An article this week in The New York Times highlights the extraordinary measures some companies will take to avoid responsibility for their own actions. According to the newspaper, “General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added…
A few days ago Michael Smerconish, a long-time talk-radio fixture who recently began hosting a show on CNN, ended his daily broadcast with a short commentary (see link below) that began as an essay about the GM ignition-switch scandal but ended up making a broader – and more important –…
An article in Wednesday’s Oregonian raised an interesting question: how many Portlanders are aware that traffic enforcement does not take place overnight? According to the newspaper the city’s last budget cut police funding and, as a result, “the (traffic enforcement) bureau lost five full-time officer positions, and so eliminated the…
Residents of Plymouth, Washington and neighboring Hermiston, Oregon were greeted this morning by what the Associated Press described as “a mushroom cloud of black smoke visible for more than a mile.” The cause was an explosion at a natural gas plant on the Washington side of the Columbia River. The…
On Friday General Motors announced yet another expansion of the widening recall of its small cars. According to the New York Times, the company “is expanding its ignition-switch recall to include an additional 971,000 small cars worldwide, including 824,000 in the United States, that may have been previously repaired with…
A reckless and dangerous driver caused problems on I-5 this afternoon but is now in jail, according to The Oregonian. The newspaper’s website reports that a 26-year-old Portland man is being held in the Marion County jail on charges of reckless driving and “18 counts of recklessly endangering another person.”…
Yesterday’s announcement that Toyota has reached a settlement with the Justice Department was striking on several accounts. First there is the settlement’s sheer size. “Toyota will pay a $1.2 billion penalty to settle the criminal probe into its handling of unintended acceleration problems that led to recalls of 8.1 million…
We have all heard stories of medical price-gouging, but an investigation published earlier this week by the Tampa Bay Times shows that in Florida hospitals have taken the practice to a new level. According to a lengthy investigation by the newspaper, a change in Florida law several years ago allowed…
A disturbing article published this week in the New York Times outlines a series of failures by both corporate America and the federal government. Its focus is General Motors’ recent recall notices involving well over a million vehicles manufactured since the 2003 model year (click here for GM’s latest news…
When attention focuses on the question of sports and traumatic brain injuries we usually think of football, hockey or boxing. A new study from Boston University, however, highlights the potential TBI dangers of a sport we do not often think of as violent: soccer. As outlined by the New York…