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Barcelona aren’t unfamiliar with the odd wonder goal, given the likes of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Lionel Messi and Neymar have dazzled the Nou Camp over the last two decades, but when something special happens inside the club’s youth team, it’s worth taking notice. That’s exactly what happened on Wednesday when Barcelona Under-19s defeated Borussia Dortmund Under-19s 4-1 in the Uefa Youth League, where young 17-year-old Jordi Mboula made a name for himself by scoring a goal that even Messi would be proud of. Watch the video below... Barcelona’s youth team were cruising through the last-16 tie after goals from Carles Perez, Abel Ruiz and Seungwoo Lee came after Dortmund took a surprise lead just six minutes into the tie through Dominik Wanner. However, the icing on the cake would be applied by Mboula, whose wonder goal quickly went viral on social media. Picking the ball up on halfway next to the right sideline, he fainted inside before spinning past the first defender and beating him for pace on the outside. As he reached the box, Mboula had two defenders now in his way, yet he negotiated them with ease by flicking the ball off the inside of his right foot onto his left and nipping through the smallest of gaps between the pair. Jordi Mboula picked the ball up near the halfway line and out on the right wing (Barca TV) Mboula turned the first defender inside out (Barca TV) The 17-year-old then showed his pace to pull away from the Dortmund man (Barca TV) The winger was faced with trying to beat two defenders (Barca TV) In the blink of an eye, Mboula was past both defenders and through on goal (Barca TV) Mboula slots the ball past the goalkeeper with ease (Barca TV) Left with the goalkeeper to beat, he calmly slots the ball past Eike Bansen and turns away to celebrate, leaving the Dortmund defenders left staring in despair and at a loss at how to stop the teenager. Watch the video below...

"Uptake of Azo Dyes into Silk Glands for Production of Colored Silk Cocoons Using a Green Feeding Approach" ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering For some 5,000 years, cultivated silkworms have been spinning luxurious white silk fibers destined for use in the finest clothing. But current dyeing practices produce wastewater that contains potentially harmful toxins, so scientists are turning to a new, “greener” dyeing method in which they coax already-colored fibers from the caterpillars by feeding them dyed leaves. Their findings are published in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. Anuya Nisal, Kanika Trivedy and colleagues point out that dyeing textile fabrics is one of today’s most polluting industries. The process requires huge quantities of water for bleaching, washing and rinsing, and it results in a stream of harmful wastewater that needs to be treated effectively before release into the environment. To make the industry greener and more environmentally friendly, researchers have been developing less toxic methods, including feeding dyed leaves to silkworms so they spin colored — rather than white — cocoons. But so far, this technique has only been tested with one type of dye, which is too pricey for large-scale production. Thus, the team turned to azo dyes, which are inexpensive and account for more than half of the textile dyes used today. They dipped or sprayed mulberry leaves, the silkworm’s food of choice, with azo dyes to see which ones, when consumed, would transfer to the silk. Of the seven dyes they tested, three were incorporated into the caterpillars’ silk, and none seemed to affect the worms’ growth. The scientists noticed that certain dye traits, such as the ability to dissolve in water, affected how well the dye worked. “These insights are extremely important in development of novel dye molecules that can be successfully used in this green method of producing colored silk fabrics,” they conclude. The authors cite funding from the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, and the Central Sericultural Research and Training Institute, Mysore.

This episode leaves us with many more Lex Luthor questions than it answers. Where did he get is Iron Man-esque suit? Is that how he could lift the Daily Planet logo – and why did he have to look so very dumb doing it? Why was Lex writing in what looked like Kryptonian at his trial? Going by the trial alone, it seemed like Lex would be a more natural ally of Ben Lockwood. I’m curious to see what comes of Mikhail as a result of Otis’s mercy and sound advice vis a vis bald men. How will she react when she finds out he’s alive and sees his deception? Frankly, I was expecting that discovering the true identity of Alex would make a bigger impact on her, and that perhaps learning more about Lena and Supergirl’s motivations would be kept for later, as a way to eventually turn her. The Harun-el has similarly been deployed a bit sporadically. This episode posits that it has been an animating force behind the entire last season in a way that feels less like a revelation and more like confusion. Since when? Why? To what end? It has been a presence, but it feels awfully late in the game for it to gain this much importance. This speaks to the larger issue Supergirl has had breaking the plot for their last couple of seasons as a whole. While there are plenty of stand-out episodes and even great runs of two, three, or four in a cluster, taken as a whole it’s a bit of a jumble, especially in the home stretch. The House of L has a lot of style but ultimately little substance. Lex scores some excellent moments, but one of this universe’s greatest villains deserves more than such a thin plot to support his entrée into the series. His character has been written with such panache but so little purposeful connection to the rest of the show that Supergirl threatens to collapse under the weight of Lex Luthor’s presence.

»Det er meget trist og ærgerligt. Det er skidt for vores samfund.« Sådan lyder det fra Ahmed Dhaqane, 50 år og byrådsmedlem for Socialdemokratiet i Rødovre Kommune og tidligere formand for Somalisk Forening i København. Hans reaktion kommer, efter B.T. torsdag dokumenterede, at Ahmed Dhaqanes somaliske landsmænd er den udenlandske nationalitet, som de seneste fem år har begået mest personfarlig kriminalitet - drab, drabsforsøg, vold og røverier - i Danmark. Ahmed Dhaqane kom til Danmark i 1994 som følge af den blodige borgerkrig i Somalia. Ahmed Dhaqane, byrådspolitiker i Rødovre med somalisk baggrund, er dybt bekymret for den høje kriminalitet blandt sine landsmænd. Foto: Linda Kastrup Vis mere Ahmed Dhaqane, byrådspolitiker i Rødovre med somalisk baggrund, er dybt bekymret for den høje kriminalitet blandt sine landsmænd. Foto: Linda Kastrup I dag – 25 år senere – bliver han med egne ord 'hele tiden' kontaktet af desperate og magtesløse somaliske forældre, der ikke formår at holde deres drenge væk fra gaden og en kriminel løbebane, der for nogle leder direkte hen til det hårdkogte bandemiljø. »De seneste to-tre år er somaliske drenge og unge mænd kommet ind i bandemiljøet. For tre år siden var der stort set ingen somaliere i banderne.« »De er kommet ud med nederlag fra skolen, og de har måske allerede pletter på straffeattesten. Men de har brug for en slags indtægt,« siger Ahmed Dhaqane og fortsætter: »Så står der en bandeleder klar og siger: 'Hvis du kan gøre det her for mig, så får du nogle penge'.« Top-10: Domme for røveri Antal fældende afgørelser – dvs. straffe som fængsel og bøder – fordelt på nationalitet i perioden 1. januar 2014 til 3. november 2018. Somalia: 169 Irak: 120 Tyrkiet: 90 Rumænien: 81 Afghanistan: 55 Marokko: 52 Sverige: 45 Polen: 39 Statsløs: 35 Syrien: 35 Kilde: B.T.s beregninger på baggrund af justitsministerens svar til Retsudvalget 23. november 2018. »Vi taler i det somaliske miljø meget om, hvordan vi kan bekæmpe, at bandemiljøet spreder sig til det somaliske miljø. Jeg har selv kendskab til nogle drenge, som droppede ud af skolen for fem-seks år siden. I dag er de i bandemiljøet.« Tallene taler deres eget sprog. I perioden 1. januar 2014 til 3. november 2018 er somaliere i Danmark straffet 26 gange for drab eller drabsforsøg, 916 gange for vold og 169 gange for røveri. Det viser en opgørelse fra politiets database Polsas i et svar til Folketingets Retsudvalg i november 2018, som B.T. har databehandlet. Top-10: Domme for drab, drabsforsøg Antal fældende afgørelser – dvs. straffe som fængsel og bøder – fordelt på nationalitet i perioden 1. januar 2014 til 3. november 2018. Tyrkiet: 39 Somalia: 26 Irak: 22 Afghanistan: 21 Grønland: 21 Iran: 21 Syrien: 19 Polen: 18 Statsløs: 18 Marokko: 14 Kilde: B.T.s beregninger på baggrund af justitsministerens svar til Retsudvalget 23. november 2018. I alt 1.111 domme for personfarlig kriminalitet. Irakere ligger samlet nummer to på listen med i alt 851 domme, og tyrkere nummer tre med 823 domme. Samtidig viser rapporten 'Indvandrere i Danmark, 2018' fra Danmarks Statistik, at mandlige herboende somaliske efterkommere er den udenlandske nationalitet, der får flest domme for vold, når der tages højde for de herboende nationaliteters antal og deres alderssammensætning. Målt på den måde dømmes somaliske efterkommere hele 7,7 gange så ofte for vold som den gennemsnitlige mandlige befolkning i Danmark med samme alder. Top-10: Domme for vold Antal fældende afgørelser – dvs. straffe som fængsel og bøder – fordelt på nationalitet i perioden 1. januar 2014 til 3. november 2018. Somalia: 916 Irak: 709 Tyrkiet: 694 Grønland: 467 Afghanistan: 430 Syrien: 402 Polen: 354 Statsløs: 328 Iran: 286 Marokko: 214 Kilde: B.T.s beregninger på baggrund af justitsministerens svar til Retsudvalget 23. november 2018. Ahmed Dhaqane mener, som forskere også har påpeget her i B.T., at den markante overrepræsentation i kriminalitetsstatistikken – som altså ikke kan forklares med almindelige statistiske variable – blandt andet skyldes, at forældregenerationen er flygtet fra vold og krig, og at mange af dem er traumatiserede. »Forældrene har ofte ikke særlig mange ressourcer og har svært ved at hjælpe deres børn. Samtidig kommer vi fra en helt anden kultur med en helt anden mentalitet. Vi er kommet til et digitalt informationssamfund.« »Det er ikke nemt for forældrene, som måske slet ikke har nogen uddannelse, nogle er analfabeter, men de gør deres bedste,« siger Ahmed Dhaqane. Han tilføjer, at han ofte er i kontakt med mødre, der søger råd. »Mødrene er frustrerede: 'Jeg vil gerne have, at min søn får en uddannelse, men hvad skal jeg gøre?', siger de.« »Det er jo svært for en mor at hjælpe, hvis hun aldrig selv har gået i skole og ikke kan læse.« »Hvordan skal hun kunne følge med på forældreintra, e-Boks og alt mulig andet? De kæmper for at hjælpe deres børn, men mange har ikke ressourcerne til det.« Samtidig får drengene ifølge Ahmed Dhaqane ofte for frie tøjler. »Hvis en enlig mor har fire-fem børn, er det måske kun hendes to døtre, der læser lektier, mens drengene går på gaden om aftenen, fordi moren ikke kan overskue det,« siger han. Når forældrene ikke slår til, må kommunen og andre myndigheder træde til, mener Ahmed Dhaqane. »I Rødovre Kommune har vi ansat en brobygger, der blandt andet vejleder forældrene og hjælper de unge med at få et fritidsjob. »I dag sætter man ofte for sent ind og reagerer først, når den unge er kommet ind på et galt spor og ikke kan følge med i skolen,« siger han og tilføjer: »Der er brug for en meget tidlig indsats, så 'Muhammed' kan få et bedre liv.«

Are you looking to build a DIY portable solar generator? There is indeed an amazing number of full-fledged portable solar generators out there. But if you are a DIY enthusiast, you could surely enjoy putting together a DIY solar generator. Of course, building a DIY solar generator, apart from buying a ready-made one, offers you two main benefits. First, it could be a lot cheaper; second, you would get a chance to add personalized features to it. So, it is always a cool idea to build own solar generator, one of your best outdoor partners. There is actually no complex setting behind a portable solar generator. It is all about the assembly of some parts that are aplenty available from various brands. That would certainly go rather cheaper. A decently powerful portable solar generator of 1500 watts usually costs around $1500, but most of the time you could build such a one at a cheaper price. DIY Portable Solar Generator – All to Know About There is really no specific form for a solar generator. Any device that is capable of collecting solar energy and storing it in a battery for ongoing or future use is a solar generator, in principle. Simply, you only need some basic components to realize such a solar generator. Mostly, it needs solar panels, battery packs, wiring harness, a case or box for installation, and more. So, building a DIY portable solar generator is a breeze. You could set all the basic components up inside a strong and portable case or box and connect it with the required solar panels. Make sure you use a box or case that is lightweight and friendly for moving. Below we have a list of essential components required to build a solar generator from scratch. Portable Solar Panels Solar Charge Controller Battery Packs Power Inverter Digital Voltmeter Cables and Wires Clamps and Screws – Mounting Brackets Compact and Rugged Portable Case i. Portable Solar Panels Simply, you could guess what the solar panels are. They are nothing other than regular solar panels, which are crafted in a way you could carry them anywhere comfortably. Of course, their portability attribute is what makes them ideal for building DIY solar generators. Commonly, we have portable solar panels available in three forms; suitcase, flexible, and folding. The suitcase panels are simply foldable suitcase-like solutions. Well, you could close the solar panel lids down, lock the latches, carry conveniently in carrying bags, and store in the small rooms. Meanwhile, flexible solar panels are usually the type of solar panels that you could curve up to 30 degrees. Actually, they have nothing special to do in the portability factor, but you could mount the flexible panels on various uneven surfaces like a boat deck, and RV top quite neatly. Finally, we have folding solar panels. See, they are not typical metal or glass panels. Mostly, they are regular flexible solar modules sewn into the polymer canvases. They come in an array of layers and so you could fold them down quickly. Well, we have samples of all three portable panels below. ii. Solar Charge Controller A solar charge controller is indeed the safety valve of a portable solar power system. Current from solar panels is wavy and unstable. Well, it is the duty of solar charge controllers to regulate the variations in power flow and ensure your batteries are safe from those fluctuations. We commonly have two types of solar charge controllers; MPPT and PWM. Absolutely, the former is the most recommended option, because it works more effectively in turning extra amp from solar panels into electricity and storing it perfectly in your backup systems. Furthermore, MPPT is the latest technology in the solar industry. The PWM is actually an outdated system today. That is why most of the branded solar generators obviously have the advanced MPPT charge controllers inside. So, if you are looking to build a DIY solar generator, you better find a cool MPPT charge controller to make sure you get a more efficient and smart solar generator at the end of the day. Fine, we have a few samples of best-selling MPPT solar charge controllers below. iii. Battery Packs A battery is what sets the total capacity of a solar generator. Depending on the applications of your machine, you could decide what power its battery packs should have. Commonly, solar generators pack up 12V batteries, but you could also set up high-end solutions with 24V or higher batteries. In that case, you should add more powerful solar panels and solar charge controllers to the system. However, if you are building a DIY portable solar generator for RV, boat, trailer, caravan, or home you could utilize the already available batteries in such facilities. Rather, you should put together a DIY solar generator suitable for the capacity of your vehicle’s batteries. By the way, the battery is certainly the weightiest part of a solar generator. So make sure you pick lightweight battery units like lithium instead of heavy lead-acid batteries. iv. Power Inverter The job of a power inverter is to simply convert the 12V DC power in your battery to 120V AC to run your electronics. There is actually no difference between a regular inverter and solar inverter when it comes to the applications. However, you get a variety of solar-friendly power inverters, which are compact and lightweight so that you could easily integrate into your DIY portable solar generator. You should pick an inverter with the right power. See, it is the inverter that offers running watts for the appliances you want to run with the solar generator. In case of an emergency or even an off-grid life situation, you would have to run different appliances with your DIY solar generator. Generally, an oven needs 1000 to 1500 watts to run. A coffee maker, small TV, and other AC appliances also consume as much as power to operate. What’s more, just to neatly light up your home or camping tent, your inverter should produce 70 to 100 watts. Keeping this in mind, make your DIY portable solar generator with the right inverter. v. Miscellaneous Accessories Other than the main components, you should acquire some other accessories to set up your solar generator in its finest way. First, you would need a voltmeter to measure the voltage, but it is not a necessary component to operate the solar generator. If your inverter doesn’t have a USB hub and 12V ports you might also need them in separate units. Above all, you should also buy all the required wires and cables for the system. Likewise, you should find the best mounting brackets and screws to place the solar panels and assemble all the components inside a box or case. Finally, to build a DIY portable solar generator, you must need a strong and durable box or case. For this, you could try one of the popular Pelican cases available on Amaozn.com. The things you should take care of while buying a case are durability and waterproof capability. Of course, being a portable solar generator, you must be taking it to rough outdoor conditions. So, the case you choose to integrate the components should be tough enough to let you transport the overall machine right anywhere you want to. Disclaimer: We don’t claim that we have a hands-on guide here on how to build a DIY portable solar generator. It is actually a general tutorial on all the components you typically need for making a solar generator from scratch. You better visit this Instructables article for a clear DIY portable solar generator making process with all details. DIY Portable Solar Generator – Step-by-Step Guide Step 1: Plan Your Solar Generator Needless to say, the first thing to do is proper planning. You should decide what capacity your DIY portable solar generator should have. For that, you should first work with your requirements. You may need a solar generator for camping, RVing, boating, or emergency. Whatever is the need, make a detailed check on your needs and plan a solar generator in mind at first. Step 2: Purchase Parts It is the second step. Buying the parts for a solar generator is not a difficult thing today. You have a wide variety of options to pick from the marketplace. Under each category, you have dozens of varieties under different price and power ranges. Step 3: Integrate Parts to a Case If you wish to build the generator inside a case, it is time to integrate the parts. Commonly, charge controller, battery, inverter, voltmeter, and other things come inside the box. Make sure you have a quality box or case with waterproof and ruggedness. Better place solar panels outside. Later, you could buy a bag to move the solar panels easily. See the diagram on how to do the wiring of a DIY portable solar generator. Step 4: Connect with Solar Panels It is always nice to place the solar panel outside the case. That gives you a chance to place the panel away from the main unit for grabbing as much as sunlight possible. Step 5: Test the Device As you can see, there is no complicated task in building a DIY portable solar generator. If you have followed the diagram well, everything would be fine for you. Once you are done with the solar generator, you could test it under sunlight. And enjoy unlimited access to solar power even when you are on the move. Final Thoughts It has been all about a DIY portable solar generator. It doesn’t come with any complex steps. Everything is quite simple and fine. You have all the parts readily available. Well, all you have to do is to buy them and bring them together into a unit to make solar energy. A portable solar generator is a good idea to store power for your use while going out on a camping, outing, or emergency. Making own solar generator is a lovely thing for DIY enthusiasts. We would like to believe that you liked our guide on a DIY portable solar generator.

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A planned rail line between the San Fernando Valley and Westwood was asked to meet three criteria by the Westwood Village Improvement Association in a meeting Sept. 19. The WVIA board of directors unanimously voted to draft a letter to Los Angeles Metro calling for the Sepulveda Transit Corridor Project to run underground, stop at UCLA and connect with the planned Metro Purple Line Extension subway stop in Westwood. The STC Project would allow commuters to travel from the San Fernando Valley to the Westside and eventually to the Los Angeles International Airport. Peter Carter, Metro’s deputy manager for the line, and David Karwaski, senior associate director of UCLA Transportation, presented to the WVIA board before it made its decision. The board did not endorse any of the four specific proposals for possible routes by Metro. “What Metro has come up with is a great, long overdue (and) needed project,” Karwaski said. “I’m sure you all know, you go to other cities, particularly in Europe or Asia, and LA’s transit system is – we’re way behind.” Carter outlined four proposed versions of the project, with travel times ranging from 15 to 26 minutes depending on the plan. All four options included a stop at UCLA, though designs ranged from a direct underground subway to a mixture of elevated monorails and underground rail. “We noticed as we were doing this analysis that the UCLA campus station would be the busiest nontransfer station in the Metro system when the line opens,” Carter said. Karwaski said UCLA supported the version of the project that was most direct, entirely underground and would stop in the middle of campus. “We’ve been talking to one of the companies that is likely going to bid on the partnership opportunity with Metro, and we’ve been stressing to them underground, underground,” Karwaski said. “We don’t want an aerial train coming through Westwood.” An ideal STC Project line for UCLA would stop on campus near the turnaround loop by the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center before connecting with the Purple Metro Line on Wilshire Boulevard, Karwaski said. Renee Fortier, executive director of UCLA Events and Transportation, said Metro should keep the project entirely underground and not cut corners on such a significant project. “I mean, it’s just what makes sense,” Fortier said. “This project is going to (last) 100 years, maybe even 200 years, and it doesn’t make sense to, you know, do (a) short shrift solution.” The project is still in the early planning stages and looking to work with the private sector under predevelopment agreements, Carter said. The agreements would allow private expertise to contribute as key design and engineering decisions are still being finalized. “So the thought is to get those ideas as we’re in the process of narrowing down from many to one,” Carter said. “Then that (predevelopment agreement) team would have the ability to competitively bid on the project.” Carter said the STC Project is currently undergoing a feasibility study that will be presented to the Metro board of directors by the end of the year. This will be followed by an environmental review, and construction should begin around 2024. He added the entire project should be completed by 2033. However, Metro is aiming to complete the connection from the San Fernando Valley to the Westside in time for the 2028 Olympic Games as part of the city’s “28 by ‘28” initiative to complete 28 Metro projects before the start of the games. “This project is on the ’28 by ‘28′ list,” Carter said. “So this is put together by the city of LA and endorsed by Metro board, something that we the staff, of course, are supportive of.”

After our recent analysis, we started auditing different popular modules used by our customers. A LoginPress plugin for WordPress CMS gained our attention and we decided to look into it more deeply. Following issues were discovered. Software Overview LoginPress plugin is a WordPress CMS plugin that allows customisation of WordPress login page. According to plugin developers: “You can modify the look and feel of login page completely even the login error messages, forgot error messages, registration error messages, forget password hint message and many more”. At the time of writing this advisory, the plugin is available on the WordPress plugin repository and counting over 40,000 active installs. LoginPress Plugin Vulnerability Description Blind time-based SQL injection, combined with lack of permission check resulted in an unauthorised attack which can be performed by any user on the site (including subscriber profiles). 1. Lack of permission check in settings import Similar to our recent analysis, this vulnerability was also caused due to lack of permission check on plugin settings import. Allowing any registered user to import custom settings and adjust the login page. An array of functions were registered as ajax hooks to allow calls from admin-ajax.php?action=loginpress_<functionName> ` The `import` function, which is in charge of handling incoming JSON settings doesn’t have permission check, allowing all users on the site to update plugin settings. 2. SQL Injection in settings import Blind time-based SQL Injection is located within the same function as the first vulnerability. The LoginPress plugin is checking if the image is already uploaded to a local server. As you can notice, the query is not using `prepare` statement and directly making a query to the database without sanitising provided image URL. Since the function is not returning any SQL errors or response, we make use of sleep function in MySQL and compare how long it took the server to respond. Response time can be an indicator of whether SQL query case is correct or not. Conclusion Developers of LoginPress were very responsive when we reached to them and they patched the discovered vulnerabilities in version 1.1.14 which got released on 21st of November, 2018. We are actively monitoring all possible enumerations and exploitation campaigns connected to this plugin vulnerability. We strongly advise updating LoginPress plugin to the latest version as soon as possible. Due to the nature of this vulnerability, WebARX firewall is already preventing mentioned vulnerabilities. If you need website protection, feel free to signup. For Developers If you are a plugin developer, make sure you are not exposing ajax hooks that don’t have permission check or nonce. SQL queries that accepts user’s input should always be sanitized. A good starting point is provided by WordPress.org where you can find plugin security references.

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President Donald Trump on Monday cleared the way for the deployment of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan, backtracking from his promise to swiftly end America's longest-ever war, while pillorying ally Pakistan for offering safe haven to “agents of chaos.”In his first formal address to the nation as commander-in-chief, Trump discarded his previous criticism of the 16-year-old war as a waste of time and money, admitting things looked different from “behind the desk in the Oval Office.”“My instinct was to pull out,” Trump admitted as he spoke of frustration with a war that has killed thousands of US troops and cost US taxpayers trillions of dollars.But following months of discussion, Trump said he had concluded that “the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable” and leaving a “vacuum” that terrorists “would instantly fill”.While Trump refused to offer detailed troop numbers, senior White House officials said he had already authorised his defence secretary to deploy up to 3,900 more troops to Afghanistan.The conflict that began in October 2001 as a hunt for the 9/11 attackers has turned into a vexed effort to keep Afghanistan's divided and corruption-hindered democracy alive amid a brutal Taliban insurgency.Trump also warned that the approach would now be more pragmatic than idealistic. Security assistance to Afghanistan was "not a blank check" he said, warning he would not send the military to "construct democracies in faraway lands or create democracies in our own image.""We are not nation building again. We are killing terrorists."Trump indicated that this single-minded approach would extend to US relations with Pakistan, which consecutive US administrations have criticised for links with the Taliban and for harbouring influential figures from major terrorist groups, such as Osama bin Laden."We can no longer be silent about Pakistan's safe havens for terrorist organisations," he said, warning that vital aid could be cut."We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars. At the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting," he claimed. "That will have to change and that will change immediately."Ahead of the speech, Pakistan's military brushed off speculation that Trump could signal a stronger line against Islamabad, insisting the country has done all it can to tackle militancy."Let it come," Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Major General Asif Ghafoor told reporters, referring to Trump's decision. "Even if it comes... Pakistan shall do whatever is best in the national interest."He added that there are no terrorist hideouts in Pakistan. “We have operated against all terrorists, including [the] Haqqani network," the ISPR chief said.Trump for the first time also left the door open to an eventual political deal with the Taliban."Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan," he said."But nobody knows if or when that will ever happen," he added, before vowing that "America will continue its support for the Afghan government and military as they confront the Taliban in the field."Meanwhile, in a press conference at the State Department on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Pakistan must adopt a different approach to terrorism and the United States will condition its support on Islamabad's delivering results in this area. "There's been an erosion in trust because we have witnessed terrorist organisations being given safe haven inside Pakistan to plan and carry out attacks against US servicemen and US officials, disrupting peace efforts inside of Afghanistan,"Tillerson said. "Pakistan must adopt a different approach, and we are ready to work with them to help them protect themselves against these terrorist organisations.”While wary of international entanglements, Trump has also been eager to show success and steel in the realm of national security.As president, he has surrounded himself with generals – from his national security adviser to his chief of staff to his defence secretary – who have urged him to stay the course.The Trump administration had originally promised a new Afghan plan by mid-July, but Trump was said to be dissatisfied by initial proposals to deploy a few thousand more troops.His new policy will raise questions about what, if anything, can be achieved by making further deployments, or repeating the demands of previous administrations in more forceful terms.In 2010, the United States had upwards of 100,000 US military personnel deployed to Afghanistan. Today that figure is around 8,400 US troops and the situation is as deadly as ever.More than 2,500 Afghan police and troops have already been killed this year."The Afghan government remains divided and weak, its security forces will take years of expensive US and allied support to become fully effective, and they may still lose, even with such support," said Anthony Cordesman of The Centre for Strategic and International Studies.Trump's announcement comes amid a month of serious turmoil for his administration, which has seen several top White House officials fired and revelations that members of Trump's campaign are being investigated by a federal grand jury.He sought in his address to convince Americans who have wearied of his controversial off-the-cuff remarks."I studied Afghanistan in great detail and from every conceivable angle," he said, hoping to show he has sufficiently pondered the decision to send more young Americans into mortal danger.The decision on Afghanistan could have wide-ranging political repercussions for Trump, who faces a backlash from his base for reversing his pledge not to deepen military entanglements on foreign soil.One of the main voices arguing for withdrawal, Trump's nationalistic chief strategist Steve Bannon, was removed from his post on Friday.Among the advisers present at Camp David was new White House chief of staff John Kelly, a former Marine Corps general whose son died in Afghanistan in 2010.

The greatest No. 12 that no one is talking about Thanks to an enterprising thief at the Orlando Arena, Michael Jordan became the best athlete to ever wear number 12, at least for one night. On Valentine's Day in 1990, someone snuck into the Bulls locker room about 90 minutes before the team's tip off against the Magic and brazenly swiped the NBA legend's game jersey out of his locker. After searching the arena and many of its employees, the jersey wasn't recovered. After trying a young fan's replica Jordan jersey failed to fit, the team's equipment manager salvaged an extra uniform the team had in case of emergency. The replacement had no name on the back and bore the number 12. "That has never happened to me before,'' Jordan told the Orlando Sentinel at the time. ''It's pretty irritating because you're accustomed to certain things and you don't like to have things misplaced.'' It's rumored that Jordan refused to sign autographs in Orlando after the incident, which is surprising, since he's never shown any indication of being someone who holds a grudge. Jordan ended up scoring 49 points in the game, although the Bulls would lose 135-129 in overtime. &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;!--iframe--&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Lake County, Ind., Sheriff's Department via AP Christopher M. Bour of Gary, Ind., is one of two people indicted this week on federal charges involving the alleged sale of a young child for use in producing child pornography. An Indiana woman is charged in a federal indictment with selling her 1½-year-old daughter to a man she met through a dating service for child pornography, according to court documents. Natisha Hillard, 24, and Christopher M. Bour, 39, both of Gary, are charged in the five-count grand jury indictment unsealed this week and filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Hammond. Hillard is charged with selling her daughter to Bour knowing the girl "would be portrayed in a visual depiction assisting another person to engage in sexually explicit conduct" and with permitting the girl to participate in the production of child pornography. Bour is charged with production of child pornography, purchasing a child for production of child pornography and possession of child pornography. The indictment says he used the toddler to "assist him to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction." The alleged price wasn't disclosed. All of the charges are felonies. In a criminal complaint filed in the case, the FBI said a woman whom it didn't identify approached it last month to report that Bour, whom she described as a friend, had sent her explicit text messages asking whether she was interested in joining him to "watch me play with a baby tomorrow — a real one." According to the FBI, the woman, who previously operated a massage parlor, said she visited Bour's home to give him massages. On her second visit, which was about three weeks ago, according to the complaint, she said she saw child porn videos playing on his laptop computer. At that point, the FBI launched a sting operation. An agent assumed the woman's identity and began new text message conversations with Bour, according to the complaint. In extremely explicit transcripts included in the court docket, which NBC News is not publishing or linking to, the man identified in the indictment as Bour describes his love of young children and what he liked to do with them sexually. "Its the best sex I ever had," he is quoted as having written. At least three video files, all with obscene titles and depicting sex with prepubescent boys and girls, were found on Bour's computer, the FBI said. Image files specifically showing Bour engaging in such behavior were also recovered, the FBI said. An adult woman could be seen in some of the photos, according to an FBI probable cause filing, which said it was able to identify her as Hillard through a telephone number on Bour's cellphone, which led to her driver's license information in state records. It said Bour confirmed that he knew the woman and said he had met her through a dating service. Hillard and Bour were being held without bond and were scheduled to be arraigned Monday. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook. Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com

Columbia University continues to deny students accused of sexual assault their due process rights, going out of their way to ignore exculpatory evidence in order to find accused men responsible no matter how thin the allegations. The latest example is Ben Feibleman, who is using his real name to fight the allegations against him, made by a woman who, as usual, gets to keep her anonymity and is only referred to as Jane Doe in court documents. The Daily Caller’s Betsy Rothstein recently published an exclusive interview with Feibleman regarding the $25 million lawsuit he filed against the university last May. I encourage you to read her full story (warning: language and graphic depictions of sex), which includes a complete transcript of the 30-minute audio recording Feibleman made of the woman when he started to suspect things might go wrong. Columbia’s adjudicators ignored the audio recording Feibleman made and scoffed at his allegations that he was the one who was sexually assaulted. The adjudicators, according to Rothstein, told them there was “insufficient evidence” that he was assaulted (despite the audio recording) and that even if he had been assaulted, he would have liked it, therefore, Jane was “not responsible” for any alleged assault. Feibleman, on the other hand, was found responsible and retroactively expelled and revoked his diploma (he had been allowed to graduate during the investigation). Jane and Feibleman knew each other a little from their journalism classes. After an event (which Feibleman says wasn’t the sort of place to get wasted), Jane allegedly asked him to put his head on her lap. “She later sneaked kisses when her friends weren’t looking. She poured beer down his throat during a drinking game. Then she asked him to walk with her to the roof, where she climbed atop the water tower and beckoned him. She took off her top while he unclasped her bra,” Rothstein reported. The two engaged in some sexual activity and she allegedly insulted him for not wanting to go near the edge of the water tower. He said she performed a “perfect backward roll off the side of the water tower,” taunted him for being afraid of heights even though he was a Marine, and they continued to flirt and engage in sexually charged activities. His audio recording of her taped her continuously begging him for sex – a total of 29 admissions. He told her repeatedly he wanted to but thought she was too drunk (he didn’t, but said he used that as a “nuclear option” to get out of the situation). She said she wanted rough sex and allegedly pulled his pants down and tried to “force her mouth on his penis.” When he’d try to leave, she’d cry. If he declined to have sex with her, she’d say he thought she was “gross.” When he tried to leave again, she wouldn’t let him. Throughout the tape he declined to have sex with her even though she begged. After he was finally able to leave, she allegedly told her roommate that “Ben tried to have sex with me.” She also told this to her boyfriend who questioned her level of intoxication. The next morning she told Columbia Feibleman sexually assaulted her. The school refused to ask her questions about his side of the story or even use the evidence he provided. “At one point, they warned him not to utter a word about a medical report he obtained that addressed her level of capacity based on 700 photographs and the 30-minute recording,” Rothstein reported. “According to his legal complaint, a witness ‘Jane Doe’ called to support her in Columbia’s case against him later called Feibleman and told him that she sometimes mixed pills and alcohol to get over a boyfriend. If he mentioned the report, Columbia authorities said they’d throw him out of the hearing and proceed without him.” Feibleman is now suing Columbia with the help of attorney Kimberly Lau. Columbia is trying to get Feibleman’s military service records in what Lau says is a fishing expedition, while at the same time refusing to provide Feibleman with relevant documents related to his accusation. He was found responsible for the sexual activity that occurred before the recording, even though he provided evidence to show Jane wasn’t incapacitated at the time. His case is yet another example of a university doing everything it can to find a male responsible because in today’s #MeToo age, males are expendable while a woman claiming to be a victim must be believed.

Months ago I created a sample project demonstrating clean architecture in Android, you can see it here. One of the main problems when I created this project was the threading, in Android if you do too much work in the Ui thread you have drawing problems and your Ui can seem unresponsive while you keep the Ui thread busy, also you can’t touch any Ui component from any worker thread, this calls have to be in the Ui thread. When I created this MVP project I faced that problem and I tried to abstract this threading problems into the delivery mechanism, Android in this case. The communication between View and a Presenter is in the same thread because the action that a Presenter does are usually little things and most times is only a call to domain and this is done in a worker thread. The other problem was when an interactor (asynchronous call) has finished and I have to refresh the screen with some retrieved data in background, you need the Ui thread, but only when touching widgets, if you have to do some other actions it’s better to keep the worker thread alive and return to the main thread only when needed. Keeping this on my mind I decided to decorate my View implementations with a Handler to post the results in the Ui Thread, so my Presenter and my View interface are part of my java presentation module and using the view decorator the change to the UI thread is done seamlessly and transparently keeping the presenter decoupled from thread changing logic. Let’s see some code: public class MainPresenter { private MainView mainView; public void attachiew(MainView mainView) { this.mainView = mainView; } public void doSomeViewAction() { interactorInvoker.execute(getContactsInteractor, new InteractorOutput , ObtainContactsException>() { @Override public void onResult(List result) { mainView.doSomeAction(); } ... }); } } This MainPresenter, executes with an InteractorInvoker (ThreadPoolExecutor abstraction) a thread to get some Contact result. When the interactor is completed it needs to call a method in the view, so it makes the call to the view without thinking about any threading problem and keeps the presenter absctract about threading issues. public class DecoratedMainView implements MainView { private final MainView undecoratedView; private final ThreadSpec threadSpec; public DecoratedMainView(MainView undecoratedView, ThreadSpec threadSpec) { this.undecoratedView = undecoratedView; this.threadSpec = threadSpec; } @Override public void doSomeAction() { this.threadSpec.execute(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { undecoratedView.doSomeAction(); } }); } } To do that, you have to call handler.post() or runOnUiThread() in order to change the thread in the view, but the code will become verbose and maybe I can forget in some circustances to implement that, so I created a code generator to let this implemented autommatically for you without any effort, the usage is pretty simple, you only have to annotate your view interface with @ThreadDecoratedView and when you need this decorated view call ViewInjector.inject(mainViewImpl, threadSpec); a ThreadSpec is just a simple interface that implements execute method, so in that implementation you can just use your Handler. Now the code becomes easier: @ThreadDecoratedView public interface MainView { void doSomeAction(); } public class MainViewImp implements MainView { public void onCreate() { mainPresenter.attachView(ViewInjector.inject(mainView, threadSpec)); } @Override public void doSomeAction() { listview.notifyDataSetChanged(); } } This implementation was in Clean Contacts but I decided to extract this functionality to a library and use it across other side projects, so I published a library called ViewThreadDecorator to Github.

Intu properties plc (‘intu’) has sold Sprucefield Retail Park to NewRiver REIT Plc for £40 million. Sprucefield Retail Park is one of Northern Ireland’s leading out-of-town retail destinations and is located just one mile south of Lisburn city centre, adjacent to the main junction between Northern Ireland’s M1 motorway and the A1 road, which is the main route connecting Northern Ireland to the Irish Republic. The 47-acre site comprises a five-unit retail park providing 231,000 sq of retail space, a 1,200-space free car park and 18 acres of development land. The retail park is anchored by Sainsbury’s and B&Q, and has an affordable average rent of £16.11 per sq ft, with a weighted average unexpired lease term of 7.5 years. “We announced our new strategy at the interim results in July. A key element of this is fixing the balance sheet which includes creating liquidity through disposals. We are pleased to conclude this transaction, which along with the part-disposal of intu Derby and other sundry asset sales in 2019 brings the year to date disposals total to £268 million,” Matthew Roberts, chief executive of intu.

Агентство «Прайм» удалило заметку под заголовком «Из-за тарифов „Платона“ растут цены на продукты». Материал, опубликованный 27 марта, по-прежнему доступен в кэше. По адресу, где был размещен, сейчас говорится, что страница недоступна. В заметке рассказывалось о протестах дальнобойщиков против системы сбора денег за проезд по федеральным трассам. Там же отмечалось, что из-за «Платона» растут цены на продукты: новые сборы повысили цены на молоко на полтора-два процента. Агентство «Прайм» наряду с РИА Новости принадлежит государственному агентству «Россия сегодня»

Officer injured in skirmish at SF’s downtown Westfield mall Much of the downtown Westfield San Francisco Centre was closed Sunday evening after a fight broke out, injuring a police officer and prompting the arrest of a juvenile, authorities said. Police did not immediately disclose the details of what happened, but dozens of officers remained outside the mall on Market and Fifth streets at 8 p.m., at least an hour after the incident. The mall’s Fifth Street side was shut down for the investigation. The officer’s injuries were minor, authorities said. The name and age of the juvenile who was taken into custody were not disclosed. The incident occurred after the Pride Parade, and many people were in the area at the time. Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander

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In an era of rising energy costs and environmental concerns, local policy makers are paying more attention to the energy performance of public, commercial, and residential buildings. Increasingly, jurisdictions seek to learn more about residential energy consumption and strive to make this information more transparent. Although energy consumption by the multifamily residential sector makes up only 3.5 percent of the U.S. total, it is growing and capturing the focus of local decision makers. Nine U.S. municipalities currently require building owners to track, benchmark, and disclose the energy consumption of large buildings—typically those over 50,000 square feet (4,700 sq m). Six of these nine municipalities include multifamily buildings in those regulations. The increased interest in the energy efficiency of multifamily housing represents an exciting opportunity, but also a distinct challenge as building owners and operators ramp up to track and understand their energy use. For building owners, benchmarking can be an important tool, especially as part of a larger energy management plan. Benchmarking allows property operators to track their energy use over time and compare their efficiency to that of similar buildings. Tracking energy use and analyzing performance is essential to identifying poorly performing buildings and opportunities for improvements and interventions. Benchmarking Platforms There are many platforms designed to help building operators benchmark their portfolios. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star Portfolio Manager is a free tool already used by many commercial building operators. Portfolio Manager is also the preferred platform for many local governments that require benchmarking and disclosure. Other third-party tools—such as EnergyScoreCard, created by New York City–based Bright Power, and WegoWise, created by a Boston firm of the same name—specialize in utility benchmarking for multitenant buildings. The Urban Land Institute, through its Greenprint Center for Building Performance, also offers an environmental management platform that tracks energy use—as well as emissions, water use, and waste generation—for office, retail, industrial, and multifamily buildings, and hotels. Greenprint members reduced their energy consumption by 14 percent between 2009 and 2012. “More tenants are looking for energy-efficient spaces, both for cost savings and environmental reasons,” says Helen Gurfel, executive director of Greenprint. “To meet local market demands, building operators are tracking energy usage and improving building performance.” She adds that Greenprint is working on establishing the link between the environmental performance of a property and its financial performance. “Well-operated properties should have higher tenant retention and lower operating expenses, resulting in increased cash flow and higher asset values,” she says. Benchmarking has a proven track record. The 35,000 commercial buildings in Energy Star’s Portfolio Manager reduced energy use by 7 percent between 2008 and 2011. Although large studies have not yet examined multifamily buildings, multifamily operators have successfully used benchmarking to reduce energy consumption and to pinpoint and correct poorly performing heating, cooling, and lighting systems. “Benchmarking measures the pulse of a building,” says Michael Catalano, green initiatives project manager at Jonathan Rose Companies, a real estate development and investment firm that focuses on green, urban solutions. “Energy efficiency and sustainability continue to be a cornerstone of our business. Through benchmarking we are able to measure our utility usage, catch any hiccups in terms of building performance, and ultimately reduce our environmental impact.” In addition to reducing energy consumption, benchmarking can illuminate opportunities for cost savings. Homeowner’s Rehab Inc. (HRI), a development and management firm for affordable housing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has a portfolio that includes 71 multifamily buildings, comprising 1,200 apartments, all benchmarked using the WegoWise tool. “We used to spend about $1.65 million annually on utilities—gas, electric, and water,” says Beverly Craig, energy efficiency specialist at HRI. “Just by tracking our consumption and identifying problem buildings and systems, we have been able to cut down by 15 percent, on average.” The resulting savings amount to more than $240,000 a year from 2006 spending levels. Since implementing the tool, HRI has also been able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 21 percent and average annual heating costs by 17 percent from a 2006 baseline. Utility Limitations Whereas the benefits of benchmarking are clear, collecting data on electricity and natural gas consumption can be a daunting task, especially for properties with tenant-paid utilities. Utility companies view the ratepayer, not the building owner, as their customer. Mired in a range of privacy concerns, many utilities are reluctant to share whole-building energy data with building owners and operators. In some states, public utility commissions (PUCs) prohibit utilities from sharing tenant utility data. Ginkgo Residential, a development and property management firm specializing in creating energy-efficient market-rate multifamily rental housing in the U.S. Southeast, has experienced the frustration of obtaining whole-building utility data. The firm acquires existing multifamily properties in need of rehabilitation, completes comprehensive retrofits, then re-leases units at higher rents. For tenants, the increased rents are mitigated by the savings from energy and water improvements. “These improvements reduce our monthly costs and improve our bottom line,” says Philip S. Payne, principal and chief executive officer of Gingko Residential and cochair of ULI’s Climate, Land Use, and Energy (CLUE) initiative. “They also have other indirect benefits, such as increased resident comfort. We find that we have higher tenant retention, lower turnover, increased occupancy, and are able to charge higher rent because tenants are paying less on their utility bills.” Yorktown Club, a recently completed retrofit project in Durham, North Carolina, exemplifies Gingko’s business model. Gingko purchased the 236-unit development in December 2010 for $5.75 million. Gingko invested another $8 million in structural repairs and unit upgrades for aesthetics and efficiency, aiming for at least a 20 percent reduction of energy and water use. Post-renovation, Ginkgo has observed much deeper energy and cost savings than its target. Tenants who initially reported paying more than $200 in monthly energy bills—and some as much as $350—now report spending less than $100, on average, says Payne. However, these figures represent only a small sample of units, and Ginkgo faces ongoing challenges when it comes to quantifying energy and cost savings. Gingko has no access to pre-retrofit utility data other than those pertaining to common spaces and a small sample of tenant utility bills. After the retrofit, Gingko attempted to have tenants sign waivers and/or download one year of billing data from their online utility accounts in exchange for $25 in cash and promotional incentives. These efforts have been largely fruitless, Payne says, and for those tenants who have signed waivers, Ginkgo has faced further obstacles, including a substantial processing fee charged by the local electricity provider for third-party data requests. These fees, compounded by the expense of paying staff to benchmark and analyze data, make it too costly and difficult for Gingko Residential to benchmark the Yorktown Club property beyond the common spaces, he says. Ginkgo’s inability to access data affects its ability to support its business model to the fullest potential. It also greatly affects the willingness and ability of its investors and lenders to put up more capital for deeper green retrofits or for underwriting additional development projects. “It is incredibly difficult to know that the work you are doing is making a difference in terms of energy, cost savings, and carbon reduction, but not to be able to quantify your impact,” Payne says. “Investors want real data and hard numbers. This is something that we currently just don’t have.” Matt Birenbaum, executive vice president of corporate strategy at multifamily housing developer AvalonBay Communities, echoes Payne’s frustration with data access. “Though we have tenant utility disclosure as a component of our leases, the coordination it would take to negotiate with individual utilities is immense,” he says. AvalonBay Communities, a founding member of ULI’s Greenprint Center, has 250 properties with 60,000 to 70,000 units operating in Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., northern and southern California, and Seattle. “As a publicly traded real estate firm, we not only have to comply with a variety of benchmarking and disclosure mandates that are present in nearly all of our markets, we also receive requests from shareholders, shareholder advocacy groups, and leading financial institutions and are asked to report on our natural resource consumption generally and quantify our carbon consumption,” Birenbaum says. He adds that the industry could benefit from a central reporting platform, standardized reporting, and automated and transparent access to data. Some municipalities partner with local utilities and PUCs to make whole-building data available to multifamily owners while preserving tenant anonymity. In New York City, ConEdison, for a nominal fee, provides building owners with the aggregated utility data needed to comply with the city’s benchmarking and disclosure law. In Seattle and Chicago, a partnership between the city and local utilities allows the direct sharing of aggregated, building-level data with commercial and multifamily building operators via Energy Star’s Portfolio Manager. By automating data collection in a central platform, these innovations give building operators the tools they need to track consumption and dramatically reduce the staff time required. However, additional public policy interventions are needed to support access to more granular, whole-building data. “Bottom line, we need more access to transparent resident-level data in order to truly measure and reduce consumption,” says Catalano. Cooperation between the utilities and local governments is essential to supporting multifamily building operators, he says. Multifamily building owners and operators are in a unique position to catalyze conversations about the need for better data access to benchmark their facilities. “As an industry we need to change the sustainability, green, and energy efficiency conversation from a moral argument to one that is based on dollars and cents,” says Payne. D. Scott Wilkerson, principal and chief operating officer of Gingko Residential, adds that he is encouraged by the partnerships forged between local utilities and the Apartment Association of North Carolina. Creating a groundswell of support for these issues and forging partnerships directly with local policy makers and utilities are the best ways to share information and build support for more transparent data access. Conversations at the national level are advancing, including a recent resolution unanimously passed by the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates that supports whole-building data access for multifamily building owners, provided that the privacy of tenants is protected. The Data Access and Transparency Alliance (DATA), a national network of energy efficiency organizations, nonprofits focused on sustainability, and real estate professionals, is fostering a national dialogue about the importance of transparent access to data. “Using our convening power, DATA is able to bring utilities, PUCs, jurisdictions, and building owners and managers to the table to develop solutions that are in the best interest of consumers, utility regulators, and the broader real estate community,” says Andrew Burr, director of building energy performance policy at the Institute for Market Transformation and an organizing member of DATA. For the future, there are compelling opportunities for collaborative work across stakeholder groups, including utilities and PUCs, public policy leaders, and multifamily building operators. Furthermore, opportunities exist to inspire innovation and make targeted interventions through local, state, and even national policies to guide greater access to transparent data, close the data gap, and facilitate more efficient benchmarking for multifamily housing. Molly Simpson is program manager of ULI’s Terwilliger Center for Housing.

Fatima Rezai’s journey to Greece took 40 days and 40 nights. From Afghanistan’s Ghazni province she and her family trekked to Iran, then Turkey, took a boat to Samos, Greece, and then another to Piraeus. Now, the only journey Fatima takes is the one from her refugee camp in Hellinikon, site of Athens’ old airport, to the downtown Caritas soup kitchen, where she can get a hot meal. The borders to Germany, their final destination, are closed. Greece may be what she ends up calling home. The Greeks “are hospitable people, warm people,” Fatima, 18, says through an interpreter, as she eats spaghetti with meat sauce and gestures to her lips, to show a smile. But she doesn’t know, really, if she will ever get to Germany, where she hopes to finish school. She, like 48,000 other refugees and migrants stranded in Greece, are waiting to hear whether Europe will let them move on to promised new lives, or send them back the way they came. For the refugees’ accidental hosts, the Greeks, there is a growing realization that the thousands of men, women and children fleeing war and poverty in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq may be sharing their country for an indeterminate amount of time. But acts of kindness, large and small, from ordinary Greeks play alongside the daily television scenes of the grim, muddy village of Idomeni on the Greek border with Macedonia, where about 11,000 refugees huddle in tents waiting for Europe to reopen its frontier — a prospect that now appears unlikely. Help has come in forms as varied as donating diapers and wading into the waters of Greek islands to pull ashore grateful women and children crossing from Turkey in rickety boats. Villagers near Idomeni have opened their homes to families. Thousands of Athenians responded to a collection drive with medicine, blankets and food. Ordinary Greeks drive to one of the makeshift camps sprouting up in Athens and around the country and dole out toys and balloons to children. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Despite the concern about the effect of the refugees on tourism in the Greek islands, or over whether they will stay longer than they planned in Greece, there has been little of the anger that has greeted them in countries such as Germany. Perhaps that is because Greeks, after six years of austerity and struggling with the continent’s highest unemployment rate, understand desperation. “The opposition to migrants used to be: They’re taking our jobs,” says Janice Tsialtas, who volunteers in the Caritas soup kitchen once every two weeks. “Well, now there are no jobs. What we see is babies walking around in the mud.” After Macedonia shut down its border with Greece last month, the country has been struggling to deal with an unstoppable stream of refugees and migrants coming from Turkey. This month, European and Turkish officials held a summit meeting in Brussels and agreed that migrants or refugees arriving in Greece will be liable for deportation to Turkey if they don’t apply for asylum or if their claims are rejected. Under the deal, Turkey will receive billions of dollars in support to keep refugees and migrants. But implementation, dependent on thousands of European experts coming in to help Greece, remains uncertain, even as refugees continue to arrive on Greek islands and are ferried to the mainland, where dozens of camps have been hurriedly set up. The Associated Press reported that 875 new refugees arrived at four of Greece’s Aegean islands close to the Turkish coast on Sunday and a ferry carrying 1,169 migrants arrived Sunday at a port west of Athens. At the soup kitchen in a downtrodden neighborhood of central Athens, the aroma of Bolognese sauce wafts through the building from the first-floor dining room, where trays with green bowls of steaming pasta, bread and a quarter of lemon are served, eaten and whisked away by volunteers. Children mill around; men lean in to listen to conversations. Fatima passes her leftover meal to her mother, who finishes it off, and takes a querulous toddler on her lap to calm him with a piece of bread. Tsialtas, 70, has volunteered at the soup kitchen for nine years, taking a two-hour bus ride from her village outside Athens. Seven years ago, most of the people seeking assistance and food were young men from Iraq and Iran; now it is mainly families from Afghanistan and Syria. More Greeks than ever are asking her where they can volunteer and bring food, she says. The line for the meal starts forming at 10:30 a.m. — women in brightly colored head scarfs with children in well-walked strollers. They line up on the narrow sidewalk, sometimes sitting outside the entrance to the Hotel Lozanni next door, named for the town of Lausanne, Switzerland, and the 1923 treaty that forced an exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey. That’s another reminder of Greece’s refugee history: The country had to absorb 1.2 million ethnic Greeks from Turkey, one of the largest influxes of refugees in history at the time. But the refugees and migrants in this wave are still visitors in Greece, and Europe has struggled to deal with them. European Union leaders are arguing over who is entitled to international protection as a refugee and who is just seeking to escape poverty and should be sent back. The latest agreement with Turkey is already being challenged by human rights organizations concerned that it will run roughshod over due process for refugees fleeing war. In the meantime, children in the mists of Idomeni leap over puddles in their newly supplied and brightly colored ponchos and their parents hoist banners asking for the borders to reopen. Outside Athens, the Hellinikon camp, a complex made up of the abandoned airport and some disused Olympic Games venues, is now temporary home to more than 4,000 people, one of the biggest accommodation centers the Greeks have hurriedly pressed into service. Refugees line up for food distributed outside in the chilly winter day; children play on the stairs of an abandoned airplane ramp. But it is Piraeus, Greece’s large, ancient port, where the logjam of refugees is most apparent. Ferries chartered by the government disgorge men, women and children daily from the islands. With nowhere to go, they live in a multicolored city of tents on the port’s piers. In the arrival hall, blankets are spread on the floor to provide some comfort against the concrete; a mother douses her child’s hair with water in an impromptu bathing. Leloudia Sidera lives in Drossia, a suburb of Athens on the other side of the capital from Piraeus. She has driven to Piraeus with a friend, Thalia Stavridi, to distribute gifts to children. They flock to her as soon as they see her handing out balloons, balls and candy. “Yes, my love,” she says patiently as the children clamor for the toys and grab what they can before running away. “I am a poor woman but I have a heart as big as all Greece,” says Sidera, a 62-year-old pensioner. “I go to my neighbor and I say to him, ‘Do you have some soap I can take the children?’ Then I go to the other neighbor and say, ‘Do you have some lollies?’ And then we put in some of our own money instead of having a birthday party for our children.” The combination of Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II and Greece’s six-year financial crisis is stoking a sense among Greeks that the rest of Europe is letting them down. Inspectors from Europe and the International Monetary Fund are in town to argue over more cuts to pensions and how to raise more taxes before Greece can receive more bailout funds. At Caritas, more Greeks are coming in for help than at the end of 2014 as the country struggles to bring down Europe’s highest unemployment rate. Younger Greeks have emigrated to find work, retracing the steps of their parents, who moved to Australia, Canada and New Zealand as migrants in the wake of World War II. Migration Minister Ioannis Mouzalas has said most of the people coming to Greece are refugees — two-thirds are Syrians — and not migrants, a definition that has played large in the European debate about whether or not to accept Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis or others. It is an issue largely not discussed in Greece. With help, thousands of Greeks migrated to Australia, New Zealand and Canada in the 1950s and 1960s from a country devastated by invasion, occupation, famine and civil war. Some Greeks sought refuge in Syrian cities such as Aleppo, now largely destroyed by that country’s five-year war. In the 1960s, tens of thousands of Greeks moved to Germany as guest workers. Ourania Katsikari joined the ranks of the 1.2 million unemployed Greeks more than a year ago after being fired from her job as a human resources manager. She hasn’t found another one. Her husband’s business is struggling in Greece’s sputtering economy. The couple have cut expenses to make ends meet. But this month Katsikari bought diapers, canned milk, cookies and cans of tuna and carried them to central Syntagma Square for a collection drive for refugees. “Just seeing those poor children tears at my heart,” said Katsikari, 57, whose parents moved to Australia as immigrants in the 1960s. “I see my granddaughter in their eyes and would hate to think that we could ever be put in this situation. I look at things through my parents’ eyes and wonder if they were not given the chance, where would we be now?” Fatima’s family has paid about $4,000 per person for the 40-day journey from Afghanistan, and there is no money left. Paying to get to the border at Idomeni in case the frontier opens isn’t an option, she says. She’s heard Germany can now be difficult, with attacks on refugees. Even so, she says, that is where she and her family hope to go, if the Europeans let them. That is where she can finish her schooling, she says. “They’re all in the same boat,” says Tsialtas, the soup kitchen volunteer. “Nobody has a job, nobody has food and nobody has money.” Petrakis is a special correspondent. ALSO Details about Turkey’s deal with the European Union on the migrant crisis New generation of more radical youth emerges in the Kurdish region of Turkey What do residents of Trump’s ancestral village in Germany think of him? Not so nice

FSA commander Abdul Jabbar Aqidi, one of the commanders of the Free Syrian Army defending the islamic state of iraq and the levant during his tv interview.From wikipedia about islamic state of iraq and the levant:The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Arabic: الدولة الاسلامية في العراق والشام‎ ad-Dawla al-Islāmiyya fi al-'Irāq wa-sh-Shām) abbreviated asISIS or ISIL (acronym in Arabic: داعش‎, Da'āsh), is an insurgent group active in Iraq and Syria. It was established in the early years of the Iraq War, and pledged alleigence to al-Qaeda in 2004, becoming known as al-Qaeda in Iraq and now it is active in Syria to establish a caliphate state.

NEW DELHI — India has lodged a protest with the United States government after several Indian students were detained there in connection with their enrollment in a fake university, after an undercover operation. The American authorities said this past week that they had indicted eight people accused of exploiting the country’s student visa system. They were said to have helped foreign nationals illegally remain in the United States by enrolling them into the University of Farmington in Farmington Hills, Mich., which billed itself as a “nationally accredited business and STEM institution” with an innovative curriculum, flexible class schedules and a diverse student body. But the private university was being secretly operated by agents of the Department of Homeland Security to expose immigration fraud, according to federal prosecutors who announced charges in the case. The Indian government said on Saturday that it had issued a rare “démarche” to the United States Embassy in New Delhi, telling it that Indian officials needed immediate consular access to the detainees.

The video will start in 8 Cancel Click to play Tap to play Sign up NOW for our daily Villa newsletter direct to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email Former Aston Villa and England manager Graham Taylor has died. He was aged 72. The Birmingham Mail received the tragic news this afternoon. Taylor became a legendary figure at Villa after leading them from Division Two to runners up in Division One in the late 1980s. His success at Villa earned him the England job. He subsequently went on to manage Wolves and returned for a second spell at Villa Park. Taylor made his name managing Watford.

We honour Remembrance Day with WW1 Canadian vintage military posters On Remembrance Day we respectfully pause to reflect on the sacrifice of the military, their families, the victims, casualties and society as a whole made during War. "If ye break faith, we shall not sleep : buy victory bonds" Toronto Public Library has a large collection of vintage WWI posters at the Toronto Reference Library Special Collections Department. Many are available online as part of the digital archive. A selection have been posted to our pinterest page. I want to highlight posters showing two aspects of World War I: recruitment, an issue all during the war, but especially towards the end home front sacrifice and efforts The poster was a key communication tool in the time before the Internet, cell phones, television, the movies and even radio. It served to inform, exhort and sway - it was an important propaganda tool.

While Lotus has announced plans for two new sports cars and an SUV to come in the next four years, we'll have to be satisfied with small batch runs of the current Lotus range that includes the Evora, Elise and Exige with minimal alterations for now. The latest comes in the form of the Exige Cup 430 Type 25. The new special edition celebrates the Lotus' Type 25 Formula 1 race car that competed from 1962 to 1967. Jim Clark piloted the Type 25 to seven race wins during the 1963 season to help Lotus claim its first driver's and constructors' championship. Enlarge Image Lotus Setting the Exige Cup 430 Type 25 street car apart from the regular model are light exterior changes. Each will feature either a Lotus Racing Green or Old English White paint job, contrast pinstripes, special decals and new side sills on the outside. Carbon seats covered in black Alcantara, contrast stitching for the seats, dash and door panels, and a wood shift knob like the one found in the Formula 1 racer dress the interior. Power is unchanged with a 3.5-liter V6 fitted with an Edelbrock supercharger setting up shop in the middle of the car. With 430 horsepower and 325 pound-feet on tap, the 2,328-pound car can hit 60 mph in 3.2 seconds and a top speed of 180 mph. A six-speed manual gearbox is standard. Enlarge Image Lotus Carbon-fiber bodywork including the front splitter, front clamshell, roof, air intakes and wing help produce around 485 pounds of downforce, while three-way adjustable dampers and sway bars further sharpen cornering abilities. Lotus is fittingly limiting production of the Exige Cup 430 Type 25 to 25 units. Each will come with a numbered plaque calling out its number in the production run and certificate of authenticity. Purchasing the special Exige also gets owners a guided tour of the Lotus manufacturing plant and classic motorsports facility. However, the Exige Cup 430 Type 25 and tour will cost you. With a starting price of £110,000 ($153,910 directly converted), it's far from affordable, but exclusivity usually doesn't come cheap.

Cyberattacks cost the world more than natural disasters – US$3 trillion in 2015, a price that may climb to $6 trillion annually by 2021 if present trends continue. But most people – and even most businesses – don’t have insurance to protect themselves against this rising threat. Insurance against all kinds of risks – disease, disaster, legal liability and more – is extremely common. In the U.S., companies, families and even government agencies paid a combined $2.7 trillion in insurance premiums in 2016 – and received payouts totaling $1.5 trillion. But just $2.5 billion – 0.09 percent of the total spending – went to buy insurance against cyberattacks and hacking. Elsewhere in the world, there’s even less coverage. For instance, in 2017 the cyber insurance market in India was $27.9 million, 0.04 percent of the total insurance premiums paid in the country that year. From my research on cybercrime and cybersecurity over the past two decades, it is clear to me that cyberattacks have become increasingly sophisticated. The cyber insurance market’s extremely small size suggests that organizations and individuals might have underrated its importance. However, more and more internet users are finding reason to protect themselves. In 10 years’ time, insurance coverage for cyberattacks could be standard for every homeowner. Who is buying cyber insurance? Certain types of companies tend to have – or not have – cyber insurance. The larger the firm and the more closely it depends on computerized data, the more likely it is to have coverage against digital threats. For a company, that can make sense, because a digital intrusion can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to fix and recover from. For individuals, the costs of a breach are lower, but still significant – even as high as $5,000. Regular people are far less likely to have digital protection than companies are. In India, personal cyber insurance is less than 1 percent of the total cyber insurance market. In the U.S. and elsewhere, most products are targeted at rich people. Insurers such as AIG, Chubb, Hartford Steam Boiler and NAS Insurance sell personal cyber insurance policies as add-ons to homeowners’ and renters’ insurance. The insurance industry is doing more, too. A wide range of insurers such as Munich Re, AIG’s CyberEdge, Saga Home Insurance, Burns & Wilcox and Chubb all offer cyber insurance for individuals. These plans cover as much as $250,0000 to repair or replace damaged devices and to pay for expert advice and assistance if a cyberattack affects a policyholder. They may also include data recovery, credit monitoring services and efforts to undo identity theft. Even health services may be included: AIG’s new product Family CyberEdge policy includes a coverage of one year of psychiatric services if a family member is victimized by cyberbullying. Also covered is lost salary if the victim loses a job within 60 days of discovering cyberbullying. Some insurers offer policies that provide help to assess policyholders’ data security practices and scan for cyberthreats. Emerging dangers Another cybercrime that’s becoming increasingly common is called ransomware – in which malicious software takes over a person’s computer and encrypts his or her data. Then the program demands the victim pay a ransom – often in bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies – to get the data decrypted. Some ransomware attackers don’t actually decrypt the data, even if they get paid – but that hasn’t stopped victims from paying big bucks – at least $1 billion in 2016 alone. Even so, there are insurers who sell coverage against ransomware, providing backup and decryption services – or even paying the ransom. As smart home systems become more popular – as well as various technologies to monitor and help coordinate local government services – they’ll provide more potential entry points for hackers. An average home insured by AIG has 20 Wi-Fi-enabled devices. Replacing a hijacked home’s entire smart lighting system, smart entertainment center, thermostat and digital security devices will be expensive – and the bill will only be higher for communities using internet-connected streetlights, water meters, electric cars and traffic controls. Those are opportunities for insurance companies to step in. Some current challenges Before cyber insurance becomes more common, however, the insurance industry will likely have to come to some consensus about what will and won’t be covered. At the moment each plan differs substantially – so customers must conduct a detailed assessment of their own risks to figure out what to buy. Few people know enough to be truly informed customers. Even insurance brokers don’t know enough about cyber risks to usefully help their clients. In addition, because cybercrime is relatively new, insurers do not have much data on how much various types of cybersecurity problems can cost to fix or recover from. They therefore tend to be conservative and overcharge. As people become better-informed about the digital dangers in their lives, and as insurance companies are able to more clearly explain – and more accurately price – their coverage options, the cyber insurance market will grow and may expand rapidly. In the meantime, most policies have some degree of custom design, so consumers should be careful to look for policies that actually cover their needs, and not just evaluate plans based on cost.

This blog is the second part in a two-part series on JavaScript error debugging. Read part one to learn about the inner workings of JavaScript source maps with code examples. It’s not a pretty sight when an application dies. Error messages can be difficult to understand, and we sometimes have to put our investigator hats on to solve the mystery and find the culprit. Most software developers spend all their time avoiding errors, but here at Bugsnag, our entire product is built around capturing and managing errors. As such, we deal a lot with the ins and outs of JavaScript errors and their related APIs. In this blog, we’ll take a look at the different types of JavaScript errors, why they happen, and how to handle them in your application. Automatically generated JS errors and why they happen The first step to understanding JavaScript errors is to understand where they come from. Most JavaScript errors that occur in the wild are automatically generated from the JavaScript engine. There are many types of errors but they typically fall into one of 3 classes. JavaScript TypeError One of the most common classes of error, this occurs when some value is not the type it’s expected to be. Frequently this happens when calling something like a function that actually isn’t a function because it is “undefined” or some other value. window.foo() ### // => TypeError: window.foo is not a function [].length ### // => 0 [].length() ### // => TypeError: array.length is not a function Another common occurrence of TypeError is when trying to access a property on an undefined value. window.foo.bar ### // => TypeError: Cannot read property 'bar' of undefined SyntaxError These errors occur when the JavaScript engine is parsing a script and encounters syntactically invalid code. If a JavaScript file contains a syntax error, none of the code in the file will execute. console.log('hello') notValid( Not only will this code produce an error, but the console.log before the invalid syntax won’t even run. ReferenceError These occur when code refers to a value that does not exist in the current scope. For example: console.log(somethingMadeUp) ### // => ReferenceError: somethingMadeUp is not defined Manually throwing errors Not all errors are accidental. They can also be triggered intentionally. When an application isn’t functioning correctly, it is preferable to fail loudly, explicitly, and clearly. Otherwise the cause of the problem could be unclear or, worse yet, not noticed by the developer at all. The simplest way to manually trigger an error is by using a throw statement: throw 'Invalid input'; This will automatically create an instance of an Error object with the message “Invalid input”, but the error instance can also be created manually and passed around. let error = new Error('Invalid input') ### // later throw error; Manually throwing JS errors is especially helpful for library authors as they can inform a developer using their library how they made a mistake. For example, when a function is called with an invalid argument. function sayName(name) { if(typeof name !== 'string') { throw new Error('name must be a string, received:' + typeof name); } } Intercepting errors using try/catch If you know that a particular bit of code is risky and might throw an error it can be wrapped in a try/catch statement. try { someCrashyFunction() } catch(error) { ### // display it to the user maybe ### // and report it to Bugsnag Bugsnag.notify(error); } Try catch blocks can also be nested inside each other. Once the error is handled, if it is desirable to pass the error higher up the call stack, it can be re-thrown. try { someCrashyFunction() } catch(error) { ### // Handle the error here: ### // ... ### // then pass it up the chain throw error; } Gotta catch ‘em all with global error handling Even with the most diligently written code, errors can sometimes still slip through. It’s okay. Mistakes happen. When they do, it’s important to know about it quickly. That’s where error reporting tools like Bugsnag fit in. How global error handling works To catch and handle all JavaScript errors that might happen in a browser session, we can hook into the window.onerror event handler. This allows setting up a global handler for any unhandled errors that might pop up. This is what the Bugsnag error reporting library hooks into for reporting uncaught errors from browser based JavaScript applications. In a Node environment, there is no window object so the equivalent approach is to use process.on('unhandledException, callback). Global error handling is not a replacement for the fine grained control that can be achieved from try/catch statements. Instead, it serves as a safety net for exceptions that make it through the earlier lines of defense. By placing the error handling closer to the source of the potential problem, we will likely have a better idea of how best to deal with it and possibly recover before the user even notices a problem. And for everything that does slip through the cracks, we have peace of mind knowing our global error handler will surface the issues to us. Broken promises With the advent of ES2015, we were given first class support for Promises in JavaScript which greatly improves the clarity of asynchronous code. One drawback of Promises is they have the tendency to swallow errors that occur in their .then() method. If there is an error generated in this method it will never bubble up to the global error handler and thus will not be reported to Bugsnag. fetch('https://my-api.endpoint') .then((response) => { response.thisMethodDoesNotExist() ### // this error will be swallowed doSomethingElse() ### // this code will never run }) This is why it’s always best practice to add a catch statement for all promise chains so any errors can be handled. fetch('https://my-api.endpoint') .then((response) => { response.thisMethodDoesNotExist() doSomethingElse() ### // this code will never run }) .catch((error) => { console.error(error) ### // # => response.thisMethodDoesNotExist is not a function Bugsnag.notify(error) ### // show the error to the user }); This solves the problem of invisible errors, but it has a couple of drawbacks. First of all, it is cumbersome to write this error handling code for every promise we use. Secondly, if an error occurs in the catch statement, it will be swallowed as well and we are right back where we started. In order to get around this, we can hook into a global unhandled promise rejection handler. window.addEventListener("unhandledrejection", (event) => { console.error(event.reason); // report the error here }); Now any promise that fails and does not have an explicit catch handler will trigger the unhandledrejection event. If you are using the bugsnag-js notifier, then unhandled promise rejections will automatically be caught and logged to Bugsnag so you don’t have to worry about missing them. Properties of an error Once an error has been captured, it can be inspected in order to pull useful information out of it. Most important are the name, message, and stack properties. The first bits of useful information are the error’s name and message. These fields are what get displayed for error listings in the Bugsnag inbox as well as what gets printed to the browser console. The message of an error is set when it is initialized. let error = new Error('This is my message') console.log(error.message) ### // => This is my message By default the error’s name is the same as its constructor function so when an error is created using new Error('oh no!') or throw('oh no!') its name will be “Error”. If you create an error using new TypeError('oh no!') its name would be “TypeError”. The name of an error can be overridden simply by setting it. let myError = new Error('some message'); myError.name = 'ValidationError'; throw myError; Here we’ve changed the error name to ValidationError, and this will be reflected in the Bugsnag dashboard; however, in some browsers (e.g. Chrome), it will still be printed to the console as “Error”. To get around this, custom error classes can be used which we’ll talk about a little later in this article. Stacktraces The Error.prototype.stack property contains the stacktrace for the error. The stacktrace is stored on the error as a simple string where each function in the stack is separated by newline characters. In the bugsnag-js library, we use a utility called error-stack-parser to parse the stacktrace into a useful data structure. It is important to note that the stacktrace is determined by where the error was initialized, not where it was thrown. This means that if an error is created and returned from functionA and then thrown in functionB, the top of the stacktrace will be functionA. It’s likely that you’ll minify your JavaScript code, and when you do, the lines in the stacktrace will not match up with the original source files. In order to find the original source, we use source maps to look up and translate the stacktrace. Learn more about how source maps work in our other blog in this series the Anatomy of source maps. Creating custom error types Sometimes it is useful to create custom error types in addition to the ones that are already built into the JavaScript language. One possible use case for this is an application could be set up to handle different types of errors in different ways. For example, in a Node application, perhaps we would have a special error class for validation errors in API requests. If a validation error is caught, the application would know to respond with an HTTP 400 status. Custom errors also allow capturing additional custom data with an error that is specific to that error class. ES6 classes make the task of defining custom error types extremely trivial. For example, if we wanted to throw a specific type of error for invalid fields, we could define it like this. class ValidationError extends Error { constructor(field, reason) { super(reason); this.field = field; this.reason = reason; ### // the next line is important so that the ValidationError constructor is not part ### // of the resulting stacktrace Error.captureStackTrace(this, ValidationError); } ### // we can also define custom methods on this class prettyMessage() { return `ValidationError: [${this.fields}] reason: ${this.reason}`; ### // ex: "ValidationError: [age] reason: Must be a number" } } Then the error handling code can make use of instanceof to determine what type of error was thrown and respond appropriately. In an Express.js application for example, custom middleware can be set up to accomplish this. app.use(function errorHandler (error, req, res, next) { if (error instance of ValidationError) { ### // respond with 400 status and include relevant error details return res.status(400).json({ type: error.name, message: error.prettyMessage(), field: error.field, }); } else { ### // This is some other kind of error, let the default error handler deal with it next(error) } }) Although this example is using Express.js middleware, a similar approach can be taken in other types of JavaScript applications using a simple try/catch. try { submitForm(); } catch (error) { if (error instance of ValidationError) { ### // show the error to the user displayErrorMessage(error.prettyMessage()); } else { ###// pass it to the default error handler throw error; } } Without custom error classes, this kind of specialized error handling would be much more difficult.It would require doing something hacky, like comparing the error message or some custom property. Luckily, using the error class for comparison is much more explicit. Wrapping up When applications fail, ideally they provide a smooth experience for the user, but for the developer, they should fail loudly and clearly so the problem can be quickly analyzed. Properly utilizing the tools the JavaScript language provides for error handling can help to clarify the opaque anomalies in an application so they can be understood quickly and addressed. ——— Try Bugsnag’s JavaScript error reporting, free for 14-days.

PREVIEWSworld released another update to our May 2020 solicitations coverage, by way of the Andrew Griffith B cover for the third issue of the Transformers vs. The Terminator series. The T-800’s mission is simple: Exterminate the Cybertronians and ensure the future belongs to SKYNET. When Optimus Prime offers his aid, suggesting they go after Megatron together, the T-800 faces his toughest decision yet. Is the enemy of his enemy his friend, or just another threat to the mission? Creator credits: David Mariotte (Author) John Barber (Author) Tom Waltz (Author) Alex Milne (Artist) Gavin Fullerton (Cover Artist) Andrew Griffith (Cover Artist) This issue becomes self-aware on your May 27th pull list. Check out the attached artwork, then share your thoughts about it on the 2005 boards!

WINNIPEG—New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair would pull Canada out of the U.S.-led mission in the Middle East if he’s elected, and tell the allies that Canada is an independent country with its own foreign policy. “This is an American-led mission. Canada is free. We have our own foreign policy. We’ll have an independent foreign policy under an NDP government and we will put an end to Canada’s participation in the combat mission in Iraq and in Syria. We’re serious about that and we’ve been consistent on it and that’s what we’ve said since day one,” Mulcair told reporters Thursday at a campaign event in Winnipeg. Canada has F-18 fighter jets taking part in U.S.-led coalition bombing campaigns in Syria and Iraq, and the Canadian military is also involved in training Kurdish peshmerga fighters as part of efforts to contain the militant group calling itself the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, or ISIL) that has seized large parts of both Middle East countries. The current parliamentary mandate ends next March, but Mulcair, whose party voted against both the initial mission in Iraq last year and its expansion into Syria this spring, said he would not wait for it to end. “We’re serious about that and we’ve been consistent on it and that’s what we’ve said since day one,” Mulcair said Thursday. The NDP leader justified this decision by saying that the mission is not sanctioned by the United Nations or being conducted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). “Multilateralism has always been part of the Canadian approach, but this is neither a UN nor a NATO mission,” Mulcair said. But Mulcair then also said he would keep 200 Canadian soldiers in their training mission in the Ukraine, which is also being done apart from the UN and NATO. “It’s a completely different situation. I think that the training mission in the Ukraine could and should be able to continue,” Mulcair said. The Canadian Press reported harsh criticism of the plan from the ex-pat Kurdish community, which has been largely supportive of the Conservative government’s military intervention against the Islamic State. “Stopping the bombing of ISIS? Stopping the training against ISIS? That is exactly what they want,” Yusuk Celik, vice-president of the Kurdish Youth Association of Canada, told The Canadian Press. Celik also accused the NDP of playing politics with the horrifying photo of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed ashore in Turkey last week, without mentioning how his family had likely fled their hometown of Kobani due to ISIS. “They’re saying, ‘Just give us his pictures for our political campaign, but don’t give us any of your other issues,” Celik told The Canadian Press. Mulcair said Thursday the NDP would tackle the problem of ISIS in other ways. “We also know there are several things that we can and should be doing with our allies, such as stopping the flow of foreign fighters, stopping the flow of arms, stopping the flow of money to ISIS and ISIL. You know, we should be doing something at home, which is combating radicalization, something that Stephen Harper has failed to do,” said Mulcair. Mulcair, who has been facing many questions about how he plans to pay for his big-ticket promises and still honour a pledge to balance the federal budget next year, also said Thursday the NDP will release details of its fiscal plan before the Globe and Mail debate on economic issues Sept. 17. “We are going to be putting out numbers. It will be fully costed. We are putting that out there so that everybody can see a full accounting of what we’ve been talking about, and I hope that the other parties will do it as well, because none of the major parties has done that so far, so we plan to do that between now and that debate a week from today,” Mulcair said. Mulcair was in Winnipeg to announce a plan to create job opportunities and paid internships for youth at non-governmental organizations and in the private sector. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... “You deserve to be paid and you deserve to be safe in your workplace,” Mulcair said in the announcement at the Operating Engineers Institute of Manitoba Inc. The NDP says it will commit up to $100 million every year to a pilot program it says would create 40,000 job opportunities for youth over the span of four years, which would be focused on the non-profit sector but also be available to corporations and small businesses. It would use this money to leverage more investment from the private sector. The NDP would also require all federal infrastructure projects at federally regulated airports, port authorities and Crown corporations that cost more than $10-million to hire apprentices. It also promises to provide $5 million every year to municipalities and Indigenous governments so they can create 1,250 youth apprentices.

São Paulo Uma ação da Polícia Militar de São Paulo fechou na manhã desta sexta-feira (17) uma das mais bem estruturadas “padarias” já montadas pela facção criminosa PCC na capital paulista, capaz de processar e produzir 900 embalagens de cocaína por minuto. Só o maquinário industrial apreendido no local está avaliado em cerca de R$ 3,7 milhões. De acordo com a polícia, a “padaria” vinha funcionando em um galpão no Jardim Juçara, ao lado da comunidade de Paraisópolis, na zona sul da capital. Três suspeitos foram presos. Foram apreendidos 712 quilos de cocaína refinada e mais 60 quilos de pasta base. De acordo com o tenente Henrique de Oliveira e Silva, comandante da equipe responsável pela operação, a droga produzida naquele local era distribuída não só para favela de Paraisópolis, mas para toda a zona sul capital. “Em valores, foi declarado que eles produziam cerca de R$ 300 mil por dia”, disse o oficial. Galpão que funcionava local de processamento e embalagem de cocaína na zona sul da capital - Divulgação Polícia Militar A prisão dos suspeitos, apreensão das drogas e maquinário ocorreu de forma inesperada. Os policias passavam em frente ao galpão quando um dos suspeitos, que saía do local, se assustou em tentou correr. Ao ser questionado sobre o que fazia por ali, deu informações imprecisas, o que levou os PMs a descobrir as máquinas funcionando na embalagem das drogas. “Padaria” é a forma com os criminosos da facção chamam os pontos de armazenagem, processamento e distribuição de drogas espalhados pelas áreas de dominadas por eles. Por muitos anos, a facção contratou criminosos para embalar essas drogas manualmente. Além de ser um processo lento e precisar envolver um contingente cada vez maior por conta de demanda, havia sempre o risco de parte da carga ser desviada ou consumida pelos trabalhadores. Daí a necessidade de investimento em tecnologia. A “padaria” fechada nesta sexta é considerada uma das maiores (se não a maior) estruturas montadas pelo PCC, e das encontradas pela a polícia. Só de máquinas em funcionamento, originalmente projetadas para ensacar grânulos e pós, foram encontradas quatro delas avaliadas em R$ 450 mil cada uma delas, capazes de processar 180 cápsulas por minuto as três juntas. Uma outra máquina, ainda maior, avaliada em R$ 1 milhão, estava no galpão pronta para ser montada. Só esse novo equipamento geraria 720 embalagens por minuto —chegando à capacidade total de 900 saquinhos de droga por minuto. Outras duas máquinas novas (avaliadas igualmente em R$ 450 mil) também estavam prontas para entrar em funcionamento. A Polícia Civil formalizava a prisão em flagrante dos suspeitos até a conclusão deste texto. A droga apreendida foi encaminhada para perícia, para a confirmação necessária para o processo criminal.

Blake is definatly in my top 5 favorite RWBY charicters (not sure where just know that she's up there) and Raven's my fave Teen Titans charicter seeing this equills all the fangirls! pluss you is a very excilent artist!

In a sign of how quickly European politics has moved, senior diplomats in the British embassy in Paris less than a decade ago held intense discussions about whether British officials could ever have a meeting with members of the French Front National. The party, then run by Jean-Marie Le Pen, was regarded as so off-limits as to be untouchable. The embassy’s current occupants will doubtless be breathing a quiet sigh of relief that Marine Le Pen, Jean-Marie’s estranged daughter, is unlikely to make up a 20-point deficit to win the second round of the presidential elections, but know the alternative – the election of the almost romantically pro-European Emmanuel Macron – might prove to be an equally big diplomatic headache. Macron’s presidency may turn on his ability to push through domestic reforms, but in his campaign he has set down unpalatable markers for London on Brexit and for the future shape of Europe, especially the revival of the long stalled Franco-German motor. Macron – when pressed mainly by British reporters – has said he will not countenance a deal that allows the UK to act as Europe’s offshore tax haven with access to the single market. Like his one-time patron, François Hollande, he is determined no other EU country should believe Brexit is worth emulating. A former banker, he will also be tempted to lure many of his UK-based supporters back to France by making Paris an effective rival to the City of London. But Macron’s ability to press this case depends largely on the relationship he manages to strike with Berlin. He visited Germany twice during the campaign and in a 70-minute lecture delivered in English at Humboldt University in Berlin in January, he promised to end the mistrust and deadlock that had disfigured the Franco-German axis. Some French economists see Macron’s grand plans for the reform of the eurozone, a common budget, a finance minister, European defence and a multi-speed Europe as the kind of boilerplate Euro-vacuity produced by the French foreign ministry for generations. They say it has been rejected repeatedly by German governments. “Most just yawn and wait for the next item of business,” said one European commission economist. Macron, an ex-banker, will likely aim to make Paris an effective financial rival to London. Photograph: Alamy But others such as Sylvie Goulard, one of Macron’s foreign policy advisers, say Macron is deadly serious. A window of opportunity for reform exists in the wake of the French and German elections that might be the last chance for the liberal centre to reform Europe. In his Berlin speech he argued that a dysfunctioning euro helped Germany, adding that a lack of trust between France and Germany was blocking major reforms that would increase solidarity among the 19 members of the currency union. “The truth is that we must collectively recognise that the euro is incomplete and cannot last without major reforms. It has not provided Europe with full international sovereignty against the dollar on its rules. It has not provided Europe with a natural convergence between the different member states. “The euro is a weak deutsche mark,” said Macron. “The status quo is synonymous, in 10 years’ time, with the dismantling of the euro.” His ideas for reform of the euro, first set out with the German SPD politician Sigmar Gabriel, challenge Berlin’s adherence to trade surpluses, which he has described as unsustainable. Many of his proposals remain vague but Macron has been honest enough to acknowledge Berlin will only listen to Paris if France first establishes its credibility through economic reforms. But many analysts doubt Macron will gather the political authority to push his pro-European agenda in France, let alone Germany. French economist Charles Wyplosz said there was not the broad support for reform and only two candidates in the first round presidential vote, Macron and rightwing candidate François Fillon, made the case for it. “The good news is that Macron and Fillon won 50% of the vote, but the bad news is that 50% of the French people still have no idea about what needs to be done, and that poses questions about what happens next,” Wyplosz said. “France has been in the slow lane for decades, losing political influence in Europe, largely because there have been these arrangements where everyone has these privileges that they have been skilled at protecting. Macron has to confront powerful forces that often by putting 2 million people on the streets have won every battle in the last decade.” But Macron’s domestic fragility places a responsibility on Germany to help him. Ronja Kempin, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Policy, says it is necessary for Berlin to plan for around 2022, when there is a real risk of a Front National victory in the second round. “If France falls, Germany will find herself alone. To avoid this, Berlin will have to make clear economic and ideological sacrifices.”

Image copyright PAcemaker Image caption Workers at Linden Foods Workers at Linden Foods in Dungannon have walked out over a "total absence of social distancing measures", Unite trade union has said. They refused to start shifts and have asked for talks with management. Linden Foods said its priority was ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of its employees. It comes as an updated list of businesses considered to be essential and allowed to open is due to be published. Arlene Foster said businesses which could put social distancing in place could remain open. She said the "essential businesses" list would be updated following the passage of the Coronavirus Bill through Parliament. On Thursday night, Justice Minister Naomi Long said off licences were no longer deemed to be non-essential and could open if it was safe to do so. Walk-out Linden Foods said that approximately 40 employees had not attended work on Friday. Unite regional officer Brian Hewitt said there was no social distancing at Linden Foods on the boning line, in the canteen, in changing areas or at entry and exit points. He added that management had provided no additional wash facilities and failed to stagger breaks. Mr Hewitt said: "Everyone needs to take responsibility but the company's actions are putting workers needlessly at further risk." In response Linden Foods said it had been "actively implementing a range of measures across all our sites to provide a safe working environment". These measures included increasing canteen size, erecting handwashing units and staggering breaks. The statement added: "We fully appreciate and respect our teams who continue to attend work as key workers, ensuring that the food supply chain functions smoothly to keep the nation fed." On Wednesday, staff at poultry firm Moy Park left their stations at its Portadown processing plant, claiming that social distancing was not being adhered to. Moy Park said it has put new "robust" measures in place to protect staff, including staggered breaks and screens on some production lines. 'Economic base' Speaking on BBC's The View, Mrs Foster said: "We now have regulations to make in terms of essential and non-essential businesses, so we have to work through that. "We also need to bear in mind that once we come out the other side of this terrible time we are going through - and which will be with us for some considerable time - we need to make sure we have an economic base to come back to. "If you are operating a business and you can have safe working practices then you can continue to do that." Off licenses A list of businesses which could and could not open in Northern Ireland was published by the executive on Tuesday. Off licences were not included among those allowed to open, unlike in the rest of the UK. Some people had expressed concern, including SDLP assembly member Matthew O'Toole, who wrote to ministers about the issue. He said responsible drinkers were entitled to have a drink "at a time when so many other liberties are being restricted" and also expressed concern about those with serious addictions "suddenly losing access to alcohol" which could lead to pressures on the health service. " Mrs Long said they were no longer required to close, but were still not "essential" and it was down to individual owners to decide if it was safe to open. Skip Twitter post by @naomi_long Yes. Off licences are not listed as essential: however, they have been removed from the list of premises ordered to close. It is for individual off sales to judge and justify remaining open and to provide proper protection for their staff if they do. — Naomi Long MLA (@naomi_long) March 26, 2020 Report Robin Swann thanked local businesses for coming forward. It is planned that 20,000 ventilators will be manufactured and bought by NHS England and allocated across the UK. Mr Swann said the firms had offered "their skills and expertise to assist the effort to provide those on the front line with the precious resources that they need". The finance and economy ministers also praised the response. They said 30 responses came from companies who will be involved in the UK-wide push to produce ventilators. The ministers also said a cross-government PPE group has been established which will oversee orders with a view to expand the number of suppliers to government. Help from businesses Meanwhile, companies in Northern Ireland have offered to help supply critical items. More than 100 companies responded to the government's call for help in sourcing critical items in the fight against Covid-19, the health minister said. Ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE) and hand sanitisers are among the required items. He added that staff concerns over PPE were being treated "very seriously". The director of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Pat Cullen, said nurses she had spoken to were "terrified" going into their work over the lack of appropriate PPE. She said the effort needed to be "stepped up" and nurses were "really, really afraid every day and night". Image copyright PA Media Image caption PPE equipment protects healthcare workers "Nurses coming off night duty last night contacted me very concerned about this," she told BBC Good Morning Ulster. "This is not finger pointing. Everyone is trying to do their best, but the bottom line is it's not available in the quantities and at the level that it is needed," she said. "If you are afraid going into work every night because you do not have the PPE that you need - that's a very difficult place for nurses to be in," she added. There have been 241 cases of coronavirus in Northern Ireland to date and 10 coronavirus related deaths.

The club retailer said Thursday that effective June 1, the price of entry into its U.S. and Canada stores will be $60 for individual and business cardholders, an increase of $5. Executive members will see their fees go up by $10, to $120. Get ready to pay more for your Costco membership. Costco last raised its membership fee in 2011, and typically does so every five to six years. The changes will impact some 35 million members, roughly half of whom belong to its executive program. Costco generates three-fourths of its operating income from membership fees, according to UBS. The retailer notified Wall Street of the planned increases while reporting its fiscal second-quarter results. The chain's earnings and revenue fell short of Wall Street's expectations, sending its shares nearly 5 percent lower after the market closed. Despite coming in lower than expected, sales at Costco's established stores increased 4 percent in February.

El consejero presidente del INE, Lorenzo Córdova, durante el evento "Democracia y Derecho a la Información en México. Reflexiones a 5 años (2014-2019)". Imagen tomada de Twitter: @INEMexico Al hacer click en enviar quedaras regitrad@ a nuestro boletín el cual podrás cancelar en cualquier momento;no olvides revisar tu carpeta de spam. CIUDAD DE MÉXICO Autoridades federales identificaron 12 mil cadáveres y 19 mil personas reportadas como desaparecidas en dos años y medio, con datos del Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE). “Hemos identificado a alrededor de 12 mil cadáveres de desconocidos y a más de 19 mil personas desaparecidas”, aseveró Lorenzo Córdova Vianello, consejero presidente del INE. El funcionario explicó que el reconocimiento de cadáveres y personas desaparecidas se logró con las compulsas de datos biométricos. Durante la firma de un convenio entre el órgano electoral y el Instituto Nacional de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información y Protección de Datos Personales (Inai), Córdova Vianello reveló que el INE maneja más de cinco mil 224 millones de datos personales en cuatro bases de datos. En meses recientes, el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador y el subsecretario de Derechos Humanos, Migración y Población, Alejandro Encinas, han señalado que en el país había cerca de 40 mil personas desaparecidas y 26 mil más sin identificar en los semefos de los estados. Luego de una consulta al Registro Nacional de Personas Extraviadas y Desaparecidas, este diario constató en abril que 37 mil 506 personas estaban en esa situación. Identifican a 31 mil con apoyo del INE Lorenzo Córdova detalla que se han identificado alrededor de 12 mil cadáveres y más de 19 mil desaparecidos. El consejero presidente del INE, Lorenzo Córdova, reveló que con los datos del INE se han identificado a más de 12 mil cadáveres y se ha podido dar identidad a más de 19 mil personas desaparecidas en los 2.5 últimos años. Lorenzo Córdova reveló que el INE maneja más de cinco mil 224 millones de datos personales en cuatro bases datos que son el padrón electoral, padrones de militantes de los partidos, datos personales de los empleados del INE y de los niños del parlamento infantil. Te puede interesar: Están en el limbo 74 mil personas Dijo que a través del padrón electoral también se ha brindado servicio social e informó que gracias al servicio de autenticación para que autoridades externas puedan validar los datos personales con los datos del INE. “Hemos identificado alrededor de 12 mil cadáveres de desconocidos y hemos podido identificar a más de 19 mil personas desaparecidas que, con la compulsa de los datos biométricos, les hemos dado identidad”, aseveró el funcionario federal. Refrendan convenio Cabe destacar que el INE y el Instituto Nacional de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información (Inai) refrendaron la colaboración que iniciaron hace cinco años mediante un convenio para impulsar la cultura de la transparencia. Córdova Vianello subrayó la importancia de la autonomía de ambos institutos, mientras que el comisionado presidente del Inai, Francisco Javier Acuña, explicó que ese instituto protege al ciudadano contra los excesos de autoridades y partidos políticos o ante la falta de rendición de cuentas. En su intervención, el comisionado presidente del Inai aseveró que el organismo que él encabeza y el INE son conquistas de la sociedad que brindan certidumbre en los comicios y en el proceder de la gestión pública diaria para desterrar el secreto que sólo favorece a quienes ejercen el poder. “La evolución de estos órganos autónomos ha sido en el tiempo un trofeo de todos los que organizadamente han incidido en la vida republicana. La transición política se colmó gracias a que se arrebató y se conquistó que estos espacios de decisión pública no recayeran en un solo individuo, como en el pasado”, subrayó en la firma de un Convenio General de Colaboración entre el INAI y el INE. Marchan por los 43 Familiares y amigos de los estudiantes de la Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa se reunieron ayer por la tarde en el Hemiciclo a Juárez, un mes antes de que se cumplan cinco años de la desaparación de 43 de ellos. Los inconformes exigieron que se investigue al exprocurador general de la República Jesús Murillo Karam y a varios funcionarios, entre ellos a Tomás Zerón, exsecretario Técnico del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional, por el caso de llamada verdad histórica. Cabe destacar la polémica que causó un video dado a conocer en internet en el que se aprecia a uno de los detenidos siento torturado por policías, tras llevarse a un grupo de jóvenes la noche del 26 de septiembre de 2014, día en el que se suscitó la desaparición de los 43 normalistas. En septiembre próximo se cumplen cinco años de la desaparición de los 43 jóvenes y hasta el momento no se ha esclarecido el paradero los 43 alumnos de la Normal Isidro Burgos. Por otra parte, ayer, el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador anunció que con motivo de su Primer Informe de Gobierno ofrecerá un reporte de los avances registrados en el tema de los desaparecidos en el país. El mandatario explicó que el informe será complementado por la Subsecretaría de Derechos Humanos de la Segob. Con información de Isabel González y Notimex *jci La ley de derechos de autor prohíbe estrictamente copiar completa o parcialmente los materiales de Excélsior sin haber obtenido previamente permiso por escrito y sin incluir el link al texto original.

In a recently released propaganda video, the Taliban provided extensive footage of an ambush on an Afghan logistics convoy in the eastern province of Wardak. The daylight ambush destroyed multiple Afghan vehicles, and despite the fact that US helicopters were nearby, the Taliban do not appear to have been targeted during the fighting. The video, which is titled ‘Caravan of Heroes 13’ and was published on August 28, was produced by Manba al Jihad Studio, the media arm of the Haqqani Network, the Taliban subgroup that is closely linked to al Qaeda. Manba al Jihad Studio is “an official media wing of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Commission for Cultural Affairs Audio and Visual Sector,” according to the accompanying statement announcing the release of the video. The video opens with a lengthy discussion of ambush tactics between two masked Taliban fighters, one who is wearing a black tee-shirt with the words “Quick Attack Force – Special Forces” and a Taliban logo printed on the front. The video then cuts to footage of an ambush that targeted an Afghan military logistics convoy on a road in Sayyadabad district in Wardak province. The date of the attack was not given, however it appears to have taken place in the late spring or summer months. Sayyadabad was the district where Taliban fighters shot down a US Chinook helicopter in Aug. 2011 and killed 31 US and seven Afghan special operations forces, including several members of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, which is more commonly referred to as SEAL Team 6. FDD’s Long War Journal has assessed Sayyadabad as Taliban-controlled, and the video demonstrates why. Dozens of Taliban fighters assemble near the village in broad daylight. The village is clearly Taliban controlled, and the group has ambushed military convoys in this very same spot in the past. As the Taliban fighters take up their ambush positions along a length of the road, the remains of what appears to be an oil tanker sits on the shoulder. Before the ambush begins, the Taliban fighter who was recording the attack captures two US Blackhawk helicopters on video as they are flying over the convoy. The Taliban fighters, who are gathering in the open, are undeterred by the Blackhawks, and launch their ambush shortly afterward. At one point during the fighting, what appears to be a military attack aircraft is captured on film, but it does not open fire on the ambush team. The Taliban ambush, while not very sophisticated, was effective. The fighters open fire on the convoy with machine guns and assault rifles from multiple positions. It does not appear that IEDs, RPGs, recoilless rifles or other heavy weapons were used to target the convoy. Although the Taliban was firing from locations that included buildings, the fighters did not appear to take advantage of rooftops and instead fired from ground level. Yet the Taliban was able to successfully destroy multiple vehicles in the attack. First, the fighters hit a fuel tanker, then several military vehicles were hit. As the segment ends, multiple vehicles are ablaze along the a stretch of the road. At the end of the scene, the Taliban fighters casually walk away. The video highlights a major problem that Afghan and Coalition forces face throughout the country: the Taliban has demonstrated that it can take the fight to Afghan forces with little fear of being targeted by air assets. The Taliban is often able to overrun military bases and district centers, and loiter in the area for nearly a day without taking fire. [See Analysis: Coalition and Afghan forces must target Taliban after overrunning bases.] Screen shots from the ambush in Wardak Taliban fighters move to their ambush position: The wreck of a previously destroyed tanker is seen on the same road the ambush took place: One of two US Blackhawk helicopters that were flying over the convoy just before the ambush: Taliban fighters survey the road: A tanker is hit: An Afghan military vehicle is hit: Two vehicles are burning: Taliban fighters engage the convoy from a field: Multiple vehicles are aflame: Taliban fighters walk away from the ambush: Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal. Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.

Wants to be fashionably late to a party that starts at 8:00 Thinks 8:02 is fashionably late 191 shares

Chance the Rapper, Pretty Lights, and Bleachers are set to perform at Bonnaroo’s 2015 genre-blending Throwback SuperJam Dance Party. They will be joined by DMC of Run-DMC fame, Metallica’s Rob Trujillo, Reggie Watts, and more at 1:30 a.m. on the festival’s third night, Saturday, June 13. “My goal is to deliver a show we’ve never seen before and do it all in the name of pure fun,” explained SuperJam producer Paul Peck. “It’s a leap of faith by both these artists and fans and it’s very inspirational. Also, I love surprises.” Check out the full lineup below.

Sister Wives Daughter Comes Out As Gay and the World Does Not Explode The 21-year-old came out to her five parents on this Sunday's episode of the series. There were plenty of dropped jaws on TLC’s Sister Wives when 21-year-old Mariah came out as gay to her parents, stars of the show, Kody and Meri Brown on Sunday's episode. Of course, because the show is called Sister Wives, and it's about a family with one patriarch and several mother figures, she also comes out to three other female parents at the same time, according to US Magazine. In true reality TV fashion, there’s plenty of handwringing in talking head interviews about what Mariah, who is one of 18 children in the Brown family, might possibly so nervous about telling her family. In the clip below she eventually blurts out that she’s gay, and then the camera pans to several wide-eyed parents. The series focuses on the Brown family that practices Mormon Fundamentalism, a religion that does not approve of LGBT identities. Still, the family did say in an interview with HuffPost Live in 2013 that they are not opposed to same-sex marriage, citing that “All adults should be able to choose who they love and how they structure their family,” according to US. While Mariah’s coming out was met with blank stares for the sake of dramatic tension on the show, her father Kody said he was happy that his daughter is self-aware. “We’re not happy Mariah’s gay; we’re happy Mariah knows herself,” Kody said, according to US. Since the episode aired this past Sunday, Mariah has been met with loads of support on social media. She thanked her fans via Twitter.

I remember when I received my first Wacom tablet in the mail. I was filled with pure excitement to finally interpret my doodles directly on screen. The brush tool in both Illustrator and Photoshop immediately became my favorite thing. Since then, I’ve used the tablet to create lettering professionally, edit detailed photography, and apply a hand drawn feel to other projects. As a designer, you typically think ‘expensive’ when you hear the word Wacom. Maybe because they’re known to be the best brand of tablets for designers that money can buy, but you’d be surprised to find out an affordable Wacom is within reach! So, if you’ve never owned a tablet before and you’ve always wanted to draw, edit or doodle on screen, it can be done for less than $100. Seriously! Here are 5 affordable Wacom tablets: 1. Wacom Intuos3 4×5 Pen Tablet, PTZ430 This is the new version of the first tablet I ever owned! And it’s wayyy less than I paid back in the day! I never used the mouse or the preset buttons (on the tablet or on the stylus), but it was my trusty side kick for close to 8 years. The only thing I didn’t like (mentioned in #4 below) was that the surface the stylus is used on is hard plastic vs some of the softer surface options available on Wacoms. 2. Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch Small Tablet Though I personally haven’t used this tablet, the people on Amazon have spoken. 4.5 stars from 1500 reviewers and the best seller for its category can be pretty persuasive. This one looks like a great deal for anyone new to using a tablet. 3. Wacom Bamboo Splash Pen Tablet CTL471 My coworker from my first job out of college used this tablet. It got him through 4 years of college and he was still going strong well into his professional career. I had asked him about it once and he said he had no reason to ever look for another. Pretty great reviews from other users, too! 4. Wacom Intuos Pro Pen and Touch Small Tablet PTH451 This is my current tablet that I use at home for everything I do, including some of the tutorials you may have seen on my YouTube channel. I’ve been really happy with it and don’t plan to replace it any time soon. How this compares to the first tablet I owned (#1 above): The surface your stylus glides over on #1 always seemed a little ‘plasticy’ to me – with this tablet, the surface is much softer, more like paper. That’s probably one of my favorite things about this tablet. Everything feels more natural when your stylus glides along vs ‘slides’ along 🙂 5. Wacom Intuos Pro Pen and Touch Large Tablet PTH851 This is the tablet I use at work, which is actually just the large version of the one I use at home (#4). I love, loveeee using this one at work for a few reasons. 1. It has a massive live area for drawing (I place my keyboard on top of it to maximize desk space when I’m not using it, so I don’t have to find a separate place to store it like my one at home) 2. there are many more pressure sensitivity settings for the stylus and 3. my favorite – it’s also touch sensitive. So you can zoom in and out and rotate using your fingers just like on an iphone. Check out the video on the sales page to see 🙂 If I ever decide to upgrade from my home version, this will likely be the one I get. There you go! If you have any questions about using a Wacom for the first time or are curious about any features I did or didn’t mention, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email, I’m happy to answer any! Happy doodling 🙂

REGINA—First Nations leaders say they’ll be able to do more projects and build more homes because of changes that give them more control over financial resources. The federal government announced Tuesday that First Nations will now be able to carry funding from year-to-year, instead of having to return money if a project wasn’t completed within a fiscal year. Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde said the problem was that projects often didn’t get approved until late in a fiscal year. “There used to always be the requirement, but you know the monies never got out fast enough and everybody would panic that you have resources that have to be expended by the end of March or you lose them or you have to send them back,” Bellegarde said after making the announcement at the AFN’s annual meeting. “The monies coming out for housing came out so late, you can’t finish your housing programs, so now you’re going to be able to carry them over to the next fiscal year so that work can continue.” Bellegarde called the old situation “March madness,” but said communities won’t have to scramble now. Read more: Activists celebrate as statue of controversial Halifax founder covered with tarp Canadian military must learn more about Indigenous history to avoid incidents like the one on Canada Day: Mi’kmaq organizer Canada’s top general apologizes for incident at Indigenous ceremony Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett said the old process left communities in a situation where projects could be caught in a cycle of starting and stopping. “They can start the project and then know that if it’s not done by the following spring, that they still have the money to carry on and finish the project,” said Bennett, who also addressed the AFN on Tuesday. “There’s no question these are first steps, but these were real irritants that we can get out of the way.” Ottawa will also work with First Nations on a new approach to funding essential services, such as fire, emergency services, schools, and water and waste treatment systems, she said. Both the government and the AFN said the current policy, which was introduced almost 20 years ago, is outdated, and does not reflect First Nations needs. “The requirement to find other sources of funding to ensure that you have clean drinking water or emergency management services, it means that some communities go without these essential services,” said Bellegarde. “This policy ... does real harm and it’s holding First Nations back.” Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Earlier in the day, Bellegarde opened the Assembly of First Nations’ annual meeting with an impassioned plea to end racism. He said First Nations face alarming acts of hatred and violence and it must stop. “Every child has a right to a safe and healthy home and to grow up in a society where they are treated with dignity and respect and have the same opportunities as other children,” Bellegarde told the assembly in Regina Tuesday. “The violence, the racism, the discrimination has to end.” Federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said she shares his concerns. “We need to ensure that we do everything that we can to address those realities,” said Wilson-Raybould, who was at the AFN meeting. “We all need to understand the history and the realities of Indigenous peoples in this country.” Bellegarde cited the hateful reaction to murder charges against a white Saskatchewan farmer in the death of an Indigenous man named Colton Boushie. Boushie, 22, of the Red Pheasant First Nation, was shot and killed while riding in an SUV that went onto a farm last August. Bellegarde spoke of the counter protests to First Nations seeking the removal of a statue in Halifax of Edward Cornwallis, who founded that city in 1749 and soon after issued a bounty on Mi’kmaq scalps. On Canada Day, a group of off-duty Canadian military men disrupted a spiritual event at the statue marking the suffering of Indigenous peoples. The men, who now face a military investigation and possible expulsion from the Forces, said they were members of the Proud Boys, a self-declared group of “western chauvinists” who have said they are tired of apologizing for “creating the modern world.” Bellegarde also referenced recent deaths in Thunder Bay, Ont., that has struggled with tensions between local police and Indigenous people.

Austria billionaire Stronach party allowed in parliament Published duration 8 November 2012 image caption Frank Stronach has promised to shake up the Eurozone A party set up by an Austro-Canadian billionaire six weeks ago is being allowed into parliament in Vienna without contesting an election. Frank Stronach, 80, launched his party at the end of September. Speaker Barbara Prammer awarded parliamentary status to Team Stronach, after it persuaded five MPs to defect from a small right-wing alliance. Born in Austria, the car parts magnate spent almost sixty years in Canada, where he built his fortune. According to opinion polls, his new party has attracted the support of an estimated 10% of the electorate, even though it is yet to define its policies clearly. Mr Stronach has vowed to shake up the eurozone, but has said a full party programme will not be decided until April. Autumn election He has said that a country stands and falls by its own currency and believes the euro has made Europe uncompetitive. Austria holds general elections next autumn and the decision to allow a new party into parliament in the form of the five defected MPs was not without controversy. Frank Stronach was born into a working class family in southern Austria during the Great Depression. After the Second World War he emigrated to Canada where he established a small manufacturing company in Toronto. That enterprise grew over the years into Magna International, North America's largest automobile parts manufacturer. Mr Stronach unsuccessfully stood as a candidate for the Canadian parliament in 1988.

Warning: this post contains spoilers for season 2 of Legend of Korra! [Likely you’ve already watched it (and watched it again) but if not — proceed with caution.] Book 2: Spirits (AKA season 2) of Legend of Korra only wrapped a little over three months ago but who isn’t already anticipating the next installment? “Spirits” wrapped at a point of such potential, it’s hard to believe we have to wait who knows how long for Book 3: Changes. In the season finale of Korra, “Light in the Dark,” viewers learned that Korra had mastered Bending, the portals between the Spiritual World and the Physical World are open and (least importantly) our heroine is now single. Where does this leave us for season 3? This writer can’t wait to see what creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael DiMartino have in store. 1) Dragons. A trailer for Book 3 aired in the Netherlands last month, and one gracious fan recorded it and shared it on youtube. While the quality is not great, the 14 second clip was enough to get fans hyped about one thing in particular: DRAGONS. How or why these majestic beasts will come into play remains a mystery but their inclusion was a brilliant move from the writers. 2) Will Asami and Mako Get (Back) Together? Last season, we saw Mako and Korra make a heartfelt attempt at a healthy relationship. As we might have expected, the results were mildly disastrous: they basically broke up mid-season in a nasty fight and then, in a dramatic turn of events, Korra was confronted by a particularly aggressive Spirit which beat the hell out of Korra. Our heroine goes missing, washes up on mysterious shores with amnesia and must undergo a spiritual journey to rediscover her origins. Meanwhile Mako, somehow, has no idea Korra has disappeared and rekindles a flirtation/quasi-relationship with Asami. Talk about a rebound, am I right? The kicker here is that when Korra returns to Team Avatar with no memory of the breakup, Mako elects not to enlighten her, pretending instead that things are fine. (Because yeah, that’s the mature way to handle things.) By the end of the season, Korra and Mako had chosen to end their romantic relationship but that leaves Mako’s relationship with Asami up in the air. Creators Dimartino an Konietzko have stated that they’re through with the romantic subplots, and perhaps that’s for the best. Next season would be far better if the writers spent some more time developing Mako’s character, and giving him an independent storyline. 3) Jinorah’s Mysterious Abilities. At the end of Book 2, Jinorah was the keystone in Korra’s success against the Ultimate Evil Spirit/Unalaq. Viewers received little insight into why or how Jinorah was able to make such an impact. It’s clear that she’s very connected to the spiritual world in a way that few are, maybe she’ll play a role in the next series, helping people adjust to the host of spirits now inhabiting the physical world. 4) The New Prevalence of Spirits in the Physical World. Between Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, we’ve had minimal interaction in the spirit world, (Origins Parts 1 and 2 as well as Aang’s journey with the Lion Turtle jump immediately to mind). Since Korra opened the portals in the last season, and opted to keep them open, there’s limitless potential for story development. Definitively, all we can say is: next season’s theme is an apt one. “Book 3: Change” promises to be an exciting one. 5)What Happened to Prince Zuko’s Mom? Seriously. We’ve been waiting for this for years now. The writers even trolled us in the very first episode of Korra. So far, only books 3 and 4 are confirmed for the series, after that DiMartino and Konietzo have talked about taking an extended break from the Avatar world. If they fail to finally unveil the fate of Zuko’s mom, Ursa, sometime in the next two books…things will not be pretty for them. Bonus! In Book 3, we’re finally going to see the Earth Kingdom. We’re pretty excited about that development too. For more information about what to expect next season, check out this youtube video from Emergency Awesome — this guy really knows what he’s talking about. *Update 3/11/14* As for the fate of Prince Zuko’s mom, Ursa, Larkable was misinformed. It’s come to our attention, belatedly, that Dark Horse Comics published a three part story detailing Zuko, Azula and Team Avatar’s journey to find Ursa — Zuko’s mother. The Search is a continuation of The Promise, both set in the year following the conclusion of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Another trilogy of graphic novels, The Rift, are the most recent Avatar series. Part 1 was released just last week (3/5/14). Here’s the part where I editorialize. A bit. The mystery surrounding Ursa during Avatar: The Last Airbender was a fairly big one. Obviously, it didn’t overshadow Aang’s battle with Ozai because that would be ridiculous. It’s clear the writer’s had an idea behind Ursa’s disappearance which was grandiose enough to merit a full series of graphic novels. It’s great that they wanted to give that story it’s own arc, however, supplemental content — like graphic novels– is called supplemental for a reason. For storytellers to use one type of media to attract a following, then switch to another device to tie up loose ends? That’s not entirely fair to the original audiences. Clearly, Konietzko and DiMartino weren’t going to give Ursa’s story a full episode in the Korra series — that was never an expectation. But the short story from Katara would have been nice. From that point on, viewers could be directed to The Search trilogy, if they were interested in the details.

In the first quarter of its current fiscal year, which ended in May, US Linux distributor Red Hat increased its revenue by 15% to $363 million, continuing the positive trend of the previous quarters. Net income grew 8% year-over-year to $40 million. Revenue from software subscriptions alone rose 16% to $316 million, according to a press release. “During the first quarter, we delivered solid growth in total revenue and subscription revenue" said Red Hat CFO Charlie Peters, who pointed out the company's ramping up of spending on R&D for "cloud management, Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform and Red Hat’s OpenShift platform-as-a-service technologies". Red Hat's full report for the first quarter also notes the company has $1.22 billion in cash equivalents and investments after it repurchased $179 million (approximately 3.6 million shares) of stock. Investors seem pleased with the results – in New York, Red Hat stock was up 3% in after-hours trading on Wednesday. (djwm)

CAIRO (Reuters) - Wheat shipments to Egypt, the world’s largest buyer, are being disrupted by a dispute involving government inspectors angered by a ban on the expenses-paid foreign trips they once enjoyed to approve cargoes at their ports of origin. The baked bread is shown at a bakery in Cairo, Egypt, October 3, 2017. Picture taken October 3, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany Those trips, funded by exporters, have been canceled as part of Egypt’s efforts to streamline imports worth more than $1 billion a year. Traders say the new system has backfired as inspectors are now rejecting cargoes at Egyptian ports on arbitrary and unpredictable grounds. There is more to the problem than erratic policies and red tape, according to interviews with grains traders, agriculture quarantine inspectors, government officials, and a review of inspection documents. According to these sources, difficulties for importers are rather the result of a tug-of-war over the right to inspect cargoes abroad, where until recently government quarantine inspectors enjoyed fully-funded trips, dinners and shopping at the expense of supply companies looking to secure safe passage for their wheat. By applying higher standards to grains upon arrival, inspectors are driving up costs in a bid to undermine inspection companies that replaced them abroad, traders said. Six inspectors who Reuters spoke to denied they are trying to get their foreign trips reinstated and said they are simply upholding quality standards. Suppliers say uncertainty is prompting them to add premiums of up to $500,000 per cargo to hedge against risks. With Egypt expecting to buy around 7 million tonnes of wheat in the fiscal year that began in July, these premiums add millions of dollars to the government’s food subsidy bill. The bread supply chain has ground to a halt on several occasions as traders have boycotted tenders. Subsidized bread is a staple for millions of poor Egyptians and the country’s leaders are always keen to keep supplies flowing for fear of unrest. Wheat traders say the only way out of the problem is for the government bodies involved to sit down and thrash out standards all sides can agree on. ‘A BREAKFAST PROBLEM’ Getting cargoes passed under the old system often came down to keeping government inspectors comfortable, traders said. When a $6 million wheat cargo at a port in Ukraine suddenly stopped loading two years ago, its agent found Egyptian inspectors had halted the process because their hotel would not give them a late breakfast, traders said. The delay cost the supply company $8,000 in port fees. “As soon as we arranged for the hotel to give them a later breakfast, everything went smoothly and the shipment was passed. It wasn’t a wheat problem. It was a breakfast problem,” said a Cairo-based trader responsible for the cargo who asked to remain anonymous. Six other traders described the system in similar terms, saying shopping for electronics and clothes, expensive dinners, and hotel room upgrades were the cost of keeping their grains moving out of ports from Odessa to Dunkirk. One trader said the money paid to inspectors could equal their annual salary. Slideshow ( 12 images ) “You’re talking about four to five people, and you have to take care of them from A to Z, meaning you are taking them shopping and you are paying,” said Med Star for Trading President Hesham Soliman. Soliman said the delegations grew more expensive. “They began needing more pocket money, the hotels have to be certain hotels, the tickets, the visa,” he said. Traders said they would spend about $30,000 on the inspectors, which also typically included a $3,500 pocket money payment per person, according to invoices seen by Reuters. Agricultural quarantine inspectors who Reuters spoke to on condition of anonymity have quoted the same figures for the trips but say the old system was still cheaper for Egypt. “I can’t deny that I benefited, but the country benefited more. Look how much they’re spending now,” one inspector said, referring to the high risk premiums traders now put on cargoes offered to Egypt. Traders say the system was a relatively cheap way to win approval for their wheat abroad, which protected a cargo from being rejected at Egyptian ports, something that could mean big losses, or even bankruptcy for smaller firms. “If they’re making it sound like we were spending too much, you have the figures, compare the numbers. They’re spending a lot more now on the inspections,” the inspector said. ERGOT FALLOUT The old arrangement unraveled in late 2015, when a French wheat cargo was rejected in Egypt for containing traces of the common grain fungus ergot despite being approved by government inspectors abroad. As other shipments were rejected and import rules appeared to be tightening, some traders said they no longer found the traveling inspectors a bet worth taking. “We got to a point where we couldn’t deal with this. You have a fixed cost and you still have no guarantee that the shipment will enter the country,” said Soliman. A group of traders, including Soliman, persuaded the government to ban traveling delegations, which Egypt did in a prime ministerial decree in late 2016 that handed inspections abroad to private companies and made the agriculture quarantine inspectors subject to the oversight of a trade ministry authority. In an interview at the offices of the General Organization for Export and Import Control (GOEIC), Ismail Gaber, who heads the agency that now has the final word on wheat inspections, told Reuters the travel regime had raised suspicions of corruption that he would rather keep civil servants away from. “There is of course the issue of corruption, I want to take my employee away from this suspicion. I don’t want the supplier and the employee to have the same self-interest,” he said. “If he takes someone with him abroad, the supplier says ‘I’ve already taken him with me ... you gave me a government employee and you inspected there so you can’t find a problem with it here (in Egypt) after all of this’,” Gaber said. STRIKING BACK But having lost their travel benefits, the inspectors are making their presence felt. Since January, when the new inspection regime came online, inspectors in Egypt have subjected nearly all shipments to costly processes before being approved at Egyptian ports, which add tens of thousands of dollars in costs. In June, a group of inspectors won a court case that argued that the new system illegally granted their mandate to GOEIC, which the inspectors said was ill-equipped to protect the country from harmful grain contaminants. The government has appealed and ignored a court order to restore the old inspection regime, including traveling delegations. The inspectors, who are still checking cargoes under the new inspection regime, say they are just trying to stop bad wheat getting into Egypt and deny they are trying to get their overseas trips back. One inspector said checks were now tougher at Egyptian ports because importers were sending poor-quality grains. Traders however said two big state grain purchases halted for containing poppy seeds demonstrated that inspectors were seeking new ways to show that inspection companies abroad are not up to the task. As a result, traders hiked prices or stayed away from a recent state tender. The only way out of the impasse, traders say, is for government agencies to agree on consistent rules. “Without that, we are just waiting for the next victim,” said one. (For graphic click: )

If the Knicks’ top two coaching desires are Mike Budenholzer and David Fizdale, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee they snare either. Fizdale has interviewed with Atlanta, Charlotte and Phoenix. And Budenholzer? Several league sources believe the Bucks and their New York-based ownership will pounce and enter “The Bud Bowl.’’ Milwaukee was eliminated in Game 7 of their first-round series Saturday. At least interim coach Joe Prunty wasn’t fired upon landing at Milwaukee’s airport. Prunty, who had taken over for the fired Jason Kidd, finished up 21-16 and gained the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference. But a first-round exit against the depleted Celtics isn’t exactly overachieving. Prunty is not expected back next season. Boston was without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward while missing Marcus Smart for the series’ first four games and Jaylen Brown for the second half of Game 7. While The Post reported Budenholzer considered the Knicks his “top choice,’’ that was before Milwaukee’s situation crystallized. One person familiar with the situation said Budenholzer, who interviewed with the Knicks last week, recently talked of preparing a presentation for the Bucks and Knicks. In addition, Budenholzer considered the Knicks his top choice only before the Hawks fired him on Friday, allowing him to collect all of the $14 million left on his deal. Sources have indicated an offset clause exists, meaning the Hawks can deduct any salary Budenholzer receives the next two seasons if hired for another coaching job. Owner James Dolan’s deep pockets aren’t the major factor any longer. The Bucks are not afraid to overpay for the right coach as they make a long-awaited move to a brand-new arena next season. Their president is former Knicks executive Peter Feigin and they are financed by New Yorkers Wes Edens and Marc Lasry. The Bucks’ roster is far more accomplished than the Knicks’ group, especially since superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo is close to entering his prime years and Kristaps Porzingis (ACL surgery) may not play next season, at least if you believe Dolan’s remarks to The Post. If the Bucks re-sign Jabari Parker and he reaches his potential after his own ACL issues, the Bucks should be East title contenders next season with the right guidance. “Budenholzer and his coaches’ approach to development is top-notch,’’ one NBA source familiar with Budenholzer’s work told The Post. The Knicks are intrigued with Budenholzer’s Hawks résumé and that the 2015 Coach of the Year turned around Tim Hardaway Jr.’s career, making him an all-around player. Hawks swingman Kent Bazemore also saw a steep climb under Budenholzer’s tutelage. Now in his second stint with the Knicks, Hardaway spoke glowingly about Budenholzer. “I’m just happy he installed that dog and fight inside of me,’’ Hardaway said. “It’s hard to say that, coming into the league you should have that. I kind of lost it. He let me regain it back. I’m very thankful for him for doing so.” As the Bucks’ future has no limits, the Knicks are destined to be one of the league’s worst teams next season because of the uncertainty around Porzingis’ return. Knicks general manager Scott Perry said at last month’s season-ending press conference one of their goals for next season is not necessarily winning a lot of games but “winning the 50-50 ball battle.’’ That’s quite a proclamation. It’s also possible the Bucks have their eye on Doc Rivers, the former Marquette star who hasn’t yet committed to next season with the Clippers despite having one year left on his pact. According to an NBA source, Knicks president Steve Mills and Perry are not ruling out interviewing an 11th candidate, though no one is on the docket. That could mean Rivers — or Portland’s Terry Stotts — still is on their radar. Stotts is reportedly on shaky ground after getting swept in the first round by the Pelicans. “I love what I do, but that doesn’t mean that you keep doing it every year. Do you know what I mean?” Rivers said after the season about his future. “I can’t even answer the question.” Mills and Perry have interviewed 10 candidates and are reviewing their notes and still doing their due diligence. Indications are Budenholzer, Fizdale and European coaching stud David Blatt, whom brass met with in Spain, are at the top of the Knicks’ list. Meanwhile, fan favorite Mark Jackson has seen his candidacy fail to gain traction.

Prime minister’s office says new sectors will be created where Europe’s most marginalised ethnic group can seek work. France will expand the number of sectors where Roma, Europe’s most marginalised ethnic group, can seek employment, the prime minister’s office has said. The move, announced on Wednesday, came amid criticism of police raids that have dismantled ramshackle camps and left hundreds of Roma from Romania and Bulgaria without shelter. The decision was made after Jean-Marc Ayrault’s office held a meeting to rethink France’s policy towards the ethnic group, following consultations with Roma representatives. In depth Inside Story: France deports more Roma Riz Khan: Expelling the Roma Videos: Roma rapper’s message of hope Concern raised over Roma expulsions Irish travellers facing discrimination UN warns France over Roma deportations As part of measures to remove hurdles for Roma job seekers, the government also scrapped a tax that employers must pay to hire people from the two countries instead of employing French workers. Raids that sparked anger across Europe were mounted this month in Paris and other French cities, echoing a crackdown on Roma two years ago under the government of Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s former conservative president. Activists say at least a dozen camps were dismantled, displacing hundreds of Roma though official figures are not available. Some fled into nearby woods when they heard the police were coming, or went out looking for a new abandoned area to set up camp. Others took the government’s offer of $373 to go home to Romania in a “voluntary return”. Ayrault called the new measures a “question of humanity and respect”, adding that the government would continue to fight exploitation of children by Roma populations. He said any court orders to clear out camps would be honoured and that a new system would be put in place to offer other housing options to families. Cut off from mainstream society, Roma in France live on the edges of cities, in cars or in makeshift structures in abandoned industrial zones without running water. They speak little French, and some beg at tourist sites such as the Eiffel Tower. Ionut Tranca, a 22-year-old from the Craiova region of Romania who now lives in a camp in the shadow of Paris’ Orly Airport, expressed frustration on Wednesday at limitations on Romanians and Bulgarians in France. “We are Europeans,” he said. “If we find work, we can find an apartment and pay rent. If we don’t, how can we pay rent? “The police come here often, they don’t like us.”

INDIANAPOLIS—If you want to boil the NBA down to its essence, it comes down to stars. They define teams, years, championships, eras. They are what every single general manager is trying desperately to capture, to conjure, to seduce. Every team has a star, but the real superstars — the ones who, surrounded by good talent, can compete for a title — are the rarest beasts in basketball creation, and they are worth whatever you can pay them. The Toronto Raptors are built around two stars, or at least, all-stars, and they are failing. Toronto is tied 2-2 in this best-of-seven first-round series with the Indiana Pacers after a hapless 100-83 loss in Game 4. There was lots of blame. It’s not over, for anybody. But at the centre of it are Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, and they have been gruesome. Pick a number, and we’ll roll with it. Lowry and DeRozan have taken 40 per cent of Toronto’s shots in the first four games, and they are shooting a combined 30.8 per cent. In their respective breakout game, Game 3, they shot 38 and 37 per cent, respectively. Lowry is at 32.2 per cent for the series; DeRozan is at 29.6. They averaged a combined 44.7 points per game in the regular season, and are at 27.7 in four games. It is almost unfathomably bad. “To be honest, I feel like the shots I’m personally taking, and DeMar’s taking, we’ve made all year,” said Lowry, after a 4-for-12, 12-point, five-assist, six-foul day. “I was 0-for-5 (from three-point range Saturday), and I’m 5-for-whatever from three (in the series), and they’re shots I’m comfortable taking. They’re just not falling right now. But I’m not going to shy away from taking them. And neither is DeMar. Neither one of is going to shy away from taking shots that we’ve made all year. “Tip of the hat: they’re scheming for me and DeMar and they’re making the shots tougher. But at the end of the day we’ve still got to make shots.” They keep saying this, and maybe that’s all they can do. George Hill is a long, defensively strong point guard, and he’s made Lowry’s job difficult. Paul George is simply a brilliant defender, and he devours DeRozan. The Pacers’ team defence has been geared to show them bodies with long arms. It’s not easy. And yes, so many supporting Raptors were lousy in Game 4, and so many missed shots that could have changed the outcome: Luis Scola with a series of open threes early in the third and the deficit down to 12 points; DeMarre Carroll, Cory Joseph, Terrence Ross. Toronto’s East-best bench couldn’t click, and Jonas Valanciunas got beat up. When DeRozan said he could have had eight or nine assists instead of four, he wasn’t wrong. But teams follow their leaders, from energy to execution. Raptors coach Dwane Casey said it was up to him to free up Lowry and especially DeRozan for better shots, but he also said they had to trust the pass, even while acknowledging that their teammates missed shots. Sure, OK. Adjustments would be great. Great players, though, are better than this. This is where we need to separate the two, though. They’re not the same. Lowry can do so many more things, and did in Games 2 and 3. He’s also under contract for another season, so no matter what happens, general manager Masai Ujiri doesn’t have to make any decisions with his star point guard. DeRozan, though. He will get a maximum US$25-million-a-year contract from someone this summer, because too many teams will have too much money to spend. It is believed that the Raptors haven’t decided yet whether they should re-sign him, but nobody is saying much about the decision one way or the other. The playoffs are a referendum, without a doubt. What this team does, and what DeRozan does, matters. The best players can impose themselves on other teams. DeRozan, in this series and in so much of his playoff career, can’t. His habits of dribbling, of head-down attacks, of difficult shot-taking, they’re still there. He is still vulnerable defensively. DeRozan keeps getting better, and should be commended for that. He’s a good player, and a good kid. But the flaws remain, and he is bombing out here. He hasn’t gotten to the free-throw line twice in four games. He had three no-free-throw games in the last three years. “I’m not going to whine about it,” said DeRozan. “I’ll figure it out.” Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... He doesn’t have much time. There was a strong, vocal Raptors fan presence in the building, and it almost became a competition between Pacers and Raptors fans, though Toronto’s crew was outnumbered. Late in the game, Pacers fans chanted, YOU THE QUI-ET. Well done. The Pacers, and their fans, showed the hell up. The Raptors didn’t, and their stars led the way. Lowry and DeRozan were good enough to drag Toronto to 56 wins, but it is starting to feel like the architecture of this team is good enough to be serious, while the core it surrounds is not. There are no more than three games left in this series, and the first to two wins gets to keep playing. You want to be stars? Prove it. Read more about:

Want to know how far electric cars have come in the last decade? Just ask the Mini Electric. Both of them. The first arrived in 2008, a test bed rather than a production car, Mini built 500 and leased them to human guinea pigs in the US – the beginning of a data and opinion harvest that would inform the launch of the BMW i family five years later and every electrified BMW since. Fast-forward 11 years and you might expect performance and range to have grown handsomely, but I’m staring at the spec sheet for the new 2019 Mini Electric, and you’d be wrong: 204bhp (2008) plays 181bhp (2019); the range was 150 miles then, 144 miles now; 0–62mph in 8.5secs in the old one, 7.5secs today. What has changed is price and practicality – the batteries on the old one were, er, chunky. Chunky enough to swallow the entire boot and back seats. The new Mini Electric, with its 32kWh T-shaped lithium-ion battery slipped under the floor is still 160kg heavier than a Cooper S, but you get the same (read: still cramped) boot and rear seat space, and with prices starting at £24,400 (or £299pcm) after the £3,500 government grant, it costs £500 less than an equivalently specced Cooper S, too. This is significant. There’s a reason why there’s an armada of small, affordable, everyday electric cars – the majority with ‘e’ grafted onto their badges – coming our way in the next six months. Stuff like the VW ID.3, Peugeot e-208, Corsa-e and Honda e – y’know, the ones we might actually be able to afford. We’ve reached a tipping point, where battery size and cost has reduced to the point where cars like this, with a little help from Her Majesty’s Government, can be priced in line with petrol or diesel equivalents. And because most people with an interest in EVs have been ogling I-Paces, Teslas and e-trons, without the wedge to actually buy one, there’s pent-up demand. It’s taken a while, then, but Mini has made the sums add up… but only by positioning this car carefully. Firstly, you’ll only be able to buy it as a 3dr – Mini’s best-selling body style. Fair enough. There will be only one power and performance level – 0–80 per cent top-up in 35mins from a 50kW DC charger, 181bhp, 199lb ft, FWD, totally insignificant 93mph top speed, which puts it in the Cooper S bracket for performance. That explains the bootlid’s Cooper S badge (despite it not actually featuring anywhere in the car’s name) and the fake air-scooped Cooper S bonnet. Then we come to the WLTP range of 144 miles, only a handful more than the Honda e. In the real world it’ll be less than that, of course, because most of us won’t have the bottle to ever dip below 20 per cent charge. It’s the same thinking as the Honda – fit a smaller battery and spend the money on stuff that matters, like interior quality and equipment – but when you can have a recently updated Renault Zoe with a 242-mile range for less, or an electric 208 or Corsa with over 200 miles for a couple of grand more, the range feels a little mean. Mini has resisted the temptation to over-tinker with the design. Want a spaceship? There’s already the BMW i3 for that. Your opportunity to make a statement is the optional 17-inch, asymmetrical Corona wheels, lifted straight from the concept (anyone else seeing a three-pin plug?). Smaller changes include a new largely blanked-off front grille, protruding by an extra 17mm and striped in Energetic Yellow, although you can switch back to body colour if you suffer from sensitive retinas. The front and rear bumpers are a unique, slippery design to eke out a few extra miles – no splitters or Sport packs here – and you get LED lights front and back as standard. Get your ruler out and you’ll note the car rides 15mm higher than standard – a necessary evil to fit those batteries in – although extended wheelarches disguise the damage. Inside, it’s the first Mini with a new floating digital instrument screen behind the wheel – something that’ll be rolled out on all its models when their replacements arrive. A consumption dial, to let you know how leaden your right foot is, sits on the left, battery charge is on the right, and the whole thing is wrapped in an anti-glare coating that, while necessary on a sunny day, is a bit like looking at your vitals through a frosted bathroom window. A mildly different centre console features an electronic handbrake – a first for the 3dr – while the dashboard houses toggle switches for adjusting the level of brake regen, flipping between Sport, Mid and Green driving modes and turning the traction control off. Mini is open about this being very much a chassis designed for a combustion engine, modified to make batteries and motors fit… fortunately that made its goal of making it drive as close to a Cooper S as possible infinitely simpler. There are tweaks to the suspension to account for the extra height and weight, and a new ARB system that’s supposedly three times faster than traditional DSC to eliminate wheelspin when you stomp on it at the lights, but the fundamentals are shared. Frankly, I’m amazed I’ve managed to find quite so many words to talk about a car that’s familiar in every regard, besides a powertrain transplant. Hell, Mini’s even found a way to build it on the same production line in Oxford as the petrol and diesel versions – marrying the batteries, motor and power electronics in the exact same way the engine and transmission meets the chassis. So let’s embrace our sense of wonder for everyday electric cars while we still can; another decade, and they’ll be the norm.

Photo credit: Westend61 / Getty From Popular Mechanics Designing a good artificial intelligence is hard. For a company like Google, which relies heavily on AI, designing the best possible AI software is crucial. And who better to design an AI than another AI? If you said "literally anyone else" you might be right, but folks at Google's AI research lab, Google Brain, would disagree. The lab is reportedly building AI software that can build more AI software, with the goal of making future AI cheaper and easier. [contentlinks align="left" textonly="false" numbered="false" headline="Related%20Stories" customtitles="Google%20Is%20Working%20on%20Plans%20to%20Prevent%20Skynet%7CGoogle%20AIs%20Learn%20to%20Communicate%20In%20Secret%20Code%7CDon't%20Fear%20Skynet:%20Robot%20Brains%20Just%20Want%20to%20Love" customimages="||" content="article.21154|article.23598|article.18066"] Currently, building a powerful AI is hard work. It takes time to carefully train AIs using machine-learning, and money to hire experts who know the tools required to do it. Google Brain's ultimate aim is to reduce these costs and make artificial intelligence more accessible and efficient. If a university or corporation looking to build an AI of their own could simply rent an AI builder instead of hiring a team of experts, it would lower the cost and increase the number of AIs, spreading the benefits of the technology far and wide. What's more, using AIs to build more AIs may also increase the speed at which new AIs can be made. Currently, AIs can require weeks or months to learn how to do tasks by using unfathomably large amounts of computing power to try things over and over again, quite literally starting with no understanding of anything they're doing. AI trainers might find ways to optimize that process that no human could hope to discover. The downside is that AI building more AIs sure seems like it's inviting a runaway cascade and, eventually, Skynet. After all, one of the things that makes machine-learning AIs so effective is that they learn in ways that are completely unlike-and often completely opaque to-humans. Once you've trained an AI to accomplish a certain goal, you can't necessarily crack it open and see how it is doing it. Its understanding of the world is utterly alien. That's why Google's plans to prevent a Skynet type catastrophe involve gently discouraging AIs from disabling their own killswitches as they are being trained. Story continues For now, Google says its AI maker is not advanced enough yet to compete with human engineers. However, given the rapid pace of AI development, it may only be a few years before that is no longer true. Hopefully it doesn't happen before we are ready. Source: MIT Technology Review You Might Also Like

Quizá el secretario de la catedral de la ciudad argentina de Córdoba se encuentre con una sorpresa cuando deba rellenar la ficha de bautismo de Umma, una bebé de meses que recibirá el sacramento de ingreso a la Iglesia católica el próximo 5 de abril. Se encontrará que el certificado tiene espacios para poner los nombres del padre y de la madre, pero Umma tiene dos mamás: Karina Villarroel y Soledad Ortiz, que se casaron según la ley argentina en 2013. Se tratará del primer caso de un matrimonio de personas del mismo sexo, institución que existe en Argentina desde 2010, que bautizan a un hijo en la fe católica. No obstante, ya habido casos de hijos de parejas gais bautizados en ciertas parroquias de Buenos Aires. Pero la noticia no es que Karina y Soledad hubiesen querido incorporar a Umma a la Iglesia sino que esta la haya admitido. El arzobispo de Córdoba, Carlos Ñañez, le concedió una audiencia a Karina, expolicía, y la autorizó a bautizar a la niña en la misma catedral de la segunda ciudad más poblada de Argentina. “Me confirmó que no habrá ningún problema”, contó la esposa de Soledad. Las mujeres quieren que la madrina de Umma sea la presidenta argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, que impulsó en su momento la ley del llamado matrimonio igualitario con el voto también de parte de la oposición. “Nos encantaría que la presidenta acepte nuestra propuesta porque, gracias a ella, pudimos formar matrimonio y agrandar la familia con Umma. Estamos muy felices”, explicó Karina. Además, la niña tendrá un padrino y una madrina amigos de la pareja. El arzobispo les recomendó “especial atención” en elegir a personas adecuadas para que Umma “pueda crecer en la fe”. Cuando el papa Francisco era Jorge Bergoglio, arzobispo de Buenos Aires, se opuso a la ley de matrimonio gay, pero en privado admitía la posibilidad de la unión civil entre personas del mismo sexo. Como jefe de la Iglesia de Roma, ha abogado por incluir a los niños de las familias gais en la Iglesia: “¿Cómo anunciar a Cristo a estos chicos y chicas? ¿Cómo anunciar a Cristo a una generación que cambia?". El Papa dijo a superiores religiosos que no suministraran a esas nuevas generaciones una "vacuna contra la fe". Además, cuando era arzobispo, en 2012 había criticado la hipocresía de sacerdotes que se negaban a bautizar a hijos de madres solteras porque consideró que así alejaban a la feligresía de la Iglesia. Está claro que Karina y Soledad no están casadas por la fe católica, pero el arzobispo de Córdoba autorizó, de todos modos, a que un sacerdote de la catedral bautice a Umma. Fuentes de la Iglesia cordobesa reconocen que esta decisión fue posible porque el Papa es Bergoglio. La noticia ha irritado a sectores conservadores de la Iglesia en todo el mundo. Lo sorprendente es que el mismo arzobispo Ñañez es quien en 2010 había iniciado un juicio canónico contra un sacerdote de su archidiócesis que había apoyado la ley de matrimonio gay. En la institución en la que no ha podido permanecer Karina es en la Policía de la provincia de Córdoba. No porque se haya casado sino por tomar la excedencia por maternidad de 180 días. La autoridad policial consideró que no le correspondía porque era Soledad la que llevó en su vientre a la bebé engendrada por fertilización asistida. Como Karina no obedeció y dejó de trabajar por ese periodo, la fuerza policial determinó que había abandonado sus funciones y la ha apartado. La exuniformada ha apelado esa decisión ante la justicia.

Especially when they drive a giant excavator. Also, the light on the Mercedes still worked after all that? Awesome car.

After months and months of 28nm video cards being sold only by AMD, we finally know when NVIDIA will launch its next-generation video adapters. According to Expreview, the first products based on the GK104 GPU will be made available on March 23 (2012). Since the company just a short time ago boldly said nothing will be able to beat Kepler, many people are eagerly anticipating the release. It is unclear what the first card will be called. Some think GeForce GTX 680, other mention the GeForce GT 670 Ti name. Whichever it is, we hope it will live up to its hype, even if 28nm chip shortages do affect supply. At this point, the fabled GK100 has either been scrapped (unlikely) or will be postponed for the second half of 2012, when AMD launches Sea Islands.

Following reports of collusion between Ukrainian government officials and Democratic National Committee (DNC) operatives, a Ukrainian member of Parliament is calling for a criminal investigation into alleged “illegal interference” in the 2016 US presidential election. Ukranian MP Andrei Derkach requested the meeting in a July 24 letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Politico reported. Derkach claims the alleged meddling has damaged US-Ukraine relations. (RELATED: Everybody Is Forgetting That Clinton Allies Did The Same Thing As Don Jr.) “Only a transparent and thorough investigation into the unlawful interference of Ukrainian officials with the U.S. election campaign can restore the trust of our strategic partner,” Derkach wrote in the letter, copies of which were obtained by Politico. Politico reported in January the extent of the DNC’s collaboration with Ukrainian government officials who wanted Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 election. A veteran DNC operative who previously worked in the Clinton White House, Alexandra Chalupa, worked with Ukrainian government officials and journalists, both from Ukraine and America, to dig up Russia-related opposition research on Donald Trump and then-campaign chair Paul Manafort. She also shared her anti-Trump research with both the DNC and the Clinton campaign, according to the Politico report. Derkach wrote in his letter that the “illegal interference” was “organized by a criminal organization” that included senior government officials.

pay for wifi on first of three-flight trip still works on the next flights 2,653 shares

WLWT-TV/YouTube Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET Many believe that speed cameras were invented by Fagin. They perch there in all arrogance, waiting for the next sucker whose pocket they'll pick. Some localities have come to admit that they don't reduce accidents. Arizona took the decision to remove its highway speed cameras altogether. Baltimore's were so riddled with errors that they were removed recently too. Who could forget the recent, poetic incident in Baltimore when a speed camera decided (with the help of a human police officer) that a stationary car was speeding. The chorus of suspicion surrounding these dubious objects has now been joined by one of the last people you'd suspect: a judge. As WDTN-TV Ohio reports, Judge Robert Ruehlman this week declared that speed cameras were "a scam." He vehemently criticized the authorities of Elmwood Place, Ohio, a village that installed speed cameras and then began to bathe in revenue as divas bathe in champagne. The Columbus Dispatch reported that the judge also described the cameras as "nothing more than a high-tech game of 3-card Monty." In the first month of the cameras' activity, Elmwood Place sprinkled 6,600 speeding tickets, each of which generated $105. Oddly, there are only 2,000 residents in the whole of Elmwood Place. Locals decided this resembled backstreet robbery and so went to court, also offering the legal defense that the cameras were installed without displaying the appropriate public notices to warn people this was coming. The judge ordered the village to just stop it with the speeding tickets. The village, perhaps concerned that its pockets might cease to bulge, is to appeal his verdict. The attorney for the plaintiffs, Mike Allen, however, told the Columbus Dispatch: "This is the first time that a judge has said 'enough is enough'. I think this nationally is a turning point." There is, perhaps, still a long way to go before the nation's local authorities will decide to forgo such as easy money-spinning device. In the meantime, please think of the poor people of Dayton, Ohio. There, if you have two unpaid tickets, the city can now legally tow your car away. How's that for justice?

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Aug. 18 (UPI) -- A Clay County, Fla., employee was charged with animal cruelty after allegedly using his power mower to run over and kill a group of ducklings, officials said. Mark Preston Akers, 29, of Middleburg, was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly chased a mother duck and a group of seven ducklings with his power mower, killing four of the baby ducks, the Jacksonville Times-Union reported. A witness told investigators Akers lowered his mowing attachment over the baby ducks and then "appeared to laugh and gave … the thumbs up." Another witness said Akers later bragged about what had allegedly just happened. "If the allegations are correct, it's very disturbing," said Stephanie Kopelousos, Clay County manager.

Hilary Paige Smith lived in Montreal for three years — and loved it. The native of Saint John, N.B., lived in the city's Plateau neighbourhood and took full advantage of restaurants and cafés a short walk from her apartment. But when an opportunity to work remotely from her native province came along, she took it. Paige Smith says the Maritimes offered better options when it came to housing, commuting and job opportunities in her first language, English. "I'm from New Brunswick; my family is here, and if I were to settle down and have kids, I'd have support around me," explained Paige Smith, a marketing specialist. The 27-year-old is among thousands of young Quebec residents who opt to leave for elsewhere in Canada every year. In fact, the province lost more than 7,000 people a year to interprovincial migration between 2011 and 2016, for a total of 36,955 residents, according to Statistics Canada data compiled by the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies. Between 2006 and 2011, by comparison, the net loss was 20,245. The new figures come as employers across the province struggle with a labour shortage caused by the bustling economy and shrinking labour pool. The figures do not, however, include the current year. Jack Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies, said most of the people leaving Quebec are between 25 and 34 years old — an age when most are just starting their careers. "It's an important group, relative to meeting our demographic challenge," he said. And it's not, in fact, anglophones leading the charge, as was the case a few decades ago when thousands of English-speakers flocked to Ontario. In total, over the five-year period, the province had a net loss of: 15,440 allophones. 10,175 anglophones. 9,225 francophones. Ontario is the top target for relocation, followed by Alberta, British Columbia and New Brunswick. Jedwab maintains the primary driver for relocation is jobs. He said quarterly results from the current year suggest people are still leaving the province at a significant rate. But the economy isn't the only factor. Like Paige Smith, Ronit Milo and her husband decided to move east for a better quality of life and more manageable cost of living. Hilary Paige Smith lived in Montreal for three years, but she moved back to New Brunswick. (Submitted by Hilary Paige Smith) They moved to Dartmouth, N.S. last summer. "Certainly, affordability of buying a house for us as a middle-class family was a big incentive ... combined with the fact that we have access to the ocean, and we're still in a city," she said. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard said Tuesday he is optimistic that things will change. "I'm sure that, given the fact that the economy is so much stronger now, we will see a progressive — it will not happen overnight — reversal of the trend."

Smooth or hairy, pungent or tasteless, deep-hued or bright: new versions of old fruits could be hitting the produce aisles as plant experts embrace cutting-edge technology, scientists say. While researchers have previously produced plants with specific traits through traditional breeding techniques, experts say new technologies such as the gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9 could be used to bring about changes far more rapidly and efficiently. It could, they say, potentially open the door to a new range of fruits and vegetables that look, taste and feel very different to those we are used to. Gene-editing is already being used by scientists to change the characteristics of food. One such endeavour used Crispr to make mushrooms that don’t brown, while a team in Spain has been using the approach to try to produce wheat that can be eaten by people with coeliac disease. Still others are looking at using gene-editing to give crops resistance to particular environmental problems or pathogens. Earlier this year, biotech firm Monsanto invested $125m in a new gene-editing company called Pairwise that reportedly has goals such as sweeter-tasting strawberries, while scientists in Japan have used the technique to produce seedless tomatoes. Another team have been using Crispr to change the architecture of tomato plant branches and the spacing of fruit. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Inside a lab in Norwich where researchers from a startup called Tropic Biosciences are using Crispr to create a better banana. Photograph: Tatum Reid/Tropic Biosciences Among the genes flagged in the new study in the journal Trends in Plant Science are those behind the production of a family of substances known as MYBs, which are among the proteins that control whether other genes are switched on or off. Gene editing – and what it really means to rewrite the code of life Read more “MYBs are great targets because they are central to several consumer traits or features like colour, flavour [and] texture,” said Andrew Allan, a co-author of the review from the University of Auckland whose own projects include working on red-fleshed apples and changing the colour of kiwi fruits. “Russet skin in apple and pear [is linked to MYBs]. Hairs on peaches but not nectarines – another type of MYB.” Dr Richard Harrison, head of genetics, genomics and breeding at the horticultural organisation NIAB EMR, who was not involved in the article, said tweaking MYB genes or the way such genes are themselves controlled was a fruitful approach. “For fruits,” he said, “MYB genes have long been known to be associated with expression of molecules such as anthocyanin, a red-coloured compound that gives strawberries or blood-red oranges their colour. “Increasingly, MYBs are being implicated in the production of other important compounds, hence the interest in this family of genes that are conserved between many plant species.” Gene-editing of MYB genes and other genes could bring a host of benefits, Harrison said, adding: “There is a large opportunity to improve the nutritional profile of fruits and vegetables in the future using gene-editing technology, as well as other techniques.” Such techniques, he said, introduce the same sort of DNA changes as plant breeders have introduced by artificially selecting traits that cropped up through spontaneous DNA mutation – but much faster. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hybrid purple raspberries of the Glen Coe variety. Crispr may make such specimens more common. Photograph: PR/Suttons “Red-fleshed apples developed through conventional breeding have taken decades to even come close to market acceptability,” he said, “due to the multiple rounds of breeding and selection that have had to occur to take the naturally occurring red-fleshed gene variant from a wild species of apple and introduce it into a commercially acceptable variety. “In our normal breeding work, we often see seedlings produced purely from conventional breeding with a range of colour and flavour profiles that simply never make it to the market, such as peach-flavoured strawberries [and] super-dark purpleish strawberries.” The review is timely: next week the European Court of Justice will announce if or how plants that have been gene-edited using techniques such as Crispr will be regulated, and whether they will be treated like genetically modified plants. The US has already ruled against serious restrictions, provided the changes could have been produced through traditional plant-breeding techniques. “We are interested in making produce more healthy, sustainable and convenient so that people will eat more produce,” Dr Haven Baker, Pairwise’s chief business officer, said, noting that gene-editing could be used to increase levels of anthocyanins, improve taste, increase shelf life, improve yields, boost disease resistance or even lengthen the season of availability. Such approaches, said Baker, could not only boost consumers’ nutrient intake, but could also reduce food waste and produce adaptations needed to weather climate change: “We are trying to solve problems that matter to both consumers and the agricultural systems.”

A pressão do governo israelense de Benjamin Netanyahu não sensibilizou o governo brasileiro, que deverá rejeitar a indicação do nome de Dani Dayan para embaixador de Israel em Brasília; Dayan é ligado aos assentamentos em Jerusalém Oriental e na Cisjordânia e dificilmente receberá o agrément, a aceitação do Itamaraty; a avaliação do Brasil é de que Israel quebrou o protocolo ao tornar pública a indicação antes da resposta brasileira; "Os israelenses estão fazendo o pior jogo possível. A maneira como tudo foi feito, a quebra do protocolo, a pressão, isso não funciona no mundo diplomático", disse uma autoridade brasileira; o episódio gerou uma crise diplomática entre os dois países e a preocupação no governo israelense; Israel agora teme que a disputa possa encorajar ativismo pró-Palestina edit 247 – O governo brasileiro não deverá ceder às pressões de autoridades israelenses para aceitar a indicação de Dani Dayan para embaixador de Israel em Brasília. O Brasil resiste a conceder o agrément – a aceitação do Itamaraty – ao empresário de origem argentina naturalizado israelense. Dayan é um antigo líder do movimento de assentamentos judaicos, enquanto o Brasil tem como parte da sua política externa o apoio à criação de um estado palestino. O Brasil considera os assentamentos judaicos em terras palestinas ilegais. Por isso, a indicação não foi bem vista pelo governo brasileiro. O governo de Benjamin Netanyahu afirmou no último domingo que o Brasil arrisca degradar o relacionamento bilateral se Dayan não for autorizado a suceder Reda Mansour, embaixador israelense que deixou o Brasil na semana passada. A avaliação do Brasil é de que Israel quebrou o protocolo ao tornar pública a indicação antes da resposta brasileira. "Os israelenses estão fazendo o pior jogo possível. A maneira como tudo foi feito, a quebra do protocolo, a pressão, isso não funciona no mundo diplomático", disse uma autoridade brasileira, segundo reportagem publicada pelo jornal O Globo nesta terça-feira 29. Um editorial do jornal "Jerusalem Post" saiu em defesa de Dayan nesta segunda-feira e afirmou que "as relações bilaterais entre Israel e Brasil movem-se em direção a uma crise de grandes proporções". O jornal israelense "Haaretz" informou que na quinta-feira haverá uma nova reunião para tratar do caso, na presença de Netanyahu.

One of Bill O’Reilly‘s sexual harassment accusers penned an open letter today slamming Fox News and accusing multiple higher-ups at the conservative network of engaging in sexual harassment and of covering-up such behavior. And, she warns, they’re soon to be exposed. In a post originally published on Facebook the morning of December 16–and now available via Twitter—Juliet Huddy teases an incoming series of accusations and outings for as-yet-unnamed sexual harassers. The letter begins ominously: Tick tock, tick tock. Executives who not only covered up for sexual harassers/predators (<and believe me, I don’t use this word lightly) but WERE THEMSELVES are about to be exposed. Huddy later accuses Rupert Murdoch of being one such figure–though not a harasser himself. She writes: Rupert Murdoch is not just a media mogul. He’s a perpetrator, complicit in wrecking careers of hardworking, talented people while protecting their tormentors. Law&Crime reached out to Huddy for comment on this accusation. She clarified that Murdoch is not being accused of sexual harassment, but rather, she was simply referring to his complicity in “covering up” the stories about–and claims against–Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly and others. In a statement, Huddy added: It’s ironic that O’Reilly, Murdoch and others have suggested that I, along with the other accusers, are part of some left wing conspiracy. [One], I’m fiscally conservative and socially liberal so let’s just get that out of the way. [And two], based on everything I have seen and has been reported, the participants in this, The Grand Conspiracy, are the executives at Fox. Huddy’s letter calls out various, unnamed Fox News higher-ups for their sexual harassment and complicity as well. She writes, “There are still men AND women working at Fox News who actively engaged in sexual harassment and/or subsequent coverup. And they occupy some of, if not THE, highest positions. I know other women were targeted by these people (several of whom are part of my own experience).” Notably, Huddy’s letter also takes aim at the perceived lack of positive reverberations in the wake of the #metoo watershed. That is, Huddy addresses, at length, how the women who have made the accusations are only seeing half of the justice quotient because while their accused are being punished, many accusers still have to deal with wrecked careers. Huddy notes: The women who have already come forward aren’t money-hungry, attention-starved liars or drama queens. And we certainly aren’t part of some left wing conspiracy. Most of us — not some, but MOST — can’t get a job in TV because we’re viewed as radioactive. Hire Juliet Huddy? You risk alienating a chunk of your audience that sees her as trying to dismantle Fox News. Or sees her as an unhinged, thrice-divorced man-hater who ruined their evening programming by helping to get Bill O’Reilly fired. It’s the same story for virtually every woman who left Fox and other companies under these circumstances. WE have seen our careers torched, yet WE are not the problem. Huddy’s letter could be read as a response to recent comments made by Murdoch to Sky News where he rubbished the claims of women who have come forward as “nonsense.” Law&Crime reached out to Fox News, Rupert Murdoch and his representatives for comment on this story, but no response was forthcoming at the time of publication. [image via screengrab/NBC] Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher Editor’s note: This afternoon, Huddy deleted her original Facebook post citing privacy concerns. This article has been updated to reflect that and incorporate comments from Huddy regarding Rupert Murdoch, Fox News and Bill O’Reilly. Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

UNDER THE HELMET, the latest addition to Calgary’s public art folio PROJECT: UNDER THE HELMET SERIES: CALGARY PUBLIC ART PHOTOS + COPY: ANGUS MACKENZIE As elemente’s PUBLIC ART series continues, we felt it time to add some fashion to the mix. Sure the interactive works and the million dollar hoop are nice but what’s really needed to round out the city’s portfolio is a 50 ft metallic fireman’s helmet that slightly resembles Santiago Calatrava’s Valencia Opera House. elemente’s public works folio now includes the likes of a tangled mess of chaotic awesomeness that is the The River Passage, the new not-really-public-art-but-is-sort-of-artsy Skipping Stone/St. Patrick bridges and the translucent waviness/illuminati worshipping bit that is the Beltline’s Chinook Arc but no hats. Completed in October 2014 at a budget of $170,000, the piece designed by South African born artist Ilan Sandler, entitled “Under the Helmet” was designed as sculptural add-on to the new Windsor Park Fire Station.Standing on edge at what looks like a smidge over two storeys tall, the piece at first isn’t obvious as a helmet. On profile the sculpture presents as more of an abstract piece of art than literal helmet newton interpretation. However upon viewing its skeletal shape from directly across the street you start to see iconic shapes like the flared brim at the back, the visor framework and the signature oblong shaping. According to the artist and city brief, “The artwork speaks to the complex relationships and dependencies that exist among firefighters and their equipment. In particular, the helmet distinguishes the individuality of the fire-fighter, while symbolizing membership on a team,” states Sandler. ” By constructing the linear form from the characteristics of hoses and maintaining ample open spaces within the structure, the artwork’s curves complement the angular geometry of the building’s design and hardscaping.” The chromium styled, open-themed helmet can be found at the Windsor Park Fire Station just off McLeod Trail at 5536 – 4th Street S.W. Source: City of Calgary

Sen. Bernie Sanders, 77, really is just as curmudugeonly as you’d expect. According to a leaked campaign rider from his 2020 presidential campaign obtained by The Smoking Gun, the Democratic socialist from Vermont demands that his hotel rooms be cold and his bathrooms not have slow flushing toilets. Called the “Senator Comfort Memo” — marked “Confidential: For Campaign Staff Use Only” — the document instructs the exact arrangements that must be met for Sanders’ hotels, food, drink, family and staff. “After a hard day of campaigning, Senator Bernie Sanders likes to settle down in a frigid hotel suite with a cozy down comforter and a bathroom that has been checked for “leaky faucets, slow flushing toilets, slow draining bathtubs,” according to a tour rider prepared by the candidate’s staff,” The Gun wrote. TRENDING: RUTH BADER GINSBURG DEAD! Supreme Court Justice Dies at Home Surrounded by Family The Sanders rider advocates the poaching of “mini honey bottles or single honey packs” encountered at hotels. “Stock up!” campaign aides are told, wrote The Gun. For Sanders, who is referred to as “SBS” in the memo, a “small junior suite” is ideal. “We have no need for a large suite–please avoid this upgrade as much as possible,” the memo states. The candidate also seeks a “Bathtub, if the hotel has that option” and a room thermostat set at 60 degrees. “ALWAYS TEST, SET, AND RUN THE THERMOSTAT BEFORE ARRIVAL,” the memo advises advance team personnel. As for the location of Sanders’s suite, it should not be “near elevators, ice machines, or other high foot traffic spots.” Additionally, hotel management should be asked “if any other groups are staying at the hotel and adjust floor placement as necessary to ensure a quiet stay.” If any of Sanders’s seven grandchildren are traveling with him, campaign workers are advised to secure a room for them adjoining Sanders’s suite. An aide to Sanders’s wife Jane should also be apprised if the hotel has a pool and/or hot tub since, “This is particularly important if the grandchildren are accompanying SBS and Jane.” But Bernie doesn’t sleep cold. He demands a king-size bed with a down comforter. If no comforters are available, then lots of blankets will do. And you know those annoying pamphlets and booklets that are all over hotel rooms? Yeah, none of those for Bernie. “As part of ‘QUALITY CONTROL BEFORE ARRIVAL,’ Sanders aides must remove any ‘hotel pamphlets/signage from bed and side-tables.’ They must also test the room’s lights, TV, keys, and ‘Check for any leaky faucets, slow flushing toilets, slow draining bathtubs, hot water, etc..’ “ Notes The Gun: ‘T]he Democratic candidate appears to share the current president’s concern about the insufficient flushing power of today’s toilets.” The senator who prefers socialism over capitalism also makes these demands each day: Green tea with honey (saving any excess honey packets), English breakfast tea, a low sugar drink, one small bottle of red Gatorade, one bottle of Smart water, clementines and a small can of unsalted cashews/walnuts/almonds. Oh, and on departure, he makes one final demand: “Shred any documents left behind.”

On the present schedule, Secretary of State John F. Kerry will exit his current position on the same day as President Obama leaves his, Jan. 20 of 2017. Kerry told the Globe this week he doesn’t “have a clue” what he plans to do next. As it happens, that’s right around the time, also according to the present schedule, that the International Olympic Committee will be gearing up to decide whether Boston will host the 2024 Summer Games. Kerry, a man of the world, a sporting enthusiast, and a self-described “huge proponent” of the Boston Games, would appear a natural fit to join the late-stage lobbying to make that happen.

#349135 +( 7277 )- [X] <beser> Today my History class took a feild trip to the Museum of Tolerance. Its a museum showing kids not to be prejudice and all that good stuff. <beser> Anyways, one exhibit is two doors next to each other. One door has a sign hanging over it saying "Those with prejudice walk through this door" The other door's sign said "Those without prejudice walk through this door". Obviously the door for people without prejudice isn't openable because as the tour guide says "Everyone has prejudice". <beser> So, I start tugging on the door and say "What the hell is wrong with this damn door, did some damn Jew make this?" and the tour guide kicked me out and i had to sit in the bus for 15 minutes

After making it available yesterday, Apple this evening has seemingly removed the watchOS 5 developer beta from its website. The company doesn’t elaborate as to the specifics of the removal, though it acknowledges the unavailability on its website… On its developer portal, Apple says that seed 1 of watchOS 5 is “temporarily unavailable.” The company seems to suggest that the update process rendered the Apple Watch of some unusable. Apple says it is investigating an issue that occurs while updating and invites affected user to contact AppleCare. Seed 1 of watchOS 5 is temporarily unavailable. We are investigating an issue that occurs while updating. If you’ve experienced any issues, please contact AppleCare. Apple has both removed the watchOS developer configuration file from its website, as well as removed the over-the-air update that would appear in the Apple Watch app on iPhone after the configuration profile had been installed. The company doesn’t provide a timetable as for when the update might become available again. Aside from typical beta issues such as general bugs and app compatibility issues, we’ve not seen any reports of such bricked devices. Have you had issues updating to beta one of watchOS 5? Let us know down in the comments! Be sure to catch up with all of our WWDC coverage in our full roundup of yesterday’s announcements. Subscribe to 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news: FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More. Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:

This is a composite image of the lunar nearside taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in June 2009, note the presence of dark areas of maria on this side of the moon. Credit: NASA The secret to deep-space exploration could be buried deep within the moon. A University of Central Florida scientist is developing a process that could mine the moon of its ice, which could eventually open the way for rocket-fuel production on the lunar surface. That would make it more likely that rockets could take off from the moon with enough force to, for the first time, expand a vehicle's range. "The cost of spaceflight is primarily driven by the launch of propellants into space," said UCF's Phil Metzger, who landed a six-month contract with United Launch Alliance to explore the potential. "If we could get those propellants from space, we could cut those costs." But sending hardware to the moon might not be cost-efficient—especially as reusable launch vehicles such as those used by SpaceX and Blue Origin bring the price of launches down, said Jon Goff, who runs the Broomfield, Colo.-based robotics company Altius Space Machines. "Once you get stuff launched from the moon, will it still always be cheaper than launching from Earth?" said Goff, whose company has worked with NASA and ULA. "That is an open question." The benefits of the exploration could reduce the cost of space transportation significantly, ULA Chief Scientist Bernard Kutter said in a news release. "Procuring propellant derived from the moon may be substantially less expensive than hauling the propellant out of Earth's deep-gravity well," he said. "This in turn could reduce the cost of space transportation by as much as a factor of five." The moon mining is driven in part by ULA's 30-year vision, which foresees 1,000 people living and working in the space between Earth and the moon by 2046. That would require sustainable resources that could support teams near the moon and also provide a rest stop for those who plan to travel or explore deeper into space, Metzger said. "It would be like a gas station along the way to keep it going," he said. Financial details of ULA's deal with Metzger were not disclosed. Efforts to mine the moon's ice provide a way for ULA to plant its flag in a new sector, hoping to remain competitive with SpaceX, Goff said. The Elon Musk-led company hit a major milestone Tuesday by launching its Falcon Heavy rocket, which employs reusable boosters, on its first test flight from Kennedy Space Center. "In a world where SpaceX keeps succeeding, the next question should be, 'How do I compete?'" Goff said. "... This is them trying to copy what SpaceX has done and have an exciting goal and get people excited to work with them," he said. Metzger's team is seeking a way to reach ice that scientists say is buried at the moon's poles. The initial thought is that drills could penetrate the moon, pump heat into it and collect vapor that comes from the ice chunks. That vapor can then be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, two elements required in the production of rocket fuel. Using lunar resources could also benefit Earth's environment. "We have outgrown our globe and we are putting too much burden on the planet," Metzger said. "We are using up most affordable resources. The ultimate solution is to put the machinery of civilization into space." ©2018 The Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Fla.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Slideshow ( 3 images ) BANGKOK (Reuters) - U.S. fast food giant Taco Bell is opening its first outlet in Thailand, continuing the Yum! Brands YUM.N chain's Asia expansion, offering adapted menu items and local beer. The fast-food chain’s new Bangkok outlet opens on Thursday and will introduce new items with local flavors including an extra-spicy sauce to compete with the multiple quick-service chains and higher-end Mexican restaurants in the city center. It will also serve Thai beer brands Singha and Chang as well as Philippines beer San Miguel Light. Its Thai franchise partner, Thoresen Thai Agencies Pcl (TTA) TTA.BK, owned by the billionaire Mahagitsiri family, a shipping company that branched out last year into the food and beverage business with quick-service restaurant, Pizza Hut, also owned by Yum. "Taco Bell will appeal to the young generation, particularly millennials," Chalermchai Mahagitsiri, CEO of Taco Bell's Thai franchise partner Thoresen Thai Agencies (TTA) TTA.BK, said in a statement, adding that his family “fell in love” with the chain while visiting the United States. TTA, owned by the billionaire Mahagitsiri family, is a shipping company that branched out last year into the food and beverage sector. Taco Bell’s Asia Pacific’s managing director, Ankush Tuli, said Thailand’s “strong food culture, adventurous spirit and appetite for trying new things” make it a good market for the brand. The latest store was unveiled by Taco Bell President Liz Williams on Tuesday. The chain, known for serving burritos and tacos opened its first store in China in 2016 and last year signed a deal to expand in New Zealand and Australia.

This holiday forecast blows! Thanksgiving paradegoers should bundle up for the coldest temperatures in 20 years — and brace for powerful winds that threaten to ground dazzling giant balloons. It’s expected to plunge into the low 20s in Manhattan — but it will feel more like the teens — in the coldest projected Thanksgiving on record since 1996, meteorologists told The Post. “It’s going to be brutal out there,” said Accuweather senior meteorologist Dave Dombek. “It’s going to be cold. Very, very cold.” He added, “If things stay as is, this will be the third-coldest Thanksgiving in New York history” — with the most frigid reaching a low of 19 degrees in 1901. Sustained wind could reach up to 25 mph and gusts could blow up to 35 mph, which would ground beloved balloons such as Charlie Brown, the Grinch and SpongeBob SquarePants. If sustained winds exceed 23 mph and gusts surpass 34 mph, none of this year’s 16 character balloons will be allowed to soar due to city regulations, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade spokesman Orlando Veras told The Post. It would be the first time the city has grounded the colorful balloons since 1971. In 1997, a woman was left in a coma when a powerful gust of wind caused the Cat in the Hat balloon to strike a streetlight, which fell and hit her head. But organizers haven’t yet made a call about whether to ground the balloons this year. “It is too early to make any determinations as to the flight of the balloons,” Veras said Monday. “In the morning, just prior to the start of the event, Macy’s and the NYPD will make a final determination on the flight of the giant balloons, based on the current weather data available from the parade route and a number of additional sources.” Overall, Thursday’s low temperature is expected to be 21 degrees with a wind chill factor of 10 to 16 degrees, Dombek said. New floats this year include Elf on the Shelf, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Splashing Safari Adventure by Kalahari Resorts and Conventions, and Fantasy Chocolate Factory by Kinder. Oldies but goodies include the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Grinch and Ronald McDonald.

Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Jeff Barnes (left) of Alameda, Calif., invites people to sign a free speech sign during a pro-Donald Trump rally at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley, Calif., on April 27, 2017. The co-opting of the free speech mantle by conservatives has some progressives convinced that free speech itself is no longer worth defending. I recently read a downright alarming opinion piece. It worried me in a multitude of ways. It worried me, first of all, because of what it said about about the future of political discourse in our society; about the condition of our shared social values; and about the direction of the progressive movement. In the piece, the author — a colleague of mine at HuffPost Canada — asserted that free speech is "not worth fighting for." "Only the most privileged benefit from free speech," my colleague wrote, referring to a "necessary fight against a 'free speech' movement." "'Free speech' is too costly for the disenfranchised, and this will never change when the system in power profits from this imbalance," my colleague concluded. Note the quotation marks around the words free speech. On campuses across North America, a growing number of people on the left are turning against the very notion of freedom of speech, having grown convinced that it is yet another bludgeon used by "them" against "us." It's true that we live in strange times, but I had not realized, until I read that sentence, that we are so far through the looking glass that we now inhabit a space where some people working in news media have actually stopped believing in free speech. This opinion piece is not an isolated incident. On campuses across North America, a growing number of people on the left are turning against the very notion of freedom of speech, having grown convinced that it is yet another bludgeon used by "them" against "us." In the now-famous castigation of Lindsay Shepherd at Wilfrid Laurier University, university officials on three occasions likened free speech to Nazi ideology. Is this what academia has come to? The belief that freedom of speech is fascist? To me, a student of history, this is bizarro world. Free speech is key to any fight for rights The first I ever came across the notion of free speech was in my teens, when I read about Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in the 1960s. Progressive students fought for the right to express their opinions on campus, paving the way for the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protests that would spread to campuses around the continent. Political activism is an integral part of campus life today; it's doubtful that would have happened had it not been for the '60s free speech movement. In that context, free speech was always about giving voice to those who have no voice, about giving some measure of power and influence to those who were deprived of it — and about sticking it to The Man. Where would Martin Luther King, Jr. have been without the freedom to give the speeches he gave? Heck, would white people have ever even heard of Malcolm X were it not for freedom of speech? Or how about the role of gay pulp fiction in the early years of the fight for LGBTQ rights? Anywhere you look in history, you can see how freedom of speech — when it was seized by those who needed it most — empowered the downtrodden. The historical reality simply does not square up with my colleague's assertion that "free speech is too costly for the disenfranchised." A lack of free speech would have been much, much costlier. Yet today, the progressive movement has come to see free speech as a threat. That is one element of what was so alarming about that anti-free speech opinion piece to me — it came from a perspective that is ignorant of the historical context, and importance, of freedom of expression. It ignores entirely the long history of those who have had to fight for the right to have a voice. So why is the progressive movement turning away from free speech? It is without doubt a reaction to the successful co-opting of free-speech rhetoric by the social conservative and far-right movements. Over the past few decades, conservatives have adopted tactics of the left for their own purposes, including the use of the free-speech mantle to express their opinions. They have learned to use free speech as a moral bludgeon, to the frustration of the left. The result is that now the "free speech movement" looks to many progressives like it belongs to the conservatives — if they see free speech being invoked, it's to further some conservative cause. If you think marginalized groups have it bad in a world with free speech, just wait until you see what happens in a world without it. And that is a failure of progressivism. The movement, in effect, lost control of the free-speech mantle to the right, so now it seeks to de-legitimize the entire concept; hence those quotation marks in my colleague's article. But this is a trap that the progressive movement must not fall into. Nothing will make conservatives happier than watching progressives throw freedom of speech under the bus. Want to lose a political battle? Just look like the person who's trying to shut everyone else up. Progressivism must retake the mantle of free speech. The alternative is sure to backfire in time. Any tool of for silencing a voice can be used to silence yours, too. My colleague argued, in essence, that free speech is not worth defending because in a world with inequities, those with power will always have more access to the bully pulpit than those without. That may be true. But if you think marginalized groups have it bad in a world with free speech, just wait until you see what happens in a world without it. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost:

The Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots are slated to meet in Super Bowl LIII. The matchup on paper puts two of the top offensive teams in the league against one another. However, we may not be seeing the shootout some expect from two of 2018’s most potent offenses. Los Angeles Rams Firstly, the Rams have the best defensive player in the league on their defensive line in Aaron Donald. So far this postseason neither the Chiefs nor Chargers were able to get close to Brady. But they were bringing pressure from the edge, whereas the Rams will bring it up the middle. To no one’s surprise – Aaron Donald wins the PFF Defensive Player of the Year award.https://t.co/rtqdumQWcy pic.twitter.com/duX8WBJAyx — Pro Football Focus (@PFF) January 26, 2019 Between Donald and Ndamukong Suh, the Patriots will have a much harder time keeping Brady clean. Although Suh has had difficulties withteams running directly at him. If he can be patient and wait for the runner it will give the Rams an advantage up front. Likewise, DE Michael Brockers needs to set the edge as he did against the Saints. On the other edge will be Dante Fowler Jr., who will need another big game and be charged with getting after the RB’s. The Rams defensive line first and foremost have to do their best to limit Sony Michel and James White. As an added advantage, if they can pressure Brady, the Rams will be in good shape. The rest of the Rams defense will have their hands full. Linebackers Corey Littleton and Mark Barron could be chasing down back’s and busting screens if James Develin and Rob Gronkowski continue to block as they have been. COMIN FOR IT ➡️➡️ pic.twitter.com/CrpmlaKkiE — Marcus Peters (@marcuspeters) January 25, 2019 Simultaneously, the secondary will need to play tight man coverage to limit Julian Edelman’s involvement. Expect Aquib Talib and Marcus Peters to try and force the receivers to the outside, as well as be physical at the line of scrimmage. Look for Lamarcus Joyner will need to play the Eric Berry role that was seen in the AFC Championship Game. This could keep him on either Gronkowski or White. Where the Rams will need to win this battle is up front. Although they have the speed and tackling ability, they will be open to exploitation from RBs making catches out of the backfield. New England Patriots The New England defense has played two phenomenal first halves in the playoffs so far. They have been helped by the offense chewing up the clock, but have also held up their share of the work. Linebacker Kyle Van Noy has been their biggest playmaker on defense in the postseason, and will likely be tasked with wrapping up Todd Gurley and C.J. Anderson. Dont’a Hightower will man the other side of the field, and these two linebackers are both quick and strong. They will be perfectly suited to not only limiting the rushing attack but also disrupting tightend’s Tyler Higbee and Gerald Everett. The Patriots’ secondary is less suited to their opponents, Robert Woods and Brandon Cooks, and to a lesser degree Josh Reynolds. Stephon Gilmore has had a strong season, and Jason McCourty is a seasoned veteran. But they will both need to find another level to really clamp down on the Rams’ dynamic receiving duo. Among the league’s CBs with at least 175 snaps in coverage – Stephon Gilmore ranked 6th by allowing just 0.72 yards per coverage snap pic.twitter.com/6PjXTOaC5b — Pro Football Focus (@PFF) January 27, 2019 Cornerback Jonathan Jones had some trouble holding his own against Sammy Watkins and the Chargers receivers in the matchups leading up to the Super Bowl. Yet, Safeties Devin McCourty and Patrick Chung are so experienced, especially in Super Bowls, that they will be there to clean up and help out in coverage. Finally, the Patriots’ line. Trey Flowers, Malcolm Brown, Lawrence Guy, and Adrian Clayborn have loved the lead that their offense has given them. It has allowed the defense to be more aggressive and get after opposing QB. They pressured Mahomes from the get-go, and Jared Goff will be in similar conditions. The Rams’ offensive line is marginally better than the Chiefs’, but will still be hard-pressed to hold their own. And the Winner is… So where does that leave us? The Rams have the better defensive line, purely because of Donald, but Patriots have the better linebackers. Where the Patriots can take the lead is the secondary. Although Talib might be the most talented corner on the field, the overall Rams secondary is not at the same level as their New England counterparts. Belichick, McDaniels, and Brady might be able to take advantage of the matchups in the passing game, but Los Angeles is counting on their line to mask their flaws. Equally, Gurley and Anderson need to have success rushing the football to prevent the Patriots’ front seven bringing Goff down. The defensive advantage leans slightly to New England overall, but the more talented individuals reside in Los Angeles. Share this: Tweet Like this: Like Loading...

When Omran Daqneesh’s picture was taken after what was said to be a pro-government airstrike on a rebel-held neighborhood in the city of Aleppo, it instantly became an icon of Syria’s cruel civil war. Images and video of the little boy, the dust and blood on his face comingling as he sat in an ambulance chair in bewilderment, went viral on social media. They dominated the news cycle, propelling Syria once more to the front pages of newspapers and the top of news broadcasts. One CNN newscaster, Kate Bolduan, could barely hold back tears as she spoke of Omran’s ordeal. Yet for many residents of the western, government-held part of Aleppo, Omran’s image promotes a one-sided narrative about the conflict. They see it as yet another salvo in a media war that they are losing, their suffering all but forgotten in the eyes of the world. “The policy of these western countries is to destroy the Syrian government, or the ‘regime’ as they call it, so they don’t mention what happens in government territory… because they don’t want their people to know the truth of what is happening in the country,” said Ayman Oweilah, a 30-year old engineer student living Aleppo. “Western channels don’t send their correspondents to government-controlled areas because that would be an acknowledgement of the Syrian state.” Yet Damascus often denies visas to journalists, either because they are from countries or outlets antagonistic to the government or their coverage is deemed not objective by the Syrian Ministry of Information. It is also difficult to reach people in government areas; mistrustful of western media in general, they are reluctant to talk for fear their words will be twisted or get them in trouble with the authorities. “It reflects the general sense that Assad’s side is responsible for far more of the death than the rebel side,” said Thanassi Cambanis, a Fellow at the Century Foundation who was granted a visa last year. “But access is a far bigger issue than the political judgment of who is the bigger villain in the conflict.” “Whenever the Syrian government has let journalists in to do work, there is always a steady stream of stories that highlight the suffering of civilians on the government side,” he said. As the battle has raged for control of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, casualty numbers indicate that people on both sides — which have largely been locked in a stalemate since 2012 — live in a crucible of suffering, where death can drop from above at any moment. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition watchdog with a network of activists in Syria, 218 civilians, including 46 children, were killed in Aleppo in the month of August alone as a result of government airstrikes on opposition-controlled neighborhoods. Although loyalist forces control the skies, rebels have lobbed hundreds of mortar shells into western Aleppo. Many of the explosives are crude gas canisters repurposed for the indiscriminate shelling that killed 178 civilians in government-held areas in August. The death toll among children there was even higher; the observatory put it at 52. Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the observatory, explained that despite the disparity in the destructive power of the rebels’ arsenal compared to the government, government-controlled Aleppo had a “much higher population density.” There are roughly 1.4 million people living in government-held areas, Abdul Rahman said. “In the western neighborhoods you have five or six times the people in the east, and so the number of the casualties is higher,” said Abdul Rahman. “Just the other day, one shell got eight people in one go.” While aid groups estimate anywhere from 175,000 to 300,000 people still live in eastern rebel-held Aleppo, it is difficult to gauge the accuracy of figures from rebel territory. For example, Darayya, another besieged rebel-held city, was said to have more than 8,000 occupants. But last week, when government forces evacuated the entire town, they found fewer than 2,000 people still residing there. Ironically, many of those killed or injured in rebel bombardment come from opposition-held areas themselves; thousands have fled the fighting and constant government airstrikes on rebel territories and join the roughly 6.5 million internally displaced Syrians in the country, according to the U.N. In the days following Omran’s tragic rise to world attention, pro-government outlets and activists uploaded images of children they said were injured or killed in west Aleppo and had been ignored by western media. https://twitter.com/edwardedark/status/766399965916762114 One resident, Kamel Mohammad, shared a photo from pro-government outlet "Syria Now" of a young boy, his face covered in the now-familiar red-and-white mask of blood and dust. “Who will cry the for this child?” he asked. Below, the caption read “A child from Aleppo… after his house was shelled by the gangs of [religious] terrorism.” Pro-government outlets routinely refer to the opposition pitted against Syrian President Bashar Assad as terrorists. “Unfortunately, his enemy is protected by CNN and its ilk… and the world won’t see the terror in his eyes,” it read. Edward Dark, the pseudonym of a Twitter user living in government-held Aleppo, uploaded a picture of Rim, a little girl he said had been injured by rebel mortar fire just below that of Omran. "One of them made global headlines, while the other was ignored. Guess why," he wrote. "Of course western media will never show you the children shelled & murdered by the jihadis their government back in #Syria,” he wrote. https://twitter.com/edwardedark/status/767034925736394752 Mohammad and other social media users also posted videos and pictures casting doubt on Daqneesh’s story. Mahmoud Raslan, the photographer who took the picture of Omran, said that the boy was rescued along with members of his family from the rubble of their house in the rebel-held Al-Qaterji neighborhood. Three days later, activists said, one of his older siblings succumbed to his injuries and died. Theories about how the image must have been staged circulated on social media. Medical workers wouldn’t leave a wounded child like that; the ambulance looked too clean; Omran seemed too calm. One widely distributed photo showed a make-up artist prepping “wounds” on a girl. “This is what the studios of [Al-Arabiya] and [Al-Jazeera] have always done… visual tricks to sway Western public opinion,” the picture’s caption said, referring to news channels affiliated with Syria’s regional enemies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Even the Russian Ministry of Defense fueled speculation, denying in a statement that it had conducted airstrikes near Omran’s home. “The nature of the debris shown by Western broadcasters during the operation to save [the wounded boy, Omran Daqneesh] demonstrates that there are intact windows in a building nearby,” the statement said,” and this in turn shows that the strike, if it happened, was carried out not using aircraft ammunition but a mine or a gas cylinder, which are commonly used by terrorists.” The relative absence of pro-government areas from coverage feeds the perception that any individual story of suffering is told to the detriment of others. “To me, Omran's plight is that of all Syrians caught in this war,” said Leith Abou Fadel, editor of the pro-government Masdar News. “It agitates me when people try to use images of children to spread their political agenda, be it opposition or government. Both sides are guilty of it.” “West Aleppo has suffered immensely; however, they are terrible at promoting this stuff,” he said. “Which is sad now that someone has to "promote" the hell these civilians are going through.” Bulos is a special correspondent.

The two Chucks bro’ down, as reported by the WSJ blog: Defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel “almost had tears in his eyes” when Sen. Chuck Schumer explained during a private meeting his objection to Mr. Hagel’s use of the term “Jewish lobby,” Mr. Schumer recalled Wednesday. During a 90-minute meeting [on January 15] shortly after Mr. Hagel’s name was floated for the spot, Mr. Schumer, a Democrat, “asked him about all the things he said that had troubled me, troubled you, troubled any of us who are supporters of Israel,” he said. Politico’s Maggie Haberman reports that Schumer described the meeting in a breakfast speech in New York at the Association for a Better New York and the Downtown Alliance: “He struck me as sincere, and you know, you have to be sitting there at the meeting obviously, but I also told him when he used the word Jewish lobby what it meant to Jewish people,” [Schumer] added. “And I told him what a double standard is. That Jewish people throughout the centuries have suffered a double standard. Everyone could be a farmer except Jewish people. Everyone could live in Moscow except Jewish people. I said when everyone else can lobby but all of a sudden when those of us who are pro-Israel lobby, it’s a negative, that’s a double standard. And I’m sure you didn’t mean it, but it harkens to the old days. “And he really, you know, he almost had tears in his eyes when he understood. So I believe he will be good.” Schumer noted that there is “not a major Jewish organization against” Hagel. “The main fight on Hagel is coming from the neocons, who you know well. And they resent Hagel’s apostasy on Iraq. You may remember — the neocons helped push Iraq — and Hagel was one of the first Republicans to say Iraq wasn’t working. And he was right. But that’s where it’s coming from.” Yes and why did you support the neocons’ idea of remaking Iraq, Senator? Interesting that in Schumer’s view it’s not the term Jewish lobby that rankles– after all, he cites all the Jewish organizations behind Hagel– it’s that non-Jews are not allowed to criticize it. Much as Elliott Abrams asserted to Brian Lehrer. So, I would respond, Are Jews as an American community persecuted outsiders, as we were in Russia in a historical memory that is so fresh to Senator Chuck Schumer; or are we empowered and accountable for our actions–i.e., is criticism allowed? This fundamental misprision of our power, our position is the error here.

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None of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s recent barbs is as effective as the old ‘suit-boot sarkar’. He should’ve gone back to farmer distress & lack of jobs. Earlier this week, Rahul Gandhi, accompanied by his mother and Manmohan Singh, met the ambassadors of the G20 countries over lunch. The ambassadors cannot be blamed for having expected a formal statement by Mr Gandhi on his approach to foreign policy. All they got was polite chitchat as the Congress president circulated from one table to the next. Waste of time, said one diplomat present. Missed opportunity, said another. If, by general consent, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has regained lost ground since the Bharatiya Janata Party’s poor showing in the state elections of November-December, one reason has to be the failure of the opposition to say what they stand for, even as Modi’s government has ramped up its flow of full-page advertisements listing sundry achievements (the Aam Aadmi Party has been doing the same in Delhi to mark its fourth anniversary in office). Modi has also got away, unchallenged, when he has claimed repeatedly that nothing happened before his government took charge. Indeed, the Congress has been a bystander while the BJP has appropriated Congress stalwarts from the past like Subhas Chandra Bose and Vallabhbhai Patel, even Mahatma Gandhi. What Rahul Gandhi has done so far is to attack Modi on a variety of issues, but his barbs have not been even remotely as effective as the old retort about a “suit-boot sarkar”. The Rafale accusations have been blunted by the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which conveniently failed to include in its calculations the cost of the sovereign guarantee foregone. The business of Modi being a chor or thief cuts no ice because (unlike Bofors) there is not even a hint of a money trail. Worse, any fool would know that tackling Modi on a national security platform, in the wake of Pulwama and Balakot, is like playing Rafael Nadal on clay. Wisdom would have suggested getting back as quickly as possible to the farmer distress-lack of jobs platform that had Modi on the defensive. Also read: A national security election gives Rahul Gandhi the perfect excuse to lose The fact is that, for all its failures (for which it got voted out), the Manmohan Singh government had significant achievements to show. In the wake of the BJP campaign that the impossible has been made possible (Namumkin ab mumkin hai), it would have been an obvious gambit for Gandhi to remind voters that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance delivered in the past, and to assert that it can deliver again. In case he needs reminding, the UPA’s achievements included a dramatic drop in poverty at an unprecedented rate, doubling investment in infrastructure (as a percentage of GDP), new airports in all the major cities, enough power capacity for the first time to put an end to power shortages, a sharp decline in Left-wing extremism by the end of UPA rule and a notably quieter Kashmir, record agricultural growth plus crop diversification, the Aadhaar initiative, empowering citizens through the law on the right to information, the rural employment guarantee programme, giving two million forest-dwellers their land rights under a new law, successfully tackling AIDS, and so on. Would reminding people of these achievements have helped the Congress to rebut that it is not just Modi who delivers? If yes, why is Gandhi as reticent on this as he was at the meeting with G20 ambassadors? Also read: Rahul Gandhi, share your foreign policy ideas beyond closed-door meetings By general consensus, Gandhi has emerged as a more serious politician after his initial, wrong-footed forays. Certainly, it took him a while to get serious about politics (having entered Parliament 15 years ago). For the last six years, he has been either vice-president or president of the Congress. But he has manifestly failed to re-build the party at the grassroots during this period, or throw up new leaders. Still, the Congress has begun to fare better in elections — state as well as by-elections — while the BJP’s record in by-elections is just five of 13 seats that it originally held. But Gandhi looks in danger of frittering away the momentum gifted to him by the government’s mis-steps. That risk is compounded by critical failures in alliance formation, in both Delhi and the all-important Uttar Pradesh. By Special Arrangement with Business Standard. Subscribe to our channels on YouTube & Telegram

Anonymous (ID: hYpqmQGj) O1/19/13(Sat)07:32:25 No.452153060 Replies: >>452153414 >>452153772 >>452154186 >>452157264 >>452157960 >>452161987 >>452162321 >>452162418 >>452162608 >>452163065 >>452163220 >>452163858 What to do /b!? I've been in love with the same girl for basically all my life but the situation is all flicked up now and I don't know how to stop flicking caring about her. Pic related, it's her >Be crushin on same girl for all my life >Knew her since kindergarten >Her parents are poor and live in a one bedroom with four kids so they don't care she sleeps over most nights >Hang out almost everyday for years >All our friends joke about us getting married one day >She knows I'm into her and she says she feels same way but 'doesn't want to label it >Get her to make out but really not much more >Says she likes me too much and is afraid well go all the way if we do anything more >Resigned to being a virgin til I eventually many this girl >Both of us mainly hang out with two other guys (lets call Eric and Dave) >Mainly consists of playing Halo at my house >Sometimes smoke weed when Eric can get it >Talk about parties but never get invited >Eric starts hanging out with his oldfag cousin sometimes >Make fun of him for hanging out with 37 year old >Says cousin buys beer and lets him smoke at his place >wellwhydidnlyousaysointhefirstplace.jpg >Start going to his cousins place to drink and play halo once a week when his wife and kids are gone visiting wife's parents >He buys the beer. has food. videogames, not bad situation >He can have a pretty annoying bossy attitude and thinks hes the king of our weekly hangs but whatever >Start bringing the pseudo-gf to these things >Cousin is always eyeing the fuck out of her but she's used to being the only girl at our hangs so whatever Continued Anonymous (ID: hYpqmQGj) 01/19/13(Sat)07:50:03 No.452154764 Replies: >>452155342 >>452162321 >>452162508 >>452163698 File: 1358599803376.joq-(68 KB. 800x600. For4Chan02.jpg) Sorry I suck at typing. >Even though this cousinfag knows that this girl should be off limits he is always flicking hitting on her >Worst part is she doesn't seem to mind >One day he asks her why it doesn't say I'm her boyfriend on facebook >mfw when she says `Oh he's more like my best friend than anything° >seething anger when he says 'Man you gotta lock that shit down bro. she's banging >Only really see this cousinfag once a week and she still sleeps over all the time so thinking whatever nothing will come of it >I keep telling her he's an asshole >She agrees but tells me 'you know me. I don't even know how to be rude' >Besides not like we can really stop going, ritual is pretty ingrained at this point >Eventually start combining Halo and drinking. halo drinking games >We're retards we didn't think of this sooner >Old cousinfag instates random different rules all the time >House rules he says >Since pseudo-gf doesn't really play, he sometimes has rules involving her >She has to get the beers if theres a multikill, shit like that >One day he proposes she has to sit on lap of the guy who wins for the next game >Randomly this oldfag is the best of us so rule is obviously for him >I start to say. 'Dude I don't think she wants..." >When at the same time she laughs and says 'You boys.... implying okay >Feel like a huge faggot for being too protective, get red and just go with it >She spends the majority of the next couple of hours on his lap >Raging as we go home. get in a fight with her. make up as we always do continued Anonymous (ID: hYpqmQGj) 01/19/13(Sa007:51:26 No.452154902 also harder than i thought for me to relive all this shit so sorry for the slow pace, ill try to be faster Anonymous (ID: hYpqmQGj) 01/19/13(Sat)08:01:19 No.452155892 Replies: >>452156101 >>452156116 >>452156329 >>452156350 >>452156363 >>452156429 >>452162321 >Shit continues like this for the next few times >Mostly lap sitting >Sometimes they get her to do a joke sexy dance >Nothing I can get publically too mad about >My uncle has a wedding on the same day one of these hangs happens >Ask her not to go >She says she probably won't' >Ask her again, basically begging this time >She says she'll try to get out of it but that the guys are pushy and she's bad at saying no >Both true statements. but I get mad at her telling her to have a spine >Get in a fight again >Don't have time to make up before leaving for wedding >ihaveareallybadfeeling.jpg >Fidgeting entire weekend >Text with her on ride back with the parents. she says to call her once I get back, by the tone I know she feels guilty >ohfuck.png >Turns out she had gotten too drunk and they incorporated stripping into the game. cousin. Eric and Dave all saw her completely naked >Whattheflyingfuck.jpg >get in another fight >mfw i realize that they've gotten more sexual pleasure out of her than me at this point >think its basically over. have to find a new social life >she calls me really late and comes over >cries apologizing, says she has a really big problem saying no and will try to fix it >forgive her and go to bed cuddling continued Anonymous (ID: PVdqgKy3) 01/19/13(Sat)08:03:30 No.452156101 >>452155892 also more pics please Anonymous (ID: hYpqmQGj)01/19/13(Sat)08:11:55 No.452156963 Replies: >>452157229 >>452157609 >>452162321 >Really awkward with Eric and Dave the next time I see them >Don't really address it for a while but eventually we have an awkward apology talk since I'm clearly pissed >She stops going to the cousinfags for a while >Eventually starts going again >"to repair all our broken friendships" she says >Things slowly but surely evolve back to where they were >I know I gotta put a stop to this >Realize booze is really the main difference between my place and oldfags >Start taking booze out of parents cabinet when we play halo at my place >Didn't really know what the fuck I was thinking since we still went to cousinfags as much as we used to >Eventually parents find out >My grades also been going down also >Combination gets them megapissed >Pseudo-gf can't sleep over and I can't go out for a week >pseudo-gf and I fight over this can't even remember why the fuck we did >Get text couple of days later from cousinfag telling us he has the place to himself so to come over >n00000000000000000.jpg >Try to sneak out but get caught >Frantically try to call her but she's still pissed, not picking up >Next day still no contact, weekend so don't see her at school >whatthefuckwhatthefuckingfuck.jpg >freak the fuck out, basically having emotional breakdown continued Anonymous (ID: 1n00tOiK) 01/19/13(Sat)08:11:59 No.452156969 Hurry the fuck up op Anonymous (ID: YsFAhA2+) 01/19/13(Sat)08:20:31 No.452157818 >>452157730 I want to believe OP wouldn't do that. Anonymous (ID: hYpqmQGj) 01/19/13(Sat)08:22:01 No.452157949 Replies: >>452158091 >>452158459 >>452158483 >>452158492 >>452158501 >>452158745 >>452162321 File: 1358601721575.joq-(56 KB, 800x598, For4Chan03.jpg) >see her at school when Monday finally fucking comes >she avoids me all day >she leaves before I can track her down afterschool >text her a zillion times, tell her grounding is over and I really want to talk to her, if its over she can at least tell me >find Eric and Dave, too freaked out to be subtle ask them what the fuck happened >really flicking flicking awkward but basically tell me that they played strip halo again >Eric quickly leaves but Dave tells me later that Eric and cousin fag were feeling her up while she was half passed out >says hes sorry and he tried to stop it >have no one else to be mad at so flip out at dave >eventually she texts me back eventually saying 'you're acting like there's something to end' >get this in front of dave and start crying, run away >so flicking embarrassed to even remember this flicking shit >thinking life is over >she comes over that night, no text no call no nothing >is sobbing at the door >don't even know how to be mad at her >I tell her its okay, I heard what happened and I forgive you >she just keeps crying and we go to bed continued Anonymous (ID: qwj4zea5) 01/19/13(Sat)08:22:11 No.452157960 Replies:>>452158646 >>452159762 >>452153060 (OP) I don't doubt OP is beta. but those two can't be the only parameters. I don't want to be either of them. Anonymous (ID: hYpqmQGj) 01/19/13(Sat)08:32:22 No.452158975 Replies: >>452159150 >>452159216 >>452159237 >>452159303 >>452162616 sorry I'm so slow. recanting is really affecting me >middle of the night, she randomly says 1 love you' >unexpectedbestmomentomylifejpg >don't even hesitate. say 1 love you to& >1-no matter what'?" she says >I say of course >asking no matter what continues for a while >eventually get bad feeling >she tells me that she had no where to go once my parents didn't let me have her over >that she hated staying at her house and how I knew how much she hated her parents >eventually admits she was telling oldfag this by text on her way home Friday night (when stripping happened) >he tells her his house is free until Monday, invites her to stay over >I am shaking while she tells me this >The way she was acting all clicks and makes sense in my mind >Never had a moment of clarity like this >I don't even have to ask but I do >She tells me they went all the way >Not even sure why I asked the details but I had to >how many times? >she says I don't know a billion times and then settles down on five >did you enjoy it? >she says no but I press her and she says she orgasmed >what positions? >missionary and doggy >condom? >pause, no >we're both crying this entire time >still in state of shock in the morning, get morning after pill though at least continued Anonymous (ID: hYpqmQGj) 01/19/13(Sat)08:46:24 No.452160373 Replies: >>452160525 >>452160559 >>452160612 >>452160617 >>452160628 >>452160654 >>452160657 >>452160685 >>452160689 >>452160701 >>452160703 >>452160713 >>452160718 >>452160721 >>452160779 >>452160801 >>452160890 >>452160943 >>452160950 >>452161031 >>452161065 >>452161086 >>452161274 >>452161301 >>452161327 >>452161384 >>452161465 >>452161486 >>452161770 >>452162138 >>452162321 >>452162589 >>452162670 >>452162862 >>452162975 >>452163457 >>452163786 >We're still really weird the next few days but I'm still oddly positive >She says I love you all the time from never saying it at all >actually go facebook official >everyone at school has heard about what happened but I don't give a shit >hold hands everywhere. we tell each other as long as we have each other it'll be okay >Finally catch up to yesterday >Get a text from oldfag saying to come over >Almost laugh that he thinks we're still going >After school look for real-gf now >see her with Eric and Dave >Still pissed at Eric, so already in bad mood >MFW They say they are on way over to cousinfags >I don't even know what to say >I say I'm not going >when it's clear they are going to go with or without me I go with them >just play halo and drink for a while >so mad but don't even know what to do >sense of awkwardness is even worse >feel like I'm not even in the room >try to get her to go home multiple times, eric and cousin convince her to stay >she's on my lap the entire time with my arms around her >end up watching Prometheus >dave has gone home at this point >make the mistake of getting up to get a beer >when I'm back she's on oldfags lap >I ask her if she's okay >she says yes >halfway through oldfag and her start kissing >eric goes 'dude chill our >mfw when she says, 'don't worry he knows' >I tell her that I'm leaving >She says she's going to stay This was last night and I haven't talked to her since

ATL and MFC changes and fixes in Visual Studio 2013 August 20th, 2013 Hello, I’m Pat Brenner, a developer on the Visual C++ Libraries team. In this blog post I would like to share with you the changes that we’ve made in ATL and MFC for Visual Studio 2013. One of the major changes we made was to eliminate the ATL DLL altogether. All ATL code is now static, either in the header files or in the ATL static library. We also reduced the amount of code in the ATL static library substantially, so there are no longer multiple static libraries for debug/release mode or Unicode/ANSI character set. There is only one ATL static library that is common to all configurations. The changes to ATL also included the elimination of the ATL/MFC Trace Tool and the simplification of the tracing mechanism. The TRACE macros now essentially boil down to OutputDebugString, and there is no external controller of tracing level (like the trace tool provided)—the tracing level is set in the application itself. This does cause source-breaking changes in some uses of the ATL::CTraceCategory class, which will require changes in source code when migrating to Visual Studio 2013. The major change we made in MFC was the deprecation of MBCS support (see more information in this separate blog post). In addition, we fixed about 105 bugs in MFC and about 60 bugs in ATL. About one-fourth of these bugs (in both libraries) were reported by customers. Though I cannot provide a complete list of the bugs in our internal bug database, here is a list of the bugs that were reported by customers through our Connect site that have been fixed in ATL and MFC for Visual Studio 2013 RTM. Click on any Connect bug number to see more information about that bug. Note that most of these bugs were fixed for the Preview release as well. Connect # Bug Title 710163 atlbase.h disables no longer existing C4217 warning 714790 Useless line of code in AtlSafeRealloc() 714791 AtlSafeRealloc() treats failures inconsistently and this leads to memory leaks 714840 CAtlServiceModuleT::LogEventEx() contains a useless check 714802 Suspicious error handling code in CAtlExeModuleT::StartMonitor() 742895 CComApartment::Apartment() leaks objects on edge cases 736213 ATL::CComSafeArray::operator[] ambiguity 764800 wrong/missing sal annotations on consumer oledb macros 750369 Breaking change in how the ATL OLE DB CCommand::Execute method behaves 774871 Certification fails for Windows Store App with ATL-based library 785396 Uninstalling VS2012 Update 2 and repair of VS results in ATL files missing. 789669 ATL CRBMap::Lookup code analysis markup issue 790309 VC++11 regression: error C2338: db_command using v110 toolset 745790 Static MFC executables produced by Visual Studio 2012 RC are huge 750838 MFC loads DLLs using LoadLibraryEx with flag only supported on Windows8 757588 CMFCRibbonBar::AddToTabs removes a wrong button from the m_arButtons array 763947 EndDialog in OnInitDialog reopen Dialog 763517 IMPLEMENT_DYNAMIC produces compile error for statically linked MFC projects 768378 CMFCTabCtrl bug 769093 MFC Edit Browse box not showing browse button. 772859 Calling EndDialog() within OnInitDialog() causes the dialog to be displayed twice. 750859 Visual Studio 11 Beta – bug running .exe in XP service pack 3 763474 Errors detected in the Visual C++ 2012 libraries 760371 LocalFree called twice in CDatabase (MFC 11) 710858 MFC OLE-Server doesn’t seem to support the new style MFC Toolbars 773463 Attempting to use DrawStatusText after including afxwin.h results in link error 768257 Probems with CRecordset::GetFieldValue(short nIndex, CDBVariant& varValue) in VS2012 772549 x64 MFC Macro Bug – ON_WM_POWERBROADCAST() / CWnd::OnPowerBroadcast 773448 CHttpFile::QueryInfo() returns “corrupted” CStrings with invalid lengths. 778201 Missing MFC Functions 777604 CWnd::GetScrollLimit returns 1 if scrolling is deactivated 781179 CMFCPopupMenu crash when you click outside while submenu still open 781379 CMFCShellTreeCtrl fails to handle some UNC pathnames correctly 781257 MFC – CMFCTabCtrl – when style is STYLE_3D_VS2005 and SetActiveTabBoldFont() is set 789970 Unpaired pragma warning push/pop in afxwin.h in Release build 790246 MFC: bad hard typecast in CMFCToolBarMenuButton::CompareWith 790975 HTTP_QUERY_FLAG_REQUEST_HEADERS on CHttpFile::QueryInfo() asserts wrongly 792003 CMFCShellListCtrl::OnContextMenu ‘Delete’ context menu handler does not work I hope you find this information useful. Please let us know if you have any questions. Pat Brenner, Visual C++ Libraries Development Team

From the death, confusion and fear of Thursday’s terrorist attack, the Barcelona boulevard of Las Ramblas has returned to its historic role as a centre of life, reflection and defiance. The paving stones on which the victims died have been cleaned of blood and transformed into a shrine that widens by the hour as mourners bring more tokens of sympathy – flickering candles, bunches of flowers, soft toys and messages of solidarity, love and defiance from around the world. The words are in Arabic, English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French and Hebrew. They come from individuals, embassies and business groups, from tour parties and religious groups. “Las Ramblas cries, but it is still alive,” read one. “Stop Daesh. Stop fascism,” asserted another. “No words. Just love,” concluded another. But the most common phrase was “No tinc por” – the Catalan expression for “We are not afraid”, which was also shouted out after a minute of silence on Friday at a memorial service attended by tens of thousands of people, including the king of Spain, the Spanish prime minister, the Barcelona mayor and the president of the Catalan government, who stood side by side in a rare display of unity for this fiercely independent region. The nation is in the midst of three days of mourning, but there is far more than grief on display on Las Ramblas, which has never been a place where time stands still. Shortly before the Spanish civil war in 1936, the revolutionary poet Federico García Lorca described Barcelona’s main thoroughfare as the most joyful street in the world. It was he said, “the street where all the four seasons live together. The only street I wish would never end. Rich in sounds, abundant in breeze, beautiful in its encounters, old in its blood: Rambla de Barcelona.” Two women hold placards that read ‘We suffered it too’ and ‘We are against any injustice’ at an impromptu memorial two days after a van crashed into pedestrians at Las Ramblas in Barcelona’ Photograph: Reuters These words are now circulating as never before on social media, as more people are drawn physically to the space where 14 people were killed and dozens more injured by a van driven at high speed through the crowds by Moroccan jihadists. Guillem Gargallo, a restaurant waiter who had come by motorcycle to light a candle, was in tears, but determined not to let sadness breed anger. “This is very hard for us Catalans. We love our city. We never thought this would happen here,” he said. “We must maintain our normal lives. If we dwell on it too much, it will pull us all down.” Most of the kiosks in the centre of Las Ramblas are closed. Every 50-100 metres is a shrine. At night, hundreds of people gather around these glowing pools of remembrance. Some stop by on the way home from work. Others during a walk with their dogs or on the way back from shipping. Many were tourists, snapping sad-faced selfies against the latest backdrop of shared anxiety and anger. The murderous route appears to have been chosen for maximum global impact. As well as being crammed with camera-carrying tourists hooked up to social networks around the world, the 500 metre stretch of killing started and ended on two of the city’s most famous and symbolic landmarks: the Canaletes fountain, where fans of Barcelona FC usually celebrate their team’s triumphs; and the Mosaico de Joan Miró – one of three artworks by the Catalan surrealist that the city commissioned to welcome overseas visitors arriving by air, sea and land. At the former, one local football fan, Josep Gargallo turned up, as he has done countless times, in his team’s football shirt, but this time he was paying his respects and trying to salvage something positive from the loss. “It’s still sinking in, but I believe this will make our city a better place,” he said. “We are very united. It makes me proud the way people have responded with offers of help and hospitality.” A few steps from here is the building where George Orwell first stayed when he came to join the International Brigade in the fight against fascism in the 1930s. Back then, Las Ramblas was a centre of socialist idealism, fluttering with red and black flags, More recently, the displays are more likely to be advertising and – until last Thursday – the major concerns were excessive tourism, gentrification and tensions over Catalan independence. Already there are accusations that this tragedy is being exploited in the tussle between Madrid and Barcelona over that independence. Some locals grumbled at an El País editorial yesterday that suggested the city had dropped its guard because it was too focused on an upcoming referendum. The counter-argument here is that Madrid is responsible for the lack of coordination between the Catalan and Spanish police in counter-terrorism. But most people were at pains to keep such disputes at bay. There was a notable absence of flags from either side at the memorial ceremony and on the street. “This is not the time to go into that issue. We’re all crying for the same reason. We’re all praying for the victims,” said Lucia Gil, a teacher from Salamanca, who sat in reflection beside the Mosaico de Joan Miró, now entirely covered by candles and flowers. “I was thinking about the blood that was on this spot. I was thinking it could have been me. I was going to walk here at that time, but I stopped in a side street to get my nails done. That manicure saved my life.” On another side-street, dozens of people fled into a tapas restaurant called Bo de Boqueria. They closed the door and took everyone to a terrace at the back of the building. “We thought we were going to be killed. People were shouting and crying,” recalls waiter Imran Sajid. “For the first 10 minutes it was total confusion. Then we put on the TV and saw what had happened.” A placard reading ‘Pray for Barcelona’ on Las Ramblas. Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters While the immediate fear of an attack has abated, his longer-term concern is about the impact on business. “This is going to affect us badly. I’m 100% sure of that. People will now think twice about coming to Barcelona,” said the Pakistan-born waiter. “It’ll be like France. Many people will not want to visit.” Having lived in the city for 14 years, Sajid said he did not expect a backlash against the Muslim community. “The Spanish aren’t like that. They are very open-minded. They accept you no matter your nationality or religion. It’s a welcoming place for migrants compared to the US or UK,” he said. Others are not so sure. Carmen Pasa, a Romanian who is married to a Moroccan, was one of very few in a headscarf to pay her respects at Las Ramblas. She said she had been crying on and off for a day. “I was too frightened to come at first,” she said. “Today, I wanted to put a candle but there are too many people here now so I have decided to do it tomorrow.” Her worries were not just related to acts of terrorism. “I have felt hostility before and don’t want to feel it again,” she said, breaking into tears. Although Barcelona has long been a transit point between northern Africa and northern Europe, most of the city’s Muslim community have arrived since the 1960s. Most are Pakistanis and Moroccans, but there is a wide diversity of origins as well as divisions between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Although there have been arrests of terrorists from Girona and Tarragona, until now jihadism was thought to have been relatively weak in Spain, from which 160 people are known to have joined Isis in Syria and Iraq, compared to more than 1,000 from France. Intelligence chiefs say this is because Spain is better prepared to deal with terrorism, thanks to techniques developed during the four-decade conflict between the government and the Basque separatist group, Eta. But it is also because the Muslim population is smaller (2.1% of Spain’s 46 million people, compared with to the 7.5% of France’s 67 million, and 4.8% of Britain’s 65 million). Some believe that Muslims are also better integrated. At a late-night kebab restaurant in the El Raval district, the chefs – all from Morocco – said Barcelona was a more welcoming place than most cities in Europe because it was easier to secure documentation to live and work. But many fear this could now change. “I haven’t experienced any racism here in 12 years,” said a Moroccan, who gave only his first name, Omar. He said he feels more comfortable in Barcelona than in his own country. Chatting over a beer at a tapas restaurant, the 28-year-old chef said he had been encouraged by his Spanish friends, who posted messages of support on social networks. But he fears the attack – even though it was on international tourists rather than Barcelona itself – would stir up hostility to people like him. “Some people are saying all Moroccans and Arabs are the same. Others differentiate,” he said. “But now I feel that the majority of people hate Arabs.”

Facebook’s former Chief Security Officer (CSO), Alex Stamos, claimed on Thursday that Apple needs to “come clean” about its practices in China. After Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke about privacy in Brussels on Wednesday, Stamos responded in a series of Twitter posts, criticizing the media for praising Cook’s support for more privacy in the West while denying Chinese consumers the same right. “I agree with almost everything Tim Cook said in his privacy speech today, which is why it is so sad to see the media credulously covering his statements without the context of Apple’s actions in China,” declared Stamos. “The missing context? Apple uses hardware-rooted DRM to deny Chinese users the ability to install the VPN and E2E messaging apps that would allow them to avoid pervasive censorship and surveillance. Apple moved iCloud data into a PRC-controlled joint venture with unclear impacts.” “China is an ethical blind spot for many in tech: We ignore the working conditions under which our beautiful devices are made, the censorship and surveillance necessary to ship apps there, the environmental externalities of coal-powered Chinese Bitcoin farms,” he continued. “We don’t want the media to create an incentive structure that ignores treating Chinese citizens as less-deserving of privacy protections because a CEO is willing to bad-mouth the business model of their primary competitor, who uses advertising to subsidize cheaper devices.” “Cook is right, the US needs a strong privacy law and privacy regulator, and advertising companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter need to collect less data and minimize more often,” Stamos concluded, adding, however, that “Apple needs to come clean on how iCloud works in China and stop setting damaging precedents for how willing American companies will be to service the internal security desires of the Chinese Communist Party.” Stamos left his position at Facebook in August following the social network’s user data scandal, and announced that he had accepted a teaching role at Stanford University.

Urbano Cairo, intervenuto a Radio 24, non ha voluto esprimersi in merito alla possibile esclusione dalle coppe del Milan, sottolineando però che il Torino meriterebbe di disputare l'Europa League: "Non mi esprimo. Abbiamo fatto un campionato molto importante, 63 punti e settimo posto finale. Negli ultimi 15 anni non è mai successo con questi numeri di non andare in Europa. L’avremmo meritato. Se poi il Milan dovesse essere escluso, siamo pronti e faremo tutto quello che serve per ben figurare. Ma non mi piace aspettare cose che svantaggino qualcuno"

A A An environmental group blocked traffic Sunday in downtown Halifax as part of a protest with the message that climate change could wipe out humanity. Extinction Rebellion has been sounding the alarm about effecting urgent global change immediately to avoid drought, floods, extreme poverty and poverty for millions. Bundled up against a bitter winter wind, Justin Lundrigan and his son Jaylen, 5, were among more than 150 protesters who gathered near Halifax Central Library and later moved Spring Garden Road. “It’s important for us to be here, cold or not,” Lundrigan said. “We’re in the middle of a crisis. It’s time for the government to wake up and understand, to address the problem and to inform us, stop hiding really, because that’s essentially what they’re doing, they’re hiding the facts.” Jaylen Lundrigan, 5, holds a sign referring to the consequences of climate change at a protest organized by the Extinction Rebellion group in downtown Halifax on Sunday. - John McPhee Lundrigan said he’s “ very concerned” about the future that awaits his son and wants government to get serious about alternative energy sources. ‘Every time I look at kids nowadays, it just breaks my heart to know where we’re headed,” he said. “A lot of times, the opposition we get, supporters of oil, supporters of fossil fuels, they have a huge concern of losing their jobs but ... I think your jobs and your cars and your toys are going to be irrelevant in an uninhabitable planet.” Vehicles initially had to stop and turn around on Spring Garden when the protesters moved into the street. But Halifax Regional Police eventually blocked off the street as people carrying signs with slogans such as There’s No Planet B and Put the Brakes on Climate Change chanted and sang songs at the intersection of Spring Garden and Queen Street. Earlier in the protest, the group symbolized the threats to species such as the piping plover, Blanding’s turtle and the sea mink in a “die-in” as people lay down on the ground holding signs with the species’ names. A group that has spread internationally from its beginnings in the United Kingdom, Extinction Rebellion points to reports such as the United Nations intergovernmental panel report released in October, which said dire consequences can only be avoided by preventing global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over the next dozen years. Patrick Yancey of Antigonish, spokesman for the group’s local chapter, said Sunday that the protest was part of “Rebellion Week” being held across Canada. “Our concerns are that according to scientific consensus, we’re on course for extinction,” Yancey said. “Our current course is up to like three or four degrees warming and that is just an uninhabitable disaster according to everything we know. So we feel our governments have let us down, they have failed to protect our lives and our livelihoods, they’ve broken the social contract and therefore have lost their legitimacy. So we think it’s every citizen’s right and duty to stand up and rebel non-violently.” The protest ended at about 2 p.m. after police escorted the group as they marched up Spring Garden to South Park Street and back to the library.

RPI's homecoming weekend will proceed without a football game. The Engineers' contest against U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday in Troy, was postponed on Thursday because of the federal government's partial shutdown. The game has been tentatively rescheduled for Nov. 2 at noon at East Campus Stadium, pending the resolution of the government's budget impasse. To take its place, RPI moved its women's soccer match against Clarkson, which was to be played after the football game, to 1 p.m. in East Campus Stadium. "I wouldn't say there's disappointment," RPI associate athletic director for communications Kevin Beattie said. "I think it's an opportunity to showcase our women's soccer program and our athletes from a different sport. There are things you can control and things you can't." Merchant Marine, overseen by the Department of Transportation, closed for normal operations this week because of the government's budget impasse. The Merchant Marine coaching staff can not have contact with players during the shutdown, which prevented the team from holding supervised practices. The teams could play on Nov. 2, when both have a bye. It was originally thought Merchant Marine couldn't make up the game because the academy has exams that week. But the shutdown has canceled classes this week and therefore moved the exam period. Beattie said RPI is also applying for a waiver to play the game on Nov. 16, the week after the regular season ends, in case the shutdown drags on. That would be contingent on neither team qualifying for the NCAA Division III tournament. Ellen Johnston, senior communications specialist for RPI's alumni association, said she thinks many alumni who would have attended the football game will still check in on women's soccer. The event will include a FanFest and a Ferris wheel in honor of its inventor, 1881 RPI graduate George G.W. Ferris. "It'll have a little bit of a different feel to it," Johnston said. "It's a good chance to see our soccer team." Army's football game at Boston College and the Navy-Air Force contest will go ahead as scheduled this weekend. The Department of Defense gave the go-ahead for those three service academies to play. Service academy football games are paid for with non-appropriated funds and have been long planned. Such funds generally come from outside sources and are not approved through Congress. Wire services were used in this story. msingelais@timesunion.com • 518-454-5509

UEFI Rootkit attacks no longer theoretical after one has been discovered in the wild. ESET Cybersecurity researchers have discovered malware, named LoJax, capable of modifying a computer’s Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), making it able to sustain an attack even after OS reinstallation and hard disk replacement. The malware was developed by Sednet, a Russian state sponsored hacking group who have been operating since 2007 and have carried out a number of high profile attacks. UEFI is a critical firmware component of a computer which allows the hardware and operating system software to communicate when booting the computer. This software is inaccessible to users. LoJax works by introducing malicious code into the UEFI, which then cannot be removed without specific software and knowledge that the typical user will not be familiar with. There has long been mystery surrounding this type of exploit, with some believing it only theoretical, the discovery of LoJax proves this is no longer the case, and a wipe and reboot will no longer guarantee you have purged your machine. LoJax first appeared in 2017 as a Trojan version a legitimate LoJax software. The original LoJax software was created by a company called Absolute Software and is an anti-theft software that works by installing an agent into the computers firmware, that cannot be removed by reinstallation or drive replacement. It then notifies the owner of the location of the laptop in the event of it being stolen. There is likely to be increased security measures taken by tech companies to better protect users after this discovery. There needs to be ways to detect malware at a firmware level, and a review of the secure boot configuration on their computer hardware, to ensure no unauthorized access can be granted. Secure Boot is a mechanism user in chips and hardware that allows only secured firmware and software can be booted from a system. [stackCommerce layout=”2″ count=”5″ sort=”best_sellers”][/stackCommerce]

As the threat of another tense standoff at an Albuquerque city council meeting brews, protesters angry over a series of police shootings are harkening back to the city's long history of civil disturbance and modeling their demonstrations after those including a notorious 1960s citizen raid of a northern New Mexico courthouse. In 1967, protesters contending the US government stole millions of acres of land from Mexican American residents stormed a courthouse to attempt a citizen's arrest of the district attorney. During the raid, the group shot and wounded a state police officer and jailer, beat a deputy and took the sheriff and a reporter hostage. Now a leader of this week's protest cited that episode as the motivation for the city council demonstration in which protesters attempted a citizen's arrest of the police chief. "That's where we got the idea for the citizen's arrest," said David Correia, a University of New Mexico American studies professor and a protest organizer. He wasn't advocating violence, but a focus on civil disobedience, saying participants were willing to be arrested. It's an interesting turn of events in Albuquerque, where distrust of the police department is at an all-time high after an officer shot and killed an armed man following a weekend Swat standoff. Police in the city of 550,000 people have been involved in 39 shootings since 2010 and are under tough scrutiny following a harsh report from the US Justice Department over use of force. On Monday, activists stormed the city council chambers and forced city leaders to abruptly end the meeting, and they planned more unrest at a Thursday meeting. The rowdy disruption of the city council meeting, protesters say, also follows the tactics of another 1960s Mexican-American group – the Black Berets. Similar to the Black Panther Party, the Berets mounted community patrols, opened free clinics and protested police brutality in Albuquerque. To draw attention to their causes, they often attended meetings and events unannounced to force authorities to hear them out. The latest protest also highlighted the dilemma facing Albuquerque police. Police chief Gorden Eden was hired just three months ago to bring reform to the troubled department, which recently implemented changes such as lapel-mounted cameras on officers to lead to more transparency about police actions. But video of recent shootings, especially one in March involving a knife-wielding homeless camper, has only inflamed tensions once the footage went viral. And police insist that the suspect in the weekend shooting was a threat because he was armed and putting his family and others in danger. Deputy chief Eric Garcia stressed that officers patiently negotiated with suspect Armand Martin and attempted to de-escalate the situation but had no other choice when he exited his home with handguns. On Monday, protesters called for a citizen's arrest of Eden, charging him with "harboring fugitives from justice at the Albuquerque police department" and for "crimes against humanity" in connection with recent police shootings. The police chief quickly left the city council meeting after the citizen's arrest was announced, and no protesters tried to apprehend him. Had anyone touched him, authorities said they could have faced charges of battery on a police officer. Protesters also could have faced charges of disrupting a city council meeting under a city ordinance. But no arrests were made. A state attorney general's office spokesman said it was likely illegal for citizens to arrest a police chief. The 1967 courthouse protest inspiring demonstrators today also sparked the Chicano Movement, an aggressive civil rights push among Mexican Americans that involved boycotts, school walkouts and a new political party, La Raza Unida. The protest was in response to a land-grant disputes that date back centuries when what is now New Mexico was a Spanish colonial territory. Land grants were awarded to settlers by the Spanish government to encourage settlement in the empire's northern territories. A book by Correia outlines that Hispanic families later lost Spanish land grants to white land speculators through violence and the courts, and the families responded with violence. Isabela Seong Leong Quintana, a history professor at New Mexico State University, said she sees a link between the current protests in Albuquerque to those from the 1960s in New Mexico. "There are similarities how people are going about contesting domination," she said. "But I don't know if everyone involved is conscious of it." Nora Tachias-Anaya, one of the leaders of the protest, said demonstrators planned to attend the rescheduled council meeting Thursday when councilors are slated to debate possible reforms on how the Albuquerque hires a police chief. "The more people learn, the more people get angry," she said.

Horloge heure (Crédits simplementNat Martel, CC-BY-SA 2.0) La France passe à l’heure d’hiver dans la nuit de samedi à dimanche. Un changement d’heure qui ne convainc guère les Français. Par la rédaction de Contrepoints. Le changement d’heure a eu lieu ce week-end. Les Français dorment une heure de plus durant la nuit. Ils passent à l’heure d’hiver en retardant les aiguilles de leur montre d’une heure : à 3 heures du matin, il sera alors officiellement 2 heures. Les jours leur paraîtront plus courts puisque le Soleil se couchera plus tôt le soir. Selon un sondage BVA pour Orange et iTélé réalisé en mars 2015, encore 13 % des Français ne savaient pas la veille que le passage à l’heure d’été avait lieu le week-end, soit tout de même plus de 6 millions de personnes. Le changement d’heure ne rencontre pas l’adhésion des Français Presque 40 ans après avoir été mis en place pour la deuxième fois, sous le mandat de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, une large majorité de 58 % de Français reste opposée au changement d’heure (contre 40 % y étant favorables), selon ce même sondage. S’ils y sont opposés, c’est d’abord parce qu’ils sont 62 % à être perturbés par ce décalage horaire brutal, que les chronobiologistes qualifient de chrono-ruptures (qualité du sommeil, appétit). Ils sont même 19 % à l’être « beaucoup ». Sans surprise, l’opposition au changement d’heure est plus forte dans « la France qui se lève tôt » : les CSP- y sont nettement plus opposées que les CSP+ (61 %, contre 51 %). Par ailleurs, presque les trois-quarts des parents (73 %) considèrent que leurs enfants sont perturbés par ce changement d’heure. C’est même l’avis de 88 % des parents d’enfants de 5 à 10 ans. 66 % ne croient pas aux économies d’énergie Selon ses promoteurs, l’intérêt de l’heure d’été réside dans les économies d’énergie qu’elle est censée permettre afin de profiter plus tard de la lumière solaire pendant la période estivale. Que ce soit en 1917, quand ce système a été pour la première fois instauré en France, ou en 1976 quand il l’a été une deuxième fois, à chaque fois, la mise en place de ce système de changement d’heure a été justifiée par les économies d’énergie qu’il permettrait de réaliser. Mais 66 % des Français ne croient pas en cet argument, et peut-être moins encore en cette période de baisse du prix du pétrole. Seuls les sympathisants d’Europe-Écologie-Les Verts, plus sensibles à ces questions d’économies d’énergie, sont au contraire une majorité à penser que le changement d’heure permet de réaliser ce type d’économie (55 % contre 32 % de l’ensemble des Français). Au final, les Français continuent donc d’être largement opposés au changement d’heure, à la fois parce qu’il les perturbe souvent, eux et leurs enfants, mais aussi parce qu’il ne leur parait guère efficace pour réaliser des économies d’énergie. Cela ne devrait cependant pas perdurer puisque le dernier changement d’heure est programmé pour 2021. Article initialement publié en octobre 2018.

Government funding for the Port Hawkesbury Paper mill violated free trade laws, a U.S. congressman says. NewPage shut the plant down in 2011, citing economic conditions. It left 1,000 people out of work. The province eventually stepped in to help it re-open under a different owner. Nova Scotia spent $124 million to do so. Maine Congressman Michael Michaud complained that violated free-trade law. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has begun an investigation. Maine has a number of paper mills, including one owned by New Page, the company that shut down the mill outside Port Hawkesbury. Michaud argues the government money gave Cape Breton an unfair advantage. 'Not grounds for a trade dispute' Tina Thibeau of the Nova Scotia Department of Economic Development said the U.S. Trade Representative then raised the issue with the Canadian government: "Nova Scotia explained how its support is fully consistent with Canada's international trade obligations and the success of the Port Hawkesbury mill is not grounds for a trade dispute," she said. Thibeau said the province expects that will be the end of the matter. But a spokesperson for the Office of the U.S Trade Representative said it appears the province's funding maintained a capacity that otherwise would not exist. It feels the money resulted in significant commercial harm to U.S. industry and the paper market. It may ask for trade-remedy action.

I jumped on your map last night with three of the UCC guys just cuz we were on and there was four of us. We got sweaty- kind of doesn't count since those guys run circles around me (and I don't have any gameplay to show you either) but I do have some feedback for you if you want to make some tweaks before Monday's official test. 2 things we all noticed and commented on: 1- when you're looking top mid, especially from around the damage boost side of the map- really bad frame rate drop. From my own experience I know that even little pieces of glass and Windows can kill ur frames. It's really distracting when you are fighting someone in top mid from that side. I know you have worked hard to create your aesthetic but if you put some time into simplifying the top middle tower I think it would go a really long way towards gameplay. 2- there are a number of little places on the map where you can fall and die that are super frustrating. I'm all for the boundaries of the map being death-falls and I'm all for a well labeled death pit or two but there were a couple areas where you would miss a jump and die and the only way to know that was to miss the jump. Considering how narrow the paths are already I would put some floors in there. If I am in a battle and I push in to clean up and I fall down to some lower level where I cannot finish my kill or help my teammate until I can find my way back up THAT is punishment enough- I think. The map encourages a lot of level changes and jumps and crazy **** so I just think you should let people jump around on the interior of the map without the fear of dying. 3- I would have to show you were but there is a kill volume that overlaps a ramp just a little. My dude ripped my face and then crouched in a ramp to get shields and just died! I got a trade out of it haha. Ok positives: Fighting in and out of and around teleporter is ****ing beautiful. There are some great areas right off spawn where you can lay shots on all the upper levels without over exposing yourself- but it's tough to finish kills on your own and that dynamic makes it lovely for 2v2. The gameplay is great imo just need to keep fine tuning. I thought fuel rod was brilliant esp compared to rocks. Was devastating with damage boost and that will lead to some sick meta of losing the battle for fuel rod and then needing to rally so they don't also get damage boost. Over all I think it's still a tad busy. I think there is a fair amount of detail that is not necessary to sell your aesthetic. Everyone was really impressed with how the map looked so you have no worries there. It might be time to be a little less precious with your baby and just give it a buzz cut. Read More ...

WASHINGTON — The congressional special election in Ohio is down to the wire. With 100 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday night, the candidates were separated by 1,754 votes, making the race too close to call, NBC News projected. Republican Troy Balderson had 50 percent, or 101,574 votes, while Democrat Danny O'Connor had 49 percent, or 99,820 votes. But more than 3,400 provisional votes and 5,048 outstanding absentee ballots — nearly quadruple the margin — remained to be counted. State law bars boards of elections from counting those ballots until the 11th day after an election. Tune in to NBCNews.com at 12 p.m. ET to watch “Way Too Early." Steve Kornacki and guests will break down Tuesday’s special election in Ohio and discuss how voters are feeling ahead of the midterms. The race could be headed to a recount, since state law triggers one if the candidates are within half a percent of each other after the final results are certified, which must take place no later than Aug. 24. Still, that didn't stop Republicans from claiming victory Tuesday, including President Donald Trump, who endorsed Balderson and campaigned for him in the district on Saturday. In a tweet, Trump took credit for Balderson's razor-thin lead, even though the last Republican to represent the district won it by 36 percentage points less than two years ago, and Trump himself won it by 11 points. When I decided to go to Ohio for Troy Balderson, he was down in early voting 64 to 36. That was not good. After my speech on Saturday night, there was a big turn for the better. Now Troy wins a great victory during a very tough time of the year for voting. He will win BIG in Nov. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 8, 2018 Speaking to supporters, Balderson thanked Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for stumping for him in the home stretch, and vowed to "do everything I can to keep America great again" while representing the district in Washington. He also got a last-minute boost from Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican Trump critic who used to represent the district and was initially hesitant to back Balderson. O'Connor, meanwhile, did not concede the contest on Tuesday night, but touted how close it was. "In a race that the pundits said we had no chance even being in, you proved them wrong," he told supporters. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., who leads House Democrats' campaign arm, touted the neck-and-neck vote as a positive sign for his party's hopes of winning the House in November. "This district should have been a slam dunk for the GOP, and the fact that we are still counting ballots is an ominous sign for their prospects in November," he said in a statement. Both parties see the election as a test of Trump's strength and as a potential bellwether of the Democrats' chances of picking up the 23 seats they need to flip the House. Balderson and O'Connor will face off again in a November rematch to compete for a full term in Congress, since Tuesday's election was just to fill the remainder of the term of Rep. Pat Tiberi, who resigned to take a private sector job. In an interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Wednesday morning, O’Connor reiterated that the race was still too close to call and said he is excited to keep campaigning through November. "The margin is 1,700 votes. We have 8,000 votes yet to be counted," he said. "And we have an election in November. The fight continues. We'll be out there campaigning, we're not resting because people are counting on us to get it done for them." Since last year, Republican groups have spent more than $40 million on TV ads to defend just a handful of congressional seats in their own turf in special elections. And even as the GOP claimed victory, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a major conservative super PAC aligned with Speaker Paul Ryan, issued a warning to other Republican candidates. "While we won tonight, this remains a very tough political environment and moving forward," said the fund's executive director, Cory Bliss. "Any Republican running for Congress getting vastly outraised by an opponent needs to start raising more money." Republicans have won five out of seven competitive House and Senate special elections this cycle, but it's come at a price. In Ohio, the biggest spender has been CLF, which has run $2.7 million in TV ads, according to Advertising Analytics. By contrast, Balderson's campaign itself has spent only $515,000 on TV. O’Connor's campaign, meanwhile, has spent $2.3 million on ads, which have likely had a bigger impact than the super PACs, thanks to discounted rates available only to candidates. All told, five of the biggest GOP outside groups — the Republican National Committee, the party's official House and Senate campaign arms, plus the Congressional and Senate Leadership Fund super PACs — spent $36.95 million on TV ads in the seven special elections before Ohio, according to Advertising Analytics. And they dropped close to $5 million more in Tuesday's race. That's compared to just $11.5 million from their five Democratic counterparts, who have had to spend less since their candidates have been able to raise more money on their own and needed less help. Meanwhile, in a Michigan Democratic gubernatorial primary, Gretchen Whitmer easily defeated Abdul El-Sayed, a Bernie Sanders-backed candidate who was seeking to become the first Muslim governor in the country, the AP projected. And in Missouri, voters appear on track to vote down a Right to Work law that the Republican-controlled state legislature passed last year, but which unions challenged by putting it on Tuesday's ballot as a referendum.

Australia’s capital cities offer vastly different experiences and environments for both overseas visitors and locals travelling interstate. Airbnb has pulled together a list of the most luxurious listings to ensure your experience the best the city has to offer. Here are the top three in each capital city around Australia – enjoy. Sydney - Hiilani Motor Yacht, Elizabeth Bay. Hiilani is a classic 95 foot motor yacht with classic exterior styling and a richly appointed interior. Claimed to have been previously owned by Shirley Temple, this massive boat can sleep nine people and accommodate up to 45 guests cocktail-style. Sydney - Hiilani Motor Yacht, Elizabeth Bay. The yacht comes fully staffed with a captain, deck hand and host for the duration of the charter which can start from most wharves in Sydney Habour. Sydney - Hiilani Motor Yacht, Elizabeth Bay. The Hiilani costs guests $9500 per night, with a minimum stay of one night. Sydney - Gaelforce, Newport. This six bedroom, three bathroom house looks over the stunning Pittwater estuary, and exclusive hideaway for many of Sydney's rich and famous. accommodates 12 people. Sydney - Gaelforce, Newport. Accommodating up to 12 people, the lavish waterfront property has its own private jetty, boat house and swimming pool. Sydney - Gaelforce, Newport. Gaelforce costs guests $5000 per night, with a minimum stay of one week. Sydney - The Seinna, Point Piper. Point Piper is considered a prestigious Sydney location, offering some of the city's finest views Sydney Harbour including the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Sydney - The Seinna, Point Piper. The Sienna boasts contemporary luxurious interiors and furnishings across its three bedrooms, two bathrooms which easily accommodates six people. Sydney - The Seinna, Point Piper. The apartment costs guests $3957 per night, with a minimum stay of one week. Melbourne - Toorak Manor, Toorak. Situated right in the heart of Toorak, one of Melbourne's most upmarket suburbs, Toorak Manor oozes sophisticated with its opulent decor and manicured gardens. Melbourne - Toorak Manor, Toorak. With five large bedrooms, six bathroom, it is suited to a party of 10 or less. Its large heated pool, city skyline views, welcome hamper makes it feel like a hotel rather than a rental. Melbourne - Toorak Manor, Toorak. Toorak Manor costs guests $2677 per night, with a minimum stay of one week. Melbourne - Chesterfield Avenue, Malvern. Reminiscent of an iconic European villa, Chesterfield Ave offers state of the art luxurious living, accommodating eight people. Melbourne - Chesterfield Avenue, Malvern. With limestone and marble finishes, an elevator, pool and terrace, this property is ensures guest can enjoy a comfortable stay, while being treated to all the trimmings. Melbourne - Chesterfield Avenue, Malvern. It costs guests $1530 per night, with a minimum stay of one week. Melbourne - Tree Tops, Kew. In one of Melbourne’s premier riverside locales is this stunning 60’s style property. Melbourne - Tree Tops, Kew. With walls of windows to look out over the spectacular bushland surroundings and a clever multi-level floor plan, this five bedroom house can comfortably fit ten people. Melbourne - Tree Tops, Kew. Tree Tops costs guests $1147 per night, with a minimum stay of one week. Brisbane - Rancho del Cielo, Carbrook. This insane property, just 30 minutes from the city's CBD, has so many facilities that you won't know where to start. From the tournament sized pool table, sauna, modern gymnasium, tennis court, putting green and the exhilarating heated lap pool, it has something for everyone. Brisbane - Rancho del Cielo, Carbrook. Accommodating as many as 12 people, Rancho del Cielo is the perfect venue to stay at with family and friends while visiting Brisbane. Brisbane - Rancho del Cielo, Carbrook. The house costs $1175 per night, with a minimum stay of one night. Brisbane - The G20 pad, Brisbane. This inner-city apartment in the Oaks Felix Hotel building has magnificent river views, as well as access to resort facilities including a pool, spa, sauna and gym. Brisbane - The G20 pad, Brisbane. Centrally located 'the golden triangle' of Brisbane's financial and high end entertainment/shopping districts, as many as four visitors can access some of the best experience the city has to offer. Brisbane - The G20 pad, Brisbane. This G20 pad costs $756 per night, with a minimum four nights stay. Brisbane - Inner city luxury, Kangaroo Point. This modernised classic Queenslander-style house has two self contained levels, to cater for groups, families or those looking to book a small place in area. Brisbane - Inner city luxury, Kangaroo Point. With enough space to accommodate for 15 people, this massive home is great for visitors looking for a place with a central location, loads of space and all the required features. Brisbane - Inner city luxury, Kangaroo Point. This home costs guests $587 per night, with a minimum stay of two nights. Perth - The family home, Swanbourne. This large coastal home is a family paradise with a pool and trampoline for the kids, and a great outdoor entertaining for the adults. Perth - The family home, Swanbourne. Accommodating for up to nine people, this renovated 1930s home is a short walk to the beach and nearby public transport. Perth - The family home, Swanbourne. It costs guests $979 per night, with a minimum stay of six nights. Perth - Giorgi built home, City Beach. This Giorgi built home offers panoramic views of the coastline and Rottnest Island for up to six people. Perth - Giorgi built home, City Beach. The resort-style apartment has all the features you'd expect of a contemporary retreat. From a games room with pool table, table tennis and large azure blue lap pool featuring an infinity edge. Perth - Giorgi built home, City Beach. This newly built home costs guests $783 per night, with a minimum stay of one week. Perth - Brewer St City Stay, Perth. This is a purpose built B&B rental is available for use for groups up to 12 people. It has two live-in hosts, who provide warm hospitality and complementary continental breakfast. Perth - Brewer St City Stay, Perth. Its intimate and casual atmosphere provides exclusivity in the heart of the business, cultural and shopping districts of Perth. Perth - Brewer St City Stay, Perth. This city stay costs guests $623 per night, with a minimum stay of one night. Adelaide - The Manor Estate, Kangarilla. This five bedroom, four bathroom grand manor accommodates 12 people nestled in the Mclaren Vale valley - the perfect classic country setting. Adelaide - The Manor Estate, Kangarilla. With a complimentary continental breakfast hamper and a private butler, this property is the ultimate way to get the 'country experience'. Adelaide - The Manor Estate, Kangarilla. The manor costs guests $1093 per night, with a minimum stay of one night. Adelaide - The executive townhouse, Adelaide. This executive townhouse is on perimeter of Clipsal 500 track - the ultimate position for any car-racing fan. Adelaide - The executive townhouse, Adelaide. Accommodating up to six people, this multi-storey townhouse has a balcony, roomy central courtyard and comfortable facilities. Adelaide - The executive townhouse, Adelaide. The townhouse costs guests $940 per night, with a minimum stay of one night. Adelaide - Old House, Picadilly. This heritage-listed, self contained mansion sleeps a whooping 16+ people. Adelaide - Old House, Picadilly. Situated on a 54 hectare bushland block, groups can find endless pleasure in the exclusive English gardens, visit the beautiful outdoor chapel area or kick back in the sun and listen to the songs of the native wildlife. Adelaide - Old House, Picadilly. Old House costs guests $940 per night, with a minimum stay of one night. Canberra - Paris-inspired terrace, Dickson. This two bedroom terrace, artistically styled and inspired by Paris, just minutes from the heart of Canberra is decorated with environmentally conscience, recycled products. Canberra - Paris-inspired terrace, Dickson. This eco-friendly apartment accommodates as many as five people. Canberra - Paris-inspired terrace, Dickson. The terrace costs guests $235 per night, with a minimum one night stay. Canberra - Kyoto Terrace, Dickson. This Japanese-styled apartment has spacious living areas, a private courtyard and secure parking for up to five people. Canberra - Kyoto Terrace, Dickson. Close to local eateries and public transport, guests can explore surrounding areas with provided bicycles and helmets. Canberra - Kyoto Terrace, Dickson. The terrace costs guests $235 per night, with a minimum stay of one night. Canberra - Manhattan, Canberra. Manhattan is a luxury apartment in a five-star hotel, located in the heart of Canberra. Beautifully decorated with designer furniture and modern, it accommodates up to four people. Canberra - Manhattan, Canberra. Located across from the Casino and within walking distance to all major attractions, visitors can experience the best of what Canberra has to offer. Canberra - Manhattan, Canberra. Manhattan costs guests $235 per night, with a minimum stay of one night. Hobart - The waterfront, Sandy Bay. Just ten minutes from Salamanca, this property is an ideal base to explore Hobart or watch the annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race. Hobart - The waterfont, Sandy Bay. This three bedroom, one bathroom cliff-side home accommodates five people. Hobart - The waterfont, Sandy Bay. The waterfront property costs guests $600 per night, with a minimum stay of four nights. Hobart - Arthouse Salamanca, Battery Point. This heritage listed property is moments away from Hobart's thriving waterfront, blending maritime history, art and design in a light-filled modern space. Hobart - Arthouse Salamanca, Battery Point. As well as views to the River Derwent, this house has convict-cut sandstone walls - one of which happens to be the oldest sea wall in Australia - and accommodates four guests. Hobart - Arthouse Salamanca, Battery Point. The Arthouse costs guests $548 per night, with a minimum two nights stay. Hobart - Belton House, South Hobart. Belton House is made up of three quaint, self-contained apartments in South Hobart, called Hedge Cottage, The View and The Studio. Hobart - Belton House, South Hobart The cosy decor and comfortable setting will make visitors feel at home. The entire house accommodates up to 15 people. Hobart - Belton House, South Hobart Belton House costs guests $540 per night, with a minimum stay of two nights. Darwin - Frances Bay retreat, Darwin. This two bedroom, two bathroom apartment overlooks Frances Bay and nearby national park. Darwin - Frances Bay retreat, Darwin. As many as three guests staying in the apartment will also have access to the pool and gym in complex. Darwin - Frances Bay retreat, Darwin. It costs guests $470 per night, with a minimum stay of one night. Darwin - Luxury Condo, Darwin. Accommodating six people, with the option of adding two more, this spacious condo is a comfortable walk to the Darwin Convention Centre and vibrant new Waterfront Precinct. Darwin - Luxury Condo, Darwin. With stunning views, swimming pool and gymnasium, guests will have many activities to chose from during their stay. Darwin - Luxury Condo, Darwin. The condo costs guests $388 per night, with a minimum night stay of four nights. Darwin - Beachlife Sea Spray, Darwin. With harbour views and a huge balcony with an outdoor setting and BBQ, this 3.5 bedroom apartment in the CBD perfectly accommodates up to eight people. Darwin - Beachlife Sea Spray, Darwin. Walking distance to cafes, bars, restaurants, the Darwin Waterfront, guests can enjoy the tropical city of Darwin day or night. Darwin - Beachlife Sea Spray, Darwin. Beachlife costs guests $388 per night, with a minimum stay of four nights. Business Insider Emails & Alerts Site highlights each day to your inbox. Email Address Join Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AFP) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of Europe’s most controversial leaders, looks set to win a third consecutive term in office in elections on Sunday, despite a galvanized opposition tapping into voters’ discontent. The strongman nationalist’s Fidesz party enjoys opinion poll leads of between 20 and 30 percentage points over its closest rivals Jobbik, a far-right party led by Gabor Vona that has been moving towards the center, and the leftist Socialists with their candidate Gergely Karacsony. Opposition hopes of an upset are pinned on a potential surge in turnout due to simmering displeasure with the 54-year-old premier, in power since 2010. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up A mainly first-past-the-post election system that was designed by Fidesz favors it over the fragmented opposition parties, but polls show around 40 % of the eight-million-strong electorate are undecided. Polls also show a slight majority of Hungarians favor a change in government, while civil groups have urged nationwide tactical voting to foil Fidesz candidates. “There is anger in the air, and danger for Orban if people turned off by politics in recent years vote en masse,” an analyst with Policy Solutions, Andras Biro-Nagy, told AFP. A clear win for Fidesz is still widely seen as probable and would cement Orban’s plan, declared in 2014, to mold ex-communist Hungary (population 9.8 million) into an “illiberal” state. It would also keep Orban at the forefront of the deepening division between the European Union’s western and eastern members. Since the 2015 migration crisis, Orban has cast himself as a defender of national sovereignty and “Christian Europe” against the “globalist elite.” His tough anti-immigration stance and verbal onslaughts against “Brussels bureaucrats” have gained him followers in central Europe, especially nearby Poland as well as far-right circles in western Europe and beyond. Brussels has hit back by suing Budapest over its refusal to join the EU refugee resettlement plan, as well as laws targeting civil society groups and a university linked to the Hungarian-born US Jewish liberal billionaire George Soros. If Fidesz loses on Sunday, “an internationalist government” backed by Soros, whom Orban accuses of orchestrating mass migration, will turn Hungary into a “country of immigrants,” the prime minister said last week. An Orban win on the other hand will see his rhetoric turn “increasingly confrontational,” an analyst with Political Capital, Edit Zgut, told AFP. “And Orban will likely become an even stronger point of reference for European radical-right forces,” she said. During the election campaign Orban has stepped up his long-running attacks on the Hungarian-born Soros which have included media blitzes called xenophobic and even anti-Semitic by detractors. Fidesz posters show the 87-year-old Jewish financier with opposition leaders brandishing wire-cutters ready to take down anti-migrant border fences Orban erected in 2015. Last month, the Hungarian government unveiled a tougher version of its package of planned laws targeting Soros-funded NGOs. As in the original version of the law drafted last month, a tax of 25 percent would be levied on foreign funding given to organizations considered to be “supporting” illegal immigration. The latest version would see NGOs having to undergo a “check” by the security services before being authorized to operate. “If NGOs refuse to apply for this permission, or if it’s refused, a fine will be levied, and if the violation continues, they could be banned from operating,” government spokesman Bence Tuzson told reporters on Tuesday. This particular measure would need a two-thirds majority in parliament Since 1979, the Jewish Hungarian-born Soros has plowed tens of billions of dollars into his Open Society Foundations (OSF), which in turn fund civil society groups around the world. In Hungary the money has helped organizations helping refugees — of whom there are few in Hungary — as well as poor people and minorities to get access to health care and education. Soros, whose money helped fund a young Orban’s studies and helped his Fidesz party get off the ground, rejects the accusations, calling them “distortions and outright lies.” Since sweeping into power with a two-thirds majority eight years ago, Orban has transformed Hungary, overhauling its state institutions and constitution. In recent years, his government’s tax policies have benefited an expanding upper middle class while the economy, powered by German car-makers and EU budget transfers, has been picking up. “We need four more years in power to make our achievements irreversible,” Orban said in November. But critics at home and abroad, including in Brussels and Washington, claim that Orban’s reforms have eroded democratic institutions like the judiciary and the press, and that his clampdown on civil groups apes tactics used by Russian President Vladimir Putin, a regular visitor to Budapest. “Hungary is drifting away from Europe toward the Russian sphere of influence,” the Socialists’ Karacsony told AFP. Last month Orban pledged to take “moral, political and legal retribution” against opponents after the election, an apparent threat that alarmed opposition parties. While the Fidesz election campaign, anchored by the slogan “For us, Hungary is first!” has focused solely on high-pitched warnings about Muslim and African migrants, Orban himself has shunned debate with rivals and appeared in public only at carefully choreographed events. His aura of invincibility has been shaken though by a wave of recent corruption scandals involving close allies and family members that have heightened unpredictability about Sunday’s result. After a bruising campaign, analysts say Fidesz is now unlikely to secure a third consecutive two-thirds majority in the 199-seat assembly, but would only lose an absolute majority if turnout tops 70 percent. “Whoever does not vote Sunday is voting for Orban,” said Jobbik’s Vona.

Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, Minnesota and Massachusetts rounded out the top six states with the highest average amount of undergraduate student debt: Recent grads in these states carry over $31,500 on average. The report, published annually, breaks down both the percentage of students carrying undergraduate student loan debt, and the average amount each graduate owed in every state (with the exception of North Dakota, where there was insufficient data). TICAS's report used the most up-to-date data based on the Class of 2016. Students in the Northeast have the heaviest burdens. Nearly 75 percent of college graduates in New Hampshire have outstanding student loans and they owe an average of $36,367 — that's the highest rate in the country, according to the Institute for College Access and Success's 12th Annual Student Debt report . Student loan debt in the U.S. now totals more than $1.5 trillion , but students in some states are getting hit harder than others. It makes sense that the Northeast states are carrying higher student loan debt, according to Adam Minksy a lawyer specializing in student loan law. "Certain states have less robust, affordable state education systems," Minsky tells CNBC Make It. States like California and Florida have major state universities that are both affordable and prestigious, so many students end up going to these institutions and taking on less debt, Minsky says. However, states such as New Hampshire and Massachusetts host Ivy League schools — including Dartmouth College and Harvard University — as well as private universities that may be less affordable. And while several Ivy League schools offer generous financial aid packages, other elite, expensive private universities don't always offer the same level of support. Utah has the lowest average rate of student loan debt in the U.S., $19.975, and the state's most popular colleges are public schools with in-state tuition of less than $6,000: Utah State University, Weber State University and Utah Valley University. New Mexico, California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida round out the states with the lowest levels of student loan debt, all with average levels under $25,000. This is well below the average debt of $32,731 owed by graduates of the Class of 2016. More and more, high school students and their families are getting very practical when it comes to picking a college. "I was told by everyone to go to the best school you can get into, even if it's more expensive, it will be a good investment," Minsky says. "Now we're starting to see a shift toward making responsible financial choices about college." Don't miss: A 28-year-old went on a game show to pay off $41,000 in student loans—and won $24,000 Like this story? Subscribe to CNBC Make It on YouTube!

EP 63 The Allied Mom Force!! Konohamaru is eager to guard the village but is quickly discouraged by the adults who tell him to just go about his day as usual, but Konohamaru suspects that an enemy might be planning to attack the village.

The Christian includes, he does not close the door to anyone, even if this provokes resistance. He who excludes, because he believes himself to be better, generates conflicts and divisions, and does not consider the fact that “we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God.” That was the message of Pope Francis during Thursday morning’s Mass at Casa Santa Marta. In the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul exhorts us not to judge and not to despise our brothers, because, the pope said, this leads to excluding them from “our little group,” to being selective, and this is not Christian.” Christ, in fact, “with his sacrifice on Calvary” unites and includes “all men in salvation.” In the Gospel, publicans and sinners draw near to Jesus – “that is, the excluded, all those that were outside,” – and “the Pharisees and the scribes complained”: “The attitude of the Scribes and the Pharisees is the same, they exclude. [They say,] ‘We are the perfect, we follow the law. These people are sinners, they are publicans’; and the attitude of Jesus is to include. There are two paths in life: the path exclusion of persons from our community and the path of inclusion. The first can be little but is the root of all wars: all calamities, all wars, begin with an exclusion. One is excluded from the international community, but also from families, from friends – How many fights there are! – and the path that makes us see Jesus and teaches us Jesus is quite another, it is contrary to the other: to include.” “It is not easy to include the people,” Pope Francis said, “because there is resistance, there is that selective attitude.” For this reason, Jesus tells two parables: the parable of the lost sheep, and the parable of the woman and the lost coin. Both the shepherd and the woman will do anything to find what they have lost, and when they find it, they are full of joy: “They are full of joy because they have found what was lost and they go to their neighbours, their friends, because they are so happy: ‘I found, I included.’ This is the ‘including’ of God, against the exclusion of those who judge, who drive away people, persons: ‘No, no to this, no to that, no to that…’; and a little of circle of friends is created, which is their environment. It is a dialectic between exclusion and inclusion. God has included us all in salvation, all! This is the beginning. We with our weaknesses, with our sins, with our envy, jealousies, we all have this attitude of excluding which – as I said – can end in wars.” Jesus, the pope said, acts like his Father, who sent him to save us; “He seeks to include us,” “to be a family.” “We think a little bit, and at least – at least! – we do our little part, we never judge: ‘But this one has acted in this way…’ But God knows: it is his life, but I don’t exclude him from my heart, from my prayer, from my greeting, from my smile, and if the occasion arises I say a good word to him. Never excluding, we have no right! And how Paul finishes the Letter: ‘We shall all stand before the judgment seat of God . . . then each of us shall give an account of himself to God.’ If I exclude I will one day stand before the judgment seat of God, I will have to give an account of myself to God. Let us ask the grace of being men and women who always include, always, always! in the measure of healthy prudence, but always. Not closing the doors to anyone, always with an open heart: ‘It pleases me, it displeases me,’ but the heart is open. May the Lord grant us this grace.”

Lolita, the whale, has been living at the Miami Seaquarium since her capture off the northern Pacific Coast in 1970. © Flickr / Ross Cobb The tank measures 80 x 60 feet wide and 20 feet deep. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Animal Legal Defense Fund and other groups had sued the US Department of Agriculture in 2012, claiming the tank Lolita lives in violates the Animal Welfare Act and that regulators have been "rubber-stamping" an aquarium’s license to keep her. "Lolita is being held in the smallest orca tank in America, she has no shelter from the hot sun in Miami, she has no company of a single other orca. And all of those violate the basic standards of the Animal Welfare Act," PETA attorney Delcianna Winders said. The tank measures 80 x 60 feet wide and 20 feet deep. The Judge dismissed the lawsuit in March 2014, on the terms that the agency is allowed to reissue licenses without re-inspecting facilities. Activists argue now that the US District Court should have looked into the animal rights abuses before approving the USDA’s license renewal. "It’s absurd to give out licenses where you know there are blatant violations going on and that undermines the purpose of the animal welfare act," said Winders. But Seaquarium and USDA lawyers beg to differ. Renewing the license only required an annual application, an annual report from the aquarium and a $100 fee, said Assistant US Attorney Anthony Erickson-Pogorzelski. In another attempt to free Lolita, the federal government agreed to list her as an endangered species in February, which would allow for her release into the wild. However, seaquarium officials are skeptical, fearing she would see the fate of Keiko, the orca in the 1993 movie "Free Willy." Keiko was released into the waters off Iceland in 2002 but died a year later after being rejected by wild orcas.

NEW YORK — "The Daily Show" is unveiling the Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library this weekend. "He is a damn fine twitterer," "Daily Show" host Trevor Noah said. The pop-up exhibit will be at 3 West 57th Street in Manhattan, not far from Trump Tower, Comedy Central announced. It will feature some of the president's better known one-shots, organized around such categories as "SAD! A Retrospective" and "The Commander-In-Tweet." The "Daily Show" will highlight Trump's insults and contradictions and allow "verified survivors" to remember being on the receiving end of his social media outbursts. "I think it's a chance for us to really understand the way in which our commander in chief communicates," said show correspondent Jordan Klepper. The twitter library also features an interactive Trump nickname generator. There's a locked vault jokingly marked as 'Trump's Tax Returns.' But the true highlights are all in 140 characters or less. Daily Show Correspondent Hasan Minhaj's favorite tweet is Trump's well known Cinco de Mayo tweet featuring the taco bowl at Trump Tower. He calls it the Mona Lisa tweet. "It's both pandering to minorities while also plugging his business," Minhaj said. Favorites could change as President Trump is a frequent tweeter. A siren will sound in the library every time Trump tweets. "Whenever he does tweet, a siren will go off bing bing bing bong bing, letting everyone know in the building that he is tweeting, so to either run outside and call loved ones or run underneath a table," Minhaj said. The exhibit runs Friday through Sunday, and will be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Admission is free.

A knifeman barricaded himself in a room with a pregnant woman at a refugee centre in Hamburg before being dramatically arrested, it has emerged. Armed police were called amid reports a man with a weapon had stormed into the facility in Hammerbrook area of the German city this morning. He is understood to have been holding a pregnant woman - believed to be his partner - hostage at the centre and was holed-up in a room. A gunman has barricaded himself in refugee centre in the German city of Hamburg, it has been reported (file picture) Footage online shows elite German officers with assault rifles storming into the building this morning at about 10.30am local time. A pregnant woman in a yellow top was seen being led away from the building a short time later. According to Bild, the man was overpowered by police and was seen on a stretcher being taken to an ambulance. Hamburg police said the man had wounded himself during the operation, but the nature of his injuries is not yet known. The police force had earlier taken to Twitter to say a major police operation was underway in the Hammerbook area. Local media reported that the man was a refugee who had been living in another state within Germany. It is not yet known why he barricaded himself in the building.

It has been reported that Girls’ Generation member Taeyeon is in the middle of gearing up for a new solo album. Aiming for a release in the first half of the year, she is currently gathering songs to be included in the album. If all goes according to plan, Taeyeon will be the very first member of Girls’ Generation to make her debut as a solo artist. Taeyeon has already received much recognition from the public for her vocal abilities with a number of solo songs through drama OSTs, such as “If,” “Can You Hear Me,” and more. It is said that the Girls’ Generation member is joining the list of idols from SM Entertainment to take on a solo debut following SHINee’s Taemin, Super Junior’s Kyuhyun, SHINee’s Jonghyun, as well as f(x)’s Amber, who is expected to release a solo album next month. Are you excited to see Taeyeon debut as a solo artist in the near future? Source (1)

HELSINKI – Nordic governments are primed to raise suspected GPS jamming of military exercises and communications with Russia. Finland and Norway intend to launch diplomatic discussions with Moscow over suspected GPS signal-jamming by Russia’s military over recent weeks that impacted areas in northern Norway where NATO-led Trident Juncture maneuvers were being conducted. Norway’s defense intelligence agency said it tracked the source of the signal-jamming to a Russian military base on the nearby, heavily fortified Kola Peninsula. Finland’s military intelligence said Norway’s analysis mirrors its own investigations and evaluations. Scrambled GPS signals were first detected during NATO’s large-scale Trident Juncture exercises in Norway at the end of October. Defense and civil aviation chiefs in Finland and Norway warned that the GPS jamming posed a serious risk to both military and commercial aircraft using the affected airspace in the High North. Finland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has presented the national parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs (CFA) a preliminary report on the jamming. The MFA is expected to furnish the panel with a more conclusive report by the end of November. NATO general: Europe not moving fast enough on military mobility Are there changes that NATO nations can easily make to ease the logistics challenge in Europe? The GPS signal-jamming issue is being discussed with the Russian Federation “through diplomatic channels”, said Sari Rautio, director of the MFA’s unit for security policy and crisis management. Russia will almost certainly deny any involvement in jamming military exercises, said Matti Vanhanen, the CFA’s chairman. × Fear of missing out? Sign up for the Early Bird Brief, the defense industry's most comprehensive news and information, straight to your inbox. Thanks for signing up. By giving us your email, you are opting in to the Early Bird Brief. "There is every reason to trust Norway and its intelligence. It’s unlikely that Norway will publicly disclose the methods behind its assessment. As no technical evidence will be offered in the public domain, we may end up in a situation where Russia just denies it. We need to tell Russia that we do not accept disturbances of this kind in our airspace," Vanhanen said. Initial diplomatic contacts between Nordic governments and Moscow has produced a flat denial that Russia was behind the GPS signal-jamming. "There is a tendency to blame Russia for all sins in general. As a rule, these allegations are found to have no basis in actual fact," said Dmitry Peskov, the senior press spokesman to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Norway’s civil aviation authorities opened an investigation into possible GPS signal-jamming in the High North at the end of October when several commercial aircraft reported loss of satellite navigation while flying over the Troms and Finnmark regions in the north of the country. Warnings and confusion preceded Norwegian frigate disaster: here’s what we know The disaster has far-reaching consequences for the Norwegian Navy, which now faces the loss of one of its premier warfighting assets. National aviation authorities in Finland and Norway subsequently issued a so-called notice to airmen (NOTAM) due to widespread disturbances in GPS signals in the airspace of both countries’ northern regions. In Norway, the NOTAM related to the northern airports of Kirkenes and Vadsø which are located close to the border with Russia and the Kola Peninsula. The investigation by Norway into suspected GPS signal-jamming by Russia covered the period between Oct. 16 and Nov. 7. NATO’s Trident Juncture exercises started, following months of field preparation work, on Oct. 25 and finished on Nov. 7. Norway also conducted investigations into suspected jamming of satellite navigation systems by Russia linked to the Zapad-2017 drill. These large-scale military exercises by Russia were held on and around the Kola Peninsula during September and October 2017.

Instant Payment - 10:36 Papierüberweisung: Mühsam, langsam, teuer Bild: dpa Im Hochfrequenzhandel an den Börsen geht es um Mikrosekunden. Eine schlichte Überweisung aber braucht noch immer einen Tag oder länger. Das soll sich bald ändern. Bitte melden Sie sich an, um diesen Artikel auf Ihrem Merkzettel zu speichern. Viele Bankkunden könnten vom kommenden Jahr an Geldbeträge innerhalb von wenigen Sekunden auf ein anderes Konto überweisen. Für die neue Echtzeitüberweisung (Instant Payments) werde ab November europaweit ein einheitlicher Rechtsrahmen gelten, sagte der Hauptgeschäftsführer des Bundesverbandes deutscher Banken (BdB), Michael Kemmer. „Im ersten Quartal 2018 wird es die ersten Anbieter geben.“ Allerdings dämpft Kemmer die Erwartungen: „Es wird sicher noch eine Zeit lang dauern, bis sie sich durchgesetzt hat“, merkte der Verbandsvertreter an. Denn für die Kreditinstitute gebe es keine Verpflichtung, an „Instant Payments“ teilzunehmen. Gebrauchtwagen sofort bezahlt Beim Instant Payment soll der Überweisungsbetrag dem Empfänger innerhalb von zehn Sekunden auf dem Konto des Empfängers gutgeschrieben sein. Der Auftrag erfolgt per Online-Banking oder mit einer Smartphone-App. Bislang werden Überweisungen in der Regel am folgenden Bankarbeitstag gutgeschrieben. „Die Überweisung in Sekunden könnte ein Ersatz für Bargeldzahlungen werden“, sagte Kemmer. „Das wird vieles erleichtern“, etwa Probleme beim Warenkauf vermeiden, die dadurch entstehen, dass das Geld dem Verkäufer erst mit einem Tag Verzögerung gutgeschrieben wird. Ein gutes Beispiel hierfür sei der Autoverkauf privat zu privat. Die Bankenbranche reagiert mit dem System auch auf eine Reihe von Angeboten von Online-Bezahldiensten wie Paypal. „Zurzeit wechseln Payment-Dienstleister für hohe Summen den Besitzer, weil hier ein ertragreiches Geschäftsfeld erwartet wird“, erklärte Kemmer. „In Deutschland finden sie jedoch einen extrem harten Wettbewerb vor. Das macht es für die Banken schwierig, solche hohen Investitionen wieder hereinzuwirtschaften.“ Bezahlen mit der Girocard sei neben der Lastschrift das beliebteste bargeldlose Verfahren im Handel. Noch nicht im großen Stil durchgesetzt habe sich in Deutschland das kontaktlose Bezahlen mit Karte oder mit einem Smartphone plus App. „Hier gibt es verschiedene Anbieter, die sich auf dem Markt versuchen. Entscheidend ist, was sich in der Fläche durchsetzen wird“, sagte Kemmer. Mehr zum Thema Beim kontaktlosen Bezahlen muss die Plastikkarte im Abstand von weniger als vier Zentimeter an das Terminal des Händlers gehalten werden. Ohne Eingabe einer Geheimnummer ist der Betrag, der dann vom Girokonto abgebucht wird, in der Regel pro Vorgang auf 25 Euro begrenzt. Aus Sicherheitsgründen kann nur wenige Male hintereinander ohne Geheimzahl bezahlt werden. Es gibt auch ein Tageslimit, das von Bank zu Bank unterschiedlich hoch ist.