Most mobile phones have tiny GPS chips that do things like give directions or route your call to the right city when you dial 911. It turns out that law enforcement can ask phone companies for GPS info that reveals exactly where a phone owner is, and, according to a disturbing piece of audio making the rounds, the cops asked Sprint-Nextell for the locations of customers 8 million times in one year. (continued and video)
Bank of America has been cleared by the U.S. government to repay the $45 billion in TARP funds it received last year at the height of the banking crisis, and BofA may be preparing to do so before 2009 comes to a close. That said, it’s not a foregone conclusion that the transaction will take place this month, even though the company has some built-in motivation to quickly make good on its payback promise.
After two tumultuous years in the media business, Tribune Co.’s controversial CEO, Chicago-based real estate mogul Sam Zell, is stepping down from his post, but he’s not bowing out of the game altogether—Zell will continue as the media company’s chairman.
A few of the morsels that landed in Larry’s web this post-escalation day: How to protest a homophobic protester, Obama speech aftermath, digitizing Da Vinci and much, much more. Update
Stephen M. Walt takes the “especially fatuous” Tom Friedman to task for one of his obstinate screeds. By the most conservative estimates, Walt explains, the U.S. has killed 30 Muslims for every American killed by Muslims, extremist or otherwise.
New York wasn’t able to go as far as even Iowa, as the New York State Senate shot down a bill Wednesday that would have made same-sex marriage legal in the Empire State. Not one Republican in the Albany chamber supported the bill, which was beaten by a vote of 38 to 24.
Tuesday’s vote in favor of same-sex marriage at the District council in Washington, D.C., brought up some tensions among members of the local African-American community. Some have less trouble viewing the issue as a civil rights struggle than others, and generational differences appear to have something to do with it.
South African President Jacob “Bring Me My Machine Gun” Zuma has become an unlikely supporter of HIV care in his country, announcing Tuesday—World AIDS Day—new, expanded health care measures to be implemented for HIV-positive mothers and their babies.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich writes, “An escalation of the war in Afghanistan at a time of such economic dislocation and hardship raises questions about America’s priorities. ...”
All eyes are on the president and his planned escalation of the war in Afghanistan, but there’s plenty else worth clicking on, such as Uganda’s “execute gays” law, zombie Reagan and more. Update
Thanks to high-level leaks, we now know semiofficially that President Obama plans to deploy 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, that he will announce a time frame for withdrawal and that his exit strategy (as well as Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s) depends on the expansion of the dysfunctional Afghanistan National Army. (continued) Update
On the eve of President Obama’s speech at West Point, one of his more media-savvy supporters, filmmaker Michael Moore, sent out a pre-emptive missive to the would-be “new war president,” predicting the fallout that Obama will face if he follows through with his reported plan to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
Talk of giving a much-needed jolt to the job market has petered out in the offices and chambers where something could actually be done about the country’s pervasive employment crisis. This priority problem in policy circles is unacceptable to economics whiz Paul Krugman, who proposes ideas to fill in the gaps.
Dutch scientists are doing their bit to address the food crisis, the climate crisis and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals by growing pork meat from muscle cells harvested from a live pig. Their hope is to turn the cells from one animal into the meat from a million without killing any. (continued)
Perhaps inspired by reports that President Obama plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, Gordon Brown said Monday that Great Britain would deploy an additional 500 soldiers to the region. (continued)
It’s been a long holiday weekend of gratitude and family strife, yet somehow the world continues to turn. Here comes Larry Gross with an update of all that’s new and interesting.
Encompassing an estimated 78 percent of e-mail, spam remains the bane of many Internet users. The man who has declared himself spam’s godfather, Alan Ralsky, has been sentenced to 51 months in prison for his role in an e-mail stock scam.
Some 93 percent of soybeans and 80 percent of corn: Those numbers reflect how much of each crop is grown with seeds genetically altered under the patents of agro-giant Monsanto. An antitrust investigation is at hand, as questions about a monopoly status seem not too far off.
Iran seems to enjoy its nuclear swagger. Tehran has now approved construction of 10 uranium enrichment plants, a remarkable development given that a U.N. watchdog agency demanded last week that Iran cease construction of a previously secret enrichment facility.
Human rights researchers and former detainees agree: Despite its stated goal of improving detention conditions, the U.S. continues to run a secret prison in Afghanistan, a site that holds inmates, sometimes for weeks at a time, without access to outside groups such as the Red Cross. Another such U.S. jail is said to exist in Iraq.
Citing the fact that industrialized countries cause much more environmental destruction than loggers and farmers in the Amazon, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has called on Western countries—“gringos”—to help halt deforestation.
Honduras’ controversial presidential election is Sunday, and conservative candidate “Pepe” Lobo has a clear lead in the most recent polls. The contest, after a military coup ousted President Manuel Zelaya, has little international support.
This is just the kind of news that doesn’t bode well for the state of democracy in America: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg shelled out $102 million of his own money in his recent successful (albeit close) run for re-election. That shakes out to about $183 per vote, and the final tally may still rise.
Dubai’s debt issues caused trouble in other parts of the world Friday. Stock markets from Europe to Asia to the U.S. registered the effects of the city-state’s announcement that it would need to put off paying back $60 billion in debt incurred from investments, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Crushing Legacy of Bush and Cheney
