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See Inside
Every so often a critter takes a shot at making headlines
?| January 29, 2012
Image: Matt Collins
In journalism, there?s what you call your dog-bites-man situation. Which is anything too common and expected to be a good story (unless the dog is one of those Resident Evil hellhounds, or the man is Cesar Millan). An example of a dog-bites-man science story is yet another confirmation of Einstein and relativity.
Steve Mirsky has been writing the Anti Gravity column since atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were about 358 parts per million. He also hosts the Scientific American podcast Science Talk.
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Introduction
One of the most fundamental distinctions in legal theory is that between "positive legal theory" and "normative legal theory." This post provides a very brief introduction to the distinction, aimed at law students (especially first years) with an interest in legal theory.
The core idea of the distinction between positive and normative legal theory is simple:
Thus, a positive theory of tort law might seek to explain what causal forces have produced the existing principles of tort law, whereas a normative theory of tort law would tell us what rules of tort liability would be best, right, or justifiable. Or more simply:?positive?legal theories are aboutfacts?and?normative?legal theories are about?values. ?(This simple formulations assumes that facts and values are mutually exclusive, but that may not be correct.)
Positive Legal Theory
Sometimes, the notion of?positive legal theory?is presented in an oversimplified way--as if there were a single, well-defined type of theory that counted as positive. In fact, the phrase "positive legal theory" is used in a variety of ways. The one thing that positive legal theories have in common is that they are?not?normative. Nonetheless, there are three characteristic type of positive legal theory that can be identified:
Positive Legal Theory Type 1: Doctrinal Theories--The first kind of legal theory that is called "positive" is quite simply a theory of what the content of a particular field of legal doctrine?is. Thus, a theory of the freedom of speech might simply seek to explain the shape of existing first amendment doctrine. Or a theory of hearsay rule might seek to provide an account of the rule and exceptions that explains and accurately predicts particular applications of the rule. Doctrinal legal theories are responsive to questions like, "What are the principles that shape this area of the law?" or "Can these cases be explained by some underlying theory?" ?What I am calling a "doctrinal theory" is also sometimes called a "descriptive theory."
Positive Legal Theory Type 2: Explanatory Theories--The second kind of legal theory to which the label "positive" is applied are explanatory theories--theories about why the law is the way it is. For example, a very simple Marxist theory might state that the content of the law can best be explained by the interests of the ruling class. Some legal economists have tried to argue that common-law rules are efficient, because there is "evolutionary pressure" on inefficient legal rules. ?What I am calling an "explanatory theory" is also sometimes called a "causal theory."
Positive Legal Theory Type 3: Effects Theories--The third kind of legal theories that are referred to as "positive" are theories about the consequences that will be produced by a given regime of legal rules. This is the sense of "positive theory" that is most frequently invoked by legal economists. The question --"What effects will a strict liability regime (as opposed to a negligence) regime have on the manufacturers of consumer products?"--can be answered by a legal theory that is positive in the sense that it predicts behavior but does not explicitly evaluate the desirability of the rule. ?What I am calling an "effects theory" is also sometimes called a "predictive theory."
Normative Legal Theory
Normative legal theories, on the other hand, are by their nature?evaluative. Thus, a normative theory of products liability law would take a stand on the question whether negligence or strict liability is the?better rule. Normative legal theories tend to be entwined with more general normative theories, e.g. moral or political theories, although this is not necessarily the case. TheLegal Theory Lexicon?already includes entries on?deontology,?utilitarianism, and?virtue ethics--three of the most important general normative theories that have had an influence on the law. There are three other distinctions that are important to understanding the general idea of a normative legal theory:
Ideal versus Nonideal Theory?Some normative legal theories are "ideal"--that is, they are theories about what the best legal rule would be in the world in which everything was politically possible, the law could be adequately enforced, and other legal rules that interact with the subject of the theory could be adjusted to produce the best overall system. Other normative legal theories are "nonideal"--that is, they are theories that assume a variety of constraints on the choice of legal rules. For example, a nonideal theory might take into account political feasibility or it might take into account the possibility that the system would not provide an optimal level of enforcement for the rule that would otherwise be best. TheLegal Theory Lexicon?entry on?second best?explores these ideas in greater detail.
Justificatory Theories and Critical Theories?Normative legal theories also vary in their "attitude" towards the status quo. You are likely to encounter normative legal theories that start with the question, "What is the best justification that be given for such and such a legal rule?" These justificatory theories have a limited purpose. ?Dworkin's theory--"law as integrity"--is an example of a justificatory theory: Dworkin offers theories that "fit and justify" existing law. ?Such justificatory theories do not address the ultimate question, "What is the best legal rule?" On the other hand, many legal theories have the opposite purpose--the critique of existing legal doctrine. Thus, a critical theory might enumerate all of the criticisms that could be made of an existing legal rule--even though some of the criticisms may rest on inconsistent premises.
Normative Legal Theories, Political Philosophy, and Comprehensive Moral Theories?Another important issue concerns the relationship of normative legal theory to other normative theories, especially political philosophy, ethics, and comprehensive moral theories.? Normative political philosphy asks questions about the normative justification for the state and the normative principles that establish the ends of and limits on the content of the law.? The term ethics can be defined in various ways--but for our purposes on this , ethics might be seen as concerned with the morality of individual action outside the political sphere.? A comprehensive moral theory might encompass both ethics and normative political philosophy.? Normative legal theories have as their domain the normative evaluation of legal substance and procedure.? Normative theories about the law as a whole might be called "general normative jurisprudence."? There can also be normative theories of particular legal domains--"normative constitutional theory," "normative tort theory," and so forth.
One picture of this relationship normative legal theory, on the one hand, and moral and political philosophy, on the other, might be called "top-down."? That is, we might start with a comprehensive moral doctrine (such as utilitarianism or Kant's version of deontology).? Using the method of deduction, we might try to deduce the principles of political philosophy and ethics from a comprehensive moral theory, and the principles of normative legal theory might in turn be deduced from those of political philosophy and ethics.? The top-down approach is exemplified by some consequentialists, who argue for a comprehensive moral doctrine such as welfarism or utilitarianism and then derive normative justifications or criticisms from the comprehensive doctrine and facts about which legal rules will result in what consequences.
Another possibility is that normative legal theory is relatively independent of ethics and political philosophy.? It is at least conceivable that one might believe that the realm of interpersonal ethics is governed by a different set of principles and theories than is the law.? For example, one might espouse deontological ethics, but believe that the laws should (for the most part) be aimed at maximizing utility.
The Intersection of Positive and Normative Theory
So far, we have been assuming a fairly sharp distinction between positive and normative legal theory. And for many purposes, assuming that there is a bright line that separates normative and descriptive legal theory is a good working hypothesis. Even assuming there is such a bright line, however, there are relationships between positive and normative legal theories.
Positive Theory in the Service of Normative Theory--One relationship is clear and straightforward. Many normative theories underdetermine what the legal rules should be in the absence of substantial information about the effects of the rules. This is most obvious in the case of utilitarian theories, where information about consequences does all the real work of determining which legal rule is best. For normative theories like utilitarianism, positive theory performs an essential service. Without a positive account of the effects of a given rule choice, utilitarianism has nothing to say about what rule is best.
Positive Theory as a Constraint on Normative Theory--Another relatively noncontroversial relationship between positive and normative legal theories arises when a positive theory that explains?why?the law has the shape that it does, is taken as imposing a constraint on normative theory. For example, public choice theory makes certain predictions about how legislatures will act in response to various incentives. Some legal rules that might be justified by ideal normative legal theory may be considered "unrealistic" in light of positive theory. In cases like this, positive legal theory provides constraints that limit the options available to normative theory.
Interpretivism and "Law as Integrity"--There is another, more controversial, way that positive and normative legal theory can interact. Ronald Dworkin's theory of law, "law as integrity," attempts to combine the aims of positive doctrinal theory and normative theory. The idea is that a legal theory should both?fit?and?justify?the existing legal landscape. Thus, a Dworkinian theory of the freedom of speech would need to both?fit?the contours of the Supreme Court's decisions and?justify?those decisions. Of those interpretations of free speech doctrine that?fit?the legal topography, Dworkin maintains that judges should select that interpretation that makes the existing law, "the best that it can be." Dworkin's view of legal theory blurs the line between positive and normative legal theory--essentially combining the enterprises that I have called positive doctrinal theory and justificatory normative theory. As you might imagine, this is hugely controversial--although that is a topic for another post.
Conclusion
The distinction between positive and normative legal theories is fundamental, but once you have the terminology down, it is usually easy to apply. The tricky part comes when you are confronted with theories like Dworkin's that blur the lines between the positive and the normative. When you do, my advice is that you stay on your toes. A common mistake is to try to force interpretivist theories into either the positive or the normative. Although there may be deep reasons of legal theory that would justify such a forcing move, it will rarely be productive to start there. A better strategy is to try to understand such hybrid theories from the inside first. When you are constructing your own theories, it is always important to be sure you know whether your theory is positive, normative, or has elements of both. One of the oft-repeated questions that law professors ask of entry-level candidates giving job talks (or ambitious students writing papers) is whether their theory is positive or normative. Be sure you know the answer before the question is asked!
Related Entries
Bibliography
(This entry was last revised on January 29, 2012.)
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Why didn't Metro let riders know what was happening last night until hours and afters after the system malfunctioned? WMATA doesn't have any one reasonable excuse. The transit agency apologizes, hopes you'll forgive, and promises to do better.
"That failure should not have happened," WMATA chief spokesperson Dan Stessel said, who despite that communication failure only received three hours of sleep last night. "We should have been tweeting independently of the systems."
?Riders strongly agreed as dozens lashed out about the silence. Why were all voices MIA? If Stessel wasn't awake and seeing these tweets, why wasn't some other individual doing so? No alternative communications plan appeared to exist or emanate independently from Metro's control center.
When Metro broke last night, it broke hard. Power throughout much of the system failed due to a piece of equipment called the switch, which monitors the power feed to the facility, according to Stessel. The "partial power failure" of these elements, which comprise the rail and bus control facilities in Landover, Maryland, caused the WMATA website to fail, the alerts system to cease, as did the PIDs, and train operators on the Red, Orange and Blue lines to hold for at least 15 minutes, WMATA reports, though some riders suggest far longer waits. Train operators had no idea what was happening, apparently. Radio and signals continued to operate ... but the control center relied on computers to coordinate all the data and did suffer from the breakdown. "Driver says he doesn't have any communications," one person tweeted (see all the frenzied reactions from late last night, from 11 p.m. till about 1 a.m., here). Stessel began responding to press inquiries at 3:30 a.m. and released a press release on the incident, in which "Metro apologizes for the inconvenience" and stated that the power outage lasted about 15 minutes. "Radio and signal systems are independent and remained online, but desktop consoles and computer systems were affected," he told me in the late a.m. hours last night. "Preliminarily, the cause appears to be linked to a particular UPS [uninterruptible power supply]." But given the outage and the single-tracking, Stessel believes the riders who speak of long, miserable rides on the system.
"I absolutely believe every customer who says they were waiting an hour or nearly an hour on the platforms," Stessel told me. Even before the outage, he said, the headway on parts of the Orange Line was 30 to 35 minutes thanks to single-tracking.
Stessel has spent the first hours of today assembling his limited team and reviewing exactly what happened and coordinating how to prevent the failure in the future. The system that broke was "the nexus of all our different abilities to power the facility," he said, but there's still no clear understanding of why it failed. This problem has never occurred so far since he came to WMATA. These same sets of problems did happen in 2009, I found, but Stessel assures me that it's "not the same equipment, not the same building" as what happened last night. Back then, the control center was located in the Jackson Graham Building, where now only the backup is locate. The new site is in Landover. But the symptoms were the same. And last night, riders had no idea why such long delays, why such communication failures, or what was happening. The train operators themselves apparently had no idea either and as some people tweeted, left the trains to make sure the tracks head were safe.
Did they? Stessel has "no specific reports of train operators leaving the cabin" though acknowledges some "might have [had] to do that" out of caution. Jackie Jeter, president of Amalgamated Local 689, a union that represents thousands of WMATA employees, also heard no reports regarding the confusion last night though adds that train operators have the training to leave and monitor the tracks if it's necessary.
As for the lack of tweeting and rider outreach, Stessel acknowledges the miss. Normally, he emphasized, someone is monitoring what's happening on Twitter and ensuring no major problems are breaking out but notes that didn't happen last night. But Stessel has lacked a full team this week, with one person out, and it's been an intense few days, with the Red Line delays yesterday morning, the Metro board meetings, and so on. He stressed the communications team's "review underway" of how they handled the situation to prevent this from happening again. Even automated Twitter updates are tied to the failure of the control center and failed to send in the height of the confusion. He hopes the addition of new communications staff members next month will help WMATA develop a better strategy for watching the riders. Before 9 a.m. this morning, the @WMATA Twitter account tweeted its own mea culpa in four 140-character updates:
Many of you have asked about why we didn't Tweet during last night's disruption. Answer follows. Due to the nature of last night's problem, the usual channels for notifying us were disrupted... We're working to revise processes to ensure that, in future event this, we're able to get actionable info to customers thru soc channels. We know you've come to depend on Twitter for info from us, and rest assured, we will ensure that it is used to its potential going forward.
Discussions of how to improve will be "ongoing," according to Metro, but Stessel assures me that Metro has a new alerts system for buses on the way as well as other improvements that will make the alerts system, which includes the automated status updates sent to Twitter, "completely independent" of Metro's system. Last night's debacle is hopefully the conclusion of a rocky first month of 2012 for Metro.
"We don't profess to have all the answers," Stessel told me, "and we'll continue to improve."
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida |
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has found 11 new planetary systems, including one with five planets all orbiting closer to their parent star than Mercury circles the Sun, scientists said on Thursday.
The discoveries boost the list of confirmed extra-solar planets to 729, including 60 credited to the Kepler team. The telescope, launched in space in March 2009, can detect slight but regular dips in the amount of light coming from stars. Scientists can then determine if the changes are caused by orbiting planets passing by, relative to Kepler's view.
Kepler scientists have another 2,300 candidate planets awaiting additional confirmation.
None of the newly discovered planetary systems are like our solar system, though Kepler-33, a star that is older and bigger than the Sun, comes close in terms of sheer numbers. It has five planets, compared to our solar system's eight, but the quintet all fly closer to their parent star than Mercury orbits the Sun.
The planets range in size from about 1.5 times the diameter of Earth to five times Earth's diameter. Scientists have not yet determined if any are solid rocky bodies like Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury or if they are filled with gas like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
The Kepler team previously found one star with six confirmed planets and a second system with five planets, said planetary scientist Jack Lissauer, with NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
Nine of the new systems contain two planets and one has three, bringing the total number of newly discovered planets to 26. All are closer to their host stars than Venus is to the Sun.
"This has tripled the number of stars which we know have more than one transiting planet, so that's the big deal here," Lissauer told Reuters.
"We're starting to think in terms of planetary systems as opposed to just planets: Do they all tend to have similar sizes? What's the spacing? Is the solar system unusual in those regards?" he said.
Kepler is monitoring more than 150,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.
The research is published in four different papers in Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
(Reporting By Irene Klotz; Editing by Jane Sutton and Sandra Maler)
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WASHINGTON ? The economy grew late last year at a pace that in normal times would suggest it's healthy.
But the 2.8 percent annualized growth rate in the October-December quarter ? the fastest pace since the spring of 2010 ? isn't being cheered by most economists or investors. That's because growth would need to be much stronger to sharply reduce unemployment. And signs in the data point to slower growth ahead.
For all of last year, the economy grew just 1.7 percent. That was barely more than half the growth in 2010. The outlook for all 2012 is slightly better. The Federal Reserve estimates growth of roughly 2.5 percent for the year.
Though the economy has picked up and is far stronger than during the Great Recession, unemployment is still a high 8.5 percent. Many people remain reluctant to spend more or buy homes. Many employers are still hesitant to hire.
For the final three months of 2011, Americans spent more on vehicles, and companies restocked their shelves at a robust pace. But overall growth last quarter ? and for all of last year ? was held back by the sharpest cuts in annual government spending in four decades, the Commerce Department said Friday.
Several factors are expected to exert more of an economic drag this year: Cuts in military and other federal spending. A slower pace of company restocking. Weak or flat pay increases. Sluggish growth in consumer spending.
Stocks opened lower after the government reported the growth figures at 8:30 a.m. EST. The Dow Jones industrial average was down about 53 points in late-morning trading. Broader indexes were mixed.
"Overall, the pickup in growth doesn't look half as good when you realize that most of it was due to inventory accumulation," said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, who expects growth to slow to below 2 percent in the first three months of this year.
In the final three months of last year, consumer spending grew at a 2 percent annual rate. That's up modestly from the third quarter. Consumer spending is important because it makes up 70 percent of economic activity.
Much of the growth was powered by a 14.8 percent surge in sales of autos and other long-lasting manufactured goods.
Incomes, which have been weak all year because of high unemployment, grew at a modest 0.8 percent annual rate. That followed two straight quarters of declining incomes. But unless pay increases pick up, consumers who have dipped into savings in recent months, may pull back.
Business restocking, which can vary widely from quarter to quarter, was the greatest contributor to growth in the October-December period. It added nearly 2 percentage points to the gross domestic product, or GDP.
Government spending at all levels fell at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter and 2.1 percent for the year ? the biggest decline since 1971. Sweeping federal defense cuts at the beginning and end of 2011 were a major factor.
The economy is measured by GDP, which covers everything from haircuts to hotel bookings to jet fighter planes. Friday's estimate was the first of three for the fourth quarter.
Other data show that in some ways, the economy ended 2011 on a strong note. Companies invested more in equipment and machinery in December. The unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent last month ? the lowest level in nearly three years ? after the sixth straight month of solid hiring.
People are buying more cars, and consumer confidence is rising. Even the depressed housing market has shown enough improvement to make some economists predict a turnaround has begun.
Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics, is among the more optimistic analysts. He said he thought business investment in capital goods would be stronger and consumer spending higher this year.
Richard DeKaiser, a senior economist at Parthenon Group, expects just 2 percent annual growth in the January-March quarter. But DeKaiser says that should be the weakest quarter. He expects the economy to gain strength in each quarter and grow 2.6 percent for the entire year.
Still, many economists worry that a recession in Europe could dampen demand for U.S. manufactured goods, which would slow growth. And without more jobs and better pay, consumer spending is likely to stagnate.
The Fed signaled this week that a full recovery could take at least three more years. In response, it said it would probably not increase its benchmark interest rate until late 2014 at the earliest ? a year and a half later than it had previously said.
The central bank also slightly reduced its outlook for growth this year, from as much as 2.9 percent forecast in November down to 2.7 percent. The Fed sees unemployment falling as low as 8.2 percent this year.
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Canadian pipeline needs aboriginal consent: chief
OTTAWA (Reuters) ? A Canadian firm seeking to build a pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to the Pacific Coast needs to obtain the consent of aboriginal bands, some of whom oppose the project, Canada's top native leader indicated on Wednesday. The comments underline the difficulties facing Enbridge Inc as it tries to push through the C$5.5 billion ($5.4 billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline, which would cross land belonging to many Indian bands, or first nations.
Canada education sector toughest job market
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Unemployed workers in Canada's educational services sector faced the toughest job market in the country in the July-September period, according to a new Statistics Canada report on Tuesday. For every 10 unemployed workers in education, there was just one vacancy, the agency's new data on job vacancies in the three-month period showed. The second worst sector was construction where the ratio was 5.1.
Canada's telecoms regulator appoints interim chief
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's telecoms and broadcasting regulator appointed Vice-Chairman Leonard Katz as its interim chairman on Wednesday as predecessor Konrad von Finckenstein's term ended. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said in a statement that Katz will exercise the chairman's powers until the federal cabinet appoints a permanent replacement for von Finckenstein.
Rwanda genocide suspect deported from Canada
KIGALI (Reuters) - A Rwandan man charged with crimes against humanity has been deported from Canada and is due to arrive in the central African country overnight, Rwanda's justice minister said on Tuesday. Leon Mugesera, who lost a 16-year battle to stay in Canada, will face charges of inciting murder, extermination and genocide.
Pilots say Air Canada quit talks; government disagrees
CALGARY/OTTAWA (Reuters) - Air Canada pilots said on Tuesday the airline had abandoned contract talks in the hope that Ottawa would step in to resolve the dispute, but the country's largest carrier said it was awaiting the union's response to its latest offer. Canadian Labour Minister Lisa Raitt also said talks had not broken down and the federally appointed conciliator remained in contact with both parties and was available to assist with negotiations.
Ottawa sees itself as protector of oil sands benefits
VANCOUVER/CALGARY (Reuters) - Canada's government has a responsibility to make sure people can take advantage of the economic benefits Alberta's massive oil deposits can generate, the country's energy minister said on Monday as he once again decried "radicals" bent on stopping Enbridge Inc's Northern Gateway oil pipeline. As about 50 protesters demonstrated noisily outside, Joe Oliver, minister of natural resources, said in Vancouver that "environmental and other radical groups" are indiscriminately opposing any and all large industrial projects and are using Canada's regulatory system as their main battleground.
Canadian minister blasts China ahead of PM's visit
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's foreign minister launched an outspoken attack on China's "abhorrent" treatment of religious minorities on Monday, just weeks before Prime Minister Stephen Harper goes to Beijing in a bid to sell more oil. John Baird's comments came as a major surprise, given Canada's right-of-center Conservative government has gradually toned down its attacks on Chinese human rights issues over the years in favor of boosting trade.
RIM's new leader raises doubts among investors
TORONTO/LONDON (Reuters) - The new leader at Research In Motion on Monday dismissed talk of drastic change at the BlackBerry maker, a declaration seized on by impatient investors who say Thorsten Heins has only 12 to 18 months to turn RIM around. Takeover talk, swirling around RIM for months, picked up steam as Heins took the helm at a once-dominant smartphone company that now struggles to compete. But RIM's shares tumbled more than 8 percent as investors wondered whether Heins could reverse RIM's decline.
Some Canada property markets likely overvalued: BoC
TORONTO (Reuters) - Some parts of the Canadian real estate market are "probably overvalued" and policymakers are monitoring to see if further steps are needed to cool it, the head of the country's central bank said in an interview broadcast on Sunday. It was the second time in recent days that Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney voiced concern about property prices, which surged after the financial crisis as borrowing costs tumbled.
Canada set to deport Rwandan genocide suspect
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Rwandan man charged with crimes against humanity, will be deported to his homeland as soon as possible, Canadian authorities said on Monday, ending his 16-year battle to stay in Canada. Leon Mugesera will be sent to Rwanda to face charges of inciting murder, extermination and genocide.
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Paramount Movies lets you stream UltraViolet films from the cloud, for a price originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
PermalinkSlashGear | Paramount Movies | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/25/paramount-movies-lets-you-stream-ultraviolet-films-from-the-clou/
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A Second Take on Meeting the Press: From an up-close look at Rachel Maddow's sneakers to an in-depth look at Jon Krakauer's latest book ? it's all fair game in our "Meet the Press: Take Two" web extra. Log on Sundays to see David Gregory's post-show conversations with leading newsmakers, authors and roundtable guests. Videos are available on-demand by 12 p.m. ET on Sundays.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/46090664#46090664
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COLUMBUS, Ohio ? A self-styled chaplain and a teenage boy he apparently mentored will be tried in a deadly Craigslist robbery scheme in their home county, about 100 miles from where prosecutors say three of the four crimes happened.
Although two men were killed in Noble County in rural eastern Ohio and a third was shot and wounded there, neither the victims nor the two suspects were from there.
The boy, 16-year-old Brogan Rafferty, was in Summit County Juvenile Court on Monday for a preliminary hearing at which he pleaded not guilty to several juvenile counts brought against him late Friday. Rafferty was a student at Stow-Munroe Falls High School in suburban Akron when he was arrested in the fall.
Rafferty was charged with three counts of aggravated murder, one count of attempted murder, four counts of aggravated robbery and four counts of kidnapping, Summit County prosecutor's spokeswoman April Wiesner said.
Those counts replace charges that Rafferty faced in Noble County before his case was transferred to Summit County.
Rafferty's attorney, John Alexander, said before Monday's hearing that it would involve the review of charges and allow for bond to be discussed.
The other suspect, 52-year-old Akron resident Richard Beasley, who took Rafferty under his wing and sometimes took him to church, was indicted Friday in Summit County on several charges that carry the possibility of the death sentence if he is convicted. He has denied involvement in the Craigslist plot.
Beasley was a Texas parolee when he returned to Ohio in 2004 after serving several years in prison on a burglary conviction. He was released from jail in July after a judge mistakenly allowed him to post bond on a drug-trafficking charge.
In a four-page handwritten letter to the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper, Beasley said he was miscast as a con man when he really helped feed, house and counsel scores of needy families, alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill and crime suspects for years.
"To call me a con man when I sacrificed for others is wrong," wrote Beasley, who didn't mention the Craigslist investigation. "To turn their back on me is not following Christ's example."
Two men were shot and killed and a third was shot but survived and escaped after hiding in woods in Noble County, authorities said. Those shootings happened between Aug. 9 and Nov. 6. A fourth man was killed Nov. 13, and his body was found in Akron.
One of the victims was from Norfolk, Va. The man who escaped was from South Carolina.
The victims had answered Craigslist ads for work on a nonexistent cattle farm in the rural county. The scheme targeted older, single, out-of-work men with backgrounds that made it unlikely their disappearances would be noted right away.
Attorney General Mike DeWine has called the crimes "serial killings" and said last week that authorities can't say for certain whether there are more bodies.
The Associated Press generally does not identify juvenile crime suspects, but Rafferty's name has been widely reported by local and national media outlets.
___
Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached at http://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.
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Fausto Carmona, whose real name is reportedly Roberto Hernandez Heredia, was arrested in the Dominican Republic on Thursday?for allegedly falsifying his identity. We?re slowly learning more details about how he was exposed.
ESPN?s Pedro Gomez reported on ?Outside the Lines? yesterday that Carmona was outed several weeks ago on a popular radio show in Santo Domingo by the mother of the real Fausto Carmona.
You can watch video of Gomez?s report?here.
The belief is that Carmona has been paying the family of the real Carmona for the use of his identification and refused to increase hush money payments after the Indians picked up his $7 million club option for 2012 in October. Carmona made $6.1 million with the Indians last season. The U.S. government began an investigation after Carmona was outed on the radio show and he was arrested when he went to apply for his work visa earlier this week.
Carmona was released from jail yesterday on $13,000 bond. He?s actually 31 years old, three years older than previously believed, so many have wondered whether the Indians have just cause to void his contract. According to the Associated Press, Indians general manager Chris?Antonetti refused to comment on the situation yesterday, only saying that they are ?still gathering information.?
At the very least, it appears the Indians are preparing for the possibility that Carmona will not be granted entry into the United States in time for the start of the season. The club acquired right-hander Kevin Slowey from the Rockies yesterday as some insurance for their starting rotation.
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IMF managing director Christine Lagarde says she hopes that 2012 will be a year of healing for Europe. The euro partners have to agree on more, says Lagarde, who adds the IMF needs an additional $500 billion in lending capacity to build a stronger fire...
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/46099532/
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JUBA (Reuters) ? South Sudan said on Friday it was working out a plan to shut down oil production within two weeks after Sudan said it had started seizing southern oil to compensate for what it said were unpaid transit fees.
South Sudan seceded last July under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war between north and south, but the two have remained at loggerheads over oil, the disputed Abyei region and even the location of the border.
The two are locked in a row over sharing oil revenues after South Sudan took two-thirds of output when it became independent. Oil is the lifeline of both economies.
The landlocked new African nation needs to use a northern pipeline and the port of Port Sudan to export the crude but has failed to reach an agreement with Khartoum over a transit fee, prompting Sudan to seize part of its oil as compensation.
"The ministry of petroleum and mining will sit down to start a technical process that will lead to a decision that will lead to a complete shutdown. That will be in a week or two weeks," government spokesman Barnaba Marial Benjamin told Reuters.
"We have taken this decision because South Sudan is not benefiting from oil. It is being taken by force by the Republic of Sudan, and the oil that is going through the pipeline is being looted," he said.
He said Sudan had seized oil worth $350 million in Port Sudan and preventing the sale of oil worth more than $400 million by restricting vessels from entering or leaving the port.
South Sudan's oil minister Stephen Dhieu Dau said the government could run without oil, which make up 98 percent of state revenues, for 18 months.
Khartoum has said Sudan is seizing some oil and diverting some of it to its two refineries but has not said whether it would try selling any seized oil.
Sudan is demanding $1 billion for unpaid transit fees since July plus $36 a barrel in the future as a transit fee, roughly a third of the export value of southern oil. Khartoum also wants Juba to share Sudan's external debt of $38 billion.
South Sudan pumps around 350,000 bpd, officials have said. Sudan produces 115,000 bpd in its remaining fields but needs it for domestic consumption.
Dhieu Dau said the government wanted to push ahead with plans to build an alternative pipeline to end dependency on northern export facilities.
"We are planning that building an alternative pipeline will be a national duty for all South Sudanese and the plans which are now being designed by the ministry of petroleum and mining," he told reporters, without elaborating.
South Sudan has held talks with foreign firms to build a pipeline to Kenya but oil industry insiders are skeptical because it would have to cross through rough and violent terrain.
In addition, oil production is going to halve within a decade without significant new finds, according to the International Monetary Funds (IMF).
South Sudan hopes to find oil in Jonglei state where France's Total holds a largely unexplored oil license but tribal has escalated in past weeks.
Sudan's government itself is under pressure to overcome a severe economic crisis after losing the southern oil, which made up 90 percent of the country's exports. It generated $5 billion in oil revenues in 2010.
Juba has offered Sudan the sale of discounted oil and other financial help, but neither side shows sign of shifting their positions.
(Reporting by Hereward Holland; Writing by Ulf Laessing, editing by Jane Baird and Jason Neely)
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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) ? A convicted murderer stabbed a female guard to death at an east Arkansas prison Friday while she was investigating whether he had an unauthorized pair of shoes, a prison spokeswoman said.
Sgt. Barbara Ester, 47, was stabbed in the side, abdomen and chest at about 12:30 p.m., said Shea Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Correction. Ester died about 3 p.m. at a hospital in Memphis, Tenn., about 40 miles away.
Ester, a 12-year veteran of the correction department, was a property officer who investigated whether inmates had contraband items. Wilson said the guard had received a report that Johnson had a pair of contraband shoes.
"This is obviously very difficult for the department when something tragic like this happens," Wilson said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Sgt. Ester's family. These officers ? it's a tight-knit workplace. They look out for each other and are there together for a lot of hours of the day, so this is very difficult for everyone."
Wilson said the prison was locked down after the attack and that the inmate, Latavious Johnson, was being moved to the state's maximum-security unit at Varner. She said all the other inmates have been accounted for. Prison officials haven't said specifically what Johnson used during the attack, only that it was an object that had been sharpened.
Johnson, 30, was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder out of Jefferson County. He was sentenced in 2000 for killing his father. Prosecutors said Johnson was 18 at the time of the crime.
Wilson said Johnson had had several disciplinary infractions, including one this week for not obeying orders, but hadn't previously attacked a guard.
"We will move him to the supermax (prison) so he will be out of that environment ... He needed to be out of that environment," Wilson said.
Arkansas State Police and the prison's internal affairs staff were investigating the stabbing. Wilson said authorities would turn over their information to prosecutors, who will determine whether to file charges against the inmate.
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Strong earnings reports from IBM and Microsoft drove the Dow Jones industrial average higher Friday. The Dow rose 96 points to close at 12720.
IBM and Microsoft drove the Dow Jones industrial average higher Friday after the tech giants reported stronger earnings than analysts expected.
Skip to next paragraphMicrosoft said sales of Xbox games and Office software helped push revenue up in the last quarter of 2011. IBM credited better sales of software and services and raised its earnings outlook for the year. Microsoft rose 6 percent and IBM rose 4 percent.
The Dow rose 96.50 points to close at 12,720.48. That's a gain of 0.8 percent. Without the huge gains in IBM and Microsoft, the Dow would have risen just 24 points.
The S&P 500 index inched up 0.88 to 1,315.38. Both the Dow and S&P ended the week with gains of more than 2 percent.
Plenty of things are going right, said Frank Fantozzi, CEO of Planned Financial Services, an independent wealth manager in Cleveland. Applications for unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level in nearly four years. Housing sales are steadily rising. And most companies are reporting better profits.
"Overall, we're moving in the right direction and it's bolstered the market," Fantozzi said. "The S&P getting over 1,300 this week is a nice sign."
Google lost 8.4 percent after its earnings per share fell a dollar short of analysts' estimates. The misfire stemmed from an 8 percent drop in prices that the Internet search giant charges advertisers for each click.
Google's drop tugged the Nasdaq composite index lower. It fell 1.63 points to 2,786.70.
Even though high-profile companies such as Google and JPMorgan Chase have posted disappointing earnings results in the past week, the trend is moving in the opposite direction. Of the 60 companies in the S&P index that have reported earnings so far, 62 percent have beaten estimates, according to John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet Research.
In another sign that traders were becoming more willing to take on risk, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note crossed above 2 percent for the first time in two weeks. The yield, a widely used benchmark for corporate and consumer borrowing, had inched lower since early December as traders parked money in the safest of assets.
The National Association of Realtors said that home sales rose 5 percent in December, the third straight monthly increase.
Among other companies in the news:
? Capital One Financial lost 5.6 percent. The bank and credit-card company's earnings sank 41 percent as expenses for marketing, salaries and legal fees jumped compared with the year before.
? Schlumberger rose 1.3 percent. The oil-field services company's quarterly profit surged 36 percent, helped by exploration work in the Middle East and Africa. The company also raised its quarterly dividend to 27.5 cents.
- Intel rose 2.9 percent. The world's largest chip maker reported stronger profits after the market closed Thursday. Intel's results got a boost from sales to China and other developing countries, where many people are buying PCs for the first time.
Stocks have been on a slow and steady climb to start 2012. The S&P 500 has closed higher on 11 of 13 days and is now up 4.6 percent for the year.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/zpzcvYU6dgY/Tech-stocks-boost-the-market
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ELKTON, Md. ? A Utah doctor facing a murder charge related to a botched second-trimester abortion has been extradited to Maryland.
An attorney for Dr. Nicola Riley says Riley was flown to Maryland Thursday and has an initial appearance and bail review scheduled for Friday morning in Elkton. Prosecutors did not return a message seeking comment.
Maryland authorities charged the 46-year-old physician in December with one count each of first-degree and second-degree felony murder, and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
The charges come from an August 2010 procedure that left an 18-year-old woman with a ruptured uterus and injured bowel.
Prosecutors say Riley drove the woman to the hospital rather than call 911.
Riley has not yet entered a plea, although her defense attorneys have said nothing illegal occurred.
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JERUSALEM ? Israel's defense minister says his country is "very far off" from deciding on whether to launch a military strike on Iran's nuclear program.
Ehud Barak did not specify when such a decision might be made, in his interview Wednesday with Army Radio.
He also denied Israeli media speculation that Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, would use his visit here on Thursday to pressure Israel not to attack.
Barak said the U.S. respects Israel's freedom of action and that the Israeli government doesn't "have the luxury" to "roll over responsibility" for Israel's fate to the U.S.
Israel considers Iran its most fearsome enemy and does not believe Tehran's claims that its nuclear program is designed to produce energy, not bombs.
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Almighty God, giver of every good gift: Look graciously on your Church, and so guide the minds of those who shall choose a rector for St. John's Parish, that we may receive a faithful pastor, who will care for your people and equip us for our ministries; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Almighty God, giver of every good gift: Look graciously on your Church, and so guide the minds of those who shall choose a bishop for the Dioceses of Atlanta, Lexington, Pittsburgh PA, and Western Louisiana that they may receive faithful pastors, who will care for your people and equip them for their ministries; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
"Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read; that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous; to the honor of Jesus Christ our Lord."
Book of Common Prayer
O my God, since Thou art with me, and I must now, in obedience to Thy commands, apply my mind to these outward things, I beseech Thee to grant me the grace to continue in Thy presence; and to this end do Thou prosper me with Thy assistance, receive all my works, and possess all my affections.
Brother Lawrence
"How can you initiate someone and then treat them like a half-assed baptized?"
The Rt Rev Barbara Harris
?The Windsor Report,? he said. ?It?s just a report. When did it become like The Bible. The Covenant. Why do we need another covenant? We have the Baptismal Covenant. We have the creeds. What else do we need??
Bishop Martin Barahona, retired primate of Central America
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On occasion, Wounded Bird, indulges in irony.
"I hope that I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can."
Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
THIS BLOG IS NOT WINDSOR-COMPLIANT
"Her blog is fairly successful...." GN
?Let those who have a voice, speak out for the voiceless.?
?scar Romero
"Silence is the voice of complicity."
Fr. Roy Bourgeois
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant."
Martin Luther King
"There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odor of mendacity...You can smell it. It smells like death."
Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Source: http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2012/01/pets.html
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BOSTON (Reuters) ? Anti-virus software maker McAfee warned that a flaw in one of its products could make customers' PCs vulnerable to attacks in which hackers used their computers to distribute spam.
The company, which is a unit of chipmaker Intel Corp, disclosed the flaw in a message to customers on its website Wednesday.
McAfee spokesman Ian Bain said t least one customer had fallen victim to such an attack, which leveraged a flaw in a service offering known as McAfee SaaS for Total Protection.
The web-based service protects customers from viruses hidden in emails and websites. Bain said the flaw was in a piece of software that McAfee customers install on their PCs to enable them to use the service.
While the flaw could enable hackers to send spam from machines of McAfee SaaS for Total Protection customers, it does not grant them access to data on an affected PC, Bain said.
He said that the company's engineers were working to fix the bug and expected to have it fixed on Thursday.
In April 2010, a glitch included in a regular release of McAfee's anti-virus software mistakenly identified part of Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) popular Windows XP operating system as a virus, triggering personal computer outages at many of its customers, including more than 100 large corporations.
(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Matt Driskill)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/security/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120119/wr_nm/us_mcafee
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