Free Urdu English Islamic, IT, Urdu Story , Ebooks Library | PDF Docx Format | Learn Online

Tom Price, the physician-turned-congressman who recently became Donald Trump’s first Health and Human Services Secretary, has officially resigned in the middle of a scandal involving Price’s apparent overuse of private jets for government — and possibly personal — travel. In his official resignation letter [ PDF ], Secretary Price tells President Trump that he is resigning to allow the administration to focus on something other than claims that Price abused his authority at the expense of taxpayers. “I regret that the recent events have created a distraction,” writes Price. Politico was first to report that Price had chartered private planes on at least 26 occasions for official government business, even though there were significantly less expensive commercial options available for these non-emergency trips. The timing of some trips left open the question of whether Price was using taxpayer money to fund personal visits. Following these revelations, Price apologized to the Preside...

A year after thousands of Wells Fargo employees were accused of opening unauthorized accounts in customers’ name in order to make sales goals, one bank teller has pleaded guilty to also opening an account without authorization, this time, in order to steal more than $185,000 from one customer. The 29-year-old former Wells Fargo bank teller pleaded guilty [ PDF ] this week to a federal felony count of transporting stolen property. According to court documents [ PDF ], over three years, the man — who worked at a Wells Fargo branch in D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood — stole thousands of dollars from a customer identified as a homeless street vendor and used the funds to buy a home, go on vacation, and pay off other debts. The scheme began in Oct. 2014 when a customer entered the Wells Fargo branch wanting to deposit “thousands of dollars of cash” that he was carrying in garbage bags. It’s unclear how or why the customer had so much money on hand. Surprised by the amount of ca...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce may sound like a government agency or a quaint organization of helpful business leaders, but it is, in fact, the single largest lobbying organization in the country, spending nearly $104 billion last year alone on lobbying , about $40 billion more than any other group. The Chamber also thinks the U.S. Constitution is mistaken, that the Sixth and Seventh Amendments don’t apply to consumers; that the mere fact you are a customer should strip you of your constitutional right to sue banks like Wells Fargo or credit bureaus like Equifax when they open millions of bogus accounts in customers’ names or fail to protect sensitive information for more than 100 million people. And how does the Chamber of Commerce plan to stop the American people from being able to bring lawsuits? By doing the one thing it doesn’t want you to be able to do. The Chamber of Commerce — along with dozens of others including the American Bankers Association, and the Financial Services Rou...

Walmart already has a slew of house brands that it sells in stores and on Walmart.com, but rather than try to sell brands like Great Value or Sam’s Choice through its recently acquired Jet.com , the company is coming up with new house brands specifically for Jet that it hopes will appeal to a younger buyer. Walmart’s Jet.com will soon launch a house brand, dubbed “Uniquely J,” in the next few months with the aim of attracting more millennial customers. House brands — like Walmart’s own Great Value or Whole Foods’ 365 — typically offer customers similar products to name-brand items at a lower price. Targeting Millennials A rep for the company tells Consumerist that the brand, which will debut in the “coming months,” is designed for “metro millennials.” While it’s unclear how the company is targeting millennials with products like soap, olive oil, paper towels, and household items, the rep says that Uniquely J will focus on quality and design of products. For instance, the product...

When Apple introduced the iPhone X’s new “Face ID” feature — which scans a user’s face to unlock the phone — the company said it had considered the “Evil Twin” scenario . And now, it’s admitting that if you have a twin — or an alternate reality doppelgänger– he or she could totally break into your phone. In its Face ID Security Guide [ PDF ], Apple notes that the probability of a random person successfully unlocking your phone is about 1 in 1,000,000 — compared to versus 1 in 50,000 for Touch ID. However, the likelihood of a false match is different for twins, as well as siblings who may look like you. And in case there are any kids out there running around with the $1,000 phones, you should be warned that False ID may provide false matches for children under the age of 13, “because their distinct facial features may not have fully developed,” Apple explains. There are two solutions. First, don’t use Face ID and just lock your overpriced iPhone X with a passcode. Or … buy a differe...

Despite announcing the product in January, toy giant Mattel has still not released the always-on, always-listening Aristotle kid monitor that has already raised red flags among privacy advocates . Now, a bipartisan pair of U.S. legislators are asking Mattel to address what they see as serious concerns about this connected-home device that is intended to track info about your kid from birth through adolescence. In a letter [ PDF ] sent this week by Sen. Ed Markey (MA), and Rep. Joe Barton (TX) to Mattel CEO Margaret Giorgiadis, the lawmakers say they have “serious privacy concerns” about Aristotle’s ability to build an “in-depth profile of children and their family.” Aristotle isn’t just a web-connected video camera or audio monitor. According to marketing materials for the device, it will be able to track things like kids’ feeding and sleeping patterns. As they get older, it would be able to answer users’ questions, much like other digital assistants such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Al...

Earlier this week, Google pulled YouTube from Amazon’s Echo Show , claiming that the device provides a “broken user experience.” Perhaps it’s no coincidence that there are now rumors swirling that Google is working on its own smart screen device. TechCrunch cites multiple sources who say Google is developing a tabletop smart screen that could make video calls, and would have a similar sized screen to the 7-inch Echo Show. Along with video calls, the devices would also offer YouTube, Google Assistant, and Google Photos, and could act as a smart hub for other home devices like the Nest. These insiders tell TechCrunch that the original released date has been moved up from mid-2018 to earlier in the year or even late 2017, partly amid pressure to compete with Amazon. As for what it will cost, there’s no word. We’ve reached out to Google for comment on TechCrunch’s story and will update this post if we receive a response. by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Even though CarMax, the nation’s largest seller of used cars, has been called out publicly by safety advocates and federal regulators, a new report claims that more than 1-in-4 vehicles being sold by CarMax is currently under an open safety recall. The Center for Auto Safety, along with Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety (CARS) Foundation and the MASSPIRG Education Fund, recently released a report [ PDF ] finding that 27% of vehicles for sale at eight CarMax locations contained unrepaired safety defects. The report — based on a survey of 1,699 vehicles that CarMax advertised for sale at eight locations in Northern and Southern California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut — found that more than one-in-four — or 461 — vehicles had open safety recalls. The figure represents a 15% increase since the groups performed their last survey in 2015. At that time, the report looked at five CarMax dealerships, finding that 12% of the vehicles had open recalls. Not Making Changes Despit...

Although they say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, patrons of one Pennsylvania Applebee’s would beg to differ, thanks to the generosity of a mystery couple that’s been paying the tab for strangers at least a few times a month. According to KDKA , these unnamed benefactors — a husband and wife — sit at the bar of the Pittsburgh-area restaurant three or four times a week, and have picked up the bill for several people over the last few months. RELATED: Mystery Diner Pays $485 Lunch Bill For Students With Autism & Their Teachers One restaurant patron said the anonymous patrons paid for her entire party of 16 people, bringing tears to everyone’s eyes. “I was almost in tears,” the server who worked at that table told KDKA. “It touches me, too.” She says she knows who paid the bill, but that he wants to remain anonymous. Another woman said the tab for her group of six people was taken care of a few months ago, inspiring her to start paying it forward as well. RELATED: Strang...

In the wake of the still-lingering Dieselgate scandal, which has cost Volkswagen billions of dollars and left a smog-colored stain on its reputation, the carmarker is hoping to turn schadenfreude into fahrvergnügen* by having a warranty on many of its new vehicles that lasts twice as long as the standard warranty you’d find on most cars in the U.S. VW had previously announced that the upcoming 2018 Atlas and Tiquan vehicles would get the 6-year/72,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, but today the company said that several additional 2018 VW models will also come with this extended coverage. According to the company, the following will now all be covered by the longer warranty: Beetle, Beetle Convertible, Golf, Golf Alltrack, Golf GTI, Golf R, Golf SportWagen, Jetta, and Passat. Because not everyone owns a car for six years before reselling it, Volkswagen is making this warranty transferrable. So if you sell your 2018 Beetle in 2022, the new owner still has about two years (or whatev...

In certain markets, Uber will charge a “surge” rate during busy times that is in excess of what a passenger normally pays for a ride. But one Chicago Uber customer says she had no idea she’d be charged $925, nearly eight times the standard rate, for her lengthy trip. The customer tells Chicago’s ABC-7 that she is relatively new to using Uber, and didn’t realize that the 100-mile ride she took to get home after a concert was being charged at a sky-high surge rate. “I think it’s absolutely crazy and ridiculous,” she told ABC-7. “That’s like a house payment.” While it was a long ride — with an added stop at O’Hare airport — that journey would’ve normally cost just $117 without surge prices in place. She says she contacted Uber through the app, but the situation wasn’t resolved until the news station contacted Uber. Uber called the situation a “perfect storm” that was partly the result of the woman changing her destination and added the airport stop after her car arrived. “We have ...

In the last month a number of cruise lines have either canceled or rerouted trips  after a string of hurricanes raged through the Caribbean. While the storms have passed and many companies have once again set sail, Royal Caribbean canceled yet another trip this week. This time, however, the change of plans was intended to help bring much-needed relief to the millions of Americans in Puerto Rico whose lives have been turned upside-down by Hurricane Maria. Royal Caribbean announced this week that it had canceled a  Sept. 30  Adventure of the Seas trip in order to use the ship for evacuation and humanitarian efforts. The ship was scheduled to arrive Wednesday in San Juan, Puerto Rico to evacuate residents and drop off supplies. It then headed to St. Thomas and St. Croix with the same mission. Royal Caribbean says it will bring the evacuees to Fort Lauderdale before making a return trip to San Juan on Oct. 6. “We are very sorry for the impact this sto...

In words that will most surely never come back to haunt him, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker boldly declared this week that the U.S. airline industry is in such a solid place right now that he doesn’t see how it could ever end up in the red. “I don’t think we’re ever going to lose money again,” Parker told investors at a media and investor day in Texas on Thursday. “I’ve said this for a long time; I believe it. We have an industry that’s gonna be profitable in good and bad times. We have an airline that’s going to be profitable in good and bad times.” There are four remaining major airlines — American, United, Delta, and Southwest — that account for the vast majority of air travel in the U.S. Yet, all of these carriers, except for Southwest, have gone bankrupt at some point in the last 15 years, with American’s 2011 bankruptcy filing being the most recent . Even these carriers’ biggest merger partners — U.S. Airways, Continental, Northwest — had all had to file for Chapter 11 pro...

Right now, the quickest way to get from, say, New York to Siberia involves at least a few plane tickets and a lot of layovers. But if Elon Musk has his way, travelers won’t have to rely on airlines to get them to the other side of the world — they can just hop on a rocket ship and be there in the same time it takes to get a pizza delivered. Speaking at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, Musk revealed his plan for a rocket ship dubbed “BFR” that he says could fly travelers anywhere in the world in under an hour. By all appearances, at 30 feet in diameter, this would be a big frickin’ rocket, indeed — check out that tiny person standing underneath it: The way Musk sees it, if SpaceX — the aerospace company he founded — is going to colonize Mars , and make us a “multiplanet species,” they might as well improve life on this planet, too. “If we are going to places like Mars, why not Earth?” Musk asked while onstage, saying that if BFR is a success, tr...

Many toymakers say they won’t let Toys ‘R’ Us die after filing for bankruptcy , noting that doing so would be bad for their own businesses. After all, the chain is typically their biggest client. However, it appears there’s more at stake, namely, the millions of dollars the manufacturers are owed.  Now, instead of relying on Toys ‘R’ Us to make sales and pad their bottom lines, many toymakers are bracing to take a hit as a result of the debt-strapped retailer’s bankruptcy. The Washington Post reports that there is a “widespread panic” making its way through the toy companies that supply products to Toys ‘R’ Us, as many believe they won’t be able to recoup the millions of dollars they’re owed by the chain. A Lot Of Debt When Toys ‘R’ Us filed for bankruptcy [ PDF ] earlier this month, the company noted that it owed more than $7.5 million in debt to more than 100,000 creditors. Many of those creditors happen to be toymakers, both large and small ventures. For instance, the se...

Have you eaten at or enjoyed an adult beverage at Whole Foods this year? If you paid with a credit card, your information might have been leaked. Whole Foods is investigating a possible credit card breach at some of its stores.  Whole Foods revealed Thursday that it had recently “received information regarding unauthorized access of payment card information.” The company says that the possible breach is centered on its taprooms and full table-service restaurants located inside some stores. While Whole Foods did not specify how many customers were affected by the breach or how long the hack lasted, Consumerist has reached out to the company for additional information. We’ll update this post if we hear back. Whole Foods notes that customers who purchased groceries from the company are not at risk, as its primary store checkout systems use a different point of sale system. “When Whole Foods Market learned of this, the company launched an investigation, obtained the help of a lea...

When it comes to catching sight of a national landmark, it can get pretty crowded on the ground. But starting next week, you won’t be able to use a drone to get a better view of 10 famous spots in the U.S. The Federal Aviation Administration says it’s agreed to restrict drone flights up to 400 feet within the lateral boundaries of 10 Department of the Interior sites, starting Oct. 5. Sites on the no-fly-over lis t: • Statue of Liberty National Monument, New York, NY • Boston National Historical Park (U.S.S. Constitution), Boston, MA • Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, PA • Folsom Dam; Folsom, CA • Glen Canyon Dam; Lake Powell, AZ • Grand Coulee Dam; Grand Coulee, WA • Hoover Dam; Boulder City, NV • Jefferson National Expansion Memorial; St. Louis, MO • Mount Rushmore National Memorial; Keystone, SD • Shasta Dam; Shasta Lake, CA Other sites could be added to the list, as the FAA says it’s considering additional request from other federal agencies. There...

Imagine a world where humans are not only vessels for advertising multibillion-dollar global fast food chains, but where we’re expected to pay for that privilege. If that sounds good to you, then Taco Bell and Forever21 have some clothes they want you to buy. Starting  Oct. 11 , anyone who ever dreamed of giving over their personal identity to prance around in a top that looks like a Taco Bell hot sauce packet, can do so, thanks to the Forever21 x Taco Bell collection. The advertising apparel (adverpparel?) features all various Taco Bell items splashed across sweatshirts, bodysuits, and T-shirts. For example, you could score a pink pullover sweatshirt with the “Live Mas” logo on the chest, because you apparently don’t like yourself very much and want the world to know it. If you feel compelled to dress up like a condiment package on days that aren’t Halloween, there’s the Fire Sauce tank top. Taco Bell, which for some reason refers to itself as “the fast fashion of food,” sa...

DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket is such a massive money-maker for the satellite company that its exclusive arrangement with the NFL for this package was a make-or-break aspect of AT&T’s decision to acquire DirecTV . Yet some reports claim that DirecTV is willing to let subscribers part with this pricey package, which costs around $300 per year, if they simply say they are upset over some NFL players kneeling or locking arms during the “Star-Spangled Banner.” The Wall Street Journal was the first major source to report this week that some DirecTV customers were able to get out of their Sunday Ticket obligations after telling DTV customer service reps they no longer wanted to support the NFL. DirecTV has been notoriously stingy about letting customers out of Sunday Ticket agreements in the past, and the company’s policy for the service effectively locks the subscriber in once the season has begun. AT&T makes at least $1.5 billion a year just from Sunday Ticket, so why is it doing ...

Is coffee your best friend? If so, Friday is your big moment: Sept. 29 is National Coffee Day, which means a slew of caffeine slingers are offering up discounts in celebration — and we can tell you how to score these deals. As always, some deals might not be offered at your local restaurant or chain, so call ahead if you want to avoid abject disappointment. Dunkin’ Donuts : Customers can buy one hot signature coffee, get a second one for free (medium, large, or extra-large). The chain and its franchisees will also donate 14 tons of coffee to the American Red Cross. Krispy Kreme : Starting Sept. 29 and through Oct. 1, Krispy Kreme customers can get a free drink — any size Krispy Kreme signature hot brewed blends or a small Krispy Kreme premium iced coffee. McDonald’s : The fast food chain is offering any small McCafe for $2. Peet’s : Shoppers can get 25% off fresh beans and a free cup of coffee with bean purchase. Cinnabon : Get a free 12-oz coffee all day on Sept. 29. Pilot...

Planning to get a workout in this afternoon? You might want to rethink using those stretchy resistance bands: More than 207,000 pieces of the workout equipment sold at Dick’s Sporting Goods have been recalled as they pose an injury risk.  Dick’s Sporting Goods announced this week the recall of 207,500 Fitness Gear resistance tubes after receiving several reports that the bands broke while in use and injured users. According to a notice posted with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the bands — which are used as upper and lower body workout equipment — can break while in use and strike the user, posing an injury hazard. So far, Dick’s says it has received 12 reports of the tubes breaking, resulting in two incidents in which customers were struck by a broken tube. One customer reported falling when the tube broke. The affected resistance tubes — which come in blue, gray, green, orange, purple, and red with grey handles — range in resistance from five pounds to 30-pounds an...

If you want to break up with your significant other, just spend an afternoon at IKEA, where all your previous petty disagreements will be awkwardly resurrected amid the snaking displays of furniture that neither of you really want but are better than living on milk crates. Thankfully, IKEA just purchased TaskRabbit, the company that will allow you to stay in your relationship by sending someone to shop at IKEA — and maybe even put your mid-priced furnishings together. IKEA Group says it’s signed a conditional agreement to buy 100% of the shares in TaskRabbit, which will be a separate subsidiary. For those unfamiliar, TaskRabbit connects customers with “Taskers” — people willing to run errands, wait in long lines, or hey — put together furniture. To that end, one of the reasons IKEA is buying TaskRabbit is to expand the kinds of services it can offer to shoppers — for example, someone could do your shopping for you, deliver it, and assemble furniture. “In a fast changing retail env...

The state of Washington and the City of Seattle filed separate lawsuits today against Purdue Pharma, maker of controversial opioid pain medication OxyContin, alleging that the drug company lied to doctors, regulators, and the public about the efficacy and safety of a drug that many place at the center of the ongoing opioid epidemic. “In 2015, opioid overdoses killed 718 Washingtonians, more than either car accidents or firearms,” reads the complaint [ PDF ] filed today by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson. “These deaths are attributable to a flood of prescription opioids into the state over the last two decades.” The lawsuit, which involves other Purdue-made opioids in addition to Oxy, alleges that “Purdue aggressively marketed what was essentially an uncontrolled experiment on the American public,” and that the drug company lacked “reliable evidence that opioids are effective at relieving chronic pain in the long term.” In fact, counters Ferguson, when Purdue began see...

The late-but-welcome entry of Apple into 4K video rentals is finally shaking things up in the market for this ultra-HD content. Just days after Amazon slashed its 4K prices to compete with Apple, Google is following suit. Engadget reports that Google dropped the cost of its new 4K HDR titles to just $20, a price in line with Apple and Amazon’s offerings. “We always look to offer customers competitive pricing on Google Play and have been working closely with our studio partners to do so,” a rep for Google said. The price cuts on 4K aren’t just about Apple entering the competition. Both Amazon and Apple are also pushing new streaming hardware with 4K capabilities. Amazon had included limited 4K video on its Fire TV box since last year, but this week the company redesigned the smaller 4K Fire TV so that it functions more like a dongle. Apple announced the new device earlier this month, noting it would support both 4K and HDR color, in case you have a TV that can actually display ...

I have never received as many high fives for a Halloween costume than the year a friend and I dressed as giant bananas with huge cartoon hands. But despite the ubiquity of these fruity outfits — as a simple Internet search will show you — the maker of one banana costume is accusing Kmart of dropping it as a vendor in order to sell its own alleged knockoff version. It seems pretty straightforward: A yellow banana with holes out of it for a person’s face, hands, and legs. However, Rasta Imposta claims in a lawsuit [ PDF ] filed Wednesday in a New Jersey federal court that Kmart is infringing on its 2010 “Banana Design” copyright. After selling Rasta Imposta’s banana costume every year since 2008, the complaint says Kmart told the company in late September that it had found another vendor for “that item.” “Shortly thereafter, Rasta Imposta discovered that Kmart had begun offering the infringing Totally Ghoul Banana Men’s Halloween Costume (“Totally Ghoul Costume”), which is a direct r...

A woman forcibly removed from a Southwest Airlines flight earlier this week now faces a slew of charges following the incident.  CBS News reports that the 46-year-old Maryland woman was charged Wednesday with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, obstructing, and hindering a police officer. The charges stem from an incident on Tuesday evening in which the woman was forcibly removed from the Los Angeles-bound flight after alerting crew members that she had a life-threatening pet allergy. According to reports, the woman had complained about two animals on the plane, asking crew members to remove them because of her allergy. When the crew told her they couldn’t remove the animals, the woman asked for an injection to alleviate her symptoms. However, the airline couldn’t provide her with an injection if she didn’t have a proper medical certificate, a requirement under the airline’s policies. As a result, she was asked to exit the plane. A rep for Southwest said that the crew made...

While a number of chain restaurants like Joe’s Crab Shack , Bob Evans , and  Logan’s Roadhouse have closed locations in recent years , there’s still a wealth of options for people looking to dine out or grab a quick cup of java. But that’s not necessarily a good thing.  Dunkin’ Donuts CEO Nigel Travis tells Business Insider that there are simply too many restaurants in the U.S. for all of them to be successful. “The country is probably over-restauranted,” Travis said, adding that not many categories are actually growing. More Stores, Fewer Customers Part of the problem with the restaurant industry hinges on the fact that many of the chains with a large number of stores have opened even more locations. Dunkin’ Donuts has 8,828 locations in 2016, and that’s after the company added 397 stores since 2015, according to QSR.  Since 2013, Dunkin’ has added around 1,000 stores in the U.S., in spite of this alleged over-saturation. Business Insider reports that Starbucks ...

When the last joint has been smoked, the vaporizer has run out of oil, and the Munchies Monster is demanding to be fed, where do marijuana users go to feast? According to a new study of legal cannabis consumers, McDonald’s is the most popular destination for folks with the munchies. Green Market Report and Consumer Research Around Cannabis conducted a survey in 25 U.S. markets and found that 43% of people who purchased cannabis from a legally authorized dispensary said they ate McDonald’s food in the previous four weeks. Coming in at a distant second was Taco Bell, with just 18% of those marijuana users, followed by Wendy’s (17.8%), Burger King (17.6%), Subway (8.7%), and KFC (5.5%). However, it’s worth noting that McDonald’s spot at the top of the list has a lot to do with the fact that it has more locations than the other chains: The Golden Arches has about 14,000 restaurants in the U.S., while Taco Bell has about 5,600 domestic locations. Take Our Poll “McDonald’s wins by...

As residents of Puerto Rico continue to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, much of the needed aid sent to the island has yet to make it into their hands. Instead, cargo container after cargo container — holding things like meals, first aid materials, and other items — remain at port because the system in place to move the goods has been equally devastated by the storm.  Bloomberg reports that despite efforts to ease the transport of emergency materials to the island — such as the recent 10-day waiver of the 1920 Jones Act , which limited the way shipments could be made to Puerto Rico — little in the way of aid has actually reached residents. Instead of heading to residents in need, the emergency supplies packed into thousands of cargo containers remain untouched near docks, in part because of a lack of workers to unpack them and infrastructure no longer stable enough to transport or house the goods. “There are plenty of ships and plenty of cargo to come into the islan...