Apple wins another injunction against Motorola in Germany

The legal battle between Apple and Motorola continues but the latest round goes to the team from Cupertino. Apple has managed to win an injunction against Motorola for its patent regarding the bounce animation displayed in the photo gallery, as was first seen on the iPhone and then later on copied in Motorola devices (along with almost every other touchscreen device out there today).

Thanks to this injunction, Apple can now enforce the ruling, if it so wishes, which would require Motorola to destroy all the existing offending devices in its possession Germany and recall those the remaining ones from German retailers.

Having said that, this does not mean that Motorola could never sell those devices in Germany again, as the fix is relatively easy. All Motorola has to do is modify the photo gallery on its devices such that it does not violate Apple's patent and they could legally start selling the devices again (assuming Apple enforces the ruling).

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Ex-defendent in Rutgers bullying case testifies against suspect

Rutgers University student Molly Wei received frantic text messages from Dahrun Ravi while she was questioned by police about the alleged webcam spying of Tyler Clementi's gay tryst, she said today in court.

"I think that he thought we were going to get in trouble, so he wanted to make it seem like it was more of an accident," Wei, 19, testified in a New Jersey court today.

Wei took the witness stand to testify against Ravi, 19, who is accused of activating a webcam to spy on his roommate, Clementi, 18, just days before Clementi killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.

Both Wei and Ravi viewed the images on Wei's computer. Wei has pleaded guilty to two counts of invasion of privacy and entered a pretrial intervention program.

Today, Wei said that Ravi texted her multiple times when she was being interviewed by police about the alleged spying, asking her what exactly she was confessing to investigators.

"Did you tell them we did it on purpose? What did you tell them when they asked why we turned it on? I said we were just messing around with the camera," Ravi said in messages.

Ravi is charged with witness tampering for the messages he sent to Wei, in addition to invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, and hindering arrest.

Wei responded to Ravi's messages saying that she had told investigators "everything" that had happened on Sept. 19, 2010, when Ravi came to her dorm room after Clementi asked the room to himself for the night.

Ravi proceeded to show Wei how he set up his webcam to be remotely activated, and used Wei's computer to turn it on. The pair watched "briefly" as an image of Clementi and another man standing up and kissing came on the screen, Wei said. They then turned the webcam off, she testified today.

"We were both just kind of really shocked, like, I can't believe we just saw what we did," she said. "It shouldn't have happened and we saw something that we didn't expect to see and it just felt weird."

Following the initial viewing, Ravi left the room and Wei's roommate, Cassandra Cicco, and Cicco's friends came to the room and asked to view the webcam. Wei activated the camera again for "like two seconds," before shutting it off, and the girls left, she said. The image on the screen was similar to the one previously, with Clementi and another man standing and kissing, this time with their shirts off.

Rutgers Jury Won't Hear Why Clementi Wanted Room Change

Earlier today, Judge Glenn Berman ruled that the jury will not be allowed to hear Clementi's complaint to the school that his roommate used a Webcam to spy on him.

The complaint was included in Clementi's request for a dorm room change after he twice caught roommate Ravi watching him while on a gay date.

Clementi listed as his reason for wanting a different dorm rooms as: "Roommate with webcam spying on me/want a single room."

Clementi's shocking death became the focal point for a national campaign to stop cyber-bullying and homophobic bullying among students.

Prosecutor Julie McClure, who has called Ravi's actions "malicious, purposeful, and criminal," claimed today that the online request showed that Clementi knew about the spying and felt intimidated by Ravi. McClure said in the first day of the trial that Ravi targeted Clementi because he was gay.

Defense attorneys Steven Altman and Philip Nettl argued against admitting the reason for Clementi's room change request - "Roommate with webcam spying on me" -- into evidence, saying it was hearsay that was unreliable. The statement may or may not have authored by Clementi himself, and was not investigated by the university at the time of the request to be true, Altman argued.

The judge ruled that the part of the statement in which Clementi accuses Ravi of spying could not be admitted.

The debate over evidence came midway through the morning testimony of witnesses called by the prosecution, including two students who saw or heard about the webcam incident from Ravi.

Ravi's friend Scott Xu said that Ravi had never expressed any dislike of gay people, but that he did tell Xu he suspected Clementi was gay. Ravi also told Xu and other friends on their ultimate Frisbee team about Clementi's sexual encounter that Ravi had seen on the webcam, Xu testified.

Xu said he never heard Ravi make a disparaging remark about gay people or Clementi's encounter.

"The only thing I heard was that (Clementi's male guest) looked 'shady,'" Xu testified.

When asked if Ravi had ever described any other gay people, Xu said that his friend had met a gay man at Rutgers orientation.

"He did mention one at orientation. He said he liked him because he was rich," Xu said.

Another Rutgers student, Pooja Kolluri, testified that she had seen images of Clementi kissing another man on a computer owned by Rave's friend Molly Wei on Tuesday, Sept. 21, two days after the first webcam activation. This time, Wei activated the camera and Ravi was not in the room, Kolluri said.

Kolluri testified that several girls watched the image for about five seconds before turning it off. Ravi had entered Wei's room later, she said, and they discussed the incident.

"He said he didn't have a problem with (Clementi) being gay," Kolluri testified, noting that Ravi had commented on Clementi's male guest. "(He said) he looked very old."

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Latino Mormons speaking out against Romney

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — When Honduran-born Antonella Cecilia Packard converted to the Mormon Faith 20 years ago, she said it was like "coming home."

The Catholic-educated Packard, who grew up in "the middle of Mayan ruins," appreciated the faith's strong sense of family and conservative values. She also saw her own history in the Book of Mormon with stories of migrations, tragedies and triumphs of a people many Mormons believe are the ancestors of some present-day Latinos.

But two decades after her conversion while a college student at Mississippi State, the 43-year-old Packard finds herself on a new mission: defeating Mitt Romney and any Mormon politician who betrays what she sees as a basic Mormon principle of protecting immigrants.

As Romney continues to seek the Republican presidential nomination while rarely discussing his faith, a growing number of vocal Hispanic Mormons say they intend to use Mormon teachings as a reason to convince others not to vote for him. They have held firesides (equivalent to a tent revival) on immigration, protested outside of Romney campaign events and have traveled across state lines to help defeat other Mormon politicians with similar harsh immigration stances.

"Yes, we are happy that we have a Mormon running for president," said Packard, a Saratoga Springs, Utah, resident and member of Somos (We are) Republicans. "But a lot of us aren't supporting him because of his stance against immigrants."

While stressing the Mormon faith's historic connection to converting immigrants, Latino Mormons point directly to immigration stories in the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' recent statements against policies targeting immigrants. They also view Romney's stance against proposals giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship as hypocritical since Romney's great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, who had five wives and 30 children, sought refuge in Mexico after passage of an 1882 law that barred polygamy.

"We view immigration as a God event," said Ignacio Garcia, a history professor at Brigham Young University and a Sunday school teacher at his Mormon ward. "The book says no one comes to the Land unless they are brought by God."

Those stories in the Book of Mormon, Garcia said, give Hispanic Mormons a powerful religious argument to use, especially since most believe they are descendants of the Lamanites, an indigenous group in the Americas described in the Mormon sacred text. According to the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites lived in the present-day American Southwest, traveled south and face years of hardship, and are prophesized to eventually return to the Promised Land.

In addition, Garcia said the recent political moves by Hispanic Mormons are gaining attention because Hispanics are the fastest growing group among the LDS faith in the U.S.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not keep ethnic data on its 6 million or so members. But according to a 2011 national survey of Mormons by Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, Latinos make up 7 percent of Mormons in the U.S.

The church says the number of Spanish-speaking units has grown from 403 in 2001 to nearly 800 last year.

Garcia said it is estimated that nearly 70 percent of Latino Mormons are illegal immigrants. He said the church has responded by hiring members whose sole jobs are to transport some Latino missionaries from state to state because they can't fly due to their immigration status.

And last year, at least two Spanish-speaking LDS branch presidents were arrested and deported, highlighting the plight of immigrants within the faith.

Packard said those high profile deportations and the influx of new Hispanic members within the church helped with the recent passage of immigration bills in Utah that included an enforcement law modeled on Arizona's but balanced by a program that allows illegal immigrants to work and pay taxes in Utah if they register with the state.

Packard said she also was motivated to travel to Phoenix to campaign against the recently defeated former Arizona Sen. Russell Pearce, who authored Arizona's much debated immigration law. She and others also have helped organized other Latino Republicans to speak out against Romney.

Pablo Felix, a Spanish-speaking bishop of the Liahona Second Ward in Mesa, Ariz., was reluctant to criticize Romney but said the immigration stories in the Book of Mormon are powerful and one of the many factors that draw Latinos to the church and act on behalf of the faith.

Felix said he cannot be sure about his congregation, but he suspects some 60 to 70 percent of the members could be here illegally.

But Hispanic Mormons may have limited influence in Arizona's upcoming GOP primary and the general election this year. Garcia said that's because most are illegal immigrants and can't vote. Those who can, he said, lean toward moderate Democratic candidates.

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Follow Russell Contreras on twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras.

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GOP pushes back against any further cuts in nukes

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans on Wednesday vowed to block the Obama administration from sharply cutting the U.S. nuclear force, calling potential reductions of as much as 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons "reckless lunacy."

Pointing to the growing number of trouble spots, from Iran to Syria to Egypt, members of the House Armed Services Committee said any significant cuts would undermine the U.S. ability to deter aggression. The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that the administration is weighing several options for new reductions from the current treaty limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the committee that no decision has been made and maintaining the current level is one of the options. But that did little to assuage GOP lawmakers.

"I just want to go on record as saying that there are many of us that are going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that this preposterous notion does not gain any real traction," said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz.

The most modest option under discussion would return the United States to a level not seen in more than half a century, when the Soviet Union and the U.S. pushed ahead in a Cold War nuclear arms race. The administration is weighing at least three options for lower total numbers, cutting to around 1,000 to 1,100, 700 to 800, or 300 to 400.

Although Dempsey said maintaining the status quo is one option, further cuts are consistent with President Barack Obama's 2009 promise to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons and the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, which called for an "implementation study" by the Defense Department to review the nation's nuclear deterrence requirements with an eye toward further reductions in the size of the arsenal.

Last March, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said the administration was making preparations for the next round of nuclear reductions.

Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, complained that such a step would encourage other nations to advance their nuclear programs. Fearing Iran's nuclear ambitions, the United States and the international community have imposed tough sanctions on Tehran.

"If they see that we are going to come down from 1,500 to some number in the low to middle hundreds, it does nothing but encourage our enemies and discourage our friends," Thornberry said. "And the result of that is more nuclear weapons programs all across the world, which would seem to me to be something that we would not want to have happen."

Panetta said a number of options are being discussed but provided no specifics. He insisted any decision would be part of a treaty that would have to be ratified by the Senate.

"As you know, reductions that have been made, at least in this administration, have only been made as part of the START process and not outside of that process. And I would expect that that would be the same in the future," Panetta said.

Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, raised serious concerns about cuts of 80 percent. Franks called that "reckless lunacy." In a statement, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., accused Obama of "catering to his liberal base that believes that if we unilaterally disarm, the rest of the world will follow suit and threats to our national security will just go away."

Rose Gottemoeller, the State Department's top arms control official, told reporters Wednesday that although the administration is not yet ready to begin a new round of nuclear arms reduction negotiations with Russia, officials on both sides already are holding "serious discussions" on issues that should be settled before negotiations begin.

She said such discussions have begun, for example, on reaching a common understanding of which sets of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons should be included in the "strategic" category and which are "non-strategic." The difference is important because until now, U.S.-Russian nuclear arms negotiations have dealt only with strategic weapons, which traditionally are defined as those capable of reaching either the U.S. or Russian homeland. The Russians argue that U.S. nuclear weapons based in Europe should be included in the "strategic" category; the U.S. disagrees.

Panetta and Dempsey were pressed on the issue during their second day of congressional testimony on Obama's defense budget for 2013. Democrats and Republicans are resisting proposed cuts in the size of the Army and Marine Corps, cutbacks on shipbuilding, delays in the purchase of some fighter jets and weapons systems and another round of domestic base closings.

Overall, the budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 would provide $525.4 billion in base spending and another $88.5 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The total is nearly $32 billion less than this year's budget.

Panetta repeatedly reminded lawmakers that the cuts were dictated by the budget agreement reached by Obama and Congress last summer, a pact supported by the panel's chairman, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., and many other members of the committee.

"The bottom line here is we were handed a number for defense reductions. We stepped up to the plate, we met our obligations to try to do this in a way that would still preserve for us an effective force to deal with the threats," Panetta said.

Committee Republicans argued that Obama had called for $400 billion in reductions over 10 years last April, months before the deficit-cutting plan.

Looking at future budgets, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the panel's top Democrat, said that in reality the cuts are a reduction in projected spending.

"It's a decrease in the increase," Smith said.

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