Immigration paranoia: Why are Americans being arrested? (The Week)

New York ? Activists say U.S. citizens are being detained under a federal program aimed at deporting illegal immigrants

An already controversial Obama administration push to find and arrest illegal immigrants is facing a new round of criticism from civil rights and immigrant groups, who say that documented U.S. citizens are being detained under the program. How often is this really happening? Here, a brief guide to the federal government's immigration crackdown, and some of its unforeseen consequences:

Are immigration agents really detaining U.S. citizens?
Yes, at least in a flurry of recent cases. These people are typically picked up by local police for other reasons ? U.S. citizen Antonio Montejano of Los Angeles, for example, was arrested for allegedly shoplifting a $10 bottle of perfume last month. But in custody, he was tagged as a suspected illegal immigrant by federal agents, acting on bad information in their database. As is typical in these cases, Montejano was supposed to be released quickly, but immigration agents told police to hold him in a local jail for possible deportation.

SEE MORE: Is Alabama's tough immigration law turning kids into bullies?

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Wait, they can do that?
In theory, it's OK to hold people who have been arrested if they're genuinely suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. Under the controversial Secure Communities program, federal agents can tell police to keep criminals locked up, pending an investigation into the detainees' legal right to be in the country. But mistakes happen: Montejano spent two extra days in jail after the judge in his shoplifting case ordered him released. "I was telling every officer I'm an American citizen," he tells the Los Angeles Times. "Nobody believed me."

Could Montejano take legal action?
Possibly. "Any case where an American is held, even briefly, for immigration investigation is a potential wrongful arrest," says Julia Preston in The New York Times. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), which runs Secure Communities, takes the allegations "very seriously," spokesman John Morton tells the Times. "We don't have the power to detain citizens," he says.

SEE MORE: Should 'citizen juries' decide illegal immigrant status?

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How often is this happening?
That depends on whom you ask. The American Civil Liberties Union points to the cases of Montejano and three others as irrefutable evidence that the problem is real, and widespread. The ACLU cites a study which found that 82 people were held ? for up to a year ? at Arizona immigration detention centers until a judge said they couldn't be deported because they were citizens. But the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank dedicated to reducing immigration, says the ICE database "contains no records of U.S. citizens who were detained by or for ICE."

Sources: Center for Immigration Studies, LA Times, NY Times

SEE MORE: The 'dramatic' decline in illegal immigration: 3 theories

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Investment in China falls amid world doldrums (AP)

SHANGHAI ? Foreign investment in China fell nearly 10 percent in November in the latest evidence of the rising toll that weakness in the West is taking on the world's No. 2 economy.

The $8.8 billion in foreign direct investment in November ? down 9.8 percent from a year earlier ? was a sudden deterioration compared with an increase of 8.8 percent in October, the Commerce Ministry said. Foreign direct investment covers spending on physical assets such as factories and doesn't include financial assets such as stocks.

Exports, industrial production and property dealings are slowing, and China's leaders wrapped up their annual economic planning conference on Wednesday with statements suggesting they will be more pro-active in moving to fend off the chill from the European debt crisis.

With the European Union ? China's largest export market ? in the doldrums, Commerce Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang described trade prospects as "grim."

"The impact of the global economic climate means the foreign trade environment is very severe," Shen said. He said China would step up efforts to encourage imports and boost exports by focusing on faster growing regions such as Russia and other emerging economies.

Export growth has fallen steadily since hitting a peak of nearly 36 percent in March, and economists are forecasting foreign trade will be a drag on growth next year.

Foreign direct investment in January-November rose 13.2 percent to $103.8 billion ? a slowing from the 15.9 percent increase seen in January-October, when total foreign direct investment was $95 billion.

An 18 percent increase in investment from other Asian economies to $89.6 billion, helped to offset a 23 percent decline in U.S. spending this year, as of the end of November, to $2.74 billion. Investment from the EU held steady, edging up 0.3 percent from a year earlier to $5.98 billion.

At their yearly economic work conference, Chinese leaders pledged fine-tuning to ensure stable and more balanced growth while fighting inflation, but offered no major shifts in policy.

The gathering endorsed the ruling communist party's agenda for keeping a "prudent" monetary policy to counter inflation and a "pro-active" fiscal policy to support growth.

It also pledged to keep curbs on the property sector in place to guard against a rebound in prices, and called for keeping the value of China's currency, the yuan, "basically stable," according to a statement issued by the official Xinhua News Agency.

China plans to prop up falling exports by setting up special trade "bases" and aiding exporters in inland areas, which have lagged behind the richer coastal regions, state media cited Commerce Ministry officials as saying.

Tax cuts and increased government spending in key areas such as high-tech and energy are also likely, though analysts say they do not expect stimulus comparable to the 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) package deployed in response to the 2008 global crisis.

By targeting specific sectors, authorities aim to prevent the sort of runaway investment, driven by bank lending, that drove inflation to 6.5 percent in July and has left housing prices prone to inflate into financially risky bubbles.

With labor unrest flaring and financial conditions deteriorating across many sectors, from small companies to government-backed building projects, Beijing's mantra is "stability."

That word was repeated five times in just one sentence of the official dispatch that vowed continuity in policies for the sake of keeping social stability.

An expected transition next year to a new generation of communist leaders has accentuated Beijing's obsession with keeping control.

China's economy grew 9.1 percent in July-September but is expected to slow to below 9 percent growth in the coming year, as weaker demand at home compounds the impact from fragile conditions in Europe and the United States.

Given the weakness in demand for Chinese exports overseas, the leaders reiterated their intention to boost domestic demand to build an economy less dependent on foreign trade and investment.

___

Follow Elaine Kurtenbach on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ekurtenbachsh

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_economy

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Comet Lovejoy Survives Fiery Plunge Through Sun, NASA Says (SPACE.com)

This story was updated at 8:50 p.m. EST.

A newfound comet defied long odds today (Dec. 15), surviving a suicidal dive through the sun's hellishly hot atmosphere, according to NASA scientists.

Comet Lovejoy plunged through the sun's corona at about 7 p.m. EST today (midnight GMT on Dec. 16), coming within 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) of our star's surface. Temperatures in the corona can reach 2 million degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 million degrees Celsius), so most researchers expected the icy wanderer to be completely destroyed.

But Lovejoy proved to be made of tough stuff. A video taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft showed the icy object emerging from behind the sun and zipping back off into space.

"Breaking News! Lovejoy lives! The comet Lovejoy has survived its journey around the sun to reemerge on the other side," SDO researchers tweeted today.

SDO is one of many instruments that scientists ? eager to record and study the comet's presumed demise ? trained on Lovejoy as it streaked toward the sun.

"We have here an exceptionally rare opportunity to observe the complete vaporization of a relatively large comet, and we have approximately 18 instruments on five different satellites that are trying to do just that," Karl Battams, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., wrote on the Sungrazing Comets website today, before Lovejoy's closest solar approach.

Battams runs the website, which is devoted to comets discovered by two different spacecraft: NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), which is operated jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). [Death of a Comet: Photos of Sungrazing Comet Lovejoy]

Preparing for the end

Lovejoy has a core about 660 feet (200 meters) wide. It belongs to a class of comets known as Kreutz sungrazers, whose orbits bring them very close to the sun.

All Kreutz sungrazers are thought to be the remnants of a single giant comet that broke apart several centuries ago. They're named after the 19th-century German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who first showed that such comets are related.

Comets plunge into the sun on a regular basis, but they rarely give much advance notice of their suicidal intentions. That's why scientists were so excited about Lovejoy. Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy discovered the icy wanderer on Nov. 27, giving researchers plenty of time to map out their observation campaign.

And that campaign has been intense, involving five different spacecraft. In addition to SDO, SOHO and STEREO, scientists planned to use Japan's Hinode satellite and ESA's Proba spacecraft to track Lovejoy's movements, Battams wrote.

NASA also created a website providing updates about the comet's pass through the corona, as well as images of the event beamed down by SDO. It can be found here: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/lovejoy.php

For his part, Terry Lovejoy said he was happy to have made a contribution, and he marveled a bit at all the attention the comet has been getting.

"It's been tremendous," Lovejoy told SPACE.com. "Apparently it's all over Facebook, and I don't use Facebook. But there's a lot of interest. I think a lot of people like the name ? the Lovejoy name seems to strike a chord with people."

A dramatic escape

Lovejoy is quite large for a sungrazing comet, and experts expected it to die an impressive death. The website Spaceweather.com, for example, predicted Lovejoy would blaze as brightly as Jupiter or Venus in the sky as it neared the sun.

Battams also expected a good show, saying the comet might even be visible from the ground around sunset today in the Northern Hemisphere.?

"I do think that it will put on a spectacular show for us and will be the brightest Kreutz-group comet that SOHO has ever observed," Battams wrote last week.

Though the early returns are just starting to come in, those forecasts appear to be on the money. Observations from various spacecraft do indeed show Lovejoy flaring up significantly as it neared our star.

Researchers will keep analyzing the images to better understand the comet's daring solar approach. And now skywatchers apparently have another shot to catch a glimpse of the resilient Lovejoy on Friday morning (Dec. 16).

For observers in North America, the comet will rise approximately 5 to 10 minutes before dawn and will be situated to the?upper right of the sun. If Lovejoy is still shining at least as brightly as Venus, it may be visible, experts say.?

You could also try to spot Lovejoy after the sun comes up, if you're exceedingly careful. Block the rising sun behind a distant building and focus on the part of the sky 3 to 4 degrees above and to the right of the sun (your clenched fist held at arm's length is equal to roughly 10 degrees). CAUTION: Never point binoculars or a telescope at or near the sun, and never look directly at our star with the naked eye. Serious eye damage can result.

And don't get your hopes up, either. The comet may well be too faint to see, experts say.

Note: If you take any good pictures of Comet Lovejoy and would like them to be considered for a future story or image gallery, contact SPACE.com managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.

SPACE.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz (@ClaraMoskowitz) contributed to this story. You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20111215/sc_space/cometlovejoysurvivesfieryplungethroughsunnasasays

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US factory orders fall for second straight month

Shoppers look at televisions displayed at a Best Buy store after a midnight opening on Friday, Nov. 25, 2011, in Brentwood, Tenn. Black Friday began in earnest as stores opened their doors at midnight. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Shoppers look at televisions displayed at a Best Buy store after a midnight opening on Friday, Nov. 25, 2011, in Brentwood, Tenn. Black Friday began in earnest as stores opened their doors at midnight. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Companies decreased their overall orders to U.S. factories in October for the second straight month, evidence that the economy remains weak despite other signs of improvement.

The Commerce Department said Monday that total factory orders fell 0.4 percent. September's modest 0.3 percent increase was also revised to show a 0.1 percent drop.

Demand for so-called core capital goods, a good proxy for business investment plans, fell 0.8 percent. Still, that's after two months of solid increases in that category, fueled by increased demand for computers and heavy machinery.

Factory orders can vary greatly from month to month. A big reason for October's decline was a large drop in orders for commercial aircraft, a volatile sector that fell nearly 17 percent.

And analysts say October's report offered some positive news: manufacturers increased their stockpiles 0.9 percent in October after more modest increases in previous months. That suggests they are optimistic about future sales.

"All and all, a positive report, consistent with solid growth in equipment and software investment," said Peter Newland, an analyst at Barclays Capital Research.

The report covers both durable goods, items expected to last at least three years, and nondurable goods, products such as paper, chemicals and clothing.

Orders for durable goods fell 0.5 percent, reflecting the weakness in commercial aircraft. Orders for nondurable goods were down 0.3 percent. And defense industries reported a steep 21.1 percent drop in new orders for goods such as missiles, aircraft and small arms.

Manufacturing has been showing signs of rebounding after slowing earlier this year. Other indicators suggest that has continued.

Auto sales and production are up now that supply chain disruptions caused by the earthquake in Japan have eased. Orders for autos and auto parts rose 6.2 percent in October, after dropping 2.2 percent in September. And consumers have stepped up spending since high gas prices chipped away at their paychecks last spring.

The Institute for Supply Management said factory output expanded in November for 28th straight month.

The economy is growing slowly and steadily after nearly stalling in the first six months of the year. Economics expect slightly better growth of 2.5 percent the October-December quarter.

Modest growth has also encouraged businesses to hire more workers. The economy added 120,000 net jobs in November, the Labor Department said Friday. The economy has generated 100,000 or more jobs five months in a row ? the first time that has happened since April 2006, well before the Great Recession.

The unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent, the lowest level since March 2009.

Other reports in recent weeks show the economy is picking up. Holiday sales got off to a good start after Thanksgiving and auto sales posted big gains in November. Both should help increase factory production in the coming months.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-12-05-Factory%20Orders/id-7fec98f01a2048cb9610632e3b55ea87

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Motorola Droid 4 with LTE, Xoom 2 Media Edition with AT&T bands hit FCC

Motorola's been on a FCC-approving rampage lately, and we have two more entries to add to the mix. The first is what appears to be the QWERTY-packing Droid 4: not only does it come with Verizon's LTE band 13 and CDMA / EVDO (with GSM / EDGE / WCDMA on the side, locked to all US carriers), the docs make mention of the Droid 4's rumored 1,785mAh battery and shows test results with "slider open" and "slider closed." Also passing through the governmental agency's doors is what appears to be a GSM 3G version of the Xoom 2 Media Edition with AT&T-compatible (850 / 1900) GSM / WCDMA bands. Unlike the Xyboard that made its way through the FCC a few days ago, this one lacks LTE or CDMA / EVDO. Check out the gallery below for a few images gleaned from the docs.

Gallery: Motorola Droid 4 and GSM Xoom 2 Media Edition in FCC

Motorola Droid 4 with LTE, Xoom 2 Media Edition with AT&T bands hit FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ky church overturns ban on interracial couples (AP)

PIKEVILLE, Ky. ? An eastern Kentucky church under a firestorm of criticism since members voted to bar mixed-race couples from joining the congregation overturned that decision Sunday, saying it welcomes all believers.

Stacy Stepp, pastor of the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church in Pike County, told The Associated Press that the vote by nine people last week was declared null and void after it was determined that new bylaws can't run contrary to local, state or national laws. He said the proposal was discriminatory, therefore it couldn't be adopted.

Stepp said about 30 people who attended church services voted on a new resolution that welcomes "believers into our fellowship regardless of race, creed or color."

The issue came up at the tiny all-white Appalachian church after the daughter of church secretary Dean Harville visited over the summer with her boyfriend, who is from Africa, and the two sang for the congregation.

Harville said he was approached in August by Melvin Thompson, the church member who crafted the resolution to bar mixed-race couples, and was told that his daughter and her boyfriend were no longer allowed to sing at the church.

Thompson has said he is not racist and called the matter an "internal affair."

Stepp said the Sandy Valley Conference of Free Will Baptists declared the vote on Thompson's resolution null and void during a meeting on Saturday.

He said he told church members on Sunday about the decision and proposed a resolution to promote "peace, love and harmony."

He said the resolution to welcome all believers passed with a unanimous vote.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/religion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111205/ap_on_re_us/us_church_interracial_couples

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Video: Josh Mankiewicz reports from ?paradise?

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'Dateline NBC,' the signature broadcast for NBC News in primetime, premiered in 1992. Since then, it has been pioneering a new approach to primetime news programming. The multi-night franchise, supplemented by frequent specials, allows NBC to consistently and comprehensively present the highest-quality reporting, investigative features, breaking news coverage and newsmaker profiles.

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Children with HIV in Asia resistant to AIDS drugs (Reuters)

HONG KONG (Reuters) ? Teenagers in Asia receiving treatment for HIV are showing early signs of osteoporosis and children as young as five are becoming resistant to AIDS drugs, an anti-AIDS group said on Thursday, urging more attention be given to young HIV patients.

The finding, made available on World AIDS Day, is a reminder that while more people in Asia now have access to basic AIDS drugs, improved medicines remain out of reach and patients -- both adults and children -- still suffer from inadequate care.

In Asia, some 160,000 children are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS. Of these, 57,000 require treatment but only 30,000 were receiving it as of the end of 2008, according to UNICEF.

Researchers at TREAT Asia found children as young as five were developing resistance to AIDS drugs and may soon require improved, more expensive medicines, which are not available for them yet.

"In our cohort, about 14 percent of the children have failed first-line drugs ... Some of the children who are already on second-line are under the age of five," Annette Sohn, director of TREAT Asia, told Reuters in a phone interview.

Poor adherence to the timing or frequency of taking AIDS drugs can result in resistance. But in Asia, resistance is also due to the lack of drug formulations for children.

"We all made some mistakes on how we managed patients with HIV in the beginning of the epidemic," Sohn said. "We used adult tablets. We had no pediatric formulations in our countries."

Sohn said health experts and drug providers need to find ways to make third-line, more powerful drugs available for children in poor countries. Such medications are available or subsidized in rich nations but very expensive and sometimes unavailable in developing countries.

"Unless we develop access to third-line drugs, we are going to find ourselves in a clinic room with a patient that there is nothing left and we have no other drug to give them."

A long-term study of 4,000 HIV patients under the age of 23 in Asia by TREAT Asia also showed that a high percentage of teenagers had low bone mineral density, a precursor of osteoporosis.

"We did a special X-ray on these teenagers who are about 16 years old and found that 15 percent of them had low bone mass," Sohn said.

"That is not normal. Kids are not supposed to have low bone mass when they're 16 years old and that's because of the effect of HIV on their bodies ... brain, bone, immune system."

Sohn, a pediatric specialist for children with HIV/AIDS, said this may also be due to toxic effects that some AIDS drugs, such as tenofovir, have on bones.

"It is not so much about avoiding one drug or another but being aware of these side effects, studying what drug doses will suppress the virus while not being toxic, having the resources to monitor the side effects, and having access to alternate drugs if they do arise."

The study covers Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia and India. TREAT Asia is a network of clinics, hospitals and research institutions working together to improve treatment access.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111201/hl_nm/us_children_asia_drugs

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AppventCalendar brings free apps for the 2011 holidays!

The guys at BlackSmithGames have announced that their AppventCalendar will be returning for 2011. If you go to AppventCalendar.com everyday in December, you will be able to pick up a free game, and a free app. Thats 2 free downloads a day! Something new for 2011 — an iPhone...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/mY6oMq0EC00/story01.htm

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