Microsoft’s new version of Windows is fantastic, jarring, and risky at the same time. Fantastic because it marks the clearest sign yet that Microsoft is embracing the future, shifting from the device that defined the company—the personal computer—to the new era of mobile machines. Windows 8, which is being released on Wednesday as an unfinished “consumer preview” (download yours here!), is an excellent touchscreen operating system. A few days ago Microsoft loaned me a prototype Samsung tablet running the new OS, and I’ve found the interface to be just as good as—and in some ways even better than—the iPad’s OS. If hardware companies begin making decent tablets to run Windows 8, the new operating system could make for the first worthy rival to Apple’s unstoppable machine.

 What’s jarring, though, is Windows 8’s split personality. While it is optimized for touchscreens, the new OS is also meant to run on the billions of laptops and desktops that have long been Microsoft’s bread and butter. The company has tried to make the system work in both places by giving Windows two completely different interfaces that you can use side by side. First, there’s the Windows you grew up with, called the Desktop in Windows 8. In the Desktop, Windows lives up to its name—all your programs run in windows that you can position anywhere on your screen. When you run any program designed for today’s Windows in the new OS, it will show up in the Desktop interface.

 But the Desktop isn’t how Windows 8 greets you. When you turn a Windows 8 PC on for the first time, you’ll see a Start page that’s composed of a series of brightly colored program tiles. These tiles are the gateway to Windows’ new interface, known as Metro, which was inspired by Microsoft’s wonderful Windows Phone. I found the Metro interface easy to get the hang of, and for the most part I enjoyed using it. But make no mistake: Metro is the most radical transformation in Windows’ history, an interface so novel that I’ll likely need a few weeks to feel comfortable with it. I bet this will be true for many people, especially those of us who’ll be using it on a big-screen PC rather than a tablet (meaning almost everyone). Hence the risk: Metro may represent a much-needed upgrade to an aging OS, but will Windows’ adherents consider it too much change, too fast?

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 The new interface offers several advantages over the traditional Windows model that will prove especially useful for touchscreen devices. As with Apple’s tablet, you won’t be able to download Metro programs from just anywhere on the Web—a change that’s certain to flummox longtime Windows users. The new interface can only run specially designed apps, which are only available through Microsoft’s built-in Windows Store. By limiting apps to those you download from a centralized store, and by strictly governing the level of access that those apps get to your computer’s resources, programs will be easier to install and malware will become less pervasive. (You can still download traditional Windows programs, though they’ll run in the Desktop view.)

 Metro also disposes with windows. Yes, really. By default, all Metro programs take up the full screen. And the maximum number of Metro programs you can display on your screen at the same time is two—and even then, one window occupies almost the full screen, with the second program squeezed to a narrow band on the side. In the shot below, for instance, I’ve got a PDF displayed on the right side while the Finance app is scrunched on the left.

 It’s not quite right to say that Windows 8 kills windows, because as Microsoft takes pains to point out, most Windows 8 machines will still be able to run every Windows program ever written. (The exception will be a new breed of Windows tablets that use mobile-friendly ARM processors—those will be able to run all Metro apps, but very few traditional programs.) Still, it’s clear that Microsoft believes Metro is the future of Windows. You get the sense that the company is keeping the Desktop interface around in the same way that it included a command prompt in Windows 95—as a way to keep the old guard placated until they adjusted to the new way of doing things.

 Is getting rid of windows so bad for Windows? It depends. On a touchscreen, the Metro interface is just about perfect. Although I sometimes noticed a few hiccups in performance—sometimes my swipe gestures didn’t work and sometimes scrolling and switching between apps was jerky—I chalked those up to the imperfect hardware and the fact that the OS is still in beta mode. Still, I noticed several design advances over Apple’s mobile OS. Windows 8 allows you to switch between applications with a single swipe from the edge of the screen. Apple recently added a four-finger swipe to let you switch between apps on the iPad, but I find that two-step move more cumbersome than the Windows 8 app-switching gesture.*

 I also like how Windows 8 displays one skinny app and one wide app on the screen at the same time. That’s another improvement on the iPad, in which every app occupies the full screen. On Windows 8, I can keep an eye on my inbox in the small pane while I browse the Web in the large one, an extremely handy touch. Finally, I’m a big fan of “live tiles,” a feature that Windows 8 borrowed from Windows phone. The Start screen’s tiles constantly surface new information without you opening them up: The email tile shows you new messages, for example, while the calendar tile displays your upcoming appointments. It’s an advance I wish Apple would copy.

 When you run Windows 8 on a desktop computer, though, the Metro interface is tougher to bear. For a few hours on Tuesday, I plugged the Samsung tablet into my 24-inch display, attached a keyboard and mouse, and tried to write this column using Metro apps. Microsoft hasn’t put out a Metro version of Word, so instead I opened up Microsoft’s online Word app in the Metro version of Internet Explorer. It loaded perfectly, but I nevertheless had a problem: The 24-inch screen was just too large for a single word-processing task. When I write, I like to have my notes and Web browser open on the screen as well. Metro, though, wouldn’t allow me to look at all of that stuff at the same time, and I had to keep switching back and forth. I felt like I was wasting a lot of my display. ||||| The Windows 8 Consumer Preview is only just becoming available to the public, but we’ve had the opportunity to use it for a few days on a Samsung slate nearly identical to the one we sampled at the BUILD conference for developers last year. While the device we’re using is nearly the same, the operating system itself has undergone a lot of refinement since our initial report last September.

 We can’t wait to install the Consumer Preview on a wide variety of current PCs and tell you all about how well it does or does not work, as well as provide tips and tricks for those of you installing it for yourselves. We know you don’t want to wait, so we offer our initial impressions of the release based on several days with a Microsoft-provided, Samsung-built slate running the same release the public will download. There’s only one major difference: the Store is not yet functional, so these impressions are based only on the apps built into the Windows 8 Consumer Preview itself.

 Jason Cross says:

 This is definitely not the flaky, feature-light version of Windows 8 released for developers last year. It’s dramatically smoother and more responsive. Apps snap open, and flipping between them is immediate. The People and Photos hubs are there, showcasing Windows 8’s integration with multiple services like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and Flickr. Using these new apps and hubs with a touchscreen is a joy. They could all use a little polish and a few more features, though. It needs to be easier to save photos locally from Facebook or Flickr in the Photos hub, for instance. Everything is big, bright, smooth, and beautiful. I confined myself to a bluetooth keyboard and mouse for awhile, and the experience is definitely diminished.

 That’s not to say the keyboard and mouse experience is bad, mind you. I’m actually quite delighted at how well the whole Metro-style interface works with them. Microsoft has made some very welcome tweaks to accommodate the hundreds of millions of users with no touchscreen. It’s just so...new. I spent a good hour just discovering how to do things I’ve known how to do in Windows for over a decade. It’s usually a good feeling, because when I figure out how Windows 8 does something differently (like display all installed programs), I’m usually impressed by its speed and elegance. Let me say that again: I’m impressed by the speed and elegance of a Microsoft interface. Really!

 [Related: Windows 8 Consumer Preview: A Visual Tour]

 Unfortunately, I think it’s going to get rough welcome. People often don’t like change at first. Just look at the way every little tweak to the Facebook interface is received. It takes a little time, and a little trial and error, to discover where everything is, how it works, and how to get around. Then it takes a little more poking around to get really fast at it. We all know how the Internet works: there are people who will use something for two minutes (or not at all) and spend the rest of the day complaining about it on forums, comments, message boards, and social networks.

 I can sympathize. It’s unsettling to see such basic tenets of the Windows user experience shifted so dramatically. Windows 8 wants me to do a lot of things through the Metro interface that I used to do on a desktop interface, and there was some natural resistance to that at first. I only had to look for something in the wrong place once to become frustrated, and it took a little time to unlearn all I had learned since Windows 95.

 The good news is: there’s a payoff for sticking with it. It doesn’t take long, and before you know it you’re using new shortcuts and flying around the OS like an old pro. I can’t wait for the Store to launch, because much to my surprise, I find myself really valuing the Metro-style applications and they way they operate, even when using a keyboard and mouse. I want Metro apps for Spotify and Evernote, a great Twitter client and a native Facebook app. I want a Metro-style front end for Steam. I have some concerns about how well everything scales to a large monitor, but more and more, as I spent time with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, I just wanted the OS to be done and on the market already. So I suppose that’s “mission accomplished” for the folks in Redmond.

 Nate Ralph says:

 Touch has always been an interesting novelty, but I kept the slate running the Consumer Preview docked, relying on the keyboard and mouse to get around. And every so often, I found myself trying to nudge the cursor along with the spacebar, wondering where my trackpad had gone. Eventually I’d give up and use a finger to tap on the particular app I’d been trying to get to, all the while oblivious to the mouse idling beside my hands.

 That’s the right sort of disorienting. Tablets imply limitations: consider Android and iOS, operating systems explicitly designed to meld well with your hands. Grids of fixed, finger-friendly icons are all but mandatory, to ensure the user experience is a fluid one.

 Windows 8 abandons any such notions; the device melts away, and you’re left with a canvas that responds to your interactions. Gestures make sense, whatever your input preference: I slid effortlessly between dragging my finger across the screen, clicking around with the mouse, and tapping at the keyboard, depending on whatever made sense at the moment. This versatility is going to be key for users trying to make sense of the bold new interface.

 And then I remembered the stylus. Windows has offered phenomenal, native handwriting recognition since the halcyon days of XP – but good luck finding an application or device to take advantage of it. Hopefully, the push for Windows 8 tablets is going to alleviate that issue. But this is yet another facet of that uncompromising design that's driving everything about the Windows 8 experience: I typed on a keyboard when the slate was at my desk, but took the stylus to meetings and wrote notes by hand.

 Bizarre, that in light of all of the new features I reach for something as archaic as a stylus. But I’ve waited years for this – an operating system that works with me. The device is largely irrelevant – I happen to like taking notes with a pen, but use a combination of the touchscreen and a keyboard. Windows 8 leaves every option on the table, and that's fantastic.

 I’m still a little concerned about how this will translate onto larger screens – especially once the apps start to pile on. But things are shaping up nicely-- consider me smitten.

 It looks like Windows 8 is certainly going to take some getting used to. But underneath that daunting new interface are a wealth of smart decisions that go a long way towards dragging the behemoth that is Windows into the future. Perhaps most promising is the stuff we haven't looked at yet: the apps, and the way multiple Windows 8 PCs and tablets sync together. What we see here has us excited, but it doesn't have the level of polish that makes us think it's just about ready to go. Judging by the quality here, it looks likely to release this fall, though Microsoft has made no official announcement.

 If you want to see for yourself, download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and let us know what you think of it in the comments.

 Have you downloaded Windows 8 Consumer Preview? Or do you have no interest in changing to a new version of Windows? Either way, we'd like to hear your opinion. Please take PCWorld's Windows 8 Survey. It'll take five minutes or less.

 Follow Jason Cross and Nate Ralph on Twitter.

 For more blogs, stories, photos, and video about Microsoft Windows 8, check out PCWorld's complete Windows 8 coverage. ||||| I'm writing this article on a Windows 8 tablet. Thankfully, I've got a wireless keyboard and mouse as well as a dock to help the Samsung developer tablet act more like a regular PC. Microsoft made the Windows 8 Consumer Preview available this morning to everyone who wants to check it out. It was also kind enough to give Mashable a sneak peek.

 What exactly is a consumer preview? I can tell you this: It definitely means it's not ready for general release. It's been a challenge trying to separate issues that are due to the inherent bugginess of a pre-release, changes that I'm just not used to, and things that are real problems. But here goes.

 First, a little background: Windows 8 is a complete re-imagining of Windows. And it's also the same. Its schizophrenic nature is due to its two modes: the familiar (yet subtly different) desktop that we're all used to, and the Metro interface. Metro, borrowed from the Windows Phone platform, takes a hard right turn from traditional Windows: Instead of files and folders, there are touchable tiles that fire up your apps, and those apps take up the whole screen.

 That's really just scratching the surface of Metro, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. For this look at Windows 8, I'm going to focus mainly on the bigger-picture features and what's new since the initial developer release from last fall. Microsoft says that where the developer build was about emphasizing touch, with the consumer preview (Build 8250 for those scoring at home) it focused on showing how the mouse and keyboard is just as friendly to Metro.

 My first impression: Almost, but not quite.

 Metro With a Mouse & Keyboard

 Microsoft has a vision, a dream even. It wants to have the same operating system running across all its devices. It's a laudable goal, with many advantages for both Microsoft and its customers. The thing is people use different gadgets differently — you don't do all the same things on a tablet that you do on a PC, and when you do, the experience is different.

 Microsoft knows this, so Windows 8 is highly adaptable. It responds differently to touch than it does to a mouse. For example, to bring up your Settings menu with your finger, just slide in from the edge; if you have a mouse, you aim for the corner.

 Making the corners the key points when operating Windows 8 with a mouse is a good choice — they're pretty unmissable and you don't need to be precise. However, some of the subtleties in the interface appear to be poorly thought out.

 For starters, the icons don't follow standard web "mouseover" rules. Take one example: When you point toward the lower left corner, Windows 8 (either Metro or desktop) calls up the Start screen. Or rather, it calls up an icon for the Start screen, but if you hover your mouse over it, it disappears. This goes against what websites have trained people to do for a decade: call up menus by holding your mouse over icons, then navigating through the menu by staying on top of it.

 It sounds like a minor point, but it's actually not, and the same problem bubbles up time and again from Windows 8: unintuitiveness. Metro is a beautiful and powerful interface, but it's hard to get used to, sometimes needlessly so. Another example: the Start screen allows you to scroll left and right simply by pushing your mouse icon right up against the edges of the screen. Yet several apps (like Photos) incomprehensibly don't do this, instead forcing you to use a scrollbar (or the mouse scroll wheel). Again, it sounds minor, but it's everything.

 Also, Metro is all about scrolling left and right. Apps like Finance look beautiful, with amazing layouts and great landscape pictures. So why have the top and bottom edges do nothing at all when you mouse against them? We're all used to calling up docks or menus when pressing against the edge, and Metro even lets you do this via touch. It would have been helpful to keep some of that functionality when using the mouse.

 Working with a keyboard was better, with intuitive navigation via arrow keys. There are some nice keyboard shortcuts (like screengrab) that you can't replicate via touch, so it definitely opens up the experience. There was occasionally a little lag with the wireless keyboard Microsoft supplied us with, but it was something I could live with.

 (lots more after the gallery)

 Windows 8 Consumer Preview: The Good and the Bad

 Sharing

 Sharing — from any app — is built directly in to Windows 8. It's like having that suite of sharing icons (like the ones you see on every news website, including Mashable) at the ready at all times. "Share" is ever-present in your options menu, no matter what app you're in. Sharing in Windows 8 is an incredibly powerful feature, making Apple's Twitter integration in OS X Mountain Lion look like a pathetic baby step.

 At least that's the theory. Sharing is app-based, and so far there are no apps that work with it. When you hit Share in an app, all that's on the list is a lonely Mail icon. In fairness, this is the consumer preview, and the Windows Store — where all those Metro sharing apps will be available — hasn't even launched yet.

 It's important to note that sharing in Windows 8 is based on what are called contracts. Contracts are little pieces of software that an app uses to tell Windows that something in the app is shareable. Then Windows knows to call up the apps that have the ability to share when the time comes. Contracts makes it super easy for a developer to create an app that can share stuff.

 So why, then, is the ability absent from so many apps? I understand the Finance app not being able to share, but People? I might want to email a contact to someone — you're going to make me copy-and-paste, Windows? And you can forget about sharing anything from the classic desktop.

 Quibbles aside, sharing in Windows 8 could be its best feature, but we'll have to wait for the apps to come that integrate the feature. Contracts support a lot more than sharing — they also determine whether the content in an app is searchable and enable apps to interact with other apps. A contract could, for example, allow Facebook to take stories from a news reader. There's lots of potential here, but it's up to developers to unleash it.

 Cruising in Metro

 Metro is a very pretty interface. The tiles beg to be clicked and touched, and many of the apps are extremely pleasing to look at and interact with. Finance, as I mentioned, makes great use of the horizontal scroll. The Xbox Live app looks amazing, too, which is expected since the Xbox 360 is already moving toward Metro. Bing Maps is flat-out hot.

 Some apps need work, however. People, which appears to be a social hub that integrates your feeds from places like Facebook and Twitter is about as far from Flipboard as you can imagine. It's not even MotoBLUR.

 The Photos app did a good job importing my pics from Facebook and Microsoft's own cloud service, SkyDrive, but Flickr failed to load, despite many attempts (likely a bug). Mail is a bit clunky: although it easily lets you sync multiple accounts, I shouldn't need to click twice to go back to the accounts page.

 The Metro Start screen is very customizable... again, in theory. In practice, rearranging tiles in any precise way is virtually impossible. Once you move one, it moves others in unpredictable ways, making the whole exercise more like solving a Rubik's Cube than decorating your desktop. You can make tiles out of websites, but you can't change the size of those tiles like you can with apps.

 Opening Windows?

 You might think from my many yellow and red flags that I'm rooting against Windows 8. (Disclosure: I've used a Mac as my primary computer for more than a decade.) I'm not. I'm pulling for Microsoft with its bid to reinvent its core software for the mobile era. I think Windows is ripe for a revamp, the market needs more innovation, and Metro has already proven to be an excellent phone interface.

 Still, after using Metro as mouse-and-keyboard inteface, I'm more wary. As beautiful as Metro is, I think some of the decisions Microsoft has made in how it works on a traditional (that is, a non-touchscreen) PC are questionable. There's still plenty of time for Microsoft to tweak it before the general release this fall, though I'm starting to wonder if the approach of one OS for all devices — desktop, laptop, tablet, touch screen and non — is fundamentally flawed.

 It makes sense that, If you're going to use the same device as a tablet and a traditional PC, it would react differently to your different tools. But in practice, it flies in the face of intuition. Your gadget "muscle memory" gets confused if your mouse pointer solicits a different menu from what your finger gets via the same movement.

 In the end, Microsoft isn't just asking you to get used to a different interface for Windows. It's asking you to get used to multiple interfaces within the same OS. I'm not sure how many people have the patience for that. Still, Windows 8 can only get more stable and easier to use while it slowly advances toward a general release, and Metro is gorgeous enough to keep me looking forward to Windows 8's final act. |||||

Write a summary.

– Microsoft unleashed Windows 8 on the world today, in the form of a "Consumer Preview" (read: Open Beta), and it's definitely not business as usual. The OS is designed to work on both tablets and PCs, and that means that, while it still has a familiar Windows "Desktop" mode tucked inside, its default is a bold new "Metro" system that (gasp) does away with "windows" entirely. Apps, which must be purchased from the Windows Store, all run essentially full screen. Here's what people are saying: Farhad Manjoo of Slate calls it "fantastic, jarring, and risky at the same time." Microsoft clearly thinks Metro is the future—"You get the sense that the company is keeping the Desktop interface around the same way it included the command prompt in Windows 95"—but he found it awkward on his desktop. "I felt like I was wasting a lot of my display." "It's by far the most integrated and most capable operating system Microsoft has ever put out," gushes Seth Rosenblatt of CNET. "There's a speed and responsiveness to Windows 8 that no other version of Windows has ever had." His assessment: "It would be beyond shocking if Windows 8 landed like Vista did." But Peter Pachal for Mashable "the same problem bubbles up time and again in Windows 8: unintuitiveness. Metro is a beautiful and powerful interface, but it's hard to get used to," and lots of little things don't work the way you'd expect. "I think it's going to get rough welcome," predicts Jason Cross of PC World. "People often don't like change at first." But he likes it. "I'm impressed by its speed and elegance. Let me say that again: I'm impressed by the speed and elegance of a Micrsoft interface. Really!"


Article:
If nobody understands a mathematical proof, does it count? Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University, Japan, has tried to prove the ABC conjecture, a long-standing pure maths problem, but now says fellow mathematicians are failing to get to grips with his work.

 The problem gets its name from the simple equation for adding two numbers, a + b = c, but poses deep questions about the true nature of numbers. In 2012 Mochizuki posted a 500-page paper online that claimed to solve the puzzle, but it required a dense framework of new maths dubbed "Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory" that even experienced mathematicians found difficult to follow.

 Mochizuki is a highly-respected mathematician and his work is taken seriously, says Minhyong Kim of the University of Oxford, but in the years since he posted the proof no one has been able to give a definitive answer on whether it is correct. "It's a bit disappointing that no one has come out and said it's right or wrong," he says.

 Easy as ABC?

 Now Mochizuki has posted a new report describing his efforts to explain his theory to others. He says that three researchers who studied it with his help have yet to find an error, but it will take a few more years for it to be fully confirmed.

 He has also criticised the rest of the community for not studying his work in detail, and says most other mathematicians are "simply not qualified" to issue a definitive statement on the proof unless they start from the very basics of his theory.

 Some mathematicians say Mochizuki must do more to explain his work, like simplifying his notes or lecturing abroad. "I sympathise with his sense of frustration but I also sympathise with other people who don't understand why he's not doing things in a more standard way," says Kim. It isn't really sustainable for Mochizuki to teach people one-on-one, he adds, and any journal would probably require independent reviewers who have not studied under Mochizuki to verify the proof.

 Mochizuki's seeming reticence calls to mind Grigori Perelman, another mathematician who refused to engage with the mathematical community and ultimately turned down a $1 million prize for his solution to a problem called the Poincaré conjecture. "This sense of stubbornness, dignity and pride is a part of what gives him the personality necessary to embark on a project like this," says Kim. But for now, the proof remains in limbo. "It's a curious state."

 If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to. ||||| Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University, Japan claims he has proven the ABC conjecture, one of the longest standing mysteries of mathematics. However, even though his 500-page paper was published in 2012, no one has managed to understand it. Mochizuki says his fellow mathematicians are failing to get to grips with his work.

 The ABC conjecture is deceptively complicated. It roughly states that three numbers a, b and c, which have no common factor and satisfy a + b = c cannot be too smooth (more detailed explanation here). In number theory, a smooth number is an integer which factors completely into small prime numbers.

 The beauty of this theory is that it captures the intuitive sense that triples of numbers which satisfy a linear relation, and which are divisible by high perfect powers, are rare. It seems like a bottomless, still lake – it seems very simple, but the more you dive into it, the deeper it gets. In fact, the theory poses some significant questions about the actual nature of numbers, so truly understanding it would be highly significant for mathematics.

 Step in, Mochizuki. In 2012, he published a 500-page paper online that claimed to solve the puzzle. There were two problems however – the first one, that it’s a 500 page paper, and the second (and more important one), that it uses a dense framework of new maths created by him and dubbed “Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory” – a framework that has even experience mathematicians struggling. Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory is basically a whole new way of looking at numbers which he used to prove other conjectures, such as the Szpiro conjecture, and part of the Vojta’s conjecture for the case of hyperbolic curves, as well as Fermat’s Last Theory.

 Mochizuki is a highly-respected mathematician and his work is taken seriously – it’s not like no one has tried to understand his work. It’s just that … no one could. Now, he has released a report in which he says that mathematicians working with him studying his theory have yet to find a flaw, but he criticized the community, saying that most researchers are “simply not qualified” to issue a definitive statement on the proof because they don’t truly understand his theory – and haven’t tried hard enough. Minhyong Kim of the University of Oxford is one of the many who are still awaiting the verdict in this case.

 Advertisement “It’s a bit disappointing that no one has come out and said it’s right or wrong,” he says.

 The thing is that if you want to understand the proof of this theory, you have to first understand the Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory he developed, and that’s no easy feat in itself.

 “I sympathise with his sense of frustration but I also sympathise with other people who don’t understand why he’s not doing things in a more standard way,” says Kim. It isn’t really sustainable for Mochizuki to teach people one-on-one, he adds, and any journal would probably require independent reviewers who have not studied under Mochizuki to verify the proof.

 I’m not exactly sure exactly why Mochizuki chose to work in this complicated way, but hey, if it works, it works. I think the scientific community has a duty to rise up to the event and figure out if this is right or wrong. Sure it’s complicated, but that’s modern math – you’d expect no less. I also believe we’re not going to get any reply from Mochizuki, seeing as he wrote the following:

 “The papers were released in order to make it possible for specialists to study and assess the validity of IUTeich; they were never intended as an announcement to the general public. Moreover, I never envisaged that these papers might elicit reactions consisting of non-mathematical content from non-specialists. I have no intention of responding to such non-mathematical reactions.”

 But until someone figures if Mochizuki is right or wrong, his theories remain in a Schrodinger’s cat like state.

 “This sense of stubbornness, dignity and pride is a part of what gives him the personality necessary to embark on a project like this,” says Kim. But for now, the proof remains in limbo. “It’s a curious state.” |||||Summary:

– A Japanese mathematician swears he's solved one of the biggest problems in the world of math. The problem is, nobody, not even fellow mathematicians of the highest caliber, can understand Shinichi Mochizuki's proof of something called the ABC conjecture, reports New Scientist. It doesn't help that the proof itself is 500 pages long or that Mochizuki developed his own set of mathematical principles called the Inter-Universal Teichmuller Theory that must be mastered first. (Those who don't are "simply not qualified" to weigh in, says Mochizuki.) Mathematicians aren't saying that Mochizuki's resolution of the theory is wrong, but they're not saying it's right, either. As a result, it's been in a kind of math limbo since 2012, despite attempts by the Kyoto University professor as recently as last month to shed light on it. As for the ABC conjecture, it's a longstanding math problem that also happens to be "deceptively complicated," explains ZME Science. "It roughly states that three numbers a, b, and c, which have no common factor and satisfy a + b = c cannot be too smooth. ... In number theory, a smooth number is an integer which factors completely into small prime numbers." Got that? The upshot, according to both sites, is that the theory raises fundamental questions about the "nature of numbers," and thus its proof would be a major milestone. "It's a bit disappointing that no one has come out and said it's right or wrong," says Oxford professor Minhyong Kim. (Elsewhere, a beating seems to have turned this man into a math whiz.)


Article:

19

 Vanier Park

 1905 Ogden Avenue

 Vancouver , BC V6J 1A3

 (604) 257-8300

 Great Maritime Museum in Vancouver, British Columbia. The location is St. Roch, where the famous ship St. Roch is part of the exhibition. The ship was the first ship in history who traveled around Canada and the USA over the north passage and trough the Panama Canal! You will learn a lot about the history of British Columbia and it first European visitors from Spain and later from Britain and France, but also about the First Nation people. This Museum is also fantastic for families with children. Their are birthday celebrations called "Pirate Parties". Wish you wonderful hours there!

 This was one of my favorite activities from Vancouver. I'm normally not a huge museum fan but this one is very unique and focuses mostly on the maritime history of Vancouver and Canada as a whole. There is a lot of stuff about the Northwest Passage and I learned a lot that I never would've learned if I hadn't come to this museum. The ship inside is very cool to climb around and explore. It's crazy to me that an Inuit family lived on deck to help the sailors while on an expedition. There was also a changing art gallery part of the building as well as a walk through area with more artifacts and bits of history. The museum as a whole is pretty old- it's nothing fancy and new. It has an old building smell, if you know what I mean. It's not too bad, though. The bathrooms were clean and the people working the front desk were helpful in calling us a taxi to get back downtown. We took a taxi there and he went to the wrong location at first- guess it's not as common a destination as I thought. He didn't charge us for the mistake though and it ended up being a pretty cheap ride. If you're interested in maritime history or just want a unique take on Vancouver's history, this is a great place to go. Kids would have fun too, as there are a few interactive exhibits.

 Great museum to visit during vacation. My kids loved it.

 Its ok. I noticed this museum doesn't have much new things. It seems to be the same thing over and over again. I used to come here a lot because I was part of the Vancouver Tourism group, now not so much. I guess they take pride in the giant ship inside the museum. Parking is not free here but further away, it could be if there are no signs that says with permit. Staff are friendly here. I don't find it too special here because its very similar to any Maritime museum you see else where. But I guess you have to have interest in it to find it interesting.

 Loved it, you can climb on the boat, check out crew's cabin. There are organized activities for kids too, saw a guy signing "In summer" from Frozen in a costume :D

 Super museum for kids and I learned a lot. Knowledgeable staff and great historical exhibits. My kids did not want to leave even though they were dead tired.

 Terrific little, but fairly dated, maritime museum. My daughter enjoyed the play area and she also enjoyed exploring the St. Roch. I found the model ships interesting to look at and learned a lot about local history. The look and feel of the place is very 1960s, which adds to ambiance of the place. Off the beaten path museums like this can be great and this one doesn't disappoint.

 A great way to learn about the Maritime history of Vancouver. Parking is available in a pay lot out front, or for free across the street. Hmm.. Admission is $11 for an adult, but on Thursdays between 1700-2000, it's admission by donation. Shh.. The museum is a bit quirky - I wasn't sure if some exhibits were missing when I first walked in. There are some cool whale tooth carvings - let's just say that some sailors have very dirty minds. I don't blame them. When you're out at sea for that long.. One fun little exhibit is this small remote-controlled submersible that can be controlled with buttons on the side of the display. I seriously got all giggly messing with this thing. Of course, the centrepiece exhibit is the St. Roch - the 1st ship to circumnavigate North America (via the Northwest Passage and Panama Canal). They do tours once in a while, so be sure to hang out by the admissions booth at the correct time. The boat itself is nothing spectacular unless you appreciate the history - and how ridiculously small the living quarters are! I don't know how the crew did it. This is one of those places you should check out at some point if you want to call yourself a Vancouverite.

 Ever seen the ship that circumnavigated North America and made numerous trips into the arctic as an arm of the RCMP? The St. Roch sailing vessel lives here! The tours in, around, and under the indoor dry-docked boat and accompanying exhibits are fun and interesting--well worth the visit. **parking tip: if available, there's free parking on Maple Street bordering Hadden Park), only a block or two away.

 Came here on a very quiet Thursday night and have to say I love this museum. I can't believe I've never been here before. The St Roch was pretty cool and my kids loved exploring every inch of the museum. There is something interesting for all ages and I easily spent a couple of hours here.

 We had a great time here!! If you have any interest in sailing or boating this is a great place to come. It was very inexpensive and great for all ages and genders. There is lots of history, photos and simulations. It was really accessible.

 This is actually a fun museum. I'm a tough room on maritime museums; I grew up on a yacht and have toured the London and Paris equivalents. The main attraction of the museum is the old RCMP boat, the St Roch - it's been preserved in its entirety and part of the museum was actually built around it. You can walk all around it, admire the roll-inducing curves of the hull, and then actually tour the inside, complete with exhibits. There's a good video overview to watch onboard as well. The rest of the museum veers between interesting and things designed to amuse bored 3-year olds - the trick is to hit this museum during school hours for a quiet and enjoyable tour. There is some limited parking out front, a valuable commodity in Kits, and a nice beach walk on the other side once you're done inside. It's also a relatively affordable visit, which is always pleasant.

 Clean up the kids area. Can't the yellow drawers be filled with something other than old junk? Otherwise, interesting exhibits.

 I love coming here! There are so many interesting things to see and read about. I recently came for a private event (80th birthday) for a prominent marine industry professional here and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had donated the space and the volunteers to give us guided tours. This place seems to have a real sense of Vancouver community and I was glad to hear them announce they will not be moving the location and will stay in Vancouver.

 The only reason this museum gets 2 stars is because of the St. Roch. The rest of the museum is pedestrian and not very interesting. Overpriced at $11. Parking is very convenient but will cost you $40 if you don't notice the small pay stand like we did. The signage in the lot states "Don't forget your ticket", but does not say anything straight forward like "Pay to Park". I don't know if it is Canada's version of Jeopardy, but as we read the sign we just didn't get the right answer. As I drive through intersections in Vancouver I am looking for the stoplights to state "Don't forget to stop"

 This museum features the final moorage of the RCMP schooner, St. Roch, which is best known for its dangerous west to east voyage through the treacherous Northwest Passage. Exhibits include an extensive collection of model ships and displays that chronicle British Columbia's seafaring tradition. Pirates Cove and the Discovery Center are great for kids, as they're allowed to dress up as pirates or build an underwater robot.

 At first I was very hesitant and reluctant to come here but after finally giving in to my boyfriend really, REALLY wanting to come here, I said yes. The museum was delightful and surprisingly was not boring and totally cool. Everything opposite of what I'd imagined! The tour begins with a short video (that also incorporate Inuits!) and a self walking tour of the St. Roch. After viewing the short video, I really appreciated the boat so much more, just because of the history and perils she endured. The museum is also very culturally open and sensitive to the local indigenous population and the Inuit culture and First Nations/American Indians as well. The Ainu (Inu) who hail from Japan was also mentioned in one of the history boards you can read - this was amazing because even in Japan the Ainu are rarely discussed (still). The walking area around the ship also had drawers of artifacts from St. Roch, other maritime explorers and the Inuit. This was totally cool and I pretty much pulled out each drawer to read and look at the descriptions of various tools and clothing. The $10.00 I spent was worth every cent! There are bathroom facilities and an entire area for kids as well. All in all, a very cool museum (and the park adjacent to it is also very pretty and free to enjoy)!

 I am still disturbed and troubled after a visit to The Vancouver Maritime Museum. They have a new exhibit called Scrimshaw which features numerous images of an inappropriate sexual nature on tusks. There was only one small warning sign beside one of the display boxes. But, there was no warnings in the entrance ways leading to the display nor when I purchased tickets for my family (which I regret now). I believe that the public needs to be aware of this. I believe that a museum that claims to be 'child friendly' should NOT have display items of such a disturbing nature! As a mother and a teacher, I am concerned for unknowing families and school groups especially with children that are impressionable and vulnerable. I will not be returning nor recommending this Museum. ||||| VANCOUVER — Never mind the Internet. A Vancouver mother and schoolteacher is sounding the alarm after stumbling upon another medium that she thinks may corrupt young and impressionable minds: 19th-century “whale bone porn.”

 Ann Pimentel raised the concern — and coined the unlikely phrase — after visiting the Vancouver Maritime Museum (VMM), a modest institution on the city’s west side. That’s where a small collection of etchings and engravings on whale teeth and bone is on display, part of a larger show that also features example of maritime tattoo art.

 Nine of the etched pieces on display show images of a sexual nature, some of them quite explicit. “A Whaler’s Hope of the First Night Ashore” is etched across a tooth that’s eight inches long, extracted two centuries ago from an unfortunate sperm whale. Underneath the title is etched a saucy scene. A man and a woman, flesh exposed. Mouths open, limbs entwined. You get the idea.

 Lust was a common theme in 19th-century scrimshaw, which is what this obscure art form — etchings on hard surfaces culled from sea creatures — is called. Scrimshaw was typically made by lonely whalers, trapped for months aboard ships that scoured the South Pacific for their prey, usually sperm whales, magnificent, 50-foot long creatures prized for their oil.

 The whalers had idle hands and feverish minds. Scrimshawing was their means of expression, their release valve. Using ship-made hand tools and tobacco juice for ink, they set upon whale leftovers. Some of their work is finely detailed. Some is undeniably erotic.

 The VMM has collected scrimshaw for years — most of the work was donated — but the pieces were rarely if ever displayed. Museum curator Patricia Owen said the opportunity arose when staff decided to present a show about maritime tattoos; it seemed natural to compare and contrast the two art forms. Tattoo and Scrimshaw: The Art of the Sailor opened last week and runs to mid-October.

 To date, Ms. Pimentel is the only person to complain. She has mounted a minor jihad, writing missives on various tourist-oriented websites and approaching local media outlets. “I am disturbed and troubled after a morning at the Vancouver Maritime Museum,” she wrote on Tripadvisor.com.

 “The Museum have [sic] a new exhibit called Scrimshaw which features numerous images of inappropriate nature (oral sex, sex, nudity, male anatomy etc.) on tusks. … As a mother and a teacher I was extremely disturbed and believe these pieces of ‘art’ should be removed.”

 Ms. Pimentel told the Vancouver Sun that her two small children — aged two and three — were needlessly exposed to the disturbing “whale bone porn.” No advance warnings were made to sensitive patrons outside the display room, she complained.

 But the nine pieces with sexual content are displayed in a case raised high off the floor, well beyond scope of a toddler’s inquisitive eyes, and lighting is prudishly dim. Next to the display is a sign: “Hide Your Eyes! These pieces of scrimshaw are not intended for children.”

 Ms. Owen says the VMM anticipated that some concerns might be raised, hence the care taken with presentation. The museum has “more graphic” examples of scrimshaw, she says, but these remain hidden downstairs in the museum’s basement. They include depictions of creative candlestick use and what Ms. Owen cautiously describes as “the act.” They will likely never see the light of day.

 That may not satisfy Ms. Pimentel. The sexy scrimshaw that’s now on view “needs to be in an isolated room, it needs to be clearly marked, where a child or anyone under 18 can’t see them,” she told the Vancouver Sun.

 Ironically, Ms. Pimentel’s one-woman crusade has created more interest in the VMM show than the museum could have mustered on its own. There’s a further irony, a real controversy that involves the collection, after all. A small underground trade exists in whale bone porn, some of it very disturbing indeed. Ms. Owen says her museum can’t guarantee that all of its scrimshaw is from genuine 19th-century whale; some pieces may have been crafted more recently, by unscrupulous artisans and fakers, and then made to appear “aged.”

 National Post

 • Email: bhutchinson@nationalpost.com | Twitter: hutchwriter ||||| Fee: Yes

 Recommended length of visit: 1-2 hours

 Owner description: For over fifty years, the Vancouver Maritime Museum has celebrated the profound significance of the ocean and waterways of the Pacific and Arctic. Located in on the waterfront in stunning Vanier Park, the Maritime Museum's featured attraction is the St. Roch, a National Historic Site and RCMP vessel that was the first vessel to circumnavigate North America and the only link between distant communities in the Canadian Arctic in the early 20th century. The museum also has extensive galleries of model ships, including a particularly fine bone model of the French warship Vengeur du Peuple which was built around 1800 by French prisoners of war, a Children's Maritime Discovery Centre, a recreation of the fo'c'sle (forecastle) of Vancouver's ship Discovery, an extensive collection of maritime art, the boiler of the Beaver which was the first steamship in the Pacific Northwest, and many more wonders and treasures. |||||
What is a summary?

– A school teacher has launched a personal campaign against what she calls "whale bone porn"—etchings of naughty acts on whale teeth and bone on display at a Vancouver museum, the National Post reports. The Vancouver Maritime Museum has "a new exhibit called Scrimshaw which features numerous images of inappropriate nature (oral sex, sex, nudity, male anatomy etc.) on tusks," writes Ann Pimentel on Tripadvisor. "As a mother and a teacher I was extremely disturbed and believe these pieces of ‘art’ should be removed." But her campaign—which she took to the Vancouver Sun and Yelp—has only aroused greater interest in the scrimshaw, a 19-century art form practiced by lonely whalers in the South Pacific. They vented their frustrations by using hand tools to engrave tobacco juice on whale leftovers. The museum's curator says she won't remove the display, but admits there are raunchier scrimshaw works in the basement that she'll never bring up—because they depict a candlestick being used in what she politely calls "the act."


– A murder suspect and the detective who was questioning him were both found dead at police headquarters in Jackson, Mississippi. As detective Eric Smith, 40, interviewed Jeremy Powell, 23, other officers heard gunshots. They entered the room to find the men dead, CNN reports. Police haven't offered a sequence of events in the shooting, the AP notes, though both men suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Powell was being questioned in the process of being arrested in the murder of Christopher Alexander, 20, who was stabbed in the neck. Smith had begun homicide work fairly recently, said a city councilman, who noted that "there may have been more than one police officer in the room." The effects of the shooting rippled through Jackson, with police cars parked across major streets and officers comforting each other, the AP notes. "The entire city of Jackson and the Jackson Police Department family are all hurting," said a police spokesman.

Expand this summary.

A murder suspect being interviewed at the Jackson, Miss., police headquarters shot a detective Thursday and those who came to investigate the gunfire found both men dead, authorities said.

 Law enforcement officers wait at the entrance to the Jackson Police Department Thursday, April, 4, 2013, after police say a murder suspect fatally shot detective Eric Smith inside the headquarters. The... (Associated Press)

 Jackson, Miss. Assistant Chief Lee Vance, center left, comforts Chief Rebecca Coleman, center right, Thursday, April, 4, 2013, after detective Eric Smith was shot and killed inside the Jackson Police... (Associated Press)

 In this 2008 image provided by the Jackson, Miss. Police, Detective Eric Smith, center, flanked by Chief Rebecca Coleman, left, and Assistant Chief Lee Vance accepts the Certificate of Commendation on... (Associated Press)

 The suspect was being questioned on the third floor of the building when the shooting happened, said Police Chief Rebecca Coleman. Police did not release any details on the sequence of what happened.

 The officer was identified as Det. Eric Smith, 40, who was assigned to the Robbery-Homicide Division and had been with the department since 1995.

 Late Thursday, police identified the murder suspect as Jeremy Powell, 23. Both the detective and the suspect had been shot multiple times.

 Police said Powell was in the process of being arrested in the killing Monday of Christopher Alexander. News outlets reported that the 20-year-old Alexander's body was found Monday near a Jackson street and he had been stabbed in the neck.

 City police spokesman Chris Mims described Smith as "a decorated detective and well-respected law-enforcement person throughout the state of Mississippi."

 "He was in the processing of questioning that suspect," Mims said of the detective. "Other officers in the police department heard gunshots ring out and when they went to the interview room, discovered that both the suspect and the detective were deceased."

 The police headquarters was on lockdown Thursday night, Mims said.

 Jackson City Councilman Chokwe Lumumba was in police headquarters with the mayor afterward and said Smith was shot by the suspect. He did not know how the suspect ended up dead.

 "I understand there may have been more than one police officer in the room," Lumumba said outside the police building.

 The headquarters was blocked off and surrounded by crime tape. Law enforcement and Jackson city officials rushed to the scene.

 Mims said the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation has taken over the investigation, which is standard procedure.

 "This is a very tragic situation," he said. "The entire city of Jackson and the Jackson Police Department family are all hurting. We are asking for the public's patience while we find out why this tragic incident happened and how it happened."

 At least 30 Jackson Police and Hines County Sheriff's office vehicles were haphazardly parked across multiple, major downtown Jackson streets. Officers were visibly shaken, wiping their eyes, and Assistant Chief Lee Vance could be seen comforting Chief Rebecca Coleman at one point, putting his arm around her shoulder outside the building. A 2008 photo on the department's website shows a smiling, fit Smith, in a shirt and tie, accepting a certificate of commendation on behalf of a detective, with Coleman and Vance on each side of him.

 Lumumba, who is a lawyer, said Smith was fairly new to being a homicide detective and that he first met Smith in the late 1990s. The then-officer had testified on some of Lumumba's cases.

 "I had great respect for his work and his integrity," Lumumba said. He added that Smith's stepson had played basketball on an Amateur Athletic Union team that Lumumba worked with.

 "Eric helped take young men all over the country," the councilman said. "He's a real man in every sense of the word."

 Mayor Harvey Johnson, Jr. also addressed the officer's death.

 "Detective Smith was an excellent officer in all respects," the mayor said. "I want everyone to keep the Smith family in their prayers and in their thoughts."

 Lumumba said that Smith was married and had another son.

 A monument outside police headquarters lists 14 officers killed in the line of duty _ before today.

 ____

 Mohr reported from Brandon, Miss. AP writer Jackie Quinn reported from Washington. ||||| (CNN) -- A veteran detective and the murder suspect he was interviewing were killed Thursday in a shooting inside the Jackson, Mississippi, police headquarters.

 Detective Eric Smith, 40, was talking with suspect Jeremy Powell, 23, when the shots were fired, Jackson police said.

 Other law enforcement officers overheard the gunshots and rushed into the room, said a shaken Chris Mims, a spokesman for Mayor Harvey Johnson.

 They found both people dead.

 The incident occurred around 6 p.m. (7 p.m. ET). One hour later, the situation was contained, according to Othor Cain, a spokesman for the Hinds County Sheriff's Department,.

 The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is leading the investigation into what happened, Mims said.

 Jackson, a city of about 175,000 residents, is the capital of Mississippi.

 CNN's AnneClaire Stapleton contributed to this report. |||||


Here is a news article: Students as young as 10 were asked about their sexual history, orientation and gender identity

 A Windsor parent was shocked to find out her daughter had taken a survey in her fifth-grade class that asked questions about students' sexual history, preference and gender identity.

 "My daughter is 10. So are all the other kids who took this," said Vanessa Beach. "A sexual partner at 10 years old would be called sexual abuse."

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 Beach said she did not take issue with the topics of gender identity and sexuality being discussed in the classroom, but thought the survey was an invasion of her daughter's privacy and asked questions that were not appropriate for her age range.

 The survey was done by WISE, a domestic violence prevention and advocacy group that runs educational programs in Windsor schools.

 A notice had been sent to parents about the survey, which gave them the opportunity to opt-out of having their children participate.

 However, Beach said she never received the form.

 A researcher connected to the survey said so-called "passive-consent" policies were common in Vermont.

 A WISE official said students are told before the survey is distributed they are not required to take it and can choose not to without consequence.

 According to a WISE representative, the questions on the survey were developed with researchers from the University of New Hampshire with whom they were sharing the data collected.

 Beach said she had voiced her concerns to the school, including the guidance department and had reached out to WISE.

 School administrators said they had heard some of the parental complaints and are working on addressing them.

 A WISE representative said the group hoped to use the concerns as an opportunity to open a dialogue with parents about their work.

 Beach said she appreciates much of the work WISE does to promote awareness and education around domestic violence.

 AlertMe ||||| WINDSOR, Vt. (AP) — A survey that asked fifth-grade students in Vermont about their sexual history, preference and gender identity has drawn complaints from parents.

 The survey sent to Windsor Elementary School students was conducted by WISE, a nonprofit domestic violence prevention and advocacy group, WPTZ-TV reported .

 A notice was sent to parents allowing them to opt their children out of the survey, but parent Vanessa Beach said she never received it.

 While she doesn't oppose topics on gender identity and sexuality being discussed, Beach said she feels the survey questions were inappropriate for her daughter's age group.

 "My daughter is 10. So are all the other kids who took this," Beach said. "A sexual partner at 10 years old would be called sexual abuse."

 A WISE representative said the survey questions were created with University of New Hampshire researchers with whom the group is sharing the collected data.

 Beach said she told the school and WISE about her concerns. School administrators and WISE officials said they are working to address parents' complaints. Students are told that they are not required to take the test and can choose not to, a WISE official said.

 Beach said she appreciates other work WISE does to raise awareness about domestic violence. |||||
A summary of this is?

– A survey that asked fifth-grade students in Vermont about their sexual history, preference, and gender identity has drawn complaints from parents, the AP reports. The survey sent to Windsor Elementary School students was conducted by WISE, a nonprofit domestic violence prevention and advocacy group, WPTZ-TV reported. A notice was sent to parents allowing them to opt their children out of the survey, but parent Vanessa Beach says she never received it. While she doesn't oppose topics on gender identity and sexuality being discussed, Beach says she feels the survey questions were inappropriate for her daughter's age group. "My daughter is 10. So are all the other kids who took this," Beach says. "A sexual partner at 10 years old would be called sexual abuse." A WISE representative says the survey questions were created with University of New Hampshire researchers with whom the group is sharing the collected data. Beach says she told the school and WISE about her concerns. School administrators and WISE officials say they are working to address parents' complaints. Students are told that they are not required to take the test and can choose not to, a WISE official says. Beach says she appreciates other work WISE does to raise awareness about domestic violence.


North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile on Sunday, the latest in a series of launches which have sparked international condemnation and threats of tougher UN sanctions.

 US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described the launch, the second in a week and the 10th this year, as "disappointing" and "disturbing," but rejected a suggestion that the US strategy to tackle North Korea was not working.

 The missile, described by Washington as medium-range, was fired from Pukchang in South Pyongan province and traveled about 310 miles, according to the South's armed forces.

 "Our military is closely monitoring signs for additional provocation by the North Korean military and we are keeping a full military readiness," said a statement from Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 The launch came just one week after the North fired a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile, which according to Pyongyang flew almost 500 miles and was capable of carrying a "heavy" nuclear warhead.

 Analysts said the Hwasong traveled further than any previous ballistic missile launched by the North.

 The May 14 launch was seen as a significant step forward as the North accelerates efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States.

 The launches, and a threatened sixth nuclear test, have fueled tension with the administration of US President Donald Trump, who has vowed that such an ICBM launch "won't happen."

 He warned that no option is off the table in dealing with the North's weapons program, although Washington has so far opted for sanctions and diplomatic pressure, while looking to China, the North's closest ally, to step up economic pressure on Pyongyang.

 Tillerson said the effects of these measures had yet to fully take effect.

 "I think we are early in the game of putting pressure on them, and one could also interpret that perhaps they are just acting out now in response to some of this pressure," he said in an interview with Fox News Sunday.

 US allies South Korea and Japan issued sharp criticism of the latest missile test.

 Seoul's foreign ministry slammed the "reckless and irresponsible" firing as "throwing cold water on the hope and longing of the new government and the international community" for denuclearization and peace on the Korean peninsula.

 South Korea's incoming left-leaning government has taken a more conciliatory line with Pyongyang than its conservative predecessors, but has reacted strongly to the latest two missile tests.

 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the missile launches "trample on efforts by the international community towards a peaceful solution and are a challenge to the world," Kyodo News reported.

 The US Pacific Command said it tracked the missile until it landed in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

 "US Pacific Command stands behind our ironclad commitment to the security of our allies in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and Japan," it added in a statement.

 Pyongyang has long had missiles that can reach targets across South Korea and Japan.

 With an imputed range of 2,800 miles the Hwasong-12 also puts US bases on the Pacific island of Guam within reach.

 'Many more' missiles

 The UN Security Council met behind closed doors last Tuesday to discuss tightening sanctions on North Korea after its May 14 launch.

 US ambassador Nikki Haley said the United States was working with Beijing on a new sanctions resolution and warned that all countries must step up action against North Korea or face measures themselves.

 The North says it needs missiles and nuclear weapons to deter any attack by the United States, and state newspaper Minju Joson Sunday threatened more launches.

 "If the US persists in confrontation with the DPRK (North Korea), the latter will show how the crime-woven history of the US is put to an end," it said.

 "Many more 'Juche weapons' capable of striking the US will be launched from this land. This is the DPRK's answer to the Trump administration," it said, referring to the national philosophy of "Juche" or self-reliance. ||||| A man watches a TV news program showing image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, published in the North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper, at Seoul Railway station in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, May 22,... (Associated Press)

 TOKYO (AP) — North Korea says it's ready to deploy and start mass-producing a new medium-range missile capable of reaching Japan and major U.S. military bases there following a test launch it claims confirmed the missile's combat readiness and is an "answer" to President Donald Trump's policies.

 The solid-fuel Pukguksong-2 missile flew about 500 kilometers (310 miles) and reached a height of 560 kilometers (350 miles) Sunday before plunging into the Pacific Ocean. North Korea's media said more missiles will be launched in the future.

 Trump, traveling in Saudi Arabia, had no immediate public comment.

 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the launch and watched from an observation post, state media reported Monday. The Korea Central News Agency said the test verified technical aspects of the weapon system and examined its "adaptability under various battle conditions" before it is deployed to military units.

 Kim reportedly said the launch was a success, "approved the deployment of this weapon system for action" and said that it should "be rapidly mass-produced."

 North Korea has significantly speeded up its missile tests over the past year or so and appears to be making tangible progress toward developing an arsenal that poses a threat not only to South Korea and Japan — which together host about 80,000 U.S. troops — but also toward an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the mainland United States.

 It's moving ahead with its nuclear weapons program as well.

 The North conducted two nuclear tests last year. It claims one was a hydrogen bomb and the other device created a more powerful explosion than any the North has previous tested. Satellite imagery suggests it could be ready to conduct its next test — which would be its sixth — at virtually any time.

 Pyongyang's often-stated goal is to perfect a nuclear warhead that it can put on a missile capable of hitting Washington or other U.S. cities.

 North Korea's media, meanwhile, have stepped up their calls for even more missile launches because of what Pyongyang claims is an increasingly hostile policy by President Donald Trump.

 "The Trump administration would be well advised to lend an ear to the voices of concern that are heard from the U.S. and the international community," the North's Minju Joson newspaper said in a commentary Sunday. "Many more 'Juche weapons' capable of striking the U.S. will be launched from this land. This is the DPRK's answer to the Trump administration.'"

 "Juche," in this usage, refers to domestically produced and DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

 In an interview with "Fox News Sunday" U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the ongoing testing is "disappointing" and "disturbing."

 South Korea held a National Security Council meeting after the launch, and its Foreign Ministry said the launch "throws cold water" on efforts to ease tensions on the peninsula.

 At the request of diplomats from the U.S., Japan and South Korea, a United Nations' Security Council consultation on the missile test will take place Tuesday.

 North Korea a week earlier had successfully tested a new midrange missile — the Hwasong 12 — that it said could carry a heavy nuclear warhead.

 Experts said that rocket flew higher and for a longer time than any other missile previously tested by North Korea and represents another big advance toward a viable ICBM.

 David Wright, an expert on North Korea's missiles and nuclear program who is with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the latest missile could have flown farther but was fired on a "lofted" trajectory, which sends the missile high up so that it will land in the open seas rather than flying over or splashing down near neighboring countries.

 He noted the Pukguksong-2's solid fuel is of particular concern.

 Solid-fuel missiles have their fuel loaded in them before being moved into place, allowing them to be launched faster and with more secrecy. Liquid-fuel missiles, on the other hand, are fueled at the launch site in a process that can last an hour and requires fueling and other vehicles. That makes then easier to spot and easier to destroy than the solid-fuel variety.

 ___

 AP writers Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul and Edith M. Lederer in New York contributed to this report. Talmadge is the AP's Pyongyang bureau chief. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/EricTalmadge and Instagram at erictalmadge. ||||| SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea said on Monday it successfully tested what it called an intermediate-range ballistic missile, which met all technical requirements and could now be mass-produced, although U.S. officials and experts questioned the extent of its progress.

 The United States, which has condemned repeated North Korean missile launches, said Sunday’s launch of what North Korea dubbed the Pukguksong-2 was of a “medium-range” missile, and U.S.-based experts doubted the reliability of the relatively new solid-fuel type after so few tests.

 U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the test did not demonstrate a new capability, or one that could threaten the United States directly. But the test was North Korea’s second in a week and South Korea’s new liberal government said it dashed its hopes for peace.

 U.S. officials have been far less sanguine about the test of a long-range KN-17, or Hwasong-12, missile just over a week ago, which U.S. officials believe survived re-entry to some degree.

 North Korea said that launch tested the capability to carry a “large-size heavy nuclear warhead” and put the U.S. mainland within “sighting range.”

 Western experts say the Hwasong-12 test did appear to have advanced North Korea’s aim of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, even if it is still some way off from achieving that capability.

 The U.N. Security Council is due to meet on Tuesday behind closed doors to discuss Sunday’s test, which defies Security Council resolutions and sanctions. The meeting was called at the request of the United States, Japan and South Korea.

 Washington has been trying to persuade China to agree to new sanctions on North Korea, which has conducted dozens of missile firings and tested two nuclear bombs since the start of last year.

 U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that a “major, major conflict” with North Korea is possible over its weapons programs, although U.S. officials say tougher sanctions, not military force, are the preferred option.

 North Korea’s state news agency, KCNA, said the latest missile test was supervised by leader Kim Jong Un and verified the reliability of Pukguksong-2’s solid-fuel engine, stage separation and late-stage guidance for a nuclear warhead. It said data was recorded by a device mounted on the warhead.

 ‘PRIDE’

 “Saying with pride that the missile’s rate of hits is very accurate and Pukguksong-2 is a successful strategic weapon, he (Kim) approved the deployment of this weapon system for action,” KCNA said.

 “Now that its tactical and technical data met the requirements of the Party, this type of missile should be rapidly mass-produced in a serial way ..., he said.”

 KCNA said Kim was able to view the Earth from a camera mounted on the missile. “Supreme leader Kim Jong Un said it feels grand to look at the Earth from the rocket we launched and the entire world looks so beautiful,” KCNA said.

 South Korea’s military said the missile flew about 500 km (310 miles), reaching an altitude of 560 km (350 miles).

 It said the test would have provided more “meaningful data” for North Korea’s missile program, but further analysis was necessary to determine whether Pyongyang had mastered the technology needed to stop the warhead burning up on re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

 U.S.-based experts said the Pukguksong-2 would have a maximum range of about 1,500 km (930 miles) and questioned North Korea’s assertion that the reliability of the solid-fuel missile had been proven, given limited testing.

 “Entering mass production this early in the development phase is risky, but perhaps a risk North Korea feels comfortable managing,” said Michael Elleman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

 Jeffrey Lewis, of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said North Korea would probably continue to test the missile after deployment, fixing flaws as they emerged.

 The use of solid fuel presents advantages for weapons because it is more stable and can be transported easily allowing for a launch at very short notice from mobile launchers.

 Developing longer-range solid fuel missiles, however, was highly complicated and would “take time, lots of it,” Elleman said.

 John Schilling, a missile expert contributing to Washington’s 38 North think tank, estimated it would take until at least 2020 for North Korea to be able to develop an ICBM capable of reaching the U.S. mainland and until 2025 for one powered by solid fuel.

 North Korea’s current missiles already pose a threat to South Korea and Japan and the tens of thousands of U.S. troops based in both countries.

 Daniel Russel, Washington’s former top diplomat for Asia, said Pyongyang’s aim appeared to be to convince the United States and the rest of the world of the need to accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

 “The intended message to the United States is that your pressure campaign won’t work and we’ll see your sanctions and raise you yet another advance in our ballistic missile program,” Russel, now diplomat in residence at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told Reuters.

 The scene of the intermediate-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2's launch test. KCNA/via REUTERS

 On Sunday U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson termed North Korea’s missile testing “disappointing, disturbing” and said economic and diplomatic pressure would continue.

 Japan’s chief Cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said on Monday it was important to cut North Korea’s foreign currency earnings and to block shipments and technology transfers that aid North Korea’s nuclear missile development.

 China repeated its call for all parties to exercise restraint and not let tension mount further. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– North Korea says it's ready to deploy and start mass-producing a new medium-range missile capable of reaching Japan and major US military bases there following a test launch it claims confirmed the missile's combat readiness and is an "answer" to President Trump's policies. The solid-fuel Pukguksong-2 missile flew about 310 miles and reached a height of 350 miles Sunday before plunging into the Pacific Ocean. North Korea's media said more missiles will be launched in the future, the AP reports. Trump, traveling in Saudi Arabia, had no immediate public comment. Kim Jong Un ordered the launch and watched from an observation post, state media reported Monday. The Korea Central News Agency said the test verified technical aspects of the weapon system and examined its "adaptability under various battle conditions" before it's deployed to military units. Kim reportedly said the launch was a success, "approved the deployment of this weapon system for action," and said that it should "be rapidly mass-produced." Viewing images sent from the rocket, Kim noted, "It feels grand to look at the Earth from the rocket we launched," KCNA said, via Reuters. The North's Minju Joson newspaper said in a commentary Sunday that in Pyongyang's "answer to the Trump administration," many more missiles "capable of striking the US will be launched from this land."


News article:

Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Josh Duggar Sued That's MY Face On His Ashley Madison Page

 Josh Duggar Sued: That's MY Face on His Ashley Madison Page

 EXCLUSIVE

 The guy who says Josh Duggar used his face on several dating and social media sites -- including Ashley Madison -- is suing the reality star for jacking his image.

 Matthew McCarthy says he's been humiliated since Duggar confessed he was addicted to porn and had been trawling for women online. As we first reported ... McCarthy was shocked to see his face as the profile pic on several Duggar accounts.

 In the lawsuit, McCarthy says he was raised in a strong-knit Catholic family ... so being connected to Duggar's porn life -- on Twitter, OkCupid and Ashley Madison -- has been mortifying.

 He adds he's been getting harassing messages referring to him as "Duggar's boy toy" and "DJ Duggar." He's a DJ and photographer by trade.

 Matthew is suing Duggar for the wrongful use of his image, and for damages ... aka cash.

 Of course, Josh's reality show dough isn't flowing in anymore. Last we heard, he was working at a car dealership. ||||| In the wake of the news that Josh Duggar reportedly paid for an Ashley Madison membership, websites and Internet sleuths are trying to determine whether the former 19 Kids and Counting star was also on other dating sites.

 After receiving tips from the Internet, Gawker pointed out that searching Duggar's alleged Ashley Madison email handle — "joesmithsonnwa" — provides one other result on Google: an OkCupid profile with the username joesmithsonnwa.

 Screengrab Courtesy of Gawker

 The profile since has been taken down, but screenshots show a 27-year-old man from Alexandria, Va. Before his child-molestation scandal, Duggar and his family lived 15 minutes away from Alexandria, in Oxon Hill, Md.

 The photo attached to the account is not Duggar. Gawker reported it is model Matthew James McCarthy, whose photo is one of the top Google images results for "random guy."

 Another reason people are linking the profile to Duggar is that the user last appeared online in Sept. 2014, which is approximately the same time Duggar's reported credit card stopped paying for the first of his Ashley Madison accounts. Duggar was the executive director of the Family Research Council, and this user lists his occupation as "politics."

 Joesmithsonnwa also said he is a Christian who never smokes, drinks or does drugs. His salary is listed at $100-$150,000, and he is looking for "casual sex" — while being the "strictly monogamous type."

 Screengrab Courtesy of Gawker

 Before the profile was taken down, people in the comments section of Gawker posted screenshots of joesmithsonnwa's answers to OkCupid questions. According to those, the user said he has not been faithful in past relationships, feels there are circumstances in which a person is obligated to have sex with him and does not feel LGBT people should have children.

 However, Duggar did not graduate college, and joesmithsonnwa said he did. There is no hard evidence linking this user to Duggar, but the Internet is continuing to search for signs of alleged infidelity. Duggar has not yet responded to these allegations. ||||| Josh Duggar Screws Random Guy Over In Sex Scandal

 Josh Duggar -- Screws Random Guy Over in Sex Scandal

 EXCLUSIVE

 Josh Duggar turned the life of a Hollywood DJ upside down by apparently jacking his pic for his OKCupid profile.

 Matthew McCarthy tells us he was shocked to see his pic on the dating site, and way more shocked to know Duggar was posing as him to score chicks.

 Now check this out ... it appears Duggar got the pic by Googling "random guy" ... the third photo that comes up is Matthew's.

 Matthew says he's already lost a DJ gig because the club felt he was part of the sex scandal. He feels this is somehow defamation of character, and he's considering his legal options.

 So much for playing Cupid. ||||| After today’s earlier revelation of Josh Duggar’s paid Ashley Madison account hit, tipsters and Twitter are pointing out that if you search Josh Duggar’s highly unique Ashley Madison email handle, “joesmithsonnwa,” this OKCupid profile is the only other result you get.

 The picture is obviously not of Josh Duggar. And as of right now, it appears on Wordpress under the title “random guy from Facebook.” If you search “random guy” on Google images, the same photo comes up as one of the very first results. So if a man in his 20s were to try and find a discreet, anonymous photo for a social media profile, it’s possible he’d find this one.

 It’s also worth noting that, on this OKCupid profile, “Joesmithsonnwa” claims to be looking for “casual sex” while simultaneously describing himself as a “strictly monogamous” type. “Joesmithsonnwa” last appeared online in September of 2014 (around the same time Josh J Duggar’s credit card stopped paying for the first Ashley Madison account), and “Joesmithsonnwa” lists his location as near where Duggar, his wife, and their three children lived in Oxon Hill, Maryland—that is, until they moved back to Arkansas when scandal hit.

 What’s more, his occupation is listed as “politics,” and Duggar was the Executive Director of the Family Research Council at the same time this profile was active.

 On the other hand, the man in this profile lists himself as having “graduated from university,” where as Josh did not, in fact, graduate college. It is, however, very, very rare that a Google search for one phrase only turns up one other link, but we also don’t have any credit card data to corroborate this particular 27-year-old casual-sex-seeker’s identity.

 So while we can’t determine definitively that this is Josh, if you did go out with this person at any point and it was not Josh Duggar (or if you are “random guy from Facebook), we’d love to hear from you.

 Update 8/20 10:59 a.m.: Whoever did own the OkCupid profile has apparently decided to delete it. Because now, what used to be joesmithsonnwa’s profile brings you here:

 While we have yet to hear from anyone claiming to own the profile, we have discovered that the picture belongs to model Matthew James McCarthy—who lives nowhere near Washington, DC. So again, if you have any more information about this—or any other similar dating profile—you can send us an email here.

 Correction: An earlier version of this incorrectly referred to Josh Duggar’s Ashley Madison username as “joesmithsonnwa,” when “joesmithsonnwa@gmail.com” was actually his Ashley Madison login. We’ve updated the post to reflect this. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Matt McCarthy, a Hollywood DJ, photographer, and model, is suing Josh Duggar for damages, claiming the scandal-plagued reality star used McCarthy's photo for his online profiles, Courthouse News Service reports. TMZ says those profiles included one on cheating site Ashley Madison, and that Duggar is also accused of using McCarthy's image on Twitter and OkCupid. McCarthy says he's been humiliated by the scandal and that people are calling him "DJ Duggar" and "Duggar's boy toy." TMZ reported last year that Duggar apparently found McCarthy's picture by Googling "random guy." At that time, McCarthy said he'd already lost a DJ gig over the perception that he was somehow involved in Duggar's porn-and-sex scandal. The Hollywood Reporter and Gawker also delved into the issue last year, reporting that McCarthy's photo appeared on an OKCupid profile apparently set up by Duggar and seeking "casual sex," in addition to the Ashley Madison profile. Back in the present day, TMZ notes that Duggar is reportedly working at a car dealership now that he's no longer on reality TV.


Summarize this article:

Focused crawls are collections of frequently-updated webcrawl data from narrow (as opposed to broad or wide) web crawls, often focused on a single domain or subdomain. ||||| "They were like, 'Talk loud because the engine will be roaring,'" Rogen laughed. "'You've got to talk over the engine; there's announcements early on in the flights. You've got to take that into consideration.'"

 But Rogen didn't just diss that promising-sounding but poorly received film.

 His self-deprecation also extended to The Green Hornet, which he cowrote with Evan Goldberg and starred in, calling it the "perfect storm of bad s--t happening".

 "We were making it for America and China at the same time," Goldberg added.

 "We shouldn't make expensive movies where he can't just do a million dick jokes," Rogen cracked. "That's what we've learned over the years. That's our strength. Play to your strengths." |||||

– Critics did not enjoy Seth Rogen's last movie, Guilt Trip with Barbra Streisand, and it sounds like Rogen didn't, either. "We shot that movie in the format that plays on airplanes only," Rogen said on comedian Doug Benson's podcast last week, according to E!. "They were like, 'Talk loud because the engine will be roaring. You've got to talk over the engine; there's announcements early on in the flights. You've got to take that into consideration.'" He also sort-of dissed the poorly reviewed The Green Hornet, in which he not only starred but also co-wrote. "We were making it for America and China at the same time," and it ended up being the "perfect storm of bad s--- happening," he said. Lesson learned? Rogen says he should stick to movies involving "a million" penis jokes. "That's our strength. Play to your strengths." (Click to read about 10 other actors who have slammed their own projects.)


Article:
Mel B My Mind's Getting Divorced ... My Hand Still LOVES This Ring

 Mel B's Getting Divorced But Still Flaunting Wedding Rock

 EXCLUSIVE

 Mel B's left hand, with a massive diamond attached to it, doesn't look like it's totally in sync with her on divorcing Stephen Belafonte.

 Mel was out and about in L.A. Tuesday ... still flashing the 7 carat, $300k wedding ring upgrade Stephen got for her back in 2014.

 According to the divorce docs she filed Monday, the couple's been separated since December ... so the breakup is hardly fresh.

 Maybe this is a sign: Stephen goes, but the ring stays. ||||| Mel B Belafonte Beat Me Physically And Beat Me Down Emotionally

 Mel B Says Husband Stephen Belafonte Beat Me Physically and Beat Me Down Emotionally

 EXCLUSIVE

 Mel B says she was emotionally weak when she married Stephen Belafonte, but it soon became apparent ... whenever she achieved success, he would literally beat her down to maintain control.

 Mel B got a restraining order Monday, forcing Belafonte to leave the family home and stay clear of her and her 3 kids. In her declaration, she recounts why she married him. She says, "At the time, I was vulnerable. I was giving birth as a single mother, my self-esteem was very low, and my hormones were out of balance due to the pregnancy."

 She says Belafonte "rushed in to help me in every way," saying in the beginning he was nice and supportive.

 Shortly after they got married, Mel B says things changed dramatically. She says he would tell her she was "worthless, that he made me 'who I am,' that no one knows how really stupid I am."

 She says he destroyed her self-confidence and self-esteem, especially because she was struggling to lose her pregnancy weight.

 Mel B says she lived in abject fear he would make good on his threat to release sex tapes of them he recorded, threatening to ruin her career. She also says he threatened to release the videos to Children's Services in an attempt to have the kids taken away.

 As we reported, she says it got so bad, in December 2014, she tried committing suicide by swallowing an entire bottle of Aspirin.

 She says the final humiliation was when he allegedly began having sex with their nanny, got her pregnant and told her they should all just live together. She says she got up the gumption to fire the nanny and leave him, but he fired back that the nanny would leak damaging stories to the media and Children's Services. She was so scared she re-hired the nanny and stayed with him.

 Even after separating from him in December, she began posting messages suggesting she and Belafonte were working things out. She says what finally gave her the push was her father dying last month. She says Belafonte said, "Suck it up. If he's going to die, he's going to die," and that was the final straw.

 Belafonte tells TMZ he questions the motives of her accusations. ||||| Mel B Abuse by Husband Seen By Many, Authorities Not Called

 Mel B Says Abuse by Husband Stephen Belafonte Seen By Many, Authorities Not Called

 EXCLUSIVE

 Mel B says she has been the victim of horrific brutality at the hands of husband Stephen Belafonte for nearly a decade, and lots of people around her saw her injuries but it appears most of them bought her stories that made no sense.

 TMZ broke the story, Mel B got a restraining order Monday against Belafonte, claiming he beat her, choked her and threw her to the ground on multiple occasions. According to the documents, after an alleged beating in 2012 over Belafonte's jealousy of Usher, producers of 'X Factor' (Australia) noticed swelling on her face and asked for a physician. She claimed it was an allergic reaction to shellfish and according to the document, the doctor on set bought her story.

 She was also forced to miss a filming of 'X Factor' (UK) in late 2014 because her injuries were so bad they could not be covered by theatrical makeup. When she finally returned, she still had visible facial and body wounds yet no one sounded the alarm.

 Around the same time, things got so bad, Mel B tried to take her own life by swallowing an entire bottle of Aspirin. She had a change of heart, tried calling 999, but she says Belafonte prevented her from doing so. At some point she says her friend, Randy, came over but Belafonte forced him to leave. Randy called an ambulance but Belafonte turned it away. Authorities were not alerted.

 The next day, her driver showed up to take her to work and saw such extensive injuries he took her to the hospital, where she spent 2 days with security standing guard outside her room to keep Belafonte away. Yet authorities again were not alerted.

 She returned again to 'X Factor' (UK) with visible facial and body wounds, which producers attempted to cover up. Again, authorities not called.

 When she was back in L.A. she told 'X Factor' "employers" she had attempted suicide to escape from the abuse at the hands of Belafonte. She says they offered assistance to get her away from Belafonte, but it appears authorities were not contacted and she went back to living with him.

 Mel B says throughout the years, Belafonte would harass and intimidate her agents, producers and co-stars, and they complained to her he was "abusive and demanding," and he was adversely affecting her business ... but again, it appears authorities were not contacted.

 Belafonte tells TMZ he questions the motives of her accusations. ||||| Mel B Claims Husband Beat, Sexually Exploited Her

 Mel B Claims Husband Stephen Belafonte Beat, Sexually Exploited Her

 EXCLUSIVE

 Mel B claims estranged husband Stephen Belafonte was a monster, brutally beating her, extorting her into doing 3-ways with other women and threatening to release sex tapes ... and now she says she and her children fear for their lives.

 Mel B's lawyers got a restraining order Monday, forcing Belafonte to stay away from Mel and her 3 kids and ordering him to leave the family home.

 In her declaration, Mel B tells a horrific story of abuse. Here are some of her allegations:

 -- November 2007, the night of her "Dancing with the Stars" finale, as she was getting ready at home, she says Stephen placed both of his hands around her neck, began choking her and slammed her down onto the hardwood floors. She says this was the pattern ... when she achieved any measure of success, he would "beat me down to let me know he was in charge."

 -- July 2012, while she was taping 'X Factor,' she was going to tape a segment with Usher, and Belafonte flew into a jealous rage, punched her with a closed fist in the face, splitting her lip. When she asked how she was supposed to work with the injury, he said she should have thought of that before deciding to "flirt with and f*** Usher."

 -- August 2012, the day after performing at the closing ceremonies for the London Olympics, he punched her with a closed fist and pushed her down on the carpet. Her skin was burned from being pushed against the carpet and her face "actually scabbed over the rug burns." He then forced her to tweet out she injured herself by running on 7" Christian Louboutin heels.

 -- Mel B claims Stephen got their nanny pregnant. She says he told her he wanted to have the baby and "all three of us live together." She says Stephen ultimately demanded the nanny get an abortion. She also says Stephen paid the nanny in excess of $300,000 of Mel B's money "for alleged nanny services."

 -- She also says in 2014, she was overcome with "emotional and physical exhaustion" and took an entire bottle of Aspirin. She tried calling 999 and he blocked her, throwing her in the bedroom, locking the door and "telling me to 'die, bitch!'"

 -- She says Stephen has sex tapes of her and repeatedly threatened to release them to ruin her career.

 -- And, she says, he forced her to "participate in sexual intercourse with him and random women" and he would often secretly record the encounters. She says when she tried to resist the 3-ways, he'd threaten to release the sex tapes.

 -- Mel B says she tried to leave him many times, but he "threatened me with violence and threatened to destroy my life in every possible way ... destroy my career and take my kids from me."

 -- Mel B says Stephen has a gun at home ... a violation of law since he's prohibited from carrying firearms as part of a domestic violence conviction involving another woman. She says the gun is either a .38 or .357 magnum.

 TMZ broke the story ... agents from the Dept. of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms served a search warrant on Belafonte Friday night after his brother made claims Stephen had the gun. Mel claims Stephen kept the gun in a lockbox in the bedroom closet. She says ATF agents did not find the gun.

 In addition to getting the restraining order, the judge ordered Stephen to leave the family home in the Hollywood Hills. He went to the house late Monday afternoon, packed up some of his stuff, and told our photog the allegations were untrue. |||||Summary:

– Mel B filed last month to divorce husband Stephen Belafonte, from whom she's been separated since December; now the Spice Girl has leveled serious abuse allegations against him. She got a restraining order against Belafonte on Monday that bars him from her and their three children, TMZ reports, and in the declaration, she says he's been physically abusing her, including choking her and punching her, since at least 2007. She says he also sexually abused her, forcing her to participate in three-ways that he sometimes taped, and that he has threatened to release the tapes to hurt her career—or to release them to Children's Services in an attempt to get her parental rights taken away. She says that in 2014 she attempted suicide by taking a bottle of aspirin, but then tried to call emergency services. Belafonte blocked her from doing so, she says, and locked her in the bedroom while telling her to die. She claims that every time she tried to leave, he threatened to destroy her life and take the children. She says that he got their nanny pregnant and suggested all of them live together, though ultimately, she claims, Belafonte demanded the nanny terminate the pregnancy. She says multiple people saw evidence of the physical abuse over the years, but never reported it. Belafonte denies the allegations.