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Category: law – Page 60

Irregular disorder and the NASA budget

It’s been a long time since there’s been anything like “regular order” in the congressional appropriations process: individual bills passed by the House and Senate, their differences resolved in conference to produce a final version that’s signed into law before the beginning of the fiscal year October 1. Instead, there are usually stopgap funding bills, called continuing resolutions, that extend for weeks or months before a massive omnibus bill, combining up to a dozen different bills, is eventually passed.

Fiscal year 2021 is not going to be the year regular order returns to the appropriations process. The pandemic took hold in the early phases of the appropriations process, just as Congress was starting its usual series of hearings on various parts of the administration’s budget proposal released in early February. Congress instead devoted its attention to series of relief packages during the limited time it was in session this spring.

With no hearings about NASA’s budget proposal by either House or Senate appropriators, the first sign of their views about the agency’s budget had to wait until a few weeks ago. On July 7, the House Appropriations Committee released its draft of the commerce, justice, and science (CJS) spending bill that includes NASA. That bill provides $22.6 billion for NASA, the same amount the agency received in 2020. The White House, by comparison, asked for $25.2 billion for NASA.

On eve of bankruptcy, U.S. firms shower execs with bonuses

(Reuters) — Nearly a third of more than 40 large companies seeking U.S. bankruptcy protection during the coronavirus pandemic awarded bonuses to executives within a month of filing their cases, according to a Reuters analysis of securities filings and court records.

Under a 2005 bankruptcy law, companies are banned, with few exceptions, from paying executives retention bonuses while in bankruptcy. But the firms seized on a loophole by granting payouts before filing.

Six of the 14 companies that approved bonuses within a month of their filings cited business challenges executives faced during the pandemic in justifying the compensation.

The tech industry comes to grips with Hong Kong’s national security law

Image Credits: Getty Images.

Scott Salandy-Defour used to make frequent stops at a battery manufacturer in southern China for his energy startup based in Hong Kong. The appeal of Hong Kong, he said, is its adjacency to the plentiful electronics suppliers in the Pearl River Delta, as well as the city’s amenities for foreign entrepreneurs, be it its well-established financial and legal system or a culture blending the East and West.

“It’s got the best of both worlds,” Salandy-Defour told TechCrunch. “But it’s not going to be the same.”

Atlantic Coast Pipeline Canceled Following Years of Legal Challenges

Pipeline owners Dominion and Duke Energy announced Sunday they were cancelling the fossil fuel project due to mounting delays and uncertainty. They said the many legal challenges to the project had driven up the projected costs by almost half, from $4.5 to $5 billion when it was first announced in 2014 to $8 billion according to the most recent estimate.

Environmental and community groups, who have long opposed the project on climate, conservation and racial justice grounds, welcomed the news.

“If anyone still had questions about whether or not the era of fracked gas was over, this should answer them,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement emailed to EcoWatch. “Today is a historic victory for clean water, the climate, public health, and our communities. Duke and Dominion did not decide to cancel the Atlantic Coast Pipeline — the people and frontline organizations that led this fight for years forced them into walking away. Today’s victory reinforces that united communities are more powerful than the polluting corporations that put profits over our health and future.”

Researchers uncover effects of negative stereotype exposure on the brain

The recent killings of unarmed individuals such as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Tony McDade have sparked a national conversation about the treatment of Black people—and other minorities—in the United States.

“What we’re seeing today is a close examination of the hardships and indignities that people have faced for a very long time because of their race and ethnicity,” said Kyle Ratner, an assistant professor of psychological and at UC Santa Barbara. As a , he is interested in how social and give rise to intergroup bias and feelings of stigmatization.

According to Ratner, “It is clear that people who belong to historically marginalized groups in the United States contend with burdensome stressors on top of the everyday stressors that members of non-disadvantaged groups experience. For instance, there is the trauma of overt racism, stigmatizing portrayals in the media and popular culture, and systemic discrimination that leads to disadvantages in many domains of life, from employment and education to healthcare and housing to the legal system.”

Michigan House passes bill to make employee microchips voluntary

The microchips can be used as a key fob, a time card, a credit account for the cafeteria or vending machines, or even as a way for employers to track employee productivity.

“With the way technology has increased over the years and as it continues to grow, it’s important Michigan job providers balance the interests of the company with their employees’ expectations of privacy,” said the bill’s sponsor Michigan State Rep. Bronna Kahle. “While these miniature devices are on the rise, so are the calls of workers to have their privacy protected.”

The bill will be introduced to the State Senate where, if it passes, Governor Gretchen Whitmer will be able to sign the legislation into Michigan law.

The microchips in discussion, are about the size of a large grain of rice inserted between an employees thumb and forefinger to give employees access to different amenities throughout the office. They not battery powered, and are instead activated and used as individual ID for the employee when introduced to a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) reader.

The chips can be used as a key fob for the office, time cards, a credit account for the cafeteria or vending machines, a way to access company laptop or office devices and, more controversially, as a way for employers to track employee productivity.

Stanford Grad Who Created The World’s First ‘Robot Lawyer’ Raises $12 Million In Series A

Not even the lawyers will be spared.

In the summer of 2015, Stanford-bound high school grad Josh Browder spent his nights coding and developing an automated program that would help people contest parking tickets. The native Londoner had recently gotten his driver’s license, and had himself assembled a respectable collection of fines, some of which he felt were unjustly rewarded.

About three weeks later, Browder already had a product called DoNotPay which he shared with his friends. A blogger from Reddit picked up on it, and almost overnight, DoNotPay went from 10 people using it to 50,000 users.

Today, the company announced it closed a $12 million Series A at an $80 million valuation. Coatue led the round, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund and Felicis Ventures. All had previously invested in the company’s $4.6 million seed round.

Japan detects apparent Chinese submarine traveling near Amami-Oshima Island

The vessel passed through a narrow strip of waters between the prefecture’s Tokara island chain and Amami Oshima without surfacing, according to the ministry.

It was believed to be a Chinese Navy submarine, but the Defense Ministry refused to formally disclose this or its type because that could provide clues about the MSDF’s detection abilities.

Under international law, submarines must surface and raise their national flags inside foreign territorial waters. But underwater cruises are not banned in contiguous zones, which surround territorial waters.

Imagining safety zones: Implications and open questions

In May, NASA announced its intent to “establish a common set of principles to govern the civil exploration and use of outer space” referred to as the Artemis Accords.[1,2] The Accords were released initially as draft principles, to be developed and implemented through a series of bilateral agreements with international partners.

The Accords offer the possibility to advance practical implementations of long-held principles in the Outer Space Treaty (OST). They raise a rich set of policy questions as we begin to take the law into new levels of resolution. This bold pursuit of uncharted territories is to be applauded, and yet, there is also the risk of diverging from 53 years of international law.

One the ten principles is focused on Deconfliction of Activities, with “safety zones” named as a specific mechanism of implementation: