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Los Angeles Times
David Lazarus is a consumer columnist for the Los Angeles Times and KTLA, Channel 5.
PROFILE
David Lazarus
Guest
FROM David Lazarus
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
As more Facebook revelations emerge, will users stop sharing? We learned this week that 87 million users might have had their data compromised in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The original estimate was 50 million. Facebook also secretly deleted Mark Zuckerberg's chats on Messenger, and it requested patient data from hospitals. What does all this mean for our lives on social media?
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Stock market screams red The Dow fell more than 1000 points and is down more than 10 percent from its high in January. What’s driving the sell-off? Should you sell stocks and buy bonds? Gold? Is it better to just put your fingers in your ears and sing, “la-la-la-la my retirement savings are fine.”
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
What has the CFPB accomplished? The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created after the 2008 financial crisis as a way to keep lenders, banks, and other businesses in check. Over the past six years, it’s aimed to make sure consumers are treated fairly when it comes to credit cards, student loans, payday loans and mortgages.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Who owns your personal info online? A Pasadena internet company offers an easy way to find phone numbers, social media accounts and addresses for pretty much everyone. But what if that information is wrong? Do you have a right to have your information taken down?
To the Point
Will airline service ever be great again? The "back of the bus" has turned into the back of the plane — with discrimination based on class, social status… and money. When airlines sell more seats than a plane will hold, they're allowed to force one paid passenger to give up a seat to another. Video of a doctor dragged screaming down the aisle or United Airlines plane is evidence of an increasingly common practice. And First Class isn't immune. With just four main carriers left because of consolidation, passenger service is a casualty of the drive for profit and America's increased wealth inequality.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Why internet speeds are so slow in LA It’s not your imagination that internet speeds are slow, despite companies advertising fast speeds. In New York State, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is suing Charter Communications - the company that owns Spectrum - formerly Time Warner Cable. Spectrum is also the biggest cable provider in southern California.
Which Way, L.A.?
Food Truck Safety: Public Health Problem or False Alarm? Gourmet food trucks are the toast of neighborhoods all over Los Angeles, from Venice to downtown's Grand Park. But only 60% have those signs with letter grades from food inspectors, and the ones that do may not have received them recently. LA Times consumer columnist David Lazarus followed up on a complaint from a reader who said she and her husband got sick after heating hot dogs from a cart in West LA.
Which Way, L.A.?
Public Transportation in a Time of Budget Cuts Los Angeles Times business columnist David Lazarus doesn't ride public transit to work every day but, in today's paper, he wrote that he would — if it were more "user-friendly." After a week of trying it while his car was in the shop, he says, "it's almost as if dozens of entities" in the regional network "are conspiring to make the system as unwelcoming as possible."
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Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Accusations of lying fly between James Comey and White House During his testimony Thursday, former FBI Director James Comey accused President Trump and other White House officials of lying when they said the FBI was in disarray and its staff had lost confidence in him. President Trump’s lawyer said Comey was wrong -- that the president never asked for his loyalty, and never asked him to back off the investigation into former NSA director Michael Flynn.