/workplace settings, costs between $3,000 and $5,000 to install. DC fast chargers, which allow drivers to recharge 80% of a vehicle’s battery in 30 minutes, start at $125,000 but can top out at $300,000.
The bigger challenge to installing charging networks may not be the cost. Getting approvals from local officials and municipalities can often be a complicated process that lasts weeks or even months, said Zoi. Plus, connecting to the grid presents its own hiccups.
“We’re working with the electric utilities to make sure the local power infrastructure can support fast charging,” Zoi said.
Even in California, which has the highest share of EVs of any U.S. state, public charging stations are far from ubiquitous, said Karl Brauer, executive analyst of iSeeCars.com and a longtime California resident.
“EVs still take a whole lot of planning. You have to know how long your trip is and carefully plan your charging schedule and locations,” he told ABC News. “The infrastructure is terrible. The good news is that there are not many EVs on the roads.”
The ability to charge on the go and travel long distances will move the needle on EV adoption and sales, Brauer said. Yet installing and deploying chargers is a risky business right now.
“There doesn’t seem to be any money being made in EV charging stations,” he said. “What’s the incentive to buy an EV station when there isn’t a profit motive?”
Not enough public EV chargers could dissuade some Americans from swapping their gas-powered conveyances for green vehicles, according to Mark Wakefield, managing director of consulting firm AlixPartners.
“The charging infrastructure is tricky. There are a lot of stakeholders involved and an awful lot of players to coordinate, government included,” he told ABC News. “Range is the No. 1 reason [among Americans] not to buy an EV. The No. 2 reason? Not enough places to charge.”
He added, “Consumers want automakers to curate their charging experience. They want it to be seamless.”
Only 93 U.S. airport locations have charging infrastructure in place, with as few as two stations, according to AlixPartners. EV public infrastructure coverage continues to grow steadily though “most of the growth has been driven by Level 2 chargers,” the firm said in a recent report. DC fast chargers, however, are largely seen as the solution to revolutionizing EV ownership.
Federal tax incentives and subsides from states and and local ordinances can help offset the costs of these networks, said Wakefield. But the U.S. needs to invest $50 billion to accommodate EV growth, he noted.
John Voelcker, contributing editor to Car and Driver magazine who has covered EVs extensively, said part of Tesla’s sweeping success was its ability to create a supercharging network exclusive to its vehicles from the very beginning.
“I don’t think Tesla would have sold so many expensive EVs as it did without the ability to drive cross country. The company publicized the existence of this Tesla-branded network,” he told ABC News. “I am not seeing carmakers except for Tesla putting in big efforts to build these stations.”
He went on, “It says a lot about carmakers’ reliance on the free market to solve everything and their lack of understanding in EVs beyond the vehicle itself.”
EV stations in city streets and parking garages will also multiply to placate urban drivers, said Voelcker, noting that public charging stations in London have become part of the city landscape, with EV owners hooking up their vehicles to stations built curbside.
EVgo has big plans to expand its charging network from 1,600 DC fast chargers to 10,000 by 2025. Zoi’s team of site developers are actively scouring the country, looking for opportunities to service new EV owners.
“Chargers will become commonplace,” Zoi said reassuringly. “The arrival of EVs can create more car enthusiasts.”
(LOS ANGELES) — When passengers board an Alaska Airlines flight, most don’t know it but that plane is lighter than other Boeing 737s or Airbus A320s, according to the airline.
That’s because during the COVID-19 pandemic, the airline used the slowdown in travel to develop, test and introduce new products to replace plastics on board.
Gone are plastic water bottles and plastic cups. Lighter alternatives are being used. Food containers have been redesigned. It not only allows the airline to cut the use of plastics, which can take over 400 years to decompose in the environment, but the airline says less weight onboard means it is burning less fuel, saving money and reducing carbon output.
Airlines and plane manufacturers have a fairly new and very honed focus on going green. United Airlines is promising to go carbon neutral by 2050. Alaska Airlines says it will go carbon neutral by 2040. Other airlines promise to pay to offset their carbon output.
Last week, United flew the first commercial airliner with passengers onboard using 100% sustainable fuels made of sugar water and corn. The fuels output far less carbon but cost much more than traditional fuels. United’s Boeing 737-Max 8 demonstration flight flew from Chicago to Washington D.C.
Onboard efforts like those at the airlines combined with attempts from plane maker Boeing are leading to a seismic shift in the airline industry. It wasn’t that long ago that the smell of jet fuel was just a normal part of the airport experience. Between utilizing sustainable fuels, electric and hydrogen airplanes that are in development and reducing overall fuel use, the industry vows it is trying to cut the exhaust that comes out of a plane’s engines and goes into the environment.
Boeing’s flying laboratory
ABC News recently got access to a flying laboratory that Boeing calls the ecoDemonstrator. Boeing borrows brand new airliners before they are delivered to a carrier. It strips each plane of its normal interior and sets up a flying testbed with racks of computers, cables and wires running all over, and sensors all around the plane. For at least a few more weeks, the current ecoDemonstrator is on board a new Boeing 737-Max that will soon have the regular interior installed and will be delivered to the airline that ordered it. But for now, engineers and scientists are able to test all kinds of technology that could soon make flying greener.
“The ecoDemonstrator program has been around for about a decade,” program manager Rae Lutters explained to ABC News while on board the aircraft. “We take innovative technologies out of the lab, put them on an airplane and fly them around to really help explore our learning and understanding of sustainable technologies.”
The special wingtips now seen on Boeing aircraft, called split scimitar winglets — those V-shaped ends of wings on newer planes — are a direct result of an idea that was tested on a previous ecoDemonstrator and showed to save fuel and improve performance. The winglets are now part of planes flying all over the world.
On the current ecoDemonstrator, Boeing’s teams are testing items like wall panels made out of excess carbon fiber from the Boeing 777, which they hope will be lighter and quieter. They are also testing new lower profile warning lights that will cause less drag on the plane and, in return, burn less fuel. And they are working on new touchscreens in the cockpit and air sensor equipment to test the air quality at airports globally when a plane lands.
The current ecoDemonstrator has been flying all over the world with sensors and computers analyzing all of the experiments on board to determine if they will help make the aircraft greener.
“We’re trying to get the airplane to operate as efficiently as possible,” said Lutters.
Getting rid of plastics onboard
Down the road from Boeing Field in its new high-tech headquarters overlooking Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Alaska Airlines is also trying new ideas to cut down on weight and fuel burn. By ditching plastic water bottles and cups in November, the airline said it will save 18 Boeing 737 worth of weight every year. It’s a feat no other large airline in the U.S. has accomplished. Alaska is the first airline to team up with premium brand Boxed Water to serve water from milk carton-like containers rather than plastic bottles.
“The biggest issue we were having was single-use plastic,” Alaska Airlines manager of guest products Todd Traynor-Corey said. “Even if you have the best recycling program possible, a percentage of that plastic is going to end up in the landfills and even into the ocean. Being based on the West Coast, ocean life and sustainability are really important to us.”
During the pandemic, the airline carried out a long process of recruiting alternatives to plastic bottles. They did taste tests and asked for feedback from staff and passengers. Eventually, they settled on Boxed Water.
“This is a very visible change. It’s not a free change. There’s a cost that comes with it. We are a premium water that’s out in the industry and Alaska saw that we are doing better. Our lifecycle analysis shows that. Super big kudos to Alaska for stepping up and making the change away from plastic and to cartons,” said Boxed Water founder and CEO Daryn Kuipers.
The iconic plastic cup that used to sit on passengers’ tray tables is now gone from Alaska Airlines. It has been quite a ride trying to find a simple paper cup that fits the needs of the airline as its planes fly around North America.
“We partnered to really find a more sustainable cup and we just sourced a simple paper cup that is meant cold and hot liquids,” Traynor-Corey said, showing the cup.
For months, different paper cups were tested with different liquids. Most passengers would have no idea so much work went into changing to a paper cup. The work is still underway. They have yet to find a biodegradable plastic cup that can hold hard alcohol.
Many alcohols eat through paper, which they found was an issue aboard their planes.
Using artificial intelligence to guide planes
Alaska Airlines’ efforts are not stopping with what flight attendants are serving on board. The airline is now employing an artificial intelligence (A.I.) program called Flyways to suggest routes that can get passengers to their destinations faster, smoother and while burning less fuel.
“Flyways is probably the most exciting thing that I’ve come across in airline technology since I can remember,” said Pasha Saleh, who is head of corporate development at Alaska Airlines.
Saleh is also a pilot for Alaska.
Alaska Airlines has uniquely teamed up with a Silicon Valley startup to develop Flyways using A.I. to better suggest the best way to route aircraft. Airline dispatchers are given suggestions on how and where to fly planes. They can accept or reject what the A.I. is suggesting. As the weeks and months go on using Flyways the platform is getting better at its suggestions due to machine learning in the A.I.
“We found this company called Airspace Intelligence and at the time that we met them it was only two guys. Two guys backed by Google,” explained Saleh. At that time, Airspace Intelligence was developing software to better route vehicles on the ground. There was a realization that technology could work in the air.
By analyzing numerous sources, the platform can predict what the weather, air traffic, and other aspects impacting the flight will be when a plane reaches any area of the country. It might, for instance, choose to delay a flight by two or three minutes knowing that will help avoid a thunderstorm over Oklahoma in three hours or help the flight avoid gridlock in the landing pattern in New York, which would waste time and fuel.
“Flyways will, in many cases, reduce the length of a flight therefore reducing the fuel burn, and reducing the emissions,” said Diana Birkett Rakow, senior vice president of sustainability at Alaska Airlines.
During a six-month pilot program at Alaska Airlines, Flyways shaved off, on average, five minutes from flights and saved 480-thousand gallons of jet fuel.
“If you went a teeny bit slower, you were on time, you had a gate, and because you went a teeny bit slower the airplane actually burned less fuel, that might be a win/win combination for both the guest and the operation and sustainability impact,” said Rakow.
The airline said Flyways is also quite good at helping flights avoid turbulence by analyzing lots of weather data and providing smoother flights.
“This is what machines are really good at, taking huge data sets and putting them together,” according to Saleh.
The team at Alaska Airlines says the benefits are enormous and they would like other airlines to get onboard with Flyways because it would help make the aviation system safer, faster and more environmentally friendly.
Mixed reaction from environmental groups
Yet environmental groups are mixed on the efforts.
The Environmental Defense Fund has teamed up with the Rocky Mountain Institute to create the Sustainable Fuels Aviation Buyers Alliance. Some of the world’s largest companies have agreed to join the EDF’s initiative to help make sustainable fuels more available and cost effective for airlines to buy.
“Airlines are definitely going in the right direction,” Kim Carnahan, secretariat lead of the Sustainable Fuels Aviation Buyers Alliance told ABC News.
Carnahan, who is former U.S. chief negotiator for climate change, said airlines are in a tough position with the cost of sustainable products being so much higher than traditional fuels.
“They compete fiercely with one another and have very slim margins. Sustainable aviation fuel which is really the only option they have to fully decarbonize is anywhere between two and four times the cost of fossil jet fuel,” according to Carnahan.
But at Greenpeace, the organization believes much of what the industry is doing is so-called “greenwashing.” It doesn’t believe such solutions are viable long term and that the changes being made are minor cosmetic measures distracting from a bigger problem of rising emissions in the air travel sector. The group says the aviation industry is a major polluter that needs to be completely revamped by reducing the number of flights to truly become carbon-neutral.
“That’s why Greenpeace is calling for a phase-out of short-haul flights in Europe, when a train or ferry alternative under six hours exists,” said Herwig Schuster, Greenpeace in Europe’s transport campaigner.
The group is calling on governments globally to invest in better rail service.
“Airlines have introduced a number of alleged ‘green’ measures based on excessive optimism on so-called ‘sustainable aviation fuels,’ carbon offsetting and future aircraft designs,” said Schuster. “But these technologies are not the answer to tackling the rising emissions in this sector and will largely not be marketable solutions.”
But the airlines and plane makers say they are investing huge amounts of money to make a true change and that they have to work within the confines of current technology while they plan for the decades ahead.
