Let's take a look back at this summer's malware trends as observed by Cofense IntelligenceTM. Summer 2018 has been marked by extremely inconsistent delivery of TrickBot and Geodo, though volumes of lower-impact malware families like Pony and Loki Bot remained consistently high. What's more, improvements to the delivery and behavior of Geodo and TrickBot accompanied the resurgence of two updated malware families—Hermes ransomware and AZORult stealer—in reaffirming a preference by threat actors to update previous tools instead of developing new malware. Because threat actors will continue to improve their software to ensure a successful infection, it's important to understand these potentially harmful attacks.
This summer, the usual simple-script malware variants have been observed in high volumes in June, July, and August. The following pie charts depict the highest-volume malware families in the summer months.
Chart 1 shows Loki Bot, Pony, and jRAT dominating as the top three sustained malware families this summer, which is not unusual to the season. Meanwhile, TrickBot's dissemination was marked by characteristic periods of high-volume campaigns followed by periodic lulls. Some changes to TrickBot's infrastructure indicate that the lulls may have been due to a focus on retooling and updating the malware.
Cofense Intelligence observed a sustained increase in TrickBot targeting United Kingdom residents from April through June, with relatively few campaigns targeting other regions at that time. The assessed targeting is based on phishing narratives purportedly from UK financial institutions. This trend altered in July when TrickBot equally targeted both UK and United States residents.
Threat actors often differentiate campaigns based on phishing lures targeting the UK versus the US—a distinctive characteristic of lure narratives determined by TrickBot's command and control. This is based on the group tag, (referred to as the GTAG in the configuration files), which indicates the version of TrickBot and can be found in the C2 URL's path. Campaigns using the "ser" GTAG typically include this distinction. The tag "ser," followed by the month and day of the TrickBot sample, implies that the version of TrickBot targets UK residents by default, while US residents receive the version containing "us" appended after the month and day. This is similar to what we observed in the Dyre malware. Table 1 provides several examples of "ser" C2 infrastructure targeting both UK and US residents. The first column consists of subject lines that either include the impersonated brand in the subject line or have the brand specified in the message body in parentheses. The "GTAG" column lists group tags for each of those subject lines.
After the World Cup concluded, Cofense Intelligence observed a sustained uptick in TrickBot throughout the rest of July, before again tapering off in August for another temporary lull.
This summer, the Geodo trojan, also known as Emotet, increased in activity from mid-July through August. In an unusual turn, it was used as a loader for additional malware in multiple campaigns. Geodo traditionally has three primary roles: spamming botnet, information stealer, and banking trojan. Like TrickBot, Geodo has also undergone changes, including its phishing lures and execution on victims' machines.
Geodo can also act as a malware downloader, though prior to this summer it had not frequently been used as such. Cofense Intelligence observed Geodo obtaining and executing the Zeus Panda malware in three phishing campaigns, and it was later reported in the threat intelligence community that Geodo was involved in another malware delivery of a TrickBot infection, ostensibly based on location.
Prior to its increased activity this summer, Geodo campaigns primarily used simplistic and generic phishing lures. In July, Geodo began including phishing lures that are more advanced and effective, imitating US banks. The phishing email is considerably more enticing and convincing to potential targets. Some emails refer to the recipient in the email body—a popular social engineering technique intended to add to the credibility of the email.
The threat of Geodo has escalated within the past few months. Geodo will almost certainly continue to utilize enticing phishing lures, and it will likely continue to act as a loader for other malware. For more information on Geodo's significant shift in structure, please refer to this blog post produced by Cofense Intelligence.
Although AZORult malware was first reported by Cofense Intelligence in 2017, it resurged in June 2018. AZORult is an information stealer with a wide range of capabilities. Older versions of AZORult could collect cookies, archived passwords and financial credentials, and auto-complete data from mainstream browsers. In the newest version—Version 3—AZORult can handle security enhancements to web browsers and evade detection from security resources, enhancing the malware's ability to successfully compromise its victims.
AZORult will only communicate with its C2 twice before terminating its own binary, which is unique for information stealers that are most commonly designed to maintain persistence. In August 2018, Cofense Intelligence reported that AZORult can act as a loader for additional malware Cofense™ assesses that threat actors involved in the distribution of AZORult are working to improve its delivery mechanism. Not only has AZORult used weaponized Office documents as intermediate payloads but it has also exploited known vulnerabilities such as both CVE-2018-0802 and CVE-2017-11882 to facilitate infections.
In late July, Cofense Intelligence observed a Chanitor campaign delivering AZORult in its infection cycle. Chanitor is a loader typically obtained by malicious URLs retrieving macro-enabled documents. Currently, most Chanitor infections lead to the delivery of three binaries to infected machines: two samples of Pony and one sample of Zeus Panda. One recent iteration revealed Chanitor replacing one of the two Pony samples for AZORult, however we did not observe the continuation of this trend in later campaigns. Table 2 contains a list of indicators of compromise (IOCs) involved in this infection.
In August it was revealed that AZORult can act as a loader in its Version 3 build when it downloaded and executed the Hermes 2.1 encryption ransomware.
An updated version Hermes ransomware emerged in phishing campaigns in mid-July 2018. Hermes's delivery method bears a striking similarity to both Sigma and GandCrab ransomware, suggesting threat actors distributing those families may be connected to or involved with the distribution of Hermes. The phishing lure associated with the delivery of Hermes ransomware mirrors those of Sigma and GandCrab based on the structure, language, and grammar exhibited in the phish. A recent blog published by Cofense Intelligence further illustrates similarities shared amongst the three ransomware families.
After Hermes' appearance this summer, other popular ransomware variants of 2018, such as Sigma, GandCrab, and even GlobeImposter, have been almost non-existent, save a recent GandCrab campaign that recently deployed an updated version.
This summer was defined by uneven distribution of TrickBot and Geodo and changes to the delivery and methodology of both. The use of both Geodo and AZORult as loaders was unusual and further highlighted how multifunctional these different pieces of malware are. Finally, the ongoing updating of old families without the introduction of new malware reaffirms that threat actors are content to stick with what works and focus on investing resources on retooling and updating malware. Threat actors will continue to refine their software to increase the odds of infection.
These trends underscore two things. Incident responders and network defenders must devise a response plan for high-impact phishing campaigns. And the best way to avoid falling victim to attacks on your infrastructure is to empower and educate users to recognize and report suspicious emails.
Organizations worldwide use Cofense PhishMeTM to do exactly that. See how our phishing awareness solution can better prepare your teams.


text:
Red Sex, Blue Sex
The "sexual début" of an evangelical girl typically occurs just after she turns sixteen.
The highest divorce and teen pregnancy rates are in red states, the lowest in blue states. Margaret Talbot digs beneath the numbers to wonder, why do so many evangelical teen-agers become pregnant?
[T]he red-state [abstinence] model is clearly failing on its own terms—producing high rates of teen pregnancy, divorce, sexually transmitted disease, and other dysfunctional outcomes that social conservatives say they abhor. […]
For too long, the conventional wisdom has been that social conservatives are the upholders of family values, whereas liberals are the proponents of a polymorphous selfishness. This isn't true, and, every once in a while, liberals might point that out.
America's dominant political divide:
Social liberals in the country's "blue states" tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter's pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in "red states" generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn't choose to have an abortion.
What religion tells us:
[R]eligion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical. The vast majority of white evangelical adolescents—seventy-four per cent—say that they believe in abstaining from sex before marriage…. But, according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their "sexual début"—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.
On abstinence pledges:
[A]ccording to the sociologists Peter Bearman, of Columbia University, and Hannah Brückner, of Yale, communities with high rates of pledging also have high rates of S.T.D.s….Bearman and Brückner have also identified a peculiar dilemma: in some schools, if too many teens pledge, the effort basically collapses. Pledgers apparently gather strength from the sense that they are an embattled minority; once their numbers exceed thirty per cent, and proclaimed chastity becomes the norm, that special identity is lost…. once the self-proclaimed virgin clique hits the thirty-one-per-cent mark, suddenly it's Sodom and Gomorrah.
A new "middle-class morality":
[T]he teen-agers who espouse this new morality are tolerant of premarital sex (and of contraception and abortion) but are themselves cautious about pursuing it…These are the kids who tend to score high on measures of "strategic orientation"—how analytical, methodical, and fact-seeking they are when making decisions. Because these teen-agers see abstinence as unrealistic, they are not opposed in principle to sex before marriage—just careful about it. Accordingly, they might delay intercourse in favor of oral sex, not because they cherish the idea of remaining "technical virgins" but because they assess it as a safer option…
They might have loved Ellen Page in "Juno," but in real life they'd see having a baby at the wrong time as a tragic derailment of their life plans. For this group, Regnerus says, unprotected sex has become "a moral issue like smoking or driving a car without a seatbelt. It's not just unwise anymore; it's wrong."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Open Task Manager by pressing the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keys on the keyboard at the same time. If that doesn't work, right-click the Start button in the lower-left corner of your screen and then select Task Manager.
If Task Manager doesn't flicker, an app is probably causing the problem.
To update your display driver, you'll need to start your PC in safe mode, uninstall your current display adapter, and then check for driver updates.
Expand the Display adapters section, right-click the listed adapter, then select Uninstall device. Select the Delete the driver software for this device check box, then select Uninstall and restart your PC.
After your PC restarts, press the Windows logo key + I on your keyboard to open Settings. If that doesn't work, select the Start button and then select Settings.


text:
Argentinian non-state actors join forces to aid government to accelerate climate action
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA (20 November, 2018) – Leaders from the private sector, higher education, banking, and state and local governments formed a new domestic coalition vowing to help the Argentinean government deliver on and deepen its international climate commitments.
The announcement was made in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Alianza para la Acción Climática Argentina includes municipalities located across the country, from the capital city of Buenos Aires, to Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego Province, and Iruya, Salta Province. The coalition also includes leading actors in the banking, private and academic sectors, including Banco de Galicia, the clothing company Patagonia, and the University of El Salvador. The Alliance includes 2000 private producers of agro-commodities across Argentina united through the network CREA, which pledge to stimulate new climate action from agriculture. Agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) are together responsible for 39% of Argentina's GHG emissions, and represent the second largest source of GHG emissions after energy.
Cristian Feldkamp, Executive Director, CREA, said: "We believe that proactively preparing for climate impacts and adjusting our practices to reduce our carbon footprint will make food production in Argentina more resilient, and our agriculture sector more competitive in global markets. Producers have a critical role to play, but we will be faster and more effective if we champion climate action together with other subnational and non-state actors across the country. The Alianza para la Acción Climática Argentina gives us a much-needed platform to accelerate climate action in Argentina, and to work with the national government to deliver on and enhance Argentina's climate commitments."
Juan Bautista Filgueira, President, Environmental Protection Agency of the City of Buenos Aires said: "Over 90% of Argentina's population lives in urban centers. City governments are therefore at the crux of accelerating Argentina's path towards decarbonization. We have the opportunity and the responsibility to make our cities cleaner, healthier and safer, but we cannot do this alone. We are proud to be founding members of the Alianza para la Acción Climática Argentina so that, together with businesses, investors, subnational governments, academic institutions and other subnational and local governments, we can put climate change at the center of our conversation about what kind of development is needed in our country."
According to its founding declaration, the coalition aims to "work proactively and collaboratively to enable the proper implementation of the commitments undertaken by Argentina under the Paris agreement through its NDC, create the conditions for the inclusion of additional actions and set the foundation to enhance the ambition of Argentina's NDC and climate actions."
This coalition is the fourth domestic multi-stakeholder alliance to launch in the since June 2017, after similar coalitions launched in the United States, Japan and Mexico. These coalitions are part of Alliances for Climate Action (ACA), a global network of domestic multi-sector coalitions committed to supporting the delivery and enhancement of their countries' climate goals, and collaborating to build the groundswell of climate action across the world.
Sergio Graf, Director of the Renewable Energies Institute, University of Guadalajara, Mexico, said: "As founding member of the first Alliance for Climate Action in Latinoamérica, I am honored to welcome Argentina to this initiative. As more subnational and non-state actors in our region engage, our collective voice, work and commitment to climate action will grow. On behalf of the Alianza para la Acción Climática de Guadalajara, we look forward to exchanging experiences with Argentina to close the gap between statements and action."
Kevin Rabinovitch, Global VP for Sustainability and Chief Climate Officer for Mars Incorporated, said: "We commend the Alianza para la Acción Climática Argentina for committing to accelerate climate action. The science is clear – it will take action from all countries and all companies to tackle climate change. That is why Mars has committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions across our value chain two-thirds by 2050. And it is why we joined We Are Still In, the largest climate coalition in the United States, as members of the Leaders' Circle to catalyze climate action in the U.S. and globally."
NOTE TO EDITORS
The ACA initiative is being jointly advanced by seven international organizations - C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, CDP, the Climate Action Network, Fundación Avina, The Climate Group, the We Mean Business Coalition and WWF – together with leading partners at the national level.
The Japan Climate Initiative, the Alianza para la Acción Climática de Guadalajara, the Alianza para la Acción Climática Argentina and partner effort We Are Still In, are each being coordinated by a subset of organizations at the national level.
Media interested in interviewing signatories from any of the Alliances for Climate Action Initiative should email info@AlliancesForClimateAction.com.
The main goal of Alliances for Climate Action is to build robust and articulated domestic constituencies for climate action to work hand in hand with national governments to accelerate nationally determined processes of transformation towards low carbon and climate resilient societies. Alliances for Climate Action provides information and technical support to participating actors at the domestic level to develop actions jointly, engage constructively with national governments, and build domestic public support for accelerated climate action. Alliances for Climate Action also connects domestic coalitions with each other and elevates their voices internationally to encourage other non-State actors and national governments to accelerate climate action and up ambition together.
Japan is ranked 6th in terms of global emissions (Source: WRI CAIT). Japan's current commitment is found in its climate pledge submitted to the UN in 2015.
Mexico is ranked 10th in terms of global emissions. (Source: WRI CAIT). Mexico's current commitment is found in its climate pledge submitted to the UN in 2015.
Argentina is ranked 19th in terms of global emissions (Source: WRI CAIT). Argentina's current commitment is found in its climate pledge submitted to the UN in 2016.
The United States is ranked 2nd in terms of global emissions (Source: WRI CAIT). The United States' current commitment is found in its climate pledge submitted to the UN in 2015.
Agriculture, cattle ranching, forestry and other land uses accounted for 39% of Argentina's GHG emissions in 2014 (source: https://inventariogei.ambiente.gob.ar/files/inventario-nacional-gei-argentina.pdf)
Find more information about:
Global Alliances for Climate Action initiative here;
Japan Climate Initiative here;
Alianza para la Acción Climática de Guadalajara here;
We Are Still In here.
Argetinian flag


text:
International Women's Day (IWD)
'United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace'
Photo: UN Women/Bruno Spada. Women in Brazil march for women's rights.
March 8 – International Women's Day
The United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day (IWD) on March 8 during International Women's Year 1975. Two years later, in December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions.
International Women's Day first emerged from the activities of labour movements at the turn of the twentieth century in North America and across Europe. Since those early years, International Women's Day has assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike. The growing international women's movement, which has been strengthened by four global United Nations women's conferences, has helped make the commemoration a rallying point to build support for women's rights and participation in the political and economic arenas.
Increasingly, International Women's Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.
> un.org/en/events/womensday
> unwomen.org/international-womens-day
International Women's Day 2019
Theme: "Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change"
The theme for International Women's Day (8 March) this year, "Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change", puts innovation by women and girls, for women and girls, at the heart of efforts to achieve gender equality.
Achieving a gender-equal world requires social innovations that work for both women and men and leave no one behind. From urban planning that focuses on community safety to e-learning platforms that take classrooms to women and girls, affordable and quality childcare centres, and technology shaped by women, innovation can take the race for gender equality to its finishing line by 2030.
It begins with making sure that women's and girls' needs and experiences are integrated at the very inception of technology and innovations. It means building smart solutions that go beyond acknowledging the gender gaps to addressing the needs of men and women equally. And ultimately, it needs innovations that disrupt business as usual, paying attention to how and by whom technology is used and accessed, and ensuring that women and girls play a decisive role in emerging industries.
Join us to celebrate women and girls, their limitless imagination, their joyous dreams and their boundless strength.
Theme: "Time is Now: Rural and urban activists transforming women's lives"
This year, International Women's Day comes on the heels of unprecedented global movement for women's rights, equality and justice. Sexual harassment, violence and discrimination against women has captured headlines and public discourse, propelled by a rising determination for change.
People around the world are mobilizing for a future that is more equal. This has taken the form of global marches and campaigns, including #MeToo in the United States of America and its counterparts in other countries, protesting against sexual harassment and violence, such as #YoTambien in Mexico, Spain, South America and beyond, #QuellaVoltaChe in Italy, #BalanceTonPorc in France and #Ana_kaman in the Arab States; "#NiUnaMenos" ('not one less'), a campaign against femicide that originated in Argentina; and many others, on issues ranging from equal pay to women's political representation.
International Women's Day 2018 is an opportunity to transform this momentum into action, to empower women in all settings, rural and urban, and celebrate the activists who are working relentlessly to claim women's rights and realize their full potential.
Echoing the priority theme of the upcoming 62nd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, International Women's Day will also draw attention to the rights and activism of rural women, who make up over a quarter of the world population and majority of the 43 per cent of women in the global agricultural labour force.
Theme: "Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030"
The idea of this theme is to consider how to accelerate the 2030 Agenda, building momentum for the effective implementation of the new Sustainable Development Goals, especially goal number 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls; and number 4: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning. The theme will also focus on new commitments under UN Women's Step It Up initiative, and other existing commitments on gender equality, women's empowerment and women's human rights.
The Real Meaning of March 8
New York, March 8, 1857
129 women on strike killed in burned down factory
The struggle for equality of rights and treatment refers directly to International Women's Day. The date resembles a strike at a textile factory on March 8, 1857, in New York, led by workers. Their main demands were to reduce the working day to 10 hours, to equalize wages with men (women could receive up to a third of a man's salary for the same service) and decent treatment within the work environment .
The demonstration was brutally repressed by the police. The workers tried to take refuge in the factory. Police finally locked the doors of the factory, which was burned down, killing the 129 women there.
In 1910, during the Second International Conference of Women held in Denmark, it was proposed that 8 March be declared International Women's Day in honor of the workers of New York. However, only in 1975, by a decree, the date was made official by the United Nations (UN).
Therefore, International Women's Day is directly linked to this struggle for equal rights between the sexes.
> redyellowblue.org/data/br/wdbr/
Chicago, March 8, 1908
120 women died, capitalist bosses set fire to a textile factory
Batay Ouvriye: Most workers in the world don't know the date of March 8th is of the greatest importance for them.
"Later on, in 1908, the same date of March 8th was once again a memorable date of struggle.
On this day, capitalist bosses in Chicago set fire to a textile factory where over a thousand women worked. A very large number was terribly burnt, 120 died!"
This heinous crime happened simply because the workers were demanding that the legal 8-hour work day be respected, as well as substantial ameliorations of their work conditions since they were working in a hellish environment in which their very dignity was constantly and totally denied. In this factory, however, the workers refused to cower. They fought daily. And having reached a certain level of organization, they held protests, work stoppages and strikes… On this day of March 8th, 1908, instead of obeying the law and satisfying the workers' legal and legitimate demands, the factory owners decided to bar in this way what they called "the rising disorder".
> batayouvriye.org/English/Positions1/march8.html
Socialist International, 1911
International Women's Day (8 March) was originally a socialist holiday established in 1911 by the Socialist International and is celebrated by women's groups around the world write Peg Rapp and Susan Pashkoff. In many countries, it is a national holiday and has recently been officially recognised by the United Nations.
However, up until the 1970's, with the advent of a new women's movement, the radical working class roots of IWD had been practically forgotten. Due to its socialist leaning, it was excised from the United States memory, much as Labor Day replaced May Day, except in small immigrant enclaves or radical union groups. In Europe and the rest of the world, it continued to be widely celebrated, but tended to honour women in name only, mostly with flowers or by simply putting a woman's face on a male agenda. IWD, in fact, was the culmination of a century of women working in the labour, feminist, socialist, and anti-slavery and segregation movements to bring together the common interests of the working class and women's rights advocates.
> socialistresistance.org/international-womens-day-a-history


text:
'There are so many things we can't see' — resilient microbiology researcher in the making
Microbiology graduating senior Miranda Kling began her STEM schooling before transfering to WSU, but she truly found a home in small-town Pullman
COURTESY OF MADELINE KLING
Miranda Kling switched her STEM major several times, before finally landing on microbiology.
TRINITY WILLSEY, Evergreen reporter
Miranda Kling took her first biology class in freshman year while at Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake, Washington. She immediately became interested in biology.
"There are so many things we can't see," Kling said. "[Microbiology] really drives all of our processes and makes the world go around."
Kling, born in Moses Lake, will be graduating from WSU this fall semester with a bachelor's in microbiology. She spent her first two years after high school at the community college before transferring to WSU.
She toured a few campuses in Washington, but nothing stood out until she came to WSU. She immediately loved it there.
"Pullman has something special about it that makes you feel like you belong," she said.
She has enjoyed the microbiology program at WSU because the instructors make sure students know how the subject is applicable in the real world.
Kling said she started undergrad as a STEM major and originally planned on being a family practitioner, but later changed her mind.
"I didn't like the fact that [health care] is becoming an automated process where you only get 15 minutes with a patient," she said.
Kling said she then switched to pre-pharmacy, but after a week of general chemistry, she decided it was not for her.
That was when she switched to general biology, and after working with microscopes in her freshman class, she decided to pursue a degree in microbiology.
Kling said she currently works in a research lab at WSU and would like to find a full-time job in Pullman to be able to continue working in the lab for a few more years. Later, she thinks she will apply to a medical technology school to become a clinical laboratory scientist. The long-term goal is to run a hospital lab.
"I am really burnt out right now; I need a break," Kling said. "I'm not ready for more school right now, so the plan is to work until I go back."
In the research lab, Kling said researchers are trying to determine if organically-raised chicken meat is healthier than conventionally-raised chicken meat. They are assessing this using populations of antibiotic resistance bacteria in both types of chickens.
The long-term goals are to explore how this affects health and human microbiomes, she said.
Kling said she started working in the lab in September, but the past few months have been spent primarily writing the protocol and ordering equipment. The experiments are starting this week.
She also worked in a research lab in the Allen Center her junior year for roughly five months, studying the effects of hand washing stations in rural areas of Bangladesh.
Kling said she is unsure where her passion for science stemmed from, but when she started college she had an interest in her STEM courses and knew she wanted to pursue a career in the field.
"Whenever we had the science days in elementary school, I hated it," she said. "Now I've done a complete 180 … I just want to do science, let me collect data and analyze it."
Phil Mixter, WSU professor in the school of molecular biosciences, said he has been Kling's microbiology adviser for the past two years.
He said Kling is a very organized, motivated and methodical student who understands that a long-term goal is a series of short-term steps.
"She tracks things very well," he said. "She follows up on details and is really careful about deadlines."
Kling is a resilient student, Mixter said. The microbiology program is one that becomes more difficult and increases in volume over time; she has been able to persist through it.
She also embodies the Coug family, he said.
"She has really found herself here, from what I can ascertain as her adviser and instructor," Mixter said. "I've watched her go from feeling very uncertain to gaining competency and confidence, and I think she's really ready to graduate and become a professional."
Kling said she also prefers to be spontaneous with her decision-making.
"Most of the good things that happened in my life happened by accident," she said. "The more that I research something beforehand, the less psyched I get about it, and then I start to freak myself out and second guess."
Outside of STEM, Kling said she grew up playing piano and did choir in high school. She kept those passions and has greatly enjoyed being involved in the WSU choir and felt at home in the community.
With a heavy and difficult STEM course load, Kling said her favorite way to destress is by driving through neighborhoods and looking at the houses.
"I love house hunting and saying things like, 'Oh, I love that house' and can imagine myself living there," she said.
Kling said she has enjoyed her time in Pullman and hopes she gets to stay here for a while.
"As soon as I see that water tower over the hill, I'm like 'Here we are, we're home,'" she said. "Then you drive farther in and you see the Stephenson towers and the Bryan Clock Tower. It makes me so happy; I know that I'm home and I'm welcomed here."
STEM features
WSU students
Trinity is a sophomore neuroscience major from Yakima, WA. She started working for the Evergreen in fall 2020.
Senior biochemist finds Cougar family in Air Force ROTC, research community
Chemistry, genetics major to research cancer biology at Cornell
All about Weed
Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome: Dangers of the stoner lifestyle
The power of plant communication
Trojan horse but in virus form
Science Explained: What does a booster shot do for immunity?
De-icing technology is 'snow' mistake
World's tiniest robot
WSU professor researches more effective ways to recycle
Glyphosate: What's in your water?


these workshops focus on effective school leadership and professional development.
you'll find workshops on a variety of hot topics to fit your schedule and your learning goals.
These workshops focus on design and implementation of academic programs.
Washington Montessori School in New Preston, CT has had a yoga program since the founding of the school in 1965. In the spring of 2014, Head of School, Pat Werner, and Director of Development and Yoga teacher, Ali Grimes, reviewed the pros of receiving a 45 minute-1 Hour yoga class once a week at WMS, (which Lower El, or 1-3 grade and Upper El, 4-5 grade have received for many years.) Pat and Ali wanted to create a program that would reinforce and integrate the principles that children receive from yoga and mindfulness into a daily format. The challenge they both agreed upon was the training of school teachers who did not all practice yoga and meditation. Ali expressed that this was where she saw a problem with some of the programs out there, that provide a 1 or 2-day immersion for teachers. This is where the roots of the idea for the Mindfulness program at WMS began. Ali wrote the curriculum for the year, drawing upon her 8-year background of teaching yoga and meditation. Students in Upper El would begin their day with 15 minutes of Mindfulness, during which there is a self-awareness practice, a portion of yoga and yogic breath work and a 7-8 minute guided mediation. Ali spent two days/week in each class guiding the practice for students and teachers, then the teachers would guide the remaining three days of the school week. Weekly practices were simple and written out clearly each week. Amazingly, within a couple of weeks, the students expressed interest in guiding the weekly morning practices themselves and did so successfully. One of Ali's personal goals, was not only to see the children practicing self-awareness, meditation and mindfulness, but truly learning how to connect with their breath deeply. The program achieved this with students as well as teachers within the first year. Teachers felt grateful to have the time to receive mindfulness guidance in the morning two days/week and were able to teach it themselves from a more embodied and integrated place as the year progressed. The Mindfulness Program at WMS will continue during the 2015-16 school year and expand to Lower El (1st-3rd years,) and Middle School (6-8th.) This curriculum is an excellent model for other schools to help successfully integrate mindfulness practices into school. Like WMS, other schools can utilize staff with yoga or meditation teaching backgrounds to grow the program in a similar way.


While getting my daily dose of FaceBook this morning, I clicked on a link that led me to images of Terry Border's work with wire. Pretty funny stuff that appeals to my sense of humor. I'll be looking for his new book that comes out in September.
I found even more inspiration by looking at Terry's Website, and seeing what he has done with sculpture from found objects. I could spend hours on my computer looking at other people's work, but it's a beautiful day outside and I have plenty of my own work to do.
Thanks for the laugh out loud start to my day! These bent objects are SO funny! I love Terry's creative mind!


This is how to Unlock your Apple iPhone 7 Plus from any GSM networks such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Fido, Rogers, Telus, and many more.
Simply connect your Apple iPhone 7 Plus to iTunes after we have processed your order and this will unlock your cell phone to be used with any GSM network such as Rogers, Bell, Vodafone, and others!
Once you place your order for your iPhone Network Unlock, we will have your IMEI Number processed and email you as soon as it is completed. Once unlocked, your iPhone will be factory unlocked for another GSM Network.
Check out some of the information we've been able to dig up for the next generation iPhone 7!