Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/316099392?client_source=feed&format=rss
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রবিবার, ৩০ জুন, ২০১৩
European officials slam US over bugging report
A demonstrator protests with a poster against espionage programs in Hanover, Germany, 29 June 2013. A coalition for action consisting of representatives from politcs, unions and Blockupy and Anonymous activists protests against NSA espionage PRISM as well as the surveillance practices of British Secret Service GCHQ. Photo by: Peter Steffen/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
A demonstrator protests with a poster against espionage programs in Hanover, Germany, 29 June 2013. A coalition for action consisting of representatives from politcs, unions and Blockupy and Anonymous activists protests against NSA espionage PRISM as well as the surveillance practices of British Secret Service GCHQ. Photo by: Peter Steffen/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
BERLIN (AP) ? Senior European officials expressed concern Sunday at reports that U.S. intelligence agents bugged EU offices on both sides of the Atlantic, with some leftist lawmakers calling for concrete sanctions against Washington.
The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, said he was "deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of U.S. authorities spying on EU offices" made in a report published Sunday by German news weekly Der Spiegel.
The magazine said the surveillance was carried out by the U.S. National Security Agency, which has recently been the subject of leaks claiming it scanned vast amounts of foreign Internet traffic. The U.S. government has defended its efforts to intercept electronic communications overseas by arguing that this has helped prevent terror attacks at home and abroad.
Schulz said that if the allegations that the NSA bugged European Union offices were confirmed "it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations."
Green Party leaders in the European Parliament, Rebecca Harms and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, called for an immediate investigation into the claims and suggested that recently launched negotiations on a trans-Atlantic trade treaty should be put on hold.
They also called for existing U.S.-EU agreements on the exchange of bank transfer and passenger record information to be canceled. Both programs have been labeled as unwarranted infringements of citizens' privacy by left-wing and libertarian lawmakers in Europe.
In Germany, where criticism of the NSA's surveillance programs has been particularly vocal, a senior government official accused the United States on Sunday of using Cold War methods against its allies by targeting EU offices in Washington, New York and Brussels.
"If the media reports are accurate, then this recalls the methods used by enemies during the Cold War," German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger. "It is beyond comprehension that our friends in the United States see Europeans as enemies."
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger called for an "immediate and comprehensive" response from the U.S. government to the claims in the Spiegel report, which cited classified U.S. documents taken by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that the magazine said it had partly seen.
Spokespeople for the NSA and the office for the national intelligence director in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday.
According to Der Spiegel, the NSA planted bugs in the EU's diplomatic offices in Washington and infiltrated the building's computer network. Similar measures were taken at the EU's mission to the United Nations in New York, the magazine said.
Der Spiegel didn't publish the alleged NSA documents it cited nor say how it obtained access to them. But one of the report's authors is Laura Poitras, an award-winning documentary filmmaker who interviewed Snowden while he was holed up in Hong Kong.
The U.S. has been trying to track down Snowden, who is believed to currently be at Moscow's main airport with plans to travel to Ecuador to seek asylum.
The magazine also didn't specify how it learned of the NSA's alleged eavesdropping efforts at a key EU office in Brussels. There, the NSA used secure facilities at NATO headquarters nearby to dial into telephone maintenance systems that would have allowed it to intercept senior EU officials' calls and Internet traffic, the Spiegel report said.
Also Sunday, German federal prosecutors said they were examining whether the reported U.S. electronic surveillance programs broke German laws. In a statement, the Federal Prosecutors' Office said it was probing the claims so as to "achieve a reliable factual basis" before considering whether a formal investigation was warranted.
It said private citizens were likely to file criminal complaints on the matter, but didn't comment on the possible legal merits of such complaints.
Der Spiegel reported that at least one such complaint was lodged with prosecutors in the state of Hesse last week.
___
Frank Jordans can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/wirereporter . Associated Press Writer Raf Casert contributed to this report from Brussels.
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3 of the best craft breweries: From London Fields to The Old Brewery
Crate Brewery
This gem a two-minute walk from Hackney Wick has everything ? astounding pizzas (hello sweet potato, stilton and walnut topping), Crate?s own brews and even seating in wooden rowboats?on the canal out back.?
London Fields
The Tap Room at this tiny venture is a masterclass in cobbled-together chic ? park your bum on upturned kegs and drink up a range of London Fields? brews, plus there are regular beer and food events (see website).?
The Old Brewery?
It?s worth the schlep to Greenwich to check out this sophisticated set-up, where the best of Meantime?s creations appear alongside other great craft beers of the world and are even matched to the food on the menu. ??
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Photos: Tom Jennings; ?Facebook; ?Meantime Brewing Company
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Oil companies turning to submarine technology in fracking
HOUSTON ? A gossamer-thin glass line threaded two miles underground is allowing oilfield engineers to listen to a new kind of music: the sounds of fracking.
Halliburton Co. and competing providers of drilling gear are adapting acoustic spy technology used by U.S. submarines to record sounds made deep in the earth that can guide engineers in finishing a well and predicting how much oil will flow.
The ability to hear inside a well enables producers to fine-tune hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the process that blasts underground rock with water, sand and chemicals to free trapped oil and natural gas. The technology is targeted at an estimated $31 billion that will be spent this year on fracking stages that yield less-than-optimal results, a majority of the work at 26,100 U.S. wells set to be pressure-pumped in 2013, according to PacWest Consulting Partners.
"We're creating a new science," said Magnus McEwen-King, managing director for OptaSense, a Qinetiq Group lc unit that's one of the fiber-optics pioneers for the energy industry. "From an acoustic perspective, this is very much the start of what I think is going to be a revolutionary technology."
Fracking has helped U.S. oil production reach a 21-year high. Environmental groups have criticized the practice because of concerns it may affect drinking water supplies.
Energy companies are fueling the booming business of so- called distributed fiber-optic lines, where the cord itself is a sensor for sound and temperature throughout its entire length.
The U.S. market for such lines, used across industries from energy to military, will almost double to $1.1 billion by 2016 from an estimated $586 million this year, according to a study published by Information Gatekeepers and revised this month by Light Wave Venture, which helps develop new companies using fiber-optic technology.
The prospect of fine-tuning energy discovery has the world's largest oilfield service providers joining companies with ties to the defense industry including OptaSense and U.S. Seismic Systems Inc., a unit of Acorn Energy Inc., to develop ways to eavesdrop on wells. Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and Statoil are among customers testing the technology.
"This market is evolving very, very aggressively," said Dave Krohn, a Connecticut-based materials engineer who wrote the market study. "Clearly the driver is oil and gas."
Halliburton, the world's largest provider of fracking services, is working on cataloging the combination of sounds that signal the perfect frack: an explosion, cracking rock, and eventually the gurgle of hydrocarbons seeping into the well bore, said Glenn McColpin, director of reservoir monitoring at Halliburton's Houston-based Pinnacle unit. A bad frack means the rock didn't crack as much as it could have.
When perfected, a computer will convert the sounds to a graph that will show how deeply and thoroughly cracks penetrate the rock surrounding the well, indicating the success of each frack stage. The longer and more numerous the cracks, the more oil and gas will flow.
One fracking stage can cost about $100,000 and a typical well now will have about 15 stages, said Alex Robart, principal at PacWest. The effectiveness of each stage varies wildly. The industry generally subscribes to the 80-20 rule, meaning 80 percent of North American production comes from about 20 percent of the fracking stages, he said.
Finding out immediately which fracks were successful allows a company to repeat the process to improve flow.
"Our whole goal is to make the perfect frack every time," McColpin said. "You're spending millions of dollars pumping millions of gallons of fluid, and if you're only getting a third of the rock, you're getting a third of the production."
A fiber optic line consists of a stainless steel cable encasing one long, thin string of glass that vibrates when struck by sound waves. The sound waves are converted to light pulses reflected through the line, then converted by computer software back into sound that McColpin can monitor from his laptop.
"Bink, bank, boink" is what McColpin hears as a small metal ball rolls down the well bore and lands in a "ball seat" that triggers the rock's first fracture. The fiber line captures the noise of the ball and the reverberating blast of the perforation gun firing into the rock. Computer software converts those sounds into a colored graph on his laptop screen, etching a bright red fever line across a green background.
"Our whole goal is to make the earth transparent," McColpin said. "Now we've got a window into the well to see exactly what's happening."
The oil industry started experimenting with fiber optic lines' temperature-sensing abilities about a decade ago, and five years later started testing it with sounds.
In August 2009 OptaSense traveled to Alberta, Canada, to show off its acoustic fiber-optic line to Shell. Executives from both companies piled into an observation truck parked near the well site to oversee a fracking job while OptaSense's McEwen- King sat in his office back in England monitoring the real-time results on his computer.
As the perforation gun exploded, sound waves traveling along the fiber optic line were transformed into data that lit up his screen with a brightly colored graph illustrating the results.
"You guys just turned the lights on down there!" McEwen- King told his colleagues back in Canada. "The whole well-bore imaged instantaneously," he recalled in an interview earlier this month. Three years later, OptaSense announced an agreement with Shell to provide global frack-monitoring services using the acoustic lines.
Some of the world's largest oil producers are interested in the still-evolving technology, Joseph Elkhoury, general manager of microseismic services at Schlumberger.
"There's always this wide enthusiasm around a new technology," he said. Inevitably, that's followed months or years later by a drop in the adoption curve as customers realize the technology isn't everything they hoped it would be. Once the service companies fix some of the challenges, adoption picks up again, he said.
"We are in the wide-enthusiasm phase of acoustic sensing," Elkhoury said.
One of the biggest challenges for acoustic fiber in the oilfield is making the business case to use it onshore, Robart said. Installing the technology can cost as much as several hundred thousand dollars a well, meaning it doesn't pay off as easily on a $6 million land well as it would on a $50 million offshore well, he said.
To confirm how large a fracture was and where it went, companies still need to use a network of specific sensors called geophones to listen from a nearby monitoring well, measuring subtle earth movements from the rock cracking. Some service companies want to one day ditch these microseismic tools and get the same listening sensitivity from their one fiber optic line, helping bring costs down and becoming more efficient.
U.S. Seismic is using three acoustic fiber-optic lines to listen for sounds in place of traditional geophones. The technology provides a more accurate sense of how far the cracks penetrated the rock and in which direction, said Jim Andersen, chief executive officer of U.S. Seismic.
Contractors ranging from Halliburton to Exiius have begun permanently installing fiber optic lines in U.S. wells. During completion of a just-drilled well, the fiber can listen for subtle noises that suggest sealing the well with cement didn't work properly.
Then the fiber can listen for good and bad fracking stages, and finally it'll be able to confirm if oil and gas is flowing. Eventually they'll be able to actually measure production flow based on sounds, McColpin said. He compares it to a flute: as different holes in the well's casing are open or clogged, the sound pitch of fluids flowing through the well are affected.
Programmers also are working on algorithms to detect the difference in sound for water versus oil flowing into the well from surrounding rock. Then valves for different areas in the well bore could be opened or closed as needed to minimize water incursion, which is a waste.
Scientists also want to beef up the listening capability of the fiber optic line during seismic shoots of the underground rock to capture better reservoir images for future exploration.
Submarines were among the first adopters of acoustic fiber- optic technology in the late 1990s. Some of OptaSense's technology expertise originates from its parent company, Qinetiq, a British defense contractor providing military services ranging from drones to cyber security.
Before moving to U.S. Seismic, Andersen previously ran the group at Litton Industries Inc. that sold about $450 million worth of fiber-optic sensor technology to the U.S. Navy. Northrop Grumman Corp., a maker of surveillance drones, bought Litton in 2001 for about $5 billion.
Outside of oil and gas production, fiber optic lines are being used on pipelines to detect leaks or foul play, for monitoring perimeter security along a property fence line and to measure the stress on infrastructure such as roads and bridges. The rebuilt Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis is now packed with 300 fiber-optic sensors after it collapsed in 2007, Krohn said.
One of the biggest challenges for the new technology is figuring out what to do with the mountains of data they're collecting. Halliburton has assembled engineers, scientists and former U.S. space program technicians in a Houston lab to comb through data that pores in fast enough to fill up a DVD every 28 seconds.
So far, companies are afraid to throw anything out, not knowing what might prove to be the crucial puzzle piece later, McColpin said.
"It's untenable," he said. "You can't collect 15 terrabytes a week continuously for 20 years on a well."
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শনিবার, ২৯ জুন, ২০১৩
Microscopy technique could help computer industry develop 3-D components
June 28, 2013 ? A technique developed several years ago at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for improving optical microscopes now has been applied to monitoring the next generation of computer chip circuit components, potentially providing the semiconductor industry with a crucial tool for improving chips for the next decade or more.
The technique, called Through-Focus Scanning Optical Microscopy (TSOM), has now been shown able to detect tiny differences in the three-dimensional shapes of circuit components, which until very recently have been essentially two-dimensional objects. TSOM is sensitive to features that are as small as 10 nanometers (nm) across, perhaps smaller -- addressing some important industry measurement challenges for the near future for manufacturing process control and helping maintain the viability of optical microscopy in electronics manufacturing.
For decades, computer chips have resembled city maps in which components are essentially flat. But as designers strive to pack more components onto chips, they have reached the same conclusion as city planners: The only direction left to build is upwards. New generations of chips feature 3-D structures that stack components atop one another, but ensuring these components are all made to the right shapes and sizes requires a whole new dimension -- literally -- of measurement capability.
"Previously, all we needed to do was show we could accurately measure the width of a line a certain number of nanometers across," explains NIST's Ravikiran Attota. "Now, we will need to measure all sides of a three-dimensional structure that has more nooks and crannies than many modern buildings. And the nature of light makes that difficult."
Part of the trouble is that components now are growing so small that a light beam can't quite get at them. Optical microscopes are normally limited to features larger than about half the wavelength of the light used -- about 250 nanometers for green light. So microscopists have worked around the issue by lining up a bunch of identical components at regular distances apart and observing how light scatters off the group and fitting the data with optical models to determine the dimensions. But these optical measurements, as currently used in manufacturing, have great difficulty measuring newer 3-D structures.
Other non-optical methods of imaging such as scanning probe microscopy are expensive and slow, so the NIST team decided to test the abilities of TSOM, a technique that Attota played a major role in developing. The method uses a conventional optical microscope, but rather than taking a single image, it collects 2-D images at different focal positions forming a 3-D data space. A computer then extracts brightness profiles from these multiple out-of-focus images and uses the differences between them to construct the TSOM image. The TSOM images it provides are somewhat abstract, but the differences between them are still clear enough to infer minute shape differences in the measured structures -- bypassing the use of optical models, which introduce complexities that industry must face.
"Our simulation studies show that TSOM might measure features as small as 10 nm or smaller, which would be enough for the semiconductor industry for another decade," Attota says. "And we can look at anything with TSOM, not just circuits. It could become useful to any field where 3-D shape analysis of tiny objects is needed."
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/l3YXanJMEUE/130628131025.htm
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শুক্রবার, ২৮ জুন, ২০১৩
Meet Handibot, the First CNC MIll You Can Take With You
CNC mills are usually the antithesis of portable. Sometimes they're as big as trucks. But ShopBot Tools, a North Carolina-based CNC Tool manufacturer, is trying to change that with the Handibot, a CNC Mill you can carry around.
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3 Europeans freed after Tunisia topless protest
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) ? Three European feminist activists who were jailed after a topless courthouse protest in Tunisia last month were freed overnight and have left Tunisia.
The two French and a German member of the Ukrainian feminist group Femen maintained during the trial that there was nothing sexual or offensive about their protest and that it was only to support their imprisoned Tunisian colleague.
The three women had been convicted and sentenced to four months and a day of prison for public indecency, offending public morals and threatening public order after they demonstrated topless in front of the court building on May 29 on behalf of Amina Sboui.
The protest was the first of its kind in the Middle East for Femen, which has used nudity to push for womens' rights.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/3-europeans-freed-tunisia-topless-protest-081332645.html
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HTC unveils 'glamor red' HTC One
Third color option launches in the UK from mid-July
HTC has announced the launch of the HTC One in a new color option — 'glamor red.' It's the same phone we know and love in a fancy new color, and in the UK it'll be available from mid-July exclusively at Phones 4u. Currently there's no word as to whether any U.S. carriers will pick up the red version.
The red variant, which leaked out briefly a few months back, will join the silver and (somewhat more elusive) black versions of HTC's flagship. We've got more pictures, along with today's presser, after the break.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/UjAVeGKOVC0/story01.htm
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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৭ জুন, ২০১৩
HTC posts kernel source code for One Google Play edition
Officially, the HTC One Google Play edition exists for tinkering with an unfettered Android experience. Owners need the code to do that, of course -- and HTC has quickly followed up by posting the kernel source code for its Sense-free phone. The release helps developers optimize their apps for the hardware, modify its vanilla Android 4.2 build and produce custom firmware. If you have one of those goals in mind, the kernel source is ready to download at HTC's developer portal.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC
Source: HTCdev
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LGBT Activists, Nonprofits Praise Supreme Court DOMA Ruling (TWEETS)
Activists and nonprofits rejoiced on Twitter Wednesday after the Supreme Court declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.
In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that DOMA -- which prevented same-sex couples whose marriages were recognized in their home state from receiving hundreds of benefits under federal law ?- invalid.
The decision prompted cheers from scores of advocates whose primary mission is to ensure equality for for people of every sexual orientation.
The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that aims to prevent suicide among gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth, was one such organization that shared its excitement with the Twitter community.
Click through the slideshow below to read even more Twitter reactions.
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Twitter update for BlackBerry brings image cards to older phones
Not all BlackBerry owners are ready for new phones just yet, but many of them still want to browse their Twitter feeds as efficiently as possible. A Twitter 4.2 update launching today should keep those users satisfied: the release brings image cards to BlackBerry OS 5 and up, letting those on older devices peek at photos in the timeline. The upgraded version also populates that timeline with more details about the tweets themselves, and it suggests people to follow when looking at profiles. If those additions are enough to fight off the urge for a hardware upgrade, the new Twitter app is available at the source link.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Blackberry
Via: Inside BlackBerry
Source: BlackBerry World
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/e11COhOCEYw/
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Rudd sworn in as Australian prime minister after overthrowing Gillard
By James Grubel
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Kevin Rudd was sworn in as Australian prime minister for the second time on Thursday, a day after toppling Julia Gillard and three months out from scheduled elections with polls suggesting the ruling Labor Party is staring at a devastating defeat.
Rudd's resurrection as prime minister comes after three years of bitter infighting within the Labor leadership and as the world's 12th largest economy faces challenges from a slowdown in top trade partner China.
Late on Wednesday Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat, highlighted the difficulties associated with "the end of China's resource boom" and said he would work to rebuild the government's strained relations with the business community.
He made no mention of whether he would change policy or bring forward elections due on September 14.
Australian business was scathing of the political instability and called on Rudd to abandon laws which strengthen trade union access to the workplace and which tighten rules for temporary skilled immigration.
"Our tolerance factor with instability in the leadership of Australia's government is at breaking point, matched only by a swathe of anti-business policies which have brought business frustration to boiling point," said Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Anderson.
"The economic challenges facing Australia, especially our declining competitiveness, high cost structure and low confidence, are serious."
Rudd's first task will be a major cabinet reshuffle after a string of senior ministers loyal to Gillard resigned from the cabinet, including former deputy prime minister and treasurer Wayne Swan, Trade Minister Craig Emerson and Climate Change Minister Greg Combet.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen was sworn in as Treasurer and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese was sworn in as deputy leader on Thursday, after Rudd won an internal party ballot to oust Australia's first female prime minister.
Financial markets see few implications for the $1.5 trillion economy, which is struggling to cope with the end of a historic mining boom as commodity prices fall and a record pipeline in resource investment starts to falter.
Manufacturing has been hurt by a strong Australian dollar and other sectors of the economy are struggling to pick up the slack as the mining bonanza fades.
"While some bounce in the polls and possibly confidence is expected, the political games will be largely a sideshow to deeper issues in the Australian economy," Nomura interest rate strategist Martin Whetton said of Rudd's re-appointment.
VOTERS WELCOME RUDD
Rudd's return is the latest chapter in a three-year battle with Gillard, his former deputy who rolled him in 2010 and led a minority government. Gillard announced she was quitting politics at the next election after losing the party ballot.
Rudd is likely to test his support in Australia's hung parliament, but he has commitments of support from the Greens and three independents, making it likely he will be able to control a majority.
The shift back to Rudd came after a series of polls found Labor is facing electoral annihilation in September, losing up to 35 seats and handing a massive majority to the conservative opposition.
Rudd, always among the most popular of politicians with the electorate, was welcomed back by voters.
"I am glad that we've now been given the opportunity to have the prime minister we voted in several years ago," said Peter Mayson, a building industry employee in Sydney.
Analysts said the dramatic leadership change should help lift Labor's standing in opinion polls, although the initial boost might not last until the elections and Labor was still likely to lose power.
"I think Kevin Rudd will probably do better than Gillard would have done," Nielsen pollster John Stirton told Australian radio on Thursday. "Where it could come unstuck is that the initial burst of support simply may not last."
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has called on Rudd to call an election for early August to end the instability and to let voters decide who should be prime minister.
(Additional reporting by Lincoln Feast and Maggie Lu in Sydney; Editing by Stephen Coates)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rudd-sworn-australian-prime-minister-overthrowing-gillard-002212453.html
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বুধবার, ২৬ জুন, ২০১৩
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Source: http://rss.sciam.com/guest-blog
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Strong Museum to House Toy Industry Hall of Fame
The great minds of the toy industry will be honored alongside their famous creations when the Toy Industry Hall of Fame combines with the National Toy Hall of Fame under a partnership announced Tuesday.
The 5,000-square-foot National Toy Hall of Fame gallery at the Strong museum in Rochester will undergo $4 million in renovations, with the goal of opening the combined hall in the fall of 2015.
The Toy Industry Hall of Fame, whose inductees have included Milton Bradley, Frederick August Otto Schwarz, Walt Disney and George Lucas, has been without a physical presence for about eight years following the closure of the International Toy Center in New York City.
Leaders of both halls have been talking for some time about combining the two as a way to raise their visibility and exposure and to promote their educational missions.
"With its unique emphasis on the power of play, the Strong is an ideal home for this homage to both the toys that have influenced generations of children and the innovative minds that brought them to life," Carter Keithley, president of the Toy Industry Association, said at a news conference at the Strong museum, where items like alphabet blocks, roller skates, the Frisbee, Lincoln Logs and the stick occupy places of honor.
The combined halls, with high-tech and hands-on interactive displays, will enable visitors to explore how cultural trends, gender and changing technologies have shaped the design, production and marketing of toys, officials said, including how games like Monopoly and The Game of Life reinforced faith in capitalism and the pursuit of the American dream.
The National Toy Hall of Fame was established in 1998 and accepts nominations from anyone. A national selection committee composed of historians, educators and others choose the annual selections. The Toy Industry Hall of Fame was established in 1985 by the Toy Industry Association and inducts about two people a year from among industry nominees.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/toy-industry-hall-fame-locate-toy-hof-19482923
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মঙ্গলবার, ২৫ জুন, ২০১৩
Court makes it harder to sue businesses
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday decided to make it harder for Americans to sue businesses for retaliation and discrimination, leading a justice to call for Congress to overturn the court's actions.
The court's conservatives, in two 5-4 decisions, ruled that a person must be able to hire and fire someone to be considered a supervisor in discrimination lawsuits, making it harder to blame a business for a co-worker's racism or sexism. The court then decided to limit how juries can decide retaliation lawsuits, saying victims must prove employers would not have taken action against them but for their intention to retaliate.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote both dissents for the court's liberal wing, and in a rare move, read them aloud in the courtroom. She said the high court had "corralled Title VII," a law designed to stop discrimination in the nation's workplaces.
"Both decisions dilute the strength of Title VII in ways Congress could not have intended," said Ginsburg, who then called on Congress to change the law to overturn the court.
In the first case, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center wanted a discrimination lawsuit won by Dr. Naiel Nassar thrown out. Nassar, after complaining of harassment, left in 2006 for another job at Parkland Hospital, but the hospital withdrew its job offer after one of his former medical center supervisors opposed it. Nassar sued, saying the medical center retaliated against him for his discrimination complaints by encouraging Parkland to take away his job offer. A jury awarded him more than $3 million in damages.
The medical center appealed, saying the judge told the jury it only had to find that retaliation was a motivating factor in the supervisor's actions, called mixed-motive. Instead, it said, the judge should have told the jury it had to find that discriminatory action wouldn't have happened "but-for" the supervisor's desire to retaliate for liability to attach.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the opinion, agreed with the lower court and the university, saying people "must establish that his or her protected activity was a but-for cause of the alleged adverse action by the employer." But he didn't rule completely for the medical center, sending the case back to the lower courts after saying a decision on the resolution of the case "is better suited by courts closer to the facts of this case."
Karen Harned, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business' Small Business Legal Center, cheered the decision.
"If courts were allowed to label employees with little managerial authority as 'supervisors,' that would have substantially increased the number of frivolous lawsuits brought against small businesses and would have done little, if anything, to reduce harassment," she said. "For small businesses, the increased possibility of liability and ensuing costs would have been devastating. We are very pleased with the Supreme Court's decision."
In the second case, Maetta Vance, who was a catering specialist at Ball State University, accused a co-worker, Shaundra Davis, of racial harassment and retaliation in 2005. Vance sued the school under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying the university was liable since Davis was her supervisor. But a federal judge threw out her lawsuit, saying that since Davis could not fire Vance, she was only a co-worker, and since the university had taken corrective action, it was not liable for Davis' actions. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision, and Vance appealed to the Supreme Court.
But Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, said for the university to be liable, Davis must have had the authority to "hire, fire, demote, promote, transfer, or discipline" Vance.
"We hold that an employee is a 'supervisor' for purpose of vicarious liability under Title VII if he or she is empowered by the employer to take tangible employment actions against the victim," Alito said. "Because there is no evidence that BSU empowered Davis to take any tangible employment actions against Vance, the judgment of the Seventh Circuit is affirmed."
Alito shook his head as Ginsburg read her dissent of his opinion. "The court's disregard for the realities of the workplace means that many victims of workplace harassment will have no effective remedy," she said.
Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron said the court made the wrong decision.
"Deferring to the powerful at the expense of the powerless, the Supreme Court majority has imposed a heavier burden for victims of workplace harassment and discrimination seeking justice in our courts," she said. "This decision makes it far easier for employers to evade responsibility for discrimination and harassment in the workplace."
Alito, Kennedy, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas voted together in those cases.
Ginsburg, and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented together both times.
Ginsburg said she hopes Congress intervenes in both cases. For example, President Barack Obama in 2009 signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which effectively overturned a Supreme Court decision that had strictly limited workers' ability to file lawsuits over pay inequity.
"Today, the ball again lies in Congress' court to correct this court's wayward interpretations of Title VII," she said.
Ginsburg's call was soon joined by other organizations.
"The rulings are a step backwards in our efforts to ensure equal economic opportunity and to fulfill the promise of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964," said Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. "We call on Congress to once again take action to correct the court's flawed and narrow interpretations of Title VII, just as Congress has done repeatedly in the past."
___
The cases are Vance v. Ball State University, 11-556 and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, 12-484.
Follow Jesse J. Holland at http://www.twitter.com/jessejholland
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-makes-harder-sue-businesses-154005838.html
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NASA sounding rocket daytime dynamo launch postponed
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Public release date: 24-Jun-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Keith Koehler
keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov
757-824-1579
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Launch Update: The launch of two sounding rockets from the Wallops Flight Facility was scrubbed on Monday, June 24 due to high cirrus clouds. The next attempt for these two rockets is currently scheduled for Tuesday, June 25, with a window of 9:30-11:30 a.m.
The two rockets, a Black Brant V and a Terrier-Improved Orion, will launch 15-seconds apart in support of the Daytime Dynamo experiment, which is a joint project between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.
The project is designed to study a global electrical current called the dynamo, which sweeps through the ionosphere. The ionosphere stretches from about 30 to 600 miles above Earth and plays a crucial role in our day-to-day lives. For example, radio waves bounce off it as they travel from sender to receiver, and communications signals from satellites travel through it as well. A disruption in the ionosphere can disrupt these signals.
The first rocket scheduled for launch is a single-stage Black Brant V, which will collect data on the neutral and charged particles it travels through. The second rocket is a two-stage Terrier-Improved Orion. It will shoot out a long trail of lithium gas to track how the upper atmospheric wind varies with altitude. These winds are believed to be the drivers of the dynamo currents. Clear skies are required to view these trails using ground-based cameras.
The rockets will be visible to residents in the Wallops region. The NASA Visitor Center will open at 8 a.m. on launch day for viewing the launches. The Wallops USTREAM channel will broadcast the launch live beginning at 8:30 a.m. on launch day.
Swirling through Earth's upper atmosphere is a layer of charged particles called the ionosphere. Constantly on the move, currents through the ionosphere can be much more complicated than winds at lower altitudes, because the currents vary in concert with magnetic fields around Earth and solar activity. The ionosphere stretches from about 30 to 600 miles above Earth, and it plays a crucial role in our day-to-day lives because radio waves bounce off it as they travel from sender to receiver. Communications and navigation signals from satellites travel through it as well. A disrupted ionosphere equates to disrupted signals.
Scientists are gearing up to launch a sounding rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. for a five-minute trip to study a global, electrical current called the dynamo sweeping through the ionosphere. The sounding rocket is also called Dynamo. The window for launch is June 24 to July 8, 2013 (excepting June 26 and 27).
"The dynamo further south at the magnetic equator is particularly strong and is called the equatorial electrojet," said Robert Pfaff, the principle investigator for the Dynamo sounding rocket at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The mid-latitude dynamo is less understood and is actually more complex, since here Earth's magnetic field is at an angle."
The Dynamo mission, a joint project between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, consists of two rockets that will launch 15 seconds apart during a window that lasts between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. EDT. Each sounding rocket will go for a five-minute flight to some 100 miles up in the ionosphere. The larger rocket is a Black Brant V, which is 35 feet long, carrying a payload of 600 pounds. This rocket will collect information about the neutral and charged particles through which it travels. The second rocket is a Terrier-Improved Orion, and is 33 feet long. It will shoot out a long trail of lithium gas to track how the upper atmospheric wind varies with altitude. These winds are believed to be the drivers of the dynamo currents.
Studying the winds during the daytime is not easy because the wind tracer normally used by sounding rockets is only visible at night. As a result, scientists at JAXA and Clemson University in Clemson, S.C., have jointly developed technology that uses lithium trails as a tracer, which is visible during the day using cameras with special filters. The Dynamo experiment will use a NASA airplane to gather data above the haze and clouds in order to record how the lithium, and hence the wind, moves.
Understanding what influences the movement of both the neutral and charged particles in the upper atmosphere is crucial to understanding the dynamo, as both affect the currents.
"The simple picture of the dynamo involves two giant circles of current one in the northern hemisphere and one in the south," said Doug Rowland, a co-investigator for Dynamo at Goddard. "At its most basic, the electric current is caused simply because the sun heats the upper atmosphere during the day causing the gas to rise up, which in turn causes movement, a wind. The neutral wind pushes the heavier charged particles and that drives an electric current. So both the neutral and the charged material must be understood."
Such a simple picture is not a complete picture, of course, and sounding rockets such as Dynamo are needed to not only reveal how these fundamental currents are set up, but also how a host of other occurrences around Earth impact the dynamo. For example, activity on the sun can affect Earth's magnetic fields sometimes causing severe variation in the ionosphere. Additionally, the lower parts of the ionosphere contain different types of ions, which collide with the neutral gases in different ways, depending on their size.
Some of these effects have been studied before in the mid-latitudes, but in this region no one has studied the electromagnetic effects at the same time as they've studied the neutral winds.
Not only will understanding the dynamics of the ionosphere currents help to understand how -- and perhaps even predict when -- the ionosphere can disturb radio signals, it can shed light on similar processes believe to occur on other planets throughout the solar system.
"The manner in which neutral and ionized gases interact is a fundamental part of nature," said Pfaff. "There could very well be a dynamo on other planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are all huge planets with huge atmospheres and huge magnetic fields. They could be setting up dynamo currents galore."
While sounding rockets make short trips, they provide access to critical areas of the upper atmosphere that are too low for orbiting satellites. Wallops Flight Facility, which manages NASA's sounding rocket program, is where the payloads are designed, built and tested.
###
To find out more about NASA's sounding rocket missions, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sounding-rockets/
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 24-Jun-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Keith Koehler
keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov
757-824-1579
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Launch Update: The launch of two sounding rockets from the Wallops Flight Facility was scrubbed on Monday, June 24 due to high cirrus clouds. The next attempt for these two rockets is currently scheduled for Tuesday, June 25, with a window of 9:30-11:30 a.m.
The two rockets, a Black Brant V and a Terrier-Improved Orion, will launch 15-seconds apart in support of the Daytime Dynamo experiment, which is a joint project between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.
The project is designed to study a global electrical current called the dynamo, which sweeps through the ionosphere. The ionosphere stretches from about 30 to 600 miles above Earth and plays a crucial role in our day-to-day lives. For example, radio waves bounce off it as they travel from sender to receiver, and communications signals from satellites travel through it as well. A disruption in the ionosphere can disrupt these signals.
The first rocket scheduled for launch is a single-stage Black Brant V, which will collect data on the neutral and charged particles it travels through. The second rocket is a two-stage Terrier-Improved Orion. It will shoot out a long trail of lithium gas to track how the upper atmospheric wind varies with altitude. These winds are believed to be the drivers of the dynamo currents. Clear skies are required to view these trails using ground-based cameras.
The rockets will be visible to residents in the Wallops region. The NASA Visitor Center will open at 8 a.m. on launch day for viewing the launches. The Wallops USTREAM channel will broadcast the launch live beginning at 8:30 a.m. on launch day.
Swirling through Earth's upper atmosphere is a layer of charged particles called the ionosphere. Constantly on the move, currents through the ionosphere can be much more complicated than winds at lower altitudes, because the currents vary in concert with magnetic fields around Earth and solar activity. The ionosphere stretches from about 30 to 600 miles above Earth, and it plays a crucial role in our day-to-day lives because radio waves bounce off it as they travel from sender to receiver. Communications and navigation signals from satellites travel through it as well. A disrupted ionosphere equates to disrupted signals.
Scientists are gearing up to launch a sounding rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. for a five-minute trip to study a global, electrical current called the dynamo sweeping through the ionosphere. The sounding rocket is also called Dynamo. The window for launch is June 24 to July 8, 2013 (excepting June 26 and 27).
"The dynamo further south at the magnetic equator is particularly strong and is called the equatorial electrojet," said Robert Pfaff, the principle investigator for the Dynamo sounding rocket at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The mid-latitude dynamo is less understood and is actually more complex, since here Earth's magnetic field is at an angle."
The Dynamo mission, a joint project between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, consists of two rockets that will launch 15 seconds apart during a window that lasts between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. EDT. Each sounding rocket will go for a five-minute flight to some 100 miles up in the ionosphere. The larger rocket is a Black Brant V, which is 35 feet long, carrying a payload of 600 pounds. This rocket will collect information about the neutral and charged particles through which it travels. The second rocket is a Terrier-Improved Orion, and is 33 feet long. It will shoot out a long trail of lithium gas to track how the upper atmospheric wind varies with altitude. These winds are believed to be the drivers of the dynamo currents.
Studying the winds during the daytime is not easy because the wind tracer normally used by sounding rockets is only visible at night. As a result, scientists at JAXA and Clemson University in Clemson, S.C., have jointly developed technology that uses lithium trails as a tracer, which is visible during the day using cameras with special filters. The Dynamo experiment will use a NASA airplane to gather data above the haze and clouds in order to record how the lithium, and hence the wind, moves.
Understanding what influences the movement of both the neutral and charged particles in the upper atmosphere is crucial to understanding the dynamo, as both affect the currents.
"The simple picture of the dynamo involves two giant circles of current one in the northern hemisphere and one in the south," said Doug Rowland, a co-investigator for Dynamo at Goddard. "At its most basic, the electric current is caused simply because the sun heats the upper atmosphere during the day causing the gas to rise up, which in turn causes movement, a wind. The neutral wind pushes the heavier charged particles and that drives an electric current. So both the neutral and the charged material must be understood."
Such a simple picture is not a complete picture, of course, and sounding rockets such as Dynamo are needed to not only reveal how these fundamental currents are set up, but also how a host of other occurrences around Earth impact the dynamo. For example, activity on the sun can affect Earth's magnetic fields sometimes causing severe variation in the ionosphere. Additionally, the lower parts of the ionosphere contain different types of ions, which collide with the neutral gases in different ways, depending on their size.
Some of these effects have been studied before in the mid-latitudes, but in this region no one has studied the electromagnetic effects at the same time as they've studied the neutral winds.
Not only will understanding the dynamics of the ionosphere currents help to understand how -- and perhaps even predict when -- the ionosphere can disturb radio signals, it can shed light on similar processes believe to occur on other planets throughout the solar system.
"The manner in which neutral and ionized gases interact is a fundamental part of nature," said Pfaff. "There could very well be a dynamo on other planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are all huge planets with huge atmospheres and huge magnetic fields. They could be setting up dynamo currents galore."
While sounding rockets make short trips, they provide access to critical areas of the upper atmosphere that are too low for orbiting satellites. Wallops Flight Facility, which manages NASA's sounding rocket program, is where the payloads are designed, built and tested.
###
To find out more about NASA's sounding rocket missions, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sounding-rockets/
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/nsfc-nsr062413.php
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