Everyone and their neighbor seemingly got an e-bike during the pandemic, but their surge in popularity has come with a nasty side effect: exploding batteries that spark deadly fires. The problem is especially evident in New York City, where on Sunday an e-bike battery sparked an hourslong blaze at a Bronx grocery store that injured seven.

It’s the latest in a string of fires started by the lithium-ion batteries in electric bikes and scooters. They’ve caused at least 30 fires, 40 injuries, and two deaths in NYC this year as of Feb. 27, according to the New York Fire Department.

• Last year, they ignited 216 fires—double the amount of the year before—resulting in 147 injuries and six deaths.
• Lithium-ion batteries were the fourth leading cause of fire deaths in NYC last year, per the FDNY.

The number of blazes has been rising in tandem with the number of e-bikes sold: The US imported over 1 million last year, a gear shift up from 880,000 in 2021 and 450,000 in 2020, according to the Light Electric Vehicle Association.

What’s so dangerous about an e-bike battery?

It’s about the batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are a Nobel-prize-winning invention that power everything from phones to computers to electric vehicles. These batteries are safe unless they’re faulty or damaged, and e-bikes and e-scooters are subject to a lot of hard use hauling commuters and delivery workers up and over NYC’s bridges.

• The batteries are also expensive (about $300 each), so low-quality and secondhand alternatives, which are more likely to be defective, have flooded the market.

It’s unlikely an e-bike will spontaneously combust mid-ride beneath your butt. Instead, they become a hazard while in storage or when left unattended on a charger (where they overheat).

The fires they cause are nightmarish: Lithium-ion battery fires can engulf a room in about 15 seconds, per the UL Fire Safety Research Institute. In addition, the toxic gases they release make them especially difficult to put out.

There’s a solution in the works

The New York City Council approved several bills last week that 1) add new safety and certification standards for micromobility vehicles 2) launch educational campaigns on safe usage and 3) restrict the use and sale of secondhand batteries.

It’s the city’s alternative to an outright ban, which London enacted for e-scooters in 2021 after it faced its own battery fire problem.—JW

California is “done” with Walgreens. CA Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted that the state will stop doing business with Walgreens over the pharmacy chain’s decision not to sell abortion pills in 20 GOP-led states. Walgreens and CVS have been threatened with legal action by Republican attorneys general if they distribute abortion medication in those states. But Newsom is not impressed, writing that Walgreens’s move “cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk.”

US to go full Gandalf with proposed airline merger. That’s a “You shall not pass!” reference, btw. The Department of Justice and Department of Transportation are expected to launch an attempt to block a proposed $3.8 billion merger between JetBlue and Spirit as soon as today. The DOJ will sue on antitrust grounds, arguing that a tie-up would harm flyers by raising prices and decreasing options. And in a highly unusual move, the DOT is expected to try and block the transfer of Spirit’s airline operating certificate.

Toblerone loses its Swissness. The brand is ditching the iconic Matterhorn mountain image and Swiss flag from its packaging because of the most European reason possible: It’s breaking Swiss government rules about what can be promoted as a Swiss product. The Swissness Act of 2017 put guardrails around how companies can use certain Swiss symbols in their marketing, but Toblerone will no longer meet the Swissness criteria as it shifts some production to Slovakia.

We regret to inform you that there are shakes on the plane.

A series of extreme turbulence incidents in early 2023 has air travelers wondering why the seatbelt sign has been left on so much lately. Last week alone, turbulence was responsible for: at least seven injuries aboard a transatlantic Lufthansa red-eye, the aborted landing of a North Carolina-bound Southwest flight, and a passenger death on a business jet traveling between New Hampshire and Virginia.

Are the skies becoming more treacherous?

Research shows that the chances of having a turbulent flight are increasing and that a changing climate might be the culprit.

• Climate change makes atmospheric air currents more unstable and winds faster, causing rockier skies.
• It’s also elevating the risk of clear-air turbulence, which appears out of the blue and gives pilots little time to order passengers to buckle up.

But in general, you should still be more concerned about the prospect of a canceled flight than a shaky one.

Extreme turbulence is still very rare and not usually dangerous. Only 146 people were seriously injured by severe turbulence between 2009 and 2021, per the Federal Aviation Administration—and most were not wearing their seatbelts. Airplanes are designed to withstand intense shaking, while pilots are trained to safely navigate intense wind…even if your plane meatloaf sticks to the aircraft ceiling.—SK

A storm drain? Who cares. But a storm drain officially named Stormy Drainels? That’s something to cherish.

Municipalities across the US know this, so they’re increasingly holding online naming contests to christen fixtures like snowplows, sewer grates, and garbage trucks in a bid to increase public awareness of the services available and the workers who perform them, the WSJ reports.

The Madison, Wisconsin, snowplow naming contest results came in late last month, resulting in five newly denominated plows: Saltimus Prime, Snowbi Wan Kenobi, Seymour Pavement, and Dolly Plowton.

Madison isn’t the only city with named plows. Some highlights from around the US include:

• Fuhgeddaplowdit (New Paltz, NY)
• Plowy McPlowFace (St. Paul, MN)
• Steve (North Hero, VT)

Other pieces of equipment around the country have also gotten the pun treatment. A storm drain in Minnesota is named Drain “The Block” Johnson, a street sweeper in Virginia has been dubbed “MF BROOM,” and a garbage truck in Indiana now goes by “Bin Diesel.”

Where’d this come from? The idea of naming municipal equipment seems to have been spawned in Scotland, where a 2006 primary school contest to name gritters (snowplows) caught on in a big way. All 240 plows operated by Transport Scotland now have names.—MK

Stat: The real estate development industry is overwhelmingly white. And by overwhelmingly, we mean that about 111,000 of the roughly 112,000 real estate development firms in the US are white-owned. That was the finding of a new study by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and Grove Impact, which attributed the lack of minority representation in the industry to a lack of access to capital.

Quote: “This is the biggest innovation in our industry today.”

WW (formerly WeightWatchers) has been watching the explosion of diabetes and obesity drugs such as Ozempic, and CEO Sima Sistani doesn’t want to be left out. To gain a foothold in the space, WW said it’s buying Sequence, a digital health company that connects its subscribers with doctors who prescribe drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. WW intends to promote Sequence’s service to its members, the WSJ reported.

Read: Meet the guy who’s lived (mostly) barefoot for two decades. (New York Times)

Tech tip: Here’s how to use ChatGPT to apply for jobs.

Revisit a classic essay: “Maker’s schedule, manager’s schedule” by Paul Graham.

Type like they used to: This typewriter simulator will either make you nostalgic for a Smith Corona or grateful for your current keyboard.

Examples of video techniques: “Object portal” is an especially neat one, but you can see ’em all here.

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Sports movie trivia

Creed III just posted the biggest opening weekend for a sports-themed movie, bringing in a mighty $58.6 million at the domestic box office. Which movie was the previous record holder?

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