Monday, February 24, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Ukraine's president wanted for mass murder of civilians, acting interior minister says – CBS
CBS/Wire Services February 24, 2014
Last Updated Feb 24, 2014 5:50 AM EST

KIEV -- Ukraine's acting government issued a warrant Monday for the arrest of President Viktor Yanukovych, last seen in the pro-Russian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, accusing him of mass murder of protesters who stood up for months against his rule. 

Calls are mounting in Ukraine to put Yanukovych on trial, after a tumultuous presidency in which he amassed powers, enriched his allies and cracked down on protesters. Anger boiled over last week after snipers attacked protesters in the bloodiest violence in Ukraine's post-Soviet history. 

The turmoil has turned this strategically located country of 46 million inside out over the past few days, raising fears that it could split apart. The parliament speaker is suddenly nominally in charge of a country whose economy is on the brink of default and whose loyalties are torn between Europe and longtime ruler Russia. 

Making sense of the upheaval in Ukraine
Time Magazine's Bobby Ghosh and CBS News State Department Correspondent Margaret Brennan discuss the unrest in Ukraine.

 CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reports the mood Monday among opposition supporters in Kiev, and on the grounds of the seized presidential palace, is jubilant, but tinged with confusion.

The country is to hold new elections in May, but right now, many Ukrainians are simply not sure who's running their country.

Natalia Dovhopol told CBS News she was happy to see the back of Yanukovych, but when asked who was left running the nation, she said she didn't know.
"There are a lot of these small leaders, but I don't know who's going to be in charge of the country," she told Williams.

Violence resumes in Kiev
Dozens dead in worst violence since protests began in Ukraine late last year
 Ukraine's acting interior minister, Arsen Avakhov, said on his official Facebook page Monday that a warrant has been issued for the arrest of Yanukovych and several other officials for the "mass killing of civilians." At least 82 people, primarily protesters, were killed in clashes in Kiev last week.

"An official case for the mass murder of peaceful citizens has been opened," Avakov wrote on Facebook. "Yanukovich and other people responsible for this have been declared wanted." 

Avakhov says Yanukovych, 63, arrived in Crimea on Sunday and relinquished his official security detail, then drove off to an unknown location. 
 He fled the capital, Kiev, by helicopter on Friday. 

After signing an agreement with the opposition to end a conflict that turned deadly, Yanukovych fled the capital for eastern Ukraine. Avakhov said he tried to fly out of Donetsk but was stopped, then went to Crimea. 

Tensions have been mounting in Crimea, where pro-Russian protesters raised a Russian flag on a city hall in one town and scuffled with police. Russia maintains a big naval base in the Crimean port of Sevastopol that has tangled relations between the countries for two decades. 

Yanukovych set off a wave of protests by shelving an agreement with the EU in November and turning toward Russia, and the movement quickly expanded its grievances to corruption, human rights abuses and calls for Yanukovych's resignation. 
"We must find Yanukovych and put him on trial," said protester Leonid Shovtak, a 50-year-old farmer from the western Ivano-Frankivsk region who came to Kiev's Independence Square to take part in the three-month protest movement. "All the criminals with him should be in prison." 


The speaker of parliament assumed the president's powers Sunday, even though a presidential aide told the AP on Sunday that Yanukovych plans to stay in power. 
The speaker, Oleksandr Turchinov, said top priorities include saving the economy and "returning to the path of European integration," according to news agencies. The latter phrase is certain to displease Moscow, which wants Ukraine to be part of a customs union that would rival the EU and bolster Russia's influence. Russia granted Ukraine a $15 billion bailout after Yanukovych backed away from the EU deal. 

U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said the U.S. is ready to help Ukraine get aid from the International Monetary Fund. 

The European Union, meanwhile, is reviving efforts to strike a deal with Ukraine that could involve billions of euros in economic perks. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is visiting Kiev on Monday and Tuesday. 

The protest movement has been in large part a fight for the country's economic future - for better jobs and prosperity. 

Ukraine has struggled with corruption, bad government and short-sighted reliance on cheap gas from Russia. Political unrest has pushed up the deficit and sent exchange rates bouncing, and may have pushed the economy back into a recession. 

Per capita economic output is only around $7,300, even adjusted for the lower cost of living there, compared to $22,200 in Poland and around $51,700 in the United States. Ukraine ranks 137th worldwide, behind El Salvador, Namibia, and Guyana. 

Ukraine has a large potential consumer market, with 46 million people, an educated workforce, and a rich potential export market next door in the EU. It has a significant industrial base and good natural resources, in particular rich farmland.




I hope the Western section of Ukraine can maintain a union with the Eastern, but they look to be diametrically opposed at this time. However, if they were to separate, perhaps they would have a greater chance of forming stable governments, since the populations in each would be more uniform than is true in the present unified state.

Whatever happens, I will continue to clip articles if they have significant new developments in them. In the meantime, if Yanukovych is found, tried and convicted there will be some justice done.




Drought-stricken California to see some rain, snow – CBS
AP February 24, 2014

SAN FRANCISCO - Meteorologists forecast a pair of storms that could dump several inches of rain on parched cities and croplands throughout California in the coming week, bringing welcome news to a state that has just endured its driest year in recorded history.

While the rain won't be enough to end the drought, the National Weather Service projected Sunday that the much-needed precipitation could nearly double the amount of rainfall in parts of Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area this year.

By next Saturday, the twin Pacific storms are expected to bring as much as 2 inches of rain to the coast and several feet of snow to the Sierra Nevada.

The first storm on Wednesday won't offer much relief, just light overnight rains heading into Thursday. By Friday, radar images show the second storm should drench the entire state for 24 hours.

"We're not calling it a drought-buster, but it definitely will make a difference," said Jim Bagnall, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford, one of many San Joaquin Valley towns where farmers have fallowed crops in anticipation of record low water supplies. "With these few storms, we could see about an inch total in the valley. So this could obviously have some significant impact."

The wet weather is badly needed: Since July 1, only 5.85 inches of rain have fallen in San Francisco, or about 35 percent of normal for this time of year. Just 1.2 inches have fallen in downtown Los Angeles, compared to 10.45 inches in a normal year.
The heavy rains will likely lead to flash flooding and runoff, carrying mud, trees and debris in areas burned in recent fires, such as the Colby fire, near Glendora.
"People who live around the burn areas need to be aware that Friday and Saturday could be potentially dangerous days," said Andrew Rorke, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

At higher elevations, the storms could blanket the Sierra in several feet of snow reaching down as low as about 4,500 feet, Bagnall said.

Looking further into the future, meteorologists say computer models show another sign of hope: greater chances that this year could see El Nino conditions and accompanying rainfall.

The San Jose Mercury News reports researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in November there was a 36 percent chance of El Nino conditions developing by August 2014. NOAA recently updated that probability to 49 percent.
"There's been an uptick recently. More models favor El Niño," said Jon Gottschalck, acting chief of operational prediction at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Md. "We certainly don't want to promise anything, but conditions are looking better."

Scientists are quick to say that El Nino conditions don't guarantee that California will get intense rainfall. But if the pattern is strong and temperatures are warm in the Pacific Ocean, the likelihood of heavy rainfall increases.




Drought like this is unnerving because it is one of the possible signs of climate change, and therefore could be a trend well into the future. At present it is bad enough, as farmers have not even planted their crops in some places this year. In another article, it said that ranchers have been selling off their stock because they can't afford feed, and of course cattle have to have water. California is one of our most important farming regions; this is a crisis. I hope the El Nino does come and bring some monsoon style rains. The soil I saw in one of the photographs is cracked down several inches deep and totally dry. I'll keep track of the situation and continue to clip stories.





Mississippi River closed at New Orleans after barge spills oil – CBS
CBS/AP February 24, 2014

NEW ORLEANS -- A 65-mile stretch of the Mississippi River remained closed at New Orleans on Monday following a weekend collision that resulted in crude oil spilling from a barge.

Authorities involved in the cleanup and investigation planned a Monday morning conference call as they worked on estimates of how much oil spilled and when the river would re-open, a Coast Guard spokesman, Petty Officer Bill Colclough, said.
At last count Sunday night, the river closure affected 26 vessels - 16 waiting to go downriver and 10 waiting to go upriver.

Officials reported only a light sheen following the accident but river traffic was halted to avoid contaminating passing vessels and to prevent oil from spreading downriver.

No injuries were reported in Saturday afternoon's accident involving the barge being pushed by a tugboat and another tugboat near Vacherie, 47 miles west of New Orleans. The other tugboat was pushing grain barges.

Public drinking water intakes on the river were closed as a precaution in nearby St. Charles Parish, officials said. "The water supply in St. Charles Parish remains safe," parish officials said in a news release Sunday afternoon.

The closure included the Port of New Orleans. However, both the Carnival Sunshine and the Norwegian Jewel cruise ships were able to leave the port Sunday to begin their scheduled cruises, said Petty Officer Craig Woerhle at the Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service in New Orleans.

CBS affiliate WWLTV reports the collision caused the Algiers ferry to be out of service on the first day that the new tolls would have been collected.




This article didn't say how long they expect the river closure to continue or how they plan to clean up the water. It did say that it is only a light sheen of oil, which is good. Twenty-six vessels is not as many as I thought would be traveling on the river. Hopefully this will clear up in the next week or so.




Eric Holder: Consumers must be notified about data breaches – CBS
By Paula Reid CBS News February 24, 2014

Attorney General Eric Holder called on Congress Monday to create “a strong national standard” to quickly alert consumers when their information is compromised in a data breach such as the ones perpetrated at Target and Neiman Marcus last year. 

The data breach at Target exposed payment card data for up to 40 million people and personal data, including name, mailing address, phone number or emails address, for up to 70 million customers. 

Shortly after the Target breach was made public, Neiman Marcus also reported a suspected cyberattack. Account information from transactions in 77 of their 85 stores, between July and October 2013, was potentially exposed to the malware. 

In his weekly video address, Holder said new rules requiring notification would empower Americans to protect themselves if they are at risk of identify theft. 

“It would enable law enforcement to better investigate these crimes – and hold compromised entities accountable when they fail to keep sensitive information safe,” he said. 
  
Target exec apologizes, urges security changes

At a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month Target’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer John Mulligan testified that an intruder stole a vendor’s credentials to access to Target’s computer system and placed malware on points of sale registers. The malware was able to capture payment card data from magnetic strips on credit and debit cards prior to encryption. 

Neiman Marcus Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer Michael R. Kingston also testified at that hearing and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., pressed both retail executives on how they notified customers of the breach.  She noted that she shops at Neiman Marcus, but was never notified of the breach. 

“I would have shopped during that time.  When would I have gotten a notification?” she asked. 

Target said the company notified those affected through “multiple forms of communication, including a mass-scale public announcement, email, prominent notices on our website, and social media channels." 

But, Feinstein was not satisfied by these methods of notification.  “I believe if someone uses their credit at your institution and their data is breached – they should be notified. Public notification is vague – you really don’t know,” she said. 

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, forty-six states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have enacted legislation requiring private or government entities to notify individuals of security breaches of information involving personally identifiable information, but the laws vary widely from state to state. 

In his address, Holder also assured businesses that lawmakers would provide reasonable exemptions for harmless breaches to avoid placing “unnecessary burdens” on businesses that do act responsibly. 

Holder says legislation would strengthen the Justice Department’s ability to combat crime and ensure individual privacy and help law enforcement bring cybercriminals to justice. 

“My colleagues and I are eager to work with Members of Congress to refine and pass this important proposal,” he said.  “And we will never stop working to protect the American people – using every tool and resource we can bring to bear.” 

In 2013, it is estimated the global cost of consumer cybercrime was $113 billion with 378 million victims per year. 




Large stores are more likely to be attacked because they provide better results for the attacker than smaller stores – they have so much more data. I don't really like shopping in huge stores, because I tend to get disoriented in such settings and it takes so long to find what I want to buy that I get annoyed. Still, it is possible to find nearly anything I want there, so that's an advantage for them. I would definitely want to be notified if my data were compromised, so this new measure should be enacted. Hopefully Congress will proceed on it soon.




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Industry Challenges EPA's Greenhouse Gas Rules In High Court – NPR
by Elizabeth Shogren
February 24, 2014
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The Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday about the Environmental Protection Agency's first-ever greenhouse gas regulations for the biggest polluting facilities.
The case focuses on a 3-year-old requirement that companies get permits anytime they construct new plants or modify existing ones that will emit a lot of greenhouse gases.
What's In It For U.S. To Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

EPA's supporters and most of its challengers agree this case is narrow in scope; the court's ruling is not expected to threaten EPA's broader strategy to fight global warming.

Some industries challenging these permits argue that what they require can be costly and time consuming. They contend that the EPA contorted a provision of the Clean Air Act to make it fit greenhouse gases.

"The law passed by Congress said that anyone who emits more than 250 tons a year of a pollutant needs a permit, and EPA said that would be absurd, that [it] would lead to an absurd result," says Jeffrey Holmstead, an industry lawyer who headed the EPA's air pollution programs under President George Bush. Holmstead is a critic of EPA greenhouse gas permitting.

Even a small facility can pump out 250 tons of greenhouse gases in a year, so to avoid having to issue permits for tens of thousands of new buildings, the EPA basically modified the law so that it applies only to big factories.

Industry officials weren't satisfied with that. Neither were some states.
"If it's that absurd that you have to go through that many somersaults to make the thing remotely rational, then maybe you've misinterpreted the statute to begin with," says C. Boyden Gray, an attorney representing some states in this case.

Gray says the states he represents worry that the EPA in the future will start requiring smaller facilities to get permits, and that even churches and apartment houses might need to get them.

"Eventually the nightmare will unfold," Gray says.

Supreme Court To Weigh EPA Permits For Power Plant Emissions

Environmental groups criticize the industry's challenge and stress that the Supreme Court traditionally gives broad deference to the EPA to interpret the Clean Air Act.
"It's a very legalistic argument that's designed to prevent EPA from protecting America's families and communities from climate pollution," says Vickie Patton, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund.

Some companies that have gotten greenhouse gas permits without much trouble also reject the industry's arguments in this case.

Calpine Corp. — which has six such permits for power plants in California, Texas and Delaware — defends the program in a legal brief filed with the Supreme Court.
"We haven't found this permitting program to be overly cumbersome or expensive. We haven't seen any significant increase in permitting time really," says Derek Furstenwerth, Calpine's senior director for environmental services.

Calpine has not had to buy expensive new pollution control equipment to get the permits, Furstenwerth says. It just had to build plants that will get the most electricity out of the fuel they burn.

"So it winds up that the permitting process and our economic interests in building the plants are pretty well aligned," Furstenwerth adds.

In the past three years, permits have been issued for 141 facilities nationally, according to the EPA.

The EPA declined NPR's requests for an interview. In an email, the agency said the permit program has been "running smoothly," with most companies complying by making their facilities more energy efficient. The agency says it currently has no plans to require permits from smaller facilities. A review of the program is due next year; after that, the agency may revisit the question of how much greenhouse gas pollution would trigger the need for a company to get a permit.

Obama Wants Tougher Fuel Standards For Big Trucks
Under President Obama, the EPA already has curtailed emissions from cars and trucks. Still to come are EPA rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gases from new and existing power plants.

"This case is not about EPA's authority to address climate pollution under the nation's clean air laws," says the Environmental Defense Fund's Vickie Patton.
"This is a very narrow case," says Jeffrey Holmstead, the industry attorney. "I think the outcome won't have much of an impact one way or another on EPA's ability to regulate carbon."




"It's a very legalistic argument that's designed to prevent EPA from protecting America's families and communities from climate pollution," says Vickie Patton. Apparently greenhouse gas pollution has not been regulated up to now. If all they have to do is get a permit – not limit the amount of greenhouse gas that they produce – I don't see why they are complaining.

According to Calpine Corp., which has already gotten six of the permits, it was neither too expensive nor too difficult to achieve. “It just had to build plants that will get the most electricity out of the fuel they burn.” In other words, utilize as much of the carbon as possible in producing electricity, thus limiting the amount of pollution given off by increasing the efficiency of their operation.

Gray's statement that “even churches and apartment houses might need to get them” sounds ridiculous. How could such structures possibly put out that much pollution? If they had very inefficient heating or were located in very cold parts of the country, possibly, I suppose. That is just on the state's worry list about the EPA stepping over its bounds. We need for the greenhouse gases to be regulated and therefore hopefully reduced, and have the EPA do the permitting looks like an effective way of doing that. More importantly, it's regulated from the top down and is not voluntary. Voluntary restrictions rarely work.




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At 4.4 Billion Years Old, Oz Crystals Confirmed As World's Oldest – NPR
by Nell Greenfieldboyce
February 24, 2014
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Scientists have used a powerful new technique to prove that some tiny crystals found in Western Australia are indeed the oldest known materials formed on Earth.
Back in 2001, scientists reported that one of the zircon crystals was about 4.4 billion years old — so old that not everyone believed it.

"There have been challenges, because nothing in science goes without being questioned. It always has to be proven," says John Valley, a geochemist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The crystals formed just tens of millions of years after an early proto-Earth was melted by a violent impact with a Mars-sized object. The crash created the moon and turned our young planet into a red ball of molten rock.

"It would have glowed almost like a star. Nothing could exist on the surface. There would be no continental land masses. There'd be no liquid water. And there certainly would have been no life at that time," says Valley.

The bits of zircon suggest that those fiery, inhospitable conditions actually didn't last long — that the Earth's continental crust formed early on, and the planet started being more homey.

The crystals are so tiny that if you had one in the palm of your hand, you could not see it without a magnifying glass. Some have jagged edges, while others look like smooth jellybeans. "The colors can be anything from transparent to a deep red," says Valley.

Geologists found them on a sheep ranch in a remote part of Western Australia called the Jack Hills, in sandstones that were a beach around 3 billion years ago.
"It's always blown my mind," says Valley. "I mean, to collect samples that were on a beach 3 billion years ago — and to find crystals that were more than a billion years older even than the beach — is just really surprising and wonderful."

In their original report, Valley and his colleagues had determined the antiquity of the crystal by looking at a small part of it and analyzing how much of the element uranium had decayed into lead.

But some scientists pointed out a potential problem: Atoms of lead might move around inside the crystal. "And if that happens, in the places where it's concentrated, you will measure an older age than the true age," Valley explains.

So Valley's team recently tackled this issue with a powerful new instrument that can pluck out and identify individual atoms, to create a kind of map of their distribution inside the crystal.

The Oldest Rock In The World Tells Us A Story
They found that lead atoms do move around, but only a tiny bit — not enough to affect their age calculations. This particular crystal that they analyzed, they say, is 4.374 billion years old, plus or minus 6 million years.

Sam Bowring, a geologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says it's pretty hard to argue with this new study, which appears this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.

If Yellowstone Could Talk, It Might Squeak. Blame The Helium
"I think people will be impressed with the technique and impressed with the conclusions and agree with them," he says.

Having something that appeared so soon after the Earth-moon system was formed means that scientists are closing the gap in the part of the Earth's history that is not preserved, says Bowring.

"I think that really is profound, if you think about it," he says. "Now we're talking about a history on this planet that goes back to almost the day that the planet was born."

If geologists are lucky, he says, someday they may stumble over a big rock that's as old as these little crystals.




Finding physical evidence which can be tested and gauged to show such an amazing age is exciting. I had always wondered how the scientists knew the relative ages of the various parts of the earth. Archaeologists are always dating things, mainly by scientific tests such as radioactive carbon now, but 30 years ago they were using comparative study of stone pieces and pottery types, and it was accurate only in a relative way. It was an art as much as a science.

This dating of these newly found crystals is hard science, and I assume it is more accurate. 4.4 Billion years is an unimaginable length of time, but I accept their word. Science being based on peer review, I assume that if others disagree with their findings their argument about it will also be published, so this stands for now.