Do you ever get the feeling that there just isn’t enough stuff to watch on Netflix? You’re going through the catalog every night and the same movies keep popping up. That’s why we should all sign up for the fake NSA Flix. Official Comedy imagined a streaming service that holds all the information the NSA digs up on us.
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The retired Space Shuttle Atlantis on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
(Credit: collectSpace.com/Robert Perlman)
After 33 missions into space over a 30-year career, NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis has found a permanent base close to home. The shuttle is part of a new $100 million visitor center exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex which will immerse visitors in the experience of space travel.
The exhibit opens June 29 and will weave first-hand accounts from astronauts and flight engineers, along with the history of NASA, into 60 interactive displays. The displays will touch on everything from launches and orbits to how a space station is assembled.
But the centerpiece of the exhibit is Atlantis. Visitors will able to get an up-close, 360-degree view of one of the world’s first reusable spacecraft. Robert Z. Pearlman of collectSpace.com recently toured the exhibit during a preview of the grand opening this week.
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The Senate is expected to easily pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill this week, but it’s still unclear whether sponsors will receive the 70 votes they’re anticipating.
Below is The Huffington Post’s assessment of each senator’s position, based on public statements and their stance on a border amendment that went for a preliminary vote on Monday. Senators are divided based on likely “yes” votes and likely “no” votes — not all of them firmly committed — and those considered potentially up for grabs.
The list is subject to change and will be updated as more senators reveal their positions.
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Adding satellite WiFi to an airplane isn’t as simple as mounting an antenna up top and flipping the switch on a router — even installing a cockpit printer requires FAA approval, so as you can expect, the Federal Aviation Administration won’t check off on major modifications without some thorough testing. JetBlue’s new Fly-Fi service is well on its way to getting a formal green light, though, and is expected to launch before Q3 is through. This week, the carrier is running through a variety of flight tests with one of its Airbus A320s, including maneuvering the plane with some pretty unusual weight loads, such as the rear center of gravity positioning you can see demonstrated above. After that’s complete, it’s time to wait for FAA certification before moving onto performance testing, and if all goes well, passengers should expect to hook up to ViaSat-1 from 30,000 feet in mere months. Once Fly-Fi goes online, it’ll be by far the fastest commercial in-flight WiFi option — we really can’t wait!
Filed under: Transportation, Wireless, Internet
(Adds quote from family member, details on disgraced FBI agent)
By Scott Malone
BOSTON, June 25 (Reuters) – Reputed mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger’s lawyers questioned the accuracy of a key piece of evidence in his murder and racketeering trial on Tuesday, seeking to cast doubt on the 700-page informant file that a now-disgraced FBI agent had kept on him.
The attorneys pointed out several times that the agent, John Connolly, is in prison after being convicted on racketeering and murder charges in 2009, and that a federal investigation found that Connolly had falsified some of his reports.
The reports were part of a file that the FBI developed through the 1970s and ’80s when Bulger is accused of murdering or ordering the murder of 19 people.
Prosecution witnesses this week told jurors about meetings during which Bulger had provided tips on gangland rivals to his Federal Bureau of Investigation handlers, including Connolly.
But Bulger, 83, has heatedly denied serving as an informant.
The defendant, whose story had inspired Martin Scorsese’s 2006 Academy Award-winning film “The Departed,” has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted.
On Tuesday, Bulger’s attorneys cross-examined FBI Special Agent James Marra, who headed the Justice Department probe that lead to Connolly’s conviction on murder and racketeering charges.
“Can you confirm firsthand that (Bulger) gave any of that information?” Henry Brennan, of the Boston law firm Carney & Bassil, asked Marra.
“Firsthand? No,” the agent replied.
Brennan later asked if the federal government went out of its way to protect informants, getting Marra to admit that “it was clear to me that John Connolly was protecting them.”
Marra acknowledged that agents such as Connolly received financial incentives from the FBI to develop high-level informants such as Bulger.
“I don’t know if it was an enormous incentive, but the agents were encouraged to cultivate informants,” Marra said.
Bulger’s attorneys have argued that Connolly made up at least some of the information in Bulger’s file to justify his frequent meetings with the gangster.
Connolly’s former boss, John Morris, is due to take the stand as soon as Wednesday.
Jurors also heard on Tuesday how Connolly had set up alerts in U.S. Justice Department computer systems that ensured he was tipped off whenever another law enforcement agent ran a background check on Bulger.
‘RATTING PEOPLE OUT’
The families of some of Bulger’s victims said they were not buying the argument that he had not worked with the FBI.
“He was obviously an informant, he’s been ratting people out left and right, even his own colleagues,” said Tom Donahue, son of Michael Donahue, one of the people Bulger is accused of killing. “That wasn’t even a question of mine.”
Cooperating with the FBI was enough of a breach of mob ethics that prosecutors contend it was the motivation behind several of Bulger’s murders, but this was not uncommon – as the testimony of some of Bulger’s former associates in the past two weeks showed.
Prosecutors say Connolly, who shared Bulger’s Irish background, turned a blind eye to Bulger’s crimes in exchange for information on the Italian Mafia, which was the top priority of the Justice Department at the time.
Prosecutors also scoff at the idea that Bulger was not an informant, noting that he met with several other FBI agents and supervisors in addition to Connolly.
In an exchange before jurors were brought into the courtroom on Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kelly accused Bulger’s defense of wanting to “play the game of ‘Let’s pretend. Let’s pretend he wasn’t an informant.'”
Bulger’s story has fascinated Boston for decades. He was one of two brothers to rise from gritty South Boston to positions of power. James was a feared gangster, while his brother William was the powerful speaker of the state Senate.
“Whitey” Bulger fled the city after a 1994 tip from Connolly that arrest was imminent. He spent 16 years evading arrest, many of them on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list, before authorities caught up with him in a seaside apartment in Santa Monica, California, a little more than two years ago.
(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Douglas Royalty and Richard Chang)
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Patent trolls are like the obnoxious cousins of domain squatters, their confrontational methods being inversely proportional to the passive coat tail riding of those who take advantage of popular URLs. The scheming of the patent troll is simple: buy up a patent portfolio or two, then start tossing around lawsuits in an effort to make
Speaking at Georgetown University on Tuesday afternoon, President Barak Obama outlined a highly anticipated and somewhat variegated collection of new and expanded initiatives aimed at curbing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and addressing global warming — from tougher fuel-economy rules for vehicles and expanded use of renewable energy, to improved efficiency requirements for both buildings and household appliances.
But perhaps the most historic — and almost certainly the most contentious of the president’s proposals — involved new greenhouse gas emissions limits for the nation’s existing fleet of power plants. In the absence of congressional action on climate change, and using his existing authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the federal Clean Air Act, Obama said he would call on the Environmental Protection Agency to develop new rules that would curb carbon dioxide emissions from the hundreds of operating coal and gas-fired electricity generators around the country.
The call for emissions limits on existing power plants comes on the heels of tougher standards being developed by the EPA for the construction of new plants, first proposed during Obama’s first term. The administration aims to have the rules for new plants in place later this year. Emissions limits for the existing fleet may be proposed by June 2014, with a goal of finalizing them by 2015.
By Caren Bohan
WASHINGTON, June 25 (Reuters) – Republican Senator Marco Rubio, shifting his tone on the U.S. immigration bill he helped to write, said on Tuesday he is now fully satisfied that the measure will do what it takes to secure the southern border with Mexico.
Rubio, a potential presidential contender and the most high-profile Republican backer of immigration reform, had irked supporters of the sweeping Senate immigration bill with public comments in which he consistently said the legislation was not tough enough on border enforcement.
The Florida lawmaker was part of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators that in April unveiled the bill that would provide a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants while beefing up border security and creating new guest worker programs for high- and low-skilled workers.
The Senate measure appears headed for passage this week, with supporters expecting a strong showing of around 70 votes in favor of it. An amendment on border security crafted by a small group of Republicans has helped to persuade several in the party to give their backing to the bill.
At a cost of $46 billion, the amendment would double the number of agents on the southern border to about 40,000 and provide more high-tech surveillance equipment.
“This amendment basically now puts into place virtually everything people have been asking me to do about immigration enforcement since I began talking about this issue,” Rubio told a convention of the American Society of News Editors. “I think we’ve run out of things we can to do to support – to improve the border.”
In a series of television and radio interviews over the past two months, Rubio had said he did not think the bill could get a sufficient number of Republican votes needed for passage without stronger border language and that his own vote depended on such changes.
Alex Conant, a spokesman for Rubio, said that while the senator is now satisfied with the border language in the bill, he would still like to see votes on some other changes, including an amendment under discussion that would further bolster the system employers use to verify workers’ legal status.
Passage of the immigration bill in the Democratic-led Senate would send the measure to the Republican-dominated House of Representatives where it faces a much tougher sell. Many conservatives have denounced the plans to give legal status to the undocumented as “amnesty.”
Asked about House Speaker John Boehner’s strategy for handling the immigration issue in that chamber, Rubio said it is up to House lawmakers to determine the course they want to take.
But he added: “I think we have a good piece of legislation they should take a look at. There are a lot of good ideas that they should adopt.”
Speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill, Senator Lindsey Graham, another Republican member of the Gang of Eight, urged the House to “give us their version” of an immigration bill so that the two chambers can work on a compromise.
“If they don’t agree with the bill, that’s fine, but not having a solution on the table I think is unacceptable for the Republican-controlled House,” the South Carolina senator said.
At the news editors event, Rubio, who is often mentioned as a potential 2016 presidential contender, was asked if he was considering a run.
“I know that you’re not going to believe me when I tell you this. I really don’t think about that right now,” he said, adding that his decision would depend on many factors including what would be best for his family and whether he wants to run for another term in the Senate. (Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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Many say today’s Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act put this country back 100 years. Jacob Soboroff discusses with Elisabeth Macnamara, the President of the League of Women Voters, and Barbara Arnwine, President of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, who said that today’s ruling marks the rise of the “Neo-Confederacy.”
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How could anyone say “no” to this purr-fect proposal?
Ryan Bentley, a bank employee from North Carolina, proposed to his girlfriend of three years, Emily Beckett, by secretly adopting a kitten and outfitting it with a collar and heart-shaped tag engraved with the words, “Emily, Will You Marry Me?”, Black Mountain News reported Monday.
Beckett told HuffPost Weddings that Bentley surprised her with the kitten last month. Check out the adorable kitty below:
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