Bart Palosz, 15, committed suicide in August 2013 after the first day of his sophomore year at Greenwich High School.

 The family of a 15-year-old Connecticut high school student who shot himself in the head is suing the town and its board of education, alleging school officials knew their son was relentlessly bullied for years and failed to protect him.

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 The family of Bartlomeij "Bart" Palosz is suing Greenwich and the town's school district for $15,000 in damages, nearly two years after the 15-year-old committed suicide after the first day of his sophomore year at Greenwich High School, the first day his recently-graduated older sister wasn't there to look after him.

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 The complaint alleges Palosz was "subjected to a years-long history of unremitting bullying" at Western Middle School and Greenwich High School. The last time he was bullied was the day he died, according to the complaint.

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 Bart faced years of name-calling, teasing and physical violence that left him injured on at least one occasion, according to the complaint. He was kicked and hit on the back of the neck. Classmates stole his pencil and threw it at him and smashed his brand new smartphone, court documents allege.

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 "Everyone treats him bad because he pushes people's buttons," Western Middle School Assistant Principal Albert Sackey wrote in a report after Palosz was kicked at his locker in 2012, according to the complaint. "Everyone is mean to him."

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 Palosz's performance in class suffered drastically. He stopped turning in his homework and his grades plummeted in the spring of 2013, the complaint alleges. He also began biting his hands in an effort to cope with stress and anxiety.

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 All the while, school administrators, teachers and counselors left Palosz "unprotected and unsupported"despite their knowledge of the bullying he endured, according to the complaint.

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 "Kids pick on him, very socially akward (sic), bullied regularly, annoying to peers," a middle school employee wrote during Bart's transition to the high school. "Bart gets bullied on a regular basis but he doesn’t tell anyone, needs to be connected, wants to be liked."

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 Another wrote: "Shoelaces tied together – Stitches in head – hit w/ locker. He won’t tell on kids. No self advocacy. Very tall and awakward (sic), will stare at other kids. Wants to be liked."

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 The complaint claims Greenwich High School "failed to comply" with its anti-bullying policy, which requires staff members to provide victims with emotional support, intervene in and investigate known cases of bullying, file oral and written reports on bullying instances, contact the parents of bullying victims and discipline bullies.

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 The lawsuit cites Greenwich First Selectman Drew Marzullo as saying, "We as a community failed this child."

 According to family attorney Randy Savicky of Silver Golub & Teitell LLP, the town is required to respond by Sept. 8.

 "We feel this lawsuit is important so that other students in Greenwich don’t suffer the same kind of treatment that Bart did. It is our hope that this lawsuit will result in changes to how the Greenwich school system responds to students in need of help so that there will be no more needless deaths," the family said in a statement Wednesday.

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 NBC Connecticut has reached out to Greenwich Town Attorney John Wayne Fox for comment on the lawsuit.

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 Greenwich Student Commits Suicide A 15-year-old Greenwich High School sophomore committed suicide hours after classes started. (Published Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015) ||||| Family of Bart Palosz sues Greenwich, public schools for failing to protect him from bullying

 Almost two years after 15-year-old Bart Palosz committed suicide on the first day of his sophomore year at Greenwich High School, a lawsuit brought against the town sheds new light on the case and again raises the question of whether the school district should share the blame in the teenager’s decision to take his life.

 The lawsuit, filed Wednesday by Bart’s parents, Anna Izabela Palosz and Franciszek Palosz, claims school staff were well aware of bullying he endured at school for years, yet did not follow mandatory anti-bullying policies, a failure they claim contributed to their son’s death.

 School documents that indicate what officials did know about Bart’s history, undisclosed until now, have been revealed in filings in state Superior Court in Stamford. They include a record of Bart in the district’s “sharings” program, which details important information for Greenwich High staff about incoming ninth-graders.

 “The middle school sharings document is a smoking gun,” said David Golub, the attorney representing the Paloszes. “It shows that the school system knew, but ignored” the Board of Education’s anti-bullying procedures.

 Bart is described in the sharings document as a “very socially awkward” student who was bullied regularly during his years at Western Middle School but did not tell anyone about it. The teenager was “annoying” to his peers and would stare at them, but he wanted to be liked and needed to be connected, the document states.

 “Social work needed” was written on the form. It was a recommendation that was never acted upon, according to the lawsuit.

 School records show that the bullying of Bart included name-calling and teasing, repeated incidents of property theft and hitting and kicking from classmates, according to the lawsuit.

 Bart was hit in the head with a locker — an injury that required stitches — and had his shoelaces tied together, according to the sharings document.

 “I wanted to make you aware that Bart was pretty severely bullied in middle school,” his guidance counselor wrote in a November 2012 email to Bart’s classroom teachers when he was in ninth grade, another new revelation contained in the lawsuit. “He would not report any of the incidents to the school, so the only way it was brought to light was if it was observed or if he told at home.”

 Superintendent of Schools William McKersie and Greenwich High Headmaster Chris Winters declined to comment on the lawsuit. They referred inquiries to Town Attorney John Wayne Fox, who was not available for comment Wednesday.

 First Selectman Peter Tesei did not return a message left for him by press time. Board of Education members either did not return messages or declined to comment.

 Lawyers for the Paloszes and the town tried for many months to negotiate a settlement, but they could not come to terms, according to Golub. The lawsuit had to be filed before a two-year statute of limitation from the date of Bart’s death went into effect on Aug. 27.

 “We feel this lawsuit is important so that other students in Greenwich don’t suffer the same kind of treatment that Bart did,” the Palosz family said in a statement. “It is our hope that this lawsuit will result in changes to how the Greenwich school system responds to students in need of help so that there will be no more needless deaths.”

 The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of damages in excess of $15,000, the threshold for filing in the court. The complaint marks the first legal action brought against the district and town related to Bart’s death.

 School and municipal officials have until Sept. 8 to respond.

 History of bullying

 Reports of bullying became widespread in the immediate aftermath of Bart’s death, a tragedy that shocked the Greenwich community.

 “I knew it was a matter of time, but it's very painful to relive what happened to Bart,” Lori Keegan, a friend of the Paloszes, said in an email Wednesday. “Bart was an easy target; he didn’t fight back. He was quiet and shy. I think about him every day.”

 Family and friends have said Bart was picked on for a number of reasons, including his socially awkward demeanor, his tall and heavy-set frame, his acne and his Polish accent. His family immigrated to the U.S. from Poland when he was four years old.

 Bart’s troubles were known to Western administrators, including two assistant principals, according to the lawsuit. In a May 2012 meeting with then-Assistant Principal Albert Sackey, an eighth-grade Bart reportedly admitted to several instances of being physically and verbally abused.

 But Palosz’s treatment by his peers apparently did not improve at Greenwich High, which Bart began attending in the fall of 2012. Less than two months into his freshman year, a classmate in a biology class smashed his new Android smartphone, according to the lawsuit. Shortly after Bart died, his sister, Beata, recalled the same incident.

 By the spring of his freshman year, Bart was showing major signs of his distress, the lawsuit said. His grades dropped off precipitously, he decided to stop turning in his homework and he was biting his hands in class.

 While he was reluctant to share his ordeals with others face-to-face, Bart did open up on the social network Google+. There, he posted plans to harm himself due to "school caused insanity."

 "I have chosen to go with 3 peoples (sic) advice and kill myself," he wrote in June 2013, adding that he had just swallowed pills. "I just wish it was faster."

 He would survive that episode and show up for the first day of classes to start his sophomore year, on Aug. 27, 2013. It would be his first and only day at Greenwich High without Beata, who had graduated the previous June. She was a crucial source of company and protection from his antagonists.

 After school that day, Bart returned to an empty home. He grabbed the key to a gun safe in his bedroom where his father kept his hunting rifles. With one of those weapons, he ended his life by shooting himself in the head.

 Culpability

 The lawsuit charges that teachers, administrators and counselors were negligent because they failed in a number of ways to meet the district’s anti-bullying policies and procedures. Their failure comprised a “substantial factor” in Bart’s decision to take his own life, the complaint claims.

 They did not, according to the lawsuit, properly carry out the following required actions:

 Reporting and investigating bullying of Bart.

 Taking the steps prescribed on the middle school “sharings” form.

 Notifying and meeting with Bart’s parents and the parents of students who bullied Bart.

 Disciplining the students who bullied Bart.

 Developing student safety support and intervention plans in response to the bullying of Bart.

 “Had defendants’ personnel complied with the mandatory provisions of the policy, as required, Bart would have received counseling, including appropriate encouragement to advocate on his own behalf (which school personnel universally recognized Bart could not do,” the lawsuit states. “Bart also would have been protected from his tormentors and would have been to feel less tormented.”

 While school and municipal officials have acknowledged that Palosz was bullied, they have argued that educators cared about him and did their best to help him.

 “We knew Bart very well,” McKersie said at Board of Selectmen meeting a couple of weeks after Bart died. “I remember his dad, I remember his mom, I remember his sister... This is a case of a young man who took his life who we knew well.”

 But school officials have declined to specify the support that Bart received. Citing privacy laws, they have opposed Freedom of Information requests for access to Bart’s school records.

 The district launched an investigation immediately after Bart’s death but handed it over less than two weeks later to the town’s legal department.

 In April 2014, Fox, the town attorney, reported on the findings of a draft report, but the document has never been made public.

 “It is clear from our investigation that this young man was subjected to acts by students or groups of students directed against him with what I would define and describe as an intent to ridicule, humiliate or to intimidate him,” Fox said at a Board of Education meeting.

 “It was also clear to me and to our findings that the school system was aware of those difficulties that Bart was having, was attentive to them and set up procedures and programs in an attempt to address them. There will always be a question and debate as to whether enough was done or if some things could have been done better.”

 Other town officials took a more emphatic position.

 “We as a community failed this child,” Selectman Drew Marzullo said in February 2014.

 “We tried very hard to resolve this matter with the town without the need for a lawsuit, but unfortunately were unable to do so,” Golub said. “It’s a shame that the town, while admitting that it ‘failed this child,’ won’t actually take responsibility for what happened here.”

 Golub said the town decided against settling, but he declined to specify the reason.

 pschott@scni.com; 203-625-4439; twitter: @paulschott |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– The parents of a 15-year-old who killed himself in 2013 after years of "unremitting bullying" have sued their Connecticut town and its board of education, accusing them of ignoring the problem and their own anti-bullying policy, NBC New York reports. According to the Greenwich Time, Bartlomeij "Bart" Palosz shot himself with his father's hunting rifle after his first day as a sophomore following a failed attempt to kill himself with pills a few months earlier. Bart's parents are seeking an unspecified amount greater than $15,000 in their lawsuit. The family's lawyer tells the Time that recently revealed documents compiled on Bart by his middle school and shared with his high school are a "smoking gun." In these documents, staffers are quoted as saying "everyone" was mean to Bart because he "pushes people's buttons" and that he wanted to be liked but was "very socially awkward" and "annoying to peers," according to NBC. The Time reports the documents show incidents of verbal and physical bullying—one resulted in stitches—and include the phrase "social work needed." The lawsuit claims this proves the schools knew about the bullying but didn't protect Bart or punish his tormentors as required by their anti-bullying policy.


News article:

May 4, 2012 — The Heartland Institute pulled its global warming billboard starring Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber whose manifesto expressed his belief in catastrophic man-caused global warming, after 24 hours.* Read the release here.

 May 3, 2012 — The Heartland Institute announces the installation of a digital billboard, along with an essay by Joseph Bast. Read them both here.

 (* When Heartland took down the billboard, it also took down the image from this page. If you want to see it, Google will surely oblige. The above is the billboard Heartland has run from May 5 through its conference on May 23.) ||||| In some ways, this is an almost perfect illustration of what has happened to the "right." A refusal to acknowledge scientific reality; and a brutalist style of public propaganda that focuses entirely on guilt by the most extreme association. Here's how the Heartland Institute describes this new campaign:

 The billboard series features Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber; Charles Manson, a mass murderer; and Fidel Castro, a tyrant. Other global warming alarmists who may appear on future billboards include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010). These rogues and villains were chosen because they made public statements about how man-made global warming is a crisis and how mankind must take immediate and drastic actions to stop it.

 This is where the American right now is:

 The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.

 Mann and Ornstein are correct. Large sections of the American right are now close to insane as well as depraved. And there is no Buckley to rein them in. Just countless Jonah Goldbergs seeking to cash in. ||||| The seed for this crawl was a list of every host in the Wayback Machine

 This crawl was run at a level 1 (URLs including their embeds, plus the URLs of all outbound links including their embeds)

 The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public. ||||| It really is hard to know where to begin with this one. But let's start with: "What on earth were they thinking?"

 The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based rightwing thinktank notorious for promoting climate scepticism, has launched quite possibly one of the most ill-judged poster campaigns in the history of ill-judged poster campaigns.

 I'll let its own press release for its upcoming conference explain, as there's simply no need to finesse it further:

 Billboards in Chicago paid for by The Heartland Institute point out that some of the world's most notorious criminals say they "still believe in global warming" – and ask viewers if they do, too…The billboard series features Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber; Charles Manson, a mass murderer; and Fidel Castro, a tyrant. Other global warming alarmists who may appear on future billboards include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010).

 These rogues and villains were chosen because they made public statements about how man-made global warming is a crisis and how mankind must take immediate and drastic actions to stop it.

 Why did Heartland choose to feature these people on its billboards? Because what these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists for the "mainstream" media, and liberal politicians say about global warming. The point is that believing in global warming is not "mainstream," smart, or sophisticated. In fact, it is just the opposite of those things. Still believing in man-made global warming – after all the scientific discoveries and revelations that point against this theory – is more than a little nutty. In fact, some really crazy people use it to justify immoral and frightening behavior.

 But then comes the best bit:

 Of course, not all global warming alarmists are murderers or tyrants.

 It tries to morally justify its posters - the first of which appeared over the Eisenhower Expressway yesterday - by saying that, due to ""Climategate" and the recent incident in which a US scientist called Peter Gleick admitted to obtaining and releasing internal documents (one of which Heartland claims was faked) detailing Heartland's funding and policy strategies, that "the leaders of the global warming movement are willing to break the law and the rules of ethics to shut down scientific debate and implement their left-wing agendas".

 It adds:

 The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.

 The bigger question, beyond trying to analyse the collective mentality of an organisation that would sign off a poster campaign like this, is whether it will now lead any of the speakers, attendees and sponsors to pull out of the conference and dissociate themselves from this thinktank.

 As a result of the embarrassment caused by the release earlier this year of its internal funding documents, the US car giant GM pulled the plug on its funding for Heartland. Will Microsoft, Pfizer or GlaxoSmithKline, for example, now also choose to cut their funding to this organisation?

 You also have to wonder if any of the scheduled conference speakers are now having doubts about whether they want to be associated with Heartland. One person who is on the list to speak is Roger Helmer, a British politician who has attended previous conferences. Having recently left the Conservative party as an MEP, the prominent climate sceptic is now the UK Independence Party's spokesperson on industry and energy.

 Earlier, I sent him an email with a link to Heartland's poster campaign press release and asked him: "Will you now be reconsidering attending in light of this new poster campaign for the conference? Do you approve of or condemn the poster campaign?"

 He confirmed he was still attending, adding:

 I am delighted that the Heartland campaign for the Chicago climate conference has succeeded in its purpose and attracted the attention of the Guardian. I urge Guardian readers to attend the conference if they can, but failing that, to follow it on the web.

 I simply have nothing further to add. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– A conservative think tank has pulled a controversial billboard that compared those who believe in global warming to deranged killers. The Heartland Institute was taking heavy flak for the digital sign in Chicago that featured a photo of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and the question, "I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?" reports the Washington Post's Plum Line blog. The institute explained on its website that the "experiment" was designed to be deliberately provocative. It had originally planned to follow up with images of Osama bin Laden and Charles Manson, among others. An earlier post from the site explained that "the most prominent advocates of global warming" are "murderers, tyrants, and madmen." It added, helpfully, that "not all global warming skeptics are murderers or tyrants," notes the Guardian, which first spotted the billboard. Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast thinks it's everything that's wrong with the right—"a refusal to acknowledge scientific reality; and a brutalist style of public propaganda that focuses entirely on guilt by the most extreme association." GOP Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a prominent skeptic about global warming, vowed to pull out of an institute-sponsored conference later this month if the ad campaign continued; it ended soon after.


Write an article based on this summary:

– David Bowie's latest album—marking his return after a decade—seems to be living up to the anticipation. Sure, it's not 1970s Bowie, but critics are loving the 66-year-old's The Next Day: It "may be the greatest comeback album ever," writes Andy Gill in a five-star Independent review. "It’s certainly rare to hear a comeback effort that not only reflects an artist’s own best work, but stands alongside it in terms of quality." In the Telegraph, which also gives the album five stars, Neil McCormick can't restrain himself: It's "an absolute wonder: urgent, sharp-edged, bold, beautiful, and baffling, an intellectually stimulating, emotionally charged, musically jagged, electric bolt through his own mythos and the mixed-up, celebrity-obsessed, war-torn world of the 21st century." If that weren't enough, The Next Day is "thought-provoking, strange, and filled with great songs," writes Alexis Petridis in the Guardian. Full of "inarguable tunes," the album's "success rests on simple pleasures"—though the lyrics are "so dense and allusive" you may wish you had Cliffs Notes. "It’s not Diamond Dogs or Young Americans or Low—get real, this isn’t the seventies," writes Chris Roberts at the Quietus. Still, "it’s not just good, it’s great."

It’s certainly rare to hear a comeback effort that not only reflects an artist’s own best work, but stands alongside it in terms of quality, as The Next Day does. The fact that producer Tony Visconti has worked with Bowie since the Seventies undoubtedly helps cement the connection with his earlier work – there are constant frissons of recognition while listening to these songs, as if Bowie is deliberately mining memories. That notion is reinforced by the typically artful cover, which takes the original sleeve for the “Heroes” album and partly obscures its image with a simple sans-serif font title panel and, on the rear, a similarly blunt track listing, making the new album a sort of palimpsest of history.

 But if the design and sound suggest a link with the past, the songs – save for “Where Are We Now?” – are all about today, as might be expected from such an astute barometer of societal and cultural mores as Bowie. Visconti has suggested in interviews that some songs, notably the title track, were prompted by the singer’s recent immersion in books about medieval history; but whatever their origins, the songs seem to refract elements of the modern day, offering sometimes brutal commentaries on contemporary events.

 And there’s a sleek, muscular modernity about the arrangements, mostly recorded with such Bowie stalwarts as guitarist Gerry Leonard, bassist Gail Anne Dorsey and drummer Zachary Alford, with telling contributions from rock guitarist Earl Slick and avant-rock soundscape guitarist David Torn. The result is an album that conveys, with apt anxiety or disgust, the fears and troubles of a world riven by conflict and distracted by superficial celebrity.

 Track-by-track verdicts

 The Next Day

 Supposedly written about some medieval tyrant, the title track employs a stalking funk-rock groove striated with angular, trebly guitars and bound to marching strings to depict a figure pursued by a baying mob who “can’t get enough of that doomsday song” and who can “work with Satan while they dance like saints”. The trace of Johnny Rotten in Bowie’s delivery reveals the underlying bitterness of a situation which, inevitably, doesn’t end well: “Here I am, not quite dying, my body left to rot in a hollow tree.”

 Dirty Boys

 A slow, jerky trudge of brusque, visceral guitars and rudely honking baritone sax, this finds Bowie musing about living “something like Tobacco Road” and heading off to “Finchley Fair” in search of excitement, however guttersnipe-low: “When the die is cast and we have no choice, we will run with dirty boys.”

 The Stars (Are Out Tonight)

 The second single from the album features another nervy, angst-ridden vocal, as Bowie reflects on the eternal status of celebrity, noting, “The stars are never sleeping/Dead ones and the living.” The gently scudding groove is one of the album’s most absorbing, laced with strings, clarinet and Visconti’s descending recorder line lurking behind the guitars. Contains some of Bowie’s best lines in ages, particularly his warning of the dangerous magnetism of stars who “burn you with their radium smiles and trap you with their beautiful eyes”.

 Love Is Lost

 “Oh what have you done, what have you done?” wails an abject Bowie over a soundbed whose bitter guitar, organ and plodding bass lend a fatalistic slant to a broadside at someone whose possessions are new, “...but your fear is as old as the world.”

 Where Are We Now?

 The acclaimed single stands apart from the rest of The Next Day: rather than brusque and angry in tone, it’s a piece of almost oceanic melancholy. An enervated reflection on Bowie’s Berlin days, it’s full of references to his favourite haunts, viewed through a veil of watery, reverbed guitars like misted eyes, while the subtle touches of autotuning give the voice a delicate fragility appropriate to the ruminations of “a man lost in time... just walking the dead.”

 Valentine’s Day

 The earliest track recorded for The Next Day, this has nothing to do with 14 February, but rather offers a mocking depiction of a bitter nobody who may well have “gone postal” against the more popular kids at school, couched in one of the album’s most engaging pop arrangements.

 If You Can See Me

 From one of its most appealing songs to its most antagonistic, a hurried bustle of noise featuring a piercing keyboard monotone at nerve-shredding pitch. Another song seemingly inspired by Bowie’s recent fascination with medieval history, this bowls along pell-mell, a torrent of impressionistic lines and threats from an invader who “will take your lands...slaughter your beasts...I am the spirit Greed”.

 I’d Rather Be High

 Set to a jazzy shuffle bound with a sinuous guitar line, this finds one of the poor bloody infantry regretting the youthful wrong turn that led him to his embattled foxhole: “I’d rather be flying, I’d rather be dead, than out of my head and training these guns on those men in the sand.”

 Boss Of Me

 The honking baritone sax from “Dirty Boys” reappears in bathetic-ironic mode to underscore the plight of a hapless lad stuck on the spike of feminism: Who’d have ever dreamed,” he marvels plaintively, “that a smalltown girl like you would be the boss of me?”

 Dancing Out In Space

 David Torn’s interweaving guitar whines lend a miasmic, psychedelic flavour to the prancing, Motown-style funk-rock groove of one of the album’s hookiest, catchiest trifles, a celebration of dance: “No one here can beat you/Dancing out in space.” An obvious future single.

 How Does The Grass Grow?

 A phrase apparently used to assist in bayonet practice – “How does the grass grow? Blood, blood, blood!” – is given an absurdist makeover by the addition of the hook motif from The Shadows’ “Apache”, sung as a falsetto “yah-yah-yah-yah”. Weird doesn’t quite cover it.

 (You Will) Set The World On Fire

 A terse guitar riff in the style of early Kinks carries this song about ambition and fame, sung as if by a manager flattering his client: “I can hear the nation cry!” Period references set it firmly in the Sixties, notably the claim that “Kennedy would kill for the lines that she’s written/Van Ronk says to Bobby, ‘She’s the next real thing!’” Another obvious potential single.

 You Feel So Lonely You Could Die

 As the album cruises to its close, the tone becomes more melancholy with this melodramatic, epic evocation of someone’s loneliness and suicidal depression. “I can see you as a corpse, hanging from a beam... Oh, see if I care, Oh please make it soon,” sings Bowie with exquisite, beautiful poise. “Oblivion shall own you, death alone shall love you.”

 Heat

 The album closes with the Scott Walkeresque vocal portents and apocalyptic tone and imagery of “Heat”, in which acoustic guitar, strings and guitar noise track the protagonist’s search for his own identity through intimations of guilt and shame, finally resolving into a duality that might stand as the motto for the album as a whole: “I am a seer, but I am a liar.” Which of course, is equivalent to saying “I am a storyteller.”

 'The Next Day' is set for release on 11 March in standard and deluxe versions ||||| It is an enormous pleasure to report that the new David Bowie album is an absolute wonder: urgent, sharp-edged, bold, beautiful and baffling, an intellectually stimulating, emotionally charged, musically jagged, electric bolt through his own mythos and the mixed-up, celebrity-obsessed, war-torn world of the 21st century.

 Musically, it is stripped and to the point, painted in the primal colours of rock : hard drums, fluid bass, fizzing guitars, shaded by splashes of keyboard and dirty rasps of horns. The 14 songs are short and spiky, often contrasting that kind of patent Bowie one-note declarative drawl with sweet bursts of melodic escape that hit you like a sugar rush. Bowie’s return from a decade’s absence feels very present, although full of sneaky backward glances.

 Hints, references and echoes of the past abound. Touches of jangling Sixties pop lift the flying melody of I’d Rather Be High, the poised soul of the Thin White Duke haunts the sax strut of Dirty Boys and Boss of Me, and epic Eighties Goth rears its imperious head amid the dramatic descending chords of Love Is Lost.

 You might detect the wonky sound-clashes of Berlin-era Bowie in the dissonant chords of Dancing Out In Space, albeit crossed with the dynamic grooves of Let’s Dance, opening out to the drum’n’bass jazz fusion of Earthling on If You Can See Me.

 There’s a surprising blast of the heavy rocking excess of Tin Machine on the power-chord stomp of (You Will Set) The World On Fire and even a welcome dash of Ziggy Stardust about the glam-rocking Valentine’s Day, which spirals off towards the heavens with Earl Slick’s guitar solo pursuing the elusive spirit of the late Mick Ronson.

 Yet The Next Day never feels like a museum piece, deftly filtering signature references through a lean, snappy New York rock distortion that is something quite new for Bowie. Discounting the failed experiment of Tin Machine, this is his rockiest album since the days of Aladdin Sane.

 The Next Day was produced secretly over two years with long-serving collaborator Tony Visconti and a small unit of session players familiar from late-period Bowie, including bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, drummer Zachary Alford and Irish ambient guitarist Gerry Leonard, with Bowie on keyboards.

 David Bowie - Where Are We Now? on MUZU.TV.

 The title track opens with a snare slam and see-saw guitar riff appropriated from Fashion but ramped up with a Sonic Youth attack. Imagistic lyrics conjure a fallen idol betrayed and punished by “the gormless and baying crowd” who “can’t get enough of that doomsday song”. “Here I am, not quite dying,” chants Bowie, while his band punch and howl.

 Here he is, indeed. With its dense, oblique imagery, “soggy paper bodies” and “purple-headed priest”, it could (as producer Visconti has suggested) be about some obscure medieval tyrant, but it could equally be a comment on the fickleness and dangers of the fame from which Bowie retreated. “At first they give you everything that you want,” Bowie snaps, “then they take back everything that you need.”

 Stars are a repeated, ambiguous motif, sometimes appearing as celestial bodies, sometimes in the back of stretch limos with tinted windows.

 “Brigitte, Jack, Kate and Brad” have a playful cameo on The Stars (Are Out Tonight), in which Bowie recasts celebrities as tragic minor gods of a secular age, “sexless and unaroused”. With his cut-and-paste methodology, Bowie is never easy to interpret, but his new album bubbles and fizzes with lyrical energy, panning out from intensely personal close-ups to horrified widescreen shots of a chaotic world.

 David Bowie - The Stars (Are Out Tonight) on MUZU.TV. Warning: contains scenes of nudity

 On the extraordinary How Does The Grass Grow he contemplates ethnic genocide with a nightmarish despair made all the more disorienting by the off-kilter exuberance of a “la la la” chorus appropriated from The Shadows’ Apache.

 The album’s epic climax, You Feel So Lonely You Could Die, is fantastic, a lush companion piece to Ziggy’s Rock’n’roll Suicide that drips vitriol in place of compassion (“Oblivion shall own you / Death alone shall love you”), the warmth of the setting contrasting with the cold rage of the sentiment.

 It feels highly personal but lends itself to political interpretation, an attack on shadowy figures who engineer conflict, the power behind the power. But why does Bowie shift gear at the end to ride out on the stately, resonant drum pattern of Ziggy’s Five Years?

 What can it all mean? Who knows? I’m still scratching my head over an album cover that looks as if he just stuck a Post-it note on Heroes. You don’t come to Bowie for easy answers, and The Next Day is both immediately rewarding and mystifyingly opaque. It closes on the ominous, despairing, jazzily introspective Heat, with the tremulous refrain “And I tell myself, I don’t know who I am.”

 Bowie provides his own tantalising answer to the ultimate question of his chameleonic identity by signing off from the most compelling comeback in rock history with “I am a seer… but I am a liar.”

 Welcome back, David.

 The Next Day is released on Sony on March 11

 Follow Telegraph Music on Twitter ||||| When David Bowie chose to break a decade's silence by releasing a single, Where Are We Now?, on his 66th birthday, dissenting voices were hard to find amid the clamour made by people eager to welcome him back. Some argued that the clamour was part of the problem: it drowned out the music, which perhaps wasn't worthy of the noisy excitement it had caused. The reason people were so thrilled Bowie was back, they suggested, was founded in the music he made in the 1970s, a decade when almost every new album he released was an astonishingly sure-footed leap forward into uncharted territory. But Where Are We Now? was no Heroes or Sound and Vision. Rather, it was a charming, fragile ballad. Indeed, it was not unlike the stuff he had been knocking out immediately before his retirement, when – presumably burned by the mixed response to his spirited 1990s attempts to seize the zeitgeist or dabble in the avant garde in the way he'd done so effortlessly two decades previously – Bowie settled on a more straightforward and comfortable kind of classicism. Had Where Are We Now? been released in 2004, they suggested, its reception would have been far more muted. People were welcoming back an exhilarating, distant memory of Bowie, rather than the reality.

 They had a point, but Where Are We Now? still carried with it some intriguing possibilities for the subsequent album. The song found Bowie drifting nostalgically around his former adopted hometown, Berlin, suggesting that The Next Day might be that rarest of things, an autobiographical work from an artist whose nakedly autobiographical songs can be numbered on the fingers of one hand. Such speculation was bolstered by the self-referential artwork of both the single and album: the former offering an inverted photo of a skeletal Bowie onstage in 1974, the latter featuring the cover of 1977's Heroes with the title redacted and a white square covering the famous image of the singer in a pose modelled on a painting by Erich Heckel. Perhaps, came the excited suggestion, Bowie had spent the past decade ruminating on his past and was now issuing an album in lieu of a memoir.

 Perhaps not. There are certainly a smattering of knowing sonic references to Bowie's past works. If You Can See Me features the eerie sped-up vocal effect found on 1970's After All and the climax of Hunky Dory's The Bewlay Brothers, while You Feel So Lonely You Could Die ends with a reprise of the drum beat that introduced Five Years, the opening track of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. And there are moments when you wonder whether some of the characters in The Next Day's songs aren't founded in personal experience: certainly, the protagonist of Love Is Lost – appointed "the voice of youth", marooned abroad, cosseted by luxury but fearful and paranoid, "thinking like mad" – feels remarkably like a pen portrait of the poor, cocaine-ravaged soul in that inverted photo. But elsewhere The Next Day offers what you might call an index of Bowiean obsessions.

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 In the first 10 minutes alone, you get the terror of life in a dystopian dictatorship teetering on the brink of apocalypse; a feral gang of vaguely homoerotic juvenile delinquents smashing things up; the numbing isolation of stardom and the suggestion that stars themselves may actually be some kind of alien lifeforms "soaking up our primitive world". The mutual respect between Bowie and Scott Walker is well-documented – an effusive 50th birthday tribute from the elusive former Scott Engel famously reduced Bowie to tears live on Radio 1 – and it's Walker's latterday work that much of The Next Day resembles, at least in that the lyrics are so dense and allusive you occasionally feel in need of a set of York Notes to get through them.

 The present writer spent an alternately illuminating and rather trying few hours attempting to unpick the lyrics of I'd Rather Be High. Perhaps the mention of "Clare and Lady Manners" drinking and gossiping about politics during wartime was a reference to The Coterie, the 1910s' equivalent of the subsequent decade's bright young things – its male membership ultimately decimated in the trenches – in which Lady Diana Manners played a leading role. Or perhaps it was a reference to Officers and Gentlemen, the second novel in Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy, in which a character based on Lady Diana Cooper (nee Manners) attempts to pull strings for Ivor Clare, a character facing desertion charges. That seems more likely – amid the subsequent lyrical references to the futility of conflict, there's a mention of Egypt, where Officers and Gentlemen is partially set – in which case, the song's overall message might be summarised as: Waugh – huh! – what is it good for? But what does Officers and Gentlemen – or, for that matter, The Coterie – have to do with the opening line's reference to Vladimir Nabokov's life in 1920s and 30s Berlin? Pausing only to wonder whether there's a certain cultural richness here that you just don't find in, say, the oeuvre of the Vaccines, or whether Bowie has earned himself the exalted position where one takes for cultural richness the kind of thing you'd ordinarily dismiss as agonising pretention – and to note that either is deeply impressive – the present writer gave up and decided to just enjoy the music.

 This, it has to be said, is a relative doddle. Producer Tony Visconti has suggested that The Next Day is of a piece with 1979's Lodger and, as on that record, Bowie spends a lot of The Next Day experimenting with his vocal delivery, offering, among other things, a peculiar nasal drone on the title track and a doomy, tortured lowing that recalls Walker – him again – on the closing Heat. The dense web of screaming feedback that ends Where Does the Grass Grow? recalls the climax of Boys Keep Swinging, while the fantastic If You Can See Me has some of the relentless propulsion of Move On, although it's perhaps worth noting that the latter track was about the joyous freedom of travel, while the characters here are unable to escape the shadowy forces controlling their lives however far they run: "if you can see me, I can see you," reiterates the chorus, Big Brother-ishly. That aside, the comparison with Lodger might be pitching it a bit high. It's perhaps the least well-regarded album of original material Bowie released in the 70s, but that tells you more about the astonishing quality of the records that preceded it than it does Lodger itself. If there are some intriguing musical decisions on The Next Day – the honking baritone sax that gives the feral gang of Dirty Boys a curiously lurching, ungainly gait; the vocal rendering of the Shadows' Apache that constitutes Where Does the Grass Grow?'s hook, the ominous, fretless-bass-decorated shudder of Heat – there's none of Lodger's unfettered experimentalism, nothing as authentically bizarre as Yassassin or African Night Flight.

 What The Next Day has that perhaps Lodger didn't is something more prosaic. Whatever else he's been doing, clearly at least some of the last decade has been spent carefully crafting inarguable tunes. Its melody shifting from weary sigh to frantic angst, I'd Rather Be High is utterly beautiful; The Stars (Are Out Tonight) supports its Brad-Pitt-is-an-alien thesis with a fantastic chorus, all the more potent for the fact that it takes an age to arrive; Valentine's Day is so deceptively sweet that the bleakness of its subject matter – another tyrant, bent on crushing the world beneath his heels – doesn't initially register.

 Despite the lyrical density, The Next Day's success rests on simple pleasures, not a phrase you'd ever use to describe Lodger or Station to Station. You could argue that means the naysayers still have a point. For all the pointers it offers in that direction, The Next Day isn't the equal of Bowie's 70s work: but then, the man himself might reasonably argue, what is? Perhaps it's destined to be remembered more for the unexpected manner in which it was announced than its contents. That doesn't seem a fair fate for an album that's thought-provoking, strange and filled with great songs. Listening to The Next Day makes you hope it's not a one-off, that his return continues apace: no mean feat, given that listening to a new album by most of his peers makes you wish they'd stick to playing the greatest hits.

 • The Next Day is released on 11 March |||||


Article:

WE CHECKED THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE AND ALL THEY WOULD SAY IS THIS CASE IS ACTIVE AND OPEN. NEW AT 5:00, A SEMINOLE COUNTY MOM IS ACCUSE OF TAKING HER DEHYDRATED NEWBORN TO THE HOSPITAL. SHE SAYS IT'S ALL BECAUSE SHE IS A VEGAN AND DIDN'T WANT THE BABY TO HAVE ANYTHING MADE WITH ANIMAL PARTS. KALA RAMA IS LIVE AT THE CASSELBERRY POLICE DEPARTMENT FOR US. IT SEEMS THEY GOT TO THE BABY JUST IN TIME. HOW DID POLICE FIND OUT ABOUT THIS? ERIK, THIS CAME TO CASSELBERRY POLICE AS A TIP GOING INTO THE FLORIDA STATE HOTLINE THERE ON CHILD ABUSE. THEY SAY WHEN THEY WENT TO THAT HOUSE, THEY FOUND A MOTHER WHO WAS NOT COOPERATIVE AND A BABY WHO NEEDED SERIOUS MEDICAL ATTENTION. A NEWBORN BABY IS NOW IN STATE CUSTODY AFTER CASSELBERRY POLICE SAY SARAH MARKHAM REFUSED TO TAKE HER DEHYDRATED BABY TO THE HOSPITAL. SHE TOLD POLICE SHE'S A VEGAN BUT BROUGHT A SOY-BASED FORMULA FROM WHOLE FOODS FOR THE BABY INSTEAD OF FOLLOWING THE DOCTOR'S ORDERS. SHE DIDN'T WANT HER CHILD INGESTING ANY ANIMAL BY-PRODUCTS. A DOCTOR TOLD MARKHAM THE BABY WAS DEHYDRATED AND LOSING WEIGHT. SHE WAS TOLD TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL WITHIN AN HOUR. THE HOSPITAL WAS READY TO TREAT THE CHILD. WHEN SHE DIDN'T SHOW, POLICE SHOWED UP AT HER APARTMENT. OFFICERS AND CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES TRIED TO GET HER TO COME TO THE DOOR FOR AN HOUR. SHE DIDN'T THINK SHE HAD TO COME TO THE DOOR. SHE DIDN'T ANSWER THE DOOR WHEN WE CHECKED WITH HER. THEY DON'T WANT TO TALK TO ANYBODY. THAT IS MEAN. OFFICERS CALLED HER UNCOOPERATIVE AND SAID SHE WAS NOT CONCERNED WITH HER NEWBORN'S WELL-BEING. ACCORDING TO THAT POLICE REPORT, MARKHAM ALSO TOLD OFFICERS SHE WANTED A SECOND OPINION. SHE APPARENTLY GOT ONE FROM A VEGAN OR NATURAL DOCTOR AND, ACCORDING TO POLICE, SHE COULD NOT PROVIDE ANY INFORMATION ON WHO THAT DOCTOR WAS. SO WHAT IS NEXT NOW THAT SHE'S BEEN ARRESTED? IS SHE FACING ANY TIME IN ALLOR EVEN IN PRISON? BASICALLY THAT'S ALL UP TO A JUDGE. SHE GOES BEFORE A JUDGE AT THE END OF THE SUMMER, AUGUST 26TH.

 CASSELBERRY, Fla. -

 A Casselberry mother was arrested on allegations of refusing to take her newborn, diagnosed by a doctor as dehydrated, to a hospital because of her staunch vegan stance.

 [RECOMMENDED: Tourist run over on beach, killed | Shark in pond eludes trappers]

 Sarah Anne Markham was arrested Tuesday on a charge of child neglect.

 According to Casselberry police, a pediatrician told Markham that her baby needed to be admitted to Florida Hospital South for treatment because the child was dehydrated and was losing weight.

 Markham, however, went home and would not answer when officers knocked at her door.

 Police used a locksmith to enter the apartment and interviewed Markham, who said she wanted to get a second opinion about her child, according to a police report.

 Police said Markham told them that she wanted to pursue a religious-based treatment and did not believe that her baby was dehydrated because the child was having bowel movements.

 Markham said she had contacted a "natural" or "vegan" doctor but was unable to provide any information about him, other than a name.

 [SEE THESE? Notable deaths of 2014 | Michael Jackson: A life in pics | Celebs & pets]

 Markham said she did not give the formula/medicine that the doctor provided because she did not agree with the ingredients, which she said came from animals, the police report stated.

 Markham said she purchased organic soy formula, and when asked if she confirmed with a doctor if it was safe for a newborn, she said that if Whole Foods Market sells it then the formula doesn't contain any animal parts and, therefore, must be safe, according to police.

 She then said she would take the child to Florida Hospital South but only because she was being forced to, according to authorities. About an hour later, however, she was still at home and was placed under arrest.

 While en route to jail, according to police, Markham had a carefree attitude, even though she was told that she was not going to be allowed to see her child until a court hearing.

 The baby was taken to Florida Hospital South for treatment and was placed into state custody.

 Markham later bonded out of jail.

 Watch Local 6 News and stay with ClickOrlando.com for more on this story. ||||| WFTV – Orlando, Fla.

 A vegan mother whose newborn son was taken from her several months ago after he began losing weight has regained custody of the child.

 On Wednesday, a Seminole County, Florida, judge told Sarah Markham that she would get custody of her son Caleb, with the provision that she provide a nutritionist's report within 10 days.

 Markham was arrested in June when her son was less than 2 weeks old. He had lost 10 percent of his body weight. A doctor said Caleb was failing to thrive and told Markham to take her child to a hospital.

 Rather than taking the boy to the hospital, Markham wanted to try supplementing breast milk with vegan formula.

 >> Read more trending stories

 "There's no case, there's no abuse, there's no neglect – there's simply a doctor who has been challenged by a mother, and he didn't like it," said Bo Markham, Caleb's grandfather.

 The judge agreed, throwing out Seminole County Child Protective Services' claim that Sarah Markham was not fit to care for the child.

 Attorney Mark O'Mara said he expects the criminal case against the mother to be thrown out, as well.

 "My hope is that they'll simply dismiss it and not go forward on this at all," O'Mara said.

 Caleb stayed with grandparents after being removed from his mother's care and now weighs 17 pounds.

 "He's still on a soy formula – he's been on it, he likes it, he's doing well. He's growing healthy, and I can't ask for anything more," Markham said. |||||
What is a summary?

– A judge in Florida has allowed a vegan mom who defied a doctor's orders to regain custody of her infant son, reports WFTV. The strange case began in June when police in Casselberry charged Sarah Markham with neglect and took away 2-week-old Caleb. The charges came after a pediatrician diagnosed Caleb as dehydrated and underweight, and told Markham to take him to the hospital immediately, recounts WKMG. Instead, Markham bought soy formula to supplement her breast milk. When she didn't show up at the hospital, police came to her house, and she told them she wanted a second doctor's opinion and stressed that she did not want her son getting formula from animal products. Today, a Seminole County judge granted her custody again with the provision that she provide a nutritionist's report in 10 days. "There's no case, there's no abuse, there's no neglect—there's simply a doctor who has been challenged by a mother, and he didn't like it," says Caleb's grandfather, Bo Markham. The child has been with his grandparents since he was taken out of his mother's care, and now weighs about 17 pounds. "He's still on a soy formula," says Bo Markham. The criminal neglect charges are still pending, though Sarah Markham's attorney—Mark O'Mara, who defended George Zimmerman—says he expects they will be dismissed now. (PETA wants an Indiana sheriff to feed an alleged cannibal a vegan diet.)


News article:

Two months after United Airlines launched a bug-bounty program to reward researchers who report flaws in the company’s web site and apps, a researcher has received 1 million air miles in the first reward given.

 After submitting information to United about a remote-code execution flaw in the airline’s web site, Jordan Wiens was awarded his mileage last week. It was the first time Wiens, owner of the Florida-based security firm Vector 35, had submitted to a bug-bounty program.

 United is the first airline to launch a bug bounty program. The company announced the program in May, after receiving harsh criticism for banning a security researcher from one of its flights.

 United offers bounty submitters only air miles as a payout, rather than cash, as most vendor bug bounty programs do. The amounts paid by other bounty programs can vary between $500 and $250,000. The cash value of the 1 million miles Wiens received is about $25,000.

 The miles United will pay out depend on the type of bug reported. The airline will award 50,000 miles for cross-site scripting bugs, for example. An authentication bypass bug can earn 250,000. But remote-code execution flaws—which allow an attacker to remotely run whatever malicious code they want on a vulnerable web site or system—earns the top payout.

 “There were actually two bugs that I submitted that I were pretty sure were remote code execution, but I also thought they were lame and wasn’t sure if they were on parts of the infrastructure that qualified,” Wiens told the ThreatPost security blog. “My expectation was that they counted, but I figured they’d award me 50,000 miles or something smaller.”

 Instead, after confirming he was a US citizen and that his research was done in the US, United told him to check his mileage account, where he discovered the massive deposit. ||||| Jordan Wiens is boasting that he earned 1,000,000 airline miles without ever leaving the ground.

 Wiens, a Melbourne computer security analyst, says United Airlines awarded him the seven-figure bounty for locating a bug in its website.

 United issued an unusual call to ethical hackers a few months ago. The carrier said the so-called “bug bounty” is a first for the airline industry.

 “If you think you have discovered a potential security bug that affects our websites, apps and/or online portals, please let us know,” the site reads. “If the submission meets our requirements, we’ll gladly reward you for your time and effort."

 The maximum payout is 1,000,000 miles.

 ABOUT THE BUG BOUNTY: http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/Contact/bugbounty.aspx

 Wiens says he poked through United’s online systems for about six hours recently to find a flaw. He says he thought the vulnerability was important, but not worthy of so many miles.

 “I did not expect to qualify for a full million,” he said.

 Wiens posted a picture on Twitter showing two deposits from United that arrived on Friday. One deposit was 999,999 plus another for one mile. Together, it’s a huge 1,000,000 mile windfall.

 What flaw did Wiens discover? He can’t say.

 One million miles will travel quite far. Based on our read of the United Airlines MileagePlus award chart, it’s enough for:

 COACH

 40 round trips in the U.S. and Canada (except Hawaii)

 16 round trips to Europe

 12 round trips to Australia

 BUSINESS/FIRST CLASS

 20 round trips in the U.S. and Canada (except Hawaii)

 8 round trips to Europe

 7 round trips to Australia

 Wiens said he plans to use the miles for coach class trips for his family, though he is considering one splurge in the ‘premium’ cabin.

 “I have been telling the wife for awhile that I am going to take her to Hawaii,” he said. But that’s probably not going to cut it anymore. “She’s like, ‘you’ve got to do better than Hawaii.’”

 Wiens said 'bug bounties' are common in the tech world. He saluted a mainstream company like United for hosting the ongoing contest.

 “I have to give kudos to United for doing it,” he said. ||||| Poking about a United Airlines online property might not seem to be the wisest course of action for a professional hacker given the fallout over the Chris Roberts saga, but Jordan Wiens insists he wasn’t deterred.

 Wiens, who founded a security company in Florida called Vector 35 and not too long ago worked for a government contractor, submitted what he thought were a couple of “lame” bugs to United’s two-month-old bug bounty program—his first commercial bounty submission. The payoff was anything but weak.

 Last Friday, Wiens was awarded one million miles for a remote code execution vulnerability, United’s highest payout and the first of its kind; United’s bug bounty is the first for a major airline.

 Wow! @united really paid out! Got a million miles for my bug bounty submissions! Very cool. pic.twitter.com/CEclmhmyUq — Jordan Wiens (@psifertex) July 10, 2015

 United’s bounty was announced shortly after the incident with Roberts, who tweeted during a flight that he had access to the aircraft’s in-flight entertainment system. Roberts was questioned by the FBI, who allegedly said Roberts told investigators he took control of the airplane and caused it to climb and turn.

 Wiens, who is bound by the rules of the bounty not to share details on the vulnerability he found, said he wasn’t particularly worried about the ramifications of the Roberts incident on his work.

 “[United] put out the bounty, which means they clearly want help,” Wiens said. “I didn’t have to test for the remote code execution bugs. I was passively poking the site and being careful about how much I was tampering. There wasn’t a whole lot of aggressive testing that I had to do. I knew I was in the clear.”

 Remote code execution bugs are one of 10 bug classes eligible for bounties under United’s program; others include authentication bypass vulnerabilities, vulnerabilities on customer-facing websites and the United mobile app, cross-site request forgery, cross-site scripting, information disclosure, timing and brute-force attacks. Bugs on internal sites, partner sites and apps, on-board Wi-Fi, entertainment and avionics systems are out of scope.

 United offers bounty winners only miles as a payout, with 50,00 awarded for XSS and CSRF bugs, 250,000 for authentication bypass, brute force attacks, PII disclosures and timing attacks, and one million miles for remote code execution bugs.

 “There were actually two bugs that I submitted that I were pretty sure were remote code execution, but I also thought they were lame and wasn’t sure if they were on parts of the infrastructure that qualified,” Wiens said. “My expectation was that they counted, but I figured they’d award me 50,000 miles or something smaller.”

 Instead, he got a message from United asking him to confirm his U.S. citizenship and whether the research was done on U.S. soil.

 “I was hoping this wasn’t a honeypot,” Wiens joked. “Two hours later, I got a message to check my account that I had gotten my million miles.

 “Give [United] credit,” he said. “Not a lot of companies that are not tech companies have a bug bounty program.”

 Wiens said he’s done a number of permutations on what one million miles are worth and what he can do with them. As for monetary value, it’s around $25,000, which is a better payout than most commercial bug bounties. Wiens figures he has a number of options that range from using most of the miles on a first-class around-the-world trip to breaking them down to 40 domestic round-trip flights.

 In the meantime, Wiens said he won’t disclose any details that would put the winnings in jeopardy.

 “The best details I can share is that it was a remote code execution bug, and I didn’t have to test it to know it was remote code execution,” Wiens said, adding that it took him about six hours of work. “Finding the right domain and area to poke at was the interesting part.

 “I never submit to bounties,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of vulnerability research, but always on my own, never public bug bounties before. I’ve never done commercial web app stuff before.” ||||| Current Location within United.com Skip Navigation Links Home

 Contact us

 Bug Bounty Program You are here. United Airlines bug bounty program At United, we take your safety, security and privacy seriously. We utilize best practices and are confident that our systems are secure. We are committed to protecting our customers' privacy and the personal data we receive from them, which is why we are offering a bug bounty program — the first of its kind within the airline industry. We believe that this program will further bolster our security and allow us to continue to provide excellent service. If you think you have discovered a potential security bug that affects our websites, apps and/or online portals, please let us know. If the submission meets our requirements, we'll gladly reward you for your time and effort. Before reporting a security bug, please review the "United Terms." By participating in the bug bounty program, you agree to comply with these terms. What is a bug bounty program? A bug bounty program permits independent researchers to discover and report security issues that affect the confidentiality, integrity and/or availability of customer or company information and rewards them for being the first to discover a bug. Eligibility requirements To ensure that submissions and payouts are fair and relevant, the following eligibility requirements and guidelines apply to all researchers submitting bug reports: All bugs must be new discoveries. Award miles will be provided only to the first researcher who submits a particular security bug.

 The researcher must be a MileagePlus member in good standing. If you're not yet a member, join the MileagePlus program now.

 The researcher must not reside in a country currently on a United States sanctions list.

 The researcher submitting the bug must not be a current or former employee of United Airlines, any Star Alliance™ member airline or any other partner airline, or a family member or household member of an employee of United Airlines or any partner airline.

 The researcher submitting the bug must not be the author of the vulnerable code. Bugs that are eligible for submission: Authentication bypass

 Bugs on United-operated, customer-facing applications such as: united.com mobile.united.com mystatus.united.com smartphone.continental.com wechat.united.com

 Bugs on the United app

 Bugs in third-party assets loaded by United-operated, customer-facing applications

 Cross-site request forgery

 Cross-site scripting (XSS)

 Potential for information disclosure

 Remote code execution

 Timing attacks that prove the existence of a private repository, user or reservation

 The ability to enumerate reservations, MileagePlus numbers, PINs or passwords (Note: Please do not attempt brute-force attacks on our systems. Report the potential bug and we will verify its validity.) Bugs that are not eligible for submission: Bugs that only affect legacy or unsupported browsers, plugins or operating systems

 Bugs on internal sites for United employees or agents (not customer-facing)

 Bugs on applications that are not operated by United, such as: cruises.united.com hotels.united.com hub.united.com unitedmileageplus.com vacations.united.com

 Bugs on onboard Wi-Fi, entertainment systems or avionics

 Insecure cookie settings for non-sensitive cookies

 Previously submitted bugs

 Self-cross-site scripting

 Vulnerabilities that apply only to you or your own account

 Web server banner disclosure issues Do not attempt: Attempting any of the following will result in permanent disqualification from the bug bounty program and possible criminal and/or legal investigation. We do not allow any actions that could negatively impact the experience on our websites, apps or online portals for other United customers. Brute-force attacks

 Code injection on live systems

 Disruption or denial-of-service attacks

 The compromise or testing of MileagePlus accounts that are not your own

 Any testing on aircraft or aircraft systems such as inflight entertainment or inflight Wi-Fi

 Any threats, attempts at coercion or extortion of United employees, Star Alliance member airline employees, other partner airline employees, or customers

 Physical attacks against United employees, Star Alliance member airline employees, other partner airline employees, or customers

 Vulnerability scans or automated scans on United servers (including scans using tools such as Acunetix, Core Impact or Nessus) Bounties If you have discovered a security bug that meets the requirements, and you're the first eligible researcher to report it, we will gladly reward you for your efforts. Below is our bounty payout structure, which is based on the severity and impact of bugs. Bug Bounty payout structure Severity Examples Maximum payout in award miles High Remote code execution 1,000,000 Medium Authentication bypass

 Brute-force attacks

 Potential for personally identifiable information (PII) disclosure

 Timing attacks 250,000 Low Cross-site scripting

 Cross-site request forgery

 Third-party security bugs that affect United 50,000 Submissions If you think you have discovered an eligible security bug, we would love to work with you to resolve it. Please email us at bugbounty@united.com and include " Bug Bounty Submission " in the subject line.

 " in the subject line. Within the body of the email, please describe the nature of the bug along with any steps required to replicate it, as well as pertinent applications, programs or tools used to discover the bug and the date and time testing took place.

 Include your legal name, MileagePlus number, phone number and IP address at time of testing with your submission.

 A drafted report including legible screenshots is greatly appreciated. Please feel free to reach out to us at bugbounty@united.com with any questions regarding the bug bounty program. We receive a lot of submissions through this program, so we may not be able to reply to your email right away, but we'll respond as soon as possible. We look forward to hearing from you. Terms and conditions The United Terms govern your participation in the Program and it is your responsibility to read and understand all of them. The Program is offered at the discretion of United Airlines and its affiliates, and United has the right to terminate or modify the Program, program rules, procedures, benefits or conditions of participation, in whole or in part, at any time, with or without notice ("Program Rules"). The Program Rules supplement the united.com Terms and Conditions and Legal Notices, the United Privacy Policy and the MileagePlus Program Rules (collectively with the Program Rules, the "United Terms").

 By participating, you agree to comply with the United Terms.

 The Program is not a game or competition, but rather an experimental and discretionary reward program. Offer is valid for qualified "Bugs" submitted on or after May 11, 2015. We may cancel the Program at any time and the decision as to whether or not to pay award miles is entirely within United's discretion.

 The United "Bug Bounty" offer is open only to United MileagePlus members who are 14 years of age or older at time of submission. Offer is void where prohibited and subject to all laws. Current or former employees, officers and directors (and their respective immediate family members (spouse, parents, siblings, children) or household members (whether or not related)) of United Airlines, Inc. or its parent(s), subsidiaries, affiliated companies, agents, or contractors, and anyone who participates in the administration of the Bug Bounty program are not eligible.

 Bugs must be submitted to bugbounty@united.com and include the researcher's legal name, MileagePlus number and phone number as well as a thorough description of the Bug and supporting evidence.

 Bugs must be new discoveries. Award miles will be provided only to the first eligible researcher to submit a particular Bug.

 In event of disclosure of PII other than your own test account, please cease the affecting activity and document steps to replicate as soon as possible.

 The researcher submitting the Bug must not be the author of the vulnerable code.

 Bugs or potential Bugs you discover may not at any time be disclosed publicly or to a third-party. Doing so will disqualify you from receiving award miles.

 You must not knowingly or intentionally access or acquire the personal information of any United customer or member. In the event it is determined you knowingly or intentionally accessed the personal information of any United customer or member, you will become immediately ineligible to participate in this Program. In the event you inadvertently access or acquire the personal information of any United customer or member, you must immediately cease all activity.

 Award miles may be earned once for each qualifying Bug submitted. You can earn award miles an unlimited number of times in accordance with these terms and conditions.

 Please note that mileage payouts are subject to the taxes of your country of residence and citizenship at a rate of 2% per mile added to your annual earnings. You are responsible for any tax implications. If you’d prefer to donate your miles to charity, let us know.

 United will provide a payout for each qualifying Bug once it has been remediated. Our desired timeframe to remediate each valid submission is within 90 days following the confirmation of each qualifying Bug.

 Neither your Participation in the Program nor anything contained in the United Terms shall be construed as creating or implying a joint venture, partnership, agency or employment relationship between you and United or its affiliates.

 Information you receive or collect about United or its affiliates or members through the Program, whether in oral, visual, written or electronic format, may be deemed proprietary and confidential ("Confidential Information"). For purposes of the Program, information and/or material shall be deemed "Confidential Information" if such information and/or material is otherwise not generally available to the public, or given the nature of the information or material, a reasonable person would consider such information and/or material "confidential" or "proprietary."

 Confidential Information must be kept confidential and only used in connection with the Program. You may not use, disclose or distribute any such Confidential Information without United's prior written consent.

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– A security researcher has earned the equivalent of a first-class, round-the-world trip after he submitted what he thought were a couple of "lame" bugs to United's new bug bounty program. In an industry first, United announced a bounty in May that rewards miles to anyone who identifies a bug on its website. There are 10 bug classes eligible: Cross-site scripting bugs, for example, are worth 50,000 miles, while authentication bypass bugs earn 250,000. While "passively poking the site," Jordan Wiens, founder of a Florida security company, says he found what he thought were two remote code execution bugs, which allow a hacker to run their own potentially dangerous code on a site. "I also thought they were lame and wasn't sure if they were on parts of the infrastructure that qualified," he tells Threatpost. "I figured they'd award me 50,000 miles or something smaller." It turns out RCE bugs earn the highest payout: a maximum 1 million miles. After making his submission to United—his first to a bounty program, he says—Wiens got an email asking for confirmation that he was a US citizen and that his six hours of research was completed in the US. "Two hours later, I got a message to check my account that I had gotten my million miles," he says. Wiens, who can't share details of the bug, says the miles are worth $25,000 and could take him on a first-class trip around the world or on 40 domestic round-trip flights in coach. His plan is to use the miles on coach trips for his family, plus one luxurious flight with his wife, he tells Fox 13. Wired reports Wiens' award is the program's first major payout. Other security researchers have since shared their awards on Twitter. One says he nabbed 500,000 miles. (Speaking of planes, a "horrible" and "evil" new seat design has been revealed.)


RACELAND, La. – A fugitive who had been evading capture since 2013 was arrested over the weekend after he flagged down a Louisiana deputy for a ride, according to WGNO-TV.

 Police had been looking for 30-year-old Jansen Simon since he allegedly struck another man in the head with a hammer during a bar fight in Cut Off, Louisiana, on August 3, 2013, according to the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office.

 In addition to the arrest warrant stemming from that incident, two additional contempt of court warrants from the same time period were also active when Simon flagged down a deputy in a marked police car in the early morning hours of July 16, according to the LPSO.

 Simon was walking alongside Highway 182 in Raceland when he stopped the deputy, who was off duty and heading home. Simon told the officer that he was travelling with friends when they left him by the side of the road, according to the sheriff’s department.

 The officer verified Simon’s identity, as is protocol with any stranded person deputies offer a ride to, and promptly arrested him.

 “It’s not clear whether he knew he was flagging down a deputy,” said LPSO Public Information Officer Brennan Matherne. “Although it was a fully marked patrol car it was also 1:30 in the morning.”

 Simon was booked into the Lafourche Parish Detention Center in Thibodaux where he was booked for one count of Aggravated Second Degree Battery and two counts of Contempt of Court, according to the LPSO.

 He is being held without bond. ||||| RACELAND, La. (AP) — A fugitive who authorities say evaded capture since 2013 has been arrested after he flagged down a deputy in Louisiana.

 The Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office said in a news release that 30-year-old Jansen Simon was walking down Louisiana Highway 182 on Sunday when he flagged down a deputy. Simon told the deputy he was traveling with his friends, but they had left him on the side of the road.

 News outlets report the officer verified Simon's identity and took him into custody. In 2013, authorities say Simon struck another man with a hammer during an argument outside a bar. The man suffered a fractured skull.

 Simon was charged with aggravated second-degree battery and two counts of contempt of court.

 It's unclear if Simon has a lawyer. |||||

Write a summary.

– It's a gimme: A fugitive who authorities say evaded capture since 2013 has been arrested after he flagged down a deputy in Louisiana looking for a ride. The Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office says 30-year-old Jansen Simon was walking down Louisiana Highway 182 on Sunday when he flagged down the officer, per the AP. Simon told the deputy he was traveling with his friends, but they had left him on the side of the road. News outlets report the officer verified Simon's identity and took him into custody. In 2013, authorities say Simon struck another man with a hammer during an argument outside a bar, resulting in a fractured skull. "It’s not clear whether he knew he was flagging down a deputy," says LPSO Public Information Officer Brennan Matherne, per Fox2Now. "Although it was a fully marked patrol car it was also 1:30 in the morning." Simon faces charges of aggravated second-degree battery and two counts of contempt of court.


Until now, researchers believed great apes did not have the capacity to understand people's intent (AFP Photo/GUILLAUME SOUVANT)

 Miami (AFP) - Orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos are the nearest relatives of humans in the primate world, and like us, they can tell when a person is wrong in their beliefs, researchers said Wednesday.

 Great apes were also willing to help a person who was mistaken about the location of an object, according to the study in the journal PLOS ONE.

 "This study shows for the first time that great apes can use an understanding of false beliefs to help others appropriately," said by David Buttelmann from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany.

 Researchers used a test developed for human babies, about 18 months of age, to determine if they could understand when a person held a false belief -- a mark of advanced social cognition.

 A person would place an object on one of two boxes, while a great ape looked on.

 For some of the tests, the original person would step away, while another person took the object out of the box and put it into another box.

 When the original person came back, they tried to open the first box, where they believed the object to be, not realizing it had been moved.

 This was known as the "false-belief" portion of the study. For other parts, the person stayed in the room and could see when the object was moved.

 A total of 34 great apes -- chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans -- took part in the research at the Leipzig Zoo in Germany.

 In the false belief portion, the apes chose the correct box significantly more often than chance.

 Researchers also discovered that great apes, like human infants, "were more likely to help the person find the object when he had a false belief about which box the object was in," said the report.

 Until now, researchers believed great apes did not have this capacity to understand the intent of people, or to "read minds," so to speak.

 "Apes are able to use this understanding in their social interactions," concluded the study.

 "If supported by further research, the apparent difference between great ape and human social cognition would thus lie not in their basic capacity to 'read' other minds, but elsewhere." ||||| A total of 34 great apes participated in this study: twenty-three chimpanzees (mean age = 20 years, 3 months; range = 5 years, 6 months to 48 years, 0 months; 16 females, seven males), five bonobos (mean age = 18 years, 11 months; range = 9 years, 0 months to 31 years, 2 months; three females, two males), and six orangutans (mean age = 19 years, 3 months; range = 4 years, 8 months to 33 years, 5 months; five females, one male). Twenty of these apes also participated in the Krupenye et al. [ 18 ] study, but the current studies were conducted before that one. The apes were housed in social groups at the Leipzig Zoo, Germany. Six additional chimpanzees (five females, one male) and two bonobos (both females) participated in the initial training but had to be dropped from the study because they failed the training criterion (see description below). One additional bonobo (male) was trained but had to be dropped because he could not be separated from the group for testing.

 The apes were housed socially, separated by species, in groups of at least six individuals at the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center (WKPRC) in the Leipzig Zoo, Germany. Each group of apes has access to an indoor area (between 230 and 430 m 2 ) and an outdoor area (between 1680 and 4000 m 2 ) furnished with various climbing structures, shelter and natural vegetation. At night, the apes sleep in several series of cages (between 40 and 50 m 2 ). In addition to experiments, the apes are provided with a special enrichment program, including various kinds of tools and foraging containers. Several times per day, the apes are fed a diet consisting primarily of vegetables, fruits, and cereals, with regular additions of eggs and meat (depending on the species). Test sessions took place in the participants’ sleeping enclosure (see above for sizes). The participants were used to being separated in adjacent enclosures from their group members for testing. They were not food deprived for testing, and water was available throughout all test periods. They were not distressed and were free to stop participating at any time. No animals were sacrificed, and German law on animal rights and ASAB/ABS guidelines [ 20 ] were followed throughout. An internal WKPRC ethics committee, consisting of Zoo Leipzig personnel and MPI-EVA academic research staff, approved the studies. IRB approval was not necessary because Germany requires no special permission for the use of animals in purely behavioral or observational studies (TierSchGes §7 and §8).

 Right before the response phase, the experimenter tries to open the box which he believes contains his object (false-belief condition) or which he knows is empty (true-belief condition). In both conditions this is the same empty box; all that differs is the experimenter’s belief about what is in it.

 Materials for this study were two plastic boxes (30 x 22.5 x 20 cm, one yellow, one blue; otherwise identical), each with a hinged lid, a handle on top, and a plexiglass front. The lids of the boxes could be locked and unlocked by moving a bolt horizontally on the front, see S1 Fig . When the lid was open, the locking mechanism was not visible from the top because it was covered (so the experimenter could not see it during the test). Both boxes were put on sliding tables opposite each other which were attached to the outside of participants’ enclosure, so that they could be moved into and out of the participants’ reach, see Fig 1 . The plexiglass front was visible to participants when they moved to either side of the testing booth during the response period (i.e., not, in contrast, while being centered right before test, as in Fig 1 ) whereas the assistant and the experimenter could only see the top and the back side of the boxes, and thus not their contents. In one type of training trials (Training on empty boxes) these boxes were empty. In the other type of training trials (Training on boxes containing an object) a bunch of four keys was put into the boxes. At test, instead of the keys a novel object (a small orange box, 10cm x 7cm x 7cm, filled with stones that made noise when shaken) was put into the boxes.

 Design and procedure.

 Apes participated in three rounds of testing, each of which consisted of training on empty boxes, training on boxes containing an object, and two test trials. The delay between the training on empty boxes and the training on boxes containing an object was one to four weeks in each round. The two test trials were run on two consecutive days immediately after the training on boxes containing an object. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (see below) for all test trials (between-subjects design, n = 17 for each condition). The physical set-up was identical in all training and test trials (except for the object that was placed in the boxes). The training trials were identical for all participants independent of condition.

 Training on empty boxes. These training trials were conducted to make sure that the participants were able and motivated to unlock empty boxes. At the beginning both boxes were empty and unlocked. The assistant sat on a stool centered behind the two boxes and called participants by name. While they watched, she first opened the lid of the box on the left. She then closed the lid and locked it by moving the bolt horizontally. To demonstrate that the box was locked she pulled on the handle on top of the lid (three short pulls) and subsequently pushed the box into participants’ reach. Participants could unlock the box by moving the bolt in the other direction. When participants unlocked the box, the assistant pulled back the box, opened the lid, and made a pleasant vocalisation (“Mm hm”). Participants were given a grape from the assistant’s chest pocket and the trial was over. This procedure was repeated four times for a total of five training trials on this box. The assistant then repeated the same procedure with the box on the right.

 In the rare case that participants did not unlock the box within 10 seconds, the assistant pulled the box out of participants’ reach, pulled the handle again (three short pulls), and pushed the box back into participants’ reach. If necessary, this was repeated two more times, each after 10 seconds. If participants did not unlock the box in any of these four attempts the assistant pulled back the box, unlocked it, and opened the lid with a neutral face, and this training trial ended. The assistant then proceeded with the next training trial. In order to pass this training session, participants needed to unlock a box at least once in the ten training trials; otherwise they were excluded from the study.

 Training on boxes containing an object. The procedure of these training trials was similar to that of the training on empty boxes except that the assistant now put a bunch of keys into the box each time before she closed the lid. After participants unlocked the box, she opened the lid, took the keys out, made a pleasant vocalisation (“Mm hm”), gave participants a grape, and proceeded with the next trial. Participants received three consecutive trials on each side. After this training all participants had unlocked a maximum of ten empty boxes and six boxes that contained an object (and a minimum of one each).

 Test. The basic procedure of the test followed that of Buttelmann, Carpenter, and Tomasello [15] with human infants. First, participants received two more training trials with boxes containing an object on each side, as in the Buttelmann et al. study (and to give them an equal number of training trials with and without objects in the box). After this, the assistant ensured that both boxes were unlocked and left the scene (i.e., went back behind the stool and turned her back). The experimenter (E) entered the room, sat down centered behind the two boxes (with the side of the yellow box counterbalanced across participants), and showed the novel object (the small orange box) to participants. E played with it for a little while to ensure that the object was equally enhanced for all participants. Then E opened the lid of one box (counterbalanced), put the object into it, said and waved goodbye to the participants and the assistant, and left the room. For all of these actions, E commented to himself about what he was doing to keep the procedure similar to the original test with human infants. What followed differed between conditions:

 In the true-belief condition the assistant returned and stood centered behind the two boxes. E also returned and stood behind the assistant so that he could witness what happened next. The assistant called both participants and E by their names and commented on all of her subsequent actions. She opened the lid of the box that contained the object, took it out of the box, closed the lid, and locked the box. Then she opened the lid of the other box, put the object in, closed the lid, and locked that box. E expressed that he was paying attention to the whole process by saying “Aha” whenever a lid was lifted and the object was taken out of or put into a box. He always turned his back when the assistant locked a box so that later, at test, it would be plausible that he did not know how a locked box could be unlocked. After that the assistant centered participants with food (e.g., raisins, grapes, or food pellets) and left the scene.

 The procedure of the false-belief condition was similar to that of the true-belief condition with the exception that E stayed outside until the assistant had transferred the object to the other box and, therefore, did not witness the switch. In this condition, the assistant behaved “sneakily,” and looked furtively at the door to the room whenever a lid was opened and the object was taken out of or put into a box to ensure that E was not watching. Then the assistant centered participants, E re-entered the room, and the assistant left the scene. In both conditions the assistant ensured that participants witnessed her actions throughout the procedure and paused if participants became distracted.

 What followed was identical in both conditions: E stood behind the empty box (the one he had originally put the object in) and unsuccessfully tried to open it by pulling the handle (three short pulls), showing effort. He then showed a helpless gesture (i.e., raised his shoulders, held up both hands, palms up, made an uncertain facial expression, and said uncertainly, ‘‘Hm”), still leaning towards the empty box. He then sat down on the stool, called participants by name (“[Name], look!”), pushed both boxes into participants’ reach simultaneously, and bent his head down, centered between the two boxes, so that he could not inadvertently provide any gaze or facial cues for participants. As soon as the boxes were in participants’ reach, it was their turn to unlock a box. If participants unlocked a box, E pulled back both boxes, opened the lid of the box participants had unlocked, and looked into it, saying something like “That is how the box opens” or “Oh, the object is in here now.” He then left the room without ever touching the object in the box. Finally, independent of which box was unlocked by participants, the assistant returned and rewarded them with a grape from her pocket in the center. Participants received another two training trials and another test trial on the following day. Since the whole training and testing procedure was repeated twice, participants received three rounds of testing, each consisting of the training sessions and two days of testing (i.e., each with two training trials and a test trial), for a total of six test trials.

 During test trials, in order to ensure that participants 1) watched E’s attempt to open a box and 2) started in their choice of which box to unlock from a centered position, we required that they be centered whenever E was pulling on the handle of the empty box and when he pushed both boxes into participants’ reach. If participants left the center area after the pulling, E stopped and stepped back. Participants were re-centered by the assistant, and E pulled the handle again. If participants did not choose a box within ten seconds, E pulled back the boxes, looked at the participants and called them by name, showed the helpless gesture, and pushed both boxes back into the participants’ reach. This was repeated each time ten seconds passed without a choice by participants for a maximum of seven such ten-second periods. In the rare cases that participants did not choose at all, the trial was counted as “no choice” (blank, see S1 Table). If participants chose a box (i.e., they touched the bolt) but did not successfully unlock the lid, E pulled both boxes back and tried to open the chosen box. Since the box was still locked (e.g., the bolt was not moved far enough by the participants), E showed the helpless gesture again, looking at the participants, and pushed the boxes back into the participants’ reach to give them another chance to be successful. Importantly, E did not look at either box after he had pulled the handle of the empty box until the trial was over. The only exception was when participants chose a box without successfully unlocking it, and E subsequently tried to open it (see above). Note that at this point of the response period participants had already chosen a box by touching the locking mechanism, which was the main measure (as in Buttelmann et al.’s [15] study).

 The response period, starting from when E first pulled on the box, was 90 seconds (as in [15]). During this time, participants chose a box in 88.2% of the trials. If participants could not be centered at all and E could not pull on the empty box the trial was stopped after 3.5 minutes and re-conducted either later on the same day or the next day. If centering was also impossible during the second attempt or if the second attempt was not possible because of the testing schedule (i.e., no more testing time was available for that round) the trial was counted as “no choice” (blank).

 We coded which box participants touched first. The touch had to be directed at the locking mechanism, and participants did not need to unlock it, although they did do this in most cases. Thus, only first response data for each trial were analyzed. To assess inter-rater reliability, a naïve coder independently coded 100% of trials blind to condition. Perfect agreement was achieved, Cohen’s Kappa = 1.00. All p values reported are two-tailed. ||||| Great apes may be even more like us than we thought. We already knew that they can understand someone else’s goals, intentions and desires. However, scientists have long believed that they lack the capacity for understanding what others believe — a mark of advanced social cognition thought to separate people from great apes. But now new research overturns this belief.

 “Social cognition is the sum of cognitive abilities necessary to survive in a social world,” says David Buttelmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. “Whenever individuals interact, they need to understand the gestures, motivations, feelings, intentions, and beliefs of their partners.”

 Using a test developed for human infants, Buttelmann and his colleagues assessed whether chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans could understand whether someone else’s beliefs were true or false. The researchers recently reported their findings in PLOS ONE.

 First a person put an object in one of two boxes. Then a second person switched the object to the other box and locked both boxes.

 For the “true belief” test, the first person watched the switch — so he knew where the object was and thus had a true belief.

 For the “false belief” test, however, he left the room during the switch — so while he thought he knew where the object was, he was mistaken and thus had a false belief.

 In both cases, the person then tried to open the box where he had originally put the object. And the apes, who knew how to unlock the boxes, could decide which one to open.

 The researchers found that, like human infants, great apes were more likely to help the person find the object when he had a false belief about where it was. This suggests the apes used their understanding of his beliefs about reality to decide whether to help him.

 Buttelmann says great apes enjoy the beliefs test, which is voluntary; “They only play with us if they are in the mood, so we have to present them with interesting games.”

 Now he wants to extend this work to other animals. “I would love to develop interactive false-belief tests for other species,” Buttelmann says. “This way we will be able to track the development of our own mind and understand, at some point, what made us uniquely human.”

 Research Article: Buttelmann D, Buttelmann F, Carpenter M, Call J, Tomasello M (2017) Great apes distinguish true from false beliefs in an interactive helping task. PLoS ONE 12(4): e0173793. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173793

 Image Credit: Buttelmann et al (2017) |||||

Write a summary.

– Now even the great apes are getting in on debunking "fake news"—or, to be more specific, fake beliefs. German researchers have found that the primates can tell when a human is wrong about something, and can even help to remedy the situation, which in this case was assisting a human in finding an object mistakenly believed to be in one location but actually in another, AFP reports. The study published in the PLoS One journal, which revamped a test usually administered to 18-month-old human babies, sought to see if the 34 chimps, bonobos, and orangutans at Germany's Leipzig Zoo could understand if a human was harboring a false belief, believed to be a sign of advanced social cognition apes weren't previously believed to possess. A press release lays out the experiment, which involved the apes watching while Person A put an object under one of two boxes, then either stayed in the room and watched (the "true belief" part of the experiment) or left the room (the "false belief" part) while a second person then moved the object to the second box. In both cases, Person A then went to the original box to try to open it, ostensibly not knowing in the false-belief cases the object had been moved—and in those false-belief cases, the apes, who'd been observing the whole thing and had been trained to unlock the boxes, tried more often than would be attributed to chance to guide the humans to where the object really was. These results are said to be the first to show that apes can use this "mind-reading" and apply it to their social interactions, the researchers write. (An animal expert says it's moral to keep apes in a zoo.)