Month: October 2014

Metal patch may point to Earhart’s plane

USA TODAY: Researchers say they are increasingly confident that a piece of aluminum found on a remote Pacific atoll more than 20 years ago probably came from the airplane flown by Amelia Earhart on her ill-fated attempt to circle the world in 1937. The metal sheet, found in 1991 with other possible Earhart artifacts on […]

Jim Crow Returns: Millions of minority voters threatened by electoral purge

ALJAZEERA: ..The Crosscheck list of suspected double voters has been compiled by matching names from roughly 110 million voter records from participating states. Interstate Crosscheck is the pet project of Kansas’ controversial Republican secretary of state, Kris Kobach, known for his crusade against voter fraud… There are 6,951,484 names on the target list of the […]

Prosecutors See Repeat Offenses on Wall Street

NEW YORK TIMES: …imposed new practices and fines on the banks but stopped short of criminal charges, according to lawyers briefed on the cases. Prosecutors are exploring whether to strengthen the earlier deals, the lawyers said, or scrap them altogether and force the banks to plead guilty to a crime. That effort, unfolding separately from […]

Tens of thousands take to Hungary’s streets in latest Internet tax protest

ALJAZEERA: About 100,000 Hungarians rallied late into the night on Tuesday to protest a planned tax on Internet data traffic and the broader course of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, which they see as undermining democracy and relations with the European Union… Orban’s government, which was nonetheless re-elected by a landslide this year, has imposed […]

Russian rocket engines suspected in Antares launch blast

ALJAZEERA: …Orbital Science Corp.’s failed rocket launch not only incinerated $200 million of cargo, it cast doubts on the company’s decades-old Russian propulsion engines and dealt a setback to the commercial spaceflight efforts championed by the White House and NASA. The company planned to do away with the AJ26 engines by 2017 but will now […]

Fed eyes first rate rise after end to QE

FINANCIAL TIMES: …In a marked change of language, the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee highlighted an improvement in the US labour market. Dropping its previous view that there was “significant underutilisation” of labour resources it said instead that this was “gradually diminishing”. This signals a big shift in the Fed’s horizons away from aggressive monetary […]

Lobbyists, Bearing Gifts, Pursue Attorneys General

NEW YORK TIMES: … But success did not come in court or at a negotiating table. Instead, it came at the opulent Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in California, with its panoramic ocean views, where more than a dozen state attorneys general had gathered last year for cocktails, dinners and fund-raisers organized by the Democratic […]

Report: Pa. gets mixed reviews on voter access, registration

The study by Common Cause, a Washington-based good-government nonprofit, rated the state positively on training for poll workers, accommodating disabled voters, and recordkeeping. But Pennsylvania also received poor marks in some key areas. High on the list of problems were the lack of online voting registration, the state’s requirement that voters must have a reason to request an absentee ballot, and the lack of early voting…

Hackers Breach White House Computers

WASHINGTON POST: Hackers thought to be working for the Russian government breached the unclassified White House computer networks in recent weeks, sources said, resulting in temporary disruptions to some services while cybersecurity teams worked to contain the intrusion. White House officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said that the […]