Following the recent launch of Apple Music, U.S. Senator Al Franken has called on both the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the possibility that Apple is creating an anticompetitive environment in the streaming music market. His letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FTC Chair Edith Ramirez says Apple’s restrictive agreements with app developers, including competitive ones,  may “have the potential to limit choices and raise prices for consumers.” 

What's a mother to do…with three teenage boys who have figured out what they can do with just one hand? How does the mom, whose nom de plume (so to speak) is James Otis Thatch, figure it out? The Kleenex multipacks are MIA. “If I don't supply absorbent paper products, I'm going to find my dish towels hidden in the basement, stiff as aluminum. The other day, I almost cut my hand on a sock.” Where's the TV spot?

New research from online-reservation service OpenTable finds that diners aren’t eager to download apps for their favorite restaurants. They prefer to do an old-fashioned Internet search to get info. The message: apps are nice, but invest in your website. The study, “Technology and Dining Out 2015,” is based on input from 6,000 diners, 18 or older, who made at least one reservation via OpenTable in the previous 12 months.

Hostess, a unit of Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co., hopes to get investors to snap up the $1.2 billion in bonds it intends to float. To boost interest the company is telling lenders it is mulling frozen fried Twinkies. Hostess, which makes Ho Hos, Donettes, Sno Balls and other snack brands, is also looking at plain old bread, with bagels, tortillas and English muffins, per a source. “They have been working on developing bread with extended shelf life,” said the source.

The newly formed, 3-week-old Kraft Heinz Co. entity is cutting marketing jobs. Sources say Tom Bick, senior director-integrated marketing communications and advertising for the Oscar Mayer business and Kara Henry, senior marketing director, communications and agency relations are being shown the bricks. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital did the deal, and those organizations tend toward post-deal streamlining.

It could have been any modern, connected car, but evidently Jeep Cherokee is an easy hack. Writer Andy Greenberg describes being the crash test dummy for two hackers, who show, in a terrifying manner, how easy it is to take over a modern car and make it pretty much do whatever they tell it to. The hackers take over the brakes, the throttle, transmission, radio, and screen of the Cherokee while Greenberg’s at the wheel. The so-called “zero-day exploit” targets Cherokees through their entertainment system software.

Brand U.S.A., a partnership between the U.S. government and the American travel industry is looking for a global marketing and advertising firm to bring tourists to America. The RFP says “While the United States welcomed 60 million visitors in 2010, its share of the international travel market has decreased significantly over the past decade." The note says the U.S. share of international travel fell from 17.2% in 2000 to 12.4% percent in 2010.

Hard root beer is the next big thing, a consequence of craft breweries looking for the next big thing, and drinkers getting sweet on booze. Not Your Father’s Root Beer, from Small Town Brewery in Wauconda, Ill., is popular, getting 94 out of 100 on Beer Advocate, an online review aggregator. In comparison, New Belgium’s Fat Tire, a fan favorite, scores only an 84.

Apple has hired former Fiat Chrysler executive Doug Betts, who left FCA last year to “pursue other opportunities.” The news comes by way of his LinkedIn profile. His current job is listed as “Operations – Apple Inc.” Apple has been creating an automotive brain trust to oversee its EV project, code-named Titan. FCA announced Betts’ departure a day after Consumer Reports said the reliability of each of Fiat Chrysler’s brands has declined.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has circulated an order to approve the $48.5 billion merger between AT&T and DirecTV. In a statement, Wheeler said the move would bring more competition to the broadband marketplace and benefit consumers. He said, in the memo, that the build-out is about 10 times the size of AT&T's current fiber-to-the-premise deployment, and more than triples the number of metropolitan areas AT&T has announced plans to serve.