Article:
David Frederick, center, outside counsel with Aereo Inc., speaks to the media with Chief Executive Chet Kanojia, left, and General Counsel Brenda Cotter after the Supreme Court heard arguments in the broadcasters' copyright-infringement lawsuit against Aereo. (Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg / )

 If you're comfortable with the Supreme Court resolving disputes over technology, the transcript of Tuesday's oral arguments in ABC vs. Aereo should change your mind.

 Admittedly, the case is about copyrights, not circuitry. In particular, the issue focuses on whether Aereo's service violates broadcasters' exclusive rights to transmit works to the public. Yet the inner workings of Aereo's system are crucial to that issue, at least from Aereo's point of view. And the justices struggled to get past a simplistic view of the technology involved.

 For example, at one point Justice Stephen G. Breyer said that unlike a rooftop TV antenna, the tiny antennas that Aereo sets up in a city could "pick up every television signal in the world and send it ... into a person's computer." That's physically impossible, not just because antennas aren't sensitive enough to detect signals from outside the local market but because the world isn't, you know, flat. "And that sounds so much like what a [cable] TV system does or what a satellite system does," Breyer continued, "that it looks as if somehow you are escaping a constraint that's imposed upon them. That's what disturbs everyone [on the court]."

 Everyone outside the court should be disturbed by a question like that.

 At stake here is the degree to which innovative companies are going to have to seek permission from copyright owners to enable people to do in the cloud what they can do for themselves at home. Aereo uses its tiny antennas and circuitry to let people tune in, record and stream local TV programs over the Internet. Because each antenna, recording and stream is initiated and controlled by individual users, Aereo says the online transmissions aren't public performances, they're private ones. The networks counter that if Aereo can do that without obtaining licenses, other pay-TV operators will follow suit, destroying an important revenue stream and pressuring them to abandon free over-the-air broadcasting.

 Justice Sonia Sotomayor opened the session by asking the broadcasters' attorney, veteran Supreme Court litigator Paul D. Clement, why Aereo isn't simply a cable TV company. After all, she said, it has facilities that receive transmissions from broadcasters, then send the programs on to subscribers for a fee.

 Clement's response was that although Aereo is indistinguishable from cable operators in some respects, it isn't one largely because the company doesn't want to be considered one. It fell to Aereo's attorney, David C. Frederick, to point out that Aereo doesn't collect TV programming and retransmit it in bulk to its subscribers, as cable operators do. Instead, it rents equipment to its subscribers, who use it to watch or record one show at a time. Nothing happens unless it's initiated by the user, he said.

 To which Sotomayor responded: "I always thought ... that if I [make a copy] of a record and duplicate it a million times the way you're doing it, and I then go out and sell each of those copies to the public, then I am violating the [Copyright] Act. So why is it that you are not?"

 As the question indicates, Sotomayor didn't quite catch Frederick's point about who was actually making the recordings (Aereo's subscribers) and where they were being transmitted (to themselves). Or maybe she just rejected it as sophistry. Regardless, Frederick said legality of the recordings wasn't at issue because, as the broadcasters recognized earlier in the case, the Supreme Court held in the Sony Betamax case that people have a fair-use right to record TV shows for later viewing.

 The right question was the one Justice Elena Kagan eventually put to Clement: Why should copyright law treat a company that rents people a TV antenna hooked to an Internet-connected DVR different than one that sells people the functional equivalent to install at home? The answer, Clement said, was that a private performance becomes a public one when it's transmitted by a service provider from one place to another, rather than by a viewer to himself.

 Clement's formula ignores the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling in Cartoon Network vs. Cablevision, in which the appeals court ruled that a cable operator's shared DVR didn't violate the networks' copyrights. Under the 2nd Circuit's ruling, who owns the equipment and where it's located are irrelevant to determining whether a performance is public or private. Instead, the court held, what matters is whether the equipment is controlled by users, and whether their recordings and transmissions are theirs alone. If the answer to those questions is yes, then it's a private performance.

 Aereo designed its service to comply with the 2nd Circuit's ruling, giving users total control over the equipment and making sure none of the recordings or streams was shared. Several justices focused on that aspect, pressing Frederick to say whether the company had any technological reason to use 10,000 dime-sized antennas. Frederick said it was cheaper to set up tiny remote antennas than to install rooftop ones on Manhattan skyscrapers, and to take a modular approach that could minimize the start-up's costs. That response, however, didn't seem to mollify Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Antonin Scalia, who suggested that Aereo was just trying to "get around copyright laws."

 One aspect of the case that seemed to help Aereo was the concern expressed by multiple justices about jeopardizing other cloud-based services, such as online storage lockers. Clement tried to reassure them, saying the difference between Aereo and a cloud-based storage service is like the difference between a car dealership and valet parking. One sells you a car, the other simply parks and returns the car you already own.

 That's a powerful metaphor, yet it's not quite apt. Aereo isn't providing the TV programs, the broadcasters are. Its subscribers then use the equipment they rent from Aereo to tune in the program, make a copy and transmit it to themselves. That latter transmission is a private performance, not a public one, and it's separate legally from the public performance the broadcasters make when they put programs on air.

 Frederick said that if Clement was right about Aereo being a content provider, it would mean that any company providing an antenna or a DVR was a content provider. "And if that's true," he argued, "then the implications for the equipment industry are obviously quite massive, and you can understand why that would frighten the cloud computing industry because that turns them into public performers whenever they are handling content."

 A second problem for some justices was Clement's insistence that Aereo, unlike cable operators, wouldn't qualify for a compulsory license to retransmit TV programs if the court ruled in the broadcasters' favor. Under a compulsory license, Aereo would have to pay broadcasters for the content but wouldn't face the daunting task of negotiating for a license from each copyright owner.

 Clement offered cold comfort on that point. "If they actually provide something that is a net benefit technologically, there's no reason people won't license them content," he told the justices. "But on the other hand, if all they have is a gimmick, then they probably will go out of business, and nobody should cry a tear over that."

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 Follow Jon Healey on Twitter @jcahealey and Google+ ||||| Aereo, the streaming video service that everyone’s talking about but few people actually have, defended its existence today in front of the U.S. Supreme Court while lawyers for the nation’s broadcasters and the federal government looked to smash the company’s tiny antennae into bits… legally speaking.

 You can read the whole transcript in this PDF. Like most SCOTUS transcripts, it actually makes for an amusing and thoughtful read, while showing that these hearings are much more about a group of people debating the issue instead of some camera-ready lawyer making a made-for-TV speech that knocks the justices’ socks off.

 Since it will be months before the Supremes get around to issuing their opinion on this case, let’s bide our time with some highlights from today’s arguments…

 OF PHONOGRAPH RECORDS AND COAXIAL CABLE…

 At the core of the broadcasters’ case is whether or not Aereo’s system — which uses arrays of antennae to pick up over-the-air TV signals and send them to paying users — legally constitutes a “public performance.”

 Playing devil’s advocate, Justice Breyer asked the broadcasters’ attorney where one draws the line between actual transmission of a copyrighted performance and merely selling access to copyrighted content.

 “Why isn’t what used to be called a phonograph record store that sells phonograph records to 10,000 customers a public performance?” he inquired (while at the same time showing his age).

 The broadcasters countered that a record store is “not involved in any performance at all” but said the situation might be different for an online music store where one can both buy music and stream it from the cloud.

 “If you provide downloads of music, you get a distribution license or a reproduction license,” explained the broadcasters’ attorney. “If you provide streaming of music where you also have a contemporaneous live performance, then you also get a public performance license.”

 Justice Sotomayor raised the concern that ruling in favor of the broadcasters may inadvertently result in problems for those that provide the required hardware for content delivery.

 She asked how one could write a ruling “so that someone who sells coaxial cable to a resident of a building” or sells passive storage equipment is not “swept up” in this issue.

 “What does the Court do to avoid a definition or an acceptance of a definition that might make those people liable?” asked Sotomayor.

 Once again, the broadcasters argued that hardware providers are not involved in the performance, but is just providing the tools needed for an end-user to access a private performance.

 “That’s different from an ongoing service, like a cable company or like Aereo,” said the broadcasters’ attorney, “who still owns all these facilities and they’re providing, through wire transmissions, these performances on an ongoing basis.”

 AN ISSUE OF LOCATION

 Justice Kagan asked the broadcasters to clarify the importance of distance and location in making this distinction.

 “In other words, if Aereo has the hardware in its warehouse as opposed to Aereo selling the hardware to the particular end-user, that is going to make all the difference in the world as to whether we have a public performance or not a public performance,” she asked.

 JUST SELLING THE HARDWARE…

 Justice Ginsburg asked Aereo why other transmitters, like cable companies and other online services, pay royalties but Aereo should not?

 “The person who sells an antenna to me at the local Radio Shack doesn’t pay copyright royalties,” explained Aereo, which maintains that all it does is rent people a service to access freely available TV feeds online. “A company that provides a rental service for me to put an antenna in my home and install it, they don’t pay copyright royalties either.”

 The broadcasters admit that “if you sell somebody hardware and all they’re doing is transmitting it to themselves at their home, there’s not going to be a transmission that’s chargeable to the person who sold you the hardware,” but countered that by having these streams coming from a remote location “it becomes a public performance on behalf of the sender, but it still would be a private performance on behalf of the receiver.”

 OF CAR DEALERS AND CLOUD COMPUTING

 It’s that last distinction that the broadcasters believe allows them to challenge Aereo without putting all cloud-based computing and storage technology at risk.

 “There’s a fundamental difference between a service that… provides new content to all sorts of end-users — essentially any paying stranger — and a service that provides a locker, a storage service,” argued the broadcasters, who used the analogous comparison of the difference between a car dealer and a valet parking service.

 Both of these services “provide” cars to people, but there’s a huge difference in how they do it.

 “If I show up at the car dealership without a car, I’m going to be able to get a car. If I show up at the valet parking service and I don’t own a car, it’s not going to end well for me,” explained the broadcasters. “At the end of the day, the car dealer’s providing cars to the public, the valet parking service is not. It’s providing a parking service.”

 But Chief Justice Roberts took issue with this analogy, asking if a better comparison might be between a personal garage and one that’s open to the public; i.e., the choice between owning and renting.

 “You can go to RadioShack and buy an antenna and a DVR or you can rent those facilities somewhere else from Aereo,” said Roberts. “They’ve got an antenna. They’ll let you use it when you need it and they can, you know, record the stuff as well and let you pick it up when you need it.”

 Aereo contends that what the broadcasters’ challenge goes too far and puts all of cloud-based tech at risk by trying to argue that having multiple copies stored of the same content somehow makes Aereo a public performer.

 “It means that every time somebody stores something in the cloud — whether it’s a song, a video image or the like — if it happens to be something that somebody else has stored in the cloud, the act of one person initiating it and perceiving it is going to implicate the public performance right,” argued Aereo’s attorney. “And that’s why the cloud computing industry is freaked out about this case, because they’ve invested tens of billions of dollars on the notion that a user-specific, user-initiated copy, when perceived by that person, is a private performance and not a public performance.”

 THE DEATH OF THE CLOUD DVR?

 Justice Kennedy asked the broadcasters to distinguish between Cablevision’s cloud-based DVR (whose legality has never been confirmed by the Supremes) and the DVR service offered by Aereo.

 The broadcasters explain that — while still taking issue with Cablevision’s device — the cable company has already obtained licenses for the initial performance of the programming but Aereo has not.

 “Aereo is like if Cablevision… decides, ‘Whew, we won, so guess what? Going forward, we’re going to dispense with all these licenses, and we are just going to try to tell people we are just an RS DVR, that’s all we are, and never mind that we don’t have any licensed ability to get the broadcast in the first instance, and we’re going to provide it to individual users, and it’s all going to be because they push buttons and not because we push buttons.'”

 (Which is just a ridiculous claim, as the content that goes onto the Cablevision DVRs comes from programming aired on Cablevision’s pay-TV network. It doesn’t magically appear there. If Cablevision stopped offering new TV to customers, there would be nothing new to add to the DVRs and the stuff that’s already on there would have already been licensed… making it a locker-type storage device that the broadcasters say they have no problem with.)

 Aereo cited the 1984 SCOTUS ruling in favor of Sony, whose Betamax videotapes were going to ruin the Hollywood movie system by allowing people to record things and watch them over and over again… (How much does the studio system thank itself for losing that case?)

 “In Sony, this Court held that consumers have a fair-use right to take local over-the-air broadcasts and make a copy of it,” argued the company’s lawyer. “All Aereo is doing is providing antennas and DVRs that enable consumers to do exactly what this Court in Sony recognized they can do when they’re in their home… and moving the equipment — the antennas and the DVRs — to the Internet.” ||||| Analysis

 In the digital age, perhaps only someone as old as Justice Stephen G. Breyer (or older) would fret about what might happen to a store that sells “phonograph records.” It is doubtful, in the extreme, whether there are any of those anymore, but no matter: Breyer and other Justices searched on Tuesday for ways to demonstrate that they want to be careful about what they do about today’s modes of entertainment.

 With a new method of watching TV via an Internet connection before the Court for analysis, the Court moved back and forth between killing that novelty by forcing it to pay sizable fees to download copyrighted TV programs, or giving it a fighting legal chance to survive as a cheaper alternative to cable.

 Aside from struggling somewhat to learn just how this new entry in home entertainment actually works, the hour-long hearing in American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. v. Aereo, Inc., found the Court quite worried about “the cloud.” That’s that capacious site, somewhere in the electronic firmament, where all manner of digital expression and indulgences are stored. Maybe even a Super Bowl replay, or two.

 One lawyer sought to persuade the Court that the cloud is falling, so to speak, while another said not to worry about it, and a third said it means nothing legally if it is only used with “a gimmick.” All three of those positions can’t be true, but the Court left little doubt that it will have to spend some time and effort exploring which one of them — if any — can be believed.

 The legal issue before the Court is misleadingly simple: is Aereo violating copyright law with its system of renting out thousands of tiny antennas to a growing throng of customers so they can pick and choose the TV programs they want to watch, pulling them from “the cloud” whenever the mood stirs them to do so?

 Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., repeated several times his perception that the only reason Aereo put that system together was to engineer its way around the copyright laws. And, as a general matter, his skepticism seemed to be fairly widely shared across the bench.

 But there were indications that some members of the Court were thinking that, perhaps, the copyright issue had already been settled in Aereo’s favor six years ago, in a lower court decision that the Justices had in fact chosen then not even to review.

 That ruling goes by the short-form name of Cablevision, because it involved a cable operator’s system of maintaining a computer hard drive at its place of business which allowed customers to call up from storage a desired digital recording for viewing at home, using a copy available only to that one user.

 It was that decision, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, that led that court to uphold the legality of Aereo’s system, finding that it, too, depended mainly upon consumer choice, so there was no public performance of the copyrighted material when the customer downloaded it.

 Justice Anthony M. Kennedy suggested that the lawyers pretend that Cablevision was a ruling by the Supreme Court, so what should be made of it in the context of Aereo’s situation? It was the best hope for Aereo, because that company — and its lawyers — have basically argued that the whole legal issue surrounding its system is solved because the individual consumer makes all of the choices; thus, no illegal public performance of copyrighted works.

 But, in the context of the argument Tuesday, that was a fine legal point. Most of the energy, at least from the bench, was about the risk that the Court might rule in this case in a way that would smother the infant of digital innovation in its electronic crib.

 After Justice Breyer first got such a worry on the table with his antique reference to wax recordings of music that are played with a needle, of all things, Justice Sonia Sotomayor did a bit of updating, and asked about the impact on “the Dropbox and the iCloud.” She confessed her concern, saying “this is really hard for me.” She was, of course, looking for reassurance.

 The over-the-air TV broadcasting industry’s lawyer, Washington attorney Paul D. Clement, was not in the reassuring business on Tuesday. He dismissed Aereo as a pirate of copyrighted music, not a simple peddler of hardware that people could use at home to watch TV. “Aereo,” he said, coolly, “still owns all these facilities and they’re providing, through wire transmissions, these performances on an ongoing basis.”

 Sensing, perhaps, that he needed to make things simpler, Clement tried to show the distinction through a “real-world analogy” between a car dealer and a vendor of a valet parking service. Both of them, he said, provide cars to the public, but the dealer is providing a car, while the valet parker provides a service. Aereo, he implied, is a service provider, not just a product dispenser.

 The exchanges continued in that vein with a federal government lawyer, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart, who is mostly siding with the broadcasters. He seemed to have a little less technical knowledge than some of the Justices, but that did not much deter him from suggesting that the Court need not worry much in this case about “the cloud,” which he seemed to prefer calling “pure cloud locker service.”

 He was candid enough, though, to tell Justice Kennedy that, if the Court interprets the Cablevision decision as validating the individual consumer as the one who chooses to “perform” a copyrighted work, then “it’s hard to see how you could rule in favor of our position here.”

 Aereo’s lawyer, Washington attorney David C. Frederick, could not have had a better lead-in to his argument than Stewart’s concession. Aereo’s whole case, he made clear throughout his argument, depends upon the Court looking at Aereo’s system as seeing only the end-user, calling up his or her own downloads for private viewing.

 All that his client does, Frederick said, “is attempting to entice consumers to replicate on the cloud what they can do at home at lower cap costs and more efficiency.” It’s like using the Internet, he added: “You can’t do multiple channels on the Internet anyway. You can only do a single video stream at a time. So whether you have one big antenna or whether you have lots of little antenna [as Aereo does], you still have to compress the signal and only one can go over the Internet at a time.”

 His ultimate rhetorical weapon, though, given the concerns of the Justices about where this case potentially might lead, was a repeated suggestion that “the cloud computer industry” is deeply worried about how the Court might rule.

 If what Aereo does is illegal, he argued, “every time somebody stores something in the cloud, whether it’s a song, a video image or the like, if it happens to be something that somebody else has stored in the cloud, the act of one person initiating it and perceiving it is going to implicate the public performance right, . . . that’s why the cloud computing industry is freaked out about this case.”

 No more so, it seemed, than the Justices themselves.

 Recommended Citation: Lyle Denniston, Argument analysis: Slipping down the digital slope, SCOTUSblog (Apr. 22, 2014, 5:26 PM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/argument-analysis-slipping-down-the-digital-slope/ |||||Summary:

– The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in ABC v. Aereo, a much-watched case that could have big implications for both cloud computing and broadcast television—implications the justices didn't seem comfortable with. Aereo allows users to record broadcast TV online and watch it at their leisure. The major broadcast networks are suing it for copyright violation, and stand to lose billions in fees cable companies pay to carry their programming. Aereo says it's simply renting users the equipment to do online what they can legally do at home. Here's how the arguments went: "If you're comfortable with the Supreme Court resolving disputes over technology, the transcript of Tuesday's oral arguments … should change your mind," writes Jon Healey at the LA Times. Stephen Breyer at one point made an analogy to "what used to be called a phonograph record store." He also worried that Aereo's antennas could "pick up every television signal in the world," which isn't true, Healey pointed out, "because the world isn't, you know, flat." The justices seemed skeptical of Aereo's business model. "It's not logical to me that you can make these millions of copies and essentially sell them to the public," Sonia Sotomayor said. John Roberts said the company was only using thousands of small antennas, instead of a few big ones "to get around copyright laws," the Wall Street Journal reports. But the justices also seemed genuinely worried that their decision could stifle innovation. Sotomayor asked what effect this would have on "the Dropbox and the iCloud." When the broadcasters' lawyers told them to "just be confident" that Aereo's service was different, Samuel Alito said, "I don't find that very satisfying. … I need to understand what effect it will have on these other technologies." Aereo's best hope is that the justices adhere to a lower court's Cartoon Network vs. Cablevision ruling, which held that customers could make DVR recordings on Cablevision's hard drives, writes Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog. At one point, Anthony Kennedy suggested lawyers pretend that decision had come from the high court. Ultimately, the justices didn't seem to like their options. "This is really hard for me," Sotomayor confessed. "I don't see how to get out of it," Breyer agreed.


– Tunisia has arrested 33 members of the country's despised former first family. The relatives of ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali were caught trying to flee the country with large amounts of valuables, reports the Financial Times. The clan of former first lady Leila Trabelsi had a huge amount of control over Tunisia's economy and were widely hated as symbols of corruption and excess, AP notes. Soon after Ben Ali and his wife fled the country, businesses and homes belonging to the Trabelsi clan were looted and burned. The ex-leader's bank accounts and other assets have been frozen by the Swiss. The arrested family members are accused of "crimes against Tunisia," according to state television. A Tunis Air pilot has become a national hero for refusing to take off while five members of the Trabelsi clan were on board a flight to France.

Expand this summary.

Tunisians couldn't stand her even more than they couldn't stand him.

 FILE - In this Oct.28 2010 file photo, Leila Ben Ali, wife of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, attends the opening session of the 3rd Congress of the Arab Women's Organisation in Tunis. Tunisians... (Associated Press)

 A man walks in the looted house of Mohamed Bouaziz, a minister of the former government, in Grammath, Tunisia, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011. Tunisians cheering a new era after the authoritarian president fled... (Associated Press)

 Tunisian walk in the looted house of Adel Trabelsi, a nephew of the former President's wife, Laila Ben Ali, in Gammarth, 25 kms(15.5mls)north of Tunis, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011. Tunisians cheering a new... (Associated Press)

 A man walks in the looted house of Mouez Trabelsi, the nephew of the former President's wife, Leila Ben Ali, in Marsa 20 kms (12.5mls) north of Tunis, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011. Tunisians cheering a new era... (Associated Press)

 A man walks in the looted house of Mouez Trabelsi, the nephew of the former President's wife, Leila Ben Ali, in Marsa 20 kms (12.5mls) north of Tunis, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011. Tunisians cheering a new era... (Associated Press)

 The living room of the looted house of Imed Trabelsi, the nephew of the former President's wife, Laila Ben Ali, is seen in Marsa 20 kms(12.5mls) north of Tunis, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011. Tunisians cheering... (Associated Press)

 The end of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's iron-fisted, 23-year rule brought joy to many ordinary people in this North African nation _ and they were especially elated at the prospect of life without his wife and her rapacious family.

 The clan of former first lady Leila Trabelsi, a one-time hairdresser who rose to become Tunisia's most influential woman, was widely despised as the ultimate symbol of corruption and excess. Leila and her 10 siblings are said to have operated like a mafia, extorting money from shop owners, demanding a stake in businesses large and small, and divvying up plum concessions among themselves.

 Their control over the North African country's economy was vast. The Trabelsi and Ben Ali's own families were said to have a stake in Tunisian banks and airlines, car dealerships, Internet providers, radio and television stations, industry and big retailers.

 And when mass protests forced Ben Ali to flee Friday to Saudi Arabia, his peoples' pent-up rage was directed more at Leila's side of the family than at her husband and his authoritarian regime.

 Retribution was swift. Within a day of Ben Ali's departure, many of the sumptuous villas and businesses belonging to the Trabelsis were pillaged and burned, and some reports said one prominent family member was killed by an angry mob. A Tunis Air pilot who refused to take off with five fleeing family members on board has become a national hero.

 A branch of the Zeitouna bank in Tunis founded by Ben Ali's son-in-law was torched, as were vehicles made by the car brands he distributed, including Kia, Fiat and Porsche.

 "They (the Trabelsis) are thieves, tricksters and even killers," raged Tunis resident Mantasser Ben Mabrouk. "Their only goal was to make money in whatever way they could."

 His friend Mohamed Gaddahi agreed, laying _ as many here do _ much of the blame for the regime's abuses squarely on the Trabelsis.

 "The president did lots of good, but the family did lots of harm to Tunisia," Gaddahi said.

 U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks appear to shore up that conclusion. A June 2008 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tunis describes a report by anti-corruption group Transparency International saying: "Whether it's cash, services, land, property ... President Ben Ali's family is rumored to covet it and reportedly gets what it wants."

 The economic fallout of the Trabelsis' web of corruption and influence-mongering was palpable, the cable said, with "Tunisian investors _ fearing the long-arm of 'the Family' _ forgoing new investments, keeping domestic investment rates low and unemployment high."

 A lack of jobs in this highly educated nation fueled the month of popular protests that toppled Ben Ali. The uprising began in December after a despairing university graduate who sold fruits and vegetables without a permit set himself on fire and died because police confiscated his goods.

 The co-author of a book on Leila Trabelsi, "La Regente de Carthage," says the Trabelsis played an "absolutely capital" role in the fall of the regime.

 "Tunisians were absolutely aware of what they were up to and they got to a point where they were sick and tired of their behavior," said author Catherine Graciet. Still, she noted that "we can't put all the blame on the Trabelsis, because it was Ben Ali himself who allowed them to act that way."

 Leila Trabelsi was born in 1957 _ the fifth of 11 children of a dried fruits vendor and a housewife, according to Graciet's book.

 After working as a hairdresser and having a short-lived first marriage, Trabelsi married Ben Ali in 1992, five years after the bloodless palace coup in which he replaced aging independence hero Habib Bourguiba as president.

 The marriage _ which was also Ben Ali's second _ catapulted the once-modest Trabelsi clan to national prominence.

 Her oldest brother, Belhassen, known as the clan chieftain, is said to have ruled over the family's many mafia-style rackets.

 Her nephew, Imed Trabelsi, was reputed to be the spoiled brat of the family and the former first lady's favorite, according to the book. Known as a playboy, he enjoyed a jet-set lifestyle, complete with a garage full of sports cars and yachts.

 French prosecutors suspected him and another of Leila Trabelsi's nephews of having ordered the 2006 theft of a yacht belonging to a French investment banker that turned up in the Tunisian port of Sidi Bou Said. Still, a French judge ruled that the two Trabelsis could be tried at home, despite the fact that Tunisia was ruled by their uncle. It was not clear if any trial was ever held in Tunisia.

 Some Tunisian media reports said Imed Trabelsi was recognized at the Tunis airport as he attempted to flee the country hours after the regime crumbled _ and was attacked by an angry mob. Conflicting reports said he was stabbed by a fisherman in the town where he was mayor, an upscale coastal town near the capital. He reportedly died from his wounds at a Tunis military hospital over the weekend.

 It was not immediately possible to verify those reports.

 Graciet said the ex-first lady tried to block the book's release on the ground that it painted an unflattering portrait of her, but a French judge rejected Trabelsi's legal motion.

 Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia, and Tunisian media reported he was joined by his wife and a few other relatives. The couple has two girls and one boy.

 The whereabouts of all family members was unclear. France, which ruled Tunisia as a protectorate until it won independence in 1956, said some Ben Ali relatives were in France but they were "not welcome" to stay. Media reports had them at a hotel near the Disneyland Paris resort.

 French government spokesman Francois Baroin also said France had taken "the necessary steps" to block any suspicious movement of Tunisian assets linked to Ben Ali and his entourage that might be squirreled away in France.

 Mohamed Ben Kilani, the pilot of a scheduled Tunis Air flight to Lyon, France, became an instant hero at home after he refused to take off Friday with five members of the Trabelsi family on board, airline officials say.

 "It was a courageous act that merits being highlighted," Ali Miaoui, director of Tunis Air's French division, told AP Television News.

 This is not the first time that anger has crystallized toward the wives of dictators, despots and autocrats.

 In the 1980s, the public was more outraged at the spending excesses of Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos _ a shoe addict of legendary proportions _ than at her husband Ferdinand Marcos, who allegedly amassed billions of dollars in ill-gotten wealth during his 21 years in power.

 Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier's marriage to the flamboyant and free-spending Michelle Pasquet estranged the Haitian dictator from his father's old supporters. He was deposed in 1987.

 ___

 Barchfield reported from Paris. ||||| Tunisia has arrested 33 members of the family of Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali, the president ousted on Friday by a popular uprising.

 State television said they were suspected of “crimes against Tunisia” and showed footage of gold and jewellery, including gold necklaces and earrings with precious stones, said to have been found in their possession.

 “Investigations will be carried out in order for them to face justice,” said an official source cited by a statement read out on state television. The statement apologised for not giving more details about the family members.

 On Thursday, state TV said Zitouna Bank, Tunisia’s first Islamic bank and owned by Sakher Materi, a son-in-law of Mr Ben Ali, had been placed under the control of the central bank.

 Mr Materi’s Princesse Holding contributed 51 percent of the bank’s $30 million starting capital prior to it opening last year.

 Mr Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on Friday after weeks of popular protests against joblessness and political repression. An authoritarian ruler who stifled all dissent, he was particularly loathed for allowing the family of his wife, the Trabelsi clan, to enrich themselves and gain control of lucrative sectors of the economy.

 The family is alleged to have abused its political connections to build a huge business empire spanning telecommunications, hotels, aviation, media, car dealerships and banking. Tunisians accuse clan members of mafia-like practices including intimidation of competitors and forcing successful businesses to hand over part of their profits. The Tunisian authorities had said earlier in the day that an investigation into corrupt practices and enrichment by members of the ousted regime had been launched.

 Ministers quit Ben Ali party All ministers in Tunisia’s interim government have quit the ruling party of the ousted president, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing state TV. Four union and oppposition ministers had left the cabinet this week, demanding that RCD ministers go. The move could go some way to restoring confidence in the cabinet. Tunisia’s prime minister and president quit the party of the deposed president earlier this week

 The arrests came hours after Switzerland announced it was taking measures to freeze the bank accounts and other assets of both Mr Ben Ali and Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo.

 Micheline Calmy-Rey, Switzerland’s foreign minister and head of state under the country’s rotating presidency, said the federal government had acted particularly quickly in the case of Tunisia to prevent any danger of assets being shifted to other countries.

 Bern did not give any details of the assets the two African leaders and their families and associates held in Switzerland. In the case of Tunisia, the government said it had imposed the freeze to give the Tunisian authorities time to submit a formal request for administrative assistance.

 The freeze, which is for three years, covers bank accounts and any attempt to sell immovable assets.

 Lex: Tunisia |||||


Here is a news article: Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Student Cameron Kasky addresses the March for Our Lives rally on March 24, 2018 in Washington, D.C. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

 Guns will be banned from the premises when Vice President Mike Pence speaks at a National Rifle Association convention in Dallas on Friday. Before and during the speech, attendees are prohibited from bringing “firearms and firearm accessories, knives or weapons of any kind,” the NRA wrote as it announced Pence’s presence at the conference.

 The NRA is blaming the Secret Service for the prohibition but that didn’t stop survivors of the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who were quick to criticize the organization’s apparent hypocrisy in giving in to demands for a gun-free area.

 “Wait wait wait wait wait wait you’re telling me to make the VP safe there aren’t any weapons around but when it comes to children they want guns everywhere?” asked Matt Deitsch, a Parkland student who helped organize the March for Our Lives rally. “Can someone explain this to me?”

 Wait wait wait wait wait wait you’re telling me to make the VP safe there aren’t any weapons around but when it comes to children they want guns everywhere? Can someone explain this to me? Because it sounds like the NRA wants to protect people who help them sell guns, not kids. — Matt Deitsch (@MattxRed) April 28, 2018

 He was hardly alone. Cameron Kasky, another Parkland survivor noted on Twitter that the “NRA has evolved into such a hilarious parody of itself.”

 The NRA has evolved into such a hilarious parody of itself. pic.twitter.com/6Pw6NTQAe6 — Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) April 28, 2018

 Fred Guttenberg, the father of 14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg, who was killed in the attack, also highlighted the ban, noting that “on so many levels, this is enlightening.” The NRA says “we should want everyone to have weapons … but when they put on a convention, the weapons are a concern?” |||||

 Vice President Pence is scheduled to speak at the annual NRA gathering in Dallas on Friday. (Karel Navarro/AP)

 The National Rifle Association has championed the idea of “a good guy with a gun,” but no firearms will be allowed when Vice President Pence speaks at its annual meeting — sparking criticism from Parkland, Fla., students, who say schools should be afforded the same protection.

 And in a rare occurrence, even some NRA supporters have voiced opposition to the prohibition.

 Pence is scheduled to speak at the annual NRA gathering in Dallas on Friday, and many attendees will be packing guns, knives and other weapons for the event — which includes “more than 20 acres” of firearms exhibits expected to draw 80,000 members.

 But the NRA said the U.S. Secret Service will coordinate security for the Pence speech and will not allow weapons in the arena while he is present.

 “As a result, firearms and firearm accessories, knives or weapons of any kind will be prohibited in the forum prior to and during his attendance,” the NRA said. A detailed list of prohibited items includes ammunition, drones, gun parts, firearm magazines, as well as signs and glass containers.

 With the exception of the Pence event, lawfully carried firearms will be permitted at the convention center and the host hotel, the NRA said, advising members to comply with federal, state and local laws.

 [After Parkland shooting, NRA posts biggest fundraising haul in nearly 20 years]

 The NRA is complying with laws that prohibit firearms from being brought into areas where Secret Service protectees visit, agency spokesman Shawn L. Holtzclaw told The Washington Post in a statement Sunday. That includes events in open-carry states such as Texas, he said.

 “Individuals determined to be carrying firearms will not be allowed past a predetermined outer perimeter checkpoint, regardless of whether they possess a ticket to the event,” Holtzclaw said.

 Attendees were similarly restricted from carrying weapons during President Trump’s speech to the NRA in Atlanta last year. The president is expected to speak at the annual meeting on Friday, a White House official confirmed Monday.

 The NRA, bolstered by Trump, has been a vocal proponent of allowing more guns in public places, including schools, but the exception for the convention has raised eyebrows and prompted skepticism among students and at least one parent who lost his child in the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in which 17 people were killed and others injured.

 “On so many levels, this is enlightening. According to the NRA, we should want everyone to have weapons when we are in public,” Fred Guttenberg, father of slain Parkland student Jaime Guttenberg, said Sunday on Twitter. “But when they put on a convention, the weapons are a concern? I thought giving everyone a gun was to enhance safety. Am I missing something?”

 On so many levels, this is enlightening. According to the NRA, we should want everyone to have weapons when we are in public. But when they put on a convention, the weapons are a concern? I thought giving everyone a gun was to enhance safety. Am I missing something? https://t.co/f4wgNhJ7RI — Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) April 28, 2018

 The NRA did not respond to a request for comment.

 Matt Deitsch, who graduated from the Parkland school in 2016 and is the chief strategist for the March for Our Lives protest, expressed similar skepticism.

 “You’re telling me to make the VP safe there aren’t any weapons around but when it comes to children they want guns everywhere? Can someone explain this to me?” Deitsch said Saturday on Twitter. “Because it sounds like the NRA wants to protect people who help them sell guns, not kids.”

 March for Our Lives did not respond to a request for comment.

 Parkland student Cameron Kasky said Saturday on Twitter: “The NRA has evolved into such a hilarious parody of itself.” David Hogg, a Parkland student, circulated a petition on Sunday calling on Pence to cancel his NRA appearance.

 Some gun enthusiasts and apparent NRA members are displeased at the prohibition. At Texas CHL Forum, a message board for gun owners, commenters aired their frustrations.

 “Obviously even republicans and so called leaders don’t trust the ‘good guys.’ I realize it’s the VP, but still makes our whole argument look foolish,” a commenter who self-identified as an NRA member said Thursday.

 [A fake photo of Emma González went viral on the far right, where Parkland teens are villains]

 “You may disagree … but in my opinion the very people that claim to protect the 2A should never host an event that requires disarming the good guys. Sad. No excuses for this … it makes us look stupid,” the commenter said.

 Another self-identified NRA member agreed, saying Friday: “Me personally, I won’t be listening to him speak. I won’t be going anywhere that I cant carry my firearm. It’s essentially the nations largest get together for gun owners and they won’t let law abiding legal gun owners carry guns because someone who’s supposedly pro 2A thinks its too ‘dangerous’? thats liberal logic right there.”

 Other users chimed in, saying the Secret Service is simply carrying out the law.

 “Look at it this way, imagine what a prime opportunity it would be for some rabid gun hater to take a pot shot at the VP AT the NRA Annual Convention,” one commenter who self-identified as an NRA instructor said Saturday. “The campaign ads would write themselves.”

 Kristine Phillips contributed to this report.

 Read more:

 ‘He killed my deputy’: Man arrested using handcuffs of Maine officer he’s accused of shooting

 An off-duty Arkansas officer was killed after a stray bullet struck his home, police say ||||| Thousands of activist bits and bytes are marching forward to build your page! Just a sec . . . . [loading....] ||||| President Trump Donald John TrumpEx-FBI lawyer won't attend interview with House lawmakers: attorney Trump officials to release migrants with ankle monitors North Korea state media release photos of Kim at potato farm after Pompeo visit MORE is expected to speak at the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) annual meeting this week, a White House official confirmed Sunday.

 The NRA’s annual meeting will take place May 3-6 in Dallas. Vice President Pence is scheduled to speak there on Friday.

 Trump has delivered remarks at each of the past two annual meetings for the gun rights group.

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 CNN first reported on Trump's planned appearance at the annual meeting.

 The speech will come nearly two months after the Trump administration unveiled a series of proposals on school safety and gun restrictions in response to a Feb. 14 shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school.

 Trump has faced pressure from gun safety advocates and Democratic lawmakers to champion gun law reforms following that shooting, which left 17 people dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

 Trump initially voiced support for universal background checks and raising the age limit on certain gun purchases. However, neither was addressed in his administration’s proposal.

 The White House denied that the president had “chickened out” in the face of pressure from the NRA, which met with the president and opposed gun law reforms.

 — Updated at 9:42 p.m. |||||
A summary of this is?

– National Rifle Association members have been told they won't be allowed to pack heat when Mike Pence speaks at its national convention this week—and the irony was not lost on Parkland school shooting survivors, among others. "You're telling me to make the VP safe there aren't any weapons around but when it comes to children they want guns everywhere? Can someone explain this to me?” tweeted former student Matt Deitsch, who helped organize the March for Our Lives rallies. The NRA says "firearms and firearm accessories, knives, or weapons of any kind will be prohibited in the forum" during the vice president's Friday appearance at the Dallas event because of Secret Service regulations, Slate reports. An NRA spokesman tells the Washington Post that even in open-carry states like Texas, it is against the law to bring firearms into areas being visited by Secret Service protectees. Parkland student David Hogg has circulated a petition that urges Pence to cancel the appearance, calling it a "slap in the face" to Americans hurting from gun violence. A similar gun ban was in place when President Trump spoke at the NRA's convention in Atlanta last year. The Hill reports that White House officials have confirmed that Trump also plans to speak at this year's convention, which is being held from Thursday to Sunday and will feature more than 20 acres of firearms exhibits, according to organizers. (In his 2016 speech to the convention, Trump promised to ban gun-free zones nationwide if elected.)


– So Pinocchio wasn't that far-fetched after all: The nose may not grow when we lie, but two Spanish scientists say it does get noticeably warmer. Using thermal imaging cameras on volunteers, Emilio Gómez Milán and Elvira Salazar López found that nose temperature changed depending on their mood, the Daily Mail reports. The reason: Part of the brain called the insular cortex is altered when people lie about their feelings, and the insular cortex detects and regulates body temperature. Milán and López found other things that heat up, too. Their thermal imaging detected male and female sexual arousal in the chest and genital areas, and found that women and men became excited at the same time—even when female volunteers indicated they were not aroused, the Daily News reports. The scientists also associated "thermal footprints" with different dances: "When someone dances Flamenco, the temperature in their buttocks lowers and it rises in their forearms," they wrote. "Each type of dance has its own."

Expand this summary.

Telling a lie may not make your nose grow like Pinocchio but it does send its temperature soaring, according to Spanish scientists.

 A rise in anxiety will see the tip of the nose heat up - while making a 'great mental effort' will help in cooling it down - says the University of Granada's Emilio Gómez Milán and Elvira Salazar López.

 They have dubbed the newly-found phenomenon, discovered by using thermal imaging cameras on volunteers, 'The Pinocchio Effect'.

 It is an homage to Italian writer Carlo Collodi's 19th century literary wooden character whose nose grew when he came under stress - especially when he failed to tell the truth.

 The pair's doctoral thesis research, released yesterday, indicated the temperature of the nose increases or decreases according to mood, as does the orbital muscle area in the inner corner of the eyes.

 They claimed that thermal imaging can detect sexual desire and arousal in both men and women, evident by an increase in temperature in the chest and genital areas.

 And their work also demonstrated that, at a physiological level at least, men and women become aroused at the same time, although women subjectively indicate that they are not.

 They made their conclusions after finding that, when people lie about their feelings, the brain's insular cortex is altered.

 The scientists' statement said: 'The insular cortex is involved in the detection and regulation of body temperature, so there is a large negative correlation between the activity of this structure and the magnitude of the temperature change.

 'The more activity in the insular cortex (the higher the visceral feeling), lower heat exchange occurs, and vice versa.'

 Part of the results of their study have been published in scientific journals, while others have not, reported El Mundo newspaper.

 The pair also found thermal footprints (that is body patterns with specific temperature changes) for aerobic exercise and distinct types of dance, such as ballet.

 Salazar said: 'When someone dances Flamenco, the temperature in their buttocks lowers and it rises in their forearms. This is the thermal footprint for Flamenco, although each type of dance has its own.' ||||| Feeling the heat? Why a hot nose is the tell-tale sign of a liar

 Scientists from the University of Granada used thermal imaging to prove anxiety makes the nose heat up

 The academics claim the technique can also detect sexual desire and arousal in men and woman

 Feeling the heat: Anxiety caused by telling lies makes the tip of the nose grow warm, the scientists claim

 Contrary to what you may say to your children, telling a lie doesn’t, of course, make your nose grow like Pinocchio’s. But it does make it hotter.

 Scientists claim that a rise in anxiety produced by lying will increase the temperature of the tip of your nose.

 And if you’re worried that your fib will be uncovered, they also suggest a way of cooling the nose down – making ‘a great mental effort’.

 The scientists, from the University of Granada, discovered the phenomenon by using thermal imaging cameras to monitor volunteers.

 They have called it ‘The Pinocchio Effect’, in honour of the 19th century Italian tale of the wooden puppet whose nose grew when he failed to tell the truth.

 In their doctoral thesis, released yesterday, Emilio Gómez Milán and Elvira Salazar López suggest that the temperature of the nose increases or decreases according to mood, as does the orbital muscle area in the inner corner of the eyes.

 The scientists also claim thermal imaging can detect sexual desire and arousal in men and women, indicated by an increase in temperature in the chest and genital areas.

 And the technique also allowed the pair to produce thermal footprints – body patterns with specific temperature changes – for aerobic exercise and distinct types of dance, such as ballet.

 The Pinocchio effect: Researchers at the University of Granada found that the temperature of the nose rises as a person becomes anxious

 They explained: ‘When someone dances Flamenco, the temperature in their buttocks lowers and it rises in their forearms.

 ‘This is the thermal footprint for Flamenco, although each type of dance has its own.’

 The pair reached their conclusions after discovering that when the volunteers lied about their feelings, the brain’s insular cortex was altered.

 They said: ‘The insular cortex is involved in the detection and regulation of body temperature, so there is a large negative correlation between the activity of this structure and the magnitude of the temperature change. |||||


News article:

Defense Secretary Ash Carter caused a stir Tuesday when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the $500 million program to train and equip “moderate” Syrian rebels to take on the Islamic State had so far yielded just 60 vetted candidates.

 Republicans quickly pounced on the number — far short of a goal for at least 5,400 fighters in the first year — as evidence that President Barack Obama’s strategy for defeating the terrorist group isn’t working, a day after the president defended the plan at a rare Pentagon press briefing. And Democrats quickly went into damage-control mode, noting there are valid reasons the number is so small.

 Story Continued Below

 Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) let Carter know during the Senate hearing that his remark had caused a ruckus on cable news, saying he’d just stepped out of the hearing for an appearance on CNN, and all the interviewer wanted to talk about, Nelson said, was Carter’s statement.

 The Pentagon chief acknowledged he’d caused a firestorm, saying he wasn’t surprised by all the attention his statement was getting but noting that Congress deserved “to know where things stand.”

 It wasn’t exactly the headline the White House was looking for the day after Obama reaffirmed at the Pentagon that his strategy to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was working, especially with Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain blasting the president’s commitment to the strategy as delusional.

 But Carter’s acknowledgement that so few Syrians have made it through the vetting process also led a number of senators on both sides of the aisle to raise important questions about the viability of the train-and-equip program, asking why it’s so difficult to find moderate rebels willing to take on ISIL.

 Among the problems: stringent vetting standards, the U.S. requirement that rebels be willing to fight ISIL but not Syrian President Bashar Assad and the lack of a U.S. commitment to defend these troops from Assad’s advanced weapons.

 Carter told the Armed Services panel that about 7,000 volunteers were being screened for the train-and-equip program but that the vetting standards were slowing things down.

 The first problem is the basic vetting, which involves background checks, proof of identification and a pledge to obey the basic laws of war. Some volunteers have been booted from the program for simple reasons such as not meeting age requirements, one defense official told POLITICO, while others could not pass one or more layers of screening to protect the U.S. and allied troops conducting the effort.

 The second problem is the requirement that the Syrian volunteers must agree only to fight ISIL and not the Assad regime. U.S. officials say the “ISIL-first” strategy is essential because without a political structure in place to replace Assad if he died or left power, chaos in Syria would worsen and the state would fail, like in Libya.

 But many Syrians who have been brutalized in the civil war bear more animus toward Assad than toward ISIL, which is one reason why the “ISIL-first” commitment has winnowed out so many people who came forward.

 Still, Pentagon officials say they’re optimistic about increasing the throughput at the four sites that have been created for the train-and-equip effort in Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

 “As training progresses, we are learning more about the opposition groups and building important relationships, which increases our ability to attract recruits and provides valuable intelligence for counter-ISIL operations,” Carter said.

 McCain and other Republicans on the panel were unmoved.

 “It is not that we are doing nothing,” the Arizona senator said. “It is that there is no compelling reason to believe that anything we are currently doing will be sufficient to achieve the president’s stated goal of degrading and ultimately destroying ISIL — either in the short term or the long term.”

 And he suggested there’s another major reason the U.S. has been having so much trouble with the “moderate” Syrian force — it won’t make any solid commitments to the people it’s recruiting.

 Unresolved questions about the support the U.S. would give the fighters have split the Obama administration for years, leading in part to the dismissal of Carter’s predecessor, then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who appeared with Carter before the committee Tuesday, acknowledged that a “debate” inside the administration continues about the effect that Assad has on the fight and to what degree his departure would help or hurt it.

 For McCain and other critics, the problems are more basic: People won’t sign up to risk their lives unless they’re certain the U.S. is willing to provide air cover, resupply them with ammunition and supplies, and offer other types of support, he said. McCain mocked Carter’s answer about the administration’s absence of a policy, saying that no wonder Syrians wouldn’t agree to join if the answer they got was that a “decision will be made later.”

 “It’s shameful to send people in and not assure them that we will defend them from attacks by barrel bombs,” McCain said.

 McCain, who has been Obama’s foremost foreign-policy critic, had several other heated exchanges with Carter during Tuesday’s hearing. The Pentagon chief sought to provide some cover for the president by offering examples of progress in the U.S.-led campaign to defeat the terrorist group that has declared its own state.

 Carter said the more than 5,000 airstrikes carried out by the United States and its coalition partners have “produced some clear tactical results,” putting ISIL “on the defensive,” with “its stronghold in Raqqah under pressure.”

 But the defense secretary also acknowledged setbacks, making clear the administration was not even close to where it had hoped to be in its efforts to train Iraqi and Syrian forces.

 As of June 30, he said, “we’ve only received enough trainees to be able to train” about 10,800 Iraqi troops, with an additional 4,600 in training. “I’ve told Iraqi leaders that while the United States is open to supporting Iraq more than we already are, we must see a greater commitment from all parts of the Iraqi government,” Carter said.

 And in Syria, he explained, the administration’s efforts to train and equip a force to take on ISIL were still in the “early stages.”

 “President Obama’s comments yesterday at the Pentagon reveal a disturbing degree of self-delusion,” McCain said. “None of the so-called progress that the president cited suggests that we are on a path to success.”

 Several Democrats stepped in to defend the defense secretary, including the panel’s ranking member, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

 “The pipeline is about 7,000,” Reed told POLITICO. “From that I think you’ll start seeing increased numbers. And then when you reach a critical mass, you start raising the question of where are they deployed, how are they deployed, are they supported.”

 But, Reed was quick to add, “It’s going to take time.” ||||| WASHINGTON The United States was only training about 60 Syrian opposition fighters to battle Islamic State as of July 3, far below expectations, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress on Tuesday, citing rigorous U.S. vetting of recruits.

 The program, which launched in May in Jordan and Turkey, was designed to train as many as 5,400 fighters a year and seen as a test of President Barack Obama's strategy of engaging local partners to combat extremists.

 Carter's acknowledgement of the low number of recruits will give ammunition to critics who say Obama's strategy is too limited to have any influence on Syria's brutal civil war.

 "Given the poor numbers of recruited and trained Syrian fighters thus far, I am doubtful we can achieve our goal of training a few thousand this year," said Republican Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

 Some Syrian rebel leaders say the force the United States is training risks sowing divisions and cannot succeed without directly targeting Syrian government forces, who are currently off-limits for U.S. offensive operations.

 The top Democrat on the committee, Senator Jack Reed, said Islamic State "remains the dominant force in western Syria."

 "Absent a moderate opposition that is willing to and capable of taking territory from ISIL and holding it, any change in the status quo is unlikely," he said, using an acronym for the group.

 Obama was briefed by his top military commanders at the Pentagon on Monday. He said at a news conference later that "we will do more to train and equip the moderate opposition in Syria" but did not offer details.

 Carter told Congress the number of recruits would increase as the United States learned how to better streamline vetting.

 "We are also refining our curriculum, expanding our outreach to the moderate opposition, and incorporating lessons learned

 from the first training class," Carter said.

 Obama has yet to announce whether he will go beyond resupplying and financing the proxy force, and protect them with U.S. fighter jets if they clash with Assad's forces. The United States is already conducting near daily air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq.

 Carter said he believed the Syrian recruits needed some U.S. protection but said no decisions had been made on what assistance to provide.

 (Reporting by Phil Stewart and David Alexander; Editing by Doina Chiacu) |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– The Pentagon's plan to train an army of moderate Syrian rebels to defeat ISIS hasn't gotten off to the best start, officials admit: The $500 million program, which involves hundreds of US troops and training sites in Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, has only trained 60 vetted candidates so far, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress yesterday. The program's goal was to produce 5,400 fighters a year as part of the White House's strategy to provide assistance to those fighting ISIS on the ground, reports Reuters. Carter explained to the Armed Services Committee that around 7,000 potential fighters are being vetted, and authorities are trying to ensure that they have no history of atrocities and no intention of committing future ones, the Guardian reports. Defense sources tell Politico that while background checks have eliminated some rebels, many potential fighters who came forward have been rejected because they won't commit to only fighting ISIS and not the Assad regime they were rebelling against in the first place. (Israel's anti-ISIS strategy involves a very big fence.)


NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES "The Interview," the Sony Pictures film about a fictional plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, opened in more than 300 movie theaters across the United States on Christmas Day, drawing many sell-out audiences and statements by patrons that they were championing freedom of expression.

 Co-directors Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, who also co-stars in the low-brow comedy with James Franco, surprised moviegoers by appearing at the sold-out 12:30 a.m. PT screening of the movie at a theater in Los Angeles, where they briefly thanked fans for their support.

 Sony Pictures this week backtracked from its original decision to cancel the release of the $44 million film after major U.S. theater chains pulled out because of threats of violence by Guardians of Peace, a computer hacking group that claimed responsibility for a destructive cyberattack on Sony last month.

 The United States blamed the attacks on North Korea.

 In China and South Korea, two countries that share a land border with North Korea, hundreds of thousands of people flocked to illegal video sharing sites to see the movie.

 In the United States, movie theater managers and patrons alike said they believed there was nothing to fear from the threats, and the initial screenings on Thursday were uneventful.

 But one of the online outlets that distributed the film ahead of its theatrical release, Microsoft Corp's Xbox Live, reported that users were experiencing problems getting connected on Thursday.

 A hacking group called the Lizard Squad claimed it was behind disruptions at both Xbox and Sony Corp's PlayStation Networks, which was not carrying "The Interview." The group's claim could not be verified.

 Neither Microsoft nor Sony offered explanations for the connectivity problems, though both services expected heavy use as consumers who received the devices for Christmas tried to log on all at once.

 Extra network traffic on Xbox from users downloading "The Interview" may also have exacerbated connectivity problems for Microsoft.

 The film also was available to U.S. online viewers through Google Inc's Google Play and YouTube Movie, as well as on a Sony website, www.seetheinterview.com. It can be seen in Canada on the Sony site and Google Canada's website.

 A Sony spokeswoman on Thursday said she had no figures on the number of downloads so far, and the studio was not expected to have box office numbers from theaters before Friday morning.

 The audience at the first screening of the film in New York City, at the Cinema Village in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, remained silent during a scene showing the death of Kim Jong Un in the downing of his helicopter.

 Matt Rosenzweig, 60, of Manhattan, said the moments that drew the most applause had to do with the idea of acting against censorship rather than animosity toward North Korea.

 RAUCOUS APPLAUSE

 Although Cinema Village manager Lee Peterson said the New York Police Department planned to post officers outside the theater, there was no visible police presence outside or inside the venue for the first screening.

 An afternoon screening at the Van Nuys Regency Theatres in the city's San Fernando Valley was two-thirds full and drew a diverse crowd ranging from teens to senior citizens, who laughed loudly throughout at Rogen and Franco's antics.

 "It was much better than I thought it would be," said Carlos Royal, 45, a professor who came with a friend dressed in Santa hats and took selfies for the occasion in front of the theater's Hollywood sign marquis. "I wanted to support the U.S."

 The movie, which is playing in theaters in major metropolitan areas as well as in smaller cities ranging from Bangor, Maine, to Jasper, Indiana, features Rogen and Franco as journalists who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate the North Korean leader.

 In Asia, online audiences seemed to find the movie tedious.

 "There is no drama and not much fun," said a blogger in South Korea. "It's all about forced comedy that turns you off. Couldn't they have done a better job making this movie?"

 Sony decided to release the film after U.S. President Barack Obama, as well as such Hollywood luminaries as George Clooney and Republicans and Democrats in Washington, raised concerns that Hollywood was setting a precedent of self-censorship.

 The audience in Manhattan exited the theater to a throng of network TV cameras and a crowd of people lined up for the next showing.

 "It was more serious, the satire, than I was expecting," said Simone Reynolds, who saw the film while visiting from London. "There's a message for America in there too about America's foreign policy."

 North Korea has called the film an "act of war."

 Most fans simply called "The Interview" a funny movie.

 Ken Jacowitz, a 54-year-old librarian from the New York borough of Queens, called it "a funny film made by funny people." He had a message for North Korea and the hackers: "You have given this movie whole new lives."

 (Additional reporting by Mary Milliken, Eric Kelsey and Jed Horowitz; Jack Kim and Kahyun Yang in Seoul; Adam Jourdan in Shanghai and the Shanghai newsroom; Writing by Leslie Adler; Editing by Howard Goller, Steve Orlofsky and Raju Gopalakrishnan) ||||| A bit of Hollywood history unfolded on Wednesday. And it might be a glimpse into the future.

 The controversial Sony Pictures comedy "The Interview" was released on YouTube, Google Play, the Microsoft Xbox video game console, and a special Web site.

 The movie, which started streaming online around 1 p.m. ET, costs $5.99 to rent and $14.99 to buy.

 So it is having historic simultaneous release in both living rooms and, come Christmas Day, about 300 independently-owned theaters across the United States.

 Sony announced the digital release just an hour ahead of time, after CNNMoney and other news organizations began to report on the studio's plans to distribute "The Interview" through YouTube's movie rental store. Word spread via social media, and some curious fans started watching -- and live-tweeting -- the movie right at 1 p.m.

 Sony's extraordinary announcement encapsulated days of sometimes desperate negotiations between the studio and a number of potential Internet distribution partners.

 Related: You won't get hacked streaming 'The Interview' online

 There was a plan at one point to allow rentals through Apple's iTunes store, but it fell apart, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. An iTunes release could re-materialize sometime after Christmas.

 Sony (SNE) could also cut a deal with a subscription streaming site like Netflix (NFLX), enabling wider access to the movie sometime after Christmas.

 But at the moment, it's up on YouTube and generating an enormous amount of free publicity for the embattled movie studio, which fell victim to a cyberattack late last month.

 A Sony representative said the company would not be releasing any immediate data about the number of rentals or sales.

 A groundbreaking moment for the American movie industry

 The online release is groundbreaking -- but also awfully contentious. Owners of major theater chains have steadfastly opposed proposals for simultaneous physical and digital releases, a concept known in the industry as a same-day-and-date release.

 It's been tried, with varying success, for some documentaries and niche dramas, but never for a big, broad comedy like "The Interview," which was originally meant to premiere on 2,000 to 3,000 screens.

 But extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary movie release strategies. This time last week, after hackers -- apparently objecting to the content of "The Interview" -- threatened American moviegoers, Sony canceled the movie's release.

 Related: What we know now about the Sony Hack

 Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that he had no choice because "the movie theaters came to us, one by one, over the course of a very short period of time ... and announced that they would not carry the movie."

 Some of the theater chains dispute that. But one thing is clear: that same day, December 17, Sony contacted Google (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT) and other potential online distributors.

 "We never stopped pursuing as wide a release as possible for 'The Interview,'" Lynton said in a statement on Wednesday. "It was essential for our studio to release this movie, especially given the assault upon our business and our employees by those who wanted to stop free speech."

 He added, "We chose the path of digital distribution first so as to reach as many people as possible on opening day, and we continue to seek other partners and platforms to further expand the release."

 One of the platforms is a dedicated site, SeeTheInterview.com, done in partnership with Kernel and secure payments system Stripe. But that site appeared to be overwhelmed by traffic shortly after 1 p.m. ET. Kernel acknowledged "tremendous demand" but said the streams were "free flowing" by 2 p.m.

 Google's streams appeared to be more stable.

 Google senior vice president David Drummond wrote in a blog post that "security implications were very much at the front of our minds" when Sony contacted the company last week.

 "After discussing all the issues, Sony and Google agreed that we could not sit on the sidelines and allow a handful of people to determine the limits of free speech in another country (however silly the content might be)," he wrote.

 Next stop for 'The Interview:' indie theaters

 As for the physical release on Thursday, the studio's list of participating theaters includes about 300 that will start showing it on Christmas and dozens of others that will start showing it on January 1 or January 2. Some of the Christmas Day screenings are already sold out.

 "With what looks like a seriously limited release, limited supply is yielding substantial demand," the fan web site Moviepilot said.

 For Sony's partners, the digital release of the movie is an opportunity to show off technological and commercial prowess.

 YouTube, for instance, has a two-year-old movie rental system that many of its users don't know about; "The Interview" is chance to gain attention for it.

 The movie, oddly enough, became a political and geopolitical symbol. It is about an assassination plot against the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. And it is widely believed that Sony Pictures suffered a cyberattack last month partly due to North Korea's fury over the movie.

 Backlash to Sony's original cancellation decision was fierce, including from President Obama, who said the movie studio had made a mistake.

 Since then, Sony executives have stayed in close touch with White House officials, appraising them of the studio's efforts to seek distribution. And on Wednesday, administration officials signaled that they were pleased with the theatrical and digital plans.

 Shortly after 1 p.m., the White House responded to reporters' inquiries with a statement: "The President welcomes the news that people will be able to decide for themselves whether or not to see this film, and appreciates Sony's work on this effort over the past few weeks."

 The statement added, "With today's announcements, people can now make their own choices about the film, and that's how it should be."

 Related: Dennis Rodman on 'The Interview': Watch my movie

 Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus concurred. In a followup to his Saturday message calling on theater owners to support the movie, he said the renewed Christmas release "was the right decision."

 Priebus added, "Anything else would set a horrible precedent and allow our freedom to be ceded to the whims of a totalitarian regime."

 --CNN's Pamela Brown and Michelle Kosinski contributed reporting. ||||| Patrons queue up to see "The Interview" at the the Cinefamily at Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles on Thursday, Dec. 25, 2014. The film's Christmas Day release was canceled by Sony after threats of... (Associated Press)

 NEW YORK (AP) — Critics and early viewers agree that "The Interview" is less than a masterpiece. But thanks to threats from hackers that nearly derailed its release, it has become an event.

 Hundreds of theaters Thursday, from The Edge 8 in Greenville, Alabama, to Michael Moore's Bijou by the Bay in Traverse City, Michigan, made special holiday arrangements for the Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Sony Pictures had initially called off the release after major theater chains dropped the movie that was to have opened on as many as 3,000 screens.

 But with President Obama among others criticizing the decision, Sony officials changed their minds. "The Interview" became available on a variety of digital platforms Wednesday afternoon, including Google Play, YouTube Movies, Microsoft's Xbox Video and a separate Sony website. Meanwhile, Sony and independent theaters agreed to release it in over 300 venues on Christmas.

 "We are taking a stand for freedom, said theater manager Lee Peterson of the Cinema Village East in Manhattan, where most of Thursday's seven screenings had sold out by early afternoon. "We want to show the world that Americans will not be told what we can or cannot watch. Personally, I am not afraid."

 Some venues showing "The Interview" were more likely to feature documentaries about North Korea than a low-brow comedy about it. At the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico, owned by "Game of Thrones" author George RR Martin, the schedule also includes the Spanish art-house release "Flamenco," the locally made "The Twilight Angel" and an Italian film festival. The Film Society of Lincoln Center, which begins screening "The Interview" on Friday, will soon be hosting a tribute to "Force Majeure" director Ruben Ostlund of Sweden and a documentary about the late Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer.

 The back story of "The Interview" has itself played out like a Hollywood satire, in which a cartoonish farce distracts from some of the holiday season's most prestigious films: "Selma," the drama about the 1965 civil rights march; Angelina Jolie's adaptation of the best-selling World War II story "Unbroken"; and the all-star, big-screen version of Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods."

 Security was light at many theaters, with the occasional police officer on hand. The possibility of violence was taken more seriously by the movie industry than by government officials. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security released a statement saying that there were no credible threats.

 Meanwhile, Darrell Foxworth, a special agent for the FBI in San Diego, said Wednesday the agency was sharing information with independent movie theater owners showing "The Interview" out of "an abundance of caution" and to educate them about cyber threats and what help the FBI can offer.

 Kim Song, a North Korean diplomat to the United Nations, condemned the release Wednesday, calling the movie an "unpardonable mockery of our sovereignty and dignity of our supreme leader." But Kim said North Korea will likely limit its response to condemnation, with no "physical reaction."

 Decisions to show the movie through the Internet could open up companies to hacking. Xbox and PlayStation's online gaming services were down Thursday afternoon but the cause was unclear. Meanwhile, YouTube and other Google products were not having any disruptions. A Microsoft spokesman confirmed the Xbox outage but declined further comment. Sony PlayStation representatives did not immediately respond to inquiries.

 Members of an Arkansas family who say they otherwise would have never seen "The Interview" were among the first patrons at the Riverdale 10 theater in Little Rock. Kay Trice and her husband drove an hour from Stuttgart, Arkansas, to see the movie with their daughter and appreciated "the freedom to see it."

 "It should be shown in this country and somebody in North Korea should not have the right to scare us out of seeing this," Trice said.

 A few dozen people lined up early outside Tempe, Arizona's Valley Art theater, where tickets for all five showings on Thursday had sold out. "There are a lot of people going crazy over (the controversy). It's bigger than the movie," said Omar Khiel, 20.

 At the Cinema Village theater in Manhattan, the 10 a.m. screening was near capacity. Derek Karpel, a 34-year-old attorney, said that "as many people as possible should go see it. In fact, the government should subsidize tickets to make that possible."

 But he didn't say that "The Interview" was a great movie.

 "No one should go into expecting it to be a serious commentary on politics," he said. "But it's fun. People should go."

 ____

 Jonathan Lemire and Scott Mayerowitz in New York, Eric Tucker in Washington, Kelly Kissel in Little Rock and Alina A. Hartounian in Tempe contributed to this report. ||||| Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 LOS ANGELES — Carolers dressed in Dickensian costumes sang “Silent Night” at 11:45 p.m. on Wednesday here, as a woman with a strip of shiny gold garland tied around her head handed out hot cider.

 “I could think of no place better to be on Christmas Eve than here, with like-minded people, coming together for something we strongly believe in,” said Julia Paredes, a bookstore manager.

 This was not a midnight Mass. It was one of the first screenings of Sony’s “The Interview,” which improbably became a symbol of free speech in the last week as hackers who attacked the studio first got the movie withdrawn from distribution, then, after a groundswell of support for releasing it that reached the White House, watched it open after all.

 As moviegoers lined up at the 331 scrappy, independently owned theaters that played “The Interview” on Christmas, it was obvious that many, like Ms. Paredes, 28, were there to make a political stand. They turned out in red, white and blue attire. At one theater in California, a ticket taker dressed up as “Uncle Sam-ty Claus.” A manager at Cinema Village in Manhattan introduced the film by reciting “America,” also known as “My Country ’Tis of Thee.”

 Continue reading the main story Video

 The number of tickets sold was not immediately available. Sony said only that it would disclose results on Friday. The studio similarly declined to report sales figures or estimates for online rentals and sales. But there were indications of strong interest: Many theaters reported sellouts, and “The Interview” was listed as the No. 1 seller on YouTube Movies and the Google Play store on Thursday morning.

 The small theaters playing the film — art houses that only rarely get such a hot ticket — appeared to be doing well while doing good. Some theaters started selling souvenir soft drink cups shaped like rockets for a $6 premium over the standard drink price. Individual tickets in spots ran as high as $24.

 “It’s been gangbusters,” said Christian Parkes, chief brand officer of Alamo Drafthouse, which showed “The Interview” in 19 theaters across multiple states. “Christmas Day is sold out across the chain.”

 Many of the theaters playing “The Interview” did not have showtimes until midday in their various time zones. But the Cinefamily Theater — a 174-seat cinematheque here still identified on its purple neon marquee as the Silent Movie Theater — held a 12:30 a.m. screening, which is the one Ms. Paredes drove an hour from her home in Santa Ana, Calif., to attend.

 Continue reading the main story More on Sony and ‘The Interview’ Highlights from The Times’s coverage of the Sony Pictures Entertainment cyberattack.

 As the lights came down in the 72-year-old theater, two men appeared with microphones to make an introduction: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. They directed “The Interview,” a raunchy comedy about the assassination of North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-un. Mr. Rogen, who also stars in the film, gave a profanity-laced warm-up.

 “We live near here,” Mr. Rogen said. “We just wanted to say thank you.”

 “The Interview” has received mixed-to-negative reviews. (“A goofy, strenuously naughty, hit-and-miss farce,” wrote A.O. Scott in The New York Times.) But curiosity about the controversy surrounding the film at least in some instances trumped taste. “I’m just here for the hype,” said Pam Silverthorn, 49, a defense contractor, who turned out for a matinee at Williamsburg Cinemas in Brooklyn.

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 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 Noel Rodriguez, 21, made a first-time visit to the Regency theater in Commerce, Calif., in part to participate in an unusual chapter of Hollywood history. “I just wanted to be able to say I saw it,” he said.

 Photo

 Sony made its initial theatrical retreat after a threat — traced by the F.B.I. to the North Korean government — of 9/11-style violence against theaters that showed the film. The smaller theaters Sony eventually lined up to present it promised heightened security. Weezie Melancon, president of the Crest Theater in Los Angeles, said she had been in contact with the Los Angeles Police Department and the county sheriff’s department, both of which had promised an extra presence. Officers huddled with a ticket taker shortly before showtime.

 Noah Elgart, 28, the manager at Williamsburg Cinemas, said his staff would be checking bags as a precaution but did not expect any problems despite the threats against the film.

 Toby Leonard, programming director at the restored Belcourt Theater in Nashville, said he had been in touch with a local representative for the F.B.I. and was told “in so many words that there really isn’t much of a credible threat here.” Mr. Leonard said he also checked with the Belcourt’s insurance company, which responded “by asking if they could buy a block of tickets.” In a rare move, Sony made “The Interview” available for rental or sale online Wednesday. Among the Internet services that offered it were the Google Play store, Google’s YouTube and Microsoft’s Xbox Video. Sony began showing the film on a website of its own.

 On Wednesday night, Sony’s hastily assembled online release of “The Interview” hit bumps. Some early would-be viewers could not load or pay for the film on Sony’s SeeTheInterview.com site, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Separately, users of Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox Live game services — in an episode apparently unrelated to the film — complained of service problems.

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 In addition, digital pirates were already offering “The Interview” online. One link had been downloaded more than 20,000 times as of Thursday morning. Although Sony has not yet made “The Interview” available overseas, it was also widely available for streaming on Chinese video-sharing sites, with an unofficial version with English and Chinese subtitles. The Chinese title for that version of the film translated as “Assassinate Kim Jong-un.”

 But gratitude and patriotism ruled the day in theaters.

 “The fact that they’re showing this movie shows that America still has a backbone regardless of the critics,” said Jay Killion, a golf pro who caught a screening at Tower City Cinemas in Cleveland.

 At Alamo Drafthouse, screenings began with a recorded video message of thanks from Mr. Rogen to members of the Art House Convergence, an alliance of small theaters that was instrumental in reviving the film.

 “Thank you, America,” Mr. Rogen added in the recording, to cheers from one audience at Alamo’s Lubbock, Tex., location. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– After Sony's U-turn on releasing The Interview, the controversial movie played in 331 independent cinemas across America on Christmas Day, often to sellout crowds. Many moviegoers made it clear they were there to take a political stand, with one ticket seller in California dressed as "Uncle Sam-ty Claus," the New York Times reports. "We are taking a stand for freedom," the manager of the Cinema Village East in Manhattan tells the AP. "We want to show the world that Americans will not be told what we can or cannot watch. Personally, I am not afraid." Security was light at most theaters, though some had police officers standing by. Co-directors Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen made a surprise appearance at a screening in Los Angeles, where they thanked moviegoers for their support, reports Reuters. A North Korean diplomat, meanwhile, called the release an "unpardonable mockery" of the "dignity of our supreme leader," but said there would probably be no "physical reaction" from Pyongyang. In a first for a major studio, the movie had a simultaneous release online. The groundbreaking release strategy is being closely watched by the industry, although Sony says it won't release any immediate data on the number of sales or rentals, CNN reports.


Write an article based on this summary:

– A woman believed to be in her 20s or 30s held employees of a Jared Vault jewelry store in Mebane, NC, at gunpoint on Monday before making off with jewelry piled into a shopping bag. But this wasn't her first rodeo: The FBI says the same brunette has robbed five other jewelry stores across the South since April, including in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, netting more than $450,000 worth of bling, per WNCN. A black man in his 30s or 40s, weighing about 250 pounds, was spotted by cameras during three of the robberies, reports NBC News. The FBI says both suspects "are considered armed and dangerous."

The brunette suspect — described as white, in her 20s or 30s, 5-foot-8 and 130 pounds — is believed to have knocked over six stores in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and North Carolina since April.

 The most recent heist was Monday at a Jared Vault in Mebane, North Carolina, the FBI said. She forced two workers into a back room at gunpoint, zip-tied their hands and then piled jewelry from the cases into a shopping bag.

 A male suspect — black, in his 30s or 40s, 6 feet and 250 pounds — was caught on surveillance cameras in three of the robberies.

 "Both suspects are considered armed and dangerous," the FBI said.

 Anyone with information about the suspects is asked to call 1-800-CALL-FBI (225-5324). ||||| MEBANE, N.C. (WXII/WNCN) — A woman authorities believe has robbed jewelry stores across the Southeast, including one in North Carolina Monday, may be working with an accomplice.

 The FBI on Tuesday released several photographs of the woman and of a man believed to be working with her.

 A woman may be the same one who hit five jewelry store robberies in the South — netting more than $450,000 worth of goods — and then robbed a jewelry store Monday at Tanger Outlets in Mebane.

 The incident was reported around 10:30 a.m. at the Jared Vault at 4000 Arrowhead Boulevard. No one was injured.

 She may be working with a man caught on camera during robberies in Panama City Beach, Florida, and Dawsonville, Georgia.

 Mebane police said the woman showed a handgun and ordered the employees to a back room before tying them up with zip-ties. In previous robberies of jewelry stores, the woman also showed a gun and tied up workers at the stores with zip-ties.

 The woman fled with an undisclosed amount of merchandise, but so far has stolen more than $450,000 worth of jewelry in the six total robberies, officials say.

 Police released a surveillance image of the suspect. She stands about 5 feet 8, weighs about 120 pounds and should be considered armed and dangerous, police said.

 The same woman may be involved in similar robberies in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, police said.

 Before Monday, the last jewelry store she robbed was in mid-October in Tennessee.

 Officials are also investigating similar robberies of jewelry stores in Florida, South Carolina and two in Georgia.

 In October, authorities say the woman went into Reeds Jewelers in Panama City Beach, Florida with a gun. In this case, she told two store employees to go to the store’s restroom where she zip-tied their hands, just like in Sevierville, before getting away with more than $400,000 worth of jewels.

 Police say she pulls out a gun and forces employees into the back where she then ties them up before stealing the jewelry.

 The first robbery was a Jared in Woodstock, Georgia. The next robbery was at a Zales in Dawsonville, Georgia. There she stole jewelry worth $13,000.

 A week later a woman robbed a Reeds in Panama City Beach. She hit that one for $40,000.

 The next store hit was a Jared Vault in Tanger Outlet Two in Bluffton, South Carolina. The thief was described as wearing a blue or purple striped skirt, a lavender and black brimmed hat according to WJCL.

 Police are trying to figure out if the robberies were committed by the same woman.

 The methods are similar and all the stores that were robbed were chain stores at large retail shopping/ entertainment plazas.

 If you can identify the woman, know her whereabouts or have any other information that can help investigators, you’re asked to call Mebane police at 919-563-9031 or Alamance County Crime Stoppers at 336-229-7100.

 — CNN and WATE-TV contributed to this report

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