#Digital Investigations Buffalo

[privacon]

Unveiling the Digital Detective: Essential OSINT Tools and Techniques

In today's digital age, uncovering crucial information is no longer confined to traditional investigative methods. As technology advances, so do the tools and techniques available to modern detectives. With the rise of online platforms and the vast amount of data circulating the internet, the role of the digital detective has become increasingly vital in various investigative endeavors. Whether it's uncovering fraud, locating missing persons, or gathering evidence for legal proceedings, digital investigations have become indispensable.

At PRIVACON INVESTIGATIONS Services, we understand the significance of embracing technology in our investigative practices. With our headquarters located in Buffalo, New York, our team of experienced Detective Investigators utilizes cutting-edge Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) tools and techniques to unravel complex cases.

What is OSINT?

Open Source Intelligence, commonly referred to as OSINT, is the process of collecting information from publicly available sources. These sources encompass a wide array of digital platforms, including social media networks, online forums, public records, news articles, and more. By leveraging OSINT tools and techniques, digital detectives can gather valuable insights to support their investigations.

Essential OSINT Tools

Social Media Scrapers: Social media platforms serve as virtual goldmines of information. Tools like Facebook Graph API, Twitter API, and LinkedIn API enable investigators to scrape publicly available data from these platforms. From location check-ins to relationship statuses, social media scrapers provide valuable leads for investigations.

Web Scraping Tools: Beyond social media, web scraping tools like Scrapy and BeautifulSoup allow detectives to extract data from websites and online forums. Whether it's mining data from public directories or gathering information from discussion boards, web scraping facilitates the collection of pertinent information.

Public Records Databases: Access to public records is crucial for conducting thorough investigations. Platforms like LexisNexis, TLO, and Clearview provide access to a vast repository of public records, including criminal records, property records, and court documents. By combing through these databases, detectives can uncover critical details relevant to their cases.

Reverse Image Search: Images can often reveal more than meets the eye. Reverse image search tools such as Google Images and TinEye enable investigators to trace the origins of photos posted online. This technique proves invaluable in identifying individuals, verifying identities, and uncovering fraudulent activities.

Effective OSINT Techniques

Keyword Search: Crafting precise keyword searches is essential for navigating the vast expanse of digital data. By strategically selecting keywords relevant to the investigation, detectives can narrow down search results and pinpoint relevant information.

Link Analysis: Conducting link analysis allows investigators to visualize relationships between different entities mentioned in online content. By mapping connections between individuals, organizations, and events, detectives can uncover hidden patterns and associations.

Metadata Analysis: Metadata embedded within digital files often contains valuable information about their origins and creators. By analyzing metadata associated with photos, documents, and other digital assets, investigators can glean insights that may prove pivotal to their investigations.

In conclusion, embracing OSINT tools and techniques is paramount for modern Detective Investigators in navigating the complexities of digital investigations buffalo. At PRIVACON INVESTIGATIONS Services, we are committed to staying at the forefront of technological advancements to deliver comprehensive and effective investigative solutions. Whether you're in Buffalo or beyond, trust our team to uncover the truth in the digital realm.

[myhauntedsalem]

1858 Garnett House Hotel

Garnett, Kansas

Garnett House was built in 1858 by D.W. Houston and was opened as a hotel by Hiram Tefft in the fall of that year. The building sits at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Walnut in the town of Garnett, Kansas. The building was the first hotel in town and had several additions built onto the building. It was said that Mrs. Houston refused to move into the original building due to it’s swaying in the breeze. The hotel became known as The Garnett House and also the Lighthouse Hotel due to it’s bright lantern on the top floor which could be seen for miles at that time. It is the only surviving antebellum structure in the town of Garnett, Kansas.

As a hotel, the building has been a witness and a participant to many events in it’s near 160-year history, including a participant in the Underground Railroad. During the time known as Bleeding Kansa. It is said that the famous Abolitionist John Brown hid escaped slaves in the attic of the home. This is said to have happened around 1859 just prior to the American Civil War.

During the 1870s, the town of Garnett became a crossroads of cowboys, settlers headed West and citizens. It literally became the scene out of the Old West with saloons, brothels, and gunfights in the streets. It was during this time that the hotel hosted some of it’s most famous guests.

The guest list includes famous lawmen Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Wild Bill Hickock. It also includes famous scout Buffalo Bill Cody who was traveling with Hickock at the time. Belle Starr the famous female cowboy shooter was also a guest of the hotel. The famous outlaw Jesse James was also rumored to have stayed here under one of his many aliases.

After this time, the hotel eventually became a private residence once larger and more modern hotels began to appear in the town of Garnett. In the early 1950s, the building became the Doctor’s Office of Dr. Robert Stevens and his wife Dr. Julius-Stevens. They treated patients in the old hotel up until the 21st Century.  

Every mystical place has its tales. There is a story of a woman poisoning her husband with rabbit poison, and how she was imprisoned in the Garnett house before being rescued.

Screams in the night have been heard on EVP recordings have been pulled from digital recordings at the Garnett House. One of the most disturbing elements of these screams is that they appear to come from a child.

The Garnett hotel has been investigated many times. The current owners are very interested in preserving the precious history that this old inn holds beneath its walls.

[popculturelib]

Hi there! This is something we care a lot about at the Browne Popular Culture Library, and we have quite a few collections of print material that aren't archived elsewhere. But on the topic of 1800s pulp fiction is our nickel weeklies collection, which is digitized for all to see! As the gallery says:

Nickel weeklies, so named because they were published weekly and cost 5 cents, were a type of 19th and early 20th century serialized popular literature known to be sensationalized, somewhat lurid, hastily-written and closely related to other “dime novels” such as story papers, other weeklies, and even some pulp magazines. Marketed to young, blue-collar males, the stories included escapades by various characters (Buffalo Bill and Frank Merriwell were two), who experienced the wild, wild West, sailed the seven seas, investigated crime in cities big and small, and played football and baseball with the best of them.

You'll also find some of our story papers in the digital gallery, but if you'd like a full list of titles, you can browse our story paper catalog.

Northern Illinois University is another archive of nickel weeklies, story papers, dime novels, and other pulp formats. They also have a list of digital and archival collections at other libraries.

While, unfortunately, there are books that have been lost to time, we're doing what we can to preserve "the dumb artistically unambitious trash books of the past" and make them accessible to the people who want to read them.

i do think theres something sad about how largely only the literature that's considered especially good or important is intentionally preserved. i want to read stuff that ancient people thought sucked enormous balls

[thewestern]

Chapter 23

Of note, all Ari found were the front bumper of Billy’s car, a positive pregnancy test in a hamburger bag and a one-eyed cat. Little devil nearly clawed His Eye out when he lifted the lid. Dumpster diving — that’s all counterintelligence work amounted to nowadays. Analog investigation, at least. No need anymore for gumshoes. Not in the era of Electronic Surveillance. He couldn’t have deduced anything about Billy, or any of these barfly meshuggenehs for that matter, that couldn’t have been much more easily ascertained from the comfort of a cubicle somewhere, with a few deft clicks and keystrokes. Like all modern currencies, information was now being traded programmatically on a digital exchange. Millions of micro-transactions processed per second. No non-institutional intelligence broker could ever hope to keep up with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Cell phone records, email transcripts, browser histories, unpaid parking tickets, voter registration, bank statements, dating profiles, grade point averages, blood types and sperm counts. It was all out there for the taking … Somewhere In The Cloud. (The rainbow is over. Or at least you can’t see it behind … The Cloud.) Hell, even Billy’s car was a computer. That wasn’t how Ari had found it though. It was Perlmutter Agency policy to keep tabs on clients and any relevant associates. Only as a contingency. Within reason, of course. Therefore, Ari had stashed a transponder under the chassis, of both this car and its backup. They had all types of cool shit like that down at the office, despite that most of it was in a broom closet collecting dust. Listening devices, hidden cameras, a primitive pair of night vision goggles. (This particular rig weighed no less than twenty pounds, like a toaster oven hanging off your damn face. These were your classic Tom Clancy-ass, Cold War-era specs … on some Buffalo Bill shit.) Really anything you could conceivably use in the spying on and/or blackmailing of somebody. They even had an audio processor … you know, for making the monster voice. (No guns or live rounds, however. Again, agents were expected to supply their own service weapons and munitions.) Secret agent gadgets were like office supplies at Perlmutter. They were back there with the fax machine and photocopier. Nobody hardly used them anymore either. 

Yes, sadly, tradecraft was a dying art. But, hey, that was no skin off Ari’s dick. He didn’t harbour any delusions about becoming an international man of mystery. Intelligence wasn’t his core competency anyway. He had been carving out his own, adjacent niche. You see, even if Ari wasn’t much for a risk analyst, as it were, you don’t need a Bloomberg Terminal to know which way the shit runs. (Downhill.) Whereas the market for information was going global, he could plainly see how good old-fashioned violence was once again being made right here in USA America. Wholesale bloodshed, manufactured in bulk. Government buildings, houses of worship, art museums, strip malls, supermarkets, sporting events and of course, schools (fucking especially schools) — potential combat zones, all. Home theaters of war. WE are soldiers. And, in addition to automatic weapons, soldiers require training. Ari would be personal trainer. Like he had been before, but not anymore at gymnasium. No longer to teach housewife fitness and nutrition. (At least, not exclusive … they are crucial part of any well-balanced threat-respond practicing.) Teaching the will to survive. The will to kill. They are same one. 

However, death would have to wait, because today he was off running errands for Hildy. At least she gave him the car, for to pick up the China-man with. The airport was so fucking far, man. When he did finally get there, he had to hold a sign at baggage claim with two Chinese characters printed on Wolffenbeir Company letterhead.

Hildy had also offloaded on him the dogs. She said she needed some space. Obviously they rode up front with him, of where there was precious little. (They couldn’t well be back there drooling on this very important China-person, could they?) Needless to say, the boys were a wreck without their mummykins, and the Deep House he played in the driver’s compartment was exacerbating their separation anxiety, as well as it was wreaking havoc on their inner ear issues. (The passenger’s cabin was completely soundproof, even just beyond the thin partition. Billy could have been driving up there watching hardcore female orgasm cumpilations turned up to eleven and Mr. Wang wouldn’t have heard a damned thing.) 

Having dropped off Wang the dogs, now Ari was back on to chasing Billy. Such a silly boy. How had he gotten himself involved with these silly fools? He was following them in their station wagon. Normally it would have been a difficult tail, on account of there were so many similar station wagons on the roadway. Only the girl with the boy’s haircut had drawn a penis with her finger in the dirt on the rear windshield. Ari was disgusted by this. Women should act and look a certain way, his father taught him. All the same, he could not help but admire this presumed lesbian’s athletic physique. Broad shoulders and toned triceps. Women had vanity muscles like men but they were opposite. Legs and glutes rather than chest and arms. Not her. She would be good for soldier in IDF.  

(The Israeli army ranks among the global military leaders for LGBT inclusion practices, this according to a study conducted by a Dutch defence industry think tank. A far cry from a fighting force of homophobes, such as ours, here in the land of the Don’t Ask and the home of the Don’t Tell. Had Grace been so swept up in patriotic fervor following the hijacking attacks on the World Trade Center, that she marched down to her local recruiter to enlist in the forever war against global terrorism, they would have turned her away, soley on the basis that she had come out as an openly gay person three days prior. Not to mention, she was eleven.) 

The large kushi boy wouldn’t have fared so well, for him. (Not only because the Israeli rank and file were markedly less tolerant of racial minorities, generally speaking.) Physical size was no more a strategic advantage in modern, urban warfare. Even in increasingly rare hand-to-hand combat scenarios, with proper instruction, sheer technique could overcome brute strength. Ari was a studied practitioner of Krav Maga, a proprietary fighting style developed by the IDF special forces, which became fashionable as a group fitness craze among civilian American women, nominally as a means of self-defense training in suburbia. Cherry-picking components from multiple martial arts, KM explicitly aims to mitigate size disparities through efficiency of force displacement. This via the shameless exploitation of one’s opponent’s physical vulnerabilities. I make demonstrate: David headbutt Goliath in groin, in repeat. Bang, bang, bang. Work combination. Alternative stomping toes with uppercut haymaker to livers. You Do Not Do That, Goliath.

(Ari couldn’t have known this, but Zeke’s size had been similarly undervalued by violent-doing elements on the home front. Perhaps in part because they lacked the same opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities as their peers at SciTech, gang affiliation among the student body at West High had reached an all-time high during Zeke’s tenure. However, certain trends allowed for him to remain an unconscious objector in such a way that would have been previously impossible for a promising young man of his considerable build. Foremostly being the surging proliferation of affordable firearms on the secondary market. Doesn’t matter how big you are, not if you’re strapped. Why would I lift weights when all I’m finna lift this nine? Lift these stacks. If anything, Zeke’s broad stature only made him an easier target. The hoppers and the corner kids had no use for a true Heavy — an old-school enforcer-type. For a fact, they all laughed at him when he passed by. Called him names, like Suge Light and Ashy the Giant and Freak-A-Zeke. 

Now shout out the radio station that gave ya what ya wanted. W Boom Boom Beat, baby.

Additionally, there were the corrosive, trickle-down effects of the so-called RICO statutes. You see, before the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the street gang economy had been a cut-and-dry oligopoly. One wherein an elite ruling class of felonious actors wielded cartel power with near impunity. Which is to say in any given market, defined be it by geographic radii or ethnic grouping, there were usually only one, two or at the upper band three competing producers for robbery, extortion, running numbers, drug dealing, whatever, what have you. In just such an environment, Zeke would have been inevitably recruited to a life of crime, itself only to be inevitably cut short by untimely death or incarceration. What RICO did via grand jury indictments was force the CEOs of these underworld conglomerates — be they the Lucchese and the Gambinos, the Crips and the Bloods, the Hells Angels and the Oath Keepers and the Juggalos — into an early retirement to be served in a maximum security prison community. However, rather than the desired upon effect of stifling organized crime from the top down, the resulting power vacuum only served to metastasize petty malfeasances among middle management-level gang bangers and cultivate a more competitive illicit marketplace, thus begetting a halcyon age of thug entrepreneurship. A free agency of chaos, call it. [For a fact, one could quite plausibly make the argument that RICO was the lone effective piece of antitrust legislation passed in the latter half of the Twentieth Century. But that’s a panel discussion for another day.] In Zeke’s hood and others like it, a kaleidoscopic network of tribalist crews and sets arose from the ashes of their absent forefathers. Known by the Sheriff’s Department gang task force to be operating in the City Public School District alone, there were the Fifty-Ninth Street Mafia, Rolling Twenties, los Gatos Ojituertos, the Bullet Hole in the Drywall Gangstas, JD & the Straight Hittas, KFBR392, the Pussy Posse, TH YNG PUSHRS, Outlaw Aristocracy, the Barrio Bourgeoisie and several others. With sundry potential suitors for his services, somehow it became easier for Zeke to slip through the cracks altogether and maintain his independent status. And that was a-okay with him. Commanding in stature though he was, Zeke was as calmly dispositioned as they came, always content to mind after his own store, so to speak. You’re familiar with the beloved children’s story of Ferdinand the Bull? All the other young Spanish bulls wanted to roughouse with one other to prove their machismo, with hopes of someday being selected for the bullfights in Madrid. (Must have been they were an optimistic bunch. In terms of a win-loss ratio, the bulls are the Washington Generals to the matadors’ Harlem Globetrotters. Of course there are exceptions, because as Maggie Thatcher can attest, the bull only hast to get lucky once. The matador, meanwhile, has to get lucky every time. Case in point, Hank had once spectated a bullfight in Mexico City at the Plaza de Toros, the largest such venue in the world. [Bienvenidos a Estadio del Cartel de Sinaloa.] That day a matador proved the old adage: you mess with the bull, you get … well, you know what you get — a belly full of horn, in this instance. Subsequently Hank took some flack from his compadres, for standing in gleeful applause as the man in the blanco pantalones’ guts spilled out there on the dirt. Que pasa? You don’t cheer for the bull?) But Ferdinand, despite being the biggest bull of them all, only wanted to have a siesta beneath the shade of his favorite cork tree and smell the flowers. No spoilers, but suffice to say that Zeke was like Ferdinand.

The black and the lesbian were led by a sad-looking caucasian male in a hoodie. What did he have to be sad about? Ari could tell from his mopey demeanor that he was American Jew. How he pitied them. The diaspora had made his people weak, as his father had so often said. No longer a sense of pride in protecting something. Nothing worth fearing makes afraid of everything. Like fear for losing identity. This, always groaning on about … Identity, this. Culture, that. Ari knew there is no such thing. Place. Only this is real. Ground beneath your feet on which to stand. Surrounded by four walls and a tall fence. Armed to teeth. Proud culture of a warrior people, fighting for homeland. Here is your identity. 

Then last there was the woman who took his beer right out from his hand. Women shouldn’t drink. Especially beer. Father was adamant about this. It clots the bleeding. Old man had many opinions of the menstrations. Ari was only ordering it for cover anyway. He drank vodka. Someday, after his personal brand as self-defense influencer had scaled, he dreamt of having his own spirits brand, as side hustle. But the beer store give him idea. He had never been to a place where they made the alcohol to serve. Maybe he could make the vodka and sell it in same place, and this could combine with also dream of owning discotech? Im Tirzu, Ein Zo Agadah. (If you will it, it is no dream.) 

She was driving. Typical of sad American Jew boy to be chauffeured by his lead-footed gypsy wife. On a routine tail, maintain at least three car-lengths’ distance between you and the target vehicle. More difficult in non-urban driving scenarios. Ari could barely keep up on these winding backroads. They were all four off to the foothills. Headed in the direction of the Double W Ranch. Summoned by Billy for some or other silliness. Left the foul-mouthed couple to tend the bar. Mother would never speak to his father in such way before she left home for good.

[dhaaruni]

Few quick points about this Rebecca Solnit piece and the Virginia gubernatorial race:

Women and POC getting elected at the local level is well and good, but when voters are electing Republican trifectas in states Joe Biden won by double digits just a year ago, that's a major alarm bell and a foreboding sign for the 2022 midterms.

Terry McAuliffe being a "corporate centrist" had nothing to do with why he lost last Tuesday. He lost because people voted for Glenn Youngkn, and leftists or even liberals are refusing discuss the reasons why he lot because that means discussing how the Loudoun County rape case and cover-up swung a lot of voters in NoVa at the last minute. McAuliffe didn't lose because of CRT, he lost because he really dropped the ball on education, which includes safety at schools, and that has to be addressed.

Solnit writes, "In Cleveland, Austin, Denver and Albany, citizens voted in police-reform measures, and while a more radical measure in Minneapolis lost, it got a good share of votes." But, Solnit flat out doesn't mention that the Democratic nominee for mayor of Buffalo who won the primary and identifies as a socialist and was endorsed by Schumer/Gillibrand/the entire NY state establishment lost by 30 to the write-in former mayor. She didn't mention that Seattle of all places elected a moderate mayor who wants to add to the police force and a literal Republican as city attorney, because that goes against her priors. Also, as per @andjusticeforall1979, Austin also voted to criminalize homelessness! Not exactly progressive!

Holistically speaking, I also think that Solnit and Democrats generally refusing to talk about how the Loudoun County rape case and cover-up impacted voters especially in the last two weeks of the race when more info came out is really stupid. Like, when a girl gets raped in a bathroom by a boy in a skirt and it can viably turn into an issue of trans bathroom policies that are intrinsically associated with Democrats, Republicans WILL jump on that and McAuliffe wasn't prepared for it. The case was a Republican's dream to message against and Youngkin immediately condemning the school district for covering it up and calling for further investigation reflected well on him. And, it doesn't surprise me at all that squishy moderate white parents in NoVa were like "Okay so under Democratic school board leadership with inclusive Democratic bathroom policies, our daughters are being raped by boys in dresses in girls' bathrooms and the school board is covering it up so we should vote GOP." Is Youngkin actually good on women's issues, cis or trans? Absolutely not, and he's definitely worse than McAuliffe by far, but my point stands.

Anyways, just thought I'd be a Debbie Downer and tell you guys that information.

[nitrosplicer]

https://slate.com/technology/2021/12/tiktok-couch-guy-internet-sleuths.html

tiktok needs to be destroyed probably. not a joke not a funny this is just so disgusting and disheartening.

"While the Couch Guy meme was lighthearted on its surface, it turned menacing as TikTok users obsessively invaded the lives of Lauren, our friends, and me—people with no previous desire for internet fame, let alone infamy. Would-be sleuths conducted what Trevor Noah jokingly called “the most intense forensic investigation since the Kennedy assassination.” During my tenure as Couch Guy, I was the subject of frame-by-frame body language analyses, armchair diagnoses of psychopathy, comparisons to convicted murderers, and general discussions about my “bad vibes.”

At times, the investigation even transcended the digital world—for instance, when a resident in my apartment building posted a TikTok video, which accumulated 2.3 million views, of himself slipping a note under my door to request an interview. (I did not respond.) One viewer gleefully commented, “Even if this guy turned off his phone, he can’t escape the couch guy notifications,” a fact that the 37,600 users who liked it presumably celebrated too. Under another video, in which hall mates of mine promised to confront Couch Guy once they reached 1 million likes (they didn’t), a comment suggested that they “secretly see who’s coming and going from his place”—and received 17,800 approving likes. The New York Post reported on, and perhaps encouraged, such invasions of my privacy."

and

"The most recent target of the app’s emerging investigative spirit was Sabrina Prater, a 34-year-old contractor and trans woman, who went viral in November after posting a video of herself dancing in a basement midrenovation. The video’s virality began with parody videos, but quickly veered into the realm of conspiracy theory due to (you guessed it) the video’s apparent “bad vibes”—at which point I got a dreadful sense of déjà vu. As Prater’s video climbed to 22 million views and internet sleuths came together to form a r/WhosSabrinaPrater community on Reddit, Prater faced baseless murder accusations, transphobic comparisons to Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs, and overzealous vigilantes who threatened to go to her neighborhood to investigate further. This incident reveals the harmful potential of TikTok sleuthing. One expert aptly summed up the Prater saga to Rolling Stone: “It was like watching true crime, internet sleuthing, conspiracy theories, and transphobia collide in a car crash.”

this is just internet harassment at this point.

[sasharesearch]

Term 3 Workshop Case Study - Cindy Sherman

“Two possibilities” - 2020

Cindy Morris Sherman (b. 1954) an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. She studied visual arts at Buffalo State College in 1972, during her education she was working on her breakthrough work “Untitled Film Stills” that she was doing as a side project from 1971 to 1980. Throughout her career, Sherman continued to push boundaries of what it means to be not only a women, but as a person. Although she primarily works on the idea of the representation of femininity in media, in recent years she has expanded her  investigation to take back social representations of sex, gender expression, and personal identity.

Through out she career Sherman has used different methods in which to change her appearance. More recently she works with the technology of the time, posting digitally altered selfies of herself on her Instagram account. Photoshop has because something anyone can use to change themselves but normally it’s to make them more attractive, Sherman using Photoshop to play with her appearance to make herself look almost like cartoon characters. Enhancing her features to make her look more alien them human at times.

Cindy Sherman has said in previous interviews that she has always been interested in dressing up in make up and costume, she has an actors mind set when she creates a character. To me it seems like these Instagram posts are just her playing around, creating an interesting and kind of fucked up faces with the material that’s available at the time. Technology has become so much more advanced that we can make some really interesting art from your phone. Although these images are something she was most likely just doing for fun, it shows that Sherman continues to grow her practice and experiment those same ideas of identity and representation with modern technology. Especially on a platform like Instagram that is known for idealizing persons lives.

[rolandopujol]

It’s official! Burger King is “doubling down on what made us great.” The chain is bringing back an homage to its beloved 1969 logo and redesigning all its stores with a fresh, throwback vibe. Back in September, I stumbled upon a royal mystery. @soujoe7 had posted a photo of what looked like a vintage Burger King sign in Danvers, Massachusetts. @saguarosally and @mquintal went to investigate and confirmed that it was actually a new sign. I then made the trip and snapped these photos. Was this a brand overhaul in the making, a move away from the 1999 swirl logo, which Fast Company calls “synthetic looking”? Or just an option for franchisees or certain concept stores? Well, I got reports of more restaurants switching to the vintage look and visited another one outside Buffalo. Burger King was mum. I reached out to them and heard nothing back. Today, they revealed they are indeed rebranding, restoring this retro logo, and retrofitting all of their restaurants to this look. The “minimalist logo seamlessly meets the brand evolution of the times,” they said in a news release, explaining they are also embracing their treasured brand heritage. The logo isn’t quite the old one -- as I reported earlier,  it’s more of a blend between the 1969 and the slight 1994 update, which featured a taller top bun. But this homage is a very effective one. Reports Fast Company: “The color palette is drawn directly from key Burger King ingredients—beef, lettuce, fries—and looks unabashedly old school.” Lisa Smith of Jones Knowles Ritchie, the firm behind the new look, told Fast Company: “We wanted to use design to close the gap between the negative perceptions people have of fast food and the positive reality of our food story by making the brand feel less synthetic, artificial, and cheap, and more real, crave-able, and tasty.” The goal, too, is to make the brand more “legible” on digital media, which has led other brands to simplify their look to the point of blandness. This overhaul feels organic, alive, and fun. It feels like Burger King used to feel -- just in a modern way.  What say you? #retrologist (at Burger King) https://www.instagram.com/p/CJw72TuFueG/?igshid=1q58v08fd3hka

[brod-anthropology]

Hollis Frampton

Hollis Frampton's was an American avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, writer, theoretician, and pioneer of digital art. His most  known photography explored ideas of series and sets, and later began to make films that explored similar ideas and based a lot of his early films on concepts. All of his very early works were either discarded or lost, though were known to be reasonably simple in construction. His earliest surviving work was Information (1966) with other early works like Maxwell's Demon, Surface Tension, and Prince Rupert's Drops being based on concepts from science. As he progressed as a filmmaker his films gradually increased in scope and ambition. He was a ‘structural filmmaker’, a style that focused on the nature of film itself- Gardner stated his dislike of that term as it was too broad and didn't accurately reflect the nature of his work.

His film Zorns Lemma (1970) drastically altered perceptions towards experimental film. Formed in three different sections, the first is a reading (by Joyce Wieland) of the Bay State Primer ( a puritan work for children to learn the alphabet) with the sentences used highlighting the foreboding themes of the text (like "In Adams fall, we sinned all."). The second section was based on work by Carl Andre which started out with an alphabetical list of words for each letter in the alphabet with each subsequent list being replaced with a letter until it is just letters- Zorns Lemma reversed the concept and starts with a twenty four letter alphabet (I/J and U/V are considered one letter) and each letter shown for one second then looping and the second cycle each letter being replaced with a word that starts with each letter until the words are replaced by an active film shot, such as washing hands or peeling a tangerine until there are only moving images. The third section contains a seemingly single shot of a couple walking across a snowy meadow with the sound of six women reading one word at a time from Theory of Light. One interpretation of Zorns Lemma was that it’s commentary on life's stages with the morality of the Bay State Primer being childhood, the sets of numbers representing maturing and interaction with the world, and the third part representing old age and death.

He later made the Hapax Legomena films, a series of seven films of which are the most well known and explore the relation between sound and cinema ( an area often disregarded in American avant-garde film) by using a disjointed relationship between the two. Poetic Justice explores the  "cinema of the mind" as the film takes place in the viewers' imagination(s) as they read title cards- an extremely rare book edition of Poetic Justice was printed by the Visual Studies Workshop. His final major film project was Magellan (named after the explorer who first circumnavigated the world)- it was intended to be shown as a calendrical cycle, one film for each day of the year. 

In the later years of his life Frampton taught at SUNY Buffalo, writing, working on Magellan and ongoing photographic projects with artist and wife Marion Faller, and continued to investigate the relationship between computers and art. 

[privacon]

Buffalo’s Regulatory Landscape: Navigating Fraud Investigations

In the bustling city of Buffalo, navigating the intricate regulatory landscape can be a challenging task, particularly when it comes to dealing with fraud investigations. As businesses strive to maintain integrity and compliance within the realm of finance, insurance, and corporate affairs, the demand for reliable fraud investigation services has surged. In such a dynamic environment, having a trustworthy partner equipped to handle fraud investigations efficiently becomes paramount.

At PRIVACON INVESTIGATIONS Services, we understand the complexities of Buffalo's regulatory framework and offer tailored solutions to assist businesses in safeguarding their interests. Our comprehensive suite of fraud investigation services is designed to address various forms of fraudulent activities, ensuring that our clients are well-equipped to mitigate risks and protect their assets.

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Fraudulent activities can manifest in various forms, ranging from embezzlement and financial fraud to identity theft and cybercrimes. Detecting and addressing these fraudulent schemes requires a meticulous approach and specialized expertise. This is where our fraud investigation services excel.

Our team of seasoned investigators possesses extensive experience in uncovering fraudulent activities across different industries. Leveraging advanced investigative techniques and cutting-edge technology, we delve deep into financial records, conduct interviews, and analyze digital evidence to identify fraudulent patterns and perpetrators. Whether it's internal fraud within a company or external scams targeting unsuspecting individuals, we have the expertise to unravel the complexities and provide actionable insights.

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[myhauntedsalem]

1858 Garnett House Hotel

Garnett, Kansas

Garnett House was built in 1858 by D.W. Houston and was opened as a hotel by Hiram Tefft in the fall of that year. The building sits at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Walnut in the town of Garnett, Kansas. The building was the first hotel in town and had several additions built onto the building. It was said that Mrs. Houston refused to move into the original building due to it’s swaying in the breeze. The hotel became known as The Garnett House and also the Lighthouse Hotel due to it’s bright lantern on the top floor which could be seen for miles at that time. It is the only surviving antebellum structure in the town of Garnett, Kansas.

As a hotel, the building has been a witness and a participant to many events in it’s near 160-year history, including a participant in the Underground Railroad. During the time known as Bleeding Kansa. It is said that the famous Abolitionist John Brown hid escaped slaves in the attic of the home. This is said to have happened around 1859 just prior to the American Civil War.

During the 1870s, the town of Garnett became a crossroads of cowboys, settlers headed West and citizens. It literally became the scene out of the Old West with saloons, brothels, and gunfights in the streets. It was during this time that the hotel hosted some of it’s most famous guests.

The guest list includes famous lawmen Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Wild Bill Hickock. It also includes famous scout Buffalo Bill Cody who was traveling with Hickock at the time. Belle Starr the famous female cowboy shooter was also a guest of the hotel. The famous outlaw Jesse James was also rumored to have stayed here under one of his many aliases.

After this time, the hotel eventually became a private residence once larger and more modern hotels began to appear in the town of Garnett. In the early 1950s, the building became the Doctor’s Office of Dr. Robert Stevens and his wife Dr. Julius-Stevens. They treated patients in the old hotel up until the 21st Century.  

Every mystical place has its tales. There is a story of a woman poisoning her husband with rabbit poison, and how she was imprisoned in the Garnett house before being rescued.

Screams in the night have been heard on EVP recordings have been pulled from digital recordings at the Garnett House. One of the most disturbing elements of these screams is that they appear to come from a child.

The Garnett hotel has been investigated many times. The current owners are very interested in preserving the precious history that this old inn holds beneath its walls.

[feelingbluepolitics]

"The Department of Homeland Security deployed helicopters, airplanes and drones over 15 cities where demonstrators gathered to protest the death of George Floyd, logging at least 270 hours of surveillance, far more than previously revealed, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

"The department’s dispatching of unmanned aircraft over protests in Minneapolis last month sparked a congressional inquiry and widespread accusations that the federal agency had infringed on the privacy rights of demonstrators.

"But that was just one piece of a nationwide operation that deployed resources usually used to patrol the U.S. border for smugglers and illegal crossings. Aircraft filmed demonstrations in Dayton, Ohio; New York City; Buffalo and Philadelphia, among other cities, sending video footage in real time to control centers managed by Air and Marine Operations, a branch of Customs and Border Protection.

"The footage was then fed into a digital network managed by the Homeland Security Department, called 'Big Pipe,' which can be accessed by other federal agencies and local police departments for use in future investigations, according to senior officials with Air and Marine Operations.

..."House Democrats and privacy advocates still worry over the potential dissemination of the footage and the chilling effect that militarized aircrafts could have on peaceful protests.

"Earlier this month, Democrats with the House Oversight Committee, including Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, and Stephen F. Lynch and Ayanna Pressley, both of Massachusetts, protested to Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of homeland security.

..."'This administration has undermined the First Amendment freedoms of Americans of all races who are rightfully protesting George Floyd’s killing,' the Democrats said in a letter to Mr. Wolf. 'The deployment of drones and officers to surveil protests is a gross abuse of authority and is particularly chilling when used against Americans who are protesting law enforcement brutality.'

"But Democrats apparently were unaware of the breadth of the agency’s actions. Most of surveillance was done with planes and helicopters. Air and Marine Operations did dispatch drones to two demonstrations — in Minneapolis and in Del Rio, Texas."

[karissatammy-blog]

Increasing the odds you be able to catch a foul ball

Not bad for a guy who grew up playing on a backyard rink with his brothers and the old open air facility at Cazenovia Park.Gary, the oldest, has coached Erie Community College for years and led the Kats to a national junior college title in 2011. Tom "Bones" Rost followed Dave to West Point and was another terrific player who had 115 goals and 287 points in 118 career games. They played together for two years on the Buffalo Line, which included Western New Yorker Danny Murrett.In 2009, College Hockey News named Dave Rost to its all time team, which included Ken Dryden.

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[sciencespies]

Ancient Toes and Soles of Fossilized Footprints Now 3-D Digitized for the Ages

https://sciencespies.com/nature/ancient-toes-and-soles-of-fossilized-footprints-now-3-d-digitized-for-the-ages/

Ancient Toes and Soles of Fossilized Footprints Now 3-D Digitized for the Ages

While walking in the shadow of their people’s sacred volcano, Maasai villagers in 2006 stumbled across a set of curious footprints. Clearly made by human feet, but set in stone, they appeared to be the enigmatic traces of some long-forgotten journey.

Now scientists have teased out some of story behind those ancient prints and the people who, with some help from the volcano, left them behind. It begins while they were walking through the same area as the Maasai—separated by a span of perhaps 10,000 years.

“It’s kind of amazing to walk alongside these footprints and say, ‘Wow, thousands of years ago somebody walked here. What were they doing? What were they looking for? Where were they going?’” says Briana Pobiner, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History with the Human Origins Program. Pobiner is one of the scientists who has studied the prints at Engare Sero in Tanzania during the 14 years since their initial discovery.

An in-depth footprint analysis has now produced an intriguing theory to explain what the walkers were doing on the day when impressions of their toes and soles were preserved on a mudflat. Pobiner and her colleagues, in a study recently published in Scientific Reports, suggest that a large collection of the tracks, moving in the same direction at the same pace, were made by a primarily female group that was foraging around what was then on or near a lakeshore. This practice of sexually-divided gathering behavior is still seen among living hunter-gather peoples, but no bone or tool would ever be able to reveal whether it was practiced by their predecessors so long ago.

Footprints, however, allow us to quite literally retrace their steps.

When Kevin Hatala, the lead author of the study, and his colleagues began working the site in 2009 they found 56 visible footprints that had been exposed by the forces of erosion over the centuries. But they soon realized that the bulk of the site remained hidden from view. Between 2009 and 2012 the researchers excavated what has turned out to be the largest array of modern human fossil footprints yet found in Africa, 408 definitively human prints in total. It’s most likely that the prints were made between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, but the study’s conservative dating range stretches from as early as 19,000 to as recently as 5,760 years ago.

A previous analysis, involving some of the same authors, determined that as these people walked, their feet squished into an ashy mudflat produced by an eruption of Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano, which even today is still active and looms over the site of the footprints.

“It’s kind of amazing,” says Briana Pobiner, “to walk alongside these footprints and say, ‘Wow, thousands of years ago somebody walked here. What were they doing? What were they looking for?”

(William Harcourt-Smith)

Deposits from the volcano were washed down into the mudflat. After the human group walked across and over the area, creating so many prints that scientists have nicknamed one heavily-trod area “the dance floor,” the ashy mud hardened in a matter of days or even hours. Then it was buried by a subsequent sediment flow which preserved it until the actions of erosion brought dozens of prints to light—and the excavations of the team unearthed hundreds more.

Fossil footprints capture behavior in a way that bones and stones cannot. The process of preservation happens over a short period of time. So while bones around a hearth don’t necessarily mean that their owners circled the fire at exactly the same time, fossilized footprints can reveal those kinds of immediate interactions.

“It’s a snapshot of life at a moment in time, the interaction of individuals, the interaction of humans with animals that’s preserved in no other way. So it’s a real boon to behavioral ecology.” says Matthew Bennett an expert on ancient footprints at Bournemouth University. Bennett, who wasn’t involved in the study, has visited the Engare Sero site.

Fossil footprints are analyzed by size and shape, by the orientation of the foot as it created the print, and by the distances between the prints which, combined with other aspects, can be used to estimate how fast the individual walked or ran. One of the ancient travelers who left a trackway heading in a different direction than the larger group appears to have been passing through the area in a hurry, running at better than six miles per hour.

As these people walked, their feet squished into an ashy mudflat produced by an eruption of Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano, which even today (above) is still active and looms over the site of the footprints.

(Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce)

The main group, heading to the southwest, moved at a more leisurely pace. The team’s footprint analysis suggests it most likely consisted of 14 adult females accompanied, intermittently at least, by two adult males and a juvenile male.

“I think it looks like it’s a good reflection of what we see in some modern hunter-gatherers with groups of women foraging together,” says Pobiner. Tanzania’s Hadza and Paraguay’s Aché peoples still tackle these tasks in a similar manner. “Oftentimes there is basically gender foraging, where women will forage together and men will forage together. There are sometimes mixed groups, but we often see this kind of sexual division of labor in terms of food gathering,” Pobiner says. “It doesn’t mean that these 14 women always foraged together,” she adds. “But at least on this one day or this one instance, this is what we see in this group.”

While no animals appear to have been traveling with the group, there are prints nearby of zebra and buffalo. The humans and the animals were apparently sharing a landscape that even today isn’t far from the southern shoreline of Lake Natron. Depending on exactly when the prints are made the water may have been much closer to the current site.

“We’re able to give a level of accessibility to everyone,” says Vince Rossi whose team (above on location) has made the 3D footprints available online, and the data from a selection of prints can even be downloaded to a 3D printer.

(Adam Metallo, Smithsonian Digitization Program Office)

“It’s possible that these were just people and animals kind of wandering along the lakeshore all looking for something to eat,” Pobiner says. Other sets of footprints, like those made in northwestern Kenya, capture just this sort of behavior among ancient hominins like Homo erectus.

“They did a very nice study on a very nice set of footprints. It’s well executed and they have come up with some really interesting conclusions,” Matthew Bennett says of the research, adding that it’s a welcome addition to a rapidly growing body of scientific literature on the subject of ancient trackways.

Fossilized footprints were once thought to be extremely rare, “freaks of geological preservation,” Bennett notes. An explosion of fossil footprint discoveries over the past decade suggests they aren’t so rare after all, but surprisingly common wherever our ancient relatives put one foot in front of the other, from Africa to New Mexico.

“If you think about it there’s something like 206 bones in the body, so maybe 206 chances that a body fossil will be preserved,” Bennett says. “But in an average modern lifetime you’ll make millions and millions of footprints, a colossal number. Most won’t be preserved, but we shouldn’t be surprised that they aren’t actually so rare in the geological record.”

A famous set of prints from nearby Laetoli, Tanzania dates to some 3.6 million years ago and was likely made by Australopithecus afarensis. At New Mexico’s White Sands National Monument, ancient footprints of human and beast may be evidence of an ancient sloth hunt.

Study co-author Vince Rossi, supervisor of the 3D program at the Smithsonian Digitization Program Office, aims to give these particular fossil footprints even wider distribution. His team created 3D images of the site that initially supported scientific research and analysis efforts. Today they are extending the footprints’ journey from a Tanzanian mudflat to the farthest corners of the globe.

“How many people can travel to this part of Tanzania to actually see these footprints? We’re able to give a level of accessibility to everyone,” he says. Rossi’s team has made the 3D footprints available online, and the data from a selection of prints can even be downloaded to a 3D printer so that users can replicate their favorite Engare Sero footprints.

Because 3D images capture the footprints as they appeared at a specific moment in time they’ve also become a valuable tool for preservation. The study employed two sets of images, Rossi’s 2010 array and a suite of 3D images taken by an Appalachian State University team in 2017. Comparing those images reveals visible degradation of the exposed prints during that relatively short time, and highlights the urgency of protecting them now that they’ve been stripped of the overlying layers that protected them for thousands of years.

Finding ways to preserve the footprints is a key prerequisite for uncovering more, which seems likely because the tracks heading northward lead directly under sediment layers that haven’t been excavated. Future finds would add to a paleoanthropological line of investigation that is delivering different kinds of results than traditional digs of tools or fossils.

“Footprints give us information about anatomy and group dynamics that you just can’t get from bones,” Pobiner says. “And I love the idea that there are different and creative ways for us to interpret behaviors of the past.”

#Nature

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Juneteenth takes on new meaning amid push for racial justice (AP) Protesters marched over the Brooklyn Bridge, chanted “We want justice now!” near St. Louis’ Gateway Arch, stopped work at West Coast ports and paused for a moment of silence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, as Americans marked Juneteenth with new urgency Friday amid a nationwide push for racial justice. The holiday, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, is usually celebrated with parades and festivals but became a day of protest this year in the wake of demonstrations set off by George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police. In addition to traditional cookouts and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation—the Civil War-era order that declared all enslaved people free in Confederate territory—Americans of all backgrounds were marching, holding sit-ins or taking part in car caravan protests. Thousands gathered at a religious rally in Atlanta. Hundreds marched from St. Louis’ Old Courthouse, where the Dred Scott case partially played out, a pivotal one that denied citizenship to African Americans but galvanized the anti-slavery movement. Protesters and revelers held signs in Dallas, danced to a marching band in Chicago and registered people to vote in Detroit.

Law enforcement families face harassment, vandalism, and threats at home (Washington Examiner) Law enforcement officers say they and their families face harassment and bullying by strangers and neighbors as a result of a nationwide crackdown on law enforcement following protests around the death of George Floyd. One former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, faces a charge of second-degree murder over the 46-year-old black man’s death. The episode triggered nationwide protests over police practices and some violence and looting. At the same time, police officers around the nation, facing scrutiny by local, state, and federal officials, say morale is down in local departments. Budgets have been cut, and overtime pay for shifts during protests has been slashed. And the homes of police officers have been vandalized while anti-law enforcement activists have watched them from outside. Paul Chabot, a retired deputy sheriff reserve out of San Bernardino County, California, who runs a website that helps officers relocate to police friendly municipalities, told the Washington Examiner that officers and their wives who reach out to him reveal their children are targeted as well. “It’s not the same like it was even just two weeks ago, three weeks ago, just because they’re a law enforcement family now. Their kids are being targeted by people in the neighborhood.”

The battle over masks in a pandemic: An all-American story (Washington Post) In this sprawling, heterogeneous country, the pandemic has become yet another thing on which Americans are divided. Mask-wearing for some people is an identifier of broader beliefs and political leanings. Like so many issues rooted in science and medicine, the pandemic is now fully entangled with ideological tribalism. This has played out before: helmets for motorcyclists, seat belts in cars, smoking bans in restaurants. All of those measures provoked battles over personal liberty. Now it’s masks and the coronavirus, with face coverings emerging as an emblem for what cleaves the nation. A flurry of recent studies supports wearing cloth face coverings as a means to limit transmission of the novel coronavirus, which causes the illness covid-19. To many people, masks represent adherence to civic duty and a willingness to make individual sacrifices for the greater good of public health. To others, masks symbolize government overreach and a violation of personal liberty.

U.S. Watched George Floyd Protests in 15 Cities Using Aerial Surveillance (NYT) The Department of Homeland Security deployed helicopters, airplanes and drones over 15 cities where demonstrators gathered to protest the death of George Floyd, logging at least 270 hours of surveillance, far more than previously revealed, according to Customs and Border Protection data. The department’s dispatching of unmanned aircraft over protests in Minneapolis last month sparked a congressional inquiry and widespread accusations that the federal agency had infringed on the privacy rights of demonstrators. But that was just one piece of a nationwide operation that deployed resources usually used to patrol the U.S. border for smugglers and illegal crossings. Aircraft filmed demonstrations in Dayton, Ohio; New York City; Buffalo and Philadelphia, among other cities, sending video footage in real time to control centers managed by Air and Marine Operations, a branch of Customs and Border Protection. The footage was then fed into a digital network managed by the Homeland Security Department, called “Big Pipe,” which can be accessed by other federal agencies and local police departments for use in future investigations, according to senior officials with Air and Marine Operations.

Barber offers hope in Peruvian barrios devastated by virus (AP) Once a week, barber Josué Yacahuanca makes his way up the dusty hills of Peru’s capital, heading into its poorest neighborhoods carrying a treasured golden briefcase that holds his life’s passion—five clipper blades, 20 combs, four scissors and a bottle with alcohol. Yacahuanca seeks out clients devastated by a coronavirus lockdown that has gone on for nearly 100 days in an attempt to stem the wave of new infections. He does it for free. “I want them to look in the mirror and see a bit of hope,” said Yacahuanca, who though just 21 years old is a veteran barber, having started cutting hair at age 13. Yacahuanca had a rocky start in life himself. Abandoned by his mother, he was raised by his godmother, Gloria Alvarez. Despite obstacles, he discovered a business savvy at a young age. He hustled at odd jobs, selling sweets, cleaning houses, working in outdoor markets and at a bus station.

Brazil tops 1 million cases as coronavirus spreads inland (AP) Brazil’s government confirmed on Friday that the country has risen above 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, second only to the United States. Official data show a downward trend of the virus in Brazil’s north, including the hard-hit region of the Amazon, a plateau in cases and deaths in the countries’ biggest cities near the Atlantic coast, but a rising curve in the south. In the Brazilian countryside, which is much less prepared to handle a crisis, the pandemic is clearly growing. Many smaller cities have weaker health care systems and basic sanitation that’s insufficient to prevent contagion.

European powers refuse to back U.S. call for escalating Iran sanctions (Washington Post) France, Germany and Britain said they will not support reimposing sanctions on Iran if a U.N. arms embargo is not extended, but they urged Tehran to allow inspectors into sites where nuclear material may be stockpiled.

China unveils details of national security law for Hong Kong amid backlash (Reuters) Beijing unveiled details of its new national security law for Hong Kong on Saturday, paving the way for the most profound change to the city’s way of life since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. The much-anticipated legislation, which has provoked deep concerns in Washington and Europe, includes a national security office for Hong Kong to collect intelligence and handle crimes against national security, the official Xinhua news agency reported. It said Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam could also appoint specific judges to hear national security cases, a move likely to unnerve some investors, diplomats and business leaders in the global financial hub. China says the draft law is aimed at tackling separatist activity, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, but critics fear it will crush wide-ranging freedoms that are seen as key to Hong Kong’s status as a global financial centre.

Egyptian president says Libyan city Sirte a ‘red line’ (AP) Egypt’s president Saturday warned that an attempt by Turkey-backed forces in Libya to attack the strategic city of Sirte would cross a “red line” and trigger a direct Egyptian military intervention into the conflict. Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, in televised comments, said Egypt could intervene in neighboring Libya with the intention of protecting its western border with the oil-rich country, and to bring stability, including establishing conditions for a cease-fire, to Libya. El-Sissi warned that any attack on Sirte or the inland Jufra air base by forces loyal to the U.N.-supported but weak government in Tripoli would amount to crossing a “red line.” “Let’s stop at this (current) front line and start negotiations to reach a political solution to the Libyan crisis,” he said.

Ethiopia to fill disputed dam, deal or no deal (AP) It’s a clash over water usage that Egypt calls an existential threat and Ethiopia calls a lifeline for millions out of poverty. Just weeks remain before the filling of Africa’s most powerful hydroelectric dam might begin, and tense talks between the countries on its operation have yet to reach a deal. In an interview with The Associated Press, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedu Andargachew on Friday declared that his country will go ahead and start filling the $4.6 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam next month, even without an agreement. “For us it is not mandatory to reach an agreement before starting filling the dam, hence we will commence the filling process in the coming rainy season,” he said. “We are working hard to reach a deal, but still we will go ahead with our schedule whatever the outcome is. If we have to wait for others’ blessing, then the dam may remain idle for years, which we won’t allow to happen,” he said. He added that “we want to make it clear that Ethiopia will not beg Egypt and Sudan to use its own water resource for its development,” pointing out that Ethiopia is paying for the dam’s construction itself. He spoke after the latest round of talks with Egypt and Sudan on the dam, the first since discussions broke down in February, failed to reach agreement.

Congo president’s chief of staff guilty in corruption trial (AP) A court in Congo on Saturday sentenced the president’s chief of staff, Vital Kamerhe, to 20 years of forced labor after he was found guilty of corruption and embezzlement of more than $50 million. His lawyers said they would appeal. Kamerhe, 61, has called the trial a political attack on himself and President Felix Tshisekedi, who has not commented on the case. The charges stem from what the court said was “unequivocal” participation in the embezzlement of money from projects undertaken by the president during his first 100 days in office last year.

[spaceexp]

New Hubble project provides wide-field view of the galaxy cluster Abell 370

ESA - Hubble Space Telescope logo. 13 September 2018 BUFFALO charges towards the earliest galaxies

BUFFALO’s view on Abell 370

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has started a new mission to shed light on the evolution of the earliest galaxies in the Universe. The BUFFALO survey will observe six massive galaxy clusters and their surroundings. The first observations show the galaxy cluster Abell 370 and a host of magnified, gravitationally lensed galaxies around it. Learning about the formation and evolution of the very first galaxies in the Universe is crucial for our understanding of the cosmos. While the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has already detected some of the most distant galaxies known, their numbers are small, making it hard for astronomers to determine if they represent the Universe at large.

The last of the Frontier Fields — Abell 370

Massive galaxy clusters like Abell 370, which is visible in this new image, can help astronomers find more of these distant objects. The immense masses of galaxy clusters make them act as cosmic magnifying glasses. A cluster’s mass bends and magnifies light from more distant objects behind it, uncovering objects otherwise too faint for even Hubble’s sensitive vision. Using this cosmological trick — known as strong gravitational lensing — Hubble is able to explore some of the earliest and most distant galaxies in the Universe. Numerous galaxies are lensed by the mass of Abell 370. The most stunning demonstration of gravitational lensing can be seen just below the centre of the cluster. Nicknamed “the Dragon”, this extended feature is made up of a multitude of duplicated images of a spiral galaxy which lies beyond the cluster.

Comparison between Frontier Fields and BUFFALO

This image of Abell 370 and its surroundings was made as part of the new Beyond Ultra-deep Frontier Fields And Legacy Observations (BUFFALO) survey. This project, led by European astronomers from the Niels Bohr Institute (Denmark) and Durham University (UK), was designed to succeed the successful Frontier Fields project [1]. 101 Hubble orbits — corresponding to 160 hours of precious observation time — have been dedicated to exploring the six Frontier Field galaxy clusters. These additional observations focus on the regions surrounding the galaxy clusters, allowing for a larger field of view.

Digitized sky survey image of Abell 370 (ground-based image)

BUFFALO’s main mission, however, is to investigate how and when the most massive and luminous galaxies in the Universe formed and how early galaxy formation is linked to dark matter assembly. This will allow astronomers to determine how rapidly galaxies formed in the first 800 million years after the Big Bang — paving the way for observations with the upcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.

Zooming onto the galaxy cluster Abell 370

Driven by the Frontier Fields observations, BUFFALO will be able to detect the most distant galaxies approximately ten times more efficiently than its progenitor programme. The BUFFALO survey will also take advantage of other space telescopes which have already observed the regions around the clusters. These datasets will be included in the search for the first galaxies.

Pan across Abell 370

The extended fields of view will also allow better 3-dimensional mapping of the mass distribution — of both ordinary and dark matter — within each galaxy cluster. These maps help astronomers learn more about the evolution of the lensing galaxy clusters and about the nature of dark matter. Notes: [1] Frontier Fields was a Hubble programme that ran from 2013 to 2017. Hubble spent 630 hours of observation time probing six notable galaxy clusters, all of which showed effects of strong gravitational lensing. More information: The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA. Links: BUFFALO project page: https://buffalo.ipac.caltech.edu/ Hubblesite release: http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2018-39 Press releases on the Frontier Fields: http://spacetelescope.org/news/?search=%22frontier+fields%22 NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope: http://spacetelescope.org/ NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope: http://sci.esa.int/jwst/ Images, Text, Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Koekemoer, M. Jauzac, C. Steinhardt, and the BUFFALO team/Hubble/HST Frontier Fields/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin/Videos: ESA/Hubble, Digitized Sky Survey 2, Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org). Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin. Music: Stan dart. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article