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A paraplegic marine sent to a new planet, armed with a virtual body, to ingratiate himself with locals in order to gain their trust and subsequently destroy them? Sounds like the plot of a bad sci-film film. But as it turns out, it's the plot of a highly entertaining sci-fi film – that being, of course, Avatar, one of the most anticipated films of recent years.

 We know a lot about Avatar – that it's James Cameron first in fifteen years, that it's the first to use 3D in this way. But strip the hype aside and what anyone wants to know is – is it any good? And can you watch it without feeling ill?

 The first is easy. Avatar emerged at last night's premiere as rather good. Paraplegic marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a last-minute recruit on a mission to the alien planet, Pandora, which boasts incredible quantities of a mineral that is worth a lot of money to earthlings. The invading humans are led by two factions – the scientists, headed by Sigourney Weaver's Grace, who are seeking to learn and understand more about the alien species in a bid to relocate rather than obliterate the natives, and the warriors led by Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who are looking for all-out massacre. The factions have been brought together by Administrator Parker Selfridge (the ever wonderful Giovanni Ribisi), there for one reason only – to bring the brilliantly named, and insanely valuable unobtanium back to Earth.

 Sully and Norm (Joel Moore) are drivers of the eponymous avatars; bodies that have been constructed out of the more sturdy natives, spliced with humans. The logistics of how it all works takes some getting used to; but suffice to say the scene where Sully awakens in avatar form is a real delight.

 It would be easy to assume Cameron drew inspiration from other films of the same ilk but to generalise like that does Avatar, and Cameron a disservice. For starters, one assumes that he was developing Avatar while other seminal films of the past decade were still on the slate. There are shades of detail, and of background – the nuances of the language the native Na'vi speak; the realisation of the animal inhabitants; the history of the clan – which all reinforce the impression that you get from any film that you know has taken 15 years to make: it is a real labour of love. What's more, his decision to make Avatar in 3D was a risky one – and it's paid off in spades. As with most 3D films, less is more. Surprisingly, for a film this rich in action and this beautiful to watch, Cameron doesn't overegg the 3D-ness of it all, which makes those moments, when they come, even more of a joy to watch.

 However, that's not to say that 130 minutes in 3D isn't sometimes overwhelming. Glasses were being taken off, and eyes rubbed for brief intervals around the cinema. Whether this is simply a product of an audience unused to watching movies in this way, rather than a flaw in the production, will remain to be seen as 3D becomes more and more commonplace.

 What Avatar does mark is a new breed. A new breed of action film, a new hero in Sam Worthington (who delivers a much more believable, and compelling performance than previous outings) and a new cinematic experience. For every cliche – every colonel telling his troops that they're "not in Kansas anymore", every fight beginning with trash talk like "Let's dance", there are myriad moments of beauty and of poignancy. And the final battle is worth the price of your 3D glasses alone. ||||| It has been one of the most hyped movies of the decade: the return of James Cameron with a $230m-plus 3D inter-species action movie that will, some observers say, decide the future of the industry.

 Avatar Production year: 2009 Country: USA Cert (UK): 12A Runtime: 161 mins Directors: James Cameron Cast: CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Zoe Saldana More on this film

 Today it arrived with 20th Century Fox choosing London to launch Avatar, Cameron's sole movie in 12 years – the last being Titanic.

 Cameron said he was just relieved the movie was finally out there. "We can hold our heads high. We got the picture done by the skin of our teeth. It's been a four-and-a-half-year process and it's a relief to let people see it, to quit talking about it, to forget the rumours."

 And there have been a lot of rumours. Rumours that the budget was double the stated amount, more like $500m; that the 3D effects were making people nauseous; that the film, two hours and 40 minutes long, was a complete car crash.

 The Guardian can reveal that the last two are untrue. The film does not make you feel sick and it is not a disaster. All journalists watching the movie in Fox's Soho headquarters had to sign a form agreeing not to publish a review or even express a professional opinion online or in print before Monday. So by saying Avatar was really much, much better than expected, that it looked amazing and that the story was gripping – if cheesy in many places – the Guardian is in technical breach of the agreement. It is not a breach, however, to report that other journalists leaving the screening were also positive: the terrible film that some had been anticipating had not materialised. It was good.

 There is, though, a certain amount of suspension of disbelief needed when watching Avatar. Cynics might sneer at the plot. The film, set in 2154, revolves around a paraplegic marine assigned to a planet where brutish humans are forcing the natives from their homes to mine a precious mineral, unobtanium, which is the only thing that will keep Earth going.

 To get it, they need to blast away an agreeable species called the Na'vi, blue humanoids about 12ft tall, with tails and pixie eyes. Sam Worthington as the paraplegic marine pretends to be a Na'vi through avatar technology. At first, he is on the nasty human military side but he falls in love, gains a conscience and so on.

 Perhaps most surprising was the politics. At one stage the deranged general leading the attack, with echoes of George Bush, declares: "Our survival relies on pre-emptive action. We will fight terror with terror." Cameron agreed there was a connection to recent events, but there were also references to Vietnam and to the 16th- and 17th-century European colonisation of the Americas. "There is this long, wonderful history of the human race written in blood. We have this tendency to just take what we want." And that's how we treat the natural world as well." There's this sense of we're here, we're big, we've got the guns, we've got the technology, therefore we're entitled to every damn thing on this planet. That's not how it works and we're going to find out the hard way if we don't kind of wise up and start seeking a life that's in balance with the natural life on Earth."

 The film will open at cinemas next week and was given its world premiere in London tonight with Cameron joined by his the actors Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldano in Leicester Square.

 Audiences will be able to watch in normal 2D or in what Cameron called the "turbo-charged" version, 3D. Some industry observers are hoping that audiences will be so blown away by the effects that 3D - already being used - will start to become the norm, and a line will have been stepped over.

 "We need something that kick-starts public enthusiasm for cinema as an experience as people start watching on smaller and smaller devices like iPhones. We need something to reverse that trend so I've set as my goal bringing the movie theatre back to it being a sacred experience and 3D is part of that."

 If it does well – and there seems little doubt that it will – then can we expect more? "We'll see," said Cameron. "But yes, I have a story worked out for a second film and a third film."

 • Read Andrew Pulver's two star review ||||| London --- Just left the 'World Premiere' of "Avatar," and while the standing ovation the film received at its conclusion is probably just the requisite politeness; I can report that this is another rare example where the quality of the movie does indeed exceed the hype and "Avatar" will most certainly be among the 10 'Best Picture' nominees for the Oscars; and James Cameron will also be a Best Director nominee. I think it is also possible that actress Zoe Saldana, who has the most challenging of roles in the film, may rack up an additional acting nomination as well.

 The movie may owe more than a few plot points to the story of Pocahontas, and there may be some grousing at a fairly heavy-handed treatment of corporate greed and our lack of American energy independence; but the key question, is Cameron able to deliver a movie that packs the entertainment value and emotional punch of 'Titanic.' The clear answer is 'Yes.' The Oscars will not ignore this film. ||||| THE last time James Cameron directed a movie he broke all box office records.

 Now — 12 years after Titanic — he has sunk £300million into Avatar to produce the most dazzling film of the decade.

 See a trailer for the epic film, below...

 Click here to download the latest flash player. Video: Avatar - trailer Exclusive look at James Cameron's sci-fi fantasy

 It’s a 3D movie people will look back on in years to come to comment on how it transformed cinema.

 In recent 3D releases such as Beowulf, the effects were impressive but the computer-generated humans looked far from real.

 In Avatar, everything feels real — and it’s as if you are immersed in the action.

 And what action.

 Awestruck

 The final battle scene is 20 minutes long and absolutely mind-blowing.

 Alien nation ... Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana as Na'vi aliens

 Avatar, out next Thursday, is truly an event movie.

 The Sneak still recalls sitting in a cinema 12 years ago watching awestruck as Titanic slipped beneath the Atlantic waves.

 And your critic is sure that, even when he is pushing a Zimmer, he will remember the moment the main spaceship of the baddie corporation goes down in Avatar.

 It is overwhelming, and that is because you are emotionally tied up in the characters and the story.

 The plot is set in the next century, with humans trying to take vital resources from a distant planet called Pandora.

 A paraplegic soldier called Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) gets the chance to walk again when he is transformed into the local species, the Na’vi.

 This 10ft-tall elegant blue creature is his “avatar”.

 Thrill ride ... film's all-action air battle

 Jake is supposed to spy on the Na’vi for his company, but his mission gets complicated when he falls for a local girl.

 The romance between Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) shows that Cameron has not lost his ability to evoke emotion. It will bring tears to your eyes.

 Aussie Sam is totally compelling as Jake. It is easy to see why he is now such an in-demand actor.

 James Cameron has described his new filming process as “emotion capture”. And it’s a boast he lives up to.

 Even when Jake is a strange blue creature, you can tell it is him by his mannerisms.

 A voiceover from Sam leads the audience through the alien world in a soothing, laid-back way.

 Star power ... Sigourney Weaver with Avatar cast

 One of the most amazing scenes comes when Jake and Neytiri are walking in the dark through a forest on Pandora.

 Suddenly, she puts out her torch and you see all the vivid, fluorescent plants.

 Some people — who have only seen the photos and not the film — have commented that it looks a bit cartoonish.

 It doesn’t. Everything feels real. It’s as if Cameron has happened upon this alien world and got his camera out.

 Zoe, who played Uhura in the recent Star Trek remake, also displays star quality.

 You don’t need A-list names to make a great movie but it does help having Sigourney Weaver in the cast.

 Brave

 She plays a scientist called Grace, who wants to prevent the plunder of Pandora.

 mpu

 Clearly, there is a message here about mankind’s destruction of beautiful places.

 And Cameron’s story is very black and white, an old-fashioned tale of good versus evil.

 It’s unashamedly populist. Just like Titanic.

 But don’t worry. This isn’t a preachy story. It’s big action.

 The only reason that Avatar won’t top Titanic at the box office is that there are not enough digital screens around the world to show it in all its 3D wonder.

 But you have to admire the film’s backers for being brave enough to take a risk on funding such ground-breaking technology.

 The Sneak’s advice is to make sure you can say you were there when the future of cinema began. |||||

– James Cameron's Avatar had its world premiere in London last night, and audience members and critics are sworn to secrecy for now. Based on the inevitable leaks and pseudo-reviews, the 3-D epic is pretty good: Anna Keir, the Independent: It's "rather good. Surprisingly, for a film this rich in action and this beautiful to watch, Cameron doesn't overegg the 3D-ness of it all, which makes those moments, when they come, even more of a joy to watch." Sam Rubin, KTLA-TV: "This is another rare example where the quality of the movie does indeed exceed the hype." He predicts Oscar nominations for best picture and best director. The Sneak, the Sun: "Everything feels real—and it’s as if you are immersed in the action. ... The Sneak’s advice is to make sure you can say you were there when the future of cinema began.” Mark Brown, the Guardian: "The film does not make you sick and it is not a disaster. By saying Avatar was really much, much better than expected, that it looked amazing and that the story was gripping—if cheesy in many places—the Guardian is in technical breach of the agreement."


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 RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) - In his re-election bid for the White House, President Barack Obama stopped at VCU's Siegel Center earlier this month where thousands of people flocked to hear him speak.

 But a source within the Richmond Police Department (RPD), who does not want to reveal his identity for fear of retribution, is blowing the whistle on the department.

 The man tells CBS 6 News' Sandra Jones that inappropriate comments were made by a 20-year police veteran, against the president and first lady.

 "There was an officer providing exterior security to the President on that day on the phone with the supervisor. The supervisor said to that particular officer, 'you're down there right? So, you can take a couple of shots, you might have to kill yourself, but you can take a couple of shots.'"

 The RPD source said the supervisor said that to a sharpshooter while on the phone during the department's roll call on the day of the president`s visit.

 The source also said that "another officer in the background started talking and he said, 'yeah, somebody should plant a bomb underneath the stage while they're on there and blow it up.' "

 And the police source also said comments were allegedly made about Michelle Obama.

 "Nobody wants to see her anyway -- unless she gets undressed or get naked," the source told Jones was what one officer said.

 No one at RPD is commenting, but the department is investigating the alleged incident.

 A spokesperson said the Secret Service investigated the complaint, and did not find any wrongdoing. But the whistleblower claims it took the police department two weeks before the matter was addressed.

 "It makes me feel terrible, terrible," said the whistleblowrer. "You see it as a loss. How could somebody in law enforcement be talking about killing somebody else...especially government. President of the United States, the highest in the land."

 Richmond police said the officers in question did not have an assignment related to the president’s detail.

 "The Richmond Police Department has conferred with the Secret Service. The Secret Service considers this matter resolved," wrote Richmond Police spokesperson Gene Lepley in a news release.

 A RPD source also said the alleged comments, while not criminal in nature, are being investigated by the department for appropriate administrative action.

 However, the department will not identify the officers nor discuss their current work status.

 Stay with CBS 6 News and WTVR.com for the latest on this story. Sign up for Breaking News email alerts from WTVR.com.

 Download the CBS 6 Breaking News App for your smartphone: Android | Blackberry | iPhone and iPad

 RELATED: COMPLETE COVERAGE: Obama Rally at VCU ||||| Whistleblower fired for revealing cops threatened Obama while protecting him

 By David Edwards

 Thursday, February 21, 2013 14:20 EDT

 A Richmond police officer who reported fellow cops for allegedly threatening President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama has been fired from his job on the force.

 WTVR on Wednesday confirmed that the officer, who did not wish to be named, had been called to police headquarters where he was terminated on Tuesday.

 The officer blew the whistle on a 20-year department veteran and other members of the Richmond force after they made inappropriate comments while providing protection to the president and first lady.

 “There was an officer providing exterior security to the president on that day on the phone with the supervisor,” the whistleblower explained to WTVR last May. “The supervisor said to that particular officer, ‘you’re down there right? So, you can take a couple of shots, you might have to kill yourself, but you can take a couple of shots.’”

 He said that the supervisor made those comments to a sharpshooter on the day of the president’s visit to Richmond.

 And “another officer in the background started talking and he said, ‘yeah, somebody should plant a bomb underneath the stage while they’re on there and blow it up,’” the source said.

 Inappropriate remarks were also made about Michelle Obama.

 “Nobody wants to see her anyway — unless she gets undressed or get [sic] naked,” an officer allegedly said.

 On Wednesday, the whistleblower told WTVR that he had been fired for violating department policy by doing an interview with the station.

 Virginia employment attorney Thomas Robert pointed out that the officer should have been protected under the First Amendment because he was “speaking about a matter of public concern as a citizen.”

 “It concerns me and it should concern others, if he was retaliated based upon his right to express his concern on this public matter as well as his opinion,” Roberts said. “There’s no question that this will have a chilling effect upon other members of the police force who will be afraid if they speak out about a matter of public concern. They too may lose their job.”

 Although a Secret Service investigation last year concluded that the officers had not violated the law with their comments about the president and first lady, two officers were fired and now want their jobs back.

 “Unfortunately, the termination of the self-proclaimed ‘whistleblower’ does nothing to remedy the fact that his false allegations resulted in the termination of two officers,” James Towey, an attorney for the officers told WTVR in a statement. “Their careers were ended and they have gone through eight months of hell.”

 Watch this video from WTVR, broadcast Feb. 20, 2013. ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video

 RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) - The Richmond Police officer who blew the whistle on fellow officers accused of making inappropriate comments about harming President Obama and the First Lady was fired from the Richmond Police Department.

 The fired officer, who granted the initial interview to CBS 6 on the condition he remain anonymous, confirmed Wednesday morning what CBS 6 first reported Tuesday, citing Richmond Police sources.

 Multiple sources confirmed that police unscrambled the effects of the whistleblower’s statement on tape to CBS 6.

 The man told CBS 6 reporter Sandra Jones he was ordered to police headquarters Tuesday afternoon where he was met by a several high-ranking police officials. The officials, he said, informed him of his termination.

 The man said Wednesday morning he returned to police headquarters to pick-up a packet of information. Included in that packet, he said, the reason he was fired.

 The reason, he said, was because he violated police department policy by doing an interview with CBS 6 about the a May 5 incident involving the President and the First Lady.

 Richmond Police would not comment on the employee's status with the department.

 "If he's speaking about a matter of public concern as a citizen which it sounds based upon the information provided to me that he was doing. Then, he has protection under the First Amendment,” said Thomas Robert, Employment attorney.

 Employment attorney Thomas Roberts is not associated with this case, but says he sees them all the time.

 "It concerns me and it should concern others, if he was retaliated based upon his right to express his concern on this public matter as well as his opinion,” said Roberts.

 Roberts says public employees do not shed Constitutional protection when they enter the work place.

 "There's no question that this will have a chilling effect upon other members of the police force who will be afraid if they speak out about a matter of public concern. They too may lose their job,” said Roberts. And that makes it a matter that should concern each and every citizen."

 The whistleblower told CBS 6 last year that the inappropriate comments were made by a 20-year police veteran who was talking on the phone to an officer assigned to provide outside security for the president and first lady. The whistleblower reported that the veteran suggested the officer “take a couple of shots . . .” and that another voice in the background talked about planting a bomb under the stage.

 The Secret Service investigated and found no criminal act, but the two officers were fired amidst the furor. The fired officers have been fighting to get their jobs back.

 A letter written by their attorney said the allegations against the officers were “false and/or greatly embellished” and that Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones pressured then Richmond Police Chief Bryan Norwood to fire the officers before letting an internal investigation run its course.

 James Towey, the lawyer, sent a statement to CBS 6.

 "Unfortunately, the termination of the self-proclaimed "whistleblower" does nothing to remedy the fact that his false allegations resulted in the termination of two officers. Their careers were ended and they have gone through eight months of hell," Towey wrote.

 "Until now, the City has been obstructionist, dysfunctional and anything but transparent in this matter. I am optimistic that newly appointed Chief Tarasovic described himself just yesterday as a believer in transparency and an advocate for the rank-and-file officers. If the new Chief is true to his word, the remaining grievance hearing for one of the terminated officers will be opened to the public and the Chief will reconsider the termination of the officers. Perhaps he, like me, will find it interesting that they were both terminated not for making the statements that the self-proclaimed whistleblower claimed they made, but for other "pre textual" reasons that would not normally warrant termination to begin with."

 The fired officer told CBS 6 he is weighing his legal options. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– So much for speaking up: Richmond police have fired a whistleblowing cop for claiming that two officers chatted about shooting and bombing President Obama while protecting him, Raw Story reports. The officer, who wasn't named, told WTVR last May that a supervisor had said to a police sharpshooter, "You’re down there right? So, you can take a couple of shots, you might have to kill yourself, but you can take a couple of shots." The supervisor allegedly discussed planting a bomb under the stage and dissed Michelle Obama, who was also there: "Nobody wants to see her anyway—unless she gets undressed or get [sic] naked." The whistleblowing cop said he was fired for ignoring department policy and giving the TV station an interview. But the two officers involved also lost their jobs: "Their careers were ended and they have gone through eight months of hell" over "false allegations," their lawyer tells WTVR.


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– A big first for the US Navy: The branch has its female SEAL candidate. A second woman is a candidate to become a special warfare combatant crewman, another elite special operations job previously open only to men. "They are the first candidates that have made it this far in the process" since the Pentagon opened front-line combat positions to women more than a year and a half ago, a spokesperson for the Naval Special Warfare Command tells NPR. The women, who have not been identified, still need to get through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, which is grueling; they will need to complete the same training a man would. The spokesperson says it could still "take months and potentially years" before we see the first woman graduate from the SEAL or SWCC program. In another first for SWCC, a spokesperson for Naval Special Warfare Command confirms to Military.com that a petty officer recently informed their chain-of-command they identify as transgender.

The Navy Gets Its First Female SEAL Candidate

 Enlarge this image toggle caption MC1 Michael Russell/U.S. Navy MC1 Michael Russell/U.S. Navy

 The Navy says it has its first female candidates for two elite special operations jobs previously closed to women — including a prospective SEAL.

 One woman is in the pipeline to be a SEAL officer, and another is on the path to becoming a special warfare combatant crewman. The news was first reported by Military.com, an independent website. The Navy declined to identify the candidates, citing security considerations.

 The announcement comes more than 18 months after the Pentagon declared that women can now serve in front-line combat positions.

 "They are the first candidates that have made it this far in the process," Lt. Cmdr. Mark Walton, spokesman for the Naval Special Warfare Command, told the Two-Way.

 Whoever these unnamed trailblazers are, the path ahead for them won't be easy. To become a SEAL or SWCC, they'll need to make it through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, or BUD/S, which is designed to be extremely physically and mentally demanding.

 Few candidates who undertake the training emerge as SEALs or special boat operators. The enlisted SEAL attrition rate is 73 to 75 percent, according to the Navy, while the SWCC attrition rate is 63 percent.

 The SEAL officer program has a higher rate of success: 65 percent of candidates make it through. The officer program isn't easier, though — the Navy attributes the differing success rates to a larger number of candidates in the enlisted program.

 Female candidates for these jobs will have to complete the same training that men do, without any allowances for differing average physical capabilities.

 What makes the training so difficult?

 "It's different for everyone," Walton said. "It could be the physical stuff, it could be mental, it could be medical. There could be a lot of different reasons."

 While the two candidates are now closer to these elite Navy positions than a woman has ever been, it may be a while before one of them finally gets the job.

 "It would be premature to speculate as to when we will see the first woman SEAL or SWCC graduate," Walton told NPR. "It may take months and potentially years."

 Female candidates aren't the only change to come to the Navy's elite operations. Walton confirmed that SWCC now includes one transgender person.

 And if the two women in the Navy's special operations pipeline are successful, we may not get much detail.

 "If you announce who they are, that removes the point of them becoming a special operator," said Walton. "I guess we'll see what we do ... when we get there." ||||| More than a year after a mandate for the Pentagon opened previously closed ground combat and special operations jobs to women, officials say the Navy has its first female candidates for its most elite special warfare roles.

 Two women were in boot camp as candidates for the Navy's all-enlisted Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewman program, Naval Special Warfare Center Deputy Commander Capt. Christian Dunbar told members of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service in June.

 Another woman, who sources say is a junior in an ROTC program at an unnamed college, has applied for a spot in the SEAL officer selection process for fiscal 2018, which begins Oct. 1, and is set to complete an early step in the pipeline, special operations assessment and selection, later this summer, he said.

 "That's a three-week block of instruction," Dunbar said. "Then the [prospective SEAL officer] will compete like everyone else, 160 [applicants] for only 100 spots."

 Related content:

 A spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Command, Capt. Jason Salata, confirmed to Military.com this week that a single female enlisted candidate remained in the training pipeline for Special Warfare Combatant Crewman, or SWCC. The accession pipeline for the job, he added, included several screening evaluations and then recruit training at the Navy's Great Lakes, Illinois boot camp before Basic Underwater Demolition School training.

 Salata also confirmed that a female midshipman is set to train with other future Naval officers in the SEAL Officer Assessment and Selection, or SOAS, course this summer.

 "[SOAS] is part of the accession pipeline to become a SEAL and the performance of attendees this summer will be a factor for evaluation at the September SEAL Officer Selection Panel," he said.

 Because of operational security concerns, Salata said the Navy would not identify the candidates or provide updates on their progress in the selection pipeline. In special operations, where troops often guard their identities closely to keep a low profile on missions, public attention in the training pipeline could affect a candidate's career.

 It's possible, however, that the first female member of these elite communities will come not from the outside, but from within. In October, a SWCC petty officer notified their chain-of-command that they identified as being transgender, Salata confirmed to Military.com.

 According to Navy policy guidance released last fall, a sailor must receive a doctor's diagnosis of medical necessity and command approval to begin the gender transition process, which can take a variety of different forms, from counseling and hormone therapy to surgery. Sailors must also prove they can pass the physical standards and requirements of the gender to which they are transitioning.

 These first female candidates represent a major milestone for the Navy, which has previously allowed women into every career field except the SEALs and SWCC community. A successful candidate would also break ground for military special operations.

 Army officials said in January that a woman had graduated Ranger school and was on her way to joining the elite 75th Ranger Regiment, but no female soldier has made it through the selection process to any other Army special operations element. The Air Force and Marine Corps have also seen multiple female candidates for special operations, but have yet to announce a successful accession.

 The two women now preparing to enter the Navy's special operations training pipeline will have to overcome some of the most daunting attrition rates in any military training process

 Dunbar said the SEALs, which graduate six Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL classes per year, have an average attrition rate of 73 to 75 percent, while the special boat operator community has an average attrition rate of 63 percent. The attrition rate for SEAL officers is significantly lower, though; according to the Navy's 2015 implementation plan for women in special warfare, up to 65 percent of SEAL officer candidates successfully enter the community.

 But by the time they make it to that final phase of training, candidates have already been weeded down ruthlessly. Navy officials assess prospective special warfare operators and special boat operators, ranking them by their scores on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, physical readiness test, special operations resiliency test, and a mental toughness exam. The highest-ranking candidates are then assessed into training, based on how many spots the Navy has available at that point.

 "We assess right now that, with the small cohorts of females, we don't really know what's going to happen as far as expected attrition," Dunbar, the Naval Special Warfare Center deputy commander, told DACOWITS in June.

 Dunbar did say, however, that Naval Special Warfare Command was considered fully ready for its first female SEALs and SWCC operators, whenever they ultimately arrived. A cadre of female staff members was in place in the training pipeline, and the command regularly held all-hands calls to discuss inclusivity and integration.

 "All the barriers have been removed," he said. "Our planning has been completed and is on track."

 Salata said the Navy had also completed a thorough review of its curriculum and policies and had evaluated facilities and support capabilities to determine any changes that might need to be made to accommodate women. As a result, he said, minor changes were made to lodging facilities and approved uniform items.

 Nonetheless, Salata said, "It would be premature to speculate as to when we will see the first woman SEAL or SWCC graduate. Managing expectations is an important part of the deliberate assessment and selection process; it may take months and potentially years."

 Editor's note: This story has been updated in the third paragraph to correct the school the SEAL officer candidate attends. She is a junior in an ROTC program at an unnamed college, not the Naval Academy.

 -- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.

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Shameless Sesame Street Hack of the Day: The Sesame Street YouTube channel was apparently hacked earlier this evening, and all its content was either removed or made private.

 Making matters worse still, a 7 minute Bang Bros porn video was uploaded to the channel (sfw link), and the banner was replaced with one that read “Sesame Street — I’ts [sic] where porn lives.”

 In the decription field, credit for the hack was claimed by a YouTube user named MrEdxwx, working in collaboration with another YouTuber user who goes by MrSuicider91.

 On his YouTube channel, MrEdxwx posted a video with the following statement: “I did not hack Sesame Street. I am an honest YouTuber. I work hard to make quality gameplay videos, and most important I respect the community guidelines.”

 The pornographic material was up on the Sesame Street channel for at least 20 minutes before being removed by YouTube. The channel itself was shut down and remains unavailable at this time. Most of the videos, however, appear to be back online.

 [reddit / cnn / youtube.] ||||| Earth's Best is proud to sponsor a special celebrity edition of Cookie Monster's Foodie Truck! Zooey Deschanel needs Cookie Monster and Chef Gonger's help to make a fun healthy snack her kids will enjoy! Learn how to make silly Monster Faces out of fruit!Sponsored by Earth's Best - Organic Baby Food Since 1985--Subscribe to the Sesame Street Channel here: http://www.youtube.com/subs... ...For more fun games and videos for your preschooler in a safe, child-friendly environment, visit us at http://www.sesamestreet.org Sesame Street is a production of Sesame Workshop, a nonprofit educational organization. The Workshop produces Sesame Street programs, seen in over 150 countries, and other acclaimed shows, including The Electric Company. Beyond television, the Workshop produces content for multiple media platforms on a wide range of issues including literacy and numeracy, emotional wellbeing, health and wellness, and respect and understanding. Learn more at http://www.sesamestreet.org ||||| We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this Sesame Street News Flash! The Sesame Street YouTube channel is currently down after it fell victim on Sunday to a nefarious hacking entity that removed all of its content, then reprogrammed the page with hardcore porn.

 Beneath the familiar Sesame Street logo, the page's banner read, "I'TS [sic] WHERE PORN LIVES." The page featured a 7-minute clip of an adult film, which, according to one knowledgeable Reddit user, is First Anal Quest: Angelica. It stayed up for 20 minutes.

 The channel's profile description, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for the hack on behalf of two YouTube users:

 "WHO DOESN'T LOVE PORN KIDS? RIGHT! EVERYONE LOVES IT! IM MREDXWX AND MY PARTNER MRSUICIDER91 ARE HERE TO BRING YOU MANY NICE CONTENT! PLEASE DON'T LET SESAME STREET TO GET THIS ACCOUNT BACK KIDS :( PLEASE...LET ME AND MRSUICIDER91 HAVE IT AND WE GONNA MAKE ALL THE AMERICA HAPPY!"

 While MrSuicider91 remains silent, the other alleged hacker, MrEdxwx, posted a denial message on his gaming channel.

 "I did not hack Sesame Street. I am an honest YouTuber. I work hard to make quality gameplay videos, and most important I respect the community guidelines."

 So far, neither PBS, YouTube, or YouTube's parent company Google have commented on the attack. Click the image below to see a screengrab of the hacked channel as it looked before it came down.

 [Reddit, CNN via The Daily What] |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Sesame Street briefly turned into Sex-ame Street yesterday, when hackers apparently took hold of the children’s show’s YouTube channel and filled it with porn. The page was taken offline in the afternoon, CNN reports, but it appears to be back up today. The nonprofit Sesame Workshop apologized yesterday, noting that, "We always strive to provide age-appropriate content for our viewers and hope to resolve this problem quickly." The XXX material was available for at least 20 minutes, The Daily What notes. Gawker and Reddit have NSFW screenshots.


Summarize this article:

A family frantically rushing to catch a flight on their way to their loved one's funeral received a surprise gift from two Delta pilots.

 J.W. Short's (Jay) last wish was to be buried with his family in Bolivar, Tennessee. After losing his battle with lung cancer at the age of 56 on December 16, his family worked diligently to make that last wish come true.

 Short's wife booked flights from their home in Phoenix, Arizona, to make their way to Memphis so they could attend the funeral in Bolivar.

 Jay's body had been placed on a flight from Arizona to Memphis on Saturday, December 19, just one day before his funeral.

 "After a long ordeal to get everything taken care of, he (Jay) was finally on a flight Saturday morning and the funeral was scheduled Sunday," Short's wife, Marcia, said. "We booked our flight on Delta also to leave Saturday afternoon. Our three children and I sat on the tarmac at Sky Harbor in Phoenix, Arizona for an hour waiting for the okay to fly due to some damage to the cargo doors."

 The delay caused problems for the family when they reached their connecting flight in St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota.

 "The delay gave us seven minutes to get to the gate. With only two minutes to spare, we got to the gate and the attendant was not at the podium. The sky way was pulling away from the plane," Marcia said.

 She said she and her children began waving to the pilot and the ground crew trying to get their attention.

 "We are pleading for them to not take off. The attendant came out of the sky way and said there was nothing she could do, as the door had already been closed. We continued to plead," Marcia said. "If we did not get on that flight, we would miss the funeral. We had to get to Memphis."

 Marci said she and her son continued waving at the pilots and ground crew while her two daughters stood crying. She said the attendant contacted her supervisor and the supervisor said there was nothing they could do.

 The family was told they would be put on a flight to Atlanta and then they could drive from Atlanta to the funeral in Bolivar, Tennessee.

 "This was not going to work and the plane was still outside the window. My son still waving his arms and pleading with the pilot through the floor to ceiling windows. I was crying and attempting to console my girls when the phone rang," Marcia said. "The pilot was pulling back to the gate to let us board the plane."

 Marci and her family made it to Bolivar and the funeral for her husband of 32 years, thanks to two Delta pilots who turned their plane around for them.

 "These pilots did not have to pull back to the gate," Marcia said.

 As for the reason why the pilots chose to turn around, the family is not sure if they realized the reason the family was upset or not, but are thankful they were led to do something that is almost unheard of in the airline industry.

 "I don't know if they (attendants) told the pilot what was going on. I am assuming the pilots may have called and asked what was going on," Ginger Short, Jay's sister who lives in Bolivar, said. "They just don't do that."

 Although the family does not know the first names of the pilots, they were able to see their names on their ID badges.

 "Pilots Adams and Anderson of flight DL 3955 on December 19, 2015 from MPLS-St Paul to Memphis on Delta Airlines have blessed my family and gave us a gift that no one else could. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts and may you both be blessed ten fold," Marcia said.

 Copyright 2015 WMC Action News 5. All rights reserved. ||||| An Arizona family faced with a horrible tragedy is praising a pilot for displaying an act of human kindness unusual in the airline industry: delaying takeoff in order to allow them to make the funeral of a beloved family member.

 The family ran into a problem familiar to many travelers -- a flight delay -- on their way to Tennessee. The family was headed to the funeral of Jay W. Short, a 56-year-old husband and father of three who died on Dec. 16 after losing a battle to lung cancer about five months after being diagnosed.

 A 90-minute delay in the family’s flight from Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport left them with about 7 minutes to make a connecting flight in Minneapolis, which was the last plane flying to Memphis that day. The funeral was scheduled for the following morning.

 "This was our last chance to say goodbye to my dad and if we missed the flight we would [have] missed the funeral," Nicole Short-Wibel, Jay’s daughter, told ABC News.

 By the time the family dashed to the gate in the Minneapolis Airport, the door to the jet way was closed and the Tennessee-bound plane was taxiing toward the runway. It was then that airport workers delivered the news to the family -- it was too late to make it on board.

 "My son and I are waving our arms at the pilots and the ground crew as my two daughters are crying their eyes out. We are pleading for them to not take off," Marcia Short, Jay’s wife, wrote in a post that was displayed on her daughter’s Facebook page. "If we did not get on that flight we would miss the funeral. We had to get to Memphis."

 The pilot, Capt. Adam Cohen, saw the desperation on their faces through the airport windows. That’s when he made an unprecedented move -- turning the plane back to ensure the family made it on board.

 Cohen flies for Endeavor Air, a regional airline carrier owned by Delta Air Lines.

 Marcia Short said on Facebook that Cohen and his first officer "Blessed my family and gave us a gift that no one else could. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts."

 "It meant the world," Short-Wibel said.

 Cohen’s decision and the attention it has received has not gone unnoticed by his employer.

 "This Endeavor Air pilot’s decision to return to the gate in this special circumstance is a great reflection of the human touch we want all Delta customers to experience when flying with us," a Delta spokesperson said in a statement.

 Cohen said that helping the family had a big impact on him and the crew.

 "This is something we’ll take with us, knowing we made a difference," Cohen said. "Little moments like this to us are big to these customers and keep them coming back to Delta, but at the end of the day, it also keeps us going."

 While Delta praised Cohen's decision, airline analysts said it's one that could have gotten him in trouble with his employer if it had worked out differently.

 In order for the pilot to hold the flight, he had to risk "the censure of his company," ABC News Aviation analyst John Nance said.

 "The door is always closed on time because the most important thing to airlines is on time departure records," said Nance. |||||

– In the week before Christmas, one Delta Air Lines pilot gave a grieving Arizona family a "gift that no one else could," Tucson News Now reports. Father of three Jay Short died after a battle with lung cancer Dec. 16. Three days later, his family was attempting to fly to Tennessee for the funeral scheduled for the next morning. But a 90-minute delay at the Phoenix airport left them only seven minutes to make their connecting flight in Minnesota, according to ABC News. "This was our last chance to say goodbye to my dad, and if we missed the flight we would [have] missed the funeral," Jay's daughter says. But when they arrived at the gate, the last plane of the day to Memphis was pulling away from the gate. "My son [was] waving his arms and pleading with the pilot through the floor to ceiling windows," News Now quotes Marcia. "I was crying and attempting to console my girls when the phone rang. The pilot was pulling back to the gate to let us board the plane." According to ABC, Capt. Adam Cohen saw the "desperation on their faces" through the gate's windows and decided to turn the plane around. Airline experts point out Cohen could have easily gotten in trouble for the unusual decision, though in this case, Delta has only praised the move. "This is something we’ll take with us, knowing we made a difference," Cohen tells ABC. (Another pilot ordered pizza for his stuck passengers.)


As the debt talks stagnate in D.C., the Commerce Department has just released a gloomy report noting that the nation's gross domestic product rose by a rate of only 1.3 percent in the second quarter and revised the growth figure for the first quarter sharply down. The figures show the U.S. economy slowed to its "weakest pace since the recession ended," says the Associated Press and Reuters calls the rate "tepid." Economists surveyed by the Dow Jones Newswires "expected GDP to rise 1.8% in the second quarter." From The Wall Street Journal:

 The Commerce Department Friday said gross domestic product rose at an annualized seasonally adjusted rate of 1.3% in April through June, while first-quarter growth was revised down sharply to a 0.4% rate from the earlier estimate of a 1.9% gain. A big reason behind the downward revision in first-quarter growth was that the inventory buildup by companies was less than initially estimated, while outlays by the federal government and consumers were also revised down.

 Higher gas prices and reduced consumer spending were cited as culprits for the slower pace of growth.

 Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at ehayden at nationaljournal dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

 Erik Hayden ||||| The 2007-2009 recession, already in the record books as the worst in the 66 years since the end of World War II, was even worse than previously thought.

 FILE - In this Jan. 21, 2010 file photo, a crowd of people walk during the morning rush hour in New York. The 2007-2009 recession, already in the record books as the worst in the 66 years since the end... (Associated Press)

 From the start of the recession at the end of 2007 to the end in June of 2009, the U.S. economy shrank 5.1 percent. That is 1 percentage point worse than the previous estimate that the recession reduced total output during that period by 4.1 percent.

 The new estimates emerged from the annual revision of economic data prepared by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis and released Friday.

 Among the previous 10 postwar recessions, output in only two dropped by more 3 percent. In the 1957-58 recession, the economy contracted 3.7 percent. And during the 1973-1975 downturn, the economy fell 3.2 percent from the start of the recession to the end.

 The government attributed the bigger declines in output in part to weaker consumer spending and business investment than previously estimated.

 By year, the government's new figures show that the economy took a much bigger hit in 2009, when output shrank 3.5 percent. The previous estimate had shown a decline of 2.5 percent that year.

 In 2008, the new estimate shows the economy contracted by 0.3 percent. The previous estimate had indicated that output was unchanged for that year compared with 2007.

 The last recession began in December 2007 and lasted until June 2009. Though the economy has been growing since then, growth has been subpar. And the unemployment rate has remained elevated; it's now 9.2 percent.

 The revisions showed that growth in 2010 was a bit stronger than previously estimated. They put growth for all of 2010 at 3 percent, up from a previous estimate that the economy grew 2.9 percent last year.

 The revisions to the country's gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, used more complete data for such items as consumer and business spending.

 The government's annual revisions are released each July, along with its first estimate of growth for the April-June quarter of the current year. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– We already knew the Great Recession was the worst in decades, but in fact we were even worse off than we thought, new figures show. The economy shrank 5.1% over the course of the recession, from 2007 to 2009—1 percentage point worse than the earlier estimate of 4.1%, the AP reports. Only two in the past 10 recessions saw a squeeze of more than 3%. And yes, the economy is now growing—but it expanded only 1.3% from April to June, the Commerce Department said, lower than expected. Officials also revised the growth figure for the first three months of the year to 0.4%, compared to an earlier estimate of 1.9%. That means that the past 6 months have seen the least growth since the end of the recession. Among the reasons: Gas prices, less consumer spending, and smaller government, notes the Atlantic. Combine these figures with the debt ceiling crisis, and it’s “like hearing about the Hindenburg on the day the 6-mile meteor hits the earth,” said a blogger.


Article:
The mysterious corner of the Internet known as the Dark Web is designed to defy all attempts to identify its inhabitants. But one group of researchers has attempted to shed new light on what those users are doing under the cover of anonymity. Their findings indicate that an overwhelming majority of their traffic is driven by the Dark Web’s darkest activity: the sexual abuse of children.

 At the Chaos Computer Congress in Hamburg, Germany today, University of Portsmouth computer science researcher Gareth Owen will present the results of a six-month probe of the web’s collection of Tor hidden services, which include the stealthy websites that make up the largest chunk of the Dark Web. The study paints an ugly portrait of that Internet underground: drug forums and contraband markets are the largest single category of sites hidden under Tor’s protection, but traffic to them is dwarfed by visits to child abuse sites. More than four out of five Tor hidden services site visits were to online destinations with pedophilia materials, according to Owen’s study. That’s over five times as many as any of the other categories of content that he and his researchers found in their Dark Web survey, such as gambling, bitcoin-related sites or anonymous whistle-blowing.

 The researchers’ disturbing statistics could raise doubts among even the staunchest defenders of the Dark Web as a haven for privacy. “Before we did this study, it was certainly my view that the dark net is a good thing,” says Owen. “But it’s hampering the rights of children and creating a place where pedophiles can act with impunity.”

 >“Before we did this study, it was certainly my view that the dark net is a good thing.”

 Precisely measuring anything on the Dark Web isn't easy, and the study's findings leave some room for dispute. The creators of Tor known as the Tor Project responded to a request for comment from WIRED with a list of alternative factors that could have skewed its results. Law enforcement and anti-abuse groups patrol pedophilia Dark Web sites to measure and track them, for instance, which can count as a "visit." In some cases, hackers may have launched denial of service attacks against the sites with the aim of taking them offline with a flood of fraudulent visits. Unstable sites that frequently go offline might generate more visit counts. And sites visited through the tool Tor2Web, which is designed to make Tor hidden services more accessible to non-anonymous users, would be underrepresented. All those factors might artificially inflate the number of visits to child abuse sites measured by the University of Portsmouth researchers.1

 "We do not know the cause of the high hit count [to child abuse sites] and cannot say with any certainty that it corresponds with humans," Owen admitted in a response to the Tor Project shared with WIRED, adding that "caution is advised" when drawing conclusions about the study's results.

 Tor executive director Roger Dingledine followed up in a statement to WIRED pointing out that Tor hidden services represent only 2 percent of total traffic over Tor's anonymizing network. He defended Tor hidden services' privacy features. "There are important uses for hidden services, such as when human rights activists use them to access Facebook or to blog anonymously," he wrote, referring to Facebook's launch of its own hidden service in October. "These uses for hidden services are new and have great potential."

 Here's how the Portsmouth University study worked: From March until September of this year, the research group ran 40 “relay” computers in the Tor network, the collection of thousands of volunteer machines that bounce users’ encrypted traffic through hops around the world to obscure its origin and destination. These relays allowed them to assemble an unprecedented collection of data about the total number of Tor hidden services online—about 45,000 at any given time—and how much traffic flowed to them. They then used a custom web-crawling program to visit each of the sites they'd found and classify them by content.

 The researchers found that a majority of Tor hidden service traffic—the traffic to the 40 most visited sites, in fact—were actually communications from “botnet” computers infected with malware seeking instructions from a hacker-controlled server running Tor. Most of those malware control servers were offline, remnants of defunct malware schemes like the Skynet botnet whose alleged operator was arrested last year.

 But take out that automated malware traffic, and 83 percent of the remaining visits to Tor hidden service websites sought sites that Owen’s team classified as related to child abuse. Most of the sites were so explicit as to include the prefix “pedo” in their name. (Owen asked that WIRED not name the sites for fear of driving more visitors to them.) The researchers’ automated web crawler downloaded only text, not pictures, to avoid any illegal possession of child pornographic images or video. “It came as a huge shock to us,” Owen says of his findings. “I don’t think anyone imagined it was on this scale.”

 Despite their popularity on the Tor network, child abuse sites represent only about 2 percent of Tor hidden service websites—just a small number of pedophilia sites account for the majority of Dark Web http traffic, according to the study. Drug-related sites and markets like the now-defunct Silk Road 2, Agora or Evolution represented a total of about 24 percent of the sites measured in the study, by contrast. But visits to those sites accounted for only about 5 percent of site requests on the Tor network, by the researchers’ count. Whistleblower sites like SecureDrop and Globaleaks, which allow anonymous users to upload sensitive documents to news organizations, accounted for 5 percent of Tor hidden service sites, but less than a tenth of a percent of site visits.

 The study also found that the vast majority of Tor hidden services persist online for only a matter of days or weeks. Less than one in six of the hidden services that was online when Owen's study began remained online at the end of it. Since the study only attempted to classify sites by content at the end of its six month probe, Tor director Roger Dingledine points out that it could over-represent child abuse sites that remained online longer than other types of sites. "[The study] could either show a lot of people visiting abuse-related hidden services, or it could simply show that abuse-related hidden services are more long-lived than others," he writes. "We can't tell from the data."

 The Study Raises the Question: How Dark Is The Dark Web?

 Other defenders of the Tor network’s importance as an alternative to the public, privacy-threatened Web will no doubt bristle at Owen’s findings. But even aside from the Tor Project's arguments about why the study's findings may be skewed, its results don’t necessarily suggest that Tor is overwhelmingly used for child abuse. What they may instead show is that Tor users who seek child abuse materials use Tor much more often and visit sites much more frequently than those seeking to buy drugs or leak sensitive documents to a journalist.

 Nonetheless, the study raises new questions about the darkest subcultures of the Dark Web and law enforcement’s response to them. In November, the FBI and Europol staged a massive bust of Tor hidden services that included dozens of drug and money laundering sites, including three of the six most popular anonymous online drug markets. The takedowns occurred after Owen’s study concluded, so he doesn’t know which of the pedophilia sites he measured may have been caught in that dragnet. None of the site takedowns trumpeted in the FBI and Europol press releases mentioned pedophilia sites, nor did an analysis of the seizures by security researcher Nik Cubrilovic later that month.

 >“It came as a huge shock to us. I don’t think anyone imagined it was on this scale.”

 In his Chaos Computer Congress talk, Owen also plans to present methods that could be used to block access to certain Tor hidden services. A certain number of carefully configured Tor relays, he says, could be used to alter the "distributed hash table" that acts as a directory for Tor hidden services. That method could block access to a child abuse hidden service, for instance, though Owen says it would require 18 new relays to be added to the Tor network to block any single site. And he was careful to note that he's merely introducing the possibility of that controversial blocking measure, not actually suggesting it. One of Tor's central purposes, after all, is to evade censorship, not enable it.

 The study could nonetheless lead to difficult questions for the Tor support community. And it could also dramatically shift the larger public conversation around the Dark Web. Law enforcement officials and politicians including New York Senator Chuck Schumer have railed against the use of Tor to enable online drug sales on a mass scale, with little mention of child abuse. Owen's study is a reminder that criminal content is hiding in the shadows of the Internet that make drug sales look harmless by comparison—and whose consumers may be more active than anyone imagined.

 1Updated 12/30/2014 5:25 EST to add more of the Tor Project's explanations of possible inaccuracies in the study's count of visits to child abuse sites. ||||| Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption The study sought to find out which hidden Tor sites got the most traffic

 Most traffic to sites hidden on the Tor network go to those dealing in images of child sexual abuse a study suggests.

 The six-month study sought to catalogue hidden services on the so-called "dark net" and work out which were the most popular.

 It found lots of sites peddling illegal drugs but the most popular were those involved with abuse.

 However, the researcher behind the study said it was hard to conclude that people were behind all the visits.

 Drug traffic

 Tor, or The Onion Router, is an anonymising system that lets people use the web without revealing who they are or which country they are in. The anonymity offered by the network has encouraged many people to set up hidden .onion sites that offer content, services and goods that it is illegal to sell openly.

 Carried out by Dr Gareth Owen from the University of Portsmouth, the study set up servers to join the Tor network and catalogued hidden services found on it. The system was also able to visit the sites to download HTML content so they could be categorised and to track how many visits each one received.

 Traffic to hidden services on Tor represents about 1.5% of all the data passing across the network on any given day.

 Over the six months of the study, Dr Owen and his colleagues saw about 80,000 hidden sites on Tor.

 "Most of the hidden services we only saw once. They do not tend to exist for a very long time," he said during a speech at the 31st Chaos Communications Congress in Hanover, where he presented his findings.

 The top 40 hidden services were involved with controlling botnets - networks of home computers compromised by malicious programs. Many of these botnets have been shut down which has left their client computers fruitlessly polling Tor seeking the now dormant command systems.

 The study found that the biggest number of hidden services were dedicated to selling illegal drugs. Also in the top five were underground markets, fraud sites, mail services and those dealing in the virtual currency Bitcoin.

 Image copyright SPL Image caption Hidden sites peddling illegal drugs are also popular on Tor

 Although the number of sites dealing in images of abuse on Tor is small, traffic to them dwarfs that going to other sites, said Dr Owen.

 About 75% of the traffic observed in the study ended up at abuse sites, said Dr Owen.

 "When we found this out we were stunned," he said. "This is not what we expected at all."

 Despite the findings, Dr Owen cautioned against drawing too many conclusions since he did not know which visits were done by people and which by machines.

 "It's not as quite as straightforward as it looks," he said. "It might look like there are lots of people visiting these sites but it is difficult to conclude that from this information."

 "What proportion are people and which are something else? We simply don't know." he said, adding that "crawlers" run by law enforcement and other agencies that police abuse sites could be responsible for the steady stream of traffic.

 Roger Dingledine, one of the original developers of Tor, also said the methodology of the study - which only scanned long-lived sites to see what content they offered - made it hard to draw conclusions about what people did on the network.

 "Without knowing how many sites disappeared before he got around to looking at them, it's impossible to know what percentage of fetches went to abuse sites," he said.

 "There are important uses for hidden services, such as when human rights activists use them to access Facebook or to blog anonymously," he added.

 "These uses for hidden services are new and have great potential." |||||Summary:

– Between March and September of last year, four out of five visits to a major part of the Dark Web—the anonymous corner of the Internet—were to sites exhibiting the sexual abuse of children, says a new study picked up by Wired. These sites account for only 2% of the Dark Web, but got five times more traffic (or about 83%) than other sites, like those selling drugs, offering gambling, or providing a haven for whistleblowers. "Before we did this study, it was certainly my view that the dark net is a good thing. But it’s … creating a place where pedophiles can act with impunity," says UK computer science researcher Gareth Owen. The websites studied are part of Tor hidden services—which allows users to surf the web anonymously, BBC explains—and they occupy the biggest chunk of the Dark Web. Owen used relay computers and a web-crawling program to collect his data. Tor executives point out the results could be distorted, and Owen acknowledges that "caution is advised" when assessing them. "We do not know the cause of the high hit count (to child abuse sites) and cannot say with any certainty that it corresponds with humans," he says. It's possible the traffic could be caused by law enforcement groups conducting investigations or hackers flooding the sites with fake visits. And then there's the positive justification for an anonymous web. "There are important uses for hidden services, such as when human rights activists use them to access Facebook or to blog anonymously," says Tor's executive director. Still, law enforcement and politicians are expected to push for a crackdown because of the study, and Owen says there may be ways to block child abuse sites. (A chunk of the Dark Web was shut down in November.)


Article:
VATICAN CITY (AP) — There's something of a whodunit going on in the Vatican to discover who leaked Pope Francis' environment encyclical to an Italian newsweekly, deflating the release of the most anticipated and feared papal document in recent times.

 Pope Francis delivers his message on the occasion of an audience with participants of Rome's diocese convention in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, June 14, 2015. Francis engaged in some self-promotion... (Associated Press)

 L'Espresso magazine published the full 191 pages of "Laudato Si" (Be Praised) on its website Monday, three days before the official launch. The Vatican said it was just a draft, but most media ran with it, given that it covered many of the same points Francis and his advisers have been making in the run-up to the release.

 On Tuesday, the Vatican indefinitely suspended the press credentials of L'Espresso's veteran Vatican correspondent, Sandro Magister, saying the publication had been "incorrect."

 Magister told The Associated Press that his editor, not he, obtained the document and decided to publish it.

 "I just wrote the introduction," Magister said in a text message, adding that he had promised the Vatican to keep quiet about the scoop.

 In the draft of the encyclical, Francis says global warming is "mostly" due to human activity and the burning of fossil fuels. He calls for a radical change in behavior to save the planet for future generations and prevent the poor from suffering the worst effects of industry-induced environmental degradation.

 Several Vatican commentators hypothesized that the leak was aimed at taking the punch out of Thursday's official launch of the encyclical, in which the Vatican has lined up a Catholic cardinal, an Orthodox theologian, an atheist scientist and an economist to discuss the contents.

 They noted that conservatives — particularly in the U.S. — attacked the encyclical even before it was released, chiding the pope for talking science in a church document and insisting that global warming isn't a scientific reality. It would be in their interest, the argument goes, to fudge the pope's message.

 Italian daily La Stampa suggested that the leak might have come from "conservatives" inside Vatican, noting that Francis' reform plans for the Vatican bureaucracy have been resisted by the more conservative old guard who would have an interest in sabotaging Francis' labor of love.

 A leak, however, was to be expected, given that drafts of the document have been circulating for months and that the text had been translated into multiple languages before its official release.

 Not to mention that the Vatican has had a long and storied history of leaked documents: The last big scandal in 2012 resulted in the pope's butler being put on trial for stealing his private papers and passing them off to an Italian journalist. He was convicted but was eventually pardoned by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI.

 In the aftermath of the "Vatileaks" scandal, the Vatican City State updated its criminal code to include severe penalties for anyone who leaks a Vatican document or publishes news from it: Up to two years in prison and a 5,000 euro ($5,600) fine.

 ___

 Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield ||||| The Pope’s Prognosticator

 From: “Foreign Policy”, January-February 2006, pp. 86-87, Section “Global News Stand – Essays, Arguments, and Opinions from around the World”

 by Stacy Meichtry

 10.1.2006

 Dissent is by no means anathema to Catholic thinking. But influential prelates, unlike politicians, are shy when it comes to criticizing the powers that be. Because politics inside the Vatican is not practiced out in the open, the job of discerning (or guessing) what’s on the mind of Catholic officialdom has become a highly specialized field, limited to a select group of veteran reporters, academics, and analysts known as vaticanisti. These highly skilled navigators of the Roman Curia – one of the world’s most nebulous bureaucracies – do not merely know which department does what. They also boast an understanding of the Vatican’s inner life, keeping tabs on the major players and analyzing the intricacies of their relations with the same attention a die-hard baseball fan might show to batting statistics.Among the most reliable and revered vaticanisti is Sandro Magister, who covers the Vatican for L’espresso, an influential Italian newsweekly magazine with more than 600,000 readers. Magister is well regarded for both his acuity and his prolificacy. In addition to his print coverage, he writes a daily blog and a biweekly column for his Web site, www.chiesa.espressonline.it. Although L’espresso is generally regarded as an organ of Italy’s churchwary left (its rival is Panorama, a newsweekly owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s media empire), Magister stands out because he typically leans more to the right in his editorial musings. His columns consistently advocate a muscular papacy that practices realpolitik abroad. He defends Catholicism’s identity from precisely the same cultural and political influences that define L’espresso: support for abortion rights, stem-cell research, religious pluralism, and a strict separation between church and state.What also sets Magister apart from the rest of the field is his ability to discern who, alongside the pope, is making his influence felt inside the Vatican. A professor of contemporary church history at the University of Urbino, Magister brings the dedication and expertise of a scholar to his beat, combing the Vatican for information the same way academics search for obscure texts. As with many Italian journalists, Magister generally leaves his sourcing to the reader’s imagination. But his scoops are both hard-hitting and accurate – a rare combination in a field that lends itself to rampant speculation. Such insight proved indispensable in the final years of John Paul ii’s papacy, when doubts flourished as to who exactly was guiding the Roman Catholic ship of state.Three years before John Paul died, Magister became one of the first to train his sights on the pope’s trusted theological advisor, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. At the time, Ratzinger’s name had not yet surfaced on any lists of the papabili – or pope-hopeful. But Magister noted that Ratzinger was already making his voice heard on a number of issues that were beyond the scope of his office. If John Paul’s illness had created a power vacuum, his German aide was stepping forward to fill it. Among other moves, Ratzinger produced a sociological treatise on the role of women; he called Turkey unfit for membership in the European Union; he determined that Catholic politicians who support laws contrary to church doctrine, such as those protecting abortion rights, were unfit to receive communion. (Ratzinger expressed this decision in a confidential 2004 memo to the U.S. bishops’ conference that Magister made public, delivering a blow to Democratic Sen. John Kerry’s presidential prospects.) And, of course, Magister proved his prescience last spring when John Paul passed away and Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.The Vatican usually goes to great lengths to reassure Catholics and the world at large that what seems like a shift in policy from one pope to the next is, in fact, a sign of deeper continuity. Challenging this premise is pretty much the bread and butter of any qualified vaticanista, and in this regard, Magister is no exception. In the first few months of Benedict’s reign, Magister predicted the pope would take a skeptical approach to Islam, highlighting his decision to decline an invitation from representatives of Germany’s Muslim community to visit a local mosque. Magister’s instincts were confirmed at last summer’s World Youth Day summit, when Benedict met with Muslim leaders on more neutral ground and bluntly challenged them to reject any interpretation of Islam that inspires terrorism. “Before this occasion in Cologne,” Magister wrote in the September 1 issue of L’espresso, “no pope had ever been so explicit and hard-hitting in facing the question of terrorism on a personal level with representatives of the Islamic community.”So far, the pope has not identified any specific Islamic groups or organizations who pose a threat to Christian Europe. Where Benedict stops short, Magister intervenes to finish the sentence. “His prudence is understandable,” Magister wrote online on August 18. “Cologne and Munich – where Joseph Ratzinger was archbishop from 1977 to 1981 – are the cities in which the Muslim Brotherhood, which has for decades been the main ideological and organizational source of radical Islam in the world, has gained control of most of the mosques and of active Islam in Germany and in Europe.” Benedict might be shackled by the limitations of diplomacy, but Magister is free to name names.Reading the mind of a pope is risky business. As Magister himself has demonstrated, even papal policy isn’t absolute. Benedict was once the consummate Vatican insider, wielding his influence in an opaque manner. Now that he has become the public face of Catholicism’s 1.2 billion faithful, any shift in his opinions will have more direct ramifications. Given his track record, Magister will be among the first to connect those dots.____________________ |||||Summary:

– The "heinous act" of leaking the draft of Pope Francis' long-awaited environment encyclical may have been designed to steal some thunder from Thursday's official launch, Vatican observers say—and some think it may have been masterminded by Vatican insiders, the AP reports. What the news agency is calling "something of a whodunit" is transpiring inside the Holy See after Italian mag L'Espresso published a 190-page-plus draft of the pontiff's "Laudato Si" ("Be Praised") letter on its website yesterday, confirmed by the Vatican to be a draft of the real deal. Today the Vatican called the posting of the draft "incorrect" and suspended the press credentials of Sandro Magister, the magazine's longtime Vatican reporter and "most reliable and revered vaticanisti," per his own Chiesa website. However, Magister claims he's not the one who obtained or leaked the document—his editor is, he tells the AP. "I just wrote the introduction," he texted, confirming that he had promised the Vatican his lips were sealed about the encyclical, which features Francis hitting global warming as being predominantly caused by humans and our insistence on burning fossil fuels. Who is under the microscope, according to some observers: Vatican conservatives who wanted the pope to keep his nose out of science and stick to church doctrine. The AP cites La Stampa, an Italian daily, as saying that those old-school conservatives don't appreciate the pope's attempts at reform. Some commentators say the leak may have been planned to devalue Thursday's launch, which will be assisted by decidedly non-church-affiliated professionals, including an atheist scientist and an economist, per the AP. (This isn't the first ugly Vatican leak.)


A boil-water alert Flint officials issued Tuesday remains in effect at least until bacteria testing is completed Thursday afternoon, the city said.

 “A decision on whether to suspend the boil-water notice will be made once the results are in,” officials said in an update Wednesday.

 The boil-water advisory was issued after a large water transmission line adjacent to Dort Highway broke Tuesday, which led to a water main break on Dupont, city officials said.

 The break has since been contained, utilities administrator Michael Glasgow said in a statement Wednesday.

 “The leak was completely isolated last night. Water pressures should be back at normal operating levels across the city,” he said. “Crews are still assessing the damage and starting on the actual repair of the affected water main.”

 The area affected included a large swath between Clio and North Center roads.

 As a precaution, city officials are warning residents to boil all filtered water for one minute then let it cool before using. Residents not using a filter are asked to flush the water for at least seven minutes before collecting to boil.

 Air and loose sediment may be trapped in the water lines, but residents are urged to not flush their system through filters since that could affect performance, according to the advisory.

 Flint’s lead-contamination problems trace to the city’s switch to Flint River water in April 2014 for its source of drinking water and the state’s failure to require corrosive controls. The state acknowledged the problem in October.

 For information: (810) 766-7202. Tips on dealing with microbes also are available through 1-800-426-4791.

 Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/1XhhDaN ||||| (CNN) The folks in Flint, Michigan, just can't seem to get a break.

 Already using filters on their faucets to make their toxic water clean, they'll now have to boil it, too.

 Flint is under a boil-water advisory after a Tuesday water main break. Water pressure fell, and that may have allowed bacterial contaminants to enter the system.

 "Bacteria are generally not harmful and are common throughout our environment," a statement from the city said

 The advisory is being called a precaution and will be lifted once water sampling shows the water is safe to drink.

 More money

 The latest setback came as the mayor said she needs $55 million to remove lead pipes in the city. Karen Weaver is asking Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to partner with her to get the funds.

 "In order for Flint residents to once again have confidence and trust in the water coming from their faucets, all lead pipes in the city of Flint need to be replaced," she said.

 A spokesman for the governor said the office was reviewing Weaver's proposal.

 "Gov. Snyder is including money in his budget request on Wednesday to address Flint water infrastructure," said Dave Murray. "That figure could be a starting point, but we won't know for sure until we are able to study the pipes that are in place now and know better what needs to be replaced and how quickly."

 Deputy press secretary Anna Heaton said the governor has asked the Legislature for an additional $195 million for the crisis. It's part of the budget plan for the 2016-2017 fiscal year presented to the Legislature on Wednesday.

 The $195 million consists of $37 million for water and water infrastructure, $15 million for food and nutrition, $63 million for health and well-being, $30 million for water bill credits and a $50 million reserve fund, Snyder said.

 Officials say $37 million already has been approved.

 Rusting away

 JUST WATCHED Granholm: This is about basic human needs Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Granholm: This is about basic human needs 04:30

 The people and water pipes of the city weren't the only casualties of the corrosive Flint River water.

 Damage is showing up in the city's fire equipment.

 One pump has already been replaced because of severe rust. An invoice shows $65,000 in needed repairs.

 The fleet's newest fire truck is also showing signs of premature damage and wear.

 "We actually called the manufacturers of three of our fire trucks, and they gave us some ideas of how to combat that a little bit, but what's done is done and we're hoping it doesn't get to a point where we have to replace pumps," Fire Chief David Cox Jr. told CNN affiliate WJRT

 Otherwise, things will really get expensive.

 "That's a brand-new $462,000 pump that we're talking about," said Cox.

 And one more thing to worry about.

 The Flint Fire Department is worried the water could be corroding the fire suppression systems around the city too, the affiliate reported. Sprinkler installation companies are being told to inspect systems installed in homes and businesses. ||||| If you can read this, either the style sheet didn't load or you have an older browser that doesn't support style sheets. Try clearing your browser cache and refreshing the page. |||||

Write a summary.

– Boil-water advisories aren't all that uncommon, but this one might have Flint residents feeling like they're the butt of a cosmic joke: A water main break has prompted the city to warn people to boil their water before drinking it. As CNN notes, this mostly applies to those using city water through filters installed on their taps in the wake of the lead crisis. But "residents not using a filter are asked to flush the water for at least seven minutes before collecting to boil," adds the Detroit News. The break resulted in a drop in water pressure that may have allowed bacteria into the system. As a headline at Fark succinctly puts it, "residents are being told to boil the water before they not drink it." (The mayor is promising that new pipes are in the works.)


News article:

Indian man held for selling baby grandson on Facebook

 NEW DELHI — Police in northern India said Wednesday they had arrested a 47-year-old man for selling his newborn grandson to a local businessman in a deal that was struck on Facebook.

 Feroz Khan, a resident of Ludhiana city in the northern state of Punjab 300 kilometres (200 miles) from New Delhi, had allegedly kidnapped his grandson shortly after he was born earlier this month.

 Khan sought help from two temporary employees at a local hospital where his daughter gave birth, who contacted the buyer on Facebook and arranged the deal for 45,000 rupees ($830).

 "All three people who conspired to sell the child have been arrested and we will be interrogating the businessman who paid the money to buy the baby," Satish Malhotra, a senior police officer in Ludhiana, told AFP.

 Police have rescued the baby and returned him to his mother, Noori Khan, a divorcee, who had lodged the complaint against her father.

 The three accused have been charged with kidnapping and they will be produced before a court on Wednesday. If proven guilty, they could be jailed for seven years.

 In 2011, the country's federal police admitted in court that there were 815 gangs comprising more than 5,000 members involved in the kidnapping of children for prostitution and begging across India.

 Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| An Indian newborn was allegedly sold for 800,000 rupees ($ 14,750) over Facebook, leading police to uncover a suspected child-trafficking racket, news reports said today.

 The boy, born in a hospital in Ludhiana in the northern state of Punjab, was sold twice before the deal on the social networking site, broadcaster NDTV reported quoting police.

 The infant’s grandfather allegedly first snatched the child from his own daughter, telling her he had been stillborn, to sell him to a nurse for 45,000 rupees, the report said.

 The nurse, in turn, reportedly sold the baby for 300,000 rupees to a hospital lab assistant.

 The infant was then allegedly put up for sale on Facebook by the lab assistant, and a businessman from New Delhi is accused of offering 800,000 rupees for him after seeing photographs.

 The police raided the businessman’s house on Tuesday and recovered the child. They also arrested five people including the grandfather and another man accused of facilitating the deals, the report said.

 The case was the “tip of a iceberg” of a child-trafficking scandal and more details were expected as the alleged middle-man was being questioned, police said.

 Tens of thousands of children in India are thought to be trafficked every year, some for adoption but also many for bonded labour, begging or sexual exploitation.

 It was the first reported case in India of child trafficking over a social networking site, the report said.

 (This article was published on April 24, 2013) |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– A man in India has been arrested for trying to sell his newborn grandson online. Feroz Khan, 47, is alleged to have kidnapped the baby shortly after his birth in Ludhiana, reports the AFP, telling his daughter the infant was stillborn. He reportedly sold the baby for $830 to a nurse, who sold him to a hospital lab assistant for about $5,500, who in turn sold him to a New Delhi businessman for almost $15,000, the Hindu Business Line reports. Police recovered the baby from the businessman's home. Five people have been arrested over the deals, and the baby was returned to his mother.