Former AG Kane takes Fifth in wiretap case – Philly.com – Philly.com

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Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane, free on bail while she appeals her perjury conviction, invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to testify this week in a court hearing in which an accused Pittsburgh killer is challenging wiretap evidence against him.

In a complicated pretrial legal fight, Price Montgomery, an alleged drug dealer charged with fatally shooting a witness, is seeking to exploit a feud between Kane and one of her top deputies that broke out in 2014, at the same time the Attorney Generals Office had tapped Montgomerys cellphone.

Kane went on a vacation to Haiti at that time, and because of the feud had refused to sign routine paperwork authorizing deputy Adrian King to make key decisions in her absence. Nonetheless, King approved the wiretap, using an autopen to add Kanes signature to the document; the recorded conversations allegedly implicate Montgomery.

Now, Montgomery and his codefendants want the wiretap evidence barred on grounds that the tap was approved without proper legal authority.

The hearing showed howKanes tumultuous tenure as attorney general continues to have a ripple effect, almost a year after she stepped down.

Kane, who has kept a low profile since her conviction, took the stand briefly Tuesday in federal court in Pittsburgh only to decline to answer questions, according to several courtroom observers. King had testified the day before, saying that Kane approved the wiretap in a call from the airport as she left for her trip. King provided cellphone records and his notes from the call to back up his account.

King was a key witness against Kane in her criminal case. The former attorney general took note of that in explaining why she took the Fifth.

I know how this works: I say one thing. Adrian King says another. I get charged with perjury, Kane told federal prosecutors a few days before the hearing, according to defense attorney Michael DeRiso, who represents one of Montgomerys codefendants. He said prosecutors had shared notes of Kanes remarks with them.

Kane could not be reached for comment; a call to her home this week went unanswered.

Kanes lawyer for the hearing, Thomas J. Farrell, refused to say whether he was her lawyer. Federal prosecutors also declined comment. U.S. District Judge Mark R., Hornak will rule on the suppression motion in the fall.

Montgomery, 36, is charged with the Aug. 22, 2014, killing of Tina Crawford, 34, also of Pittsburgh, who was shot 10 times at her home as she was leaving to talk with federal prosecutors. Her mother was wounded in the same attack.

Two months before the shootings, Montgomery had been arrested on drug-dealing charges after police seized 1,500 bricks of heroin, more than $100,000, and 16 handguns, shotguns, and rifles in a raid.

Though the wiretap was placed by the Attorney Generals Office, federal prosecutors are pursuing the case. DeRiso said that knocking out the wiretap evidence would undermine the drug charges, but was uncertain about its impact on the charge involving the killing of the witness.

In legal papers defending Kanes right to invoke her constitutional right against self-incrimination, Farrell noted that even innocent people may cite the Fifth Amendment so as not to provide any information to authorities.

He also noted that Kanes conflict with King was explored during the 2016 trial in Montgomery County that ended with her conviction on perjury and obstruction charges.

A jury found that she lied under oath in denying that she had unlawfully leaked confidential investigative material to a newspaper in a bid to embarrass a political enemy. King, now a lawyer in Philadelphia, was a key prosecution witness, testifying that he had warned Kane not to leak material. His relationship with Kane grew chilly after he provided that advice.

Kane was sentenced to serve 10 to 23 months in jail. She has appealed her conviction to Superior Court.

Published: June 24, 2017 11:32 AM EDT

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Should regulatory takings doctrine be reconsidered from the ground up? – Washington Post

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Justice Clarence Thomas is well known for writing separate opinions highlighting the gap between the Supreme Courts contemporary jurisprudence in a given area and the original constitutional understanding or original public meaning of the relevant constitutional provisions. Earlier this week, for example, Thomas suggested that the court should reconsider its qualified immunity jurisprudence.

Friday, inMurr v. Wisconsin, Thomas suggested that the court shouldreconsider the constitutional foundation of regulatory takings doctrine. Although he joined the dissent authored by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Thomas also wrote separately to highlight the tension between the courts doctrine and the original meaning of the Fifth Amendments takings clause. He wrote:

I join THE CHIEF JUSTICEs dissent because it correctly applies this Courts regulatory takings precedents, which no party has asked us to reconsider. The Court, however, has never purported to ground those precedents in the Constitution as it was originally understood. In Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 415 (1922), the Court announced a general rule that if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking. But we have since observed that, prior to Mahon, it was generally thought that the Takings Clause reached only a direct appropriation of property, Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 457, 551 (1871), or the functional equivalent of a practical ouster of [the owners] possession, Transportation Co. v. Chicago, 99 U. S. 635, 642 (1879). Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U. S. 1003, 1014 (1992). In my view, it would be desirable for us to take a fresh look at our regulatory takings jurisprudence, to see whether it can be grounded in the original public meaning of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment or the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See generally Rappaport, Originalism and Regulatory Takings: Why the Fifth Amendment May Not Protect Against Regulatory Takings, but the Fourteenth Amendment May, 45 San Diego L. Rev. 729 (2008) (describing the debate among scholars over those questions).

The paper Thomas cites at the end of his opinion is by University of San Diego law professor Michael Rappaport, a prominent originalist scholar (and contributor to the Originalism Blog). Here is the abstract to Rappaports paper:

This article explores the widely disputed issue of whether Takings Clause protects against regulatory takings, offering a novel and intermediate solution. Critics of the regulatory takings doctrine have argued that the original meaning of the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause does not cover regulatory takings. They have quickly moved from this claim to the conclusion that the incorporated Takings Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment also does not cover regulatory takings.

In this article, I accept the claim that the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause does not cover regulatory takings, but then explore the possibility that the incorporated Takings Clause does cover such takings. Applying Akhil Amars theory of incorporation, I argue that there are strong reasons, based on history, structure, and purpose, to conclude that the Takings Clause had a different meaning under the Fourteenth Amendment. Amar argues that the Bill of Rights was dominated by republican ideas, but that the Fourteenth Amendment was founded on more liberal notions intended to protect individual rights. This would suggest that a broad reading of the Takings Clause would further the principles underlying the Fourteenth Amendment.

Moreover, that some state courts had come to apply takings principles to regulatory and other nonphysical takings in the period between the enactment of the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment provides additional support for the possibility that the Fourteenth Amendment enactors would have understood it to apply to regulatory takings. While the paper does not attempt to prove that the Fourteenth Amendment Takings Clause applies to regulatory takings, leaving that task to others, it argues that critics of regulatory takings doctrine should no longer simply assume that the Constitutions original meaning does not apply to state regulatory takings.

Regulatory takings is not the only context in which property rights activists may be asking the Fifth Amendment to do the constitutional work better done by the 14th Amendment (if it is to be done at all). Eminent domain may be another (for reasons I briefly sketch in this exchange).

If there is to be greater clarity about regulatory takings, it might help if the entire doctrine rested on a more secure and constitutionally sound foundation.

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Should regulatory takings doctrine be reconsidered from the ground up? - Washington Post

Editorial: Win for 1st Amendment | Boston Herald – Boston Herald

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An Asian-American rock group with an edgy name can now trademark that name thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck a blow for the First Amendment and against federal bureaucrats consumed by political correctness.

In an 8-0 ruling this week, the high court found that the disparagement clause used by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to deny trademark protection for the Oregon-based band The Slants is quite simply unconstitutional.

The band, of course, can call itself anything it wants, but without trademark protection couldnt safeguard its rights for, say, T-shirts or other items after the patent office found the name offensive. Theyve been fighting this lunatic ruling since 2011

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, found, The clause reaches any trademark that disparages any person, group, or institution. It applies to trademarks like the following: Down with racists, Down with sexists, Down with homophobes. It is not an anti-discrimination clause; it is a happy-talk clause. In this way, it goes much further than is necessary to serve the interest asserted.

Dont you wonder if those ubiquitous Yankees Suck T-shirts were ever covered?

Alito also noted, It offends a bedrock First Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the grounds that it expresses ideas that offend.

Also cheering the ruling were the Washington Redskins, whose appeal of a similar 2014 ruling has been awaiting action on this case.

Redskins owner Dan Snyder has insisted the team name represents honor, respect and pride for Native Americans. Those who disagree are free to not buy tickets or T-shirts and to exercise their own First Amendment rights. They just cant have overreaching government bureaucrats fighting their battles for them.

Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar grounds is hateful, Alito wrote, but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express the thought we hate.

And thank goodness for that!

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Editorial: Win for 1st Amendment | Boston Herald - Boston Herald

In Scott Walker’s Wisconsin, the First Amendment Only Applies to Certain People – Esquire.com

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The North Carolina legislature is the counter-argument against the story of the mule and the two-by-four. No matter how often you hit them over the head, and various courts have done it 12 times in the past year, you still don't get their attention. Sometimes, the mule is just dumb.

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From there, we skip up to Wisconsin, where the state's university system remains stubbornly unimpressed with the Republican legislature and with the leadership of Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage this particular Midwest subsidiary. You may have been following the various fights on college campuses regarding "controversial" speakers and the reaction against them. (If you're a regular reader of right-wing media, you believe that mere anarchy has been loosed upon the world. Just lie down with a cold compress for a while.) There are "free speech" advocates on both sides of the big ditch here, exercising their First Amendment rights at the top of their lungs and, occasionally, exercising their First Amendment right of assembly in a fashion thought to be too vigorous.

Luckily, the Wisconsin Republicans have a solution: Throw out the latter group. From The Capital Times:

The controversial legislation has drawn criticism from those who say it would curb free speech rather than expand it and that it would stand in the way of the UW System's authority to manage its own campuses. Its supporters say its goal is to encourage free expression and to ensure all viewpoints can be heard at public universities. "Today we are ensuring that simply because you are a young adult on a college campus, your constitutional rights do not go away," said bill author Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum.

Watch now as Kremer deftly ties his own shoes together.

Under the measure, students who repeatedly engage in "violent or other disorderly conduct that materially and substantially disrupts the free expression of others" would be subjected to discipline that, on a third incident, would result in expulsion. The bill requires UW System campuses to launch investigations and hold hearings the second time a student is alleged to have interfered with the expressive rights of others. The hearings and their outcomes would be reported annually to a newly formed Council on Free Expression.

You see the joker in the deck there, right? "Other disorderly conduct." As defined by what"a Council On Free Expression."

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A what? Thought police! Somebody wake up Ben Shapiro. There's work to be done in Madison! Of course, Wisconsin is not the only test case.

Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, said the country has faced free speech struggles throughout its history, but they have been resolved without legislative intervention. "This is really part of a political program," Berceau said. "It's part of the continuing effort to really establish a conservative stronghold in our country on every institution, and now they're going after or universities." The bill is similar to others being considered throughout the country, modeled after sample legislation prepared by the conservative Goldwater Institute, and takes some pieces from a provision members of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee removed from Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposal.

Of all the techniques of artificial victimization common to modern conservatism, the whole "political correctness" thing is one of the most threadbare, and this attempt at legislating away the parts of the First Amendment you don't like is the best evidence of that we've seen in a while.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Derelict Oil Well Artist Friedman of the Plains brings us the tale of Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton, who is not working and playing well with others, as the Tulsa World explains.

The telephone exchange stemmed from a May 25 incident in which a deputy with the Rogers County Sheriff's Office drove past Officer Craig Heatherly, who attempted to flag down the deputy for backup in a gun-related traffic stop, according to an internal police email. However, dash cam video allegedly shows the deputy driving past without stopping to help In the cellphone audio, Walton can be heard telling Heatherly that he "handled it wrong" and he "owe(d) the man an apology" in reference to the deputy. Heatherly responded that he and Walton would have to "agree to disagree on that one." "We'll agree to disagree," Walton said, "but I do agree that you're a f---- coward. OK."

I have to agree with FOTP here. What makes it art is "We'll have to agree to disagreeyou fcking coward!" From NPR to Deadwood in one complex sentence. Awesome.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

The Constitution Simply Was Not Built for This

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Tyler Morning Telegraph – Editorial: First Amendment affirms that … – Tyler Morning Telegraph

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A Northwestern University professors op-ed in the Los Angeles Times is disturbing - not only in its conclusions, but also its assumptions. Sociologist Laura Beth Nielsen calls for restrictions on hate speech, because she contends that speech is violence.

We are currently seeing the results of confusing speech and political violence. Its not pretty.

As a sociologist and legal scholar, I struggle to explain the boundaries of free speech to undergraduates. Despite the 1st Amendment - I tell my students - local, state, and federal laws limit all kinds of speech, Nielsen writes. We regulate advertising, obscenity, slander, libel, and inciting lawless action to name just a few. My students nod along until we get to racist and sexist speech. Some cant grasp why, if we restrict so many forms of speech, we dont also restrict hate speech.

Shes only partially right there; government doesnt regulate libel, for example, but victims can win compensation from perpetrators in a civil action. Incitement to violence is certainly restricted, but advertisings relationship with the First Amendment is more complicated.

But the real problem with Nielsens piece is her assumptions.

In fact, empirical data suggest that frequent verbal harassment can lead to various negative consequences, she writes. Racist hate speech has been linked to cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and requires complex coping strategies These negative physical and mental health outcomes - which embody the historical roots of race and gender oppression - mean that hate speech is not just speech. Hate speech is doing something.

Certainly, harassment is bad. And in many cases, its already illegal. There are remedies in place. But the fundamental truth here is that words are not actions.

The U.S. Supreme Court has time and again reaffirmed the freedom of speech - and ruled that hate speech is covered.

For the purposes of the First Amendment, there is no difference between free speech and hate speech. Ideas and opinions that progressive students and professors find offensive or hateful are just as protected by the Bill of Rights as anti-Trump slogans chanted at a campus protest, writes John Daniel Danielson for The Federalist.

The reason is simple. Once Congress can start banning hate speech, then unpopular political opinions will become illegal.

As Danielson points out, By hate speech, they mean ideas and opinions that run afoul of progressive pieties. Do you believe abortion is the taking of human life? Thats hate speech Concerned about illegal immigration? Believe in the right to bear arms? Support President Donald Trump? All hate speech.

And of course that could be turned against the left. Their ideas and values easily could be labeled hate speech. Think of black lives matter.

Were in the midst of a great confusion in our society. Political violence - from punching Nazis to attacking protestors to shooting conservative members of Congress - seems to be on the rise.

We must get back to the belief that ideas are to be countered with better ideas, not with violence. Words have consequences, but we cant ban them just because we dont like them.

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Tyler Morning Telegraph - Editorial: First Amendment affirms that ... - Tyler Morning Telegraph

Symposium: The First Amendment silences trademark – SCOTUSblog (blog)

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Ned Snow is a professor of law at the University of South Carolina School of Law.

In Matal v. Tam (formerly called Lee v. Tam), the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the disparagement clause of the Lanham Act, which prevents registration of marks that employ disparaging names. The linchpin of its opinion is the conclusion that the disparagement clause constitutes viewpoint discrimination. Secondarily, the court relies on the argument that the disparagement clause does not support the governments interest in regulating speech. As I explain below, these arguments are unconvincing. Finally, the court articulates a broader policy concern of upholding restrictions that directly suppress speech in the commercial marketplace. That concern, I argue, is unfounded for the disparagement clause.

Viewpoint discrimination

Viewpoint discrimination is simple to understand (although sometimes difficult to apply): It occurs when the government prohibits a particular view or takes a position rather than prohibiting a general category or subject matter of speech. At first blush, the disparagement clause seems to prohibit only a general category of speech rather than a particular viewpoint: The clause does not adopt a position, indiscriminately applying to all hate speech, regardless of which person or institution a mark might disparage. Yet the court sees it differently. Justice Samuel Alito explains that a prohibition of all disparaging views is still a prohibition of viewpoints. In his words: Giving offense is a viewpoint. And Justice Anthony Kennedy further explains: To prohibit all sides from criticizing their opponents makes a law more viewpoint based, not less so. Apparently, then, prohibiting all positions on a subject matter is just as viewpoint discriminatory as prohibiting only one. End of case, or so it would seem.

But this rationale is troubling. It calls into question other fundamental provisions of the Lanham Act. The Lanham Act prohibits registration of marks that both provide truthful information and make subjective assertions about their products. More specifically, the Lanham Act prohibits registration of marks that are generic descriptions of goods, that are specific descriptions of characteristics of goods, that are surnames (even of the source), and that indicate the geographic origin of a good. (Some of these types of marks may gain trademark protection over time and through an expensive showing of secondary meaning, but for purposes of viewpoint-discrimination analysis, the fact that they are denied in the absence of these circumstances is all that matters.) In short, the Lanham Act specifically prohibits applicants from telling truthful information and making claims about a good or its source. Are these provisions of the Lanham Act viewpoint discriminatory? According to Alitos reasoning, it would seem so: Telling the truth is a viewpoint a viewpoint, incidentally, that is much more central to the purpose of the First Amendment than is hate speech. And according to Kennedys reasoning: [t]o prohibit all sides from [making claims about their products] makes a law more viewpoint based, not less so, suggesting that a blanket prohibition of descriptive truths is viewpoint discriminatory. According to the reasoning of the Tam court, the Lanham Acts provisions that bar registration for truthful content would seem viewpoint discriminatory.

Consider also the Lanham Acts prohibition of government symbols. Section 2 of the Lanham Act bars trademark protection for any mark that [c]onsists of or comprises the flag or coat of arms or other insignia of the United States, or of any State or municipality, or of any foreign nation, or any simulation thereof. Last time I checked, preventing someone from expressing his patriotism by displaying the United States flag constituted an abridgement of free speech. Under the courts reasoning, the Lanham Acts prohibition of trademark registration for government symbols would be viewpoint discriminatory.

How, then, is a prohibition against disparaging speech any more viewpoint discriminatory than the other prohibitions in the Lanham Act? Stated differently, what principle dictates the viewpoint distinction between the disparagement clause and the other criteria for trademark eligibility? I dont see it. The disparagement clause cannot be viewpoint discriminatory for the simple reason that if it were, it would imply the viewpoint-discriminatory nature of other fundamental registration criteria.

Limited public forum

Why does it matter whether the discrimination is based on viewpoint or subject matter? Alito explains that if the discrimination were not viewpoint based, it might be justified under the limited-public-forum doctrine. Congress has created a public forum the trademark registration system to facilitate private speech, and as a result, the trademark system appears to constitute a limited public forum. In such a metaphysical forum, Congress may impose content-based restrictions that are viewpoint neutral, to the extent that the restrictions support the purpose of the forum. The disparagement clause, then, would be permissible to the extent that it supports the purpose of the trademark system, which I address below in discussing commercial-speech regulation.

Commercial speech regulation

Tellingly, Alito does not rely solely on viewpoint discrimination to condemn the disparagement clause. He analyzes the clause under the test for commercial-speech regulation. Key to this analysis is the government interest in regulating speech. Stated another way: What is it about the context of trademark law that would justify Congress in withholding registration from a disparaging mark? One interest is the orderly flow of commerce. That seems reasonable, given that hate speech does tend to interfere with people engaging in commercial transactions. Alito, however, argues that the statute is not narrowly tailored to this interest, so as to prevent only the sort of invidious discrimination that would disrupt commerce. That is debatable. Arguably, the court could interpret the disparagement clause narrowly, to avoid an unconstitutional interpretation.

Putting aside the orderly-flow-of-commerce interest, the court failed to recognize another important government interest underlying the disparagement clause: the interest in facilitating a peaceful society among citizens of disparate backgrounds and beliefs. A system of commerce that invites all to participate is integral to the fabric of a peaceful society. Religion, ideology and political party all yield to the commercial transaction of buyer and seller cooperating. Disparaging marks threaten this benefit of commerce. Disparaging marks work against universal cooperation in the marketplace. They facilitate an environment of exclusion. They promote disrespect rather than cooperation. Commercial offers for sale, which are supposed to facilitate universal cooperation, become a means to promote disrespect towards others. Simply put, disparaging marks contravene the critically important social benefit of a commercial system. Preventing those marks serves the underlying and broad purpose of commerce generally.

Thus, I am doubtful about the doctrinal underpinnings of the Tam decision. Its rationale for viewpoint discrimination appears weak when compared with the Lanham Acts other discriminatory criteria for trademark registration. Similarly, the disparagement clause appears justifiable as a commercial-speech regulation because it supports the governments interest in facilitating universal participation in the commercial marketplace.

Speech suppression in the commercial marketplace

All this being said, the court does raise an understandable concern. Alito frankly voices that concern:

The commercial market is well stocked with merchandise that disparages prominent figures and groups, and the line between commercial and non-commercial speech is not always clear, as this case illustrates. If affixing the commercial label permits the suppression of any speech that may lead to political or social volatility, free speech would be endangered.

It would seem, then, that the court is fearful that protected and valuable speech could be suppressed merely by labeling it as commercial. What if Congress passed a law that prohibited any critical speech in commercial print? Would the commercial nature of the speech justify such broad content-based regulation? First is a ban on disparaging trademarks, and next is a ban on The New York Times. Loudly the court opines that commerciality does not justify prohibitions on speech that permeates public life in this particular instance, trademarks.

This concern makes sense to a point. Certainly we must avoid suppressing ideas in the name of facilitating commerciality. Unconstitutional speech suppression might arise were Congress to withhold money, impose a fine or affix criminal penalties in response to speech content. But none of these acts of speech suppression is present here. Indeed, according to the court, the benefit of trademark registration is not the same as a cash subsidy or its equivalent. The benefit of registration lies entirely in the commercial realm, thereby limiting the influence of the disparagement clause to that commercial realm. For that matter, withholding registration does not prevent financial success in the commercial marketplace. Even without registration, a disparaging mark can still serve as a trademark. It can still identify source. And owners of disparaging marks can still fully participate in the commercial marketplace. So although a disparaging mark would lack the commercial benefit of registration, that mark could still succeed both financially and philosophically in the marketplace of ideas. Speech suppression is not occurring here.

In sum, Congress should be able to reward civility in commercial discourse. A society can both appreciate the value of contrary and even hateful ideas and at the same time reward commercial speakers who choose to engage civilly. There is neither suppression nor viewpoint discrimination when the people choose to reward civil discourse in commercial transactions.

Posted in Matal v. Tam, Symposium on the court's ruling in Matal v. Tam, Featured

Recommended Citation: Ned Snow, Symposium: The First Amendment silences trademark, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 20, 2017, 12:43 PM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/06/symposium-first-amendment-silences-trademark/

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Symposium: The First Amendment silences trademark - SCOTUSblog (blog)

Bill regulating online anonymizers unanimously passes first ruling in Russian Duma – Washington Times

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Russian lawmakers on Friday unanimously approved the first reading of legislation outlawing virtual private network (VPN) services and other technologies that let internet users bypass Moscows ever-expanding blacklist of banned websites.

Lawmakers in the State Duma, the lower house of Russias Federal Assembly, voted 363-0 on Friday in favor of adopting amendments regulating VPN services, censorship circumvention software and other so-called anonymizers, regional media reported afterwards.

The legislation would ban the use of any software that enables access to digital content otherwise barred by Moscows censors if adopted, according to Meduza, an English-language news site devoted to Russian affairs.

The bills sponsors would give the owners of VPN networks and internet anonymizers access to Russias registry of blocked online resources, so they could cut access to these websites. Any Internet circumvention tools that refuse to block access to banned resources would themselves be blocked, Meduza explained.

Violators would be subject to fines ranging from 5,000 to 700,000 rubles about a maximum of $11,000 Russias Kommersant newspaper reported Friday.

While Moscow already maintains a firm grasp on Russias withering digital freedoms, Duma deputies have said system currently in place for restricting internet access is not effective enough, Meduza reported.

Typically Russias internet watchdog, Roskomnadzor, provides the nations internet service providers (ISPs) with a list of banned websites to block. Even when ISPs heed the regulators request, however, customers can circumvent blacklists by using VPN services or specialized software like the Tor browser to route their internet traffic out of Russia, effectively bypassing the regional firewall.

The Russian authorities censor a wide range of topics online, most often under the pretext of anti-extremism measures, Freedom House wrote in its 2016 Freedom of the Net report. More recently, Roskomnadzor banned Googles Russian portal, Google.ru, for about three hours Thursday for linking to a banned gambling website.

The Russian Security Council began working on the amendments as far back as April and the bill was officially introduced in the Duma on June 8. Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russias Federal Security Service, the former KGB, had reportedly urged Duma members to accelerate passing the new restrictions, Russias RBC reported Friday.

Russian search engine Yanex and the nations internet ombudsman, Dmitry Marinichev, have both previously criticized the proposal, Novaya Gazeta reported.

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Bill regulating online anonymizers unanimously passes first ruling in Russian Duma - Washington Times

Cryptocurrency exchange to credit traders for ethereum ‘flash crash’ – CNBC

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Some traders who lost money in this week's ethereum "flash crash" are going to be credited for their losses, the GDAX cryptocurrency exchange announced on Friday.

The price of ethereum, the alternative digital currency to bitcoin, crashed as low as 10 cents from around $319 in about a second in trading on the GDAX on Wednesday. The exchange blamed the move on a "multimillion dollar market sell" order.

In a blog post on Friday, vice president Adam White said the exchange was "confident all trades this week were executed properly, however, some customers did not receive the quality of service we strive to provide and we want to do better."

Therefore, the GDAX will create a process to credit customer accounts which experienced a margin call or stop loss order as a result of that crash, he said.

Those affected customers will have their ETH-USD account restored to the equivalent of the account at the moment prior to the rapid price drop.

Some traders apparently lost a lot of money during the crash. On the social forum Reddit, users complained of losing large sums of money from $3,000 to $9,000.

Others saw it as an opportunity to make money. However, White noted that the exchange will honor all buy orders filled during that time.

"We view this as an opportunity to demonstrate our long-term commitment to our customers and belief in the future of this industry," White said.

CNBC's Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.

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Cryptocurrency exchange to credit traders for ethereum 'flash crash' - CNBC

Idaho teenager becomes millionaire by investing $1000 gift in Bitcoin – and wins bet with his parents – Telegraph.co.uk

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The teenagers story has captivated America, delighting people with its mix of childhood ambition, entrepreneurial skills and hard work. Mr Finman has been celebrated on news channels, and lauded in the tech community.For his story is little short of remarkable.

The tale began in 2011, when he was 12, and his grandmother gave him $1,000.

Mr Finman, whose parents Paul and Lorna met at Stanford University in the 1980s, when Paul was getting his PhD in electrical engineering and Lorna was getting hers in physics, took the cash and invested it in Bitcoin, following a tip from his brother Scott.

The Finman siblings, three brothers, admit to being fiendishly competitive. Erik describes his family as being the "Elon Musk version of the Kardashians" both his older brothers work in tech and engineering,and the youngest Finman was frustrated by school.

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How to buy Bitcoin in seconds from your smartphone – CNBC

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You've seen all the headlines about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rising in value. Maybe you want to get in on the game. But how do you even start? We'll show you.

Before you do this, though, you should note that bitcoin isn't universally accepted like regular currency. My colleague Seema Mody published a great video recently where she tried to live a week on the currency, and it wasn't easy. You can use bitcoin online and at some retailers, but for the most part you're still better off just paying with cash or a credit/debit card.

You should also be aware that bitcoin is more like a speculative investment than a regular currency, and can fluctuate wildly in value. Although the overall trend has been up in recent months, but crashes of 20 percent or more in a few days are historically not uncommon.

Still interested? Here's how to get started:

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How to buy Bitcoin in seconds from your smartphone - CNBC

Bitcoin speculators are the new day traders – CNBC

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Younger, tech-savvy people are also more likely to play the digital currency markets and the high risk involved, Sunnarborg said. He estimates that about two-thirds of investors in cryptocurrencies are under age 40.

That same age category is less likely to invest in the stock market. Just one-third of millennials, or adults currently aged 21 to 35, said they owned a stock in a Bankrate study last July. In contrast, 51 percent of Gen Xers, or those age 36 to 51, said they owned a stock, and 48 percent of baby boomers, ages 52 to 70, according to the survey of 1,000 American adults conducted for Bankrate by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

"The next generation is suffering from the same thing that the Gen Xers suffered in the dot-com bust," Winer said. "They're playing all kind of markets that they know nothing about."

He was referring to the speculative trading that ended in the stock market's plunge in 2000.

Traders and market strategists also worry that a "fear of missing out trade" has helped send U.S. stocks deep into record territory the S&P 500 has posted 24 record closes this year and is up 9 percent over that time.

The difference is this time, typical measures of overexuberance may not apply to stocks.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch's June global fund manager survey found that while a record 44 percent of managers say stocks are overvalued, their cash holdings have actually moved up to 5 percent, higher than the 10-year average of 4.5 percent. There's "no irrational exuberance" in contrast with the 1999 bubble, the note said.

However, sluggish global growth and easy central bank policy could limit investment returns, while people remain wary about stock markets after the financial crisis.

"I do believe that in a market with few attractive alternatives, speculation tends to become rampant," said Daniel Alpert, a founding managing partner at Westwood Capital. "And it almost doesn't matter what people choose to speculate in, as long as they believe there is a fool greater than they out there somewhere."

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Bitcoin speculators are the new day traders - CNBC

Top Secret? Bitcoin Scaling Plan Segwit2x Leaves More Questions Than Answers – CoinDesk

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After years of debate, the Segwit2x scaling proposallooks like it could play a role in finally taking bitcoin a step forward.

But the codersand companies involved have been doing at least someof thedevelopment behind closed doors, a way of workingthat some argue runs counter to bitcoin's value proposition as a decentralized money that no one person, or group, controls.

The project, which follows in a long line of proposals for increasing bitcoin's transaction capacity, is now supported by an all-time-high of nearly 90% of the bitcoin mining hashrate.

Since the current method of triggering majorcode changes relies on the support of mining pools, it seems likely that the first portionof the agreement, SegWit, will activate on the network by the end of July. (Although, it's hard to say what will happen with the rest of the proposal.)

But, while Segwit2x is perhaps the most widely-supported scaling agreement among companies and mining pools followingyears of debate, some have argued that key decisions are being made by an insular group of companies.

These companies, some argue, have continued pushing the proposal through even though many of the developers that are perhaps the most familiar with bitcoin's codefind fault with thetechnical implementation and disagree with thestated goals.

And those same companies have been elusive when it comes to details about the status of the proposal itself.

Segwit2xwas kick-started at an invite-only meetingcomprised of big companies and large mining pools in the space.

From the beginning, one of the main criticisms levied against Segwit2x is thatits development process isn'topen to everyone. And many argue this process doesn't jibewith bitcoin's history of open-source development.

There is certainly evidence to the contrary. Btc1, as the Segwit2x software implementation is called, is hosted on GitHub where any developer is welcome to point out bugs and suggest improvements. This open processhas indeed already led tomajor changesin the project's direction. Similarly, the mailing list is open for anyone in the community to at least peruse if not post to.

In other ways, the effort isstaying true to its secretive origin story.

There's an invite-only Slack group, where companies that originallypledged to contribute are represented, includingAbra, Bitfury, BitGo, BitPay, Blockchain, Bloq, BTCC, Ledger, RSK Labs and Xapo.

Others included in the Slack group are OB1, Purse and developers from the alternative bitcoin implementation Bitcoin XT, which aimed to increase bitcoin's block size parameter to 8MB in 2015.

Most of these companies and individuals who have committed developer resources, though, declined to provide specific information in response to CoinDesk requests to understandtheir involvement. Some companies did not respond at all.

Others confirmedthat they'reinvolved in development, but declined to be more specificabout which developers are involved and what they're working on.

"We are also contributing technical expertise to the Segwit2x code, which is in its test phase right now on a separate testnet," saidValery Vavilov, CEO of The BitFury Group.

Many company responses were similarly vague.

Yet Vavilov continued:

"We are also in the working group that is researching, building, reviewing and testing the upgrade, and will help businesses adopt the upgrade as well."

Companiesare currentlytestingthe code on the newly-deployed testnet. On Thursday, the group released a public testnet faucet, which producesfake bitcoins that developers can use.

A number of developers are tuned into the effort, as seen on the GitHub and the Segwit2x project mailing list. Those two resources make it easy to see a few of the people involved in development, including posted contributions fromBloq CEO Jeff Garzik and Purse.io CTO Christopher Jeffrey.

While Digital Currency Group (DCG) CEO Barry Silbert is often viewedas the public face and linchpin of the effort (its often calledthe "Silbert Agreement"), he noted he's "not involved on the development side at all", and so can't comment on the process any more than what's already been published.

Despite knowledge of the process, there are gaps inthe community's understanding ofwhat's being developed, such as who specifically is contributing to the effort and what they are contributing.

Those who are not contributing, according to Lightening Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark, are those who have disagreed with the proposal in some way.

Stark said her companyprovided technical feedback to Segwit2xbecause they didn't agree with the proposal for "various technical reasons". And according to Stark, they were not invited to participate further.

"This proposal has like zero developer consensus," she said, referring to Bitcoin Core developers, most of whom have outright rejectedthe project.

She added:

"Unfortunately, the [mailing] list is only for people that agree with Segwit2x."

Again, opponents said, thisphilosophy contrasts with bitcoin's open development process so far, which invites all developers to contribute their ideas. Aloose group of volunteer developers work on Bitcoin Core, for example, where development, for the most part, is done out in the open.

On the other hand, Segwit2x's closed approach to development"allows people to self-vindicate, and shields you from peer review and public commentary," wrote Blockstream CEO Adam Back inan email to the working group.

He continued:

"The forming of distinct and closed communication channels is not inviting review. Why would this project be special in needing to work in closed/controlled environments and not participate openly like the six or so other implementations and hundreds of developers across dozens of companies, institutions and individuals[?]"

Disclosure:CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Abra, BitGo, BitPay, Blockstream, Bloq, BTCC, Ledger, OB1, Purse.io, RSK Labs and Xapo.

Hands behind a blue doorimage via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Interested in offering your expertise or insights to our reporting? Contact us at [emailprotected].

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Top Secret? Bitcoin Scaling Plan Segwit2x Leaves More Questions Than Answers - CoinDesk

Bobcats and Comets both break even | News, Sports, Jobs – Times … – Marshalltown Times Republican

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Local Sports

Jun 24, 2017

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE Colfax-Mingos Mackensie Brown (12) slides safely into second base with a double ahead of the tag by Marshalltown shortstop Regan Mazour during Fridays game at the Bobcat Softball Classic at Marshalltown Community College. The Class 1A No. 11-ranked Tigerhawks topped the Bobcats 6-0.

If the Marshalltown softball team learned anything from its fleeting five-game win streak, head coach Jim Palmer hopes his squad discovered that the energy and enthusiasm they need to succeed must come from within.

MHS opened its annual Bobcat Softball Classic on Friday afternoon with a 6-3 victory over Des Moines Roosevelt, but ended with a 6-0 loss to Class 1A No. 11 Colfax-Mingo.

The Bobcats (7-20) scored three runs in their first at-bat of the tournament, going in front to stay against a fellow Central Iowa Metropolitan League program, but managed only three hits against the backup pitcher of a ranked 1A squad.

Marshalltowns success ebbed and flowed throughout the day, and Palmer hopes his squad can find a way to manufacture positive vibe even when things arent going the Bobcats way.

Youve got to bring that energy to every game, said Palmer. Theyve got to have their own drive and fire in their belly.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE Marshalltowns Madi Finch lifts a single to left field during the Bobcats 6-0 loss to Class 1A No. 12 Colfax-Mingo on Friday evening.

Erica Johnson went 2-for-3 with a run and three RBIs, and McKaylee Dawson was 2-for-3 with two RBIs as Marshalltown took down Des Moines Roosevelt in the days opener. Dawson dealt a five-hitter from the circle as well, limiting the Roughriders (13-18) to five singles in a complete-game performance. She struck out three and did not walk a batter, and only one run was earned to the junior left-hander.

We played really good defense and McKaylee Dawson pitched a really good game, said Palmer. Roosevelt made a comeback toward the end, but by then we were just trying to trade outs for runs after we got up 6-1.

Dawsons two-run single capped Marshalltowns three-run eruption in the bottom of the first inning, and a throwing error led to two more Bobcat runs in the second.

Marshalltown went up 6-1 when Johnson drove in McKenna Major with a single in the fourth, before Roosevelt tallied single runs in the fifth and the seventh.

Well take a win any way we can right now for this team, Palmer said.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

Colfax-Mingo stung Dawson for 11 hits in 5 1/3 innings, chasing her from the circle when Amy Russell ripped her seventh home run of the season a two-run shot to make it 6-0 in the top of the sixth.

Marshalltown simply couldnt match the Tigerhawks offensively, finishing with three singles against C-M sophomore Colbee Cunningham. The right-hander generated a lot of weak contact from the Bobcat bats as she struck out only one and walked two, and her defense committed just one inconsequential error.

We just didnt hit, said Palmer. Their pitcher wasnt overpowering by any means, but they did a good job of keeping us off-balance.

The Bobcats made three errors, but only one run came unearned to Dawson.

Regan Mazour, Madi Finch and Major had Marshalltowns three singles. Major and Mazour reached on back-to-back infield hits with two outs in the fifth, but Colfax-Mingo escaped unscathed.

Tigerhawk leadoff hitter Ries Wilson finished 3-for-4 at the plate with a double and two runs scored.

In todays Bobcat Classic, Marshalltown meets up with Marion at 11:45 a.m. and BCLUW at 1:30 p.m. The Bobcats lost 4-3 to BCLUW during the Comets home tournament two weeks ago.

Comets beat Lisbon, get roughed up by Roosevelt

The Class 2A No. 13 BCLUW softball team edged 12th-ranked Lisbon, 3-2 in eight innings, before getting 10-runned by Des Moines Roosevelt during Fridays Bobcat Softball Classic.

The Comets (20-8) used their small-ball specialty to scratch out the game-winning run in the bottom of the eighth inning against Lisbon thanks to the international tiebreaker rule. Pinch-runner Kiersten Kruse moved to third on Easton Swansons sacrifice bunt and scored the winning run without a play after Sara Sharps well-placed bunt.

Samantha Ubben struck out eight, walked three, and scattered five hits and two unearned runs for the win in the circle.

BCLUW scored single runs in the first, sixth and eighth innings, while the Lions tallied a run in both the fifth and sixth but couldnt capitalize on the free baserunner in the top of the eighth.

Ubben led the Comets with three of their eight hits, and Sharp had two singles. Jenna Willett, Jordyn Beeghly and Swanson each had a hit.

Des Moines Roosevelt racked up 13 hits against BCLUW hurler Lauren Anderson and the Roughriders ran away with an 11-1, five-inning victory.

Leah Yantis went 2-for-3 at the top of the batting order for BCLUW. Beeghly doubled and scored the Comets only run on a groundout by Sharp. Ubben and Willett added singles in the lopsided loss.

BCLUW opens today with a 10 a.m. game against Bondurant-Farrar (7-19) and faces host Marshalltown (7-20) at 1:30 p.m.

Marshalltown Bobcat Softball Classic

At Marshalltown Community College

Fridays Games

Marshalltown 6, Des Moines Roosevelt 3

BCLUW 3, Lisbon 2, 8 innings

Colfax-Mingo 11, Bondurant-Farrar 7

Lisbon 6, Marion 3

Des Moines Roosevelt 11, BCLUW 1

Colfax-Mingo 6, Marshalltown 0

Marion 4, Bondurant-Farrar 3

Saturdays Games

10 a.m. Des Moines Roosevelt vs. Lynnville-Sully (1); Colfax-Mingo vs. Marion (2); BCLUW vs. Bondurant-Farrar (3)

11:45 a.m. Marshalltown vs. Marion (1); Lisbon vs. Lynnville-Sully (2); West Marshall vs. Des Moines Roosevelt (3)

1:30 p.m. Marshalltown vs. BCLUW (1); Colfax-Mingo vs. Lisbon (2); Bondurant-Farrar vs. West Marshall (3).

AMES Former Iowa State guards Nazareth Mitrou-Long and Matt Thomas have both agreed to play for NBA teams ...

STATE CENTER Cody Mead tossed a one-hitter and the West Marshall baseball team scored nine times in the first ...

ACKLEY The East Marshall softball team handed Class 1A No. 4 AGWSR its second consecutive NICL West Division ...

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Bobcats and Comets both break even | News, Sports, Jobs - Times ... - Marshalltown Times Republican

Third-ranked Rockets roar past Comets – Ottumwacourier

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EDDYVILLE One area softball team entered the night with 24 wins on the season. The other entered with 24 losses.

One area softball team is hoping to end this summer as a state champion, a place the other area program has once been and hopes someday to be return to.

Sabrina Morrison, the first-year head coach of the Cardinal Comets, knows how the players of Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont are feeling right now just weeks away from the start of the postseason. Like the Rockets of 2017, Morrison was part of a program at Cardinal in 2003 and 2004 that had high hopes of ending a season with a state championship trophy in their position.

It will take some time for Morrison to lead the Comets back to that point as a head coach. That was evident on Friday as No. 3 EBF rolled to a 10-0 win in five innings over Cardinal, improving to 25-6 on the season while dropping the young Comets to 2-25 in Morrison's inaugural head coaching year.

"EBF has a very experienced ball club, but we'll get there," Morrison said. "I think it helps our girls to see what they can do against those really good ball clubs.

"For the first two or three innings, we were right in there holding our own with one of the best in the state."

Friday's game saw plenty of young participants as the Rockets were playing without normal starters Randie Richmond (rest), Haegen Boyer (college visit) and Jade Johnson (separated shoulder). One of those young EBF players that stepped up was eighth-grader Lillie Hynick, who ripped a double and a triple off Meghan Fitzsimmons driving in four runs including a bases-clearing hit in the third that gave the Rockets a 4-0 lead.

"When I was up to bat, I knew I had to do something to get our offense going," Hynick said. "It was my first start. I was really nervous at the start. I calmed down after the first inning and got more confidence before I stepped up for my second at-bat."

Head coach Tony Fenton talked about Friday's game, which turned out to be a chance for Rocket softball fans to get a glimpse at the future of the program. That, however, wasn't the plan Fenton went into the game with.

"We were shorthanded coming into the night for a variety of reasons, so we needed those girls to step up for us," Fenton said. "It proved to be a good opportunity for those young players. Lillie came up with a pair of timely hits exactly when we needed it. Not bad for a first varsity start."

Hynick's first big hit came as a result of three errors in the third inning that allowed EBF to finally snap a scoreless tie. Entering the bottom of the third, the young Comets were hanging right with the highly-ranked Rockets as Fitzsimmons pitched around two early hits thanks to flawless Cardinal defense.

Briana Ver Steegh scored EBF's first run after reaching on a hit and moving to third base on a ball misplayed in the outfield. Thanks to a wild pitch, Ver Steegh crossed home plate to put the Rockets up 1-0 and turned the tide of the game for the Comets as five more errors over the next two innings allowed seven unearned EBF runs to score.

"It just seems like, when we have one error, all the heads just drop," Morrison said of her young softball team. "Our girls have to learn it's OK to have a mistake here and there. The biggest thing right now is our girls just don't believe in themselves. As coaches, we believe they can. It's just a mental thing we're trying to work on, but it's just a matter of those girls gaining more experience. If they execute moving forward, they can overcome a mistake every once in a while."

Third-ranked (2A) Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont returns to the diamond at home on Monday night to continue its pursuit of a South Central Conference title hosting Davis County. EBF needs to win games on Monday with the Mustangs and on Thursday at Clarke while hoping Albia loses at least one road game next week at Clarke or at Centerville. Cardinal, meanwhile, will host Danville in Southeast Iowa Superconference play on Tuesday night.

Scott Jackson can be reached at sjackson@ottumwacourier.com. Follow him on Twitter @CourierScott.

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Third-ranked Rockets roar past Comets - Ottumwacourier

Comets’ co-promoter: We must put the Ipswich defeat behind us – Times & Star

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Comets suffered a 26-point defeat at the hands of the high-flying Witches on Thursday, but Whitehead, who was stand-in manager for Comets forgettable trip, believes Workington did not do themselves justice, but urged his riders to move on quickly.

The west Cumbrians host Newcastle at Derwent Park tomorrow (1pm start) before hotfooting it over to the Diamonds Brough Park home for the second leg at 7.30pm.

Whitehead said: You cant take it away from the track, youve got to leave it there and get on with it.

We are a better team than that. We did better after the interval but the match was lost by then.

The guys struggled but not for lack of effort so they were all disappointed and its a long way to come and leave with nothing.

I think the best rider on the night for us was probably James Sarjeant.

He did his usual thing with the tapes which is so frustrating because he can ride and, when I told him he had to miss every gate after that and race, he did well.

Comets were not helped by Thomas Jorgensens battle with a knee injury picked up while riding for his new Premiership side Kings Lynn on Wednesday night.

The Danish rider eventually succumbed to his knock and withdrew from the meeting before his final heat but hopes to be available for tomorrows cup action.

And rare mechanical problems added to their woes as Craig Cook missed the two minutes ahead of his tactical ride due to a rare carburetor issue.

It was just one of those nights, Whitehead added.

We had no luck and the referee seemed to make some strange decisions, especially when he excluded Mason Campton instead of Kyle Newman.

Kyle hasnt been riding very well but chose the meeting against us to find form again.

It was disappointing but Ipswich are a good side.

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Comets' co-promoter: We must put the Ipswich defeat behind us - Times & Star

Scientists Have Predicted When Earth Will Be Hit By An Extinction-Level Asteroid – The Daily Caller

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Thesunmay have a companion star that periodically bombardsEarth with storms ofcomets and asteroids, scientists fromLund University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology said Thursday.

New studies of Earths impact craters found asteroids tended to hit roughly every 26 million years, adding to evidence that mass extinction events could be driven by a dim companion star to our sun named after the Greek goddess of revenge, Nemesis. Under this theory, the next apocalyptic asteroid will hit Earth in 10 million years.

How likely is Nemesis to actually exist? The evidence seems to have gone back and forth in recent years, Lindley N. Johnson, NASAs Planetary defense officer who helps devise plans for the U.S. government to stop an asteroid or comet, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Nemesis theoretically has an extremely elliptical orbit,swinging by our sunonce every 26 million years and redirecting the orbits of asteroids and comets to bombard Earth. Researchers have never found Nemesis, but such a star would be exceedingly difficult to detect.

Nemesis would be a faint redor brown dwarf star,orbiting our sun at a distance of about 1.5 light years.The majority of stars in our galaxy actually belong to systems with more than one star.

We see dwarf stars but it is difficult to get the 3-D orbital data for such a star in our galaxy as humans do not have the time base to predict such long-scale interactions even with great observational data and that certainly does not exist for any but the closest stars, Dr. Joseph A. Nuth, a senior asteroid scientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, toldTheDCNF.

Nemesis gravity could alter the orbits of swarms of comets or asteroids in the outer solar system, placing them on a collision course with Earth.

Stellar interactions should effect Oort cloud comets, not asteroids except as secondary products of a comet storm hitting the inner solar system, Nuth said. Basically you need a massive gravitational perturbation or lots of collides to get this.

We probably cant handle a single asteroid on 5 10 years warning, Nuth said. A comet or asteroid storm coming with less than a decade warning would require dropping everything else and going to full defense as a planet and it still probably would not be enough.

The best way to stop an asteroid or comet from hitting the Earth may be to send a spacecraft up to intercept it. NASA, however, would need at least five years to construct a reliable spacecraft and man it. If more than one asteroid or comet were coming at Earth, stopping them all in time could be impossible.

Impact of an asteroids as large as 1 kilometer in size are estimated to cause global effects, i.e. enough dust, debris and/or water vapor expelled into Earths atmosphere to block sunlight and negatively affect the climate world-wide, Johnson said. An event that caused mass extinction would need to be significantly larger than that.

In 2016, NASA and other federal agencies simulated a response to an asteroid striking Earth. Officials were unable to deflect an asteroid on course to hit Earth with four years of warning. An asteroid or comet wouldnt need to be that large to potentially wipe out humanity.

The event 65 million years ago, the mass extinction of dinosaurs, is thought to have been caused by a 10 kilometer (6 mile) sized asteroid, Johnson said. Our population models indicate we have already discovered all asteroids of this size currently within the inner Solar System, i.e. within the orbit of Mars.

The amount of damage an asteroid or comet impact could do is linked not just to the size of the object, but also to the geology of the area where it strikes.

For years, paleontologists hypothesized that the size of a mass extinction might be correlated with the size of the bolide itself, Dr. Rowan Lockwood, a William & Mary paleontologist who studies extinction, told TheDCNF. In recent years, paleontologists have realized that the geology at the impact size (i.e., whether its oceanic or continental crust, limestone or sandstone) is probably more important than the size of the bolide. This might explain (for example) why the K/Pg impact [CretaceousPaleogene, which killed the dinosaurs] was so devastating and the the Chesapeake Bay Impact wasnt, despite the large size of the latter.

Asteroids big enough to cause a mass extinction should be roughly 0.6 miles in diameter. NASA outright admits theres not much the agency could do to stop such an asteroid on a collision course with Earth withoutadvanced warning.

See the Torino Scale or the Purdue Simulator but it will generally depend on both size, density and mass, especially in the case of a comet, Nuth said. A dense fast comet many tens of kilometers in radius could certainly do it.

Former NASA administrator Charles Bolden told reporters in 2013 that the only response to a large surprise asteroid on a collision coursewith Earth is to pray.

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Scientists Have Predicted When Earth Will Be Hit By An Extinction-Level Asteroid - The Daily Caller

‘Scandal’ actress Katie Lowes opens up about psoriasis – WATE 6 On Your Side

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KNOXVILLE (WATE) Quinn Perkins, played by Actress Katie Lowes is one tough cookie on the show Scandal, but she is also tough in real life.

Lowes has lived with a chronic autoimmune disease known as psoriasis for the past eight years. She says she was diagnosed with psoriasis eight years ago but finally decided to go public with her experiences in the hopes of helping others.

When I was first diagnosed I was so embarrassed and ashamed. You know, being an actress in Hollywood, there is such a pressure to look a certain way and after living with it for eight years, says Lowes, Im really living my best life and I thought there are 7.5 million other Americans living with this disease and if I can help even one of them feel inspired to be there own best advocate to get to a place where they are living their fullest life and theyre not limiting themselves because of psoriasis, then that would just be a huge win.

The actress is partnering with Jansen and the National Psoriasis Foundation on a campaign called Inside Story. She shares her story about living with psoriasis and encourages others to do the same.

While on the set of Scandal, Lowes said there were times when she had flare-ups. She said there were times when she couldnt wear a certain red carpet look or wear a bathing suit on vacation.

There are all these limitations placed on your life and I know from personal experience it can be so upsetting and you can feel so alone, but with 7.5 million people living with this disease, you are not, said Lowes. This site is a wonderful tool that people struggling with psoriasis can use to their benefit because I want people to feel, you know, that we are a large community that we support each other. I want to encourage people to find a doctor they can trust, to find a treatment that works for them and I just want people to know that it is possible to get to a place where youre not limiting fashion and style and being with our family and things like that.

Lowes appears on the final season of Scandal which airs Thursdays on WATE 6 On Your Side. When asked if she knows how the show will end, Lowes said she is under lock-and-key.

We are not allowed to say anything, but I can assure you that this will be the final season of Scandal and the writers are leaving it all on the dance floor and it is going to be a wild and crazy ride for sure.

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'Scandal' actress Katie Lowes opens up about psoriasis - WATE 6 On Your Side

20 of the world’s most underrated restaurants – CNN

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( CNN ) Even with influential guides navigating foodies to elite restaurants around the planet, great eateries continue to fly beneath the radar. So how do we find these unsung heroes?

Restaurant-industry insiders seem a good place to start.

Here are their recommendations for underrated restaurants, none of which (at the time of writing) features on global culinary lists that matter.

"Set in the lower-middle class neighborhood of Surquillo, this eight-seat cevicheria serves a menu of six types of offbeat fish and seafood, plus a secret stash of items available only to friends and regulars.

"Matsufuji's most famous dish is cachete frito, prepared with the fin of robalo (snook) or mero (grouper), deep-fried and served in a seafood sauce."

Atoboy's cuisine is modern Korean with premium ingredients and exquisite presentation.

"The food by the former chef de cuisine of two Michelin-starred Jungsik (NYC) is strongly Korean-inflected but with modern elements, top ingredients and beautiful presentation, each underscored by umami and art.

"It's also reasonably priced -- $36 for three different dishes. Favorites are the fried chicken with spicy peanut sauce and garlic, corn with taleggio cheese, bacon and doenjang, and mackerel with green chilli, radish and scallion."

"His wife Tina, a master-baker, runs the front-of-house, while Jewell, also known as the charcuterie king of the country, toils in the kitchen. Locals return time and again for his bespoke charcuterie platters, his champion dish of butter-roasted kingklip with chicken-wing confit and pickled mushrooms.

"The seasonally updated menu also includes treats such as warm salad of bone marrow, oxtail and sweetbreads."

"It's one of the city's true chef-driven, casual fine-dining eateries, and the food that chef Arnie Marcella cranks out is straightforward and scrumptious New American with a serious emphasis on local organic produce.

"Marcella is almost obsessive when it comes to sourcing quality ingredients, and he adapts his dishes to what's fresh and available in the market.

"I adore the grilled beef tongue and snails, cleverly presented with parsnip puree, pickled mushrooms and parsley froth. The bar does superlative cocktails too!"

Burgundy serves experimental seasonal Lebanese dishes.

"Although the restaurant's tasting menu changes seasonally, I am fond of Akiki's bird dishes, his pickled vegetable dish from Jacqueline's garden and the savory and sweet bites with which he takes you on a regional journey.

"The Middle East is a tricky region when it comes to 'fine dining'; it's split into countries with hardly any produce to speak of, and others in economic turmoil. To stand out in that category of restaurants and keep challenging what exists is worthy of a mention."

"Oggero is obsessed with the fruits of the sea and his cuisine has strong Mediterranean accents. I highly recommend dishes like the sole tartare, burrata with aubergine puree and spiced pistachios, wood fire-grilled octopus and Ecuador red tuna with papines (northern potatoes) and vegetables, washed down with boutique Argentinian wines."

"He works almost exclusively with ingredients from suppliers in the Salzburg Alps, including vegetables from the gardens of the Tennengau region and fish from the nearby Bluntau Valley.

"For a teaser of what you might experience here, think fennel baked in a dough made from finely ground glacial polish from the ancient rock of Austria's highest mountain, the Grossglockner, topped with fish eggs from Austria's first caviar producer, Walter Grll."

A dinner at Albert Adria's Enigma is a fascinating gastronomic journey.

"It's probably too new to make any lists, but this restaurant offers a fascinating gastronomic proposal that plays with a gamut of spaces, each focusing on different styles of cooking (be it a snack, an ingredient, straightforward flavors or cocktails), creating a journey that invites diners to live through different experiences.

"My favorite dishes are sea ox with its coral in a soy kimchi broth and trumpet mushroom bread with Prigueux sauce."

"The service is exactly the right mix of casual and detail-oriented, and the wine list is stunning. Picks of the menu include the crisp chicken skin with whipped cod roe (great with a glass of Sicus Cru Mari) and the dry-aged Great Ocean duck paired with finger lime, crunchy coastal succulents and grilled fennel."

Jiquitaia lures customers with good old Brazilian dishes like pork belly crackling.

"A former lawyer, chef Marcelo Corra Bastos, works the stove while his sister takes charge of the cocktails, headlined by the spectacular caipirinhas, Brazil's national cocktail.

"Expect good old Brazilian cuisine at affordable prices and delicately flavored dishes like pork-belly crackling, duck rice with tucupi (Amazon cassava jus), seafood moqueca (a fish stew from Bahia with coconut milk) and coconut cake."

"There are loads of local vegetables on the menu, with meats as an accent, while sustainably raised seafood shows up more often than not.

"Monday lunch might feature the Midwestern pozole with a farm egg and pickled vegetables, or just some seasonal pastries. If you go for dinner, try the six-course vegetarian tasting menu (only $50) or the three-course Monday farm dinner."

"The food, headlined by 'raw' and 'grilled' fare like sashimi, ceviche and tartare as well as Josper oven-grilled seafood and meats, is fresh and tasty and the restaurant's interior cool.

"Red algae, for instance, is served with sweet and sour kimchi pineapple; wild sea bass is joined with aromatic turmeric and jalapenos; and barbecued flank steak with remoulade cherry sauce.

"You'll also enjoy a discovery of Russian seafood like scallops from Murmansk and Sakhalin as well as shrimps from Magadan."

Fragrant black truffle chicken wings -- one of the dishes on Neighborhood's small menu.

"A UC Berkeley graduate and an alum of Alain Ducasse's Le Louis XV, David goes to the fish markets daily to seek out wild seafood harvested from Hong Kong waters.

"His menu is brief -- about 20 savory items, plus a few specials that need to be pre-ordered.

"At a recent meal, we had fragrant black truffle chicken wings, a seafood platter with goose barnacles, razor clams and tiny whelks, and a fricasse of chicken livers, cockscombs and rooster testicles with morel mushrooms. He also makes the best canels in Hong Kong."

Food writer Crystyl Mo says: "Set in an atmospheric heritage building, PELIKAN brings 'relaxed Nordic dining' to Shanghai under talented young Danish chef Kasper Elmholdt Pedersen, who cut his teeth at Michelin-starred Henne Kirkeby Kro and Geist in Copenhagen.

"The moody, spot-lit tropical interior with quirky wallpaper is a brilliant contrast to the cool Northern European menu that features Nordic-inspired small plates.

"Think green and white asparagus with poached shrimp and radishes, juicy pork and mushrooms, and sweet Danish beer bread paired with raspberries, and crystalized white chocolate. A favorite is Pedersen's simple yet stunning charred beets three ways (charred, raw and pureed) with beurre blanc."

PELIKAN, 225 Xikang Lu (near Beijing Lu) Shanghai, China; +86 21 6266 7909

Publisher Lars Peder Hedberg says: "You might have heard about Esperanto, chef Sayan Isaksson's highly praised fine dining restaurant that bridges the best of Nordic and Japanese inspirations.

"The magnificent Nordic sashimi plate, with seafood you've never heard of, much less likely tasted, is perhaps the most traditional -- at least when compared to his pike-perch nigiri topped with lardo and confit pork, his maki with burnt salmon skin with roasted garlic or right-out renegade creations like short-rib gunkan with smoked soy or his teriyaki of grilled duck hearts in pepper."

"With a trio of head chefs -- Lorenzo Stefanini, Stefano Terigi and Benedetto Rullo, each no older than 30 -- pitching their ideas, this historic temple of Tuscan tradition in the center of Lucca has evolved into an innovative gastronomic sum greater than its parts.

"For proof, look no further than the boundary-pushing dish of spaghetti cooked in Syrah wine with grated frozen pigeon liver pate, a perfect counterpoint to the classical setting in which it's served."

Terakoya's famous smoked salmon is made in a smokehouse on the premises.

"Apart from an official Krug Champagne room and a wine cellar, the vast property also has a Japanese garden, a Japanese tea ceremony room, a theater pavilion and a smokehouse that smokes all the salmon sold on premise.

"The restaurant is known for its smoked salmon dishes and the chef, who is a keen researcher, has a catalog of more than 3,000 original recipes he created."

Writer Nicolas Chatenier says: "Chef-owners Chiho Kanzaki, Japanese, and Marcelo di Giacomo, Italian, are former chefs from Mirazur and at their minimally embellished restaurant housed in simple premises in eastern Paris, they serve highly refined French contemporary cuisine with hints of Japanese (try the signature dish of asparagus tempura).

"Here, the flavors are precise and each dish is carefully put together. The superlative fare and amazing wine selection from sommelier Paz Levinson makes this one of my greatest discoveries in recent months."

"Food is great, prepared by chef Sebastian Mattis, who worked as a sous-chef in the two-star French restaurant Le Moissonnier. Panitzke and Mattis develop every dish together, from the first to the last and thus create perfect pairings like ray, lovage, endives and a 2007 Gewrztraminer Auslese Albersweiler Latt by Hansjrg Rebholz. Great interior. No stereotype of a German Weinstube, but un-kitschy, modern, cool."

"Formerly of Gordon Ramsay Royal Hospital Road, The Square and The Hand and Flowers, Jan Ostle's elegant cooking shrugs off fashionable twerks and focuses on a weekly changing menu of just three starters, three main courses and two puddings plus cheese, although you'll be treated to a mouthful of something delicious at the start -- radishes from the chef's garden with whipped jamon iberico fat, say.

"Choose a glass from the short list of carefully chosen, mostly biodynamic wines with dishes such as cod, parsley, snails, bone marrow and Cevenne onions."

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20 of the world's most underrated restaurants - CNN

Bartlett, Tourism runs the risk of being viewed as a preserve of the elite – South Florida Caribbean News

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By Derrick Scott

WASHINGTON, D.C Jamaicas Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett says, despite massive growth projections for global travel and tourism, the small and medium tourism enterprises in tourism-dependent nations are yet to reap the full benefits tourism ought to provide.

As we observe tourisms impact on the global economy and celebrate the contribution this sector makes in providing one in eleven jobs, we must also question why 80% of tourism expenditure leaks out of the host countries, Minister Bartlett declared.

The fact iswe can no longer only be concerned with tourisms overall economic growth, be it on a global, regional and even national scale. Growth that does not reach a wide-cross section of the population; that does not do its job to alleviate poverty; and does not enrich peoples lives and future in all communities, runs the risk of being viewed as only for the elite the scant top two percent of the population, said the Jamaican tourism minister.

Minister Bartletts comments came Wednesday(June 21st), as he delivered the main address at the Tourism Knowledge Exchange, sponsored by the World Bank Group, at their headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Quoting the recently released World Travel & Tourism Councils Benchmarking Report 2017, Minister Bartlett said the global tourism sector directly sustains twice as many jobs as the financial sector and five times as many jobs in the chemicals sector.

He pointed out that according to the report, Global Travel & Tourism is forecast to grow 4.0% per year over the next ten years while the global economy grows at 2.7%. In the Americas alone, there are 42.7 million jobs in tourism, larger than banking, chemicals manufacturing, automotive manufacturing and mining.

Jamaicas Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett delivers the keynote address at the World Bank Groups Tourism Knowledge Exchange, at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC in Wednesday June 21, 2017. ( Photo Derrick Scott )

These findings are incredible and the numbers speak for themselves in the power of global tourism and its unstoppable growth, Bartlett said. However, he noted, while all indicators hail the rapid growth and scale of the tourism powerhouse, the true reality is that in many instances, the Small and Medium Tourism Entreprises in tourism-dependent nations are not reaping the full benefits tourism ought to provide, Bartlett said.

The Jamaican tourism Minister observed that if tourism accounts for more than 10% of global GDP and 30% of the worlds trade in services, surpassing the extractive industries including oil; and it provides one in eleven jobs worldwide, twice as many as the financial sector and five times more than the chemicals sector; and 80% of global tourism is driven by Small & Medium Tourism Enterprises; then it should not be the case that 80% of tourisms expenditure leaks out of the host countries.

Generally, when we discuss and measure foreign direct investments in tourism destinations, we usually refer to large scale hotel developments, airlines, airports and major attractions.

Minister Bartlett however pointed out, tourism is the fastest way to transfer foreign exchange from wealthy countries to developing nations. Not through large-scale investments, but through backward and forward linkages in the tourism sector.

When we look at bilateral and multilateral funding in the sector, less than percent of gross development finance when to tourism projects in 2015 only USD $253 million.

In order to achieve sustainability in tourism, specifically, to realise inclusive growth, Bartlett said, greater attention out to be paid to the tourism value chains through which we will find the real drivers of national development.

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Bartlett, Tourism runs the risk of being viewed as a preserve of the elite - South Florida Caribbean News

Video and Photos: Trans Marchers Celebrate the Passing of Trans Human Rights Bill – Torontoist

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June 24, 2017 at 11:25 am news

I'm marching today because I finally have the freedom to be the person I always wanted to be"

By Zach Ruiter Photos by Mitchel Raphael

The mood was jubilant as thousandstook part in the 9th annual Toronto Trans MarchonFridayevening. Marcherstook off from Bloor Street at Church, headed southdown Yonge Street, turned left on Carlton Street, endingup inAllan Gardens.

This years march was the fifth year the procession has been officiallypermitted to proceed down Yonge.

For Shadmith Manzour, who marched on Friday, the Trans March is about highlighting the capacity for everybody to really be true to themselves and be proud of who they are.

Many participants were celebrating the recent passing of federal trans rights legislation, Bill C-16, which introduces protection for gender identity and gender expression within the Canadian Human Rights Code and the Criminal Code. We were [one of] the first countries to pass equal marriage and we are the first country to grant rights to trans people, said Rachel Lauren Clark, a Trans March participant.

Somemarchers were reluctant to celebrate the new protections. Theres huge problems with homelessness, with suicide, and violence against transgender people especially trans women of colour, Qaiser, another marcher, says. And well need a lot more than Bill C-16 to address those problems.

The Trans March has established itself as one of the most important events in thePride calendar because it is equal parts a celebration of individualityand a defiant act of resistance and protest against the everydaytransphobia in our culture.

Filed under Cheri DiNovo, kristyn wong-tam, Paul Ainslie, Pride Toronto, Bill C-16, LGBTQ, PFLAG, Pride 2017, toronto trans march, trans rights, transgender

2017, Ink Truck Media All rights reserved.

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Video and Photos: Trans Marchers Celebrate the Passing of Trans Human Rights Bill - Torontoist