You Say What?: June 2017

Sunday, June 25, 2017

UK electricity grid cyber-attack risk is 'off the scale.....Energy industry says current threat coming to the fore because of trend towards decentralised power plants

Sunday 25 June 2017 12.20 EDT Last modified on Sunday 25 June 2017 17.00 EDT

Concerns over the threat posed by cyber-attacks on power stations and electricity grids is “off the scale” in the UK energy sector, according to a leading industry figure.
No other country in the world has an energy industry as worried about the risk from cyber threats, such as the WannaCry ransomware attack that recently hit the NHS, the former chief of National Grid told the Guardian.

Theresa May’s crackdown on the internet will let terror in the backdoor

There were also a growing number of web-connected devices in energy technology, he added.
One obvious target is the smart meters that are being installed in every home by the end of 2020, to automate meter readings. The Capita-run body set up to handle the data, the DCC, is being treated as critical national infrastructure and the company’s chief technology officer insists the data is safe.
“We don’t hold personal information [on energy supplier customers], we don’t see any form of sensitive data and we are not connected to the internet,” Matt Roderick told a recent industry conference. Holliday’s warning comes as the UK parliament reels from a “sustained and determined” cyber-attack which left MPs unable to access their emails.
Industry trade body Energy UK said there was a central system for logging threats, to help rapidly counter them. “Maintaining the highest level of security against cyber threats is a top priority for the industry,” a spokeswoman said.

Security experts from the National Cyber Security Centre and companies including Siemens also recently attended a summit on cybersecurity and energy infrastructure, hosted by Energy UK and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
The issue is not just a concern for the power sector, but for oil and gas producers too. BP said recently that “we are a target for this activity” when asked by shareholders about how seriously it was taking cybersecurity.
“Cyber is high on the agenda. It is one of the key risks the company identifies,” said Carl-Henric Svanberg, chairman at BP. “We were not affected luckily by this [Wannacry] attack, primarily because everybody had followed procedures of continuous updates.”

Brian Gilvary, chief financial officer at BP, said the firm did not share specific information on the number of attacks it faced. However, he said the company had a strategy of repelling what it could, detecting what got through and then cleansing when cyber-attackers had breached defences.
The World Energy Council, a global network of energy leaders, said cybersecurity in the energy sector had been high on the agenda of a security conference in Munich earlier this year. The issue was also raised in May by the Scottish parliament.

PricewaterhouseCoopers recently found that 65% of UK businesses were “significantly concerned” over cyber risks to energy technology. Three in five businesses would switch energy supplier if they suffered a cyber breach, according to a survey of 500 businesses by the professional services firm.

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Girl Pleads With Mother After Castile Killing: 'I Don't Want You to Get Shooted!'

NBC News

The terrified four-year-old witness to the killing of Philando Castile by a Minnesota cop pleaded with her mother to cooperate with police moments after his death telling her "I don't want you to get shooted," a newly released police video shows.

The video, which came out with a bundle of evidence from the Castile trial, captures the interaction between Diamond Reynolds, Castile's girlfriend, and her daughter as they were held in the back of a squad car shortly after the shooting.

In the heart-wrenching video, a handcuffed Reynolds yells "F---!" — and immediately her young daughter begins to cry begging her mother to "please stop cussing and screaming because I don't want you to get shooted."

The weeping girl then embraces her mother, who tells her to give her a kiss.
"I can keep you safe," says the girl, while wiping away tears from her face.
Related: Authorities Release Police Dashcam Video of Philando Castile Killing
"I can't believe they just did that," Reynolds whispers to herself — to which the girl begins to cry uncontrollably.

Reynolds then attempts to get out of her handcuffs, and the girl again desperately yells for her to be calm, out of fear for her mother's safety.
"No! Please no! I don't want you to get shooted!" she said.
"They're not going to shoot me, I'm already in handcuffs," Reynolds responds in an attempt to pacify the frazzled girl.

The emotional video shines new light on the tragic aftermath of Castile's tragic shooting by Officer Jeronimo Yanez who fired seven bullets into him after he told the officer he had a firearm.
Yanez told investigators and a jury that he believed Castile was reaching for the weapon.
But Reynolds, who live streamed the immediate moments after her boyfriend was shot on Facebook, told authorities that he was only reaching for his wallet.
Police Officer Fatally Shoots Black Man During Traffic Stop Near St. Paul

© Diamond Reynolds, holding her daughter, speaks to a crowd outside the Governor's Mansion on July 7, ... Police Officer Fatally Shoots Black Man During Traffic Stop Near St. Paul She is also heard saying "he's not pulling it out!" in the police dashcam video seconds before the gunfire.

Yanez was acquitted by a jury on charges of manslaughter and dangerous discharge of a firearm — sparking outrage in the community as well as with civil rights organizations across the nation.
Reynolds testified during the trial that she recorded the encounter out of fear for her own life.
"Because I know that the people are not protected by police," Reynolds said, according to NBC Minneapolis affiliate KARE. "I wanted to make sure if I was to die in front of my daughter, someone would know the truth."

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

It’s June. California Is Still Covered in Snow

Climate Central

In this photo taken Tuesday, June 6, 2017, Caltrans maintenance worker Paul Jensen removes snow and dirt that is clogging the rotary blower he is operating to clear snow from Highway 120 near near Yosemite National… The summer solstice is just around the corner, but someone forgot to tell California’s snowpack.

After years of wallowing in drought, this winter walloped California’s Sierra Nevada mountains in a major, record-setting way. And while the calendar says summer, winter still has its grips on the granite spine of the Sierras.

NASA Earth Observatory released satellite imagery on Thursday that shows what a difference a year makes. Snowpack is at 170 percent of normal when averaged across the state and some areas are reporting way higher totals than that, according to the California Department of Water Resources. Alpine Meadows, located just west of Lake Tahoe, reported 288 inches of snow on the ground (no, that’s not a typo) as of early June. Deep green hues of healthy vegetation also extend down the Sierra Nevada western slope, another benefit of all that precipitation.

A storm earlier this week even dropped a few inches of fresh powder to freshen up the slopes for ski resorts that have stayed open to accommodate skiers and boarders who have been starved for snow for five years. California, you’ll may recall, was in an epic drought until this winter helped bust it in a big way.

Beyond making skiers happy, the massive amounts of snow at high elevations and rain at low elevations helped fill reservoirs that were dangerously low. In the case of the Oroville Reservoir, all the rain ended up being too much of a good thing and caused a cascade of events that nearly caused the dam holding waters back to collapse.

Only 8 percent of the state remains in comparatively mild drought. At this time last year, 84 percent of the state was in drought, including 21 percent in the worst type of drought tracked by the U.S. Drought Monitor.

But though drought seems like a distant memory looking at the snowy Sierras, Californians shouldn’t forget it. Precipitation (or lack thereof) is a key ingredient for drought, and while climate change isn’t likely to cause a shift in precipitation for the Golden State, it is likely to have an impact on another key drought ingredient: hot temperatures.

Scientists have already shown that hot years are overlapping with dry years more often and that within a few decades, any dry year will also certainly be a hot one in California. Put a few of those hot, dry years together and you’ve got yourself a recipe for another extreme California drought. That means the Golden State should enjoy the good times like 2017, but be ready for a future where drought conditions happen more often unless carbon pollution is cut.

Excessive heat to boil West, Southwest U.S.

CBS News

Danielle Nottingham 3 days ago

Summer doesn't officially start until Wednesday, but parts of the West and Southwest are already broiling in a triple-digit heat wave.

119 degrees in Furnace Creek, California, 113 in Blue Water, Arizona, 112 in Midland, Texas
It's making conditions even more dangerous for crews battling wildfires.

Temperatures in parts of California are expected to rise as high as 25 degrees above normal.
Sizzling temperatures across the region could break records. And another cause for concern -- air quality. Unhealthy to very unhealthy levels of heat-induced ozone pollution are expected in several inland communities. Excessive heat warnings extend to Nevada , parts of Utah and in Arizona, where over a dozen wildfires are burning around the state. Six firefighters had to be treated for heat-related illness while battling the highline fire in Payson. Temperatures in Phoenix are expected to reach 120 degrees.

The hottest temperatures will arrive in the Southwest Monday and last through the end of next week. In the southern California desert, highs in Death Valley could soar to 127 degrees.

Thousands dead' in DR Congo violence

BBC News

© Getty Images The UN has called for an investigation into the violence, which has left millions displaced More than 3,300 people have been killed in the violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Kasai region since last October, the Catholic Church says.

The figure, reported by the Reuters news agency, is from Church sources.

The deaths are the result of clashes between the army and a rebel group, but civilians have also been caught up in the violence.

The UN has reported on the discovery of more than 20 mass graves but has put the death toll so far at about 400.

According to the church, 20 villages have been completely destroyed, half of them by government troops.

The UN Human Rights Council is likely to vote this week on whether to mandate an independent investigation into the violence following what the group's commissioner described as horrific atrocities committed in Kasai province.

The Congolese authorities have said they would reject it.
More than a million people have been displaced in the region in the last year and aid workers say the humanitarian response on the ground has so far been inadequate.

Violence erupted in the once peaceful Kasai region last August, after the death of a local leader during fighting with security forces.

Former escort found guilty of attempted hit man hire

Associated Press

1 day ago

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A former escort was convicted Friday of trying to hire a hit man to kill her newlywed husband to get control of his money and their town house in a case that was featured on the television show "Cops."

Dalia Dippolito teared up as she turned to look at her sobbing mother when the jury announced its verdict after deliberating for only an hour and a half. She faces up to 20 years in prison when sentenced July 21. Judge Glenn Kelley ordered her held without bail.

Dippolito, 34 and the mother of an infant son, later began sobbing as she sat handcuffed in a corner of the courtroom as bailiffs ordered spectators out. Paramedics were called to the courthouse after she had trouble breathing, but she was later taken to jail. She had been on house arrest for several years.
Her ex-husband, convicted conman Michael Dippolito, issued a statement saying he was "5,000 percent happy" with the verdict. He was referring to a secretly videotaped statement Dalia Dippolito made to an undercover detective posing as a hit man where she said she was "5,000 percent sure" she wanted him murdered.

"The jury could see through the Defense's lies and antics," he said.
Prosecutors Craig Williams and Laura Laurie declined comment. Their boss, Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aronson, issued a statement saying, "We are pleased that the hard work and perseverance of our prosecutors and staff have led to justice." The three-man, three-woman jury also left without comment.
This was the third trial for Dippolito since her arrest in August 2009. A 2011 conviction and 20-year sentence were thrown out on appeal. A 2016 trial ended with a 3-3 hung jury.

Deputy Neil Cascone holds Dalia Dippolito back as her family reaches out to her as she in taken into custody after being found guilty in her third attempted murder trial, Friday, June 16, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Fla. Dippolito, a former escort was convicted Friday of trying to hire a hit man to kill her newlywed husband to get control of his money and their town house in a case that was featured on the television show "Cops." (Lannis Waters/Palm Beach Post via AP, Pool)

Defense attorneys Brian Claypool and Craig Rosenfeld said they will appeal the verdict, saying jurors should not have heard secondhand allegations that Dippolito once tried to poison her husband."It is really hard for jurors to get beyond that and really look at the egregious police misconduct that took place," Claypool said.

The guilty verdict validated the prosecution's reversal in strategy. Last year, prosecutors focused heavily on the 23-minute video in which Dippolito tells undercover officer Widy Jean she wanted her husband killed and agreed to pay $7,000. She also discussed various plots before Jean said he would kill her husband at the couple's home, making it look like a botched burglary while she was at the gym.

This time, while the tape remained a key piece of their evidence, prosecutors went back to their 2011 strategy. They also called Michael Dippolito, who testified that his then-wife stole $100,000 from him shortly after they got married in February 2009. He also said someone twice planted drugs in his SUV and called police, which could have landed him back in prison for violating his probation. He thinks it was his wife. He has said previously he met his wife when he hired her for sex. He soon divorced another woman and married her.

According to The Palm Beach Post, prosecutors also read for the jury X-rated text messages Dalia Dippolito exchanged with a now-deceased lover, Mike Stanley, in 2009 after she got married.
She had Stanley impersonate a doctor, to help her hide the $100,000 theft, and later a lawyer, to make her husband wrongly think he had completed probation, prosecutors said, adding that she hoped that if her husband stopped visiting his probation officer, he would be found in violation. In one text message, she rejoiced after persuading her husband to put their town house in her name only; in another, she complained after learning she still couldn't sell it without his signature.

Prosecutors also showed video of her interview with detectives at the police station after being made to believe her husband had been killed. She volunteered potential killers, including her husband's former crime partners, and denied knowing Jean when he was brought before her in handcuffs as the killer.

Claypool and Rosenfeld struck hard at the investigation, accusing the Boynton Beach police of playing to the "Cops" cameras in hopes of becoming famous, rather than doing a professional and thorough investigation. They criticized the department for posting on YouTube minutes after her arrest video of Dippolito being told falsely her husband was dead.

Former Boynton Beach Sgt. Frank Ranzie testified for the defense, saying that as a detective on the case, he had opposed "Cops" filming the investigation because cameras make people, including police officers, behave differently.

He also said his supervisors refused to delay a key meeting between Dippolito and their confidential informant, her sometimes-lover Mohammed Shihadeh, minutes before her rendezvous with Jean when Shihadeh's recording device failed. He called that a major gap in the investigation.

Study reveals "staggering" toll of guns on U.S. kids

CBS News

Mary Brophy Marcus 1 day ago

© Provided by CBS Interactive Inc.The tragic headlines are all too common: A toddler got his hands on his mother's gun and fatally shot his 2-year-old brother in Colorado earlier this month. Two girls caught in the crossfire were wounded in a shooting during a picnic at a Chicago elementary school on Friday. And out of the glare of the headlines, more teens took their own lives.
Now a new report gives the most complete picture yet of the grim toll gunfire takes on American children every year.

Overall, nearly 1,300 children in the U.S. die in shootings each year and another 5,790 survive gunshot wounds -- from handguns, rifles and shotguns -- according to the study published today in the journal Pediatrics.

The tally makes gunshot wounds the third leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 17 years.
For the report, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed data on injuries and deaths from gunfire in kids ages 0 to 17, compiling information from three national databases that track details such as nonfatal firearm injuries reported by hospital emergency rooms, death certificates connected to gun violence, coroner and medical examiner records, law enforcement reports, as well as details on homicides, assaults, suicides/self-harm, or unintentional injuries linked to guns. They also examined sex, age, race/ethnicity and year of death.
Watch: Chicago kids tell their stories: "Will I live the rest of my life?"
"About 19 children a day die or are medically treated in an emergency department for a gunshot wound in the U.S.," study author Katherine Fowler, a behavioral scientist at the CDC, told CBS News.

More than half (53 percent) of deaths due to guns among children were homicides, she said. More than a third (38 percent) were suicides. Six percent were unintentional shooting deaths.
Boys are especially vulnerable to gun violence, accounting for 82 percent of all child firearm deaths and 84 percent of all non-fatal gun injuries.

"The majority of these children are boys, 13 to 17 years old, and African-American in the case of firearm homicide, and non-Hispanic white and American Indian/Alaska Native in the case of firearm suicide," Fowler said.

African-American children have the highest rates of firearm mortality overall -- 10 times higher than the rate for non-Hispanic white and Asian-American children, according to the report.
When it comes to suicide by gun, rates among young people have climbed significantly since 2007, rising 60 percent, the study found.

In about a third of those cases, the child suffered from a depressed mood, and about a quarter had a clinically diagnosed mental health problem. Twenty-six percent told someone in advance of their intent to die by suicide.

© istockphoto istock-464884181.jpg Death by gun: Top 20 states with highest rates
Other research has found that suicides involving either handguns or long guns are especially prevalent in rural areas.

"The current report's analyses confirm that suicides often occur in response to short-term crises. The availability of a firearm may be especially critical for an impulsive teenager in such moments of crisis," Dr. Eliot W. Nelson of the University of Vermont Children's Hospital, in Burlington, Vermont, wrote in an accompanying editorial in Pediatrics entitled "Confronting the Firearm Injury Plague."
While there have been previous studies on firearm injuries and deaths in children, this report is "the most comprehensive" to date, Fowler said. "It examines overall patterns of firearm-related death and injury, patterns by type of firearm injury -- interpersonal, self-directed, and unintentional -- trends over time, state-level patterns, and circumstances surrounding these deaths."
Dr. Ruth Abaya, assistant professor of pediatrics in the division of Emergency Medicine at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told CBS News, "The findings were staggering."
But, she added, "Unfortunately, not surprising. Their numbers verified a lot of observations we've seen in regards to gun violence, gun death and unintentional injury to children over the years. It was very telling."

How U.S. gun deaths compare to other countries Many kids spend time in homes with guns, but safety lags

The findings suggest that community-wide initiatives are needed to address the problem, she said.
"I think that the take-home for me is that we're going to need a multi-pronged approach to gun violence prevention in this country for it to be affective," Abaya said.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has a violence prevention initiative that includes better access to health care -- including mental health care – for children at risk, as well as an anti-bullying program, and screening for mental health issues and firearm access when children come to the emergency room and pediatrician offices.

Although gun-related death rates for children declined gradually between 2006 and 2013, they have risen again over the past two years. Guns accounted for over 10 percent of all deaths among children 17 and younger in 2014 and 2015, Nelson pointed out in the editorial.
Watch: Report: Road rage involving guns on the rise

"An even grimmer picture appears if we extend the age range through the teenage years to age 19, because firearm injury rates rise steeply in late adolescence," he wrote.
And for those who survive, the physical and mental toll may be felt for a lifetime.
"By including a focus on nonfatal firearm injuries treated in emergency rooms, the authors also remind us of the fuller scope of these injuries and the toll they exact," Nelson wrote.
As for possible solutions to the problem, Dr. David Wesson, a pediatric surgeon at Texas Children's Hospital, told CBS News, "This paper gives us areas we can focus our energy on."
Because "firearm injuries are fraught with political overtones," this can be a difficult topic to address, but he suggested that promoting gun safety laws and more widespread use of secure gun storage devices are a few possible approaches.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends doctors ask parents whether they keep a gun in the home, and Nelson agreed that pediatricians "do need to try to engage those gun owners."
"We should be mindful that this message may be off-putting to parents who keep guns for hunting or self-protection, and who are part of a widespread and deeply rooted social gun culture in our country, especially in rural states," he wrote. "Our message on safe gun storage in homes with children is similar to that of gun rights and sport shooting groups.‍"

But, Wesson said, "The more guns there are, the more people die of gunshot injuries."
Fowler, the report author, said that understanding the nature, magnitude and health impact of firearm violence against children is an important first step to finding ways to prevent injuries and deaths of children from firearms. Street outreach and school-based programs, finding ways to address poverty and violence, screening for depression in children, and promoting safe gun storage education to owners are some of the ways communities can begin to address the issue.
The bottom line: "Firearm injuries are preventable," she said.