Month: July 2018

Enlarge (credit: Lucasfilm)

Lucasfilm took the wraps off the primary players for the next Star Wars film on Friday, and the studio is wasting no time clarifying a key player in the film: Carrie Fisher.

A statement from Star Wars: Episode IX director and co-writer J.J. Abrams confirms that the character of Princess Leia will be played by the actor thanks to "previously unreleased footage"—and that these scenes were filmed during the making of 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as opposed to 2017's The Last Jedi.

“Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us," Abrams wrote in the statement. "We were never going to recast, or use a CG character. With the support and blessing from her daughter, Billie, we have found a way to honor Carrie’s legacy and role as Leia in Episode IX by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII.”

Enlarge (credit: Lucasfilm)

Lucasfilm took the wraps off the primary players for the next Star Wars film on Friday, and the studio is wasting no time clarifying a key player in the film: Carrie Fisher.

A statement from Star Wars: Episode IX director and co-writer J.J. Abrams confirms that the character of Princess Leia will be played by the actor thanks to "previously unreleased footage"—and that these scenes were filmed during the making of 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as opposed to 2017's The Last Jedi.

“Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us," Abrams wrote in the statement. "We were never going to recast, or use a CG character. With the support and blessing from her daughter, Billie, we have found a way to honor Carrie’s legacy and role as Leia in Episode IX by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII.”

Enlarge / Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) questions witnesses during a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing concerning threats to the homeland, September 27, 2017 in Washington, DC. (credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The digital ink was barely dry on Ars IT and National Security Editor Sean Gallagher’s feature, "How they did it (and will likely try again): GRU hackers vs. US elections," when the Daily Beast reported yesterday’s bombshell: Claire McCaskill, among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats facing re-election this year, was one of three candidates in the 2018 midterm election targeted by the highly determined Russian intelligence agency.

According to the post, McCaskill’s office received one or more fake notifications claiming the target’s Microsoft Exchange password had expired and advising it be changed. Targets who clicked on a link were directed to a counterfeit version of the US Senate’s Active Directory Federation Services login page, which would send any passwords the targets entered to the people behind the fake page. McCaskill has been highly critical of Russia and is considered one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats facing reelection this year. She represents Missouri, a state where Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by almost 20 points in the 2016 election.

McCaskill’s office was one of three candidates that was targeted. The Daily Beast went on to report that the Senate phishing campaign sent each target a different link that caused the fake password-change webpage to display users' individual email address when they arrived. The customization made the site more convincing.

Enlarge (credit: Jean-Léon Gérôme / Getty / Aurich Lawson)

Facebook's latest dalliance with a "downvote" button launched this week as a limited test in the United States. The feature began appearing on the service's mobile app without a formal company announcement—and we only found out about it by browsing on our phones.

The feature appears to currently be limited to "public" posts. Should your account be flagged for this week's test, every comment in a thread will include a numeric value and small up- and down-arrows connected to that number. Upon the first display of this Reddit-like change, the Facebook app will offer guidance: "Support comments that are thoughtful, and demote ones that are uncivil or irrelevant."

Enlarge / A Charter Spectrum vehicle. (credit: Charter)

The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) today voted to revoke its approval of Charter Communications' 2016 purchase of Time Warner Cable (TWC). The PSC said it is ordering Charter to sell the former TWC system that it purchased in New York, and is "bring[ing] an enforcement action in State Supreme Court to seek additional penalties for Charter's past failures and ongoing non-compliance."

Charter has repeatedly failed to meet deadlines for broadband expansions that were required in exchange for merger approval, state officials said. The PSC has steadily increased the pressure on Charter with fines and threats, but Charter never agreed to changes demanded by state officials.

As a result of today's vote, "Charter is ordered to file within 60 days a plan with the Commission to ensure an orderly transition to a successor provider(s)," the PSC's announcement said. "During the transition process, Charter must continue to comply with all local franchises it holds in New York State and all obligations under the Public Service Law and the Commission regulations. Charter must ensure no interruption in service is experienced by customers, and, in the event that Charter does not do so, the Commission will take further steps, including seeking injunctive relief in Supreme Court in order to protect New York consumers."

Enlarge / Pregnant woman in a delivery room having her blood pressure monitored. (credit: Getty | BSIP)

The US has a shameful record when it comes to caring for its moms. As Ars has reported before, the rate of women dying during pregnancy or childbirth is higher—much higher—than in any other developed country. By some estimates, mothers die in the US at a rate six-times that seen in Italy and three-times the rate in the UK, for instance. And of those that survive, tens of thousands suffer devastating injuries and near-death experiences each year.

It’s hard to compare such stats with precision, of course, because official numbers don’t exist in this country. US hospitals either won’t reveal or don’t determine rates of maternal complications, and the country as a whole simply doesn’t monitor the deaths consistently or accurately. The US hasn’t reported an official maternal death rate since 2007—a situation health experts have called an “international embarrassment.”

Nevertheless, health researchers, hospital organizations, policy makers, and state task forces have been working to understand and reverse the horrific numbers—often doing so with limited resources and reliance on volunteers. While reports have offered glimpses of the problem, a new investigation by USA Today provides one of the sharpest pictures yet.

Enlarge / A Comcast Service Vehicle in Indianapolis, Indiana, in March 2016. (credit: Getty Images | jetcityimage)

Comcast recently installed Wi-Fi equipment in public rights of way without permits in the city of Corvallis, Oregon. But instead of settling the matter locally, a cable lobby group that represents Comcast told the Federal Communications Commission that it should override municipal permitting processes such as the one in Corvallis. In doing so, the cable lobby group made "misleading and inaccurate" allegations about what actually happened in the Comcast/Corvallis dispute, according to city officials.

NCTA—The Internet & Television Association, the cable industry's chief lobby group, told the FCC last month that it "should declare that local governments may not abuse routine permitting processes for construction activity as a backdoor way of extracting unwarranted authorizations and fees from cable operators and otherwise delaying the deployment of new facilities."

NCTA's filing provided several examples allegedly demonstrating that cities and towns are unreasonably holding up network construction. These examples prove that "cable operators are facing unwarranted impediments in their efforts to deploy state-of-the-art broadband networks as a result of abusive permitting requirements," the NCTA claimed.