Toyota recalls 1.8M vehicles in the US

TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp. is recalling nearly 1.8 million vehicles in the U.S. for various safety problems, including air bags that may fail to deploy.

The Japanese automaker announced the U.S. recall Wednesday as part of a broader recall of 6.39 million vehicles — and 27 Toyota models — globally.

In the U.S., the recall includes:

— 1.3 million vehicles with faulty electrical connections that could cause the air bags to deactivate. Included are the 2009-2010 Corolla, 2009-2010 Matrix, 2008-2010 Highlander, 2009-2010 Tacoma, 2006-2008 RAV4, 2006-2010 Yaris and 2009-2010 Pontiac Vibe. If the air bags deactivate, they could fail to deploy after a crash.

— 472,500 small cars with defective springs in the front seat rails, which could prevent the seats from locking in place. Included are the 2006-2010 Yaris hatchback, 2007-2010 Yaris sedan and the 2008-2010 Scion XD.

Toyota said it is currently working on remedies for the problems. Dealers will replace the defective parts for free when replacement parts are available.

The Pontiac Vibe, which is made by General Motors Co., is included in the recall because Toyota designed and engineered it for GM when the two companies shared a factory in California. GM says 40,500 Vibes will be recalled, and says GM dealers will make repairs when Toyota sends them the parts.

The air bag issue is unrelated to a separate GM recall of 2.6 million vehicles for an ignition switch defect that can also deactivate the air bags. The Vibe isn't included in that recall.

Toyota said no injuries or crashes have been reported related to the recalls.

By region, the recall affects 2.3 million vehicles in North America, 1.09 million vehicles in Japan and 810,000 vehicles in Europe. Other regions affected by the recall include Africa, South America and the Middle East.

The recall is one of Toyota's largest since 2009 and 2010, when the company issued a series of recalls totaling more than 10 million vehicles for various problems including faulty brakes, sticky gas pedals and ill-fitting floor mats.

Toyota is under pressure to announce recalls quickly after a U.S. government investigation found it hid information about past defects. Last month, the company agreed to pay $1.2 billion to settle that investigation. It also paid fines totaling $66 million to the U.S. government for delays in reporting unintended acceleration problems.

The company says it has "made fundamental changes to become a more responsive and customer-focused organization, and we are committed to continued improvements."

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AP Auto Writer Dee-Ann Durbin contributed from Detroit. Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at twitter.com/yurikageyama.

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DHS secretary reevaluating deportation priorities

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Wednesday he's re-evaluating the Obama administration's deportation priorities to make certain they're focused on national security, public safety and border security, amid growing pressure from the Latino community and President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats.

Johnson spoke Wednesday after a closed-door meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which has been pressuring the administration to scale back the high number of deportations since Obama took office. The number now stands near 2 million.

Activists contend many people are deported who pose no threat, have little or no criminal record, and are being sent away even if they have entrenched families in the U.S.

With comprehensive immigration legislation stalled in the House, activists are increasingly looking to Obama for a solution. The president announced last month that Johnson would be conducting a review to see if deportation practices can be more humane.

That review is now under way. Johnson gave no hint of a timetable or ultimate conclusions in his brief remarks to reporters Wednesday, but he did indicate he's learning of issues with the current system, which the Obama administration has defended.

"I have heard a number of cases that lead me to want to reevaluate our priorities to make sure we're getting this right, and that's what I'm doing right now," said Johnson.

"I am dedicated and committed to ensuring that our removal priorities are focused on threats to national security, public safety and border security."

Earlier in his administration Obama granted deportation relief to certain immigrants brought here illegally as children, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus wants the president to expand that to other low-risk groups, such as parents of children who are U.S. citizens because they were born in this country.

Activists have been fasting on the National Mall and outside the White House to bring attention to the issue.

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"Heartbleed" exposes millions of online passwords

SAN FRANCISCO — An alarming lapse in Internet security has exposed millions of passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive information to potential theft.

The breakdown revealed this week affects a widely used encryption technology that is supposed to protect online accounts for emails, instant messaging and a wide range of electronic commerce.

Security researchers who uncovered the threat, known as "Heartbleed," are particularly worried about the vulnerability because it went undetected for more than two years. They fear the possibility that computer hackers may have been secretly exploiting the problem before its discovery.

Although there is now a way to close the security hole, there are still plenty of reasons to be concerned, said David Chartier, CEO of Codenomicon. A small team from the Finnish security firm diagnosed Heartbleed while working independently from another Google Inc. researcher who also discovered the threat.

"I don't think anyone that had been using this technology is in a position to definitively say they weren't compromised," Chartier said.

Chartier and other computer security experts are advising people to consider changing all their online passwords.

"I would change every password everywhere because it's possible something was sniffed out," said Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer for Qualys, a maker of security-analysis software. "You don't know because an attack wouldn't have left a distinct footprint."

But changing the passwords won't do any good, these experts said, until the affected services install the software released Monday to fix the problem. That puts the onus on the Internet services affected by Heartbleed to alert their users to the potential risks and let them know when the Heartbleed fix has been installed so they can change their passwords.

"This is going to be difficult for the average guy in the streets to understand, because it's hard to know who has done what and what is safe," Chartier said.

Yahoo Inc., which boasts more than 800 million users worldwide, is among the Internet services that could be potentially hurt by Heartbleed. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company said most of its most popular services — including sports, finance and Tumblr — had been fixed, but work was still being done on other products that it didn't identify in a statement Tuesday.

"We're focused on providing the most secure experience possible for our users worldwide and are continuously working to protect our users' data," Yahoo said.

Heartbleed creates an opening in SSL/TLS, an encryption technology marked by the small, closed padlock and "https:" on Web browsers to signify that traffic is secure. The flaw makes it possible to snoop on Internet traffic even if the padlock had been closed. Interlopers could also grab the keys for deciphering encrypted data without the website owners knowing the theft had occurred, according to security researchers.

The problem affects only the variant of SSL/TLS known as OpenSSL, but that happens to be one of the most common on the Internet.

About two-thirds of Web servers rely on OpenSSL, Chartier said. That means the information passing through hundreds of thousands of websites could be vulnerable, despite the protection offered by encryptions. Beside emails and chats, OpenSSL is also used to secure virtual private networks, which are used by employees to connect with corporate networks seeking to shield confidential information from prying eyes.

Heartbleed exposed a weakness in encryption at the same time that major Internet services such as Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Facebook are expanding their usage of technology to reassure the users about the sanctity of their personal data. The additional security measures are being adopted in response to mounting concerns about the U.S. government's surveillance of online activities and other communications. The snooping has been revealed during the past 10 months through a series of leaked documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Despite the worries raised by Heartbleed, Codenomicon said many large consumer sites aren't likely to be affected because of their "conservative choice" of equipment and software. "Ironically, smaller and more progressive services or those who have upgraded to (the) latest and best encryption will be affected most," the security firm said in a blog post.

Although it may take months for smaller websites to install the Heartbleed fix, Chartier predicted all the major Internet services will act quickly to protect their reputations.

In a Tuesday post announcing it had installed the Heartbleed fix, Tumblr offered its users some blunt advice.

"This still means that the little lock icon (HTTPS) we all trusted to keep our passwords, personal emails, and credit cards safe, was actually making all that private information accessible to anyone who knew about the exploit," Tumblr said. "This might be a good day to call in sick and take some time to change your passwords everywhere — especially your high-security services like email, file storage, and banking, which may have been compromised by this bug."

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Jesdanun reported from New York.

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New technology unwraps mummies' ancient mysteries

LONDON — Our fascination with mummies never gets old. Now the British Museum is using the latest technology to unwrap their ancient mysteries.

Scientists at the museum have used CT scans and sophisticated imaging software to go beneath the bandages, revealing skin, bones, preserved internal organs — and in one case a brain-scooping rod left inside a skull by embalmers.

The findings go on display next month in an exhibition that sets eight of the museum's mummies alongside detailed three-dimensional images of their insides and 3-D printed replicas of some of the items buried with them.

Bio-archaeologist Daniel Antoine said Wednesday that the goal is to present these long-dead individuals "not as mummies but as human beings."

Mummies have been one of the British Museum's biggest draws ever since it opened in 1759. Director Neil MacGregor said 6.8 million people visited the London institution last year, "and every one asked one of my colleagues, 'Where are the mummies?'"

The museum has been X-raying its mummies since the 1960s, but modern CT scanners give a vastly sharper image. Just like live patients, the mummies chosen for the exhibition were scanned at London hospitals — though they were wheeled in after hours.

Volume graphics software, originally designed for car engineering, was then used to put flesh on the bones of the scans — showing skeletons, adding soft tissue, exploring the nooks and cavities inside.

The eight mummies belong to individuals who lived in Egypt or Sudan between 3,500 B.C. and 700 A.D. They range from poor people naturally preserved in sand — the cheapest burial option — to high-ranking Egyptians given elaborate ceremonial funerals.

"You got what you paid for, basically," said museum mummy expert John Taylor. "There were different grades of mummification."

Embalmers were exceptionally skilled, extracting the brain of the deceased through the nose, although they sometimes made mistakes.

The museum's scientists were thrilled to discover a spatula-like probe still inside one man's skull, along with a blob of brain.

"The tool at the back of the skull was quite a revelation, because embalmers' tools are something that we don't know much about," Taylor said. "To find one actually inside a mummy is an enormous advance."

The man, who died around 600 BC., also had painful dental abscesses that might have killed him. Another mummy, a woman who lived in Sudan around 700 A.D. was a Christian with a tattoo of the Archangel Michael's name on her inner thigh.

The star of the show is Tamut, a temple singer from a family of high-ranking priests who died in Thebes around 900 B.C. Her brightly decorated casket, covered in images of birds and gods, has never been opened, but the scans have revealed in extraordinary detail her well-preserved body, down to her face and short-cropped hair.

Tamut was in her 30s or 40s when she died, and had calcified plaque inside her arteries — a sign of a fatty diet, and high social status. She may well have died from a heart attack or stroke.

Several amulets carefully are arranged on her body, including a figure of a goddess with its wings spread protectively across her throat. It's even possible to see beeswax figurines of gods placed inside her chest to protect the internal organs in the afterlife.

"The clarity of the images is advancing very rapidly," Taylor said. "As the technology advances, we have hopes that we may be able to read even hieroglyphic inscriptions on objects inside mummies."

MacGregor said the museum plans eventually to scan all 120 of its Egyptian and Sudanese mummies, and to reveal even more about their lives.

"Come back in another five years and you will hear Tamut sing," he said.

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"Ancient Lives: New Discoveries" opens at the British Museum on May 22 and runs to Nov. 30.

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Follow Jill Lawless at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

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VW tells dealers to stop selling 4 models

DETROIT — Volkswagen is telling U.S. dealers to stop selling its most popular cars until transmission fluid leaks can be fixed.

Spokesman Scott Vazin says the order covers about 25,000 Jetta, Passat, Beetle and Beetle convertible models equipped with 1.8-liter, four-cylinder engines and automatic transmissions. They were built after Feb. 1.

An "O-ring" that links a transmission fluid line to a cooler can fail and cause leaks, potentially causing a fire. Vazin says no fires or crashes have been reported. VW plans to replace the defective parts.

About half the cars remain on dealer lots. Vazin says VW is working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on how to fix the cars that have been sold.

He says owners with questions about their cars should contact their dealers.

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Stocks open higher; Alcoa leads the way

NEW YORK — Stocks are opening higher on Wall Street as corporate earnings begin on a positive note.

Aluminum maker Alcoa rose the most of major U.S. stocks after reporting earnings that were better than investors were expecting. Alcoa rose 3 percent in early trading. Other materials stocks also rose.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose three points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,855 in the first few minutes of trading Wednesday.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 27 points, or 0.2 percent, to 16,284. The Nasdaq composite rose 19 points, or 0.5 percent, to 4,132.

Technology stocks, which fell sharply over the past week, were among the biggest gainers. Facebook rose 2 percent and Microsoft rose 1 percent.

Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.70 percent.

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Feds say oil trains should have two-man crews

WASHINGTON — Responding to a series of fiery train derailments, federal regulators said Wednesday they will propose that trains transporting crude oil have at least two-man crews as part of new requirements aimed at preventing parked train cars from coming loose and causing an accident like one in July that killed 47 people.

The Federal Railroad Administration had asked a freight rail industry advisory committee to make recommendations on whether two-man crews should be required, but the industry officials were unable to reach a consensus. Federal officials said they decided to move ahead with the two-crew member requirement anyway.

"We believe that safety is enhanced with the use of a multiple person crew — safety dictates that you never allow a single point of failure," Joseph Szabo, head of the railroad administration, said in a statement.

While existing federal regulations don't address how many crew members freight trains must have, the general practice among the largest freight railroads is to have a minimum of two crew members for trains while in service. However, that isn't always the case for regional and short-line railroads.

The crew proposal was prompted by an accident last July in the town of Lac-Megantic in Quebec, Canada. A train transporting oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota was left unattended by its lone crew member while parked near the town. The train came loose and sped downhill into Lac-Megantic. More than 60 tank cars derailed and caught fire, and several exploded, killing 47 people and destroying much of the town.

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Fla. bitcoin case tests money laundering limits

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Florida has become the first state to bring criminal money laundering charges in a case involving the virtual currency bitcoin. It's a case that could test whether current law can adapt to new digital forms of payment.

Pascal Reid and Michell Espinoza were arrested Miami Beach in an undercover sting in February. Police found them by trolling a bitcoin exchange website and posed as credit card thieves looking to launder their illegal proceeds.

The two men have both pleaded not guilty and their lawyers hope to get the charges thrown out because unregulated bitcoins are not money as defined by law. Miami-Dade County prosecutors say the money laundering charges fit the alleged crime.

Law enforcement agencies are closely watching bitcoins for signs of illegal activity.

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US stocks move higher as earnings get underway

NEW YORK — Stocks rose for a second straight day Wednesday, helped by surprisingly strong earnings from aluminum giant Alcoa. Technology stocks recovered from a drubbing over the past week.

KEEPING SCORE: The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose six points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,858 as of 12:15 p.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 59 points, or 0.4 percent, to 16,315 and the Nasdaq composite rose 29 points, or 0.7 percent, to 4,141.

A IS FOR: Alcoa rose 46 cents, or 3.7 percent, to $12.99, after the company's first-quarter earnings came in well ahead of expectations. The aluminum maker is typically the first large corporation to report results every quarter.

MATERIAL WORLD: Alcoa's results helped push other mining and materials stocks higher. U.S. Steel rose 2 percent; industrial parts company W.W. Grainger climbed 1.5 percent; auto parts company Delphi increased 1.5 percent.

EARNINGS WORRIES: Investors are concerned that earnings for the first three months of the year will be slowed by the severe winter weather that plagued most of the country. Earnings are expected to fall 1.6 percent from a year earlier, according to financial data provider FactSet. If that forecast proves correct, it would be the first time corporate profits have fallen since the third quarter of 2012.

THE QUOTE: "We're going to see lousy results but I think we'll still see optimistic forecasts from companies," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer with BMO Private Bank in Chicago. "Companies lost a lot of business in the first couple months of the year, but most of that business I suspect will come back."

DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE? Intuitive Surgical, the maker of robotic surgical equipment, slumped $33.40, or 7 percent, to $456.44. It warned that first-quarter sales would be drastically lower than previously expected. Intuitive Surgical, like many other biotechnology stocks, has endured some steep drops recently. It traded as high as $541.23 last Thursday.

HOTEL VACANCY: La Quinta Holdings, the parent company of the hotel chain La Quinta Inns, rose 31 cents, or 2 percent, to $17.33 on its first day of trading. La Quinta is owned by the private equity firm Blackstone Group and was taken public this week in a $650 million IPO.

ECONOMY WATCH: The Federal Reserve will release minutes from its March policy meeting later Wednesday. Also, the government reported that U.S. wholesale businesses increased their stockpiles for an eighth consecutive month in February. Their sales rose at the fastest pace since November.

BONDS AND COMMODITIES: Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note edged up to 2.70 percent from 2.68 percent late Tuesday. The price of crude oil was flat at $102 a barrel. Gold fell $3 to $1,306 an ounce.

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Rapper 50 cent ordered to pay in headphone case

BRADENTON, Fla. — Federal court records show that rapper 50 Cent has been ordered to pay a Bradenton earphone manufacturer more than $16 million in connection with a failed partnership to produce the entertainer's line of headphones.

The Bradenton Herald reports that 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson III, was ordered to pay Sleek Audio nearly $4.5 million in attorney fees and $11.7 million in damages.

The U.S. District Court in Miami affirmed the award in late March after a three-year legal battle.

Records allege that Jackson, a Sleek partner, stole the designs of over-the-ear headphones he asked the company to conceptualize and manufacture. Jackson has been selling headphones of a similar design under the 50-Over line with another manufacturer.

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Information from: The Bradenton (Fla.) Herald , http://www.bradenton.com

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