What Senator Kid Rock Might Mean for the Second Amendment – Breitbart News

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Interviews from the past several years provide clear insight into the Romeo, Michigan, natives position on firearms.

During an April 13, 2013, interview, then-CNN host Piers Morgan asked Kid Rock if he owned a lot of guns and he responded, Yes, tons. Morgan then asked if Kid Rock was safe with his guns, to which he responded, Yes. Morgan then appeared to search for a flaw he could exploit by asking, Why do you trust 315 million other Americans to be safe with them?

Kid Rock simply smiled and said, Cause I got one.

Morgan asked, Do you need to have one for protection? Kid Rock responded, I need to have one. When I go to Detroit, I am never in Detroit without my gun. Ever. Right by my sideloaded, ready. Morgan added, And you wouldnt hesitate to use it? to which Kid Rock replied, No, not at all.

Love for firearms check.

Firearms are for self-defense check.

Now, how about hunting?

On June 20, 2016, Kid Rock gave an interview to Petersens Hunting in which he explained that Hank Williams Jr., introduced him to hunting and the two now share ownership of some hunting grounds in Alabama. Kid Rock said, I always loved guns, but we never really hunted. [Hank]got me into it, and I finally got the itch. I got the bug. The more time I spent with Hank, well, he just doesnt do much other than hunt, collect guns, and make music. Going to visit him in Tennessee and Alabama was what hooked me. I have to give all the credit to him.

When Petersens asked Kid Rock how he responds to anti-hunting propaganda in 21st-century America, he said:

I like win-wins in life. I like things that are all positive. To me, thats hunting. You form bonds with other hunters, you eat healthier, and you become better at, well, life. I see hunting as an American tradition. Its a rite of passage to me. Theres so much family and friendship involved that its really just the backbone of this country.

It is interesting to note that Kid Rock celebrated Donald Trumps presidential victory by releasing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words, God, Guns & Trump. Now might be the time for aGod, Guns, & Senator Kid Rock t-shirt; it could be a shirt made to celebrate the fact that a Second Amendment candidate is running against gun control Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host ofBullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter:@AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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Independence Day and the Second Amendment – Newnan Times-Herald

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We recently celebrated Independence Day, and now that the echoes of the fireworks have faded, the hot dogs eaten and the bunting put away, lets reflect on what it really means.

At the heart of it is the Second Amendment.

Its customary on national holidays to express appreciation for people in the military and veterans. They indeed deserve the recognition and gratitude of the citizenry they serve.

However, those who fought in the American Revolution were not professional soldiers, sailors or marines. They were farmers, shopkeepers and tradesmen. They were revolutionaries.

They knew there would be bloodshed and violence when they signed the Declaration of Independence because monarchs, even as urbane and sophisticated as Englands king, do not give up power easily.

The American Revolution was indeed bloody and long. After it ended, when the men who fought in it took the reins of government themselves, they continued to think like revolutionaries rather than as noblemen with some divine right to rule. To their credit, they wanted to ensure American citizens never lost the ability to take back control of the government, through violent means if necessary.

They expected another revolution, perhaps in their own lifetimes. So, they saw the need to state explicitly in the Bill of Rights that citizens have a right to bear arms in order to be able to launch armed uprisings against the government.

Hunting was such a common activity in the 18th century that it never entered the minds of people then that it would require any constitutional protections. But armed revolt was something that dictators have always harbored an interest in preventing, and so the purpose of the amendment was to ensure no king, tyrant or democratic government would stand in the way.

No careful reading of history can lead to any other conclusion on the amendment's meaning.

Understanding how the authors interpreted the Constitution is important because it is a contract of sorts. Courts evaluate contracts in light of the meaning attached to phrases by the people entering into the agreement, in this case the Founding Fathers and the citizens of the states that ratified the Bill of Rights. Meanings change over time, but the only way to change the terms of a contract is to amend it. The Constitution has a process for amending it.

If you think the need for the Second Amendment to arm future revolutionaries is no longer valid because human nature has changed or 250 years of legal precedent is an ironclad safeguard, then it should be amended through the assent of the citizens who are a party to the agreement.

However, it would be wrong to attempt to change the interpretation of the words to reflect modern thinking the way some judges suggest when they describe the Constitution as "a living document." Because if it is that easy to do for one provision, then it could be easily done for others. And all citizens have an interest in safeguarding our personal liberties.

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Seattle’s ‘democracy voucher’ under fire: ‘Clear violation of 1st … – Fox News

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The City of Seattle is experimenting with a first-in-the nation program that potentially makes every adult a campaign donor.

Under the democracy voucher program, every resident who is a registered voter has been mailed four $25 vouchers. Only candidates can redeem the vouchers for cash, but first they have to convince people to sign them over, which is why Jon Grant rarely meets someone without asking them for their vouchers.

Under the democracy voucher program, every resident who is a registered voter has been mailed four $25 vouchers. Only candidates can redeem the vouchers for cash, but first they have to convince people to sign them over. (Fox News)

Were funding our campaign through the democracy voucher program, Grant tells a homeowner in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. So far Grants strategy has worked. His campaign has collected more than $200,000. Grant says 95 percent of the money has come from vouchers.

SEATTLE SEDNING VOTERS TAX-FUNDED VOUCHERS TO SPEND ON CAMPAIGNS

I think whats really exciting about this is every voter now has kind of a level playing field, said Grant, each has $100, which is essentially a coupon, that you can give to a candidate that matches your values.

Not everyone is thrilled with the program. Its funded by a property tax worth $30 million over 10 years, which the city calculates will cost the average homeowner $12 per year.

But its not about the amount of money for Mark Elster, a Seattle resident who along with another resident and help from the Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank, has sued to stop the program. Elster does not support any of the candidates running for office and feels his money is providing political speech to those with whom he vehemently disagrees.

With three weeks to go before the primary, only 4 percent of the vouchers have been returned and cashed in by candidates who qualify. (Fox News)

Its a clear violation of First Amendment rights, said Elster. With free speech comes the right not to speak.

SEATTLE GUN TAX FAILURE? FIREARM SALES PLUMMET, VIOLENCE SPIKES AFTER LAW PASSES

Wayne Barnett, executive director of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, would not comment directly on the lawsuit, but defends the voucher program.

Most people have never had a candidate knock on their door and ask them to make a campaign contribution, Barnett said. Its empowering to people in a way theyve never been empowered before.

About 500,000 registered voters were mailed vouchers, but many more people are eligible to receive them if they apply. Non-citizens who are in the country legally cant vote, but they can get $100 worth of vouchers.

Jon Grant makes no apologies for seeking vouchers from everyone. The former director of the Tenants Union, who has been endorsed by the Democratic Socialist party, has collected vouchers from government-subsidized renters, new immigrants and some people living in illegal homeless camps. Its pushed Grant into the fundraising lead and has allowed him to have six paid campaign staffers. Two years ago, when he ran for the same seat against the incumbent, he raised only $75,000 through November and he could pay only one person.

One goal of the democracy voucher program is to reduce the amount and influence of money in politics. In exchange for receiving vouchers, candidates agree to a spending cap. The primary the cap is $150,000, from any combination of vouchers and private donations.

One goal of the democracy voucher program is to reduce the amount and influence of money in politics. In exchange for receiving vouchers, candidates agree to a spending cap. (Fox News)

But the Elections Commission has already lifted the spending cap.

Candidate Teresa Mosqueda, who has raised $100,000 in vouchers and another $85,000 in private donations, asked that the limit be lifted because an opponent who has opted out of the voucher program is raising a lot of private donations. Sarah Nelson, a brewery owner, is supported by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. Her biggest donor is Amazon.

Four other candidates for City Council want to access vouchers, but havent qualified to receive the money. The bar to qualify is collecting 400 donations of at least $10 and matching signatures. Dr. Hisam Goueli is several dozen signatures short and is frustrated by the system.

I believe in its original intent, Goueli said. The problem is the program has become so cumbersome that its basically tanked our campaign.

With three weeks to go before the primary, only 4 percent of the vouchers have been returned and cashed in by candidates who qualify. Any voucher money that goes unused this year will roll over to the next election cycle.

Dan Springer joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in August 2001 as a Seattle-based correspondent.

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Can Donald Trump block you? A First Amendment group is suing to find out. – Columbia Journalism Review

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Official DHS photo by Jetta Disco.

It is where he inveighs against FAKE NEWS, promotes his television appearances, and trumpets his administrations accomplishments. Its also where he reports on meetings with world leaders, discusses policy positions, and announced his choice for FBI Director. President Donald Trumps Twitter feed is the epicenter of a new-age White House communications strategy that has earned the oft-repeated label unprecedented.

Whether Trumps demeanor in the messages he posts is presidential is debatable, but his own spokespeople have made clear that his tweets constitute official statements. Not everyone, however, can see those statements or participate in the discussion that occurs in the replies.

On Tuesday, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed a lawsuit against Trump and two of his top advisors on behalf of seven people who have been blocked from viewing tweets by the presidents @realDonaldTrump account. Attorneys at the Knight Institute argue that Trumps blocking of users who have criticized him amounts to viewpoint-based exclusion, which is not allowed under the First Amendment.

President Trumps Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, has become an important source of news and information about the government, and an important public forum for speech by, to, and about the President. In an effort to suppress dissent in this forum, Defendants have excludedblockedTwitter users who have criticized the President or his policies. This practice is unconstitutional, the federal suit alleges.

The case raises complicated questions about how to apply constitutional principles written in a time of pamphlets and town square debates to the realities of the Facebook and Twitter era. Skeptics might say that blocking someone on Twitter doesnt make it impossible for that person to see tweets. He or she can simply sign out of that account or create a different one. Blocking adds a barrier to entry, to be sure, but its not an insurmountable obstacle. Additionally, as anyone who spends time on Twitter knows, comments on the platform can be crude, distasteful, and even scary, and blocking trolls allows for some measure of control over the people with whom you interact.

But attorneys at the Knight Institute have put forward a series of arguments that make a compelling case for thinking differently. They are not arguing that we redefine Twittera privately owned social media platformwrit large as a virtual town square where all voices are welcome. Rather, they claim that because of the way the President and his aides use the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account, the account is a public forum under the First Amendment.

If the presidents feed is defined as a public forum, citizens cannot be excluded from viewing his statements and engaging in discussions simply because they disagree. The lawsuit alleges that Trump, along with Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Social Media Director Dan Scavino, have violated the First Amendment rights of seven Americans who were blocked soon after criticizing or mocking the president, and that the block infringes on the plaintiffs First Amendment right to petition their government for redress of grievances.

When [government officials] open up a space and allow the general public to come in and comment in that space, whether a city council meeting or a Facebook page, that is a designated public forum, Katie Fallow, a senior attorney at the Knight Institute, tells CJR. The courts have held that when you do that, you cant then exclude people based on viewpoint. The Knight Institute, which has not been blocked by Trumps account, is also a plaintiff in the suit. It argues that users who arent blocked are being deprived of their right to read the speech of the dissenters.

The reaction from legal experts last month to the Knight Institutes letter declaring its intent to sue was mixed, with some supporting the effort and others arguing the plaintiffs had a tough legal hill to climb. But in the weeks since, the Supreme Court issued a decision in which Justice Anthony Kennedy described social media as the modern public square.

Trump recently referred to his use of social media as modern day presidential. It will now be left to the courts to decide whether that requires a modern day update to First Amendment protections.

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Can Donald Trump block you? A First Amendment group is suing to find out. - Columbia Journalism Review

The best security apps to lock down your Android phone – The Daily Dot

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With so much sensitive information on your Android smartphone, security should always be a priority. Malware, theft, physical access to your phone and eavesdropping are just some of the security troubles that youre up against when youre using your smartphone to connect to the internet.

Below are some of our favorite Android security apps that can help manage and deal with the threats to your phone.

As you take your phone with you everywhere, losing it to theft or your own ignorance is not beyond imagination. There are a number of apps that can help you recover your phone or at least make sure that none of its sensitive data falls into the hands of the wrong people.

One of them is Googles Find My Device, a free app formerly known as Android Device Manager. Once you install and activate Find My Device on your phone, youll be able to remotely perform a number of tasks through the apps website. This includes locating your phone, sounding an alarm, or wiping the data altogether in case you become certain that you can no longer recover your device.

Screengrab via Google Play

An alternative to Find My Device is Cerberus, a paid app that adds extra features such as taking pictures and recording audio and video of the device holder, displaying messages that stay on the screen, and remote shell access to your phone.

Screengrab via Google Play

Most people lend their phone to friends, family, or even strangers who want to make a phone call, oblivious to the fact that by doing so theyre temporarily exposing all their sensitive information.

AppLock is an application thatas the name suggestsenables you to lock down various apps. Once you install and activate it, the selected apps will require a PIN code to open. This can protect you against nosy friends and strangers who want to go through your chat logs and photos, or who might want to change your phone settings.

Screengrab via Google Play

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Cybercriminals are always looking for ways to compromise smartphones and remotely steal information. One of their conventional methods for doing so is to install apps with malicious code on their victims phones and use them to exfiltrate sensitive data. Android phones are especially vulnerable to this scheme because, as opposed to iPhone, its easier to install apps on them that havent been published on Google Play store and havent undergone professional vetting.

GlassWire is the best Android security app for monitoring the data usage of various apps installed on your phone in real time. The app lets you see a live graph of your apps data consumption and will alert you when a specific apps data usage spikes. Its a good tool to detect apps that are conducting unusual and suspicious activities.

Screengrab via GlassWire

If youre a regular user of free Wi-Fi in public locations and malls, you should know that theyre riddled with security threats. If youre not wary, malicious actors can intercept your internet traffic and steal your data or alter it. One of the best methods to protect yourself against theft or manipulation of data is the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN). A VPN encrypts all your internet traffic, making it undecipherable to eavesdroppers. There are a handful of decent free VPN apps available on Android.

For secure browsing, you can also use Orfox, the mobile version of Tor browser. Like its desktop counterpart, Orfox encrypts your browser traffic and deflects it across several nodes before sending it to its destination, protecting you against both local spies and mass surveillance.

Screengrab via Google Play

There are a number of decent endpoint protection solutions available for Android. The best Android security app for this is arguablyAvast Antivirus and Security, a free app that offers an impressive range of security tools and features. Once installed, Avast will provide antivirus protection, monitor your apps for unusual activity and scan URLs for malware.

Avast also has an app locking feature, though it is limited to two apps when youre on the free plan. You can also block certain apps from using Wi-Fi or network, which can be handy for security.

Ben Dickson is a software engineer and the founder of TechTalks. Follow his tweets at @bendee983 and his updates on Facebook.

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The best security apps to lock down your Android phone - The Daily Dot

Bitcoin Price may dip Below US$2000 as Cryptocurrency Markets Turn Deep red – The Merkle

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Things have evolved from bad to worse for all cryptocurrency markets over the past 24 hours. For the first time in a while, the Bitcoin price may actually go below US$2,000. Although such a retrace isnt necessarily bad news off the bat, it also shows there will be a lot of proverbial blood in the water. All currencies are literally bleeding value right now, although some are trying to buck the trend.

It has to be said, the cryptocurrency markets have been extremely bearish over the past few days. It was only a matter of time until we would see a price decline such as the one present on the charts right now. Experts predicted it would only be a matter of time until we would see a big Bitcoin price retrace. Unfortunately, that is exactly what is happening right now, with no real end in sight.

To put this into perspective, Bitcoin alone lost over 12.3% in the past 24 hours. That is quite a powerful downturn for the worlds leading cryptocurrency, as most of its losses were limited to a few percent here and here. Going into negative double digits is something we rarely see from Bitcoin these days, unless major news breaks. So far, that has not happened.

However, the August 1st deadline keeps coming closer, and a lot of people are very concerned about what the future may hold for Bitcoin. If a chain split were to occur, things quickly go from bad to worse for Bitcoin. Even if one of the chains only survives for a day or less, it would set a very dangerous precedent for the worlds leading cryptocurrency.

Then again, one would expect most Bitcoin holders to store their balance somewhere safe and look at things from a distance. There is no reason to sell Bitcoin right now, as no one will actually lose coins if they store them in a wallet only they can control before July 31st. In the worst case, people will only have their coins on one chain, just like they do now. The best case scenario would see people holding the same balance across multiple blockchains, which will allow people to make free money by not selling Bitcoin right now.

Other currencies are dragged to the bottom alongside Bitcoin as well. Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Dash, ETC, and all other top currencies see their value drop at an alarming rate. Right now, there is no cryptocurrency in the top 50 which notes any gains. Instead, quite a few coins and tokens are down by 20% or more. Quite a substantial amount, as it will take weeks, if not months, to recoup some of these losses. Rest assured there are some smaller coins noting losses of over 25% as well.

With the total cryptocurrency market cap dipping below US$75bn, things are looking anything but great right now. It is not all doom and gloom, though, as we have seen such retraces in the past. Bitcoin and consorts come out stronger every single time such an event happens. Sadly, no one can predict when the reversal might take place. Cryptocurrency is still a small and fickle market It doesnt take much money to shake things up in a positive or negative manner.

If you liked this article, follow us on Twitter @themerklenews and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and technology news.

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Bitcoin Price may dip Below US$2000 as Cryptocurrency Markets Turn Deep red - The Merkle

Bitcoin the new gold? Yes, says one Wall Street strategist …

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Bitcoin $55,000? Fundstrats Tom Lee, one of the biggest equity bears among the major Wall Street strategists, says its possible, but not necessarily for the reasons many bitcoin bulls have suggested.

One of the drivers is crypto-currencies are cannibalizing demand for gold GCQ7, +0.88% Lee wrote in a report. Based on our model, we estimate that bitcoins value per unit could be $20,000 to $55,000 by 2022 hence, investors need to identify strategies to leverage this potential rise in crypto-currencies.

Thats a major jump from the $2,530 level that bitcoin BTCUSD, -6.27% fetched recently. Of course, this would be on top of whats already been an impressive stretch, with the price more than doubling since the start of the year.

Lee predicts investors will look to bitcoin as a gold substitute, and the fact that the amount of available bitcoin is reaching its limit makes this supply/demand story even more compelling for those looking to turn profits in the crypto market.

Bitcoin supply will grow even slower than gold, Lee said. Hence, the scarcity of bitcoin is becoming increasingly attractive relative to gold.

Another driver could come from central banks, which he expects will consider buying bitcoin if the total market cap hits $500 billion.

This is a game changer, enhancing the legitimacy of the currency and likely accelerating the substitution for gold, Lee wrote.

The trick is that there arent very many ways to play bitcoin, other than via direct investment or the bitcoin ETF GBTC, -6.23% he said, adding that we will identify other opportunities in the future.

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Bitcoin the new gold? Yes, says one Wall Street strategist ...

Bitcoin Brave New Coin

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Bitcoin L Navigation

BTC marketplace last 24 hours

The markets table will display all the current markets of the digital asset you have selected. This will switch the current asset back to the index level.

Bitcoin market last 24 hours

The exchange table below displays all the marketplaces of the digital asset you have selected. It is optional to select up to 5 exchanges at once to compare with the current market you are viewing. This will be listed above the chart with its price and volume for any specific period the chart's time frame is displaying. If any specific exchange is down or no data is displayed, this will be detailed with the reason at the bottom of this table.

Bitcoin is one of the first implementations of a concept called crypto-currency, which was first described in 1998 by Wei Dai on the cypherpunks mailing list. Building upon the notion that money is any object, or any sort of record, accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context, Bitcoin is designed around the idea of a new form of money that uses cryptography to control its creation and transactions, rather than relying on central authorities. In 2009, the first Bitcoin specification and proof of concept was published in a cryptography mailing list by a member under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto. Towards the end of 2010 Satoshi left the project, saying he had moved on to other things. The creator of Bitcoin never revealed his identity and simply left his invention to the world. The origin and the motivation behind Bitcoin are still today a great source of mystery. Since 2010, the Bitcoin community has grown with many developers working on the project. During June and July 2011, Bitcoin suddenly gained media attention leading to a massive buy rally. The resulting bubble slowly deflated through the latter part of 2011, and since then the value of Bitcoin has slowly climbed once again back to its 2011 heights. On September 27th 2012, the Bitcoin Foundation was created in an effort to standardize, protect, and promote Bitcoin.

SHA-256

6 Confirmations

210,000 Blocks

12.5

600 Seconds

Proof-of-Work

2016 Blocks

0%

8332/8333

21,000,000

CPU-GPU-ASIC

Jan 3, 2009

2017 Brave New Coin. All Rights Reserved

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Dispute could mean financial panic in bitcoin – CNBC

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Got some bitcoin? An internal dispute over the digital currency could soon mean financial losses, whipsawing prices and delays in processing payments.

It's also possible that nothing much changes. It all depends on whether the people who maintain bitcoin can agree by July 31 to implement a major software upgrade one designed to improve capacity on the increasingly clogged network.

Not everyone is on board. In particular, some bitcoin "miners," who are rewarded for verifying transactions, aren't supporting the changes. Any split between miners and others who use bitcoin, including a number of startups and a few big companies, could cause a panic in the $39 billion bitcoin marketplace.

So far, bitcoin's value in U.S. dollars has soared amid the uncertainty. It's currently at about $2,300, more than triple what it was a year ago. But bitcoin is notoriously volatile; because the price spiked so rapidly, it also fell quickly, and bitcoin has lost about a quarter of its value since its peak in June at above $3,000.

Here's a look at the current dispute.

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Dispute could mean financial panic in bitcoin - CNBC

Did a bitcoin bubble just burst? – CBS News

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Bitcoin and other so-called cryptocurrencies have plunged in value in recent weeks, prompting some observers to wonder whether that's a sign of a market bubble bursting.

Prices for bitcoin, recently changed hands at $2282, a decline of about 12 percent over the past month. Rival ethereum has fared worse, plunging 47 percent during that same period to $191.92 even when this week's gains are included. The third-largest cryptocurrency, called ripple, has slumped nearly 25 percent over the past month, rebounding from earlier losses. Ripple, however, is priced at about 19 cents, so small price swings can have dramatic impacts.

Even with the recent drop, bitcoin prices have surged more than 130 percent this year. Still, given how unpredictable the market has proven to be, potential users may be leery about embracing the digital currency, said Wolf Richter, a financial blogger who edits the Wolf Street site. He expects bitcon, which was $10 in 2013, to continue falling.

"Given the volatility, bitcoin is not a usable currency," Richter wrote in an email. "And given transaction costs, it's a very expensive form of payment. And it takes a long time to process a transaction. So unless you're trying to hide your identity, it doesn't make economic sense to pay with bitcoin."

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The bitcoin market has already crashed three times between 2011 and 2014, plunging more than 50 percent on each occasion. Prices tumbled earlier this year after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rejected plans by twin-brother entrepreneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss to offer a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). By comparison, the S&P 500 index, the broad stock market barometer most closely followed by professional money managers, has gained "only" 9 percent this year.

Richter and Tone Vays, a derivatives trader and consultant who hosts a podcast on the digital currency, differ on the question of whether the market for bitcoin is in a bubble. According to Richter, it's bound to crash "someday," though he declined to provide a forecast. Vays' view is that the cryptocurrency market isn't in a bubble because prices have only tripled in price at the peak as opposed to prior bubbles when markets surged between 10 and 100 times.

One reason bitcoin prices have pulled back lately concerns debates over what code will be used to increase the number of transactions that can be done on the currency's network, according to Vays.

"The bitcoin ecosystem has been debating for a year on how best to scale bitcoin," Vays wrote in an email. "This should all be resolved by end of August, but it's hard to say if it will end with a good ending, or we end up with two coins both claiming to be the real bitcoin."

For bitcoin's rivals, however, the situation is different, especially with those who have crowd-funded new offerings through what's known as internal coin offerings (ICOs). Ethereum, which began this year priced at $8.17, has gained more than 2,600 percent. Ripple has skyrocketed more than 326,000 percent from less than half a penny to about 20 cents during that same time.

"A token like ethereum has gone up 10 times faster than bitcoin, and it's fueling an ICO bubble no different then the dot-com IPOs of the late 90s," Vays said. "It's possible that this bubble has popped with ethereum never reaching above $400 again, and many of the ICOs, which on paper made hundreds of millions on their token sales, may find their tokens to worthless in the near future."

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John Mack Takes Bitcoin Where Dread Pirate Feared to Tread … – Bloomberg

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The Dread Pirate Roberts was never going to persuade Wall Street to love bitcoin. Maybe John Mack can.

Roberts was the swashbuckler alter ego of Ross Ulbricht, founder of the multimillion-dollar Silk Road online bazaar whos serving a life sentence for allowing customers to use bitcoin to buy drugs, hacking tools and fake identification. Ulbrichts was the early, ominous face of the cryptocurrency and no one on Wall Street wanted to touch it. What investors can no longer ignore is the incredible price gains -- almost 150 percent alone this year for bitcoin. Yet the problem of how to buy and sell digital assets while keeping compliance departments happy remains.

John Mack

Photographer: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg

Enter Mack, the former chief executive officer of Morgan Stanley.

Hes taken an interest in Omega One, a startup that plans to act as an agency brokerage for asset managers and institutional investors who want to own cryptoassets like bitcoin and ether but dont want to run afoul of know-your-customer and anti-money laundering regulations. Mack is one of a few private backers of Venture One, Omega Ones sole investor at this point.

I have been watching and investing in the cryptocurrency market over the last several years, and as a Venture One portfolio company, I find Omega One to be an important next step in the emergence of this new economy, Mack said in an emailed statement. We think Omega One is going to be transformative because it benefits the entire ecosystem -- making crypto assets cheaper and easier to access.

The need for a trusted firm to act as a middleman between the worlds of Wall Street and digital currencies is an indication of the growing pains these new markets face. Bitcoin has always been extremely volatile -- it has dropped about 20 percent since rising to a record last month -- a trait shared by ether and other digital coins. More than half of the computers that make up the bitcoin network are located in China, giving one nation outsized sway over the global market and leaving reputable investors cautious. And a history of alleged thefts and hacks in the last few years have shaken confidence in security measures employed by some digital asset exchanges.

The uncertainty among conservative investors toward cryptocurrencies is playing right into Omega Ones strategy, according to Alex Gordon-Brander, the companys chief technology officer. Were the bridge between the traditional capital markets and the crypto markets, he said in an interview. We will provide everything from balance sheet intermediation to a trusted counter party.

Wall Street has been captivated for the last two years by the prospect of applying blockchain technology to save banks billions of dollars a year in back office operations and slashing settlement times. A type of software that combines distributed computing and cryptography to make bitcoin and ether possible, blockchain is in a basic sense a shared database that has no central authority overseeing it. Rather than blockchain, however, Gordon-Brander said Omega One is focused on convincing the financial world that cryptocurrencies should be viewed as a new asset class.

There are a few signs of this already. Both Fidelity Investments and USAA allow customers to access their bitcoin or ether balances through their accounts if they are linked to the digital exchange Coinbase. Gordon-Brander said this is the year that attitudes will change.

Were seeing the very first signs of institutional adoption of crypto markets, he said.

Investing in bitcoin has never been for the faint of heart. Within two months in late 2013 it shot up from about $125 in October to $1,150 in December, an 820 percent appreciation. Within two weeks, bitcoin fell to $520 on Dec. 18, 2013, according to price data from Coindesk. Earlier this year it dropped to $775 from $1,129 between Jan. 4 and Jan. 11, a 31 percent loss. And then in four months it went from $964 in March to a record above $3,000 in June to a current price of $2,233, according to Coindesk.

Ether spent much of the second half of 2016 in a range between $10 and $12, then shot up to $396 over three months between March and June, an astounding 3,500 percent gain. It has since fallen 53 percent to a current price of about $187, according to Coindesk.

The unregulated nature of bitcoin and ether may also bias traditional investors from getting involved. Bitcoin transactions are verified by so-called miners, who use powerful computers to ensure transactions are valid and the bitcoin belongs to the user who wants to transact with it. For verifying transactions, miners are rewarded an amount of free bitcoin. Chinese miners account for over 50 percent of this network, and the country also produces a large share of the computer hardware used to mine, according to Brian Forde, director of digital currency at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Digital Currency Iniative.

That concentration risk may spur other countries to become involved in bitcoin mining to blunt Chinas effect on the global market, he said earlier this year.

There have been high profile losses of bitcoin and ether as well. The former head of Mt. Gox, the bankrupt Japan-based bitcoin exchange that imploded in 2014 after losing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency, began his trial earlier this week. Chief Executive Officer Mark Karpeles pleaded not guilty in Tokyo on Tuesday to charges of embezzlement and inflating corporate financial accounts.

Last month, Korean Bitcoin exchange Bithumb was hacked and users personal information was stolen, according to the exchange. Last year, about $55 million worth of ether was stolen from the DAO, a smart contract meant to crowd-fund development projects on the ethereum blockchain. The money was later recovered.

Omega One is also pitching itself to current cryptocurrency investors who want to limit transaction costs, Gordon-Brander said. He should know about that, as he previously was instrumental in building the algorithmic trading system for BridgewaterAssociates, the worlds largest hedge fund. The system helped break up large currency orders for Bridgewaters customers, a system known as smart order routing, to save Bridgewaters clients money in foreign-exchange trades, he said.

The same issue arises in cryptocurrency transactions, as difficulty in filling orders can cost users hundreds of dollars in transaction costs, he said. The system will be a dark pool, meaning orders are hidden, unlike a public exchange with an open order book. If Omega One cant fill a trade from resting orders in the dark pool, it will be shipped off to other exchanges around the world for completion, Gordon-Brander said.

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Users of Omega One will have to possess a digital coin native to the system, what will be known as an Omega Token. The company plans to offer an initial coin offering in either mid-August or mid-September, Gordon-Brander said. He declined to say how much the ICO would raise, but put the range within hundreds of millions of dollars. That money will become the firms balance sheet that it will use to buy and sell bitcoin or ether on behalf of its customers, he said.

We can do a lot more with a $1 billion balance sheet than a $100 million balance sheet, Gordon-Brander said. The balance sheet is the grease that makes the liquidity work.

John Mack serves on boards including the Bloomberg Family Foundation, founded by Michael Bloomberg, the owner of Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg News.

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John Mack Takes Bitcoin Where Dread Pirate Feared to Tread ... - Bloomberg

No. 1 Lady Bobcats stunned by Comets – Cedar Valley Daily Times

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VAN HORNE On Tuesday, the Benton Community softball team was in the same position they had been the last five years, playing in the regional finals.

Taking the field as the favorite, the WaMaC Conference champion Lady Bobcats hosted No. 14 Charles City for the Class 4A Region 4 final.

No stranger to big games, having won the 3A state title last year, Benton was poised for another trip to Harlan Rogers Sports Complex, but, uncharacteristically the Lady Bobcats played themselves into a hole after giving up two unearned runs to the Comets. Only able to plate one run, Benton lost in a stunning upset, 2-1, failing to reach state for the first time in two years.

Weve been in big games before but we didnt play like it tonight, we played scared, said 25 year head coach Eric Stenberg. The kids looked like they hadnt been there before so we werent making good decisions. We didnt give up any earned runs so we lost the game without giving up an earned run and that stings. We just werent ourselves being aggressive and for whatever reason the girls just werent mentally ready to go.

The biggest letdown for Stenberg seemed to be the fact that his team lost without giving up an earned run. In the top of the third inning, Charles Citys Payton Reams scored the first run of the game after coming home on a wild pitch that got away from Bentons starting pitcher Anna Stenberg. On the very same play, Bentons senior catcher Jaicee Lyons made a throw down to third for an attempted pickoff, but after an errant throw and catch, Tayler Schmidt was freed up to cross safely into home for the Comets second run of the game.

We didnt play the way were capable of playing and to lose like that it does hurt, coach Stenberg said. Our kids battled, we were in there till the end, it just didnt fall our way.

Limited in their ability to hit and be aggressive at the plate, Bentons main opportunity to cause some damage and get back in the game came in the bottom of the fourth.

With one out and runners on second and third, Stenberg stepped to the plate, laid down a bunt and scored sophomore Angie Gorkow from third. In the same sequence, courtesy runner for Lyons, freshman Mallory Thys, got caught up in a pickle between third and home, allowing Charles City to run her down and limit the threat by tagging her for the second out.

We had girls in scoring position we just had some base running errors, we threw the ball around a little bit, we just didnt get the timely hit and all year long weve kind of had the timely hit to bring us out of things; we just couldnt get that tonight, said coach Stenberg.

Usually able to rally back after scoring their first run in a comeback situation, this time things were different for Benton as Charles City and their starting pitcher Sami Heyer limited the Lady Bobcats to just one hit through the final three innings.

Thats usually what happens, we get going again. Kids got to get into it and get some more confidence and I was hopeful that would be the case, we just had too many let downs and too many mental mistakes. We werent mentally sharp tonight and unfortunately thats one of the reasons we lost, commented the Benton coach.

I knew one through nine they were going to be good hitters, I didnt identify one single hitter. We tried putting that girl (Gorkow) on and it worked out to our advantage just because we had an open base but other than that Sammy (Heyer) hit spots and we played solid defensively, said Charles City coach Brian Bohlen.

Never able to mount a comeback, Benton fell in the regional final for the first time in two years with a final score of 2-1.

We werent real disciplined at the plate, said coach Stenberg. Credit to her (Heyer) she had us off-balance and then we started playing scared so its hard to score runs when youre not being aggressive and have that look in your eye like your confident and for whatever reason we just didnt look confident tonight. Still had our chances but a combination of throwing the ball around, some base running errors and just not being aggressive at the plate kind of cost us.

Following her teams uncharacteristic loss, Benton sophomore standout Grace Martensen said, Obviously were all sad and this is never in a million years what we thought would happen but, I guess our heads werent in the game. We came in playing scared and thats not how you should do that. Weve been in this situation, third round, going to state multiple times; you should know how to execute.

----For the rest of the story read the 7/14/17 edition of the Cedar Valley Times

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No. 1 Lady Bobcats stunned by Comets - Cedar Valley Daily Times

Defenseman Sifers joins Utica Comets; Canucks re-sign Chaput – Utica Observer Dispatch

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Ben Birnell

The Utica Comets have added a veteran presence to their blue line.

Jaime Sifers, who is known as reliable defenseman, has signed a two-year AHL deal, the Comets announced Thursday.

The 34-year-old Sifers joins Utica after spending the last three seasons in the Columbus Blue Jackets' organization. In 217 AHL games with Springfield and Lake Erie/Cleveland, Sifers totaled 14 goals and 61 points.

During those three seasons, Sifers, who is 5-foot-11 and 200 pounds, also served as an alternate captain and was part of 2016 Calder Cup champion team.

The Stanford, Connecticut, native has accumulated 35 goals and 149 points in 544 AHL games with with Cleveland, Springfield, Chicago, Houston and Toronto. Sifers' career also includes 37 NHL games his last appearance was during the 2009-10 season as well as three seasons in Germany.

Sifers is the second player to join the Comets on an AHL deal since free agency opened July 1. However, the parent Vancouver Canucks have a very crowded group on defense after adding to their depth with free-agent signings like Michael Del Zotto and Patrick Wiercioch this month and re-signing prospects Evan McEneny and Andrey Pedan.

With Sifers, the Comets have four players signed to AHL deals that would count toward the league's veteran rule during this season. A team can dress five veterans (more than 321 professional regular-season games) and one veteran exempt (between 261 and 320 pro games) in a contest.

Sifers joins forwards Carter Bancks (428), Wacey Hamilton (336) and Darren Archibald (347) as veterans. Depending on decisions made by the Canucks, the Comets could be coming up against the limit (or be over) this season.

Canucks re-sign Chaput

Vancouver has re-signed forward Michael Chaput to a one-year, one-way contract Thursday.

The 25-year-old Chaput played a career-best 68 NHL games last season with the Canucks and finished with four goals and nine points. The one-way contract means Chaput will earn $687,500 whether he plays in the NHL or AHL next season. He would need to clear waivers to play in Utica, according to CapFriendly.

The 6-foot-2, 204-pound forward started last season in Utica before being called up to the Canucks, when they were dealing with a string of injuries. Chaput, who was expected to be an offensive leader for Utica had two goals and 11 assists in 10 games with the Comets. In total, he's played in 246 AHL games and 126 NHL games.

Heading into this season, Vancouver also has a large forward group and will have some decisions to make on who is sent to the the Comets when training camp begins.

Shields signs overseas

David Shields has signed with a new team.

The 26-year-old defenseman, who provided depth for the Comets over the past two seasons, signed to play for Austria-based EC Villacher SV on Thursday. The team plays in the country's top league.

Shields, who is from Western New York, played in 80 regular-season for the Comets after first joining the team in December 2015. The stay-at-home defenseman had three goals and 17 assists during his time with Utica.

It will be Shields' first stint overseas after mostly playing in the AHL (284 games) since 2011.

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Defenseman Sifers joins Utica Comets; Canucks re-sign Chaput - Utica Observer Dispatch

Comets chasing Ghosts at Grafton fortress – Coffs Coast Advocate

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IT'S quickly become Group 2's version of mission impossible - beating the Grafton Ghosts at Frank McGuren Field.

It's the mission Coffs Harbour faces tomorrow in a top of the table clash.

In the Ghosts past four matches on home soil they've only conceded a miserly six points in total.

In other words most players have more chance of scoring with Miranda Kerr than they do of scoring at the Grafton fortress.

Seeing as Comets playing-coach Kerrod Selmes is a happy family man, he's more interested in finding a way to have his team cross the try line often enough to upset the Ghosts unbeaten run towards a possible Claytons Cup.

"We've got to be at our best to beat them but at the end of the day everyone is beatable," Selmes said.

The last time Coffs Harbour lost was to the Ghosts back at the start of May. Since then the Comets have been building momentum as they continue to gel as a unit.

"There's a belief there now we can get the job done if we put it all together," the coach said.

Sawtell has been eyeing off third spot and a double chance and tomorrow the panthers can grab it.

Sawtell is only half a game behind South Grafton who currently hold on to that spot on the table. The two meet tomorrow in what could be a semi final rehearsal.

Refreshed after a bye, if the Panthers win tomorrow it will see them jump the reigning premiers but with only three rounds left after this weekend, a loss will consign them to an elimination semi final.

This afternoon Orara Valley and Macksville meet at Coramba Sportsground in an encounter both teams need to win to ensure their finals destiny remains in their own hands.

GROUP 2

Saturday Orara Valley v Macksville

Sunday Grafton Ghosts v Coffs Harbour Sawtell v South Grafton Nambucca Heads v Bellingen

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Comets chasing Ghosts at Grafton fortress - Coffs Coast Advocate

FDA clears Philips’ light therapy wearable for mild psoriasis … – FierceBiotech

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Philips scored FDA clearance for its wearable light therapy device for the treatment of psoriasis. The rechargeable device delivers blue LED light to the skin in a drug-free approach that controls the symptoms of mild psoriasis.

Characterized by patches of thick, red inflamed skin covered with scales, psoriasis occurs when skin cells quickly rise to the surface, where they build up before they mature. The chronic disease affects more than 6.7 million adults in the U.S., according to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.

Philips launched the first-generation BlueControl system in Germany, the Netherlands and the U.K. in October 2014. The following year, the company earned a CE mark for the devices follow-up, which was introduced in additional markets, including Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Poland. The FDA has cleared it as a prescription device for home use.

RELATED: MetrioPharm advances psoriasis drug after phase 2 readout

A patient secures the BlueControl device on the affected body part using adjustable straps. The blue light triggers natural processes in the skin that ease the symptoms of psoriasis, which include redness and scaling. Specifically, it slows down the accelerated production of skin cells that results in plaques.

In addition to light therapy, psoriasis is commonly treated with pharmaceuticals. Topical treatments such as ointments or creams containing corticosteroids work well for some patients, but some patients with severe psoriasis may need medications that are taken orally or by injection. These include immune suppressants and drugs that interfere with specific immune system functions that cause the overproduction of skin cells.

RELATED: J&J's Tremfya gets its go-ahead to fight Novartis, Lilly in psoriasis. Can it stand out?

Patients who take immune-suppressing drugs are at higher risk of infection. Using light therapy alone, or in combination with medicationwhich allows a lower dose of eachis an attractive way to reduce thisrisk.

Now, Philips plans to engage with dermatologists and patient support groups in the U.S., with eyes on commercial launch early next year.

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FDA clears Philips' light therapy wearable for mild psoriasis ... - FierceBiotech

Why is Oslo Airport called the world’s greenest? – CNN

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(CNN) With air traffic increasing worldwide each year, finding ways to make aviation more environmentally friendly has become crucial.

And while aviation manufacturers are looking for greener ways to fly, from electric planes to biofuels, architects are aiming to make airports more environmentally friendly.

At first glance, it looks like a major challenge. After all, airports are mass transportation nodes that consume lots of energy. Yet, a combination of engineering smarts and the determination of some airport operators can go a long way.

The new airport combines style and environmental efficiency.

In line with the region's reputation for environmental awareness, Scandinavia is home to what's been called the most environmentally friendly airport in the world.

"We did not start this project with the goal of becoming the world's most environmentally friendly airport," he says.

The architects relied on a holistic approach to minimize the carbon footprint.

Not only do the terminal's walls and windows aim to make maximum use of daylight -- quite a challenge in the Scandinavian winter -- natural materials such as locally sourced stone and wood from sustainably managed forests are used generously throughout the building.

"In addition to being a very energy-efficient material, wood gives the terminal a very Nordic identity," says Susg. "We believe that after an era where most airports look the same, it is time to highlight those elements that can give travelers a sense of place, a sense that they are in a particular location, with its own local identity."

Not only is this new terminal green, it has doubled the capacity of Norway's capital airport overnight.

One way it makes the most out of local conditions is its snow-based cooling system. During winter, snow is collected and stored in a depot and covered by sawdust for insulation.

Come summer, the meltwater is used to cool down the terminal building, reducing the amount of energy consumption during peak hours. In winter, the airport makes use of natural thermal energy for heating.

When it comes to waste, the terminal project achieved a sorting grade of 91%, which means that only 9% of discarded construction materials is classified as "general waste." The rest is sorted and handled separately.

Another remarkable feature of the new design -- testament to its efficient use of the space -- is the fact that despite the airport increasing in size, the maximum walking time to gates has remained the same.

Airport buses and vehicles will also switch to renewable fuels or electricity and the airport operator plans to engage in market-based carbon compensation schemes.

Other airports are following in the footsteps of Oslo.

Despite their pioneering roles, the Nordics are hardly alone in the quest to make airports more sustainable.

At the Delhi airport, energy and water is conserved by maximizing natural light, harvesting rainfall, installing an on-site solar power plant and sewage treatment plant, and having an integrated building management system to optimize operations.

In the Galapagos, a particularly environmentally sensitive location, the airport constructed 75% of its infrastructure from recycled materials. It uses its own desalination plant for fresh water and is almost 100% powered by wind and solar energy.

"Airports require large areas of land and are hubs of energy use, water use, waste and emissions, so when we talk about sustainability and airports, we're not just talking about the environment.

"We're also talking about the significant financial and human health benefits associated with greening these spaces," explains Ramanujam.

Finland's Helsinki-Vantaa Airport is introducing a large solar plant on the airport grounds.

"Until recently most of the environmental initiatives in the airport industry revolved around two key issues: emissions and noise," he says.

"These, of course, remain top priorities, but what we are seeing now is a more holistic approach where airport operators are looking at the energy efficiency of the terminals, waste and water management and myriad other aspects."

While we await the era of electric planes, right now it seems that the key to greener airports isn't in a single game-changing innovation, but in the accumulation of small positive changes around the world.

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Why is Oslo Airport called the world's greenest? - CNN

50 natural wonders: The ultimate list of scenic splendor – CNN

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(CNN) Water, fire and ice have combined to make some of the most spectacular scenery in the world -- from giant crystal caves to mud volcanoes and rock formations that look like works of art.

If your office and daily commute aren't a fitting reminder of the extraordinary natural diversity of planet earth, get some inspiration from these incredible scenes.

If there are any preachers here, they'll be telling you to get back.

With a 604-meter drop from a flat plateau down to Lysefjord with no safety railings, this is not a place for vertigo sufferers.

Keep well back from the edge and you can still enjoy the fantastic scenery over Kjerag peak, which itself drops 984 meters.

Preikestolen is south of Jorpeland. From the designated car park it's a 90-minute hike to the viewpoint.

The Gran Salar de Uyuni in southern Bolivia takes in more than 10 square kilometers of salt. It feels more like a desert than a lake.

The flat, white landscape causes optical illusions and reflects colors. There's even a hotel made almost entirely of salt and an island where giant cacti grow in the middle of the salt lake.

Gran Salar de Uyuni is 533 kilometers south of La Paz and 200 kilometers southwest of Potosi.

More than enough room to swing a very big cat.

The Ngorogoro Crater is Africa's Eden. Created when a huge volcano exploded 2-3 million years ago, the 300 square kilometer caldera now offers the best chances of seeing Africa's wild animals.

Lions, rhino, leopards, elephant and buffalo are the "big five" present among around 25,000 animals, and nearly every species present in East Africa, which call the area home.

Besides that, the crater itself offers dramatic vistas, especially at sunrise.

From Kilimanjaro International Airport you can fly or drive the 55 kilometers to Arusha, from where you can organize tours and accommodation inside and outside the crater.

Not all great waves can be surfed.

The Paria River in northern Arizona carved its own smaller version of the Grand Canyon. Some of the rock formations, including The Wave, are just as spectacular.

Visitors need a permit from the Bureau of Land Management -- the permit for an overnight trek comes with a "human waste bag," so if you want to visit this natural wonder, you'll have to prepare to pack your waste.

A fireworks show millions of years in the making.

Part of the Aeolian Islands off the coast of Sicily, Stromboli is a small volcanic island with several hundred brave inhabitants.

Unlike most volcanoes, Stromboli's is constantly spewing lava fountains, gas and ash. Fascinating for volcanologists, but also great for day-trippers who fancy seeing live lava action.

For natural fireworks, take a boat trip around the island at night.

Arrange boat tours from harbors on the north coast of Sicily (Messina, Cefalu, Palermo).

One of the few places you can bathe in a volcanic eruption.

Mud lovers trek to Gobustan's strangely Martian landscape, 65 kilometers south of Azerbaijan's capital Baku, where thick gray mud regularly spews from small volcanoes.

The mud is thought to have medicinal qualities, so don't be surprised if you see people stripping down and lathering themselves in the goo. Look out for the area's Roman inscriptions and the petroglyphic rock art.

About 70 kilometers west of Baku.

The caves consist of a network of chambers -- with an upper and a lower gallery -- stretching out for nine kilometers and accessible by an underground river.

The nearest town is Juniyah, just a few kilometers away. Cave tours last two hours.

You can almost hear the male choirs in the distance.

This path twists 300 kilometers from St. Dogmaels to Amroth in southwest Wales.

It's often wet and windy, but if you strike lucky on a sunny day this is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Scented gorse and crimson heather brighten the way.

Look for seals in the waters below.

Paths are signposted -- join the path on the coast between St. Dogmaels and Amroth. Details on guided walks and activities can be found on the National Trails website -- including self-guided walks with baggage transfer.

Beautiful to look at. But swimming here is only for masochists.

This saltwater lake deep in the Himalayas at an altitude of 4,350 meters lies astride a disputed border area between India and China-governed Tibet.

Don't let that put you off -- the rarefied air make the colors and clarity of the lake intense.

Pangong Tso is reached by a mountain road from the Indian town of Leh, but you'll need to get a permit via a registered tour guide.

Not a Norwegian motor car.

If you only have time to visit two fjords in your lifetime, make it the Geirangerfjord and Naeroyfjord in southwest Norway.

Trips can be arranged from Bergen and Alesund.

"Ooh Ah Point" awaits the adventurous.

Most visitors view the canyon from South Rim viewing stations. Considering that it has taken the Colorado River the past 17 million years to carve this wonder out of rock, it seems only fair to take a closer look.

Built by the National Park Service in 1924, the South Kaibab Trail takes you to the wonderfully named "Ooh Ah Point" and, for the adventurous, further into the canyon's depths. Plan carefully, heat stroke is no fun.

In the northwest corner of Arizona, visitors usually head to South Rim Village (120 kilometers northwest of Flagstaff on route 180) or the North Rim Village. Free shuttle buses service the South Rim in summer months. Ranger-led day hikes and walks take place throughout the year.

1. Climb. 2. Catch breath. 3. Stand in awe.

South America's answer to Uluru, this impressive sandstone plateau is surrounded on all sides by 400-meter cliffs, creating an isolated and unique ecosystem.

If you want to follow in David Attenborough's footsteps (he's filmed several times here), organize a trek from the Venezuelan side.

Hiking up Mount Roraima is best done from Venezuela. The Paratepui Route is the easiest for non-technical climbers and trips can be arranged from San Francisco de Yurani.

Up a creek without a paddle? Not so bad.

The gorgeous turquoise waters of the Verdon River flow through one of Europe's most beautiful gorges for 25 kilometers.

Swim in the translucent waters of Lac de St. Croix and stare in awe at the 700-meter walls of the Verdon Gorge. If you've got a head for heights, it's a popular destination for rock-climbing.

The Verdon Gorge is on the border of the departements of Var and the Alpes de Hautes Provence.

All the colors of nature in one park.

The three valleys that form this biosphere reserve contain a network of connected lakes, waterfalls and rivers -- the most spectacular of which are the Pearl Waterfalls.

Spot the ancient tree trunks under the clear waters of Five Flower Lake. Wooden paths and shuttle buses help visitors get around.

In the north of Sichuan, the nearest town to Jiuzhaigou National Park is Songpan.

And you thought your city was crowded.

A streak of blue (and pink) in Kenya's Great Rift Valley, Lake Nakuru is home to thousands of pink flamingoes that flock here to feed on the lake's algae.

A UNESCO Heritage Site, Lake Nakuru National Park is also home to hippos, white and black rhino, giraffe and buffalo.

Take a matatu 156 kilometers northwest of Nairobi, or a plane to the Naishi airstrip.

Australia's favorite giant sandstone mass is 350 meters high and more than nine kilometers in circumference.

It's a sacred and spiritual site for its custodians, the aboriginal Anangu, so climbing the rock is considered disrespectful to them. It can also be dangerous.

Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is about 440 kilometers southwest of Alice Springs. Flights are available from most major cities to Ayers Rock airport.

Yes, you can swim in the Sahara.

This isolated oasis has natural springs and fertile land, providing access to spectacular stretches of Sahara desert. It's a great spot for star gazing from your tent in the sand, but bring your bathing suit for a dip in its hot and cold natural pools.

A waterfall you can stand beneath without getting wet.

Waterfall connoisseurs agree it's not size that counts. The biggest and the highest may be impressive, but when it comes to cascading water, Iceland's Seljalandsfoss has style.

The sight of the Seljalandsa River dropping 62 meters down the sheer cliff face has made it a must-see Iceland attraction. There's a path that goes behind the cascade, so bring your waterproof camera.

On Road 1, it's 125 kilometers southeast of Reykjavik.

We got ice, who brought the drinks?

This 30-kilometer glacier in Patagonia's Los Glaciares National Park (not to be confused with the Perito Moreno National Park) grows and contracts, often forming a natural ice dam on the "elbow" of Lago Argentino.

The force of the trapped water causes a spectacular rupture every four to five years. Even when the ice isn't exploding, the sight of the glacier's blue peaks is a lifetime attraction.

Fly from Buenos Aires to El Calafate in Patagonia. The alternative is a very long bus journey.

How many natural features can you fit into one picture?

Deep in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Moraine Lake -- together with its sister Lake Louise -- is one of the most photographed landscapes in Banff National Park.

It's known as the jewel of the Rockies for its deep crystalline waters that mirror pine forests, soaring mountains and endless sky.

Drive or take a direct bus 128 kilometers west from Calgary to Banff.

Steaming hot spring water comes out of the ground at 37.5 C and cascades over a series of small waterfalls into dozens of pools on consecutive levels.

Niagara Falls it ain't, but the cascading thermal springs at Saturnia are a lot of fun. Soak in the natural sulfurous mineral water and just maybe cure ailments from rheumatism to muscle ache.

About 10 kilometers north of the small Tuscan town of Manciano, northeast of Orbetello.

Yes, these rocks do look a little like elephants. But only a little.

A five-hour drive south of Perth, William Bay in Denmark has turquoise waters that lap around white sands and the Elephant Rocks, which shelter an area of rock pools and granite terraces called Green's Pool.

The calm waters are perfect for snorkeling, while the more adventurous have the Great Southern Ocean on the other side.

Fifteen kilometers west of Denmark.

What Ireland and Korea have in common.

This volcanic island in Korea -- it's on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list -- has mountains, stunning coastal rock formations and the finest system of cave lava tubes in the world.

The Jeju caves have towers of petrified lava, while the Cheju-do cliffs have tube-like formations similar to the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.

Jeju Island is 130 kilometers off the southern coast of South Korea. It's accessible by boat from Busan or air from Gimpo airport in Seoul.

Nature 1, Extreme Kayakers 0

The highest waterfall in the world, the water at Angel Falls travels 979 meters, which includes a free fall drop of 807 meters.

It cascades over one of the biggest table-top mountains in the Canaima National Park in southern Venezuela, known to the local Pemon people as Devil's Mountain. Most of the water evaporates as mist before reaching the bottom.

Angel Falls is in remote jungle near the Canaima airstrip, which can be reached by plane from Ciudad Guayana or Ciudad Bolivar. Local Pemon people work as guides.

Stunning views of Lauterbrunnen valley.

Deep in the Swiss Alps the Lauterbrunnen Valley, or Lauterbrunnental, is a deep cleft cut in the topography running between steep limestone precipices.

The waterfalls that dot the rift often disappear into wisps of spray before hitting bottom, and include Staubbach Falls, one of Europe's highest unbroken waterfalls at 270 meters.

Get to Lauterbrunnen, the village in the valley, by narrow-gauge train from Interlaken Ost station in the Bernese Highlands.

Eight kilometers of awesome.

They are one of Ireland's biggest natural tourist attractions, but they also attract Atlantic puffins, razorbills and other wild birds.

Don't miss the spectacular views of the Arran Islands, Galway Bay and the Burren.

The Cliffs of Moher are an 80-kilometer drive southwest of Galway.

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50 natural wonders: The ultimate list of scenic splendor - CNN

DOJ appeals judge’s travel ban ruling to Supreme Court – Daily Astorian

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Trump administration seeks additional Supreme Court ruling on travel ban after federal judge issues an order favorable to refugees

The Associated Press

FILE - In this July 6, 2017, file photo, Ali Said, of Somalia, center, waits at a center for refugees with his two sons in San Diego. Said, whose leg was blown off by a grenade, says he feels unbelievably lucky to be among one of the last refugees allowed into the United States before stricter rules were to kick in as part of the Trump administration's proposed travel ban. A federal judge in Hawaii further weakened the already-diluted travel ban Thursday, July 13, 2017, by vastly expanding the list of U.S. family relationships that visitors from six Muslim-majority countries can use to get into the country. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

The Associated Press

FILE - This Feb. 10, 2017, file photo, Abdisellam Hassen Ahmed, a Somali refugee who had been stuck in limbo after President Donald Trump temporarily banned refugee entries, walks with his wife Nimo Hashi, and his 2-year-old daughter, Taslim, after arriving at Salt Lake City International Airport, in Salt Lake City. Ahmed meet his 2-year-old daughter, Taslim, for the first time. A federal judge in Hawaii further weakened the already-diluted travel ban Thursday, July 13, 2017, by vastly expanding the list of U.S. family relationships that visitors from six Muslim-majority countries can use to get into the country. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

The Associated Press

FILE - This Dec. 2015 file photo shows U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu. Watson on Thursday, July 13, 2017, expanded the list of family relationships needed by people seeking new visas from six mostly Muslim countries to avoid President Donald Trump's travel ban. Watson ordered the government not to enforce the ban on grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins of people in the United States. (George Lee /The Star-Advertiser via AP, File)

The Associated Press

U.S President Donald Trump applauds as he attends the Bastille Day parade in Paris, Friday, July 14, 2017. Paris has tightened security before its annual Bastille Day parade, which this year is being opened by American troops with President Donald Trump as the guest of honor to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the United States' entry into World War I. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

The Associated Press

FILE - In this Feb. 3, 2017, file photo, four-year-old Somali refugee Mushkaad Abdi holds her doll as her mother, Samira Dahir, talks during a Minneapolis news conference one day after she was reunited with her family. Her trip from Uganda to Minnesota was held up by President Donald Trump's Jan. 27 order barring refugees from seven predominantly Muslim nations. A federal judge in Hawaii further weakened the already-diluted travel ban Thursday, July 13, 2017, by vastly expanding the list of U.S. family relationships that visitors from six Muslim-majority countries can use to get into the country. (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)

The Associated Press

FILE - In this Aug. 4, 2011 file photo, refugees walk amongst huts at a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. Earlier in 2017, some Somali refugees whose resettlement in the United States was stopped by President Donald Trump's executive order were sent back to the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya. A federal judge in Hawaii further weakened the already-diluted travel ban in a ruling Thursday, July 13, 2017, by vastly expanding the list of U.S. family relationships that visitors from six Muslim-majority countries, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen, can use to get into the country. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam, File)

The Associated Press

FILE - In this March 16, 2017, file photo, Somali refugees Layla Muali, left, and Hawo Jamile, right, wipe away tears during an interview at the Community Refugee & Immigration Services offices in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus has the country's largest percentage of Somali refugees. A federal judge in Hawaii further weakened the already-diluted travel ban in a ruling Thursday, July 13, 2017, by vastly expanding the list of U.S. family relationships that visitors from six Muslim-majority countries can use to get into the country. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

The Associated Press

FILE - In this June 30, 2017, file photo, Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin speaks at a news conference about President Donald Donald Trump's travel ban in Honolulu. The Hawaii attorney general fighting President Donald Trump's travel ban is lauding a ruling by a federal judge that expands the list of relationships to U.S. citizens that are exempt from the ban. Chin said Thursday, July 13 that the court makes it clear that the administration "may not ignore the scope of the partial travel ban as it sees fit." (AP Photo/Caleb Jones, File)

The Associated Press

FILE - In this July 6, 2017, file photo, Ali Said, of Somalia, center, leaves a center for refugees with his two sons, as refugee caseworker Mohamed Yassin, right, holds open the door in San Diego. A federal judge in Hawaii further weakened the already-diluted travel ban Thursday, July 13, 2017, by vastly expanding the list of U.S. family relationships that visitors from six Muslim-majority countries can use to get into the country. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

The Associated Press

FILE - In this July 6, 2017, file photo, Ali Said, of Somalia, right, leaves a center for refugees with his two sons, as refugee caseworker Mohamed Yassin, left, waits by a van in San Diego. A federal judge in Hawaii further weakened the already-diluted travel ban Thursday, July 13, 2017, by vastly expanding the list of U.S. family relationships that visitors from six Muslim-majority countries can use to get into the country. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration is seeking to close a legal window opened for tens of thousands of refugees to enter the United States, appealing a federal judge's order directly to the Supreme Court.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson had ordered the government to allow in refugees formally working with a resettlement agency in the United States. His order also vastly expanded the list of U.S. family relationships that refugees and visitors from six Muslim-majority countries can use to get into the country, including grandparents and grandchildren.

In its appeal Friday night, the Justice Department said Watson's interpretation of the Supreme Court's ruling on what family relationships qualify refugees and visitors from the six Muslim-majority countries to enter the U.S. "empties the court's decision of meaning, as it encompasses not just 'close' family members, but virtually all family members. Treating all of these relationships as 'close familial relationship(s)' reads the term 'close' out of the Court's decision."

Only the Supreme Court can decide these issues surrounding the travel ban, the Justice Department said. "Only this Court can definitively settle whether the government's reasonable implementation is consistent with this Court's stay," it said.

The long, tangled legal fight is expected to culminate with arguments before the nation's high court in October.

Watson's ruling could help more than 24,000 refugees already vetted and approved by the United States but barred by the 120-day freeze on refugee admissions, said Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, a resettlement agency.

"Many of them had already sold all of their belongings to start their new lives in safety," she said. "This decision gives back hope to so many who would otherwise be stranded indefinitely."

Citing a need to review its vetting process to ensure national security, the administration capped refugee admissions at 50,000 for the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, a ceiling it hit this week.

The federal budget can accommodate up to 75,000 refugees, but admissions have slowed under Trump, and the government could hold them to a trickle, resettlement agencies say.

"Absolutely this is good news for refugees, but there's a lot of uncertainty," said Melanie Nezer, spokeswoman for HIAS, a resettlement agency. "It's really going to depend on how the administration reacts to this."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions had said the administration would ask the Supreme Court to weigh in, bypassing the San Francisco-based 9th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals, which has ruled against it in the case.

The Supreme Court allowed a scaled-back version of the travel ban to take effect last month.

"Once again, we are faced with a situation in which a single federal district court has undertaken by a nationwide injunction to micromanage decisions of the co-equal executive branch related to our national security," Sessions said. "By this decision, the district court has improperly substituted its policy preferences for the national security judgments of the executive branch in a time of grave threats."

The administration took a first step by filing a notice of appeal to the 9th Circuit, allowing it to use a rule to petition the high court directly. There was no timetable for the Supreme Court to act, but the administration sought quick action to clarify the court's June opinion.

The justices now are scattered during their summer recess, so any short-term action would come in written filings.

The administration has lost most legal challenges on the travel ban, which applies to citizens of Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen.

The Supreme Court's ruling exempted a large swath of refugees and travelers with a "bona fide relationship" with a person or an entity in the U.S. The justices did not define those relationships but said they could include a close relative, a job offer or admission to a college or university.

The Trump administration defined the relationships as people who had a parent, spouse, fiance, son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling already in the U.S.

Watson enlarged that group to include grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins.

Hawaii Attorney General Douglas S. Chin, who sought the broader definition, said Thursday's ruling "makes clear that the U.S. government may not ignore the scope of the partial travel ban as it sees fit."

"Family members have been separated and real people have suffered enough," Chin said.

___

Spagat reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers Julie Watson in San Diego, Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu, Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco and Sadie Gurman and Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.

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DOJ appeals judge's travel ban ruling to Supreme Court - Daily Astorian

High Performance Storage Provider WekaIO Emerges from Stealth Mode – TOP500 News

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WekaIO, a startup offering a cloud-based storage platform that can support exabytes of data in single namespace, emerged from stealth earlier this week. The company is touting the new product as the worlds fastest distributed file system.

Founded by Liran Zvibel, Omri Palmon, and Maor Ben-Dayan in 2013, WekaIO is headquartered in San Jose, California, and does its engineering there and in Tel Aviv, Israel. The startup has attracted more than $32 million in venture capital from Qualcomm, Walden Riverwood, Gemini Israel, and Norwest Venture Partners, in addition to a number of individual investors.

The cloud-based software platform, known as Matrix, is aimed at a wide swath of performance-demanding workloads, such as financial modeling, media rendering, engineering, bioinformatics, scientific simulations, and data analytics, as well as a variety of web applications. It is currently deployed at two major media and entertainment studios and TGen, a genomics research company focused on human health concerns.

TGen is dedicated to the next revolution in precision medicinewith the goal of better patient outcomes driving our core principles, said Nelson Kick, manager of HPC operations at TGen. Future-thinking companies like WekaIO, complement our core principle of accelerating research and discovery. The ability to run more concurrent high performance genomic workloads will significantly advance our time to discovery.

WekaIO essentially works by aggregating local storage across a traditional x86-based compute cluster or server farm. It relies on local SSD storage to deliver performance, but the specific amounts and types of flash devices are up to the customer. In general, the working data resides on the SSD, while cold data is auto-tiered to the cloud either public or private in an object store, like S3 or Swift.

The Matrix software runs on one or two cores on each WekaIO host, so performance scales naturally as the size of the cluster grows. Each core delivers 30,000 IOPs and 400 MB/sec of throughput, and does so with less than 500 us of latency. Thus, a typical 100-node cluster can provide 3 million IOPS and 40 GB/sec to an application. The minimum cluster size is six servers, and it scales up from there to thousands of servers. Here are the specs taken from the Matrix datasheet:

Matrixs closest competition is IBMs Spectrum Scale (previously known as GPFS). According to WekaIO, measured with the SPEC SFS 2014 benchmark on AWS instances, Matrix servers processed four times the workload compared to those running Spectrum Scale. The WekaIO software was able to accomplish this using just 5 percent of the computational resources on those instances.

The following video describes the technical rationale for Matrix in more detail and highlights its architectural elements.

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High Performance Storage Provider WekaIO Emerges from Stealth Mode - TOP500 News

Advance furthers stem cells for use in drug discovery, cell therapy – Medical Xpress

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July 14, 2017 by David Tenenbaum In the lab of William Murphy at UW-Madison, these six experimental samples are substrates that were evaluated for their ability to support stem cells. The samples, each 1 millimeter in diameter, and contain subtle chemical and physical variations, affecting such factors as hardness, speed of breakdown, and points for cellular attachment. Inset shows a network of blood vessels generated for the new Nature Biomedical Engineering paper, based on stem cells that grew on one particular substrate. Credit: Credit: William Daly, Eric Nguyen and Mike Schwartz, UW-Madison

Since highly versatile human stem cells were discovered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison nearly 20 years ago, their path to the market and clinic has been slowed by a range of complications.

Both embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells are valued for their ability to form any cell in the body.

This week, a UW-Madison team reports in Nature Biomedical Engineering that they have jumped a major hurdle on the path toward wider use of stem cells. Using an automated screening test that they devised, William Murphy, a professor of biomedical engineering, and colleagues Eric Nguyen and William Daly have invented an all-chemical replacement for the confusing, even dangerous materials, now used to grow these delicate cells. "We set out to create a simple, completely synthetic material that would support stem cells without the issues of unintended effects and lack of reproducibility," Murphy says.

Stem cells respond to chemical signals that trigger their development into specialized cells in the brain, muscles and blood vessels. In the lab, researchers use a "substrate" material that anchors the cells in place and allows the necessary signaling. Matrigel, currently the most popular of these substrates, is a complex stew derived from mouse tumors. "Matrigel can be a very powerful material, as it includes more than 1,500 different proteins," says Murphy, "and these can influence cell behavior in a huge variety of ways. Matrigel has been used as a Swiss army knife for growing cells and assembling tissues, but there are substantial issues with reproducibility because it's such a complex material."

And given its biological origin, Matrigel can carry pathogens or other hazards.

In an advance that has already been granted two U.S. patents, Murphy's group has developed new substrates for:

The widespread toxicity of drugs to developing blood vessels is one reason why so many drugs cannot be used by women who may become pregnant. Blood vessel cells derived from stem cells could also provide a new method to screen environmental chemicals for vascular toxicity, which explains why the Environmental Protection Agency has funded Murphy's work, alongside the National Institutes of Health.

To find an improved chemistry that would hold and support stem cells as they change into specialized cells, Murphy used robotic instruments to squirt arrays of more than 100 materials on a glass slide. "We developed a process that allowed us to test an array of materialseach one slightly different in terms of stiffness or ability to attach to stem cellson a single slide," he says. "It was automated, using a liquid-handling robot, and we could screen hundreds of materials in a month; which we can now do in a week."

In the "olden days," Murphy says, each experiment would only be able to screen about 10 materials, which means that their current weekly screen would have taken years.

A UW-Madison spinoff called Stem Pharm has licensed patents for the materials from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and is starting to sell the system to pharmaceutical companies and scientific institutes, says Murphy, who is Stem Pharm's co-founder and chief science officer. "Increasingly, pharmas are externalizing innovation, because internally they don't have as much capacity to innovate as before," Murphy says. "A number of companies have expressed a strong interest in moving away from Matrigel, and our vascular screening product has already been successfully beta tested at multiplelocations."

Finding a better growth substrate for stem cells may seem less sexy than identifying the cells in the first place, but it's one of the roadblocks that must be cleared so these ultra-flexible cells can realize their potential, says Murphy, who is co-director of UW-Madison's Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center. "The next step in delivering on the promise of human stem cells involves more effectively manufacturing the cells themselves, and the tissues they create. We have shown that simple materials can serve as the chisels and hammers of stem cell manufacturing."

Explore further: Broken UV light leads to key heart muscle cell discovery

More information: Eric H. Nguyen et al. Versatile synthetic alternatives to Matrigel for vascular toxicity screening and stem cell expansion, Nature Biomedical Engineering (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-017-0096

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Advance furthers stem cells for use in drug discovery, cell therapy - Medical Xpress