Bomb cyclone hammers West Coast, 2 dead in Washington state

(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Trade Commission finalized a rule Wednesday that seeks to make it easier for American households to cancel their subscriptions and memberships.

The goal is to make it as simple for consumers to opt out of recurring payments — including for gyms, retailers or other businesses — as it is to sign up for them.

“Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement following the announcement.

“The FTC’s rule will end these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want,” Khan said.

Under the so-called “click-to-cancel” rule, if customers decide to enroll in a subscription online or through an app in one step — they should be able to cancel that way, too.

Businesses will be required to provide important information — such as when free trials end — and to obtain consumers’ consent before billing and charging them.

The changes are set to take effect in April 2025. Companies that don’t comply could face civil penalties, according to the agency.

The Biden administration announced in August it was working to adopt the rule as part of a broader effort to cut down the time and money Americans spend wrangling with companies over customer service.

“For a lot of services, it takes one or two clicks on your phone to sign up. It should take one or two clicks on your phone to end the service,” White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden said in August. “Consumers could see the new rule applied to gym memberships or phone and internet companies.”

 The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is critical of the initiative, accusing the federal government in a statement of “imposing heavy-handed regulations that micromanage business practices and pricing.”

Tanden said at the time that the efforts were about creating a better functioning market, not targeting any particular company or “shaming corporations writ large.”

“When they want to end one subscription, they can shop for another, but it’s their decision,” she said. “That’s what a free market is really about, empowering individuals to make the decisions they want to make without these practices that get in their way.”

The FTC says it received more than 16,000 comments from consumers, trade associations, watchdog groups, and state and federal agencies since it first floated the proposal in March 2023.

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(NEW YORK) — A report has found that broken power lines caused the deadly August 2023 wildfire in Maui.

The wildfire on the Hawaiian Island killed 102 people and destroyed more than 2,200 structures, causing more than $5 billion in damages.

The nearly 300-page report released Wednesday comes from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which worked with local officials like the County of Maui Department of Fire and Public Safety to determine the cause.

The fire was initially blamed on the combination of high winds and dry weather. However, the investigation found that the widespread destruction was caused by a single fire that started by the “undetected re-energization of broken utility lines, which caused sparks that ignited unmaintained vegetation,” Maui Fire Chief Bradford Ventura said during a press conference Wednesday.

The investigation found no definitive conclusion with how the ignition started, Ventura said, but noted that the report found the fire cause to be accidental.

“The origin of the fire was the overgrown vegetation at and surrounding utility pole 25 off of Lahainaluna Road,” according to the report. “The cause of the fire was the re-energization of broken utility lines which caused the ejection of molten metallic material (sparks) to fall to the base of pole 25, igniting the unmaintained vegetation below.”

The investigation also ruled out the possibility that there had been two separate fires. 

“This, in fact, was one fire,” Ventura said.

The wildfire was the fifth deadliest in U.S. history and the worst natural disaster in Hawaii’s history, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. It sparked several other investigations centered on police response and the response from state and Maui county agencies.

In the days before the Aug. 8 wildfire, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency issued a red flag warning of “gusty winds and dry fuels” creating a risk of “extreme fire.”

Fingers were pointed between the local agencies and companies connected to the fire. A report from state Attorney General Anne E. Lopez found that there is no evidence that Hawaiian Electric, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, Maui Fire Department, Maui Police and others had developed plans to deal with such a fire risk.

A preliminary Maui Police Department report in February found that the understaffed police force grappled with communications and equipment issues that hadn’t been anticipated. The police investigation didn’t address the utility’s potential culpability for the fires, the origin of the blazes or the fire crews’ response.

The report found that police went without proper protective gear while juggling frantic traffic evacuations and that emergency dispatch for the island was overwhelmed by a call volume it was unable to handle. It also noted that suspended cables and downed electrical wires were strewn across roadways, cutting off what could have been critical routes for escape.

In August, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green announced a historic $4.037 billion settlement to resolve claims arising from the tragedy. The settlement addresses roughly 450 lawsuits filed by individuals, businesses and insurance companies in both state and federal courts against seven defendants — state of Hawaii, County of Maui, Hawaiian Electric, Kamehameha Schools, West Maui Land Co., Hawaiian Telcom and Spectrum/Charter Communications.

They say they “undertook significant efforts to find a resolution that addresses the needs and ensures the well-being of plaintiffs, all affected individuals, and their families,” according to a press release from Green’s office.

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(PHILADELPHIA) — Members of the “Central Park Five” filed a defamation suit against former President Donald Trump on Monday, accusing him of spreading “false, misleading and defamatory” statements about their 1989 case during the Sept. 10 ABC News presidential debate, according to a new court filing.

Attorneys representing the five men — Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise — filed their civil suit against Trump in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeking monetary damages over his statements, which they say have caused them “severe emotional distress and reputational damage.”

The five men, then teenagers, were accused of the violent rape of a female jogger in Central Park in April 1989. The five, who always maintained their innocence, were convicted and served years in prison. A decade after the attack, a different man confessed to the crime, which was confirmed through DNA analysis.

During the debate, Trump was responding to a statement from Vice President Kamala Harris in which she revisited his full-page ad in The New York Times in the wake of the incident that called for the execution of the Central Park Five when he said the following: “[T]hey come up with things like what she just said going back many, many years when a lot of people including Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg agreed with me on the Central Park Five. They admitted — they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately. And if they pled guilty — then they pled we’re not guilty.”

The lawsuit points out that Trump’s statements were false in multiple respects — noting none of the members of the Central Park Five ever entered guilty pleas in the case, none of the victims of the Central Park assaults were killed, and the mayor at the time of the assaults was Ed Koch — who did not agree with Trump’s position in the full-page ad.

“Defendant Trump’s conduct at the September 10 debate was extreme and outrageous, and it was intended to cause severe emotional distress to Plaintiffs,” the lawsuit stated.

Trump’s attorneys have not yet entered an appearance on the court docket as of Monday morning. 

“This is just another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists,” a Trump campaign spokesperson said in response to an inquiry about the lawsuit.

According to the court filing, one of the Central Park Five members, Salaam, was actually present at the debate and sought to confront Trump over his statements in the spin room afterward.

Salaam says he repeatedly shouted questions to Trump, saying, “Will you apologize to the Exonerated Five?” and, “Sir, what do you say to a member of the Central Park Five, sir?”

Trump reportedly responded to him at one point, “Ah, you’re on my side then,” to which Salaam responded, “No, no, no, I’m not on your side.”

“Plaintiff Salaam was attempting to politely dialogue with Defendant Trump about the false and defamatory statements that Defendant Trump had made about Plaintiffs less than an hour earlier, but Defendant Trump refused to engage with him in dialogue,” the lawsuit stated.

The five men’s convictions were vacated in 2002 and Wise, who was still in prison at the time, was released early. The group sued New York City in 2003 and after a decadelong standstill, the lawsuit was settled for $41 million. The city did not admit to any misconduct by its police department or prosecutors.

Salaam was elected to the New York City Council last year, representing northern Manhattan, including Harlem, East Harlem, parts of the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights.

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