Court hears arguments on NYC's big soda ban

NEW YORK (AP) ? A state appeals court panel had few sweet words Tuesday for a city health regulation that would fight diabetes and obesity by setting a size limit on sugary beverages sold in restaurants.

The four justices peppered a city lawyer with tough questions during a Manhattan court session aimed at determining whether health officials exceeded their authority in placing a 16-ounce limit on most sweetened beverages at city-licensed eateries.

The regulation would apply to thousands of fast food joints, fine restaurants and sports stadiums, but not to supermarkets or most convenience stores. It was struck down in March by a lower-court judge, who found that the rules had too many loopholes that would undermine the health benefits while arbitrarily applying to some businesses but not others. The city appealed.

During oral arguments in the case Tuesday, the judges repeatedly challenged city attorney Fay Ng to defend the rule's scientific and legal underpinnings.

Justice David Friedman said the city appeared to be asking for unprecedented authority to regulate all sorts of portion sizes, including "the number of doughnuts a person could eat, the number of scoops of ice cream" and number of servings of fried chicken.

Several times, Justice Dianne Renwick questioned whether the 16-ounce size limit was scientifically arbitrary, given that it is based on liquid volume rather than a measure of how much sugar is actually in a beverage. The limit, she noted, meant that some drinks with high amounts of sugar would be allowed, while others with less sweetener would be banned.

After the court session, City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said that he remained confident the regulation will ultimately be upheld.

New York City needs the rule to address a growing health crisis, he said. The Health Department released a report Monday saying that diabetes killed an all-time high of 5,695 city residents in 2011, or about one death every 90 minutes. Around 650,000 adult New Yorkers are now living with diabetes, an increase of 44 percent since 2002.

A lawyer for the American Beverage Association and a coalition of other groups that challenged the regulation acknowledged that too much sugar can be unhealthy, but he told the court the regulation was "a breathtaking example of agency overreach."

"For the first time, this agency is telling the public how much of a safe and lawful beverage it can drink," attorney Richard Bress said. "This is the government coercing lifestyle decisions."

He said the city's proposal seemed to be based more on politics and consumer economics than pure science. He noted that the rules, which contain an exception for dairy products, would prohibit restaurants from serving more than 16 ounces of cranberry or orange juice in a glass, while setting no limits on the size of a milkshake.

"That makes no sense at all as a matter of nutrition," he said.

The court didn't indicate when it might rule.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-hears-arguments-nycs-big-soda-ban-200307833.html

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Looks like Pluto will have a moon named 'Vulcan'

The votes are in for the SETI Institute's Pluto Rocks Poll, and, thanks in part to William Shatner, Mr. Spock's home planet is a clear winner.?

By Jason Major,?Universe Today / February 25, 2013

This photo provided and annotated by NASA/Hubble Space Telescope shows the five moons in their orbits around Pluto. The smallest moons ? no more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) across ? were discovered in that past two years and are currently referred to as P4 and P5.

NASA/Hubble Space Telescope/AP

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The votes have been tallied and the results are in from the SETI Institute?s?Pluto Rocks Poll: ?Vulcan? and ?Cerberus? have come out on top for names for Pluto?s most recently-discovered moons, P4 and P5.

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After 450,324 votes cast over the past two weeks, Vulcan is the clear winner with a landslide 174,062 votes? due in no small part to a little?Twitter intervention by Mr. William Shatner,?I?m sure.

In other words??yes,?the Trekkies have won.

During a Google+ Hangout today,?SETI Institute?senior scientist Mark Showalter ? who discovered the moons and opened up the poll ? talked with SETI astronomer Franck Marchis and MSNBC?s Alan Boyle about the voting results. Showalter admitted that he wasn?t quite sure how well the whole internet poll thing would work out, but he?s pleased with the results.

?I had no idea what to expect,? said Showalter. ?As we all know the internet can be an unruly place? but by and large this process has gone very smoothly. I feel the results are fair.?

As far as having a name from the Star Trek universe be used for an actual astronomical object?

?Vulcan works,? Showalter said. ?He?s got a family tie to the whole story. Pluto and Zeus were brothers, and Vulcan is a son of Pluto.?

And what can you say when even?Mr. Spock agrees?

The other winning name, Cerberus, is currently used for an asteroid. So because the IAU typically tries to avoid confusion with two objects sharing the same exact name, Showalter said he will use the Greek version of the spelling: Kerberos.

The next step will be to submit these names to the International Astronomical Union for official approval, a process that could take 1?2 months.

(Although who knows? maybe Bill can help move that process along as well?)

Read more about the names on the Pluto Rocks ballot?here.

Jason Major is a graphic artist from?Rhode Island?now living and working in?Dallas, Texas. He writes about astronomy and space exploration on his blog?Lights In The Dark, on Universe Today and also on?Discovery?News.

This story originally appeared in?Universe Today.

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow?@universetoday?on?Twitter

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/5AH7txsgPWw/Looks-like-Pluto-will-have-a-moon-named-Vulcan

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Warrant issued for Vegas Strip shooting suspect

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? Police said Monday they have a warrant for a 26-year-old ex-convict identified as the prime suspect in a shooting and fiery crash that killed three people last week on the Las Vegas Strip.

"We can say with certainty that Ammar Harris is the suspect who fired the fatal shots," Las Vegas police Capt. Chris Jones told reporters at an afternoon update about a manhunt that he said would be advertised on southern Nevada billboards.

Police previously released a photo of Harris taken after his arrest last year in Las Vegas in a 2010 prostitution case. It showed Harris with tattoos on his right cheek and words on his neck above an image that appeared to depict an owl with blackened eyes. Jones said Harris should be considered armed and dangerous.

Jones said investigators were looking everywhere Harris had lived in the past. He wasn't specific.

Public records show that Harris previously lived in South Carolina and Georgia, and told a police officer when he was arrested in Miami Beach last December that he had lived in Florida for about a year.

Harris was convicted in 2004 in Orangeburg, S.C., of felony possession with intent to sell a stolen pistol, Jones said. The conviction was not in California, as police said earlier.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson attended the news conference and said afterward that the case was getting top priority from prosecutors and he hoped Harris would turn himself in. He said the warrant was issued Friday.

"If Mr. Harris is listening, I would urge him to surrender," Wolfson said.

Harris used the name Ammar Asim Faruq Harris when he was arrested last May in Las Vegas in the June 2010 case. He was charged with robbery, sexual assault, kidnapping and coercion with a weapon.

Las Vegas police also sought pandering by force and ex-felon in possession of concealed weapon charges stemming from allegations that Harris was a pimp and attacked a woman.

Court records show the case was dismissed last June. The prosecutor and a public defender who handled the case didn't immediately respond to messages Monday.

In Miami Beach, Harris was arrested Dec. 7 after he was accused of driving a silver 2006 Hummer H3 the wrong way on a congested street at 2 a.m. The arresting officer said Harris produced a Florida state identification card and provided a Miami address. The status of the case in Miami-Dade courts was unclear Monday.

In Atlanta, Harris was arrested in June 2004 on a felony marijuana possession with intent to distribute charge. According to court records, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge and was sentenced to three months in jail.

Fulton County jail records show Harris spent about two weeks in jail in February 2008 after a misdemeanor battery arrest. The outcome of that case was not immediately clear Monday.

In Las Vegas, investigators say Harris was driving a black Range Rover SUV when he fired shots into a Maserati before dawn Thursday, killing an aspiring rapper and causing a crash that killed two people when the Maserati slammed into a taxi that exploded in a fireball at the heart of the Strip.

Police said several other people were with Harris in the SUV as it fled the scene of the six-vehicle, chain-reaction crash on Las Vegas Boulevard near the Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Bally's and Flamingo resorts.

Jones and police homicide Lt. Ray Steiber said they were confident that Harris was the only shooter. They didn't say whether police intend to prosecute anyone else in the SUV.

But, "To anyone who is aware of his location or is assisting Ammar Harris in any way, you will be arrested and prosecuted," Jones said. "You may think you're being a friend, but keep in mind Ammar Harris is wanted for the murder of three citizens."

The SUV was the focus of an intense search before it was found Saturday parked in the garage of a gated apartment complex just a couple of blocks east of the Strip. Harris wasn't found at a nearby apartment where he was believed to have been living.

Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr. was mortally wounded when the dark gray Maserati he was driving was peppered by gunfire from the SUV. Taxi driver Michael Boldon, 62, of Las Vegas, and passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund, 48, of Maple Valley, Wash., died in the taxi.

Police say the triple homicide stemmed from an altercation between Cherry and Harris in a valet area of the upscale Aria resort a block south of the crash scene at Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road.

A passenger in the Maserati was wounded in the arm, and four people from four other vehicles were treated for non-life-threatening injuries after the crash.

Las Vegas police sought help during last week's search for the Range Rover from local and federal authorities in Nevada and neighboring states of Arizona, California and Utah.

___

Associated Press writer Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/warrant-issued-vegas-strip-shooting-suspect-230215329.html

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Quvenzhane Wallis C-Word Tweet: A Step Way Too Far?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/02/quvenzhane-wallis-c-word-tweet-a-step-way-too-far/

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Samsung's HomeSync Brings 1TB of Android To Your TV

Set-top boxes aren't exactly mobile tech, but Samsung has unveiled its new one at this year's Mobile World Congress. The HomeSync aims to work with your mobile devices and serve has a hefty little Android-powered box for all your media. A 1TB box. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/CZ2B9soWwww/samsungs-homesync-brings-1tb-of-android-to-your-tv

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OblyTile Creates Fully-Customized Windows 8 Tiles

The Windows 8 Start screen has the potential to be a great application launcher, but the application shortcuts it creates for desktop apps can stick out against the slick, modern system tiles. Luckily, OblyTile lets you create custom tiles for any app or folder.

The first thing you'll want to do is click the folder icon on the top of the OblyTile Window to open the Tile Manager sidebar. From here you can select an app or system task you want your tile to launch. Then, just select a background color and a .png image to use as the icon. To get you started, Icon Archive has compiled hundreds of modern-looking icons for popular programs that you can download here, if you don't want to make your own. In addition to apps, OblyTile will also create tiles for accessing certain folders in Explorer, or for launching common tasks like locking or hibernating your computer.

Combine OblyTile with previously-mentioned Decor8, and you can finally create a beautiful start screen all your own.

OblyTile - Tile Creator for all programs | XDA Developers via How-To Geek

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/vyKF9_OBrzk/oblytile-creates-fully+customized-windows-8-tiles

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S. Korea's new leader faces N. Korea nuke crisis

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? Even before she takes office Monday as South Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye's campaign vow to soften Seoul's current hard-line approach to rival North Korea is being tested by Pyongyang's recent underground nuclear detonation.

Pyongyang, Washington, Beijing and Tokyo are all watching to see if Park, the daughter of a staunchly anti-communist dictator, pursues an ambitious engagement policy meant to ease five years of animosity on the divided peninsula or if she sticks with the tough stance of her fellow conservative predecessor, Lee Myung-bak.

Park's decision is important because it will likely set the tone of the larger diplomatic approach that Washington and others take in stalled efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.

It will also be complicated by North Korea's warning of unspecified "second and third measures of greater intensity," a threat that comes as Washington and others push for tightened U.N. sanctions as punishment for the Feb. 12 atomic test, the North's third since 2006.

That test is seen as another step toward North Korea's goal of building a bomb small enough to be mounted on a missile that can hit the United States. The explosion, which Pyongyang called a response to U.S. hostility, triggered global outrage.

Park has said she won't yet change her policy, which was built with the high probability of provocations from Pyongyang in mind. But some aren't sure if engagement can work, given North Korea's choice of "bombs over electricity," as American scientist Siegfried Hecker puts it.

"Normalization of relations, a peace treaty, access to energy and economic opportunities ? those things that come from choosing electricity over bombs and have the potential of lifting the North Korean people out of poverty and hardship ? will be made much more difficult, if not impossible, for at least the next five years," Hecker, a regular visitor to North Korea, said in a posting on the website of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.

As she takes office, however, Park will be mindful that many South Koreans are frustrated at the state of inter-Korean relations after the Lee government's five-year rule, which saw two nuclear tests, three long-range rocket launches and attacks blamed on North Korea that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

Park's policy calls for strong defense but also for efforts to build trust through aid shipments, reconciliation talks and the resumption of some large-scale economic initiatives as progress occurs on the nuclear issue. Park has also held out the possibility of a summit with new North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Much is riding on Park's conclusion.

"The overall policy direction on North Korea among the U.S., Japan and South Korea will be hers to decide," said Victor Cha, a former senior Asia adviser to President George W. Bush. "If Park Geun-hye wants to contain, the U.S. will support that. But if Park Geun-hye, months down the road, wants to engage, then the U.S. will go along with that too. "

Engagement by Park would provide a sharp contrast with the rule of her father, Park Chung-hee, whose antipathy toward Pyongyang during his 18-year rule in the 1960s and '70s prompted a failed attack on the Blue House by 31 North Korean commandos in 1968. In 1974, Park's wife was shot and killed by a Japan-born Korean claiming he was acting on assassination orders by North Korea founder and then leader Kim Il Sung.

Critics say Park Geun-hye's North Korea policy lacks specifics. They also question how far she can go given her conservative base's strong anti-Pyongyang sentiments.

But Park has previously confounded ideological expectations. She travelled to Pyongyang in 2002 and held private talks with the late Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un, and her gifts to Kim Jong Il are showcased in a museum of gifts to the North Korean leaders. During the often contentious presidential campaign, she responded to liberal criticism by reaching out to the families of victims of her father's dictatorship.

She said in her 2007 autobiography that she visited Pyongyang because she thought her painful experiences with the North made her "the one who could resolve South-North relations better than anyone else." She also wrote that Kim Jong Il apologized for the 1968 attack.

"I don't think this latest spike in the cycle of provocation and response undermines her whole platform of seeking to somehow re-engage the North," said John Delury, an analyst at Seoul's Yonsei University. North Korea wants a return of large-scale aid and investment from South Korea.

Before the election, Pyongyang's state media repeatedly questioned the sincerity of Park's engagement overture. Since the election, however, although regular criticism of Lee as "human scum" continues, the North's official Korean Central News Agency hasn't mentioned Park by name, though her political party is still condemned.

Pyongyang sees the nuclear crisis as a U.S.-North Korea issue, Delury said. "From a North Korean mindset, ramping up the tension and hostility with the U.S. does not equal jettisoning relations with the South."

Park may take a wait-and-see stance in coming months.

A possible positive turning point could come if North Korea resists tests or launches during April, when it celebrates two state anniversaries ? Kim Il Sung's birthday and the army's founding anniversary ? according to analyst Hong Hyun-ik at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. Pyongyang conducted a failed long-range rocket launch during last year's celebrations.

Hong predicts that the United States will seek nuclear talks with North Korea in a few months, something that could help Park's efforts to engage North Korea.

"The nuclear test sets back and complicates but does not necessarily doom her engagement efforts over the long term," said Ralph Cossa, president of Pacific Forum CSIS, a Hawaii-based think tank.

Park warned after the test that North Korea faces international isolation, economic difficulties and, eventually, a collapse if it continues to build its atomic program. She also pressed Pyongyang to respond to her overtures.

"We can't achieve trust with only one side's efforts. Isn't there a saying that 'We need both hands to make a clapping sound?'" she said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/skoreas-leader-faces-nkorea-nuke-crisis-050243531.html

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