Archives 2016

President Barack Obama is set to visit the city of Flint, MI, this week. The reason for the visit stems from a letter written by 8-year-old Amariyanna Copeny, a resident of the city also known as Mari or “Little Miss Flint.”

Mari, a victim of the water crisis still plaguing the city today, wrote to the President to simply ask to meet with him and the First Lady. She was not expecting to get a reply from either them.

“My mom said chances are you will be too busy with more important things but there is a lot of people coming on these buses and even just a meeting from you or your wife would really lift peoples spirits,” Mari wrote to the president.

The city’s water crisis has just recently passed the two-year mark since the state made the decision to change Flint’s water source, resulting in numerous contaminants integrating into the water system, with lead being chief among them.

Lead exposure in children six years or younger can have harmful, lasting effects. In fact, exposure to lead makes up 600,000 of new cases of intellectual disabilities in children each year.

The exchange between the President and Mari sheds light on the crisis in Flint in a way not yet portrayed by the media. It focuses on the effects on the real future of Flint: its children.

Most media outlets have been producing stories detailing the mistakes the Michigan government made, but very few have focused on the effects of the crisis on children and their future development.

While politicians have been busy calling each other out for what they have and have not done, one little girl has managed to shift the discussion to shed light on the big picture. Not only has she gotten the attention of the media but the Commander-in-Chief himself.

When it comes to home buying, there is an app for that, but unfortunately for Millennials, it isn’t — for once — catered to them.

Ellie Mae, the software company that processes about a quarter of U.S. mortgage applications, has just released its “Ellie Mae Millennial Tracker,” which will track Millennial loan trends in the United States.

The tool will refresh its data during the first week of every month in order to provide demographic data about the new generation of home-buyers to mortgage lenders.

Joe Tyrell, Ellie Mae’s executive vice president of corporate strategy, said that “Our new Ellie Mae Millennial Tracker gives mortgage lenders perspective into the next generation of home-buyers in order to better serve them, and ultimately help make their home-ownership dreams a reality.”

So far, March data from the Millennial Tracker, which takes data of Americans aged 18 to 35, showed women as the primary borrower on 31% of closed loans. Ladies also had an average of 724 for their FICO score. Men were listed as the primary borrower on 66% of closed loans.

Indeed, with more and more Millennials entering the housing market, the name of the game is bound to change. As Tyrell said, “There are roughly 87 million would-be home buyers in the millennial generation and 91% of them say they intend to own a home one day. Lenders must prepare today to meet their needs.”

Those new home buyers have several obstacles to overcome across the board when it comes to taking out home loans, and one of the greatest is credit.

Millennials have come of age in an almost “post-apocalyptic housing market,” where lenders are still paying untold amounts in reparations after the housing bubble burst in 2008. Many lenders require a 680 minimum credit score, which can be hard for young people who have just started to build credit and may have student loans.

Unfortunately, many Millennials, who were only kids during the crisis, must pay the price in the form of higher credit score requirements. Also, most Millennials are taking out FHA loans, which tend to run high mortgage insurance premiums.

Mortgage rates are at historic lows right now, but many home prices are rising faster than incomes. FHA loans are attractive to young buyers because they allow just a 3.5% down payment.

It looks like there is a new iceberg in town. Inside, one can find mock gale force winds swirling sea salt spray through the Detroit Zoo’s new penguin exhibit.

Finally open to the public this week, the Polk Penguin Conservation Center is a stunning display that is leaving both penguins and visitors happy.

More than 80 penguins of all shapes and sizes have moved into their spacious new digs within the past few weeks. They inhabit a place that has all the watery chills and thrills of their native Antarctica, without the risk of dangerous predators, and it’s safe to say they’re enjoying it.

The zoo’s spokeswoman Patricia Janeway tells the Detroit Free Press, “Ever since they got here, it’s like they’re jumping for joy. They’re porpoising like crazy – leaping out of the water, then arcing back in — and they’re behaving exactly like we hoped they would.”

The Gentoo, Macaroni, Rockhopper, and King penguins are content in a habitat kept at 37 degrees Fahrenheit with the water at 40 degrees. Visitors watch from galleries kept at a balmier temperature.

The exterior of the building represents a tabular iceberg, with a 25-foot waterfall meant to stimulate melting ice and a crevasse where the berg is beginning to break apart.

Once inside the lobby, excited visitors immediately see a broad topside view of penguins huddling on rocks then descend walkways to view them from under and beside.

There are even blasts of saltwater spray to provide a true penguin sensory experience.

To prevent curious kids from playing with the penguins, the zoo installed high glass walls so kids can see, but not touch. This helps cautious parents feel at ease, as one in every five drowning deaths is a child 14 years or younger.

Even before its official opening, this new penguin center received praise from around the country for its educational mission of expanding the zoo’s offerings to do more than just show the animals.

A new report from Trulia counts down the 10 U.S. cities losing Millennials because of impossible-to-afford rents and home prices. While young people and college graduates have been flooding into urban settings like Austin, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago for a decade now, many believe that trend is finally reversing.

With wages flat, young people simply can’t afford to pay $1,500 per month in rent, nor put up a down payment of $20,000.

There aren’t many surprises on the Millennial Migration list; most of the cities seen recently in headlines about sky-high living costs make an appearance. Trulia data scientist Mark Uh analyzed three primary metrics: the percentage of homeowners who are Millennials, the share of households moving away that are Millennials, and the moving rate for young people relative to the average moving rate.

San Francisco was number 10 on the list of cities losing young people because of too-expensive home prices. San Francisco has always been an attractive city for young people, and today Millennials head 27.4% of households in the city. Yet young people make up more than half of the people moving away at 52.3%, and the city’s Millennial population had a move-away rate 91.1% above the average.

Washington, D.C., was sixth on the list with a move-away rate 102.7% above the norm, while New York City had a move-away rate of 106.4%.

While owning a home was once part of the American Dream, the Great Recession has changed many people’s opinions on homeownership for good. Today, homeowners can expect to pay 5% of their home’s value on even simple projects like a kitchen remodel, which can average $17,000 to $37,000. Similarly, in an era of record college loan debt, it’s becoming harder for many young people to justify buying a home in the first place.

LifeHacker recently tackled the rent-versus-mortgage debate and concluded the entire argument is absurd.

“Even as a homeowner, I still think renting is underrated,” wrote LifeHacker’s Kristin Wong. “That doesn’t mean buying is a bad decision. The rent vs. buy debate is just silly overall. It ignores the enormous grey area that exists between the two options.”

Wong argues that neither renting nor homeownership is a positive or negative financial decision on its own, but ultimately depends on an individual’s lot in life. While that may seem obvious, that hasn’t stopped the online content industry from flooding the Web with think pieces like “Why Homeownership is Evil” or “Renting is the Smartest Decision You’ll Make This Year.”

Even though home prices are on the rise at the moment, in the wake of the housing bubble, many economic advisors no longer think that buying a home is a prudent investment.

Wong added, “Experts agree that buying is a bad investment, but the problem is, many misinterpret this to mean buying a home is a bad idea in general. Just because your home isn’t a great investment doesn’t necessarily make it a bad purchase.”

Visit Trulia to see the rest of the list.

At the end of April, a number of popular blogs posted a link to a disturbing workplace safety video from the 1990s.

Most workplace safety videos are cheesy and dull, more likely to induce yawns or eyerolls than anything else. That’s exactly what the United Safety Council was afraid of when the produced “Will You Be Here Tomorrow?”, a workplace safety video that’s genuinely terrifying. According to the official synopsis, “This eye-opening meeting opener will capture your employees’ attention and show them just how easily accidents can happen.”

While the graphic ’90s-era special effects and over-the-top acting might seem outdated today, the video is still on sale in the Accident Prevention section of the United Safety Council catalogue. According to the official description, this four-minute video was produced in 1994.

Gawker Media’s popular technology vertical Gizmodo picked up the story, describing it like this, “Neither Freddy Krueger nor Jason were ever as scary as the apparent horrors lurking in the average factory.”

The video is available on YouTube (Warning: Rated NSFW for Gore and Bloody Depictions of Workplace Accidents).

Yet while many Internet culture blogs have been having a laugh at the bloody video, it’s really no laughing matter. Workplace safety remains a top issue for many unions across the country, as well as the domestic oil and gas industry.

The video features a diverse group of workers having their limbs torn off by lathes, being impaled on spikes, being crushed to death under forklifts and inside balers, and more gruesome scenarios than should be possible to fit into a four-minute training video.

While the National Safety Council reports that overexertion and slip-and-fall accidents are the most common type of workplace injuries, anyone who works with heavy equipment faces serious health risks. Falling from heights, being struck by falling objects, and machine entanglement are all some of the most common workplace injuries.

And often, injured workers are the lucky ones. A recent study from the Ohio Safety and Health Administration found that 20.2% of workplace fatalities occurred in construction-related accidents — that’s one in five workplace deaths.

Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 and received a great deal of criticism because of it. Critics felt that the $1 billion purchase was poorly informed, considering the photo sharing social platform was producing zero revenue from its user base at the time. During that time, Facebook wasn’t doing so hot either, with their trading at an all-time-low.

But since then, Facebook has made a tremendous comeback and Instagram is undoubtedly part of this upswing. Over the course of the past year, the company’s shares have risen nearly 33%.

Recently, Instagram’s algorithm changed, making its timeline switch from reverse-chronological to an algorithm-based feed that shows users content based on interaction history and photo popularity. This change takes a page out of Facebook’s book, as the social media giant underwent this change already, resulting in increased engagement and user growth.

And in a recent blog post by Instagram, the company pointed out that the average Instagram user misses 70% of their feeds; considering that 880 billion photos were taken in 2014 alone, many of which were uploaded to social media, this comes as no surprise. That being said, the new system results in a better, more well-curated experience.

But not everyone felt as hunky dory about the algorithm changes, as the changes will likely come at the expense of brands that use the photo sharing tool. Eat24, for example, deleted its Facebook page in protest of the Instagram changes and wrote a “break-up letter” to Facebook, accusing them of intentionally limiting the company’s ability to reach audience members organically and instead asked them to pay for promoted posts.

Regardless of whether or not brands are getting the short end of the stick, the algorithm-based timeline will encourage more ad spending from brands. And this kind of thinking has worked in Facebook’s favor in the past, as increased engagement and ad spending helped the company grow 44% in the last fiscal year.

If you are one of the 90% of Americans who regularly eats ice cream, then you most likely are familiar with the ice cream brand Ben and Jerry’s.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, co-founders of Ben and Jerry’s, were two of the roughly 300 protesters arrested in Washington D.C at a protest demonstrating about money in politics.

They were a part of the group Democracy Awakening, which is an organization that represents labor, peace, environmental, student, racial justice, civil rights, and money in politics reform movements.

Reported on NPR and released on their website, Ben and Jerry expressed in a statement that money in politics is an issue they deeply care about.

The company explains its stance: “At Ben and Jerry’s, we love dough so much, we invented Cookie Dough ice cream. But dough doesn’t mix well with democracy. In fact, there’s so much big money flooding into our elections in the United States that the voice of regular folks is being drowned out.”

The pair believes it is time to get money out of politics and that presidential nominee Bernie Sanders is the right person for the job.

They urge their customers to join a movement of citizens working to diminish the role of money in the political process.

The U.S Capital Police in Washington, D.C., charged Cohen and Greenfield with unlawful demonstration activity, then processed and released them on the scene.

This is not the first time these two have spoken out on political issues.

However, this presidential election is the first where they have personally made an ice cream flavor to help a candidate get elected. “Bernie’s Yearning” is a plain mint ice cream beneath a solid layer of chocolate on top.

Craft farmers, small batch, sustainability: these are the taglines for the world’s first major ad campaign for a cannabis brand.

Flow Kana, a San Francisco based brand that only sources sustainability grown, small batch boutique marijuana strands from independent farmers is behind this campaign in pot-friendly California.

Flow Kana is launching their ambitious campaign with the hopes of appealing to many different types of consumers who favor sustainable food. And their ad campaign to reach those consumers is just as diverse as the customers themselves. Considering that an estimated 71% of people look at the messages on billboards, the company expects to generate more than 15 million impressions with ads on bus exteriors and interiors, as well as advertisements at bus stations and on billboards.

Founder and CEO Michael Steinmetz seeks to bring awareness to the tens of thousands of Californian people, families, and collectives who comprise the state’s cannabis industry, which has up until recently only been run by small farmers and individual entrepreneurs.

With the possibility of legalization looming on the horizon, Steinmetz worries the value of the industry is in danger of being crushed by large corporations that bring a cheaper method of production to the table.

These methods have the potential to pose a threat to our environment and health.

Called “The California Way,” the marketing approach is a progressive step in the evolution of cannabis advertising. 

“The media partners that we have been working with have been happy to share this message that goes beyond ‘Hey, come celebrate 4/20 and get high,'” Steinmetz reports to Campaign US.

Their first marketing step is to relate to the wine industry’s approach, where there is a lot of emphasis placed on the product’s origin and appellation. Each cannabis product Flow Kana offers comes packed in a mason jar with brown paper tags attached with twine; the tags list the names and locations of the farmers who grew the buds.

This campaign is set to last for four weeks, but if it proves successful, Flow Kana will plan for a long term branding endeavor. 

In last night’s Democratic debate, the candidates inevitably clashed over something. This time, it was over one particularly hot topic: gun control.

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, when prompted to speak about her previous insinuation that guns from Vermont are responsible for gun violence in New York, started attacking Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders over his past votes against some gun control measures.

When asked if she was suggesting that Vermont (and therefore Sanders) was directly responsible for gun violence in New York, she said, “No, of course not — of course not. This is a serious difference between us and I want to start by saying — it’s not a laughing matter.”

Clinton highlighted Sander’s vote against a federal assault weapons ban and in favor of immunity for gun manufacturers.

“We need a president who will fight for common-sense gun safety reforms and what we have here is a big difference. Sen. Sanders voted against the Brady Bill five time,” Clinton said. “He voted for the most important NRA priority, namely, giving immunity from liability to gun makers and dealer — something that is the root of a lot of the problems we are facing.”

In the light of the past several years of an unprecedented amount of violent school shootings, from Sandy Hook to Virginia Tech, casting Sanders in such a light is a serious implication, indeed. Since 32% of adults own a gun, the debate is much more nuanced than it at first appears, even for Democrats for whom liberal policy is the forefront of their campaigns.

Sanders quickly countered that, “Back in 1988, I ran for the United States Congress’ one seat in the state of Vermont, I probably lost that election, which I lost by three points, because I was the only candidate running who said you know what, we should ban assault weapons, not see them sold and distributed in the United States of America.”

Sanders continued to note that he had a D-minus voting record from the NRA, and to assert that his being from a state which has basically no gun control makes him the best candidate to hand a consensus about gun control.

Clinton said that although Sanders may once have been against assault weapons, he had been a reliable supporter of the NRA ever since. When moderator Wolf Blizter asked Sanders if he felt he owed an apology to the families of the Sandy Hook massacre, he said no, and tried to clarify why he had supported legislation granting immunity to gun manufacturers.

“Now, I voted against this gun liability law because I was concerned that in rural areas all over this country, if a gun shop owner sells a weapon legally to somebody, and that person then goes out and kills somebody, I don’t believe it is appropriate that that gun shop owner be held accountable and sued,” said Sanders.

Planning your dream wedding isn’t easy. Ask any recent bride and they’ll tell you that the process is both stressful and overwhelming. But reality star turned author/lifestyle guru Lauren Conrad recently managed to stave off the marriage planning madness when she planned her own wedding. As it turns out, Conrad is so skilled at organizing soirees that she recently released her new book, Celebrate, that shares all of her party planning tricks — from weddings to dinner parties.

In a recent interview with Teen Vogue, Conrad revealed that this was her ninth book published. Over the years, she has published a number of different kinds of books, from novels to how-to guides. However, this book was especially fun for Conrad to write, as it was part of her daily life.

“This party-planning guide has felt so natural because there’s so much in my life to celebrate right now,” said Conrad.

She continues: “With this book, I was able to compile all of the basics, so that the process becomes less complicated and everyone can focus on what they’re there to celebrate — and on having fun.”

Want to emulate Conrad’s stress-free wedding planning process? Here are three of her best tips:

1. Inspiration is all around you.
   While 93% of brides use the internet to plan their weddings, Conrad recommends going beyond that. She writes:

   “The thing about a wedding is that it should really represent the couple that are getting married. I think it’s really fun to go to a wedding that’s a little different, so when you’re trying to come up with ideas it should be a combination of things that you’ve seen and that you’ve liked. Even when you’re attending other parties and weddings and you say ‘oh I really like how they did this’ — take notes as you go along.”

2. Start planning with a timeline.
   Planning a wedding is stressful. But when broken down into checklist-sized chunks, it is way more manageable:

   “I was fortunate enough to have a wedding planner so she was really the one to keep me on schedule, but I would recommend for anyone planning a wedding to put together a calendar. I included one in my book, but it’s basically a check list of things you want to have done each month before the wedding, so that you can stay on track and you’re not running around at the last minute trying to get things done.”

3. Try on as many dresses as possible.
   There’s no better time to look for a dress than right now!

   “One of the best parts of wedding planning is going to try on the wedding dresses, and you’ve got to be sure to give yourself enough time. So don’t be afraid to start looking right away. I think it’s important to try lots of different styles — for me personally, I always imagined my wedding dress being a ball of tulle, but then I went and tried on some similar styles and it looked ridiculous. So have fun with it, don’t put too much pressure on it, and even if it is different from what you imagined, that’s okay, it’s just whatever you feel comfortable in.”