Calista241
Calista241's JournalHouse looks to expand right to carry concealed weapons as gun-control advocates hold vigils
Source: USA Today
The House is expected to take up gun legislation this week to expand concealed carry rights, the National Rifle Association’s top legislative priority, as gun-control advocates hold vigils across the country for victims of gun violence.
The move comes a week before the fifth anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 26 people in Newtown, Conn., and follows two of the deadliest shootings in modern U.S. history. In October, a gunman killed 58 people and wounded more than 500 in Las Vegas. A month later, another gunman opened fire in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing 25 people including a pregnant woman whose unborn baby also died.
“They are being insensitive and basically irresponsible for moving forward with the NRA’s No. 1 bill,” said Po Murray, chair of the Newtown Action Alliance. “We’re not shocked and we’re not surprised by their actions but we’re pretty outraged.”
The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act would require each state to recognize concealed carry permits from every other state — as they would a driver’s license — regardless of different permitting standards. Residents of states that don't require permits to carry a concealed weapon would be able to carry their weapons in other states that allow concealed carry, as long as they abide by local laws.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/12/04/house-looks-expand-right-carry-concealed-wpeaconcealed-carry-rights-gun-control-advocates-hold-vigil/920352001/
Ex-Stanford Swimmer Appeals Sexual Assault Conviction
Source: Reuters
A former Stanford University swimmer found guilty of sexual assault in California has appealed his conviction after serving a sentence that many condemned as an example of how the justice system fails to take such crimes seriously enough.
Brock Turner, then 19, was arrested in 2015 after two of his fellow students at the Northern California university saw him outside of a fraternity house on top of an unconscious woman. He was convicted of sexual assault the following year.
After serving three months of a six-month sentence, Turner was released early for good behavior. He had to register as a sex offender in his home state of Ohio last year, after leaving Stanford.
Turner’s lawyer, Eric Multhaup, said in papers filed on Friday in a California appeals court that a prosecutor in the trial incorrectly told jurors the sexual assault occurred behind a trash bin. The woman Turner was convicted of sexually assaulting was found near a garbage enclosure but not behind a trash bin, according to the appeal. Multhaup said that implying otherwise gave the impression Turner tried to hide his activities with the woman.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-rape/ex-stanford-swimmer-appeals-sexual-assault-conviction-idUSKBN1DW0N2
NASA fires Voyager 1 thrusters after decades-long sleep
Source: CNET
Way out in interstellar space, humanity's most distant messenger wanders through the universe. NASA's Voyager 1 launched way back in 1977, but it's still in touch with Earth. To help keep it in contact, NASA scientists just fired up a set of thrusters that have been dormant for 37 long years.
Voyager 1 had been using a set of "attitude control thrusters" to point the spacecraft's antenna at Earth in order to send back data. Those thrusters aren't functioning well anymore, so NASA engineers figured out how to revive a different set of thrusters called "trajectory correction maneuver" (TCM) thrusters. NASA last called on those thrusters in late 1980.
On Tuesday, NASA sent the command to fire the TCM thrusters in 10-millisecond pulses as a test to see if they could reorient the spacecraft. It took nearly 20 hours before Voyager's signal reached back to Earth, but it was successful.
Voyager 1 reached interstellar space, which NASA describes as "the environment between the stars," in 2012, making it the first human-made object to leave our solar system.
Read more: https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-fires-voyager-1-thrusters-after-decades-long-sleep/
German government talks collapse; Merkel seeks to reassure
Source: Washington Post
German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged early Monday to maintain stability after the Free Democratic Party pulled out of talks on forming a new government with her conservative bloc and the left-leaning Greens, raising the possibility of new elections.
Merkel told reporters that the parties had been close to reaching a consensus on how to proceed with formal coalition talks but that the Free Democrats decided abruptly to pull out just before midnight Sunday — a move she said she respected, but found “regrettable.”
She said she would consult with Germany’s president later in the day to brief him on the negotiations and discuss what comes next.
Without bringing the Free Democrats back to the table, Merkel will be forced to try to continue her current governing coalition with the Social Democrats, although that center-left party has said it will not do so, or she could try to form a minority government, which was seen as unlikely. Otherwise Germany will have to hold new elections.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/german-government-talks-collapse-merkel-seeks-to-reassure/2017/11/19/1a0e22c6-cd8d-11e7-a87b-47f14b73162a_story.html?utm_term=.c677299aabc2
Ohio governor candidate brags about sexual history
Source: The Hill
Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate and sitting state Supreme Court Justice Bill O'Neill responded to the recent sexual misconduct accusations against Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) on Friday by boasting about his own sexual history.
"Now that the dogs of war are calling for the head of Senator Al Franken I believe it is time to speak up on behalf of all heterosexual males," O'Neill said in a Facebook post on his personal account.
"In the last fifty years I was sexually intimate with approximately 50 very attractive females. It ranged from a gorgeous blonde who was my first true love and we made passionate love in the hayloft of her parents barn and ended with a drop dead gorgeous red head from Cleveland," he went on.
O'Neill confirmed to Cleveland.com that he wrote the post.
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/360913-ohio-governor-candidate-brags-about-sexual-history
I am now convinced that people are idiots.
Kagan withdraws from Supreme Court immigration case
Source: Washington Post
Justice Elena Kagan has stepped aside from the Supreme Court’s consideration of a case involving the rights of immigrants who are detained while the government considers deporting them.
Court clerk Scott Harris says in a letter Friday that Kagan belatedly discovered that she authorized a court filing at an earlier stage of the case when she was serving in the Justice Department.
Justices typically take themselves out of cases if they’ve played even a minor role at any point.
There now will be eight justices to decide the issue. The court has heard arguments twice. The first round, in 2016, was inconclusive. That was before Neil Gorsuch joined the court.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/kagan-withdraws-from-supreme-court-immigration-case/2017/11/10/51ce6a8a-c672-11e7-9922-4151f5ca6168_story.html?utm_term=.b6b456e56081
Baltimore police van driver Caesar Goodson not guilty on all 21 administrative charges in Freddie Gr
Source: Baltimore Sun
Baltimore Police Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. was found not guilty Tuesday of all 21 administrative charges against him in the 2015 arrest and death of Freddie Gray.
The verdict absolves Goodson once and for all in the high-profile case, and allows him to continue his career in the city police force.
Goodson, 48, the driver of the police van in which Gray was found with severe and ultimately fatal spinal cord injuries in April 2015, had faced possible termination if any of the charges against him was sustained. He was charged with neglecting his duty by failing to ensure Gray’s safety, including by not securing a handcuffed and shackled Gray in a seat belt and not calling a medic for Gray after he requested one. He was also charged with making false statements to investigators.
The decision clearing him of all charges was unanimous among the three law enforcement officials who presided over the six-day administrative trial, and follows his acquittal on all criminal charges, including second-degree depraved-heart murder, at a separate trial last year.
Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-goodson-tuesday-20171107-story.html
Apple's iPhone X has higher margin than iPhone 8: analysis
Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) new flagship iPhone X makes the company more money per phone than its iPhone 8 model, according to an analysis, which found the iPhone X’s flashier parts cost Apple 25 percent more than the iPhone 8, but that it retailed 43 percent higher.
The iPhone X smartphone costs $357.50 to make and sells for $999, giving it a gross margin of 64 percent, according to TechInsights, a firm that tears down technology devices and analyzes the parts inside. The iPhone 8 sells for $699 and has a gross margin of 59 percent.
The finding is surprising because technology products tend to become more profitable as they age and the parts for them drop in cost.
The iPhone X is a brand new design that went on sale on Friday, to apparently strong demand, while the iPhone 8 is an update on last year’s iPhone 7, which itself was similar to the iPhone 6 released in 2014.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-iphone/apples-iphone-x-has-higher-margin-than-iphone-8-analysis-idUSKBN1D62RZ?il=0
Trump administration ending protections for thousands of Nicaraguan migrants, defers decision on Hon
Source: LA Times
The Trump administration said Monday it will end a special reprieve from deportation for thousands of Nicaraguans who have been allowed to stay in the U.S. for years, but delayed a decision on similar protections for tens of thousands of Hondurans.
The Department of Homeland Security announced that it would not renew Temporary Protected Status for about 5,300 Nicaraguans whose protections under the program expire on Jan. 5. They will be allowed to stay in the U.S. only until Jan. 5, 2019, unless they qualify to stay under other provisions of immigration law, senior administration officials told reporters.
But the administration gave a six month reprieve to some 86,000 Hondurans also covered by the program. The officials said that acting Homeland Security secretary Elaine Duke needed more time to determine if conditions in Honduras had improved enough to allow them to return home.
The temporary status program was originally set up to protect immigrants from countries that were badly hurt by hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters. Many have lived in the U.S. for as much as 20 years, with large numbers in southern California.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-pol-essential-washington-updates-trump-administration-ending-protections-1510012896-htmlstory.html
Warm Air Helped Make 2017 Ozone Hole Smallest Since 1988
Source: NASA
According to NASA, the ozone hole reached its peak extent on Sept. 11, covering an area about two and a half times the size of the United States – 7.6 million square miles in extent - and then declined through the remainder of September and into October. NOAA ground- and balloon-based measurements also showed the least amount of ozone depletion above the continent during the peak of the ozone depletion cycle since 1988. NOAA and NASA collaborate to monitor the growth and recovery of the ozone hole every year.
“The Antarctic ozone hole was exceptionally weak this year,” said Paul A. Newman, chief scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “This is what we would expect to see given the weather conditions in the Antarctic stratosphere.”
The smaller ozone hole in 2017 was strongly influenced by an unstable and warmer Antarctic vortex – the stratospheric low pressure system that rotates clockwise in the atmosphere above Antarctica. This helped minimize polar stratospheric cloud formation in the lower stratosphere. The formation and persistence of these clouds are important first steps leading to the chlorine- and bromine-catalyzed reactions that destroy ozone, scientists said. These Antarctic conditions resemble those found in the Arctic, where ozone depletion is much less severe.
In 2016, warmer stratospheric temperatures also constrained the growth of the ozone hole. Last year, the ozone hole reached a maximum 8.9 million square miles, 2 million square miles less than in 2015. The average area of these daily ozone hole maximums observed since 1991 has been roughly 10 million square miles.
Read more: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/warm-air-helped-make-2017-ozone-hole-smallest-since-1988
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