National News

You know those “black boxes” in airplanes? They collect data and are used to determine why a plane crashed?

Well, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration -- a regulatory body in D.C. -- plans to to require that all new cars and light trucks are equipped with them starting in September 2014.

While everybody calls it a “black box", it’s official name is event data recorder or EDR for short. And about 90 percent of cars today already have one, says Jim Harris, a traffic accident expert. He says the proposed regulation has specific requirements.

The EDR is running all the time, but it’s only required to keep the “5 seconds” of data before a crash. It also tracks, “how fast its going, steering wheel angle, accelerator pedal position, throttle position brake application, things of this nature as far as driver input,” saysHarris.  He adds EDR's don’t track location because its only interested in determining what happened in a crash.

But that’s doesn’t mean the proposed rules stop them from tracking more, says Nate Cardozo, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group.

EDR's are valuable but the proposed regulations don’t protect consumer privacy because there are no limits to the data carmakers can collect, he said.

“It’s not required that they track location, it’s not required that they record video or audio, but it’s also not prohibited,” Cardozo says. “There’s nothing that prevent an EDR from recording five minutes or five months of data before a crash.”

According to Cardozo, information could be used against drivers. Could the police access it without a warrant? And what about insurance companies?

“So the scenarios we see are insurance companies using this data to assess risk and set rates based on what they think the EDR shows about your driving habits,” he says.

Some insurance policies already require access to EDR data -- although several states have made it illegal.

Russ Rader at the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety says carmakers rely on the data to develop new safety features. If there are too many restrictions, it may limit innovation.

“We need flexibility in rules that can accommodate safety technologies in the future that perhaps we can’t imagine,” Rader says.

Cardozo, the civil liberties lawyer, says that if automakers need that data, the law should require them to disclose it to consumers.

"Bread, freedom, social justice" -- that's the slogan Egypt protestors used during their successful uprising in 2011. Today, protestors in Egypt have been urged to use the same slogan in protests marking the second anniversary of Hosni Mubarak's fall from power.

But whatever the political situation in Egypt, one thing's for sure, the economy is in a much worse state today than it was in the immediate aftermath of the revolution two years ago. It is growing at a slower rate, unemployment has risen, and the value of Egyptian pound has plunged against the dollar -- driving up the cost of food.

To hear how Egypt aims to stabilize its economy, click on the audio player above.

Whether fighting about texting or curfew, the key to resolving parent-child disputes is by helping them understand why they're angry in the first place. It usually turns out to be another stress like trouble at school or fear of embarrassment.

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It's the entrepreneurs' dream: tapping into China's market of 1.3 billion people. That dream fueled the efforts of two Chinese-American MBAs to take the soft-pretzel franchise — a staple of U.S. shopping malls — to China. Cultural and financial barriers, however, led to a far more challenging reality.

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It's the entrepreneurs' dream: tapping into China's market of 1.3 billion people. That dream fueled the efforts of two Chinese-American MBAs to take the soft-pretzel franchise — a staple of U.S. shopping malls — to China. Cultural and financial barriers, however, led to a far more challenging reality.

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An attention researcher wanted to find out how radiologists would fare in a version of a famous study called the Invisible Gorilla study. He found that 83 percent of the radiologists failed to spot an image of a gorilla on slides they were told to inspect for cancer. It's just one more example of how when you ask someone to perform a challenging task, their attention can narrow and block things out.

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Many of the canines that have flocked to Manhattan are staying at the Hotel Pennsylvania. And there the pooches are treated like VIPs, very important pooches, that is. From spinach pizza to a doggie concierge, it's a pampered life out there for a show dog.

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Pretrial hearings resume on Monday for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of helping plot the Sept. 11 attacks. There will be two competing narratives in the courtroom, however, with the prosecution focusing on the attacks, while the defense wants the trial to be about the defendants' treatment after they were captured.

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Many of the canines that have flocked to Manhattan are staying at the Hotel Pennsylvania. And there the pooches are treated like VIPs, very important pooches, that is. From spinach pizza to a doggie concierge, it's a pampered life out there for a show dog.

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This final note today, a few facts about the Pope. Pope Benedict XVI is going to leave behind a few perks he had on the job. For one, his new Popemobile: A Mercedes-Benz Modified M Class crossover in papel white. The basic model goes for anywhere from about $50,000 to over $100,000. But the Popemobile itself is believed to have been donated to the Vatican.

Pope Benedict doesn't know how to drive. Never got a driver's license. But he does apparently have a helicopter pilot's license and even likes to fly the papal helicopter. Who knew they had one of those?

A tornado tore through Hattiesburg on Sunday as part of a wave of severe storms that downed trees, damaged buildings and injured more than a dozen people.

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Millions of devotees had gathered in northern India for a Hindu festival Sunday. The death toll from the stampede at a train station there rose to 31 on Monday, hospital officials said.

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Authorities suspect Christopher Dorner, 33, in a series of attacks in Southern California over the past week that left three people dead. The Los Angeles Police Department on Saturday ordered a review of the disciplinary case that led to the fugitive's dismissal.

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Chagas' disease, which is transmitted by the "kissing bug," occurs mainly in Latin America. But the illness is on the rise in the U.S. Health economists now estimate that Chagas costs the world about $7 billion annually, which is more than the cost of cervical cancer or cholera.

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Amid a demographic shift in California, university officials are heading to church to find new applicants.

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As NASA moves away from manned missions, the private sector is taking on the task. Those hoping for a ride are as eager as ever, and space exploration hasn't lost a bit of its luster.

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Since the Dalai Lama's exile from Tibet in 1958, reincarnated high lamas have been born in, or exposed to, the West at an increasing rate. Journalist Tim McGirk wrote about the effects of that exposure in this month's issue of The Believer.

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The more than 2,100 American mosques are facing a challenge. There aren't enough imams, or spiritual leaders, to go around.

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Although you can't hear anything in space, scientists can still use sound to understand the solar system by turning data collected by NASA satellites into sounds and music. Listen to how one sonification specialist creates music out of eruptions on the sun.

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What were the issues George Washington raised in the State of the Union address 223 years ago? Some of the same ones you're likely to hear from President Obama on Tuesday night.

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