Home » Archives by category » News (Page 2423)

A Canadian court has decided that a man convicted of murder through HIV transmission is dangerous enough to be locked up indefinitely. Johnson Aziga had unprotected sex with at least 11 women who were unaware of his condition, seven of whom became infected and two of whom died of AIDS-related…

Continue reading …

Nyse%3apcs

No Comment
Nyse%3apcs

Market Movers: August 2, 2011 Verizon 4G By Far The Fastest Wireless Network According to PCMag Survey UBS Raises Its Target Price For Metro PCS To $23, Reiterates Buy DailyMarkets says: MetroPCS Misses Top & Bottom Line: MetroPCS Communications Inc. ( NYSE : PCS ), the sixth-largest prepaid wire… http://tinyurl.com/3k9bszs

Continue reading …
Taylor Lautner New Car

Taylor lautner getting a new car gildedsunkisses says: RT @ TMZ : 19-year-old Taylor Lautner just bought himself a $200k car http://t.co/UR3agc6

Continue reading …
Egypt’s Mubarak on Trial, Caged and Bed-ridden

Hosni Mubarak denied all charges against him as his trial opened in Egypt Wednesday. But the sight of the bed-ridden leader in a courtroom cage stunned his countrymen. (Aug. 3)

Continue reading …
Wii Fit balance board hack takes a virtual Segway ride around Google’s mapped world (video)

You can do a lot in seven hours — fly coast-to-coast, slow-cook a pot roast, create a Google Maps-navigating, Wii Fit-controlled virtual Segway . Wait, what? Yes, that Nintendo-branded, dust-collecting relic of holidays past has been given a new lease on life thanks to an intrepid troop of Ivy-educated geeks, and a seven-hour hackathon. The marathon modding session, held by Stanford University’s SVI Hackspace, banded together a like-minded set of overachieving modders to produce a balance board-guided Street View romp through Google Maps . The students’ hack connects the Wii Fit board to OS X via the Osculator app, with a Node.js server processing the data and Socket.io handling board-to-browser communication. A Google Earth plug-in and pre-rendered Segway were all that was left to complete this foot-mapped joy ride through our digitized world. Video demo awaits you after the break. Continue reading Wii Fit balance board hack takes a virtual Segway ride around Google’s mapped world (video) Wii Fit balance board hack takes a virtual Segway ride around Google’s mapped world (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Aug 2011 10:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Continue reading …
Janette Sadik-Khan Needs a Tank [Video]

What better way to fight back against the bicycle backlash [1]? The mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, is giving Mayor Bloomberg and some of his American counterparts a run for their money as the world’s most bike-friendly mayor. He is tackling the scourge of illegally parked cars [2]—another viral video favorite!—with, among other things, a tank. Watch him work his magic. [via the A|N Blog [3]] mchaban… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The New York Observer Discovery Date : 02/08/2011 20:25 Number of articles : 4

Continue reading …
Paralysed woman’s £6m damages claim against pool owner dismissed

Kylie Grimes, who sued friend’s father after sustaining injuries from diving into swimming pool, loses compensation bid A woman who launched a £6m damages claim after being left paralysed when she hit her head on the bottom of a swimming pool during an impromptu late-night party has lost her high court action. Kylie Grimes was hurt in August 2006 when she dived into the indoor pool at the Surrey home of David Hawkins, managing director of a forklift truck business. Grimes, now 23, of Farnham, claimed that her injuries were caused by Hawkins’s negligence or breach of his duties under the Occupiers’ Liability Act. She was left paralysed from the chest down after the force of the impact broke a vertebra below the base of her neck. At a hearing in May, Mrs Justice Thirlwall, sitting in London, heard that Hawkins and his wife were away that night but had given permission for daughter Katie, who had just left college, to have two friends over as she was not happy on her own. Katie Hawkins told the court that she phoned her father for permission to bring three more but, in the end, a group of about 20 came back to the house from the pub. Mr Hawkins, of Farnham, denied liability. His counsel, William Norris QC, told the judge that no sound legal basis existed upon which he could be held liable for the accident which happened in an “unremarkable swimming pool on domestic premises when the claimant, an adult, chose to do something which involved an obvious risk”. Thirlwall, who was only ruling on the issue of liability, dismissed the claim against Hawkins on Wednesday. She said: “The pool was not unsafe for diving. I have no doubt that some mature adults faced with a group of young adults in high spirits, some of whom had had too much to drink, would send them all home rather than allow any of them into a swimming pool. “But that is not to say that the duty owed to the claimant [Grimes] under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 required the defendant to put the pool out of bounds that night.” Thirlwall added: “The defendant was not required to adopt a paternalistic approach to his visitors, all of whom were adults, all of whom were making choices about their behaviour that night.” The judge concluded: “I do not accept that it is incumbent on a householder with a private swimming pool to prohibit adults from diving into an ordinary pool whose dimensions and contours can clearly be seen. “It may well be different where there is some hidden or unexpected hazard, but there was none here.” She ruled that Hawkins was not in breach of his duty to Grimes under the Occupiers’ Liability Act and she also dismissed the claim of negligence against him. Disability guardian.co.uk

Continue reading …
Scottish exam results sent out early after text messaging error

Inquiry launched after 30,000 school students in Scotland who chose to receive grades by text find out results a day early Nearly 30,000 school students in Scotland have been sent their exam results a day early after a major blunder with an automated text messaging service. The Scottish Qualifications Authority confirmed on Wednesday that it believed every pupil who opted to receive their grades by text message rather than post or email had been sent them early. As many teenagers vented their anger at the error on Twitter and Facebook, the exams regulator said all the results were correct. It said it had launched an urgent inquiry with the company hired to send out the texts. An SQA spokesman said: “We’re aware that this is in any case a stressful time for candidates and their parents and families, and if we have added to their stress in any way, we apologise.” He said 29,863 of the 160,000 school students who sat final exams, including standard grades, highers and Scottish baccaulearates, had registered to get their results by text, with about 6,000 more opting for email notification. “I can confirm that it would appear that 29,000 candidates who had signed up for text results delivery and should have received their results at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning have been receiving them now,” he said. “They have received them in error and we’re carrying out an investigation with the external contractor who carries out this service for us.” Many of those students involved are about to apply for late university places, when the clearing process starts on Thursday, so in theory have a head start finding courses. The SQA said no one had been disadvantaged. “There has been an issue, no running away from that, with text delivery and we’re trying to bottom that out. But better to be delivered early rather than late I would suggest,” the spokesman said. There was an angry reaction, however, from many school pupils on Twitter. Some students said they had not received theirs by text, implying that they had signed up for the text message service. One, who uses the Twitter name Rawr_im_a_kitty, wrote: “SQA sent exam results to some people early by accident … SQA I HATE U!!! T.T they didn’t send me mine T.T no sleep for me tonight then …” Others were angry that they had been left waiting while friends had received their results. One, staywithsara, tweeted: “So pissed at the SQA. send out the bloody email cos it’s so freaking unfair for those who didn’t get results & friends have theirs!” Schools Children Scotland Severin Carrell guardian.co.uk

Continue reading …

Sen. Joe Lieberman, who used to be a staunch ally for Medicare and Social Security is now throwing away any pretense that he was once a Democratic politician and would rather help destroy the lives of seniors in America to make sure funds flow to continue endless wars on Pam Geller’s favorite target: Radical Islamists . In a new bill that he’ll co-sponsor with Conservative Tom Coburn, they plan on helping to weaken one of our most cherished and valued programs, Social Security and send the cash over the the Military. he knows that Social Security is solvent for decades and doesn’t add a penny to the deficit which has preoccupied the White House, GOP and the beltway media. It doesn’t matter that Americans have said over and over again that they prefer defense spending to be cut, not our social safety nets. Think Progress: This past April, right-wing war hawk John Bolton suggested during an interview on Fox News that the United States should cut Social Security and Medicare to finance the defense budget. During debate over the debt deal today on the Senate floor, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) appeared to endorse this call. Lieberman explained that he is working with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) on a Social Security spending reduction plan and that “we can’t protect these entitlements and also have the national defense…to protect us…with Islamist extremists”: LIEBERMAN: I want to indicate today to my colleagues that Senator Coburn and I are working again on a bipartisan proposal to secure Social Security over the long term, we hope to have that done in time. To also forward to the special committee for their consideration. So, bottom line, we can’t protect these entitlements and also have the national defense we need to protect us in a dangerous world while we’re at war with Islamist extremists who attacked us on 9/11 and will be for a long time to come. In a quick search I found a poll done by Reuters/Ipsos back in March which says: A majority of Americans prefer cutting defense spending to reduce the federal deficit rather than taking money from public retirement and health programs, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday showed. The poll found 51 percent of Americans support reducing defense spending, and only 28 percent want to cut Medicare and Medicaid health programs for the elderly and poor. A mere 18 percent back cuts in the Social Security retirement program. This fearmongering fiend would rather back an out of control war hawk’s idea from a nut like John Bolton, ( who also is a hero to Pam Geller ) than stand up for the Americans that already have been paying 600 billion dollars a year to the military. As ThinkProgress’s Ben Armbruster notes, the Bolton-Lieberman plan is “is basically a reverse Robin Hood scheme : robbing the poor to pay the rich, or really, the Military Industrial Complex on steroids.” Lieberman is bringing this to the floor because military spending is one of the triggers that will be activated if no deal is passed by the new Super Cat Food Commission. Congress nor the president seem to care that Americans also don’t want Medicare cut to appease the deficit hawks. Despite growing concerns about the country’s long-term fiscal problems and an intensifying debate in Washington about how to deal with them, Americans strongly oppose some of the major remedies under consideration, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The survey finds that Americans prefer to keep Medicare just the way it is. WSJ/NBC: Less than a quarter of Americans support making significant cuts to Social Security or Medicare to tackle the country’s mounting deficit, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, illustrating the challenge facing lawmakers who want voter buy-in to alter entitlement programs. In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was “unacceptable” to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security “unacceptable.” Could Joe have acted any quicker to defend his precious wars?

Continue reading …

Sen. Tom Coburn is a busy man. Not only is he preparing to attack Social Security, but he’s been pivotal in helping to destroy jobs, airline security and force Americans to foot the bill in the process with his blocking of the new FAA reauthorization. Now you know why I threw up when he stepped into the Gang of Six negotiations. C&L has been covering the tea party’s crazed crazed attacks of the FAA because of their anti-union agenda and now the Senate has joined in their madness. Political Correction: The House of Representatives adjourned for summer recess last night without resolving a dispute over Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) funding, meaning that almost 4,000 FAA employees will remain furloughed for another month and that dozens of construction projects will remain on hold. Furloughing thousands of employees and delaying construction projects can only hurt a sagging economy, and CNN reports that tens of thousands of workers could be affected: The work stoppage will have a direct impact on about 24,000 construction workers engaged in those projects, indirectly impact 11,000 others and hurt 35,000 support workers, such as food service vendors, said Steve Sandherr of Associated General Contractors of America. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) blasted her party for causing the impasse by insisting on including “extraneous” provisions in the funding bill: Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, breaking with her party, called on Congress to pass a temporary extension that was devoid of any complicating policy issues. “We’re getting ready to leave for a month. We should not shut down the FAA because of a rider put on the extension of the FAA legislation that has not been negotiated,” Hutchison said. “It is not honorable for the House to send an extraneous amendment” on a funding extension, she said. In addition to the negative economic impact on FAA employees and tens of thousands of others, the dispute could cost the federal government $1.2 billion in lost revenue due to uncollected taxes on airfare. (That lost revenue isn’t staying in taxpayers’ pockets, by the way: Airlines are raising fares to offset the decrease in taxes , so customers aren’t saving any money — they’re just paying more to the airlines rather than funding the FAA.) As is often the case, the Senate failed to pass the necessary legislation in large part due to the obstinacy of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) : On Monday, Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the committee that oversees the FAA, and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the senior Republican on the committee, floated a proposal to restore full operating authority to the FAA while cutting air service subsidies $71 million. The plan fell apart when Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said he would use parliamentary procedures to tie up the Senate in an effort to prevent a vote on the measure. Coburn’s refusal to allow a vote, thus costing the government $1.2 billion in revenue, is remarkable for a senator who has made a career of showboating about the budget deficit. Coburn was not the only Republican who threw a wrench into these un-American activities which are motivated by their hate of unions more than anything else: House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL), in a fit of spite, attached extra cuts to rural airports ( in mostly Democratic states ) to his version of the bill, which he admitted was merely meant to tweak Democratic senators for not going along with the GOP’s union busting. If the FAA shutdown continues for another month, it will cost the government about $1.2 billion . But for the GOP, that seems to be an acceptable price for advancing an anti-union agenda. Last night, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) attempted to pass a clean FAA reauthorization through the Senate by unanimous consent. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) objected. So much for worrying about the federal debt. What a sham. This Congress is what the administration thinks they can shame into raising revenues in any way possible? Or to even promote job growth in America?

Continue reading …