News Briefs

$8000 per gallon?

A Boston man has filed a class-action lawsuit against printer hardware manufacturer HP and the office supply retailer Staples. The lawsuit accuses the two companies of working together to raise the price in printer ink and subsequently break antitrust laws. The man said that HP paid Staples $200 million so that they would not sell cost effective, third-party ink cartridges. Ink makes up a significant portion of HP’s profits. The price that consumers pay for their ink can reach up to $8,000 per gallon. In order to maintain profits, companies like HP have used patents and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to stop third-party ink distributors. The companies have also used microchips on ink cartridges to block use of economical inks. To make things even worse, some printers misreport that they are low on ink when they are not.



35 mpg by 2020

President Bush signed an energy bill into law that will raise the fuel economy standards for cars to a corporate average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The bill also gives increased support for alternative fuels. The current standards, which were established in 1975, for fuel economy are 22.2 miles per gallon for light trucks and 27.5 miles per gallon for cars. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that Democrats will continue to push for a shift away from federal tax breaks on fossil-fuels and increase tax breaks on renewable resources. Representative Joe Barton, on the other hand, said that the bill would undo many of the things done to raise fossil fuel production in the energy bill passed in 2005.



No bowl game for several top Florida State players

At least 25 football players for Florida State have admitted to cheating on an exam for an online course. This means that they will not be going to the Music City Bowl on December 31. A part-time tutor was found to have given out answers to an exam while the players were taking it. An academic advisor was also found to have given answers on quizzes and even wrote papers for students. Over 600 students were enrolled in the course before the cheating scandal was discovered. The school will make no effort to fill the holes left in their lineup by the missing students.