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Floyd Mayweatherand Manny Pacquiao to Meet the Press on Wednesday

March 12, 2015 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

Philipines’ Manny Pacquiao and American Floyd Mayweather Jr.will fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on May 2^nd, in what it expected to be a mega-event on the boxing scene. Ticket sales are expected to break all previous financial records and the two protagonists will meet on March 11 during a press conference to promote their clash.

Mayweather and Pacquiao will get togetherin May at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas after years of negotiations to make the fight possible. The two boxers are perhaps the most accomplished figures of their generation in the sport. Pacquiao, 37 years-old,has a 57-5-2 record, hitting 38 knockouts and has claimed titles in 8 divisions, while Mayweather, 38 (47-0, 26 KOs) won 5 titles.

Pacquiao, or “Pac Man”,has been preparing at the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles with his 14-year coaching partner Freddie Roach, but hasn’t limited his training to the iconic Hollywood venue. Recent video footage displays the fighter showing his shadow-boxing skills to people passing by on LA streets. Pacquiaohas been boxing since he was 16, and he recalled being paid $2 per match for “Blow By Blow”a TV show in the Philipines in his early career. A resident of Santos City, he got elected for congress twice and is currently holding office.

With an estimated net worth of $100million, Pacquaio only lost 5 times throughout his professional career. Many pundits have suggested that maybe the two fighters set to clash in Vegas are past their peak, but the Filipino rushed to disperse such rumors, claiming he is “100 per cent confident” in his victory in May. “It’ll be as good of a fight as it would’ve been five years ago,” Pac Man said.

Floyd Mayweather started boxing when he was 9, coming from a family of boxers. He is worth $280 million, is 3kg heavier than his future opponent and impressively, has never lost a match in his career. He will be training for the event at his own facilities in Vegas.

Normally, a boxing event of such magnitude is intensely promoted prior to its launch. But in the Pacquaio-Mayweather match, the fight is so big, that none of the participants believes thatit’s a necessity to spend time promoting it.

Their names alone bring the necessary weight to carry the event through. Ticketprices for the mega-fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena Hotel, Las Vegas, start from $1,250 going up to $6000 ring side. It is rumored that tickets could be sold for around $100,000on the black market.

The common press conference they will be holding on Wednesday in Los Angeles is supposed to be their last eye-to-eye contact prior to the May 2^nd gala.

Florida Isn’t the Only State Trying to Shut Down Discussion of Climate Change

March 12, 2015 By Germaine Hicks Leave a Comment

More and more states are adhering to the conservative approach of prohibiting people to talk about climate change. The latest such state is Florida, where rumor had it that the state actually has an unwritten rule preventing environmental experts from using “global warming” or “climate change” in their papers.

On Monday, however, Republican Governor Rick Scott has declined the existence of such a policy. Even after his statement, many state employees and private scientists alike maintained their position, saying they feel pressured into avoiding the topic, even in the context of Florida’s grave concern of future sea-level rise.

If this rumor proves to be true, it’s not the first case of state authorities (mainly Republicans) setting measures that prevent people from debating the subject of global warming. For example, climate science papers on the matter of rising sea levels have been prohibited by law in North Carolina back in 2012.

In the same manner, a former Pennsylvania employee claimed that, in 2014, she was requested to take down all references to the subject of climate change from the conservation agency’s website.

Even though there is a strong agreement among climate experts that humans have had a negative impact on global temperatures in the last 50 years, there are still states like Louisiana and Tennessee, which adopt laws allowing teachers to present alternative theories accounting for the rising temperatures.

On Sunday, TristramKorten of the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting released an article alleging that, in 2011, Republican Governor Rick Scott, who did not believe in global warming, adopted a policy prohibiting environmental scientists from talking about it.

According to climate experts, the low Florida coasts will have to face raised sea levels due to increased temperatures and melting ice caps – no further than the year 2100. If the state interdicts talks about the potential dangers of such phenomena, it will be increasingly difficult to plan in advance or try to prevent harmful effects.

Among the Florida officials who were instructed to avoid climate change were the Coral Reef Conservation Program and Florida Oceans and Coastal Council. For example, the Annual Research Plan of FOCC released in 2010 mentioned climate change 15 times, whereas the revised version from 2015 only had one reference – most likely overlooked by censors.

Since 2012, North Carolina’s legislature prohibits state officials from using the most updated data when calculating sea-level rise projections. It meant that the concerned authorities did not want to admit that North Carolina’s coastline is threatened by increasing sea levels, as predicted by the Coastal Resources Commission. According to their latest report, this century is bound to bring another 39 inches in risen sea levels.

And the reason why they chose to ignore such a prognosis is because it would mean catastrophic news for local developers. The new projects that would have to be set in motion would be monumental: drawing new flood zones, building waste-treatment factories, renewal of permits, restructuring of property along the 2,000 square miles of coast and initiate construction for more elevated roads.

And the biggest problem was that the state would have to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars to make this possible. So the law decided that climate scientists are wrong about acceleration of sea level rise, and all projections should base only on past sea-level rise, ignoring their predictions.

Very similar to the situation in Florida, Pennsylvania had its own debate over such policies in 2014. The website of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources was cleared of any references to climate change. One of those responsible was Pennsylvania’s Republican governor in office, Tom Corbett, who was known for avoiding the subject. He even retracted all funds of programs designed to study the impacts of climate change in Pennsylvania.

On the other end of the issue, there are some state law officials who cannot get enough of talking about climate change, but in a way that allows them to subtly introduce some alternative theories. Tennessee, for example, adopted a law in 2012 that allowed teachers to avoid climate change and present other theories that explain the current conditions on our planet. The law pledges to support teachers who permit students to explore and analyze all scientific theories covered in the course.

It sounds rather innocent, but advocates of scientific education explain that many teachers choose to teach, based on this legislative loophole, creationism or climate-change denial. Louisiana is closely behind Tennessee, prepping a similar law.

And it’s strange they would fight this theory, as climate experts are 95 percent sure that humans influenced global warming, almost as they are sure that smoking causes lung cancer.

Ferguson, Mo. Exodus Continues following Justice Department Report

March 12, 2015 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

In the wake of last Wednesday’s Justice Department report on Ferguson, Missouri, the city manager John Shaw announced his resignation. Officials announced that, during a Tuesday meeting, Ferguson’s City Council unanimously accepted Shaw’s resignation. He will immediately step down.

The city manager is tasked to oversee the police department, being the top non-elected municipal official. John Shaw has been holding this position since 2007.

This highly-covered investigation into Ferguson’s police department occurred as a reaction to the buzz created in the media when unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot dead by a white police officer, on August 9 last year. Darren Wilson, theresponsible officer in the case, was never charged in the shooting, and nationwide protests followed complaining about the mistreatment of blacks by police.

The report released on Wednesday places Shaw among the people most heavily criticized by the Justice Department. The report says that the African-American community has been a constant target of white police force misconduct, who sometimes regards black citizens as a source of income for the city through unjustified fines and fees.

The federal report also underlines that officers made a habit of using excessive violence, often illegally arresting people, using tasers or deploying attack dogs on unarmed suspects. Among the parties blamed for the situation, the Justice Department names the city’s administration, which, by making revenue generation a top objective on its agenda, deliberately influenced police leadership to act in such a reckless manner.

Before he left his office, John Shaw felt the necessity ofrectifying the report’s last statement. “My office has never instructed the police department to target African Americans, nor falsify charges to administer fines, nor heap abuses on the backs of the poor,” Shaw told the press. “Any inferences of that kind from the report are simply false.”

Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said the decision comes as a “mutual agreement that we wanted to move forward as a community.” The city manager is the 5^th Ferguson top official to leave his office following DOJ scathing report. Apart from fining irregularities, the federal report also found racist emails, and the people found to be responsible for them – two police officers and the city’s court clerk, namely Henke, Mudd and Twitty – had to leave their respective jobs last week. Another municipal judgeaccused in the report for claiming “abusive and unlawful” court fees, announced on Monday that he would also be handing in his resignation.

Serious reform is expected from Mayor James Knowles, both by the Justice Department and by the public scrutiny. Ferguson citizens gathered outside as the Tuesday meeting was taking place.About150 people of different racial backgrounds created a tense atmosphere around the city council. The tense situation was close to igniting after a white resident, Suzanne Schmidt, said she was backing Darren Wilson. A prompt reply followed from another black resident, Danielle Morrison, who blamed Wilson for starting the whole thing after targeting teenager Michael Brown only because of his race.

The St. Louis suburb of Ferguson has been the scene of massive protests since last year, aimed at the police brutality against black people taking place all across the United States.

Utah to Restore Firing Squads as an Alternative to Lethal Injection

March 12, 2015 By Deborah Nielsen Leave a Comment

State senators in Salt Lake City passed a bill on Tuesday that could see Utah become the only state to allow firing squads to carry out a death penalty. The Senate’s decision comes amid nationwide reports about a shortage of lethal injection drugs.

Utah, which already is the last US state to have carried out an execution by firing squad in the past 40 years, claims the lawmakers’ decision will serve as the backup plan in case state officials won’t be able to replenish their lethal drugs supply.

Accordingto an official post on a social media platform, the senators approved 18 votes to 10 to restore the firing squads. The bill’s author, Republican Paul Ray of Clearfield, has reportedly described the Senate’s approval of the wild West-style restoration as a quick and humane alternative to lethal injection. The bill specifies that the use of a firing platoon will be required if the state won’t be able to acquire lethal injection drugs 30 days prior to the execution.

The final call on the matter belongs to Utah Governor Gary Herbert. As far as it is known for now, the Republican governor has declined to take a definitive stance on the issue. Although one of his spokespeople, Marty Carpenter, recognized that the new bill offers a legitimate alternative in case drugs aren’t supplied, Herbert is believed to provide a verdict in about a week. So far, he declined to say whether he’d sign the legislation piece or not.

Utah’s new law comes on the background of a larger national controversy over the constitutionality of lethal injection use. The US Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the execution method was constitutional, but is likely to reconsider the issue next month. The most widespread form of execution in the United States, lethal injection, has been a recurrent subject of debate in the past years.

In one cast last year, in Arizona, it took almost two hours before a death-row inmate died as a result of deadly drug administration, while in Oklahoma another execution completely failed. Additional arguments over the pain the lethal injection might provoke to people have led to a search of alternative capital punishment methods. In connection to this topic, Utah’s Paul Ray stated that the bill he proposed is also a more humane form of execution.

Like Utah, there are other states looking for alternatives to poison administration. Arkansas passed similar legislation this year, while in Wyoming, there was a failed attempt to do so. Oklahoma opted for the use of nitrogen gas, but a decision on the matter has not been passed yet.

The Washington D.C. Death Penalty Information Center, which advocates for the abolition of death penalty, insists that a firing squad execution could cause a slower, more painful death, as there is no proof it would be more efficient than a lethal injection. According to 1879 newspaper accounts, it took almost half an hour for an inmate to die after a firing squad missed his heart. Utah has carried out three death penalty executions by firing squad since 1976, the most recent one being Ronnie Lee Gardner’s in 2010.

While some – such as Ralph Dellapiana, Director of Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty – claim the new method to be “a relic of a more barbaric past,” the fact remains that many American states might run of any lethal injection drugs in the near future. Because of their opposition to the death penalty, European producers are still refusing to sell chemicals to any of the prisons in the United States.

6.5 Million Americans Aged 112 and Older Hold Active Social Security Numbers

March 12, 2015 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

According to the Social Security Administration (SSA) there are about 6.5 million Americans aged 112 or even older who hold active social security numbers. As a result, the Inspector General’s Office warned that such a situation may encourage fraud and countless cases of identity theft.

The astonishing number of people who seemingly got to live more than 100 years clearly contradicts statistics which show that, across the globe, no more than 35 people grew to be 112 years old or older. But since Numident (the SSA’s computer database containing all the information filed when people apply for a Social Security Number) counts millions of active SSNs for centenarians, authorities warn that this may leave an open window for underserved benefits.

The OIG explained that the world’s oldest man died on September 2013 at age 112. Additionally, the Gerontology Research Group’s public data show that, as of October 2013, only 35 people around the globe grew to be 112 or older. So, the millions of super centenarians listed in the US social security database may signal both a technical and legal problem.

Recently, the Inspector General’s Office reported that it had verified the 6.5 million SSNs by matching them against SSA’s E-Verify and Earnings Suspense File systems to learn that thousands of SSNs may be involved in identity thefts or other frauds.

Additionally, almost 70,000 of the questionable SSNs had been employed by their users or other people to report more than $3 billion in wages over the 2006-2011period.

“One SSN appeared on 613 different suspended wage reports, and 194 additional SSNs appeared on at least 50 suspended wage reports that SSA received during this 6-year period,”

said a spokesperson for the OIG.

The office also explained that people can commit various frauds and cheat the government by reporting earnings when using a dead individual’s social security number. Additionally, the SSA reported that last fall, more than 260 people who were born before June 16, 1901 had received benefits payments from the government.

Tom Carper, Delaware Senator and chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, described the situation as “unacceptable.” He said that the database of Social Security numbers should be updated since it is impossible for thousands of people to have birth certificates dating before the Civil War.

Sen. Carpers also suggested that the agency should keep track on who dies and when as its highest priority.

Milk Music by Samsung Available on Web for Free

March 11, 2015 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

Milk Music is a music streaming service available on Samsung devices. It is a radio service with which you can discover new music that comes from the best artists in the industry. The service allows you to listen to a smooth sound, without pauses between songs. Milk Music is even provided with a “Fine Tune Station”, which enables you to choose how popular and new you prefer the music to be. You can even create your own station, containing you favorite singers and bands. When Milk Music first appeared it contained over 13 million songs.

So far this cool application was available only on Galaxy smartphones, Galaxy tablets, smartwatches and TVs. After one year of Milk Music, Samsung has decided to make it available for free through internet browsing to everyone.This way the existing users can access the service from different locations and new users will be attracted to try it.

The application is powered by the Slacker internet radio service. The same goes for the browser-based alternative. It is good to know that if you already have the Milk Music application on your smartphone, all your music will still remain if you access the service from your computer.

The features of the application will be mostly the same for the web version too. You will still be able to have your personalized stations and playlists. A notable difference will be the interface. The interface of the application on the smartphone is dial-based. The one on the web will resemble a radio; it will be a tuning bar. In order to switch between genres and artists, the user will slide the bar.

This web service seems something new and amazing for music lovers, but Samsung is not the only one who has thought of this. In fact it has some competitors in the space of radio streaming. For example Apple has the iTunes Radio and Pandora, Slacker and Spotify services. Some of these offer the option of paid subscriptions for users who prefer to enjoy the services without being bothered by advertisements. Music Milk on the other hand supports advertisements.

However Milk Music has a premium service option. If you choose to pay $3.99 the service will be ad-free. But that’s not all. If you are a premium user, you have another extra option: you can listen to the streaming music service and also skip songs.

Launching itself in the services of music streaming it’s a good move for Samsung, especially when it offers this service for free. But some say that it cannot yet be called a success. It indeed offers great album artwork, but the service is considered to remain quite simple; it doesn’t have something that will make users prefer it to other music stream services such as Spotify or Slacker. Samsung’s intention may not be to gain profit from this. Instead the company might do this in order to keep up with Apple and make sure they keep their users since Apple has announced the release of a new platform that will take over Spotify.

Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim Not Happy With NCAA Verdict

March 11, 2015 By Jason Leathers Leave a Comment

The NCAA suspended Jim Boeheim, the Syracuse coach, for allowing several drug-testing, academic and gifts violations to be committed by the players in the basketball program.

Boeheim was suspended for nine games and will not be able to attend the next season.

The program is being sanctioned by the NCAA as well.

After hearing what the NCAA decided for his case, Boeheim commented that he is deeply disappointed by what the committee concluded.

He is mostly offended that the NCAA did not seem to take into consideration the 37 years he coached Syracuse, during which his program followed all the rules.

But hearing these comments, in which Boeheim alludes to the fact that the committee should have “overlooked” his recent trespassing, some think the Syracuse coach is acting outrageously.

They believe that Boeheim got away too easily for breaking the rules.

They accuse Boeheim for serious academic misconduct, for taking extra benefits, for failing to follow the strict policies regarding drug testing.

Also, Boeheim is being accused of booster activity, something which is not permitted in the program.

And these are not the only things Boeheim is being accused of, it’s only what was self reported in 2001.

The NCAA committee has written a 94-pag report in which it details all the misdeeds Boeheim has done during his coaching years.

The report says that for more than 10 years, the Syracuse coach has failed to maintain within the program an “atmosphere of compliance”. He is also being accused of not monitoring the activities of the people who had to report directly and indirectly to him.

For these series of misconduct the NCAA punished Boeheim and his team Syracuse.

According to what the NCAA agreed, the coach will be suspended for 9 ACC games during next season. Also, his school will lose 3 scholarships for each of the upcoming four years and will have to serve a five-year probation.

The NCAA will also cancel all wins that involved ineligible players from 2004 to 2007 and from 2010 to 2012.

Some argue that the punishments are not enough for what Boeheim did. They say that the coach should not be involved in the basketball program at all.

It’s Official: Jaguars Will Sign Tight End Julius Thomas

March 11, 2015 By Deborah Nielsen Leave a Comment

According to official sources, the Jaguars have come to an agreement with tight end Julius Thomas and the player is expected to sign the contract on Tuesday.

The news that Julius Thomas will sign a contract with the Jaguars was first reported Monday night. Also, the news reported that the contract, which is a multiyear one, is worth approximately $9 million per season.

An official source told Chris Mortensen from ESPN that Thomas is in talks with another team but the $9 million that the Jaguars are willing to pay is an offer that another team might find it hard to beat.

In the past two seasons Julius Thomas has caught a total of 24 touchdowns and for 1,277 yards he managed exactly 108 passes, while playing with his current team the Denver Broncos.

The Jaguars’ tight end players have managed a combined total of 102 passes in the last two seasons.

The Jaguars are not only thinking of getting Thomas to sign for the team, they are also considering of signing linebacker Dan Sukato with a five-year contract.

Once they sign the contract, some believe that it will be worth around $20.5 million, with almost $8 million in guarantees.

Julius Thomas, 26, was drafted by the Denver Broncos in the fourth round of the 2011 draft. He was picked when John Elway was the Broncos’ top football executive.

Elway selected Thomas after the player had played college football for one year at the Portland State. Prior to that, Thomas had been on the school’s basketball team.

Thomas lost his first two years due to an ankle injury while playing his very first NFL catch. He was playing against the opposing team, the Cincinnati Bengals in the season of 2011. Also, Thomas has suffered another ankle injury for which he had to have surgery. This happened a few months before the 2012 season opened.

Because of these injuries, when he entered his third year in the football league, he had only played nine games, had only one catch for five yards and had no touchdowns during the two seasons he played.

But things got better and Thomas managed to have 65 catches for 788 yards and score 12 touchdowns, earning him his first Pro Bowl Cup.

Florida Workers Not Allowed to Use Terms Like Climate Change or Global Warming, Why?

March 11, 2015 By Germaine Hicks Leave a Comment

As per a recent report, those who work at the Department of Environmental Protection in Florida are forbidden to use terms like global warming or climate change.

After thorough investigations, the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that ever since Rick Scott was elected as head of the department in 2011, more than 3,000 employees have been prohibited from using terms like climate change in any of the official reports, communications and emails.

Christopher Byrd, former attorney for the Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of General Counsel in Tallahassee, made an official statement, saying that the him and his colleagues were not allowed to use terms like climate change, global warming or even sustainability.
Byrd reported to the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting that all the workers for DEP received the message from their superiors who were in charge of the Office of General Counsel.

The controversial statements come at a time when Florida is facing serious environmental risks.

According to recent reports announced by Ben Strauss, a climate scientist, more than 2.4 million people are at risk because they live in the low-lying coastal regions of Florida, meaning that they are within less than four feet of a high tide line.

Another report released by Florida Atlantic University shows that even if the sea level rises approximately six inches in the next twenty years, South Florida would still be facing catastrophic consequences because its inability to handle any future storm surge.

According to what the scientists predict, many US coastal regions are threatened by massive four-feet storm surges by 2030 that will exceed the tide lines.
Also, the experts warn that by 2050 these storm surges will be higher than five feet, which will have a devastating impact on the coastal areas.

Dr. Strauss was involved in a separate study showing that approximately 5 million Americans are currently living less than 4 feet above a high tide line. Strauss’s study also reveals another frightening fact: more than 6 million people in the Unites States live less than 5 feet above a high tide line.

Mr. Byrd added that the political leadership of Florida is obviously not going to address these serious issues, and seem deny the fact that climate change can have a devastating outcome on millions of American people.
However, Rick Scott, the Governor of Florida denies that those working for the Department of Environmental Protection, of which Scott is in charge, were ever banned from using such terms as climate change or global warming from official mails or reports.

Scott and his department said that what has been implied is simply not true, and that there was never such policy imposed on any of their workers.

Although Scott maintained his position during a press conference on Monday, he did not wish to go into any specifics. He did talk about whether his department believes that the threats of global warming are real or not.
Scott did not wish to comment whether his department is preparing in any way to avoid this or whether it doesn’t consider it to be a matter of any importance.

However, the Florida Governor said that his administration is actually doing some work to help the environment, but he did not address which projects were needed in order to deal with the effects of climate change.
Scott enumerated some of the things his department has done for the environment, actions like investing in the renewing of the beaches and flood mitigation.

Also, the Republican governor talked about how his department was involved with the Everglades, saying that they managed to settle a lawsuit over it.

Although most scientists say that our planet is getting warmer and we are directly responsible of creating the climate change by burning more and more fossil fuels in order to have energy, Scott claims that he’s not sure whether climate change is a consequence of human activity.

Judge Denies Injunction Lift, Immigration Standoff Continues

March 11, 2015 By Brian Galloway Leave a Comment

Following a Texas judge’s refusal to lift the block of the White House’s immigration plan for a minimum of 10 more days, more than a dozen US sates will be considering appeals to lift the injunction on President Obama’s executive actions of shielding millions from deportation.

Andrew Hanen, US District Court Judge, is the Brownsville judge responsible for issuing the preliminary injunction which put a halt to the president’s plans of shielding illegal immigrants from deportation. According to Judge Hanen, federal government lawyers may have been responsible for misleading the court when addressing new immigration policy implementation and as a result, no ruling would follow until the 19th of March court hearing. During this hearing, Hanen explained, government attorneys were expected to explain the filing that had claimed that over 100,000 immigrants had received deferred action periods of over 3 years before the judge’s injunction.

Initially, justice department lawyers had assured the court, Hanen claims, that no action would be taken in order to implement the new policies concerning illegals until mid-February. Judge Hanen had criticized the nation’s immigration enforcement policies as being too lax and accused president Obama’s approach, faulting the administration for not having publicly announced its future plans.

Back in November, the Obama administration announced its plans on expanding the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” plan so as to grant eligibility to more immigrants. Furthermore, it also created a new program intended to include illegal immigrants who are US citizen- or permanent US residents’ parents. As the third and most criticized portion of President Obama’s plan, the period of “deferred action” was extended so as to protect illegal immigrants from being deported (the protection period increased from two years to three).

Texas, alongside 25 other states, had hoped that a judge would overturn president Obama’s actions as having been unconstitutional. They had insisted that president Obama had exceeded his powers and would effectively cause 4.7 million illegals to continue residing within the US without fear of deportation.

According to judge Hanen, the states in question would experience significant financial setbacks as a result of President Obama’s executive actions. According to this deferred action plan, millions of immigrants would receive work permits, driver’s licenses as well as additional benefits which would be particularly difficult to recoup if the president’s actions are later on declared as having been unconstitutional.

“Be prepared to fully explain to this Court all of the matters addressed in and circumstances surrounding.”
judge Hanen wrote.

Yet Hanen faces some criticism of his own. On the 23rd of February, the US Justice Department requested an urgent stay of the judge’s ruling. According to court filings, the Department would take the matter to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans if judge Hanen would not act by Monday.

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