On first blush, the death of the young actor Anton Yelchin, who starred in recent Star Trek movies, seemed just a freak accident, but it might be connected to a known defect in his SUV.

Yelchin’s body was found pinned between his car and a fence. His Jeep Grand Cherokee had apparently rolled into Yelchin after he exited the car.

In April, Fiat Chrysler recalled 1.1 million vehicles equipped with what is called a monostable shifter. The system has been found to be more than a bit confusing to drivers. Instead of the shift lever resting in a sort of groove after it’s pointed to, say, park or neutral, the lever springs back to a default position.

It’s easy for a driver to hop out with the car stationary and not realize it’s still in drive. 41 injuries, 212 crashes and 308 reports of property damage have been linked to the phenomenon.

Here’s how FCA addressed the problem to dealers:

“The vehicles … deliver warning chimes and alert messages if their driver-side doors are opened while their engines are still running and “PARK” is not engaged. However, investigation suggested these measures may be insufficient to deter some drivers from exiting their vehicles without selecting “PARK,” so FCA US will enhance the warnings and transmission-shift strategy on these vehicles.”

The company didn’t say exactly what those enhancements would be.

In a statement to NPR, FCA spokesman Scott Brown said, “FCA US extends its most sincere condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Yelchin. The Company is in contact with the authorities and is conducting a thorough investigation. It is premature to speculate on the cause of this tragedy.”

The company says it has informed consumers of the problem. Recall notices were sent in the mail to consumers, the news media were alerted and NPR even did stories in several newscasts about the recall. Other news organizations also covered the recall.

The question is whether this busy actor checked his mail coming from Jeep.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency that governs recalls, requires companies to inform customers by mail. Dealers complain that state privacy laws hamper them from reaching out to consumers by phone. And when car makers mail notices they use car registration rolls to get addresses. So if a driver has moved and not properly re-registered a vehicle, the recall notice may go undelivered.

Then there is the question whether consumers even pay attention.

Rebecca Lindland with Kelley Blue Book says she’s not surprised that recalls go unnoticed: “The current look and feel of a recall notice is about as friendly as an IRS letter. They tend to be verbiage heavy, quite technical and not very user-friendly.”

To give you an example, here’s how FCA described the shifter problem. “The vehicles affected by this recall are equipped with electronic shift levers that return to the same position after each manipulation. Gear-selection is conveyed to the driver by multiple sets of indicator lights, not gear-selector position, and unless due care is taken, drivers may draw erroneous conclusions about the status of their vehicles.”

According to a study by Autotrader, 41 percent of respondents do not have recalled vehicles repaired because they do not believe the repairs to be necessary; 23 percent say they are too busy to deal with the recall repair. But the completion rate of recalls is higher than that. Dealers must inform customers when they come in for maintenance if their car is under recall. Therefore, a lot of recall fixes happen through no initiative of the driver.

There is a sense from drivers (even this car reporter) that we can assess how dangerous a recall is or is not.

“Consumers seem to have the attitude about recalled vehicles that if it isn’t broken, why fix it?” says Autotrader senior analyst Michelle Krebs. She says consumers don’t think the recall is urgent or necessary because they have not experienced a problem. In reality, Krebs says, “ALL recalls, by their very nature, are safety-related and should be addressed by taking them to a dealership for free repairs.”

Safety advocates say too much responsibility for fixing cars rests with the consumer. Advocates such as the Center for Automotive Safety are calling for much stronger reporting requirements for the car makers. They point to legislation enacted this month that only now makes it a violation of federal law for rental car companies to rent, loan, or sell defective, unsafe recalled cars unless the safety defects have been repaired. There is movement to inform consumers through in-car systems that communicate to consumers through the car itself.

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This past week marked an end of an era for the historic Chicago-based Johnson Publishing Company. After 71-year run as an outlet for the expression of both the highest aspirations and deepest frustrations of African Americans, the family-owned business has sold its iconic lifestyle magazine — Ebony— and the now digital-only Jet magazine.

The magazines were sold to Clear View Group, a private equity firm in Texas that has been described as African-American-owned. Johnson Publishing will retain its ownership of Fashion Fair cosmetics and the company’s extensive photo archives.

Johnson Publishing was founded by John H. Johnson, the grandson of slaves who became the first African-American to appear on the Forbes List of the 400 Richest Americans. His depiction of African-American notables living elegant lives set a new standard for coverage of black Americans. So too did his decision to publish photos of the open casket of the Chicago teenager Emmett Till, who’d been kidnapped and tortured by white racists in Mississippi in 1955.

NPR’s Michel Martin spoke with Kyra Kyles — the current vice president of digital content, who will serve as the new editor-in-chief of Ebony and Jet and to Linda Johnson Rice, chairman of Johnson Publishing, and daughter of founder John Johnson; she will retain the title of chairman of the old company and will take a position on the board of the new entity.

Here are interview highlights

On the editorial future of the magazines

Kyles: We can continue to be what John Johnson wanted us to be, which is this – not only an educator, an entertainer, but a beacon of hope providing an example and showing people, “Hey, here’s some of the most wonderful things that black people are doing all over the world,” and inspiring people to know that they can do the same.”

On if it was painful to sell the business that had been in her family for seven decades

LJR: Not really. I think if I have to be honest with you, I’m very excited. There are different emotions that you go through at different stages. But I think when you come to a realization that this is really in the best interest of the brand, it really is in the best interest to be able to expand our audience and our reach, then you get to a point where you decide. … This really is a decision that needs to be made and you have to be confident and feel very good about that.

On if there’s a sense of loss in the broader African-American community because of the sale

LJR: Actually, what I’m hearing is a little more bittersweet, not necessarily a sense of loss. As a matter of fact, I’m hearing more positive things because first of all, it’s really wonderful that this is an African-American investment group. So you got two African-American companies coming together and doing business with each other.

On what is the bitter and what is the sweet resulting from selling the business

LJR: The bitter might be just an initial reaction of, “Oh my goodness, it’s sold,” but not really understanding fully that I will be chairman Emeritus of the new company, which is Ebony Media Operations. It is African-American led and owned, and I have a seat on the board and I also have an equity position in the company so I’m still there. I’ve not walked away from this at all. I love Ebony, I love Jet so, I think the audience needs to understand that.

On the “famous story” about her father donned a disguise to get access to and buy one of his offices

LJR: What he did was in order to buy this building, he actually had to have a white gentleman who was really was kind of the face of the purchase and my father proceeded to act like he was just a janitor, so he could just walk through the building and take a look at it. And that is the nuts and bolts of that story.

On the significance of Jet and Ebony as chroniclers of the African-American experience and the continued need for such publications

LJR: I think you will find that a lot of young African-Americans are really searching for, “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?” and “What is my past?” I think we’re as relevant now as we’ve ever been. For example, when we did the Bill Cosby cover in fall of last year, it was a lot of controversy.

It was the Cosby family on the cover, but overlaid on that it appeared to be a shattered glass. So it really wasn’t just about the shattering of the Huxables, it was really a shattering of the black family. And it was a question about that and where do we stand on that. And so, these are things that are very very relevant that Ebony will continue to cover.

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The Department of Justice asked a federal judge to end an ongoing trial of FedEx in San Francisco, but didn’t specify a reason. The Associated Press reports the judge halted the trial which began on Monday. A grand jury indicted the company in 2014, for allegedly shipping packages from illegal online pharmacies.

NPR’s Carrie Johnson reported in 2014 that FedEx was, “accused of conspiring to distribute prescription drugs to people who never met with doctors — a violation of the Controlled Substances Act.”

FedEx has maintained its innocence, and in a statement after the charges were dropped, spokesman Patrick Fitzgerald said:

“FedEx is and has always been innocent. The case should never have been brought. The government should take a very hard look at how they made the tremendously poor decision to file these charges. Many companies would not have had the courage or the resources to defend themselves against false charges. The power of the government was greatly misused when the case was initiated, but the government’s integrity was redeemed by the decision to dismiss the charges today.”

Prosecutors had alleged that the shipping company knew such pharmacies were sending packages through FedEx, and said it had evidence that FedEx took steps to protect itself from losing money if the police shut down the pharmacy sites, according to USA Today.

The AP reports:

“In court on Friday, [U.S. District Court Judge Charles] Breyer said FedEx was ‘factually innocent.’ He said the company repeatedly asked the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to give it the name of a customer that was shipping illegal drugs so it could stop working with the person, but the agency was either unwilling or unable to do so.

” ‘The dismissal is an act, in the court’s view, entirely consistent with the government’s overarching obligation to seek justice even at the expense of some embarrassment,’ he said, according to a transcript of the hearing.”

This is not the first legal scuffle between the federal government and companies that ship online purchases. NPR’s Yuki Noguchi reports that in 2013, UPS paid a $40 million fine to settle similar charges.

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Media mogul Sumner Redstone has moved to replace five board members of Viacom Inc., including the chairman and CEO whom he has considered a surrogate son.

A statement from Redstone’s National Amusements, Inc. – Viacom’s parent company – said simply that the five were “removed” and replaced with five others who have “deep experience in corporate governance of public companies.”

But in an interview with All Things Considered, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik compared the Viacom shakeup to a “Shakespearean drama.” David explains:

“You’ve got Sumner Redstone, he’s now 93 years old… he’s the figure who assembled Viacom and also the CBS corporation. His protégé, his lawyer for many years, his advisor and counselor for three decades — kind of a surrogate son — Philippe Dauman, is the CEO and chairman of Viacom. And he’s tossed him off, not only now off the Viacom board but also National Amusements, which is Redstone’s holding company through which he controls both Viacom and CBS.

“This is a battle that’s pitted Dauman, in a sense, against the daughter, the long-estranged daughter of Sumner Redstone, who has in recent years reconciled with the media mogul. And so you see a surrogate son and a once-estranged daughter battling for control of the future of this media empire.”

Folkenflik says the two may be at odds because of “the desire of Shari Redstone to control the future of this company, and Dauman clearly doesn’t want any part of that.”

But at the same time, Dauman’s leadership has come under fire in recent months. Former Viacom CEO Tom Freston called for new leadership in an interview with David earlier this month: “It went from really being No. 1 in its class, as a cable networker and as a creative enterprise, to pretty much the bottom of the barrel.”

Dauman “has been criticized by analysts and investors alike for failing to keep up with changes wrought by the internet on Viacom’s TV networks like Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon,” as The Associated Press reports.

National Amusements is privately held by the Redstone family and owns nearly 80 percent of the voting shares of Viacom, according to corporate statements.

National Amusements said it had filed papers with the Delaware Court of Chancery to affirm the changes on the board. In its statement, it says it asked the court to maintain the existing board until it affirms the changes. Dauman remains CEO, the company says. But as Reuters reports, Thursday’s move “could be a prelude to the 93-year-old media mogul forcing Dauman out of the company entirely.”

Likewise, one of the ousted board members has filed a lawsuit in an effort to stop his ouster, All Things Considered reported.

Redstone is also fighting accusations in a Massachusetts probate court that he is “not mentally competent … and was in effect being manipulated by his daughter Shari,” David added.

In summary: “What you have here is a corporation whose upper management and currently-elected board is at open war with the family that ultimately controls the fate of this company. And it’s very hard to see a clean resolution for the current leadership of Viacom, even if they managed to find a way to prevail,” David said.

Redstone stepped down as executive chairman of the CBS board of directors in February, as The Two-Way reported.

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The streets around the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., are slowly coming back to life — slowly.

Police removed one of the roadblocks a few blocks away from the gay nightclub Wednesday, allowing local traffic to drive past a makeshift memorial of flowers, balloons, candles and crosses for the 49 victims, to within view of the club.

Alex Brehm was standing by the door of a still-shuttered 7-Eleven, watching scores of federal and local law enforcement officials work the scene, thinking about what’s next for his home and the city of Orlando.

“Especially now,” he says. “We’ve had three things on the major news in a week.”

It’s been a nightmarish week for the city. First, 22-year old Christina Grimmie, a singer and former contestant on NBC’s The Voice, was shot and killed in the city on Friday. Days later, a gunman entered Pulse and killed 49 people before being killed by police.

On Tuesday, a toddler at a Disney World resort was playing on the shoreline when he was snatched by an alligator and pulled underwater. His body was recovered Wednesday.

The string of events would be devastating to any community, but it has the potential to be particularly so for the city of Orlando.

Tourism is a multibillion-dollar industry in Orlando and Orange County, Fla. More than 66 million people visited the city last year to see attractions like Disney World and Universal Studios, according to Visit Orlando, making it the one of the most visited places in the U.S. The leisure and hospitality industry makes up more than 20 percent of the city’s workforce.

A report by the New York-based investment research firm Maxim Group says that the attack on the Pulse nightclub has the potential to “reduce tourism-related spending” over the next couple of months. The report compared the attacks to those that happened in Paris in November. “Holiday bookings travel dropped 13 percent after those attacks,” says Stephen Anderson, a senior vice president at Maxim.

At Orlando International Airport, arriving passengers expressed concern over the attacks. In the baggage claim area, many people said that they had talked about changing their travel plans or were altering their plans on the ground.

“I was a little green over it,” says Jennifer Trujillo, who was planning to visit Disney World with her husband, Robert, and two kids. Her husband, who spent 24 years in the military, was less concerned.

“You weigh the options and mitigate the risk,” Robert Trujillo says. “Honestly, you’d think that the awareness is raised and the security is probably a little more enhanced now than it is normally.”

River and Jacob Anderson felt the same way.

“There’s no point in walking around scared of it,” says Jacob Anderson.

“That’s the point of terrorism,” says River Anderson. “That you stop living your life the way that you would’ve.”

Disney World, Universal Studios and other major tourist attractions haven’t reported slowdowns in visitors. George Aguel, the president of Visit Orlando, says that’s been the case for businesses across the city so far. But there’s no avoiding the problem, he says.

“The name Orlando will be associated with [the attack] for a time to come, but we hope it will not deter people from visiting our theme parks and hotels,” Aguel says.

He hopes that people’s relationship with Orlando — be it memories or stories shared — will be enough to overcome whatever shadow recent events have cast on the Central Florida city.

Closer to the Pulse nightclub, at Brick and Fire Pizza and Pasta Parlor, owner Mark Dollard is more worried about how the community will get back to some semblance of normal.

The business has been closed off to major traffic since the attack Sunday night, but his employees have still been making pizzas. There are still bills to pay, he says, but that’s not why they’ve remained open.

“We’re open because we want to provide anybody that walks through the door a degree of normalcy and in this community, that’s something that’s going to be sought for a while,” he says.

Dollard knew people that were killed at Pulse. He knows the owners. Any financial loss he and other businesses have suffered, or will suffer, are meaningless compared with the loss of life there, he says.

A couple of days ago he talked to a local politician about what comes next, how the city recovers.

She didn’t have an answer, he says. “She just had a hug.”

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In more and more countries, investors are paying the government for the privilege of owning its bonds. It’s usually the other way around.

The yield on Germany’s 10-year government bond fell into negative territory for the first time ever on Tuesday, as worries build that the United Kingdom could decide to leave the European Union next week.

Interest rates on government debt also fell in other countries, such as Japan and the United States, after new polls indicated that support for a so-called Brexit is stronger than previously thought.

The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note approached an all-time low, and U.S. stock prices fell for a fourth straight day.

The prospect of a Brexit has rattled investors, who worry that a decision to leave the EU would send the value of the British pound falling and cause problems for some of Europe’s biggest banks. British Prime Minister David Cameron has also warned that the impact of leaving the EU could hurt the British economy and be felt throughout the Continent.

“People are looking for safety. They’re looking for places to park their money,” says David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth.

By dipping into negative territory, albeit slightly, Germany joins a small club of wealthy, developed countries, including Denmark, Switzerland, Japan and Sweden, that are essentially able to borrow money from investors and then charge them to do so.

“We have some countries — the most notable ones are in Europe — where the investors are willing to buy bonds that have a negative yield. So you don’t get compensated for putting your money into these bonds. It’s like paying a little tax if you like,” says Simon Johnson, professor of global economics and management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Such countries have benefited from investor fears about the state of the global economy. Growth has been anemic in many wealthy countries, and is slowing in China and other places. As they often do, investors have responded by fleeing to the safe havens of government debt.

“The fundamental facts of Japan and much of the euro area are that growth is disappointing. Growth is low. Investors do not feel there are attractive places to put their money, with good returns at reasonable risk,” Johnson says.

As demand for these bonds has surged, interest rates have fallen.

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A new type of airport security screening lane is being tested in Atlanta, and “initial results show dramatic improvements,” according to the head of the Transportation Security Administration.

The “innovation lanes” are aimed a reducing wait times, and Peter Neffenger says that two new automated lanes designed by Delta have shown a 30 percent improvement in efficiency since they were rolled out last month. Delta thinks this new model should be able to double the productivity of airport security lanes.

Speaking at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Tuesday, Neffenger said these new lanes are “an example of the way in which we need to modernize and bring TSA into the 21st century.”

According to Delta’s chief operating officer, Gil West, the airline “funded everything” and “went from concept to start-up in less than two months.” He hails the results as a “game-changer.”

In the new lanes, customers “come through the lane not just one at a time, one after each other, but five at a time. You’re able to move in the process at the speed you’re capable of, not the person in front of you,” West says.

Rather than waiting single-file, there are five automated stations in a row for customers to deposit their belongings into bins. That means customers don’t need to wait for the person in front of them to finish unloading before they move their luggage into the cue.

The system also has an automatic rollers system and bin return, and diverts baggage out of the line if it requires further screening. It’s similar to the system used at London’s Heathrow Airport.

You can see the new lanes in action in this video from Delta:

The experiment in Atlanta comes as the TSA has been under fire for long security lanes at airports across the country, as NPR has reported.

Neffenger told the senators that the number of passengers screened annually continues to climb: “This year TSA will screen some 742 million people, projected. By comparison to 2013, TSA screened 643 million people, so our approach to screening requires a similar transformation.”

He adds that the TSA plans to launch similar projects with major airlines and airports in the coming months.

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