Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.
Showing posts with label Newsroom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Newsroom. Show all posts
Sunday, July 31, 2011
What’s in a name? (The Newsroom)
Harper Seven. Bear Blue. Pilot Inspektor. We're all familiar with the oddball baby names that Hollywood celebs hang around their children's necks here in America, but apparently, New Zealand has had enough.
The country's baby name registrar has officially banned the name "Lucifer" after not one but THREE sets of parents tried to name their babies after the spawn of the devil.
So take note, Odd Baby Name Haters: There's actually a baby name that's more tragic than, say, "Jermajesty" out there.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Share your story: Gay marriage now legal in 6 states (The Newsroom)
Last month, New York became the sixth state to allow gay marriage. This Sunday marks the first day gays can legally wed and New York City officials were flooded by more than 1,700 wedding applications for just that day.
To deal with the overwhelming response, the city established a lottery that will choose 764 couples to be married Sunday; winners will be announced on Friday. On Monday, wedding ceremonies will be "first come, first served" at city clerk offices around the five boroughs.
For couples who don't win a spot in NYC should head north: The suburb of Greenburgh is offering wedding services at Town Hall, as well as special festivities to celebrate the historic day.
Are you getting married on Sunday? Do you live in a state that allows gay marriage and have already wed? Are you waiting for your state to legalize gay marriage? Then Yahoo! News and the Yahoo! Contributor Network want to hear your story: Sign up to the Yahoo! Contributor Network and tell us what gay marriage means to you.
What’s next for America’s aspiring astronauts? (The Newsroom)
Click image to view photos of space travel's past, present and future. (AFP)
The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis is seen with from the International Space Station. REUTERS/NASA TV/Handout(This report is the third and final in a Yahoo! News series on the shutdown of the space shuttle program.)
When Atlantis lands at Cape Canaveral on Thursday, back from the very last mission to the International Space Station, 20-year-old Amanda Premer will be getting ready to move to Houston. The fourth-year aerospace engineering major is headed to Johnson Space Center's Cooperative Education program, where she will be alternating her last semesters at Wichita State University with three "work tours" at the NASA site. She hopes to secure a full-time job with NASA.
"I want to be an astronaut," said Premer, who has spent the last four summers working at the Cosmosphere space camp in Hutchinson, Kan. "Even though NASA doesn't have anything lined up to follow the shuttle program, the world's always going to need astronauts. And I'd like to be one of them."
As NASA's 30-year space shuttle program draws to a close, the next generation of aspiring astronauts and talented aerospace engineers must rely on international vehicles to fly up to the ISS, and depend on private industry to create the next best rocket. They are entering a new, nebulous era of American spaceflight, but are fervent in their desire to carry the torch lit by their predecessors during the Apollo era.
"The shuttle is old. Amazing, but old," said Sara Gurnett, who is three semesters away from earning a degree in professional aeronautics from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz., and also works summers as a counselor for the Cosmosphere. "So it's not disappointing to me that it's retiring."
She hopes to join the U.S. Navy's Officer Candidate School after graduation, and eventually become an astronaut pilot. "I want to one day be able to fly the most exotic thing out there," said Gurnett, who keeps her pilot license, along with her scuba certification, literally in her back pocket. "That used to be the space shuttle, but now, who knows what it'll be. … It'll probably be built by private industry."
President Obama thinks so too. Atlantis' crew deposited on the ISS an American flag that flew on the first shuttle mission, and when Obama spoke to the crew last week before it returned to Earth, he challenged the commercial space industry to "capture the flag."
Shortly afterward, California-based company SpaceX posted via Twitter: "SpaceX commencing flag capturing sequence…"
Founded by engineer-entrepreneur Elon Musk (of PayPal and Tesla fame), SpaceX made history in November when it became the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and guide it safely back to Earth. It plans to send that same spacecraft to the ISS by the end of this year. Fueling this effort will be the company's cadre of bright young engineers—the average age at SpaceX is early 30s.
"There's all this incredible energy happening in the private sector," said Garrett Reisman, a former astronaut who rode on Atlantis' penultimate trip to the ISS last year, but recently hung up his spacesuit to join SpaceX as a senior engineer. "We have a great mix of these senior guys and these young guys who are the best and the brightest."
One of those young guys is 26-year-old Matt McKeown , who sat in mission control during SpaceX's historic launch last year. A lead propulsion engineer, he gave the iconic "go/no-go" cues from the propulsion standpoint.
"It's definitely a challenge for us young engineers because we've never done this before," said McKeown, who joined SpaceX after earning a master's degree—and a 3.9 GPA—in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan in 2008. "But we know we have to make progress or we're not going to have jobs! That's a great motivator."
McKeown started building model rockets in elementary school, and he continued to build them throughout junior high and high school. In college, he set his sights a little higher and co-founded the Michigan Aeronautical Science Association, an organization specifically designed to construct space vehicles. He received a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, which was founded by the six surviving astronauts of Project Mercury, NASA's first major undertaking. The foundation rewards college students who excel in the sciences.
"Ever since I was 5, I knew I wanted to be an engineer," said McKeown, who was inspired by shuttle technology. "Now I'm working on vehicles that will take manned spaceflight to the next level. … I hope that will inspire people."
Sara Gurnett believes that renewing public interest in space exploration is the key to continued funding and support.
"We have to get parents interested in space, and then they'll inspire their kids," she said. "Some kids see these things as faraway dreams and they don't feel like they're good enough. … But they could really do this one day!"
Aerospace engineer Doug Hofmann, 30, was inspired to pursue a career in space by his father, a retired Army lieutenant colonel with a strong interest in the space program. (In 1985, the elder Hofmann, then a seventh-grade teacher, was a finalist for the ill-fated Challenger mission.)
"I grew up wanting to be an astronaut," said Hofmann, who knew his best chances were to become an engineer or a military fighter pilot. "My dad told me I was more apt for research than the military."
From then on, Hofmann relentlessly pursued the space field and took every opportunity to get advice from former astronauts. Sally Ride, the first American woman to enter space, and one of Hofmann's professors at the University of California, San Diego, convinced him to go to Caltech for graduate school rather than MIT. He went on to earn both a master's and PhD in materials science.
Hofmann is now working in what he calls his dream job, designing new materials for spacecraft at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He hopes the job will bring him one step closer to becoming an astronaut (he currently has funding for research projects on the ISS).
In the meantime, he's trying to pass on the wonder and excitement for all things space to his 5-month-old son: "When I was in Washington, D.C., I got the autographs of three astronauts for my son. When he's older he'll appreciate them."
Though many view the end of the shuttle program as an end to American spaceflight, this new generation of aspiring astronauts, engineers and space enthusiasts are excited as ever for the future, and hope that they can leave their mark, much as their predecessors from Apollo and the shuttle missions did. Whether it's by hitching a ride on another country's vehicle or inaugurating a shiny new ride built by commercial industry, they will continue to explore the great unknown, and stake their flag to inspire the next generation.
More specifically, according to Gurnett: "Space travel to the moon, Mars and beyond: That's the legacy I want my generation to leave."
Holy receipt! (The Newsroom)
Jesus and the Virgin Mary have "appeared" on everything from grilled cheese to rocks.
But in his most recent appearance, Jesus is showing that even the son of the Big Man has economic issues on the brain: A South Carolina couple claims that the good lord Jesus appeared on a receipt from a recent trip to Wal-Mart.
Jacob Simmons and Gentry Lee Sutherland had just returned home from church (interesting connection, no?), and found what looked like the face of Christ BURNED into the receipt.
Maybe next time, he can make an appearance on the bazillion-dollar tab we've got running on Capitol Hill and save us from that.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
LIFE slideshow: John Glenn, unpublished photos (The Newsroom)
No person alive has been more closely associated, for so long, with America's triumphs in space during the late '50s and early '60s than Ohio native John Glenn. Here, on the occasion of his 90th birthday (July 18), LIFE.com presents unpublished photos of the first American to orbit the earth; the decorated Marine Corps veteran (WWII and Korea); and the earnest, novice politician, taken by LIFE photographers during one of the most thrilling, inspiring, nerve-wracking eras in the nation's history: the Space Race.
Hank Walker/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Second Act: Swimmer Diana Nyad (The Newsroom)
Open water swimmer Diana Nyad is back in Key West, Florida, continuing her quest to be the first person to make a 103-mile swim from Havana, Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. A Yahoo! News team recently accompanied Nyad on a grueling 9-hour training swim, shooting an episode of the award-winning show Second Act from aboard her escort vessel. Nyad, who is 61 and swims around 1.5 miles an hour, is waiting for favorable water temperatures and ocean wind speeds to attempt the 60-hour crossing. Hurricanes and delays with Cuban visas prevented her from trying the swim last summer. Click here to see the video.
Yahoo! News
Share your story: Join the Yahoo! Contributor Network (The Newsroom)
Would you like to share your personal insights or stories from your community with Yahoo! News readers? Join the Yahoo! Contributor Network, a platform that allows writers, photographers and videographers to share their knowledge and passion with millions of people worldwide — and earn money doing it.
Yahoo! News has many content providers, but we want to make sure that you have an opportunity to tell your story as well. What newsworthy events are happening in your state? How is your family affected by the recession or the latest piece of legislation? What's your take on the biggest stories of the day? These are the kinds of insights we want you to share through the Yahoo! Contributor Network.
Here are stories we've featured from readers and contributors like you:
Your memories of major events: Eyewitness to space shuttle history
Interviews with experts: Q&A: Does troop withdrawal spell defeat in Afghanistan?
First-person experiences with big news stories: Behind the numbers: Struggle continues for unemployed
Commentary and opinion: Who's to blame for high gas prices?
Stories about your city or state: The Lucky Ones: A near-miss from the Joplin tornado
In addition to opportunities to publish on Yahoo! News, the work you submit to the Yahoo! Contributor Network may appear on Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Shine and Associated Content. You can choose your own topics, or claim opportunities from our Assignment Desk. The best part? You'll also get paid! Some of our assignments come with up-front payments, and everything you publish on Yahoo! News through the Yahoo! Contributor Network will generate money based on the amount of traffic it receives.
Learn more about the opportunities available on the Yahoo! Contributor Network, and get started now.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Tats for grades (The Newsroom)
For parents and teachers, it can be an uphill battle to get kids to do well in school. First it was cash for grades, now its ... tats for grades?
That's what one San Francisco teacher promised his students if they improved their performance: a tattoo. Not for them, but for him. Stanley Richards, a science teacher at City Arts and Technology High School, vowed he would get a tattoo of their vice principal if students raised the school's academic performance score by 50 points.
And not just any tattoo: Mr. Vice Principal would be portrayed as a sumo wrestler, holding a medallion of test scores and slaying a dragon. (Hope Mr. Richards has the number of a good tattoo-removal doctor.)
The students hit the books, and true to his word, Mr. R showed up on the last day of class with the vice principal's mug on his calf.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Yolks on you (The Newsroom)
OK, maybe not on you, but the yolks were definitely on one Charlotte Matthews. The British cake decorator cracked a record 29 double yolks ... in row. The British Egg Information Service says the odds of cracking just one double yolk are one in 1,000.
The odds of getting 29 in a row, however, are one "in 1,000 to the power of 29 - or one followed by 87 zeros."
(Personally, I'd like to know what the odds are that there is actually an entity called the "British Egg Information Service.")
Princess Diana at 50: How her legacy lives on (The Newsroom)
If Princess Diana were still alive, Friday, July 1, would be her 50th birthday. Many are speculating what she would be like today — how she would look, where she would live, who she would have married. The magazine Newsweek even created a computer-generated image of her next to Kate Middleton for a controversial cover. But amid all the speculation, few people doubt one thing: She would be proud of her sons, who are carrying on a trait that arguably made her so famous — empathy.
Her older son, Prince William, and his new wife will be in Canada on the day Diana would have turned 50, and they head to Los Angeles on July 8. Bob Sullivan, managing editor of LIFE Books and author and editor of the new book "Diana at 50," notes that William's appeal and charity work are largely because of his mother.
"He clearly has inherited her preternatural gift for empathy," he says. "Wills is more his mother's son than his father's, and that would please her, of course."
More beloved than the family that put her on the global stage, Diana had a personality that paved the way for her sons to live very different lives than their father did. In many ways, her empathy and modernity transformed the British royal family.
"They really didn't know what hit them," Sullivan says. "It wasn't that she changed them and they wanted to be changed. It's that she shocked them."
Thursday, June 23, 2011
What Afghans think about President Obama’s troop drawdown (The Newsroom)
By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent / June 22, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan
President Obama is slated to announce plans to begin a withdrawal of US forces in Afghanistan — the first of its kind since the US and NATO officially entered Afghanistan nearly a decade ago.
Though initial estimates look to be modest, many Afghans are greeting the news of US withdrawal with a mix of joy and concern.
"People are happy when they hear that the foreigners are preparing to leave. All the security problems are because of them. If they leave, who will Al Qaeda and the Taliban say they are fighting against?" says Shah Wali, a money exchanger in Kabul. "Personally, I think they should not leave too fast. They should do it step by step."
Mr. Obama is expected to make an official announcement tonight about the drawdown and exactly how many soldiers will leave.
Initial estimates indicate that the US will remove 5,000 soldiers this summer, followed by another 5,000 in the winter or spring of 2012. The US president is also looking at plans that could bring home the remaining 20,000 troops he ordered here as part of a 2009 surge by the end of 2012.
Presently, there are about 100,000 US forces stationed in Afghanistan. Since Obama took office, the number of US troops in Afghanistan has nearly tripled.
In addition to its efforts to bring security to the country, the US has invested more than $60 billion for relief and reconstruction in Afghanistan. However, many Afghans complain that those investments have not impacted their life positively, if at all.
"The Americans were here for the past 10 years and there was some development but not in our district. In the meantime, the security situation got worse and the Taliban and Al Qaeda got stronger day by day, so this means their presence was useless for providing security," says Golum Habib, a member of the local government in Takhar province's Rustak district. "They are not able to bring security, so they can go."
Mr. Habib adds that there may be more fighting or a revolution after US forces leave, but he says that Afghanistan may be better off if left alone to solve its own problems. Still he wants America to continue providing his nation with humanitarian assistance even after its troops leave.
Related: As troop drawdown nears, is NATO surge working in Afghanistan?
At the Gulbahar Center, a Western-style shopping mall in downtown Kabul, Zabiullah Shadman has been closely following the news about the pending US drawdown. He's been disappointed by the inability of foreign forces to bring security and worries that if they leave now civil war may break out again. Already, business has been slow at his dress shop because many people fear the mall is a likely target for an attack.
If it gets any worse, he adds, "people with money will just take their money and leave." He says he is even considering fleeing to a Western country if the situation gets any worse.
Although Fakhria Latifi, who works on a USAID-funded project, would like foreign forces to leave her country, she says they must not do so until they've created a situation that can provide lasting stability. Otherwise, she worries that the Taliban or other extremist groups could regain control of the country.
"My main concern is that if the foreigners go and the Taliban come back, how will it affect women? They will not have access to schooling and jobs," she says, adding that 2020 would be a better date for the final withdrawal rather than 2014. "My other concern is how long will we depend on the foreigners."
Still, a number of Afghans doubt that the US is in any hurry to leave, and this frustrates them. The debate about whether the US will keep permanent bases here has long been part of the heated discourse among Afghans.
In Kandahar, which has been at the center of fighting throughout much of the war but has seen recent improvements in security, tribal elder Haji Faisal Mohammed sees the initial drawdown as a positive step toward addressing Afghan fears that the US wants to be a permanent occupying force.
"If America starts to withdraw their forces it will be a big blow to enemies of Afghanistan because it will show that America does not want to occupy Afghanistan," he says. Still he adds, "I don't think that America will be in such a hurry to leave. I think America just wants to start implementing [its] promises."
Among some Afghans, there is also an awareness of America's mounting domestic pressures to end the war. Given the economic drain and steadily rising death toll, Mangal Sherzad, a law professor at Nangarhar University in Jalalabad says it's unlikely the US can stay in Afghanistan much longer.
"Even if they don't want to take their forces out of Afghanistan, they must do it," he says. "America has realized that they cannot win by just fighting and from the other side Obama has to fulfill the promises he made to his nation to bring the troops out of Afghanistan."
Not the brightest bulb (The Newsroom)
Everywhere you look, people are telling you how to go green: Walk. Recycle. Compost. Turn off the water. Turn off the lights.
But it looks like there's one place in America that didn't get the memo. The firehouse in Livermore, California has a light that's been on for 110 years. (Yes, YEARS. Not hours. Not minutes. YEARS).
Granted, it's only 4 watts, but that's what is believed to be the source of the bulb's longevity. The hand-blown globe was installed in 1901 and there's even a "bulb-cam" website where you can watch it ... being on.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
How the Dems toppled Weiner (The Newsroom)
Anthony Weiner's resignation did not happen quickly, easily, or without sustained and unprecedented pressure from a trio of Washington's most powerful Democrats telling the lawmaker that his career in the House was over.
In a phone call with Nancy Pelosi last Friday, in which the minority leader told Weiner that he had to quit, the embattled Brooklyn politician revealed the depths of his denial, telling Pelosi that a poll showed 56 percent of his constituents wanted him to stay. She continued to press her case, according to a top aide. "Consider those rose petals to let you go graciously," Pelosi pleaded.
For House Democrats, that call came at the end of an excruciating week that began with Weiner staging a tearful press conference to admit that he had sent lewd photos of himself to women online. Democratic leaders watched in disbelief as he confessed not only his bizarre online relationships, but also that he had lied to his House colleagues in a desperate attempt to cover his tracks.
At the time, the leaders were angry about being deceived, but they still believed that Weiner might weather the scandal that he had unleashed.
But by Wednesday, after a steady stream of porn-star stories, sordid photographs, and sickening details about Weiner's years of online exploits, Democrats wanted him gone.
"It was just the drip, drip, drip," said a top Democratic adviser. "The decision was made on Wednesday that he had to go and that he until Saturday to do it himself."
Over the next three painful days, top aides say Pelosi, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel, and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz repeatedly implored Weiner to step down. With an ethics committee investigation already under way and the cringe-inducing news that Weiner had repeatedly texted a 17-year-old girl, they told the famously stubborn Weiner that he had to go.
Gallery: Possible Jobs for Weiner
By Saturday, Weiner again refused to resign and told Pelosi that he would take a leave of absence from Congress instead. For the Democratic leader, it was the last straw. Wasserman Schultz, the first woman to lead the DNC, had made up her mind the night before that she would publicly call for Weiner to relinquish his seat.
"The behavior he has exhibited is indefensible and Representative Weiner's continued service in Congress is untenable," Wasserman Schultz said in a blistering statement that day.
Pelosi followed: "I urge Congressman Weiner to seek that help without the pressures of being a member of Congress."
With Wasserman Schultz and Pelosi on the record, members of Congress returned to Washington the following Monday knowing that their Democratic leadership, including the president, would not support Weiner if he tried to remain. Anyone who defended him would be acting without the party's blessing.
No member of Congress came to Weiner's defense on Monday. Instead, several told The Daily Beast that while they would not help him, they did not feel comfortable pushing further for his resignation until Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, returned to the country after an overseas trip with her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
By early Wednesday morning, Abedin had returned, but Weiner sent no signals to Washington that he was ready to relent. After a story appeared in Politico that Democrats were calling a meeting to strip him of his committee assignments and essentially excise him from his party, Weiner called Pelosi and Israel, who were both at a White House picnic for members of Congress, to say, finally, that he would leave the House.
"While some were prepared to forgive him for the X-rated photos that he emailed, none could forget the lies that he had told them. "
Weiner's Democratic colleagues in the House, clearly relieved to see the episode sputter to an end, described the scandal as a human tragedy that an unusually talented man had inflicted entirely upon himself.
And while some were prepared to forgive him for the X-rated photos that he emailed, none could forget the lies that he had told them.
"The lesson is, tell the truth. What would have happened if he didn't lie?" says Rep. Bill Pascrell, a Democrat from New Jersey. "If he had told us, 'Hey guys, I did some real stupid things,' we would have said, 'What did you do? Yeah, that's pretty stupid.' But somehow he thought that this would all pass by and we would see the sun set and the sun rise the next morning. Ain't gonna happen."
Eliot Engel, a fellow New York Democrat and friend of Weiner who spoke with him throughout the scandal, says that by lying to his fellow House members, Weiner had sealed his own fate.
"If you look at history, it was always the coverup that was more damaging than whatever someone may have done," Engel says. "I think it certainly would have been easier for him to stay [had he not lied]. It would have been a possibility."
As badly wounded as Weiner appeared Thursday, neither Pascrell, Engel, nor a half dozen other Democrats interviewed by The Daily Beast said they believe that Weiner's mistakes are fatal to his career.
With nearly $5 million in his campaign account and no apparent legal action in the works, colleagues say Weiner could still mount a run for mayor of New York or try his hand at punditry.
"Eliot Spitzer is now on TV," says Engel, referring to the former New York governor and his CNN program. "I never put anything past Anthony… I think he'll land on his feet."
But Pascrell says Weiner has more pressing issues to take care of before plotting his next move in politics or television.
"He's got to be caught up in the idea of making amends," Pascrell said. "And if he's not, then he's more stupid than the things that he just did."
Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.
Patricia Murphy is a writer in Washington, D.C., where she covers Congress and politics.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
LIFE slideshow: NASA envisions alien worlds (The Newsroom)
For decades, NASA has delighted stargazers with pictures taken by astronauts, telescopes, and rovers across the galaxy -- photographic glimpses of real planets, moons, stars, and other heavenly bodies. When illustrators, meanwhile, stretch their imaginations -- giving shape and color to what, say, a sunrise on another world -- their work offers brilliant notions of what vistas beyond our tiny corner of space might look like. Captured by a camera or, as in this gallery, envisioned by artists, the far reaches of space continue to humble and amaze.
NASA/ JPL-Caltech
Ryan’s shrewd budget payday (The Newsroom)
When House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan unveiled the GOP blueprint for cutting government spending, he asked Americans to make sacrifices on everything from Medicare to education, while preserving lucrative tax subsidies for the booming oil, mining and energy industries.
It turns out a constituency within his own personal investments stood to benefit from those tax breaks, Newsweek and The Daily Beast have learned.
The financial disclosure report Ryan filed with Congress last month and made public this week shows he and his wife, Janna, own stakes in four family companies that lease land in Texas and Oklahoma to the very energy companies that benefit from the tax subsidies in Ryan's budget plan.
Ryan's father-in-law, Daniel Little, who runs the companies, told Newsweek and The Daily Beast that the family companies are currently leasing the land for mining and drilling to energy giants such as Chesapeake Energy, Devon, and XTO Energy, a recently acquired subsidiary of ExxonMobil.
Some of these firms would be eligible for portions of the $45 billion in energy tax breaks and subsidies over 10 years protected in the Wisconsin lawmaker's proposed budget. "Those [energy developing companies] benefit a lot from these subsidies," explained Russ Harding, an energy policy analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, when presented with the situation, without reference to Ryan. "Without those, they're going to be less profitable."
To ethics watchdogs, Ryan's effort to extend the tax breaks creates the potential appearance of a conflict of interest.
"To ethics watchdogs, Ryan's effort to extend the tax breaks creates the potential appearance of a conflict of interest. "
"Sure, senior citizens should have to pay more for health care, but landholders like [Ryan] who lease property to big oil companies, well, their government subsidies must be protected at all costs," says Melanie Sloan, the director of the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "It smacks of hypocrisy."
Ryan's office says the congressman wasn't thinking about himself or the oil companies that lease his land when he drafted the budget blueprint that extended the energy tax breaks. "These are properties that Congressman Ryan married into," spokesman Kevin Seifert said. "It's not something he has a lot of control over."
Nonetheless, the properties have been a lucrative investment for Ryan and his wife, earning them as much as $117,000 last year, and $60,000 the year before, his personal financial disclosure reports show. Overall, Ryan, 41, listed assets worth between $590,000 and $2.5 million, putting him in the top third of the richest members of the House.
Ryan and his wife reported owning minority stakes ranging from nearly 1 percent to 10 percent in the following four family companies: Ava O Limited Company, which holds mining and mineral rights; Blondie and Brownie, which holds gravel rights; Red River Pine Company, which holds timber rights; and Little Land Company, an oil and gas corporation.
While Ryan's stake in the oil and gas firm was his smallest at 0.8 percent, it was listed as one of his most valuable assets, generating as much as $50,000 of his income last year, the report shows.
Aside from the land-lease income, Ryan could also personally benefit from the package of subsidies and incentives he has fought to protect. According to a report from the Joint Committee on Taxation, Ryan himself would be eligible to recover money from the government for investments the four family companies might make in such things as machines and maintenance if they didn't pan out on the properties and failed to generate revenue.
Stephen Comstock, a tax analyst with the American Petroleum Institute, says the provision and several others like it would be protected under Ryan's budget.
Rep. Dan Boren, a Democrat from Oklahoma who has announced his retirement next year, also owns stakes in three of the four same companies as Ryan. The two lawmakers are related through marriage. Boren is the first cousin of Ryan's wife.
Boren aligned with his party and voted no on Ryan's budget. But a month prior, Boren voted with Republicans (and only 12 other Democrats) to oppose an amendment that would have financially constrained major oil companies.
In a written statement, Boren told Newsweek and The Daily Beast, "It should come as no surprise the way I voted because the oil and gas industry is the largest private employer in Oklahoma."
In addition to the tax breaks, Ryan's family has benefited in recent years from another form or federal largesse—farm subsidies. Federal records show his father-in-law and great-aunt have collected more than $50,000 in agriculture subsidies on lands owned by the family.
Ryan's budget had proposed cutting $30 billion in farm subsidies over the next 10 years, although some conservatives criticized the number for being too low.
Long a star among young conservatives who admired his commitment to fiscal discipline, Ryan soared onto the national political scene earlier this year, when Republicans chose the youthful, handsome lawmaker to give the nationally televised response to President Obama's State of the Union address.
Ryan then opened the floodgates of criticism a few months later, when he submitted his "Path to Prosperity" plan to slash $6.2 trillion in federal spending over the next decade, going further than the president or other major politicians in the scope of his cuts.
Democrats pounced on the depth of cuts, including the virtual elimination of Medicare for retirees who are not yet 55.
Ryan's Medicare program also drove a wedge through his own party. When former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now a presidential candidate, referred to the idea as "right-wing social engineering," the blowback was so severe that Gingrich had to immediately apologize to Ryan.
Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.
Daniel Stone is Newsweek's White House correspondent. He also covers national energy and environmental policy.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Strawberry, chocolate, vanilla … cicada? (The Newsroom)
If you're an adventurous diner, you might want to get yourself over to Sparky's Homemade Ice Cream in Columbia, Mo., to see if they have any leftover cicada ice cream. Yes, cicada as in the BUG. As in BUG ice cream.
Sparky's employees are allowed to get a little crazy when it comes to new ice cream flavors, so they may have been inspired by all the 13-year cicada corpses lying about after they emerged last month.
Boiled, then coated in chocolate, the crunchy buggers taste like nuts, apparently. (You know what else tastes like nuts? NUTS.) The shop discontinued the "flavor" after the Health Department advised them to quit serving bugs-n-cream.
US guns fuel Mexico drug war? The politics behind the issue. (The Newsroom)
A new report shows that 70 percent of confiscated weapons submitted for tracing come from the US, but critics say the figure is politically motivated.
By Sara Miller Llana, Staff writer / June 15, 2011
Mexico City
Who is supplying guns to Mexican drug traffickers?
The answer has become one of the most polemical in the gun rights debate, with Mexico blaming lax US gun laws and gun rights advocates saying that blame is misplaced.
Statistics are cited. Methodologies are dismissed.
A new report released this week by US senators has renewed the fight, with valid points coming from both sides of the divide.
The report, issued by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California, Sen. Charles Schumer (D) of New York, and Sheldon Whitehouse (D) of Rhode Island, bases its conclusions on US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) statistics. The report states that of 29,284 arms handed over for tracing by Mexican authorities in 2009-10, some 70 percent came from the US.
The senators conclude that military-style guns have "contributed to Mexico's dangerous levels of violence," and that legislation to tighten gun laws, like reinstating the expired Assault Weapons Ban, is in order.
The ATF's statistic has been controversial since it was first cited two years ago. (At that time the number was even higher, at around 90 percent. It may have dropped now because more guns are getting traced today).
Nonetheless, it only accounts for guns seized in Mexico, and of those, the ones that the Mexican government submits for tracing. Many see that as an incomplete set of data, leading them to dismiss the statistic as inaccurate.
"It is completely misleading. There is a huge population of guns that Mexicans confiscated that they don't submit to trace to the ATF," says Robert Farago, the managing editor of the website The Truth about Guns.
Still, it is estimated that about 30 percent of weapons seized in Mexico are submitted for tracing. And whether it is 90 percent or 70 percent that come from the US within that pool, that is still a large number of American guns circulating in Mexico.
"What is clear beyond a doubt is that there are an enormous amount of guns coming from US," says Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center in Washington.
The Militarization of the US Civilian Firearms Market that those guns are increasingly modeled after the military. He says that semiautomatic assault rifles, 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifles, and armor-piercing handguns are the "weapons of choice" for drug organizations in Mexico.
Mr. Farago does not doubt that military-style weapons are in the hands of drug traffickers in Mexico. But he says that is because weapons from the Mexican military are seeping into drug traffickers' hands.
Traffickers also acquire military weapons from other countries.
"Grenades and fully automatic machine guns are not sold at Bob's gun store in Arizona," Diaz says. "This is a distraction technique. There is not an iron river of guns from [US] gun stores."
The newest report comes as the ATF is under fire for a sting operation that purposefully allows some automatic weapons to be smuggled south of the border so it can track them. Mexican authorities have long faulted robust American demand for drugs and lax gun laws for their woes.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon reiterated that stance bluntly this week. "I accuse the US weapons industry of [responsibility for] the deaths of thousands of people that are occurring in Mexico," Mr. Calderon said over the weekend, while on a visit to California. "It is for profit, for the profits that it makes for the weapons industry."
Diaz says the Mexican government needs to get even tougher on the US arms industry, even finding a channel to sue it. But gun rights activists have long said this is misplaced blame — that gun laws in the US are much laxer than in Mexico and yet the same levels of violence and impunity are nowhere near what Mexico is encountering: to date more than 35,000 drug-related deaths in the past four and a half years.
In fact, Farago says Mexico should loosen its restrictions on rights to bear arms, even allowing the US to supply citizens with weapons. "We should be supplying guns to Mexican citizens who cannot defend themselves," he says. "They are completely at the mercy of these drug [traffickers]."
Friday, June 17, 2011
Breaking news: The latest from the newsroom (The Newsroom)
While saying he has made 'terrible mistakes,' U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York said he will not resign over a growing scandal related to posts he made on Twitter and other social sites.
The announcement comes after a conservative websiteposted new photos purportedly from a woman who said she received shots of a shirtless Weiner. BigGovernment.com, a website run by conservative activist Andrew Breitbart, started a furor last week over a lewd photo sent from Weiner's Twitter account to a woman in Seattle.
Another website, RadarOnline.com, said a woman claimed to have 200 sexually explicit messages from the New York Democrat through a Facebook account that Weiner no longer uses. It was not clear whether the woman who claimed to have the new photo was the person who claimed to have received the text messages.
Readers respond: Can a gay judge rule on gay marriage? (The Newsroom)
Today in what some call an unprecedented hearing in federal court, lawyers on both sides of the gay-rights spectrum presented their arguments on whether a gay marriage ruling by a gay judge in a long-term relationship needs to be thrown out because of a conflict of interest. As this case was before the court, Yahoo! News readers weighed in with opposing views that reflect the central arguments of the latest issue to arise in gay-rights court battles.
Lawyers who support California's same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8, say that because Judge Vaughn Walker is gay and has been in a relationship for about 10 years (facts that were not confirmed until after he retired earlier this year), he could potentially benefit from his own ruling if he intended to get married. But opponents of the ban argue that saying the judge shouldn't have ruled is akin to saying a black judge couldn't rule on a civil rights case or a female judge couldn't rule on a gender discrimination case.
You can read more about today's hearing here.
On Facebook and Twitter, some readers responded with a simple "yes" or "no" when asked if they thought Walker should have been able to rule on the constitutionality of Prop. 8. Others delved more deeply into the issue.
"Tough one b/c of current controversy, but I say yes b/c hetero judges have been able to rule on hetero cases," Cammy Duong (aka @ccduong) wrote on Twitter.
Her reasoning was repeated by many other readers, who responded with things like, "Straight judges judge on straight couples all the time, why not?" (That particular quote comes from Jessimi Gomez on the Facebook discussion that garnered more than 800 comments.) Still others likened it to the civil rights argument, with Justin P tweeting as @xxdesmus: "should women be able to rule on abortion issues then? Hispanic judges on immigration issues? Yes to all them."
Many Yahoo! News readers, however, agreed with the supporters of Prop. 8, calling Walker's status as a gay man in a relationship a conflict of interest. On Twitter, Neil Salt (@salty1980) called it "unfair and unjust."
Ken Tschappat wrote on Facebook: "He should recuse himself. Only honest thing to do and he should know this. Why is there a question?"
In the midst of the Facebook discussion, Norma Jo Bomar Ashburn left a thought that perhaps pierces to the heart of this debate: "All judges are biased to some degree."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)