U.S. war veterans flash the peace sign before throwing their medals towards the site of the NATO Summit in Chicago May 20, 2012. Nearly 50 veterans threw service medals into the street near the summit site in protest. Baton-swinging police clashed with anti-war protesters marching on the NATO summit in Chicago on Sunday and a lawyers’ group
Photos of the devastation after a tornado hits Japan
A tornado tore through an area just northeast of the Japanese capital Sunday, killing one and injuring at least 46 people, destroying dozens of homes and leaving thousands more without electricity. (Photos: AFP/Getty Images)
Rare Daytime Fireball Created by Minivan-Size Space Rock
A surprise space rock explosion that lit up the daytime sky over parts of California and Nevada this week was no tiny meteor. NASA scientists say the fireball was created by a minivan-size asteroid that triggered a loud sonic boom as it broke apart and streaked through Earth’s atmosphere.
On Monday, the mother of a U.S. citizen who was allegedly tortured at a naval base in Charleston asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate a lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other government officials on behalf of her son.
Jose Padilla, a convicted terrorist, had sued Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials over his alleged torture at the naval base, but a district court judge granted Rumsfeld immunity and dismissed the case, Padilla v. Rumsfeld. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the dismissal in January.
“If the appeals court’s ruling is allowed to stand, government officials will have a blank check to commit any abuse in the name of national security, even the brutal torture of an American citizen in an American prison,” said Ben Wizner, the ACLU attorney who argued the case before the Fourth Circuit. “It is precisely the role of the courts to ensure that allegations of grave misconduct by Executive Branch officials receive fair adjudication. That vital role does not evaporate simply because those officials insist that their actions are too sensitive for judicial review.”
Padilla was arrested as an “enemy combatant” in May of 2002 after returning to the U.S. from Egypt. He was detained at a U.S. navy prison in South Carolina for nearly four years without charge.
According to his defense team, while in military custody Padilla was subjected to sleep deprivation, threats of execution, exposure to noxious fumes and extreme temperatures, physical abuse, and was forced stand in uncomfortable positions for extended periods of time.
“Tell me where in the Constitution it says that torturing Americans is acceptable,” Estela Lebron, Padilla’s mother, said. “You don’t even treat an animal the way my son was treated. If they can do this to Jose, they can do it to anyone. I’m going to continue fighting until justice has been done for my son.”
Padilla was later transferred to the civilian justice system, where he was sentenced to 17 years in jail in 2007 for aiding a U.S.-based al Qaeda cell.
The charges said the al Qaeda cell had conspired to murder and kidnap people in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and other countries from 1993 to 2001.
WASHINGTON — For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections after early July.
The problem started when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual move, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system will be shut down this summer.
The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by a security partner that will inform them whether they’re infected — and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won’t be able to connect to the Internet.
“Researchers from the British Geological Survey and University College London have for the first time mapped the aquifers, or groundwater, across the continent and the amount they hold.
‘The largest groundwater volumes are found in the large sedimentary aquifers in the North African countries Libya, Algeria, Egypt and Sudan,’ the scientists said in their paper.
They estimate that reserves of groundwater across the continent are 100 times the amount found on its surface, or 0.66 million cubic kilometres.”
The following candidates are participating in the debate:
- Peta Lindsay, nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation
- Roseanne Barr, seeking the Green Party nomination
- Stewart Alexander, nominee of the Socialist Party USA
- Rocky Anderson, nominee of the Justice Party
- Stephen Durham, nominee of Freedom Socialist Party
- Dr. Kent Mesplay, seeking the Green Party nomination
- James Ogle, seeking the Libertarian Party nomination
- Dr. Jill Stein, seeking the Green Party nomination
Oh hey so this is kind of awesome.
Banks in the US have made it very easy for customers to overdraw their accounts (e.g., by attempting to pay with debit for a transaction that exceeds the balance of the account) and then charge very high fees to punish the customer. These fees are around $25-$35, and around fifteen million people end up paying them ore then ten times a year. The total paid in overdraft fees has been over $30 billion for each of the last two years. This is a whole lot of money.
Even worse, some large banks have started to sell a service that they call “overdraft protection”, which doesn’t protect you against overdrafts (and the associated fees) but instead effectively increases the amount you pay in case of overdraft. If you’re wondering “wow would anyone buy such a service” apparently the banks are being deliberately misleading (some might say lying) to customers and making it sound like they’ll actually be shielded from those fees.
Anyway, nine banks (including JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America) are under investigation by he Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB seems pretty skeptical that overdraft protection is something the banks should be selling at all - and with good reason.
This is exactly where government regulation of the financial sector is most necessary and most effective - specific and targeted rules that protect consumers from misleading statements about misleading financial products. If this investigation leads to reductions in the tens of billions of dollars a year that banks are hauling in from the whole overdraft industry, then that might lead to some degree of funding squeeze. But honestly the banks deserve no sympathy whatsoever.
| — | David Karp, Tumblr CEO, explaining the reversal of his previous statements decrying the possibility of putting ads on Tumblr. Tumblr will begin selling ad space in May. (via tpmmedia) |
