Most Recent Posts

NEW YORK (AP) — Online-streaming service Aereo Inc. is temporarily closing down its operation, three days after it was dealt an unfavorable ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"We have decided to pause our operations temporarily as we consult with the court and map out our next steps," Aereo's Chief Executive Officer Chet Kanojia wrote in a letter to customers posted on its website Saturday.

"The spectrum that the broadcasters use to transmit over the air programming belongs to the American public and we believe you should have the right to access that live programming whether your antenna sits on the roof of your home, on top of your television or in the cloud."

The Supreme Court dealt Aereo, backed by Barry Diller, a major setback on Wednesday in ruling that the television-over-the-Internet service operates much like a cable TV company. As a result, the service violates copyright law unless Aereo pays broadcasters licensing fees for offering TV stations to customers' tablets, phones and other gadgets.

But although the Supreme Court expressed its thinking on the law, it's the U.S. District Court in New York that must issue a preliminary injunction stopping the service, as requested by broadcasters.

There might not be much legislation traveling down Pennsylvania Avenue for President Obama to sign, but there's plenty of back and forth over the president's use of executive power to act when Congress doesn't.

Week's end found Obama dismissing a lawsuit threatened by Speaker John Boehner, who alleges the president is violating the Constitution by exercising this often controversial power.

"You know, the suit is a stunt," Obama told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an interview. "... The majority of the American people want to see immigration reform done. We had a bipartisan bill through the Senate, and you're going to squawk if I try to fix some parts of it administratively that are within my authority while you are not doing anything?"

Boehner's press secretary, Michael Steel, shot back: "The American people, their elected representatives, and the Supreme Court have all expressed serious concerns about the President's failure to follow the Constitution. Dismissing them with words like, 'smidgen' or 'stunt' only reinforces their frustration."

Stunt or not, there are three things we can say about Obama resorting to executive action and the GOP lawsuit to challenge them.

The lawsuit fires up each party's respective bases: Since early in Obama's presidency, conservatives have accused the president of frequently exceeding his constitutional authority, even acting tyrannically. Presidential actions to address or delay parts the Affordable Care Act or to stop deportations of young immigrants who had no say in being brought by their parents to the U.S., have especially outraged conservatives.

The coming House Republican lawsuit taps into that anger and extends the conservative narrative of extra-constitutional presidential action. (That narrative was also furthered by the Supreme Court's 9-0 decision that found certain of the president's recess appointments to be unconstitutional.)

The House lawsuit provides yet another talking point for Republicans during their mid-term re-election campaigns as well as a new element for fundraising pitches.

But the lawsuit energizes not just the Republican base but Democrats too. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said it had its best one-day of 2014 fundraising after Boehner announced, mid-week, that the House's intention to sue the president.

The public arguably supports executive actions: While the Republican base is fiercely opposed to Obama's executive actions, available polling suggests that Americans support the concept of a president acting unilaterally to achieve policy ends that can't be accomplished legislatively because of gridlock.

A 2011 poll commissioned by the Human Rights Campaign, for instance, found a majority of Americans across demographic groups supported the idea of an executive order to ban workplace discrimination against LGBT individuals. Earlier this June, the White House said Obama intended to sign such an executive order, which is now in the process being drafted.

Meanwhile, the president used executive actions during his first term, including his action to stop deportations and to provide work permits to certain young immigrants in the U.S. illegally and solidly won re-election after promising during the campaign to take action himself if Congress didn't come along.

Obama can point to such evidence of support as he and congressional Democrats continue to assert that executive action is better than doing nothing.

The House Republicans' lawsuit faces a reluctant judiciary: While the Supreme Court did step into the fight between the president and Senate Republicans over Obama's recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, giving conservatives a victory, the federal judiciary's larger tendency is to shy away from entering such inter-branch battles.

As court watcher Lyle Denniston explained in an informative post on the National Constitution Center's blog:

"Time after time, when members of Congress have sued in the courts, because the Executive Branch did something that they believe frustrated the will of Congress, they have been met at the door of the courthouse with a polite refusal to let them in. Failing to get their way in the skirmishing with the White House does not give members of Congress a right to take their grievance into court. Frustration does not make a real lawsuit, according to this notion."

NEW YORK (AP) — For the first time since researching her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Goldfinch," Donna Tartt is back in Las Vegas.

The occasion isn't work, but another literary honor as Tartt received this year's Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in fiction Saturday.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was the nonfiction winner for her book on the progressive era of the early 20th century, "The Bully Pulpit."

The medals each come with a $5,000 cash prize and were presented Saturday at the American Library Association's annual gathering in Las Vegas, where parts of "The Goldfinch" are set. The awards, founded in 2012, are managed by the library association and funded through a grant from the Carnegie Corp. of New York.

Tartt set some of "The Goldfinch" in Las Vegas, where a 13-year-old boy from New York City contends with his neglectful father. For Tartt, the award also helps uphold a family tradition: She is the niece and grandniece of librarians and as a teenager in Mississippi worked as a library aide. She wrote much of "The Goldfinch," which took a decade to complete, at the main branch of the New York Public Library.

"It took so long to write 'The Goldfinch' that I went through three different research librarians," Tartt said with a laugh during a recent telephone interview from her home in Virginia. She then recalled the importance of libraries during her childhood — whether it was the librarians who recommended books to her, or the books she recommended to patrons.

"You can really change someone's life by giving them the right book at the right time," she said. "All writers are readers before we write a word, so there's a kinship and it's very deep."

The Carnegie medal is also personal for Goodwin, who has vivid memories of borrowing books from her childhood library in Rockville Centre, New York, and reading them with her mother, who had rheumatic fever and was too weak to get books on her own. As with Tartt, libraries have been second homes for Goodwin throughout her career, from the research at the Library of Congress for "The Bully Pulpit" to her time at the Franklin Roosevelt presidential library in Hyde Park, New York, where she worked on her Pulitzer Prize-winning "No Ordinary Time."

"I loved how you had to leave your pocketbook outside and could only bring in a pencil," Goodwin said by telephone from her house in Concord, Massachusetts. "And then to have the chance to look through actual documents from World War II really made you feel you were back in that time."

Finalists for the Carnegie medal were Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Americah" and Edwidge Danticat's "Claire of the Sea Light" for fiction and Nicholas A. Basbanes' "On Paper" and Sherri Fink's "Five Days at Memorial" for nonfiction. Each author receives $1,500.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — With his family pedigree and a stout resume, Brendan Lemieux was sure he was a first-round pick.

One weekend into his NHL career, he already had first taste of disappointment when he was passed over on the first day of the draft. But he had a short wait on Saturday.

The Buffalo Sabres opened the second day of the draft by selecting the forward with the 31st overall pick.

"I expected to be a first-round pick and never even really looked at the second round," Lemieux said.

The Sabres are glad he was around. Lemieux is the son of former New Jersey Devils star and Stanley Cup champion Claude Lemieux.

Brendan Lemieux, who played for the Barrie Colts in the Ontario Hockey League, enjoyed comparisons to his father. In the weeks leading up to the draft, he said he took it as a compliment when teams said he reminded them of the player who won four Stanley Cups. He wears No. 21 because that was his father's number while playing junior hockey and he has also inherited the nickname "Pepe" from Claude.

Brendan Lemieux waited with each pick Friday night to hear his name called. He went home wondering why he would have to return to the Wells Fargo Center for rounds two through seven.

"I was one of those guys who was trying to figure out for a long time where I was going to go," he said. "Nobody really knew. I had no idea I would drop out of the first round, but I had no idea I was going to get picked this morning. I walked in the arena like 2 minutes before I was going to get picked."

Lemieux finished tied for third on Barrie with 53 points (27 goals) and led the club with 145 penalty minutes.

Lemieux was one of several offspring of former NHL players available in the draft. The Sabres selected center Sam Reinhart with the second overall pick. He is the son of former NHL player Paul Reinhart, who was selected by the Atlanta Flames in the first round in 1979.

The Florida Panthers selected defenseman Aaron Ekblad with the No. 1 overall pick Friday night. Lemieux and Ekblad were teammates at Barrie and expected to become linked again as first-round picks.

"Aaron knows how crushed I was last night that I didn't go," Lemieux said. "It was definitely a goal of mine to go in the first round, but I think he was really excited to see me go early today. Aaron is one of my best friends. He was my roommate. We're like brothers. I was really excited to see him go first yesterday. He definitely deserves it."

There was a run on goalies in the second round after none were selected in the first. Calgary selected Mason McDonald with the 34th overall pick. From there, goalies were the hot pick: Vancouver selected Thatcher Demko with the 36th pick, Carolina selected Alex Nedeljkovic at 37 and Washington drafted Vitek Vancek with the 39th pick.