Comment on Economic agenda: Tuesday, April 5, 2011

The airline will be credited $25 million for its improvements in wheelchair handling and payments made to affected passengers. The U. S. government fined American Airlines $50 million for failing to provide wheelchair assistance to passengers with disabilities and damaging thousands of wheelchairs over a five-year period. The Transportation Department said Wednesday that “in some cases,” wheelchair users were injured, but it did not give a number.

The figures are likely conservative since they do not include indirect tree loss from mining-related infrastructure, says a report by the World Resources Institute. Whether it’s digging for metals and minerals for cellphones and electric vehicles or coal for power generation, mining around the world has skyrocketed since 2000, causing widespread destruction of tropical forests, degrading the environment and displacing Indigenous and local communities, the World Resources Institute says in a report released Wednesday.

Carbon removal is defined as any solution that captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it permanently. The unregulated carbon dioxide removal industry is calling on the U. S. government to implement standards and regulations to boost transparency and confidence in the sector that’s been flooded with billions of dollars in federal funding and private investment.

McDonald’s said Wednesday that customers should feel confident ordering from its restaurants despite a deadly E. coli outbreak linked to its Quarter Pounders. McDonald’s U. S. President Joe Erlinger said in an interview on the “Today” show that the company has removed the Quarter Pounder from its menu in the 10 states where dozens of people were sickened, as well as in several other states. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] A preliminary investigation by the U.

Seven minutes of chitchat and one real question into an interview, Mel Robbins begins to cry. Her eyes brim with tears behind her signature glasses; her confident voice gets squeaky. Here’s the question: how would you describe what you do? Not exactly a hardball, especially for Robbins, who has an everything-must-go approach to self-disclosure.

As always, the economy is on voters’ minds. A recent Gallup poll found that it’s the most important issue for many registered voters when considering the presidential candidates. Most of the data suggests that the U. S. economy is doing pretty well—employers added a surprising 254,000 jobs last month, while the unemployment rate fell slightly, to 4.1%.