Peanut Butter News

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DAUPHIN ISLAND, Ala. — Fireworks displays have been canceled. White-sand beaches that should be crowded with sunbathers are instead dotted with cleanup workers, booms and sand-sifting equipment. Normally packed hotels are trying to fill rooms ahead of what is a crucial weekend for beach businesses.

Across the oil-stained Gulf Coast, it’s going to be a glum Fourth of July.

Full Story at CNN.com

(CNN) — A proposed Arizona law would deny birth certificates to children born in the United States to illegal immigrant parents.

The bill comes on the heels of Arizona passing the nation’s toughest immigration law.

John Kavanagh, a Republican state representative from Arizona who supports the proposed law aimed at so-called “anchor babies,” said that the concept does not conflict with the U.S. Constitution.

Full Story at msnbc.com

PENSACOLA, Fla. – BP engineers will try to use a pair of giant shears to slice off a leaking pipe after their latest attempt hit a snag trying to stop their broken well from spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Coast Guard said BP was turning to the giant shears after the failure of the firm’s diamond-tipped saw, which sliced through about half of the pipe and then got stuck operating a mile below the surface.

Full Story at  CNN.com

(CNN) — A woman to woman talk between Oprah Winfrey and the former head of her South African girls school ended with the settlement of a defamation lawsuit against the talk show host, their lawyers said.

Lerato Nomvuyo Mzamane sued Winfrey, contending she defamed Mzamane when talking about an abuse scandal at the school she ran in 2007.

Full Story at CNN.com

Washington (CNN) — Tens of thousands of people turned out on Washington’s National Mall on Sunday to support the Obama administration in its next big battle, a renewed effort to overhaul U.S. immigration laws.

Speaking by video to the crowd, President Obama said he would do “everything in my power” to get a bipartisan deal within the year.

Full Story at msnbc.com

Kansas City, Mo., plans to close nearly half its public schools by fall. Illinois’ governor wants to raise state income taxes by 1 percent to continue funding schools and prevent the layoffs of thousands of teachers. Hawaii, President Barack Obama’s home state, has whacked 17 days from the school year and says it’s not done with educational cost-cutting.

From Maine to Wisconsin, Florida to California, school districts across the country are taking drastic measures to deal with school budget cuts made severe by the recession and its aftermath. Msnbc.com asked readers how their school district is coping, and one clear lesson emerged — cuts in education make no one happy.

Full Story at wciv.com

Colleton County, SC – Authorities say a 21-year-old man was arrested in connection with the shooting death of his brother in Colleton County on Wednesday.

The Colleton County Sheriff’s Office have charged Eric Plant with the death of this 21-year-old brother Joshua Plant.

According to investigators, on Wednesday, police received a call from Eric Plant stating that his brother, Joshua, was shot as they were at a home on Black Creek Road in Colleton County.

Full Story at CNN.com

(CNN) — The past 12 months have been a banner year for cyber crime. And that could be bad news for the future of e-commerce.

“At current trends, in three or four years people will start to think twice about transacting on the Web, individuals and businesses,” said Michael Fraser, director of the communications law centre at the University of Technology Sydney.

“The way it’s trending now, the Web could be so full of rubbish that people won’t trust it,” Fraser said. “That could destroy the potential of the whole knowledge economy, which so many developed economies are counting on for the competitive advantage.”

Full Story at CNN.com

(CNN) — About 70 students at UC Santa Cruz in California avoided arrest early Sunday morning when they surrendered the administration building they had occupied for three days, according to a school spokesman.

But, school officials said in a statement, “students who participated in this incident face possible criminal and/or student judicial sanctions.”

Kerr Hall, the Santa Cruz campus’ administration building, won’t be ready for its normal duties Monday, the officials said, because some areas — particularly the second floor, which school officials said might not be ready for several days — were damaged and left in disarray.

Full Story at CNN.com

(Wired) — Google is set to become your new phone company, perhaps reducing your phone bill to zilch in the process.Seriously.
Google has bought Gizmo5, an online phone company that is akin to Skype but based on open protocols and with a lot fewer users. TechCrunch, which broke the news on Monday, reported that Google spent $30 million on the company.
Google announced the Gizmo acquisition on Thursday afternoon Pacific Time. Gizmo5’s founder Michael Robertson, a brash serial entrepreneur, will become an Adviser to Google Voice.

It’s a potent recipe — take Gizmo5’s open standards-based online calling system. Add to it the new ability to route calls on Google’s massive network of cheap fiber. Toss in Google Voice’s free phone number, which will ring your mobile phone, your home phone and your Gizmo5 client on your laptop.

Full Story at msnbc.com

Anywhere between an estimated 600,000 and 1 million players who use Microsoft’s Xbox Live gaming service will be cut off from the service because they have modified their game consoles or played games that were illegally downloaded from file-sharing sites, according to the company.

“All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live,” Microsoft said in a statement Wednesday.

Full Story at  CNN.com

But, so far, there have been several hitches in that plan. Not everyone has access to a computer and a broadband connection. Some governments still censor the Internet. And of course, we don’t all speak the same language.

For the World Wide Web to be truly global, shouldn’t Chinese speakers be able to chat online with people who only speak Spanish? And why should an English speaker be barred from reading blogs written in Malagasy or Zulu?

Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. are two Web companies trying particularly hard to make this happen, and they’ve released a number of updates to their translation services in recent weeks.