As Apple Inc.’s iPhone faces stiffer competition in the lucrative market for smart phones, the company is going after one of its main rivals with patent lawsuits claiming theft of touch screen technology and other features.
The complaints, which Apple filed Tuesday, cover a slew of models made by Taiwanese phone maker HTC Corp., including the Nexus One, G1 and myTouch 3G — all using the free, rival Android mobile operating software from Google Inc. Non-Android phones include HTC’s Touch series.
But consumers shouldn’t worry about buying or using any of those phones. Patent cases can take months or years to resolve — sometimes longer than the life of these phones — and agreements over licensing and royalty payments often emerge.
The Obama administration is formulating a new nuclear weapons policy that would include the elimination of thousands of warheads and the possible withdrawal of all tactical warheads from Europe.
Obama is also under pressure to abandon the Bush Doctrine allowing preemptive action, including the use of nuclear weapons, against any nation threatening American security, The New York Times reported on Monday. The new strategy will be included in a document called the Nuclear Posture Review, which every president must complete.
“It will be clear in the document that there will be very dramatic reductions — in the thousands — as related to the stockpile,” a senior administration official told the Times. Many of those warheads are in storage.
Rep. Charlie Rangel’s admonishment for violating House gift rules “is not good,” but his actions did not put the nation at risk in any material way, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday.
Pelosi said it is not her place to interfere in any investigations of the matter and said she would not get involved politically.
“But the fact is, is that what Mr. Rangel has been admonished for is not good,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.” “It was a violation of the rules of the House. It was not a–something that jeopardized our country in any way.”
Brooklyn prosecutors on Monday cleared ACORN of criminal wrongdoing after a four-month probe that began when undercover conservative activists filmed workers giving what appeared to be illegal advice on how to hide money.
While the video by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles seemed to show three ACORN workers advising a prostitute how to hide ill-gotten gains, the unedited version was not as clear, according to a law enforcement source.
“They edited the tape to meet their agenda,” said the source.
O’Keefe and Giles – who visited ACORN offices in several cities, including its Brooklyn headquarters – stirred controversy when they posted the videos on their Web site.
The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) — which believes in jihad and sharia law, and wants to turn Britain and Europe into an Islamic state — has placed sympathisers in elected office and claims, correctly, to be able to achieve “mass mobilisation” of voters.
Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister, said the IFE had become, in effect, a secret party within Labour and other political parties.
“They are acting almost as an entryist organisation, placing people within the political parties, recruiting members to those political parties, trying to get individuals selected and elected so they can exercise political influence and power, whether it’s at local government level or national level,” he said.
President Dmitry Medvedev called Monday for officials in charge of preparing Russian athletes for the Winter Olympics to resign after the country suffered its worst-ever performance in Vancouver.
Russia, long accustomed to boosting national pride with sporting success, was left scrambling for explanations for its dismal Olympics performance just four years before it hosts the Winter Games.
The Russian squad recorded its worst ever performance in Vancouver, finishing 11th in the Games’ medal table and clinching only three gold medals and 15 overall.
One of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck Chile on Saturday, toppling homes, collapsing bridges and plunging trucks into the fractured earth. A tsunami threatened every nation around the Pacific Ocean — roughly a quarter of the globe.
Chileans near the epicenter were tossed about by the magnitude-8.8 quake as if shaken by a giant. At least 147 people were killed, according to Carmen Fernandez, director of the National Emergency Agency.
The quake shook buildings in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires, and was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the east. About 13 million people live in the area where shaking was strong to severe, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
On vote of 315-97, the House of Representatives approved the bill, a day after it cleared the Senate. It now heads to President Barack Obama to sign into law.
The Obama administration wanted to extend the measure because of provisions it says are important in tracking suspected terrorists, including roving wiretaps to track multiple communications devices. But some lawmakers wanted additional privacy measures to protect against abuses.
With the Patriot Act provisions set to expire on Sunday, lawmakers agreed to extend them for a year, and effectively put off a showdown on efforts to bolster safeguards.
A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.
Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.
The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.
Biden was heard at Thursday’s health care summit telling one lawmaker, “It’s easy being vice president. You don’t have to do anything.”
The comment was made shortly before the summit resumed for the afternoon. Biden was off-camera but the comment was caught on one of the network microphones in the room.
The lawmaker played along with Biden’s remark saying, “It’s like being the grandpa and not the parent,” to which the VP responded, “Yeah, that’s it!”
