These capabilities have existed for a while (Facebook told ProPublica’s Julia Angwin and Terry Parris Jr. it began offering them within the past two years as part of its “multicultural advertising” efforts), and to the advertisers who’ve used them, they might seem like a natural extension of broader practices like targeting based on age, gender and location.
For example, a nonprofit that’s hosting a career fair for the Hispanic community can use Facebook ads to reach people who have an interest in that community. And a merchant selling hair care products that are designed for black women can reach people who are most likely to want its products.
Our ad policies strictly prohibit this kind of advertising, and it’s against the law. If we learn of advertising on our platform that involves this kind of discrimination, we will take aggressive enforcement action. We also realize that, as a website, we often aren’t in a position to know the details of an apartment rental or job application — and so we will also remove an ad from our platform if the government agency responsible for enforcing discrimination laws tells us that the ad reflects illegal discrimination.


Law enforcement officials and reporters continue to plug new information into the still mysterious timeline of the lives of Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, but now the emerging picture has been framed by one stunning, but not surprising, piece of information.
The bottom line: Deadly violence linked to ISIS has come to the United States, either through online poison or through contacts during visits to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The answer, of course, could be "both-and." Were two people -- alone -- really gong to use all of those pipe bombs and thousands of round of ammunition, while taking care of a 6-month-old baby?
Early on, reporters (and law officials, one can assume) were surprised to find little online evidence that Farook and Malik existed. Now it's clear -- in another sign of premeditation and planning -- that they had attempted to wipe their cyber slates clean.
Authorities are officially investigating the San Bernardino, California, massacre as "an act of terrorism," FBI official David Bowdich said Friday.
Investigators think that as the San Bernardino, California, massacre was happening, female shooter Tashfeen Malik posted a pledge of allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Facebook, three U.S. officials familiar with the investigation told CNN. Malik's post was made on an account with a different name, one U.S. official said.
Several major newsrooms have now published long features built on emerging information about Farook and the still very mysterious figure that is Malik, his wife. In addition to CNN, that includes The New York Times, The Washington Post and an unusually straightforward news piece at The Daily Beast.
Compared with earlier coverage, it is striking how much of the new information that is emerging is linked to religion and, in particular, the degree to which Farook was known as a devout, practicing Muslim -- while also leaving clues that he may have believed that he was now practicing the faith on another level and might need to leave America. The modern Muslim home in which he had been raised, it appears, was dysfunctional at best. He yearned for more.
This is from The New York Times feature that ran with the headline, "Couple Kept Tight Lid on Plans for San Bernardino Shooting."
Mr. Farook was well known in the religious Muslim community here. From 2012 to 2014, he showed up twice a day for services at the Islamic Center of Riverside, sometimes as early as 4:30 a.m. and again in the evenings, said Mustafa H. Kuko, the director of the center. In a mosque where attendance on Fridays regularly tops 1,000, Mr. Farook stood out as one of the most devout members, wearing long robes to Friday services.
“He always kept a bit of a distance between him and other people,” Mr. Kuko said. “He never had any dispute with anyone here at all. Mostly when the service is over, his usual move is from the prayer to his car.” If he saw the director on the way out, he said “salaam,” but that was it.
And, at the very end, there is another chilling detail. What are the odds of Farook shooting a member of his own mosque?
They held the religious ceremony in Saudi Arabia and a reception at the mosque in Riverside, once they returned.
Mr. Kuko said he was still trying to make sense of the idea that someone like Mr. Farook could have been involved in mass murder. A woman who was wounded in the shooting, Mr. Kuko said, was a member of the mosque, the wife of the mosque’s program director, and a county worker.
Want one more example of the vivid information that is emerging at this point? The Daily Beast feature ends with one ironic, truly bitter, note of thanksgiving.
At least Farook and Malik, when they decided to make a run for it, didn't lock their 6-month-old daughter in their still-new infant car seat.
Along with Johnson’s Head-to-Toe Baby Wash and Pampers Swaddlers Diapers, the mom’s baby registry with Target (“Tashfeen’s Baby Registry”) lists an Evenflo Tribute Convertible Car Seat. That would suggest some awareness of child safety, but there seems next to no chance the couple would have refrained from firing at pursuing officers out of concern for their daughter.
And the police who were being fired upon would have had no way of knowing there was a tiny child behind those tinted windows in the back. Nobody would have felt worse than the cops if the child had come to harm.
The child survived, the absolutely innocent beginning and end to her mom and dad’s diabolical plot. Other plots have reminded us that we are at war. This one tells us that we are in a war like no other, a war in which a couple drops their baby with grandma, then goes to a holiday party to murder co-workers who not long ago threw them a baby shower.
A shudder accompanies the question of whether the murdered included anybody who bought one of the items on Tashfeen’s Baby Registry.
Shudder. More details to come, I am sure. Covering ISIS is all about the details.


UPDATE: I’ve heard – yes, I’ve heard – that I badly under-estimated the size of the gathering at the VAG on Tuesday. Some said the crowd grew to a couple hundred people before it ended. That’s still smaller than what was expected, but I offer this mea culpa.
A call Tuesday for B.C. students to support their peers in Quebec attracted modest numbers in Vancouver, even as tens of thousands of people marched through downtown Montreal to mark the 100th day of a strike against tuition fee increases.
Scores of people showed up in the rain — but not as many as had “liked” the plan on Facebook. Organizers had hoped the Montreal uprising would spark conversations here about the cost of education and calls for an end to tuition fees.
B.C. students pay higher tuition fees than Quebecers attending post-secondary schools in their own province — an average of $4,852 compared to $2,519. Quebec fees are the lowest in the country, where average tuition at public post-secondary institutions is $5,366.
Tuition for an undergraduate arts student at the University of B.C. has quintupled over the past 30 years, rising from about $900 a year to approximately $4,600. At the same time, the minimum wage increased threefold, to $10.25 an hour this year from $3.65.
B.C. fees have been climbing steadily since 2002, when the newly elected Liberals killed a six-year freeze introduced by the previous NDP government. Tuition soared as post-secondary schools tried to make up lost revenue — the University of B.C. boosted undergraduate fees by an average of 22 per cent, while the hike at Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria was around 30 per cent.
Faced with anger from students and parents, the Liberals announced a cap in 2005 that now holds annual increases to two per cent. Nevertheless, universities are drawing a greater percentage of their revenues from student fees while the portion covered by government funding has been shrinking steadily.
In recent years, discussions in B.C. have focused on student loan reforms. Even the presidents of B.C.’s four research universities — UBC, SFU, the University of Victoria and the University of Northern B.C. — have called for improvements in financial assistance for post-secondary students to bring B.C. more into line with what’s offered in other provinces. In particular, they recommended a reduction in the student loan interest rate, which is the highest in the country.
The Advanced Education Ministry says B.C. students pay one-third of their education costs and are not charged interest on student loans until six months after they graduate. Furthermore, it noted there are interest relief programs for low-income students after they finish their studies.
A ministry survey in 2010 suggested that half of B.C. university graduates are in debt, and the median amount owing was $20,000. Of diploma and certificate students, 48 per cent had borrowed money to pay for their education and the median debt was $10,000.
The ministry says it’s in the midst of a two-part review – the first part looked for improvements and efficiencies in StudentAidBC and the second part will review policies.


There’s been no shortage of news around LG’s upcoming V40, including confirmation from LG that the phone would spot three cameras on the rear. What we didn’t know was what each of those cameras actually did; leave it leaker Evan Blass to be the one tell us.
As with previous LG flagships, there are both standard and super-wide-angle cameras on board, but this time around there’s a telephoto lens as well. This camera arrangement is significant because not only is it one of the few phones with a triple-lens shooter (Huawei was first), but it’s also the only one to combine both an ultra-wide and telephoto.
Huawei’s setup on the P20 Pro, on the other hand, includes a normal and telephoto lens paired with a third monochrome sensor to improve image quality. While that does help the P20 Pro take some of the best photos on the market, I’d argue LG’s setup is much more versatile.
Being able to switch between three perspectives adds a ton of flexibility for a variety of shooting scenarios. In fact the wide, normal, and telephoto grouping replicates the lens setup I and many other photographers use on our full-size cameras. It’s especially notable given the V-series’ cinematic aspirations; last year’s V30 features a nifty feature that smoothed the transition between cameras for a smooth zooming effect during video recording. It’d be a lot more useful with a telephoto camera too.
Meanwhile, the two front cameras consist of a wide-angle and superwide, bringing the V series back to its roots as the original V10 included a similar pairing.
LG is set to announce the V40 on October 3, so it won’t be long until we find out more.


Online, on-demand subscription service saves companies hassle of building or customizing their own set of applications, company says.
Salesforce.com, a maker of customer relationship management software, has announced an online service designed to let companies use many applications at once--whether built in-house, by another vendor or a partner.
The on-demand subscription service--Multiforce--is meant to let customers access applications online and run them simultaneously rather than taking a client-server-software approach that calls for customers to build or customize their own set of applications.
Using the service, companies can share data models, security systems and user interfaces, said Phill Robinson, Salesforce.com senior vice president of global marketing.
But competitors, such as Siebel Systems, have a different take on Multiforce.
"Salesforce.com's stated strategy is 'no more software.' I think what they mean is, 'We don't want to write software for you. Do it yourself.' More and more customers tell us they want to look to one company to deliver a solution to them," Keith Raffel, Siebel group vice president of products, said in a statement.
Robinson, however, said Siebel operates on a client-server-software format, in which it's difficult to build or customize applications.
The Multiforce service will be an extension of Salesforce.com's Customforce, which is a customization tool. Multiforce will be part of Salesforce.com's next upgrade, Summer '05, scheduled for release in June.


If, like me, you're burned out on craft fairs, art openings, rock shows, and dive bars, look no further than Des Plaines. Hop on the el, get off at the Rosemont stop, wait for the every-ten-minutes, 24/7 free shuttle, and arrive at the glorious suburban oasis known as Rivers Casino. (Seriously, from Logan Square it takes less than 30 minutes to get there, all for the price of CTA fare.) The casino is only closed for two hours a day, between the hours of 7 AM and 9 AM, and in the wee hours you'll find a wide range of characters, from serious gamblers to night-owl geriatrics to travelers shuttling over from O'Hare. The drinks are strong and reasonably priced, and they have multiple restaurants open late: a burger joint, an Asian noodle place, a steakhouse, and even a sports bar type thing that serves poutine. If you're a nonsmoker, you don't have to clam bake like at the Horseshoe over in Indiana, which allows smoking indoors. Instead, the Rivers offers a weather-friendly smoking patio. Oh, and also there's gambling—penny slots, tables for people who actually know how to gamble, and a high-roller room (which I've never dared approach).


A California man is now searching for his cat after his car was one of more than a hundred involved in a massive chain reaction crash on I-41 last Sunday.
NEENAH, Wis. — A California man is now searching for his cat after his car was one of more than a hundred involved in a massive chain reaction crash on I-41 last Sunday.
Kevin Graves is a grad student from San Diego. His mother, Linda, tells NBC26 that he was on a road trip to celebrate graduation and to visit friends in Wisconsin. Kevin's mother says he brought his cat along to be part of the adventure.
On Sunday, Winnebago County authorities say 131 vehicles were involved in a chain reaction crash on I-41 near Neenah. Kevin's mother says his car was in the middle of the pile up and he received some bruises from the crash.
Kevin and his family are now in Wisconsin at the tow lot where all the involved vehicles were later taken after the crash. The family is searching the lot, hoping to find the cat.


Vernon-Verona-Sherrill's Alexa Kiser entered the 1,000 point club on Saturday. She is pictured her with her coach Randy Thomas.
The boys and girls high school basketball holiday tournament action ramped up again Saturday with more than 30 contests in play. Here are the highlights from Dec. 29.
The Gaelic Knights hung right with their Class AA state-ranked opponents through the final possessions, battling back from a nine-point halftime deficit. Aurora DeShaies and Amarah Streiff combined for 46 points on the day, finishing with 25 and 21 respectively.
The Gaelic Knights will take on Sacred Heart in the consolation game at 4 p.m. on Sunday.
Freey Pleasants posted 10 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists for a triple-double to charge the Atoms, while teammates Aniyah Powell, Xyel Bradford, and Alexius Pierce scored 20, 19, and 13 points respectively in the win. For the Warriors, Victoria Morgan put in a team-high 15 points.
For the Red Devils, Alexa Kiser entered the 1,000-point club with her 16-point effort. She also grabbed 14 rebounds for a double-double in the tournament championship-clinching victory.
V-V-S teammate Morgan Brewer also notched a double-double, scoring a game-best 20 points and adding 12 rebounds.
The Red Rams are still perfect, improving to 9-0 on the winter after a 14-point dismissal of the host Brothers. Teleak Robinson and Matthew Cieplicki tied for the J-D team-high with 16 points, while Nick Valenti scored 17 for CBA in the loss.
The Cougars also improved to 9-0 on Saturday, coming back from a 23-15 hole at the end of one quarter to take the seven-point win. De’jour Reaves was a monster in this one, scoring 37 points and adding 16 rebounds for a huge double-double, while teammate Daimarr Miller finished with 26 points and six boards.


The needs of foodies are permeating many facets of culture -- and in a city with mostly dismal museum dining, the owners of Equinox just made a pretty smart move.
Todd Gray’s Muse, a café focused on "a fresh to-go-style" concept, opened last Saturday at the Corcoran Gallery (500 17th St. N.W.).
Established restaurateur Todd Gray and his wife Ellen Kassoff Gray, who also operate Equinox and the Watershed, didn’t go over the top with the new restaurant’s design.
"The décor is the Corcoran," Ellen Gray said. "It’s not supposed to be a grand, shiny new café" that can hold thousands of people.
She said people can relish "a terrific sandwich and a half bottle of wine while taking in some great art," for what would be "a very real and approachable experience."
The sandwiches and salads are made on site, with ingredients fresh from the same morning, Gray said. The produce is in fact bought from local farmers' markets, such as NoMa (1200 First St. N.E.) and FreshFarm by the White House.
Folks can also enjoy programming every Thursday evening starting mid-July, which will feature chef demos and artisan wine makers. Also, Sunday brunches starting in September will be musically themed with bluegrass and jazz.
The restaurant took the place of Café Des Artistes that used to be set in the Corcoran’s main atrium.
Todd Gray’s Muse is open Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sundays until 1 p.m.


Born Wet, Human Babies Are 75 Percent Water. Then Comes The Drying : Krulwich Wonders... A fresh tomato is 93.5 percent water. A fresh baby girl or boy is 75 percent water. A banana, 74 percent. We all start wet, and then, inevitably, dry. A 1-year-old baby carries 10 percent less water; a male adult 15 percent less. Life is a slow evaporation, with some curious exceptions.
Lovely, no? Now think of this baby abstractly — as a sack of hundreds of millions of atoms. Here's the atomic formula for a new human being, arranged by elements, according to scientist Neil Shubin.
Notice that the two most plentiful atoms are H (hydrogen) and O (oxygen) which shouldn't be a big surprise, since 2 H's and an O make water, and we humans are very moist, especially when we're born.
It turns out, a brand new human baby is 75 percent water.
We're born as wet as a fresh potato. Tomatoes are wetter (93.5 percent water). Apples, too, but only slightly (80 percent). Check out this fruit vs. baby comparison.
OK, we aren't as wet as watermelons (who'd want to be?), but still, we begin our lives as noisy dewdrops that will one day learn to crawl, then walk. As science writer Loren Eiseley once put it, people "are a way that water has of going about, beyond the reach of rivers."
But then, with every step we take, we begin to dry. The longer we live, the drier we get. One year after birth, a human baby is only 65 percent water – a ten percent drop, says the U.S. Geological Survey.
Babies are wetter than children. By the time we're adults, the USGS says, adult men are about 60 percent water, adult women 55 percent. Elderly people are roughly half water.
There are variations, of course. The more buff you are (muscle tissue stores more water) the wetter you are. Because women generally have more fat cells, they tend to be a bit drier. Fat cells aren't as moist. The water that lubricates your joints, flushes your waste (I'm talking about pee), assists seminal reproduction, and absorbs shocks to your bones — as you age, the moisturizer in you slowly dwindles.
And the odd thing is, our wet parts aren't where you'd think. I figured if some giant fist were to plunge out of the sky and squeeze a human like a sponge, the wettest bit would be our blood. That's wrong.
Our brains, lungs, heart, liver and kidney contain the wettest tissue — between 65 and 85 percent water. Bones, of course, are dryish, (but still 31 percent water.) There's also water between cells, but only a small fraction of our H2O is blood. Most of the water inside us is stored, not in our veins, but in our 100 trillion teeny cells. We are an assemblage of water packets, slightly salty, like the sea we came from. As Loren Eiseley put it, we're a "concentration" of water, "that indescribable and liquid brew which is compounded in varying proportions of salt and sun and time," and on the day we're born, we're at high tide. After that, very quietly, the sea within us ebbs and ebbs, and as it goes ... so do we.
Paleontologist Neil Shubin writes about water and the human body in his book The Universe Within: the Deep History of the Human Body. Loren Eiseley wrote about water in his classic, The Immense Journey.


The Department of Education has issued new guidance for school districts on how to devise schoolwide plans for Title I money aimed at raising the achievement of disadvantaged students.
The long-awaited “nonregulatory” guidance is intended to help steer schools through federal legislation—though the guidance itself is not binding—as schools set up comprehensive Title I compensatory education programs reauthorized under the No Child Left Behind Act. The 4-year-old law is the latest version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
The guidance allows a school with at least 40 percent of its students determined to be low-income to operate a schoolwide program, as opposed to a targeted program. A targeted program seeks to identify and specifically serve low-income students.
To create a schoolwide program, a school must redesign its entire educational program to serve all students, the guidance says. The schoolwide idea has gained popularity as it reflects principles emphasized in the No Child Left Behind law, including accountability, research-based practices, and community engagement.
The guidance, issued late last month, says a school wanting to establish a schoolwide program must conduct a comprehensive assessment of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and develop a plan that lays out ways to attract and keep highly qualified teachers, identify research-based strategies to raise achievement for all students, increase parental involvement, and coordinate federal, state, and local programs.
The guidance has long been anticipated. The department said in the Federal Register in July 2004 that the secretary of education planned to issue the guidance “in the near future.” And a Dec. 29, 2005, report from the department’s inspector general’s office chided officials for not releasing the information sooner.
Keith A. Butcher, the state Title I director for the West Virginia Department of Education, said a lack of guidance hasn’t hindered his state, however. Ninety percent of schools in the state have schoolwide Title I programs, he said. To set those programs up, Mr. Butcher said, the state and districts relied on the language in the federal education law itself.
Mr. Butcher said the new guidance would likely not change the way schoolwide programs are set up in West Virginia, but does provide excellent tools for crafting a comprehensive plan.
“Study: District Budget Practices Can Siphon Title I Aid From Poor,” August 31, 2005.
For background, previous stories, and Web links, read Title I and No Child Left Behind.


Nicole Kidman was knocked over by a photographer who crashed into her on a bicycle on Thursday.
Freelance photographer named Carl Wu hit the actress when she was leaving Calvin Klein show for NYFW and was returning to her hotel, the Mirror reported. According to witnesses, Wu got very close to Kidman after which he appeared to hit his brakes, but still slammed into her and she went crashing to the ground.
The source said that the 46-year-old actress did not have any visible injuries. Meanwhile, a police spokesman said that the photographer would be issued a ticket for riding his bike on the sidewalk, but would not be arrested for a criminal offence.


Activists post messages on social networking sites praising Anders Breivik for killings in Norway.
The vast majority of Russians have condemned the killings in Norway by Anders Breivik, but there is an alarming number of people there who quietly share Breivik's opinions and some who even think he is a hero.
Meanwhile, the pro-government youth group Nashi, which was praised by Breivik in his writings, has sought to distance itself from his comments.


Wal-Mart vs. United Parcel Service: Which Stock's Dividend Dominates?
Two of the retail economy's most important stocks, Wal-Mart and United Parcel Service, square off in a battle of dividend fundamentals. Find out which one belongs in your portfolio.
But few of us can invest in every single dividend-paying stock on the market, and even if we could, we're likely to find better gains by being selective. Today, Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) and United Parcel Service (NYSE:UPS), two companies that have come to symbolize different aspects of the new globalized retail economy, will square off in a head-to-head battle to determine which offers a better dividend for your portfolio.
Founded in 1962, Wal-Mart(NYSE:WMT) is the world's largest retailer, and ranked as the world's second-largest public corporation on the Fortune Global 500 list in 2013. The company operates more than 11,000 stores under 69 banners in 27 countries, and also maintains e-commerce websites in 10 countries. The Arkansas-based colossus is perhaps more responsible than any other company for changing the way America shops, as its supply chain advancements have helped set the standard for globally-oriented retail operations for decades. However, Wal-Mart has also become a symbol of the purported evils of globalism, as these same supply chain advancements have spurred the growth of sweatshop labor in the developing world while simultaneously crowding smaller local retail enterprises out of many communities.
Founded in 1907, United Parcel Service(NYSE:UPS) is the world's largest package-delivery company by revenue and volume, and is a global supply chain leader, making it an ideal complement to Wal-Mart's retail operations. UPS delivers roughly 1.8 million packages each business day to over 200 countries and territories. and also provides supply chain solutions to customers in over 175 countries and territories. In its last few decades, UPS has expanded enormously through the acquisition of nearly 40 companies, which have included retail shipping services, trucking and air freight, and international trade services.
Wal-Mart is one of investors' favorite dividend stocks because it's paid uninterrupted dividends for a period of 39 years since initiating payment in 1974. That's an easy win for Wal-Mart over UPS, which only began paying quarterly dividends in 1999, according to Dividata.
According to Dividata, UPS has been increasing its dividend at least once per year since 2010, after holding steady in 2009 during the global financial crisis. On the other hand, Wal-Mart has raised its dividend payments every year since 1975, which works out to 38-year dividend-raising streak. This is even more lopsided in Wal-Mart's favor than the first contest.
Winner: United Parcel Service, 1-2.
Winner: United Parcel Service, 2-3.
Wal-Mart may have won the best-of-five on the basis of its history, but investors should never base their decisions on past performance alone. Tomorrow might bring a far different business environment, so it's important to also examine each company's potential, whether it happens to be nearly boundless or constrained too tightly for growth.
Wal-Mart has been trying to replicate Amazon's e-commerce business model.
Wal-Mart bought a controlling stake in Yihaodian to scale up its online sales in China.
It plans to open a new Internet tech development lab in nearby Sunnyvale next year.
Wal-Mart's testing a convenience-store format and plans to open 300 such stores by the end of next year.
UPS has the largest fleet of gas-powered vehicles in the U.S.
UPS could be eying self-driving trucks for higher operational efficiencies.
The company will offer 3-D printing services through its franchised UPS Store chain.
The shift toward online retailing has immense long-term benefits for delivery services.
Several governments have launched investigations against Wal-Mart over bribery allegations.
Amazon and other online retailers continue to grow much faster than brick-and-mortar retail.
High unemployment rates and increased payroll taxes continue to batter the U.S. retailers.
Amazon teamed with the United States Postal Service for Sunday package deliveries.
UPS is losing high-priced business as international shippers switch to low-cost services.
In this writer's humble opinion, it seems that Wal-Mart has a better shot at long-term outperformance, as its aggressive expansion plans in emerging markets have helped offset domestic weakness. However, the company's once-indomitable supply chain advantage has eroded, and a shift to online retail could ultimately tip UPS into the lead as more consumers decide that they'd rather have their purchases delivered from a nearby warehouse instead of bagged up at a checkout line. You might disagree, and if so, you're encouraged to share your viewpoint in the comments below. No dividend is completely perfect, but some are bound to produce better results than others. Keep your eyes open -- you never know where you might find the next great dividend stock!


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A U.S. Navy submarine is under investigation after several female officers were reportedly filmed unknowingly in the vessel's unisex bathroom showers. According to multiple reports, tapes of at least three female officers showering and changing clothes were allegedly circulated among other crew members aboard the USS Wyoming, one of the first submarines to allow women to serve.
It amounts to a huge scandal for a community that has prided itself on an otherwise smooth integration effort, begun four years ago when women first entered submarine training. And it comes as the Navy moves towards its next milestones, integrating Virginia-class attack subs and then the enlisted submarine ranks.
The investigation comes not only just before the Navy is set to begin its next round of gender integration, but also the same week the Navy revoked an honorary title from Bill Cosby, citing numerous allegations that the comedian committed sexual assault. In a statement released on Thursday, Navy officials said the charges against Cosby "are very serious and are in conflict with the Navy’s core values of honor, courage and commitment." So far, officials have been unclear about what punishment could result from the investigation into the alleged tapings.
"The Navy is aware of an allegation of alleged criminal activity onboard USS Wyoming home ported at Kings Bay," Lt. Leslie Hubbell said in a statement. "The Navy and NCIS are investigating the matter, and unfortunately further details are not available at this time due to the ongoing investigation. If the allegations prove to be factual, the Navy will ensure individuals involved are held accountable for their actions."


(MENAFN - The Conversation) With the re-election of the Berejiklian government, New South Wales now has a minister for public spaces, Rob Stokes. This portfolio was first mooted in February , when the premier announced one of the new minister's tasks would be to identify and protect publicly owned land for use as parks or public spaces.
As important as this task is, we need even more ambition in this portfolio. Public space is crucial to the social, economic, political and environmental life of our towns and cities. As well as increasing the quantity of public spaces, we need to improve their quality.
Here are ten priorities for government action to make our public spaces more plentiful and more accessible to all.
From Barangaroo to Bonnyrigg, public spaces in new urban developments are often owned and controlled by private developers. The public has little say over the rules that govern these spaces and how those rules are enforced. Restrictions are often excessive, and private security guards are known to overstep their powers .
The minister for public space should map the extent of privately owned public spaces and ensure these are governed by the same, democratically determined laws that cover publicly owned public spaces.
As well as identifying publicly owned land that could be used for parks or public spaces, the minister should identify privately owned land that could be acquired for the same purpose. The gradual purchase of harbour foreshore property in Glebe has resulted in a wonderful and well-used foreshore walk. Similar opportunities to create public space networks should be identified and planned.
Too much publicly owned public space is under-utilised because it is locked up. Across the city, ovals and public school playgrounds are fenced off from the public for much of the year when they are not in use. We own these spaces – when they're not in use for sport or school, we should have access to them.
As minister for education, Stokes recently trialled a program of opening some school playgrounds during school holidays . This should be done across the city. And councils should be required to show cause if they want to restrict access to any public spaces they own.
A growing number of park authorities and local governments are doing deals with private companies to temporarily fence off public spaces for commercial activities . Sometimes they do this for days, sometimes for weeks and even months. They do it because they're short of funds and need the revenue.
While programming events in public spaces can help attract crowds, we must halt the creeping logic of commercialisation, which results in us being charged money for access to our own spaces. The minister for public space should ensure park authorities do not need to depend on commercial funding for survival.
The quality of footpaths makes a world of difference for many people. Think of parents with prams, little kids, people with mobility issues, and older people for whom falls are a big health risk. Our footpaths need to be wide and their surfaces even. They also need to incorporate places to rest.
The capacity of local governments to maintain footpaths is highly uneven . Public spaces in wealthy areas are gold-plated, while in other parts of the city footpaths are too often in poor condition or non-existent. The minister must think about the role that state government can play in evening things out, assisting local governments where required.
As with footpaths, the provision of public toilets can make the difference between going out or staying at home for many people. The minister should use existing data to audit the provision and accessibility of public toilets in public spaces across the city, identify gaps and fund improvements where required.
While advertising on the Opera House generated controversy , the creeping spread of commercial advertising in public space is also of concern. All this advertising is commercialising our public spaces and crowding out other forms of public expression – from neighbourhood notices about community events and lost cats to murals and street art.
The minister should work with local governments to limit the amount of advertising in public space, and extract more public good from any advertising revenues raised in public space.
Read more: Is there any way to stop ad creep?
The policing of public spaces makes a huge difference to its accessibility. Exclusionary policing strategies – especially the use of drug sniffer dogs and rising use of strip searches – should be stopped.
These tactics are not only put to work at festivals, but also around train stations and entertainment precincts. They are ineffective in leading to prosecutions and are too often used to shame, intimidate and harass people without basis.
The minister for public space needs to challenge the minister for police about this form of policing.
This is not say that safety is unimportant. We know that fear of harassment and assault stops some people using public space , not least women who often experience this.
However, we must not equate 'feeling safe' with 'more police' and 'more surveillance cameras'. Indeed, sometimes these can have the perverse effect of making people feel less safe, by producing atmospheres of threat.
We feel safer when there are others around caring for the space. So, the minister should investigate ways to encourage these forms of care. Simple measures like later opening hours for neighbourhood shops, or staff on railway platforms and train carriages, can make a big difference.
We need more trees in our public spaces – not just in parks, but on residential and commercial streets too. This is especially important in parts of the city where summer temperatures are already extreme for weeks at a time. Not only do trees help to cool these spaces, they also encourage more biodiversity and combat carbon emissions.
The minister should establish, and fund, a meaningful target for tree planting in public spaces.
This list of suggestions is far from exhaustive. But these reforms and others ought to be on the drawing board as the minister for public space sets about his new work.
It must be hoped this new portfolio is more than a tokenistic attempt to create the appearance of action on public space, in the face of criticism of this government's record on privatisation of public assets .


Believe it or not, a household pulling in over $130,000 can still avoid the tax!
This may help ease your tax burden when it comes to capital gains.
As tax season winds itself to a close, many American families have had to fork over a pretty penny for selling investments. Of course, this doesn't necessarily apply to tax-advantaged retirement accounts, but there are still a lot of families that have side money invested in the stock market for non-retirement purposes.
Today, I'm going to tell you how many -- most, actually -- American families could sell their stock investments for a gain and not owe Uncle Sam a penny.
For starters, you absolutely must own the stocks you are going to sell for at least a year. Once you get beyond 365 days, your investment is considered a "long term" one, and that opens it to a host of tax advantages. If you follow the buy-to-hold investment philosophy that we preach here at The Motley Fool, this shouldn't be too hard.
Next, let's take a look at how those long-term capital gains are taxed by the federal government.
Source: Author's illustration, with information provided by the IRS.
If your household falls under the 10% or 15% tax bracket, then you can sell your investments -- up until they bump you into a new tax bracket -- and pay absolutely no taxes whatsoever!
What do those tax brackets look like? According to The Tax Foundation, this is what the upper limit of the 15% bracket will look like.
But aren't these the exceedingly poor households?
That's a fair question. On the surface, it would appear that only those who are poor would qualify for this break. Once you scratch the surface, however, a different picture appears.
For starters, here's the breakdown of the average American household, via data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
So if we assume that the average household is a married couple, and we don't take any deductions whatsoever (which would never happen), the average American household could still sell stocks and net gains of over $8,000 ($75,300-$66,877) without ever having to turn over a dime for those gains.
To really get an idea of how possible this is, let's look at the extreme end of the spectrum: a family of four that earns $135,000 before taxes. This is the type of demographic that even naysayers would agree could probably be making such investments -- meaning they have enough money left over to invest.
Again, on the surface, it would seem absurd that this family could possibly avoid capital gains taxes. But let's take a look at four very simple deductions that the family could claim.
Source: The Tax Foundation (for standard deduction and exemptions), IRS.
Just like that, the amount of taxable income that this family has drops basically in half -- all the way to $67,450. That means that if, say, the family has been sitting on shares of Apple for five years and has seen their shares increase by $7,850 ($75,300-$67,550), they could sell and keep all the gains for themselves.
Added up over the years, if this family regularly takes advantage of such situations, the tax savings can be enormous. Further, if they simply wait thirty days, they can repurchase the shares they sold -- raising their cost basis and helping them lock in long-term gains tax-free!
Granted, this strategy won't work for everyone -- you need to have the right life circumstances and an eye for detail to make it work. But if you do, the advantages come retirement time can certainly add up.


GE Healthcare and VA Puget Sound Health Care System today announced a partnership to accelerate the use of 3D imaging in healthcare. As part of their research agreement, GE Healthcare will provide software and work stations, and the VA will provide input on its use of the technology. Prior to this agreement, the VA has used 3D software that is not designed for medical use. Now, the VA will use GE software designed specifically for the medical field – which is expected to reduce the time it takes to create 3D models from hours to minutes.
3D printing is primarily used to manufacture orthopedic implants and guide surgical cutting, and peer-reviewed research on potential impact in patient care has expanded exponentially. Recent industry and regulatory advancements such as the establishment of clinical guidelines, 3D printing reimbursementtracking codes, and the integration of technology and software are all expected to support the widespread adoption of point-of-care 3D printing in hospitals.


What does the former chief executive of one of the most well-known news aggregators do after his company just barely escapes death and gets acquired by seed-stage venture capital firm Betaworks? He starts a home improvement site.
Former Digg chief executive Matt Williams just raised $3.5 million from Jeff Bezos, Andreessen Horowitz, Madrona Venture Group, Redpoint Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, and Sherpa Foundry for his new venture, Pro.com, a site that helps people get quotes for the home improvements they have in mind as well as find professionals to hire for those jobs.
After taking over for interim Digg chief executive Kevin Rose in 2010, Williams eventually sold the company in three parts in 2012. Digg sold its brand, website, and technology to Betaworks for $500,000, most of its engineering staff went over to the Washington Post‘‘s SocialCode project for $12 million, and some patents went to LinkedIn for around $4 million.
After the sale of Digg, Williams joined Andreessen Horowitz as an entrepreneur in residence.
He then started up Seattle-based Pro.com last year, and the company is still in its beta phase. It seems to be competing with services such as Angie’s List, HomeAdvisor, and Porch.com, another Seattle-based startup.
However, Williams told GeekWire that he sees Pro.com as different from Porch.com, and that it will be an e-commerce site that takes a cut from the transactions it facilitates rather than a service that charges people for viewing or posting listings.
Also, unlike Yelp, Pro.com won’t list absolutely every professional in an area but will focus on the top ones as vetted by the Pro.com staff.
While the site got its start in Seattle, Williams declined to reveal where it would go next, although he did tell GeekWire that Pro.com will produce a “Pro Report” for consumers in every major U.S. city to help them easily find the best home improvement professionals in their area.
“I truly believe that this is one of those opportunities that … has the makings for a gargantuan industry,” Williams told GeekWire.


Twenty-seven years have passed since I moved to Costa Rica, and I have been fortunate enough to run world-renowned fishing operations over the years. Big fish tend to beat me up more these days than vice versa, but the fever for both the sport and the country has never left me.
Costa Rica has so much to offer all types of anglers that it is a shame not to experience it. Here is a rundown of some of the many sport fishing opportunities.
Guapote (rainbow bass) are available in Lake Arenal, along with machaca, a relative of the South American piranha that is quite acrobatic when hooked. The rivers and lagoons in Los Chiles, which is in the Northern Zone, and all along the Caribbean seaboard have those species as well, plus tarpon and snook that also venture deep into the freshwater ecosystems. Several types of other cichlads, known as morjarra are found deep in the jungle and make for great ultra-light fun.
High in the mountains that divide the Pacific coast from Cartago, known as the Cerro de la Muerte, anglers will find wild rainbow trout in almost every creek. In that region, San Gerardo de Dota is a popular area and is also great for birdwatching species like the elusive quetzal. Fishing in a National Park is not permitted, so check that the area you are in is not park property.
If you would like to take the kids, there are trout hatcheries along the Pan American Highway, which runs through the Cerro de la Muerte. You can fish at those hatcheries and they charge you by weight. Stone Mountain Outdoors in Santa Ana has good information on trout fishing.
The Caribbean side is world-famous for tarpon and snook. Tarpon school up outside the mouth of the river in pods that cover several acres. When it is hot, it is red hot and you will pull on big fish all day. As mentioned above, they will also enter the rivers and back lagoons.
The fishing in the ocean is done with lures or sardines on circle hooks. Inside the mouth of the river, it is almost always done with artificial lures. The late Bill Barnes made fly fishing for tarpon popular in the area.
Snook are also taken in the rivers and lagoons as well as the beach. There are four species of snook on the Caribbean side. The fat snook (calva) run that starts in December offers a chance to catch lots of snook on light tackle. It is a smaller species of snook and averages 5 to 8 pounds. The monsters that made Costa Rica famous in the fishing world are usually taken off the beach at the rivermouth. Rarely will you see lots of fish, but you have a chance to tangle with a once-in-a-lifetime fish of 35 pounds or more.
The Pacific side of the country boasts two fishing seasons, with the central and southern regions most productive November through April. In the north, the good bite is from May through December.
The last few years have seen record numbers of sailfish on the Pacific side. El Niño slowed the bite last year, but during the two previous years, records were broken for the number of releases in the Los Sueños and Marina Pez Vela tournaments. Last year in the Offshore World Tournament at Marina Pez Vela, the sailfish were noticeably absent, while marlin released records were crushed.
Dorado or dolphinfish have started off as a bang this fishing season, showing what seems to be a recovery of the stocks that migrate through here. Dorado is not only a beautiful fighting fish but also great table fare.
Also in the bluewater are marlin, tuna, and wahoo. Tuna have made a great comeback after the area in which purse seiners are allowed to work was reduced 200,000 square kilometers in 2014, and the reduction of purse sein licenses granted to foreign fleets was reduced from 43 to 13 in 2017. There have been phenomenal catches of marlin around man made marine eco-systems. You probably won’t see a grander (a marlin over 1000 lbs) here in Costa Rica, but the Pacific offers blue, black, and striped marlin.
Roosterfish are the Holy Grail inshore on the Pacific side, and are available there all year, unlike other areas. The average is 10-15 lbs, but 50-lb fish are common. Also available inshore are a large variety of snappers, grouper, jacks, African pompano and others. When the water is clear, wahoo and dorado venture close to shore. Roosters, snook, jacks and snapper can be taken here casting from the beach.
Don’t pass up a chance to fish in Costa Rica. And remember: a Costa Rican fishing license is required for all anglers over 16 years of age.
This article originally appeared in our 2017-2018 High Season Print Edition. Read more here about where to download or pick up a copy today.
Todd Staley is a Tico Times columnist and director of communications for FECOP, a sport fishing advocacy federation recently chosen to represent Costa Rica in the Panamerican Sportfishing Delegation, formed by groups from the United States and all Latin America countries. One of the group’s goals is to get sportfishing recognized as a competitive sport and to organize teams from various nations to compete in the Pan-American games. The group also seeks a common front on conservation issues. Costa Rica will host the Federation Assembly in November 2018 followed by a roosterfish tournament with competitors from the different nations. Learn more at fishcostarica.org.


SEVILLA star Carlos Bacca claims that God will decide his future following reported interest from Manchester United.
The Colombia international scored twice in Sevilla's 3-2 Europa League win against Dnipro on Wednesday, helping the Spaniards become the first club to win the competition four times.
Bacca has since been linked with a £21million summer move to Old Trafford, with Arsenal and Liverpool also believed to be keeping tabs.
And speaking to Goal.com, the striker admitted that his future is yet to be decided, explaining: "I don't know what will happen this summer.
"Right now I want to enjoy this moment because I don't know if we can repeat it. My future depends on God."


At NAZ Elite, there is no secrecy. From training logs to workout videos, nearly everything is public. Want advice about something? Just ask.
Gather the fastest possible runners.
Have them toil in secrecy, allowing only limited contact with the civilized world.
Never ease up, especially not during altitude training, when the hardest and most crucial marathon preparation takes place.
Then there is the club known as Northern Arizona Elite, where training logs are published online each day. Key workouts are filmed, photographed and shared on social media, the team website and in certain cases a YouTube channel. The 11 runners in the club, especially the veterans who run the biggest races, are required to be as public as possible about every aspect of their pursuits. The club is, essentially, a digital running reality series.
Its members are hardly the superstars of the sport. The three who are competing Sunday in the New York City Marathon — Stephanie Bruce, Scott Fauble and Scott Smith — are long shots to win. They have their sights set on the top 10, but none has ever come close to winning one of the world’s six major marathons.
Yet they are constantly blogging and tweeting and giving advice to runners getting ready for their first 5k or trying to shave those last few minutes from their marathon times so they can qualify for Boston.
This may sound counterintuitive; after all, what football team opens its playbook to an opponent before the Super Bowl? The NAZ Elite approach to strategy and data, however, illustrates that there are no real secrets or shortcuts to success in long distance running anymore. It is also a new concept for how top runners can subsist and thrive in a sport that has massive participation but relatively few fans. The idea is to present not just the triumphs in competing and training but the trials and the failures, too — for runners to be something more than just their trophies.
This twist on the usual secrecy of elite running clubs is Rosario’s brainchild. He is an Olympic Trials marathon qualifier who founded the Big River Running Company, a running specialty store in St. Louis. As he moved into coaching and decided he wanted to lead a club for the best of the best runners, he realized he needed to offer more to a shoe company than victories if he was going to persuade one to sponsor his efforts.
So Rosario came up with the concept of a team that searches for the spotlight nearly every day and goes public with everything about training, including distance and pace, that fans don’t hear about usually. He sought out runners who were fast and had the potential to improve, but who were also good, supportive teammates who would be willing to unload their hopes and dreams and insecurities often enough to establish a rapport with as many runners as possible. Hoka, the small shoe company known for its feather-light cushioning, signed on, agreeing to fund the bulk of what is now NAZ Elite’s roughly $700,000 annual budget.
“There’s no other club that is going to tell you what they are doing every day of the week,” said Mike McManus, senior sports marketing director at Hoka.
Fauble, who turns 27 on Monday, said he began to understand the reach of the club when the group was in Boston in the spring for a 5k race and the Boston Marathon.
Most marathon runners race that distance only twice each year. Unless their name is Eliud Kipchoge, who has won 10 of his 11 marathon starts, the race is a crapshoot. Over the course of 26.2 miles, so many things can go wrong. Injuries are common. Wins are rare.
Bruce ran a marathon in 2 hours and 29 minutes in Houston in 2011 but says only now — after two children and nearly 18 months of pregnancy — is she in the best shape of her life. Winning in New York probably will require a time around 2:25. “I want to be the best version of myself on the day,” she said.
Bruce’s teammates, Fauble and Smith, said they are focused on being competitive, of experiencing the race from the front. “We’ll work together,” Smith, 32, said.
Smith, who finished 14th in the 10,000 meters at the Olympic Trials in 2016, used to wait tables to support his running. The idea that he and the 10 other club members are sharing some kind of trade secrets is absurd, he said.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with a training plan these days,” Smith said.
Rosario started the club here, at 7,000 feet above sea level, in part because it allows for vital altitude training that increases red blood cells, which carry oxygen to muscles. He drafted his wife, Jen, to serve as the team videographer and photographer, so that the runners can continue to raise their profiles — and Hoka’s — even when they aren’t winning. Rosario acts as a kind of general manager for the team, picking its members, negotiating salaries for the runners and managing the budget.
How much the runners get paid depends on their experience and success, but since 11 runners are dividing about $500,000, no one is getting rich.
In mid-October, the NAZ Elite crew drove an hour to 3,000 feet of elevation in Camp Verde for one of its last brutally intense workouts before the marathon. It was a mix of quad-burning three-mile tempo runs that topped out at a grueling pace of 4 minutes and 45 seconds per mile and increasingly fast, lung-searing interval runs that ranged from 400 to 1,600 meters. The goal was to go faster when they were tired to prepare them for a New York marathon that is usually filled with changing paces and surges.
“We want to run in the lead pack,” Rosario said.
Fauble ran 2:12:35 in his debut marathon in Frankfurt last year, which is an impressive debut but still a ways from world class. Kipchoge’s marathon world record is 2:01:39. Fauble would be thrilled to break 2:10.
If he can do that, he would keep up with other NAZ Elite runners who are beginning to have competitive success as well. In June, Kellyn Taylor, who is often running next to Bruce in videos, won and set a course record (2:24:28) at the Grandma’s Marathon in Minnesota. In July, Bruce won the 10k national road championship at the Peachtree Roadrace in Atlanta. Aliphine Tuliamuk, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Kenya, won national championships in the half marathon and the 25k earlier this year.
While the winning is welcome, it is not required for NAZ success.


The Rainbow Room has held its Last Supper.
The famed Manhattan establishment served its final brunch and dinner yesterday before shutting down its restaurant, the Rainbow Grill.
“We wish it didn’t have to close,” said Abe Ouano, 32, who drove in from Connecticut with his girlfriend.
Perched on the 65th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the Rainbow Room’s sweeping views and rotating dance floor have lured everyone from Frank Sinatra to the Rolling Stones.
But the Cipriani family, which owns the Rainbow Room – where bar is still open – said the recession has forced them to close down the eatery.


Calling it a "hidden epidemic," county health officials are lauding a new strategy by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to increase screening and treatment for the Hepatitis C virus.
Cuomo last week announced new strategies to eliminate Hep C, piggybacking on a previous effort to tackle HIV in New York. The new effort aims to stop the spread of the Hep C virus by increasing access to medications that can cure the disease and by expanding programs to connect New Yorkers in high-risk communities with wrap-around services for prevention, screening and treatment.
Dr. Gale Burstein, Erie County health commissioner, said many people don't realize Hep C has made a major comeback, and just how deadly it can be.
"The problem is, Hep C is the most deadly disease in the United States, causing more deaths than HIV. And because it causes permanent liver damage and cirrosis, it's also the No. 1 cause of liver cancer," she said. "However, if it's diagnosed early, Hep C can be treated on an outpatient basis."
Burstein also serves on Cuomo's AIDS Task Force, which has a goal of eliminating HIV/AIDS in New York by 2020.
Last year, there were 573 confirmed cases of chronic and acute Hep C infection across New York. For Western New York, the state reported an infection rate of 89.9 per 100,000 population, compared to a statewide rate of 73.9 cases per 100,000.
The incidence of Hep C has been growing along with opioid addiction that leads to heroin use, especially among young people 20 to 40. Acute cases reported have risen by 75 precent, and over 80 percent of those were among young people. Half of cases were women, and nearly 86 percent of those infected reported a history of injection drug use. Worse, Burstein says, many of those women are of reproductive age.
"So we have to worry not only about infection among those women, but we have to worry about vertical transmission during pregnancy and how to manage those newborns," she said.
Gov. Cuomo's plan calls for increasing funding for Hep C prevention, testing and treatment programs, such as education, patient navigation and HCV prevention programs in primary care and other settings. The administration has also expanded an HIV/AIDS rental assistance program, which will cap income contributions toward rental costs at 30 percent. That also helps with Hep C, since one in five people with HIV are co-infected with Hep C.
Getting physicians and hospitals to encourage younger people to be screened is important too, along with revised recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which has traditionally recommended universal screening only for baby boomers. Because most people don't have symptoms until they're very sick, they just don't know to ask.
"We really want to make sure that people who are at-risk are identified as infected, similar to HIV," she said. "People who are infected don't have symptoms for a very long time, but there's still a lot of inflammation to their liver causing damage and leading to development of liver cancer, but it will kill if not treated."


In "Amateur," writer-director Hal Hartley's usual minimalism edges toward the maximal. The director of such wiggy art-house mood pieces as "The Unbelievable Truth" and "Trust" is trying for an action movie--or, to be more precise, an inaction action movie. But it's still Hartleyland on the screen: lots of stranded, blankish characters in desolate decor. Hartley hasn't really changed his stripes, just his tempo.
Hartley has always drawn from a lot of disparate pop influences, from Godard to film noir, but never more so than in "Amateur." Although the film is ostensibly about "redemption" and "exploitation"--this according to the director in interviews--what it's really about is movie-making as personal style. Hartley turns what might have been a lurid pulp thriller into a freeze-dried art thing. He squeezes all the juice out of pulp.
Hired assassins, drug dealers, shootouts in Grand Central Station, Catholic iconography--Hartley stirs it all up but there's little resonance. The actors are energetically enigmatic and Hartley doesn't encourage them to drop their cool. Everything fits together as a mosaic of freeze-dried pop. And because so much pop these days is overheated, Hartley's restraint at least is bracing. It's just isn't all that wonderful.
* MPAA rating: R, for violence and language . Times guidelines: It includes a few graphic shoot-outs and torture scenes.
'Amateur' Isabelle Huppert: Isabelle Martin Donovan: Thomas Elina Lowensohn: Sofia Damian Young: Edward A Sony Pictures Classic release. Writer-director Hal Hartley. Producers Ted Hope & Hal Hartley. Executive producers Jerome Brownstein, Lindsay Law, Scott Meek, Yves Marmion, for UGC. Cinematographer Michael Spiller. Editor Steve Hamilton. Music Jeff Taylor & Ned Rifle. Production design Steve Rosenzweig. Set decorators Jennifer Baime and Amy Tapper. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.


Every Wednesday here at eWEEK's Emerging Technology we'll provide links and insights into the latest news that's breaking anywhere about new technologies and products. Here are the emerging technology stories for the week of May 7th. Sun Tries to Outshine Silverlight, Flash; Targets Mobile - You could make a good argument that Java was the original Rich Internet Application environment but it has since been replaced by Flash and other new technologies. Among many announcements at this week's JavaOne show is JavaFX, which aims to get Java back among the top players in RIAs. Doing the Tom Cruise with your computer - The founder of Oblong Industries gives a talk about work on building hand gesture computer interfaces, somewhat similar to the one show in the Tom Cruise film Minority Report. All I can say is that if the person next to me on a plane starts waving their hands around at their laptop, I'm going to ask for another seat.
Every Wednesday here at eWEEK's Emerging Technology we'll provide links and insights into the latest news that's breaking anywhere about new technologies and products.
Here are the emerging technology stories for the week of May 7th.
Sun Tries to Outshine Silverlight, Flash; Targets Mobile - You could make a good argument that Java was the original Rich Internet Application environment but it has since been replaced by Flash and other new technologies. Among many announcements at this week's JavaOne show is JavaFX, which aims to get Java back among the top players in RIAs.
Doing the Tom Cruise with your computer - The founder of Oblong Industries gives a talk about work on building hand gesture computer interfaces, somewhat similar to the one show in the Tom Cruise film Minority Report. All I can say is that if the person next to me on a plane starts waving their hands around at their laptop, I'm going to ask for another seat.
Web Alarms, Mobile Alerts Aim to Make You Safer - In the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, security companies and experts look at better ways to send notifications and alerts.
The Future of Web technologies - We'll be keeping on eye out on news from this years World Wide Web Conference. In past years this conference has seen the launch of everything from XML to web services.


WASHINGTON — Eleven labor groups are backing Rep. Nancy Pelosi to be the next speaker of the House, according to a letter obtained by NBC News, giving her a boost as she looks to dispel dissent from within the party ranks.
Six new labor groups came out on Wednesday, writing a letter of support, including the Airline Pilots Association, American Federation of Government Employees, United Auto Workers, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, United Food and Commercial Workers, and the National Association of Letter Carriers.
"Throughout your career you have been an unquestioned champion for the interest of working men and women and their families," they wrote in a letter to Pelosi. "we can think of no one better suited to be speaker at this critical moment in history."
These six join the AFL-CIO, United Farm Workers, American Federation of Teachers, United Steelworkers and the National Education Association.
Pelosi is facing a backlash as more than a dozen new freshman Democrats campaigned on not supporting her and about a dozen current members have indicated they wouldn't support her. Their problem, however, is there is no one who has stepped forward to challenge her.
The Democratic caucus will chose their candidate for speaker on November 28 and 29. The entire House floor will vote on the speaker position when the new Congress begins in January.


Sue Thompson at the Midland Hotel, Morecambe, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Picture by Paul Heyes, Monday June 18, 2018.
Sue Thompson was the driving force behind setting up a friends group for Morecambe’s Midland hotel in 1998.
Sue, 63, from Heysham, was born and bred in the area and saw the hotel’s demise over the years. She became chairman of Friends of The Midland. She always regarded The Midland as one of the most important buildings in Morecambe and felt it was key to the town’s regeneration.
The Midland this month celebrates its 10th anniversary since reopening but Sue remembers only too well its lean years.
Sue said: “It was at the end of 1998.early 1999, that I put an advert in The Visitor asking for people to come forward to become members of the friends group. I asked if there were any like-minded people to come and sit round the table to see if we could save The Midland, which was derelict, as The Midland is a fabulous example of a Grade 2 star listed building and I don’t want people to ever forget that.
“That is so important. If the Friends of The Midland had been able to buy the hotel we would have made it for the community and would have involved the community in it.
The Midland hotel pictured boarded up before it was renovated by Urban Splash.
In 2000, The Midland closed after the kitchen was condemned by environmental health, and then the hotel’s heating system broke down.
There was brief hope for Morecambe’s White Hope the following year when rich businessmen Jared Brook and Lincoln Fraser bought the hotel and revealed ambitious refurbishment plans.
But by 2002 Brook and Fraser were under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office as their company collapsed owing £150m.
Sue said: “We knew there was no future for them. I thought they would be a saviour but they went bust. We were worried. We started working with John Miller from English Heritage Trust but we couldn’t get charitable status. We started on a feasability study and got Nick Gillibrand, a conservation architect, to look at plans for the building.We were looking at changing some of the hotel into flats and having a cafe and restaurant donwstairs.
The boarded up Midland hotel was a sorry sight.
Urban Splash planned a full restoration combining the hotel’s original art deco features with a modern makeover to attract the 21st century customer. Restoration work began in June 2005 and then in June 2008, the Midland finally reopened looking as good as ever.
There were early teething troubles and guest complaints as Urban Splash proved to be far better at designing than they were at running a hotel.
But today, now owned by the Lancaster Foundation charity and run day-to-day by English Lakes Hotels, the Midland is back to its very best and in great demand.
The boarded up Midland hotel before it was renovated.
Sue said: “The Friends have dissipated now but we have those memories and those links. Urban Splash wanted to knock down the two sets of gate pillars but you have to have things you can say ‘look at what we’ve got’. We always felt insignificant compared to Urban Splash.
“We got all our members to write letters to The Visitor objecting to Urban Splash building flats next to The Midland.
Looking to the future, Sue thinks the planned Eden Project on the former Dome site will be great for the town and thinks Frontierland is ripe for development.
She said: “I have mixed feelings about The Eden Project. Where is the £60million coming from? Yes, its going to be there and in people’s faces. It is such a special bay we have and I hope The Eden Project is not just pie in the sky. It’s all down to money, it’s sustainability within the town and you have to create jobs but i think it’s doable. It’s a lifeline and people keep giving Morecambe lifelines and it gives people hope but then someone else cuts that lifeline.
“As for Frontierland, everyone has pulled out of it. I wanted Urban Splash to be given the Frontierland site to build on, instead of next to The Midland. Let them do their magic, they turn it round.


Geographical Situation: The radar is located on Black Jack Mountain, about 8km WSW of Gunnedah, at nearly 700 metres above sea level. This gives the radar an excellent view in all directions. Based on detecting echoes at an altitude of 3,000 metres, the radar coverage extends north across Moree, northeast over Inverell and Guyra, east to Armidale, southeast to Scone and the Upper Hunter, south to Mudgee, southwest towards Dubbo and Gilgandra, west to Coonamble and northwest over Burren Junction.
Meteorological Aspects: The radar should provide excellent coverage of the Namoi region, including Tamworth and the Liverpool Plains. The radar is well placed to detect thunderstorms and deep rain-bearing systems in almost all directions, often at greater range than quoted above. An obstruction at a bearing of about 228 degrees suppresses weather echoes through a narrow sector in this direction, which extends towards Dubbo. The rugged terrain of the region may compromise the radar's view of low-level conditions in some directions. In particular, the Liverpool Ranges and Warrumbungles to the south and southwest of the radar obstruct the radar's view of low-level conditions beyond about 100km in these quadrants. This means that light showers and drizzle activity over the Upper Hunter and the Dubbo/Gilgandra regions may not be detected by the Namoi radar. People in the Hunter region are advised that the Newcastle radar will provide superior coverage in most conditions. Similarly, the Nandewar Ranges will somewhat compromise detection of light showers and drizzle over the Gwydir region, including Inverell and Bingara. The Moree radar, though less sensitive, will provide an alternative view of these areas. The Great Dividing Range affects longer range coverage in the eastern quadrants and the better situated Grafton and Newcastle radars will generally provide better coverage over eastern parts of the Northern Tablelands.
Non-meteorological Echoes: In most cases, the processing system at the radar removes permanent echoes caused by mountains, hills, buildings and other solid objects. Occasionally, however, some may not be completely removed from the display. These usually show up as small, stationary, erratically visible specks, mostly over the higher ground of the Great Dividing Range, the Liverpool Ranges, the Warrumbungles and the Nandewar Ranges. On cold clear winter nights and mornings these echoes may become stronger and increase in number due to downward refraction of the radar beam by the cold air near the Earth's surface.


LUNENBURG � Racist graffiti and swastikas were spray painted all over the center of town, a discovery made by authorities yesterday morning. Officer Jason Poitras said swastikas were painted on Town Hall, the town�s post office building and in other areas of town, as well as on trash barrels.
The new basketball court at the Chester Mossman Teen Center on Memorial Drive was also hit with racist scribbling and swastikas, he said. Members of the teen center cleaned up the graffiti. The swastikas were also removed from the town buildings.
Officer Poitras said the paint color of the graffiti was the same used Aug. 18, when police found graffiti in the town. Anyone with information about the graffiti is asked to call police at (978) 582-4150.
LEICESTER � The Recycing Center will be accepting upholstered couches and chairs, and mattresses and box springs at the center this Saturday only.
The charge will be $30 for large or small couches, $20 for upholstered chairs regardless of size, $14 for a twin mattress or box spring, $16 for a full-size mattress or box spring, $18 for a queen-size mattress or box spring, $20 for a king-size mattress or box spring.
Payment can be made in cash or check made out to the town of Leicester.
The items will be accepted beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday but only until the truck is full. For more information, call (508) 892-3121.
WARREN � The Veterans Affairs office will be closed until Sept. 11 so that Director Mark A. Avis can attend training in Indianapolis.
Mr. Avis will also attend American Legion testimony in Washington, D.C., before Congress.
For emergencies, during his absence, call (413) 535-9235 and the call will be returned as soon as possible.


John F. Burness is senior vice president for public affairs and government relations. A pdf file of the operations report can be found here.
Since release of the report yesterday (8 May) by William Bowen and Julius Chambers, we have received numerous requests for the Duke Police operations report of 14 March concerning the incident at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. Duke Police operation reports are confidential internal documents. Given that a number of statements in the operations report of 14 March have already been made public in the Bowen-Chambers report, we have decided to post it on the Duke website. This action is not and should not be considered a precedent for the release in the future of any Duke Police operations reports.


WASHINGTON — New charges have been filed against a Washington, D.C, barbershop owner accused of posing as a Howard University student and sexually assaulting incapacitated teenagers.
The Washington Post reports 35-year-old Julian Everett was indicted last week on charges related to a fourth victim. That victim’s age is unclear.
Prince George’s County police said three teenagers, ages 16 to 18, reported going on a date with Everett and losing consciousness after having alcohol. Police say they were then assaulted. Two teens were Howard students.
County State’s Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Denise Roberts says the fourth victim came forward after news about Everett’s March arrest.
Allegations against him date back to at least 2001, including a case in which he was convicted of kidnapping a transgender woman. Everett’s attorney declined to comment.


A Greatest Hits album and the name Bruce Springsteen just don’t seem to match. While he has had a number of top charting single releases, he has never been considered an artist who produces hit songs in the normal sense of the term. He is an artist who creates diverse, memorable, and some of the most critically acclaimed albums in music history. Thus his Greatest Hits compilation released in February of 1995 felt a little suspicious.
Let me say that if you want to explore Bruce Springsteen’s music you need to start with his studio albums. Each is an individual adventure in and of itself, and the songs have a cohesiveness within that context. Pulling his songs from their parent albums of release casts them adrift and allows them to lose some of their impact.
It might be a little too easy to say that this album is only for new adherents who are not familiar with his catalog. While Greatest Hits may provide a nice taste of his material, it is not an introductory release. It is an album for his fans and should just be accepted as a fun 76 minutes of listening pleasure. Ignore any sense of vision and high art and just enjoy the performances. From the opening sounds of “Born To Run” and “Thunder Road” and including accessible songs such as “Hungry Heart,” “Dancing In The Dark,” and “Glory Days,” it is just a good listen to some great tunes.
The gem of the album at the time of its release was the haunting “Streets Of Philadelphia,” which had only been available on the movie’s soundtrack album and as a 7” single. One of his biggest worldwide hits, it won four Grammy Awards, including song of the year plus the Academy Award for best original song.
There are four bonus tracks added to the end of the release. They marked a return to recording with members of his E Street Band after a long hiatus. While they are commendable efforts, I would have preferred adding more of his well known tracks. My choices would have been “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” “I’m On Fire,” “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” and, well, take your pick.
Greatest Hits is a nice stop to visit some old friends. Don’t try to make it something that it was not intended to be. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy.


Regular readers of this blog will know that I’ve been of mixed minds on the electoral prospects of former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota. I’ve gone from initial skepticism about his chances to defending him as a “top-tier” candidate while some other analysts downgraded his status.
Both the pro-Pawlenty and the anti-Pawlenty arguments are relatively straightforward. The pessimistic case is that he doesn’t really stand out from the pack on the basis of personality, accomplishments or what we might think of as his “brand.” The optimistic case is that he’s broadly acceptable — he has traditional qualifications, he’s well positioned between the moderate and conservative factions of the Republican Party and his favorability numbers are relatively good.
Really, though, I’m not sure that these arguments are incompatible: part of the reason that Mr. Pawlenty does not stand out is that he does not have a lot of sharp edges. The question is how to regard someone with this profile when he’s in competition with a dozen other actual or potential choices.
Viewed in this way, Mr. Pawlenty’s prospects might seem relatively bright. He’s pretty much smack-dab in the middle of the field — to the right of Mitt Romney and Jon M. Huntsman Jr., but to the left of Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry (who has not officially entered the race yet but is reasonably likely to do so). Some other candidates who had the potential to occupy this space — say John Thune or Haley Barbour or Mike Huckabee or Mitch Daniels, although some of these candidates are more difficult to characterize than others — have chosen not to run.
But this representation is too simple. Instead, the candidates encroach on one another’s territory: Mrs. Bachmann’s voters might plausibly also consider Mr. Perry or Herman Cain, while Mr. Huntsman’s might consider Mr. Romney.
All of the candidates suffer from this issue to a certain extent and would rather have fewer opponents to run against. But the concern for Mr. Pawlenty is that, because he sits so close to the middle of the field, he has more competition to worry about. Whereas he’s obviously in direct competition with Mr. Romney, his campaign has also had some pointed things to say about Mrs. Bachmann.
The danger for a candidate like this is that he gets overshadowed. Instead of being the consensus choice, he finds himself with very little breathing room. Voters deciding between Mr. Pawlenty and Mr. Perry tend to prefer Mr. Perry, those deciding between Mr. Pawlenty and Mr. Romney tend to prefer Mr. Romney, and so forth.
Put differently, Mr. Pawlenty is not intrinsically well differentiated from his opponents. A lot of voters might find him acceptable — but the types of voters who find him acceptable will also tend to find a lot of other candidates acceptable.
What a candidate like this needs is a good marketing strategy. Because someone like Mr. Pawlenty doesn’t distinguish himself on the basis of the fundamentals, he instead needs to stand out on the basis of superficial factors. Think about other products that are poorly differentiated from one another, like Coke or Pepsi or Bud Light and Miller Lite. These are the products that tend to invest the most into their marketing budgets — Budweiser spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year trying to convince you that it’s a better brew than Miller, even though most beer drinkers would have trouble telling them apart.
It might not be that a candidate’s branding is inherently all that important — but it’s going to tend to be more important for a candidate like Mr. Pawlenty than for one like Ron Paul, who has a more eccentric set of political views and is more of an acquired taste. Mr. Paul is the equivalent of a microbrew like Dogfish Head. Dogfish Head certainly stands to benefit from making sure that it is available in stores and that consumers are aware of its presence — but it does not really have to convince drinkers that it tastes better than Budweiser, as any drinker who might plausibly choose it is already of that opinion. Mr. Pawlenty, on the other hand, has to compete against the big brands — and the risk is that he’ll become the next Schlitz or RC Cola.
And so far, indications are that Mr. Pawlenty is losing the marketing war. The polls are one sign: contrary to what you might read elsewhere, they do have some predictive power, and what’s especially troubling for Mr. Pawlenty is that his numbers have not really improved even has his name recognition has grown to about 60 percent from 40 percent.
The other sign, perhaps just as important, are the fund-raising numbers: Mr. Pawlenty brought in just $4.2 million in the most recent quarter, some of which is earmarked for the general election, a paltry sum as compared to other candidates both in this election and in other recent ones. Not only do the fund-raising numbers have some predictive power unto themselves, but they also mean that Mr. Pawlenty will have less of a marketing budget as we move forward.
By no means do I think that Mr. Pawlenty has become an unrealistic nominee: at worst, he has fallen a little bit behind Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann (and a ways behind Mr. Romney). But the question is whether he needs to rebrand himself, taking more of the posture of the underdog.


I'm a Turkish student in an American family's house in Huntington Bay. I enjoy a lot being here, especially when I bike around to see garage and tag sales [''A Tag-Sale Show-and-Tell,'' June 28].
The Marshall family, very experienced American Field Service members, gave me a bicycle here. I wait Fridays and weekends to use it around, when there are many garage and tag sales. I make a plan before I leave the house and I follow a map to find all the addresses. My tour becomes 30 miles totally, from one garage sale to another, takes five to six hours to finish. Finally I get really tired and the bag behind me becomes full with the stuff I buy. I enjoy it a lot. I learn about the people of Long Island when I visit their sales. It's much more interesting than shopping in Grand Bazaar of Istanbul for me.


Pelosi's List: Who's on Her Bad Side?
U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi has an enemies list.
Nancy Pelosi likes to keep lists.
As a young political protégé of her father, Baltimore Mayor Tommy D’Alesandro, the preteen speaker-to-be would spend hours leafing through the list of voters her father had helped in some way — fixing a pothole, finding them a job, even getting them a hot meal.
Those around Pelosi say she has always kept her own favor file. But, like her father, she has also maintained a “disfavor file” in her head — a roster of those whom she believes have screwed up, betrayed her, challenged her or merely annoyed her.
In some cases, Pelosi has mended fences with people on the list, most notably House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), a former party rival who has become an indispensable lieutenant.
But she has also moved to strip power from longtime adversaries — and she has a propensity for remembering slights and grievances for years.
Hawkish Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who clashed with Pelosi on Iraq and intelligence policy, assumed she was in line to become chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats seized control of the House in 2006. But Pelosi refused to appoint Harman to even a seat on the committee, and she handed the chairmanship to Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas).
As speaker, she did nothing to stop her ally Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) from ousting Rep. John Dingell as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee after clashing with the octogenarian Michigan Democrat on energy policy and global warming.
The list, Pelosi allies say, is real — even as they warn that overstating her vindictiveness feeds into the right-wing caricatures of Pelosi and perpetuates ethnic and gender stereotypes.
Moreover, they argue that portraying her as payback-obsessed misses a fundamental political point: Despite her commanding majority, Pelosi is painfully aware that powerful speakers, including Republican Joe Cannon, have been toppled for using their power heavy-handedly.
“She’s not a vengeful person, per se, and she thinks that people who do bad things eventually get their due without her intervention,” a longtime associate said on condition of anonymity.
So who’s on Pelosi’s list now?
1. Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.). No Democrat has done quite so much in so short a time to arouse Pelosi’s disdain as the failed-Redskins-quarterback-turned-ambitious-North-Carolina-congressman.
The conservative, anti-abortion Shuler would have made the list for voting against both bank bailout bills and the stimulus package, but the way he went about it didn’t help; Shuler told an audience back home that “House leadership and Senate leadership have really failed” on the $787 billion package.
The thing that riles Pelosi most, according to several House aides, is that she believes Shuler’s motives are as much political as they are ideological — and that he’s picking a fight with her to position himself for a run against Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) next year.
Unless Shuler is planning a long House career, picking a fight with Pelosi may indeed have its advantages: His 2006 opponent, incumbent GOP Rep. Charles Taylor, scored points by portraying Shuler as a Pelosi acolyte.
“I don’t know if Shuler is talking without thinking or if he’s just making the calculation that distancing himself from Pelosi is never a bad thing to do,” said a senior House leadership aide.
2. Rush Limbaugh. He’s Pelosi’s sworn enemy — and she views him as beneath contempt and unworthy of her comment.
3. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D-Pa.). Pelosi and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made an all-out effort to help the veteran Scranton congressman win a tight race against longtime nemesis Lou Barletta last fall.
So aides say the speaker was taken aback when the western Pennsylvania representative bucked leadership by voting “no” on the original version of the stimulus bill.
He voted for the conference report later, but hard feelings persist.
4. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.). It’s no surprise that Pelosi isn’t crazy about the young, aggressive minority whip, who has marshaled an anti-Pelosi GOP insurgency in the House.
Pelosi has good personal relationship with House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). But members of her leadership cadre are starting to really dislike Cantor, despite their public pose of studied indifference. Part of the reason: Cantor is employing many of the same techniques Pelosi used so successfully to torture former House Speaker Dennis Hastert when she was the Democratic whip in 2002 and 2003.
It remains to be seen if Cantor’s power-of-“no” philosophy will work — congressional approval ratings have actually spiked on the stimulus — but he’s gotten traction by nitpicking Pelosi’s proposals and magnifying the majority’s blunders.
5. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.). The fiscally conservative gadfly would have topped the list had he not reversed his first stimulus “no” by voting in favor of the final package.
Even so, the most outspoken of the Blue Dog Democrats is still on thin ice with leadership, thanks to his comment that he “actually got some quiet encouragement from the Obama folks” for initially bucking Pelosi on the stimulus. That required a hasty Obama-Pelosi cleanup effort that resulted in a Cooper clarification — although he continues to express dissatisfaction with what he sees as Pelosi’s top-down leadership style.
Counterintuitively, Cooper enjoys a good relationship with many in Pelosi’s inner circle, including Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Waxman — with whom Cooper shared a long lunch at the Democrats’ recent retreat in Williamsburg, Va.
6. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.). The squeakiest liberal wheel in the House has always been more than willing to articulate his differences with leadership.
But his role as the lone Democrat to switch from “yes” on the original stimulus bill to a “no” on the House-Senate compromise was viewed as grandstanding in the speaker’s suite.
DeFazio, who chairs a subcommittee on highways and transit, makes a compelling counterargument, saying he was betrayed by Pelosi’s acceptance of lower-than-promised allocations for infrastructure representing 8 percent of the total package.
7. The House Appropriations Committee staff. Pelosi’s relationship with Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) remains strong. But she was reportedly infuriated that Obey’s staff failed to scrub the first draft of the stimulus bill of politically damaging proposals such as billions for resodding the National Mall, funding anti-STD programs and providing free contraceptives.
8. CIA Director Leon Panetta. Pelosi supported Panetta’s appointment at the CIA and has said nary a negative public word about her fellow Californian and former colleague.
Nonetheless, people with ties to both say the speaker was more than a little annoyed that Panetta backed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to create an independent panel to redraw the state’s legislative districts, a proposal that might have endangered Pelosi’s Democratic allies in the state Legislature.
“If you asked her, she’d say she loves Leon, but there is a strain” in their relationship, said a person with knowledge of the situation.
Dishonorable mentions: Pelosi allies Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) aren’t in the speaker’s doghouse, but many people around her think they should be.
Murtha, whom Pelosi disastrously backed over Hoyer in the 2006 majority leader’s contest, is embroiled in a billowing scandal involving the lobbying firm PMA. And Rangel, the powerful House Ways & Means chairman, has been bogged down for months in an ethics investigation.
“Nancy is standing by them, to her detriment,” said a senior Democratic aide in the House.


You can’t sue your way to a solution for global warming. So says the judge.
On Thursday, Judge John Keenan of New York’s Southern District dismissed the City of New York’s lawsuit against the international oil and gas companies BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell. Facing billions of dollars in climate change-related damage in the coming years, New York was hoping to extract some money from the transnational companies that extract the oil that people burn for energy—raising the planet’s temperature, exacerbating storms, melting polar ice and elevating sea levels, worsening wildfires, extending droughts, and allowing diseases to spread farther and faster.
Cities around the country have been filing lawsuits, hoping to get money from oil companies to pay for things like seawalls and infrastructure improvements—part of a strategy that’s been developing for decades. Oil companies have continued to market and lobby for lighter regulation on a product that made life harder on the only planet anyone knows about with life on it, while the US government moved slowly, if at all, toward remaking the country’s energy production and carbon emissions. If regulation and the law won't help, the theory goes, you turn to the courts.
Indeed. And beyond that, two previous cases offered precedents unfavorable to the plaintiffs. The cities argued that global warming was damaging them, specifically and locally (and in fact in California they tried to file in state court but got bumped to federal). But the courts disagreed, framing carbon emissions as a "transboundary" global issue, of international scope. And American Electric Power v. Connecticut (usually referred to as “AEP”) and Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil both found that the Clean Air Act “displaced” federal common law when it comes to emissions.
Lawyers hoped that things had changed since then. New attribution science helped put blame more squarely on specific emitters, cities were seeing new costs due to global warming, and the legal theory had evolved away from suing over emissions to suing for sales and marketing while knowing about potential climate damages—a template taken from lawsuits against tobacco and lead paint companies.
That doesn’t mean cities won’t keep going. They may well appeal the dismissals in New York and California. Other cases continue in Washington state and Colorado. And on Friday, the city of Baltimore filed suit against 26 oil and gas companies in Maryland state court.
That battle was always uphill. Now the grade’s even steeper. Oil companies don't deny global warming is a problem, but so far they don't have to pay to fix it. It's doable, but by one estimate it'll cost $53 trillion. And the bill is coming due.


Corporations and tax-exempt organizations for the first time have the option of filing their annual income tax and information returns electronically, the IRS said today.
Most corporations and tax-exempt organizations, who file forms 1120 and 990, have the option to transmit tax return data using a secure Internet connection instead of via modem.
Taxpayers and tax professionals can prepare the returns using IRS-approved software developed by one of several software companies.
The returns are then transmitted to IRS through a secure Internet site accessible only to registered users.
'The successful launch of this modernized e-file process means charitable organizations and most corporations can stop filing massive paper returns,' IRS commissioner Mark Everson said.
Error messages are sent quickly and are easier to understand.
Returns are processed upon receipt.
An IRS return message lets tax professionals know the return has been filed.
The IRS' goal is to replace outdated, proprietary technology with an industry standard process that uses Extensible Markup Language, agency officials said. This is the first XML application the IRS has used for tax returns submitted via the Internet.
So far, the IRS has made 59 forms for corporate and tax-exempt filers available for e-filing returns. More than 95 percent of corporations are able to file electronically, and all corporations will be able to when another 43 forms and schedules are released later this year. More than two-thirds of exempt organizations can file electronically now, and an additional 244,000 will be able to file other types of returns by next year.