SoylentNews

Snow writes:

From the Bitfinex.com homepage:

Investigating - Today we discovered a security breach that requires us to halt all trading on Bitfinex, as well as halt all digital token deposits to and withdrawals from Bitfinex.

We are investigating the breach to determine what happened, but we know that some of our users have had their bitcoins stolen. We are undertaking a review to determine which users have been affected by the breach. While we conduct this initial investigation and secure our environment, bitfinex.com will be taken down and the maintenance page will be left up.

The theft is being reported to—and we are co-operating with—law enforcement.

As we account for individualized customer losses, we may need to settle open margin positions, associated financing, and/or collateral affected by the breach. Any settlements will be at the current market prices as of 18:00 UTC. We are taking this necessary accounting step to normalize account balances with the objective of resuming operations. We will look at various options to address customer losses later in the investigation. While we are halting all operations at this time, we can confirm that the breach was limited to bitcoin wallets; the other digital tokens traded on Bitfinex are unaffected.

The amount was posted in a reddit thread here: I can confirm that the loss from the hack stands at 119,756btc.

According to coindesk.com:

The price of bitcoin fell sharply today exacerbating an already ongoing decline as global market participants reacted to news that one of the largest digital currency exchanges had been hacked.

Earlier this afternoon, Hong Kong-based exchange Bitfinex halted trading after discovering a security breach, which included taking its website offline and pausing all withdrawals and deposits. Representatives from the exchange told CoinDesk engineers were seeking to uncover issues at press time, though the company had confirmed roughly 120,000 BTC (more than $60m) was lost or stolenvia social media.

In response, bitcoin prices fell to $560.16 by 19:30 UTC, $530 by 23:30 and $480 at press time, CoinDesk USD Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) data reveals.

This price was roughly 20% lower than the day's opening of $607.37 and 27% below the high of $658.28 reached on Saturday, 30th July, when the digital currency began pushing lower.

Original Submission

Update: The coup appears to have been unsuccessful, and President Erdogan's plane is reportedly landing in Istanbul.

Update 2: Erdogan appears poised to reassert his power: "After the earlier recorded statement from Erdogan, the president is now addressing the media. He says the uprising was an act of treason and those responsible will pay a heavy price. It was carried out by a minority within the military who can't stomach unity of the country, Erdogan says. He says the uprising will be a reason to clean up the army."

Attempted military coup in Turkey

zocalo writes:

A faction of the Turkish military is attempting a coup in Turkey (alternative link) claiming that "democratic and secular rule of law has been eroded by the Erdogan government" and control is now in the hands of a "Peace Council". Reports of bridges over the Bosporos blocked to traffic, heavy police and military presence in Istanbul with exchanges of gunfire reported, low flying military aircraft over the city and all airports in the country are now closed. Social media services, Facebook, Twitter, etc., appear to have been blocked. President Erdogan is reportedly "safe" and expected to make a statement soon.

An Anonymous Coward adds:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/turkey-military-blocks-bridges-istanbul-160715195444742.html

martyb [soylentnews.org] writes:

[Update: The New York Times has a story, Truck Attack in Nice, France: What We Know, and What We Don’t and an interactive map.]

LA Times is reporting:

A truck drove on to the sidewalk and plowed through a crowd of Bastille Day revelers who'd gathered to watch fireworks in the French resort city of Nice late Thursday in what officials and eyewitnesses described as a deliberate attack. The president of the Nice region says at least 75 people were killed and 50 injured. Eric Ciotti said on France Info radio that "it's a scene of horror." He said he was speaking from the scene.

Sylvie Toffin, a press officer with the local prefecture, said the truck "hit several people on a long trip" down the sidewalk near Nice's Palais de la Mediterranee, a building that fronts the beach. Wassim Bouhlel, a Nice native who spoke to the AP nearby, said that he saw a truck drive into the crowd.

[...] The death toll appeared to be climbing. Calls to interior ministry and police officials were not returned. Images circulating on social media showed grisly scenes of piles of bodies in the street. The president of the Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur regional council, Christian Estrosi, said in a message posted to Twitter that dozens of people appear to have been killed.

[...] The president of the region that includes Nice says the truck that slammed into revelers celebrating Bastille Day on the city's waterfront was loaded with arms and grenades, and that the driver of the truck has now been killed by police.

Christian Estrosi told BFM TV that "the driver fired on the crowd, according to the police who killed him."

PBS reports:

Police killed the driver "after an exchange of gunfire," Eric Ciotti, the ranking politician of the Alpes-Maritime department that includes Nice, told BFM TV, according to the AP.

Damien Allemand, a journalist for Nice Matin, wrote online that "an enormous white truck came along at a crazy speed, turning the wheel to mow down the maximum number of people."

"I saw bodies flying like bowling pins along its route," he said. "Heard noises, cries that I will never forget."

The truck jumped onto a sidewalk and rammed into a crowd watching fireworks for Bastille Day in the resort city. An eyewitness at the scene told the AP that after striking the crowd, the driver emerged from the truck and began shooting.

"There was carnage on the road," said Wassim Bouhlel, a Nice native who spoke to the AP near the Promenade du Paillon. "Bodies everywhere."

The truck plowed into the crowd over a distance of more than a mile, Ciotti said.

Additional coverage:
Associate Press
ABC News

Two Soylentils wrote in with news of a fatal accident involving a Tesla vehicle. Please note that the feature in use, called "Autopilot" is not the same as an autonomous vehicle. It provides lane-keeping, cruise control, and safe-distance monitoring, but the driver is expected to be alert and in control at all times. -Ed.

Man Killed in Crash of 'Self-Driving' Car

butthurt writes:

Tech Insider reports that an Ohio man was killed on 7 May when his Tesla Model S, with its autopilot feature turned on, went under a tractor-trailer.

Further information:

• Tesla Motors blog
• NHTSA report
• video uploaded by the victim, demonstrating use of the autopilot feature

Tesla Autopilot - Fatal Accident

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/30/us-regulators-investigating-tesla-over-use-of-automated-system-linked-to-fatal-crash.html

Accident is reported to have happened in May, and reported to NHTSA/DOT immediately by Tesla. But not public until the end of June -- something a bit fishy about this reporting lag.

On the other hand, the accident is described as one that might have also been difficult for an alert human to have avoided:

This was the first reporting found--by the time it makes the SN front page there may be more details. Because this is a "first" it seems likely that a detailed investigation and accident reconstruction will be performed.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

mendax writes:

The New York Times is reporting:

Two explosions at Turkey’s largest airport left at least 10 people dead and wounded some 20 others on Tuesday night, according to Turkish authorities and television reports.

The Turkish justice minister, Bekir Bozdag, said 10 people had been killed in an attack on Ataturk airport. He said that one attacker fired an automatic weapon before detonating explosives.

Another Turkish government official said that the police fired shots at two suspected attackers at the entryway to the airport’s international terminal, in an effort to stop them before they reached the building’s security checkpoint. The two suspects then blew themselves up, the official said.

CNN Turk reported that one suicide bomber detonated explosives inside the terminal building and another outside in a parking lot.

[...] Ataturk airport has expanded in recent years and is now the third busiest in Europe, ranked by the annual number of passengers, after Heathrow in London and Charles de Gaulle in Paris.

While normally this kind of news would not necessarily be appropriate, at least in my view, for Soylent News, I submitted it because of this story posted here on Sunday, in which NASA cancels all travel for its personnel to the COSPAR meeting in Istanbul. It seems that NASA may have been very prescient and wise.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Full results and EU referendum portal at BBC.

Results are pouring in, and it looks like the United Kingdom will leave the European Union:

Unlike at a general election the results in individual areas do not count - it is the overall number of votes cast for one side or the other across the country that will determine whether the UK leaves the European Union. Polling expert Prof John Curtice said there was still a while to go but at this stage Leave were "undoubtedly the favourites" to win the referendum. He estimates that the finishing post for one side to win is 16,813,000 votes.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who at the start of the night predicted that Remain might "edge" a win, told supporters: "Dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom." At a Brexit party, he told supporters: "If the predictions are right, this will be a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, and a victory for decent people." "Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day." He also suggested the prime minister should resign "immediately" if the UK votes to leave the EU.

BBC now calling it for "Leave":

The UK has voted by 52% to 48% to leave the European Union after 43 years in an historic referendum, a BBC forecast suggests. London and Scotland voted strongly to stay in the EU but the remain vote has been undermined by poor results in the north of England. Voters in Wales and the English shires have backed Brexit in large numbers.

[...] Labour's Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the Bank of England may have to intervene to shore up the pound, which lost 3% within moments of the first result showing a strong result for Leave in Sunderland and fell as much as 6.5% against the euro.

Alternate coverage at The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent.

Update: Prime Minister David Cameron will address the nation at 8:15 AM local time (3:15 AM EDT).

Update: David Cameron will step down as PM before the Conservative Party Conference in October. (08:00 UTC)

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

VentureBeat reports

[Early on June 22], Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives voiced their protest over not being able to vote on gun control legislation. Presiding Congressman Ted Poe (R-Texas) quickly called for a recess and ordered video cameras in the chamber to be turned off in the hopes of quelling the protest. It didn't.

Wired continues

House Democrats are in the midst of a historic sit-in on the floor of Congress to protest the Republican majority's inaction on gun control in the wake of the Orlando massacre. But since the House isn't technically in session, C-Span's cameras are not filming [though they could be operating if it wasn't for, once again, the intransigence of the Republican majority].

The Verge adds

C-SPAN has been airing live video from representatives on the House floor: first using Periscope footage from Representative Scott Peters, a Democrat from California and later using Facebook Live footage from an unnamed source.

[...] The protest began on the House floor around 11:30 this morning [Wednesday, June 22]. As the House left for recess, Democrats gathered together and refused to leave. Because the House is in recess--and because only the House has the power to turn C-SPAN's cameras on--C-SPAN isn't able to film these events as it normally would.

Democrats are in protest in an attempt to bring gun control legislation to a vote, in response to the attack in Orlando. The Senate accomplished this same feat using a filibuster, although none of the legislation it voted on passed.

It looks like the protest could continue for a while--the House was supposed to return from its recess over three hours ago at this point. As long as that's happening, it seems like Peters will keep streaming and C-SPAN will keep relying on live-streaming.

Also covered at Ars Technica .

[Update: 23 Jun at 9:00 A.M.] Current C-SPAN footage has a graphic: "House has adjourned until July 5".

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

United States Senators McCain and Burr have proposed that the FBI's use of National Security Letters should be expanded to include rummaging through email, web browsing, and other electronic communications. The proposed rider would also make permanent the surveillance of suspected potential terrorists with no ties to terrorist groups.

A vote is expected today, Wednesday, June 22. Fight for the Future has set up a site for U.S. residents to contact their senators by phone about this issue.

takyon: See also:

EFF Urges Senate Not to Expand FBI's Controversial National Security Letter Authority
We Made the Message Loud and Clear: Stop the Rule 41 Updates
DOJ Insists That Rule 41 Change Is Not Important, Nothing To See Here, Move On Annoying Privacy Activist People

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

A suspected Islamic terrorist opened fire at a gay nightclub in Florida, killing 50 people and wounding another 53 before he was killed by police. While authorities continue to investigate to determine whether this man had ties to ISIS, the terror organization has not been quiet in praising the attack. This comes three days after ISIS announced they would attack somewhere in Florida. Today's attack marks the largest act of terrorism on US soil since 9/11.

takyon: The gunman reportedly called 911 emergency services to pledge allegiance to ISIS. The President will hold a briefing momentarily. Compare this article to the original submission.

Original Submission   Late submission by physicsmajor

takyon writes:

EgyptAir Flight MS804 has disappeared with 59 56 passengers and 10 crew onboard. It went missing soon after it entered Egyptian airspace, over the eastern Mediterranean.

Bloomberg, The Guardian, BBC.

janrinok adds:

The Guardian has a page with updated details.

martyb summarizes:

Flight MS804, an Airbus A320, was on its fifth flight of the day and traveling at 37,000 feet. It left Paris Charles de Gaulle at 11:09pm local time (21:09 UTC/22:09 BST/07:09 AEST) en route to Cairo and disappeared from radar with 66 people on board at 2:30am (00:30 GMT/01:30 BST/10:30 AEST) approximately 280km (175 miles) north of Egypt's coast — about 45 minutes before it was scheduled to land.

Of the 66 people on board, there were 56 passengers and 10 crew (two cockpit, five cabin, three security).

At 4:26am local time (two hours after the last radar contact) a signal was received from the "plane's emergency devices — possibly an emergency locator transmitter or beacon."

"EgyptAir says the captain has 6,275 flying hours, including 2,101 on the A320; the copilot has 2,766. The plane was manufactured in 2003."

Original Submission