The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has revoked the trademark for the Washington Redskins. Also, a parade of recall announcements from GM and other auto companies have left customers bitter, not just about the faulty car parts, but about the system for fixing affected vehicles. Then, would you pick up a hitchhiking robot?
US Patent Office cancels Washington Redskins trademark registration
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board today cancelled six federal trademark registrations owned by the NFL team Washington Redskins, saying that “a substantial composite of Native Americans found the term Redskins to be disparaging.”
The board, part of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, ruled 2-1 against the team, which has been under unprecedented pressure from critics and lawmakers to change its name. In May, 50 U.S. senators signed a letter urging the NFL to change the team’s name, but to no avail.
The team, which says it is going to appeal the decision, can retain the use of the name and its federal trademark rights during the appeal process.
“We’ve seen this story before,” Bob Raskopf, a trademark lawyer for the team, said in a statement. “We are confident we will prevail once again, and that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s divided ruling will be overturned on appeal.”
Watch the AD against the Redskins Name:
Guests:
Jonathan Topaz, Breaking News Reporter at Politico
Gabriel Feldman, the director of the sports law program at Tulane University
LAPD Chief Beck: Police drones, innumerable pot shops and his 5-year plan
LAPD has two new drones equipped with cameras and night-vision. The small, remote-controlled Draganflyer X6 aircraft were a gift from the Seattle Police Department last month (after Seattle residents protested their use).
RELATED: LAPD Chief Beck sidelines detective accused of racial, vulgar remarks
We'll ask LAPD Chief Charlie Beck how the drones will be used in Los Angeles. Moreover, how will they not be used to avoid a "big brother" dragnet? One possible chore for the drones could be to get a handle once and for all on how many medical marijuana dispensaries are operating in LA. City officials believe as many as 800 might be operating illegally.
What is the role of the police department in terms of enforcement? We'll also ask about Mayor Eric Garcetti's request that Chief Beck present a five-year plan for the future of the force.
Interview Highlights:
Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the OJ Simpson chase. How has that episode changed LAPD pursuit policies?
"Our policies have changed since then, but it really isn't because of the OJ Bronco pursuit. I think that the real question is what has changed about the LAPD since then. Really, the LAPD and all of the local agencies have changed the way we collect evidence, the way we document how we collect evidence. Those are the biggest changes that came out of the OJ trial. Working much better with the District Attorney, or whatever the prosecuting agency is, to make sure that we have the best witnesses on the stand and that they don't have things in their past that may discredit them."
Sort of a top to bottom year-ago revision saying, 'whoa, let's make sure this doesn't happen again?'
"Absolutely, and this is, unfortunately all those lessons played out in grand theater, as you're well aware."
What were you doing that night?
"I was a lieutenant and I think I was assigned to the Police Commission at the time, or watching part of it."
With the question on LAPD drones. One of the Kings fans knocked a drone out of the sky, but that wasn't your drone...
"No, that was not our drone. As everybody knows, or I think everybody knows, there is a massive industry in these unmanned aerial vehicles, these small helicopters that can carry a GoPro or whatever kind of camera. So there are many, many, many of them out there, hundreds and hundreds, and it is a rare exception where there would be a law enforcement drone. So the LAPD has a couple, we have never flown them, or used them.
"We're developing policies, we want to hear from the public. It's, as I've said many times, public trust to me is more important than any kind of police equipment, so I want to make sure the public has faith in us before we are to use these. If we use them, it would be in a tactical situation and not any kind of general surveillance. By tactical situation I mean a SWAT standoff, barricaded suspect, that kind of thing where it's much safer to put one of these vehicles overhead than a helicopter.
"I think many of your listeners may have seen the end of pursuit last week where a gentleman was standing up on a roof with an assault weapon at the end of the pursuit. Obviously, all of the helicopters have got to pull out, because an assault weapon has tremendous range and so we lose some visibility, we lose some intelligence gathering in a situation like that. Maybe, just maybe, a drone might be the answer to that."
Does it cause problems for you when there are so many private, unregulated drones out there?
"There's the safety issue, they have to piloted remotely...people use them over crowds. They're a fairly heavy piece of equipment falling from an altitude, they're dangerous in that way."
Is there terrorist potential?
"Well, of course. The larger ones, the military sized ones can be used to deliver small packages, which could be a danger, so it is a brave new world.
You have asked for another 5-year term as chief. What is it that people want to know about you?
"I think they want to know what I intend to do over the next five year, what are my plans for the Los Angeles Police Department. What is my vision? What goals will I set and what kind of police department will I run? What I've told them is you can look to the past to see my performance, but I look to the future to see my vision. This is not going to continue to be the exact same Los Angeles Police Department, we are in a constant evolution of becoming much more transparent, much more community oriented, and an organization that values the constitution more than we value the penal code."
Is it easy to get complacent in this position? What are you doing about that?
"We very vigorously pursue crime reduction, and we do it through the Compstat process, we do it every day when we deploy police officers. This is the exact opposite of complacency. The way that we have been able to achieve crime reductions over what is now a 12-year period is by constant attention to detail, constantly paying attention to when crime occurs, where it occurs, who is involved and taking steps to mitigate that."
There have been questions of discipline, asking whether you've been to lenient in doling out punishment. In the case of an officer lying to investigators...
"I think if you look at my record in total, you'll see that I've had the unfortunate job to fire more police officers than my predecessor did over the same period of time. I don't think that's any kind of measure about whether you're tough or fair or not, I think it's just a reality. Certainly the fact is not that I'm afraid to discipline police officers, I don't relish it. I would prefer that we train people to behave correctly, but I always look at a number of things when I decide on discipline.
"The first thing I look at is what is the best thing for this city? Then I look at what's the best thing for the police department? Then finally, what's the best thing for the employee? If I can find the right solution to those three questions, then that's the discipline that I implement.
"I am a firm believer in recognizing whether an error is a mistake of the head or a mistake of the heart. Everybody makes mistakes of the head. Our judgment can be either fooled or faulty, but mistakes of the heart, when you do something that's intrinsically wrong, that you know is wrong and decide to do it anyway, then that is much more difficult. Those are the kinds of situations where I use the ultimate punishment available to me, which is to separate them from the police department."
Auto recall economics: the fix is broken
A parade of recall announcements from GM and other auto companies have left customers bitter, not just about the faulty car parts, but about the system for fixing affected vehicles.
GM has recalled millions of cars to fix an ignition switch that the company says has caused more than 50 crashes and 13 deaths. General Motors CEO Mary Barra faces her second congressional hearing about the 20 million recalls today.
So far, only 7 percent of the cars have been fixed, in the interim, GM is offering customers temporary replacement cars to drive if they are afraid to operate their vehicle. GM waited a decade to recall the ignition switch, and a company spokesperson said that part of the hold up was that the parts are no longer being manufactured.
Have you ever been involved in an auto recall? Was the wait to get the car fixed a hassle? How should car companies handle recalls and the process of fixing faulty vehicles? How have businesses and consumers been impacted by massive recalls?
Guest:
Jeff Bennett, automotive reporter, Wall Street Journal
Looking for terrorism in your own backyard
When we talk about terrorism, we often think of the kind abroad, that we’re fighting wars with far, far away. But following the murders of three people at a Jewish Center in Kansas in April, a shooting at a Georgia courthouse and the murder of two Las Vegas police officers and a Las Vegas resident earlier this month -- all involving suspects expressing extremist ideology -- the Justice Department is calling back a federal task force that’s laid dormant for more than a decade.
It’s called the Domestic Terrorism Task Force, and it was first formed in response to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing but shortly disbanded after 9/11, when the national focus began to shift toward terrorism overseas. We’ll talk with a terrorism expert about what the group will focus on and where the most urgent domestic threats are growing.
Guest:
Brian Michael Jenkins, senior adviser to the president of the RAND Corporation
Would you pick up a hitchhiking robot?
This summer, hitchBot will travel across Canada in stranger’s cars. The little robot has its thumb permanently out, asking for a ride.
Armed with a programmed vocabulary and a pair of sturdy rainboots to protect itself against the weather, hitchBot will tell those who pick it up for a ride its story and mission. Humans are increasingly connected to technology -- already there are stories about people who name their Roombas and soldiers who grow attached to bomb-detecting robots.
The question of whether humans can trust robots is an underlying factor as technology becomes “smarter” and more autonomous. But hitchBot’s co-creators, David Harris Smith and Frauke Zeller, turn that question on its head to ask whether robots can trust humans.
Guests:
David Harris Smith, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at McMaster University
Frauke Zeller, assistant professor in the School of Professional Communication at Ryerson University
Brave Miss World: From beauty queen to anti-sexual violence activist
Two teenage sisters were found raped and hung by attackers from a mango tree in India last month – yet another case of violence against women in a country where a rape is committed every 22 minutes.
But this is not happening in India alone. More than three years after the Arab Spring uprising, Egypt has experienced a plague of sexual assaults. And the more than 200 school girls kidnapped by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in Nigeria are still missing. Colleges and universities across the U.S., meanwhile, have been trying to figure out how best to deal with a proliferation of rape cases on campus.
How can we stop this global epidemic? Linor Abargil was 18 when she was abducted and raped in Milan, Italy—just six weeks before she had to represent Israel in the Miss World competition in 1998. Abargil won, and used her new-found influence to fight for justice for other victims of sexual abuse. Her journey is the subject of the documentary, Brave Miss World.
Guest:
Cecilia Peck, filmmaker, Brave Miss World, which is currently streaming on Netflix
Linor Abargil, Miss World 1998 and the subject of the film