//

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s lineup of new cases is fit for an election year.

Affirmative action, abortion and another look at the Obama health care law all are before the court, and they could well be joined by immigration, giving the justices a run of cases that reads like a campaign platform.

Also coming; disputes involving public-sector labor unions, the death penalty and the way electoral districts are drawn.

Decisions in these high-profile cases almost certainly will split the court along ideological lines, mirroring the country’s stark partisan split. What’s more, the most contentious issues won’t be resolved until late June, barely four months before the 2016 presidential election.

What started as a somewhat sleepy term — especially following major decisions last June on health care and same-sex marriage — has become much more interesting, says University of Pennsylvania law dean Theodore Ruger.

“This is a court that remains very assertive in its role in declaring what the law is,” Ruger said.

The accumulation of wrenching social issues and pointed policy disputes at the Supreme Court at this moment is mostly a matter of chance. A legal fight over the regulation of abortion clinics in Texas has been underway for two and a half years. President Barack Obama’s plan to shield from deportation millions of immigrants who are living in the country illegally was rolled out a year ago and almost immediately challenged in court. Faith-based groups that say they are forced to be complicit in providing objectionable birth control to women covered under their health plans have been challenging the Obama administration for more than three years.

It is still is possible the immigration dispute will not be heard until next fall, if at all.

Now that the cases are at the marble courthouse atop Capitol Hill, the justices’ decisions could feed campaign rhetoric that already has been heated on abortion and immigration, to name just two issues.

In June 2012, Chief Justice John Roberts provided the decisive vote that saved Obama’s health care overhaul in the midst of the president’s campaign for re-election.

A short time later, Republican candidate Mitt Romney proclaimed that as president he would do what the high court failed to do that June — get rid of the health care law. Obama won re-election, and the law survived.

Ruger said the chief justice wrote a nuanced opinion that appeared to show some sensitivity to the looming election.

“I think Roberts recognized this was going to be an issue in front of the voters,” Ruger said. The electorate ultimately would decide the health care law’s fate, he said.

Court decisions close to an election, especially when they produce big changes in the law, also can increase attention paid to those issues.

This is part of what Texas A&M University political scientist Joseph Ura called the court’s agenda-setting effect. Ura pointed to Brown v. Board of Education’s outlawing of racial segregation in public schools and Lawrence v. Texas’ ban on state anti-sodomy laws as examples of past decisions that altered “the existing arrangement of material or symbolic benefits in our political system.” Researchers found that those decisions “led to a large, sustained increase in the media’s attention” to those issues, Ura said.

Last term’s big rulings on health care and same-sex marriage already have prompted criticism of the court, and of Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy in particular, from several Republican presidential candidates. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, for example, has said that putting Roberts on the court was a mistake, even though Cruz endorsed his nomination in 2005.

The court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United that led to a flood of what critics call “dark money” in political campaigns remains controversial, and Democratic candidates have pledged to try to undo it.

The Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 that established a woman’s right to an abortion produced a backlash that eventually showed up in election returns, said Sara Benesh, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “A lot of scholars say (President Ronald) Reagan got elected because of Roe v. Wade. Pro-life forces really got him moving in his campaign,” Benesh said.

But there is little evidence that the court itself will become an issue in the campaign, except perhaps on the margins, she said.

The court and the justices are little known to the public. “It seems to me a long, drawn-out relationship between any decision the court might make and any decision an individual might make in the voting booth,” Benesh said.

Every four years, interest groups across the political spectrum try to make that connection for voters. Elections matter, they say, because the winner may get to choose justices who will serve for the next quarter century or longer.

Indeed, with four justices in their late 70s or early 80s, and the court so closely and fiercely divided, any appointment could dramatically change the court’s direction.

Join the conversation about this story »

from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1IyKXRX

//

WASHINGTON (AP) — The latest release of Hillary Clinton’s private emails show her, as secretary of state, dealing with the complicated politics of the Arab Spring, fending off questions about her role in the deadly 2012 Benghazi attacks and attempting to navigate an intensifying conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

But they also give a glimpse into the private side of one of the world’s most public people. Clinton’s notes show her searching for videos on how to do a “fishtail bun” hairstyle and struggling to locate Showtime on her television. (She wanted to watch the CIA-centered drama “Homeland.”) She schedules — and reschedules — flights, meals and hairstyling appointments. And as she flies around the globe — logging 956,733 miles over her tenure — she tries to keep track of the time zone.

The roughly 7,800 pages of emails released Monday were part of a court-ordered disclosure of correspondence sent from the private server Clinton used while she was secretary of state.

Clinton, now the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, has faced questions about whether her unusual email setup was sufficient to ensure the security of government information and retention of records. Included in the most recent batch was an email that Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III and State Department Inspector General Steve Linick deemed classified in July.

At least two Senate committees are still investigating Clinton’s email arrangement and seeking the release of correspondence from her top aides. The FBI is also investigating the security of Clinton’s private email setup.

Two-thirds of Clinton’s 30,000 work-related emails are now at least partially in the public eye — minus numerous redactions by the State Department.

Here’s a closer look at some of the messages that churned through Clinton’s very busy in-box in the batch released Monday:

__

HEALTH POLITICS

Get-well-soon notes poured in from across the globe after a stomach virus that Clinton picked up in 2012 became a serious condition that kept her out of the office — and off the congressional witness stand. After a dehydrated Clinton fainted and sustained a concussion — a condition she frequently called her “cracked head” in messages — she was forced to postpone her testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the deadly Benghazi attacks.

Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein emailed her aide, Capricia Marshall, offering to send Clinton copies of any movies she wanted to watch while recuperating. Dorothea Hurley, the wife of rock star Jon Bon Jovi, checked in with Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, to say that they were “sending you all a big hug.” Chelsea forwarded the message to her mother.

Her health quickly became a political issue, with Republicans questioning her fitness should she ever run for president. Her staff moved quickly to tamp down the speculation. Top aide Philippe Reines told Clinton he’d reached out to former Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist, a heart transplant surgeon, and the NFL commissioner to enlist their support pushing back on right-wing commentators. “Just not letting these comments stand, no matter who says them,” Reines said.

Frist was happy to help, according to the documents. “I love her and respect her and I can help. Not sure how exactly but I know I can help. I will Keep all Confidential,” he wrote.

___

2012 ELECTIONS

Although Clinton wasn’t on the ticket in 2012, she and her supporters followed the race closely — and had plenty to say. In a January 2012 note, during the heat of the Florida GOP primary, Clinton refers to Mitt Romney as “Mittens” and Newt Gingrich as “Grinch.”

“If Mittens can’t beat Grinch in Florida, there will be pressure on state Republican parties to reopen or liberalize ballot access,” she writes to confidant Sid Blumenthal.

___

BENGHAZI

At least a few of the messages have come back to haunt Clinton during her presidential bid. Shortly before 9 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2012, Clinton sent an email asking her daughter to call her at her office about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The email was addressed to an account under the name “Diane Reynolds,” an alias Chelsea Clinton used for personal messages.

“Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an al-Qaida-like group: The Ambassador, whom I handpicked, and a young communications officer on temporary duty w(ith) a wife and two young children,” Hillary Clinton later wrote to her daughter. “Very hard day and I fear more of the same tomorrow.”

In October, that email was trumpeted by Republicans on the House Benghazi committee as evidence that Clinton knew very quickly the attack on the consulate was the work of Islamic terrorists, not a spontaneous street protest triggered by the release of a video considered an insult to the Prophet Mohammed. In a later television interview, then-United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice suggested the video, which did spark anti-American protests that day in several Muslim countries, was the primary motivation for the attack. Republicans have suggested the Obama administration downplayed the terror threat to avoid stoking public safety concerns in the weeks leading up to the 2012 presidential election.

Some of the messages show that Clinton worried about how her own remarks after the attacks would later be perceived. In a September 2012 message, aide Jake Sullivan compiled all her statements and assured Clinton that she was “careful” and “never said ‘spontaneous’ or characterized the motives.”

“The way you treated the video in the Libya context was to say that some sought to (asterisk)justify(asterisk) the attack on that basis,” he wrote.

___

KEEPING THE TEAM TOGETHER

Clinton maintained her ties with the Democratic Party donors who supported her past campaigns and could help her in the future. In November 2012, Samuel Kaplan, a Minneapolis lawyer and major Democratic donor who was appointed U.S. ambassador to Morocco, secured a private meeting with Clinton to discuss how he and his wife “might hope to be allied” with her in the future.

Former Clinton aide Lauren Jiloty wrote to Clinton in 2012 to say she had met investor Warren Buffett, who asked her whom she had previously worked for. “When I told him it was YOU, he said, ‘She’s my heroine!'”

“We all feel that way,” Jiloty wrote. The billionaire investor will join Clinton on the campaign trail later this month.

She also kept up with some of the political strategists who worked in her husband’s administration and would go on to run her 2016 campaign, replying to birthday wishes from her future campaign chairman, John Podesta, and requests for career advice from campaign chief financial officer Gary Gensler.

___

KISSING UP

Clinton’s aides and supporters showered her with gushing praise, complimenting everything from her appearance to her policies, and the volume and emotion of those messages only grew as her tenure in the Cabinet came to an end.

Aides forwarded Clinton congratulatory messages even as she was still on the stand testifying before Congress in January 2013. “I’m being flooded with emails about how you rocked,” deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin wrote. “And you looked fabulous.” One supporter wrote a message with the subject line: “twitterverse abuzz with Hillary-kvelling,” using the Yiddish word for gushing praise.

Later, after several congratulatory emails were exchanged among Clinton’s staff, political consultant Mark Penn sent an email to Clinton gently suggesting that perhaps it wasn’t wise to lose her temper in the hearing. Penn suggested Republicans could use that moment as evidence that they had rattled her.

Aide Philippe Reines leaped to Clinton’s defense, writing:

“Give

Me

A

Break

You did not look rattled. You looked real. There’s a difference. A big one.”

Top aide Jake Sullivan weighed in, saying Penn delivered the same advice during her losing presidential campaign in 2008 — that it’s bad for a candidate to be herself. Clinton replies, “BINGO!”

___

Follow Lisa Lerer on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/llerer

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Catherine Lucey, Jack Gillum, Ted Bridis, Deb Riechmann, Matthew Lee, Stephen Braun, Wendy Benjaminson, Tami Abdollah, Michael Biesecker, Eileen Sullivan, Eric Tucker, Jim Drinkard, Ken Dilanian, Scott Bauer, Jeff Horwitz, Matthew Daly and Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report.

Join the conversation about this story »

from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1IyKX4q

//

WASHINGTON (AP) — A proposed law meant to encourage companies to share information about cyberthreats with the U.S. government includes measures that could significantly limit what details, if any, the public can review about the program through federal and state public records laws.

The legislation — already passed in both houses of Congress but not yet finalized — would keep secret any information a company hands over to the Obama administration under a new cybersecurity agreement, including specifics the firms decide themselves shouldn’t be disclosed. It’s not clear whether that secrecy would extend to learning whether particular companies are even participating.

The cyberagreement passed with bipartisan support, despite privacy concerns over Senate language from some lawmakers and technology companies, including Apple Inc. and Dropbox Inc. It’s the culmination of a roughly six-year effort made possible by recent additions of antitrust and consumer-liability protections for the companies’ participation.

Transparency advocates said the new law would provide excessive cover to tech companies through new restrictions to the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, which also supersedes state and tribal open-records laws. That could shield all sorts of information about what the government is — or isn’t — doing to protect Americans who are increasingly victimized by cybercriminals.

“There should be an element of public debate,” said Rick Blum, director of the Washington-based Sunshine in Government Initiative. “Oftentimes, public disclosure and accountability motivates people to be doing more and to be making the right choices.”

Under the federal records law, requesters can obtain government information unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or certain confidential decision-making. Critical-infrastructure information is also excluded, but the new law explicitly allows additional exemptions for “cyberthreat indicators” and “defensive measures” shared by companies. Those terms aren’t well defined, so there is more leeway to interpret what could be kept secret.

Federal agencies are encouraged to apply discretion in balancing some protections against what can be revealed, but no such discretion would be allowed under the proposed bills. Requesters may have to file a lawsuit in federal court to resolve disputes.

Congress has yet to work out differences between the House and Senate bills before any legislation would ultimately go to President Barack Obama, who early in his administration pledged greater transparency. The White House supports the new exemptions.

The Senate bill passed last month was co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the panel.

___

Follow Tami Abdollah on Twitter at https://twitter.com/latams

Join the conversation about this story »

from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1OsE1fF

//

Olongapo City (Philippines) (AFP) – A Philippine court on Tuesday convicted a US Marine of killing a Filipina transgender woman, in a case that attracted national attention as the Philippines seeks closer defence ties with its longtime ally.

Lance Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton was convicted of homicide for the killing of Filipina transgender woman Jennifer Laude in a cheap motel in October 2014.

Join the conversation about this story »

from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1OsE2Aj

//

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Millions of people visit the Grand Canyon each year, taking in the sweeping views from developed areas along the rim, grabbing a bite to eat and hopping on a shuttle bus to other outlooks. Far fewer people venture into the 1.1 million acres that make up the backcountry.

Park officials are trying to get a better handle on how many people head into the canyon and to the most primitive areas with recent proposals to manage the backcountry. They say the trails are becoming too congested and hikers complain of the noise, trash dumped along the routes and long lines for toilets.

The park also wants to monitor relatively new activities like rim-to-rim excursions, canyoneering, climbing and short rafting trips on the Colorado River to get backpackers to the other side.

The proposals aim to reduce conflicts among outdoor groups seeking the solitude of the backcountry and to ensure the park’s resources are protected. Between 30,000 and 35,000 people a year spend the night in the backcountry, according to park officials.

Here’s a look at some of the details of the management proposal:

WHAT IS THE BACKCOUNTRY?

Anything below the rim of the Grand Canyon is considered the backcountry. Much of it has been managed as a wilderness area since 1980, which means motorized travel, power drilling to place bolts into rocks and helicopters largely are prohibited. The backcountry is divided into four zones that range from having developed campsites and lodging, water faucets and well-maintained trails to absolutely no amenities and only natural water sources. Overnight stays in the inner canyon require a backcountry permit.

CANYONEERING AND CLIMBING

The 1988 plan didn’t take into account activities like rock climbing or canyoneering, which can be multi-day expeditions into slot canyons, caves and other rugged terrain. The park has no policy for anchoring ropes, and the activities aren’t listed on backcountry permits. The park wants the ability to require single day permits that identify the routes and restrict the number of groups if needed. The proposals outline a way to monitor the activities.

FEE FOR DAY HIKES

Hikers can walk down the three most popular trails — Bright Angel and South Kaibab from the South Rim, and North Kaibab from the North Rim — as far as they’d like, although the National Park Service discourages trips to the Colorado River and back in a single day. Each of the three proposals for revising the backcountry management plan would institute a day-use permit for hiking more than 5 miles on those trails and at least a $5 fee. Park officials say it’s meant to cut down on overcrowding farther below and improve the experience for hikers. The park would reserve the right to limit group sizes and set daily caps.

TELL THE PARK WHAT YOU THINK

The three options for backcountry management took years to develop. Each has a different focus from balancing recreation with resource protection, to solitude to expanding recreation activities. Another option would leave things as is. The public has 90 days to comment on the proposals. Public meetings are planned Wednesday at the Grand Canyon and Monday in Flagstaff. The park says it will be a year or more before a final decision is made. For more information, go to http://ift.tt/1OsDFpg .

Join the conversation about this story »

from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1ThwEXC

//

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rewriting your DNA is getting closer to reality. A revolutionary technology is opening new frontiers for genetic engineering.

Hundreds of scientists and ethicists from around the world are gathering in Washington this week to debate the boundaries of human gene editing. There’s worry that the fast-moving research may outpace safety and ethics scrutiny.

It’s a question that gained urgency after Chinese researchers made the first attempt at editing genes in human embryos. The laboratory experiment didn’t work well but did raise the prospect of one day passing modified DNA to future generations.

The molecular biologist who co-invented the most-used gene-editing tool is calling on scientists, policymakers and the public to determine the right balance in how it’s eventually used and will be discussed at this week’s gathering.

Join the conversation about this story »

from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1PqAFev

//

On Tuesday morning, the purchasing managers’ indices (PMIs) for the eurozone’s manufacturing sectors in November are rolling out. 

They’re business surveys that indicate how a sector of the economy is doing, long before any hard data comes out.

Anything over 50 is good, signalling growth, while anything below suggests a sector is contracting.

Here’s what we’ve got so far:

• Spain manufacturing PMI (51.9 expected, 51.3 previous)

Here’s what’s coming next: 

• Italy manufacturing PMI at 8:45 a.m.
• France manufacturing PMI at 8:50 a.m.
• Germany manufacturing PMI at 8:55 a.m. 
• Eurozone total at 9 a.m.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Jeff Sachs: Here’s why the Middle East is going to get a lot worse

from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1PqAEXS

//

OLONGAPO, Philippines (AP) — A U.S. Marine has been found guilty of killing a transgender Filipino after discovering her gender in a hotel in the Philippines last year.

Lance Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton was convicted Tuesday of homicide by first strangling Jennifer Laude and then dunking her head into a toilet bowl in the hotel they had checked into after meeting in a disco bar in Olongapo city, northwest of Manila. Court clerk Gerry Gruspe said Pemberton was sentenced to up to 12 years in jail.

The killing has reignited calls by left-wing groups and nationalists for an end to America’s military presence in the Philippines at a time when the U.S. is reasserting its dominance in Asia, and Manila has turned to Washington for support amid an escalating territorial dispute with China.

Join the conversation about this story »

from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1PqACzl

//

Beijing (AFP) – The Chinese scientist behind the world’s biggest cloning factory has technology advanced enough to replicate humans, he told AFP, and is only holding off for fear of the public reaction.

Boyalife Group and its partners are building the giant plant in the northern Chinese port of Tianjin, where it is due to go into production within the next seven months and aims for an output of one million cloned cows a year by 2020.

But cattle are only the beginning of chief executive Xu Xiaochun’s ambitions.

In the factory pipeline are also thoroughbred racehorses, as well as pet and police dogs, specialised in searching and sniffing.

Boyalife is already working with its South Korean partner Sooam and the Chinese Academy of Sciences to improve primate cloning capacity to create better test animals for disease research.

And it is a short biological step from monkeys to humans — potentially raising a host of moral and ethical controversies.

“The technology is already there,” Xu said. “If this is allowed, I don’t think there are other companies better than Boyalife that make better technology.”

The firm does not currently engage in human cloning activities, Xu said, adding that it has to be “self-restrained” because of possible adverse reaction.

But social values can change, he pointed out, citing changing views of homosexuality and suggesting that in time humans could have more choices about their own reproduction.

“Unfortunately, currently, the only way to have a child is to have it be half its mum, half its dad,” he said.

“Maybe in the future you have three choices instead of one,” he went on. “You either have fifty-fifty, or you have a choice of having the genetics 100 percent from Daddy or 100 percent from Mummy. This is only a choice.”

Xu, 44, went to university in Canada and the US, and has previously worked for US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, and in drug development.

– Snuppy the cloned dog –

Presenting cloning as a safeguard of biodiversity, the Tianjin facility will house a gene bank capable of holding up to approximately five million cell samples frozen in liquid nitrogen -– a catalogue of the world’s endangered species for future regeneration.

Boyalife’s South Korean partner Sooam is already working on a project to bring the woolly mammoth back from extinction by cloning cells preserved for thousands of years in the Siberian permafrost.

Sooam also serves a niche market recreating customers’ dead pet dogs, reportedly for $100,000 a time.

Sooam founder Hwang Woo-Suk was a national hero with his own postage stamp before being embroiled in controversy a decade ago after his claims to be the first in the world to clone a human embryo were discredited.

Hwang, who created Snuppy, the world’s first cloned dog, in 2005, lost his university position, had two major papers retracted, and was accused of crimes ranging from violation of bioethics laws to embezzling research funds.

Earlier this year he was quoted in South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper saying that his firm was planning a cloning joint venture in China “because of South Korea’s bioethics law that prohibits the use of human eggs”.

“We have decided to locate the facilities in China in case we enter the phase of applying the technology to human bodies,” he was quoted as saying.

– ‘Weird experiments’ –

For now, Xu seeks to become the world’s first purveyor of “cloned” beef, breeding genetically identical super-cattle that he promises will taste like Kobe and allow butchers to “slaughter less and produce more” to meet the demands of China’s booming middle class.

Cloning differs from genetic modification, but its application to animals would enable the firm to homogenise its output.

“Everything in the supermarket looks good –- it’s almost all shiny, good-looking, and uniformly shaped. For animals, we weren’t able to do that in the past. But with our cloning factory, we choose to do so now,” Xu said.

“Remember, this is a food. We want it to be uniform, very consistent, very premium quality,” he added.

There is controversy over whether cloned beef is safe for human consumption — research by the US Food and Drug Adminstration says that it is, but the European parliament has backed a ban on cloned animals and products in the food chain.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has yet to review the issue.

Han Lanzhi, a GMO safety specialist at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said Boyalife’s claims about the safety, scope and timeline of their operations were alarming — and implausible.

“To get approval for the safety of cloned animals would be a very drawn-out process, so when I heard this news, I felt very surprised,” she said.

“There must be strong regulation because as a company pursuing its own interests, they could very easily do other things in the future,” she added.

Xu sought to be reassuring, telling AFP: “We want the public to see that cloning is really not that crazy, that scientists aren’t weird, dressed in lab coats, hiding behind a sealed door doing weird experiments.” 

Join the conversation about this story »

from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1jwwkba

//

November was another pretty ugly month for a swathe of financial asset classes, with pretty much everything down in dollar terms.

The charts below come from Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid, showing how stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies did around the world in the last 30 days. Other than a tiny handful of asset classes that appreciated in value, pretty much everything slumped:

It looks better in local currency terms, but the strongest performers (like Russian, German and Japanese stocks) have all seen their local currency value slide against the dollar since November, too:

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This poker concept can make Wall Street investors more successful

from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1PqABLM