Nevada Union High School English teacher Mike Cartan, right, cooks hot dogs on the grill Thursday afternoon at Scotts Flat Lake for some of the school's graduating seniors at a year-end picnic.
Photo for The Union John Hart
While a throng of students accept their high school diplomas at both Nevada Union and Bear River high schools in Grass Valley every year, not every gr...
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Armed Free Syrian Army soldiers ride a motorcycle on the outskirts of Idlib, Syria, Sunday, June 3, 2011. Free Syrian Army soldiers are determined to bring down the regime by force of arms, targeting military checkpoints and other government sites. A U.N. observer team with nearly 300 members has done little to quell the bloodshed. (AP Photo)
Armed Free Syrian Army soldiers ride a motorcycle on the outskirts of Idlib, Syria, Sunday, June 3, 2011. Free Syrian Army soldiers are determined to bring down the regime by force of arms, targeting military checkpoints and other government sites. A U.N. observer team with nearly 300 members has done little to quell the bloodshed. (AP Photo)
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows Syrian President Bashar Assad, as he delivers a speech at the parliament in Damascus, Syria, Sunday, June 3, 2012. The president's first comments on the massacre expressed horror over the deaths of more than 100 people, nearly half of them children. U.N. investigators say there are strong suspicions that pro-government gunmen carried out the killings, but Assad denied that. (AP Photo/SANA)
An armed Free Syrian Army solider, left, with the colors of the Syrian revolutionary flag painted on his weapon, stands guard at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Idlib, Syria, Sunday, June 3, 2011. Free Syrian Army soldiers are determined to bring down the regime by force of arms, targeting military checkpoints and other government sites. A U.N. observer team with nearly 300 members has done little to quell the bloodshed. (AP Photo)
An armed Free Syrian Army solider stands guard at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Idlib, Syria, Sunday, June 3, 2011. Free Syrian Army soldiers are determined to bring down the regime by force of arms, targeting military checkpoints and other government sites. A U.N. observer team with nearly 300 members has done little to quell the bloodshed. (AP Photo)
BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian President Bashar Assad defended his government's crackdown on opponents Sunday, saying a doctor performing messy emergency surgery does not have blood on his hands if he is trying to save a patient.
In his first speech since January, Assad appeared unmoved by scathing international criticism of his ferocious response to the 15-month-old revolt against his rule, which has killed up to 13,000 people, according to activist groups. He also denied responsibility for last week's Houla massacre of more than 100 people, saying not even "monsters" would carry out such an ugly crime.
He said terrorists have pushed his country into war.
"When a surgeon in an operating room ... cuts and cleans and amputates, and the wound bleeds, do we say to him your hands are stained with blood?" Assad said in a televised speech to parliament. "Or do we thank him for saving the patient?"
Assad insisted the revolt was the work of foreign-backed extremists ? not reformers seeking change.
Although the country has faced widespread international condemnation since Syrian troops unleashed a relentless crackdown on protesters last year, a massacre last week in the central region of Houla has brought fresh urgency to solving the crisis.
The opposition and the government have exchanged accusations over the Houla killings, each blaming the other for the house-to-house killings of more than 100 people, many of them small children. U.N. investigators have said there are strong suspicions that pro-regime gunmen are responsible for at least some of the killings.
Assad denied his forces had anything to do with Houla.
"Not even monsters would carry out (the crimes) that we have seen, especially the Houla massacre. ... There are no Arabic or even human words to describe it," he said in his first public comments about the mass killing.
Assad did acknowledge the toll the crisis has taken on the country, suggesting all the blood that has been spilled is necessary to root out the forces working to drive him from power.
"Today we are defending a cause and a country," he said. "We do not do this because we like blood. A battle has been forced on us, and the result is this bloodshed that we are seeing."
Members of the Syrian opposition brushed off his comments as meaningless.
"It is a desperate and silly speech that does not merit a response," said Adib Shishakly, a Saudi-based member of Syria's main opposition group, the Syrian National Council. "He didn't offer anything to the Syrian people during the 70 minutes he spoke."
Shishakly, the grandson of a former president of Syria, described Assad's statements on the Houla massacre as "lies to justify the killings because of the immense international pressure on his regime."
The U.S. has taken advantage of the global outrage over Houla to reach out to Syria's most important ally and protector, Russia, to join a coordinated effort to resolve the deadly conflict. Russia has provided a layer of protection for Damascus, refusing to support any move that could lead to foreign intervention in Syria.
A Russian Foreign Ministry statement issued Sunday said Russia was awaiting the results of the investigation into the massacre at Houla and was disturbed that some countries went ahead and cast blame.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday pressed Russia to join international efforts for a political transition in Syria that would see Assad driven from power, and suggested greater flexibility could come from a previous recalcitrant Moscow.
America's top diplomat told reporters in Sweden that she made clear in a telephone conversation this weekend with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Moscow must do its part to help Syria turn the page after four decades under the Assad family control.
"My message to the foreign minister was very simple and straightforward," Clinton said. "We all have to intensify our efforts to achieve a political transition and Russia has to be at the table helping that to occur."
Although Assad's words reflected many of the same general points of his previous speeches ? blaming terrorists and extremists, vowing to protect national security ? his comments on Houla were widely anticipated.
"If we don't feel the pain that squeezes our hearts, as I felt it, for the cruel scenes ? especially the children ? then we are not human beings," Assad said.
Syria's uprising began with mostly peaceful protests, but a brutal government crackdown with tanks, machine guns and snipers led many in the opposition to take up arms. Now, the conflict has morphed into an armed insurgency.
The violence has grown increasingly chaotic in recent months, and it is difficult to assign blame for much of the bloodshed as the country spirals toward civil war. The government restricts journalists from moving freely, making it nearly impossible to independently verify accounts from either side.
Assad, 46, who inherited power from his father in 2000, is still firmly in control after more than a year of warfare that has torn at the country's fabric and threatened to undermine stability in the Middle East.
A cease-fire plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan is violated by both sides every day, but Western leaders continue to pin their hopes on diplomatic pressure, with the U.S. and others unwilling to get deeply involved in another Arab nation in turmoil ? particularly one as unpredictable as Syria.
The rebel Free Syrian Army is determined to bring down the regime by force of arms, targeting military checkpoints and other government sites. A U.N. observer team with nearly 300 members has done little to quell the bloodshed.
Al-Qaida-style suicide bombings have become increasingly common in Syria, and Western officials say there is little doubt that Islamist extremists, some associated with the terror network, have made inroads in Syria as instability has spread.
Fears also have risen that the violence could spread and provoke a regional conflagration. Syria's regional ties make its conflict among the most explosive of the Arab Spring. The regime has alliances with powerful forces including Lebanon's Hezbollah and Shiite powerhouse Iran.
Already, clashes have broken out between pro- and anti-Syrian groups in northern Lebanon, with at least eight people killed late Friday and early Saturday, Lebanese security officials said.
In Sunday's speech, Assad said his opponents have ignored his moves toward reform, including a referendum on a new constitution and recent parliamentary elections. He suggested this meant that the call for democracy was not the driving force of the revolt.
"We will not be lenient. We will be forgiving only for those who renounce terrorism," he said.
Assad has acknowledged there are genuine calls for reform, although the opposition says he has offered only cosmetic changes that do little to change a culture where any whisper of dissent could lead to arrest and torture.
The president said the doors of Damascus were open for dialogue with the opposition ? a key component of Annan's peace plan ? as long as the parties have no foreign agendas or involvement with terrorism.
(This version CORRECTS Corrects to removes quote marks from Russia statement)
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Get an exclusive first look at 'Hunger Games' star's MTV Movie Awards appearance; short film producer Jordan Rubin fills us in!
By Kara Warner
Photo: MTV
That old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words is particularly appropriate for this sneak peek of "Hunger Games" star Jennifer Lawrence's appearance in a short film set to debut during the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday (June 3).
The photo clearly shows Lawrence with an arrow through her head, and given her unimpressed, annoyed expression when the pic was snapped, she doesn't look too pleased about the situation. But not to worry: The arrow through her head is all for the sake of Movie Awards comedy, for which Lawrence was totally game.
MTV News recently caught up with Movie Awards short film producer Jordan Rubin to get the behind-the-scenes scoop about how Lawrence came to be involved.
"The idea generated from this year being the year of archery," Rubin said. "Archery has really come back in a big way, so it seemed like a good thing to do as a jumping-off point for some comedy.
"You have 'The Hunger Games,' Jeremy Renner [as Hawkeye] in 'Avengers,' 'Game of Thrones,' 'Snow White and the Huntsman,' also 'Brave' is coming out," Rubin added. "It's good comedy fodder, and Jen totally got it. We were so happy she made time."
According to Rubin, the short film revolves around an archery coach who is not necessarily liked by a lot of people in the industry. It features Joel McHale and a cameo from Lawrence.
"[Lawrence] was really funny and gave us a lot of different options and was great at the comedy," Rubin said.
Head over to MovieAwards.MTV.com to vote for your favorite flicks now! The 21st annual MTV Movie Awards air live tomorrow at 9 p.m. ET.
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High-profile California attorney Gloria Allred has joined the hubbub surrounding Miami's naked "cannibal" attack of last Saturday.
As first reported by CBS Miami, Allred is now representing the long-time girlfriend of 31-year-old Rudy Eugene, who was shot and killed by a Miami police officer while chewing off most of a homeless man's face in broad daylight on the busy MacArthur Causeway.
The girlfriend, who has not been named by media outlets at her request, has said she believes Eugene was either drugged unwittingly or under a Vodou curse.
?I don?t know how else to explain this,? the girlfriend told the Miami Herald, insisting that though Eugene did smoke marijuana he never touched other recreational drugs. She said she saw news of the attack on TV Saturday night, but didn't know her missing boyfriend was both dead and the responsible for the grisly crime until Sunday.
"I'll never be the same," she told the Herald.
It is not yet apparent why the girlfriend, with whom Eugene spent his last night, has legal representation. Allred declined to comment beyond confirming her position to NBC Miami in an email, and according to the CBS report "Allred...has no plans at the moment to release a statement, hold a press conference or visit the girlfriend in Miami."
Allred, who is known for taking cases involving women's rights, has previously represented high-profile clients including Spice Girl Mel B., Tiger Woods ex Rachel Uchitel, the family of Nicole Brown Simpson, actress Hunter Tylo, one of John Travolta's accusers, and the ex-girlfriends of Charlie Sheen and Shaquille O'Neal.
Check out some of the political sex scandals in which Allred has been front and center:
Sharon Bialek
On November 7, 2011, former National Restaurant Association employee Sharon Bialek came forward with sexual harassment accusations against GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. Allred introduced Bialek at a press conference at the Friars Club in New York City.HOW YOU CAN HELP: The Jackson Memorial Foundation has set up a fund to assist Ronald Poppo in his recovery, which experts in facial reconstruction have said will include lengthy treatment, staged reconstruction, and psychological care. Donations can be made by check or online at jmf.org.
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2 June, 2012 at 4:11 pm in Health & Beauty, Immigration
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WASHINGTON?? The Obama administration is warning American businesses about an unusually potent computer virus that infected Iran's oil industry even as suspicions persist that the United States is responsible for secretly creating and unleashing cyberweapons against foreign countries.
The government's dual roles of alerting U.S. companies about these threats and producing powerful software weapons and eavesdropping tools underscore the risks of an unintended, online boomerang.
Unlike a bullet or missile fired at an enemy, a cyberweapon that spreads across the Internet may circle back accidentally to infect computers it was never supposed to target. It's one of the unusual challenges facing the programmers who build such weapons, and presidents who must decide when to launch them.
The Homeland Security Department's warning about the new virus, known as "Flame," assured U.S. companies that no infections had been discovered so far inside the U.S. It described Flame as an espionage tool that was sophisticated in design, using encryption and other techniques to help break into computers and move through corporate or private networks. The virus can eavesdrop on data traffic, take screenshots and record audio and keystrokes. The department said the origin is a mystery.
The White House has declined to discuss the virus.
Suspicions heightened
But suspicions about the U.S. government's role in the use of cyberweapons were heightened by
a report in Friday's New York Times
. Based on anonymous sources, it said President Barack Obama secretly had ordered the use of another sophisticated cyberweapon, known as Stuxnet, to attack the computer systems that run Iran's main nuclear enrichment facilities. The order was an extension of a sabotage program that the Times said began during the Bush administration.
Private security researchers long have suspected that the U.S. and Israeli governments were responsible for Stuxnet. But the newspaper's detailed description of conversations in the Oval Office among Obama, the vice president and the CIA director about the U.S. government's responsibility for Stuxnet is the most direct evidence of this to date. U.S. officials rarely discuss the use of cyberweapons outside of classified settings.
Stuxnet is believed to have been released as early as 2009. It was discovered in June 2010 by a Belarusian antivirus researcher analyzing a customer's infected computer in Iran. It targeted electronic program controllers built by Siemens AG of Germany that were installed in Iran. The U.S. government also circulated warnings to American businesses about Stuxnet after it was detected.
The White House said Friday it would not discuss whether the U.S. was responsible for the Stuxnet attacks on Iran.
"I'm not able to comment on any of the specifics or details," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. "That information is classified for a reason, and it is kept secret. It is intended not to be publicized because publicizing it would pose a threat to our national security."
Uncharted territory
Cyberweapons are uncharted territory because the U.S. laws are ambiguous about their use, and questions about their effectiveness and reliability are mostly unresolved. Attackers online can disguise their origins or even impersonate an innocent bystander organization, making it difficult to identify actual targets when responding to attacks.
Viruses and malicious software, known as malware, rely on vulnerabilities in commercial software and hardware products. But it is hard to design a single payload that always will succeed because the target may have fixed a software vulnerability or placed computers behind a firewall.
On the Internet, where being connected is a virtue, an attack intended for one target can spread unexpectedly. Whether a cyberweapon can boomerang depends on its state of the art, according to computer security experts. On that point, there are deep divisions over Flame.
Russian digital security provider Kaspersky Lab, which first identified the virus, said Flame's complexity and functionality "exceed those of all other cybermenaces known to date." There is no doubt, the company said, that a government sponsored the research that developed it. Yet Flame's author remains unknown because there is no information in the code of the virus that would link it to a particular country.
Other experts said it wasn't as fearsome.
'No secret sauce'
Much of the code used to build the virus is old and available on the Internet, said Becky Bace, chief strategist at the Center for Forensics, Information Technology and Security at the University of South Alabama. Flame could have been developed by a small team of smart people who are motivated and have financial backing, she said, making it just as likely a criminal enterprise or a group working as surrogates could have been responsible.
"Here's the wake-up call as far as cyber is concerned: You don't have to be a nation-state to have what it would take to put together a threat of this particular level of sophistication," said Bace, who spent 12 years at the National Security Agency working on intrusion detection and network security. "There's no secret sauce here."
Stuxnet was far more complex.
Still, Stuxnet could not have worked without detailed intelligence about Iran's nuclear program that was obtained through conventional spycraft, said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, a digital security company in Helsinki, Finland. The countries with the motivation and the means to gather that data are the United States and Israel, he said.
"This is at the level of complexity that very few organizations in the world would even attempt," said Hypponen, who has studied Stuxnet and Flame. "Basically you have to have moles. Most of what they needed to pull this off was most likely collected with what we would characterize as traditional intelligence work."
Collateral damage?
The more intricately designed a cyberweapon is, the less likely it will boomerang. Stuxnet spread well beyond the Iranian computer networks it was intended to hit. But the collateral damage was minimal because the virus was developed to go after very specific targets.
"When some of these super sophisticated things spread, it's bad but it may not have the same impact because the virus itself is so complex," said Jacob Olcott, a senior cybersecurity expert at Good Harbor Consulting. "It's designed to only have its impact when it finds certain conditions."
Israel is a world leader in cybertechnology and senior Israeli officials did little to deflect suspicion about that country's involvement in cyberweapons. "Whoever sees the Iranian threat as a significant threat is likely to take various steps, including these, to hobble it," said Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon, a former military chief and minister of strategic affairs.
A senior defense official involved in Israel's cyberwarfare program said Friday that, "Israel is investing heavily in units that deal with cyberwarfare both for defense and offense." He would not elaborate. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to speak with the media.
Isaac Ben-Israel, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on cybersecurity issues, declined Friday to say whether Israel was involved with Stuxnet.
It could take years to know who is responsible, which is what is so unsettling about attacks in cyberspace. "We are very good as an industry at figuring out what a piece of malware does," said Dave Marcus, director of advanced research and threat intelligence at digital security giant McAfee. "But we are less accurate when it comes to saying what group is responsible for it, or it came from this country or that organization."
More about the battles in cyberspace:
Associated Press writers Anne Gearan in Washington and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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