News Briefs

Murderer drops lawsuit against victim

A Spanish man who sued the family of a teenage boy that he hit and killed with his car has dropped a lawsuit against them. In August 2004, Tomas Delgado hit and killed 17-year-old Enaitz Trinidad with his Audi A8 when he was riding home on his bike. Delgado then filed a lawsuit for $29,400 for damage done to his car in the collision. He insisted in interviews that he was a victim in the accident. Now, due to public pressure, he has decided to withdraw his lawsuit. According to authorities, Delgado was traveling 15 mph over the speed limit when he killed Trinidad. The lawyer for Delgado said he “felt that the extensive publicity amounted to a public lynching.” A local prosecutor is now looking into whether new charges can be brought against Delgado for putting Trinidad’s family through so much stress.

Internet broken in two continents

Large regions of the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa were without Internet on Thursday, which brought technology companies to a stand-still. It is not completely known what has caused the outage, but many experts are blaming damage to an undersea cable in the Mediterranean Sea. Countries such as Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar are all having severe issues. It is believed that a boat anchor tore the cable. Some countries have been forced to reroute their Internet traffic through satellites put in place for such an emergency. Another alternative some countries are considering is routing traffic through older, undamaged lines. Unfortunately, they have less capacity and will still cause Internet slowdowns.

“That’s no moon”

A large spy satellite is expected to fall from its orbit to somewhere in North America, according to General Gene Renuart, who is the head of the US Northern Command. The satellite lost power in February 2007 and no longer can control its orbit. Most satellites burn up upon reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, but the size of this satellite might mean that there will be an impact somewhere in Mexico, the U.S.A., or Canada. The U.S. military has put forth a contingency plan that would involve coordinating with Mexico or Canada if the satellite crashed in either of those countries. The satellite is approximately 173 miles above the Earth and is dropping around 1,640 feet each day.