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Sunday, January 22, 2012
What Comes After 4G? [What Is]
Court throws out judge-drawn Texas electoral maps
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Supreme Court on Friday threw out electoral maps drawn by federal judges in Texas that favored minorities. The decision ultimately could affect control of the U.S. House of Representatives and leaves the fate of Texas' April primaries unclear.
The justices ordered the three-judge court in San Antonio to come up with new plans that pay more attention to maps created by Texas' Republican-dominated state Legislature. All four of the state's new congressional seats could swing based on the outcome.
But the Supreme Court did not compel the use of the state's maps in this year's elections, as Texas wanted. Only Justice Clarence Thomas said he would have gone that far.
The court's unsigned opinion thus did not blaze any new trails in election law or signal retreat from a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, as some supporters of the law feared would result from this case.
Still, the outcome appeared to favor Republicans by instructing the judges to stick more closely to what the Legislature did, said election law expert Richard Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, law school.
Controversy over the maps arose from redrawing political boundaries based on results of the 2010 census that found that Texas had added more than 4 million new residents, mostly Latinos and African-Americans, since 2000. The minority groups complained they were denied sufficient voting power by Republican lawmakers who sought to maximize GOP electoral gains in violation of the landmark Voting Rights Act.
Texas will have 36 seats in the next Congress, a gain of four districts. A divided court in San Antonio drew maps that differed from the Legislature's efforts, giving Democrats a chance to prevail in three or four more congressional districts. Republicans now represent 23 of the 32 current districts.
The high court said the judges appeared in some instances not to pay enough attention to the state's choices. The judges made mistakes in their plans, particularly in altering district lines for state legislative and congressional seats in parts of the state where there is no allegation of discrimination on the part of the Legislature, the high court said.
"In the absence of any legal flaw in this respect in the state's plan, the district court had no basis to modify that plan," the justices said, talking about state House districts in north and east Texas.
The court acted quickly, just 11 days after hearing arguments and a month and a half after intervening in the case, but set no deadline for new maps to emerge from the court in Texas. State officials have said they need to have something in place by February 1 to hold primary elections, already delayed once, on April 3. The Texas Republican party also has said that Texas may have no voice in the Republican presidential nominating process if the primary is held later than mid-April.
The complicated legal fight over redistricting in Texas is playing out in three federal courts. In addition to the Supreme Court and federal court in San Antonio, a three-judge court in Washington is evaluating the state plans under a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that forces states, mainly in the South, with a history of discrimination in voting to get advance approval before making any changes to the way they conduct elections.
Even without the Washington court's approval, Texas said it should be able to use its own maps just for this year because time is running short before the primaries.
The minority groups, as well as the Obama administration, say such an outcome is strictly forbidden by the Voting Rights Act and would, in essence, eviscerate the law's most potent weapon, the advance approval requirement, also known as preclearance.
The justices chose not to allow the state maps to be used without preclearance. But Thomas, who earlier had said he would strike down the advance approval requirement, said Texas' "duly enacted redistricting plans should govern the upcoming elections."
The cases, all dealt with in one opinion, are Perry v. Perez, 11-713, Perry v. Davis, 11-714, and Perry v. Perez, 11-715.
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Protesters to demonstrate outside US courthouses (AP)
NEW YORK ? Protesters plan to "occupy" courthouses in more than 100 cities across the U.S. on Friday to protest a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that removed most limits on corporate and labor spending in federal elections.
The grassroots coalition, called Move to Amend, said the protest will kick off petition drives to gain support for a constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United v. FEC, a 2010 court ruling that allowed private groups to spend huge amounts on political campaigns with few restrictions. Occupy Wall Street activists are joining the protest.
"The courts created the idea that the corporation is a person with constitutional rights," said David Cobb, an Occupy the Courts organizer. "It's the justification for the whole corporate takeover of our government."
A last-minute court dispute left the status of the protest in New York City unclear. A judge on Thursday ruled that demonstrators do not have a First Amendment right to protest in front of a Manhattan federal courthouse.
Protesters had filed a lawsuit asking the judge to overturn the government's rejection of their permit application. The permit had been denied on grounds that the courthouse poses unique security concerns.
In light of the ruling, protesters did not announce whether the event would be moved to another location.
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
Mexico smuggling probe: 4 kids show sexual abuse (AP)
GUADALAJARA, Mexico ? Four of the 10 children seized in western Mexico as part of a child-trafficking investigation involving Irish couples show signs of sexual abuse, a Mexican official said Wednesday.
Jalisco state Attorney General Tomas Coronado said the children were examined by doctors but offered no other details.
"There are four children who show signs of having been abused (sexually), perhaps not in a violent way but there are signs (of abuse)," Coronado told reporters. He said he couldn't elaborate because of the ongoing investigation and didn't say when the alleged abuse would have taken place.
He said at least 11 Irish couples are involved in the case.
Fifteen Irish citizens have already talked to authorities, said Lino Gonzalez, a spokesman for Jalisco state prosecutors.
The foreign couples were giving 1,200 pesos, or $188, per week to the mothers since pregnancy, and paying for their medical attention. Then later the Mexican mothers would also be paid for allowing the children to stay with the couples while the purported adoption process proceeded, Coronado said.
"The great majority of the people from Ireland who have given their testimony have said they thought it was part of the adoption protocol in the state to be paying and that obviously means (someone was making) a profit throughout the adoption process," Coronado said.
Investigators are trying to determine if the Irish couples "acted in bad faith," Coronado said, or were being tricked.
The Irish Embassy in Mexico said in a statement it's providing consular advice to the couples involved.
About a dozen state police officers on Wednesday raided a two-story home in a middle class Guadalajara neighborhood that local media said belongs to the lawyers processing the adoptions. The lawyers apparently advertised in a local newspaper for expectant mothers who wanted to give their children up for adoption.
Prosecutors have said two attorneys who owned the law firm Lopez y Lopez Asociados are being sought in the case.
Coronado wouldn't identify the lawyers but said they have ignored prosecutors' requests to talk to investigators.
The apparent child-smuggling ring came to light last week when a woman told police that her sister-in-law was trying to sell one of her babies and "renting" the other one.
Investigators then detained the 21-year-old woman, who led authorities to three other women. Another three women who worked as nannies, the son of one of them and a taxi driver have also been detained, Coronado said.
Authorities seized the 21-year-old woman's two children, seven children from the Irish couples, and one from the nannies. The children are between two months and two years of age.
Agents found that the group was taking the woman's two children and others to a hotel in Guadalajara where they met with the Irish couples who believed they were going to adopt them. The couples then took the children to the nearby lakeside resort of Ajijic, where they were staying until the adoptions were finished, prosecutors said.
Roy Lahti, president of the condominium association of El Bosque gated community in Ajijic, said some of the couples had been staying there but that they had left.
Irish couples in the process of adopting Mexican children had been coming to the community of California-style homes and cobblestone streets for at least three years. They would stay between six and eight months and often the children lived with them, he said.
"They were really nice couples, always cordial," Lahti said. "The community here is shocked."
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PSU trustees hope to address alumni concerns
FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2011, file photo, Penn State head coach Joe Paterno watches warm ups before an NCAA college football game against Purdue in State College, Pa. In his first public comments since being fired two months ago, former Penn State coach Paterno told the Washington Post he "didn't know which way to go" after an assistant coach came to him in 2002 saying he had seen retired defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing a boy, the Post reported on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2011, file photo, Penn State head coach Joe Paterno watches warm ups before an NCAA college football game against Purdue in State College, Pa. In his first public comments since being fired two months ago, former Penn State coach Paterno told the Washington Post he "didn't know which way to go" after an assistant coach came to him in 2002 saying he had seen retired defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing a boy, the Post reported on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? Penn State's embattled Board of Trustees meets Friday for the first time since the chaotic week in November when shocking child sex abuse allegations were brought against a retired assistant football coach.
In the frantic first few days after authorities charged Jerry Sandusky, trustees ousted Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno and school President Graham Spanier, and pledged to uncover the truth. Their actions have since left some anguished alumni and former players questioning the trustees themselves.
After remaining mostly silent the last two months, trustees this week began to divulge the reasons behind their actions, hoping to sway skeptics and critics seeking change.
Leadership positions will be up for election at Friday's meeting, which is open to the public. Also listed on the agenda is an overview of athletic programs.
"We have lots of things that we need to do in terms of the board and how it operates, and I think you'll see some positive things come out of that," trustee Mark Dambly said Thursday.
Some critics of the trustees have called for wholesale changes in how the board operates in order to better promote transparency. Trustee Stephanie Deviney said governance and the administration are among the topics trustees plan to consider.
The issues have also drawn unprecedented interest among potential candidates for three alumni-elected seats on the board up for a vote this spring.
Typically, about six to 12 candidates express interest. But the group Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship alone has received 30 applications seeking an endorsement. The group started in mid-November, growing out of what a spokeswoman said was a common frustration among members over a lack of due process at the school.
Comments this week by the trustees about why the board ousted Paterno on Nov. 9, four days after Sandusky was charged, failed to convince the alumni group, too.
Trustees interviewed Thursday by The Associated Press said they decided to force Paterno out in part because he didn't meet a moral obligation to do more to alert authorities about a child sex abuse allegation against Sandusky.
The trustees interviewed also cited statements from Paterno in the days and hours leading to his dismissal ? after nearly a half-century of leading the Nittany Lions ? that they felt challenged the trustees' authority. Board members saw that as inappropriate, particularly at a time of intense scrutiny over the Sandusky case.
Sandusky was charged with dozens of child sex abuse counts four days before Paterno was pushed out. The head coach had testified before a state grand jury about a 2002 allegation against Sandusky that was passed on to him by a graduate assistant.
A day after the graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, came to see him, Paterno relayed the accusations to his superiors, one of whom oversaw campus police. Board members didn't think that was enough.
"There's an obligation, a moral responsibility, for all adults to watch out for children, either your own or someone else," Dambly said. "It was in our opinion that Joe Paterno did not meet his moral obligation and for that reason ? me, personally for that reason, I felt he could no longer lead the university and it was unanimous."
But Dambly and three other trustees interviewed Thursday on the Penn State campus said they still intended to honor Paterno's accomplishments and contributions to the school. He won a Division I record 409 games over 46 seasons and the Paterno family has donated millions of dollars to the school.
"Obviously Joe Paterno is a worldwide icon and has done a tremendous amount for the university," trustee Joel Myers said. "We have sorrow and all kinds of emotions, empathy, sympathy for what has occurred. That's universal.
"But the university, this institution is greater than one person."
An attorney for Paterno on Thursday called the board's comments self-serving and unsupported by the facts. Paterno fully reported what he knew to the people responsible for campus investigations, lawyer Wick Sollers said.
"He did what he thought was right with the information he had at the time," Sollers said.
In a separate statement, Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship said the board's comments have "done nothing but raise additional questions."
"We can conclude, that consequently, their hasty and panicked damage control efforts in the first days of November, and the uncomfortable position they found themselves in, being caught flat-footed, instead of in a proactive leadership position, led to the unjust firing of Joe Paterno, without so much as a conversation, let alone complete due process," the group's statement said.
The trustees described the long deliberations in the days leading up to Paterno's ouster as emotional and nerve wracking, echoing the confusion and anguish also felt among students and alumni as the scandal unfolded. They were shocked by the lurid details that had emerged about the case that week, after having been given a short briefing about Sandusky months earlier by Spanier and general counsel Cynthia Baldwin. That session lasted roughly 7 minutes and provided few insights, trustees said.
Paterno was dismissed the same day Spanier also departed under pressure. The board initiated an internal investigation into the Sandusky case and the role of Penn State officials.
Since then, some alumni and former players have been questioning the actions of the trustees ? criticism that boiled over in three town hall-style meetings last week hosted for alumni by new school President Rodney Erickson.
According to Dambly, trustees had been advised not to speak because of the ongoing investigations but changed their minds following the town hall sessions.
They began a series of interviews this week with media outlets. Also sitting in Thursday's interview with the AP was Lanny Davis, a prominent Washington attorney who has been retained by Erickson and the trustees as an adviser.
"We determined as a group that the Board of Trustees needed to answer the questions of what we knew, when we knew it and why we made the decisions that we made," Dambly said.
The trustees on Thursday cited three reasons for Paterno's immediate removal as head coach. Besides the moral obligation to do more in conjunction with reporting the 2002 allegation and statements issued by Paterno they felt may have challenged trustees' authority, the trustees also said there was concern that Paterno would not be able to properly represent the school if allowed to stay on as head coach the rest of the 2011 season.
According to The Washington Post, trustees vice chair John Surma told Paterno, "In the best interests of the university, you are terminated." Paterno hung up and repeated the words to his wife, who redialed the number.
"After 61 years he deserved better," Sue Paterno said. "He deserved better." Then she hung up.
According to Davis on Thursday, Surma never got the chance to say two more things that night: that he regretted having to tell him the decision over the phone; and that the school was going to honor his contract and retirement package as if he had retired at the end of 2011.
Dambly insisted Paterno was not fired, although he never appeared as coach again. He remains a tenured faculty member.
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Amazon setting up first "fulfillment center" in India (Reuters)
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? Amazon.com Inc is setting up its first "fulfillment center" in India as the world's largest Internet retailer tries to break into the world's second most-populous nation.
Fulfillment centers are giant warehouses that help Amazon and other online retailers store many products, ship them and handle returns quickly.
The fulfillment center is based in Mumbai, the biggest city in the country, according to job listings on Amazon's India careers website.
Amazon "has an immediate opening for an IT Manager in our first Fulfillment Center based out in Mumbai, India," one recent listing said.
Another recent Amazon job posting sought a "Stations Operations Manager" to work for the fulfillment center team in Mumbai.
Amazon was also recently looking for a financial analyst in Mumbai to report to a general manager and controller and help the fulfillment center operate more efficiently and predictably.
Amazon spent heavily last year setting up more than 10 new fulfillment centers in the United States. The company also lists fulfillment centers in China, Germany, Japan and the U.K. on its website, but currently lists none in India.
Fulfillment centers cost a lot to set up, so Amazon's efforts to start one in India signals the company is serious about getting into the country's $550 billion retail market.
"While it has been speculated that Amazon would be expanding internationally, it seems that the international expansion plans have been accelerating," said Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie. "Last year, they launched a country-specific site in Spain and now it looks like India could be next."
An Amazon spokeswoman did not respond to emails seeking comment on the company's plans for India.
Amazon has software development centers in Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad and a customer-service center in Hyderabad.
Shoppers in India can also buy products from Amazon websites in other countries and have the items shipped to them. But the company does not have a dedicated online retail business in India yet.
That has allowed e-commerce start-ups, led by Flipkart, to expand quickly in India.
"India is a tremendously large potential market for Amazon," said Mahesh Murthy, a venture capital investor in India and founder of digital marketing start-up Pinstorm.
"In fact, from the metrics we see, Amazon currently gets more traffic from India than Flipkart does, even though the former has no formal presence in India," he added.
Amazon already does a lot of business in India through its U.K. website, amazon.co.uk, because the company offers free shipping and handles customs for all books, music and DVDs bought from that site and shipped to India, Murthy said.
"But this would be significantly smaller than what Amazon could do if it came with a full offering into India," he added.
(Reporting By Alistair Barr; editing by Andre Grenon)
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US Army burns off final chemical weapons in Utah (AP)
STOCKTON, Utah ? Gary McCloskey may have destroyed more chemical weapons than any man alive, but he barely reacted when the final weapons from the world's largest stockpile of warfare agents came out of an incinerator.
McCloskey, a 63-year-old engineer and manager for URS Corp.'s Federal Services division, was on hand as a U.S. Army depot in Utah finished destroying the last of 1.3 million munitions filled with a witches' brew of toxins, blister and blood agents. He was on a Pacific atoll in 1986 when the Army destruction campaign started, living just 300 yards from an incinerator.
"These things really are detoxified and are safe," McCloskey said Wednesday at the Deseret Chemical Depot, watching a video feed of mustard agent projectiles leave an incinerator on a conveyer belt. "This is the last tray of the last weapons to go through this plant."
The last 23 projectiles were baked for two hours at 1,500 degrees, purging them of mustard agent, which can produce painful skin blisters. The Utah depot ? which at its peak held 13,600 tons of chemical agents, making it the world's largest ? expects to complete the job by the weekend when it incinerates bulk supplies of Lewisite, a powerful skin, eye and lung irritant.
By then, the U.S. Army will have destroyed about 90 percent of its aging chemical weapons that accumulated through the Cold War.
"We can honestly say that the destruction of chemical agents ... has made the world a safer place," said Col. Mark Pomeroy, commander of the Deseret Chemical Depot.
The U.S. is part of an international treaty to rid the world of chemical weapons, a campaign taking place with spotty success around the globe. The goal was supposed to be accomplished by April 29 but will take years longer.
"Clearly, it's still a tremendous example of what the world can do," said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Berea, Ky., an advocate for safe disposal. "You've got 188 of 194 countries on the planet signing the treaty. It's an impressive effort, a great step forward for the safety of the world."
The U.S. has acknowledged it will take as long as 2021 to finish destroying the final 10 percent of its chemical weapons at depots in Pueblo, Colo., and Richmond, Ky. Russia is farther behind in its effort, having destroyed only about 48 percent of a large cache of chemical weapons, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, Netherlands.
An international tribunal voted last month to waive trade or other sanctions and instead subject the U.S. and Russia to increasing pressure and inspections. Each country must submit plans by April 29 detailing how they will finish the job "in the shortest time possible."
A third country, Libya, also is expected to miss the deadline. The recent uprising in Libya interrupted that country's work and exposed more chemical weapons depots than were thought to exist, Williams said.
In the U.S., the Army has finished destroying chemical weapons at depots in Anniston, Ala.; Pine Bluff, Ark.; Newport, Ind.; Aberdeen. Md.; Umatilla, Ore.; and a Pacific atoll where the work started in 1986, according to the Army's Chemical Materials Agency.
That leaves a stockpile of mustard agent in Pueblo., Colo., and a mixed inventory of mustard and nerve agents at Kentucky's Blue Grass Army Depot.
The Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah once contained 44 percent of the nation's supply of chemical agents. The depot didn't just hold obsolete U.S. weapons. A supply of nerve agent seized from Nazi Germany at the end of World War II was destroyed only months ago.
McCloskey said about 1,100 URS contract workers are being let go with generous severance, sent into early retirement or transferred to other chemical weapons depots. Others took advantage of the company's college benefits to learn a new trade. A small number will remain for cleanup duty. The Deseret Chemical Depot will be turned into an Army storage site for conventional weapons.
The heavily guarded Utah incinerator sits in the middle of a desolate base of nearly 3 square miles, surrounded by barbed wire and chain-link fences in remote Rush Valley. Underground bunkers were used to store the explosive shells, mortars, land mines, projectiles, rockets, spray tanks for use by war planes and bulk storage containers.
The Deseret Chemical Depot logged 14 million man-hours destroying weapons since 1996 without a single serious accident, Pomeroy said.
Chemical weapons were introduced into warfare during World War I, killing 90,000 troops on battlefields, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
As far as is known, the U.S. has never fired a chemical weapon in anger, although some consider the use of the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War a chemical attack, Williams said.
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