On the heels of a $100 million lawsuit threat over a celebrity nude photo hack, Google has released a statement deriding the photo leaks.
"We've removed tens of thousands of pictures — within hours of the requests being made — and we have closed hundreds of accounts," a Google spokesperson said in an email toMashable. "The Internet is used for many good things. Stealing people’s private photos is not one of them."
Lawyer Marty Singer, who says he represents about a dozen famous women affected by the hack, sent a letter to Google, saying it has not done enough to police the circulation of these photos.
"Google is making millions and profiting from the victimization of women," the letter says.
"Google is making millions and profiting from the victimization of women," the letter says.
The letter demands that Google suspend or terminate YouTube and other Google accounts hosting private celebrity images, as well as remove the images available through search engines, among more terms.
Singer's letter goes on to claim that he has contacted other websites hosting the photos, which have complied with requests for removal. Google, however, has "recklessly allowed these blatant violations to continue in conscious disregard for our clients' rights."
The images began to circulate online Labor Day weekend on sites like 4Chan and a Reddit subgroup called "The Fappening." Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and Kirsten Dunst are reportedly among the high-profile women whose photos were stolen.
The pictures were supposedly taken from hacked iCloud accounts, and Apple CEO Tim Cook has upped iCloud security in response. The fallout from the photos goes all the way up to theFBI, which — last we heard — was investigating the incident.
Heavy clashes between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk intensified on Friday in a struggle for control of the city's airport. Despite a cease-fire agreed to on Sept. 5, the strategic location has been the site of fierce fighting for weeks.
The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) said on Friday that government forces maintained control of the airport despite ongoing attacks.
Pro-Russian rebels reportedly used tanks to fire at the main terminal, which was held by government forces. An Associated Press journalist on Friday reported seeing three rebel tanks firing their cannons at the terminal. Sniper shots also rang around the area.
A video from Thursday shows the extent of the damage to the airport, considered a key strategic position in Donetsk for the rebels, who would be able to use it to resupply if they seize control. Members of the separatist militia have also captured outlying buildings that make up the airport complex.
The heavy clashes in Donetsk are not limited to the airport. Fighting has spilled over into residential areas of the city, with a shelling near a school in the Kyivsky district Wednesday leaving at least 10 people dead. A Red Cross worker died Thursday after a shell exploded close to the aid group's office in Donetsk.
Pro-Russian rebels blamed the Ukrainian government for the deadly attack, while Ukraine's foreign ministry claimed the separatist militia was at fault.
Additional reporting by The Associated Press
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Mashable is answering questions about the Ebola outbreak, which has sickened about 6,500 people in West Africa, and killed more than 3,300 to date. On Wednesday, the first case of this Ebola virus strain to be diagnosed in the U.S. took place in Dallas, Texas, after Thomas Eric Duncan contracted Ebola after traveling from Liberia, where he had helped transport a severely ill pregnant woman to a hospital.
Health officials are scrambling to identify and isolate any patients who may have come into direct contact with Duncan while he was suffering from Ebola symptoms, which is when he was contagious.
Q: What does "direct contact" even mean? What about touching a subway pole, bus seat or other surface that someone may have sneezed, coughed or sweated on? Could that spread the disease?
Ebola is only spread through direct contact with an infected person and their bodily fluids — it is not airborne. This means that even standing across the room from an Ebola patient will not likely cause you to become ill, unless you touch items the patient also touched while at a highly infectious stage of the disease.
“The safest thing anyone can do is avoid direct contact with bodily fluids of people who have Ebola, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with fluids,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.
It is extremely unlikely that a random bus, subway pole or surface in an American or European city would have been touched by a patient showing symptoms of Ebola. In fact, the odds of contracting illnesses like the measles or the common cold are much higher, considering that only a single Ebola patient has been diagnosed in the U.S. so far.
Dr. Edward Goodman, epidemiologist at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, speaks about the nature and treatment of the Ebola virus at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, on Oct. 1, 2014, in Dallas, Texas.
IMAGE: LM OTERO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, has a much more in depth section on Ebola transmission on its website.
“Ebola is not spread through the air or by water, or in general, food,” the CDC says. However, direct contact may include exposure to coughing or sneezing from an Ebola patient, even if those symptoms are not typical Ebola symptoms.
Coughing or sneezing could, in a rare instance, spread the disease, though Ebola patients typically don't suffer from those symptoms. A different CDC website says, "Although coughing and sneezing are not common symptoms of Ebola, if a symptomatic patient with Ebola coughs or sneezes on someone, and saliva or mucus come into contact with that person’s eyes, nose or mouth, these fluids may transmit the disease."
The people most at risk for contracting Ebola are healthcare workers, since they are most likely to come into close contact with infected blood or body fluids of sick patients. The virus has exacted a heavy toll among healthcare workers in Africa. “The high number of EVD infections in health-care workers (HCWs) continues to be a cause of great concern,” the WHO said in a statement on Wednesday. In all, 377 healthcare workers were infected, 216 of whom have died. The victims include some of the top hemorrhagic fever experts in West Africa.
Is it advisable to wear a surgical mask and/or gloves, especially when traveling? What else should you do to "protect" yourself?
It depends on where you're traveling. If you are traveling within, to or from one of the severely affected countries in West Africa, then avoiding touching people, even in friendly greetings, is advisable. A surgical mask and gloves would mainly be effective when working in a healthcare setting; it would do little, if any, good if you're traveling on a plane where the odds of infection are extraordinarily small.
What are the best- and worst-case scenarios that we're looking at?
In the U.S., the best-case scenario is that no new cases are diagnosed, and that Thomas Eric Duncan fully recovers. The worst-case scenario is that other cases pop up, and that several people die before the outbreak is contained.
In West Africa, things are still deteriorating, however, and the fight is a stark one: It's a future in which tens of thousands of cases occur, with thousands more still to die, or an outcome with more than a million cases, according to CDC and other projections. The outcome mainly depends on the timing and scale of international aid meant to fight the outbreak.
In fact, if the outbreak — which has been simmering since March — is not stopped soon, Ebola may become endemic to West Africa, which could cost billions to already struggling economies. This would also pose a greater threat to the U.S. and other countries, since it would provide more opportunities for isolated cases to reach beyond West Africa via air travel.
Q: Is it true that it keeps mutating? Although it's not airborne now, it could be in a future incarnation, right?
Yes, this strain of the Ebola virus, like other virus strains, mutates as it spreads. However, this is not nearly as scary as it sounds. The word "mutating" has a different meaning in biology than in pop culture, where it is often used in horror films or graphic novels.
The mutations that the virus is undergoing means there are features in its DNA that change as it goes from one person to the next. However, it does not mean there is a high chance that a mutation will lead to an airborne Ebola virus. In fact, the chances of that happening are extremely low, according to health officials, but they remain a remote possibility for as long as the outbreak continues.
One study published on Aug. 28 analyzed the genetic code of the virus strain that spread from Guinea into Sierra Leone. It found that the Ebola strains responsible for the current outbreak are distinct, with unique mutations, but that they likely have a common ancestor that can be traced to the first recorded outbreak in 1976.
Daniel J. Park, the study's co-author and computational biologist at the Broad Institute, toldMashable in August that the virus could mutate in ways that make diagnostic tests less accurate, or make the virus more virulent.
"What we know is that the virus continues to change during an outbreak. As a result, it might stumble upon evolutionary opportunities that it hasn’t experienced before," Park said. "The longer the outbreak continues, the more opportunities the virus has. Whether this will lead to changes that affect disease transmission or progression, we are unable to say."
The CDC, the WHO and individual Ebola researchers have all said it is highly unlikely that the virus will mutate in a way that will make it not only airborne, but also highly contagious.
The WHO released a statement on Friday emphasizing that Ebola cannot be spread via air.
“Following recent media reports, the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) seeks to clarify that Ebola is not an airborne disease. At this point in time, we have no evidence and do not anticipate that the Ebola virus is mutating to become airborne,” it said. The organization continued:
However, there are real risks and concerns with this outbreak: every day, more people are becoming infected and more are dying because they cannot get the care they need. Energy needs to be focused on swiftly addressing the real needs and gaps in communities affected by this disease.
The Ebola virus only spreads through contact with bodily fluids. The World Health Organization (WHO) monitors the virus closely. Viruses do mutate but it is a complex process that takes time.
Q: What exactly is it about the treatment options available that accounts for the huge differences in Ebola death rates between the U.S. and West Africa?
The main reason why the death rate is lower in the U.S. compared to West Africa is due to the chasm between the countries' health infrastructure. In addition to experimental drugs, such asZMapp, the best known treatment for Ebola is for doctors to manage patients' symptoms, such as through IV fluids to keep them hydrated. Doctors can treat some of the symptoms of Ebola, but they cannot cure the virus itself.
Because the virus causes severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, it can quickly make a patient severely dehydrated, leading to blood clotting problems and more serious complications.
Doctors in the U.S. have more more experience, as well as supplies on hand, to manage these symptoms while keeping patients isolated; whereas doctors in countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia have been struggling to keep up with the influx of patients without getting infected themselves. As The New York Times and other media outlets have reported, many patients have been left to die on the floor of crudely constructed treatment centers in Liberia because there is no available bed for them.
The health care facilities in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in particular, were decimated by years of civil war, which is why countries including the U.S., Cuba and China are working to set up more advanced treatment facilities there.
Q: What are the chances that there will be a large-scale Ebola outbreak in North America?
The chances of a large-scale Ebola outbreak in North America is extremely low, but not zero. The CDC, White House and others have all said that the American health system is prepared to identify and contain Ebola cases before the virus spreads out of control.
“We can’t make the risk zero until the outbreak is controlled in west Africa,” CDC director Tom Frieden said.
One positive aspect of the Dallas case is that epidemiologists know who “patient zero” is, and they have him in isolation. In most disease outbreaks, specialists must laboriously track the network of patients and exposed people without knowing who that initial patient was.
The Ebola rapid reaction team from the CDC, sent to Dallas on Oct. 2, 2014.
IMAGE: MASHABLE
Using genetic analysis, for example, scientists discovered months later that Ebola likely entered Sierra Leone after people were exposed at a funeral ceremony for a traditional healer — which involved touching the deceased — just over the border in Guinea. That healer had treated Ebola patients.
Q: Why did the Dallas Hospital send a patient with Ebola virus disease symptoms and a suspicious travel history home with antibiotics?
Media accounts differ on what Duncan, the Texas patient, told physicians during his initial visit to the emergency room, and what doctors could see in his electronic-records file. The hospital has said there was an error in the electronic records that prevented doctors from making the link between Duncan's symptoms and his travel history.
Q: Is the CDC prepared for a serious outbreak? What is in place to address this situation if it escalates?
The CDC says it is part of a “whole government approach” to protect the American public from Ebola. It is working with other government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, as well as the WHO, to coordinate its work, and has activated its emergency operations center. The CDC has deployed more than 100 personnel to West Africa and a team of at least 10 experts to Dallas.
The experts in Dallas amount to an Ebola rapid-reaction force, and is comprised of five “disease detectives,” a public health advisor and three senior scientists.
“The CDC experts will help ensure that proper infection control procedures are followed, and monitor healthcare workers treating or attending to the patient. Long experience shows that these tried-and-true core public health interventions stop the spread of Ebola,” the CDC says on its website.
"We are stopping Ebola in its tracks in this country," Frieden said. "We can do that because of two things: strong infection control that stops the spread of Ebola in health care; and strong core public health functions to trace contacts, track contacts, isolate them if they have any symptoms and stop the chain of transmission. I am certain we will control this."
In cooperation with other agencies, the CDC held practice exercises to prepare for an outbreak of a highly communicable disease in the U.S., such as a flu pandemic. Outbreaks of other diseases in recent years has helped the public health system shore up its weak spots, including SARS and MERS.
So, there are protocols in place for dealing with Ebola if it escalates, although they have never been fully tested in the real world. As the mistakes made at the Dallas hospital illustrate, the health care system in the U.S. is not perfect.
One factor that affects the government's readiness to face Ebola is recent budget cuts. The CDC, like other government agencies, has seen budget cuts that have affected its operations in recent years. The across-the-board cuts enacted in fiscal year 2013, known as budget sequestration, forced the agency to reduce funding for "Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases" — the heading that Ebola falls under — by $13 million, to $344 million. Also hit was "Public Health Preparedness and Response," which was cut by $98 million.
U.S. President Barack Obama's budget proposal for fiscal year 2015 would boost the agency's budget by $45 million for strengthening lab networks that can diagnose Ebola and other emerging disease threats, according to Senate testimony in September by Beth Bell, director of the CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.
Q: How are hospitals and clinics getting the best and most up-to-date care instructions for treating infected or exposed patients?
The CDC has sent a team to Dallas to help treat Duncan, and assist in contact-tracing efforts, which is the process of tracking down people who he may have had contact with. This incident will also raise awareness throughout the U.S. medical system, simply by being a major news story. But beyond that, the CDC is taking additional steps to reach out to healthcare providers by providing advisory guidelines and information resources online.
IMAGE: MASHABLE
Specifically, the CDC, along with state, city and local health agencies, are alerting staff at hospitals to be on the lookout for patients with Ebola symptoms who have traveled to affected areas in West Africa. The CDC is advising doctors "to consider Ebola if symptoms present within three weeks of a traveler returning from an affected area."
Q: How does the education aspect for Ebola (i.e. practices, procedures, manuals) differ from other infectious diseases, such as malaria, swine flu/avian flu, meningitis and so on?
The education aspect does not differ much from these other diseases, except to clarify that Ebola is only spread through direct contact to patients and their bodily fluids. Also, the disease has different symptoms than meningitis or malaria, for example, although it may first seem flu-like.
Q: If you survive an Ebola infection, are you immune to it?
A: Likely yes, you are, but no one knows for how long. What's more, recovered patients may only have immunity to this particular strain of Ebola, making them susceptible to other strains in the future. Because so few Ebola cases have been witnessed (this is by far the largest outbreak on record), the intricacies of acquired immunity have not been thoroughly studied.
Q: What guidance is the CDC providing to airlines to prepare them for dealing with Ebola patients?
The CDC issued guidance for airlines, stating that federal law authorizes them to deny boarding to a passenger they suspect of having Ebola symptoms.
“A U.S. Department of Transportation rule permits airlines to deny boarding to air travelers with serious contagious diseases that could spread during flight, including travelers with possible Ebola symptoms,” the CDC says. “This rule applies to all flights of U.S. airlines, and to direct flights (no change of planes) to or from the United States by foreign airlines.”
The CDC also tells airlines how to treat someone if they become sick during the flight.
“The risk of spreading Ebola to passengers or crew on an aircraft is low because Ebola spreads by direct contact with infected body fluids. Ebola does NOT spread through the air like flu,” the CDC says on its website.
“Even if the person has been in a country with Ebola, cabin crew won’t know for certain what type of illness a sick traveler has. Therefore, cabin crew should follow routine infection control precautions for all travelers who become sick during flight, including managing travelers with respiratory illness to reduce the number of droplets released into the air. If in-flight cleaning is needed, cabin crew should follow routine airline procedures using personal protective equipment available in the Universal Precautions Kit.”
Inside the Redemption Hospital which has become a transfer and holding center to intake Ebola patients located in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Monrovia that locals call "New Kru Town" on Sept. 20, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia.
IMAGE: MICHEL DU CILLE/THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES
DETROIT — General Motors announced two more recalls Friday, pushing its total for the year to 71, affecting almost 30 million vehicles in North America.
The biggest of the new recalls covers just over 430,000 Cadillac SRX and Saab 9-4X SUVs, mainly in North America. The company says some rear suspension nuts may not have been tightened properly. That could cause the toe link adjuster to separate from the suspension, possibly causing a crash.
Another covers the Chevrolet Spark mini car because the hoods can unexpectedly fly open.
GM also confirmed Friday that it has told dealers to stop selling Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickup trucks that went on sale about two weeks ago until an air bag problem is repaired.
The SUV recall covers SRXs from the 2011 through 2015 model years and Saabs from the 2011 and 2012 model years. GM says the problem has caused three crashes and two injuries.
Dealers will inspect the SUVs and install a new assembly if needed. Unsold SRXs are being checked to make sure the nuts are tightened properly.
The other recall covers nearly 94,000 Chevrolet Spark mini-cars from 2013 through 2015 in the U.S. and Canada. Rust can cause a secondary hood latch to stick, and the hood can open unexpectedly, blocking the driver's vision and causing a crash. GM says it knows of no crashes or injuries from the problem.
Dealers will replace the latch when parts are available. GM has told dealers not to sell about 13,000 cars on their lots until the repairs are made.
On the pickup trucks, spokesman Alan Adler said dealers nationwide were told Thursday to stop selling them because the air bags weren't wired properly at the factory in Wentzville, Missouri. A recall is pending. The company is still working on a remedy, which may be a software update, he said.
Most of the trucks remain on dealer lots or at the factory, but GM reported that it sold 47 last month, according to Autodata Corp. GM says that because of the problem, driver air bags won't work as designed.
GM is calling customers and sending out FedEx letters to notify them, and it's offering free loaner vehicles while repairs are being made. The company knows of no crashes or injuries from the problem.
The stop-sale order was first reported Friday by the trade publication Automotive News.
The new trucks are an important launch for GM, which is re-entering a market that Detroit had ceded to Toyota and Nissan. At an investor event this week, a GM executive said the company expects the trucks and the new Chevrolet Trax subcompact SUV to boost annual sales by about 200,000.
The spate of recalls, while troubling for the company, also shows a willingness to address safety problems quickly. GM was fined the maximum $35 million by U.S. safety regulators earlier this year for the delayed recall of 2.6 million older small cars with faulty ignition switches. The problem caused crashes that are responsible for at least 23 deaths. GM has admitted knowing about the problem for more than a decade yet it failed to recall the cars until February of this year.
General Motors Co. shares edged up 43 cents, or 1.3% to $33.61 in midday trading Friday. Its shares had fallen almost 19% so far this year through Thursday's close.
Pictures from space show that fall is in full swing in parts of North America. Clusters of trees have shed their summer greens in favor of autumnal oranges and reds around the Great Lakes and New England.
NASA's Terra satellite went leaf peeping last week from its perch about 438 miles (705 kilometers) above the planet.
The Earth-watching satellite captured the fall colors spreading around the Great Lakes on Sept. 26 and New England on Sept. 27 using its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS. The images were released Sept. 30 by NASA's Earth Observatory.
As the Earth Observatory notes, the brown and orange hues are currently most prominent in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, northern Wisconsin, upstate New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and southern Quebec and Ontario. The images also show traces of phytoplankton blooms in the Great Lakes and off the North Atlantic coast.
Fall officially began Sept. 22 with the autumnal equinox. Chillier temperatures and shorter days cause leaves to quit producing chlorophyll, the green-tinted pigment that allows plants to capture sunlight and make energy.
With chlorophyll out of the picture, other pigments in the leaves have a chance to shine. Carotenes and xanthophyll pigments appear yellow to orange. Meanwhile, fiery reds and deep purple leaf colors come from anthocyanins, which are exclusively produced in the fall in response to stress. These pigments act like sunscreen for leaves, blocking out damaging radiation and providing protection from excess light.
A satellite view of fall colors around New England.
A tree's fall wardrobe depends on its species. The U.S. Forest Service notes that oaks tend to turn red, brown or russet, while hickories go golden bronze. Red maples turn scarlet, sugar maples change to orange-red and black maples go yellow.
Climate change might affect the way leaf-peeping season shakes out in the future. Simulations featured in the Climate Change Tree Atlas show how some populations of fall favorites might shift. Sugar maples, for example, might be nudged from New England to Canada as their suitable habitat in the U.S. shrinks over the next century.
Climate change might also postpone the onset of leaf-color changes and leave fall hues lingering later into the year. For instance, the paper birch tree in New Hampshire might change color 1 to 3 weeks later by the end of the century, a recent study from Princeton University found.
The worst thing about autumn is, of course, that Nelly's "Hot in Here" no longer applies to your life.
So Australian pop-punkers 5 Seconds of Summer stopped by The Tonight Show on Thursday to help us out. They performed rewritten lyrics to popular songs that fans had tweeted to Jimmy Fallon, giving Blink-182, Jay-Z and System of a Down a pumpkin-infused makeover.
The first trailer for Laverne Cox's upcoming MTV documentary shows the triumphs and challenges of growing up as a young trans person in the United States.
The film, titled Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, follows the lives of seven transgender youths as they tackle dating, family and the dangers that face the trans community.
According to MTV, the documentary features youths from cities across the U.S. ranging in age from 12 to 24 years old.
Among the stars of the documentary is 12-year-old Zoey, who is navigating life at a new school in California after school administrators refused to acknowledge her as a girl. Viewers will also meet Ari, an 18-year-old starting out on his first college campus.
Cox, who is best known or her role as Sophia Burset on Orange is the New Black and as an activist for transgender issues, is a host and producer of the documentary. She and MTV News correspondent SuChin Pak are also set to host an hour-long "Trans-Forum" immediately following the premiere, where they will field questions from audience members and viewers on social media.
Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word premieres on both MTV and LOGO on Oct. 17 at 7:00 p.m. E.T.
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