Tuesday, 3 January 2017
You Have Until Jan. 15 To Lock In Unlimited Access To Tesla Superchargers
If you were bummed when Tesla Motors announced it would be ending the program that gives Model S and Model X owners free access to the company’s Supercharger stations, take heart: you’ve got about 12 additional days to buy a Tesla vehicle and lock in a lifetime of unlimited charging.
Tesla initially said that the offer would run out with the start of the new year, but now, anyone who orders an electric car before Jan. 15 will never have to pay to juice up at any of the company’s 4,600 Supercharger stations, CNET’s Road Show reports.
If you wait to buy a Tesla vehicle after that deadline, you’ll receive 400 kWh worth of free charging every year, which Tesla says is good for about 1,000 miles.
It’s not clear how much owners will pay to use Superchargers after they’ve run out of complimentary charging, but Tesla has noted that it’ll cost “less than the price of filling up a comparable gas car.”
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
Wall Street Now Owns A Lot Of Homes; Is Kind Of A Mean Landlord
The foreclosure crisis of last decade left a lot of houses on the market for cheap. Big investors, including hedge funds, private equity firms, and large investment firms, bought them up to use as single-family rentals. It turns out that a hedge fund several states away is not a friendly landlord.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta laid this out in a recent report, discovering that big investors were twice as likely as small landlords to issue eviction notices to their tenants for being behind on rent. (They studied notices, not completed evictions.)
Eviction is relatively cheap in Georgia, and the state doesn’t have the tenant protections that you might find in other cities and states. That makes it clear exactly how eviction-happy institutional landlords can be when eviction takes about a month and costs them a hundred bucks and a trip to court.
That makes future rentals even harder to find for the families who have been evicted, since their records are now branded with a scarlet “E,” and destabilizes the housing market when experts thought that these Big Bank landlords would have the opposite effect.
“My hope was that these private equity firms would provide a new kind of rental housing for people who couldn’t––or didn’t want to––buy during the housing recovery,” the report’s lead author told Bloomberg. That didn’t work out, and instead, the firms’ eagerness to evict and disconnection from tenants as people has caused issues in the market that may spread to other regions.
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Others Call On Treasury To Make It Easier For Marijuana-Related Businesses To Bank
With marijuana now legal — at least for medical purposes — in more than half the states, a small but growing number of federally insured banks have allowed pot retailers and other legitimate marijuana-related businesses to open accounts. Still, some 97% of U.S. banks won’t work with these companies over concerns about the regulatory ramifications, which is why a number of U.S. senators are asking the Treasury Department’s financial crimes division to help the marijuana industry — particularly those businesses that service the industry — move away from being purely cash operations.
Last month, a group of ten senators — including Elizabeth Warren (MA), Bernie Sanders (VT), Al Franken (MN), and Jeff Merkley (OR) — sent a letter [PDF] to the Acting Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), arguing that having pot-related businesses dealing only in cash “jeopardizes community safety, limits economic growth, and greatly expands the opportunity for tax fraud.”
In 2014, the Justice Department and FinCEN provided guidance to the banking industry about how these institutions could legally do business with marijuana growers and retailers in states where these operations are legal.
However, the letter points out that this guidance does not provide enough clarity when it comes to “indirect” marijuana businesses — those companies that aren’t directly involved in pot products, but provide services to the companies that are.
This group includes chemists who do testing for marijuana producers; private security firms who protect the product and the large amounts of cash involved; and lawyers who represent marijuana companies.
“Most banks and credit unions have either closed accounts or simply refused to offer services to indirect and ancillary businesses that service the marijuana industry,” claims the letter. “A large number of professionals have been unable to access the financial system because they are doing business with marijuana growers and dispensaries.”
Unable to bank, these indirect services have — according to the letter — lost their retirement accounts, and had to pay their employees and taxes in cash.
“Locking lawyers, landlords, plumbers, electricians, security companies, and the like out of the nation’s banking and finance systems serves no one’s interest,” write the senators, who are asking FinCEN for new guidance to “enhance the availability of financial services for indirect businesses that service the marijuana industry.”
Though 28 states have now legalized marijuana to some degree, the product still remains not only illegal at the federal level, but a Schedule I controlled substance on par with heroin.
At the same time, federal law prohibits — for the time-being — the Justice Dept. from spending money prosecuting medical marijuana in states where it’s been legalized.
The future of legalization remains to be seen, but President-elect Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, Sen. Jeff Sessions (AL), is outspoken in his distaste for the drug, calling it “dangerous” and commenting that “good people don’t smoke marijuana.”
In addition to Warren, Sanders, Franken, and Merkley, the following senators signed the letter to FinCEN: Lisa Murkowski (AK), Ron Wyden (OR), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Patty Murray (WA), Angus King (ME), and Cory Booker (NJ).
[via AP]
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
Dish’s New AirTV Device Combines Streaming 4K Video With Over-The-Air TV
Remember how Dish kind-of, sort-of, possibly-accidentally quietly announced it had new streaming hardware on the way? Well, that device — the AirTV player — is today finally a real thing, with a real price tag, that you can buy if you want.
The AirTV, previously only mentioned as a device you could use to watch Dish’s Sling TV streaming service, now has its very own website. And that site answers one of the biggest questions everyone had about this mystery box: how much does it cost, exactly?
The answer? $100 if you want the internet-only version, or $130 if you want to add over-the-air channels in too.
Price-wise, that means the AirTV is pretty much directly in line with the competition. The Roku Premiere+, which supports 4K and HDR content, runs at $100. The Amazon Fire TV, which supports 4K streaming but not HDR content, sells for $90. And the Apple TV costs $150 or $200 depending on how much on-board storage you want, but integrates with your other iOS devices.
Functionally, the AirTV player is also pretty much in line with the competition. It’s an Android-based box that you plug into your TV, connect to your home internet, and use to watch streaming TV from whatever services you happen to subscribe to. Where Dish hopes to stand out with its hardware is the over-the-air integration.
That $40 dongle — $30 if you’re buying it with the AirTV player — connects to basically any digital HD antenna you can buy. That means you can watch local broadcast programming (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, etc.) live without paying for cable and without switching inputs on your TV. The programming just becomes integrated into the listing guide on the AirTV, there to click over to when you browse.
In a way, it’s your classic cycle: free, broadcast-through-the-air TV is indeed basically the way you and/or your parents used to watch 35 years ago back when 25″ was a big screen and the box had knobs on it. The difference is, now the signals are digital — and now you probably want to mix and match your local news with some Amazon dramas or Netflix documentaries. So Dish is hoping consumers will want to buy the AirTV to do that.
Settling on local network distribution agreements has remained something of a stumbling block for major streaming services, including Dish’s own Sling TV, so integrating it into the hardware as seamlessly as possible may be a good bet.
by Kate Cox via Consumerist
United Airlines Investigating How Baggage Handler Became Locked In Cargo Hold For 90-Minute Flight
Emergency crews met a United Airlines flight from Charlotte immediately after it landed at D.C.’s Dulles International Airport over the weekend when it was discovered that a baggage handler had become locked inside the cargo hold.
The Charlotte Observer reports that United Airlines is investigating how a baggage handler from the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport became locked in a plane’s cargo hold for a 90-minute flight.
The man was not injured during the Mesa Airlines-operated flight, in which the plane reached an altitude of 27,000 and temperature inside the compartment reportedly dropped to as low as 30 degrees.
Authorities, including the Federal Aviation Administration, were notified shortly after the plane took off that it was possible a fellow baggage handler was locked in the compartment.
“It’s going to be an apparent baggage handler that got locked in the baggage compartment,” the dispatch call stated, as reported by NBC Washington. “It’s going to be in the rear cargo area. Should have been pressurized. Unknown injuries at this time.”
Upon landing, emergency crews opened the cargo area and found the man, who refused medical treatment.
For a short time, the incident was being investigated as a security concern, as the man was clad in his baggage handler uniform, but did not have is ID on him.
WBTV in Charlotte reports that authorities finally deemed the incident a “public accident,” however, it remains unclear how the man became locked in the cargo area.
This isn’t the first time a baggage handler has unexpectedly become a stowaway. In April 2015, an Alaska Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing after an employee fell asleep in the cargo hold.
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist
Computer Outage Leaves Thousands Of Travelers Waiting Hours To Go Through Customs
We are barely a few days into the new year and already a computer glitch has disrupted travel plans for thousands of people: a nationwide outage in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection system on Monday night resulted in travelers waiting for hours to enter the country on one of the busiest travel days of the year..
A number of major airports were affected by a “temporary outage” with the CBP’s processing system that began about 5 p.m. ET on Monday: Miami International, Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, John F. Kennedy International in New York, Logan International in Boston, and Los Angeles International.
The issue was resolved by 9 p.m. ET, CPB said in a statement (via USA Today), noting that as of now, “there is no indication the service disruption was malicious in nature,” the agency said.
“CBP took immediate action to address the issue and CBP officers continued to process international travelers using alternative procedures at airports experiencing the disruption,” CBP said. “Travelers at some ports of entry experienced longer than usual wait times as CBP officers processed travelers as quickly as possible while maintaining the highest levels of security.”
Some fliers say it was a lot more than just a “longer than usual” wait time. One traveler told NBC Miami that two people passed out while waiting in line at Miami International, where the outage affected more than 30 inbound international flights.
Some travelers vented their frustration by posting photos of the seemingly never-ending lines:
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist