10 facts about 10 new members of Congress

Which new member of the House is a former reindeer farmer? Who is the biggest new tea party name in the Senate? Here’s a look at 10 new members of Congress with unique backgrounds.

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The 113thCongress is sworn in on January 3, 2013, and it’s a diverse bunch.
There will be 90 new members of Congress to start the New Year, with 13 new senators and 67 representatives making their appearances in Washington.
The biggest names are in the Senate, with a superstar of the left and of the right getting top billing.
Elizabeth Warren defeated Scott Brown in Massachusetts in one of the most publicized races in 2012. Warren is seen as a new leader of the left, but the former Harvard Law professor was a Republican until 1995.
Ted Cruz is already being talked about as a 2016 presidential contender, even before he sets foot on the Senate floor. The Republican from Texas has tea party roots. He has also argued nine cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin is another high-profile name from the 2012 election making her Senate debut. Baldwin served 14 years in the House and is the first openly gay candidate elected to the Senate.
Maine’s new senator, Angus King, isn’t a Democrat or a Republican. King is a former governor who ran as an independent candidate in 2012. Since the 1980s, King has been involved with alternative energy products.
And Deb Fischer, the new senator for Nebraska, has a hands-on business background. She’s been in the ranching business since the 1970s, which could come in handy if votes need to be wrangled on the Senate floor.
The House has some interesting new members, including that professional reindeer farmer.
Kerry Bentivolio from Michigan is a newcomer to politics. Yes, he has reindeer and has worked as a Santa Claus portrayer, as well as a school teacher and engineer. He replaces Thaddeus McCotter in the House.
A better-known name is Joseph P. Kennedy III of Massachusetts. Just 32 years of age, Kennedy is the son of Joseph P. Kennedy II and the grandson of Robert Kennedy. He will represent Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District.
Florida’s Ted Yoho will represent the state’s 3rd District in Congress. Yoho’s career prior to politics was being a large-animal veterinarian. He used a grassroots campaign to defeat incumbent Cliff Stearns in a primary.
And there will be two doctors in the House–literally. Dr. Ami Bera will represent California’s 7th District. He is the former chief medical officer for Sacramento County. Raul Ruiz, also of California, has three graduate degrees from Harvard and has worked as an E.R. doctor in the past.

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Factbox: Key players in scramble to avoid U.S. "fiscal cliff"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The outcome of the "fiscal cliff" debate will be decided in four days, with just a handful of powerful leaders in Washington calling the shots, for better or for worse.
Here are some of the politicians and administration figures who are involved in trying to head off the tax increases and federal spending cuts that will take hold in January unless Congress acts, possibly pushing the economy into recession.
* Barack Obama, Democratic president: Reelected last month, the former Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois campaigned on the need to raise taxes on high-income Americans. He has insisted on this through the "fiscal cliff" negotiations with Republicans. But he offered them a compromise last week on setting the income threshold for tax increases at a higher level than he had initially sought. This offer was spurned.
* John Boehner, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives: Capitol Hill veteran from Ohio. Struggles to control conservative Republicans from the Tea Party movement. Walked out of talks with Obama last week and vowed that the House would pass its own plan to avoid the "fiscal cliff." That effort collapsed in disarray. Boehner adjourned the House for the holidays and has not returned. The House was expected to reconvene on Sunday.
* Joseph Biden, Democratic vice president: Played key role in forging the 2010 deal to extend Bush-era tax cuts for two years after the Republican takeover of the House.
* Max Baucus, Democratic U.S. senator from Montana: Powerful chairman of tax-focused Senate Finance Committee. Will cross party lines for a deal. May be vulnerable in a 2014 re-election race.
* Dave Camp, Republican U.S. representative from Michigan: Chairs tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee until 2014. Gets along with Baucus. Has a tax plan of his own.
* Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary: Expected to step down soon, he is the architect of the Obama administration's fiscal policy. Took steps this week to postpone the arrival until sometime in February of U.S. government borrowing limit.
* Orrin Hatch, U.S. senator from Utah: Top Republican on Senate Finance Committee. Conservative but has worked with Democrats.
* Mitch McConnell, top Senate Republican: Worked with Biden on extending Bush tax cuts in 2010. Up for re-election in 2014 and faces scrutiny of Tea Party faction at home in Kentucky.
* Grover Norquist, activist: Heads the Americans for Tax Reform group. Almost every Republican in Congress has signed his group's "no new taxes" pledge, but its power may be fading.
* Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic leader: California representative and Obama ally. Powerful among liberal Democrats.
* Harry Reid, Senate Democratic leader: Blunt Utah power-broker and dealmaker. Must balance liberal and conservative factions, with many fellow Democrats up for re-election in 2014.
* Paul Ryan, Republican vice presidential nominee in the 2012 election and House Budget committee chairman: Wisconsin representative known for controversial budget proposals.

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Curtain rises in 2013 on final act in soap opera over new arena for Oilers

EDMONTON - It started out as a sports arena but has become Edmonton's longest running soap opera.
A cost-shared deal between the hockey-mad city and the Edmonton Oilers to build a palatial downtown rink for the NHL team went from deal to no-deal to possible deal in 2012, with all sides now agreeing a final resolution — one way or the other — must come early in 2013.
It has been a series of setbacks and cliff-hangers enough to turn gung-ho glass-half-full Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel into a head-shaking fatalist.
"This is the last kick at the cat, more or less," said Mandel after the city and Oilers owner Daryl Katz agreed Dec. 12 to resume one last round of talks, with the help of a mediator.
"We'll see if anything happens from it.
"I'm not sure (of a solution) any more than I was before. I think there's a long row to hoe."
Local hockey fans can be excused for rolling their eyes following four years of fuzzy numbers, shifting statements, apologies, bluster, brinkmanship and revisionist history.
It was a deal everyone thought was done in October 2011, but it fell apart a year later when Katz demanded an extra $6 million a year from taxpayers along with a promise that the city ignore its own tendering rules and move its staff in as the anchor tenant in a proposed Katz office tower.
"It's wrong to hold us up for ransom," said Mandel on Oct. 17 when council formally voted to walk away from the deal to build the $478-million rink.
If the debate has become melodrama, then the mercurial, spectral Katz (pronounced CATES) is in the starring role.
The 51-year old pharmacy billionaire and owner of the Rexall chain of stores has been a polarizing figure since he bought the Oilers in 2008 and began stumping for a new downtown arena to replace aging Rexall Place, in the city's industrial north end.
The mop-topped magnate and philanthropist has been hard to pin down.
Interviews with journalists are rare and requests from many agencies, including The Canadian Press, have been rebuffed. Katz statements are largely restricted to email fan-outs or answers to sympathetic questions from a Katz staffer in broadcast interviews.
He has shown an understanding that celebrity is currency, carefully doling out biographical details in uncontextualized snippets, leaving fans to speculate about his true intentions, values and aims.
When he bought the Oilers in 2008, he cast himself as Katz the Visionary, the hometown boy who grew up an Oilers fan now handed a chance to give back.
"I don't know if I would have had the same enthusiasm (to buy the team) but for the opportunity to build a new arena and to revitalize downtown," Katz said at the time.
"Somebody had to step up."
When negotiations dragged on over the next three years, Katz cast himself as Gordon Gecko, moviedeom's pitiless Wall Street moneyman.
"Hockey is not philanthropy," he opined to The Globe and Mail in July 2012 in an interview beneath the nine-metre-tall windows of the living room in his mansion overlooking Edmonton's river valley.
"This is a business. Capital is portable."
As public opinion turned against Katz last fall as he asked for millions of dollars more from the public, Gordon Gecko was replaced by Katz the Crazy Dreamer, a put-upon family man just trying to help his community against his better business judgment.
"God knows I've spent enough money (on the arena project)," he told The Edmonton Journal in September.
"You know my wife thinks I'm nuts, OK?"
In the same interview he cast himself as Katz the Martyr, pilloried by critics despite rescuing the team from crisis, ruin and possible relocation.
"I bought the Oilers because the EIG (Edmonton Investors Group) was fractured and Edmonton's ability to keep the team was at risk," he said.
Reports at the time, however, described the chaos as more of a self-fulfilling prophecy after Katz made an escalating series of uninvited share offers that ultimately fractured the ownership group between those who wanted to cash in and those who wanted to stick it out.
Katz has also bounced between bluster and apology.
In late September, he threatened to move the team to Seattle, but then he later said sorry in newspaper ads after getting vitriolic blowback from fans on the Internet and in the media.
He has also demonstrated a tin ear for politics.
When city council demanded last fall that he appear before them in public to explain why he wanted millions of dollars more, he twice refused them and, for good measure, publicly scolded them for failing to show "political leadership."
At the next meeting on Oct. 17 — when the politicians canned the deal — councillor Jane Batty sarcastically thanked Mandel for finally showing "political leadership."
Both sides agree money is the stumbling block and have agreed to let a third party examine each side's financial projections.
It's still a fuzzy area because the Oilers, as per the norm with professional sports franchises, refuse to open their books.
The result has been a debate about numbers without the numbers. Independent forecasters estimate the Oilers are making millions of dollars a year. The Oilers say they're bleeding buckets of red ink.
Mandel said he still believes the Oilers are getting a good deal on the rink, which ultimately would cost more than $700 million when land costs and other related infrastructure kicked in.
Under the deal, taxpayers and ticket-buyers would build the facility. The city would own it and try to recoup the cost by extra property taxes from new office towers, restaurants and condos to be built up around the 18,400-seat facility.
In return, the Oilers would pay to run and maintain the facility for 35 years (estimated at $10 million a year) in addition to an annual $5.5-million payment to the city.
The team would keep all food and ticket revenue from Oiler games and other events at the arena for 11 months out of the year. Katz would also get naming rights (worth $1 million a year or more) and $2 million in advertising from the city for each of the first 10 years.
Katz says in recent months he has had a second look at the deal and insists it needs to be changed.
On Dec. 12, Katz negotiator John Karvellas told council there's no guarantee Alberta's petro-powered economy will stay strong, adding there's concern that out-of-towners may not want to drive downtown to a hockey game.
"We learned (from research) that the shine wears off a new arena in a hurry," said Karvellas.
He said while Oilers will no longer insist on a $6-million a year subsidy, any extra revenue from taxes should go into a fund for the team.
How is that not a subsidy? asked Counillor Amarjeet Sohi.
"I understand that if it walks like a duck, talk or quacks like a duck, then it's a duck, replied Karvellas.
"But I don't think this is a duck."
While the duck is debatable, there remains a $100-million elephant in the room.
Even if the two sides come to agreement, they still need to pry that nine-figure sum out of Premier Alison Redford's provincial government to fully fund the deal.
It's a problem that became more problematic in October when election documents showed Katz, his family, and business associates donated an eye-popping $430,000 to Redford's Progressive Conservatives in the spring 2012 election campaign.
Katz has never spoken about it. Redford maintains, as the Tory government has for years, that there will be no direct subsidy to the arena.
Karvellas, when asked about his contribution, said it was for good government, nothing more, nothing less.
Mandel is now trying to de-Katzify the debate, insisting the issue is not about personalities but about a new rink that all of northern Alberta can enjoy.
Redford's opponents, nevertheless, are poised to pounce on any perceived favouritism for Katz.
The NDP says the help has already begun.
Under provincial funding rules, health clinics can charge the province $10 for every flu shot. But in October NDP leader Brian Mason pointed out that new rules from Redford that kicked in after the election now allow pharmacies like Rexall to deliver the same flu shot at twice the price.
Critics say the $100-million shoe has yet to fall but have two words for taxpayers: Stay tuned.

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The 9 worst political gaffes of 2012

In an election season riddled with gaffes, flubs, and verbal miscues, here are the lowlights
The arguably most damaging verbal flub of the 2012 election season — Mitt Romney's covertly recorded comments to wealthy donors that 47 percent of Americans are government-addicted moochers — wasn't even a classic inadvertent gaffe: He meant to say it, and even revisited the theme after he lost the presidential race, griping that President Obama won re-election by handing out "gifts" to young, minority, and female voters. But gaffes of a more traditional nature played an unusually active role in the 2012 election — starting long before the calendar flipped to 2012 — helping define Romney as an out-of-touch plutocrat and Vice President Joe Biden as a buffoon, and very possibly costing Republicans control of the Senate. Here, nine of the most consequential political gaffes of 2012:
1. A key Romney adviser forecasts an "Etch-a-Sketch" moment
On March 21, just as Romney was on the verge of wrapping up the Republican nomination, top adviser Eric Fehnstrom went on CNN and seemed to celebrate Romney's reputation for opportunistic flip-flopping. Asked if the primaries hadn't pushed Romney too far to the Right, Fenhstrom answered: "Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again." The Etch-a-Sketch imagery haunted Romney the rest of the campaign (although he very skillfully did "shake it up and start all over again" in his first debate against Obama).
SEE MORE: Democrats hold the Senate: What it means

2. Senate hopeful Todd Akin mangles "legitimate rape" and biology
Republicans had justifiably high hopes of seizing control of the Senate in November, but the wheels started coming off on Aug. 19, when Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican facing vulnerable incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill (D), was asked about his opposition to all abortions, including those conducted after cases of rape. He memorably told the local TV interviewer that pregnancy from rape is "really rare," because "if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." His poll numbers sank and never recovered, and McCaskill won re-election.
SEE MORE: The failed 'war on women': 5 big election victories for women

3. Senate hopeful Richard Mourdock says rape babies are "what God intended"
After Akin's blunder, other Republicans with similar hardline view on abortion started getting the rape question. Richard Mourdock, who defeated shoo-in GOP incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar in Indiana's Republican primary, was so queried at an Oct. 23 debate against Democratic challenger Rep. Joe Donnelly. It didn't go well. Mourdock said that, after struggling with the rape-abortion question for a long time, "I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen." His slim lead disappeared in the polls, and, with it, any hope the GOP had of retaking the Senate. Donnelly won.
SEE MORE: Secession threats, aggravated assault, and more overreactions to the election [Updated]

4. Romney says he's "not concerned about the very poor"
The Republican presidential nominee had his own share of gaffes on the campaign trail, many of them tied to his seeming inability to artfully answer questions relating to his massive wealth. So his consultants must have been "gnashing their teeth," said Washington Monthly's Ed Kilgore, when in a Feb. 1 interview on CNN, Romney told Soledad O'Brien, "I'm not concerned about the very poor." He added, "we have a safety net" for the poor, and he wasn't worried about the very rich, either. Still, said Kilgore, presciently, "it's this tone-deafness that makes a lot of Republicans nervous about Mitt Romney as a general-election candidate."
SEE MORE: The multibillion-dollar 2012 election: By the numbers

5. Romney likes "being able to fire people"
On Jan. 9, as he was facing intra-Republican fire over job losses at companies taken over by his former company, Bain Capital, Romney chose an unfortunate way to describe his prescription for health insurance reform. Your insurer should be determined by your job, he said, so "if you don't like what they do, you could fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me." The "I like being able to fire people" part of that quote, combined with the satisfaction on his face when he said it, helped perpetuate an image of Romney as a heartless capitalist out of touch with average Americans.
SEE MORE: The funniest tweets from Election Night 2012

6. Joe Biden suggests Obama has "buried the middle class"
The vice president stuck his foot in his mouth, possibly admitted an awkward truth, and certainly did no favors to Obama at an Oct. 2 campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C. Explaining why Romney's plan to cut taxes on the rich would burden the middle class, Biden said: "How they can justify — how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that's been buried the last four years. How in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts?" The problem, of course, is that Obama has been president for most of the past four years. Coincidentally or not, Obama didn't win North Carolina.
SEE MORE: Recall-mania: Why American voters are increasingly eager to oust lawmakers

7. Romney trash-talks the London Olympics... in London
Romney's résumé includes an impressive stint turning around the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, but includes very little foreign-policy experience. To boost his international credentials, he visited some of America's closest allies — Britain, Israel, and Poland — during a week-long trip in July. Things got off to a rocky start in London when he unintentionally lobbed a number of minor insults at our former colonial overlords. The most damaging was his questioning of how prepared London was to host the summer Olympics, saying he saw several "disconcerting" signs. That earned him public rebukes from Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson, both Conservatives, and some pointed ribbing from Obama in the October debates.
SEE MORE: Is Puerto Rico on the verge of becoming the 51st state?

8. Obama tells Russia he'll have "more flexibility" after the election
The president wasn't entirely gaffe-free during the campaign. The indiscretion that haunted him the longest was a dreaded hot-mic comment he made to then–Russian President Dmitri Medvedev at a March 26 summit in South Korea. Obama and Medvedev — who was about to switch jobs with then–Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — were discussing a number of issues, including a U.S. missile defense plan to which Russia objects. "Give me space," Obama said, unaware his microphone was on. "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility" to deal with missile defense." Romney pounced, saying Obama is "telling us one thing and doing something else." He added, "I don't think he can recover from it." (He did, though Republicans brought it up for the rest of the campaign.)
SEE MORE: Virginia Senate race: First reactions to Democrat Tim Kaine's victory

9. Karl Rove challenges Fox's election-night math
This one isn't so much a gaffe as a general-purpose blunder. Rove, who became a Fox News commentator and Wall Street Journal columnist after George W. Bush's presidency, played a prominent role in Fox's 2012 election-night coverage. When the network's decision desk called Ohio for Obama, sealing his re-election, Rove disagreed passionately, arguing that it was too soon to call the state. This led host Megyn Kelly to walk down the hall to discuss the Ohio call with Fox's vote tabulators, and an embarrassing detour into partisanship for the GOP-leaning network. The dispute was a hit to Rove's stature and his pocketbook — Fox benched him after the election (at least for a spell).

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Best of 2012: The Year of Comedy, Citizens United, Health Care Competition, and Trolls

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Red lights illuminate Pennsylvania Avenue as the U.S. Capitol glows in the twilight, in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012, as talks continue on the looming fiscal cliff.
The Political Landscape is a weekly conversation with National Journal writers, editors, and outside experts on the news of the day.
2012 was a year of ineffable change domestically and abroad. At home: historic elections, a shifting demographic, evolving technologies, and tragic shootings. Abroad: political upheaval and unrest across the Middle East, changing U.S. military strategies, and the threat of a nuclear-capable Iran.
On this week's episode, we focus on the domestic issues covered by Political Landscape in 2012. We'll play back the highlights from some of the best interviews of the year. If you'd like to skip around to different topics, note the timestamps below. They represent when each topic comes up on this week's episode.
We investigated the impact of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision on the 2012 election. (2:20-6:58)
We examined Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's jobs plan. (6:58-11:07)
We dug into the advanced data-mining techniques used by both presidential campaigns. (11:07-15:47)
We explored the ways the presidential candidates were strategically using (or not using) comedic appearances to curry favor with voters. (32:08-35:49)
After Election Day, we spun the story forward.
We discussed the ramifications of results up and down the ballot. (15:47-20:57)
We talked about the coming changes for health care policy (20:57-26:20), net neutrality (26:20-32:08), and gun control.

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‘iPhone 5S’ could feature new ‘touch-on display’ technology

The display Apple (AAPL) uses in the iPhone 5 could be replaced as soon as this year. It has been reported that the panel’s in-cell touch technology, which allows for a thinner design by combining the touch sensor and display into one panel, has been causing interference problems with the touchscreen and is also part of the reason behind recent supply shortages. According to a report from The China Times, Apple intends to switch to a new technology for the “iPhone 5S” — possibly “touch-on display” tech from panel maker Chimei Innolux. The technology is said to be both thin and durable, and it will offer better touch sensing capabilities than the current in-cell display. A recent report suggested the iPhone 5S will launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes.

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APPLE’S Q1 IPHONE SALES MAY HIT 50 MILLION AS IPAD SALES CLIMB TO 24 MILLION

Shares of Apple (AAPL) are down more than 20% in the past three months from highs in the $700 range. Despite guiding for a record holiday quarter, Wall Street continues to be split on Apple’s future. Some analysts expect the company’s success to continue while othershave argued that “people overbelieved in Apple.” Rob Cihra of Evercore Partners thinks the company will report record sales on January 23rd when it posts its fourth quarter earnings results.

In a recent note to investors picked up by Apple Insider, the analyst estimated that Apple could report having sold 50 million iPhones in the fiscal first quarter, representing a 35% year-over-year increase and 86% growth from the previous quarter. He also believes the company may have sold 24 million iPads during the quarter, a 56% year-over-year increase and a 71% boost from the third quarter.

Cihra expects Apple’s tablet growth to be driven largely by the iPad mini, which he believes could account for as many as 10 million units. He notes that the smaller device is still seeing strong demand following its “booming launch.”

The strong growth of the iPhone and iPad won’t be matched by the company’s Mac line of computers, however, with sales estimated to have decreased 3% year-over-year with a mere 5 million units sold in the December quarter. The analyst attributed the low numbers to supply constraints regarding the new iMacs.

While Cihra believes the company’s December quarter will be massive, he notes that its rapid roll-out of the iPhone 5 could lead to production cuts in the March quarter, when sales are expected to drop to 39 million units. The analyst trimmed his price target on shares of Apple to $750, down from $775, although he maintained his Overweight rating and noted that his sales figures are “wholly conservative.”

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NY pension fund sues Qualcomm for political records

 New York State's $150-billion public pension fund has sued Qualcomm Inc., seeking to force the chipmaker to reveal its political spending, according to the state comptroller.
The suit was filed late on Wednesday in Delaware Court of Chancery, after Qualcomm refused the request by the New York State Common Retirement Fund -- a Qualcomm shareholder -- to inspect records detailing the use of corporate resources for political activities, said state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who oversees the fund.
"Without disclosure, there is no way to know whether corporate funds are being used in ways that go against shareholder interests," DiNapoli, a Democrat who is up for re-election in 2014, said in a statement.
The suit opens a new front in the fight over corporate political spending, which has risen dramatically since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in Citizens United.
That decision lifted restrictions on corporate political spending and led in part to an unprecedented $6 billion of spending on the recently held U.S. elections.
While other companies have agreed to increase their disclosure of political spending, Qualcomm has not, the lawsuit said.
A spokeswoman for San Diego, California-based Qualcomm said the company had no immediate comment.
The New York State fund, the third-biggest public pension plan in the United States, owns more than 6.1 million Qualcomm shares, which are valued at about $396 million, based on Thursday's share price. The stake represents 0.36 percent of outstanding Qualcomm shares and makes the fund the company's 52nd largest shareholder, according to Thomson Reuters data.
New York is Qualcomm's largest U.S. public pension fund shareholder. The California Public Employees Retirement System, the largest U.S. pension fund with $241 billion in assets, owns about 4.3 million Qualcomm shares.
Since at least August 2012, the pension fund has repeatedly attempted to get the information from Qualcomm, but the company has refused to divulge it, the suit claimed.
New York's pension fund is "concerned that it cannot determine whether senior executives and directors of Qualcomm are spending corporate resources to support their favored political candidates" or on causes that aren't focused on boosting shareholder value, the complaint said.
Other sources show that in 2012, Qualcomm spent more than $4.7 million on federal lobbying efforts, according to the complaint.
The precise total is not known, DiNapoli told Reuters.
"Qualcomm has been particularly resistant in terms of disclosure," he said.
"The real question is we don't know what kind of spending they're doing," he said. "We have the right to have access to books to see where the spending is going."
In 2010, the fund and a group of other institutional investors asked most of the 500 biggest U.S. companies to disclose contributions.
Over the past two years, the group filed 27 related shareholder resolutions seeking more transparency, reaching deals with 10 companies, the comptroller said.
WITH NOVEL APPROACH, SUCCESS UNCERTAIN
The suit is believed to be the first in Delaware, where Qualcomm and most major U.S. companies are incorporated, to use the state's books-and-records law to compel political spending disclosures, a DiNapoli spokesman said.
As an institutional investor, the fund could attempt to remove directors from Qualcomm's board or sue board members if they were found to have wasted assets, the complaint said.
DiNapoli's office previously asked Qualcomm to provide documents that identified the date, recipient and amount of each political expenditure the company has made since January 21, 2010, as well as documents detailing the company's expenses for trade associations and other tax-exempt groups.
DiNapoli's office also asked for minutes of board meetings during which political causes or candidates were discussed.
The case would be tough to win if New York State claims that shareholders are entitled broadly to all documentation about political spending, according to Larry Hamermesh, a professor at Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware.
"I can't see a court saying that is correct any more than what a company spends on business in China are a legitimate subject for shareholder inspections," he said.
Hamermesh said investors might gain access if they take a targeted approach such as seeking contributions to specific races or contributions approved by the CEO.
Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, said that if DiNapoli's legal team cannot point to evidence -- such as news reports that raised suspicions about the company's spending -- the lawsuit might not survive scrutiny by a judge who sees it as a fishing expedition,
But if it passes muster, the suit could become a model for other shareholders, Elson said.
DiNapoli's complaint said that studies indicate that corporate political spending is, in general, negatively correlated with enterprise value and can indicate widespread deficiencies in corporate governance.
Political donations can also backfire on corporations. For instance, Target Corp. in 2010 donated $150,000 to a political group that supported Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, who opposed same-sex marriage. The contribution sparked backlash and led Target to later apologize, the suit noted.

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6 takeaways from Google's antitrust settlement

Google Inc. has settled an U.S. antitrust probe that largely leaves its search practices alone. In a major win for Google, the Federal Trade Commission unanimously concluded that there is not enough evidence to support complaints from rivals that the company shows unfair bias in its search results toward its own products.
Below are six of the biggest takeaways from the decision announced Thursday:
— Google promised to license hundreds of important mobile device patents to rivals that make gadgets such as smartphones, tablets and gaming devices, on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms," the FTC said. Google got the patents as part of its $12.4 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility last year. The patents cover wireless connectivity and other Internet technologies.
— Upon receiving a request to do so, the online search leader pledged to stop using snippets of content from other websites, such as the reviews site Yelp Inc., in its search results. It had already scaled back this practice before the FTC settlement after a complaint from Yelp that triggered the FTC probe. Under the agreement, specialty websites such as those on shopping and travel can request that Google stop including such snippets in the search results, while still providing links to those websites.
— Google pledged to adjust its online advertising system so marketing campaigns can be more easily managed on rival networks. Some FTC officials had worried that Google's existing service terms with advertisers make that difficult.
— The FTC's unanimous conclusion that Google does not practice unfair "search bias" to promote its own properties against competitors is a major victory for the online search leader. It means it won't have to change its search formula, considered to be the company's crown jewel.
— Not everyone was happy with the results. FairSearch, a group whose members include rival Microsoft Corp., said the FTC's "inaction on the core question of search bias will only embolden Google to act more aggressively to misuse its monopoly power to harm other innovators."
— Next up, European regulators are expected to wrap up a similar investigation of Google's business practices in the coming weeks.

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The Milky Way Is Home to 100 Billion Scary Alien Planets

A new study published in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal presents evidence that approximately 100 billion "alien planets" — that is, astronomical objects determined to be orbiting a star — reside in the Milky Way, the galactic home of planet Earth. The Caltech astrophysicists who authored the study say their estimate is "conservative"; there could very well be 200 billion alien planets, many of them circling their stars' "temperate zone," a distance far enough from the star's heat (but not too far) for liquid water to exist naturally, like it does on Earth. One of the study's authors thinks the discovery will help "unlock" the mysterious process by which planets, and planetary systems, take shape:

"I usually try not to call things 'Rosetta stones,' but this is as close to a Rosetta stone as anything I've seen," said co-author John Johnson, also of Caltech. "It's like unlocking a language that we're trying to understand — the language of planet formation."

The study produced a number large enough to trigger a kind of existential anxiety, too:

"It's a staggering number, if you think about it," lead author Jonathan Swift, of Caltech in Pasadena, said in a statement. "Basically there's one of these planets per star.

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