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Ford Motor Co. announced a new recall affecting nearly half a million vehicles. The newest recall involves two different issues and several different Ford models. Fortunately, there have been no reported injuries as a result of these problems. Consumer safety is among the most important things a manufacturing company needs to be concerned with. The voluntary recalls both involve safety issues. One problems involves the door latches that have plagued Ford in the recent past....

Facebook has reached a settlement agreement with the Federal Trade Commission over claims that the social network deceived consumers when it promised to keep personal information private. Most allegations stem from the 2009 privacy changes, which had much of the Internet up in arms. Those changes reset search settings and made a number of items public even when a user had set them to “Friends Only.” This included the publishing of friends lists, network information, and profile pictures....

Think your car is safe because it earned a top safety rating from the Transportation Department Stars on Cars crash rating system? The rules are about to change. Starting with model year 2011 cars, the government rating system for front and side impact and rollover potential will change, making it tougher for cars to earn the five star rating. Too many of the current cars were earning the highest five star rating, according to the Associated Press....

Consumers should not use lead test kits to evaluate consumer products for potential lead hazards, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced Monday, after a CPSC evaluation of a number of commonly-available lead test kits showed that the kits frequently failed to detect lead when it was there, or indicated that lead was present when it was not. CPSC advises consumers that “testing by a qualified laboratory and trained personnel is the only way to accurately assess the potential risk posed by a consumer product that may contain lead....

Video recordings of police activity and arrests have become a hot topic over the past few years. Between the ubiquity of cell phone cameras and new calls for police to wear body cameras, the issue of who can record video of the police (and when, where, and how) has been constantly debated. And most courts have found that citizens have a First Amendment right to record the police. But most of those courts never addressed why citizens were recording police action....

The long and winding road of baby powder lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson took an expensive turn last week, with a St. Louis jury awarding almost $4.7 billion in damages to 22 women and their families who claimed that asbestos contained in the company’s talc-based powder products contributed to their ovarian cancer. It’s the largest of five previous verdicts against Johnson & Johnson involving their Baby Powder and Shower to Shower products....

The feud between Uber and Lyft continues with no end in sight. And that’s normally a good thing for ride-sharing consumers, because strong competition usually drives prices down. But according to one man’s lawsuit, Uber used a wiretap program to lure drivers away from Lyft, increasing Lyft customer wait times, and encouraging them to call an Uber instead. However, a federal judge has mostly dismissed the man’s lawsuit, ruling that his allegations don’t satisfy the federal Wiretap Act....

Lindsay Lohan has been arrested again. This time, LiLo was busted outside a Manhattan nightclub early Thursday after allegedly punching another woman. The 26-year-old troubled actress was seen fleeing from the nightclub in a friend’s car when police stopped her and slapped on handcuffs, reports the New York Daily News. The former “Mean Girl” was reportedly heard saying “Are you kidding me?” to police over and over again. No, the police were not kidding as they hauled her off to the 10th Precinct stationhouse....

The rolls of retailers who have announced recalls of Roman shades and roll-up blinds has grown with the addition of Lowe’s Home Centers, Inc. The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced on December 1, that Lowes has joined the voluntary recall on these window coverings originally begun in December, 2009. The Loews recall covers all Roman shades and roll-up blinds sold by the company. Lowes is recalling approximately 6 million Roman shades and about 5 million roll-up blinds due to the strangulation hazard the window coverings pose to young children....

What are you doing during – or post – Mardi Gras? Driving? You should try to be careful. Turns out, Louisiana’s car accident rates are pretty high during this time of the year. In 2010, Mardi Gras proved to be relatively dangerous. There were 509 fatal and injury crashes. It was the highest figure during all holiday seasons. Around 50% of the fatalities were linked to alcohol. It should be a warning to all drivers....

A federal judge threw the book at the U.S. Department of Defense today by holding it in civil contempt over the Pentagon’s failure to comply with a court order this summer requiring it to videotape Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed Al-Adahi. Judge Gladys Kessler explained that she wanted to send a message to “deter future non-compliance with court orders,” and give the public access to detainee trials. So what did she order the federal government to do?...

The pharmaceutical industry is very profitable and highly competitive. Like any industry, its players are always looking for ways to increase those profits. But sometimes they go too far. The Department of Justice says pharmaceutical company Pfizer has done just that by working a scheme to offer Medicare patients kickbacks for using their medicines. Now, the drug giant has agreed to pay nearly $24 million to settle the case. False Claims Act One of the reasons Congress included copays in the Medicare program was so that the market could serve as a check on healthcare costs, including the prices drug companies would charge for their drugs....

In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, President Barack Obama announced that he would prohibit solitary confinement for juveniles being held in federal prisons. The president pointed to the devastating and lasting psychological consequences of solitary confinement, as well as the need to give offenders a second chance as reasons for the ban. The measure comes one day after the Supreme Court expanded the prohibition on mandatory life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders and amidst larger efforts from both parties in Congress to reform the criminal justice system as a whole, and sentencing and prisons in particular....

As summer approaches, homeowners may be getting ready for some long-awaited remodeling projects. So how can you make sure your contractors are licensed and legal? Some consumers opt for unlicensed contractors, thinking they’re cheaper and will do just as good a job. But is it worth a few bucks? If something goes wrong with unlicensed help, there may be no recourse for a homeowner who’s already paid for remodeling work, Portland’s KGW-TV reports....

I’m not saying I did anything wrong, but here’s some money. A group of investors sued Sprint in a class action lawsuit accusing the company of lying to investors about Sprint’s merger with Nextel Communications. Sprint recently agreed to settle the lawsuit and pay $131 million, cash, but denied all liability. The Fraud In the lawsuit, investors alleged that Sprint inflated its stock and bond prices from October 2006 to February 2008....

The Roche Supreme Court decision (in Stanford v. Roche) has come down in favor of Roche, 7-2, granting Roche and Stanford equal rights in the patent over a HIV testing technology. The court decision centered around the Bayh-Dole Act, which governs who owns the right to inventions and discoveries made by employees under federal research funds. The issue in the case was about the creation and discovery of a method for testing HIV treatment....

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld a federal law which, in part, makes it a crime to promote or advertise child pornography whether or not the material actually exists. The “pandering and solicitation” provision of the 2003 federal law prohibits the advertisement, promotion, presentation, distribution, or solicitation of “any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe, that the material or purported material is, or contains” child pornography....

Sometimes being a “cool mom” can get you in trouble. Denise “Miki” Spies, 45, of Durango, Colo., is learning that the hard way, after a ruckus over her daughter Sydney Spies’ racy yearbook photo and now a run-in with the cops. The Spies got national media attention in January when they fought the rejection of Sydney’s high-school yearbook photo, which editors had deemed too provocative, The Durango Herald reports. Now Miki Spies and daughter Sydney, 18, are facing criminal charges for hosting a house party where underage drinking was rampant, police say....

DUI cases have been known to take longer than many defendants expect, especially when the charges are fairly serious. Even for a “run-of-the-mill” first-time DUI case, it can often be months before a defendant learns his or her ultimate fate. So why do the wheels of justice seem to move so slowly? Here are just a few reasons why DUI cases take so long to resolve: Like with any other criminal offense, DUI defendants must be arraigned on formal charges to commence the criminal process....

Word is that Prince, Michael Jackson’s 14-year-old son, is set to testify at the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray. But will Conrad Murray testify? He is the defendant, after all. There is some indication that Murray wishes to tell his story, but the defense has yet to make a final decision. Just as in the cases of Casey Anthony, Barry Bonds, and Rob Blagojevich, we probably won’t have an answer until the final days of the trial....