If you turn on a faucet and only a trickle comes out, you may well have a frozen pipe. “If you suspect the pipes are frozen, be careful when thawing them out because if the pipe has already burst, the water will come flowing out and flood your home,” says John Galeotafiore, who oversees Consumer…
Vehicles Recalled• Ford Flex SUVs manufactured between May 1, 2019, and Dec. 2, 2019.• Ford Fiesta hatchbacks and sedans manufactured between June 3, 2019, and Aug. 1, 2019.• Lincoln MKT SUVs manufactured between June 3, 2019, and Oct. 11, 2019. The problem: The backup cameras on these vehicles may stop displaying an image or they may show a…
Why do top-freezer refrigerators tend to last so long? “Top-freezers are usually bare-bones models,” says Breann Chai, CR’s test engineer for refrigerators. “The more complicated refrigerators become, the more prone they are to breaking.” Many top-freezers, for example, lack the components that seem to break most frequently: an icemaker and dispenser. Of course, there’s a…
Like every piece of gear you wear on your body day in and day out, fitness trackers are incredibly personal. The best fitness tracker should be comfortable, attractive, and fit your lifestyle, including when and how you like to work out. Do you bike, row, or do strength training? Do you run on trails for…
A significant proportion of people today live in towns and cities that grew up around trade, industry, and cars. Think of the docks of Liverpool, the factories of Osaka, the automobile obsession of New York’s Robert Moses, or the low-density sprawl of modern Riyadh. Few of these places were created with human health in mind….
Much doom and gloom was aimed at the electric car world in 2024. But according to the International Energy Agency, electric car sales could hit around 17 million for 2024, accounting for more than one in five cars sold worldwide. The US has seen growth, with luxury EVs in particular continuing to sell well. But the…
This applies not just to things you have to do, but also things you think you want to do. Maybe you think you should learn Spanish, but you haven’t done anything to actually learn Spanish. Admitting that you aren’t actually committed to the idea enough to do the work of learning Spanish can help close…
Catherine Roberts Catherine Roberts is a health and science journalist at Consumer Reports. She has been at CR since 2016, covering infectious diseases, bugs and bug sprays, consumer medical devices like hearing aids and blood pressure monitors, health privacy, and more. As a civilian, her passions include bike rides, horror films and fiction, and research…