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House Speaker John Boehner, under fire from conservatives over a looming government shut down, said Friday he will resign from Congress at the end of October. "Prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable damage to the institution," he said.
In an afternoon news conference, Boehner became emotional when expressing gratitude to his family and constituents, and said he was proud of what he's accomplished.
However, Boehner said he plans to get as much work done as he can on outstanding fiscal issues before he leaves Congress at the end of October.
He said although he doesn't know what he will do in the future, "I know this, I'm doing this for the right reasons and you know what, the right things will happen as a result."
Boehner, 65, told House Republicans of his decision earlier in the morning. Later, he left a meeting and answered a reporter's shouted question about how he felt with, "It's a wonderful day."
President Barack Obama said he was taken by surprise by Boehner's decision, adding that he called the Republican leader after hearing the news.
"John Boehner is a good man. He is a patriot. He cares deeply about the House, an institution in which he has served for a long time. He cares about his constituents and he cares about America," Obama told reporters at a joint press conference with China's president.
"We have obviously had a lot of disagreements, and politically we're at different ends of the spectrum, but I will tell you he has always conducted himself with courtesy and civility with me," Obama said.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California will likely be Boehner's successor, political observers told CNBC. Boehner said that although the choice of the next speaker is up to members of Congress, he thinks McCarthy would make an "excellent speaker."
In a statement, McCarthy praised Boehner for a "depth of character [that] is unmatched," and said he will be missed.
"Now is the time for our conference to focus on healing and unifying to face the challenges ahead and always do what is best for the American people," McCarthy said.
Republicans cheered loudly when GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio announced the news.
"It's not about him or anybody else, and I'm not here to bash anyone, but the time has come to turn the page—the time has come to turn the page and allow a new generation of leadership in this country," the Florida senator said.
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John Boehner
Boehner, who was elected in 1990, said he had planned to serve only through the end of 2014 but Majority Leader Eric Cantor's loss last year had changed that calculation.
The news came a day after the Ohio Republican shed tears while sitting behind Pope Francis as the pontiff addressed a joint meeting of Congress.
"Speaker Boehner believes that the first job of any speaker is to protect this institution and, as we saw yesterday with the Holy Father, it is the one thing that unites and inspires us all," the aide said. "The speaker believes putting members through prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable damage to the institution."
In a late morning statement, Boehner confirmed his plans hours after the initial report of his resignation sent shock waves through Washington.
A disaster in the making: 95% of ATMs still run Windows XP
As we’ve mentioned multiple times, now is really the time to upgrade from Windows XP if you haven’t done so already. Even though Microsoft will extend support for its Windows XP security products through July 2015, the company has warned that “the effectiveness of antimalware solutions on out-of-support operating systems is limited.” Bloomberg Businessweek reports that some of the most important machines that desperately need to upgrade from Windows XP are ATMs, of which an estimated 95% still run on Microsoft’s older operating system.
There’s some good news and bad news about this. On the plus side, Bloomberg Businessweek says that the more advanced fleets of ATMs should be able to upgrade their machines to a newer version of Windows through their network. Older ATMs, however, will still have to have a new version of Windows installed one by one, which means that technicians will be making lots of trips to different convenience stores this spring to make sure upgrades are going as planned.
“My bank operates an ATM that looks like it must be 20 years old, and there’s no way that it can support Windows 7,” Suzanne Cluckey, the editor of trade publication ATM Marketplace, tells Bloomberg Businessweek. “A lot of ATMs will have to either have their components upgraded or be discarded altogether and sold into the aftermarket—or just junked.”
Taliban Calls Kabul Cafe Attack Retaliation for a Strike That Killed Civilians
KABUL,
Afghanistan — The Taliban claimed responsibility on Saturday for an
attack the day before on a popular Kabul cafe that killed 21 people,
mostly Western civilians, saying it was in retaliation for a coalition airstrike on Wednesday in which a number of Afghan civilians had died in a village north of Kabul.
In
their statement, the Taliban said they picked a restaurant frequented
by “high-ranking foreigners” where alcohol was served. The attack, one
of the most significant on Western civilians since the start of the war
in 2001, struck at the heart of one of Kabul’s most secure districts,
very close to many embassies and coalition military bases.
Western
officials questioned the Taliban’s stated motive for the coordinated
attack, which occurred just two days after the airstrike and would have
required extensive planning. A suicide bomber cleared a path for two
gunmen who stormed in and fired on diners, the police said.
The
dead included the representative of the International Monetary Fund in
Afghanistan, the United Nations’ senior political affairs officer here
and a British Labour Party candidate for the European Parliament who had
been working in Afghanistan. Two Americans working at the American
University in Afghanistan were also killed in the attack, the university
said in a statement on Saturday.
“The
attack was in retaliation to the massacre carried out by foreign
invaders two days earlier in Parwan Province’s Siyah Gerd district,
where the enemy airstrikes destroyed up to 10 homes, razed several
orchards as well as killing and wounding up to 30 innocent civilians,
mostly defenseless women and children,” the Taliban statement said.
The
international coalition, the United Nations, diplomats and Afghans
quickly offered condolences and condemnations over both attacks. Later,
President Hamid Karzai, whose relationship with the Americans has been
strained in recent months by negotiations over a long-term security
contract, expressed sympathy for the victims of the cafe attack but also
seemed to use the airstrike to criticize his NATO allies over the issue
of civilian casualties.
“The
war on terror will bear fruit when victims and terrorists are
distinguished from each other and the elements of terror are fought
against,” said Mr. Karzai, who appointed a committee to investigate the
civilian casualties from the airstrike. “If NATO, led by the United
States, wants to be the Afghan people’s ally, they should target
terrorism.”
An
American military official said that the airstrike had been called in
by Afghan and American forces who were under fire from Taliban fighters.
“The operation was requested by the Afghans and approved by the
Afghans,” the official said.
“More
than 80 percent of Afghan civilian casualties are caused — in most
cases intentionally — by Taliban, Haqqani and other terrorist and
insurgent groups,” the official added.
The
Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the Afghan police, suspended
the commander and intelligence officer in charge of the district where
the restaurant is and placed them under investigation.
Kabul
appeared to return to normal on Saturday, with a slightly heavier
police presence visible along its traffic-choked streets, especially
near where the cafe attack occurred. While bombings are not uncommon in
Kabul, the extent of the damage and the targeting of Western civilians
raised alarms.
Some
international organizations tightened security, clamping down on the
modest freedom of movement enjoyed by foreigners working in Kabul.
United Nations officials, meeting privately, vowed not to adopt a
“bunker mentality” in response to the attacks, which claimed the lives
of four of its personnel, including two from the United Nations
Children’s Fund.
Apparently
the only people who escaped the cafe attack were local employees of the
restaurant, some of whom jumped off the roof of the building and into a
neighbor’s yard.
The
chief political affairs officer for the United Nations in Afghanistan,
Vadim Nazarov, a longtime official with the agency, was killed in the
attack, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity
because the information had not yet been made public. Mr. Nazarov, a
Russian, was highly regarded for his years spent here and his
understanding of Afghan politics.
The International Monetary Fund said
its representative in Afghanistan, Wabel Abdallah, was also among those
killed. Mr. Abdallah, 60, had served here since 2008 and had managed to
forge a good working relationship with Afghan officials despite a
series of scandals that left many Western officials at odds with their Afghan counterparts.
The
Taliban also claimed to have killed a high-ranking German official, but
the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin, reached Saturday, said it could
not yet confirm that report.
Senior
officials at the American University in Afghanistan reviewed security
procedures on Saturday, but decided to proceed with scheduled student
orientation and academic activities.
“That’s how our colleagues would have wanted it,” said Timor Saffary, the school’s chief academic officer.
One
American killed in the attack had recently joined the political science
faculty at the university, while the other worked in student affairs,
according to the university’s statement.
The
attack on the lightly guarded restaurant was a departure for the
Taliban, who have historically singled out heavily fortified government
compounds and high-profile symbols of the Western presence in
Afghanistan, like the American Embassy and a building believed to house the Central Intelligence Agency station in Kabul.
Those
attacks, while generating news media attention, have often been far
less successful in generating heavy casualties. Typically, Afghan
civilians who happen to be in the vicinity are the victims. A Taliban bombing this month at the entrance to Camp Eggers,
a large base for the American-led military coalition in the center of
Kabul, did not inflict any casualties, for instance. The base is less
than a mile from the restaurant that was attacked.
The
restaurant, which serves Lebanese food and has a clientele made up
largely of expatriates, had almost none of the security measures
employed by official installations, like concrete blast walls or
checkpoints. It is also one of the few establishments in the city that
has been approved by a number of international agencies.
Google goes after your eyes (but this time, not with ads)
Google on Thursday unveiled a new Google X moon shot project that’s supposed to help patients diagnosed with diabetes better measure and manage blood sugar levels – a smart contact lens that can test tears and alert the wearer, potentially with help of a LED light. The contact lens, which still has many obstacles to overcome until it becomes a product available to potential buyers, packs “chips and sensors so small they look like bits of glitter, and an antenna thinner than a human hair.”
At this time, it’s not clear how the lens will connect to other smart devices such as smartphones and tablets to transmit recorded data, or whether this will indeed be a feature. According to Re/code, Google isn’t interested in connecting the lens to Google Glass, at least for now, and the smart contact lens project is separate from the Google Glass product. Even so, Glass project founder Babak Parviz also advises the contact lens team.
Google doesn’t want to manufacture and sell the product by itself though. Instead, it’s looking for partners to help in this endeavor. At the same time, the company is also talking to the FDA about it – in December when the two parties met, it was speculated that Google wanted to talk about Google Glass with the regulator.
google-smart-contact-lens-2
Before the smart contact lens becomes official, Google will also have to determine whether measuring tear fluid is actually relevant for blood sugar levels. The company is working with the Diabetes Research Institute at Mills-Peninsula Health Services on a clinical study on the matter. Dr. David Klonoff, medical directory of the institute, told the publication the data he seen so far is “optimistic,” although no results have been officially reported.
In addition to Google, other companies are trying to determine glucose levels in diabetes patients by using different means than the traditional daily blood drop tests, including testing saliva and exhaled breath or using infrared light on the earlobe. However, neither technique has received FDA approval yet, therefore such products aren’t available commercially.
With 380 million people worldwide diagnosed with diabetes — and with that number expected to top 590 million by 2035 — Google’s smart contact lens is certainly an interesting idea. Let’s just hope future users won’t have to sign into Google+ to receive blood sugar reports.
