Obama campaign releases ad emphasizing economy (The Arizona Republic)

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How Does UK Income Tax Work? | Business

Every person in the UK gets a certain amount of tax free allowance each tax year. This means that you don?t pay tax on this amount of your earnings. For the 2012/13 tax year which started on April 6th, the standard tax free allowance (also known as your personal allowance) is ?8,105.

If you earn less than this then you won?t pay any tax. You pay tax on anything above this amount and the percentage you pay will depend on your income level. This handy tax calculator is perfect for checking how much tax you will pay based on your income.

For an income level of ?0-?34,370 you would pay 20% tax on anything over ?8,105 ? this is known as the basic rate.

Higher rate tax is chargeable at 40% and is deducted on any earnings that fall between ?34,371 and ?150,000. This is in addition to the 20% payable between ?0 and ?34,370.

Additional rate tax is a whopping 50% and this is charged on any earnings over ?150,000. Again, this would be in addition to the higher and basic rate band deductions.

There are also a number of increases available to your personal allowance depending on age and circumstance. Here?s a quick breakdown of the extras:

• Aged 65-74. If you are between these ages, then your personal allowance rises from ?8,105 to ?10,500.
• Aged 75+. If you are over 75 then you get an extra increase of ?160 to ?10,660.
• Blind persons allowance. If you are registered as blind, then an additional ?2,100 is added to your total personal allowance amount.

Other tax free allowances are available for married couple over a certain age, and some people are exempt from making National Insurance contributions, which increases their net income.

There are of course exceptions to these income tax rules, which is why using an income tax calculator is a good way to check what your actual personal allowance is. If your income level is over ?100,000 (or over ?25,400 for people aged 65+) then your personal allowance can actually be decreased by ?1 for every ?2 over the limit you are.

Another thing to take into consideration when trying to work out your income tax, NI and net pay is whether or not you pay into a pension, have childcare vouchers through your employer, or earn enough to repay your student loan.

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Motion-Tracking Swivl Smartphone Dock Now Has A Cheaper Little Brother: The Swivl-it

The Swivl motion-tracking smartphone dock has always seems like a nifty piece of kit, but its $179 price tag doesn't exactly bring the device into "I can do something cool with this" impulse buy territory. Fear not, you penny-pinching video buffs -- the team at Satarii have just revealed that a more basic version called Swivl-it is now available, and it costs $50 less than its more feature-packed brother.

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Strassel: The 'Crucify Them' Presidency (WSJ)

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Microsoft SkyDrive impressions: a look at features and functionality

You may remember a certain, somewhat anticipated cloud service finally coming in to land in recent days. That wasn't the only news in nebular computing last week, however: perhaps in anticipation of Google's long-rumored Drive service, Microsoft made some updates to the Windows Phone app for its own offering, SkyDrive. This comes not long after the release of desktop SkyDrive applications for Windows and OSX, all suggesting that Redmond's hoping to cut itself as large a slice of the cloud-storage pie as it can, preferably while others are still taking their seats at the table. We spent some time with the latest quiver of tools from Microsoft, to see how they've progressed.

Gallery: Microsoft SkyDrive Impressions

Continue reading Microsoft SkyDrive impressions: a look at features and functionality

Microsoft SkyDrive impressions: a look at features and functionality originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 May 2012 11:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blind Chinese activist makes dramatic escape from house arrest

Chen Guangcheng is now sheltering in the US embassy.

Chen Guangcheng's blindness was a help and a hindrance as he made his way past the security cordon ringing his farmhouse.

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He knew the terrain ? he had explored his village in rural China as a blind child and moved as easily in darkness as in daylight. He was alert for the sounds of people, cars and the river he would have to cross.

But he stumbled scores of times, arriving bloody at a meeting point with a fellow dissident ? the first of an underground railroad of supporters who eventually escorted him to safety with U.S. diplomats.

RECOMMENDED: Six famous Chinese dissidents

A self-taught lawyer who angered authorities by exposing forced abortions, Chen is now presumed to be under U.S. protection, most likely in the fortress-like American Embassy in Beijing. Details of his improbable escape ? making his way last week through fields and forest, then being chased by security agents in Beijing ? are emerging in accounts from the activists who helped him.

Chen and his family had been harassed and kept under house arrest since the summer of 2005, except for a four-year period when Chen was jailed on charges of disrupting traffic and restrictions were eased on his wife and daughter. The couple's young son lives with his mother's sister.

After Chen's release in September 2010, the family was again placed under house arrest, their movements severely restricted, with even 6-year-old daughter Kesi subjected to searches when she came home from school. Chen and his wife, Yuan Weijing, were beaten several times.

The 41-year-old activist hatched his escape plan months ago with a simple idea ? he would just lie still, said Bob Fu, founder of the Texas-based rights group ChinaAid and one of a handful of people to speak to Chen since he fled his village.

For weeks on end, Chen stayed in bed, saying he was too feeble to rise.

In fact, Chen wasn't well; his stomach was bothering him as it had for years. But he exaggerated his condition to lull the guards into a sense of complacency.

The ruse worked. The guards didn't look in on him constantly, assuming he was still bedridden, and when he escaped under cover of darkness, it took three days for them to notice.

"He did a darn good job. ... He prepared for months, at least two months," Fu said. "He didn't really move much, just laying in bed and making the impression that he couldn't move."

The night was cool with just a sliver of crescent moon in the sky on April 22 when Chen slipped out of his farmhouse in eastern China's Shandong province. Blinded by fever as a child, Chen grew up exploring the nearby cornfields and dirt paths sightless, so he had his bearings.

It wasn't the first time he had run away from Dongshigu village and his bitter, nearly decade-long feud with local officials.

In 2005, Chen, his wife and a friend made a dash out of the village, running through a cornfield to evade guards. He and his friend got all the way to Beijing, where they met with diplomats and journalists, but his wife was captured. Days later, Chen was seized by security guards on the streets of the capital and returned to house arrest.

On that brief escape he had been helped by his sighted friend; this time Chen was alone.

He followed a path to a field and from there took a road he knew would lead him to a narrow river. After crossing it, he entered a wooded area that gave way to less familiar territory, ground that continually tripped him up. He fell at least 200 times, he would tell his supporters.

He walked for hours, trying to put as much distance between himself and his heavily guarded home as possible before daring to slip a battery into his mobile phone and call He Peirong, a Nanjing-based English teacher-turned-activist who had promised to help. She was waiting with a car.

When she finally found him, Chen was wet, covered in mud and blood, and had numerous cuts and bruises.

"He was in very unbelievable shape when he was picked up," said Fu, citing a conversation with He. Chen "was trembling, was physically weak. ... But he was determined to escape from that miserable condition."

Fu said Chen took a few days to recuperate before making a video appeal.

Uploaded to YouTube and Boxun.com five days after Chen's escape, it showed the blind activist wearing a Nike windbreaker and his trademark black sunglasses, looking relaxed and sounding strong. In it, he pleaded with Premier Wen Jiabao to punish the local authorities who had subjected Chen and his family to 20 months of house arrest, repeatedly beating them.

It was apparently taped in Beijing after He drove Chen north and handed him off to another activist, who brought him to the capital.

He herself was detained Friday by police. Hours before, she told The Associated Press she had been in contact with Chen's relatives, who told her that when the local village chief discovered Chen was gone, "he was furious."

They beat Chen's wife, his brother and his adult nephew, she said.

In Beijing, Chen was mainly aided by Guo Yushan, founder of a think tank set up in 2007 in the capital's university district.

He also met with prominent activists Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan, posing for smiling snapshots with the couple ? pictures they later posted to Twitter. They discussed Chen's plan, saying he wanted "justice and freedom," and insisted he had no intention of leaving China.

Zeng said he seemed thinner and his hair was grayer than she remembered it, but that he was full of conviction.

"He was very certain and very clear," Zeng said. "He wants justice for his case and his family and he doesn't want to go abroad, doesn't want exile."

Despite his desire to stay in China, Fu now says China and the U.S. are close to a deal that would see Chen and his family given asylum in the United States. It could be announced within days, he said Monday.

Several others besides Guo helped Chen in Beijing, but Zeng and Fu declined to name them for fear they would be rounded up by security agents.

He, the former schoolteacher, has not been heard from since her detention Friday; Guo was detained and released but did not respond to a request for an interview. Colleagues said it wasn't "convenient" for him to talk, suggesting he is under pressure from authorities to stay silent.

Zeng and her husband also were questioned, with Hu spending 24 hours in custody.

The only tidbit Fu dared to offer about Chen's experience in Beijing was that he was involved in a car chase by security officials while being driven by a fellow dissident. But the agents were after the driver and didn't even know Chen was in the car.

"If they had known Chen was there, they probably would have shut down all of Beijing's traffic," Fu said.

RECOMMENDED: Six famous Chinese dissidents

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Do wind farms actually cause climate change?

Instant Guide

posted on April 30, 2012, at 2:00 PM

A California wind farm at sunset: According to a new study, nighttime temps in the air above wind-powered turbines in Texas were 1.3 degrees warmer than in other parts of the state. Photo: Richard Hamilton Smith/CORBIS SEE ALL 56 PHOTOS

Here's a curveball on climate change: New research published in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests that large wind farms might have a warming effect on the local climate. Many countries are rapidly expanding their capacity to generate electricity using wind-driven turbines as they try to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases created by the burning of fossil fuels. But are wind farms contributing to the very problem they're supposed to help solve? Here, a brief guide:?

How much do wind farms heat up the air?
Researchers at the State University of New York at Albany looked at satellite data from 2003 to 2011 across a wide swath of West Texas, where four of the world's largest wind farms were built during that period. Night-time temperatures in the air above the wind-power facilities were 1.3 degrees higher than in other areas. "We attribute this warming primarily to wind farms," say the authors of the study.

What accounts for the warming?
Normally, temperatures drop after the sun sets, as cooler air settles on the ground. But windmills create turbulence that stirs up that chilly air, mixing it with a warmer layer on top and preventing temperatures from falling as much as they otherwise would. These findings confirm previous research in 2010 that found windmills can make nights warmer and days cooler in the area immediately around them.

So the problem is local, not global?
Yes. But wind farms cover more and more vast stretches of land every day. The world's wind-power capacity jumped 21 percent last year, and is expected to grow from 238 gigawatts of electricity at any one time to 500 gigawatts by the end of 2016 as more wind farms are built.

Is this really so bad?
It's certainly not as bad as man-made warming that prompted the push to use wind, solar, and other forms of green energy in the first place. But it's also not without its costs. Consider West Texas, which went from 111 windmills in 2003 to 2,358 in 2011. Rising temperatures risk compounding problems such as a brutal drought the region has experienced over the last few years, which could have devastating effects on agriculture.

What's the solution?
Researchers see two ways to prevent the phenomenon from doing much damage. One is reducing the size of windmill blades so they don't stir up the air as much. But of course, smaller turbine blades would generate less power. Another option is locating new wind farms in areas with considerable air turbulence so the windmills wouldn't do anything to thermal layers that Mother Nature isn't already doing herself.

Sources: Discovery News, Reuters, Telegraph

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