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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla YouTube Leaks Tease Iron Man Suit

Assassin's Creed Valhalla YouTube Leaks Tease Iron Man Suit

Eivor in an Iron Man suit shoots a laser beam.

screenshot: Ubisoft / Andy Reloads

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla dataminers recently discovered files of an Iron Man skin that shoots a Unibeam from the chest. The skin is currently not available in Ubisoft’s digital store, but fans are hoping that it gets released sometime in the future.

The armor was found by an Assassin’s Creed dataminer named Pedder, who previously mined DLC information from the game files that later proved to be accurate. the Youtube videos show a red-and-yellow armor set that shoots a laser beam from the chest and a similar looking white variant. The Unibeam can be activated with the “Battlecry” ability in Valhalla. The pack also includes a mechanical raven, a mount, and two swords.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Update – NEW ‘Star Wars’ Advanced Mechanical Armor Set Found!

This isn’t the first time that Marvel-related Assassin’s Creed cosmetics have surfaced. Previously, Andy showed off a video of a Thanos skin called “Master of Elements.” This unreleased skin includes colorful gem-studded gloves that activate a different ability every few seconds. Some fans are a little disappointed Ubisoft hasn’t actually released any of these skins—or even confirmed their existence. Kotaku reached out to Ubisoft about whether or not these skins will be released, but was not able to obtain a comment at the time of publication.

A Marvel collab wouldn’t even be the most unusual crossover to appear in the Assassin’s Creed series. back when Origins was still getting updates, players could stumble upon a final-fantasy Easter egg in ancient Egypt. Iron Man’s robot mount may be a little out there for medieval England, but I’d say that the Chocobo mount was far more jarring to ride into the desert sands. Assassin’s Creed‘s Fortnite-ification continues.

Despite Ubisoft’s troubles with delays and cancellations, Valhalla has enjoyed a relatively robust release schedule. This spring, the publisher launched the major dawn of ragnarok expansion, which added a ton of Norse mythology quests to the already-massive open world RPG. Ubisoft has released a Valhalla expansion every year since the game’s initial release, and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. So I’m not too bothered if the developers spend a little more time tweaking the skins that absolutely no one was even expecting from a viking game.

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US

Former Puerto Rico governor arrested by FBI, her attorney says

Former Puerto Rico governor arrested by FBI, her attorney says

One of her attorneys, Peter John Porrata, told CNN Vazquez will plead not guilty to the charges. She was released on bond after a brief hearing Thursday.

“I am innocent and a great injustice has been committed,” Vázquez told reporters after her release. “I have committed no crime.”

A onetime political consultant for Vázquez and the president of an international bank have pleaded guilty to participating in the bribery scheme, according to a DOJ statement.

A former FBI agent and the owner of the international bank that operated in San Juan also participated in the alleged scheme, federal officials say.

From December 2019 through June 2020, the 62-year-old former governor allegedly conspired in a scheme to finance her gubernatorial campaign, according to the DOJ.

Puerto Rico Fast Facts

Vázquez allegedly received more than $300,000 from two businessmen to finance political consultants during her campaign, Stephen Muldrow, US Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico, told reporters Thursday.

Vazquez and others are charged with conspiracy, federal bribery programs and honest services wire fraud.

The ex-governor, who is named in three of seven counts in an indictment, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

“The alleged bribery scheme rose to the highest levels of the Puerto Rican government, threatening public trust in our electoral processes and institutions of governance,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. said in a statement.

The bribes were allegedly paid in exchange for Vázquez making an appointment to the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions that benefited businessmen involved in the scheme, Muldrow said.

The indictment alleged the owner of the international bank and his consultant — the former FBI agent — agreed to provide funding for Vázquez’s campaign in exchange for her replacing the island’s top bank regulator with one of their choosing. At the time, the bank was the “subject of an examination” by the regulatory agency, federal prosecutors say.

Muldrow said the island’s current governor, who defeated Vázquez in an election, was not involved in the scheme.

A former Secretary of Justice, Vázquez served as governor of the US territory from 2019 to 2021. Her appointment came after disgraced former governor Ricardo Rosselló was forced to step down following islandwide protests against his government.

She became Secretary of Justice in January 2017 — with a mandate that included fighting corruption on the island — and was an ally of Rosselló.

In 2018, Vazquez came under fire for allegedly intervening on behalf of her daughter in a case stemming from a home theft. She faced charges of violating government ethics laws. But a judge later ruled there was insufficient evidence to arrest her.

Arrest affects ‘the confidence of our people’

Vázquez’s brief tenure as governor was contentious.

Her ties to the disgraced former governor brought scrutiny. Critics accused her of failing to open investigations against members of her own party de ella, particularly Rosselló and his administration’s handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017.

In January 2020, Puerto Ricans poured onto the streets of San Juan calling for her resignation after Hurricane Maria supplies were found in a warehouse in the city of Ponce, more than two years after the storm.

Later that year, Puerto Rican officials confirmed Vásquez was being investigated for suspicion of mishandling resources meant to mitigate earthquake damage on the island.

Mayra Velez Serrano, a professor of political science at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras, said Thursday that many people on the island were shocked at the arrest but not entirely surprised.

Supreme Court rules Puerto Ricans don't have constitutional right to some federal benefits

“That the former Justice Secretary … and ex-governor, who is married to a judge, that she was involved in anything like this and that she was arrested is still shocking,” Velez said. “This continues to undermine the public’s confidence in the political system and their politicians and the two main parties.”

Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, who was elected governor after defeating Vásquez in a primary election, said Thursday, “Under my administration there is zero tolerance for corruption.”

“Today we see once again that no one is above the law in Puerto Rico,” Pierluisi, a member of the same pro-commonwealth party as Vásquez, said in Spanish via Twitter.

The arrest “certainly affects and lacerates the confidence of our people,” the governor said.

“I reiterate that in my administration we will continue to have a common front with the federal authorities against anyone who commits an improper act,” said the governor.

“Wherever it comes from and whoever it may implicate, as well as promoting initiatives and following up on the bills that I have presented to combat corruption,” he said.

In 2019, Rosselló handpicked Pierluisi as his successor.

His short-lived tenure came to an end after just five days when Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court declared his governorship unconstitutional.

Vázquez was subsequently sworn in. “In light of the decision by the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, I must step aside and support the Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico,” Pierluisi had said in a statement at the time.

Pierluisi then won the election for the seat in November 2020.

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Technology

What to know about the merger

ap-google-meet

As some of the best tech companies evolve, the features they offer through products and services tend to overlap. Google is all too familiar with this and the requisite countermeasures. After building out its consumer and business products as separate projects, some duplication was not to be avoided. But the company is backtracking on this big divide. In a long-anticipated change, Google Duo is on the way to become Google Meet, merging all useful features from both platforms into one. Here is what you need to know, and what timeline you can expect.

ANDROID POLICE VIDEO OF THE DAY

The tech titan announced the Duo-Meet merger in June. In July, the signs of the impending change began showing up in Duo. Then, things started moving fast, with every user now seeing indications in the form of a banner in Duo. Following this banner, Google has confirmed that starting August 3, an app update for Duo users on Android and iOS is changing the app’s icon and label to Meet.

Forseeing the need for help and clarifications during this change, Google’s support documentation for the transition is up already.

Duo on Android and iOS will show you a banner on its home screen explaining the changes, so you don’t go on a wild goose chase for Duo in your app drawer. To further reduce the confusion, Google has prepared distinguished app icons seen below — if you see the old blue one for Duo, the merger hasn’t updated your app. If it has, you’ll see the multicolored Meet logo instead. In the rare instance where you are a Duo user who also installed the original Meet app, Google says the next update for the latter will give it a green icon.


If you still see the Duo icon, but the app has all of Meet’s features, you just need to go to the home screen prompt and accept the changes. If you don’t see the Meet features, but you’re sure you updated the app, you may need to sign in with a different Google account — those who set up Duo with a phone number only cannot access Meet features. Meanwhile, if you have been using the original Meet app for online interactions, you won’t get Duo calling features right away, but Google says they’ll arrive eventually, and you can use the app normally until then.

For web users, Duo will be upgraded to Meet, but will retain its current capabilities. In the next few months, the company says the Duo website will redirect users to the one for Meet.

The rollout is phased, so the new app icon and rebranding may not be visible to everyone right away. Come September, the transition should be complete, so anyone looking up Google Meet on the Play Store and Apple App Store, will be redirected to the updated Meet app instead.


In an effort to make Google Workspace apps and those for individual users less separate, Google also recently killed off Hangouts and integrated Google Chat with Gmail. It is clear that the company wants to move to a more unified look and feel across its different services.

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US

‘The View’ names Alyssa Farah Griffin, Ana Navarro as new co-hosts for Season 26

'The View' names Alyssa Farah Griffin, Ana Navarro as new co-hosts for Season 26

“The View” announced Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro as co-hosts on the panel.

Live on the Emmy Award-winning daytime talk show, the two Republicans were welcomed as co-hosts. They join moderator Whoopi Goldberg, and co-hosts Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines.

After making 29 appearances throughout Season 25, Farah Griffin will fill the conservative seat at the Hot Topics table. The communications strategist served as the top spokesperson for the president, vice president and secretary of defense from 2017-2020, making her the only person ever to hold each of these positions. She’s also the recipient of the Secretary of Homeland Security’s Award for Distinguished Public Service and serves on the board of the American Conservation Coalition.

“I couldn’t be more honored and thrilled to join the ladies of ‘The View,’” Farah Griffin told ABC News. “The show paved the way for women speaking up and speaking out on TV.”

“At a time when our country is so divided, often on partisan lines, I’m honored to represent the conservative perspective,” she continued. “I hope to model what is too often lost by our elected leaders: learning from others, disagreeing respectfully, and focusing on finding real solutions for our country.”

Following the on-air announcement of her new seat at the Hot Topics table, Farah Griffin shared her thoughts on the role.

“If anyone had ever told me I’d be sitting at a table with Whoopi Goldberg, I would have said, ‘You are crazy.’ It is such an honor to be with you ladies every day on this set, and it’s particularly exciting for me today,” Farah Griffin said on “The View” Thursday. “I was trying to come up with the word to describe how I feel about this, and ‘honored’ is all that comes to mind.”

She went on to explain how the last few years of her life had “been a bit turbulent” for her. “I worked for an administration that I ended up speaking out against fervently and continue to daily. That changes a lot in your life. I lost a lot of friends. I’m estranged from family members, but I have to say this, I am so proud to have found my voice. I was, you know, a president’s spokesperson, I was a vice president’s spokesperson, I was way too many Republican men’s of Congress spokesperson, but now it is my voice.”

“Listen, it’s going to get sporty sometimes, but I adore you women,” she continued. “Thank you ladies, and thank you to the whole ‘View’ team. I’m so excited.”

Navarro is officially a co-host after joining the show in 2015 for Season 19 as a contributor and making recurring appearances on the panel since November 2018 as a guest co-host. A political strategist, she is a Republican commentator with expertise on Latin America, Florida and Hispanic issues.

While the show is based in New York City, Navarro will continue to commute from her home in Coral Gables, Florida, where she lives with her husband, Al Cardenas, and their miniature poodle, Chacha.

“’The View’ is an institution and incomparable platform for women of different backgrounds to share their opinions and insights. It’s been a long courtship, but we’re finally making it official,” Navarro told ABC News. “I love being on the show, and I love living in Miami. I’m happy I will be able to do both. Thank you to ABC News, ‘The View’ family and our loyal viewers for their continued support.”

After the official announcement of her seat at the Hot Topics table, Navarro shared her thanks with viewers and ABC.

“After many years, many hair styles, many pounds up and down, and appearances as a guest, a contributor, Snow White, a guest co-host, we’re finally putting a ring on it and making it official,” she said on Thursdays show. “I want to thank the very loyal ‘View’ fans. I’ve read you. I’ve heard you. I’ve seen you.”

“This is not the right time for me or for the show to make it full-time. I have other work commitments. I have a life. I have a husband in Miami who I thank for understanding my absences. I have a very clingy dog. I have all these things I love in Miami. Leaving all that behind every week is tough, but I also love, love, love doing this show, and I want to thank ABC, especially Brian Teta and Kim Godwin and her team, “she continued.

“Most weeks I’m on a plane at least four times a week, and I spend countless hours on plans, at airports, in hotels. Sometimes it gets lonely, but I also know it’s a huge, enormous, incomparable privilege to be part of a 25-year institution, and whether people like it or not, whether some people acknowledge it or not, it is the relevance and the importance and the platform that ‘The View’ represents,” Navarro said.

“We at this table have spent a lot of time — a lot of time — talking about representation and saying representation matters, and that means that when a little Latina immigrant girl born in Chinandega, Nicaragua, who came to this country at the age of eight as a political refugee and found her home here gets the opportunity and the chance to have a platform, you grab it with both hands, and you run with it,” she added.

News of a co-host being announced on Thursday was shared with the public, but viewers were surprised by the added announcement that named a second co-host. The panel will now consist of six seats.

Executive producer Brian Teta spoke on the decision to ABC News.

”We promised to take a little time to fill the seat and we have found the right match and a welcome addition to the show with Alyssa,” Teta said. “She is willing to share her unique political experience and brings a strong conservative perspective while holding her own de ella in tough debates with her co-hosts and guests on both sides of the aisle.”

“Ana has made an indelible impact on ‘The View’ since the first time she joined us at the table,” Teta continued. “She is a strong independent thinker with savvy insight, not to mention that she is whip-smart and fiercely funny. We are very happy to officially welcome her as a co-host.”

”The View”’s original podcast series “Behind the Table” is available for free on major listening platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, TuneIn, Audacy and the ABC News app.

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Technology

VMware: Patch this critical vulnerability immediately! (CVE-2022-31656)

VMware: Patch this critical vulnerability immediately! (CVE-2022-31656)

VMware has released fixes for ten vulnerabilities, including CVE-2022-31656, an authentication bypass vulnerability affecting VMware Workspace ONE Access, Identity Manager and vRealize Automation, which the company considers critical and advises to patch or mitigate immediately.

While there is no indication that any of these flaws is currently being leveraged by attackers in the wild, the security researcher who reported CVE-2022-31656 is planning to release a technical writeup and a POC “soon”.

About CVE-2022-31656

CVE-2022-31656 is an authentication bypass vulnerability affecting local domain users on VMware Workspace ONE Access, Identity Manager and vRealize Automation, that may allow an attacker with network access to the UI to obtain administrative access without the need to authenticate first.

“Given the prevalence of attacks targeting VMware vulnerabilities and a forthcoming proof-of-concept, organizations need to make patching CVE-2022-31656 a priority,” says Claire Tills, senior research engineer at Tenable.

“As an authentication bypass, exploitation of this flaw opens up the possibility that attackers could create very troubling exploit chains.”

She also noted that “early reports indicate that CVE-2022-31656 is actually a variant or patch bypass of CVE-2022-22972 which was patched in [May 2022].”

Petrus Viet, the researcher who discovered CVE-2022-31656, has also reported CVE-2022-31659, a SQL injection flaw that can be exploited to trigger a remote code execution. These two vulnerabilities could, for example, be concatenated in a very effective exploit chain.

Other vulnerabilities fixed in this batch of security updates include:

  • Two other CERs (CVE-2022-31658, CVE-2022-31665)
  • Three local privilege escalation flaws (CVE-2022-31660, CVE-2022-31661, CVE-2022-31664)
  • An URL injection vulnerability (CVE-2022-31657)
  • A path traversal vulnerability (CVE-2022-31662)
  • A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability (CVE-2022-31663)

Affected solutions include:

  • VMware Workspace ONE Access (Access)
  • VMware Workspace ONE Access Connector (Access Connector)
  • VMware Identity Manager (vIDM)
  • VMware Identity Manager Connector (vIDM Connector)
  • VMware vRealize Automation (vRA)
  • VMware Cloud Foundation
  • vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager

Along with the security advisory, VMware has also published a FAQ document that enterprise admins should consult to make sure they apply patches or workarounds correctly.

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US

Hungary leader Viktor Orban addresses CPAC Dallas amid ‘mixed race’ blowback

Hungary leader Viktor Orban addresses CPAC Dallas amid 'mixed race' blowback

Comment

DALLAS — Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister who has consolidated autocratic power with hard-right opposition to immigration and liberal democracy, will address an adoring crowd of thousands of Americans in Dallas on Thursday.

His speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has gone ahead despite Orban’s latest controversy: a speech in which he railed against Europe becoming “mixed race,” saying that Europeans did not want to live with people from outside the continent. One of his own close advisers resigned in protest, calling the speech “pure Nazi.”

But Orban has found defenders among prominent American conservatives, including former president Donald Trump, Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance. On his way to Dallas, Orban stopped to visit Trump at his golf club in Bedminster, NJ In a statement, Trump called Orban his “friend” from him and said he valued his perspective on him. “Few people know as much about what is going on in the world today,” Trump said.

On Wednesday, Carlson defended Orban from the negative media coverage of the speech.

“So Viktor Orban is now a Nazi because he wants national borders?” Carlson said. Carlson helped raise Orban’s US profile with a special broadcast from Budapest last year, during which he praised Orban’s Hungary as a role model for Americans.

“It’s a disgrace,” said Al Cardenas, a Republican operative who previously ran the American Conservative Union, which organizes CPAC, and has been critical of the group since then. “In the midst of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, to invite a pro-Putin leader is inexcusable.”

Matt Schlapp, who leads the American Conservative Union, has defended Orban’s invitation in the name of free speech.

“Let’s listen to the man speak,” Schlapp told Bloomberg News. “We’ll see what he says. And if people have a disagreement with something he says, they should raise it.”

Some at the convention Thursday said they were eager to hear Orban clarify his remarks on race.

“As a person who, I am mixed race, I’m in a mixed-race relationship, I would like to see what he is going to say to that, put something positive to that,” said Raven Harrison, an unsuccessful primary candidate for Congress from outside Dallas. “I’m not willing to villainize him for that at this point.”

Orban’s appearance in Dallas comes after a CPAC spinoff hosted in Hungary in May, featuring a videotaped address from Trump in which he said he was “honored” to endorse Orban’s recent reelection.

In power since 2010, Orban has come to dominate and reshape Hungary’s political system not through a Soviet-style police state but rather through constitutional changes and the weakening of civil society. He has alienated NATO allies with opposition to punishing Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine. Orban’s increasing isolation of him in Europe has added urgency to his long-running overtures of him to bolster relations with the United States through the Republican Party.

CPAC Hungary was a celebration of Orban’s policies, including its sidelining of mainstream media. Several of the outlets that applied to cover the conference were denied credentials. Schlapp said that he did not do much to change the coverage.

“I went out and gave a press conference and they still called me a white nationalist,” Schlapp recalled. “I was like, I don’t know if it does any good, if that’s what their editors are attempting on them writing.”

In his own speech at CPAC Hungary, Orban did not discuss race, and focused more on the celebration of national identity and traditional values ​​that excite American conservatives. The Hungarian leader called his country from him “the laboratory in which we tested the antidote to dominance by progressives,” listing twelve points for conservative success — from prioritizing economic growth to “expos[ing] your enemies’ intentions.”

That approach has clicked with American conservatives. Under Schlapp’s leadership, the American Conservative Union has organized more CPACs around the world and also invited right-wing populists to address the crowds in the United States.

A year before voters in Britain voted to leave the European Union, Brexit Party founder Nigel Farage got a high-profile CPAC speaking slot. Three years later, the crowd got to hear from Marion Maréchal-Le Pen’s, a politician and niece of Marine Le Pen, standard-bearer of France’s far-right party. After the 2018 election of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Schlapp’s group began holding conferences in Brazil, where politicians from the leading right-wing party discussed how to defeat a left that “denies family values.”

Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author and Republican nominee for Senate in Ohio, said at a conservative academic conference last year that the “childless left” was undermining America, and he pointed to Orban’s policy of generous tax breaks for parents who have three or more children.

“Why can’t we do that here?” Vance asked. “Why can’t we actually promote family formation?”

After Orban’s party won this year’s election, One America News anchor Jack Posobiec celebrated on a podcast hosted by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. “He stands for nationalism. He stands for borders,” Posobiec told Kirk. “He stands for sovereign national identity for his people from him, and standing up for a new type of conservatism where it’s not about tax cuts to corporations; [it’s] about taking the family unit and centering it.”

Both Vance and Posobiec will speak to the conference Friday.

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Technology

Using hand gestures can improve your experience of video calls

Using hand gestures can improve your experience of video calls

Signals, such as putting your hand over your heart to signify empathy or thumbs up to show you agree, seem to improve people’s experience of video calls more than typing words or using emojis

Technology


August 3, 2022

By Chris Stokel-Walker

Back view of a woman making video call and showing thumbs up

Giving signs like a thumbs up can make video calls feel better

Josep Suria/Shutterstock

Using simple hand gestures during video calls seems to improve people’s experience of such interactions.

Paul Hills at University College London (UCL) came up with a set of gestures after many video calls during covid-19 lockdowns. “It was born out of my frustration with [online] meetings,” says Hills – who also works as a management consultant – during a video call with New Scientist in which he uses the hand actions.

In online meetings, he began informally testing a range of gestures, including ones borrowed from his work as a volunteer lifeguard and as a mentor to an addiction support group.

Initial positive feedback prompted him to team up with Daniel Richardson at UCL and other colleagues to more formally test the signals.

The researchers arranged a randomized trial involving about 120 undergraduate psychology students at UCL and their seminar leaders who were introduced to nine gestures, which they called Video Meeting Signals.

These include putting your hand over your heart to signify empathy, thumbs up or down to show agreement or disagreement and putting your hand on your head to suggest you want to ask a question. The last of these signals, says Hills, was borrowed from the movies of Laurel and Hardy.

Half of the students were asked to use those signals in seminars done by video call, and a control group had meetings, but didn’t use the signs. Participants reported in surveys afterwards that their group affiliation felt stronger because of their use of gestures. The data suggests a 98 per cent probability that this was because of the gestures, and a 93 per cent probability that they contributed to a better personal experience.

“It seemed to be helping,” says Richardson, speaking in the same video call interview as Hills and also using some of the gestures. “It did make these conversations more efficient, people said. They felt like they were achieving their goals sooner.”

The researchers did a second experiment, in which non-students were paid for their time, which also included a third group using emojis instead of gestures. Gestures showed a similar advantage over the control group again, and also over the emoji group.

Hills and Richardson feel that gestures are better than using emojis or typed words in a text chat because of their speed – although they acknowledge that using gestures requires participants to devote their full focus to video call screens, rather than multitasking on video calls, as many people do.

Hills now runs video meeting workshops for businesses on how to use the gesture technique, for a fee.

“It is interesting to see an empirical study examining the efficacy of gesture in this space,” says Matt Wood at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK. He points out that the commercialization of the work means its results should be treated with caution. “The structure of conversation in videoconferencing appears to be important and to these ends, this paper introduces a potentially interesting framework,” he says. “But the use of gesture is not in any one researcher’s – or marketing company’s – hands.”

Journal reference: PLoS OneDOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0270399

More on these topics:

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US

Former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez charged with bribery

Former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez charged with bribery

San Juan Puerto Rico — Form Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez was arrested Thursday on bribery charges related to the financing of her 2020 campaign, the latest hit to an island with a long history of corruption that brought fresh political upheaval to the US territory.

Vázquez is accused of engaging in a bribery scheme from December 2019 through June 2020 — while she was governor — with several people, including a Venezuelan-Italian bank owner, a former FBI agent, a bank president and a political consultant.

“I am innocent. I have not committed any crime,” she told reporters. “I assure you that they have committed a great injustice against me.”

The arrest embarrassed and angered many in Puerto Rico who believe the island’s already shaky image has been further tarnished, leaving a growing number of people who have lost faith in their local officials to wonder whether federal authorities are their only hope to root out entrenched government corruption . Concern over previous corruption cases led to a delay in federal aid for Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria as the US government implemented more safeguards.

Thursday’s arrest also was a blow to Vázquez’s pro-statehood New Progressive Party, which is pushing to hold a referendum next year in a bid to become the 51st US state.

Vázquez was the second woman to serve as Puerto Rico’s governor and the first former governor to face federal charges. Former Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá of the opposing Popular Democratic Party was charged with campaign finance violations while in office and was found not guilty in 2009. He had been the first Puerto Rico governor to be charged with a crime in recent history.

“For the second time in our history, political power and public office are used to finance an electoral campaign,” said José Luis Dalmau, president of Acevedo’s party. “Using the power of the government to advance political agendas is unacceptable and an affront to democracy in Puerto Rico.”

Vázquez’s consultant, identified as John Blakeman, and the bank president, identified as Frances Díaz, have pleaded guilty to participating in the bribery scheme, according to the US Department of Justice.

In early 2019, the international bank owned by Julio Martín Herrera Velutini was being scrutinized by Puerto Rico’s Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions because of transactions authorities believed were suspicious and had not been reported by the bank.

Authorities said Herrera and Mark Rossini, the former FBI agent who provided consulting services to Herrera, allegedly promised to financially support Vázquez’s 2020 campaign for governor in exchange for Vázquez dismissing the commissioner and appointing a new one of Herrera’s choosing.

Authorities said Vázquez accepted the bribery offer and in February 2020 demanded the commissioner’s resignation. She then was accused of appointing a former consultant for Herrera’s bank as the new commissioner in May 2020. After the move, officials said Herrera and Rossini paid more than $300,000 to political consultants to support Vázquez’s campaign.

A flurry of messages exchanged during that time between people involved in the case included a heart emoji attached to the commissioner’s resignation letter and three sealed lips emojis when someone provided Rossi’s name to Vázquez, who requested the name of “the guy from the FBI.” In addition, Herrera texted Rossini about the need for a campaign manager and said he didn’t want “a monkey from Puerto Rico.”

After Vázquez lost the primary to current Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, authorities said Herrera then allegedly sought to bribe Pierluisi to end an audit into his bank with favorable terms. Herrera is accused of using intermediaries from April 2021 to August 2021 to offer a bribe to Pierluisi’s representative, who was actually acting under FBI orders, according to the indictment.

Officials said Herrera then ordered a $25,000 payment to a political action committee in hopes of trying to bribe Pierluisi.

Stephen Muldrow, US Attorney for Puerto Rico, said Pierluisi is not involved in the case.

Vázquez, Herrera and Rossini are each charged with conspiracy, federal bribery programs and honest services wire fraud. If they are found guilty on all counts, they could face up to 20 years in prison, officials said.

Meanwhile, Díaz and Blakeman could face up to five years in prison, officials said.

Muldrow said officials believe Herrera is in the United Kingdom and Rossini in Spain. It wasn’t clear if the US would seek to extradite them.

Juan Rosado-Reynés, a spokesman for Vázquez, told the AP he did not have an immediate comment.

Attorneys for the other suspects charged in the case could not be immediately reached for comment.

In mid-May, Vázquez’s attorney told reporters that he and his client were preparing for possible charges as the former governor at the time denied any wrongdoing: “I can tell the people of Puerto Rico that I have not committed any crime, that I have not engaged in any illegal or incorrect conduct, as I have always said.”

Vázquez was sworn in as governor in August 2019 after former Gov. Ricardo Rosselló stepped down following massive protests. She served until 2021, after losing the primaries of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party to Pierluisi.

In a statement Thursday, Pierluisi said his administration will work with federal authorities to help fight corruption.

“No one is above the law in Puerto Rico,” he said. “Faced with this news that certainly affects and lacerates the confidence of our people, I reiterate that in my administration, we will continue to have a common front with federal authorities against anyone who commits an improper act, no matter where it comes from or who it may implicate.”

Vázquez previously served as the island’s justice secretary and a district attorney for more than 30 years.

She became governor after Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court ruled that the swearing in of Pierluisi — who was secretary of state in 2019 — as governor was unconstitutional. Vázquez at the time said she was not interested in running for office and would only finish the nearly two years left in Rosselló’s term.

Rosselló had resigned after tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans took to the street, angry over corruption, mismanagement of public funds and an obscenity-laced chat in which he and 11 other men including public officials made fun of women, gay people and victims of Hurricane Maria, among others.

Shortly after she was sworn in, Vázquez told the AP that her priorities were to fight corruption, secure federal hurricane recovery funds and help lift Puerto Rico out of a deep economic crisis as the government struggled to emerge from bankruptcy.

During the interview, she told the AP that she had long wanted to be in public service: as a girl, she would stand on her balcony and hold imaginary trials, always finding the supposed defendants guilty.

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Categories
Technology

Halo 2’s ‘Impossible’ $20,000 Challenge Finally Conquered

Halo 2's 'Impossible' $20,000 Challenge Finally Conquered

Master Chief stands next to Sergeant Johnson in Halo 2.

screenshot: Bungie/IGDB

They said it was impossible and, for nearly two decades, that seemed to be the case. But last night, a streamer named Jervalin beat Halo 2‘s “LASO deathless” challenge, earning a cool $20,000 in the process. Talk about finishing the fight.

Let’s rewind. Earlier this summer, the YouTuber Charles “Cr1tikal” White Jr.. posted a $5,000 bounty to beat Halo 2 on the highest difficulty setting, with every bonus challenge modifier turned on, without dying. In the 18 years since Halo 2‘s 2004 release on Xbox, no one had ever published evidence of completing the challenge. White’s challenge stipulates that the whole run is streamed, either on YouTube or Twitch. By July, no one had successfully stepped up to the plate, so last month, White tacked an extra $15,000 onto the bounty.

Most observers keeping tabs on the challenge had their money on Jervalin—a relatively private streamer who’s picked up a modest following for setting world records on a variety of Halo challenges—being the first person to complete it. Sure enough, late last night, I’ve crossed the finish line. (Here’s the archived stream.)

Bungie/Jervalin

Neither White nor Jervalin could be reached for comment in time for publication.

Jervalin was remarkably chill for finishing what some people, including White Jr., have called the “hardest challenge in all of gaming,” addressing viewers in the even-handed tone you’d use while moving on to the next addendum in a mostly empty community board meeting.

“All right, chat,” he said. “I think we did it. I think we fucking did it. Imagine that. Two years ago, I said, ‘I think this is impossible.’ Imagine fucking that.”

Whether or not Halo 2‘s “LASO deathless” challenge really is the “hardest… in gaming” is, of course, a subjective measure. But it’s definitely up there. You have to activate all of the game’s skulls, or gameplay modifiers that typically ramp up the difficulty. The Catch skull, for instance, makes enemies toss grenades more frequently. Famine, meanwhile, means enemies drop half the ammo they usually would. Mythic doubles the health of all enemies, while Angry increases the enemy’s fire rate. Blind removes your HUD. Assassins turns enemies invisible. (It’s not technically there skulls, however. For the challenge, Envy is left off, because that one grants you invisibility too, which does not make Halo 2 more difficult, for obvious reasons.) All together, when you turn every skull on and play on Legendary, the game’s highest difficulty setting, you more or less create a set of conditions that ensures you die instantly if you take any damage.

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Jervalin had to rely on a few exploits to finish the challenge. To wit: He brought a banshee, a violet-colored aerial vehicle with a powerful cannon, into the final boss fight against Tartarus on the “Great Journey” level. That final fight takes place on a series of circumferential platforms hovering over an abyss. With pinpoint precision, he used the banshee’s cannon to send waves of foes careening off the edge as they spawn—before they get a chance to really even fight.

I’ve been covering the Halo community for a while now, and can’t recall a time where I’ve seen players pretty unanimous in an opinion, let alone a positive one. Sure, halo-infinitethe latest game in the series, has its issues, which players are not shy about criticizing. But there remains a reverence among even the biggest names for Bungie’s original games since the mid-2000s, and the mind-bogglingly impressive feats players are able to pull off.

The run garnered praising desde Halo streamers like Remy “Mint Blitz” and Luc “HiddenXperia.” Emanuel Lovejoy, the coach for Cloud 9, arguably the best professional Halo team on the planet right now, called Jervalin to “legend.” so did Spacestation Gaming’s UberNick. the Halo pro Kyle Elam noted how yesterday’s scrims—basically, matches between pro players that don’t count toward the official seasonal record—were put on pause so players could collectively watch Jervalin get it done. “Gonna need Jervalin to make a Twitter so we can actually @ this legend [clapping hands emoji],” Halo esports analyst and caster Alexander “Shyway” Hope said. It has been a genuine delight to witness such universal acclaim from all corners of the community.

But the most heartwarming moment—the sort of moment that proves Este, not the toxicity that inhales so much oxygen out of the room, is what video games are all about—happened in the final seconds of the stream: Jervalin’s family runs into the stream, embracing him in an almost suffocatingly tight bear hug. $20,000 is nice. That’s nicer.

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Categories
US

You DA Chesa Boudin says he won’t run for re-election

You DA Chesa Boudin says he won't run for re-election

Former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin — the progressive prosecutor who was ousted by voters in June — said Thursday he won’t be running in the special election this year.

Boudin explained his choice not to seek re-election in a Twitter threadsaying he is putting his “family first.”

“Over the past weeks, I’ve spoken to family, friends and every day San Franciscans about how we can best continue to make our criminal justice system fairer and more effective. I have devoted my public life to this effort because it makes our communities stronger & safer,” he wrote.

“I’ve also taken stock of the burden of more than three years of nearly non-stop campaigning placed on my family,” Boudin said, adding, “I’m committed to criminal justice reform; I’m also committed to my family.”

Fed-up San Francisco voters recalled the progressive DA during a June 7 election over what many said were Boudin’s soft-on-crime policies that contributed to the city’s surge in crime, open-air drug dealing and robberies.

Mayor London Breed appointed Brooke Jenkins as the new DA in July.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Jenkins announced a new office policy that would revoke open drug plea cases and promise to hold dealers accountable.

Chesa Boudin waves at cars as he canvasses in San Francisco prior to his ouster in June.
AP
Boudin looks distracted during election night on June 7.
Boudin looks distracted during election night on June 7.
Getty Images

“We cannot stand by while these neighborhoods continue to suffer with violence and drug dealing happening openly on their streets, and we also cannot continue to stand by while people continue to die on our streets,” Jenkins said. “We have to make changes now to save lives.”

Boudin told the San Francisco Chronicle last month that he was still considering running for the top prosecutor position.

On Thursday, however, Boudin said focusing on his family will come first, including taking care of his elderly father, who “just came home from prison after more than 40 years.”

As DA, Boudin came under fire for his soft-on-crime policies in the face of rising crime in the city.
As DA, Boudin came under fire for his soft-on-crime policies in the face of rising crime in the city.
Getty Images

His father, David, who received parole last year, was part of the left-wing group Weather Underground. David Boudin and his wife, Kathy, served prison time for a botched 1981 robbery in New York that left two police officers and a Brinks truck guard dead.

Boudin’s mother died of cancer in May.

The embattled DA stood by his policies, including his resentencing work that “offered second chances to those who had caused harm and supported victims,” according to his tweet.

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