Mac users are finally living in the future Twitter promised them back in August. The micro-blogging service recently updated the Tweetdeck Mac app to include the dedicated composition field the web and Chrome app got a few months ago, as well as auto-suggested hashtags and usernames. What's more, ...
With Red Bull[1] poised to wrap up their fourth consecutive world championship the battle to be ‘best of the rest’ is far from settled.
Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus are vying for second place in the constructors’ championship which brings rich financial rewards as well as prestige.
The extra income would be welcomed by any of the teams but particularly Lotus, who are operating on a considerably smaller budget than their well-heeled rivals.
Further back in the championship Sauber’s resurgence could see them rise as high as fifth. Who will come out on top?
Here’s how many points Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus have scored so far this year:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | |
| Ferrari | 30 | 40 | 73 | 77 | 117 | 123 | 145 | 168 | 180 | 194 | 218 | 248 | 274 | 284 | 297 | ||||
| Mercedes | 10 | 37 | 52 | 64 | 72 | 109 | 134 | 171 | 183 | 208 | 235 | 245 | 267 | 283 | 287 | ||||
| Lotus | 26 | 40 | 60 | 93 | 111 | 112 | 114 | 124 | 157 | 183 | 187 | 191 | 206 | 239 | 264 |
Maximum points remaining: 172
There’s been little to separate Ferrari from Mercedes in the contest for second place in the championship for the last four races.
Mercedes can usually rely on having better qualifying pace but the Ferraris come one strong in race conditions – as was clear at Singapore. In Japan Lewis Hamilton’s[2] first lap misfortune and Nico Rosberg’s hasty departure from the pits saw Mercedes squander vital points in their battle with Ferrari.
But the last two races saw Lotus take points off both teams which has brought them firmly back into contention for the runner-up spot. There are two main reasons for Lotus’s rise.
The first is the improving form of Romain Grosjean[3], who has out-qualified Kimi Raikkonen more often than not in recent races and led almost half the race in Japan.
Lotus are also suspected of gaining a similar advantage to Red Bull from the mapping of their Renault engine. Mercedes believe Renault have found a way of legally enhancing their car’s traction.
These two factors could prove decisive over the final races. Having lost Raikkonen along with technical figures James Allison and Dirk de Beer to Ferrari, Lotus could be about to have the last laugh this year.
Here’s how many points McLaren, Force India, Sauber and Toro Rosso have scored so far this year:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | |
| McLaren | 2 | 4 | 14 | 23 | 29 | 37 | 37 | 37 | 49 | 57 | 65 | 66 | 76 | 81 | 83 | ||||
| Force India | 10 | 10 | 14 | 26 | 32 | 44 | 51 | 59 | 59 | 59 | 61 | 61 | 62 | 62 | 62 | ||||
| Sauber | 0 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 17 | 19 | 31 | 45 | ||||
| Toro Rosso | 0 | 1 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 12 | 20 | 24 | 24 | 24 | 25 | 31 | 31 | 31 | 31 |
Sauber’s[4] return to form will be a cause for sleepless nights at Force India.
The Swiss team is in a similar situation to Lotus – as well as making gains with their car in recent races, their championship situation has been bolstered by the improving form of their second driver.
In their case it is Esteban Gutierrez[5] who scored the first points of his F1 career with a highly credible seventh place at Suzuka, behind team mate Nico Hulkeneerg.
Hulkenberg’s star is also rising. Since missing out on a switch to Ferrari he has produced giant-killing performances in Italy and Korea.
The Hungaroring was a turning point for the team as a new aerodynamic upgrade arrived and coincided with Pirelli’s changes to the tyre construction. Both have clearly been to their benefit, and the latter has clearly disadvantaged Force India, who look set to follow Toro Rosso in being overhauled by Sauber.
McLaren’s hold on fifth place may not be secure, especially if Sauber repeat their Japanese feat of getting both their cars home in front of the silver ones.
Who do you think will come out on top in these three-way battles? Cast your votes in the polls below and have your say in the comments.
Who will finish second in the constructors' championship?
Total Voters: 249
Who will finish fifth in the constructors' championship?
Total Voters: 245
An F1 Fanatic account is required in order to vote. If you do not have one, register an account here[6] or read more about registering here[7].
Images © Lotus/LAT, Daimler/Hoch Zwei, Sauber
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — With the advent of same-sex marriage in New Jersey, couples are thrilled and, in many cases, confused about how to proceed.
Advocates and others are claiming that the state of New Jersey did not give ample instructions to town clerks and others on how to administer marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Same-sex marriages were scheduled to begin Monday at 12:01 a.m. The New Jersey Supreme Court last week refused to delay a lower court order for the state to start recognizing marriages. The case, however, is still on appeal.
Several couples planned to marry minutes after the state began recognizing the unions. Yet other said they had not been able to get a license. New Jersey law requires that couples wait three days between obtaining a license and getting married.
"There's a lot of mass confusion and it boils down to the fact that the state should have issued guidance a week ago," said Troy Stevenson, executive director of Garden State Equality.
Stevenson said he has 15 volunteer lawyers who are scrambling to find judges who are willing to waive the three-day requirement for couples.
"We're hoping to make miracles happen, but I wish we didn't have to," he said.
Karen and Marcye Nicholson-McFadden, two plaintiffs in the lawsuit that brought same-sex marriage to the state, said they have not been able to get a license to wed.
The couple said the clerk in their hometown of Aberdeen told them Friday that she could not issue them a marriage license without further instruction from the state.
Gov. Chris Christie had instructed the Department of Health to cooperate with municipalities to issue licenses. The clerk did not immediately return a call to comment Sunday. A Christie spokesman did not return an email seeking comment.
"It's just very frustrating after being made to wait for so many years. The state had an order from a judge. It's clear they did nothing to prepare and to communicate," Karen Nicholson-McFadden said. "It's terrible. It sucks some of the joy out of Friday," when the court made its ruling.
The couple plans to try again for a license Monday and get married as soon as they can. They've been together for 24 years and have two children.
"We will do it as soon as we can because we've waited for so long. You don't want to tempt fate," Karen Nicholson-McFadden said. "You want to make sure the moment you can you have every one of these benefits and protections and then we go into party planning mode."
Two other plaintiffs, Louise Walpin and Marsha Shapiro, planned to seal their 24-year union with a midnight wedding at the home of state Sen. Ray Lesniak, a sponsor of the vetoed gay marriage law. Another state lawmaker who's been a longtime advocate for same-sex marriage, Sen. Loretta Weinberg, is to walk the couple down the aisle.
Little seems to have changed since the court's decision Friday. On the New Jersey Department of Health's website under "How to Apply for a Marriage License," requirements include "Be of the opposite sex."
Mayors in cities and towns including Newark, Jersey City, Asbury Park and Lambertville plan to open City Hall late Sunday and marry couples as soon as possible.
But confusion reigned Friday when applying for licenses, and Stevenson said he expects to see far more weddings in the coming week.
"If they could, hundreds and hundreds of couples would get married tonight," Stevenson said Sunday. "But with this waiting period, it's not going to be as many as they hoped."
There is now also a push in the state legislature to gather enough votes to override Christie's veto of a same-sex marriage bill. Christie does not support same-sex marriage and has said he wants to put the issue on the ballot.
Democratic Sen. Ray Lesniak said even though the Supreme Court's decision was unanimous and strongly worded, there is a chance it could be overturned. By codifying same-sex marriage into law, it would add another layer of protection.
"There's also a limbo period now," he said. "Yes, it's easy for us to say a strongly worded unanimous decision by the supreme court on this day leaves little chance that this decision will be overturned, but by an override we will eliminate any change."
___
Associated Press writer Angela Delli Santi contributed to this report.
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By Valerie Volcovici and Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear a challenge to part of the Obama administration's first wave of regulations aimed at tackling climate change, accepting its biggest environmental case in six years.
The court said it would not review the underlying determination that greenhouse gases are a public health concern or a separate regulation that limits greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.
The single question the court will consider is whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency correctly determined that its decision to regulate motor vehicle emissions automatically gave it the authority to regulate emissions from stationary sources such as power plants and oil refineries.
Industry groups applauded the high court for considering placing a check on what they call regulatory overreach while environmentalists took comfort from the narrowness of the question the court agreed to consider.
Oral arguments are likely to be heard early in the new year with a ruling issued by the end of June.
Gina McCarthy, the EPA administrator, said in a statement that the court was taking up a "very narrow legal question" that would not substantially weaken the Obama administration's climate-change agenda.
EPA regulations are among President Barack Obama's most significant measures to address climate change.
A federal appeals court in Washington upheld the rules, issued by the EPA under the Clean Air Act, in 2012. The regulations allowed for greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions from a wide range of sources to be regulated for the first time.
By agreeing to hear a consolidated challenge from states and business groups, the court could be getting set to limit the reach of its groundbreaking 2007 ruling, Massachusetts v. EPA, in which it held on a 5-4 vote that carbon was a pollutant that could potentially be regulated under the Clean Air Act.
The court rejected outright three of the nine petitions that sought Supreme Court review, including one filed by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican, that questioned whether the EPA appropriately weighed climate change science.
The legal question, crafted by the court itself from those raised in the six petitions it agreed to review, indicates the court does not plan to revisit the underlying reasoning behind Massachusetts v. EPA but will weigh whether the EPA went further than allowed under the act.
Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, said the court did not dispute the scientific basis underpinning the EPA'S greenhouse gas regulations or its industry-backed vehicle emissions standards, but focused on the most legally shaky challenges buried in the various petitions.
The legal question is "appropriately limited," Adler said.
SOMETHING FOR BOTH SIDES
Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which filed one of the petitions the court agreed to hear, said the group has from the beginning argued "that the Clean Air Act is the wrong vehicle to regulate greenhouse gases and that EPA exceeded its regulatory authority under the act."
Eric Groten, a partner at law firm Vinson and Elkins, which represents the industry-backed Coalition for Responsible Regulation, said the court's acceptance of some of the petitions raises the key question of how easily the EPA can use its authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
"This bodes well for efforts to cauterize the damage, as the court will consider whether EPA needs to legally and factually justify each action taken to regulate GHG, or whether it can just wave Massachusetts v. EPA as a magic wand and conjure what it wishes," Groten said. His client's petition was one of those rejected.
Environmental lawyers stressed that because the justices will assess only one of the many legal questions raised in the petitions, it will only have a limited impact on EPA's broader goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the biggest contributor to climate change.
U.S. natural gas futures were little changed on Tuesday despite the news. Prices matched Monday's nearly four-month spot chart high of $3.855 per mmBtu in overnight trading before being hit by some profit-taking. The most current contract is up more than 9 percent in just over a week.
REGULATORY AGENDA
Tuesday's decision does not affect the agency's ability to require power plants to install the best available technology to reduce emissions. It could, though, impede the EPA's ability to require new or modified facilities, such as refineries or power plants, to obtain emissions permits.
Come June, the EPA is due to propose a major rule that would limit the amount of greenhouse gases the country's existing fleet of more than 1,000 power plants can emit.
The American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying group that along with manufacturing interests filed one of the petitions, said the fact that EPA regulations for cars automatically triggered further regulation of other sources of greenhouse gas emissions was an "overstep" of the agency's authority under the Clean Air Act.
"The EPA is seeking to regulate U.S. manufacturing in a way that Congress never planned and never intended," said Harry Ng, American Petroleum Institute vice president and general counsel.
Whatever the court eventually decides, the EPA's ability to use the Clean Air Act to regulate emissions from power plants and other stationary sources is not under threat, environmental lawyers say.
Even if the court ruled for petitioners, most power plants and refineries would still be required to install best available control technology to limit greenhouse gases, said Sean Donahue, a lawyer representing environmental groups at Donahue & Goldberg.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Valerie Volcovici, additional reporting by Eileen Houlihan; Editing by Ros Krasny, Howard Goller, Prudence Crowther and Lisa Shumaker)
