This week a diplomatic crisis hit the Middle East as several countries (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Maldives) cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorist groups. Now Qatar’s foreign ministry has issu…
Here we have a new 4G LTE-enabled Android 7.1 smartphone ‘Moto Z2 Play’ from Motorola. Adopting a 5.99mm ultra-slim aluminium unibody design, this mid-range smartphone packs a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 Full HD Super AMOLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection, a 2.2GHz octa-core Snapdragon 626 processor, an Adreno 506 GPU and a 4GB RAM with 64GB storage / 3GB RAM with 32GB storage, expandable memory up to 2TB with microSD.
Featuring single / dual SIM card slots, the handset has a 5MP front-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture and dual-tone LED flash, a 12MP rear-facing camera with f/1.7 aperture, Dual-Pixel Autofocus, Laser Autofocus, dual-tone LED flash and 4K video recording, a fingerprint sensor, an FM radio, a USB 3.1 Type-C port and a 3000mAh battery with Turbo charging.
Running on Android 7.1.1 Nougat OS, the Moto Z2 Play provides 4G VoLTE, dual-band WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2 LE, GPS and NFC for connectivity. The Motorola Moto Z2 Play will be available later this summer for a starting price of $499. [motorolaBlog]
The post Motorola Moto Z2 Play 4G LTE-Enabled Android 7.1 Smartphone appeared first on TechFresh, Consumer Electronics Guide.
Apple has introduced the all new 10.5-inch iPad Pro at the WWDC 2017. Coming in both WiFi only and WiFi + Cellular variants, the tablet boasts a 10.5-inch 2224 x 1668 Fully laminated True Tone Retina display (264 PPI), an A10X Fusion chip w/ 64-bit architecture and M10 coprocessor, and a 64GB/256GB/512GB of internal storage,
Furthermore, the tablet sports a 7MP HD front-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture and 1080p video recording, a 12MP iSight rear-facing camera with f/1.8 aperture, Optical Image Stabilization, True Tone Flash and 4K video recording, a Touch ID fingerprint sensor and Four Speaker Audio.
Running on iOS 11, the 10.5-inch iPad Pro provides 4G LTE (optional), dual-band WiFi 802.11ac, HT80 with MIMO, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS and GLONASS (only in WiFi + Cellular) for connectivity.
The new Apple 10.5-Inch iPad Pro will become available in the US next week for $649, $749 and $949 for the 64GB, 256GB and 512GB WiFi variants and $779, $879 and $1,079 for the WiFi + Cellular variants. [Product Page]
The post Apple 10.5-Inch iPad Pro With A10X Fusion Chip Introduced appeared first on TechFresh, Consumer Electronics Guide.
As expected, Apple has just jumped on the smart speaker arena that Google, Amazon, and, soon, Microsoft already occupy. And as expected, this has started rumors that Apple’s biggest frenemy will also be joining the fray. Samsung is now believed to be aiming for a piece of that pie, with patents pointing to potential smart speaker powered by Bixby no … Continue reading
As Sports Talk Radio broke the news of Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops’ retirement, speculation was rampant that he was in ill health, or was being relieved because of players behaving badly. They praised Stoops for winning the National Championship in 2000, and talked about how strong the team is looking for next year. They overlooked Stoops’ finest moment: leading his team to take a big stand against racism in 2015.
Back in 2015, a video surfaced that showed members of Oklahoma University’s chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) led a horribly racist chant on their bus, according to Alejandro Danois with Bleacher Report. It through the OU into the crisis, threatening to have the campus turn into so many others schools with racial strife, like the University of Missouri, Yale University, Emory University, etc.
Stoops responded with his players in a protest against the racism, according to Greg Couch with Bleacher Report. He and more than 100 of his teammates gathered at the statue of former OU Coach Barry Switzer. Ty Darlington, one of his players, led the group in a prayer, according to Graham Watson with Yahoo Sports. They were also joined by OU Basketball Coach Lon Kruger.
Others on campus joined in the protest. OU President David Boren also suspended the fraternity, had them move out, and began an investigation. It was the school’s finest hour under Bob Stoops.
This isn’t to say that Stoops wasn’t so great at winning the National Championship, which they captured against Florida State University in 2000, prevailing against the Seminoles 13-2. At the time, I was graduating from FSU (Class of 2000) with my doctorate, and badly wanted my team to repeat as #1. But the Sooners won an impressive defensive battle against the defending National Champions. They earned their victory.
This isn’t to say that Stoops didn’t have a career full of amazing highlights, according to Sam Cooper with Yahoo Sports. He took over a program that had several straight losing seasons, and was the two-time Walter Camp Coach of the Year (2000, 2003). More than 13 times in his years, his team won 10 or more games in his 18 years, amassing a record of 190-48 that is unsurpassed in school history. He also won 10 Big 12 Championships, while no one else in the Big 12 won more than 12.
This isn’t to say that Stoops didn’t have some problems. Certainly there was the terrible incident involving Oklahoma Running Back Joe Mixon and the violence he was involved in. QB Blake Mayfield showed some lack of discipline in his charges for alcohol-related incidents, and other problems his players had, leading to speculation that this might have played a role in his retirement.
Of course, there could be some incident like terrible one involving child abuse that plagued Penn State under Joe Paterno, or a scandal like the one that brought down Ohio State University’s Jim Tressel, or personal practices that upended Bobby Petrino at the University of Arkansas. If so, it was something we were unaware of at the time of Stoops’ record.
But assuming there’s no dark secret, then Stoops really should be honored, not just for his impressive accomplishments as a coach. He needs to be lauded for leading his team in a stand against racism, which will hopefully inspire other coaches to do the same.
John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His Twitter account is JohnTures2.
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has called for a review of an Obama-era conservation plan for the greater sage grouse, a move that appears partially aimed at opening up more of the declining gamebird’s habitat to oil and gas development.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told reporters on a call Wednesday that the secretarial order he will sign Thursday will establish a team to review conservation efforts and make management recommendations within 60 days. The goal, Zinke said, is to improve collaboration between federal agencies and 11 Western states to ensure continued protections of the imperiled bird, while providing states with “greater flexibility” to pursue opportunities for energy development and job growth.
“There have been some complaints by several of the governors that their ability to use federal lands — whether it’s for oil and gas, recreation, timber, across the board — that some of the heavy handedness on habitats don’t allow for some of those uses, and they’ve come up with what they believe are innovative plans and workarounds,” Zinke said. “And we certainly want to work with states if that’s their desire to do that.”
Zinke added there is “a lot of mistrust” and “anger” in communities that feel they haven’t had a voice.
Sage grouse, a ground-dwelling game bird with an elaborate mating ritual, used to number in the millions. Loss of sagebrush habitat from development and invasive plant species has decimated the bird population, now estimated between 200,000 and 500,000 individuals. Their current range spans some 257,000 square miles across 11 Western states, less than half of the species’ historic range.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in 2015 that, as a result of a collaborative efforts between federal, state and local parties, the greater sage grouse did not warrant protections under the federal endangered species list. Then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell called it a “milestone for conservation in America.”
But the decision was criticized from both sides, with environmentalists arguing it would not do enough to protect the native bird, and oil, gas and mining interests saying it would hinder development.
Zinke said Wednesday that “no party that I know wants the sage grouse to be listed” under the Endangered Species Act, and “no party that I know doesn’t want a healthy population of sage grouse out West.” He said the review would consider focusing management policies more on populations, rather than habitat, and look at innovative technologies, including drones to obtain more accurate population courts.
Conservationists quickly slammed Zinke’s decision.
Jim Lyons, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former Interior Department official, said in a statement that the review could “compromise years of collaboration” and “appears to be a thinly veiled and unnecessary attempt to open up important habitat to oil and gas drilling, jeopardizing the important balance and flexibility offered in the existing plans.”
Bobby McEnaney, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Zinke has found a new way to imperil the bird species — via executive action.
“Forget climate change, expanding land developments, or ongoing impacts from the fossil fuel industry,” McEnaney said in a statement. “By single-handedly upending this agreement, Secretary Zinke might just have landed the decisive blow to the sage grouse, and the unique sagebrush habitat of the American West.”
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When former FBI Director James Comey appears before Congress on Thursday, he will reveal painful truths about the pressures President Donald Trump put on him. He will add explosive chapters to the ongoing saga of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. He may very well end up raising questions about Trump’s temperament.
But one thing he’s unlikely to do, even the president’s critics concede, is expedite Trump’s demise.
“Watergate did not bring Richard Nixon down overnight,” said Brian Fallon, Hillary Clinton’s press secretary during the 2016 campaign. “While this scandal feels like it’s playing out at lightning speed, it is still going to take months to fully get to the bottom of things. The Comey hearing may well be an iconic moment, but it won’t be the ballgame.”
Among many impassioned critics of the president, a belief persists that a single act of sheer stupidity or controversy or embarrassment will undo Trump. It’s a theory that extends back to Trump’s formal entrance into electoral politics, when he descended his gilded escalator and called a subset of Mexicans “rapists.” It regained life regularly during the campaign and has followed him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where each revelation of murky ethics and professional malfeasance prompts another round of “surely this will do him in” chatter.
And yet, Trump remains ― wounded professionally but there nonetheless.
His perseverance is, perhaps, his greatest political strength, continually befuddling opponents. Alex Conant, who served as the primary spokesman for the presidential campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), recalled watching Trump disparage Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for becoming a prisoner of war during Vietnam and suggest that Megyn Kelly’s menstrual cycle was responsible for her tough debate questioning. Conant assumed the end was near for Trump after those comments.
“I was wrong,” Conant conceded. “He is not held to the same standard as other politicians because people don’t look at him as a politician. They look at him as a celebrity and businessman.”
The Comey hearing has raised a familiar pattern of speculation and ― in some corners ― wishful thinking. It’s been treated as a must-watch affair, fit for cable news countdown clocks, and hailed as the facilitating moment of Trump’s downfall. And for good reason. Comey’s testimony to the Senate intelligence committee will confirm that Trump demanded personal loyalty and that Comey shelve investigations. On top of that, Comey has a history of using dramatic testimony to cripple administrations.
But those who have tried to take down Trump caution against expecting the former FBI director to deliver the proverbial “kill shot.”
Part of that is because much of what Comey is set to say has been digested by the public before. Trump already told NBC’s Lester Holt that he fired Comey to get out from underneath the Russia investigation ― an admission of obstruction of justice whose fleeting shock value was lampooned on “Saturday Night Live.” On top of that, it was already reported that the president pressured Comey to pledge loyalty, and that Comey felt uncomfortable being left alone with Trump, and that Trump encouraged him to end inquiries into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
“The only thing missing is we haven’t heard Comey saying these things out loud,” said Rory Cooper, a longtime GOP operative and vocal Trump critic. “We will have video of it but that is already out.”
But the main reason Trump will survive is that Republicans, who control the levers of power, continue to feel a commitment to ensuring so. The immediate reaction to Comey’s written testimony, which was released in advance on Wednesday, had some of the party’s intellectuals decrying an abuse of power and an obstruction of justice. But others rushed to claim it a nothing-burger.
There was less division within the universe of elected officials, who largely rushed to defend Trump from Comey’s story. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) argued that it had confirmed Trump’s insistence that he was never under investigation. Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) pleaded that all it showed was Trump’s every-man ignorance of how Washington’s legal constructs work. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) practically yawned.
“[F]rom what I’ve been briefed on, it sounds like it’s much of what’s already been reported, but it’s fairly rich in detail and color,” Ryan told MSNBC. “But the substance seems to me, from what I’ve understood, similar to what we’ve already been hearing.”
If this is, indeed, how the Republican Party will embrace the Comey news, then Trump can rest comfortably. Not just because the process of impeachment (itself a pipe dream, many Democrats concede) is a political process. But because it illustrates that he still has sway over the party’s voters, still strikes fear in the heart of its elected officials, and still has the capacity to persist through scandal, even in his diminished state.
“Sitting around and waiting for one moment to derail his presidency is probably going to result in a long wait,” said Cooper. “It has been pretty clear that Trump can exhibit almost any behavior and not really change the fact that he’s at 37 percent [approval rating].”
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If you were a console racing game fan in the ’90s, there’s a good chance that Wipeout is forever etched in your brain — it’s hard to forget that mix of sci-fi racing and genre-defining dance music. But how did it come to be? As it turns out, it wa…
The TrackR pixel Bluetooth dongle revealed back during CES 2017 is now available to order in the United States. According to TrackR, the pixel is the lightest weight Bluetooth product on the market, clocking in with a depth of just 5mm and a weight of 5.67 grams. The dongle, like ones before it, is round in shape, but with colorful … Continue reading
WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump wants to hire thousands more Customs and Border Protection agents, and the House wants to help him, in part by loosening some of the screening requirements for hiring.
The House voted 282-137 on Wednesday to exempt some applicants from a polygraph that a 2010 anti-corruption law currently demands of all applicants to CBP. The new bill would allow the agency, which includes the Border Patrol, to waive the requirement for certain individuals who served in law enforcement or the military.
Supporters of the bill argue it’s a matter of common sense: Why put people through a polygraph test if they were already approved for another law enforcement agency or the military? But CBP has struggled for years with corruption, abuse and misconduct in its ranks, including by veterans and former police officers. With the agency set for a massive expansion, some Democrats warned that loosening standards could undermine safety.
“We cannot give up on the need to fully vet these people,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said on the House floor ahead of the vote.
CBP is facing a staffing shortage that could increase under Trump. There are about 1,800 unfilled positions currently, and the president wants to add 5,000 more employees, which has led officials to consider changes to speed up hiring.
Polygraphs have been one major obstacle in bringing on new employees: Government officials say 60 percent of CBP applicants don’t pass them. The agency is already testing shorter polygraph exams and supports a legislative change that would allow it to exempt some applicants entirely, although officials told The Wall Street Journal that the agency would not compromise on its standards.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Wednesday that he would “support anything that would speed up the process, so long as we don’t skimp on the quality and the vetting, to put more men and women to work.” He was responding to a question from Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), the sponsor of the polygraph waiver bill, who’d asked him about her measure during a hearing.
After the House vote, McSally said in a statement that her bill would give CBP “discretionary ability to hire qualified, vetted individuals who already have earned public trust” and to “increase the security of our nation and facilitate cross-border commerce and tourism.” The congresswoman is an Air Force veteran.
Democratic opponents warned the bill could make it easier for corrupt individuals to join CBP. Polygraphs have helped detect serious problems in the past, including attempts by organized crime to infiltrate the agency, the Center for Investigative Reporting found in 2013. Some applicants admitted to engaging in or having relatives who engaged in drug or human smuggling; one woman said she had smuggled marijuana into the U.S. about 800 times. Others admitted to taking money to kill people or possessing child pornography. Some of those applicants were veterans, according to the report.
CBP has struggled with employees’ bad behavior, even if those wrongdoers represent only a small percentage of its workforce. There were 2,170 reported arrests for misconduct such as driving under the influence or domestic violence for fiscal years 2005 through 2012, according to the Government Accountability Office. During the same period, 144 current or former CBP employees were indicted or arrested for activities related to corruption.
The veterans and law enforcement officers that McSally’s bill could exempt from polygraphs don’t currently pass the tests at a higher rate than other applicants, James Tomsheck, who served as CBP’s assistant commissioner for internal affairs from 2006 to 2014, wrote in a column for The Hill.
“Nor do these groups present a lesser risk of integrity violations: they have been involved in some of the most serious CBP corruption activity and excessive force incidents,” Tomsheck wrote in opposing the legislation. “Importantly, very few members of the military take polygraphs or have comprehensive background checks, and the quality of state or local law enforcement polygraphs varies widely. Past service in these capacities is by no means a proxy for proper, thorough vetting by CBP.”
Homeland Security Inspector General John Roth told The New York Times that loosening polygraph requirements “could put CBP at significant risk.”
“While it may sound reasonable to say you could waive requirements from former military personnel because they have passed a polygraph, Border Patrol agents work in a different environment that is not as controlled as the military,” Roth said.
Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.) proposed an amendment that would delay implementation of the CBP hiring bill until the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general determined that it would not endanger national security and until CBP completed its pilot program of an alternative polygraph test. That amendment was voted down.
“We shouldn’t blindly experiment with our nation’s security,” Lujan Grisham said on the House floor ahead of the vote, “given that drugs, weapons and human trafficking, as well as terrorism, are all threats we are facing at the border.”
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