Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/295497850?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Friday, March 29, 2013
Gay marriage at high court: How a case can fizzle
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Late in the oral argument over same-sex marriage in California, Justice Anthony Kennedy made a startling comment, given the months of buildup and mountain of legal briefs that have descended on the justices.
"You might address why you think we should take and decide this case," Kennedy said to lawyer Charles Cooper, representing opponents of same-sex marriage.
One might have thought the court had already crossed that bridge.
But now the justices were openly discussing essentially walking away from the case over California's Proposition 8, a voter-approved ban on gay marriage, without deciding anything at all about such unions.
Indeed, this case offers a rare glimpse at the court's opaque internal workings, in which justices make cold political calculations about what to do and Kennedy's often-decisive vote can never be far from his colleagues' minds.
The court on Wednesday concluded two days of arguments involving gay marriage. In the second case, a constitutional challenge to a portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a majority of the court appeared likely to rule that legally married gay couples should be able to receive a range of benefits that the law currently reserves for straight married couples.
The decision to hear the DOMA case was easy. The Supreme Court almost always has the final word when lower courts strike down a federal law, as they did in this case.
Proposition 8's route to the Supreme Court was not as obvious. The appeals court ruling under review by the justices seems to have been written to discourage the high court from ever taking up the case because it applies only to California and limited a much broader opinion that had emerged earlier from the trial court.
And yet in December, the court decided it would hear the case. It takes a majority of five to decide a case a particular way, but just four justices can vote to add a case to the calendar. And the court does not disclose how the justices vote at this stage.
It seems apparent after the argument, though, that it was the conservative justices who opted to hear Proposition 8. It also seems that one factor in their decision was that this could be their last, best opportunity to slow the nation's march toward recognition of gay marriage at a time when only nine states and the District of Columbia allow gays and lesbians to marry ? despite a rapid swing in public opinion in favor of gay marriage.
From their comments and questions Tuesday, Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia indicated they preferred what they called the cautious approach: allowing the debate over gay marriage to play out in the states and not overturning by judicial fiat the will of California voters who approved Proposition 8 in 2008. Justice Clarence Thomas, as is his custom, said nothing during the argument, but he and Scalia were dissenters in the court's earlier two gay rights cases in 1996 and 2003.
Chief Justice John Roberts also had tough questions for lawyers for the same-sex couples who sued for the right to marry, and for the Obama administration.
Scalia sought to counter Kennedy's comment, and a similar one from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, that maybe the court should get rid of the case.
"It's too late for that, too late for that now, isn't it? I mean, we granted cert," Scalia said, using the legal shorthand for the court's decision to hear a case. "We have crossed that river, I think."
Once or twice a term, occasionally more often, the justices do dismiss cases after they have been argued, without rendering opinions and establishing a rule for the whole nation. The language they use is the wonderfully vague "dismissed as improvidently granted." Roughly translated, it means "sorry for wasting everyone's time."
That is one potential outcome, discussed publicly by Kennedy and Sotomayor.
Another possibility would be a decision limited to the technical legal question of whether the Proposition 8 supporters have the right to defend the measure in court. If they don't, the court can't reach the broader issues in the case.
On this point, Roberts' view seemed more in line with questions from some of the liberal justices.
So why would a justice who appeared favorably inclined to California's ban on gay marriage want to rule that the case should not even be in front of the court?
The answer is that Roberts might want to dispose of the case in this narrow way if he saw a decision in support of gay marriage emerging and wanted to block it. Or, he might choose this route if the justices appeared unable to reach a decisive ruling of any kind.
Narrowly based decisions sometimes seem more attractive to the justices than fractured rulings.
One example is the court's 2009 decision in a voting rights case in which eight of the justices agreed to sidestep the looming and major constitutional issue in the case after an argument in which the court appeared sharply split along ideological lines.
___
Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/shermancourt
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gay-marriage-high-court-case-fizzle-065952825--politics.html
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Britain opens inquest into Berezovsky's unexplained death
By Maria Golovnina
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain opens a judicial inquiry into the death of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky on Thursday to establish how he died in the locked bathroom of his vast mansion near London.
Berezovsky, who survived years of intrigue, power struggles and assassination attempts in Russia, was found dead on Saturday in his home in Ascot, a town close to Queen Elizabeth's Windsor Castle.
Police said there was no sign of a struggle and the 67-year-old's death was "consistent with hanging", suggesting he might have killed himself.
Berezovsky was the king-maker behind Vladimir Putin's ascent to power in Russia but later became his number-one enemy and fled to Britain in 2000.
Berezovsky's associates have hinted he was depressed after losing a $6 billion court case against another tycoon, Roman Abramovich, last year, when a judge humiliated him publicly by saying he was an unimpressive and unreliable witness.
Other people close to him have said they were not convinced by the official account.
"If he really hanged himself why was that not known from the very beginning?" said Andrei Sidelnikov, an opposition figure who knew Berezovsky. "I don't believe it was a suicide."
In Russia, state media quoted Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev as saying the government would continue efforts to "bring back assets that Berezovsky and his accomplices acquired criminally and legalized abroad".
Mass-circulation tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, which supports the Kremlin, ran a front page headline on Wednesday that read: "Did Berezovsky hang himself or did he have help?"
The inquest will open in the town of Windsor on Thursday.
MANIPULATOR
A master of political manipulation, Berezovsky had been known as the "godfather of the Kremlin" and wielded immense influence during a decade that followed the Soviet collapse.
Once a mathematician with Nobel Prize aspirations, he built a massive business empire under former President Boris Yeltsin and was the first of Russia's so-called oligarchs.
He then became one of the first victims of a ruthless political crackdown of the early Putin era after falling out with his prot?g?.
Once in exile, Berezovsky often said he feared for his life, particularly after the fatal poisoning of his friend and former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko with a dose of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 in London in 2006.
Another friend and business partner, Badri Patarkatsishvili, also died in unclear circumstances two years later.
For many, Berezovsky personified the decade of wild capitalism, chaos and violence that followed the Soviet fall. He left a trail of enemies in Russia and beyond, and no doubt once featured on many a hit list.
Berezovsky survived an assassination attempt in 1994 when a bomb exploded in his car, decapitating his driver.
In his final months he led a much less extravagant life, apparently bitter and broken and rarely seen in public.
He suffered another blow in 2011 when he was forced to pay one of Britain's biggest divorce settlements to his former wife Galina. Media reported the settlement topped $100 million.
"My father was not the typical parent, nothing about him was ordinary," said his daughter Anastasia in a tribute. "He has colored my life in infinite ways, and I know that what he concerned himself most with was making all his children proud."
(Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/britain-opens-inquest-berezovskys-unexplained-death-231921302.html
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Budget cuts border security, immigrant detention
FILE - In this Jan. 3, 2013 file photo, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton speaks during a news conference at ICE headquarters in Washington. The Obama administration reversed itself Thursday, acknowledging to Congress that it had, in fact, released more than 2,000 illegal immigrants from immigration jails due to budget constraints during three weeks in February. Four deemed especially dangerous have been placed back in jail. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
FILE - In this Jan. 3, 2013 file photo, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton speaks during a news conference at ICE headquarters in Washington. The Obama administration reversed itself Thursday, acknowledging to Congress that it had, in fact, released more than 2,000 illegal immigrants from immigration jails due to budget constraints during three weeks in February. Four deemed especially dangerous have been placed back in jail. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
In this photo posted to the Twitter account of U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., McCain, right, and U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., left, stand with U.S. Border Patrol agents during a tour of the Mexico border with the United States on Wednesday, March 27, 2013, in Nogales, Ariz. The senators are part of a larger group of legislators shaping and negotiating details of an immigration reform package vowed Wednesday to make the legislation public when Congress reconvenes next month. McCain tweeted that he witnessed a woman successfully climb the 18-foot fence during the visit. (AP Photo/Office of Sen. John McCain)
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., right, and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., left, listen as Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., talks prior to a news conference after their tour of the Mexico border with the United States on Wednesday, March 27, 2013, in Nogales, Ariz The senators are part of a larger group of legislators, including Sen. Michael Bennett, D-CO, who also joined the three at the border for the tour, who are shaping and negotiating details of an immigration reform package vowed Wednesday to make the legislation public when Congress reconvenes next month. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
PHOENIX (AP) ? Marco Antonio Durazo had been awaiting deportation from an Arizona detention center for six months when an officer came to get him from his cell.
"Obama doesn't have any money," the officer said.
"We found it very funny," Durazo said, but it wasn't a joke.
Soon, he was free along with hundreds of other illegal immigrants who were released by the Obama administration because of budget pressures. Officials have also scaled back border agent hours, drug patrols and staffing at border crossings ? all during the peak illegal border-crossing season.
While prompted by the nation's money woes, the changes also come amid the nation's shifting immigration policy after years of mass arrests and deportations and billions spent on border security.
The long-term impact of that change has yet to be seen. The Border Patrol said January and February numbers showed a nearly 10 percent increase in apprehensions along the Mexico border for the first two months of the year, compared with 2012.
There could be several factors for the rise, including immigrants motivated by an improving U.S. economy or those anticipating congressional action that could create a path to citizenship. The cuts come as lawmakers are struggling to work out a comprehensive immigration reform package whose success may ultimately be tied to questions of border security.
On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain led a bipartisan group of senators on a tour of the border, and they said they were close to a deal but continued to tie it to keeping immigration in check. They promised more details next week, but McCain said that there's "no doubt" in his mind that the border is less secure because of the budget cuts.
The release of more than 2,200 immigrants like Durazo drew headlines this month as the government prepared for looming cuts that began in March. In February, the government let go of hundreds of immigrants from detention centers in states including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia and Texas. The administration planned to let roughly 3,000 more go in March, according to an internal government budget document reviewed by the AP and later released by the House Judiciary Committee.
The moves were an attempt by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to get its detainee population in line with what it could afford. The released immigrants still face deportation but will not be held while awaiting their court dates.
Some in Congress said ICE should have explained beforehand that there wasn't enough money to keep everyone in detention.
The immigrants and their lawyers say they were released with little notice or instruction beyond being told to check in periodically.
In many cases, the immigrants were dropped off in the middle of the night at bus stations or airports in metropolitan centers without money to finish their journey home. In Florida, some were released from a facility bordering rural swamp land outside Miami.
Critics argue the plan allowed the release of thousands of criminals without regard to public safety, but officials say almost all the detainees were characterized as low risk. ICE Director John Morton told a congressional panel that 10 of the 2,228 people were the highest level of offender.
"In reducing detention levels, we took careful steps to ensure that national security and public safety were not compromised," he told a congressional hearing.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration, in the midst of trying to get immigration overhauled, switched from daily declarations that the border was secure to warning of the increasingly dire consequences of cutting $754 million from Customs and Border Protection's $12 billion budget.
In the first week of the cuts, some agents in South Texas reported a spike in arrests of immigrants who said smugglers told them they would be briefly detained and then released. The agents' union quickly spread word of a "tidal wave" of immigrants taking advantage of the situation.
Several immigrants interviewed at a migrant shelter in Reynosa, Mexico, across the border from McAllen, Texas, said they had not heard anything suggesting now was a particularly good time to cross. Instead, several said they were returning home because the drug cartel that controlled river crossings made it too expensive and dangerous.
"Here, they say you can't cross the river right now because there are a lot of kidnappings. They're killing a lot of people," said Josue Manuel Vazquez, who added that he escaped kidnappers who held him for five days as they tried to extort $4,500 from his daughter, a legal U.S. resident.
Some contend the budget cuts are relatively small when put in the broader context of the huge build-up of border security over the past decade.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the Department of Homeland Security assigned about 28,100 people in 2004 to patrol land borders and inspect travelers at all ports of entry at a cost of about $5.9 billion. By the end of 2011, those figures were 41,400 employees at a cost of $11.8 billion.
"The scale of (automatic budget cuts) is minuscule compared to the vast build-up," said Geoff Boyce, spokesman for No More Deaths, an immigration advocacy group in Tucson, Ariz.
The effects of the cuts are being seen in border cities and among agents. Customs and Border Protection reduced overtime for its officers at ports of entry. In San Diego and other crossing points, that translated to fewer lanes open at land crossings and longer waits for people and trucks carrying produce and other goods from Mexico.
Those waits are only expected to worsen in coming weeks as the agency begins furloughs amid a hiring freeze. In a letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned that peak wait times at the busiest border crossings could reach five hours or more.
Border Patrol agents received notices advising them they would face up to 14 days of furloughs during the next six months and would no longer be eligible for overtime that for years has added an average of two hours to every agent's shift.
The agency is also suspending assignments known as "details" that sent agents from slower parts of the border to busier areas for months at a time. Agents on detail are often put up in hotels and receive a per diem.
The cuts have also forced the government to pull back on flight and ship patrols in the drug war in Central America.
Durazo learned about the budget issues while watching the news at his sister's home in the Phoenix area after his release. He crossed into the U.S. from his native Mexico in 1969 when he was 19, and he said he doesn't know what will happen next with his immigration case. He has, however, decided to embrace his good fortune.
"We gave many thanks to God, because we prayed a lot while we were in there," he said.
___
Cristina Silva can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/cristymsilva .
Christopher Sherman can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/chrisshermanap .
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By Dave Warner (Reuters) - The winner of one of the biggest Powerball jackpots of all time owes $29,000 in overdue child support payments, the Passaic County, New Jersey, sheriff's office said on Thursday. Pedro Quezada, 44, a county resident who is married and the father of five children ages 5 to 23, was the sole winner of a $338 million jackpot on Saturday. Because he chose the lump sum option, instead of annual payments over 30 years, he will actually receive $211 million, lottery officials said on Thursday. Officials said that is the third-largest lump sum payment in Powerball history. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/spat-between-two-dutch-companies-sparks-record-breaking-010927453.html
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U.S. law to restrict government purchases of Chinese IT equipment
By Alina Selyukh and Doug Palmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress quietly tucked in a new cyber-espionage review process for U.S. government technology purchases into the funding law signed this week by President Barack Obama, reflecting growing U.S. concern over Chinese cyber attacks.
The law prevents NASA, and the Justice and Commerce Departments from buying information technology systems unless federal law enforcement officials give their OK.
A provision in the 240-page spending law requires the agencies to make a formal assessment of "cyber-espionage or sabotage" risk in consultation with law enforcement authorities when considering buying information technology systems.
The assessment must include "any risk associated with such system being produced, manufactured or assembled by one or more entities that are owned, directed or subsidized" by China.
The U.S. imports a total of about $129 billion worth of "advanced technology products" from China, according to a May, 2012 report by the Congressional Research Service.
The amendment to the so-called "continuing resolution" to fund the government through September 30 originated in the Commerce, Justice and Science subcommittee of the House of Representatives, chaired by Virginia Republican Representative Frank Wolf.
It had gotten little attention until a blog post this week by Stewart A. Baker, a partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johhson and a former Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Writing in the Volokh Conspiracy, one of the country's most prominent legal blogs, Baker wrote on Monday that the measure "could turn out to be a harsh blow" for Chinese computer-maker Lenovo and also "bring some surprises for American companies selling commercial IT gear to the government."
U.S. concern about Chinese cyber-attacks has mounted in recent months, with top officials - including President Barack Obama - vocally condemning the practice.
Obama raised the issue in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this month, and told ABC news in an interview that some cyber security threats are "absolutely" sponsored by governments.
"We've made it very clear to China and some other of the state actors that, you know, we expect them to follow international norms and abide by international rules," he said.
Xi said the United States and China should avoid making "groundless accusations" against each other about cyber-security and work together on the problem.
The exchange came after U.S. computer security company Mandiant said a secret Chinese military unit based in Shanghai was the most likely driving force behind a series of hacking attacks on the United States.
Last year, the House Intelligence Committee released a report urging U.S. telecommunication companies not to do business with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp because it said potential Chinese state influence on the companies posed a threat to U.S. security.
Both companies took issue with the report, which Huawei spokesman William Plummer called "baseless."
Plummer said in an email their reading of the bill is that it "does not apply to Huawei based on the description of covered entities."
Baker, a technology security lawyer, said he believed the language would live on in future appropriations bills and possibly get tougher over time.
"Once a provision ends up in the appropriations bill ... it tends to stay there unless there's a good reason to take it out," Baker said. "We could easily see (the appropriation committees) tighten up some of the language in the future."
China could challenge the measure as a violation of World Trade Organization rules, but may have a tough time making that case because it is not a member of the WTO agreement setting international rules for government procurement.
A Chinese government spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
The agreement also contains a national security exemption that would be another U.S. line of defense against a possible Chinese challenge, Baker said.
It is possible other countries could raise objections because of the potential for the provision to prevent purchases of Lenovo computers manufactured in Germany or Huawei handsets designed in Britain, he said.
But they may decide to tolerate it because of their own concerns about Chinese hacking, Baker said.
"The goal is not to hurt American and European companies that have operations in China," said a congressional aide who worked on the House bill where the wording originated. "It was really targeting entities that are directed by Beijing," said the aide, who asked not to be identified.
The federal government's purchases, which are funded by taxpayers' money, are often urged to give preference to vendors that offer the cheapest services.
The congressional aide said China may heavily subsidize some companies to present the U.S. market with a much lower price.
"It's a helpful reminder to look at the supply chain" of U.S. firms, the aide said. "The cheap option may be artificially lowered because potentially there are ulterior motives."
(Reporting by Alina Selyukh; Editing by Fred Barbash, Bernard Orr)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-law-restrict-government-purchases-chinese-equipment-210122056.html
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George Zimmerman's brother says Twitter rant a "mistake"
By Barbara Liston
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - The brother of George Zimmerman, the man charged in the 2012 shooting death of unarmed black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, said on Wednesday he was wrong to tweet a series of racially charged comments about his brother's case.
"I made a mistake," Robert Zimmerman Jr. said during an appearance on CNN's Piers Morgan Live. "It unfortunately may not have helped George."
George Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder for killing Martin, who was 17, after an altercation in a residential neighborhood in Sanford, Florida.
Prosecutors contend George Zimmerman, then a neighborhood watch captain, racially profiled Martin, then pursued and shot him while Martin was returning from a convenience store to a townhouse where he was staying with his father.
Robert Zimmerman this week posted side-by-side photos of Martin and one of two teenagers arrested last week in a fatal shooting of a 13-month-old boy as his mother was pushing his stroller down the street in a coastal Georgia town.
The separate photos showed Martin and the teenager posing while making an obscene gesture.
Robert Zimmerman wrote in a tweet, "a picture is worth a thousand words ... any questions?" In another tweet, he said, "Lib media shld ask if what these2 black teens did 2 a woman&baby is the reason ppl think blacks mightB risky."
Morgan, in his interview with Zimmerman, called the tweets "incendiary" and "bordering on outright racism."
"I understand this was controversial and I apologize," Robert Zimmerman said.
Mark O'Mara, George Zimmerman's lawyer, has criticized Robert Zimmerman's tweets.
George Zimmerman's trial is set to start in June.
(Editing by Kevin Gray and Lisa Shumaker)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/george-zimmermans-brother-says-twitter-rant-mistake-032522332.html
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