If you were one of those Americans who just can't wait to file your taxes because you're owed a handsome refund, the Internal Revenue Service has news for you: You're going to have to wait.
The IRS said today that the 16-day federal shutdown means it will delay the start of the 2014 filing season by one to two weeks. The shutdown delayed the updating and testing of some of the IRS' systems.
"Readying our systems to handle the tax season is an intricate, detailed process, and we must take the time to get it right," Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement. "The adjustment to the start of the filing season provides us the necessary time to program, test and validate our systems so that we can provide a smooth filing and refund process for the nation's taxpayers. We want the public and tax professionals to know about the delay well in advance so they can prepare for a later start of the filing season."
The 2014 season was scheduled to start Jan. 21, now it'll start no earlier than Jan. 28 and no later than Feb. 4.
The IRS will announce a new date in December. The IRS adds:
"The IRS will not process paper tax returns before the start date, which will be announced in December. There is no advantage to filing on paper before the opening date, and taxpayers will receive their tax refunds much faster by using e-file with direct deposit. The April 15 tax deadline is set by statute and will remain in place. However, the IRS reminds taxpayers that anyone can request an automatic six-month extension to file their tax return. The request is easily done with Form 4868, which can be filed electronically or on paper."
They're given away left and right as cheap promotions, but if you're one of those people who can never seem to find a flash drive when you need one, this lovely multi-gigabyte family is always easy to find. That's because these mom, dad, son, and daughter flash drives are docked in a multi-port USB house (or car), ensuring they never stray far from the family's main computer.
This editorial cartoon from a January 1879 edition of Harper's Weekly pokes fun at the use of literacy tests for blacks as voting qualifications.
Wikimedia Commons
People aren't exempted from new regulations because they're old and crotchety, even if that's what it sounds like when we say they're "grandfathered in."
The term "grandfathered" has become part of the language. It's an easy way to describe individuals or companies who get to keep operating under an existing set of expectations when new rules are put in place.
The troubled HealthCare.gov website reassures consumers that they can stay enrolled in grandfathered insurance plans that existed before the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010. Old power plants are sometimes grandfathered from having to meet new clean air requirements.
But like so many things, the term "grandfather," used in this way, has its roots in America's racial history. It entered the lexicon not just because it suggests something old, but because of a specific set of 19th century laws regulating voting.
The 15th Amendment, which prohibited racial discrimination in voting, was ratified by the states in 1870. If you know your history, you'll realize that African-Americans were nevertheless kept from voting in large numbers in Southern states for nearly a century more.
Various states created requirements — literacy tests and poll taxes and constitutional quizzes — that were designed to keep blacks from registering to vote. But many poor Southern whites were at risk of also losing their rights because they could not have met such expectations.
"If all these white people are going to be noncitizens along with blacks, the idea is going to lose a lot of support," says James Smethurst, who teaches African-American studies at the University of Massachusetts.
The solution? A half-dozen states passed laws that made men eligible to vote if they had been able to vote before African-Americans were given the franchise (generally, 1867), or if they were the lineal descendants of voters back then.
This was called the grandfather clause. Most such laws were enacted in the early 1890s.
"The grandfather clause is actually not a means of disenfranchising anybody," says Michael Klarman, a Harvard law professor. "It was a means of enfranchising whites who might have been excluded by things like literacy clauses. It was politically necessary, because otherwise you'd have too much opposition from poor whites who would have been disenfranchised."
But protecting whites from restrictions meant to apply to African-Americans was obviously another form of discrimination itself.
"Because of the 15th Amendment, you can't pass laws saying blacks can't vote, which is what they wanted to do," says Eric Foner, a Columbia University historian. "But the 15th Amendment allowed restrictions that were nonracial. This was pretty prima facie a way to allow whites to vote, and not blacks."
Some state legislatures enacted grandfather clauses despite knowing they couldn't pass constitutional muster. The Louisiana state constitutional convention adopted a grandfather clause even though one of the state's own U.S. senators warned it would be "grossly unconstitutional."
For that reason, nearly every state put a time limit on their grandfather clauses. They hoped to get whites registered before these laws could be challenged in court.
"Once you've got people removed from the rolls, it becomes less necessary," Smethurst says. "The white people are on the rolls, and the black people are not."
African-Americans typically lacked the financial resources to file suit. The NAACP, founded in 1909, persuaded a U.S. attorney to challenge Oklahoma's grandfather clause, which had been enacted in 1910.
Of the more than 55,000 blacks who were in Oklahoma in 1900, only 57 came from states that had permitted African-Americans to vote in 1867, according to Klarman's book From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality.
In 1915, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Guinn v. United States that grandfather clauses were unconstitutional. The court in those days upheld any number of segregationist laws — and even in Guinn specified that literacy tests untethered from grandfather clauses were OK.
The justices were concerned that the grandfather clause was not only discriminatory but a clear attempt by a state to nullify the federal Constitution. It "was so obvious an evasion that the Supreme Court could not have failed to declare it unconstitutional," The Washington Post wrote at the time.
The decision had almost no effect, however. The Oklahoma Legislature met in special session to grandfather in the grandfather clause. The new law said those who had been registered in 1914 — whites under the old system — were automatically registered to vote, while African-Americans could only register between April 30 and May 11, 1916, or forever be disenfranchised.
That law stayed on the books until a Supreme Court ruling in 1939.
The intent of the grandfather clause, however, was not strictly to placate some whites while discriminating against blacks, says Spencer Overton, author of Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression. It was also about power.
In that era, most African-Americans voted Republican, the party of Abraham Lincoln.
"The whole objective of excluding African-Americans was not just white supremacy," Overton says. "It was, 'We're Democrats; they're Republicans; and we're going to exclude them.' I'm not saying there weren't racial overtones, but there were significant partisan overtones as well."
The same trick had been used against white immigrants in the Northeast. It's worth remembering that Massachusetts and Connecticut were the first states to impose literacy tests, in hopes of keeping immigrants — who often supported Democrats in a largely Republican region — from voting.
At least one grandfather clause in the South was based on a Massachusetts statute from 1857, says Overton, who teaches law at George Washington University.
Perhaps it's because the grandfather clause was not solely about race — and because it was banned a century ago — most people use the term "grandfathered in" and never realize it once had racial connotations.
"This term 'grandfather' has been kind of deracialized," Overton says. "It's really a very convenient, shorthand term. We probably would not be as comfortable with using it if we associated it with grandfather clauses in the past and poll taxes and things like that."
Apple's latest Mac Pro rolls off United States assembly lines and into consumers hands in December for $3,000. The base model features a 3.7GHz quad-core Xeon CPU ("with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz"), 12GB DRAM, two AMD FirePro D300 GPUs, and a 256GB SSD. Apple senior VP of worldwide marketing ...
The Chinese border town of Suifenhe is a port of entry for almost all of the hardwood coming from the Russian Far East. Russia is the world's largest exporter of timber, but illegal logging is a growing problem.
Courtesty of EIA
The Chinese border town of Suifenhe is a port of entry for almost all of the hardwood coming from the Russian Far East. Russia is the world's largest exporter of timber, but illegal logging is a growing problem.
Courtesty of EIA
Forests cover about half of Russia's land mass, an environmental resource that President Vladimir Putin calls "the powerful green lungs of the planet."
But Putin himself acknowledges that Russia, the world's biggest exporter of logs, is having its timber stolen at an unprecedented rate.
The demand for high-value timber is fueling organized crime, government corruption and illegal logging in the Russian Far East. The hardwood cut in the endless forests often ends up as flooring and furniture in the United States, Europe, Japan and China.
At meeting on timber management earlier this year, Putin said that illegal logging has increased by nearly 70 percent over the past five years, and he added that timber thieves have no problem selling their product.
Illegal loggers are often linked to violent organized crime, and together, they undermine what officials say could be sustainable forests, and contribute to Russia's endemic corruption by paying off local officials.
Threat To The Siberian Tiger
But there's another reason illegal logging is considered a threat in the Far East.
"This provides an important habitat, both in terms of shelter and food, for such unique animals as the Amur tiger. Only about 450 of these beautiful animals are left in the wild," says Nikolay Shmatkov, the forest policy projects coordinator for the World Wildlife Fund in Russia.
The Amur tiger, more commonly called the Siberian tiger, is known throughout the world as one of the largest living members of the cat family. It preys on deer and wild boar, which in turn live on acorns and walnuts that grow in one of Russia's most diverse forests.
But oak and walnut wood are highly prized for flooring and furniture, and are targets for illegal loggers.
Shmatkov says that timber can be stolen outright from the tiger's habitat, but he notes that much of it is taken by companies with valid logging permits.
They cut much more than they're allowed to, or they cut species that aren't permitted. A U.S.-based environmental group, the Environmental Investigation Agency, or EIA, recently released a report that traces illegally cut timber from the source to the consumer.
"We found out that the vast majority of it first goes into China, which is right next door, into their manufacturing centers, and in products of any type you can imagine, as it spreads around the world," said EIA's executive director, Alexander von Bismarck.
China's Involvement
Von Bismarck says the team set up a dummy corporation and posed as buyers of wood flooring. They recorded conversations with a Mr. Yu, an executive of a big Chinese wood products company called Xingja.
"He openly described the types of illegality in the supply chain — that he cuts illegally on his own land, which is a common method that is destroying the forest there, and he talked about corruption and how he used that to stay out of trouble," von Bismarck said.
When an NPR reporter in China recently contacted Mr. Yu by telephone, Mr. Yu charged that the allegations in the EIA report were "all lies," and said he would take the matter up with his government.
The EIA report makes another allegation that involves the Chinese company's biggest American customer, Lumber Liquidators.
Von Bismarck says Lumber Liquidators bought flooring from Xingja, and that it should have known that the flooring was made from illegally logged wood.
That's a serious allegation, because a U.S. law called the Lacey Act prohibits American companies from buying illegally cut wood products from other countries.
The law puts the burden on U.S. companies to actively determine, as best they can, that the products they buy come from legal sources.
Lumber Liquidators' founder and CEO, Tom Sullivan, says the report is inaccurate and that its claims are not substantiated.
"If we had any knowledge of any mill of ours buying from an illegal source or a non-sustainable source, we immediately would not buy from them," Sullivan said. "We are extremely pro-active in making sure that all our materials are from legal and sustainable sources."
Sullivan says his company has more than 60 experts in the field who work to make sure that the products it buys comply with the law.
Earlier this month, federal agents searched Lumber Liquidators headquarters and one of its stores in Virginia, a raid that included investigators from Immigration and Customs, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Justice Department.
The search warrants in the case remain sealed, but the environmental group, EIA, says the raid was connected with the allegations of importing illegal wood products.
The company says it is cooperating fully with the investigation.
(Lumber Liquidators is an NPR underwriter whose credits are on air and on NPR's website.)
If you demand emergency funds to get ahold of your primary requirements then with immediate effect you need to hunt for a tool that can arrange instant liquidity for you. That will be the end of your worries pertaining to arrangement of ample finance in dire situations. In such adverse times you can resort to assistance in form of logbook loans which can be availed against the logbook of your vehicle. Yes, arranging ample finance is now possible by employing your vehicle's logbook.
For those who don't know, what exactly a logbook is? It is a vehicle registration certificate issued by Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) in the UK. Moreover, the present valid logbook document in the industry is known by the name of V5C.
As most of you might be knowing logbook stays valid for a period of 5 years only and has detailed information about the vehicle and the car owner such as who is the owner of the vehicle,, engine number, registered keeper of logbook, current registration mark, chassis number, model and colour of the car. Of course, in such cases loans against car is the best bet to place money at but what about selecting the provider.
Choosing the right kind of provider has its own advantages as the borrower gets few other things in addition. Important things like car insurance is one of them. In such cases, it would be a good option if one takes the help of price comparison websites that promote 'compare car insurance' deals.
It is important for prospective borrowers to know that the lenders keep the logbook of the vehicle with them till he/she repays the entire loan amount. However, the borrower has the right to drive his/her car anywhere he/she wants without having any interference from the lender. But then it is the duty of vehicle owner to maintain the four-wheeler in fine condition.
In the meantime, it is the comparison of deal that plays an important role as it helps the client in getting deals which score on every front. That's not all; such comparison also reduces the burden on the shoulders of the borrower when it comes to buying the best deals in car insurance.
Meanwhile, via Logbook loans, borrowers can avail a loan amount ranging from £500 to £50,000. The loan amount will be sanctioned after the value assessment of the car. However, there is a basic eligibility criterion to meet too, which is mentioned below:-
The borrower should be a citizen of the United Kingdom The vehicle whose logbook is being pledged should not be more than 8 years old. There should be no financial obligation left outstanding on the car
The vehicle should be adequately insured and taxed. He/she should have a permanent source of income
Certainly, logbook loans are very important in such cases but then finding the best kind of car insurance deal isn't that easy either. Hence, the best way to go about seeking the best deal is opt for compare car insurance alternative on any price comparison portal and get it.
Apple's iPhone event last month was undoubtedly crucial for the company, but it left quite a few would-be customers wanting more. Much of Cupertino's product lineup is practically begging for an update. There haven't been new iPads in a year; both OS X Mavericks and the Mac Pro redesign have yet to ship; and two Mac lines are still stuck on last year's CPUs. As such, Apple likely isn't being hyperbolic when it claims that it has "a lot to cover" at its October 22nd event. But what, exactly, are we going to see on that fateful day? There have been rumors of everything from "natural" updates, like iPhone 5s-derived iPads, to more fanciful excursions like watches and TVs. While there may not be many surprises, we'll help you make sense of it all.
The headliners: iPad and iPad mini redesigns
If there's any new hardware that could be considered a lock for the event, it's a revamped iPad line. The age of current models is almost proof enough, but there has also been an abundance of part leaks and rumors pointing to a major makeover for Apple's tablets.
The fifth-generation iPad should get the most conspicuous overhaul. Based on casing photos obtained by 9to5 Mac (above) and others, the new iPad could inherit the iPad mini's design language, including a flat back and uniform colors. This wouldn't just be a cosmetic difference, however; more efficient display technology could lead to a thinner and lighter body. Both the third- and fourth-generation iPads were bulkier than the iPad 2 because they needed strong backlights and big batteries to drive their early Retina displays. If the leaks are real, the reworked iPad's screen could produce a bright picture without using as much energy.
Some of the additional upgrades aren't as clear, but are relatively easy to predict. The iPad has always used a faster processor than the preceding iPhone and, more recently, a superset of that phone's technology. The A5X in the third-generation iPad was an upgrade to the A5 with stronger graphics. While there isn't solid evidence that Apple will repeat history, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects the fifth-generation tablet to use an A7X chip that builds on the 64-bit, ARMv8-based A7 chip inside the iPhone 5s. That means performance competitive with the Snapdragon 800 inside rivals like the LTE variant of the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 edition).
That performance boost may just be the start of a longer feature checklist. Kuo recently toldAppleInsider that both the iPad and iPad mini would tout 8-megapixel cameras. Unbox Therapy has meanwhile demonstrated that existing iOS device home buttons don't fit in leaked next-gen iPad front panels, implying that Apple could implement a Touch ID fingerprint reader on both devices. Those parts leaks have also shown grilles for stereo speakers; finally, the big iPad could produce equally big sound.
The iPad mini isn't expected to look significantly different on the outside, but it could be a much larger upgrade on the inside. The Wall Street Journal and others have heard that Apple's smaller device will use a Retina display. If it does, it should immediately catch up to (and potentially surpass) the screen quality of big-name competitors like the current Nexus 7. Just don't count on an abundant supply, as Reuters has heard of possible display shortages.
As you may have gathered earlier, some upgrades may be shared between the mini and its full-size counterpart, such as the camera and Touch ID sensor. What's less clear is the processor choice. Logic would dictate that Apple use a previous-generation chip like the A6, just as the first iPad mini used an A5; we're not bracing ourselves for anything more. However, AllThingsD and others have alluded to Apple using an A7 instead. This makes sense if Apple is using Touch ID, since the technology needs the A7's secure memory space. It's safe to say that the A7 would give a swift kick in the pants to the iPad mini's performance, helping it fare well against many high-end (and sometimes larger) tablets.
Oh, and one important note for fans of flashy gear -- if you believe the photos republished by Nowherelse.fr, the new iPad mini may come in an iPhone 5s-like gold hue.
Safe predictions: OS X Mavericks and Mac Pro availability
Mavericks is the shoo-in for software news at the event, since Apple finished developing the OS days ago. If history is any indication, it will release Mavericks on the Mac App Store in the near future. There's likewise a good chance that any announced computers will ship with Mavericks already installed.
Which brings us to the question of the new Mac Pro. Apple said in June that the workstation would ship "later this year," and there's little time left for the company to act on that promise. While it won't necessarily discuss the Mac Pro, it's hard to imagine Cupertino passing up an opportunity for a high-profile launch. It teased the computer in movie theaters, after all.
Despite Apple revealing many of the specifications for the system -- Xeon E5 chips, FirePro graphics and Thunderbolt 2 support -- there's still a lot we don't know. What will a base configuration include? How much will it cost? Will Apple offer a 4K display to match the Mac Pro's graphics prowess? The only certainties are that the system will be fast and expensive. Current models start at $2,499, and the redesign's emphasis on pricey flash storage could drive the price higher.
Distinct possibilities: MacBook Pro and Mac mini refreshes
Apple hasn't been very quick to embrace Intel's Haswell processor architecture; the MacBook Pro and Mac mini are still stuck on Ivy Bridge, which makes them prime candidates for upgrades. That said, there has been surprisingly little discussion of either. The most credible leak has been a Geekbench report for a 15-inch MacBook Pro running a quad-core 2.4GHz Core i7 and 16GB of RAM. Apple may announce both new Macs, but they're far from guaranteed.
If they do appear, we already have some idea as to what they'll look like. Haswell's chief upgrade is efficiency, which could improve the MacBook Pro's battery life by leaps and bounds. Witness the MacBook Air's five-hour longevity increase as an example. Any Mac that depends solely on integrated graphics should see a noticeable speed boost as well. Intel's video architecture is much faster in Haswell, particularly in computers that use Iris graphics.
We're not getting our hopes up, though, as other updates could be evolutionary. It's possible that 15-inch MacBook Pros will get GeForce 700M series dedicated graphics, while all pro portables could move to 802.11ac WiFi and PCI Express-based solid-state drives. As a rule, we wouldn't count on truly major Mac updates outside of the known Mac Pro revamp. Many of Apple's existing designs are comparatively fresh, and there's little pressure to reinvent the wheel.
Wild cards: Apple TV, smartwatches and software
We haven't heard much regarding other introductions. There have been murmurs from Google Ventures' MG Siegler of an Apple TV upgrade, and stock has run low at some resellers. However, it's unclear just what would improve when the current model can already handle 1080p video and numerous third-party services. The remote is one (small) possibility. We've only just seen an Apple TV software revision, though, so it's doubtful that the company is about to rethink its entire approach to the living room. And in spite of analysts' frequent prognostications, there are no signs of a full-fledged TV set.
Don't expect an Apple-made smartwatch, either. While we won't rule out a surprise, everything we've seen to date suggests that 1 Infinite Loop's wearable device strategy is still in the early stages. The company has a long history of entering categories only when it believes it's ready, even if that means showing up late.
Minor software updates are more likely. Apple has already said that it will launch an update to Final Cut Pro that makes better use of the new Mac Pro. A few 9to5 Mac readers have also noticed some updated iLife app icons for iOS in iCloud's storage settings; this implies that Apple is releasing iOS 7-optimized versions of those apps at its event. And while there hasn't been hard evidence of a significant iOS 7 revision, an update might be necessary to take advantage of cross-platform features like iCloud Keychain. There isn't talk of an iWork upgrade, however.
Wrap-up
Many of the products rumored to launch on October 22nd are comparatively safe bets. Our only worry is that the company may play it too safe. Like last year, Apple could open its presentation with a slew of predicted (if welcome) Mac updates and finish by confirming widely circulated iPad rumors. However, some of those potential announcements could be big, especially for those who've been holding out for meaningful iPad and Mac Pro upgrades. We may have to wait a while for Apple to venture into uncharted territory, but we may not mind if it covers familiar ground in the meantime.
Teen Driver - Ed Cunicelli, courtesy The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Enlarge Photo
For millions of teens, driving is considered a rite of passage, a golden ticket to freedom and independence. Learning to drive safely is of paramount importance as teens approach this important milestone.
Now in its seventh year, the National Teen Driver Safety Week is an annual awareness-raising time designated by Congress to encourage safe teen driver and passenger behavior. This year’s theme is ‘It Takes Two: Shared Expectations for Teens and Parents for Driving.”
MORE: See Teach Your Teen How To Park A Car and Teens Drive More Dangerously With Other Teens In The Car
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a young driver in the U.S. is involved in a fatal car crash nearly every two hours. That’s from 2011 statistics that showed more than 5,000 young drivers (ages 15-20) were involved in fatal car crashes, with more than 1,900 deaths and 180,000 injuries behind the wheel.
During the National Teen Driver Safety Week, Oct. 20-26, parents and teens are encouraged to discuss a workable strategy to ensure that teens receive supervised driving practice, beef up knowledge on critical driving skills, and work on family rules regarding teen driving at full licensure.
Tips for parents
Recent research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety (FTS) found that nearly half of parents reported that they wanted their teens to “get a lot of practice,” when asked about plans for their teens’ driving, yet only about one in four parents mentioned practicing under a variety of conditions or situations, such as backing up, driving on unfamiliar roads, in heavy traffic or bad weather.
Provide 65+ hours of supervised driving practice for your teen. Sounds challenging, but parents can keep a driving log and follow a driving lesson timeline to ensure their teens get lots of varied practice while learning to drive and are carefully monitored for the first year after receiving their license.
Create the right learning environment – stay calm, be respectful, and give appropriate feedback.
Know what your teen doesn’t know. A recent study by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that 75 percent of serious teen crashes were due to a critical teen driver error. Three common errors accounted for nearly half of all serious crashes: driving too fast for conditions, being distracted, and failure to detect a hazard.
Teach critical driving skills such as how to scan for hazards, adjusting speed for road conditions such as dense traffic, blind curves and roads that are poorly lit. In the FTS survey, less than five percent of parents in the study were observed sharing more complex driving tips, such as visual scanning or anticipating other drivers’ behavior.
Set a positive example by wearing your seatbelt at all times, observing all speed limits and traffic laws, minimizing distractions, and avoiding use of a cell phone when driving.
Develop house rules for your teen’s first year of independent driving. These may include limits on peer passengers, no cell phone use, and restricted driving times (such as bi driving past 9 p.m.). Nearly half (47 percent) of parents surveyed said there was still at least one condition where they weren’t comfortable allowing their teen to drive unsupervised even after passing their driving test and obtaining a license to drive independently.
Tips for teens
Ask for practice with your parent. Make it easy by keeping a driving log and following a driving lesson timeline to ensure your parent gives you enough varied practice while learning to drive and careful monitoring for your first year after you obtain your license.
Know what you don’t know. Your parent will likely focus on the three common errors that account for nearly half of all serious crashes: driving too fast for conditions on the road, being distracted behind the wheel, and failing to detect hazards.
Ask your parent to teach you critical driving skills. You need experience and practice to learn safe speed management, how to recognize and avoid distractions and how to scan for hazards in sufficient time to react and avoid a potential crash.
Agree on house rules you and your parents set for your first year of independent driving.
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Volkswagen's car plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., is the company's only one in the U.S. It's also the only VW plant around the world without a workers union.
Volkswagen
Volkswagen's car plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., is the company's only one in the U.S. It's also the only VW plant around the world without a workers union.
Volkswagen
When it comes to union organizing at an auto plant, the tension is typically between the workers and the management. But not at Volkswagen in Tennessee. There, the United Auto Workers is attempting to finally unionize the automaker's first foreign-owned plant in the South. And so far, Republican officials are the ones trying to stand in the way.
Just outside Chattanooga, in an idyllic industrial park, surrounded by green hills and even a nature park, Volkswagen built a plant a few years ago. It is still Volkswagen's only car plant in the U.S. and also the only one of VW's plants around the world that hasn't been unionized. The company isn't trying that hard to keep workers from organizing here.
"I just really appreciate the neutrality we're getting from Volkswagen Germany. They have always maintained that it would be our choice," says Lauren Feinauer, an hourly worker in the plant that makes the Passat.
She is just off her shift, a pink bandanna tying back her hair. In her own Volkswagen, she props up UAW signs in the windshield and rear window while she's parked at work. She says the sunshade is to "encourage others in the plant to be comfortable with their support."
Lauren Feinauer works at the Chattanooga plant. She props UAW signs in the windshield and rear window while she's parked at work.
Blake Farmer/Nashville Public Radio
Lauren Feinauer works at the Chattanooga plant. She props UAW signs in the windshield and rear window while she's parked at work.
Blake Farmer/Nashville Public Radio
Feinauer has helped collect signed union cards from a majority of the 2,000 employees. Some workers, though, want nothing to do with the UAW. They haven't spoken much publicly, but a few have filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, arguing that Volkswagen is coercing them to organize.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has piped up on their behalf. Asked why he feels that's appropriate, he says, "One of the reasons is, we've had several prospective companies say that decision will impact whether we choose Tennessee or somewhere else."
The Republican governor says a slowdown in relocations to his state may be just the beginning. Companies like the region's right-to-work laws. No one has to be part of a union, so there aren't as many. That means fewer strikes and often lower pay. But the UAW is working the South harder than ever, with other campaigns at a Nissan plant in Mississippi and a Mercedes facility in Alabama.
U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who previously was the mayor of Chattanooga, suggests Volkswagen will be the "laughingstock" of the business world if it doesn't resist the UAW. He blames the union for the troubles at Chrysler and General Motors.
"I mean, look at Detroit," Corker says. "Look at what's happened. Look at all of the businesses that have left there. I mean, it's been phenomenal. It's sad."
UAW President Bob King has resisted raising his voice. "They get pressured by the right wing of the party. Unfortunately, that's a fear that these politicians have that overcomes common sense," he says. King is not an old-school, hell-raising union leader. In fact, he discourages any characterization of this as a "union fight."
"All the campaigns we have going on currently are being run very differently than we've run campaigns in the past," King says.
No more "us versus them." The pitch is all about cooperation and mutual benefit for workers and the company.
King says Tennessee's top Republicans have a standing offer to meet and discuss the labor movement's role in the 21st century. They haven't taken him up on it.
"You know, the truth is, the governor and the senator, they don't work on the floor at Volkswagen," says Jade Morgan, a single father of two boys who works on the overnight shift in Chattanooga. Morgan points out that both Haslam and Corker are multimillionaires who may never understand.
"It's not anybody who can walk in and work all night. It's tough," he says.
And ultimately, Morgan says, it's those who work in the plant who will get to decide whether the UAW is still worth having around.
Contact: Caroline Perry cperry@seas.harvard.edu 617-496-1351 Harvard University
Looking cooler when heated, a thin coating tricks infrared cameras
Cambridge, Mass. October 21, 2013 Active camouflage has taken a step forward at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), with a new coating that intrinsically conceals its own temperature to thermal cameras.
In a laboratory test, a team of applied physicists placed the device on a hot plate and watched it through an infrared camera as the temperature rose. Initially, it behaved as expected, giving off more infrared light as the sample was heated: at 60 degrees Celsius it appeared blue-green to the camera; by 70 degrees it was red and yellow. At 74 degrees it turned a deep redand then something strange happened. The thermal radiation plummeted. At 80 degrees it looked blue, as if it could be 60 degrees, and at 85 it looked even colder. Moreover, the effect was reversible and repeatable, many times over.
These surprising results, published today in the journal Physical Review X (an open-access publication of the American Physical Society), illustrate the potential for a new class of engineered materials to contribute to a range of new military and everyday applications.
Principal investigator Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at Harvard SEAS, predicts that with only small adjustments the coating could be used as a new type of thermal camouflage or as a kind of encrypted beacon to allow soldiers to covertly communicate their locations in the field.
The secret to the technology lies within a very thin film of vanadium oxide, an unusual material that undergoes dramatic electronic changes when it reaches a particular temperature. At room temperature, for example, pure vanadium oxide is electrically insulating, but at slightly higher temperatures it transitions to a metallic, electrically conductive state. During that transition, the optical properties change, too, which means special temperature-dependent effectslike infrared camouflagecan also be achieved.
The insulator-metal transition has been recognized in vanadium oxide since 1959. However, it is a difficult material to work with: in bulk crystals, the stress of the transition often causes cracks to develop and can shatter the sample. Recent advances in materials synthesis and characterizationespecially those by coauthor Shriram Ramanathan, Associate Professor of Materials Science at Harvard SEAShave allowed the creation of extremely pure samples of thin-film vanadium oxide, enabling a burst of new science and engineering to take off in just the last few years.
"Thanks to these very stable samples that we're getting from Prof. Ramanathan's lab, we now know that if we introduce small changes to the material, we can dramatically change the optical phenomena we observe," explains lead author Mikhail Kats, a graduate student in Capasso's group at Harvard SEAS. "By introducing impurities or defects in a controlled way via processes known as doping, modifying, or straining the material, it is possible to create a wide range of interesting, important, and predictable behaviors."
By doping vanadium oxide with tungsten, for example, the transition temperature can be brought down to room temperature, and the range of temperatures over which the strange thermal radiation effect occurs can be widened. Tailoring the material properties like this, with specific outcomes in mind, may enable engineering to advance in new directions.
The researchers say a vehicle coated in vanadium oxide tiles could mimic its environment like a chameleon, appearing invisible to an infrared camera with only very slight adjustments to the tiles' actual temperaturea far more efficient system than the approaches in use today.
Tuned differently, the material could become a component of a secret beacon, displaying a particular thermal signature on cue to an infrared surveillance camera. Capasso's team suggests that the material could be engineered to operate at specific wavelengths, enabling simultaneous use by many individually identifiable soldiers.
And, because thermal radiation carries heat, the researchers believe a similar effect could be employed to deliberately speed up or slow down the cooling of structures ranging from houses to satellites.
The Harvard team's most significant contribution is the discovery that nanoscale structures that appear naturally in the transition region of vanadium oxide can be used to provide a special level of tunability, which can be used to suppress thermal radiation as the temperature rises. The researchers refer to such a spontaneously structured material as a "natural, disordered metamaterial."
"To artificially create such a useful three-dimensional structure within a material is extremely difficult," says Capasso. "Here, nature is giving us what we want for free. By taking these natural metamaterials and manipulating them to have all the properties we want, we are opening up a new area of research, a completely new direction of work. We can engineer new devices from the bottom up."
###
This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and by a graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation. In addition to Capasso, Kats, and Ramanathan, coauthors included research associate Patrice Genevet and graduate students Romain Blanchard, Shuyan Zhang, and Changhyun Ko, all at Harvard SEAS.
About Physical Review X
Launched in August 2011, PRX is an open-access, peer-reviewed publication of the American Physical Society, a non-profit membership organization working to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research journals, scientific meetings, and education, outreach, advocacy and international activities. APS represents 50,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories and industry in the United States and throughout the world.
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A chameleon in the physics lab
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
21-Oct-2013
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Contact: Caroline Perry cperry@seas.harvard.edu 617-496-1351 Harvard University
Looking cooler when heated, a thin coating tricks infrared cameras
Cambridge, Mass. October 21, 2013 Active camouflage has taken a step forward at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), with a new coating that intrinsically conceals its own temperature to thermal cameras.
In a laboratory test, a team of applied physicists placed the device on a hot plate and watched it through an infrared camera as the temperature rose. Initially, it behaved as expected, giving off more infrared light as the sample was heated: at 60 degrees Celsius it appeared blue-green to the camera; by 70 degrees it was red and yellow. At 74 degrees it turned a deep redand then something strange happened. The thermal radiation plummeted. At 80 degrees it looked blue, as if it could be 60 degrees, and at 85 it looked even colder. Moreover, the effect was reversible and repeatable, many times over.
These surprising results, published today in the journal Physical Review X (an open-access publication of the American Physical Society), illustrate the potential for a new class of engineered materials to contribute to a range of new military and everyday applications.
Principal investigator Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at Harvard SEAS, predicts that with only small adjustments the coating could be used as a new type of thermal camouflage or as a kind of encrypted beacon to allow soldiers to covertly communicate their locations in the field.
The secret to the technology lies within a very thin film of vanadium oxide, an unusual material that undergoes dramatic electronic changes when it reaches a particular temperature. At room temperature, for example, pure vanadium oxide is electrically insulating, but at slightly higher temperatures it transitions to a metallic, electrically conductive state. During that transition, the optical properties change, too, which means special temperature-dependent effectslike infrared camouflagecan also be achieved.
The insulator-metal transition has been recognized in vanadium oxide since 1959. However, it is a difficult material to work with: in bulk crystals, the stress of the transition often causes cracks to develop and can shatter the sample. Recent advances in materials synthesis and characterizationespecially those by coauthor Shriram Ramanathan, Associate Professor of Materials Science at Harvard SEAShave allowed the creation of extremely pure samples of thin-film vanadium oxide, enabling a burst of new science and engineering to take off in just the last few years.
"Thanks to these very stable samples that we're getting from Prof. Ramanathan's lab, we now know that if we introduce small changes to the material, we can dramatically change the optical phenomena we observe," explains lead author Mikhail Kats, a graduate student in Capasso's group at Harvard SEAS. "By introducing impurities or defects in a controlled way via processes known as doping, modifying, or straining the material, it is possible to create a wide range of interesting, important, and predictable behaviors."
By doping vanadium oxide with tungsten, for example, the transition temperature can be brought down to room temperature, and the range of temperatures over which the strange thermal radiation effect occurs can be widened. Tailoring the material properties like this, with specific outcomes in mind, may enable engineering to advance in new directions.
The researchers say a vehicle coated in vanadium oxide tiles could mimic its environment like a chameleon, appearing invisible to an infrared camera with only very slight adjustments to the tiles' actual temperaturea far more efficient system than the approaches in use today.
Tuned differently, the material could become a component of a secret beacon, displaying a particular thermal signature on cue to an infrared surveillance camera. Capasso's team suggests that the material could be engineered to operate at specific wavelengths, enabling simultaneous use by many individually identifiable soldiers.
And, because thermal radiation carries heat, the researchers believe a similar effect could be employed to deliberately speed up or slow down the cooling of structures ranging from houses to satellites.
The Harvard team's most significant contribution is the discovery that nanoscale structures that appear naturally in the transition region of vanadium oxide can be used to provide a special level of tunability, which can be used to suppress thermal radiation as the temperature rises. The researchers refer to such a spontaneously structured material as a "natural, disordered metamaterial."
"To artificially create such a useful three-dimensional structure within a material is extremely difficult," says Capasso. "Here, nature is giving us what we want for free. By taking these natural metamaterials and manipulating them to have all the properties we want, we are opening up a new area of research, a completely new direction of work. We can engineer new devices from the bottom up."
###
This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and by a graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation. In addition to Capasso, Kats, and Ramanathan, coauthors included research associate Patrice Genevet and graduate students Romain Blanchard, Shuyan Zhang, and Changhyun Ko, all at Harvard SEAS.
About Physical Review X
Launched in August 2011, PRX is an open-access, peer-reviewed publication of the American Physical Society, a non-profit membership organization working to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research journals, scientific meetings, and education, outreach, advocacy and international activities. APS represents 50,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories and industry in the United States and throughout the world.
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It's easy to forget the value of any given technology once its buzz has arced across our collective consciousness and died a fiery death beyond the hype horizon. Take Cobol, that "Mad Men"-era relic -- just like fish past its prime, as the hipster tech pundits say: worthless, smelly, out of date, bad for you. Java may be the next enterprise mainstay to find itself on the ropes of "relevance."
The book sales are a distant memory. And Java's middle-age utility is no longer sexy enough for the magazine cover spreads. Nearly 19 years since Java's launch, the application development cognoscenti are wandering around the luring bazaar of Node.js, Objective-C, Dart, Go, and the like, wondering, "Java? Is that Web 1.0 era artifact still here?"
A quick search of Dice.com job listings says you bet -- in a big way. Whereas listings for iOS-related jobs top out around 2,500, Java pulls up more than 17,000 listings. The Dice numbers are far from a perfect measure, but anything suggesting the Java job market may be some seven times larger than that of the unstoppable force of hype in the developer world is not bad for a relic.
Maybe that's because Java offers a better business plan than giving 30 percent of your revenue to Apple off the top and crossing your fingers in hopes that your app makes the top-25 list. Truth is, Java has always tackled a grander problem than helping angry birds get back at some pigs. It's a foundation of a number of platforms, designed to deliver a smooth way for software to run efficiently on more than one chip architecture. That solved problems for the server programmers, client programmers, and embedded programmers all at once.
Before we forget Java's many vital contributions to computing and its role today, here are 12 definitive reasons why Java is not only surviving but actively thriving in its post-buzz existence.
In other words: Don't call it a comeback; Java's been here, dominating, all along.
Key to continued Java dominance No. 1: Resiliency in the face of (often dirty) politics The tech world never gave Java a shot because its enemies were many and well-armed. Regardless, the language flourished. Many of those surprised to see Java still here have surely spent too much time listening to the haters and not enough time understanding its success.
Microsoft was Java's first big enemy because the company saw it as the most worthy successor to the unity MS-DOS offered. Redmond bad-mouthed Java from the beginning, fighting it tooth and nail. Java never found the traction it needed on the desktop, in part because the magic Java virtual machine took too much time to start up. Despite the tiny delay, Java applications run well enough on Windows to be functional.
For some inexplicable reason, Steve Jobs never embraced Java, even when the Mac was largely ignored by everyone except Adobe. Java compatibility could bring in plenty of code, but Apple always treated it as an afterthought. (Yes, iOS smartphones are smoother than my Android, so maybe Steve had a point.)
Contact: Peter Birkelund Andersen peterba@hum.ku.dk 45-30-13-13-47 University of Copenhagen
"We know from numerous international studies within sociology, as well as our own research, that people tend to keep the religious values impressed on them during childhood. If we were in the midst of a spiritual revolution as many researchers claim is the case in Northern Europe where people replace their Christian faith with spirituality, we would expect a decline in support for Christianity among young Danes in the survey data. And we would, conversely, expect to find increased support for individual spiritual practices in the same group. But this is not the case at all," sociologist of religion Peter Birkelund Andersen from University of Copenhagen says. He adds:
"On the contrary, both young and old Danes' affiliation with church Christianity as well as spiritual religiosity has been constant the past 30 years while Danes aged 50 to 76 years have shown increased support for both Christian faith and spirituality. The belief that individualized religious practices are replacing Christianity is tied up with the hypothesis that Western societies in general have become more and more individualised the past 30-40 years. Our research shows that this does not apply to the Danes' religious practices."
The study, which has just been published in the Journal of Contemporary Religion as "A Spiritual Revolution in Denmark?", is based on an analysis of the Danish data from the European Value Study.
The European Value Study is a large-scale and cross-national survey which started in 1981. Every nine years, the survey is repeated, using standardized questionnaires. 1,507 representatively sampled Danes have thus answered the same questions about their religious values every nine years since 1981. This enables the research group to follow the development in Danish religious values over time.
Christianity and spirituality coexist
When the researchers compare the individuals who support either Christian faith or spirituality in the survey, they find that the two groups overlap.
- Statistically, there is a significant correlation between the two kinds of religious practices. It is, to a very great extent, the same people who adhere to church Christianity and spirituality. The spiritual element is, in other words, strongly integrated into church Christianity in Denmark. Perhaps it would be better to speak of church Christianity with spiritual elements rather than two distinct kinds of religiosity, Professor Peter Gundelach suggests.
###
Contact
Associate Professor Peter Birkelund Andersen
Faculty of Humanities
Phone: + 45 30 13 13 47
Professor Peter Gundelach
Faculty of Social Sciences
Phone: +45 61 60 61 83
Postdoc Peter Lchau
Faculty of Social Sciences
Phone: + 45 25 88 38 49
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The Danes do not abandon church Christianity
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
21-Oct-2013
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Contact: Peter Birkelund Andersen peterba@hum.ku.dk 45-30-13-13-47 University of Copenhagen
"We know from numerous international studies within sociology, as well as our own research, that people tend to keep the religious values impressed on them during childhood. If we were in the midst of a spiritual revolution as many researchers claim is the case in Northern Europe where people replace their Christian faith with spirituality, we would expect a decline in support for Christianity among young Danes in the survey data. And we would, conversely, expect to find increased support for individual spiritual practices in the same group. But this is not the case at all," sociologist of religion Peter Birkelund Andersen from University of Copenhagen says. He adds:
"On the contrary, both young and old Danes' affiliation with church Christianity as well as spiritual religiosity has been constant the past 30 years while Danes aged 50 to 76 years have shown increased support for both Christian faith and spirituality. The belief that individualized religious practices are replacing Christianity is tied up with the hypothesis that Western societies in general have become more and more individualised the past 30-40 years. Our research shows that this does not apply to the Danes' religious practices."
The study, which has just been published in the Journal of Contemporary Religion as "A Spiritual Revolution in Denmark?", is based on an analysis of the Danish data from the European Value Study.
The European Value Study is a large-scale and cross-national survey which started in 1981. Every nine years, the survey is repeated, using standardized questionnaires. 1,507 representatively sampled Danes have thus answered the same questions about their religious values every nine years since 1981. This enables the research group to follow the development in Danish religious values over time.
Christianity and spirituality coexist
When the researchers compare the individuals who support either Christian faith or spirituality in the survey, they find that the two groups overlap.
- Statistically, there is a significant correlation between the two kinds of religious practices. It is, to a very great extent, the same people who adhere to church Christianity and spirituality. The spiritual element is, in other words, strongly integrated into church Christianity in Denmark. Perhaps it would be better to speak of church Christianity with spiritual elements rather than two distinct kinds of religiosity, Professor Peter Gundelach suggests.
###
Contact
Associate Professor Peter Birkelund Andersen
Faculty of Humanities
Phone: + 45 30 13 13 47
Professor Peter Gundelach
Faculty of Social Sciences
Phone: +45 61 60 61 83
Postdoc Peter Lchau
Faculty of Social Sciences
Phone: + 45 25 88 38 49
[
| E-mail
| Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
An Egyptian youth takes in the scene beneath him at a Coptic Christian church in the Waraa neighborhood of Cairo late Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013 after gunmen on motorcycles opened fire, killing a man, woman and child. Egypt has been on edge since a July 3 military coup ousted the country's Islamist president. Since the coup, Coptic Christians have been killed and their churches attacked by angry mobs. (AP Photo/Mohsen Nabil)
An Egyptian youth takes in the scene beneath him at a Coptic Christian church in the Waraa neighborhood of Cairo late Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013 after gunmen on motorcycles opened fire, killing a man, woman and child. Egypt has been on edge since a July 3 military coup ousted the country's Islamist president. Since the coup, Coptic Christians have been killed and their churches attacked by angry mobs. (AP Photo/Mohsen Nabil)
Relatives of victims killed after two masked gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire at a wedding party in Cairo's Waraa neighborhood as guests were leaving the Virgin Mary church, killing several late Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013, wait inside a morgue near a coffin before attending a funeral, in the Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood of Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Egypt's government and religious leaders on Monday condemned the attack that killed several, including an 8-year-old girl, the latest in a rising wave of assaults targeting the country's Christian minority. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abu Zaid)
Egyptian security forces stand guard at a Coptic Christian church in the Waraa neighborhood of Cairo late Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013 after gunmen on motorcycles opened fire, killing a woman and wounding several people. Egypt has been on edge since a July 3 military coup ousted the country's Islamist president. Since the coup, Coptic Christians have been killed and their churches attacked by angry mobs. (AP Photo/Mohsen Nabil)
An Egyptian woman wipes her tears before attending the funeral of victims killed after two masked gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire at a wedding party in Cairo's Waraa neighborhood as guests were leaving the Virgin Mary church, killing several late Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013, at the morgue in Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood, Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Egypt's government and religious leaders on Monday condemned the attack that killed several, including an 8-year-old girl, the latest in a rising wave of assaults targeting the country's Christian minority. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abu Zaid)
An Egyptian youth takes in the scene beneath him at a Coptic Christian church in the Waraa neighborhood of Cairo late Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013 after gunmen on motorcycles opened fire, killing a woman and wounding several people. Egypt has been on edge since a July 3 military coup ousted the country's Islamist president. Since the coup, Coptic Christians have been killed and their churches attacked by angry mobs. (AP Photo/Mohsen Nabil)
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's Christians were stunned Monday by a drive-by shooting in which masked gunmen sprayed a wedding party outside a Cairo church with automatic weapons fire, killing four people, including two young girls, in an attack that raised fears of a nascent insurgency by extremists after the military's ouster of the president and a crackdown on Islamists.
Several thousand Christians gathered Monday for the funeral of the four members of a single family gunned down the previous evening, as the government and religious leaders condemned the attack.
Egypt has seen an increase in attacks by Islamic radicals since the military removed Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and launched a heavy crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood and its allies. The targets have mainly been security forces and Christians, whom Islamists blame because of their strong support of Morsi's ouster. In Sinai, suspected jihadi fighters have stepped up attacks on soldiers and police. In rural provinces of the south, there has been a wave of mob attacks led by extremists against churches, which have been burned and looted.
But the bloodshed in Cairo's Warraq district was the first such violence in the capital, a direct shooting against Christians.
"With our blood and souls, we will redeem the cross," a crowd of mourners chanted as the bodies were brought for the funeral Monday at Warraq's Virgin Mary Church, where the attack took place. One male relative fell onto one of the coffins, weeping. In the church, they sang hymns, "Help us, Jesus. Forgive us. Bless us. Our eyes are filled with tears."
Fahmy Azer Aboud, 75, sat stunned in the church, staring in shock at the floor. Sunday evening, his family had been waiting outside the church for the wedding of one his granddaughters to begin when gunmen on motorcycles drove by and opened fire for five minutes, then drove away.
Two others of his granddaughters, an 8- and a 13-year-old were killed, as well as his son Samir and Aboud's sister-in-law. Seven of his relatives were among the 17 wounded in the attack. Several Muslims were also among the wounded, according to Church leaders.
"It's God's will. They are always beating us down. Every other day now, they do this," Abboud said. He added that ambulance did not arrive for an hour and half while police did not arrive till later.
The military-backed interim prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, pledged the Sunday night attack would "not succeed in sowing divisions between the nation's Muslims and Christians."
The top cleric at Al-Azhar, the world's primary seat of Sunni Islamic learning, called the shooting "a criminal act that runs contrary to religion and morals."
In a brief statement, an umbrella group of Islamist parties, including Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, which have led a campaign of protests against the July 3 coup, also condemned the attack.
"Places of worship are sacred," the National Alliance for Supporting Legitimacy and Rejecting the Coup said in its statement. Morsi's allies while in office included radical groups with a violent past and hard-line clerics who often engaged in anti-Christian rhetoric.
Christians, mostly from the Coptic Orthodox Church, make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population of 90 million. They have long complained of discrimination by the country's Muslim majority. Now they also have been increasingly targeted in a militant backlash after Morsi's ouster. Islamists have blamed Christians for playing a significant role in the mass street protests by millions that led to Morsi's removal. The head of the Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, publicly supported the coup.
Attacks in August destroyed about 40 Coptic churches, mostly in areas south of Cairo where large Coptic communities and powerful Islamic militants make for a combustible mix. Those attacks, blamed by Christians and police on Morsi supporters, came amid a wave of retaliation after security forces crushed two Islamist protest camps in Cairo demanding Morsi's reinstatement in a crackdown that killed hundreds of Morsi supporters. Clashes between Morsi's supporters and security forces occur almost daily in Cairo.
Speaking on Egypt's Orbit TV channel, Nageh Ibrahim, a former Islamic militant who has foresworn violence, said extremists are resorting to "mass punishment" against Christians and using attacks on them to pressure the government and the Coptic Church, hoping to "break the alliance between them."
There has been increasing criticism from Copts that the new military-backed authorities are not doing enough to protect Christians despite the continuing attacks.
At the Virgin Mary Church, another relative of the slain Christians appealed to the head of the military, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who removed Morsi, to take action.
"I want to tell el-Sissi that I love him, but he should stop forgetting us. We have reached the limit," Maurice Helmy said.
A Coptic youth group, known as The Association of Maspero Youth, called for the dismissal of Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, who heads the police.
"If the Egyptian government does not care about the security and rights of Christians, then we must ask why are we paying taxes and why we are not arming ourselves," said the group.
The Maspero Youth Association was formed soon after more than 20 Christians were killed by army troops cracking down on their protest in 2011 outside Cairo's landmark, Nile-side state television building, known as Maspero.
Ishaq Ibrahim,a researcher at a Cairo-based rights group who tracks anti-Christians, said Sunday's attack showed "a change and possible expansion of the attacks targeting Christians in Egypt and it could leave more victims."
He blamed security forces for failing to protect churches. "Churches were torched, Christians kidnapped and now gunned down and there is no security guarding the churches. I believe there is collaboration," said Ibrahim, of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
Sunday's shooting also harkened back to an Islamic militant insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s in which extremists waged a campaign of attacks on police, Christians and foreign tourists, trying to topple the government.
Many fear a revival of that campaign. The army and security forces are fighting what in effect has become a full-fledged insurgency in the northern part of the strategic Sinai Peninsula, where militants carry out attacks almost daily since Morsi's fall.
High-profile attacks blamed on militants have begun to creep into Cairo, the capital and home to some 18 million. In September, the interior minister survived an assassination attempt by a suicide car bombing in Cairo. Earlier this month, militants fired rocket propelled grenades on the nation's largest satellite ground station, also in Cairo. The Interior Ministry reports near-daily discoveries of explosives planted on bridges and major roads.
Ansar Jerusalem, a Sinai-based militant group, claimed responsibility Monday for a car bomb that targeted the military intelligence compound in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia on Saturday. In a statement posted on a militant website, the group said the attack was in retaliation for what it called the army's oppressive practices in Sinai.
The same group claimed responsibility for the attempt to kill the interior minister, as well as other attacks in Sinai.
___
Associated Press writers Maggie Michael and Maamoun Youssef contributed to this report in Cairo.
Apple's latest Mac Pro rolls off United States assembly lines and into consumers hands in December for $3,000. The base model features a 3.7GHz quad-core Xeon CPU ("with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz"), 12GB DRAM, two AMD FirePro D300 GPUs, and a 256GB SSD. Apple senior VP of worldwide marketing ...
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