Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen quite a few leaks and teasers about the Galaxy S6, some coming from Samsung itself. With MWC 2015 so close, however, even mobile carriers are jumping on the train. T-Mobile has just put up its pre-release email registration page and, while that act itself is nothing newsworthy, the carrier is throwing in a teaser our way as well. … Continue reading

Apple has just announced that it is to invest €1.7 billion in two new “state-of-the-art” data centres for Europe, located in Ireland and Denmark.

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For those plagued with peanut allergies, protection may eventually come in the form of a patch worn on the skin, a new study suggests.

Over the objections of Wall Street and some financial regulators, the White House announced Monday that it plans to move ahead with a new rule that will hold investment brokers to a higher standard, requiring by law that they act in the best interests of their clients.

The so-called fiduciary duty rule would prevent certain brokers from considering their own profits when they steer clients into particular investments, likely cutting into the fees those brokers receive when they advise clients on 401(k)s and other retirement accounts. White House officials said on a conference call with reporters that in the coming months, the Labor Department will release a proposed rule that lays out the full details of the plan.

Jason Furman, chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, said on the conference call that the “economic theory” behind the proposal is “very clear.”

“When you have a broker who has their compensation directly tied to the advice they’re giving to a person — often with that person not knowing that that’s the case — they’re going to … have a big incentive to steer people [to products] that aren’t necessarily in the best interest of the client but offer them the greatest compensation,” Furman said.

A version of the rule was first rolled out in 2010 but was later tabled, thanks to heavy lobbying by the financial industry. Consumer advocates and backers of stricter Wall Street regulation have since been calling on the White House to press ahead with reform.

Under pension law, a pension plan’s trustees and administrators are considered fiduciaries — that is, they are bound to act in retirees’ and future retirees’ best interests. The same rules do not apply to the brokers who advise people on 401(k)s.

As pensions vanish from the U.S. economy, the typical worker is relying more and more on a 401(k) plan for retirement. Those who support applying a fiduciary standard to retirement accounts argue that the change would prevent brokers from advocating for plans based on the fees going to their firms. Any money that goes toward such fees, these supporters note, is money not growing in the retirement account through compound interest over the years.

The White House said its research shows that, on average, hidden fees lead to one percentage point less in annual returns on a retirement plan.

The financial industry is concerned that in addition to trimming broker pay, the rule will also limit the financial products available to consumers. The industry has found some support for its opposition at the Securities and Exchange Commission, a regulatory body generally more aligned with Wall Street than the Labor Department.

Labor Secretary Tom Perez said on the call that he and other officials met with “just about everyone I can think of” to invite feedback on the proposal. Perez also said the rule will go through a public comment period before being enacted.

“If you have a serious illness, you don’t want your doctor telling you what’s suitable for you — you want him telling you what’s best for you,” Perez said in explaining the rationale behind the rule. “This potential for conflict of interest … isn’t right. Consumers deserve to know their advisor is working for them.”

A few judges are still refusing to see gay and lesbian couples in Alabama. Texas has had its first lesbian marriage, and now state officials are scrambling to find a way to undo it. And some major national anti-gay figures are preparing to release a new manifesto to stop the freedom to marry.

Almost every county in Alabama is issuing marriage licenses now, but incredibly, a handful judges are still defying the federal ruling. Depending on who you ask, as of last week, there were about fifty counties finally complying with the order to let gays and lesbians marry. That leaves around seventeen where you still can’t get a license.

A few have stopped marriages altogether, but most of the remaining counties are only turning away gays and lesbians. Judge Nick Williams in Washington County said “I’m not worried about following the U.S. Constitution,” which he probably should have mentioned before being sworn in as a judge.

Meanwhile, Judge Roy Moore, the Supreme Court Justice who started all this trouble, may be in some trouble of his own now. Moore told state judges that he wouldn’t allow them to issue licenses, but he really can’t do that. The Human Rights Campaign has gathered nearly 30,000 signatures calling for an investigation into whether Moore should be removed from office.

Moore’s been down this road before. In 2003 the Court of the Judiciary kicked him out of office for making up his own rules about a Ten Commandments statue. But even if he’s removed for a second time, we might not have heard the last of him. Ordinarily, Moore couldn’t ren for office again because he’s about to pass an age limit. But a Republican Senator has introduced a new bill to raise the limit, so Moore could run for re-election again in 2018.

There is one married lesbian couple in Texas right now. Probably. Last week a judge allowed Sarah Goodfriend and Suzanne Bryant to obtain a marriage license, citing urgency after Sarah was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The ruling applies only to this one couple. And according to state officials, that’s still one couple too many.

Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton all want to take the license away from the cancer-stricken couple of 31 years who are raising two children. Paxton has declared that the is license void, and the couple is not actually married. But can he actually do that? That’s murky. He can try. Attorneys General have a lot of legal authority, but it’s kind of unheard of to step in and un-marry a couple, particularly after a judge ordered them married.

The common thread between Roy Moore’s actions and Texas’ is that they’re pretty desperate. People who oppose marriage equality are running out of options, which is why you’re seeing last-ditch attempts to do something, anything. And they might delay marriage for a bit, or force you to take a bus to the next county, or issue threats to a family facing a terminal illness. But at this point they know they’re not going to win.

And yet still they’re trying. Last week Kansas Rep Tim Huelskamp introduced a federal constitutional marriage ban in Congress. They tried this over a decade ago and it went nowhere. It’s going to go less than nowhere this time.

But according to reports, there’s a group of national anti-gay leaders working on a new proclamation to stop marriage equality. The title is “Reclaiming Marriage,” and they’ll probably release it in March. The people who have seen a copy have called it a sweeping manifesto, signed by the very people you’d expect. But even this sweeping manifesto will probably be pretty weak. The only call to action is “careful discernment” over the coming years. And even that is expecting a lot of these people.