U.S. Senate averts showdown
on tradition of filibustering


The U.S. Senate appears to have averted an institutional crisis over the rights of minority Republicans to block votes, in this case, confirmation votes for presidential nominees to federal posts. It is not clear whether a bipartisan deal will prove to be anything more than a temporary solution to one element of congressional gridlock.
 
After months of delay, the Senate opted to proceed to a final vote on the first of seven nominations put forth by President Barack Obama that were blocked by Republicans through a procedure known as a filibuster.
 
Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, hailed the outcome. “The vote we took a short while ago is central to ending the paralysis that has generally haunted this chamber," he said.
 
Democrats had threatened to use their majority to change Senate rules and end Republicans’ ability to filibuster presidential nominees entirely. Such an unprecedented move, dubbed the nuclear option, would have further roiled a chamber already hobbled by sharp partisan divides.
 
Senators of both parties met behind closed doors for more than three hours late Monday in search of compromise. A deal emerged Tuesday to proceed with five of seven Obama nominees. In return, Republicans retain full filibuster rights in the future. New nominees would be named for two other posts to replace existing ones whose appointments were challenged in federal court.
 
Majority Leader Harry Reid said members of both parties should be pleased. "We get what we want, they  get what they want. Not a bad deal," he said.
 
Republican leader Mitch McConnell agreed. “A high level of collegiality on a bipartisan basis was achieved. It was an important moment for the Senate," he said.
 
But could new brawls erupt over filibusters of future presidential nominees? Absolutely, according to McConnell. “We still will be dealing with controversial nominees. And all the options available to the minority remain intact," he said.
 
Similarly, Majority Leader Reid said Democrats are  sure about retaining the threat to change Senate rules if they feel the need to do so.
 
Political analyst Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution notes that Tuesday’s accord does not address filibusters of judicial nominations or actual legislation.
 
“I do not expect to see any change in what has become a 60-vote threshold for moving on anything else in the Senate," he said.
 
Once a rarely employed tool, the filibuster has become a regular part of Senate business. Filibusters now precede nearly every vote of consequence, and require a three-fifths supermajority to end debate and proceed to a vote.


Gay rights in foreign policy
brings support and criticism


The steady growth of support for the gay rights movement and same sex marriage equality within the United States has been accompanied by increased U.S. government support for gay rights around the world.  The U.S. foreign policy to promote equal rights, no matter sexual orientation, has sparked criticism both abroad and at home.
 
Living now in relative freedom and security in New York City, artist and filmmaker Alexander Kargaltsev remembers the harassment and violence he suffered as a gay man in his native Russia.
 
“I went to the demonstration like gay pride, an attempt of gay pride because it did not happen.  And a few people were arrested and I was beaten by police and I was left laying down bleeding," he said.
 
U.S. officials view anti-gay violence as human rights violations and granted Kargaltsev and a number of refugees asylum based on the persecution they faced for their sexual identity.
 
The United States is also using diplomacy and aid to support gay rights.  Journalist Michael Lavers, with the gay newspaper the Washington Blade, recently participated in a U.S. government-sponsored workshop in Colombia, where he talked to gay and lesbian activists about how to use the media to hold officials accountable. 
 
“This is not to say the situation in the United States is perfect.  We certainly have our own issues with discrimination and so forth, but folks outside the United States, at least the folks I have spoken to in Colombia and in other places around the world, really look to the United States almost as an example of how to do things right," he said.
 
President Barack Obama was in Senegal when the U.S. Supreme Court expanded gay marriage rights.  In Senegal and 38 countries in Africa homosexuality is a crime, and in some countries it is punishable by death.  The president spoke out in favor of same sex marriage. 
 
“We believe in basic fairness, and what I think yesterday’s ruling signifies is one more step towards ensuring that those basic principles apply to everybody," he said.
 
Senegalese President Macky Sall said his Muslim majority country would not change its laws. 
 
Opponents of same sex marriage in America are also critical of U.S. foreign policy supporting same sex marriage, which is not legal in many U.S. states.  Thomas Peters is with the National Organization for Marriage.
 
“We do not believe that redefining is the path toward equality.  When you redefine marriage, you actually create inequality in society.  And so, on the one hand we can absolutely support gay rights to not be persecuted for their orientation or for their lifestyle, but we also can stand up for marriage, which is what we do," he said.
 
Human-rights groups agree that protecting free speech and combating hate violence should be a priority for U.S. foreign policy, but they say supporting equal rights also means supporting the right for same-sex couples to marry.


Supercomputer in Chicago
fails to win, place or show


The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory in suburban Chicago is home to one of the newest, fastest, most efficient supercomputers in the country, called MIRA.  But despite the new equipment, lawmakers are concerned that the United States is losing the international supercomputing race, a field it has dominated for decades.

Lined up in a sprawling room on the second floor of Argonne National Laboratory’s Theory and Computing Sciences building is the future of supercomputing.

Argonne Director Eric Isaacs says MIRA can go where few computers can.

“A machine like this enables us to start solving complex problems, and by complex problems, I mean problems that have many moving parts," he said. "Like a jet engine, a photovoltaic cell, like a grid, if you think about a power grid, a power grid is a very complicated thing.”

When construction and assembly of MIRA began, it was projected to be the third fastest computer on the planet, clocking in at around 10 petaflops.

“That’s 10 quadrillion operations per second.  That’s just very fast,” according to Isaacs.

But not fast enough to stay on top.

By the time U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin arrived at Argonne for a ceremonial ribbon cutting to officially dedicate the newest machine on the supercomputing block, MIRA had fallen to fifth place in the global ranking of the world’s fastest computers.

“The fastest computer in the world is in China,” Isaacs said.

That computer, known as The Milky Way 2 housed in Guangzhou, is about three times the speed of Argonne’s MIRA.

“It’s also a real threat," Isaacs said.  "We’re now seeing China more often take the lead role of being the fastest or having the fastest machine in the world.”

The trend troubles Durbin, who wants the United States to remain competitive in the supercomputing race.

“There’s a competition in this world not just for jobs but for basic research that can be applied to the private sector and public sector, and the world of supercomputing is where many of those battles will be fought,” he said.

Durbin says there also are battles to be fought in the U.S. Congress, where funding for supercomputers is bogged down in the politics of deficit reduction and tighter budgets.

“They know the cost, but they don’t know the value," he said. "We really need to educate members of Congress this supercomputing competition is really key to America’s competitiveness and to a lot of breakthroughs that will benefit the whole world.”

Although MIRA is not the fastest, it does hold the distinction of being the most energy efficient.  Air around the processors inside the machine is cooled using chilled water in copper tubes instead of fans, which also reduces the amount of noise it creates.


Coalition challenges U.S.
on its  surveillance of citizens


An unusual coalition of U.S. political advocacy and religious groups has filed suit contesting the legality of the government's surveillance of Americans' telephone records.

The coalition, represented by a digital rights advocacy group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation, filed the lawsuit Tuesday. It claims the spying by the country's clandestine National Security Agency is "an illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance."

The lawsuit is the sixth filed against the government seeking to end its vast collection of telephone and Internet records in the aftermath of former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaking details of two secret NSA surveillance programs last month. The NSA collects what it calls metadata about the phone calls, the phone numbers Americans are calling and the length of the calls.

The 30-year-old Snowden fled first to Hong Kong, and then, after the United States accused him of espionage, flew to Russia. He is now encamped for a fourth week in a transit zone of a Moscow airport.

Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said Snowden applied Tuesday for temporary asylum in Russia, even though he still wants to eventually travel to Latin America, where leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have offered him asylum. But Snowden is blocked from leaving Moscow as the U.S. has revoked his passport.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he does not know how the fugitive's case will play out. He said the U.S. frightened other countries into not accepting Snowden.

Putin said Snowden's case is in limbo right now, but that he expects he will leave for another country as soon as he has an opportunity to move elsewhere.

The Russian leader has rejected the U.S. request to extradite Snowden to stand trial on the espionage charges. But with Snowden seeking Russian asylum, Washington renewed its bid for his return.

The White House said Snowden is not a human rights activist or dissident, and that he is accused in the leaking of classified information.


Suspicions in Dreamliner fire
center on its locator beacon


British investigators said on Tuesday a transmitter made by U.S. firm Honeywell was one of several components that may have caused a fire on a Boeing Dreamliner in London last week.

“We can confirm that Honeywell has been invited to join the investigation,” a spokesman for Britain's Air Accident Investigations Branch said on Tuesday.

The emergency locator transmitter  is one of several components being looked at in detail as part of the investigation and it would be premature to speculate on the causes of the incident at this stage, the spokesman said.

Britain's investigating unit is leading the probe into a blaze on an Ethiopian Airlines jet that broke out last Friday and has already allayed fears about a return of problems with overheating batteries that grounded the Dreamliner for months earlier this year.

A source familiar with the probe said Monday that investigators were now looking into whether the fire, which occurred at London's Heathrow airport, was caused by the battery of an locator transmitter  built by Honeywell.

Honeywell said at that point only that it had joined the investigation into the fire, declining to discuss details beyond saying it had no previous experience of difficulties with this type of transmitter. The company's British spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

The locator transmitter, which is positioned in the upper rear part of the new airline, sends a signal that leads rescuers to downed aircraft. It is powered by a non-rechargeable lithium-manganese battery.

The Air Accident Investigations Branch, which is leading the probe into the fire, said on Saturday it found no evidence the fire was caused by the lithium-ion batteries that were implicated in the 787's grounding earlier this year.

But the focus on the emergency beacon raised alarms for some analysts, who said more technology problems with the new, high-tech airliner would be troubling.

“It's good to see the AAIB are getting closer to finding out what happened but what we really need to know now is if this is a one off or a problem for the whole Dreamliner fleet.  That is the crucial point for Boeing and airlines,”  said Howard Wheeldon, an aerospace analyst at Wheeldon Strategic Advisory.

The Dreamliner in question has been moved to a hangar at Heathrow where it is under technical investigation.

A 25 strong team of experts, including inspectors from the Air Accident Investigations Branch and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the damaged Dreamliner.

Ethiopian Airlines, one of Africa's top five carriers, said it would continue to fly its Dreamliner fleet. It has ordered a total of 10 Dreamliners, of which four have been delivered.

Airlines, including Britain's Thomson Airways, U.S. carrier United Continental, and Poland's LOT, said they would also continue to fly their Dreamliners, while others, such as Virgin Atlantic confirmed they would stick to their plans to buy the aircraft.


U.S. consumer prices rise
but the increase is minimal


Higher gasoline costs pushed U.S. consumer prices up half a percent in June, but overall inflation is still tame.

Tuesday's report from the Labor Department says outside the volatile areas of energy and food, overall prices rose just 1.6 percent over the past 12 months.

That is a bit below the level that U.S. experts say is best for the economy.

A separate report shows U.S. industrial production rose three-tenths of a percent in June. That means the output from factories, mines, and utilities grew more than in the previous month.

These and many other studies are under consideration as the head of the U.S. Federal Reserve prepares to to give members of Congress a mid-year assessment of the world's largest economy today and Thursday.

Fed chief Ben Bernanke may give details about when he and his colleagues will cut back efforts to stimulate the economy.  

Previously, he said when the economy strengthens and no longer needs so much help, the Fed will reduce a complex program aimed at cutting long-term interest rates by purchasing $85 billion a month in securities.  Lower long-term rates make it easier for businesses to buy equipment and for families to purchase homes and cars.

Another Fed stimulus effort has been to cut short-term interest rates nearly to zero. The bank has said those short-term rates are likely to stay at ultra-low levels at least until the unemployment rate drops below 6.5 percent, which probably won't happen until next year.


Blasts from deep space give
scientists inter-galactic mystery


An international team of astronomers is studying four mysterious and very powerful radio bursts they think may have originated half way across the universe.  The astronomers have come up with a few theories about the signals, none of them having anything to do with alien civilizations.
 
A mysterious radio pulse coming from outside the galaxy was first detected back in 2007. At the time, scientists didn’t know what it was or if it was simply a type of earth-made interference.
 
So a group of astronomers led by Dan Thornton from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and the University of Manchester in Britain decided to scan the skies with a radio telescope to search for pulsars, rotating neutron stars or remnants of stars that had exploded. Thornton and his team wanted to know if the mystery radio pulse was still being transmitted, to figure out where it came from and what might be causing it.
 
As he and his colleagues slowly scanned the heavens, Thornton said they detected more of these radio bursts.  They also learned that the bursts were real and not just radio interference, and that they had travelled a long distance to get here.
 
“What we discovered is very, very narrow radio emissions, so very short lengths; they only last for a few milliseconds,” Thornton said.  “The main thing that is interesting about them is that they appear to be coming from across the universe, so extremely far away.  We get lots of these radio emissions a bit like this from our own galaxy, from pulsars, but these appear to be coming from way, way outside of our galaxy, a million times further away.”

Thornton said that while he and his colleagues detected only four of the mystery radio pulses over one year, that’s because they were only scanning relatively small patches of the sky at a time.  It will take a few more years to complete the entire sky survey and he says the probability is that thousands more of these signals will be discovered.
 
“We calculated a rate of how many of these we might expect in the sky per day and we found that there’s 10,000 going off every day somewhere in the sky, randomly distributed,” Thornton said, explaining how his team reached the estimate.
 
While the astronomers aren’t completely clear as to the origins of the radio signals, at the moment they’re thinking that they could be the result of some major cosmological event that took place billions of years ago.

“We think it’s probably an extreme cataclysmic event, so something that destroys whatever it was that created it because we haven’t seen them to repeat,” he said.  “We looked back at the same patch of sky and we haven’t seen any repeat bursts at the same position.  This leads us to believe that they only happened once, so it’s a possible explosive event like a supernova, like a star coming to the end of its life and exploding, possibly, or perhaps associated with a giant burst from a magnetar.”
 
Thornton says that astronomers need to continue their investigations to better pinpoint the source and cause of the radio bursts.

One thing that he is sure of is that these short but incredibly powerful bursts aren’t coming from extraterrestrial life forms out in the cosmos.
 
“This is nothing to do with alien civilizations,” Thornton said.  “If you calculate the luminosity of these bursts, they’re absolutely enormous. It’s just not possible for that amount of energy to be harnessed in just five milliseconds.  The energy output, at source of these bursts is how much energy the sun gives out in total for 300,000 years, but this happens in just five milliseconds and I can’t imagine how anyone could control that.”
 
Thornton and his team outlined their finding in a paper published by the journal Science.

 
Italian making a spacewalk
suffered a watery mishap


NASA cut short a spacewalk outside the International Space Station Tuesday after water began building up inside the helmet of an Italian astronaut.
 
The astronaut, Luca Parmitano, was conducting his second career spacewalk when he reported feeling water on the back of his head.  As large quantities of liquid collected inside his helmet, NASA called off the spacewalk, and Parmitano, along with fellow astronaut American Christopher Cassidy, made it back into the orbiting outpost after one hour and 32 minutes outside the research lab.  Last week, Parmitano became the first Italian to walk in space.
 
During a news conference to discuss the unexpected events, the U.S. space agency said it initially suspected that Parmitano's drinking water supply might have escaped into his helmet.  NASA, however, said an investigation has ruled out that possibility.
 
"It was definitely a leak in the system," said Karina Eversley, the lead spacewalk officer.  "This was not a normal amount of water," she added.
 
The ISS crew found that between 1 and 1.5 liters of water had flooded throughout Parmitano's suit, although it was concentrated mostly in his helmet.
 
The team is now investigating whether a leak in the suit's cooling system, which contains about four liters of water, could be responsible.  Parmitano reported that the water had a "funny taste," which may help the investigators to pinpoint its source.
 
In zero gravity, water floats freely in large globs, rather than settling in contained spaces.  Astronaut  Cassidy visually inspected Parmitano's helmet, and reported that the volume of water seemed to be increasing.  It was at this point that NASA aborted the mission, and Parmitano returned quickly to the ship's airlock, followed by Cassidy.
 
As Parmitano returned to the station, the amount of water increased to the point that it congealed around his ears and face, making it difficult for him to hear, see, and speak.
 
"You can imagine you're in a fishbowl," said David Korth, a NASA flight director.  "This is not a thing you take lightly. He did a great job of keeping calm and cool."
 
Karina Eversley confirmed that Parmitano may have been at risk of drowning had his suit not been removed quickly, and that this was one of the more serious incidents to occur in the history of spacewalking.


Elizabeth Taylor's possessions
will go on the block Oct. 112


A collection of late actress Elizabeth Taylor's personal items, including jewelry, cocktail dresses and film costumes, will go under the hammer in Beverly Hills, California, Julien's Auctions said Tuesday.
 
The collection, which comes from an unidentified former employee of Taylor, will first go on display in Ireland and will hit the auction block Oct. 12.
 
The top item, an 18-karat gold, multi-gem earring and necklace set, is expected to fetch between $10,000 and $15,000. The necklace and earrings set include multiple topaz, diamond, peridot and citrine gemstones.
 
Miss Taylor, who died in 2011 at the age of 79, epitomized Hollywood glamour from its golden age with her love of diamonds, her violet eyes and a tumultuous love life that included eight marriages, two of them to Welsh actor Richard Burton.
 
In a career spanning seven decades, British-American Taylor first gained fame in 1944's “National Velvet” at age 12 and was nominated for five Oscars. She won the best actress award for 1960's “Butterfield 8” and 1966's “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
 
Also for sale is the falcon headdress Miss Taylor wore in the 1963 film “Cleopatra,” where she began her love affair with Burton. The headdress, which helped score the film an Oscar award for costume design, is expected to sell for $2,000 to $3,000.
 
A decolletage-baring spaghetti-strap gown and bolero jacket designed by South African couturier Chris Levin that Taylor wore to Burton's 50th birthday party at London's Dorchester Hotel in 1975 is expected to fetch between $2,000 and $3,000.