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The black box of justice: How secret algorithms have changed policing
Crime prevention efforts increasingly depend on data analysis about neighborhoods. But there's a lot we don't know—and vast opportunities for bias.
[Source image: masterzphotois/iStock]
By Jon Fasman 10 minute Read
The story of predictive policing begins in the 1990s with a process developed by the New York Police Department. Today New York is one of the safest big cities in America. In 2018, 289 people were murdered in the five boroughs. The city's murder rate—3.31 per 100,000 people—was the lowest measured in 50 years
In 1990, it was a different city: 2,245 people were murdered, a rate of around 31 per 100,000 (the city's population increased markedly in the intervening 28 years). Here's what the New York Times said about its hometown at the end of 1990: "The streets already resemble a New Calcutta, bristling with beggars. . . . Crime, the fear of it as much as the fact, adds overtones of a New Beirut. . . . And now the tide of wealth and taxes that helped the city make these streets bearable has ebbed. . . . Safe streets are fundamental; going out on them is the simplest expression of the social contract; a city that cannot maintain its side of that contract will choke." To stop the choking, the city knew it had to get crime under control, but the police didn't have the right information.
In 1993, New York elected its first Republican mayor in almost 30 years—an ambitious former federal prosecutor named Rudy Giuliani. It may seem hard to believe now, but back then Rudy seemed to have at least a modicum of political nous. He ran a law-and-order campaign, and soon after taking office appointed Bill Bratton, formerly Boston's police commissioner, then head of New York City's Transit Police, to head the NYPD.
Bratton soon ran into a problem: he found that his new department had no focus on preventing crime. At the time, that was not unusual. Police did not have crystal balls. They saw their job as responding to crimes, and to do that, the crimes had to have happened already. They were judged by how quickly they responded, how many arrests they made, and how many crimes they solved.
Police did not have access to real-time crime data. And, as Lou Anemone, then the NYPD's highest-ranking uniformed officer, explained in a 2013 report, "The dispatchers at headquarters, who were the lowest-ranking people in the department, controlled field operations, so we were just running around answering 911 calls. There was no free time for officers to focus on crime prevention."
So the department began using computers to crunch statistics. For the first time, crime data became available in near-real time. The department also began calling regular meetings, where commanding officers grilled captains and lieutenants, asking what they were doing to combat crime in their precincts. The department named this practice—the agglomeration and mapping of real-time crime data, as well as the legendarily terrifying meetings—Compstat. Its progenitor, Jack Maple, said it stood for "computer statistics or comparative statistics—no one can really be sure which."
Maple's invention rested on four main principles: accurate and timely intelligence, rapid deployment, effective tactics, and relentless follow-up and assessment. It sounds simple, even obvious: of course police should try to prevent as well as respond to crime; and of course, to do this effectively, they will need as much data as possible. Neither of those ideas were obvious at the time.
At around the time that Compstat was put in place, crime began falling. I do not intend to analyze, litigate, or even hypothesize about the precise causal relationships of Compstat to falling crime. With apologies to Dorothy Parker, eternity isn't two people and a ham; it's two criminologists arguing over the causes of the late twentieth-century crime drop. Perhaps the key was altered police practices. Perhaps it was changing demographics. Perhaps it was regulations that got the lead out of household paints and gasoline. Perhaps it was some combination of environmental, political, and demographic factors. Determining the correct answer is, mercifully, beyond the scope of both this book and my time on this planet.
Some firms say that publicly revealing the precise factors and weights that determine their predictions will let criminals game the system.
Still, the fact is that Compstat transformed American policing (in much the same way as, and not long before, data-driven approaches transformed baseball). Other departments adopted it. New York has maintained and tweaked it. Today, a major-metro police department that considers only response and not prevention, and that purports to fight crime without data and accountability, is all but unthinkable. Predictive algorithms seem to be the natural outgrowth of the Compstat-driven approach: perfectly suited to departments concerned about preventing crime, not just responding to it.
How such algorithms make their predictions is not clear. Some firms say that publicly revealing the precise factors and weights that determine their predictions will let criminals game the system, but that hardly passes the smell test: a guy isn't going to decide to snatch wallets on Thirty-Fourth Street today because he knows his local police department uses XYZ Safety Program, and their algorithm currently forecasts high crime—and hence recommends increased police presence—on Thirty-Eighth Street.
The algorithms are proprietary, and keeping them secret is a matter of commercial advantage. There is nothing inherently wrong with that—Coca-Cola keeps its formula secret, too. And, as I said earlier, there is nothing inherently wrong with using algorithms. But, as Phillip Atiba Goff of the New York University's Center for Policing Equity said to me, "Algorithms only do what we tell them to do." So what are we telling them to do?
Jeff Brantingham, an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who cofounded PredPol, told me he wanted to understand "crime patterns, hot spots, and how they're going to change on a shift-by-shift or even moment-to-moment basis." The common understanding of the geography of street crime—that it happens more often in this neighborhood than that one—may have some truth in the long run, but has limited utility for police shift commanders, who need to decide where to tell their patrol officers to spend the next eight hours. Neighborhoods are big places; telling police to just go to one is not helpful.
So PredPol focuses on smaller areas—those 150-by-150-meter blocks of territory. And to determine its predictions, it uses three data points: crime type, crime location, and crime date and time. They use, as Brantingham told me, "no arrest data, no information about suspects or victims, or even what does the street look like, or neighborhood demographics. . . . Just a focus on where and when crime is likely to occur. . . . We are effectively assigning probabilities to locations on the landscape over a period of time." PredPol does not predict all crimes; instead, it forecasts only "Part 1 Crimes": murder, aggravated assault, burglary, robbery, theft, and car theft.
PredPol is not the only predictive-policing program. Others use "risk-terrain modeling," which includes information on geographical and environmental features linked to increased risks of crime—ATMs in areas with poor lighting, for instance, or clusters of liquor stores and gas stations near high concentrations of vacant properties. Other models include time of day and weather patterns (murders happen less frequently in cold weather).
All of these programs have to be "trained" on historical police data before they can forecast future crimes. For instance, using the examples above, programs treat poorly lit ATMs as a risk factor for future crimes because so many past crimes have occurred near them. But the type of historical data used to train them matters immensely.
The bias of presence
Training algorithms on public-nuisance crimes—such as vagrancy, loitering, or public intoxication—increases the risk of racial bias. Why? Because these crimes generally depend on police presence. People call the police when their homes are broken into; they rarely call the police when they see someone drinking from an open container of alcohol, or standing on a street corner. Those crimes often depend on a police officer being present to observe them, and then deciding to enforce the relevant laws. Police presence tends to be heaviest in poor, heavily minority communities. (Jill Leovy's masterful book Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America is especially perceptive on the simultaneous over- and underpolicing of poor, nonwhite neighborhoods: citizens often feel that police crack down too heavily on nuisance crimes, but care too little about major crimes.)
Predictive-policing models that want to avoid introducing racial bias will also not train their algorithms on drug crimes.
Predictive-policing models that want to avoid introducing racial bias will also not train their algorithms on drug crimes, for similar reasons. In 2016, more than three-fourths of drug-related arrests were for simple possession—a crime heavily dependent on police interaction. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, a coalition that advocates for sensible drug laws, prosecutors are twice as likely to seek a mandatory-minimum sentence for a black defendant as for a white one charged with the same crime. I could go on for a few hundred more pages, but you get the idea: America enforces its drug laws in a racist manner, and an algorithm trained on racism will perpetuate it.
Police forces use algorithms for things other than patrol allocation, too. Chicago's police department used one to create a Strate- gic Subject List (SSL), also called a Heat List, consisting of people deemed likely to be involved in a shooting incident, either as victim or perpetrator. This differs from the predictive-policing programs discussed above in one crucial way: it focuses on individuals rather than geography
Excerpted from We See It All: Liberty and Justice in an Age of Perpetual Surveillance by Jon Fasman
Much about the list is shrouded in secrecy. The precise algorithm is not publicly available, and it was repeatedly tweaked after it was first introduced in a pilot program in 2013. In 2017, after losing a long legal fight with the Chicago Sun-Times, the police department released a trove of arrest data and one version of the list online. It used eight attributes to score people with criminal records from 0 (low risk) to 500 (extremely high risk). Scores were recalculated regularly—at one point (and perhaps still) daily.
Those attributes included the number of times being shot or be- ing the victim of battery or aggravated assault; the number of times arrested on gun charges for violent offenses, narcotics, or gang affiliation; age when most recently arrested; and "trend in recent criminal activity." The algorithm does not use individuals' race or sex. It also does not use geography (i.e., the suspect's address), which in America often acts as a proxy for race.
Both Jeff Asher, a crime-data analyst writing in the New York Times, and Upturn, a research and advocacy group, tried to reverse-engineer the algorithm and emerged with similar results. They determined that age was a crucial determinant of a person's SSL score, which is unsurprising—multiple studies have shown that people tend to age out of violent crime.
Shortly before these studies were published, a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department said, "Individuals really only come on our radar with scores of 250 and above." But, according to Upturn, as of August 1, 2016, there were 280,000 people on the list with scores over 250—far more than a police department with 13,500 officers can reasonably keep on its radar. More alarmingly, Upturn found that over 127,524 people on the list had never been shot or arrested. How they wound up on the list is unclear.
Police have said the list is simply a tool, and that it doesn't drive enforcement decisions, but police have regularly touted the arrests of people on the SSL. The algorithm's opacity makes it unclear how someone gets on the SSL; more worryingly, it is also unclear how or whether someone ever gets off the list. And the SSL uses arrests, not convictions, which means some people may find themselves on the list for crimes they did not commit.
An analysis by reporters Yana Kunichoff and Patrick Sier published in Chicago magazine found that just 3.5 percent of the people on the SSL in the dataset released by the CPD (which covered four years of arrests, from July 31, 2012, to August 1, 2016) had previously been involved in a shooting, either as victim or perpetrator. The factors most commonly shared by those on the list were gang affiliation and a narcotics arrest sometime in the previous four years.
Advocates say it is far too easy for police to put someone into a gang-affiliation database, and that getting into that database, which is 95 percent black or Latino, reflects policing patterns—their heavy presence in the mostly black and Latino South and West Sides of the city—more than the danger posed by those who end up on it. The above analysis also found that most black men in Chicago between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine had an SSL score, compared with just 23 percent of Hispanic men and 6 percent of white men.
Perhaps mindful of these sorts of criticisms, the city quietly moth- balled the SSL in late 2019—and, according to the Chicago Tribune, finally stopped using it in early 2020.
From We See It All: Liberty and Justice in an Age of Perpetual Surveillance by Jon Fasman, copyright © 2021. Reprinted by permission of PublicAffairs., an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Мики Маусов Клуб (), познато и као Микијева играоница, америчка је интерактивна рачунарско-анимирана дечија телевизијска серија која се емитовала од 5. маја 2006. до 6. новембар 2016. Серија представља прву компјутерско-анимирану серију коју је урадио -{Disney Television Animation}-, намењену предшколцима. Бобс Гонавеј, Дизнијев ветеран који ју је направио, је такође одговоран за остале серије намењене предшколцима, као што је Џејк и Недођијски пирати и филмове укључујући Звончица и тајна крила, Звончица и вила гусарка и Авиони. Последња епизода емитована је 6. новембра 2016. године.  Премијерно је емитована на каналима Плејхаус Дизни и Дизни џуниор.

У Србији, серија је премијерно емитована 2010. године на каналу РТС 1, синхронизована на српски језик под називом Микијева играоница. Синхронизацију је радио студио Лаудворкс. Песме нису синхронизоване. Хепи ТВ је почетком 2016. емитовала серију са новом синхронизацијом на српски коју је сама урадила, под називом Мики Маусов клуб. За разлику од прве синхронизације, песме су синхронизоване. Ниједна синхронизација нема ДВД издања. Серија је у Србији такође емитована на каналу Дизни џуниор са оригиналном (енглеском) синхронизацијом.

Преглед

Улоге

Извори

Спољашње везе

Америчке серије
Анимиране ТВ серије
Америчке серије које су се почеле приказивати 2006.
Америчке серије које су се престале приказивати 2016.
Оригинални програм канала Disney Channel
Телевизијске серије на енглеском језику
Телевизијске серије Disney Television Animation-а

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Enquiry from Online Galleries regarding "20th Century Chippendale Style Walnut Game Table for Cards and Chess"
Beautiful walnut Chippendale style gaming table, circa 1950s.
The rotating plane is designed for playing cards and chess.
H 29.53 in. x W 31.5 in. x D 31.5 in.


Much to the delight of some Ohio drivers, state leaders are contemplating getting rid of the front number plate law.
"There are some cars that don't look good with a front number plate. Having met with car dealers, that's one of the things they said. There are a lot of folks with Corvettes that will like this idea," said Sen. Jason Wilson, of St. Clairsville.
Though getting rid of Ohio's front number plate could be construed as solely a question of looks, Wilson said it's really about state money.
He said if Ohio residents still pay the same fee they pay now -- but only get a back number plate -- the money saved from not making the front number plate would go into the State Patrol fund.
"Our roads need to be safe; we need to be protected," Wilson said. "No one wants to see a trooper with red lights behind them, but they do want to see a trooper when there's a problem."
Some police officers said there is good reason for the front number plates, however.
"Just general identification, you know. It makes it easier. You get two looks at the same number," said Sgt. Don Britton of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. "If someone, let's say, committed an abduction, it's a better chance for people to see the number plate."
Wilson said he's talked with patrol leaders about vehicle identification issues and said the concerns are something all parties feel can be handled without the front number plate.
"Certainly, identity is a question. It's a concern," adding that other states only require a front number plate and handle it just fine.
Wilson said the state will make a decision about the front number plates by July 1. He said even if the front number plate only costs $1 to make, about $12 million would be freed for funding the state patrol.


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Dating October 4, 2017
Amelia Shepherd
Celebrity engagements of 2019
Kourtney Kardashian tries to keeps a low profile on a coffee date with TikTok star pal Addison Rae
Addison Sinclair
Butler Basketball Player Jordan Tucker Reportedly Ghosted Addison Rae
Lady Gaga Was Spotted Kissing Her New Boyfriend, a Casual CEO Named Michael Polansky
Hollywood U: Rising Stars – Italian Romance (Chris Winter's date #2)
Addison Sinclair is one of the protagonists that appear in the beginning of Hollywood U as she greeted MC and welcomed them to the school. She showed them around the school as she discussed about the many events that happens around the campus such as parties, cliques, professors, and so on. You also can start dating her in level five. She is kind to your character and helps them with their career at Hollywood U. Before she met MC at Hollywood U, she was starting out as a Movie Star as she joined Bianca's entourage with Jenni , Shae , and Lance and she was auditioning for movie roles that were mostly in indie movies until Brian Ratzik saw her potential and enlisted her in 'Far Side of the Sun', a movie that he was producing at the time. Afterwards, she left Bianca's group, which was mostly due to Bianca's obnoxious and arrogant personality. Then, she and Brian fell in love as he was still married at the time and promised Addison that he was going to divorce his wife and be with her.
Bill Addison is one of two restaurant critics who recently joined the Los Angeles Times. Addison was most recently the national critic at Eater, a job that last year saw him traveling around the country for 34 weeks, eating restaurant meals in three dozen cities. The most commonly cited plus to L.
Hollywood University Dating Addison. Star Movie a as University Hollywood started Addison to long have not may and illness unnamed an with sick is mother.
Addison Rae is an American social media sensation and TikTok influencer who is on the rise, thanks to her intriguing and engaging videos on TikTok. She is best known for her TikTok videos, where she posts a wide range of videos including lip-syncing to popular songs, dance, and other irresistible content. At age 19, she has already garnered a huge social media following with combined followers of 33 million across TikTok and Instagram. Over the years, she has built a career on her own right that many people would envy.
She is currently 19 years old. Addison Rae is the oldest of three children to parents Monty and Sherri Easterling. She grew up alongside two younger brothers, Lucas, and Enzo Easterling. He posted a romantic picture on his Instagram a while ago that made their fans believe that they are in a relationship. Adding to that, he fueled the dating rumors stating that they went on a Sushi date at Katsuya during an interview with Hollywire. Unlike many other TikTokers, Addison Rae is relatively late to the internet game.
She is an accomplished dancer that eventually led to her popularity on the app, where she boasts nearly 25 million fans. The video has already garnered over 4. She is also popular on the photo-sharing app, Instagram, with nearly 8 million people followed. Her collective net worth comes from sponsored content, brand endorsements as well as paid promotions, modeling and earnings from Adsense and many more.
While we've done our best to make the core functionality of this site accessible without javascript, it will work better with it enabled. Please consider turning it on! Remember Me. Work Search: tip: austen words sort:title. This will be a series of shorts and drabbles surrounding the puppy.
Specialization program at Georgian Court University, found that students Dating and courtship behaviors Roberts & C. Elfer (Eds.), Hollywood or history? An.
Story Story Writer Forum Community. Pairing Plus Filters. Cancel Apply Smashed it reviews Based on the movie set date with Thomas – probably need to play it Or it's on YouTube to understand the end. An old story I found. Maybe I'll find the other dates one day. In words.
TikToker Addison Rae is currently the app's second most-followed account, boasting over 52 million followers. Since she initially blew up on the video-sharing app, her personal life has been thrust into the spotlight and rumors about who the influencer might be dating began swirling. Addison has had a very public on-again, off-again relationship with Sway House member Bryce Hall , but her most recent fling with Butler University basketball player Jordan Tucker has raised some fans' eyebrows.
Jordan made his first attempt to shoot his shot at Addison in April , dueting one of her TikToks. Her original video is just a lip-synch of the "Ooh Ahh" audio, but Jordan quickly turned up the heat.
ADDISON: It is senseless to insist that theatrical folk in New York, Hollywood and London are First of all, props to Bill for dating a woman 8 years older than he.
Hanging up her phone for what felt like the millionth time she threw it violently onto the couch. Keep reading. This is the action hero help quest. Credit to Pixelberry Studios for some of the dialogue! Happy reading!! Link to the previous part Dancing in Denial.
In June of last year, the inaugural California Michelin Guide was released with just one San Diego restaurant, Addison in Carmel Valley, among its 90 honorees for But this year, June came and went without the release of the hotly anticipated California guide. The COVID pandemic has derailed the restaurant industry over the past five months and many Michelin-starred eateries have delayed reopening due to public health orders and uncertainty, reinventing what they serve or closing their doors for good.
Addison is one of the lucky ones.
The Thundermans at Paramount Studios on June 28, in Hollywood, California. ThundermansBlack Widow ScarlettNew BoyfriendRomansTwinsDating Jack Griffo, Nickelodeon The Thundermans, Max Thunderman, Addison Riecke, held at the University of Southern California's Galen Center in Los Angeles.
JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. By , though, her popularity had waned, and she knew that Margo Channing could be the role of a lifetime. Margo's a brassy dame, a powerhouse of a stage actress, a Broadway legend; but in the entertainment biz, she's past her prime.
Prime being, oh, probably about Margo, at forty, is way past this expiration date, and because Lloyd will only write young characters, Margo's faced with a crisis — play below her age, or give it all up. Strangely, the subject of having Lloyd actually write an age-appropriate character never even comes up. Spoken like a press agent.
From Seventeen. Though she originally blew up on the platform for her dancing videos with mom Sheri and involvement with Hype House , Addison is a budding star in her own right. The year-old has over 48 million followers on TikTok, and that number keeps on growing everyday.
Most recently, Bryce denied that he was dating Addison, but their flirting University of Miami star defensive end Greg Rousseau, projected to be a Cameron Diaz is opening up about taking a step back from Hollywood.
Rae, whose full name is Addison Rae Easterling, was preparing for her first year of college at Lousiana State University before becoming fat on TikTok. I remember being in a few of them, and after a while I downloaded it without thinking I was going to publish. Soon she went to California to make a video for the Famous Birthdays site. She met many creators on this trip and would start flying to Los Angeles almost every two weeks for things.
She left LSU to make her videos full time after gaining 1 million followers. Rae has collaborated with several other big names, from Kourtney Kardashian to James Charles. In January, she signed with WME for representation in all areas. A video that Rae republished on social media a few years ago surfaced and started to gain traction.
The video was of a woman saying that Black Lives Matter is a cult and reaffirming that All Lives Matter, which is not what the statement means. Instead, it took a week to make a statement about it.
A Complete Timeline of Charli D'Amelio and Lil Huddy's Relationship
Stardom: Hollywood Answers for iPhone – iPad
Cute dating quotes
Anastasia Karanikolaou's Dating History Includes Some Familiar (And Handsome!) Faces
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25 held in drug raids on homes
Suspected crask cocaine and heroin suppliers were targeted by police in a series of raids.
More than 100 officers carried out the dawn strikes as part of a crackdown codenamed Operation Axe.
As a result 25 arrests were made from 13 houses in the first four days.
The seized items included heroin valued at £3,500 and crack cocaine, £10,000 in cash and five vehicles.
Over the past six months, a team of officers from Sunderland city command area has been working to combat the activities of people believed to be supplying heroin and crack cocaine on the streets, particularly in Hendon.
The operation was intelligence-led and focused on targeting the most serious offenders.
The Chronicle was on hand as police carried out search warrants and swooped on houses of suspected drug dealers.
After a 20-minute briefing at Southwick Police Station at 6.30am, six teams set out on the raids across the city in a fleet of vans and marked cars.
At one two-storey terraced house in Corporation Road in Hendon armoured officers burst in and arrested two men at 7.30am.
One of them, wearing just underpants, a T-shirt and white socks, was handcuffed and led into a waiting car by two officers.
The other, in a blue tracksuit bottom and white top, was taken to a separate police car.
A thorough search of the property was then carried out.
Police are now working in partnership with Sunderland's Drug Action Team to help to treat addicts who have been arrested.
Under the scheme, anyone charged with a drug-related offence is tested.
If the results are positive, they are automatically given the chance to go on an intensive drug treatment programme.
Chief Supt Jim Campbell said: "For the first time we are incorporating the drug enforcement side of things with the drug treatment side.
"By working with the DAT we can achieve a lot more than just operating alone. This is the way we are now addressing drug problems in the city.
"If you look at drugs like cancer, there is no point trying to cut just a little bit out, you need to do something that is going to shrink the whole tumour.
"The police can only do so much. We rely on other agencies for help.
"Crack cocaine usage is still very low.
"It is not yet at epidemic proportions but there is no doubt that we have it in the area.
"I'm not naive enough to say there will never be a drug problem in Sunderland but we are working to substantially reduce it."
Mandy Taylor, DAT co-ordinator, added: "We are conscious that over the years most efforts have been planned on catching dealers.
"People will get arrested and are dealt with but the drug problems are not addressed.
"They will go to prison, come out and go back on drugs.
"Unless we get good treatment for them their problems are still there."


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Posted tagged 'towers'
This building for the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, was apparently inspired by the famous mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, Egypt.
It's a lovely modern design with distinctive shapes forming the overall structure (like the kind of blocks that kids play with) and its location surrounded by water allows it to stand out clearly in the landscape.
Museum of Islamic Art - Doha, Qatar - Image from Qatar Museums Authority
Ibn Tulun mosque - Cairo, Egypt. Image from http://www.wahyuinqatar.wordpress.com
Looking at the images on their website, it is actually quite easy to see the evolution from the old design of the Ibn Tulun mosque to this new design and yet the old still looks as grand as the new. And even though thisn ew building is not a mosque it does share some of the architectural features that are prevalent in most. For example the bridge that links the building to the land has a central oblong of greenery which is reminiscint of the water ways that lead up to many of the worlds famous mosques including the Alhambra and also the Taj Mahal.
Alhambra, Spain - Image from Wikpedia
Not to mention those mosques that are surrounded by water or lie on river banks such as this one in Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur (below).
Mosque in Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur - Image from http://www.stuckincustoms.com
Btw I think that's some remarkable photography!
And here's one more:
Mosque on water - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Image from Wikimedia
Looking back at the museum, there are also the two towers at the back which look very much like Minarets – the towers from which the calls to prayer are usually announced from Mosques. There are the windows and entrance ways which are mostly arched.
This deliberate choice of features forms a strong link to the history of Arab architecture, for the most part because Islamic and Arab architecture is basically known as the same thing and this didn't really make a mark in history until the first Mosques were built.
A museum such as this will therefore need to reflect the movement of architectural styles through time and yet convey the origins from which is arises. By using the look of a mosque the building is given a higher status too as an important place for gatherings.
Luckily most public buildings in Muslim countries are built with prayer facilities so anyone who is mistakenly drawn to the building for this purpose will hopefully not be too disappointed.
You can see and read more about the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha here: http://www.mia.org.qa/english/index.html#about/build
And for those interested in seeing photos of 100 beautiful mosques from around the world here you go: http://muslimworker.com/2009/03/100-beautiful-mosque-pictures-around-world/
Categories: related in some way, Research areas
Tags: Alhambra, arches, architecture, blocks, bridge, buildings, Cairo, design, Doha, Egypt, Ibn Tulun, Islam, Jeddah, Kuala Lumpur, minarets, Mosque, Museum of Islamic Art, new, old, prayer, Putrajaya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, towers, water


We all have those days..When you wake up wondering how on earth you're going to make it til the evening. As a working mom, those days may come often but it's a bit more challenging when you know there is another little person depending on you for food, love and so much more. Well, I'm not gonna elaborate on the people at work. Working mom is no joke, I'm tired almost always and the insomnia that has managed to stick with me for the past week only adds to the fatigue. Last week was especially tiring. I woke up one morning in the hospital with Aulia' to an abnormally early riser after getting only two hours of sleep. Two hours. I seriously felt like my body was going to break into half. It was one of the very few times I wished I had a nanny or anyone who could help me out.
At the same time, I feel so blessed that I have a decent job & good pay. However, sometimes it's hard not to feel like I'm failing my family when I'm too tired to give them a fulfilling day. And it adds to my funk. That's why we've been given a holiday that we called a 'LABOUR DAY'. Yeayy!! More time to rest while hugging my kiddo!
But my husband just knew there was no way in the world I would be able to accomplish anything at home while feeling that way. So... instead of staying at home and sulking in my misery my husband decided that the best thing to do was to fake it. Fake a full nights rest and a peppy spirit. Fake the desire to be up and about and running from here to there after my oh so very active toddler. So fake it we did.
There was a new store that I would love to go. Some outdoor shopping fun. We went to MODVIER in Bangsar, KL. Ahhhh...*Rubbing palms* I finally got a chance to treat myself with lotsa stuff here :) :) They have many collections from famous local brands such as Eiliya, Minaz boutique, Dream Cloud and many more.
I managed to get myself some stuff. I bought a nice pink Bella Ammara tiara jubah, Rico Rinaldi Eiqal skirt, Farah Iskandar halfway Setade skirt and Rina Salleh metal belt. I was thinking to get more stuff especially when they have very nice staffs that are so friendly and hardworking.
The best part was that, I manage to met Sarah Shah Nor- the owner of Modvier. It was so nice to met her in-person.


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text:
Malibu Fire Caused By Downed Power Line
December 7, 2017 by Kelly Rodriguez
Photos by Kelly Rodriguez
As multiple wildfires burn across Southern California, firefighters knocked out a blaze this morning in Malibu.
A fire broke out at 5331 Horizon Drive between Kanan Dume Road and Trancas Canyon Road in northern Malibu this morning around 8 a.m. The fire was caused by a downed power line that sparked a nearby tree and quickly spread due to wind gusts of more than 60 mph, Malibu resident Lupe Witt said. LA County Brush Division firefighter Lucas Hale said firefighters were able to put out the fire around 9:15 a.m. No structures were damaged by the fire and no injuries were reported.
Pepperdine University sent an email at 9 a.m., confirming the wildfire. As of 9:33 a.m., Pepperdine reported that the fire was contained and that all campus operations have returned to normal.
Witt turned on the news this morning to monitor the Skirball Fire because her father lives near the area where that fire is burning. Seconds after, she smelled smoke.
"I smelled smoke like it was from an electrical fire," Witt said. "I could hear embers crackling and falling. I quickly woke up my husband to help."
The fire occurred from a downed power line near the Witts' home and spread by the high winds and nearby brush, reaching their property line from the backyard. A power outage also ensued, according to Witt.
The Witts and their neighbor Joey attempted to control the fire while they waited for the fire department to arrive.
"My wife was the first responder," said Neil Witt, her husband.
The firefighters arrived "pretty quickly," according to Lupe Witt. Not long after, the fire was contained.
Hale said the fire burned half an acre of mostly vegetation. Although the fire is out now, Hale said firefighters are monitoring the area for the next few hours to make sure the embers don't cause another fire.
The Witts have lived in Malibu for 31 years. Lupe Witt said the last time she saw a fire that close to her was the Corral Canyon fire.
"Thank God it's out," Witt said. "There's too [many] fires going on."
Follow Kelly Rodriguez at @krodrignews
Filed Under: Featured, News Tagged With: corral canyon, electrical fire, fire, Horizon Drive, La county fire department, Lupe Witt, Malibu, Neil Witt, Skirball fire, wildfires


text:
Q: Plot only the data points in the x axes It should have a simple answer which I am missing somehow.
I want to plot only the data points in the x axes. The other points makes things more confusing.
Here is my code:
figure(6);
grid on;
hold on;

colorVec = hsv(length(crl));

for i = 1:(length(crl)-1)
    plot(dc,pathLoadMatrix(i,:),'Color',colorVec(i,:),'linewidth',2, 'marker','o');

end

legend('Crl 10%', 'Crl 20%', 'Crl 30%', 'Crl 40%', 'Crl 50%');
xlabel('No of DC');
ylabel('Primary Path Load');
hold off;

A: Try this: set( gca(), 'xtick', [2:6] )
An answer must be at least 30 characters, so this is filler text.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Kate Snow is Leaving MSNBC; Will Expand Duties at NBC News
NEXT:How Day 3 of the O'Reilly Departure is Being Covered
PREVIOUS:CNN's Don Lemon Hosts 22nd Annual NLGJA Benefit
MSNBC | NBC
By A.J. Katz on Apr. 21, 2017 - 12:12 PM
Kate Snow is leaving her MSNBC show for expanded duties at NBC News.
NBC News president Noah Oppenheim announced that in addition to anchoring Sunday Nightly News, Snow's new 3-year deal will include reporting stories for NBC's upcoming Sunday news magazine show, which will be hosted by NBC News newcomer Megyn Kelly. Snow will also report pieces for NBC Nightly News, Today and Dateline.
Below is MSNBC president Phil Griffin's memo to the MSNBC staff, as well as Oppenheim's note to NBC Newsers:
Please see the note below from Noah. Our colleague Kate Snow is leaving her MSNBC show to expand her duties at NBC News.
I know I speak for all of us when I say how grateful we are to Kate for her contributions. When we made changes in our dayside programming, Kate helped lead the way as we became more focused on breaking news and the big stories of the day. We have seen extraordinary growth and Kate has been a big part of that success.
An announcement about a replacement anchor for the 3pm hour will be forthcoming.
While we'll miss working with her directly on MSNBC LIVE, Kate will still be a valued member of the NBC News family continuing to do what she does best. Please join me in congratulating her.
I'm pleased to announce that Kate Snow will increase her contributions to NBC News. In addition to anchoring Sunday Nightly News, she will now also devote her time to reporting pieces for the upcoming Sunday magazine show, as well as for Nightly News, TODAY and Dateline. With her renewed focus at the network, Kate will step down from her MSNBC show.
Kate is a talented journalist and anchor who led a massive team effort to interview 27 Bill Cosby accusers in a Dateline special that won Emmy and duPont awards last year. For several years, she's closely followed the rising heroin epidemic in our country, creating a special series that led to legislative action. And her 2015 series about transgender children continues to leave an indelible impact. You'll see more of these in-depth reports from Kate moving forward, across all platforms.
Please join me in congratulating Kate on her new role at NBC News.


Try a Japanese version of a European favourite with this Japanese style bavarois or Bavarian cream. This decadent creamy dessert combines the delicate nutty flavour of soy milk and the richness of cream cheese and for a flavour that is sweet but not overpowering. The adorable heart shape makes for a perfect dessert for Valentine's Day.
Leave the cream cheese to soften at room temperature before using.
Place the cream cheese into a mixing bowl and mix until smooth with a hand mixer.
Gradually add the honey and mix until combined.
In a separate bowl, mix the gelatine powder with the water. Allow 5 mins for the gelatine to dissolve.
Warm the soy milk in a saucepan on low heat. Gradually add the cream cheese mixture to the saucepan while mixing to ensure no lumps form.
Once the combined, add the rosehip tea and the gelatine mixture to the cream cheese mixture. Mix and remove from the heat.
Pour the mixture into a bowl and let it cool down slightly.
Whisk the egg white with sugar until soft peaks form.
Add the egg white mixture to the cream cheese mixture and gently fold together until evenly combined.
Pour into a heart shaped mould and refrigerate until set.
Serve with mint leaves and whipped cream for a delicious Valentine's Day treat.


The design is without compromise, the sound system with such a design allows for all the functionalities and settings that other users can realize only in a much larger number of individual units / components. In the design phase, the rationalization of prices was not a priority. The preamplifier and power supply unit are both in each dedicated enclosures. Chassis are made of high grade aluminum, copper and stainless steel sheets cover. Both components have additional aluminum heat sinks fins, that's lowering internal temperature and prolong electronic parts lifetime. Both units are placed on the special and in-house developed anti vibration feet to minimize microphonics effect on vacuum tubes and capacitors.
After 10 years of design, projects and manufactured audio units was our intention and goal to build up a reference line starting with the Line preamplifier.
As Audio Alto mostly uses vacuum tube amplification the decision was to design and develop a Cost No Object line preamplifier based on vacuum tubes. Our idea is realized in a preamplifier that takes all the benefits vacuum tube triode amplification can offer but supported with surrounding circuits to minimize and overcome the triode shortcomings.
The audio paths consist just of strictly necessary elements. All used elements are high grade state of the art components. The circuitry is true balanced concept. Balanced concept in a way actually doubles the audio path length and reduces few decibels to the noise signal ratio, but we disregarded this drawback to take advantage of the much more important feature that balanced topology offers – eliminating ground loops, that are the mayor case of sound degradation of most systems and much better common mode noise rejection. One of the benefits is also lower 2nd harmonic distortion. All audio circuits are designed to consume constant power (current). With no change in power supply current consumption we also eliminated power supply voltage fluctuation related to signal and with this the possible unwanted influence between different circuits. With this approach and without using any global negative feedback the resulting circuit hum and noise is very low.
Inputs are balanced and single ended (RCA). All RCA inputs are differentially processed so the sources are not connected to common ground. Inputs which are not selected are all electrically disconnected from the preamplifier, so they have no influence on reproduction while not in use. The connectors that interface the outside world are WBT and Neutric connectors.
Inputs and outputs are also electrically isolated with a high grade output transformer. This arrangement also lowers output section impedance to less than 600 ohms. The transformer is made on amorphous core and wound with high grade Cardas wire.
Outputs are balanced and RCA and both as mentioned before are galvanic isolated. ANL provides also the mostly forgotten monitor input and output. This is the fifth input but also provides an output input return that can be used with different apparatus (also with sound and room correction systems).
All the switching functionality in the preamplifier is managed with hermetically closed signal relays with Au/Ag contacts. The relays are "latching" (even after the control voltage is interrupted, this relay maintains its set or reset condition until it receives the next inverting input). With this feature while the relay is in use it radiates no magnetic or any other annoying signal to the reproduced music. The relays are driven with impulses only when they need to change state and managed with special software logic.
The amplification circuits consist of two balanced connected triodes (per channel), that are matched and have golden pins, without using capacitors in the signal path (we are using only one oil capacitor in the parafeed configuration with the output transformer). The triodes are supported by FET current sources with cascade configuration for maximum current source output resistance. The resistance is higher than 30Mohm so the current sources are practically excluded from audio path. The gain level is selectable at rear of the enclosure. The main gain can be selected with a three position switch that selects main gain of +12dB, +15dB or +18dB. Each channel has also a so called balance switch with three positions that selects gain -2dB, 0dB and +2dB. This gain options offers the user gain optimization according to his/her system needs.
The power supply is regulated with very fast shunt regulators (with Zero-Temperature Coefficient reference Zener diodes). All shunt current regulators use FETs.
All the supporting components are high quality audio dedicated and selected components (Kiwame, Tackman resistors, golden pins sockets, polypropylene capacitors…). The printed circuit boards are made of special higher temperature stable material with gold plated copper connections. The boards are without protection solder layers lowering the dielectrically influence. Printed circuit boards are mechanically damped to lower vibration and stress for components and vacuum tubes.
The internal audio path connections are realized with silver wire in Teflon sleeve. As a volume control we use top grade 48 position golden contacts switch from Elma connected in shunt mode. In this configuration the balanced attenuator consists of just 4 precision and developed for audio purposes resistors (Tackman). The attenuator is truly balanced.
The whole enclosure, printed circuit boards and all components in the preamplifier follow mechanical symmetry design.
Mains power supply is separately filtered for each channel power supply. In the power path we use also two DC blockers to block potential DC voltage component that can be present in the mains power, so we eliminate the potential unwanted interaction with custom designed and wound toroidal transformers. As toroidal transformers have high inductance and low magnetic field dispersion mains DC voltage component can lead to buzzy toroidal transformers.
The left and right PSU are symmetrical modules using as base 2mm thick cooper sheets. Cooper is specially treated in a special way against corrosion while still maintaining its electrical parameters.
The whole power supply unit uses 4 custom wound toroidal transformers with electrostatic shield between primary and secondary windings. The shields eliminate the electrostatic – capacitive coupling between primary and secondary windings so noises from the mains power lead are eliminated. All transformers are also enclosed and potted to minimize vibrations in Ferro-Magnetic enclosures to lower external magnetic field and disturbances.
Power supply unit is connected to the preamplifier unit with two shielded multi core cables using professional stainless steel 12 pole connectors. Each cable delivers power to one channel. All the voltages and currents that are transferred trough the cables are constant, so the connections are free of any variable magnetic field and with it related radiations.
High voltage required for vacuum tubes operation are rectified with vacuum tubes diodes providing as low as possible current spikes and distortion. Smoothing the voltages is realized with high grade polypropylene capacitors (no electrolytic capacitors are used!). To lower any noise coming from power lead and lowering ripple from smoothing the DC voltage we use a specially designed capacitor with four contacts. The approach is known as Kelvin connection and gives amazing suppression of unwanted noise down to -120dB up to the more than 1 MHz bandwidth. High voltage is also smoothed with high grade Lundahl choke connected in symmetrical – balanced mode.
Heater power for vacuum tubes is done with constant current generators. With this approach we avoid high current spikes and stress for vacuum tubes when they are cold (turning on the system) and maximally prolonging their operational time.
Power supply unit delivers also required voltages and current for low voltage current generators and supply voltage for control unit and its functionality.
At the rear of the enclosure is mounted the hour meter that shows elapsed time. The hour meter can be reset opening the cover and is restarted from zero normally when we insert new vacuum tubes.
The control unit consists of a microcontroller that is enclosed in a special stainless steel enclosure. With this approach all the radiated noises are maximally reduced. The peripherals are connected and controlled by the microcontroller with static signals with no generated high frequency noise. All control logic signals are electrically isolated from the rest of analog circuits.
Remote control uses radio frequency receiver mounted on the main control board with a small antenna at the rear of the main enclosure. The control unit software is proprietary and developed in house.
Both enclosures are internally made from 2 mm anodized aluminum sheets; the separation walls between preamplifier sections and channels are made of polished stainless steel sheets. The exterior is made of CNC machined 5 mm anodized aluminum. Special parts are made of polished stainless steel or depending on options from gold plated brass. The inscriptions are laser engraved.
Both cases are suspended on specially in house designed low profile anti vibration feet to minimize reverse sound vibration effect on vacuum tubes and capacitors.
The confirmation of the received praises from the visitors is also the Best Sound Audio Show 2018 award, which was awarded by High Fidelity among 200 exhibitors to Audio Alto.


text:
On March 4, 2017, Donald Trump wrote a series of posts on his Twitter account that accused former President Barack Obama's administration of wiretapping his phones at his Trump Tower office late in the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump called for a congressional investigation into the matter, and the Trump administration cited news reports to defend these accusations. His initial claims appeared to have been based on a Breitbart News article he had been given which repeated speculations made by conspiracy theorist Louise Mensch or on a Bret Baier interview, both of which occurred the day prior to his Tweets. By June 2020, no evidence had surfaced to support Trump's claim, which had been refuted by the Justice Department (DOJ).

Representative Devin Nunes, the then-chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said he would investigate the claim. At a committee open hearing on March 20, 2017, FBI Director James Comey stated that neither the FBI nor the Justice Department possessed any information to support Donald Trump's wiretapping allegations. Nunes stated on March 23 that the Trump administration's communications might have been legally monitored during the transition period as part of an "incidental collection". Intelligence Committee leaders later said they found no evidence to support the claim.

The DOJ declared in a September 1, 2017, court filing that "both the FBI and NSD confirm that they have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets", and confirmed this in another court filing of October 19, 2018. On September 19, 2017 CNN reported that the FBI wiretapped Paul Manafort before and after the presidential election, extending into early 2017, although the report did not make clear whether Manafort was monitored during his tenure with the Trump campaign from March through August 2016. The CNN report also stated that the Manafort surveillance began after he became the subject of an FBI investigation in 2014. Some commentators cited this report as vindication for Trump's claims, while others noted that it did not confirm the accuracy of Trump's original tweets, and that it is still unknown whether any surveillance of Manafort took place at Trump Tower. Manafort owned a condominium in Trump Tower from 2006 until its seizure by federal authorities following his 2018 convictions. Furthermore, the 2017 CNN report cited as partial vindication for Trump was refuted by a 2019 investigation by the DOJ's Inspector General, which stated: "We are aware of no information indicating that the Crossfire Hurricane team requested or seriously considered FISA surveillance of Manafort or Flynn."

In a 2019 call in to Sean Hannity's show, Trump said that his original allegation of "wires tapped" was not literal, and that he really meant: "surveillance, spying you can sort of say whatever you want". Trump also said that his allegations were made "just on a little bit of a hunch and a little bit of wisdom maybe", and that he thought his allegations were "pretty insignificant" when he made them.

Origin
On November 7, 2016, conspiracy theorist Louise Mensch reported in the right-leaning Heat Street, that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had twice sought Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants in connection with its investigation of the Trump campaign's links to Russia. According to Mensch, the first request for a warrant which "named Trump" was denied in June 2016 and, a second, more "narrowly drawn" request was granted in October 2016. Mensch wrote that this warrant gave "counter-intelligence permission to examine the activities of 'U.S. persons' in Donald Trump's campaign with ties to Russia", and to "look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern US persons". Mensch further claimed that the October warrant was granted in "connection with the investigation of suspected activity between the server [in Trump Tower] and two banks, SVB Bank and Alfa Bank", and that "it is thought in the intelligence community that the warrant covers any 'US person' connected to this investigation, and thus covers Donald Trump and at least three further men". She said her story was based on two anonymous "sources with links to the counter-intelligence community". Mensch's original article only discussed e-mail exchanges and did not use the term "wiretap".

On January 19, 2017, The New York Times published an article which used two headlines, with the print headline reading "Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides" and the article published online with the title "Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates". The article stated that "American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted [Russian] communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort." The article also noted the uncertainty regarding the scope of the communications, stating: "It is not clear whether the intercepted [Russian] communications had anything to do with Mr. Trump's campaign, or Mr. Trump himself."

On March 3, Breitbart News, a far-right website known to publish conspiracy theories, ran an article by Joel Pollak headlined "Mark Levin to Congress: Investigate Obama's 'Silent Coup' vs. Trump." On the previous day, right-wing radio personality Mark Levin alleged that Obama and his allies were conducting a "silent coup" against Trump, and asked: "How many phone calls of Donald Trump, if any, have been intercepted by the administration and recorded by the Obama administration?" The claims were labeled conspiracy theories by CNN and The Los Angeles Times. The Breitbart article alleged that "the Obama administration is now monitoring an opposing presidential campaign using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal intelligence services". Citing Mensch's November article, Breitbart claimed the existence of a June FISA request "to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers", and of an October FISA warrant "focused on a computer server in Trump Tower". Breitbart cited a January 11 National Review article, which speculated about alleged "wiretaps" of the Trump campaign and their legal ramifications. Like the Breitbart article, the National Review article had also extensively relied on Mensch's piece.

Like Mensch, McClatchy, BBC, and The Guardian reported on the existence of an October FISA warrant. However, these accounts differed substantially from Mensch's story with respect to the scope and purpose of the warrant. They alleged that the October warrant authorized to monitor financial transactions related to Russia — not communications. Unlike the derivative accounts in National Review and Breitbart, Mensch's original article did not use the term "wiretap" (implying voice telephone calls), but only made claims about e-mail exchanged with SVB Bank and the Russian Alfa-Bank. While Mensch did claim the e-mail server was located in Trump Tower, it was likely located in Lititz, Pennsylvania, as Trump outsourced e-mail to Listrak, which operates out of a data center there. Furthermore, The New York Times reported on October 31 that the FBI had concluded that the server traffic could have been explained by marketing emails or spam. Contrary to The Times, Mensch claimed that the server's activity remained suspicious enough to lead the FBI to request the FISA warrant.

On the March 3 Special Report program, host Brett Baier cited an article from the now-defunct Circa online newspaper, mentioning the same allegations as Mensch, McClatchy, BBC, and The Guardian, and asked Ryan: "Have you heard that?" Ryan responded: "Well, again, like I said, none of us in Congress or anybody I know in Congress has been presented with anything to the contrary of what you just said." However, there may have been a misunderstanding between Baier and Ryan throughout the interview, with Baier asking about undue surveillance of the Trump campaign, and Ryan responding that intelligence gathering had produced no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump. Ryan stated, in response to a question about Trump's March 15 comments,  that he had been unaware of any wiretapping allegations prior to his interview with Baier, and that "the intelligence committees ... have determined ... that no such wiretap existed."

The Breitbart article was circulated among White House staffers, and was reportedly given to Trump along with his morning newspapers and printouts. It was also reported that Trump watched the Bret Baier interview immediately before his tweets.

Accusation

Initial claim

In a succession of tweets on March 4, 2017, Trump stated he had "just found out" that former president Barack Obama had wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower "just before the victory". He did not say where he had obtained the information and offered no evidence to support it. Trump compared the alleged intrusion to McCarthyism and Watergate. Anonymous White House officials told The Washington Post that Trump did not appear to coordinate his comments with other White House officials.

Followup
Fact-checkers immediately requested supporting information for these claims from the White House communications team. In response to the requests from The Washington Post, Politifact and FactCheck.org, the White House provided five items:
 An article from the BBC, titled "Trump 'compromising' claims: How and why did we get here?"
 An article from Heat Street, titled "EXCLUSIVE: FBI 'Granted FISA Warrant' Covering Trump Camp's Ties To Russia"
 An article from National Review, titled "FISA and the Trump Team"
 A transcript of Bret Baier interviewing Paul Ryan on Fox the previous night, and
 An article from The New York Times, titled "Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides"

None of these articles corroborated the specific allegations made in the tweets, but rather contained terms and elements of stories which were mingled together and distorted. All the fact-checkers rated Trump's claims as false.

In the first official statement issued after the tweets, made through press secretary Sean Spicer on March 5, Trump asked congressional intelligence committees to "determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016" as part of their oversight authority of the Department of Justice and as part of the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the election. In response, multiple congressional committees agreed to investigate. None found any evidence supporting the wiretapping claim, and they reported their findings in the weeks following the tweets.

In interviews on March 5 and 6, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders attempted to recast the president's words with a softer tone. On This Week she said "I think there certainly could have been (a FISA warrant). And it sounds like there's something that we should look into and verify." On Monday morning's Today show, she said "the president firmly believes that the Obama administration may have tapped into the phones at Trump Tower, this is something that we should look into. We'd like to know for sure."

Later on March 6, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told Fox News's Fox & Friends that the president had "information and intelligence that the rest of us do not", although when asked about this, Press Secretary Spicer equivocated. Spicer spoke to reporters that day from the White House briefing room with an audio-only feed for the public, and was peppered with questions about the tweets. Spicer referred to his weekend statement requesting congressional investigation and did not to add clarity or context to Trump's tweets. Referring to Conway's claim, Spicer said "I can't specifically respond to you in terms of what she was referring to, whether she was referring to the exact nature of this charge or whether generally speaking he is given information."

Trump lowered his profile in the week following the tweets, limiting reporter access in contrast to the first six weeks of his administration.

Extension of claim

During an interview on March 12, 2017, Conway was asked by The Record's Mike Kelly, "do you know whether Trump Tower was wiretapped?" She answered "what I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other. You can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets — any number of different ways, microwaves that turn into cameras" However, Conway's comments resulted in a headline which read "Kellyanne Conway Alludes to Even Wider Surveillance of Trump Campaign" which directly led to question from CNN's New Day anchor Chris Cuomo. On that show, she attempted to walk back her microwave quip, stating that "I'm not Inspector Gadget, I don't believe that people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign." She faced similar questioning on Today and Good Morning America but ended her media tour roundly mocked as "the microwave lady."

At a March 13 press briefing, Spicer claimed that Trump was referring to general surveillance rather than direct wiretapping. Spicer also said that the White House believed that the Obama administration was responsible for the surveillance, not Obama himself, said Trump's tweet which specifically named the former president.

Trump spoke on his own behalf regarding the tweets for the first time in a March 15 interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News. He cited the March 3 interview with Paul Ryan on an episode of Special Report with Bret Baier on Fox News and the January 19 New York Times article as the origin of his allegations.

The White House press briefing on March 16 became very contentious when Spicer was confronted by the press corps with the bipartisan doubts of congressional leaders about Trump's wiretap claims. The back-and-forth between Spicer and reporters lasted almost ten minutes and was marked by Spicer repeating news reports about possible GCHQ involvement in spying on Trump, further inflaming the media firestorm.

In an April 2 interview with the UK-based Financial Times, Trump expressed very little regret for his tweets, saying "I don't regret anything, because there is nothing you can do about it. You know if you issue hundreds of tweets, and every once in a while you have a clinker, that's not so bad. Now my last tweet, you know the one that you are talking about perhaps, was the one about being in quotes wire tapped, meaning surveilled. Guess what, it is turning out to be true." This was echoed in a much later 2019 interview with C-SPAN, when asked whether he regretted any of his tweets, Trump said "Not much, honestly not much...I sent the one about the wiretapping...and that turned out to be true." On April 25, 2019, when calling in to Sean Hannity's Fox news show, Trump said that his original allegation of "wires tapped" was not literal as he had used quotation marks, saying that he really meant: "surveillance, spying you can sort of say whatever you want". Trump also said that his allegations were made "just on a little bit of a hunch and a little bit of wisdom maybe". Trump elaborated that he thought his allegations were "pretty insignificant" when he made them.

Allegation of British involvement

In the summer of 2016, long before the first public statement from the Obama Administration on October 7, 2016, about Russian interference, "Robert Hannigan, then the head of the U.K.'s intelligence service the G.C.H.Q., had recently flown to Washington and briefed the C.I.A.'s director, John Brennan, on a stream of illicit communications between Trump's team and Moscow that had been intercepted. (The content of these intercepts has not become public.)" "The matter was deemed so sensitive it was handled at 'director level'."

This information became public on April 13, 2017, when The Guardian reported that GCHQ and other European intelligence agencies had intercepted secret communications between members of the Trump campaign team and Russian intelligence agents, and shared this intelligence with their U.S. counterparts. The communications were obtained through "incidental collection" as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets, not from a targeted operation against Trump or his campaign.

Before The Guardian'''s report, during a March 14, 2017, Fox & Friends interview, Andrew Napolitano said that "Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command", using the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) to implement surveillance to avoid leaving "American fingerprints". Napolitano accused Robert Hannigan, who resigned from the GCHQ on January 23, of ordering the wiretap. Hannigan reportedly resigned for personal reasons. Fox News anchor Bret Baier later stated that "the Fox News division was never able to back up [Napolitano's] claims". Napolitano was reportedly temporarily taken off air by Fox due to the allegations. One of Napolitano's sources was former intelligence officer Larry C. Johnson, who later told CNN that Napolitano had misrepresented the statements he made on an online discussion board. Johnson, citing two anonymous sources, claimed that the GCHQ was passing information on the Trump campaign to US intelligence through a "back-channel", but stressed that the GCHQ did not "wiretap" Trump or his associates and that alleged information sharing by the GCHQ was not done at the direction of the Obama administration.

On March 16, Spicer repeated Napolitano's claim at a White House press briefing. The following day, GCHQ responded with a rare public statement: "Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president-elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored." A British government source said the allegation was "totally untrue and quite frankly absurd". Admiral Michael S. Rogers, director of the National Security Agency (NSA), said he has seen nothing to suggest that there was "any such activity" nor any request to do so. Former GCHQ director David Omand told Financial Times that "The suggestion that [Barack Obama] asked GCHQ to spy on Trump is just completely barking — that would be evident to anyone who knew the system."

The claim started a diplomatic dispute with Britain. Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader in Britain,  said "Trump is compromising the vital UK-US security relationship to try to cover his own embarrassment. This harms our and US security." The Telegraph said that two U.S. officials had personally apologized for the allegation. The British government also said that the U.S. government promised not to repeat these claims. The White House denied reports that it had apologized to the British government, saying Spicer was merely "pointing to public reports" without endorsing them.

 Surveillance of Trump associates

 Reports

On January 11, 2017, The Guardian reported that the FBI initially applied for a FISA warrant in June 2016, requesting to "monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials". This initial request was denied. A source told The Guardian that the FBI then submitted a more narrowly focused request in October, "but that has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether any warrant led to a full investigation". The Guardian article was not cited by the White House in connection with Trump's wiretapping claim.

The day after The Guardian report, BBC journalist Paul Wood separately reported that, in response to an April 2016 tip from a foreign intelligence agency to the CIA about "money from the Kremlin going into the US presidential campaign", a joint task force had been established including representatives of the FBI, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the NSA; and in June 2016 lawyers from the FBI had applied to the FISA court for "permission to intercept the electronic records from two Russian banks". The BBC alleged that the investigation was prompted in April 2016 by a "tip" from an intelligence agency of one of the Baltic States. According to Wood, this application was rejected, as was a more narrowly focused request in July, and the order was finally granted by a different FISA judge on October 15, three weeks before the presidential election. According to the article, the warrant did not name Trump or his associates.

On January 18, McClatchy separately reported that "the FBI had obtained a warrant on Oct. 15 from the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing investigators access to bank records and other documents about potential payments and money transfers related to Russia". The McClatchy article was not cited by the White House in connection with Trump's wiretapping claim.

In April 2017, The Washington Post initially reported that the FBI secured a FISA warrant to monitor Trump campaign associate Carter Page in the summer of 2016 — later corrected to October 2016, one month after Page had left the Trump campaign. The warrant was reportedly based on the possibility that Page was acting as an agent of a foreign government, i.e., Russia.

On September 18, 2017, CNN reported that the FBI wiretapped Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, from as early as 2014 through an unspecified time before the 2016 election, and also after the election through early 2017, pursuant to two separate FISA court orders. It has not been confirmed whether Trump's conversations with Manafort were intercepted as part of this surveillance. CNN acknowledged that prior to this disclosure, "speculation has run rampant about whether Manafort or others associated with Trump were under surveillance". The CNN report noted that it was unclear if Manafort was under FBI surveillance while he resided in Trump Tower. In December 2019, CNN added an editor's note to the article, stating: "On December 9, 2019, the Justice Department Inspector General released a report regarding the opening of the investigation on Russian election interference and Donald Trump's campaign. In the report, the IG contradicts what CNN was told in 2017, noting that the FBI team overseeing the investigation did not seek FISA surveillance of Paul Manafort."

On May 16, 2018, The New York Times reported that "The F.B.I. investigated four unidentified Trump campaign aides in those early months...[including]...Michael T. Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Mr. Papadopoulos."

 Analysis
In its March 5 analysis of the reporting that preceded Trump's allegations, The Washington Post stated that "the articles all suggest that the FISA requests—if they happened—were done by the intelligence agencies and the FBI", and not by the Obama administration. According to The Post, Mensch's article was the only one to have alleged any surveillance of Trump Tower. No major news organizations have been able to confirm Mensch's account, despite prolonged efforts by The New York Times and The Washington Post. This absence of verification, combined with Mensch's reliance on "vague" and anonymous sourcing to individuals "with links to the counter-intelligence community", lead The Times and The Post to urge skepticism about the veracity of her account.

David A. Graham of The Atlantic responded to claims that the Manafort wiretap report vindicated Trump's March 2017 tweets: "This is not true—Trump claimed he had been the subject of Obama-ordered, politically motivated surveillance, for which there remains no evidence." While acknowledging that "it does make for a more complicated picture than previously known", Graham argued "there are reasons to doubt" that Trump was even aware of the Manafort wiretap at the time he made his unsupported allegations against Obama. Graham concluded: "Insofar as there are parallels between what Pollak, Levin, and Napolitano said and the new story, it looks like luck." Aaron Blake of The Washington Post noted that, according to CNN, lawyers for both Trump and Manafort convinced the two men to discontinue their phone conversations some time after Trump took office: "If Trump's lawyers somehow knew about and fought back against the Manafort wiretap, it stands to reason that Trump himself might have been aware of it. ... While we don't know the exact timing of all of this, perhaps this is what Trump was referring to and he, as he is wont to do, exaggerated it."The Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple criticized CNN for not retracting its Manafort wiretap report in December 2019, while also noting a subdued response from right-leaning critics of the network: "A mightier uproar likely would have resulted if CNN's story had attacked a common Trump talking point. Instead, it supported the president's claims that the federal government had spied on his campaign. Keep this case in mind the next time someone says that errors in the mainstream media go only against Trump."

There has been criticism of Trump's claim as simply being a "dead cat", a false allegation against Obama intended to direct media and public interest away from Trump and his team's alleged connections with Russia.

 Reactions
 From politicians
Most Republicans in Congress distanced themselves from the claim and refused to comment on it, although members of both the Senate and House of Representatives vowed to investigate the matter.

Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis repudiated the claim in a statement later that day saying: "A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice."  The Wall Street Journal described Obama as "livid" when he heard about the allegations personally, though other sources said he "rolled his eyes" and remained more concerned about Trump's conservative and nationalist agenda.

Republican Senator Rand Paul pointed out that a backdoor intercept of Trump's communications was possible. Elizabeth Goitein, a surveillance law expert at New York University, pointed out that backdoor searches of incidental records collected on Americans overseas were allowed by U.S. law. Republican Representative Frank LoBiondo, a senior member on the House Intelligence Committee, speculated on March 20, after Comey's testimony to the committee, that it was possible there was incidental collection that occurred due to targeting Russian communications, but expressed doubt that there was any evidence that there was such a wiretap. Incidental collection—also called backdoor collection by politicians such as Democratic Senator Ron Wyden —has been publicly acknowledged by the intelligence community for years. Democratic Representative Ted Lieu compared Trump to Nixon: "Either @realDonaldTrump is paranoid like Nixon, or judge found probable cause of crime for #wiretap. Either way our President is in trouble."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reacted to Trump's claims with a wince in March 2017. The topic came up during a joint question and answer session with the media during Merkel's visit to the White House. Trump tried to crack a joke, saying "at least we have something in common, perhaps," referring to the fact that the NSA had at one point spied on Merkel's cell phone. Merkel did not comment in response but her reaction was circulated widely on social media.

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin distanced the Kremlin from Trump's claim when asked about it.

 From the media
Speaking to NBC's Meet the Press'', former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said "For the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the President-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign." When the Obama administration's former press secretary Josh Earnest was asked by ABC News's Martha Raddatz if he could deny that the Obama Justice Department had sought and obtained a FISA court-ordered wiretap of the Trump campaign, he responded, "I don't know ... The president was not giving marching orders to the FBI about how to conduct their investigations."

Official government investigations
Following the tweets, the White House issued a statement asking for congress to exercise their oversight authority to investigate the wiretapping allegations. Both the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee already had ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and Trump's tweets added fuel to the fire of those investigations, so they accepted the request. The House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee also jumped at the opportunity to investigate, Chairman Graham saying "if there is a investigation at the FBI of Trump, Russia campaign activities, I want to know about it. I'm tired of reading about it in the paper." All four congressional committees requested relevant documentation from the Department of Justice. The House Intelligence committee set a deadline of March 13 for responsive documentation as well as an open hearing on March 20 to review.

As an initial response, the FBI briefed the Gang of Eight on March 9, giving them insight into Crossfire Hurricane, including the existence of a FISA warrant on Carter Page but requested more time to produce actual documentation for the intelligence committees to review. On March 15, Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff, both members of the Gang of Eight, told reporters that they had not found any evidence supporting the wiretapping claim. On March 16, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a joint statement echoing that sentiment, saying "based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element to the United States government either before or after Election Day."

At the March 20 House Intelligence hearing, Comey made a statement refuting Trump's claims regarding wiretapping while also confirming the existence of a probe into coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.  Comey had asked the Justice Department to publish a statement refuting the wiretapping claims immediately following the tweets on March 4, but they did not do so before his statement.

On March 23, Nunes stated that communications to and from Trump's presidential transition team may have been intercepted as part of incidental collection. In response, officials in the Obama administration refuted any claims that it had been monitoring the Trump team. Nunes said the surveillance was unrelated to the Russia investigation and "suggested the contents may have been inappropriately disseminated in intelligence reports ... for political reasons". Later the same day, Nunes said that he did not know "for sure" whether intelligence committees had actually monitored the Trump team's communications. In September, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice stated that a December 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump transition officials and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) raised suspicions because the UAE allegedly failed to give the Obama administration advance notice of Zayed's visit to the U.S., as is customary. Therefore, to better understand the intent of the meeting, she "requested the names of the Americans mentioned in the classified report be revealed internally" (or "unmasked"). According to CNN's Manu Raju, while Nunes implied that such unmasking may have been improper—an allegation that the Trump administration used to deflect from Trump's original wiretap claim—Rice's "explanation appears to have satisfied some influential Republicans on the committee, undercutting both Nunes and Trump". Republican Representative Mike Conaway affirmed: "She was a good witness, answered all our questions. I'm not aware of any reason to bring her back." In May 2020, attorney general Bill Barr appointed federal prosecutor John Bash to examine unmasking conducted by the Obama administration. The inquiry concluded in October with no findings of substantive wrongdoing.

Liberal watchdog group American Oversight filed a FOIA request on March 20, 2017, demanding records that supported or disproved Trump's wiretap tweets. They initially received a Glomar response, saying the Department of Justice and the FBI "could not confirm or deny the existence" of any records that are responsive to American Oversight's FOIA request, citing the potential exposure of classified information. The group sued to force a clearer answer and narrowed their request. On September 1, 2017, they received a DOJ court filing stating that "both the FBI and NSD confirm that they have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets."

A December 9, 2019, report by the DOJ's Inspector General stated that "we are aware of no information indicating that the Crossfire Hurricane team requested or seriously considered FISA surveillance of Manafort or Flynn."

In popular culture
Trump's wiretap claim dominated TV news coverage in March 2017 for several weeks, overshadowing every other discussion about Trump's policy agenda. Late night talk show hosts Trevor Noah, James Corden and Stephen Colbert all made fun of President Trump for his wiretap accusations. Colbert mocked Kellyanne Conway's reference to microwave cameras the following week. Celebrities Alec Baldwin, Don Cheadle, Sarah Silverman, Sophia Bush and J.K. Rowling publicly reacted to Trump's claims, while actor Mark Hamill read the tweets as Joker, the fictional supervillain, and author Stephen King jokingly turned them into a short story.

The "wiretap" tweets are included on multiple lists of Trump's most controversial tweets. In 2020, commentator Eli Lake called it the "most consequential tweet of his presidency."

According to an April 2019 Politico/Morning Consult poll, 38% of American voters believed Donald Trump's presidential campaign was spied on during the 2016 election, with 57% agreement by Republicans and 24% by Democrats.

See also

 Allegations of Obama spying on Trump
 List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump
 Nunes memo
 Social media use by Donald Trump

Notes

References

2017 controversies in the United States
2017 in American politics
Allegations
Conspiracy theories regarding Barack Obama
Donald Trump and social media
March 2017 events in the United States
Telephone tapping
Trump administration controversies
Twitter controversies
United Kingdom–United States relations
Conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump


text: "Back for Good" is a song by the British pop group Take That and written by Gary Barlow. Unveiled at the 1995 BRIT Awards, it was released in 1995 as the second single from the band's third studio album, Nobody Else and achieved great success in many countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain and the UK where it topped the charts. The song went on to reach number one in over 31 countries and number 7 in the US.


text:
Q: ERROR: Unable to find py4j, your SPARK_HOME may not be configured correctly I'm unable to run below import in Jupyter notebook.
findspark.init('home/ubuntu/spark-3.0.0-bin-hadoop3.2')

Getting this following error:
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
~/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/findspark.py in init(spark_home, python_path, edit_rc, edit_profile)
    144     except IndexError:
    145         raise Exception(
--> 146             "Unable to find py4j, your SPARK_HOME may not be configured correctly"
    147         )
    148     sys.path[:0] = [spark_python, py4j]

Exception: Unable to find py4j, your SPARK_HOME may not be configured correctly

I do have py4j installed and also tried to add these below lines into ~/.bashrc
export SPARK_HOME=/home/ubuntu/spark-3.0.0-bin-hadoop3.2
export PYTHONPATH=$SPARK_HOME/python/:$PYTHONPATH
export PYTHONPATH=$SPARK_HOME/python/lib/py4j-0.10.9-src.zip:$PYTHONPATH

A: Check if the spark version you installed is the same that you declare under SPARK_HOME name
For example (in Google Colab), I've installed:
!wget -q https://downloads.apache.org/spark/spark-3.0.1/spark-3.0.1-bin-hadoop3.2.tgz

and then I declare:
os.environ["SPARK_HOME"] = "/content/spark-3.0.1-bin-hadoop3.2"

Look that spark-3.0.1-bin-hadoop3.2 must be same in both places

A: The error message is suggesting that findinit is having trouble locating your SPARK_HOME directory.
I had a look through the source code for findinit and it's a pretty straightforward error.
Background
The first thing the code does is specify that a variable spark_python is your SPARK_HOME path followed by /python.
Next the code is looking for the py4j path using the glob module, which finds all the pathnames matching the pattern os.path.join(spark_python,"lib","py4j-*.zip") which in your case should equate to /home/ubuntu/spark-3.0.0-bin-hadoop3.2/python/lib/py4j-0.10.7-src.zip (I made up the py4j version number based on mine, so you yours might be slightly different). Now, it gets the py4j path from the list returned by the glob operation by selecting the first element. This is why the error is an IndexError, and it happens when the py4j path doesn't exist, which itself only relies on SPARK_HOME being properly specified.
To solve the problem
The only culprit would be the specification of SPARK_HOME, which as you've said, is read into the environment variables from the ~/.bashrc file. So the three things to check are:

*

*That your SPARK_HOME path is correct (check it exists)

*That you have a py4j .zip file in /home/ubuntu/spark-3.0.0-bin-hadoop3.2/python/lib/

*That there aren't any formatting problems in the SPARK_HOME path specification in the ~/.bashrc file

I use quotes around my exported paths e.g. export SPARK_HOME="/home/ubuntu/spark-3.0.0-bin-hadoop3.2" but I'm not sure if that makes a difference.


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