LONDON (Reuters) - The Office of Fair Trading has asked for a review into payday lenders after finding deep-rooted problems in the way the 2 billion pound a year industry treats vulnerable customers.
The lenders, which make loans to be repaid when borrowers get their wages, have grown rapidly in Britain as banks have cut back on short-term credit after the 2008 financial crisis. But they have been attacked by politicians and consumer groups for charging sky-high interest rates and for shoddy treatment of borrowers.
"We have seen evidence of financial loss and personal distress to many people," Clive Maxwell, chief executive of the OFT, said on Thursday.
The OFT said firms were profiting from loans that could not be paid back on time. It found about half of lenders' revenues come from fees charged for customers extending loans. And 20 percent of revenues came from loans which were extended at least four times.
The watchdog said it was difficult for customers to identify and compare the cost of loans from payday lenders and that not all firms complied with relevant laws. It also found that many of the borrowers had poor credit histories and limited access to other forms of credit.
It said lenders were competing primarily on the availability and speed of loans rather than on the price of paying them back.
Payday lenders typically hand out loans of up to 1,000 pounds. The OFT estimated around 8 million are made each year.
Firms such as Wonga, QuickQuid and Lending Stream have flourished as the banks have pulled back. Apart from the payday firms, customers have few alternatives other than to borrow from friends and family or from pawnbrokers such as H&T Group and Albemarle & Bond, which have also thrived.
FULL-BLOWN INQUIRY
In March, the OFT gave Britain's biggest 50 payday lenders 12 weeks to change their business practices or risk losing their licenses after finding evidence of widespread irresponsible lending.
Britain's Competition Commission will now investigate the industry, where annual interest rates on some loans top 5,000 percent. MPs have already called for a cap to be set on the amount of interest charged.
Payday lenders are coming under scrutiny around the world. The U.S. consumer watchdog said in April that the loans were trapping borrowers in a cycle of debt and warned new rules could be on the way for the industry.
The Consumer Finance Association (CFA), which represents the industry in Britain, said the competition inquiry should have been deferred to allow improvements that firms have already made to take effect before they face further judgment.
"No other sector has faced such intense scrutiny in such a short space of time," it said.
Wonga, one the biggest payday lenders in Britain, more than trebled its earnings last year. This month it lifted the annual interest rate on its loans to 5,853 percent.
The inquiry could upset Wonga's plans to launch a stock market flotation next year which analysts say could value the business at up to 1.5 billion pounds. Wonga said on Thursday the commission should review how consumers use and access all forms of short-term credit including overdrafts and credit cards.
Consumer Group Which? said the industry was rife with poor practice.
"People under financial pressure being given high-cost loans in minutes without proper affordability checks is a recipe for disaster," it said.
The Citizens Advice Bureau, a charity that helps people with legal and financial issues, said the focus on speed meant payday loans were being handed out without proper checks.
"The industry is in desperate need of a transformation from predatory firms to a responsible short-term credit market," said Citizens Advice Chief Executive Gillian Guy.
JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? South Africans were torn on Wednesday between the desire not to lose a critically ill Nelson Mandela, who defined the aspirations of so many of his compatriots, and resignation that the beloved former prisoner and president is approaching the end of his life.
The sense of anticipation and foreboding about 94-year-old Mandela's fate has grown since late Sunday, when the South African government declared that the condition of the statesman, who was rushed to a hospital in Pretoria on June 8, had deteriorated.
A tide of emotional tributes has built on social media and in hand-written messages and flowers laid outside the hospital and Mandela's home. On Wednesday, about 20 children from a day care center posted a hand-made card outside the hospital and recited a poem.
"Hold on, old man," was one of the lines in the Zulu poem, according to the South African Press Association.
In recent days, international leaders, celebrities, athletes and others have praised Mandela, not just as the man who steered South Africa through its tense transition from white racist rule to democracy two decades ago, but as a universal symbol of sacrifice and reconciliation.
In South Africa's Eastern Cape province, where Mandela grew up, a traditional leader said the time was near for Mandela, who is also known by his clan name, Madiba.
"I am of the view that if Madiba is no longer enjoying life, and is on life support systems, and is not appreciating what is happening around him, I think the good Lord should take the decision to put him out of his suffering," said the tribal chief, Phathekile Holomisa.
"I did speak to two of his family members, and of course, they are in a lot of pain, and wish that a miracle might happen, that he recovers again, and he becomes his old self again," he said. "But at the same time they are aware there is a limit what miracles you can have."
For many South Africans, Mandela's decline is a far more personal matter, echoing the protracted and emotionally draining process of losing one of their own elderly relatives.
One nugget of wisdom about the arc of life and death came from Matthew Rusznyah, a 9-year-old boy who stopped outside Mandela's home in the Johannesburg neighborhood of Houghton to show his appreciation.
"We came because we care about Mandela being sick, and we wish we could put a stop to it, like snap our fingers," he said. "But we can't. It's how life works."
His mother, Lee Rusznyah, said Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison under apartheid before becoming South Africa's first black president in all-race elections in 1994, had made the world a better place.
"All of us will end," Thabo Makgoba, the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday. "We just want him to be peacefully released, whatever he's feeling at this moment, and to be reunited with his Maker at the perfect time, when God so wills."
The archbishop said: "Ultimately, we are all mortal. At some stage or another, we all have to die, and we have to move on, we have to be recalled by our Maker and Redeemer. We have to create that space for Madiba, to come to terms within himself, with that journey."
On Tuesday, Makgoba visited Mandela and offered a prayer in which he wished for a "peaceful, perfect, end" for the anti-apartheid leader, who was taken to the Pretoria hospital to be treated for what the government said was a recurring lung infection.
In the prayer, he asked for courage to be granted to Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, and others who love him "at this hard time of watching and waiting," and he appealed for divine help for the medical team treating Mandela.
Visitors to the hospital on Wednesday included Mandela's former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. The couple divorced in 1996.
"As he remains in a critical condition in hospital, we must keep him and the family in our thoughts and prayers every minute," President Jacob Zuma said Wednesday.
Mandela, whose 95th birthday is on July 18, served a single five-year term as president and afterward focused on charitable causes, but he withdrew from public life years ago and became increasingly frail in recent years. He last made a public appearance in 2010 at the World Cup soccer tournament, which was hosted by South Africa. At that time, he did not speak to the crowd and was bundled against the cold in a stadium full of fans.
On April 29, state television broadcast footage of a visit by Zuma and other leaders of the ruling party, the African National Congress, to Mandela's home. Zuma said at the time that Mandela was in good shape, but the footage ? the first public images of Mandela in nearly a year ? showed him silent and unresponsive, even when Zuma tried to hold his hand.
"Let's accept instead of crying," said Lucas Aedwaba, a security officer in Pretoria who described Mandela as a hero. "Let's celebrate that the old man lived and left his legacy."
Dan Lehman, an American academic, chose a jogging route on Wednesday morning that passed by the hospital where Mandela is being treated.
"I was just going out for my morning run down here and come to pay my respects to the greatest man in the world," Lehman said. Then he began to cry.
Courteney Cox is dating her co-star Brian Van Holt, who is the man her now ex-husband, David Arquette, accused her of having an “emotional affair” with when they split. The 49-year-old beauty, whose divorce was recently finalized to Arquette, has finally gone public with her new love. Cox and Arquette split in 2010 and their ...
CAIRO (Reuters) - Two people were killed and dozens injured in street fighting on Wednesday north of Cairo between supporters and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president, hours before Mohamed Mursi was to address the nation.
With Egypt gripped by fears of a showdown between Islamists and their opponents, security sources said 90 people wounded in the city of Mansoura after hundreds of men were involved in rock-throwing street skirmishes. Witnesses also heard gunfire.
There was also fighting in the nearby Nile Delta city of Tanta, though casualties appeared to have been less severe.
Similar outbursts of violence, often prompted by one side or the other staging rallies, have hit towns across the country in recent days. At least two men died last weekend. The opposition plans mass protests this weekend, calling for Mursi to resign.
He shows no sign of doing that and is expected to blame the deadlock that has aggravated an economic crisis on resistance from those loyal to his ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak.
The army has warned politicians it could effectively take charge again if they fail to reconcile. Some in the anti-Mursi camp might welcome that, but Islamists say they would fight any "coup" against Egypt's first freely elected leader.
Fears of a violent stand-off in the streets between Mursi's Islamist supporters and a broad coalition of the disaffected have led people to stock up on food. Long lines of cars outside fuel stations have snarled roads in Cairo and other cities.
The army and police are preparing to contain any trouble, adding men and barriers around important public buildings. The government promises to allow peaceful protests but many fear that, with huge crowds, any trouble could spin out of control.
Mursi, who marks his first year in office on Sunday, has given no hint of the contents of what aides called an "important speech". It is due to start around 9:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. EDT) at a Cairo hall before an invited audience. Some speculate he may reshuffle his cabinet to try to defuse the anger against him.
Some observers fear Egypt may be about to erupt again, two years after the revolution that toppled Mubarak. Politics are polarized between Mursi's disciplined Muslim Brotherhood and disparate opponents who have lost a series of elections.
The deadlock has contributed to a deepening economic crisis and the government is running out of cash.
Washington has urge Mursi to bring the opposition into the political process and to press ahead with economic reforms.
Liberal critics worry about Islamist rule - a coalition of local human rights groups accused Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday of crimes rivaling Mubarak's and of setting up a "religious, totalitarian state". But many Egyptians are simply frustrated by falling living standards and fear chaos.
Lining up at a bank machine in downtown Cairo, IT trainer Amgad al-Fishawi, 40, said he feared cash could be hard to find in the coming days and echoed the resignation felt by many at the deadlock: "Mursi won't promise too much," he said. "Nobody's paying attention. The people don't expect anything from him."
ARMY ALERT
The army is held in high regard by Egyptians, especially since it pushed aside Mubarak following the 2011 uprising. Its chief issued a warning on Sunday, urging compromise while also defending the legitimacy of Mursi's election.
One senior Western diplomat in Cairo said the army might try to impose a solution, especially if the political deadlock turns violent: "The margin for a political solution is definitely very narrow," he said. "If (violence) crosses a certain threshold, the role of the army might become by default more proactive."
Islamists, oppressed for decades, fear a return of military rule and hardliners warn of a fight if the generals intervene. They accuse Mubarak-era institutions, including courts, state media, police and civil service, of working to undermine Mursi.
An officer in one of Egypt's internal security agencies told Reuters this week that the country needed to be "cleansed" of the Islamists who he described as terrorists. He said that the protest rallies could be the trigger for change.
The army, still heavily funded by Washington as it was under Mubarak, and Western governments have been urging Mursi to bridge differences with his non-Islamist opponents. He says he has tried. They say he and his Muslim Brotherhood, along with harder line allies, are trying to monopolize the state.
Mursi says a petition demanding he quit - which liberal organizers say has 15 million signatures - is undemocratic. In that, he has support from Islamists, who have staged shows of strength in recent days and plan a major Cairo rally on Friday.
Nationwide opposition rallies, are due to start on Sunday but could begin earlier.
LOW EXPECTATIONS
"This demonstration is spontaneous and comes from the Egyptian people. We hope that it will bring the government ultimately to a place where the reforms are effected and choices that need to be made about the economy are implemented," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia.
"We will obviously hope that it will not produce violence and be a moment of catalyzing positive change for Egypt itself."
The opposition have low expectations of the speech which Mursi appears to be planning to make before a partisan crowd. Liberal activists plan to watch it on a screen in Cairo's Tahrir Square, where the revolt against Mubarak began in January 2011.
Liberal coalition spokesman Khaled Dawoud said: "He missed several opportunities in the past to build bridges with the Egyptian people. At this point, it's too late for any possible measures, short of early elections, to stop the demonstrations."
Dawoud likened Mursi's address to speeches made by Mubarak during the revolt. The army eased him aside after 18 days and took power itself until Mursi took office on June 30 last year.
Among criticisms of Mursi, a less than charismatic speaker who became the Brotherhood's presidential candidate as a last-minute stand-in, is that he has turned for support to harder line Islamist groups, including former militants.
The lynching of five Shi'ite Muslims on Sunday revived fears among minorities, including Egypt's several million Christians, and has been used by the opposition to portray Mursi as tolerant of an extremist Sunni Muslim fringe.
(Reporting by Shaimaa Fayed, Patrick Werr, Asmaa Alsharif, Tom Perry, Maggie Fick, Yasmine Saleh, Omar Fahmy, Alastair Macdonald, Alexander Dziadosz and Shadia Nasralla in Cairo; Writing by Alastair Macdonald)
Author Richard Matheson, whose injection of humanity into science-fiction tales engaged audience for more than five decades, has died. Matheson's work included The Shrinking Man, I Am Legend, and numerous other movie and TV scripts, including episodes of The Twilight Zone.
Matheson was 87. His death Sunday was announced online after his daughter, Ali, wrote of his passing. The genre website Shock Till You Drop quotes her, citing author John Shirley, who posted her statement on Facebook:
"My beloved father passed away yesterday at home surrounded by the people and things he loved...he was funny, brilliant, loving, generous, kind, creative, and the most wonderful father ever...I miss you and love you forever Pop and I know you are now happy and healthy in a beautiful place full of love and joy you always knew was there..."
Many of Matheson's stories placed otherwise normal people in extreme or fantastic circumstances ? a hallmark of The Twilight Zone, for which he wrote more than a dozen episodes. He also wrote a short story about a trucker tailgating a driver, which he then used to create a screenplay for the 1971 Steven Spielberg film Duel, starring Dennis Weaver.
At io9, Rob Bricken summarizes some of Matheson's other career highlights:
"Along with I Am Legend, Matheson wrote What Dreams May Come, A Stir of Echoes, and The Shrinking Man, all of which became Hollywood movies (in the case of I Am Legend, more than a few times). He was also one of the original Twilight Zone's greatest screenwriters, penned the classic William Shatner-starring episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." His Twilight Zone episode "Steel" became the basis for Real Steel, starring Hugh Jackman."
Another film adaptation of I Am Legend was 1971's The Omega Man, with Charlton Heston in the lead role. In 2011, NPR readers voted the novel No. 65 on a list of the Top 100 science fiction books.
Matheson also took up the essential questions of the human condition in his 1993 non-fiction book The Path, based on the concepts of Harold W. Percival.
Member station KPCC reports, "Writers from Stephen King to Anne Rice cited Matheson as an influence. In 1984, Matheson received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. In 2010, he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame."
As for how Matheson viewed his work, Io9 pulled this quote from a 2007 interview with CinemaSpy:
"I think we're yearning for something beyond the every day. And I will tell you I don't believe in the supernatural, I believe in the supernormal. To me there is nothing that goes against nature. If it seems incomprehensible, it's only because we haven't been able to understand it yet."
Update at 8:10 p.m. ET: Matheson Interviews Online:
The Archive of American Television tells us they have posted interviews with Matheson, in which he discusses his stories, the craft of writing, and other topics, on YouTube.
US actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed in Algeria on Tuesday to press his bid to ?terminate? threats to the environment through his climate action campaign.
The star of the Terminator and Predator movies said the world needed to ?do better? if the goal of a 75 percent global reduction in greenhouse emissions is to be achieved.
?It is also important that I play the Terminator and terminate the environmental problem in real life ? and that is exactly what I am doing,? Schwarzenegger told an Algiers news conference.
After morning talks with Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, the star-turned-campaigner headed to Algeria?s second city Oran, which is to join his R20 Regions of Climate Action initiative to promote a low-carbon economy.
Environment Minister Amara Benyounes said the assistance Algeria received would be used in particular to improve the collection, treatment and recycling of waste.
Schwarzenegger, a Republican campaigner for environmental causes more often associated with Democrats in the United States, said saving the planet should not be a party political issue.
?I don?t think you can put people into ideological corners when it comes to the environment because ? there is no liberal water or conservative water, we all drink the same water,? he said.
Google's Cloud Platform holds a certain amount of appeal for developers looking to quickly build robust web apps. Of course, getting started is a bit involved. You'll first need to download and install several tools and an SDK on your local machine. Cloud Playground offers the chance to dip your toes in the water and experiment with services like App Engine, Cloud Storage and Cloud SQL sans the lengthy installation process. The browser-based tool is designed for testing out sample code, evaluating APIs and even sharing code snippets without the hassle of building a complete development environment. This isn't a proper solution to web-based development, however. For now you're limited to Python 2.7 App Engine apps, and the code editor and mimic development server have a rather basic feature set. Still, for those who are tempted by Cloud Platform, but not quite ready to dive in head first, the Playground is a welcome treat.
Google's Cloud Platform is slowly becoming ay fully featured environment for running complex web apps, but it's not easy to just give it a quick try. To get started with Cloud Platform, after all, you have to first install the right SDK and other tools on your local machine. Today, however, Google is launching its browser-based Cloud Playground, which is meant to give developers a chance to try some sample code and see how actual production APIs will behave, or to just share some code with colleagues without them having to install your whole development environment.
Contact: Sue Nichols Nichols@msu.edu 517-432-0206 Michigan State University
Global sustainability is like a high-stakes jigsaw puzzle and an international group of scientists have created a new framework to assemble the big picture without losing pieces.
Scientists led by Jianguo "Jack" Liu, Michigan State University's Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability, have built an integrated way to study a world that has become more connected with faster and more socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances. They say "telecoupling" describes how distance is shrinking and connections are strengthening between nature and humans.
In Ecology and Society, Liu, director of MSU's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS), and his colleagues lay the groundwork to understand how an action on one side of the world has enormous socioeconomic and environmental consequences thousands of miles away and how it doesn't stop there. Telecoupling shows how environmental and socioeconomic actions lead to reactions and feedbacks and then to more repercussions that reverberate globally.
For a world struggling to balance the needs of people and the environment in the face of critical challenges like climate change, food security, water security, energy security, environmental pollution, poverty, biodiversity loss and species invasion, Liu says an integrated framework of telecoupling is essential.
"It has been traditional to focus on either the socioeconomic or environmental impact of an action," Liu said. "But the lack of a holistic understanding of an action means that you really cannot manage a system well for both socioeconomic and environmental sustainability.
The article "Framing Sustainability in a Telecoupled World" lays out a comprehensive telecoupling framework a map for the trip to sustainable development across the world.
The authors use the trading of soybeans as an example of the far-reaching complexities that result.
Soybeans are a booming commodity in China used for food, vegetable oil and animal feed. The telecoupling framework uses five components (systems, agents, flows, causes, and effects) critical to assembling the whole picture.
Systems are where humans and nature interact. Explosive growth and increasing urbanity has sent the Chinese shopping elsewhere for soybeans. Brazil has stepped up to the plate to meet the demands and has suffered environmental consequences as delicate rainforests are converted to farmland. China, on the other hand, has been converting farmlands back to forests.
The telecoupling framework tracks how one change leads to another and can spill over into other countries. For example, the United States found itself losing market share in soybeans, leading to economic repercussions and environmental changes as farmers shifted gears.
Flows are the materials, information and energy that pass back and forth between systems. China and Brazil have trade agreements, financial transactions and the use of fuel and water to grow and transport the beans.
The telecoupling framework also factors in the actions of agents the individuals, decision-make groups, or even herds of animals -- whose actions have an impact, big and small, what they do in China can resonate in Brazil and visa versa -- or somewhere in between.
Then there are causes and effects supply, demand and the cultural tastes that drive demand are among many causes. Effects can be the impact of insecticides and fertilizers used to grow the beans in Brazil or displacement of farmers in China who no longer grow soybeans due to the lower price of soybeans from Brazil.
Besides soybean trade, telecouplings may emerge through other types of trade, and other distant interactions such as foreign investment, tourism, transnational land tenure transfer, knowledge dissemination, technology transfer, migration of humans and animals, water transfer, waste transfer, pollutant transfer, atmospheric circulation, and species invasion.
The point, Liu said, is that everything everywhere needs to be factored in.
"This is a big step to figure out how to quantify everything everywhere, but it's important," Liu said. "The telecoupling framework not only allows us to understand socioeconomic and environmental sustainability in one place, but it enables us to evaluate sustainability in all relevant places simultaneously.
"It provides a useful foundation to protect our environment while allowing people to thrive globally."
###
Joining Liu in writing the article is Vanessa Hull, Thomas Dietz, Shuxin Li, William McConnell, Emilio Moran and Cynthia Simmons, all from MSU; Mateus Batistella from Brazil's EMBRAPA; Ruth DeFries of Columbia University; Feng Fu and Karen Polenske of MIT; Thomas Hertel of Purdue University; Roberto Izaurralde of the Joint Global Change Research Institute; Eric Lambin, Rosamond Naylor and Peter Vitousek of Stanford; Luiz Martinelli of the University of So Paulo, Brazil; Zhiyun Ouyang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Anette Reenberg of the University of Copenhagen; Gilberto Rocha of Federal University of Par, Brazil; Peter Verburg of VU University of Amsterdam; Fusuo Zhang of China Agricultural University and Chunquan Zhu of International Union for Conservation of Nature in China.
The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Michigan State University, and Michigan AgBioResearch.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Sue Nichols Nichols@msu.edu 517-432-0206 Michigan State University
Global sustainability is like a high-stakes jigsaw puzzle and an international group of scientists have created a new framework to assemble the big picture without losing pieces.
Scientists led by Jianguo "Jack" Liu, Michigan State University's Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability, have built an integrated way to study a world that has become more connected with faster and more socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances. They say "telecoupling" describes how distance is shrinking and connections are strengthening between nature and humans.
In Ecology and Society, Liu, director of MSU's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS), and his colleagues lay the groundwork to understand how an action on one side of the world has enormous socioeconomic and environmental consequences thousands of miles away and how it doesn't stop there. Telecoupling shows how environmental and socioeconomic actions lead to reactions and feedbacks and then to more repercussions that reverberate globally.
For a world struggling to balance the needs of people and the environment in the face of critical challenges like climate change, food security, water security, energy security, environmental pollution, poverty, biodiversity loss and species invasion, Liu says an integrated framework of telecoupling is essential.
"It has been traditional to focus on either the socioeconomic or environmental impact of an action," Liu said. "But the lack of a holistic understanding of an action means that you really cannot manage a system well for both socioeconomic and environmental sustainability.
The article "Framing Sustainability in a Telecoupled World" lays out a comprehensive telecoupling framework a map for the trip to sustainable development across the world.
The authors use the trading of soybeans as an example of the far-reaching complexities that result.
Soybeans are a booming commodity in China used for food, vegetable oil and animal feed. The telecoupling framework uses five components (systems, agents, flows, causes, and effects) critical to assembling the whole picture.
Systems are where humans and nature interact. Explosive growth and increasing urbanity has sent the Chinese shopping elsewhere for soybeans. Brazil has stepped up to the plate to meet the demands and has suffered environmental consequences as delicate rainforests are converted to farmland. China, on the other hand, has been converting farmlands back to forests.
The telecoupling framework tracks how one change leads to another and can spill over into other countries. For example, the United States found itself losing market share in soybeans, leading to economic repercussions and environmental changes as farmers shifted gears.
Flows are the materials, information and energy that pass back and forth between systems. China and Brazil have trade agreements, financial transactions and the use of fuel and water to grow and transport the beans.
The telecoupling framework also factors in the actions of agents the individuals, decision-make groups, or even herds of animals -- whose actions have an impact, big and small, what they do in China can resonate in Brazil and visa versa -- or somewhere in between.
Then there are causes and effects supply, demand and the cultural tastes that drive demand are among many causes. Effects can be the impact of insecticides and fertilizers used to grow the beans in Brazil or displacement of farmers in China who no longer grow soybeans due to the lower price of soybeans from Brazil.
Besides soybean trade, telecouplings may emerge through other types of trade, and other distant interactions such as foreign investment, tourism, transnational land tenure transfer, knowledge dissemination, technology transfer, migration of humans and animals, water transfer, waste transfer, pollutant transfer, atmospheric circulation, and species invasion.
The point, Liu said, is that everything everywhere needs to be factored in.
"This is a big step to figure out how to quantify everything everywhere, but it's important," Liu said. "The telecoupling framework not only allows us to understand socioeconomic and environmental sustainability in one place, but it enables us to evaluate sustainability in all relevant places simultaneously.
"It provides a useful foundation to protect our environment while allowing people to thrive globally."
###
Joining Liu in writing the article is Vanessa Hull, Thomas Dietz, Shuxin Li, William McConnell, Emilio Moran and Cynthia Simmons, all from MSU; Mateus Batistella from Brazil's EMBRAPA; Ruth DeFries of Columbia University; Feng Fu and Karen Polenske of MIT; Thomas Hertel of Purdue University; Roberto Izaurralde of the Joint Global Change Research Institute; Eric Lambin, Rosamond Naylor and Peter Vitousek of Stanford; Luiz Martinelli of the University of So Paulo, Brazil; Zhiyun Ouyang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Anette Reenberg of the University of Copenhagen; Gilberto Rocha of Federal University of Par, Brazil; Peter Verburg of VU University of Amsterdam; Fusuo Zhang of China Agricultural University and Chunquan Zhu of International Union for Conservation of Nature in China.
The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Michigan State University, and Michigan AgBioResearch.
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
FILE - In this June 6, 2013 file photo, acting IRS commissioner Danny Werfel testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. Werfel unveils his plan to fix an agency besieged by scandal. President Barack Obama ordered Werfel to conduct a 30-day review of the IRS when he appointed him last month. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
FILE - In this June 6, 2013 file photo, acting IRS commissioner Danny Werfel testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. Werfel unveils his plan to fix an agency besieged by scandal. President Barack Obama ordered Werfel to conduct a 30-day review of the IRS when he appointed him last month. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Internal Revenue Service's screening of groups seeking tax-exempt status was broader and lasted longer than has been previously disclosed, the new head of the agency acknowledged Monday. Terms including "Israel," ''Progressive" and "Occupy" were used by agency workers to help pick groups for closer examination, according to an internal IRS document obtained by The Associated Press.
The IRS has been under fire since last month after admitting it targeted tea party and other conservative groups that wanted the tax-exempt designation for tough examinations. While investigators have said that agency screening for those groups had stopped in May 2012, Monday's revelations made it clear that screening for other kinds of organizations continued until earlier this month, when the agency's new chief, Danny Werfel, says he discovered it and ordered it halted.
The IRS document said an investigation into why specific terms were included was still underway. It blamed the continued use of inappropriate criteria by screeners on "a lapse in judgment" by the agency's former top officials. The document did not name the officials, but many top leaders have been replaced.
In a conference call with reporters, Werfel said that after becoming acting IRS chief last month, he discovered varied and improper terms on the lists and said screeners were still using them. He did not specify what terms were on the lists, but said he suspended the use of all such lists immediately.
"There was a wide-ranging set of categories and cases that spanned a broad spectrum" on the lists, Werfel said. He added that his aides found those lists contained "inappropriate criteria that was in use."
Werfel ordered a halt in the use of spreadsheets listing the terms ? called BOLO lists for "be on the lookout for? on June 12 and formalized their suspension with a June 20 written order, according to the IRS document the AP obtained. Investigators have previously said that the lists evolved over time as screeners found new names and phrases to help them identify groups to examine.
Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee released one of the lists, dated November 2010, that the IRS has provided to congressional investigators. That 16-page document shows that the terms "Progressive" and "Tea Party" were both on that list, as well as "Medical Marijuana" and "Healthcare legislation."
Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, top Democrat on the Ways and Means panel, said he was writing a letter to J. Russell George, the Treasury Department inspector general whose audit in May detailed IRS targeting of conservatives, asking why his report did not mention other groups that were targeted.
"The audit served as the basis and impetus for a wide range of congressional investigations and this new information shows that the foundation of those investigations is flawed in a fundamental way," Levin said.
George's report criticized the IRS for using "inappropriate criteria" to identify tea party and other conservative groups. It did not mention more liberal organizations, but in response to questions from lawmakers at congressional hearings, George said he had recently found other lists that raised concerns about other "political factors" he did not specify.
Democratic staff on Ways and Means said in a press release that they had verified that of the 298 groups seeking tax-exempt status that George's audit had examined, some were liberal organizations ? something George's report did not mention.
Many organizations seeking tax-exempt designation were applying for so-called 501(c)(4) status, named for its section of the federal revenue code. IRS regulations allow that status for groups mostly involved in "social welfare" and that don't engage in election campaigns for or against candidates as their "primary" activity, and it is up to the IRS to judge whether applicants meet those vaguely defined requirements.
Werfel's remarks came as he released an 83-page examination he has conducted of his embattled agency. The conclusions, which Werfel cautioned are preliminary, have so far found there was "insufficient action" by IRS managers to prevent and disclose the problem involving the screening of certain groups, but no specific clues of misconduct.
"We have not found evidence of intentional wrongdoing by anyone in the IRS or involvement in these matters by anyone outside the IRS," he told reporters.
The report found no indication so far of improper screening beyond the IRS offices, mostly in Cincinnati, that examine groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Werfel's report describes several new procedures the agency is installing to prevent unfair treatment of taxpayers in the future. They include a fast-track process for groups seeking tax-exempt status that have yet to get a response from the IRS within 120 days of applying. He is also creating an Accountability Review Board, which within 60 days is supposed to recommend any additional personnel moves "to hold accountable those responsible" for the targeting of conservative groups, a Treasury Department fact sheet on Werfel's report.
The top five people in the agency responsible for the tax-exempt status of organizations have already been removed, including the former acting commissioner, Steven Miller, whom President Barack Obama replaced with Werfel.
"The IRS is committed to correcting its mistakes, holding individuals accountable as appropriate" and establishing new controls to reduce potential future problems, Werfel told reporters.
IRS screening of conservative groups had sparked investigations by three congressional committees, the Justice Department and a Treasury Department inspector general.
Werfel's comments and report drew negative reviews from one of the IRS's chief critics in Congress, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Issa said the review "fails to meaningfully answer the largest outstanding questions about inappropriate inquiries and indefensible delays. As investigations by Congress and the Justice Department are still ongoing, Mr. Werfel's assertion that he has found no evidence that anyone at IRS intentionally did anything wrong can only be called premature."
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., whose panel is also investigating the agency, said the IRS "still needs to provide clear answers to the most significant questions ? who started this practice, why was it allowed to continue for so long, and how widespread was it? This culture of political discrimination and intimidation goes far beyond basic management failure and personnel changes alone won't fix a broken IRS."
Werfel had promised to produce a report within a month of taking over the agency.
Werfel said he briefed Obama and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew on the report earlier Monday.
Werfel, initially named the IRS's acting commissioner, is now the agency's deputy principal commissioner because federal law limits the time an agency can be led by an acting official.
___
Associated Press writers Stephen Ohlemacher and Henry C. Jackson contributed to this report.
AAA??Jun. 23, 2013?1:09 PM ET WikiLeaks: Snowden going to Ecuador to seek asylum By LYNN BERRY and KELVIN CHANBy LYNN BERRY and KELVIN CHAN, Associated Press??
A TV screen shows a news report of Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, at a shopping mall in Hong Kong Sunday, June 23, 2013. The former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing two highly classified surveillance programs has been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the territory's government said Sunday. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
A TV screen shows a news report of Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, at a shopping mall in Hong Kong Sunday, June 23, 2013. The former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing two highly classified surveillance programs has been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the territory's government said Sunday. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
FILE - In this June 21, 2013 file photo, a banner supporting Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, is displayed at Central, Hong Kong's business district. The Hong Kong government says Snowden wanted by the U.S. for revealing two highly classified surveillance programs has left for a "third country." The South China Morning Post reported Sunday, June 23, 2013 that Snowden was on a plane for Moscow, but that Russia was not his final destination. Snowden has talked of seeking asylum in Iceland. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
A TV screen shows a news report of Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, at a shopping mall in Hong Kong Sunday, June 23, 2013. The former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing two highly classified surveillance programs has been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the territory's government said Sunday. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
A TV screen shows a news report of Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, at a shopping mall in Hong Kong Sunday, June 23, 2013. The former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing two highly classified surveillance programs has been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the territory's government said Sunday. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
A TV screen shows a news report of Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, at a shopping mall in Hong Kong Sunday, June 23, 2013. The former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing two highly classified surveillance programs has been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the territory's government said Sunday. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
MOSCOW (AP) ? Anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks says a former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs is going to Ecuador to seek asylum.
The group said in a statement Sunday that Edward Snowden is "bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks."
Associated PressNews Topics: General news, Government and politics, Government surveillance, Domestic spying, Intelligence agencies, National security, Political issues, Human rights and civil liberties, Social issues, Social affairs, Military and defense
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Two voice identification experts who suggested that unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin screamed for help before he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman will not be allowed to testify at his murder trial, the judge in the case has ruled.
The ruling by Judge Debra Nelson was released on Saturday, marking the last major hurdle before opening statements in the high-profile case begin on Monday in Seminole County courthouse in Sanford, Florida.
Prosecutors had sought to call audio experts to testify about a 911 emergency call in which screams for help can be heard in the background during an altercation between Zimmerman and Martin before the shooting.
The screams could be pivotal evidence and help identify who was the aggressor on the night of the February 2012 killing. Zimmerman's family and supporters claim the voice was his, while Martin's parents insist the voice belonged to their son.
Last year, an FBI expert said a voice analysis of the call was inconclusive.
David Weinstein, a Miami lawyer and former prosecutor, called the ruling a victory for Zimmerman's defense team.
"Now there won't be a witness who can 'identify' the voice with certainty as a particular person," he said. "Each side can argue who they believe the voice belongs to and the jurors will have to decide who they hear."
Prosecutors say Zimmerman followed and confronted Martin despite a police dispatcher telling him not to pursue the 17-year-old. Zimmerman, 29, has said the two fought and that he shot Martin because he feared for his life.
An all-female jury will decide whether Zimmerman is guilty of second-degree murder, a charge that carries a potential life sentence. Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty.
Nelson said in her 12-page order that the decision does not prevent either side from playing the 911 tape and presenting witnesses familiar with Zimmerman's and Martin's voices from stating their opinions.
Lead defense attorney Mark O'Mara has called the recording "the most significant piece of evidence in the case."
Two state experts, in what they qualify as tentative or probable findings because of the poor quality of the recording, have said that the chilling screams heard in the background came from Martin.
Lawyers for Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, sought to block the testimony on grounds that the methods used by the state's voice recognition experts were based on questionable science.
Audio experts who testified for the defense in a lengthy pre-trial hearing argued that voice recognition techniques cannot identify an individual from screams made under extreme duress.
On Friday, the judge also dismissed a defense motion to bar certain words and phrases from the prosecution's opening statement.
She ruled prosecutors could allege that Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, "profiled" Martin but ordered them not to use the term "racial profiling."
(Additional reporting by David Adams; Writing by Kevin Gray; Editing by Eric Beech and Eric Walsh)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Admitted leaker Edward Snowden circled the globe in evasion of U.S. authorities on Sunday, seeking asylum in Ecuador and leaving the Obama administration scrambling to determine its next step in what became a game of diplomatic cat-and-mouse.
The former National Security Agency contractor and CIA technician fled Hong Kong and arrived at the Moscow airport, where he planned to spend the night before boarding an Aeroflot flight to Cuba. Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said his government received an asylum request from Snowden, and the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said they would help him.
"He goes to the very countries that have, at best, very tense relationships with the United States and do not value press freedoms whatsoever," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., adding that she feared Snowden would trade more U.S. secrets for asylum.
"This is not going to play out well for the national security interests of the United States," she added.
The move left the U.S. with limited options as Snowden's itinerary took him on a tour of what many see as anti-American capitals. Ecuador in particular has rejected the United States' previous efforts at cooperation, and has been helping WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, avoid prosecution by allowing him to stay at its embassy in London.
Snowden helped The Guardian and The Washington Post disclose U.S. surveillance programs that collects vast amounts of phone records and online data in the name of foreign intelligence, but often sweeping up information on American citizens. Officials have the ability to collect phone and Internet information broadly but need a warrant to examine specific cases where they believe terrorism is involved.
Snowden has been in hiding for several weeks in Hong Kong, a former British colony with a high degree of autonomy from mainland China. The United States formally sought Snowden's extradition from Hong Kong but was rebuffed; Hong Kong officials said the U.S. request did not fully comply with their laws.
In a statement, the Justice Department said it would "continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel."
A State Department official said the United States was in touch through diplomatic and law enforcement channels with countries that Snowden could travel through or to, reminding them that Snowden is wanted on criminal charges and reiterating Washington's position that Snowden should only be permitted to travel back to the U.S.
The White House would only say that President Barack Obama had been briefed on the developments by his national security advisers.
Russia's state ITAR-Tass news agency and Interfax cited an unnamed Aeroflot airline official as saying Snowden was on the plane that landed Sunday afternoon in Moscow. The report said he intended to fly to Cuba on Monday and then on to Caracas, Venezuela.
U.S. lawmakers scoffed, and warned that all countries helping Snowden to evade trial were hurting their relationship with the U.S.
"The freedom trail is not exactly China-Russia-Cuba-Venezuela, so I hope we'll chase him to the ends of the earth, bring him to justice and let the Russians know there'll be consequences if they harbor this guy," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Upon his arrival, Snowden did not leave Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. One explanation could be that he wasn't allowed; a U.S. official said Snowden's passport had been revoked, and that special permission from Russian authorities would have been needed.
"It's almost hopeless unless we find some ways to lean on them," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.
With each suspected flight, efforts to secure Snowden's return to the United States appeared more complicated if not impossible. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, but does with Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador. Even with an extradition agreement though, any country could give Snowden a political exemption.
"As we have seen of late, I think 10 percent of Snowden's issues are now legal, and 90 percent political," said Douglas McNabb, an expert in international extradition and a senior principle at international criminal defense firm McNabb Associates.
The likelihood that any of these countries would stop Snowden from traveling on to Ecuador seemed unlikely. While diplomatic tensions have thawed in recent years, Cuba and the United States are hardly allies after a half century of distrust.
Venezuela, too, could prove difficult. Former President Hugo Chavez was a sworn enemy of the United States and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, earlier this year called Obama "grand chief of devils." The two countries do not exchange ambassadors.
U.S. pressure on Caracas also might be problematic given its energy exports. The U.S. Energy Information Agency reports Venezuela sent the United States 900,000 barrels of crude oil each day in 2012, making it the fourth-largest foreign source of U.S. oil.
Assange's lawyer, Michael Ratner, said Snowden's options aren't numerous though.
"You have to have a country that's going to stand up to the United States," Ratner said. "You're not talking about a huge range of countries here."
That is perhaps why Snowden first stopped in Russia, a nation with complicated relations with Washington. U.S. lawmakers warned those relations would grow more perilous if Moscow does not cooperate.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is "aiding and abetting Snowden's escape," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
"Allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways, and Putin always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States," Schumer said. "That's not how allies should treat one another, and I think it will have serious consequences for the United States-Russia relationship."
It also wasn't clear Snowden was finished with disclosing highly classified information.
"I am very worried about what else he has," said Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a California Democrat who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she had been told Snowden had perhaps more than 200 sensitive documents.
Ros-Lehtinen and King spoke with CNN. Graham spoke to "Fox News Sunday." Schumer was on CNN's "State of the Union." Sanchez appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press." Feinstein was on CBS' "Face the Nation."
___
Associated Press White House Correspondent Julie Pace and Associated Press writers Matthew V. Lee and Frederic J. Frommer in Washington, Lynn Berry in Moscow, Kevin Chan in Hong Kong and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.
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Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philip_elliott
LG and Qualcomm tonight announced that the follow-up to 2012's LG Optimus G flagship smartphone will use the Snapdragon 800 processor. The as-yet unnamed phone (it's not been publicly announced, anyway) is expected to be announced later this year.
The continued partnership isn't unexpected -- the original Optimus G was one of the first out of the gate with the Snapdragon S4 Pro. The Snapdragon 800 promises a 75 percent performance increase over that system, sporting the Krait 400 CPU and Adreno 330 GPU, LTE Advanced capability and Ultra HD video capture, playback and display.
In this image provided by NBC Blake Shelton, Danielle Bradbery and Cher, right, pose after Bradbery won season-four of "The Voice" Tuesday June 18, 2013. Bradbery never had a big singing gig or a vocal lesson. It's also the third win for her coach Blake Shelton. (AP Photo/NBC, Trae Patton)
In this image provided by NBC Blake Shelton, Danielle Bradbery and Cher, right, pose after Bradbery won season-four of "The Voice" Tuesday June 18, 2013. Bradbery never had a big singing gig or a vocal lesson. It's also the third win for her coach Blake Shelton. (AP Photo/NBC, Trae Patton)
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. (AP) ? Cher is no stranger to tabloid fodder.
The 67-year-old singer who has spent most of her life in the spotlight offered this advice to young artists on navigating the world of paparazzi attention: "You're screwed. That's my advice."
"You don't deal with it. You just try to get a place where no one can find you and that's your little sanctuary," continued the "Believe" singer in an interview Tuesday. "I have a fabulous house that I love and it's my sanctuary."
Looking ever the rock star in leather and studs, Cher took the stage Tuesday for the season finale of NBC's "The Voice." She performed "Woman's World," the first single off her upcoming album of the same name ? her 26th album since she began recording in the 1960s.
Cher said reality singing competitions are simply a modern incarnation of classic star-makers like "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts."
"It's just another vehicle, you know what I mean? Talent is talent," she said on the red carpet following the finale which crowned 16-year-old country singer Danielle Bradbery the winner.
The young powerhouse from Blake Shelton's team beat out indie rocker Michelle Chamuel and country duo the Swon Brothers for the season four title.
Though Cher has topped the Billboard pop charts throughout the last six decades, she credits luck, not necessarily talent, for her incredible staying power.
"If you have an idea, you tell me because I haven't got a clue," she said of her secret to career longevity. "I believe that luck has a lot to do with it. There are lots of people who are more talented or whatever, but somehow this has been my path. So this is what I'm doing."
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Follow Nicole Evatt at http://twitter.com/NicoleEvatt
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It's really hard to measure tyranny. There's a lot of room between a libertarian sea-steading utopia and the totalitarian dystopia of North Korea. But it's tough for pundits to decide just where to draw the line, especially when confronted with a menu of issues that includes NSA data gathering, IRS targeting of conservative groups, and Justice Department subpoenas of reporters email.?To help you keep up with where everyone stands on tyranny, we've put together this helpful diagram.?
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We've collected the various analyses of Obama's controversies into this handy chart, showing which people find which stories to show true tyranny. For the IRS story, we only included pundits who thought there was reason to believe the IRS was acting on White House orders. The pundits are: Kirsten Powers, David Brooks, Joe Klein, Jennifer Rubin, Karl Rove, Glenn Greenwald, Bill O'Reilly, Megyn Kelly, John Bolton,?The Wall Street Journal?editorial page, George Will, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Maureen Dowd, Bill Kristol, and Ann Coulter.
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It is tough to find consistencies. Lots of people are coming to the conclusion that President Obama has become a Stalinist crusher of hope, but they can't agree on exactly why. Some, like Limbaugh, see all these scandals ? plus Fast and Furious and Obamacare ? as mounting evidence for his long-held conclusion that Obama is a power-mad tyrant. that show Obama is leading a "coup d'etat"?against...?someone.?
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But then there's people like?Time's Joe Klein.?On May 14, he wrote that he was troubled by the Justice Department's subpoenaing of Associated Press phone records, and the emails of Fox News reporter James Rosen, as part of a national security leak investigation. Klein said:
Apparently, what has happened in this case, is that the Justice Department short-circuited prior practices, received secret subpoena authority (from the FISA court?) and covertly went after the information that it had requested in the past. That seems to be a substantial rewriting of the rules, a significant truncation of First Amendment rights.
On Monday, Klein wrote of the NSA's PRISM program, and its collection of phone call metadata under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. These have been subject to the very same critiques ? that the government's legal justification has been made in secret, and has evolved to be more broad over time, and that it has swept up far more information. And yet Klein writes that this is a "civil liberties freakout":
Yes, I expect that some of my phone and email traffic has been picked up in the data trawling. I travel fairly frequently to places like Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, the West Bank... I have no problem with the government knowing that I?m doing my job.
Klein initially said the IRS showed Obama was "on the same page as Nixon." But he walked that criticism back, saying that in Nixon's case, "depredations came from the White House," while in Obama's case, they "percolated from the middle." So there's only one count on the Obama tyrant indictment in Klein's book.
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The same could be said for?USA Today columnist and Fox News commentator Kirsten Powers. Powers was appalled by the Justice Department's pursuit of Rosen and the AP.?"They've created all kinds of legal theories to justify what they have done," Kirsten Powers said on Fox News on May 20. But last week, Powers did not see?those elements in the NSA program. She explained,?"I didn?t have a problem with it under Bush, and I don?t have a problem with it now, as long as it is done through the FISA court..."
Then, as New York's Jonathan Chait writes,?you have conservatives like Karl Rove and?The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, who see the IRS targeting as evidence of Obama's mericless pursuit of political enemies, but the NSA program as perfectly reasonable. "I would be very cautious about lumping what the administration has done on these other instances, the IRS, the AP, James Rosen and Benghazi, with this, which is not being directed out of the White House," Rove said.?Last weekend,?Kristol agreed on?Fox News Sunday, "Conservatives and Republicans are making a huge mistake" to compare the NSA with the IRS, because the NSA gets more oversight ? even if it's secret -- than the IRS did. "[NSA agents are] not allowed to go into that data until they have a warrant signed off on by a judge. That is totally different from the IRS abuses, which I think are very serious, and I think it?s very important for conservatives and Republicans to make that distinction."?The Wall Street Journal's editorial page holds the same position:
The NSA is collecting less information than appears on a monthly phone bill (no names), but Americans would worry less about the government spying on them if, for example, the Justice Department wasn't secretly spying on the Associated Press and Fox News. Or if the IRS wasn't targeting White House critics.
At The New Republic, Robert Chesney and Benjamin Wittes write that while the NSA's PRISM program is not surprising or unsettling ? it's expected that the government will spy indiscriminately on other countries ? the phone metadata program is. The phone story shows "something significantly new concerning a claimed authority about which the public was not previously informed." They say, "it is surprising to learn both that the government thinks it already has this authority under Section 215, and still more so that the FISA Court agrees and that members of Congress know this as well."
Fox News' Bill O'Reilly has the opposite interpretation of the NSA's two programs. Collecting?the phone call metadata is "permissible under the Constitution," he declared, but as for PRISM,?"it's unconstitutional if the content of your private emails is being stored by the government." Tying the IRS, the DOJ, and the NSA all together,?O'Reilly concluded,?"the federal government is out of control," thanks to "President Obama's management style."
The Washington Post's George Will has scoffed at the idea that the White House didn't direct the IRS to attack its enemies, comparing that scandal to Watergate in May, and then rounded up all the scandals as an indictment of Obama's "big government."?On Sunday, Will argued, "This is where the IRS scandal metastasizes into a national security scandal? I?m sure I?m not the only American saying ? looking at the NSA information gathering and saying, 'Well, this would really be a problem if we had the kind of government that, say, unleashes the IRS on political opponents. Oh, come to think about it, we do have that kind of government.'"
It's a terribly confusing time to be in the tyranny labeling business.
Courteney Cox is dating her co-star Brian Van Holt, who is the man her now ex-husband, David Arquette, accused her of having an “emotional affair” with when they split. The 49-year-old beauty, whose divorce was recently finalized to Arquette, has finally gone public with her new love. Cox and Arquette split in 2010 and their ...
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Public release date: 25-Jun-2013
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