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Apple yesterday issued an emergency security update for the Mac, patching the same trio of vulnerabilities the company fixed last week on the iPhone. According to one of the groups that first revealed the flaws, the vulnerabilities could have been "weaponized" for use against OS X, the Mac's operating system. The out-of-band update was aimed at OS X El Capitan (aka 10.11) and Yosemite (10.10), the 2015 and 2014 editions, respectively. Older versions, including 2014's OS X Mavericks, went unmatched: Apple is nearing the release of its annual Mac operating system upgrade and thus the end of support for...

Corsicans are not like Northern Europeans. In fact, although they’re ostensibly French, and speak a French patois (at least I think it’s a French patois — I can’t really understand it at all, unless they say “merde” or something), they’re not like the French, nor even the Italians. Their general cultural characteristics are more Sicilian than anything else. Last Sunday we posted about a confrontation between North African Muslims and Corsican natives on a beach near Sisco. The trouble plainly originated with the culture-enrichers, who attacked the natives with machetes and at least one harpoon, among other weapons. The natives...

“Apple updated its OS X desktop operating system yesterday (Mar. 21) to version 10.11.4, which fixes dozens of system vulnerabilities, solves an annoying bug in Safari and adds a password to Notes,” Henry T. Casey reports for LAPTOP Magazine. “The new version also increases USB reliability and adds support for Apple’s animated Live Photo files.” “The most well-publicized flaw patched in the security updates protects users from targeted attacks that could poach images or videos sent via iMessage,” Casey reports. “OS X users who use Notes as their primary app for writing quick documents will also want to update to...

A bit of good news to share: A reliable source has informed me that Father John Corapi, a popular priest among orthodox Catholics who departed public life after a tumultuous period a few years ago, remains in the priesthood and is re-establishing his spiritual life. There's no indication he'll be returning to public life anytime soon, if ever. However, it's nice to know that Father Corapi can at least be a quiet prayer warrior during this extremely difficult time in the Church and world. I won't go into the particulars about what transpired in the past – it's water under...

WDBJ reports that the suspect was a disgruntled employee. When let go, he was escorted out of the building by police. While an employee, he committed a number of outburts and filed the EEOC complaint.

One day after a bungled iOS update disrupted key features on thousands of iPhones, Apple on Thursday issued a follow-on version of the software to set things right. The newest update, iOS 8.0.2, is available immediately. The bruise to Apple's public image -- also dinged in the last few days by the discovery that its iPhone 6 Plus can be bent -- may take longer to heal.

Use of new translator [video C.C. available] Please note this transcript appears scrambled. I am sorry. But still post for those understanding Russian **19:12 Reporter asks question in English. Press Conference: I am giving a picture of the current situation in this time but unfortunately very limited opportunities to provide operational information the is the interests of their conscience who will be involved in the current but because it can be said that the very fact on the occasion of the death of our paratroopers, departure is high so brigade caused is not only a very large resonance in general......

In what is surely the most customer-antagonistic move of the new Windows regime, Steve Thomas at Microsoft posted a TechNet article on Saturday stating categorically that Microsoft will no longer issue security patches for Windows 8.1, starting in May. Call this the "let them eat cake" approach to support for Microsoft's flagship operating system. ... Yes, you read that right: With three weeks left until Windows 8.1 end of support -- until the next round of security patches appear with Windows 8.1 not included in the party list -- Microsoft still hasn't figured out how to get Windows 8.1 Update...

SIMFEROPOL, March 17, 0:52 /ITAR-TASS/. Upon the processing of 50% ballots cast Sunday in a referendum on Crimea’s future, a total of 95.5% voters who had come to the polling stations said ‘yes’ to the reunification of their region with Russia, Mikhail Malyshev, a person in charge of the referendum commission at the Crimean legislature said. Another 3.5% voters said ‘yes’ to Crimea’s continued stay within Ukraine. Invalidated ballots made up 1% of the total. Malyshev said that the data did not feature the results of voting in Sevastopol. The ballots in Sunday’s referendum contained two questions: 1) Are you...

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The much-anticipated Windows 8.1 update was finally released on Thursday. Since then, however, early reports of bricked devices and lost data from some users indicate that the release may have been premature. In response, Microsoft took its Windows 8.1 update offline until further notice on Saturday. The Redmond, Wash. company posted the following a message to its website: Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT device to Windows RT 8.1. As a result, we have temporarily removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store. We are working to resolve the...

(Reuters) - The U.S. government on Thursday announced new delays in rolling out President Barack Obama's healthcare reform, saying small business and Spanish-language health insurance enrollment services would not begin on Oct. 1 as planned. The postponements amount to a few weeks out of a months-long enrollment period aimed at signing up millions of uninsured Americans for health benefits. But they add to expectations of a slow start to the landmark social program which remains under attack by Republican leaders and faces formidable technical hurdles for states and the federal government. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)...

Labour MP David Lammy has apologised after accusing the BBC of being racist following its tweet which said "LIVE VIDEO: Chimney of Sistine Chapel as conclave votes for #Pope - will smoke be black or white?" Lammy replied saying: "This tweet from the BBC is crass and unnecessary. Do we really need silly innuendo about the race of the next Pope?" However, after receiving several messages alerting him to the fact that black smoke appears from a Vatican chimney when no decision has been made, and white smoke alerts the public to the election of a new Pope, the politician...

This is exciting: a meteorite from last week’s fireball over northern California has been found! NBC is reporting a small chunk, 4-5 centimeters across and weighing about 60 grams, struck a house in Novato, California shortly after the fireball was seen. They’re reporting Peter Jenniskens, a SETI astronomer and meteorite expert, confirmed the find. That’s critical: a lot of rocks are mistaken for meteorites by people (and the media) who aren’t familiar with them. This chunk is small, though, and given how bright the fireball was and how it was seen to fragment, I’d think bigger pieces must have fallen....

The White House, presumably stung by criticism following its acknowledgment last week that the president hadn't presided over a meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in quite a while, today put out a press release trumpeting such a meeting. The press release is below. And no, it's not a parody. One might have presumed the president routinely receives updates on the situation in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, and on preparations for the NATO summit. But perhaps not. The fact of this press release makes one wonder if the president, who has after all assured us that "the tide of war is...

When the White House named Jesse Lee as its Director of Progressive Media and Online Response to rebut criticisms on social-networking media, some people argued that the Obama administration had taken a big step toward becoming Big Brother. At the time, I argued that this was nonsense, and that the White House had a right to respond to criticism — but that Lee’s job was a task better left to the DNC, which traditionally served the role of political response. Instead of looking hip and timely, attacking Twitter users would make the Obama administration look petty and thin-skinned, and would...

I usually check Drudge once every couple of days. Every couple of days because he doesn't update very often. But ever since shortly after the Quake he has had the SAME news. He still has news on about how the NFL talks collapsed from SIX DAYS AGO. He has had the same headline for 7 days. Snap analysis: Japan may have hours to prevent nuclear meltdown Also the story about Saudi protests 'tempest in teacup': Prince Alwaleed.. was also posted SIX DAYS AGO. Japan warns of radiation leak from quake-hit plants SEVEN DAYS AGO School 'splash & burn' attack SEVEN...

Apple will patch its Safari browser before the Pwn2Own hacking contest kicks off next week, security researchers hinted Thursday.If accurate, Apple will join both Google and Mozilla, which earlier this week issued security updates for Chrome and Firefox as preparation for Pwn2Own. On Wednesday, Apple patched a record 57 vulnerabilities in its iTunes music software; 50 of those bugs were attributed to WebKit, the open-source browser engine that Safari’s built on. iTunes relies on WebKit to render its online store component. “Anti-pwn2own again: Apple fixed a record of 50 vuln[erabilities] in WebKit (iTunes), and is preparing the update for Safari/Mac...

For help understanding the foreign policy headlines of the past week, let's return, briefly, to the spring of 1983, when Barack Obama was a student at Columbia University. What were the burning international issues of that time? Well, first was the "nuclear freeze" movement, which was prompting mass demonstrations around the world by people worried about the standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States. Obama published an article about it in a campus magazine in which he invoked the vision of "a nuclear free world." The Middle East, meanwhile, was still reeling from the 1982 Israeli invasion of...

Apple today released Mac OS X 10.6.5 which is available via Software Update and contains the following improvements: • Improves reliability with Microsoft Exchange servers. • Addresses performance of some image-processing operations in iPhoto and Aperture. • Addresses stability and performance of graphics applications and games. • Resolves a delay between print jobs. • Addresses a printing issue for some HP printers connected to an AirPort Extreme. • Resolves an issue when dragging contacts from Address Book to iCal. • Addresses an issue in which dragging an item from a stack causes the Dock to not automatically hide. • Resolves...