TASK DEFINITION: Given a document, find the main entity about whom the author is writing. Write the full name if mentioned in the text. Note that URLs in the text have been replaced with [Link].
PROBLEM: Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller broke his own record this week for guilty pleas. On Tuesday  Dutch attorney Alex van der Zwaan appeared in federal court and admitted he had lied to investigators about his contacts with  Donald Trump's former campaign vice chairman  Rick Gates .
On Friday   Gates himself  appeared before a federal judge and confirmed that  he  is changing  his  plea to guilty.  He  had been fighting the case brought against  him  and the former Trump campaign chairman  Paul Manafort  which alleged they laundered millions of dollars and broke other laws related to their work for clients in Ukraine.
 Gates  and Manafort have not been charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. by "impairing  obstructing and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes." That was the charge Mueller leveled at 13 Russians and three Russian companies he says did interfere with the election.
Or the special counsel's office could be laying down one brick in a larger structure. At the very least   Gates'  future testimony against  his  longtime business partner raises the likelihood that Manafort could be convicted of some or all of the charges  he  continues fighting.
Manafort and his lawyers know this. So one of Mueller's strategies in getting  Gates  to turn state's evidence might be to persuade Manafort to do the same and tell what he knows about other people in the Trump campaign orbit.
Or evidence from  Gates  might be what the special counsel's office needs to build a case against Manafort for conspiring in the 2016 Russian interference effort. Or  after years of working with Manafort   Gates  might have other evidence that would permit Mueller to bring new charges against Manafort.
Mueller announced a new indictment in Manafort's case on Friday evening. After  Gates  appeared in federal court Friday to enter his plea  Manafort continued to maintain his innocence and said he remained committed "to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges contained in the indictments against me."

SOLUTION: Gates

PROBLEM: Hackers  concealed behind fanciful aliases on the Internet  often appropriate larger-than-life dimensions. In reality  other than in physical proportions  Sabu seemed considerably smaller than life. A defensive-lineman-size man known as Booby  he was raising the two young children of his imprisoned aunt in a public housing project. Court documents showed that Mr. Monsegur  28  paid bills with stolen credit cards and dabbled in drug sales.
 Mr. Monsegur’s  whereabouts are unknown  and  his  lawyers declined to comment.  His  background remains gauzy  but court records and interviews with relatives and neighbors offer an outline.
 He  was born in 1983.  His  father  also named Hector  Monsegur   was arrested in 1997 along with  his  sister  Iris  for selling heroin. Both went to prison for seven years.
While  his  father was locked up   Mr. Monsegur  apparently moved in with  his  grandmother  Irma  who lived in a sixth-floor apartment in the Jacob Riis Houses  a Lower East Side housing project.
School officials said  Mr. Monsegur  attended Washington Irving High School  but left in 2001 without finishing ninth grade. In the transcript of  his  guilty plea   Mr. Monsegur  said that  he  went to college  though it is unclear if  he  actually did.
After  his  release from prison in early 2003  Mr. Monsegur’s father found work with a sanitation company. The aunt  Iris  ran a credit repair company from her Staten Island home. Her involvement with drugs  however  continued. She was arrested again and returned to prison in 2010. By that point she had had two girls. They were entrusted to the care of  the younger Mr. Monsegur   and  he  gained legal custody of them.
Even after  his  aunt left prison last August  her children remained with  Mr. Monsegur .
 He  worked sporadically  including for a few months at OpenPlans  a nonprofit group that tries to improve government through technology.  His  profile on the networking site LinkedIn   which listed  him  as a senior systems administrator there  disappeared on Thursday. A former co-worker described  him  as friendly and competent.
 Mr. Monsegur  was active in computer and hacking circles as far back as the late 1990s  and started a group for local programmers in 2002. “My name is Xavier ”  he  announced  inviting others to join and “integrate their knowledge into one big mass of hairy information.”
 He  soon came to embrace strong antigovernment and anticapitalist ideologies that steered  him  into the hacking world.
In what was identified as a question-and-answer interview with Sabu published in New Scientist magazine last year   he  said that  he  became a hacktivist when  he  was 16.  He  said  he  became disturbed that the Navy was using Vieques Island in Puerto Rico as a bombing range for exercises  and that  he  helped disrupt communications. In 2010   he  said in the interview   he  was drawn to Anonymous   a leaderless  antiauthoritarian movement that has taken up a variety of political causes. The catalyst   he  said  was  his  outrage over the arrest of Julian Assange   founder of WikiLeaks   the whistle-blower site.
In particular   he  became a leader of a splinter group  Lulz Security  or LulzSec  which claimed to attack computer security companies for laughs  or lulz  rather than for financial gain.
Describing  himself    he  said in the interview  “I’m not some cape-wearing hero  nor am I some supervillain trying to bring down the good guys. I’m just doing what I know how to do  and that is counter abuse.” For his online handle he chose Sabu  adopted from a former professional wrestler.
In 2010 and 2011  according to court documents   Mr. Monsegur  participated in a relentless string of online attacks against companies and governments. Targets included Visa  MasterCard   PayPal and Sony .  He  also played a role in attacks on computers belonging to the governments of Tunisia   Yemen   Algeria and Zimbabwe  as well as those of the United States Senate .
Though he was self-taught   Mr. Monsegur  was probably among the most skilled technologists in the bunch. As the “rooter ” federal authorities say   he  was in charge of identifying vulnerabilities of LulzSec targets and creating the attack strategy.
Copies of LulzSec chat logs posted online show that  he  was sometimes wary of getting caught. In one discussion   he  is irate at  his  fellow hackers for revealing the name of a site used in an attack  because it could expose  his  computer’s location. Another participant is deferential: “Mm  okay  ill not say anything further without conferring with you.”

SOLUTION: Monsegur

PROBLEM: 7:35: One moment in particular from Taraji P. Hensonâs red carpet interview with  Ryan Seacrest  is prompting some thinking-face emojis.
 She  then lightly grabs his chin and squints at  Seacrest   âYou know what I mean?â
âI agree â a grinning  Seacrest  responds.
What the clip doesnât show is what  Seacrest  and Henson were chatting about and what happened after. The two were talking about Mary J. Blige â Henson is introducing Bligeâs song during the ceremony.
âShe is having such an amazing year  she exudes it â Henson said  before telling  Seacrest  about karma. After that comment  the actress gushes more about Blige.  Seacrest  gives Henson a compliment. The actress then gives  Seacrest  a big hug.
7:17: E! has taken a lot of flak for keeping  Ryan Seacrest  on the red carpet despite the sexual harassment allegation against him  which he has denied. But the network made sure to bring up the Timeâs Up movement.
When  Ryan Seacrest  asked  her  how  she  feels about getting a nod for  her  song âMighty River â  she  said  âIt means so much because this is what Iâve been doing for 25 years  and for the Oscars to recognize me as a songwriter  itâs the cherry on top of a 25-year music business cake.â
Blige also gave some additional love to  Seacrest   gushing to him about how much  she  enjoys watching âLive with Ryan and Kelly.â âI love yâall  you have so much fun together.â
6:45: Rita Moreno arrived at the Oscars wearing the same dress she wore when she won an Academy Award for best supporting actress in 1962 for âWest Side Story.â  Seacrest  was shocked it looked so good  considering some of his clothes look terrible after a year or two. (Thatâs sort of an awkward admission considering he usually wears his own label on the red carpet.)
 Seacrest  and Moreno reminisced about  her  big win all those years ago  and the E! host wondered why  she  kept  her  acceptance speech so short â  she  spoke for only 15 seconds.
It turns out  she  had no idea  she  was going to win.  She  was sure Judy Garland had the category on lock. The dress was made in the Philippines  which is where Moreno was shooting a movie at the time.  She  decided to fly in just in case   she  said. Good thing  she  did.
6:37: Bradley Whitford is the kind of guy who might make an off-the-cuff statement  but he kept things innocuous during his question-and-answer session with  Ryan Seacrest . Whitford appeared with âGet Outâ co-stars Lil Rel Howery and Betty Gabriel and stayed on topic  strictly talking about the movie.
6:25: Andy Serkis  who plays bad guy Ulysses Klaue in âBlack Panther â told  Ryan Seacrest  that the Marvel movie is resonating with so many people because âit is literally about building bridges  not walls. Thatâs what is contained in the story.â
6:06: Gael GarcÃ­a Bernal  set to join Natalia Lafourcade and Miguel in performing the nominated song âRemember Meâ from the animated film âCoco â told  Ryan Seacrest  that best director nominee Guillermo del Toro was an early influence in his career.
[ Ryan Seacrestâs Oscars red carpet pretended that sexual harassment doesnât exist ]
5:45:  Ryan Seacrest  returned to co-host E!âs red carpet special a week after his former stylist  Suzie Hardy  publicly accused the former E! News anchor of sexual misconduct.  Seacrest  has denied the allegations and E! says an investigation has cleared him. He started the night slow with smaller interviews â Miguel and Diane Warren  both of whom worked on nominated original songs â and went on to speak with a number of male acting nominees.

SOLUTION:
Ryan Seacrest