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Business July 20, 2017

Costume Jewelry Designer Kenneth Jay Lane Dies At 85

Designer Kenneth Jay Lane attends the 2010 kick-off dinner for Lighthouse International’s POSH Fashion sale at the Oak Room in New York City.

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Kenneth Jay Lane turned designing “fake” jewelry into a global business. He didn’t take himself too seriously — joking his costume jewelry wasn’t fake or junk. Instead, he would pronounce it “faque” and “junque.”

Lane died in his sleep at his home in Manhattan, according to Chris Sheppard, executive vice president of Lane’s company, who says it hasn’t been determined whether he died Wednesday night or Thursday morning. Lane was 85.

On the designer’s death, Women’s Wear Daily reports:

“Lane changed the landscape of costume jewelry, adding souped-up color, drama, luxury and a wide variety of ethnic motifs, and making it exclusive. Many of his customers combined his pieces with their “real” jewels… and it was often impossible to tell the difference. As he once put it, “Our jewelry is designed for people who want to be noticed.”

“The designer would give earrings and pins to his most photographed client Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis that he thought she would like. And former First Lady Barbara Bush wore his three-strand necklace so often she said that, if she took it off, her head would fall off.”

Vogue reports Lane thought that glamour should be an attainable, everyday luxury.:

“His designs resonated with these high-profile women because he approached costume jewelry as if it were couture, with bold colors, dramatic silhouettes, and quality “jewels” that often looked real, despite being glass or plastic. Of course, his outgoing personality helped, too; friends of Lane will recall his charm and quick wit. He once famously said, “I am myself a fabulous fake.”

A wider jewelry buying public got to know Lane on QVC, a home shopping channel.

QVC posted on its Facebook page:

“We are saddened to learn of the passing of Kenneth Jay Lane. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him, but his legacy will live on through his designs. We are thankful to have spent more than 20 years with Kenneth as a part of our QVC family, and our thoughts & prayers are with his loved ones during this difficult time.”

A documentary film about the designer, called Fabulously Fake: The Real Life of Kenneth Jay Lane, is expected to be released in 2018.

The Hollywood Reporter says the documentary will feature some of his friends including actress Joan Collins:

“In the film, Collins recalls a time when she was stopped at customs with her KJL jewels and even the customs official couldn’t stop complimenting her about the baubles. “I was going through customs in Mexico — I keep all my jewelry in a box in my wheely — and the customs man saw it and said, ‘Let me open it. Let me see it.’ He looked at it and I said, ‘Can we go into a private room? Because I don’t want people to see it,’ even though it wasn’t real,” says Collins. “We went into the private room, and the customs man is picking it up and said, ‘Very nice, these earrings very good.’ Finally, I said, ‘It’s not real, you know. It’s not diamonds and gold and rubies; it’s faux jewelry. And finally he closed it and said ‘You have very nice stuff here!'”

At age 85, Lane had no plans for slowing down. He recently told The Hollywood Reporter he had been busy focusing on his e-comm site, which offers affordable tassel earrings, pearl necklaces, bold cuffs, embellished brooches and cocktail rings.

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Business July 19, 2017

Congress Struggles To Keep Up With Regulations For Self-Driving Cars

Cars that drive themselves are a thing of the not-so-distant future. But Congress is having a hard time keeping up regulations to go with the technological change.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

The tech industry and major automakers are rapidly pushing ahead on technology for driverless cars. Washington is in the slow lane. That’s because Congress is trying to figure out what safety or other regulations should be put in place. NPR’s Brian Naylor reports.

BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: When it comes to autonomous vehicles, lawmakers in Congress are definitely in drive. Democrat Debbie Dingell, whose Michigan district is home to a big chunk of the auto industry and thousands of auto workers, says it’s an economic imperative.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DEBBIE DINGELL: Automated vehicles are going to be developed whether we like it or not. The question is whether the United States will remain in the driver’s seat as opposed to China, Japan or even the EU, who are also making significant investments in this space.

NAYLOR: And for a Michigan Republican Fred Upton autonomous vehicles are an animated dream come true.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

FRED UPTON: So we can forget about the Jetsons. The future of the automobile is here.

NAYLOR: Upton and Dingell spoke at a House hearing today that gave initial approval to a bill laying out some rules of the road for driverless cars. So far the Department of Transportation has placed only some voluntary guidelines on the industry while states have been more proactive. The House bill would pre-empt state regulations and give the Department of Transportation broader authority to waive safety standards for industry as it tests autonomous cars. That worries pro-safety groups. Jacqueline Gillan is president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

JACQUELINE GILLAN: We see autonomous vehicles as a game changer in terms of making some meaningful and lasting reductions in the highway death toll. But we also have millions of vehicles right now that are under recall because of safety defects.

NAYLOR: Gillan says manufacturers should have to meet minimum safety standards before driverless cars can be sold.

GILLAN: There may be a time where we won’t need a steering wheel in your car, but you’re sure going to need that airbag if you’re in a crash.

NAYLOR: This may be a rare issue where bipartisan cooperation is possible. But as lawmakers consider how much to regulate the emerging industry, there could yet be some disagreement about just how much to pump the brakes. Brian Naylor, NPR News, Washington.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Business July 18, 2017

With Entry Into Interest Curation, Google Goes Head-To-Head With Facebook

Google CEO Sundar Pichai talks about the new Google Assistant during a 2016 product event in San Francisco. The voice assistant is one of a number of Google products that will provide user data to the curation service that the company is launching today.

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There’s a good chance you’re hungry for information you didn’t even know you wanted, but Google knows — and the tech giant is going to spoon-feed it to you.

Google is following in Facebook’s footsteps, with plans to redesign its popular search page on mobile phones so that you’ll get something similar to the social media site’s Newsfeed. Only Google’s will just be called “feed.”

“Google search should be working for you in the background even when you’re not searching,” says Ben Gomes, vice president of engineering, who spoke at a news conference at Google’s San Francisco offices. “It should be looking for information on the Web to give you information that’s important and relevant for you to further the interest that you have.”

Starting today, if you use the Pixel smartphone or the Google app (for Android and iOS), you’ll see this personalized feed. It will continually draw from what Google has learned about you across its suite of products — such as Search, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, the Google home assistant and Chromecast.

Google and Facebook — which both make their money by selling advertising — are in a constant tug-of-war. Google has tried and failed to build a hit social network, but this new product could draw more eyeballs.

Engineering leader Shashi Thakur explained how it is fundamentally different from the competition: “It’s not really about what your friends are interested in, which is what other feeds might be.”

Say you have a secret passion for woodworking: Relevant articles will show up in your feed. On the other hand, if you’ve been reading up on herpes that shouldn’t show up in the feed, because Google is using technology to filter out “potentially upsetting or sensitive content.”

When it comes to political interests — take health care overhaul efforts — what you get on Facebook or Twitter is heavily influenced by your social network, which could push you into groupthink. Thakur says the Google feed breaks you out of that, because it’s based on the same search algorithm that crawls and ranks the entire Internet, not just what your friends share.

“We are trying to provide a variety of perspectives on any given topic,” he said. Although in the near future, a spokesperson says Google does plan to add a like button to posts, so that users can actively indicate what they want to see.

Aside from Pixel phones and the Google app, the feed soon will appear in your smartphone browser when you go to Google’s search page. The company does not plan to include this feature on desktop browsers. Gomes and Thakur declined to say if Google would include advertisements in the feed.

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Business July 17, 2017

Is Your Boss Too Controlling? Many Employees Clash With Micromanagers

Micromanagement can kill motivation, employee creativity and job satisfaction. It’s the biggest beef many workers have about their boss.

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Micromanagement is routinely the top complaint people have about their bosses, and in today’s good job market where workers have more options, that’s a bigger problem for employers.

People might have their own definition of when a manager crosses into being too controlling, but most people would probably agree that Marjon Bell’s former boss would fit.

On her first day on a marketing job at a Virginia Beach, Va., insurance company, Bell’s boss sent an email barring employees from bringing cell phones to the office. The email said that moms, especially, spent too much time on their phones checking up on their children.

That, Bell says, was just one of her boss’ many rules.

“If we left campus for lunch, [we had] to email her when we left and email her when we got back,” Bell says.

Predictably, few people took lunch.

The boss also monitored the instant messaging system, which displayed a green light when someone was logged in, and a yellow one after they had been idle.

“Usually you had like a 10-minute window before your light turned yellow, and then they changed it to only two minutes,” Bell says. “And I came back from the restroom, and my boss was standing at my cubicle wondering where I’d been.”

Bell says the micromanagement was systemic. Her employer offered a $500 monthly bonus that rewarded co-workers for micromanaging each other.

“If you came in five minutes late, if you left early, if you took a little bit longer at lunch, whoever reported you would get an accountability award,” she says.

It was unclear who Bell could trust, but she says morale was terrible. A disgruntled employee ransacked the toilets in the women’s bathroom, she says, “to stick it to the man.” Management posted a notice outlining “rules on bathroom use” on the stall doors in response.

Bell quit after six months.

“I did the absolute bare minimum to get my paycheck,” she says. “It did not make me want to help the company in any way.”

Steve Motenko, an executive coach in Seattle, hears stories like this all the time. Micromanagement can kill motivation, employee creativity and job satisfaction, and yet it remains the biggest beef workers have about their boss.

“That’s critically important, because it’s complaints about the boss that drive most people out of organizations,” he says.

That’s especially a problem when recruitment is a top concern for employers, many of whom Motenko says aren’t even aware of the micromanagers in their midst because departing employees often aren’t questioned about it in exit interviews.

Motenko says micromanagement can reflect several problems. A bad hire or a lack of training might force a manager to constantly intervene. A disorganized boss often creates havoc that makes teamwork impossible.

These are all understandable, if regrettable, outcomes of poor management, but may not mean the person is necessarily a habitual micromanager — and circumstances make close supervision necessary, he says.

Still, many leaders Motenko has counseled have an overactive command-and-control style of leadership that leaves little room for worker autonomy, and he argues that doesn’t fit most jobs today.

“We need employees who will do more than do what they’re told — employees who will think for themselves, who will be creative, and will try new approaches,” he says, “and all of that is squashed by micromanaging.”

Studies show lack of autonomy at work elevates stress hormones and can have other negative health effects, potentially even hastening mortality.

It certainly took its toll for Chicago resident Abby Koch 15 years ago, when she worked for a jewelry store owner.

“She would literally say things like, ‘well, I’m not a micromanager…’ as she was standing behind me, literally looking over my shoulder,” she says.

The owner’s constant critiques eroded Koch’s self-esteem and that of her coworker.

“The other employee ended up having to take medication just to be able to go to work and not be crippled by anxiety,” Koch says.

She lasted 18 months in that job.

“I ended up getting divorced, and I always thought my … I don’t know … lack of standing up for myself in that situation may have caused my husband to lose some respect for me,” she says.

Since then, she says she’s always prized and chosen jobs that give her autonomy.

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Business July 16, 2017

Artist Louie Gong Brings Authentic Native American Art To Mainstream Business

Louie Gong is a Native American visual artist and designer who got his start decorating Vans sneakers. Today he’s one of the most successful Native entrepreneurs in the country.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Let’s head to the other side of the country now. In Washington state, a member of the Nooksack Indian Tribe wants to change how you think about Native American art. Louie Gong is an artist and entrepreneur, and he wants to move past what he sees as outdated stereotypes about Native art. Marcie Sillman of member station KUOW has the story.

MARCIE SILLMAN, BYLINE: Louie Gong leads the way into his store room.

LOUIE GONG: This is our blankets.

SILLMAN: Gong pulls one out of a cardboard box. It’s woven from soft red wool and decorated with an image of a traditional Native American thunderbird. And it’s an extremely popular item. Even Bernie Sanders bought one.

GONG: A lot of times, people who speak to tribal audiences are gifted blankets. And so when one of our Native leaders spoke on behalf of Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders himself gifted that Native leader this bright red thunderbird blanket.

SILLMAN: Louie Gong’s been in business less than a decade. Before that, he was a mental health counselor at the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation south of Seattle.

GONG: But I hadn’t really explored art or even considered it a possibility in my life until I helped the Muckleshoot Tribe create giveaway items for the 2006 canoe journey which they hosted.

SILLMAN: The canoe journey is an annual celebration of Northwest Native culture. The host tribe gives gifts to the guests. And with his knack for drawing, he decorated gift drum heads. A few months later, Gong took a black marker to a pair of gray Vans sneakers he picked up at the mall, doodling his version of a traditional Northwest Native design.

GONG: And I really wasn’t like coastalizing (ph) or nativizing them. I was Louisizing (ph) them, you know?

SILLMAN: Gong wore them to work, and his colleagues were so impressed, they asked him to decorate their Vans. Gong started to market the shoes on social media. The Vans company caught wind and not only condoned this, they invited him to create a pair of one-of-a-kind shoes for them. Eventually, Gong had so many orders, he quit his day job and set up shop in his apartment.

GONG: I look at all the work that I’m doing as collaborations with my ancestors and my family, the people that came before me. That’s why I named my business Eighth Generation. It was a way to honor the contributions and prior work of the people whose shoulders I’m standing on.

SILLMAN: Gong has contracted with four other Native artisans. He uses some of their designs on his products, as well as selling their work. They get most of the profits from their art. And that makes Gong a new brand of social entrepreneur, according to Lori Pourier. She’s the president of the First People’s Fund, a South Dakota-based organization that provides grants and training for Native American artists.

LORI POURIER: We always believe that there’s a balance between the head and heart and the work that we do. And Louie represents, you know, both of those as a businessman, as well as a community member and, you know, a leading culture bearer in his community.

SILLMAN: She points to a mentorship program Gong set up called Inspired Natives. His goal is to teach other indigenous artists what he’s learned about the business world, from social media marketing to working with non-Native corporations.

GONG: In native communities, we have art, and we have culture. What we don’t have in our community are business skills or good examples of creative artists who have been successful.

SILLMAN: Eighth Generation’s been so successful that last year, Gong opened a brick-and-mortar shop near Seattle’s historic waterfront.

COLLEEN ECHOHAWK: When I walked down to Pike Street Market (ph), and I looked down and I see a store, I’m just filled with just tremendous amount of pride.

SILLMAN: Colleen Echohawk directs the Chief Seattle Club, a social service center for the city’s Native Americans.

ECHOHAWK: Because there’s not many places in the city where you can feel authentic representation of Native people, where it hasn’t been colonized.

GONG: This is called the Busted Knuckle Gallery. I named it after my dad.

SILLMAN: Louie Gong’s father was a martial artist competing across North America. This room in Gong’s store serves as a gallery, a community meeting space and a metaphor.

GONG: You know, I grew up with a dad who was a professional fighter. And although I’m not exactly that person, I’ve taken a lot of the good parts of who my dad was and incorporated that into the rest of me.

SILLMAN: Louie Gong may not spar like his dad, but he never backs away from a challenge. For NPR News, I’m Marcie Sillman in Seattle.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Business July 15, 2017

Brides Scramble For Dresses And Information After Alfred Angelo Stores Close Abruptly

Alfred Angelo filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after closing dozens of its stores, leaving brides and bridesmaids struggling to get dresses they’ve paid for.

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Days after dozens of Alfred Angelo Bridal stores closed with little or no warning, brides and their loved ones have been struggling to track down dresses they’ve paid for — and making contingency plans if they can’t find them.

Alfred Angelo reportedly closed all of its 61 bridal stores at the end of business Thursday night as part of its plan to file for bankruptcy, infuriating customers and leaving employees in the lurch. The lawyer handling the case says she has received more than 7,000 emails about it.

To help those who might not get their dresses, some former brides are now offering up dresses for free — and member station KPCC in Southern California is using the #dressmatchmaker hashtag to orchestrate dress exchanges.

KPCC reports from the scene of the West Covina location:

“[Employees] would not speak to reporters, but told a group of worried customers to contact the law firm listed on the door and that the company had not paid them for work this week.

“Local brides and bridesmaids milled in front of the store for hours, each one peering nervously through the windows and knocking on the glass. Many said their dresses were inside the store and already paid for. No information was available on whether dresses would be shipped to customers or if refunds would be given out.”

In the face of a desperate need for information, there’s been no mention of the closings on the Alfred Angelo website or social media accounts. Its “customer care” account hasn’t tweeted since July 5.

The Miami bankruptcy lawyer who’s handling the case for Alfred Angelo is Patricia Ann Redmond; she told The Miami Herald that she’s received “about 7,300 emails” since Thursday.

It is Redmond’s email address, not one belonging to the bridal retailer, that is on notices that were taped to the front doors of stores that were shut down this week. Redmond said she wanted it that way, to be sure customers got a response.

“I’ve been prioritizing them by the dates of their weddings,” Redmond said.

Faced with looming wedding dates, brides, their mothers and other members of wedding parties are using Alfred Angelo’s Facebook page to discuss how to retrieve dresses they’ve already paid thousands of dollars to purchase. The hottest tips relate to the names and phone numbers of third-party seamstresses who’ve been working to alter dresses — and who might be able to unite dresses and their recipients.

“Wow, I’m in a wedding in October and the bride and ALL the bridesmaids have already paid for their Alfred Angelo Bridal dresses,” Sara Cretser wrote on the Facebook page, “and now we are left with no dresses and no refund.”

Employees at Alfred Angelo’s store in Tulsa, Okla., opened on their own Friday morning to help people get their dresses, several customers on the store’s Facebook page said. A bride-to-be said the store’s staff is treating any dresses that were under deposit to be fully paid — and that they’re using FedEx to ship out dresses.

“I would like to say thank you to the staff at the Tulsa Oklahoma location, they didn’t have to be here today to take care of all the people that bought dresses,” Maegan Alyssa Fletcher wrote, adding that the employees aren’t likely to be paid for their work.

Others who weren’t so lucky shared another strategy: going to a competitor (several are offering discounts to Alfred Angelo’s customers) — and contacting credit card companies to try to claw back payments.

Bridesmaid Natalie Buck, who’s in a wedding in October, told KPCC that when she called Visa about the situation, “They said that if the company doesn’t follow through then they will give me my money, and they will go after Alfred Angelo.”

Alfred Angelo is based in Delray Beach, Fla., north of Boca Raton. The company has been in business for some 80 years — but it has now filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which means it wants to liquidate its assets and go out of business rather than seek to restructure its debt. Under that plan, any creditors would be left to split whatever proceeds are collected from selling the company’s assets.

In addition to bankruptcy proceedings, the South Florida Business Journal reports that the bridal chain’s headquarters are also the subject of an eviction lawsuit.

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Business July 14, 2017

Economists Warn Tariffs On Imported Steel Could Spark Trade War

President Trump hinted this week that he may impose tariffs or quotas on imported steel. Economists warn that could spark a trade war.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

President Trump is back in the U.S. after a quick trip to France, where he celebrated Bastille Day and a hundred years since the U.S. entered World War I. Along the way, the president hinted to reporters he is weighing new limits on imported steel. Critics are warning that could trigger a worldwide trade war, as NPR’s Scott Horsley reports.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Steel has a special place in this president’s heart. Trump often spoke on the campaign trail about revitalizing steel mills and other heavy industries, a theme he picked up again at the Transportation Department last month.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Watch new sparks light our factories as we forge metal from the furnaces of our Rust Belt and our beloved heartland which has been forgotten. It’s not forgotten anymore.

HORSLEY: The domestic steel industry has been struggling. Scott Paul is with the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which represents steelmakers and the Steelworkers union. He says over the last three years, the U.S. has lost some 15,000 steelmaking jobs.

SCOTT PAUL: It’s not because they don’t know how to make steel or they don’t know how to make it profitably. They certainly do. But they’ve been faced with a wave of imports, many of which have been dumped or subsidized by government-run steel industries.

HORSLEY: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross puts much of the blame for that wave of cheap imports on China. That country operates far more steel mills than it needs to supply its own demand. Ross says the glut of excess Chinese steel depresses prices and idles mills all over the world.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

WILBUR ROSS: So it’s a very serious impact on the domestic industry. The domestic industry is only operating at about 71 percent of capacity.

HORSLEY: During his flight to Paris this week, Trump complained the U.S. has become a dumping ground for imported steel, and he vowed to put a stop to it by imposing quotas, tariffs or both. That would be a welcome move for the steelworkers that Scott Paul represents.

PAUL: If the president is true to his word, the relief will be robust.

HORSLEY: But that’s a big if. The president’s push for new limits on steel imports is reportedly being hotly debated within the White House itself.

DOUG HOLTZ-EAKIN: Any decision made by the president of the United States is a hard decision. The easy ones don’t get to the president.

HORSLEY: That’s Doug Holtz-Eakin, a former White House economist who now leads a conservative advocacy group called the American Action Forum. He drafted a letter to the president opposing a crackdown on imported steel, and he got 15 economists who served both Republican and Democratic presidents to sign on.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: People say economists can’t agree on anything. And this is a bipartisan agreement on a very simple question. So it was nice to see.

HORSLEY: Holtz-Eakin says while slapping tariffs or quotas on imported steel might help American steelmakers, it would hurt the U.S. companies that use steel and their customers. The import limits would hit not only China but other big suppliers such as Canada, Mexico and South Korea. And many other countries would likely retaliate with restrictions of their own on U.S. exports.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Europeans have already singled out where they will retaliate, and people know about it. So there are already constituencies in the U.S. who are worried they’ll get caught in the crossfire of this decision.

HORSLEY: U.S. dairy products, orange juice and Kentucky bourbon could all be targets in such a trade war. But Scott Paul says there’s also a political calculation as the White House weighs how to deliver for the downtrodden workers who helped put Trump in the White House.

PAUL: We saw a lot of this pain borne out over the last election cycle in these small mill towns that dot our country’s landscape in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. And it’s more than a steelworker’s job. It becomes about the community and the social fabric, and it had a direct bearing on our politics.

HORSLEY: Thus far, the president has talked more about protectionist measures than he’s actually done. His decision on steel imports when it comes will help show whether that’s changing. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Business July 13, 2017

Trump Hints At New Limits On Steel Imports

President Trump and first lady Melania Arrive At Orly Airport on Thursday in Paris. Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he was considering tariffs on steel imports.

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President Trump is hinting that he may impose tariffs, quotas or both on imported steel in an effort to protect the domestic steel industry.

“Steel is a big problem,” Trump told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One en route to Paris, where he landed Thursday. “We’re like a dumping ground, OK? [Other countries are] dumping steel and destroying our steel industry. They’ve been doing it for decades and I’m stopping it.”

“There are two ways,” Trump said, “quotas and tariffs. Maybe I’ll do both.”

The Commerce Department has been conducting a review of both steel and aluminum imports under a rarely used 1962 statute designed to protect industries deemed vital to national security. Secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters in April that imports now account for more than a quarter of the U.S. steel market, while domestic steel mills are operating at just 71 percent of capacity.

Trump railed against what he called unfair trade practices throughout the campaign and has continued to advocate protectionist measures since taking office.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing, which represents steelmakers and the steelworkers union, supports new restrictions on imports. “If we don’t step up now, America’s entire aluminum and steel industries could disappear,” the alliance warns on its website, “and we’ll have to rely on Russia and China for our national defense needs.”

Restricting steel imports through tariffs or quotas would be controversial, though. It would potentially raise prices for steel consumers and could spark retaliation from major trading partners.

Although the administration blames China for most of the glut on the global steel market, allies such as Canada, Mexico and South Korea would likely be hard-hit by any import restrictions. Those countries could respond with limits of their own on U.S. exports.

This week, more than a dozen former White House economists signed a letter, urging the president not to take action against steel imports.

“The diplomatic costs might be worth it if the tariffs generated economic benefits. But they would not,” the economists wrote. “Additional steel tariffs would actually damage the U.S. economy. Tariffs would raise costs for manufacturers, reduce employment in manufacturing, and increase prices for consumers.”

Trump’s comments in support of import limits were originally made to reporters “off the record,” but the White House later agreed to make them public.

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Business July 12, 2017

Trump Hotels Again The Target Of Hackers Seeking Credit Card Data

The Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., was first hacked on Nov. 7 — the day before the election.

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Updated at 7:16 p.m. ET

President Trump has spent much of the past year talking about hackers who stole emails for political reasons.

But at Trump Hotels, hackers of a different sort were attacking.

Starting last summer, hackers broke into the system that manages the reservation booking service for 14 Trump hotels, stretching from Washington, D.C., to Scotland to Canada to Brazil.

But most of the attacks were concentrated in November — the month Trump was elected president. For example, the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., was first hacked on Nov. 7 — the day before the election.

Trump Hotels’ list of the hacked hotels shows that the problems began last summer at the Trump Soho Hotel in New York City and continued at different locations until early March of this year.

The statement said the target was Sabre Hospitality Solutions, which provides reservations services to Trump Hotels. Sabre did not notify Trump Hotels of the breaches until June of this year, the statement said.

The hackers were able to retrieve not only the credit card numbers and their expiration dates, but also the names, addresses and phone numbers of guests who had used the centralized booking system, the company said.

But more sensitive data — such as Social Security, passport and driver’s license numbers — were not accessed.

A Sabre spokesman told The Washington Post, which first reported the story, that less than 15 percent of daily bookings on the reservation system were compromised.

Trump hotels often attract high-profile guests, including celebrities and political figures. The Washington hotel, located just blocks from the White House, has become an especially attractive gathering place for foreign officials and lobbyists. Several embassies have used the property for special receptions, and Trump himself occasionally eats at the hotel.

In its statement, the company said it takes the privacy and protection of its guests’ information seriously. But TechCrunch says this is the third time Trump Hotels has been hit by hackers.

Its system was breached with malware targeting credit cards in July 2015 and again in early 2016. That year, the company was fined $50,000 for waiting months to notify customers after realizing their credit cards had been compromised.

Cybersecurity expert Matt Suiche told NPR that hotels are being targeted more frequently by criminals. For example, he pointed out, a hotel in Austria was recently the victim of a ransomware attack that temporarily prevented it from making new room keys in its electronic key system.

In the case of Trump Hotels, Suiche noted that because hackers targeted Sabre’s reservation infrastructure, other clients of the vendor were probably targeted too.

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Business July 11, 2017

Documents Show Backpage.com Controls Sex-Related Ads

NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with Washington Post reporter Tom Jackman about the discovery of new documents showing that Backpage.com, a website with classified ads, controls sex-related ads on its site. The company has claimed it does not control the ads people post.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The website backpage.com has been controversial for years. It’s been the subject of lawsuits. And the National Association of Attorneys General calls it a hub for human trafficking.

TOM JACKMAN: It’s a classified ad website just like Craigslist.

SHAPIRO: That’s Tom Jackman of The Washington Post.

JACKMAN: But it’s also a place that has ads for adult services. Some might say prostitution.

SHAPIRO: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says almost three quarters of the child sex trafficking reports it receives from the public involve ads from Backpage. An investigative piece out today by Tom Jackman and a Washington Post colleague describes documents that show the website seeking out paying advertisers who sell sex. When I spoke with Jackman earlier today, he told me backpage.com has stayed out of trouble up until now by saying they are not actively involved in the content on their site.

JACKMAN: They cite a law that was passed in 1996 called the Communications Decency Act which says if you’re a website and you are merely hosting content – you’re not creating the content; you’re merely the bulletin board – you’re not liable for the content that’s posted on your site by third parties.

SHAPIRO: So these documents that The Post has obtained shine a new light on Backpage’s claims that they have nothing to do with this. What do the documents show?

JACKMAN: The documents show that they use a company in the Philippines to actively solicit – we’ll call them advertisers – sex advertisers, people who have posted ads on other sites. They make a copy of that ad and recreate it in the Backpage template. We’d like to offer you the same ad on Backpage, and if you let me email you a link, I can show you because we’ve already created it for you – what your ad will look like on Backpage. And with one click, you can be there.

SHAPIRO: How does this change our understanding of Backpage’s role in the sex trafficking business?

JACKMAN: Well, this would seem to be contradictory to the argument they’ve made for years and years that, we’re simply a host; we’re a passive vessel here that – you know, that people come to. And they post on our website, but we don’t dictate the content. But here they are seemingly creating the content.

SHAPIRO: You showed some of these documents to the company and asked for a response. What did they say?

JACKMAN: They declined to comment. But they’ve made arguments in the past which have carried the day legally that this is protected content under the First Amendment, that even if they are copying from another site, they’re merely copying, and that’s protected and that they aren’t breaking any laws by what they’re doing. Their content may be offensive to some. But it’s the Internet, and it should remain free.

SHAPIRO: What about members of Congress who have been going after Backpage for years? How did they respond to these documents?

JACKMAN: They felt like this is another step in their push to try to get some control over this. They want to amend the Communications Decency Act so that there’s some way that the Internet can still be free and yet there can be some way to protect children from being trafficked. There are some very powerful First Amendment forces out there who want to keep the Internet untethered, untouched, unedited. And so they would like to use this as further ammunition to try to amend the Communications Decency Act.

SHAPIRO: Tom Jackman of the Washington Post, thank you very much.

JACKMAN: You’re very welcome.

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