Denver DA Charges Man with Jury Tampering for Handing Out Jury Nullification Flyers
August 6th, 2015Via: Denver Post:
Denver prosecutors have charged a man with seven counts of jury tampering after they say he tried to influence jurors by passing out literature on jury nullification on Monday.
Mark Iannicelli, 56, set up a small booth with a sign that said “Juror Info” in front of the city’s Lindsay-Flanigan Courthouse courthouse, prosecutors say.
The Denver District Attorney’s Office says Iannicelli provided jury nullification flyers to jury pool members.
NSA Tried Stuxnet Cyber-Attack on North Korea Five Years Ago but Failed
August 6th, 2015Via: Guardian:
The US tried to deploy a version of the Stuxnet computer virus to attack North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme five years ago but ultimately failed, according to people familiar with the covert campaign.
The operation began in tandem with the now-famous Stuxnet attack that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear programme in 2009 and 2010 by destroying a thousand or more centrifuges that were enriching uranium. Reuters and others have reported that the Iran attack was a joint effort by US and Israeli forces.
According to one US intelligence source, Stuxnet’s developers produced a related virus that would be activated when it encountered Korean-language settings on an infected machine.
But US agents could not access the core machines that ran Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme, said another source, a former high-ranking intelligence official who was briefed on the programme.
China to Plant Internet Police in Top Online Firms
August 5th, 2015Via: PC World:
China’s control over the Internet is set to expand. In a bid to better police local websites, the country’s security forces are establishing offices at the biggest online firms in the country.
The country’s Ministry of Public Security announced the new measures on Tuesday, at a time when authorities have been increasingly concerned also about cyberthreats.
Websites based in China already have to abide by strict provisions for online censorship, and will often delete any content deemed offensive by government censors.
The ministry’s plan, however, will place China’s security forces at the offices of the country’s major websites, so that they can quickly respond to suspected online crimes, it said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia May Go Broke Before the U.S. Oil Industry Buckles
August 5th, 2015No more Fed-Exing the Lamborghinis to London for oil changes?
Via: Telegraph:
If the oil futures market is correct, Saudi Arabia will start running into trouble within two years. It will be in existential crisis by the end of the decade.
The contract price of US crude oil for delivery in December 2020 is currently $62.05, implying a drastic change in the economic landscape for the Middle East and the petro-rentier states.
The Saudis took a huge gamble last November when they stopped supporting prices and opted instead to flood the market and drive out rivals, boosting their own output to 10.6m barrels a day (b/d) into the teeth of the downturn.
Bank of America says OPEC is now “effectively dissolved”. The cartel might as well shut down its offices in Vienna to save money.
If the aim was to choke the US shale industry, the Saudis have misjudged badly, just as they misjudged the growing shale threat at every stage for eight years. “It is becoming apparent that non-OPEC producers are not as responsive to low oil prices as had been thought, at least in the short-run,” said the Saudi central bank in its latest stability report.
“The main impact has been to cut back on developmental drilling of new oil wells, rather than slowing the flow of oil from existing wells. This requires more patience,” it said.
One Saudi expert was blunter. “The policy hasn’t worked and it will never work,” he said.
Chicago Police Detained Thousands of Black Americans at Interrogation Facility
August 5th, 2015Via: Guardian:
At least 3,500 Americans have been detained inside a Chicago police warehouse described by some of its arrestees as a secretive interrogation facility, newly uncovered records reveal.
Of the thousands held in the facility known as Homan Square over a decade, 82% were black. Only three received documented visits from an attorney, according to a cache of documents obtained when the Guardian sued the police.
Despite repeated denials from the Chicago police department that the warehouse is a secretive, off-the-books anomaly, the Homan Square files begin to show how the city’s most vulnerable people get lost in its criminal justice system.
People held at Homan Square have been subsequently charged with everything from “drinking alcohol on the public way” to murder. But the scale of the detentions – and the racial disparity therein – raises the prospect of major civil-rights violations.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Facing Three Felony Indictments
August 3rd, 2015Via: WFFA:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton surrendered at the Collin County Jail Monday morning on three felony indictments.
Paxton’s security detail drove him in a black Chevy Tahoe into a garage at the jail and away from cameras. The attorney general did not appear in public.
Once inside, Paxton was fingerprinted, photographed, booked and released on personal recognizance bonds.
…
Paxton faces three criminal charges – two first-degree felonies for securities fraud and a third-degree felony for failing to register with the state to sell securities.
Paxton is accused of having defrauded two individuals of more than $100,000. He doesn’t have to resign while he fights the charges.
Puerto Rico Fails to Make $58-Million Debt Payment
August 3rd, 2015Via: AP:
The government of Puerto Rico confirmed Monday that it had failed to make a $58-million debt payment, a significant escalation of the fiscal crisis facing the U.S. island territory.
Big U.S. Coal Miner Alpha Natural Files for Bankruptcy
August 3rd, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in NZ. I’m long Enphase Energy.
—
The price of solar power will continue to fall, until it becomes the cheapest form of power in a rapidly expanding number of national markets. By 2026, utility-scale solar will be competitive for the majority of the world, according to BNEF. The lifetime cost of a photovoltaic solar-power plant will drop by almost half over the next 25 years, even as the prices of fossil fuels creep higher.
Solar power will eventually get so cheap that it will outcompete new fossil-fuel plants and even start to supplant some existing coal and gas plants, potentially stranding billions in fossil-fuel infrastructure. The industrial age was built on coal. The next 25 years will be the end of its dominance.
—The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About to Change Forever
Via: Reuters:
Alpha Natural Resources Inc, one of the largest U.S. coal companies, became the latest in the hard-hit industry to seek bankruptcy on Monday.
The move comes as President Barack Obama is expected to unveil tough new measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Alpha blamed its Chapter 11 bankruptcy on tougher regulatory standards and policies that favor renewable energy, as well tumbling prices for its coal.
Alpha is the world’s third-largest supplier of metallurgical coal used in making steel and has also been hit by a slowdown in China.
Walter Energy Inc and Patriot Coal Corp also filed for bankruptcy protection this year. Energy Future Holdings Corp, a power company that also has a large coal mining business, has been in bankruptcy since 2014.
Alpha Natural, with total liabilities of $7.11 billion, has reported adjusted losses for the past 14 quarters.
“Gene Drive” Technology
August 3rd, 2015Via: Independent:
A powerful new technique for generating “supercharged” genetically modified organisms that can spread rapidly in the wild has caused alarm among scientists who fear that it may be misused, accidentally or deliberately, and cause a health emergency or environmental disaster.
Google Auto
August 2nd, 2015Via: Guardian:
It was Google Auto LLC that applied for the international vehicle identification number (VIN) codes to identify each new self-driving car, just like any other production vehicle. Google Auto also liaised with America’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and organised emissions testing in California. To avoid onerous safety requirements and crash tests, Google Auto’s cars would be lightweight low speed vehicles (LSVs), capable of a top speed of only 25mph.
Paperwork filed by Google Auto with the NHTSA, and seen by the Guardian, indicates that the cars are rear-wheel drive in design, with each wheel having its own braking system. The cars are powered by a modest 20-30kW electric motor from a lithium ion battery. All the cars built so far have been assembled on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, by Google’s manufacturing partner, the engineering firm Roush.
