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October 31, 2007
Jury awards father $11M in funeral case
BALTIMORE - A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.Albert Snyder of York, Pa., sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.
The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.
Snyder's attorney, Craig Trebilcock, had urged jurors to determine an amount "that says don't do this in Maryland again. Do not bring your circus of hate to Maryland again."
Church members routinely picket funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, carrying signs such as "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags."
A number of states have passed laws regarding funeral protests, and Congress has passed a law prohibiting such protests at federal cemeteries. But the Maryland lawsuit is believed to be the first filed by the family of a fallen serviceman.
The church and three of its leaders — the Rev. Fred Phelps and his two daughters, Shirley Phelps-Roper and Rebecca Phelps-Davis, 46 — were found liable for invasion of privacy and intent to inflict emotional distress.
Even the size of the award for compensating damages "far exceeds the net worth of the defendants," according to financial statements filed with the court, U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett noted.
Snyder claimed the protests intruded upon what should have been a private ceremony and sullied his memory of the event.
The church members testified they are following their religious beliefs by spreading the message that soldiers are dying because the nation is too tolerant of homosexuality.
Their attorneys maintained in closing arguments Tuesday that the burial was a public event and that even abhorrent points of view are protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and religion.
Earlier, church members staged a demonstration outside the federal courthouse. Church founder Fred Phelps held a sign reading "God is your enemy," while Shirley Phelps-Roper stood on an American flag and carried a sign that read "God hates fag enablers." Members of the group sang "God Hates America" to the tune of "God Bless America."
Snyder sobbed when he heard the verdict, while members of the church greeted the news with tightlipped smiles.
Posted by Mike at 07:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 29, 2007
1 in 10 schools are 'dropout factories'
It's a nickname no principal could be proud of: "Dropout Factory," a high school where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year. That description fits more than one in 10 high schools across America.
"If you're born in a neighborhood or town where the only high school is one where graduation is not the norm, how is this living in the land of equal opportunity?" asks Bob Balfanz, the Johns Hopkins researcher who coined the term "dropout factory."There are about 1,700 regular or vocational high schools nationwide that fit that description, according to an analysis of Education Department data conducted by Johns Hopkins for The Associated Press. That's 12 percent of all such schools, about the same level as a decade ago.
While some of the missing students transferred, most dropped out, says Balfanz. The data look at senior classes for three years in a row to make sure local events like plant closures aren't to blame for the low retention rates.
The highest concentration of dropout factories is in large cities or high-poverty rural areas in the South and Southwest. Most have high proportions of minority students. These schools are tougher to turn around because their students face challenges well beyond the academic ones — the need to work as well as go to school, for example, or a need for social services.
Posted by Mike at 03:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 18, 2007
MySpace opens APIs
Following in the footsteps of Facebook, one of its toughest competitors, MySpace announced Wednesday plans to open its platform for developers to build applications on top of the popular social networking site.Facebook, which opened its API to developers in April, has seen 100,000 developers deliver 6,000 applications on the site since then.
Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and CEO of MySpace, announced during the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco Wednesday that within the next few months MySpace will be opening its platform to all developers.
"We are going to create a sandbox for two million beta users and our developers," DeWolfe said. "The idea there is to make sure the applications are safe and secure and pass a certain level of value to get on the site. We expect the majority of these applications will make it onto MySpace."
Posted by Mike at 07:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 12, 2007
Lead found in many brand-name lipsticks
More than half of lipsticks contain lead:
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Lipsticks tested by a U.S. consumer rights group found that more than half contained lead and some popular brands including Cover Girl, L'Oreal and Christian Dior had more lead than others, the group said on Thursday.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics said tests on 33 brand-name red lipsticks by the Bodycote Testing Group in Santa Fe Spring, California, found that 61 percent had detectable lead levels of 0.03 to 0.65 parts per million (ppm).Lipstick, like candy, is ingested. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a coalition of public health, environmental and women's groups, said the FDA has not set a limit for lead in lipstick.
One-third of the lipsticks tested contained an amount of lead that exceeded the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's 0.1 ppm limit for lead in candy -- a standard established to protect children from ingesting lead, the group said. Thirty-nine percent of the lipsticks tested had no discernible lead, it said.
"It's critical that manufacturers reformulate their product," said Stacy Malkan, a co-founder of the coalition. "It's possible to make lipsticks without lead, and all companies should be doing that."
Lead can cause learning, language and behavioral problems such as reduced school performance and increased aggression. Pregnant women and young children are particularly vulnerable to lead exposure, the group said in its statement. Lead has also been linked to infertility and miscarriage, it said.
Posted by Mike at 12:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 09, 2007
Men who wore masks and were dressed in black
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court today refused to give a hearing to a German man who says he was wrongly abducted, imprisoned and tortured by the CIA in a case of mistaken identity.Khaled Masri sued the CIA two years ago and sought damages for his five-month ordeal in a U.S.-run prison in Afghanistan.
But Bush administration prosecutors said his lawsuit should not be heard because it could expose "state secrets," and two lower courts ordered it dismissed.
He appealed to the Supreme Court and argued that the government was using the state secrets doctrine to cover up its wrongdoing.
Without explaining their reasons, the justices said today that they would not hear his appeal in Masri vs. United States.
More than 50 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that some evidence could be shielded by the government to protect the nation's security, but the justices have not clarified the reach of that doctrine.
Masri's case has gotten wide attention in Europe, and it has been the subject of a continuing investigation by the German government. Two years ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that U.S. officials admitted that Masri "had been erroneously taken."
The mistake apparently arose because his name was similar to that of a wanted terrorist, Khalid Masri, who was said to be a member of Al Qaeda's Hamburg cell.
Masri, a car salesman, was on vacation when he was taken off a bus that had crossed the border into Macedonia. His passport was confiscated, and he was questioned for more than three weeks.
In late January 2004, Masri said he was blindfolded, taken to the airport and turned over to U.S. authorities, who flew him to a prison in Afghanistan. He says he was beaten and tortured by men who wore masks and were dressed in black.
He also says U.S. authorities would not permit him to contact the German Consulate. After several months, the CIA apparently realized it had made a mistake, and Masri was returned to Europe. But rather than return him to his home in Germany, he was dropped off at night on a hillside in Albania.
Upon his return to Germany, he obtained a lawyer and filed the lawsuit against the United States.
Posted by Mike at 03:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 08, 2007
"Like shoppers to a fire sale"
You've heard of voo-doo economics. Now courtesy of George W. Bush we have fire sale economics. Say hello to shrinking GDP in real dollars.
The Federal Reserve's decision last month to cut interest rates by a larger- than-expected half-percent point sent the already-weakening greenback to an all- time record low against a basket of six major currencies. In the third quarter, the euro appreciated more than 5% against the dollar, most of the gains coming in September alone.Weakness in the dollar means prices of imported goods, particularly oil, will go up, raising the risk of inflation. American consumers will be paying more soon, with the looming threat of paying even more later on.
"The inflation risk from higher import prices will be the dominant initial effect," said Howard Chernick, an economics professor at Hunter College in New York. "The most immediate effect is imports denominated in dollars -- mainly oil. We already saw a spike in oil prices. So a bit down the line, that's 10 to 15 cents more per gallon of gas at the pump."
...Moreover, while the weakening dollar and inflation threat will deter some foreign investors, once the greenback stabilizes, bargain hunters will flock to U.S. assets like shoppers to a fire sale.
Cross-border transactions are already picking up pace in the financial sector, which was battered by this summer's credit crisis. A big factor is the surging Canadian dollar, which in September reached parity with its U.S. counterpart for the first time since 1976.
Posted by Mike at 11:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)