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Source: http://www.wrno.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=135361&article=11520407
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Saturday, July 27, 2013
Friday, July 26, 2013
Feds: Halliburton agrees to plead guilty in spill
NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Halliburton Energy Services has agreed to plead guilty to destroying evidence in connection with the 2010 Gulf oil spill, the Department of Justice said Thursday.
Federal officials said in a news release that a criminal information charging Halliburton with one count of destruction of evidence was filed in federal court in Louisiana.
Halliburton has agreed to pay the maximum fine, be on probation for three years and continue to cooperate with the government's criminal investigation, according to the news release, which did not list the amount of the fine.
The Houston-based company has also made a $55 million voluntary contribution to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. It was not a condition of the court agreement, the news release says.
The company said in a statement Thursday night that it had agreed to plead guilty "to one misdemeanor violation associated with the deletion of records created after the Macondo well incident, to pay the statutory maximum fine of $200,000 and to accept a term of three years probation."
The Justice Department has agreed it will not pursue further criminal prosecution of the company or its subsidiaries for any conduct arising from the 2010 spill, Halliburton's statement said, adding that federal officials have also "acknowledged the company's significant and valuable cooperation during the course of its investigation."
The plea agreement is subject to court approval, the company said.
Halliburton was BP's cement contractor on the drilling rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The blowout triggered an explosion that killed 11 workers and spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.
According to the news release, Halliburton conducted its own review of the well's design and construction after the blowout, and established a working group to review "whether the number of centralizers used on the final production casing could have contributed to the blowout."
The casing is a steel pipe placed in a well to maintain its integrity.
Centralizers are metal collars attached on the outside of the casing. Centralizers can help keep the casing centered in the wellbore.
"Centralization can be significant to the quality of subsequent cementing around the bottom of the casing," the news release said.
Prior to the blowout, Halliburton had recommended to BP the use of 21 centralizers in the well, but BP decided to use six instead, the news release says.
Around May 2010, the news release says, the company directed a program manager to conduct two computer simulations of the Macondo well final cementing job "to compare the impact of using six versus 21 centralizers."
The simulations indicated there was little difference between using six and 21 centralizers, but the program manager "was directed to, and did, destroy these results," federal officials say.
Similar evidence was destroyed in a subsequent incident, in June 2010, the Justice Department said.
"Efforts to forensically recover the original destroyed Displace 3D computer simulations during ensuing civil litigation and federal criminal investigation by the Deepwater Horizon Task Force were unsuccessful," the news release said. "In agreeing to plead guilty, Halliburton has accepted criminal responsibility for destroying the aforementioned evidence."
In December 2011, BP asked a judge to sanction Halliburton for its handling of cement testing and Displace 3D modeling results. Halliburton claimed that its modeling results were "gone" and couldn't be found, an explanation that BP attorneys said was "at a minimum, highly suspicious."
"Purposefully destroying evidence because it is deemed to contain potentially unfavorable information that could benefit a litigation adversary is, by definition, 'bad faith' conduct," they wrote in a court filing.
The plea agreement and criminal charge both arise from a criminal investigation by the Deepwater Horizon Task Force into the spill.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans recently presided over a trial in the matter and could decide how much more money BP, Halliburton and rig owner Transocean Ltd. owe for their roles in the catastrophe.
Halliburton and BP have blamed each other for the failure of the cement job to seal the Macondo well.
During the spring trial, BP asked a federal judge to sanction Halliburton for allegedly destroying evidence about the role that its cement slurry design could have played in the blowout.
After the trial started on Feb. 25, Halliburton discovered cement samples at a Lafayette laboratory that weren't turned over to the Justice Department for testing after the spill. Halliburton lawyers called it a "simple misunderstanding" and accused BP of trying to create a "sideshow."
Halliburton announced in April that it was trying to negotiate a settlement to resolve a substantial portion of private claims it has faced since the Deepwater Horizon rig blast spawned America's worst offshore oil spill.
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China plans to spend $275B to cut air pollution
BEIJING (AP) ? China will spend $275 billion to tackle air pollution over the next five years, highlighting how the issue has become a priority for the leadership.
The amount is more than the total economic output of Hong Kong last year and underlines how the government is eager to bring about a visible improvement in China?s bad air, which has caused discontent among its citizens and tarnished the country?s image abroad.
The China Daily reported Thursday that the plan targets Beijing, the neighboring port city of Tianjin and densely populated Hebei province, which surrounds them.
The environment ministry didn?t immediately respond to a request for comment.
China?s government was long indifferent to the environment as it pursued economic development. The country?s major cities have some of the world?s worst smog and water supplies are badly polluted.
The government has begun launching anti-pollution initiatives after mounting public frustration.
The China Daily said the latest initiative aims to reduce emissions of pollutants in Beijing and surrounding areas by 25 percent by 2017 from 2012 levels. It said details would be released in late July at the earliest.
In 2012, Hong Kong?s gross domestic product was $263 billion.
? Copyright 2013 Globe Newspaper Company.
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Detroit ex-Mayor Kilpatrick to be sentenced Sept. 3
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Source: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130725/METRO01/307250082/1410/METRO01
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Google Reveals Chromecast Video/Audio Streamer - Tom's Hardware
This gadget plugs into an HDTV and turns it into a receiver for video and audio initiated by phones, tablets, and the Chrome browser.
Essentially what Google has done is turn your living room or bedroom HDTV into a receiver and any mobile device -- whether it's Android, iOS, Windows, Mac or Chrome OS -- into a remote control. The major components to make this work is not only the Chromecast gadget, but the Chrome browser and supporting mobile apps like YouTube, Netflix, Google Music and Google Movies. Pandora and a few others are expected to be updated with Chromecast support soon.
The deal here is that laptops, phones and tablets aren't wirelessly pushing video across the room. Instead, the media is streamed directly to the Chromecast device from the Internet. All other devices essentially become remote controls, allowing the user to pause, play and adjust the sound using the volume buttons on their device. If the user wants the video to resume on their phone, they merely tap on the Chromecast icon in the app again, and choose the proper device.
"You can use Chromecast to bring a broad range of content available on the web to your big screen, thanks to a new feature in the Chrome browser that allows you to project any browser tab to your TV. From sharing your family photos to enjoying a video clip from your favorite news site, it?s as simple as pressing a button," the company said. "This feature is launching in beta, but we?re excited for people to try it out and give us their feedback."
The device can be ordered online for $35 now from Amazon, Best Buy and Google Play. It will be made available in Best Buy brick-and-mortar stores around July 28. And for a limited time only, those who buy the gadget will get three months of Netflix for free. We like free.
Chromecast: For bigger Fun
Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Chrome-Chromecast-HDTV-Netflix-1080p,23670.html
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U.S. lawmakers blast Guantanamo's $2.7 million per prisoner cost
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic lawmakers pushing to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay said on Wednesday its cost has skyrocketed to $2.7 million per inmate this year and argued it is too expensive to keep open while the country is fighting budget deficits.
"This is a massive waste of money," Senator Dianne Feinstein said during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the base.
Guantanamo has been dubbed the most expensive prison on Earth, and President Barack Obama in May cited its cost - then calculated at about $900,000 per prisoner - as one of many reasons to close it.
Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, testified during the hearing that the current cost of operating the facility has jumped to $454 million in the fiscal year ended September 30, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, or about $2.7 million for each of the 166 inmates.
Smith said overall, $4.7 billion has been spent running Guantanamo since the facility opened in 2002.
By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in the United States spend about $60,000 to $70,000 at most to house their inmates, analysts say.
Advocates for closure also argue that holding prisoners for years without charge or trial is a stain on the United States. They say Guantanamo is a threat to national security because it is a powerful recruiting tool for militants.
"Our national security and military leaders have concluded that the risk of keeping Guantanamo open far outweighs the risk of closing it because the facility continues to harm our alliances and serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists," Senator Richard Durbin said during the hearing.
Obama came into office in 2009 with the goal of closing down the Guantanamo detention center within a year. Facing stiff opposition in Congress, he has so far failed to do so, even though 86 of the detainees have been deemed to pose no threat to the United States and cleared for release.
HUNGER STRIKE
A hunger strike that has involved a majority of the inmates - and daily force-feeding of dozens - has fueled the push to shut the detention center.
Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and chairman of the civil and human rights subcommittee that held the hearing, said he and Feinstein met with senior White House officials last week to discuss what they are doing to transfer detainees away from the base.
There is some Republican support, particularly in the Senate, for closing the base. Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham met with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden last week on a range of national security issues, including Guantanamo, McCain said last week.
But congressional opponents argue that Guantanamo is an essential tool for fighting terrorism, and fault Obama for failing to come up with an alternative.
"Until we are presented with a good, viable strategy for what to do with terrorists who would work night and day to murder innocent Americans, I have a hard time seeing how it is responsible to shut down our detention facilities and send these individuals home," Senator Ted Cruz, the top Republican on the subcommittee, said at the hearing.
The House voted down two amendments to the Defense Appropriations bill on Wednesday that would have forced cutbacks at Guantanamo. One would have prevented further detention of prisoners cleared for release. The second sought to prevent more construction or expansion of detainee facilities.
Republican Representative Bill Young reflected the views of many members of Congress as he opposed the amendments.
"These detainees are bad, bad people. They hate America. They've sworn to kill Americans and in fact they've done so on the battlefield. And that's why when they were captured they were sent to Guantanamo. And that's where they should stay," he said.
(Additional reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Stacey Joyce)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-lawmakers-blast-guantanamos-2-7-million-per-234918925.html
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Boardgames Ken Whitman Games: Knights Quest Family Card Game
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