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House Republicans voted Thursday to deliver on their promise to repeal Dodd-Frank — the massive set of Wall Street regulations President Barack Obama signed into law after the 2008 financial crisis.

In a near party-line vote, the House approved a bill, dubbed the Financial Choice Act, , which scales back or eliminates many of the post-crisis banking rules.

The legislation is the brainchild of House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas.

“Dodd-Frank represents the greatest regulatory burden on our economy, more so than all the other Obama-era regulations combined,” Hensarling told reporters Wednesday. “There is a better way: economic growth for all; bank bailouts for none.”

Rolling back regulations

Hensarling’s nearly 600-page bill would defang Dodd-Frank by repealing the so-called Volcker Rule, which prevents government-insured banks from making risky bets with investments. It would also scrap a requirement, which goes into effect Friday, that retirement advisers put their clients’ interests ahead of their own.

In perhaps the biggest partisan flashpoint, the bill aims to scale back the authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to regulate large banks and payday lenders.

The CFPB was created under Dodd-Frank and is designed to operate as an independent watchdog with a single director. Hensarling considers its structure to be undemocratic.

“To think in a democracy that one un-elected individual can functionally decide what credit cards go in our wallets, what mortgages we can have on our home, whether or not we even have a checking account. I mean, that’s just anathema to me to the founding principles of this republic,” Hensarling said while speaking last month at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

Financial reform advocates argue the Choice Act would leave the U.S. economy vulnerable to another financial crisis.

“It is bad for consumers, it is bad for investors, and it’s bad for the stability of the American economy — which is bad for all of us,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform. “People believe there should be more — not less — regulation of Wall Street. They’re worried about regulators being too weak and being too afraid to take on the big guys. Not about their being tough.”

“The bill even specifically exempts payday and car title lenders — notorious for springing devastating debt traps for their already vulnerable customers — from any regulation,” added Yana Miles, senior legislative counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending.

The top lobbyist for the banking industry — which supports parts of the Choice Act — says the bill would bring relief to community banks, which many say have been overburdened by Dodd-Frank’s onerous, one-size-fits-all regulations.

“We are not seeking to roll back all of the policy response, all of Dodd-Frank,” said Rob Nichols, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association. “That’s not our intention. Our intention is to acknowledge what many regulators and legislators will tell you both publicly and privately, which is aspects of Dodd-Frank overshot.”

The Senate has been working on a separate bill that is more focused on loosening regulations on community banks. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellin has endorsed efforts to “mitigate the regulatory burden” when it comes to small banks.

Frank: “You don’t get everything 100 percent right the first time”

Former Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts agrees — despite having his name attached to the regulations, alongside that of former Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

“Anytime you pass a very complicated piece of legislation, you don’t get everything 100 percent right the first time,” said Frank, who is the former Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Frank says his namesake financial reform law has been too restrictive on smaller banks. He also believes the threshold used to identify other banks “as too big to fail” should be higher.

“Beyond that what you have are Republicans — including the chairman of the committee, Mr. Hensarling, who is a very honorable, very pleasant, deeply rigidly ideological conservative who is essentially against any regulation.”

Democratic opposition can stop the bill in the Senate

Even though some Democrats recognize there are some problems with Dodd-Frank, they are unified in opposing the Choice Act.

“The Wrong Choice Act is a vehicle for Donald Trump’s agenda to get rid of financial regulation and help out Wall Street. It’s an invitation for another Great Recession, or worse,” said California Rep. Maxine Waters, currently the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.

Hensarling’s bill is a revised version of legislation he proposed last year, which stalled in Congress. Waters says it’s no surprise that Republicans see success in their sights this time around.

“With the majority that they have in the House and the Senate and President Trump, this is their big opportunity to deregulate, deregulate, deregulate — and they’re going to go for it,” she said.

But the GOP will run into obstacles in the Senate, because Republicans in the upper chamber don’t have the 60 votes needed to pass the legislation.

Hensarling says he’s undeterred.

“If I live my life thinking that something might not pass the Senate, I would never even get up and bother to go to work,” he said.

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Ride-hailing firm Uber has fired about 20 of its employees, including some senior executives, after an investigation into more than 200 sexual harassment and other workplace-misconduct claims.

The company is not commenting on the findings of the report from Perkins Coie, which was hired after former Uber engineer Susan Fowler last year alleged that she was sexually harassed, and her complaints disregarded by the company’s human resources department.

On Tuesday, the San Francisco company held an all-hands meeting for its 12,000 employees, where it discussed those findings and, according to a source familiar with the meeting, 40 additional employees were reprimanded or referred to counseling and training. Uber set up a hotline where employees and former employees could file complaints.

The findings from the investigation will feed into a second, broader report from former Attorney General Eric Holder due out next Tuesday, which will include more detailed recommendations for how Uber should address and remediate its workplace culture.

The case has has gotten attention in part because Silicon Valley already has a reputation for attracting and catering to male tech talent, but not to women. So, in a way, Uber is a test case for how serious the tech industry is about fixing its gender-diversity problems.

Uber has rapidly become a household name. It’s hugely successful with investors. But it is also a consumer brand, and consumer brands have to care very much about their public image. And that’s an area where Uber has struggled recently.

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There is one generation that has been consistently defined by its obsessions: avocado toast, memes, Harry Potter … and self-care. They are often perceived as entitled snowflakes, but millennials might be the generation of emotional intelligence.

Self-care existed long before millennials did. Ancient Greeks saw it as a way to make people more honest citizens who were more likely to care for others. In her 1988 book, A Burst of Light, Audre Lorde wrote that “caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.”

Today, self-care, as it’s defined by Gracy Obuchowicz, a facilitator and self-care mentor and coach in Washington, D.C., “assumes that we’re OK as we are and we just need to take care of ourselves … Self-care alone is not enough. You need to have self-awareness too. Self-care plus self-awareness equals self-love.”

While self-care has been around for centuries, it has only recently been co-opted by stars such as Solange and consumerized into self-care kits.

In 2015, according to the Pew Research Center, more millennials reported making personal improvement commitments than any generation before them. They spend twice as much as boomers on self-care essentials such as workout regimens, diet plans, life coaching, therapy and apps to improve their personal well-being. They’ve even created self-care Twitterbots.

But why is there a generational divide in taking care of yourself?

One study showed that this might have all sprouted out of the Internet. It found that students reported using the Web to identify self-care strategies, alternative therapies and other information related to nutrition and fitness.

Do a quick Google search and you’ll find hundreds of articles about self-care, occasionally accompanied with lists of advice such as “go to a farmers market” or “buy a new candle” or “drive with the windows down.” So it comes as no surprise that the generation that takes advantage of the Internet the most is also the generation that devotes the most time and money to the $10 billion self-care industry.

Hyepin Im, the president and CEO of Korean Churches for Community Development and an expert on mental health and digital literacy, also found that the Internet was likely the cause.

“In a way of having that affordable free access to information increases awareness to these areas we didn’t know from schooling or families,” Im said. “Once you’re aware, these new tools and apps equip us … to actually make that investment.”

Then again, Im points out, we might have created a solution for a problem of our own making.

“Increased awareness is very powerful,” Im said. “The other piece, in some ways we’re constantly bombarded in self-absorption.”

Im said we might find ourselves comparing our lives to the perfection we see on the Internet, which leads us to utilizing online tools for self-care — and the cycle continues.

“There is this point where you do also have this time for self-reflection and you start seeking substance and meaning beyond a whole selfie. You start searching. Those are also things that push our generation,” Im said.

Furthermore, Im said the introduction of social media throughout the millennial generation has increased understanding of mental illnesses and decreased the stigma.

“Maybe in the past, you thought someone was crazy or lazy, but now we’ve learned more,” Im said. “It’s a continuum. A lot of those things [like increased Internet access] allow you to become more sensitive to others.”

Beyond social media, Obuchowicz said she has noticed an uptick in the interest in self-care lately, particularly since the election. It’s true: Google searches for the term reached a five-year high after the election.

But Obuchowicz says it’s more than just social media that has pushed millennials to the forefront of the self-care discussion.

“Our generation has seen enough,” she said. “People are really hungry for knowledge. It’s a relatively new idea in our culture that we would be paying attention to how we feel and using that as a kind of intelligence. It’s something that’s really waking up in our culture and our generation.”

Obuchowicz said millennials look at their parents and grandparents and are grateful for what they’ve done but aren’t willing to go about life in the same way.

And they are not the first generation to do so.

“What our mothers did in comparison to our grandmothers was epic,” Obuchowicz said. “This is our revolution.”

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The border of Arkansas and Missouri is a land of open skies and long stretches of farmland. It’s also the scene for a fight against a weed – specifically the pigweed, which will overwhelm a crop in a season.

Farmers are in constant conflict with the weed. Some have turned to a powerful pesticide called Dicamba. Dicamba kills the pigweed, but it also kills the neighbors’ plants, including farmer Mike Wallace’s crops. The conflict was no longer farmer versus weed, but also farmer versus farmer. When his neighbors illegally sprayed the pesticide, Wallace reported it. After harvest, Wallace was shot and killed.

On today’s show, a murder mystery – about how a weed divided neighbors and led to Mike Wallace’s death.

Music: “Devil Ridge” and “Bootstrap Blues.” Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts or PocketCast.

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Crude oil is now flowing through the Dakota Access Pipeline, despite months of protests against it by Native American tribes and environmental groups.

The pipeline spans more than 1,000 miles from North Dakota to Illinois and cost some $3.8 billion to construct. It is expected to transport approximately 520,000 barrels of oil daily.

“Construction on the project was supposed to wrap up late last year,” as Prairie Public Broadcasting’s Amy Sisk reported. “But protests led to delays in permitting the final stretch of the pipeline under the Missouri River in North Dakota.” At least 761 people were arrested during the standoff, according to The Associated Press.

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose reservation lies just downstream from the place where the pipeline crosses the Missouri River, vow to continue fighting. They fear that a pipeline leak could contaminate their drinking water and sacred lands.

“Just because the oil is flowing now doesn’t mean that it can’t be stopped,” Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said in a statement.

A lawsuit from the tribe is still pending in federal court. “The tribe wants a judge to shut the pipeline down and says a thorough environmental review of the project must be completed,” Sisk added.

During President Trump’s first month in office, he reversed a decision by the Obama administration and called on the Army to expedite the approval process for the section of the pipeline that had not yet been built.

As The Two-Way reported, a federal judge in March denied a motion for a preliminary injunction to stop construction, clearing the way for the completion of the pipeline.

The pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners, argues that the pipeline represents a “more environmentally responsible manner than other modes of transportation, including rail or truck.”

The tribe has pointed out three separate incidents of pipeline leaks recently in the area. The Associated Press described what happened:

“The Dakota Access pipeline and a feeder line leaked more than 100 gallons of oil in western North Dakota in separate incidents in March, and the Dakota Access line leaked 84 gallons of oil in northern South Dakota in April. No waterways were affected.”

If you’re catching up on the Dakota Access Pipeline issue, check out our timeline of key events here.

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Amazon is offering customers refunds for unauthorized charges their children have incurred playing games from the company’s Appstore.

The move comes nearly three years after the Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon in federal court over in-game charges that shocked unsuspecting parents.

“Amazon’s in-app system allowed children to incur unlimited charges on their parents’ accounts without permission,” the FTC’s then-Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said when the lawsuit was filed.

A judge concurred and the FTC says the company has agreed to refund up to $70 million in unintended charges.

Amazon spokesman Jonathan Richardson said in a statement to NPR: “We have contacted all eligible customers who have not already received a refund for unauthorized charges to help ensure their refunds are confirmed quickly.”

If you believe your child made an in-app purchase without your permission between November 2011 and May 2016, you may be eligible for a refund. The FTC says you can visit this Amazon webpage or log into your Amazon account and look in the Message Center under “Important Messages.” Or you can call Amazon at 866-216-1072. Refund requests are due by May 28, 2018.

Julie Comeaux is one of many parents who had no idea her daughter was continually spending money inside a game on her new Amazon Kindle. Comeaux described on Morning Edition last month how she typed in her password once to approve a $5 in-app purchase—then left the Kindle with her daughter.

“When we checked the account and we saw hundreds of charges from Amazon, it totaled near $10,000,” Comeaux said.

“She cried. I had to calm her down,” Comeaux recalled. “She was very upset, didn’t know she was spending real money.”

According to the FTC complaint, games often blur the lines between what kids can buy with virtual currency and what they’re buying with actual money. It cited the app Ice Age Village, in which players can use virtual coins and acorns to buy items — and can also pay real money to buy more of the virtual currencies, on a screen that looks very similar.

But Amazon’s Richardson said Wednesday, “Since the launch of the Appstore in 2011, Amazon has helped parents prevent purchases made without their permission by offering access to parental controls, clear notice of in-app purchasing, real-time notification for every in-app purchase and refund assistance for unauthorized purchases.”

The FTC asked the court to require that Amazon refund unauthorized charges and to prevent it from billing account holders for future in-app charges without their consent.

A year ago, federal district court Judge John Coughenour agreed to the refunds. He wrote: “The Court determines that the scope of Amazon’s unfair billing practices pertains to all in-app charges made by account users without express, informed authorization.” But he denied the FTC’s request for the future billing ban.

Richardson noted, “The Court here affirmed our commitment to customers when it ruled no changes to current Appstore practices were required. To continue ensuring a great customer experience, we are happy to provide our customers what we have always provided: refunds for purchases they did not approve.”

The FTC appealed the judge’s decision in hopes of securing a future ban, and Amazon appealed the refund order. Last month, both sides agreed to drop their appeals so the refund process could begin.

According to the FTC, when Amazon introduced in-app charges in its Appstore in November 2011, it didn’t require any password to spend real money inside an app. In March 2012, the FTC said, the company updated its system to require the account owner to enter a password for single purchases over $20. That meant children could still make an unlimited number of purchases under $20 each.

Then in early 2013, Amazon began requiring a password for some charges, the FTC said. But even when a parent authorized a single charge, that permission sometimes lasted for up to an hour, allowing children to make more purchases without new authorization.

“Not until June 2014, roughly two and a half years after the problem first surfaced,” did Amazon begin to require account holders’ consent for in-app charges on its newer mobile devices,” the FTC explained in a statement.

The judge’s ruling noted that, “By December 2011, (Amazon Appstore Director) Aaron Rubenson referred to the amount of customer complaints as ‘near house on fire.’… Rubenson also referred to ‘accidental purchasing by kids’ as one of two issues the company needed to solve.”

Amazon was the holdout in the FTC’s crackdown on unwitting in-app purchases. It made similar claims against Google and Apple and those companies both settled. Google agreed to refund $19 million and Apple agreed to refund $32 million to eligible customers.

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