Author: b_igi_adm1n

Six Italian scientists and a government official were sentenced to six years in jail on Monday for multiple manslaughter in a watershed ruling that found them guilty of underestimating the risks of a killer earthquake in 2009.

They were also ordered to pay more than nine million euros (almost $12 million) in damages to survivors in the devastated medieval town of L’Aquila in a case that has sparked outrage in the international science community.

Seismologists in Italy and beyond were horrified by the unprecedented sentence and argued that all science was being put on trial.

Under the Italian justice system, the seven remain free until they have exhausted two chances to appeal the verdict.

Prosecutor Fabio Picuti had asked for jail sentences of four years for each defendant for failing to alert the population of the walled medieval town to the risks, days before the 6.3-magnitude quake that killed 309 people.

“I am crestfallen, desperate. I thought I would be acquitted. I still don’t understand what I’m accused of,” said Enzo Boschi, who was the head of Italy’s national geophysics institute (INGV) at the time.

All seven defendants were members of the Major Risks Committee which met in L’Aquila on March 31, 2009 — six days before the quake devastated the region, tearing down houses and churches and leaving thousands of people homeless.

Picuti had slammed the experts for providing “an incomplete, inept, unsuitable and criminally mistaken” analysis, which reassured locals and led many to stay indoors when the first tremors hit.

“This is a historic sentence, above all for the victims,” said lawyer Wania della Vigna, who represents 11 plaintiffs, including the family of an Israeli student who died when a student residence collapsed on top of him.

“It also marks a step forward for the justice system and I hope it will lead to change, not only in Italy but across the world,” she said.

The bright blue classroom-sized temporary tribunal in L’Aquila — built on an industrial estate after the town’s historic court was flattened in the quake — was packed with lawyers, advisors and international media for the verdict.

Four of the defendants were in court, as well as a small group of survivors.

Aldo Scimia, whose mother was killed, welled up as the verdict was read out.

“We cannot call this a victory. It’s a tragedy, whatever way you look at it, it won’t bring our loved ones back,” he said.

“I continue to call this a massacre at the hand of the state, but at least now we hope that our children may live safer lives.”

A historic legal precedent

Some commentators had warned that any convictions would dissuade other experts from sharing their expertise for fear of legal retribution.

“We are deeply concerned. It’s not just seismology which has been put on trial but all science,” Charlotte Krawczyk, president of the seismology division at the European Geosciences Union (EGU)

President Barack Obama had the best lines, but perhaps Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney had the best night. Not in the sense that he won the debate – it was a draw if you have to judge these things that way. This final debate probably won’t shift the opinion polls, but it saw a marked change in emphasis in Mr Romney’s foreign policy.

Their debates now history, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney on Tuesday open a two-week sprint to Election Day powered by adrenaline, a boatload of campaign cash and a determination to reach Nov. 6 with no would-have, should-have regrets in their neck-and-neck fight to the finish.

From here, the candidates will vastly accelerate their travel, ad spending and grass-roots mobilizing in a race that’s likely to cost upward of $2 billion by the time it all ends.

All the focus now is on locking down support in the nine states whose electoral votes are still considered up for grabs: Colorado, Iowa, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin and Virginia. No surprise then, that Obama campaigns Tuesday in Florida and Ohio while Romney heads West to Nevada and Colorado.

Neither candidate scored a knockout punch in their third and last debate Monday, as both men reined in the confrontational sniping that had marked their last testy encounter. And though the stated topic this time was foreign policy, both kept circling back to their plans for strengthening the fragile U.S. economy — Job 1 to American voters.

Closing out their trio of debates, Obama concisely summed up this pivot point in Campaign 2012: “You’ve now heard three debates, months of campaigning and way too many TV commercials. And now you’ve got a choice.”

The president framed it as a choice between his own record of “real progress” and the “wrong and reckless” ideas of Romney.

Romney countered by sketching “two different paths” offered by the candidates, one of decline under Obama and one of brighter promise from himself.

“I know what it takes to get this country back,” he pledged.

With polls showing the race remains incredibly tight, first lady Michelle Obama made a prediction before the candidates left Florida that neither side would dispute: “This election will be closer than the last one — that’s the only guarantee.”

Obama made it look easy in 2008: He won 365 electoral votes to 173 for Republican John McCain. And he got 53 percent of the popular vote, to 46 percent for McCain.

With 270 electoral votes needed for victory, Obama at this point appears on track to win 237 while Romney appears to have 191. The other 110 are in the hotly contested battleground states.

The candidates’ strategies for getting to 270 are implicit in their itineraries for the next two weeks and in their spending on campaign ads.

Obama and his Democratic allies already have placed $47 million in ad spending across battlegrounds in the campaign’s final weeks, while Romney and the independent groups supporting his candidacy have purchased $53 million, significantly upping their buys in Florida, Ohio and Virginia. And both sides are expected to pad their totals.

After Obama and Vice President Joe Biden campaign together in Ohio on Tuesday, the president splits off on what his campaign is describing as a two-day “around-the-clock” blitz to six more battleground states. He’ll be in constant motion — making voter calls and sleeping aboard Air Force One as he flies overnight Wednesday from Nevada to Tampa, Fla.

The vice president is midway through a three-day tour of uber-battleground Ohio, and Obama’s team contends its best way of ensuring victory is a win there.

The campaign says internal polling gives Obama a lead in the Midwestern battleground state, in large part because of the popularity of the president’s bailout of the auto industry.

But even if Obama loses Ohio, his campaign sees another pathway to the presidency by nailing New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada and Colorado.

Romney and running mate Paul Ryan are picking up the pace of their campaigning as well, and their schedule reflects an overarching strategy to drive up GOP vote totals in areas already friendly to the Republican nominee.

The Denver suburbs. Cincinnati. Reno, Nev. They’re places that typically vote Republican, but where McCain fell short of the margins he needed to defeat Obama. To win in all-important Ohio, the GOP nominee must outperform McCain in typically Republican areas.

Romney and Ryan start their two-week dash in Henderson, Nev., then hopscotch to the Denver area for a rally with rocker-rapper Kid Rock and country music’s Rodney Atkins at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

Then Romney heads back to Nevada, on to Iowa and then east to Ohio for three overnights in a row. By week’s end, he’s likely to be back in Florida.

The following week brings a significant uptick in Romney’s schedule. Aides say he’ll touch down in two or three states a day, or hold that many daily events in big states like Florida.

Both candidates are done holding fundraisers — no doubt a happy thought for the two of them.