Does Student Debt Spell Trouble for America?s Youth?

Researchers from the Urban Institute have released a new study exploring the demographic boundaries of student loans and their impact on the U.S. economy.

The study, by?Caroline Ratcliffe and Signe-Mary McKernan,?analyzed which demographics bear the highest burden of student debt, what borrowers are afraid of, their ability to pay loans back, and how this phenomenon has increased over the years.

Since 1989, student loans have become the second most prevalent debt held among 29- to 37-year-olds in America.?The debt is dispersed across demographic lines, with 16 percent of whites carrying student loan debt, 34 percent of African Americans doing so, and 28 percent of Hispanics holding it.

One finding showed that roughly half of students with debt did not finish their degrees. The problem with this situation is twofold: Not only are students leaving school early ? before having developed a robust skill set ? they are doing so with an amount of debt almost assured to make life harder. Average student debt hovers around $26,000 dollars.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WallStCheatSheetEconomy/~3/ZxodT6b0kqA/

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Nymphomaniac Clip: Exchanging Sex for Chocolate

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/nymphomaniac-clip-exchanging-sex-for-chocolate/

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FDA Gets Tough on Tobacco

As the Food and Drug Administration this week announced the rejection of four proposed tobacco products, experts voiced hope that the federal government can diminish tobacco use through regulation.

The FDA's decision Tuesday marked the first time tobacco products were subject to federal oversight. The FDA also authorized two new tobacco products though they are versions of what's already on the market.

The FDA's authorizations come four years after the passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which gave the FDA the ability to regulate any new tobacco products put on the market.

"[The] historic announcement marks an important step toward the FDA's goal of reducing preventable disease and death caused by tobacco," FDA commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said in a statement.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, tobacco smoke and secondhand smoke is responsible for the death of 443,000 Americans each year. Experts said the FDA's regulations were just one small step towards diminishing the use of tobacco in the U.S.

Dr. Richard Hurt, founder and director of the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center in Minneapolis, said he was pleased the FDA had started to regulate products, although he remained concerned that it took the FDA four years to make a final decision about six products.

"This is just the toe in the water of the FDA's regulation," said Hurt. "All of us in the tobacco field have been waiting for them to do something."

Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, admitted that the process "has taken time," but believed it would become more streamlined in the future.

"As all involved parties continue to gain more experience, FDA expects the process to move much more quickly," Zeller told reporters during a call on Tuesday.

Some 4,000 tobacco products await FDA authorization. Approximately 3,500 of those products are already on the market because they beat a deadline that would have held them off the market pending FDA authorization. They are allowed to remain on the market unless the FDA issues an order saying they do not meet specific standards.

The products that were authorized were two different kinds of Newport non-menthol cigarettes from the Lorillard Tobacco Co. The FDA said they would be allowed on the market because they did not raise different public health questions than comparable products already on the market. By law, the FDA cannot name the four products that were rejected or their manufacturers.

The FDA said there could be a number of reasons new tobacco products do not get authorization, such as if they raise questions of public health, or if there was a lack of data on their impact on public health or incomplete test data.

The FDA's authorization did not mean the products were any healthier than other tobacco products. The FDA authorizes the products on the basis that they will not present more harm to the public health than a comparable product already on the market.

Though the two products passed FDA muster under the guidelines of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, that does not allow Lorillard to claim they have FDA approval, because they do not meet the criteria of being "safe and effective" for users.

Lorillard Tobacco CEO Murray Kessler said he was "pleased" with the FDA's ruling.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/experts-hope-regulations-fda-tough-tobacco/story?id=19497517

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Final gov't birth control rule for faith groups (The Arizona Republic)

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Hunting for the Brain's Hidden Treasures

Beautifully done!

Re. "A true map of the brain would reveal how information flows..." - superb point, but all we have are some traces of electrical signal flows through interconnected networks of neurons. There certainly seems to be some extensive control mechanism (software) that determines how signals flow among which available connections. We have no idea what information is represented by those signal flows, how it's stored and recalled, and how it influences our actions - just for starters.

We cannot comprehend what our computers are doing from a map of circuit interconnections or even a trace of electrical signal flows within the circuits. We cannot determine precisely what our computers are doing even with list of all the programs that are loaded and copies of their instruction source codes. With a list of all the programs and data loaded into storage we might have a chance, given enough computers and time to perform the necessary analyses. Even then, the feasibility of such an undertaking could rival the sequencing of the genome, just to find that I'm just entering this comment into your comment entry box...

There's an enormous amount of critical information about the brain that we're not even aware of yet - information that having an enormously costly, highly detailed map of brain physiology will not even suggest to us...

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Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hunting-brains-hidden-treasures

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To Hell and back: Inside Foley's famous fall 15 years later

Each and every day, Mick Foley hears the same question from wrestling fans around the globe: ?Did it hurt going through that table?? Fifteen years since the fateful night of June 28, 1998, The Hardcore Legend is still feeling the repercussions of being flung from the top of the Hell in a Cell by The Undertaker and plunging to the concrete below. For many spectators ? both fans and those in the locker room ? the visual of Mankind?s body crashing through the ringside announce table represents the height of ring brutality and still resonates today.

On the anniversary of a moment that defined an era, WWEClassics.com sat down with Foley, announcer Jim Ross, former referee Tim White and more of the men who experienced WWE?s most punishing match in person. What does the match mean to Mick 15 years later? What did the guys in the locker room think? And did it really hurt going through that table?

For the first time ever on WWE.com, watch the famous Hell in a Cell Match in its entirety

View never-before-seen photos of the in-ring action and the aftermath backstage

WWECLASSICS.COM: When you look at that match now, do you think the moment of you going off the top of the cell defines your career? And if so, do you regret or embrace that?

MICK FOLEY: I feel kind of like Adam West in his views towards being Batman. For so many years, he fought it. Just like for so many years it really felt like I had other matches that were worth talking about that seldom got mentioned. You either go on being frustrated about it or you learn to embrace it. I had a breakthrough moment at the?WWE Hall of Fame [Induction Ceremony this year], when I heard the story being told from Terry Funk?s point of view. I came to see that match in a whole new light and I came to better appreciate how much it affected people.

WWECLASSICS.COM: In your book, ?Have a Nice Day,? you mention that your opponent was originally supposed to be ?Stone Cold? Steve Austin, not The Undertaker. How do you think the match would have been different against Austin? Would the famous fall have ever happened?

FOLEY: Who knows? It may have been a completely different match. At a certain point, [WWE officials] were almost making it a ?Thunderdome?-type match like in ?Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome,? where you would have different objects that would be attached to the cell. There was an idea for some sort of bungee that would allow us to propel ourselves to the top of the cell to allow us to recover the objects.

WWECLASSICS.COM: Once you knew you were wrestling The Undertaker, you knew you wanted to start the match on top of the cell?

FOLEY: That was Terry Funk?s brainchild. After Terry and I watched the?first Hell in a Cell match with Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker, I looked at Terry and said, ?What am I going to do?? I was never really a great cage match wrestler. I didn?t have the athleticism to do a lot of the climbing. I certainly didn?t have any of Shawn Michaels? athleticism and I did not think I could live up to the standards that they had set. Terry thought about it for a while and said, ?It?s going to be tough, but maybe you ought to start the match on top of the cell.? He jokingly mentioned ?Hey, maybe you get thrown off and climb back up on top of the cell.? As he was laughing, I said, ?I think I can do that.? I wasn?t serious, but at that point I had that seed in my mind and I had a vision of what I wanted to accomplish.

WWECLASSICS.COM: Did that vision include being tossed off by your opponent?

FOLEY: In my original plan, I wanted to drop an elbow off the top of that cage. But that?s not what worked out.

WWECLASSICS.COM: The mindset of Mick Foley seems to be that you were always trying to top yourself. When you took that fall, did you inadvertently create a moment that was impossible to top?

FOLEY: I think that I created a moment that was impossible to top and I think I created a moment that shouldn?t be topped. [Mr. McMahon] talked about ?placing a governor on me? and then explained to me that a governor is a device that does not allow a car to exceed a certain speed.? That governor needed to be placed not only on me, but on other Superstars that wanted to top me. So many of the Superstars want to give people moments that they?ll never forget, but we don?t want to give them moments that could end Superstars? careers. Mine easily could have ended that night in Pittsburgh.

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Source: http://www.wwe.com/classics/inside-foleys-famous-fall-15-years-later

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For nationwide gay marriage, more battles ahead

Supporters of gay marriage embrace outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, June 26, 2013, after the court cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California by holding that defenders of California's gay marriage ban did not have the right to appeal lower court rulings striking down the ban. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Supporters of gay marriage embrace outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, June 26, 2013, after the court cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California by holding that defenders of California's gay marriage ban did not have the right to appeal lower court rulings striking down the ban. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

FILE - A May 18, 2013, file photo, shows Utah Gov. Gary Herbert addressing the Utah Republican Party's annual organizing convention, in Sandy, Utah. Utah supporters of gay rights are celebrating the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Wednesday striking down a provision of a federal law denying benefits to married gay couples. Herbert vowed to continue to defend Utah's constitutional definition of marriage being exclusively between a man and woman. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Even as they celebrate a momentous legal victory, supporters of gay marriage already are anticipating a return trip to the Supreme Court in a few years, sensing that no other option but a broader court ruling will legalize same-sex unions in all 50 states.

In the meantime, as one gay-rights leader said, there will be "two Americas" ? and a host of legal complications for many gay couples moving between them.

Wednesday's twin rulings from the high court will extend federal recognition to same-sex marriages in the states where they are legal, and will add California ? the most populous state ? to the 12 others in that category. That will mean about 30 percent of Americans live in states recognizing same-sex marriage.

But the court's rulings have no direct effect on the constitutional amendments in 29 states that limit marriage to heterosexual couples. In a handful of politically moderate states such as Oregon, Nevada and Colorado those amendments could be overturned by ballot measures, but that's considered highly unlikely in more conservative states.

"It would be inefficient to try to pick off 30 constitutional amendments one by one," said Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights group. "Eventually this will have to be settled by the Supreme Court."

The Human Rights Campaign's president, Chad Griffin, told supporters outside the Supreme Court building that the goal would be to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide within five years.

To sway the justices in such a time frame, activists plan a multipronged strategy. In addition to possible ballot measures in a few states, they hope lawmakers will legalize same-sex marriage in states which now offer civil unions to gay couples, notably New Jersey, Illinois and Hawaii.

There also will be advocacy efforts in more conservative states, ranging from expansion of anti-discrimination laws to possible litigation on behalf of sex-couples there who are denied state recognition even though they married legally in some other jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court's decisions "underscore the emergence of two Americas," Griffin said. "In one, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) citizens are nearing full equality. In the other, our community lacks even the most basic protections."

Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, suggested that efforts to end that division would not be easy, given that many states have electorates that seem solidly opposed to gay marriage.

"The fight is far from over," Rauch wrote in a commentary. "By refusing to override those majorities, the court green-lighted the continuation, probably for a decade or more, of state-by-state battles over marriage."

In Florida, where voters approved a ban on gay marriage with 62 percent support in 2008, the gay-rights group Equality Florida called on its supporters to "get engaged and fight" for recognition of same-sex marriage.

The high court rulings "are a major step forward for the country, but for Floridians they fall far short of justice," said the group's executive director, Nadine Smith. "The Supreme Court has said we can go states like Minnesota or Iowa and get married, but we return to Florida legal strangers in our home state."

Florida State Rep. Joe Saunders, a Democrat from Orlando and one of the state's first openly gay lawmakers, said "every strategy is on the table" as activists ponder ways to eliminate the 2008 ban, including warnings of economic consequences.

"If 13 other states provide protections to gay and lesbian families, what does that mean for our ability to keep those families here in Florida?" he said. "Until we can promise them the same basic protections, we're going to be economically disadvantaged."

Increasingly, political swing states like Florida, as well as more solidly Republican states, could become gay-marriage battlegrounds.

One example of the forthcoming strategy: The American Civil Liberties Union announced Wednesday that it has hired Steve Schmidt, former communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee and adviser to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to build support among GOP state politicians for striking down gay-marriage bans.

"For a full civil liberties victory, we need broad-based support from coast to coast," the ACLU's executive director, Anthony Romero, said.

On the conservative side, there was deep dismay over the Supreme Court rulings, but little indication of any new strategies or initiatives.

"The debate over marriage has only just begun," said Austin Nimocks, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which staunchly opposes same-sex marriage, called upon Americans "to stand steadfastly together in promoting and defending the unique meaning of marriage: one man, one woman, for life."

Lee Badgett, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, predicted that the ruling on federal recognition would prompt thousands of gay couples to get married, now that there were additional financial incentives to so.

This group could include couples in states which don't recognize same-sex marriage but who are willing to travel to a state that does recognize such unions.

However, Rea Carey of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said many gay couples either would be hard pressed to afford such trips or would forgo them out of principle.

"Many people in this country, straight or gay, want to get married in their own state, their own backyard," she said.

While gay-rights activists pursue their ultimate goal of nationwide recognition of same-sex marriage, the short-term legal situation for many gay couples could be complicated.

Peter Sprigg of the conservative Family Research Council said the court ruling on federal recognition "raises as many questions as it answers."

"Will recognition be based on the law in the state where the marriage was celebrated or the state in which the couple resides?" he said. "The doors may now be wide open for whole new rounds of litigation."

The National Conference of State Legislatures said the situation was clear for married gay couples in the 13 states recognizing same-sex marriage: They will be eligible for all federal marriage benefits.

"Outside of these states, federal marriage benefits become more complicated, as many commonly thought-of federal benefits, such as jointly filing on federal income taxes, are tied to a married couple's place of residence," the conference said.

Gay-rights activists immediately began lobbying the Obama administration and other federal officials to extend as many benefits as possible on the basis of where a gay couple's wedding took place, not on the state where they live.

"The Obama administration can make clear, through regulation, that the federal government will recognize those marriages and not participate in state-sponsored discrimination," said Suzanne Goldberg, a professor at Columbia Law School.

Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry, one of the groups most active in building support for same-sex marriage, urged the administration to adopt a "clear and consistent" standard that would apply equally to all married gay couples, regardless of their state of residence.

"Marriage should not flutter in and out like cellphone service," he said. "When it comes to federal programs, even if states are discriminating, the federal government should not."

Wolfson, like many of his allies, was already looking ahead to another rendezvous with the Supreme Court, confident that public support for same-sex marriage would continue to increase.

"We have the winning strategy," he said. "We win more states, we win more hearts and minds, and we go back to the Supreme Court in a matter of years, not decades, to win the freedom to marry nationwide."

___

Follow David Crary on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/craryap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-06-27-Supreme%20Court-Gay%20Marriage-What's%20Next/id-07c3503b3bc04571bb36e6a7080ebea2

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Long-Distance Moves Can Be a Long Haul for ... - AOL Real Estate

If you feel like Americans are on the move, there's a reason why. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that, on average, Americans move 12 times in their lifetimes. And it's not only that they move more often, but they've been relocating farther away every year since 1998. If you're on your own for a long haul, the stress of relocation is further complicated by not knowing exactly what lies on the other side of the moving van, as Kerry Quinn, a freelance writer, discovered on her cross-country move.

When Quinn (pictured below) moved to Los Angeles from New York City five years ago, the 39-year-old gave herself a couple of months to find an apartment. But her best-laid plans were thwarted as she discovered that the time difference between NYC and L.A. was more than just three hours. "In L.A., people really do find apartments the week before they need them. They're not like New Yorkers who plan 30 days ahead," she said. "So I kept hitting the wall and not seeing places that would be available when I needed it."

An apartment that she was particularly interested in still was occupied, but the management company showed her the unit above it, assuring her that it was the same as the one that she wanted. The company promised that the apartment would be ready when she arrived to take possession in six weeks, she said, but it was a case of what you see is not what you get. When Quinn arrived, she found that the apartment was dirty, didn't have blinds, a bathroom door, ceiling fan or, most surprisingly, a refrigerator. (The apartment building is pictured at top.)

"All those were in the unit I toured and promised as part of the deal," she recalled. "I felt confident because I saw the unit directly above it." It was Labor Day weekend when Quinn arrived -- 107 degrees outside and there were no hotel rooms available. Quinn sucked it up and camped out in her new digs, but not before insisting that the management company clean it up and hang blankets on its windows for privacy. She had to fight for a refrigerator -- California law does not require landlords to provide one -- and the management company, despite her frequent conversations prior to her move, failed to apprise her of that quirk.

In the course of the year that she stayed there, Quinn found other problems with the apartment: The surrounding neighborhood was a little seedy, and her building seemed to attract unsavory tenants. The happy people whom she saw on her initial visit seemed to have disappeared like minor characters in a play. "It was sort of like 'Melrose Place' after the explosion," she said.

Quinn might have benefited from the services of a relocation specialist, a certified professional trained to facilitate moves on both ends of the moving van. Typically, corporations moving employees will engage such a specialist, but large real estate companies in major markets often have such services available at no charge to people using their agency to find housing.

Kimberly Barkoff, a certified relocation manager with Halstead Property LLC in New York City, said that such specialists are savvy in a wide range of areas, including assessing a client's requirements according to budget, available transportation, lifestyle, and family situation, and recommending suitable neighborhoods.

"The client may have only a short time frame," so getting a full picture of a client's needs before they arrive helps use that time efficiently, Barkoff said -- adding that building a profile also helps her choose an agent sensitive to a client's needs and interests. "Making a connection helps: It's like Match.com."

There are practical considerations, too, as markets have different standards. In Manhattan, said Barkoff, an unfavorable credit score may keep a renter from getting a desired apartment -- something a relocation specialist may be able to finesse with a potential management company, or avoid by steering the client toward a building with more flexible policies.

Quinn, who still lives in Los Angeles, has since moved to a better situation, but she says that she regrets not following her intuition about renting an apartment, unseen. "It can be difficult, especially if you're moving from out of state," she said. "A place can seem perfect, but if it doesn't feel good, don't go with it."

See more about renting:
Online Rental Scams to Avoid
Renters Beware: Fraudsters Still Lurking on Craigslist
Urban Compass Wants to Steer the Rental Industry in New Direction

More on AOL Real Estate:
Find homes for rent.
Find out how to calculate mortgage payments.
Find homes for sale in your area.
Find foreclosures in your area.

Follow us on Twitter at @AOLRealEstate or connect with AOL Real Estate on Facebook.

Source: http://realestate.aol.com/blog/on/moving-cross-country/

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NIH Will Curb Research on Chimps

A new decision from the nation?s medical research agency will send most of its chimps into retirement

By Dina Fine Maron

Retirement More chimpanzees will be living a life of retirement thanks to a new NIH decision Image: Les_Stockton

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In a landmark decision, the National Institutes of Health announced today that it will drastically scale back its research on chimpanzees, humans? closest living relatives. The agency expects to retire about 310 chimps out of a population of 360 that it owns and has available for research.

The decision follows recommendations from an NIH advisory panel that said in January that the agency should curb research on chimps and instead ?emphasize the development and refinement of other approaches, especially alternative animal models,? and move all but approximately 50 of the chimps to sanctuaries. The NIH today accepted almost all of the recommendations from that independent panel after studying them along with more than 12,500 comments from the public. ?Chimpanzees have already taught us a great deal?but deserve special respect,? NIH Director Francis Collins says. The decision is a ?major milestone ushering in a new era, a compassionate era.?

The NIH has not funded new research involving chimps since December 2011, when the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit that advises the government on health policy, issued a report establishing strict criteria for the use of chimps in biomedical and behavioral research. At the time, the IOM said, "...that research use of animals so closely related to humans should not proceed unless it offers insights not possible with other models and unless it is of sufficient scientific or health value to offset moral costs. We found very few cases that satisfy these criteria."

The IOM recommended that chimp research satisfy three principles: the knowledge gained would be necessary to advance the public?s health; there was no other research model available to obtain that information; and that the animals would be kept in their natural habitat or in environments that closely mimic it. The NIH today accepted those principles as the criteria for any future research on chimps that it owns or supports.

A number of medical breakthroughs have come about, thanks to chimp research, including vaccines against polio and hepatitis B. But recent developments, including computer modeling and the ability to experiment on isolated cells, have equipped scientists with viable alternatives to primate research. Under today?s decision, NIH will still keep up to 50 chimpanzees?drawing from the pool of those it owns and supports?for future research purposes. Those are expected to include prophylactic vaccines for hepatitis C as well as behavioral studies.

The remaining 50 chimps will not be bred in captivity, so over time the number of chimps available for research will dwindle. Observational or behavioral studies on chimps that occur in zoos or sanctuaries are considered noninvasive and will proceed. Current research that does not meet the IOM principles will be allowed to wind down, and the implementation of the decision will take place over several years. ?Everybody should understand this is not something that will happen quickly,? Collins says.

The challenge now will be trying to find money to pay for the maintenance and care of the chimps slated for retirement. Under the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance and Protection (CHIMP) Act of 2000, a $30-million cap was put on spending for chimpanzees in sanctuaries. Collins today said that his agency is very close to hitting the $30-million limit and will probably hit it in the ?next few months.? The agency is asking Congress to amend the law to free up NIH funding so it will be able to support the more than 300 chimpanzees that are expected to eventually be placed into retirement. The NIH does not have an estimate for how much it will cost to maintain the chimps in sanctuaries or exact plans on where the chimps will retire. Existing sanctuaries can hold only 150 chimpanzees, according to the NIH. The agency will be taking care of the retirement of only those chimpanzees it owns.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nih-curb-research-on-chimp

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This Ghostly, Abandoned NYC Island Could Become a Special Needs School

New York City?s North Brother Island has lived many past lives, as a shipwreck site, a smallpox clinic, a tuberculosis colony, and a drug rehab facility, for starters. The 20-acre island, which sits between the Bronx and Riker?s Island, has been abandoned since the 1970s. But two architecture students are hoping to change that soon, with a proposal to build a school for autistic children on the island.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/lsTg3Pp8jX0/this-ghostly-abandoned-nyc-island-could-become-a-speci-574229238

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Court strikes part of Voting Rights Act

Holding signs with images of murdered Mississippi civil rights workers, demonstrators rally in front of the U.S.??

The Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act Monday, a cornerstone of the civil rights movement that helped dismantle decades of discriminatory voting restrictions in the South when it passed 60 years ago. The vote was 5-4, with the court's liberal justices dissenting.

The decision drastically scales back the federal government's power to reject state laws it believes discriminate against minority voters, which include some efforts to tighten identification requirements and limit early voting hours at the ballot box. A wave of such laws swept 30 states over the past few years, and the Obama administration has aggressively fought them in court.

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, reauthorized by Congress in 2006, gives the federal government the ability to pre-emptively reject changes to election law in states and counties that have a history of discriminating against minority voters. The law covers nine states and portions of seven more, most of them in the South. The formula used to decide which states are subject to this special scrutiny (set out in Section 4 of the law) is based on decades-old voter turnout and registration data, the justices ruled, which is unfair to the states covered under it.

The Justice Department used Section 5 of the law to block voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina last year, and it also struck down early voting restrictions in five counties in Florida. (Minority voters are more likely than white voters to vote early in person.)

Court watchers predicted the decision, given the conservative justices' comments on the law during oral arguments and in other cases. Justices in the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice John Roberts, expressed reservations that the nine Southern states covered by the law still required the same degree of federal oversight that they did 60 years ago. "Voter turnout and registration rates [between blacks and whites] now approach parity," Roberts wrote in a decision in 2009. "Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels."

Another argument against Section 4's constitutionality was that it's unclear whether minority voters in Southern states are more likely to face discrimination at the polls than they are in other states. Voter ID laws, for example, have passed in states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Indiana. Because those states do not have a history of voter discrimination?and are not covered by the act?their voter ID laws did not have to first pass federal inspection. That said, Southern states covered under the act were much more likely to pass a voter ID law than other states. Seven of the nine states covered in full under the act adopted such a law, compared with 19 states overall.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/news/supreme-court-strikes-down-key-part-voting-rights-141205218.html

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Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

Microsoft rolls out the next version of windows, 8.1, at its annual Build developers conference today. It's a big deal. Windows 8 was a crazy ambitious step, what follows is just as important. This is what Microsoft's taken from your months of feedback (or just, yelling).

Almost everything coming in 8.1 seems like a genuine improvement. The question, then, is exactly how much improvement. It's not so much good news/bad news as good news and wait that's all the good news? That's part of Microsoft's plan, though, as it's focusing on smaller, faster releases.

We'll be updating this post throughout Microsoft's keynote (refresh to see the latest updates), but we've started you with an overview of what's going into the update. You can watch the keynote live here.

To Start

Welp, you can boot to desktop now. You can also boot basically anywhere else you want, too?the All Apps screen, individual apps, the Start Menu.

The Start button also returns, but it only flings you into the Start Screen?no old school Start menu.

There are also some new tile sizes: The smaller square tiles (like Windows Phone 8's), which let you cram more stuff onto your homescreen, and the gigantic square tile, which can display a bunch of information, like emails or calendar appointments.

You can select a group of tiles at once and drag them into their own group, which you can name, like a folder.

Swiping up from the Start screen brings up All Apps, which can now be sorted in more ways. This is a nice improvement from the swipe-then-tap required to bring this up in Windows 8.

The start screen can be customized to more colors and has some "motion accents" that move as you scroll through the metro tiles. Or, blessedly, you can just put your desktop wallpaper behind the Start screen.

As a whole, the changes to the Start screen are pretty indicative of the update as a whole. A few functional improvements, some of which are highly anticipated, but just as much window dressing and little flourishes.

Wider Customization

Microsoft's big push for 8.1 is to make Windows feel more customizable, and that goes beyond the Start screen.

All your Modern/Metro apps will get automatic updates through the Windows Store in 8.1.

The most visible change is the tweak to multitasking. "Snap View", or the ability to pin a Metro app to either side of the screen, has been changed to let you drag to resize the apps. Meaning: If you want to have, say, Mail on the left side and a browser on the right, you can have each app take up 50 percent of the screen, or drag the divider around to your liking.

The new snap features open new Metro apps automatically, but we still aren't sure how this works with forcing an app to default to open in its own window.

In addition to this, you can have up to four apps snapped as vertical columns on your screen. All screens can take four apps, but obviously you're going to want a larger monitor to handle them (16:9 or 21:9 being ideal).

IE11 in Metro can now open more than one window, and can have infinite tabs.

Microsoft has looked into allowing you snap apps as horizontal rows?either at the top and bottom of the screen, or within columns created by snapped apps?but that's not currently possible. Yell about this some more and maybe it'll show up in an update down the road.

The lock screen can now be a moving collage of photos from your PC, SkyDrive, and Phone. You can also do things, like answer Skype calls, from the lock screen as well.

Mail will be updated in an upcoming build to have some new features like "sweep", which gets rid of all of the same spammy emails of a type. So, LivingSocial: you can get rid of every LS app at once, or only keep the oens from with the past 10 days or so.

Music got a new auto-generating playlist feature that makes a whole playlist from a selected artist.

Gestures

The on-screen keyboard has some new gestures. You can slide up from any key that has a number as a secondary key, and the number will be inserted automatically, instead of having to switch to a different panel.

You can use hands-free swiping to scroll through apps, which is allegedly helpful for stuff like the new Food and Drinks app, which is more or less a huge cookbook.

Multi-Monitor

We know you'll be able to keep the Start Screen pinned to one screen permanently now, but we'll have more specifics soon, hopefully.

Each monitor will now have its own scaling factor, meaning that you can zoom in with a high DPI monitor, and then move the app to a lower DPI screen without it being huge and awful. The app just resizes on its own.

SkyDrive

SkyDrive features more prominently in 8.1. You can decide in all your apps whether to view files on your PC or on SkyDrive, and where things are saved. We'll add further features as they're announced.

Settings

We're going to see a lot of new APIs today that will allow developers to make apps more customizable. We're also told that the first party Microsoft apps will have more options as well. We'll have more details as the specific APIs are announced.

Search

Search is a big addition for Windows 8.1. Well, "change" is probably more appropriate.

In Windows 8, Search was broken down to search by applications, on the web, in the store, through your files. You decided which you'd see.

In 8.1, Search is universal. Searching for any term will bring up a "hero" display if you press enter, showing you results from the web, in your files, and anywhere else, which you scroll through.

If you just type into the field, though, the pane on the right hand side of the screen will display results in real time, a lot like Apple's Spotlight. This is a good thing, in theory, but we still want to see how it works in a day to day setting.

Apps

Performance is supposed to be faster for all apps in 8.1. We'll let you know if we see the difference.

For devs, there are new performance analysis tools in Visual Studio 2014 to test network health, battery life effects, and other variables with app performance.

There's also a new tool to make push notifications easier to put into apps. So for users, notifications should be better in the apps you use.

The Store is totally remodeled, with new lists that make it easier to find things.

There are some new ways to use graphics resources, called tiled resources, which you can find out more about here.

3D Printing

Microsoft is partnering with Makerbot, 3D Systems, Form Labs, Autodesk, and several other software and hardware companies to add 3D printing support to 8.1.

Windows Phone 8.1

Apparently we're going to be hearing about Windows Phone, too, which is unexpected. We're going to be adding details about it as we have them.

Business

Microsoft is also pushing new enterprise features, like better and easier encryption. Obviously, Windows 8 wasn't a huge hit for that sector, so this is sorely needed. More details to come here.

Good thing? Bad thing?

Windows 8.1 brings good stuff to the table. The question isn't really if it's good, but if it's good enough. A lot of that will depend on how the new developer tools are implemented going forward, and how much developer support overall improves this year.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/windows-8-1-everything-you-need-to-know-585637162

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Tracy Flick Has Nothing on Stuyvesant's Elite NYC Student Government Scandal

It's not easy being a Stuy kid. In recent years, students at Stuyvesant High School, the crown jewel of New York City's Specialized High Schools, have grabbed national attention for cheating on tests with their cell phones, recording?racist rap videos, and organizing an event called "Slutty Wednesday" to protest the school's dress code. The latest controversy to befall one of the nation's most elite public schools is a bit less flashy than organized cheating, however. On Monday?The New York Times?investigated the recent election ?? and subsequent disqualification ? of Stuyvesant junior?Jack Cahn, who in early June won a school-wide race for President of the school's Student Union but was stripped of the title on June 11 by the school's Board of Elections. Comprising 19 of his peers, the Board accused Cahn of attaching too many campaign posters to a specific board and, more egregiously, "slandering" another student running against him in a private Facebook message. In response, Cahn's twin brother, David, uploaded a petition to reverse the decision to Change.org, where it has collected 356 signatures. "[It is] not Bush v. Gore,"?the?Times notes.

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No, it is not.?Geoff Decker at GothamSchools, which first reported Cahn's ouster, noted on June 14: "The saga is decidedly low stakes. ... Many seemed only vaguely aware of the controversy and two teachers said they hadn?t heard about it at all." Discussing Cahn's predicament, a Stuyvesant sophomore told the?Times: "It's very melodramatic and unnecessary. I?m surprised so many people even care." Indeed, there aren't a?lot of lessons to draw from student government drama that cannot be gathered elsewhere and far more easily. Remember?Election?and Tracy Flick's antics? Teenagers have overestimated their own importance since the beginning of recorded history.

RELATED: What Makes The New York Times Tick in 2011

And yet Stuyvesant High School, which accepts just 3 percent of applicants?based on notoriously rigorous standardized testing, presents a special case. Along with public peers like Hunter College High School (which administers its own test) and the upcoming Brooklyn Latin School, Stuyvesant serves to counterweigh New York's infamous collection of pricey private schools ? anchored, on either side of Central Park, by Trinity and Dalton ? and the city's massive public school bureaucracy. This unique status makes Stuyvesant an ideal target for tongue-wagging trend pieces, like the aforementioned "Slutty Wednesday" episode,?a 2006 New York feature about the evolving sexual mores of Stuyvesant's female students (sample passage: "The Stuyvesant cuddle puddle is emblematic of the changing landscape of high-school sexuality across the country"), and, more recently, a serious look at the school's racial makeup. Being free, well-funded, and very hard to get into, Stuyvesant is one of those rare places where young people can freely grapple with ambition and intellect without being weighed down by questions of money and privilege. "Make Stuy your #1 choice. It will change your life," the school's official marketing materials read. (Stuyvesant alumni seem to agree.)

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At the same time, Monday's?Times investigation isn't really a trend story. There is no discernable trend here. (Besides, perhaps, teenage intransigence, plus the ever-amusing theatrics of political campaigns.) Instead, we have politics in its purest form: unproductive tantrums, imagined persecutions, sudden shifts of power. In the summer before New York chooses its next mayor, perhaps this city needs to be reminded that the democratic process, for all of its stated ideals, revolves around flawed human beings.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tracy-flick-nothing-stuyvesants-elite-nyc-student-government-190702599.html

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Super-Earths: Three Exoplanets Discovered Orbiting Star Gliese 667C, May Support Alien Life

The habitable zone of a nearby star is filled to the brim with planets that could support alien life, scientists announced today (June 25).

An international team of scientists found a record-breaking three potentially habitable planets around the star Gliese 667C, a star 22 light-years from Earth that is orbited by at least six planets, and possibly as many as seven, researchers said. The three planet contenders for alien life are in the star's "habitable zone" ? the temperature region around the star where liquid water could exist. Gliese 667C is part of a three-star system, so the planets could see three suns in their daytime skies.

The three potentially rocky planets in Gliese 667C's habitable zone are known as super-Earths ? exoplanets that are less massive than Neptune but more massive than Earth. Their orbits make them possible candidates for hosting life, officials from the European Southern Observatory said in a statement. [See images of the alien planets of star Gliese 667C]

"We knew that the star had three planets from previous studies, so we wanted to see whether there were any more," co-leader of the study Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire, U.K. said in a statement. "By adding some new observations and revisiting existing data we were able to confirm these three and confidently reveal several more. Finding three low-mass planets in the star's habitable zone is very exciting!"

This picture shows the sky around multiple star Gliese 667. The bright star at the center is Gliese 667 A and B, the two main components of the system, which cannot be separated in this image. Photo credit: ESO

This is the first time three low-mass planets have been spotted in the habitable zone of the same star system, and it's unlikely that astronomers will find any more around Gliese 667C. The star's habitable zone is packed full, making it impossible for another planet to orbit stably within the zone, the researchers said.

"The number of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy is much greater if we can expect to find several of them around each low-mass star ? instead of looking at 10 stars to look for a single potentially habitable planet, we now know we can look at just one star and find several of them," team member Rory Barnes of the University of Washington said in a statement.

Gliese 667C is the faintest star in the three-star system. From the surface of the planets in orbit around Gliese 667C, the two brighter stars would be as bright as the full moon by night and shine visibly during the day, ESO scientists said.

This diagram shows the system of planets around star Gliese 667C. A record-breaking three planets in this system are super-Earths inside the star's habitable zone, where liquid water could exist, making them possible candidates for alien life. Photo credit: ESO

Gliese 667C is cooler and dimmer than the sun, making it possible for planets that have very close-in orbits to remain habitable. This star's habitable zone lies within an orbit the size of Mercury's around the sun, ESO officials said.

Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter and Google+. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Sanyo Innuendo (Boost Mobile)

By Alex Colon

You don't see many phones like the $59.99 Sanyo Innuendo. First of all it's a feature phone, which is already a dying breed. But it looks more like a smartphone from the outside, with a gray, mysterious OLED touch panel you can use to dial numbers. But what's this? It also opens, like a book, to reveal a fantastic little QWERTY keyboard on one side and a tiny-but-capable display on the other. It's held back by some issues like a nonstandard headphone jack and short battery life, but it's still a decent, affordable option for style-minded users looking to save some money with Boost.

Boost Features
The Sanyo Innuendo has been around for quite a while, but this is the first time we're taking a look at it on Boost. Not much has changed in the feature phone world over the last few years, so this phone still holds its own when compared with newer options like the LG Rumor Reflex?and the Samsung Array.

We reviewed the Sanyo Innuendo back on Sprint a couple of years ago, and this model is virtually identical. The only real difference is that here it comes loaded with Boost wallpaper and includes options for refilling and managing your account. See our slideshow and review of the phone on Sprint?for a lot more detail on its unique design, features, and performance. Here we're going to highlight pricing and comparisons on Boost.

Pricing and Conclusions
Unlimited talk, text, and data plans start at just $50 per month on Boost, and you don't even need to sign a contract. Better yet, for every six months you pay your bill on time, your monthly fee reduces by $5, until you reach $35 per month. That's about as cheap as unlimited talk and texting gets. You won't have much opportunity to put that unlimited data to use with the Innuendo's slow, dated Web browser, but that's still a great price if you're only talking and texting.

Boost also offers daily unlimited plans for $2 a day, or you can pay as you go at $0.20 per minute or per text message. So no matter how you plan to use this phone, it's a very good value.

The Sanyo Innuendo may be old, but it has aged pretty well for a feature phone. If your primary concerns are talking and texting, it remains a solid choice. The Samsung Array has a more traditional slider design, but is otherwise quite similar to the Innuendo in terms of features. And if it's media you're after, your best bet is the LG Rumor Reflex, which has a standard headphone jack and good audio file support, as well as limited video playback. The?Motorola Theory is another good choice, as long as you like the BlackBerry-style slab design. Just keep in mind that, even an older smartphone like the inexpensive, keyboarded Samsung Transform Ultra?will expand your feature set dramatically, and monthly plans cost just $5 more per month.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/uw1tyWeNxTY/0,2817,2420697,00.asp

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Decisions imminent, Supreme Court has wide range of options in gay marriage cases (Star Tribune)

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