The death toll from an earthquake that prompted a tsunami on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi has risen to 832, the national disaster mitigation agency has said, adding it assessed the affected area to be bigger than initially thought.

Many people were reported trapped in the rubble of buildings brought down in the magnitude 7.5 earthquake which struck on Friday and triggered tsunami waves as high as six metres (20 feet), agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news conference.

Amid the levelled trees, overturned cars, concertinaed homes and flotsam tossed up to 50 metres inland, survivors and rescuers struggled to come to grips with the scale of the disaster.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo arrived on the island of Sulawesi on Sunday to take stock of the situation.

Dozens of people were reported to be trapped in the rubble of a hotel and a mall in the city of Palu. A young woman was pulled alive from the rubble of the Roa Roa Hotel, the news website Detik.com reported. The owner of the hotel said that up to 60 people were believed trapped in the rubble.

“We managed to pull out a woman alive from the Hotel Roa-Roa last night,” Muhammad Syaugi, head of the national search and rescue agency, told AFP news agency. “We even heard people calling for help there yesterday.”

“What we now desperately need is heavy machinery to clear the rubble. I have my staff on the ground, but it’s impossible just to rely on their strength alone to clear this.”

Just awful #Sulawesi #tsunamiPalu pic.twitter.com/ZSogTu7Vzq

— David Lipson (@davidlipson) September 30, 2018

Authorities are bracing for much worse as reports filter in from outlying areas, in particular, Donggala, a region of 300,000 people north of Palu and closer to the epicentre of the quake.

Speaking from Jakarta, journalist Tomi Soet-jipto told Al Jazeera 11 of the recorded deaths were from Donggala, but a clear picture on the situation there has yet to emerge. 

“The national disaster agency spokesperson insisted that up until now they still received no official information in terms of casualties and damage,” he said. 

The nearby city of Mamuju was also ravaged, but little information was available due to damaged roads and disrupted telecommunications.

“Two helicopters from Indonesian Red Cross have been dispatched to Donggala to bring in emergency supplies. We don’t know if emergency workers have been able to reach the city by road. There is no official assessment of the damage caused by earthquake and Tsunami,” Tomi Soetjipto, a journalist based in Jakarta, said.

More than half of the 560 inmates in Palu’s prison escaped after its walls collapsed during the quake, according to state news agency Antara, while more than 100 inmates escaped from a prison in Donggala.

The military has started sending in aircraft with aid from Jakarta and other cities, authorities said.

C-130 military transport aircraft with relief supplies managed to land at the main airport in Palu, which re-opened to humanitarian flights and limited commercial flights, but only to pilots able to land by sight alone.

Satellite imagery provided by regional relief teams showed the severe damage at some of the area’s major sea ports, with large ships tossed on land, quays and bridges trashed and shipping containers thrown around.

Hospitals were overwhelmed by the influx of those injured, with many people being treated in the open air. There were widespread power blackouts.

“We all panicked and ran out of the house” when the quake hit, said Anser Bachmid, a 39-year-old Palu resident. “People here need aid – food, drink, clean water.”

It’s the latest natural disaster to hit Indonesia, which is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra island in western Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

Last month, a powerful quake on the island of Lombok killed 505 people.

Residents carry the body of a victim following an earthquake and tsunami in Palu, Central Sulawesi [Antara Foto/Zainuddin Mn/Reuters]

A landmark peace deal which for two decades allowed Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region to be an island of stability in an otherwise turbulent Middle East is unravelling today.

In 1998, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) reached a power-sharing agreement after nearly four years of civil war. Now 20 years later, the KDP is on its way to renege on its obligations and exclude the PUK from the next Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

The outcome of these renewed tensions between the KDP and the PUK will be determined by the upcoming parliamentary elections in the KRG. If the KDP wins the majority of votes on September 30 and decides to sideline the PUK, the region might witness another wave of instability or even a violent conflict.

Personalised power and armed militias

On September 17, 1998, Jalal Talabani, leader of the PUK, and Masoud Barzani, head of the KDP, came together in Washington, DC, to sign a US-brokered agreement to end hostilities.

Under the provisions of the deal, the two were to share political power and revenue, while the US was to provide military protection for the Iraqi Kurdish region as a whole. Then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called the agreement a “new and hopeful chapter”.

While the deal indeed provided hope and stability for the millions of Kurds living in northern Iraq, it failed to bring unity. Barzani and Talabani treated the power-sharing agreement as just that – there was no attempt at integration or unification.

With the help of the revenue that started flowing in through the UN-sponsored oil-for-food programme, the two built their own clientelistic networks, rendering the institutions of the KRG completely divided between the two parties.

Essentially, the KDP-PUK agreement helped create a highly corrupt system of cronyism where the two parties divided virtually all of the oil-rich region’s resources among themselves while putting their sons, daughters and extended families in senior government positions.

After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the deal extended to central Iraqi institutions, which the Kurds could now participate in. Thus Talabani was allocated the largely symbolic position of president of Iraq (reserved for an ethnic Kurd), while Barzani took the presidency of the KRG.

More importantly, the two Kurdish leaders kept their armed militias, the Peshmerga, separate, making no effort to establish a unified armed force.

The war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group further strengthened these militias thanks to the unconditional military support of the US-led coalition. The necessary and immediate goal of defeating ISIL meant overlooking the danger that could arise from arming irregular armed groups.

So while the KDP and PUK fought with AK47s in the 1990s, today they have a myriad of heavy weaponry available, including tanks and German-made anti-tank Milan missiles. While we, Kurds, are surely thankful for the weapons, which helped save us from ISIL, we would’ve been more appreciative if the US had used the existential threat to the KDP-PUK rule as an opportunity to pressure them into unifying the Kurdish militias.

The problem with personalised power – both political and military – is that its stability depends on one person; when that person is gone, a power vacuum and instability ensue. And this is what is happening in Kurdistan right now. Talabani died in October last year and his former deputy, Nawshirwan Mustafa, passed away five months earlier.

Now the weakened PUK is practically run by Talabani’s widow and his sons, including most notably Bafel Talabani, who heads a well-trained and equipped armed group which is loyal only to him and his party. PUK has not named a new official leader yet.

Meanwhile, KDP’s leader, Barzani, remains alive and well at 72, leading the strongest armed force in Kurdistan. And he has his eye on PUK-controlled areas. On September 23, just a week before the vote, he paid a rare visit to Sulaymaniyah, the “capital” of the PUK, and told a cheering crowd, “Whoever agrees with us, we would agree and share a home with them. But those who are against this doctrine and goal, it’s difficult for them and us to be united and share a home.”

Escalating rhetoric and threats

While Barzani opted for innuendos at the Sulaymaniyah rally, this election season has seen a rhetorical war break out between his camp and the PUK. “Treason” is one word that has been doing the rounds in press statements by both sides.

Barzani has said that Kurdish unity has already been “destroyed” by what some PUK leaders, including its top commander, Bafel Talabani, did a year ago when they helped Iraqi forces and Iran-backed Shia militias take the oil-rich city of Kirkuk from the Kurds in the wake of the independence referendum. The PUK, on the other hand, has accused the KDP of “monopolising power”.

Such harsh rhetoric may sound like regular political vitriol used to rally voters during the election campaign season, but in the Iraqi Kurdish region, these are real threats. In such a conservative and highly militarised society, no matter the circumstances, KDP and PUK have never accused each other of “treason” after they concluded peace. To me, this rhetoric is an eerie reminder of the civil war.

Today we have a dangerous situation in which one party feels stronger and more popular and therefore more entitled to rule the whole region while the other lacks leadership and leverage to negotiate.

The KDP has already taken steps to curb its rival’s power. Having declared the peace treaty dead, Barzani’s party is refusing to back PUK’s candidate Barham Salih for the Iraqi presidency and has nominated its own candidate, Fuad Hussein.

It is in this tense atmosphere that Kurds will be going to the polls on Sunday. The 111 parliamentary seats will be contested by 21 parties, but none is expected to win 51 percent of votes to form a government on its own. Instead, the KDP may choose to forge an alliance with some of the new parties such as Gorran (Change Movement, established by former PUK members) and the New Generation Movement (founded by Shaswar Abdulwahid, a Kurdish Donald Trump-like real estate developer).

In Iraq’s May election these two opposition parties, which draw support from areas under PUK jurisdiction, got half as many seats in the Iraqi parliament as the PUK.

If these results repeat in the September 30 vote, would the PUK accept electoral defeat or a new political reality in which it no longer holds power? PUK leaders have made it clear that the answer is a categorical “no”.

“Even if we win only one seat, we are the PUK. We are armed. Nobody can disarm us,” warned senior PUK leader Mullah Bakhtyar in a recent interview with the Kurdish Rudaw channel.

The situation is so dangerous that even the Americans are worried. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has had three phone calls with KDP leaders over the past month and a half to discuss Iraq’s government formation including the position of the presidency. While PUK has been historically close to Iran, its candidate Salih, who was educated in the West, seems acceptable to the US.

While no one wants to see another Kurdish civil conflict break out in a region still recovering from the devastation of the war with ISIL, there are no guarantees that hostilities will not erupt after the elections.

We are undoubtedly entering a new era of politics in Iraqi Kurdistan, marked by the demise of the two-decade-long power-sharing agreement between the PUK and the KDP. In this sense, the September 30 election will be the first real litmus test for Kurdish democracy and its capacity to resolve political conflicts peacefully. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. 

Dressed in a Naruto t-shirt and a hat emblazoned with the phrase “lone wolf,” Ne-Yo slouches over in a chair inside a Holberton School classroom. The Grammy-winning recording artist is struggling to remember the name of “that actor,” the one who’s had a successful career in both the entertainment industry and tech investing.

“I learned about all the things he was doing and I thought it was great for him,” Ne-Yo told TechCrunch. “But I didn’t really know what my place in tech would be.”

It turns out “that actor” is Ashton Kutcher, widely known in Hollywood and beyond for his role in several blockbusters and the TV sitcom That ’70s Show, and respected in Silicon Valley for his investments via Sound Ventures and A-Grade in Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, Bird and several others.

Ne-Yo, for his part, is known for a string of R&B hits including So Sick, One in a Million and Because of You. His latest album, Good Man, came out in June.

Ne-Yo, like Kutcher, is interested in pursuing a side gig in investing but he doesn’t want to waste time chasing down the next big thing. His goal, he explained, is to use his wealth to encourage people like him to view software engineering and other technical careers as viable options.

“Little black kids growing up don’t say things like ‘I want to be a coder when I grow up,’ because it’s not real to them, they don’t see people that look like me doing it,” Ne-Yo said. “But tech is changing the world, like literally by the day, by the second, so I feel like it just makes the most sense to have it accessible to everyone.”

Last year, Ne-Yo finally made the leap into venture capital investing: his first deal, an investment in Holberton School, a two-year coding academy founded by Julien Barbier and Sylvain Kalache that trains full-stack engineers. The singer returned to San Francisco earlier this month for the grand opening of Holberton’s remodeled headquarters on Mission Street in the city’s SoMa neighborhood.

Holberton, a proposed alternative to a computer science degree, is free to students until they graduate and land a job, at which point they are asked to pay 17 percent of their salaries during their first three years in the workforce.

It has a different teaching philosophy than your average coding academy or four-year university. It relies on project-based and peer learning, i.e. students helping and teaching each other; there are no formal teachers or lecturers. The concept appears to be working. Holberton says their former students are now employed at Apple, NASA, LinkedIn, Facebook, Dropbox and Tesla.

Ne-Yo participated in Holberton’s $2.3 million round in February 2017 alongside Reach Capital and Insight Venture Partners, as well as Trinity Ventures, the VC firm that introduced Ne-Yo to the edtech startup. Holberton has since raised an additional $8 million from existing and new investors like daphni, Omidyar Network, Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang and Slideshare co-founder Jonathan Boutelle.

Holberton has used that capital to expand beyond the Bay Area. A school in New Haven, Conn., where the company hopes to reach students who can’t afford to live in tech’s hubs, is in development.

The startup’s emphasis on diversity is what attracted Ne-Yo to the project and why he signed on as a member of the board of trustees. More than half of Holberton’s students are people of color and 35 percent are women. Since Ne-Yo got involved, the number of African American applicants has doubled from roughly 5 percent to 11.5 percent.

“I didn’t really know what my place in tech would be.”

Before Ne-Yo’s preliminary meetings with Holberton’s founders, he says he wasn’t aware of the racial and gender diversity problem in tech.

“When it was brought to my attention, I was like ‘ok, this is definitely a problem that needs to be addressed,’” he said. “It makes no sense that this thing that affects us all isn’t available to us all. If you don’t have the money or you don’t have the schooling, it’s not available to you, however, it’s affecting their lives the same way it’s affecting the rich guys’ lives.”

Holberton’s founders joked with TechCrunch that Ne-Yo has actually been more supportive and helpful in the last year than many of the venture capitalists who back Holberton. He’s very “hands-on,” they said. Despite the fact that he’s balancing a successful music career and doesn’t exactly have a lot of free time, he’s made sure to attend events at Holberton, like the recent grand opening, and will Skype with students occasionally.

“I wanted it to be grassroots and authentic.”

Ne-Yo was very careful to explain that he didn’t put money in Holberton for the good optics.

“This isn’t something I just wanted to put my name on,” he said. “I wanted to make sure [the founders] knew this was something I was going to be serious about and not just do the celebrity thing. I wanted it to be grassroots and authentic so we dropped whatever we were doing and came down, met these guys, hung out with the students and hung out at the school to see what it’s really about.”

What’s next for Ne-Yo? A career in venture capital, perhaps? He’s definitely interested and will be making more investments soon, but a full pivot into VC is unlikely.

At the end of the day, Silicon Valley doesn’t need more people with fat wallets and a hankering for the billionaire lifestyle. What it needs are people who have the money and resources necessary to bolster the right businesses and who care enough to prioritize diversity and inclusivity over yet another payday.

“Not to toot the horn or brag, but I’m not missing any meals,” Ne-Yo said. “So, if I’m going to do it, let it mean something.”

As with many crowdsourced issues, experiences vary. In most cases, the iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max begins charging once the user wakes the device by tapping or raising the screen. However, some users report having to both wake the iPhone and disconnect and reconnect the Lightning cable to get a charge.

In rarer cases, the iPhone stops responding entirely at some point after a Lightning cable is plugged in while the screen is turned off.

Lewis Hilsenteger demonstrated the issue on his popular YouTube channel Unbox Therapy today by plugging a Lightning cable into one iPhone X, four iPhone XS, and four iPhone XS Max units. While the iPhone X began to charge, it appears two of the iPhone XS units and three of the iPhone XS Max units did not.

Some users have speculated the issue could be related to USB Restricted Mode, introduced in iOS 11.4.1, which prevents an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from communicating with USB accessories via the Lightning connector if one hour or longer has passed since the device was last unlocked.

However, while USB Restricted Mode is enabled by default in iOS 12, Hilsenteger and others say disabling the feature does not help. Apple also has a support document that ensures “your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch charges as usual when it’s connected to a USB power adapter” with the feature toggled on.

In the YouTube comments on the Unbox Therapy video, some users claim to be experiencing the same issue on older iPhones and iPads, so there is a decent chance this is a software issue that could be addressed in a future iOS 12 update. In the meantime, there does not appear to be a workaround.

If you are affected by this issue, we recommend contacting Apple Support. Apple frequently passes on device information and diagnostics to its engineering teams to address potential bugs like these, so all feedback helps.

Apple did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but we’ll update this article if we receive any information.

Google’s big hardware event, scheduled for October 9, is expected to feature the new Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL phones. But now we know that Google will probably reveal a third-generation model of Chromecast, thanks to one recent Best Buy customer who discovered the device on store shelves.

Whoops.

“GroveStreetHomie” detailed his experience on a Reddit post entitled “I think I bought the 3rd gen Chromecast too early.”

According to the Reddit post, the customer went to Best Buy earlier to pick up a Chromecast for a new TV. That’s when “GroveStreetHomie” noticed the packaging and design was different from an earlier version.

The cashier wasn’t able to scan the item because it wasn’t in the system yet. The release date was labeled October 9 — the same day as the 2018 Google hardware event.

“But since I already had it in my hand and was the same price as the 2nd generation Chromecast, they let me have it under the old SKU,” the post read.

This new unannounced Chromecast is apparently thicker than the second-generation model. The Chrome logo has been replaced with Google one. The new device still has a micro-USB. The HDMI connector on the tip and base has been removed, according to the user.

If you also found yourself logged out of Facebook on Friday, you are not alone.

Facebook forced more than 90 million users to log out and back into their accounts in response to a massive data breach.

On Friday afternoon, the social media giant disclosed that some unknown hackers managed to exploit three vulnerabilities in its website and steal data from 50 million users and that as a precaution, the company reset access tokens for nearly 90 million Facebook users.

We covered a story yesterday based upon the information available at that time.

Facebook Hack: 10 Important Updates You Need To Know About

However, in a conference call [Transcript 1, Transcript 2] with reporters, Facebook vice president of product Guy Rosen shared a few more details of the terrible breach, which is believed to be the most significant security blunder in Facebook’s history.

Here’s below we have briefed the new developments in the Facebook data breach incident that you need to know about:

1.) Facebook Detected Breach After Noticing Unusual Traffic Spike — Earlier this week, Facebook security team noticed an unusual traffic spike on its servers, which when investigated revealed a massive cyber attack, that had been ongoing since 16 September, aimed at stealing data of millions of Facebook users.

2.) Hackers Exploited Total 3 Facebook Vulnerabilities — The hack was accomplished using three distinct bugs of Facebook in combination.

The first bug incorrectly offered users a video uploading option within certain posts that enables people to wish their friends ‘Happy Birthday,’ when accessed on “View As” page.

The second bug was in the video uploader that incorrectly generated an access token that had permission to log into the Facebook mobile app, which is otherwise not allowed.

The third bug was that the generated access token was not for you as the viewer, but for the user that you were looking up, giving attackers an opportunity to steal the keys to access an account of the person they were simulating.

3.) Hackers Stole Secret Access Tokens for 50 Million Accounts — The attackers walked away with secret access tokens for as many as 50 million Facebook users, which could then be used to take over accounts.

Access Tokens “are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook, so they don’t need to re-enter their password every time they use the app.”

4.) Your Facebook Account Password Has Not Been Compromised, But, Wait! — The good news is that the attack did not reveal your Facebook account passwords, but here’s the bad news — it’s not even required.

An application or an attacker can use millions of secret access tokens to programmatically fetch information from each account using an API, without actually having your password or two-factor authentication code.

5.) Hackers Downloaded Users’ Private Information Using Facebook API — Although it is not clear how many accounts and what personal information was accessed by hackers before Facebook detected the incident, the year-old vulnerabilities had left all your personal information, private messages, photos and videos wide open for hackers.

“Since we’ve only just started our investigation, we have yet to determine whether these accounts were misused or any information accessed,” the company said.

6.) Your “Logged in as Facebook” Accounts at 3rd-Party Apps/Websites Are At Risk — Since secret tokens enabled attackers to access accounts as the account holder themselves, it could have allowed them to access other third-party apps that were using Facebook login — a feature that lets you sign up for, and log in to, other online services using your Facebook credentials.

7.) Facebook Reset Access Tokens for 90 Million Accounts — In response to the massive breach, Facebook reset access tokens for nearly 50 million affected Facebook accounts and an additional 40 million accounts, as a precaution. This means that nearly 90 Million Facebook users were logged out of their accounts on Friday.

8.) Check Active Sessions on Facebook to Find If Your Account Have Been Hacked — Many Facebook users have noticed unknown IP addresses from foreign locations that apparently had accessed their account unauthorizedly.

You can head on to “Account Settings → Security and Login → Where You’re Logged In” to review the list of devices and their location that have accessed your Facebook account.

If you found any suspicious session that you never logged in, you can revoke back the access in just one click.

9.) Breach Isn’t Connected to the Hacker Who Pledged to Delete Zuckerberg’s Personal Page — Earlier this week, a Taiwanese hacker, Chang Chi-Yuang, claimed that he would demonstrate a critical zero-day vulnerability in Facebook by broadcasting himself hacking Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page on Sunday.

However, it is not clear whether the latest Facebook breach has anything to do with Chang’s hack, at least Facebook does not believe so.

Besides this, Chang Chi-Yuang Today says he canceled the stream and reported the bug to Facebook.

10.) Facebook Faces Class-Action Lawsuit Over The Massive Hack — Just after the news of the breach went public, two residents, Carla Echavarria from California and another from Virginia, filed a class-action complaint against the social media giant in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Both allege that Facebook failed to protect their and additional potential class members data from going into wrong hands due to its lack of proper security practices.

The social media giant has already been facing criticism on handling of user data and its privacy policies in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which personal data of 87 million Facebook users was sold to and misused by a data-mining firm without their consent.

Facebook has already reset account logins for tens of millions of users and is also advising affected users who had Instagram or Oculus accounts linked to their Facebook account to de-link and than link those accounts again so that the access tokens can be changed.

The vulnerabilities exploited by the hackers are fixed, and Facebook is working with the FBI to investigate the security incident, which has impacted approximately 2.5% of Facebook users of its over 2 billion user base.

Since the investigation is still in the early stages, Facebook has yet to determine whether the attackers misused the stolen access tokens for 50 million accounts or if any information was accessed.

A court in Egypt has handed a female human rights activist two years in jail over a video she posted on social media criticising the government for failing to protect women against sexual harassment.

Amal Fathy, 38, was convicted on Saturday of spreading fake news and fined 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($562), her lawyers said.

“We will challenge the ruling,” her lawyer Doaa Mustafa said, adding Fathy could pay 20,000 pounds to have her sentence suspended.

Fathy was arrested in May, days after she posted a 12-minute Facebook video expressing her anger at poor public services at a local bank, sexual harassment by a taxi driver, and over a general deterioration in living conditions in the country.

Fathy is already in detention, awaiting trial in another case in which she is accused of being a member of the now banned April 6 youth movement, which played a role in the 2011 protests that forced president Hosni Mubarak from office.

“This is injustice, unjustified and incomprehensible. We have provided all the evidence to prove that she didn’t spread false news,” said her husband, Mohamed Lotfy, a human rights activist and executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms.

“When a woman is subjected to sexual harassment and gets sentenced to two years and fined then this means we are telling all Egyptian women ‘shut your mouths …if you don’t want to go to prison’,” he said.

Amnesty International denounced the “disgraceful” verdict against Fathy, saying she has been jailed “simply for her courage to speak out against sexual harassment”.

“This is an outrageous case of injustice, where the survivor is sentenced while the abuser remains at large,” the rights group’s representative Najia Bounaim said in a statement.

#Egypt Amal Fathy is now facing a disgraceful sentence simply for her courage to speak out against sexual harassment. This is an outrageous case of injustice, she should be commended for her courage, not sentenced to prison. #freeAamalFathy https://t.co/g3HFsGGGIF pic.twitter.com/tzpmIsgdKs

— Amnesty North Africa (@AINorthAfrica) 29 September 2018

Unsafe for women

The problem of sexual harassment in Egypt gained worldwide attention during and after the 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak, when women were harassed, groped – and in some cases, beaten and sexually assaulted – during mass protests.

Some 60 percent of women in Egypt said they had been victims of some form of sexual harassment during their lives in a 2017 report from UN Women and Promundo.

A study released last year by the Thomson Reuters Foundation ranked Cairo as the most dangerous megacity in the world for women.

In 2014, the government passed a law making sexual harassment punishable by up to five years in prison, but it is not widely enforced, particularly when it comes to what are considered milder forms of street harassment.

Rights groups have repeatedly criticised Egypt’s human rights situation, saying conditions have continued to deteriorate under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who came to power in 2013 after the army overthrew president Mohamed Morsi following protests against his rule.

On Friday, 17 UN human rights experts criticised Egypt for its use of anti-terrorism laws to detain activists fighting for women’s rights and against corruption, torture and extra-judicial killings.

Egypt passed a law in July giving the state powers to block social media accounts and penalise journalists held to be publishing fake news.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

For hobbyist photographers like myself, Hasselblad has always been the untouchable luxury brand reserved for high-end professionals.

To fill the gap between casual and intended photography, they released the X1D — a compact, mirrorless medium format. Last summer when Stefan Etienne reviewed the newly released camera, I asked to take a picture.

After importing the raw file into Lightroom and flipping through a dozen presets, I joked that I would eat Ramen packets for the next year so I could buy this camera. It was that impressive.

XCD 3.5/30mm lens

Last month Hasselblad sent us the XCD 4/21mm (their latest ultra wide-angle lens) for a two-week review, along with the X1D body and XCD 3,2/90mm portrait lens for comparison. I wanted to see what I could do with the kit and had planned the following:

• Swipe right on everyone with an unflattering Tinder profile picture and offer to retake it for them
• Travel somewhere with spectacular landscapes

My schedule didn’t offer much time for either, so a weekend trip to the cabin would have to suffice.

As an everyday camera

The weekend upstate was rather quiet and uneventful, but it served to be the perfect setting to test out the camera kit because the X1D is slow A. F.

It takes approximately 8 seconds to turn on, with an additional 2-3 seconds of processing time after each shutter click — top that off with a slow autofocus, slow shutter release and short battery life (I went through a battery within a day, approximately 90 shots fired). Rather than reiterating Stefan’s review, I would recommend reading it here for full specifications.

Coming from a Canon 5D Mark IV, I’m used to immediacy and a decent hit rate. The first day with the Hasselblad was filled with constant frustration from missed moments, missed opportunities. It felt impractical as an everyday camera until I shifted toward a more deliberate approach — reverting back to high school SLR days when a roll of film held a limited 24 exposures.

When I took pause, I began to appreciate the camera’s details: a quiet shutter, a compact but sturdy body and an intuitive interface, including a touchscreen LCD display/viewfinder.

Nothing looks or feels cheap about the Swiss-designed, aluminum construction of both the body and lenses. It’s heavy for a mirrorless camera, but it feels damn good to hold.

XCD 4/21mm lens

Dramatic landscapes and cityscapes without an overly exaggerated perspective — this is where the XCD 4/21mm outperforms other super wide-angle lenses.

With a 105° angle of view and 17mm field of view equivalent on a full-framed DSLR, I was expecting a lot more distortion and vignetting, but the image automatically corrected itself and flattened out when imported into Lightroom. The latest deployment of Creative Cloud has the Hasselblad (camera and lens) profile integrated into Lightroom, so there’s no need for downloading and importing profiles. 

Oily NYC real estate brokers should really consider using this lens to shoot their dinky 250 sq. ft. studio apartments to feel grand without looking comically fish-eyed.

XCD 3,2/90mm lens

The gallery below was shot using only the mirror’s vanity lights as practicals. It was also shot underexposed to see how much detail I could pull in post. Here are the downsized, unedited versions, so you don’t have to wait for each 110mb file to load.

I’d like to think that if I had time and was feeling philanthropic, I could fix a lot of love lives on Tinder with this lens.

Where it shines

Normally, images posted in reviews are unedited, but I believe the true test of raw images lies in post-production. This is where the X1D’s slow processing time and quick battery drainage pays off. With the camera’s giant 50 MP 44 x 33mm CMOS sensor, each raw file was approximately 110mb (compared to my Mark IV’s 20-30mb) — that’s a substantial amount of information packed into 8272 x 6200 pixels.

Resized to 2000 x 1500 pixels and cropped to 2000 x 1500 pixels: 

While other camera manufacturers tend to favor certain colors and skin tones, Dan Wang, a Hasselblad rep, told me, “We believe in seeing a very natural or even palette with very little influence. We’re not here to gatekeep what color should be. We’re here to give you as much data as possible, providing as much raw detail, raw color information that allows you to interpret it to your extent.”

As someone who enjoys countless hours tweaking colors, shifting pixels and making things pretty, I’m appreciative of this. It allows for less fixing, more creative freedom.

Who is this camera for?

My friend Peter, a fashion photographer (he’s done editorial features for Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and the likes), is the only person I know who shoots on Hasselblad, so it felt appropriate to ask his opinion. “It’s for pretentious rich assholes with money to burn,” he snarked. I disagree. The X1D is a solid step for Hasselblad to get off heavy-duty tripods and out of the studio.

At this price point though, one might expect the camera to do everything, but it’s aimed at a narrow demographic: a photographer who is willing to overlook speediness for quality and compactibility.

With smartphone companies like Apple and Samsung stepping up their camera game over the past few years, the photography world feels inundated with inconsequential, throw-away images (self-indulgent selfies, “look what I had for lunch,” OOTD…).

My two weeks with the Hasselblad was a kind reminder of photography as a methodical art form, rather than a spray and pray hobby.

Reviewed kit runs $15,940, pre-taxed:

The rather convoluted bypass method was shared in a video by Jose Rodriguez, who has discovered iOS bugs in the past that Apple has subsequently fixed.

With physical access to the locked device, the attacker first asks Siri to activate VoiceOver, sleeps the device with the Side button, and then calls the iPhone using another device. Once the call screen shows up, the attacker taps the Message button, opts to create a custom message, and then taps the plus (+) icon in the top right.

Next, on the other phone, the attacker sends a text or iMessage to the target iPhone, whose screen is then double-tapped when the message notification appears. This causes an odd behavior in the UI, since it highlights the plus icon underneath.

After a short wait, the screen goes white and the notification disappears, but the VoiceOver’s text selection box is apparently still tappable and can now be used to access the Messages interface. Following multiple screen swipes, the VoiceOver is heard to say “Cancel,” which reveals the original Messages screen.

In a similarly complicated set of steps involving an invisible user menu, an attacker can eventually access a locked iPhone’s Camera Roll and other photo folders, which can then be used to add profile pictures to contact cards.

The bypass methods work on all iPhones including the iPhone XS lineup, but Apple doesn’t appear to have fixed the vulnerabilities in the latest iOS 12.1 beta. Thankfully however, all of the above can be easily prevented by disabling access to Siri from the lock screen.

Concerned users can do so by navigating to Settings > Face ID & Passcode (that’s Settings > Touch ID & Passcode on iPhones with Touch ID) and disabling the Siri toggle under the “Allow access when locked” menu.

On the face of it, the Telegram 5.0 interface looks just like the previous version, but the developers say that rebuilding the app in Swift has made it “faster, sleeker and more battery-friendly,” and has also removed a bunch of persistent bugs.

The speed improvements should be immediately noticeable, particularly when viewing animations in chat threads and syncing messages across multiple devices. At the same time, the new in-app notifications allow users to keep on top of new messages without leaving conversations. From the Telegram blog:

The new expandable in-app notifications will help you focus on whatever you’re doing in the app without having to ignore incoming messages. When a notification arrives, pull it down to open the relevant chat. When you’re done with the interruption, simply close it to get right back to what you were doing.

Elsewhere, the app now includes streaming support for audio files and improved navigation for busy chats, while the app icon message counter has been tweaked so that it no longer shows the number of unread messages in muted chats, which should make it a lot more informative.

Telegram is a free download for iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct Link]

“I’d never heard of Grenfell before. I didn’t think there were that many Muslims in Chelsea,” exclaims Abu Mumin, 48, of Eden Care, a Muslim end-of-life support charity run from a compact, green and white-walled Whitechapel office.

It’s a frantic Monday and the hallway outside clacks with rapid footsteps as doors open and close in quick succession. Mumin is bright, bubbly and dressed in a black suit. As he recounts the London Muslim community’s mobilisation during the Grenfell Tower fire on June 14, 2017, he’s joined by two female colleagues, Jusna Begum, 43, and Tahera Ayazi, 42.

When the blaze began at around 1am local time during the month of Ramadan, it was nearby Muslims, awake after tarawih night prayers, who were among the first to raise the alarm.

At around 10am the following morning, five seven-seater vans packed with food, water and blankets collected by East London Muslims eager to help arrived on the scene.

It was chaos; there was smoke and fire pluming from the burned-out tower and people everywhere. 

“At first, we didn’t know who were the victims and who were the supporters,” says Mumin.

‘I will never forget the first burial’

In the weeks and months that followed, Eden Care and the nearby Haji Taslim funeral directors played a crucial role, performing the Islamic funeral rites and burials for the 42 Muslims counted among the fire’s 72 confirmed dead.

“I will never forget the first burial I did,” says Tahera, recalling a young man whose father had died in the blaze.

“They were on the 17th or 15th floor and because his father’s got dementia he couldn’t get [him] out of the flat. He had to leave his father … When we spoke to him, you could just see a shell there. He was like somebody without a soul.”

“I’d never done children before that,” adds Jusna, a former office recruitment consultant who turned to Muslim burials after her sister’s long-fought battle with cancer.

“I didn’t see [the child] as a body, I saw her as my own.”

“I was saying, ‘She’s gone to paradise, she’s gone to Jannah.’ That’s what we believe. She was from one of the families where she’d lost her mum, dad and her baby brother. But when we [buried] her mum, she’d hugged her son and the body was melted, stuck to her.”

London’s oldest Muslim funeral directors

Muslim burials require strict protocols. A body must be committed to the ground as soon as possible – typically within 24 hours of death. It must be purified in a ritual body-washing known as ghusl and wrapped in a white shroud before funeral prayers – janazah – can be conducted, and then buried without a coffin. 

Haji Taslim, London’s oldest Muslim funeral directors, coordinated the burial process after Westminster Public Coroners began to slowly release the Grenfell bodies. 

Within strolling distance of Eden Care, Haji Taslim’s office sits sandwiched between an Islamic bookshop and the west edge of the East London Mosque. Its purpose-built rooms for washing the dead run deep under Whitechapel High Street. 

He was crying as they were bringing the five coffins out. I wasn’t looking at the coffins; I was just looking at him. I didn’t know how to speak to him. What do you say to that person?

Abu Khalid, Haji Taslim’s nephew, citing a young man who lost five family members in the Grenfell tower fires

It’s late afternoon and 40-year-old Abu Khalid, the nephew of the company’s founder, after whom it is named, has already conducted two funerals. Amid constant phone calls, he explains the spiritual significance of ghusl. 

“We’re being presented back to Allah. Before we prayer our five daily prayers we wash and prepare ourselves: Wudhu. So, this is our final bath.” 

Downstairs, two imams are performing ghusl on a recently deceased man. A plastic sheet covers his torso, lit by the bluish glow of an overhead strip light. They wash gently and attentively at high speed: neck, ears, sweeping motions across the back, stomach, legs and feet before shrouding the body. 

Haji Taslim are no strangers to tending to the dead following tragic events, having dealt with the aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings and the Ladbroke Grove rail crash in 1999. The logistics of both remained manageable for a company employing six full-time staff, with three fatalities referred to them after the crash, and five after the bombings on July 7, 2005. However, the scale of Grenfell presented major complications.

“If somebody just passed away from an incident or died at home and was at Westminster Coroners, yes, once the coroners have issued papers we could go and get a body out of the mortuary within 15 or 20 minutes,” explains Khalid. 

But with victim identification via DNA and dental records pending a full investigation, death certificates, mortuary release forms and cemetery burial orders suffered extensive delays, contradicting Islamic conventions of rapid burial and angering families. 

There were also complications with washing and shrouding bodies – many of which were merely collections of charred remains pulled from the ashes. But it was the funerals themselves which left an indelible imprint on all who helped coordinate them. 

“The funerals that really stuck out for me were the younger people in the fire,” says Khalid, citing a young man who’d lost five family members whose bodies were so badly burned they required coffin burials.

“I just sat there and I looked at him. He was crying as they were bringing the five coffins out. I wasn’t looking at the coffins; I was just looking at him… I didn’t know how to speak to him.”

“What do you say to that person?” 

Dealing with death on a mass scale

Each Islamic organisation involved in Grenfell offered their services for free, with Eternal Gardens cemetery, located in the southeast London borough of Bexley, conducting Muslim and non-Muslim burials side by side.

The etiquette of Islamic burials states that emotion should be restrained. But this became problematic with so many burials of people from different cultures and religions taking place in close proximity. 

“We had an incident where first aid had to be given because a woman fainted. She actually stopped breathing. They had to resuscitate her. Twice,” says Jusna. 

On this occasion, volunteers from the East London Mosque formed a human barrier, linking arms to screen and separate each burial.

“When you’re dealing with death on a mass scale like this, it’s a question of how you deal with it. There’s no time to educate people. There’s no time for anything,” says Tahera. “You have to be thinking on the spot.”

‘What do you tell someone whose entire world has collapsed?’

Nineteen kilometres away from Whitechapel High Street: from the fast food outlets and the crowded market stalls selling dried fish and colourful saris sits Gardens of Peace Muslim Cemetery. It’s here, on a turn-in from a sparse, windblown suburb, that 34 of Grenfell’s Muslim dead are buried. 

Gardens of Peace Muslim Cemetery: Hainault, where 34 of the 42 Muslim victims of the Grenfell Tower blaze are buried [James Rippingale/Al Jazeera]

Fig and pomegranate trees line its paths and wild geese dot the banks of a small, bubbling stream. Mohamed Omer, 61, an eloquent, unassuming man with a warm demeanour and the cemetery’s head trustee, conducted 32 of the burials personally. 

“Were there challenges? Yes. Lots of challenges. The first was trying to keep the press and media out,” he says turning his palms upwards. 

When burying multiple family members, there were also major concerns that graves dug next to each other would collapse. 

“The biggest challenge was that we had already buried a few of the families from Grenfell when we were struck with another tragedy: The Finsbury Park murder,” he says, referring to a van attack outside a north London mosque on June 19, 2007, that left one man dead.

“So, we had to handle two different scenarios, but at the same level of media interest. This was something which was very difficult for us. In addition, we had normal burials which were taking place and each of them, for a family, is a tragedy. So, we had to handle all that at the same time.”

Mohammed Omer, head trustee of Gardens of Peace Muslim Cemetery [James Rippingale/Al Jazeera]

The sky clouds over as Omer walks towards the gravesites, a brisk wind bending the poplars that line the outer edges of the cemetery. 

“Was it difficult for me to handle it?” Yes, it was,” he says solemnly.

“What do you tell an individual whose entire world has collapsed? He’s lost his wife, he’s lost his two children, he’s a broken man. How do you tell that person everything will be okay? It’s not possible.”

“How do you tell a son who has just buried his parents and his brother and his sister, ‘Please have strength and patience,’ when that same individual is at the gravesite muttering, ‘Please forgive me, please forgive me.'”

“How do you come to terms with lowering a mother and placing a stillborn child who died in the fire next to her?”

Waiting for justice

He stops, pointing towards an earthen mound and small granite marker: Mohammed Alhajali, the first Grenfell victim to be buried and one of two Syrian brothers.

The grave is identical to the thousands of others stretching from the middle distance out into tiny silver specks. Behind him, the London skyline is the size of a child’s thumbnail.

Although more than a year has passed since the fire, for many the pain remains fresh. 

“One of the aunts whose niece has been buried here still has nightmares. There was one time, in the winter months, when we close as it gets dark early,” he says staring into the distance and recalling her frantic need to visit. 

“She said, ‘Uncle, I need to see the grave today. If I cannot see the grave today, I will not be able to sleep’… This is what the public does not understand: this is the real trauma that these families are going through.” 

“And the only thing they want is justice.” 

Across Europe, the far right is on the rise and it has some of the continent’s most diverse communities in its cross hairs.

To the far right, these neighbourhoods are “no-go zones” that challenge their notion of what it means to be European.

To those who live in them, they are Europe. Watch This is Europe. 

In a MacRumors forum thread and on Reddit, Apple has been accused of using a skin-smoothing feature or a “beauty filter” for prettier selfies from the front-facing camera. The effect was demoed by a Reddit user in the image below:

We covered the issue in our recent iPhone XS Max vs. iPhone X camera comparison, where we did see the smoothing effect, but the front-facing camera’s performance has garnered so much attention since then that we wanted to more prominently highlight the problem.

When taking a selfie in a situation where lighting is less than ideal, such as indoors or outdoors in areas with lower lighting, the iPhone XS Max appears to be applying a drastic smoothing effect that can hide freckles, blemishes, and other issues.

In full outdoor lighting the problem is less apparent, which has led to speculation that the skin smoothing is actually a result of some heavy-handed noise reduction techniques.

You can test the new camera yourself with an iPhone XS or XS Max and an older iPhone like an iPhone X model by taking selfies indoors and outdoors and comparing the differences between the two. In almost all cases where the lighting is low or uneven, photos captured with an iPhone XS Max look dramatically different.

It makes sense that we’d see differences between the iPhone XS and say, an iPhone 8 because the front-facing cameras are different, but as far as we know, the iPhone X and XS are using the same 7-megapixel front-facing camera. Apple detailed several changes to the rear-facing camera in the iPhone XS models, but beyond a new Neural Engine, there were no announced changes to the TrueDepth camera system.

Because the camera is the same, Apple is doing something different with the way photos are processed after being captured, which could be related to the new HDR features that have been implemented. Apple has a new A12 chip and next-generation Neural Engine that are aiding in photo processing to enable a Smart HDR feature that applies to both the rear and front-facing cameras.

Turning off HDR does not remove the smoothing effect, nor does tweaking any other camera setting, so if the ultra skin smoothing is a result of something like unintentional excessive noise reduction, it needs to be tweaked on Apple’s end through a software update. YouTuber Unbox Therapy recently demoed the issue with a series of selfies.

There has been speculation that Apple intentionally implemented the skin smoothing feature to mimic the beauty mode that’s popular in Asia and common on some other smartphones, but it’s not clear if that was Apple’s intention.

Many MacRumors readers and Reddit users have reported the issue to Apple, and given that this issue has received so much attention, we may see front-facing camera tweaks in a future iOS update.

We did a side-by-side comparison of the Apple Watch Series 4 to the original Apple Watch, the Series 1 models, the Series 2 models, and the Apple Watch Series 3 to see how far the Apple Watch has come since it was first introduced in 2015.

In our testing, we compared Apple Watch tasks like booting up, opening apps, and activating Siri to demonstrate the speed differences between each generation.

Unsurprisingly, the Series 4 was the fastest, but for a lot of tasks, there weren’t huge speed differences between the Series 4 and the Series 3.

When comparing the Series 4 to the Series 2 and older, though, you can see the impressive improvements Apple has made to the processor over the course of the last three years. While it took the Apple Watch Series 4 40 seconds to boot up, it took the Series 2 almost four minutes, the Series 1 three minutes, and the Series 0 five minutes.

When opening up apps, we didn’t see a huge difference between the Series 3 and Series 4 for most tests, but the Series 4 was always just a little bit faster. On Series 2 and older, apps took a good deal longer to open, and in some cases, like with the original Apple Watch, apps took so long we gave up.

So, what can we learn from this? You may not see major speed changes when upgrading to Series 4 from Series 3, though everything will feel snappier.

You will, however, notice an incredible difference upgrading from an original Apple Watch, Series 1 model, or Series 2 model, which makes upgrading from one of these older devices worthwhile.

In our opinion, if you’re considering upgrading from a Series 2 or earlier to the Series 4, do it. The speed changes are so drastic that using the Apple Watch Series 4 is an entirely different experience than using an older Apple Watch.

Have you upgraded to a Series 4 from an older Apple Watch model? Let us know what you think about the new device in the comments below.

US government investigators have lost a case to force Facebook to wiretap calls made over its Messenger app.

A joint federal and state law enforcement effort investigating the MS-13 gang had pushed a district court to hold the social networking giant in contempt of court for refusing to permit real-time listening in on voice calls.

According to sources speaking to Reuters, the judge later ruled in Facebook’s favor — although, because the case remains under seal, it’s not known for what reason.

The case, filed in a Fresno, Calif. district court, centers on alleged gang members accused of murder and other crimes. The government had been pushing to prosecute 16 suspected gang members, but are said to have leaned on Facebook to obtain further evidence.

Reuters said that an affidavit submitted by an FBI agent said that “there is no practical method available by which law enforcement can monitor” calls on Facebook Messenger. Although Facebook-owned WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption to prevent eavesdroppers, not even the company can listen in — which law enforcement have long claimed that this hinders investigations.

But Facebook Messenger doesn’t end-to-end encrypt voice calls, making real-time listening in on calls possible.

Although phone companies and telcos are required under US law to allow police and federal agencies access to real-time phone calls with a court-signed wiretap order, internet companies like Facebook fall outside the scope of the law.

Privacy advocates saw this case as a way to remove that exemption, accusing the government of trying to backdoor the encrypted app, just two years after the FBI sued Apple over a similar request to break into the encrypted iPhone belonging to San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook.

Neither Facebook nor the FBI responded to a request for comment.

Blok.Party, the company that built the upcoming PlayTable game console, announced today it raised $10 million in new funding. It’s also unveiling a big content partnership, where Blok.Party will create its own version of the popular board game Settlers of Catan.

I first wrote about Blok.Party and PlayTable earlier this year, when co-founder and CEO Jimmy Chen first laid out his vision to use blockchain technology to build a console that can recognize real-world objects (like figurines and cards), creating a hybrid between tabletop and video gaming.

The idea may have sounded a little abstract at the time, but it got a lot clearer when Chen dropped by the TechCrunch New York office to play a couple rounds of Catan with me.

I’ll admit that I hadn’t played in a while, but it was clear from the start that PlayTable saved us some setup time — instead of putting all the pieces of the physical board together, you play on a digital representation of the board. Most of the pieces are digitized too, and we used and traded our cards using smartphones. But there is a physical “robber” piece, because Chen said this allows the robber’s movement to remain “a very visceral experience … that a digital version can’t ever capture.”

It may not be too long before you get to try this out for yourself, at least if you’re among the 10,000 pre-orders Blok.Party has received so far. Chen said the company will start shipping its first devices this fall.

He added that Catan, like many of the other games built for PlayTable, will be priced at around $20.

“For us, it’s not about trying to compete based on price,” Chen said. “We’re trying to compete based on experience.”

The new funding comes from crypto fund JRR Capital and other investors. Chen said the company will use the money to continue scaling the product, including further software development and building out the library of games.

At the same time, he emphasized that although Blok.Party is manufacturing the initial devices, his vision is to achieve real scale through partnerships with hardware manufacturers, who will build their own PlayTable consoles. Apparently, some of those discussions are already underway.

“Our strategy is to always have [our own] hardware program running to continually do research,” Chen said. “What I’ve discovered is that keeping a hardware program running is not that expensive. The expensive part is when you try to scale the program.”

Christine Blasey Ford has accused US Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers.

According to Ford, Kavanaugh groped her and tried to remove her clothing at a party in 1982.

Kavanaugh, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in July, denies the allegations, calling them “a smear campaign”. 

Testimonies in front of the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday began at 10am (14:00 GMT) and ended around 7pm (23:00 GMT). 

Latest updates:

Flake calls for one-week delay of full vote

Republican Senator Jeff Flake called for an FBI probe into sexual assault allegations against the nominee before a final vote is held.

The concerns expressed by Republican Senator Jeff Flake could imperil the nomination if an FBI investigation is not launched.

Senate panel votes 11-10 to recommend confirmation of Kavanaugh’s nomination to full US Senate.

Vote was set to begin at 17:30 GMT

The Senate Judiciary Committee was set to begin voting on Kavanaugh at 1:30pm local time, but a number of Senators are still outside the chambers. 

Feinstein says Kavanaugh bid ‘test’ for nation

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein says the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh is “a real test” for the Senate and the nation “to see how we treat women, especially women who are survivors of sexual assault.”

The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee says that 27 years after the Clarence Thomas hearings, Republicans appear to have a new strategy for handling sexual assault allegations.

She says: “The Republican strategy is no longer ‘attack the victim.’ It is to ignore the victim.”

Feinstein says she’s disappointed the committee is set to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination less than a day after emotional testimony by Kavanaugh and Ford.

Some Democrats walk out of committee meeting in protest 

Some Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee walked out of the panel’s meeting in protest to its decision to hold a vote on whether to recommend Brett Kavanaugh for a full Senate vote. 

Judiciary Committee to vote on Kavanaugh at 17:30GMT

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on whether to recommend Kavanaugh at 1:30pm local time (17:30GMT). 

Key Republican Senator Flake says he will vote ‘yes’ 

Republican US Senator Jeff Flake on Friday said he would vote to support Kavanaugh.

“I will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh,” Flake, who has been critical of Trump and is set to retire after his current term, said in a statement.

Senate Judiciary Committee meets ahead of vote

Senators are now meeting ahead of a vote on whether to recommend Kavanaugh.

Thursday, September 27

Republicans: ‘There will be a vote’ Friday

Republican senators say the Judiciary Committee plans to vote Friday morning on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican, had said Thursday that the GOP conference would meet and “see where we are”. After meeting, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said: “There will be a vote tomorrow morning.”

Senate Republicans discussing next steps

Senate Republicans are huddling to discuss the next steps on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote Friday morning on Kavanaugh’s nomination unless Republicans decide to postpone it.

Trump calls Kavanaugh’s testimony ‘powerful’ 

As Thursday’s hearing was wrapping up, President Trump called Kavanaugh’s testimony “powerful”. 

“Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him,” Trump tweeted. “His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting,” he wrote. “Democrats’ search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist. The Senate must vote!”

Hearing adjourns

Thursday’s hearing has adjourned. Earlier in the week, the Republican-led committee scheduled a vote for Friday. The panel’s chairman, Republican Chuck Grassley, said on Twitter the vote was scheduled in line with committee rules, which require a three-day notice. He indicated however, they could still delay the vote if the panel felt it needed more time. 

“Still taking this 1 step at a time. After [hearing] Dr Ford & Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony – if we‘re ready to vote, we will vote. If we aren’t ready, we won’t,” he said in a tweet on Tuesday. 

Kavanaugh did not listen to Ford’s testimony

Kavanaugh said he didn’t watch Ford testify about her accusation that he sexually assaulted her when they were teens.

Kavanaugh was asked by Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California near the end of the hearing whether he had watched Ford’s testimony.

Kavanaugh responded: “I plan to, but I did not. I was preparing mine.”

Kavanaugh: ‘Listen to both sides’ 

When being questioned by Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kavanaugh said that senators should “listen to both sides” before making a “bottom-line” judgement. 

Booker asked if Kavanaugh wished Ford would have never come forward. He also asked, referring to Kavanaugh’s earlier statements, whether he was saying Ford’s “efforts to come forward .. have all been part of an orchestrated political hit”. 

Kavanaugh reiterated that he and his family have “no ill will towards Dr Ford”. 

He also said that “all allegations should be taken seriously”. 

Kavanaugh apologises for response to Senator Amy Klobuchar 

Kavanaugh apologised after tangling with Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar over his drinking in high school.

Klobuchar said Kavanaugh wrote in testimony that he sometimes had too many drinks. Klobuchar asked whether he ever drank so much that he couldn’t remember what happened or part of what happened the night before. Kavanaugh answered “no.”

In a back-and-forth, he added, “Have you?” and followed up a second time.

Klobuchar said: “I have no drinking problem, Judge.” Kavanaugh responded: “Nor do I.”

After returning from a break, he apologized for asking her that question.

Hearing resumes

Questioning of Brett Kavanaugh resumes.

15-minute break

During questions, a break of 15 minutes was called. Kavanaugh, who was visibly emotional, called for the break, according to a senator. 

Democrats: Why no FBI investigation?

Senator Feinstein noted Kavanaugh’s concern regarding the allegations but asked why he did not support calls for an FBI investigation. 

Kavanaugh called back to comments from his opening statement, saying he wanted to be in front of the Judicial committee the day after they were made. He said he would do what the committee wants.

Kavanaugh claims innocence, cites friendships with women

“I am innocent,” Kavanaugh told the Judiciary committee. The SCOTUS nominee said that he did not drink to the point of “blacking out”. 

Several letters signed by women whom Kavanaugh called “friends, not girlfriends” extolled Kavanaugh’s character. 

Kavanaugh said he has always supported women. If confirmed to the Supreme Court he would be first to have an all-female staff of law clerks, he said. 

Kavanaugh says calendar shows he wasn’t there

Kavanaugh entered a personal calendar from 1982, the year in which the alleged assault occurred, into the record. He claimed that the gathering where the assault allegedly happened would have taken place on the weekend. 

The calendar, Kavanaugh said, shows he was only in DC for one weekend night: Friday, June 4. He said on that day he was with his father at a professional golf tournament. 

The calendars. which Kavanaugh said served as a sort of diary, “listed the precise people” who attended events with him.  

Kavanaugh: ‘I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone’

“I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone. Not in high school. Not in college. Not ever,” Kavanaugh said. 

The SCOTUS nominee said he didn’t question that Ford had been sexually assaulted, but he was not the person responsible for her alleged assault. 

Kavanaugh blames Democrats for allegations

Kavanaugh said the allegations arose only after Democrats, who he claimed have been against him since he was nominated, were unable to disqualify him based on merits.

The allegations against him are a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled by anger against Trump.

“You’ve tried hard, you’ve given it your all,” Kavanaugh said to Democrats on the Judiciary committee, but these efforts “will not drive me out.” 

Kavanaugh begins testimony

Kavanaugh began by stressing he prepared his opening remarks himself: “This is my statement.” 

The SCOTUS nominee said that people who Ford said attended the party where she was allegedly assaulted claimed they did not know him. 

He decried the ten-day delay between the publication of the allegations and the hearing.

In that time, his “family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed by vicious and false accusations.”

Kavanaugh said the ten-day delay for a hearing was also harmful to the nation and the Supreme Court.

No more questions, 45-minute recess

Mitchell, the prosecutor to whom Republican senators ceded their time, finished her questioning of Ford. The majority of the last questions concerned Ford’s lawyers, including who was paying for their services and how she came to acquire their services. 

Ford’s legal counsel explained they were providing pro bono services and did not expect to be paid.

Mitchell told Ford she was finished with questioning.

Minutes later, one of Ford’s attorneys asked to be excused. Grassley thanked Ford for her testimony and the hearing went to a 45-minute recess.

Ford: No political motivation

As the hearing resumed, Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii asked Republicans on the Judiciary panel if they planned to cede all their time for questioning to Mitchell, the prosecutor questioning Ford. Grassley confirmed they did. 

Ford then asked Ford if there was a political motivation behind going public with her allegations against Kavanaugh.

Ford said there was not, stressing that she attempted to make her allegations known when Kavanaugh was still one name a list of possible nominees.

Mitchell then continued questioning Ford.

Hearing breaks for lunch

The Judiciary committee will reconvene after 30 minutes. 

Questions resume after break

Ford has returned to clarify her account of the alleged assault after the hearing paused for 15 minutes.

Professional prosecutor Rachel Mitchell asked Ford about the content of her therapy records concerning her memory of the assault.  

Mitchell, who is questioning Ford for the Judiciary committee, asked Ford when she underwent a polygraph test concerning her allegations against Kavanaugh. Ford explained that it happened shortly after her grandmother’s funeral.

Democrats continued to call for a full FBI investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh. Senator Grassley, the ranking Republican, said the hearing was so Ford could give testimony. 

Questioning begins

Ford’s questioning started shortly after her testimony. Ford corrected and amended portions of her statement, including the number of boys present at the house party where the alleged assault took place.

Then, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont asked Ford about the most memorable part of the attack.

Ford replied: “The laughter between the two … and their having fun at my expense”. 

Democratic senators continued to call for a full FBI investigation into allegations made against Kavanaugh while commending Ford for her bravery. 

‘Hardest weeks of my life’

“Sexual assault victims should be able to decide for themselves when and whether” their assault is made public, Ford said.

“I agonised daily about this decision throughout August and September” Ford continued, saying that her sense of duty “was always there”, even as her fears of exposure increased.

But reporters made it “clear” that her name would eventually be made public, so Ford decided to speak to a reporter with the Washington Post. 

Since her story became public, Ford has experienced an outpouring of support, she said.

At the same time, her “greatest fears have been realised,” Ford continued, detailing death threats and vile comments. “My family and I have been [living] in various secure locales, at times separated and at times together”.

“Apart from the assault itself, the past couple of weeks have been the hardest of my life”, Ford said.

Ford: I was afraid of dying

“I was pushed from behind into a bedroom … Brett and Mark came into the bedroom … I was pushed onto the bed and Brett got on top of me,” Ford continued, using Kavanaugh’s first name, Brett. 

Ford detailed the alleged sexual assault in graphic detail. “I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from yelling … I couldn’t breathe,” she claimed. 

Ford said she was afraid that Kavanaugh would accidentally kill her by suffocation. She said she could hear the two boys she alleged assaulted her laughing as they left the bedroom.

Ford begins her testimony

“I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty”, Ford began. 

Ford informed the Judiciary panel how she came to know Kavanaugh.

“When I was 14 or 15 years old … I had been friendly with a classmate of Brett’s for a short time”, which was how they met, she said. 

In the summer of 1982, Ford attended a gathering in a home that Kavanaugh also attended, she said. “I do not remember all of the details of how that gathering came together … I don’t remember as much as I would like to, but the details that have brought me here today, I will never forget.” 

‘Where we are as a country’

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the committee, described sexual assault as a ‘serious’ problem in the US that largely “goes unseen”, during her opening address. 

The problem of sexual assault reflects “where we are as a country,” she said. 

“Institutions have not progressed in how they treat women”, Feinstein said. Women are often “forced to defend themselves … re-victimized in the process”, she continued.

Feinstein recalled watching the testimony of Anita Hill, a woman who accused then SCOTUS nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual assault.

Thomas was confirmed in 1991. 

Still, “Anita Hill’s allegations were reviewed by the FBI … However, despite repeated requests, President Trump and the Republicans” have not followed this step regarding the allegations made against Kavanaugh, Feinstein said.

The hearing begins 

Ford is seated in front of the Senate panel, chaired by Senator Chuck Grassley who expressed the committee’s hope that the proceedings would be “safe, comfortable and dignified” for both Ford and Kavanaugh.

Grassley said that both Ford and Kavanaugh, as well as their families, had suffered “vile threats” due to the allegations against the SCOTUS nominee. 

Protesters gather on Capitol Hill ahead of hearing

Protesters marched to Capitol Hill on Thursday in support of Ford.  A small group of supporters were gathering in the Senate office building, while a larger protest is scheduled for 12:30pm (16:30 GMT).

Protesters from @NARAL @womensmarch @UltraViolet and more gathering in Hart Senate Office Bldg right now because GOP won’t even let the people in building whee Christine Blasey Ford testifying. pic.twitter.com/Ke8gbcM81I

— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) September 27, 2018

A group of women who support Kavanaugh also held a small rally, calling for his confirmation. 

“I don’t secretly want to see Roe v. Wade overturned, I OPENLY want to see Roe v. Wade overturned” #WomenforKavanaugh #IStandWithBrett@ConcernedWomen pic.twitter.com/VG1vWOLsG8

— Taylor Dawson (@heyyyy_tay) September 27, 2018 

Hearing set for 14:00 GMT 

Christine Blasey Ford will give her account of an alleged incident, in which she said Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a gathering when both of them were in high school.

Kavanaugh, who denies the allegations made by Ford as well as two other women who have come forward, will also testify, although he will not be in the room when Ford is speaking.

The all-male Republican majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee has hired lawyer Rachel Mitchell, who has experience prosecuting sex crimes, to question Ford.

Democratic senators will ask their own questions.

A line had begun to form outside Capitol Hill hours ahead of the hearing. 

Wednesday, September 26:

Anita Hill says #MeToo movement can create lasting change

Anita Hill said Wednesday her pivotal 1991 Senate testimony about sexual harassment by a Supreme Court nominee sparked a wave of awareness but that lasting change failed because of a lack of clear leadership and a reluctance to confront harsh realities. 

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On the eve of another hearing where a US Supreme Court nominee is facing allegations of sexual misconduct, she told a packed University of Utah audience at a preplanned lecture that the #MeToo movement has the opportunity to create long-term solutions.

However, that is going to require facing questions the nation has been reluctant to address, including the prevalence of the problem and the fact that abusers don’t always look like stereotypical monsters, she said.

“We look for simple solutions because we don’t want to deal with the hard questions,” she said. “When those simple solutions fail, too often we retreat.”

Wednesday’s hearing comes nearly 30 years after her testimony against Clarence Thomas, who was later confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Hill said that when she came forward, she was thinking about the integrity of the court and the fact that justices have lifetime appointments.

“Access to equal justice for all is what was at stake in 1991, and it’s what’s at stake now,” said Hill, now 62 and a professor at Brandeis University.

Ford to testify: ‘Assault drastically altered my life’

In her prepared opening statement for the Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Christine Blasey Ford will tell the panel’s members how the assault “drastically altered” her life. 

“I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school,” the statement, released on Wednesday, reads. 

According to the remarks, Ford will describe the events in the summer of 1982 when she said Brett Kavanaugh groped her and tried to take off her clothes. 

“I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t remember as much as I would like to. But the details about that night that bring me here today are the ones I will never forget. They have been seared into my memory and have haunted me episodically as an adult,” Ford will say. 

She will also describe the reaction she has received since coming forward. 

“I have experienced an outpouring of support,” she will explain. “At the time, my greatest fears have been realized – and the reality has been far worse than what I expected,” Ford will say. “My family and I have been the target of constant harassment and death threats. I have been called the most vile and hateful names imaginable.” 

Ford will conclude by saying the past couple of weeks have been the hardest of her life. 

“I have had to relive my trauma in front of the entire world, and have seen my life picked apart by people on television, in the media and in this body who have never met me or spoken with me … It is not my responsibility to determine whether Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court. My responsibility is to tell the truth.” 

Kavanaugh to tell Senate panel: ‘Last minute smears, pure and simple’

In his opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Brett Kavanaugh will again deny the allegations levelled against him by Christine Blasey Ford and others. 

“Over the past few days, other false and uncorroborated accusations have been aired,”  Kavanaugh will say, according to his statement, released on Wednesday. “There has been a frenzy to come up with something – anything, no matter how far-fetched or odious – that will block a vote on my nomination. These are last minute smears, pure and simple.”

Kavanaugh will tell the panel that he is there to “answer these allegations and to tell the truth”. 

“Sexual assault is horrific. It is morally wrong. It is illegal. It is contrary to my religious faith,” he will say. “Allegations of sexual assault must be taken seriously. Those who make allegations deserve to be heard. The subject also deserves to be heard.”

According to the statement, Kavanaugh will tell the committee that he “never did anything remotely resembling with Dr Ford describes”. He will add that he is “innocent of this charge.”

Trump calls allegations ‘big fat con job’

In a rare solo press conference, US President Donald Trump called the allegations levelled against Kavanaugh as a “big fat con job” orchestrated by Democrats. 

“I’ve had a lot of false charges made against me,” he said. “When I see it, I view it differently than someone sitting at home watching television.” 

Trump said, however, that he could “always be convinced”, adding that it will be “interesting to hear what she [Ford] has to say”. 

Kavanaugh calls new allegations ‘ridiculous’

In a statement on Wednesday after allegations surfaced from Julie Swetnick, Kavanaugh said: “This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don’t know who this is and this never happened.”

Third woman accuses Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct

Julie Swetnick became the third woman to accuse Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, of sexual misconduct after her lawyer tweeted a declaration of the allegations on Wednesday. 

According to the declaration, shared by lawyer Michael Avenatti, Swetnick said she met Kavanaugh and his school friend, Mark Judge, in the 1980s and attended several parties in which the two were present.

“On numerous occasions at these parties, I witnessed Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively and engage in highly inappropriate conduct, including being overly aggressive with girls and not taking ‘No’ for an answer,” she said. “This conduct included the fondling and grabbing of girls without their consent.”

Avenatti said that his client demands a “full and complete” FBI investigation into the allegations. 

Swetnick’s declaration comes a day before Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of groping her and attempting to remove her clothes when they were both teenagers, are set to give evidence in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Kavanaugh staunchly denies ever sexually assaulting anyone, and his allies have questioned the credibility of Ford and a second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, based in part on what they say is a lack of corroboration. Judge, who Ford said was present at the time of the assault, said in a letter sent to the Judiciary Committee by his lawyer that he had “no memory of this alleged incident”.