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California DAs can now use an app to clear thousands of pot convictions
A pilot scheme in five California counties has automatically identified around 75,000 cannabis convictions that will be dismissed or reduced. Now, district attorneys across the state have access to Code for America's Clear My Record software to expedite record clearances.
Chicago will use an algorithm to clear pot convictions
California is no longer the only state using an algorithm to reverse marijuana convictions. Illinois' Cook County will now use the Code for America technology, Clear My Record, to automatically dismiss tens of thousands of eligible cannabis convictions. State's Attorney Kimberly M. Foxx and Code for America announced the partnership this week.
LA County is using an algorithm to clear 50,000 pot convictions faster
The district attorneys for Los Angeles and San Joaquin counties have teamed up with Code for America to help them clear around 54,000 marijuana convictions. The nonprofit's algorithm will aid prosecutors by automatically evaluating whether a case is eligible for dismissal or resentencing.
San Francisco used an algorithm to help it reverse pot convictions
San Francisco has used an algorithm to to help identify more than 8,000 pot conviction cases for expungement. The District Attorney's office began working with non-profit Code For America on an automated system after California's marijuana reforms in 2016 kicked open the door for dismissals.
Samsung chairman indicted for allegedly suppressing labor unions
Today, the board chairman of Samsung, Lee Sang-hoon, was indicted by South Korean prosecutors for illegally sabotaging a labor union. This comes after years of whispers about Samsung's intolerance of labor unions, according to Bloomberg. Twenty-seven other people from Samsung and its partner companies have also been indicted.
UK drops plan to allow online guilty pleas for minor crimes
A government plan to introduce online convictions, allowing those who've committed petty crimes to plead guilty and pay fines without having to go to court, has been scrapped. The online option was provided in the Prison and Courts Bill, which has been de-prioritised as Parliament focuses on pushing through other legislation before the end of the current session, and ahead of the snap general election on June 8. In light of this, a public committee yesterday voted not to proceed any further with the bill.
Brits can soon plead guilty and pay fines for petty crimes online
As part of new plans, UK criminals accused of minor offenses will soon be able to plead guilty and receive their sentence online. In a government report published today, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice acknowledged that letting defendants accept their conviction online and letting them pay a pre-determined penalty (including fines and legal costs) upfront would free up magistrates and courts so that they can focus on more complex cases.
First UK drone pilot convicted for flying over packed football grounds
In what's thought to be the first conviction of its kind in the UK, a Nottingham resident has been prosecuted for drone offences under the Civil Aviation Authority's Air Navigation Order (2009). Nigel Wilson was initially arrested earlier this year, after he was caught flying a drone over Manchester City's Etihad Stadium. It soon came to light that he was a serial rule-breaker, using his drone to film many a footy match at various UK stadia, as well as indulging in some high-flying sight-seeing at various London landmarks, including Buckingham Palace. The Metropolitan Police note that in one particular incident at Liverpool's Anfield ground, his drone spooked the horses of several mounted officers, endangering nearby pedestrians.
Ex-Microsoft employee who leaked company secrets sentenced to three months in prison
Remember that time Microsoft rifled through someone's Hotmail account and then claimed it was totally OK? The incident -- and Microsoft's response -- was disturbing enough that it was easy to forget why the company accessed someone's account in the first place. The reason: That inbox belonged to a French blogger who had posted Windows 8 screenshots. As a result of that email probe, Microsoft was able to identify the leaker he had been corresponding with, a former employee named Alex Kibkalo who was then arrested for stealing trade secrets. Kibkalo plead guilty and now, three months later, he's been sentenced: he will spend three months in prison (full ruling embedded below) Since the incident, Microsoft has vowed to follow stricter policies during investigations, though it stands by its actions in this particular case.
The Light and How to Swing It: Holy paladins just can't get ahead
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered. Hey you, retribution paladins! Get off my lawn! I've been finding that there's a cycle to the holy paladin changes we've seen in Cataclysm. The latest bug with Conviction serves as the perfect example. Conviction's 9% extra healing wasn't being applied to our heals on other players, and so our healing potency was less than advertised. Holy paladins were still relatively good, even with this bug still around. Top guilds have been using holy paladins as their go-to healers, and our toolbox is diverse enough to handle what any dungeon boss can throw at us. The fact remained that Conviction was broken, and it's not good for business when you have serious bugs affecting a class. The developers quickly hotfixed the talent, and holy paladins were suddenly seeing a 9% increase in outbound healing. A class that was already good just got better, and not by any small amount. In order to prevent us from become too powerful, Walk in the Light was quickly nerfed.
The Light and How to Swing It: Deciphering holy paladin talents
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any comments or awesome holy paladin screenshots you have. I was planning to talk about how Conviction was broken and only affected self-healing, but Blizzard's crew has hotfixed that bug already. Conviction now grants the proper healing bonus when we heal anyone. The end result is that our healing done is going to go up significantly. I'm actually wondering whether or not we're going to see a nerf because of it. A 9% boost to healing done is certainly enough to throw off whatever balance we had achieved with the other healing classes' performance. Between the first time I heard of the Conviction issue and the recent hotfix, I have respecced about a dozen times. There are so many viable talent options available for our final flex points that I simply can't decide what I want to pick up. I couldn't even make up my mind when I had three free talent points after dropping Conviction from my build. I love the flexibility that we have when speccing our holy paladins.
The Light and How to Swing It: Ret talents in Cataclysm
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon, an entire flight of black dragons. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to my email at gregg@wow.com. Yes, yes. I know the last time I wrote about retribution talents that Blizzard came out the next day saying that it was scrapping essentially everything in those versions of the trees. Since then, all three trees have undergone massive (and I'm not exaggerating here) overhauls. However, things have started to stabilize and while these talents may not be final, the tree is a lot closer than any of the previous revisions to what we'll see when the expansion hits.
Splinter Cell: Conviction CE on sale for $35 on UBIShop
The "official" Ubisoft online store, UBIShop, is featuring the Collector's Edition of Splinter Cell: Conviction on sale for 50 percent off. That means Mr. Fisher's face-breaking-(via urinal)-adventure can infiltrate your Xbox 360 for $35 -- for an unspecified limited time. The Collector's Edition is bundled with (that possibly defective) USB drive packed with downloadable assets, art book, decals, comic book and other random doohickeys. We're following up with Ubisoft to find up when it'll put two in the back of this sale's skull. %Gallery-64705% [Thanks, Ali Mir]
Splinter Cell takes top UK sales spot with 'Conviction'
Just Dance will just have to wait for its turn back at the top of the UK all-formats sales chart, as Splinter Cell: Conviction has debonairly cut in this week. Although it may appear that the two Ubisoft published titles are in a sashay for supremacy, history has taught us that Just Dance will keep gyrating high above the charts long after Sam Fisher's latest adventure holds the bargain bin hostage. The PS3 and PC release of the faaaaa-bulous and leather-heavy Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City sent the title motoring up the charts to third. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 lost an M-COM station and slipped two spots to fourth, while Wii Fit Plus found the power to jump up one spot to round out the top five. Check out the complete UK top 10 after the break. Source – Ubisoft shows Conviction [GFK Chart-Track] Source – Latest UK Software Charts [GFK Chart-Track]
Dissecting the Splinter Cell: Conviction demo
Now that the Xbox 360-exclusive demo for Splinter Cell: Conviction is available, we thought it appropriate to walk readers through the experience in a lengthy video packed with essential Sam Fisher intel. If you're wondering how Conviction ties to other games in the series or have an interest in hearing the changes made to portions of the demo from our previous hands-on experiences, this is the video to watch. Also, if you're stuck at work and can't play the demo for yourself, watching this video walkthrough might help fill that void and pass the time until you can go on your own gunslingin' adventures with America's most wanted secret agent. Shortcut: Queue-up the Splinter Cell Conviction Demo (Xbox 360)
Retail Rumor: Splinter Cell Conviction in February
By now one should know that retailers' expected release dates for upcoming games that don't have official release dates aren't all that reliable. But after searching the internets and coming across the way long delayed (yet rather anticipated) Splinter Cell Conviction popping up at retailers with a similar February release, well ... we just had to share. Online retailers including Amazon.com and Gamestop have Splinter Cell Conviction posted with an expected release date of February 2, 2009. Though, the February release doesn't quite gel with Ubisoft's earlier fiscal talk that made it clear Conviction wouldn't be available until April 2009 at the earliest. So, February 2nd doesn't seem all that likely, unless retailers know something we don't. And if that's the case, we're pointing an angry finger at Ubisoft.[Thanks, Jason]
Ask A Beta Tester: AABT's greatest hits, part 2
On to part 2! This series of questions spans August and early September, and we'll keep moving forward this week.Hoops asked.... How much gold roughly would you get from questing 70-77 (until you unlock the flying mount)? I was wondering if it would it be worth farming money beforehand or would the money from questing be enough. Elizabeth answers: I'm not 77 yet, so I can't exactly address the question as asked, but I can tell you that I've made about 400g leveling from 70 to 72. That's just from questing, vendoring trash & unneeded greens -- and it includes some stupid deaths, plenty of repair bills(I blame Dalaran for many of them!), and training a couple of professions (35g to train a primary profession to the next skill level and 100g to train a secondary profession to the next skill level). Allie adds: I finally started keeping track of how I was doing gold-wise while leveling. On the beta I leveled a lot through instance runs because the demand for healers was so high; on the live realms I've leveled mostly through questing. Between 70 and 76 so far (remarkably fast for me but my guild starts raiding next week) I've made somewhere in the region of 2K gold after training, repairs, professions, etc., mostly through questing and keeping my bags as open as possible to sell vendor trash. As Elizabeth observes, that part's key; Northrend vendor trash and greens sell for a LOT.
Patch 3.0.2 primer for Retribution Paladins
Let's face it. Retribution blows.Blows things up, that is. Out of all the trees -- and I mean all including the other classes -- no tree got more love than Retribution in the Echoes of Doom patch. For many of us, it's been a long time coming. No other class spec has been the butt of more jokes and the target of such derision as Retribution. Not anymore. Not in Patch 3.0.2 and the days leading up to Wrath of the Lich King. Retribution deals so much pain that we've sent the rest of player base running to Ghostcrawler crying for a nerf. And we're getting nerfed. To the ground.Don't panic. The changes are really, mostly aimed at PvP Paladins -- okay, that's me -- but will largely leave Paladin PvE damage output the same. That's excellent news. Because I've grown accustomed to the idea that quite a lot of you guys prefer PvE to PvP, we'll take a look at a PvE Retribution build that will make you the darling of your Heroic runs and more than welcome in raids. Let's bring on the pain after the jump.
Rumor: Splinter Cell gameplay and visuals have evolved
Remember in 1996 when the Xbox 360 exclusive Splinter Cell: Conviction was announced. We may have the date wrong but it was a long time ago, that we know for sure. Just when we were giving up home on Sam's return a report by Videogaming247 indicates that Conviction, which was pushed into 2009, has undergone a handful of changes.According to the site an Ubisoft community development manager said Conviction is "certainly not canned," but that "the gameplay has evolved a lot" and "the visual direction is simply much better." Considering Sam has been dark since his Xbox 360 debut in October 2006 we'd hope the title was experiencing a substantial upgrade to compete with other high-profile stealth action games that will not be named.We'd also like to think that Sam has returned to his sneaky Third Echelon roots instead of going all "emo" on us but only Tom Clancy knows for sure. Sadly, a name cannot speak and the artist formerly known as Tom Clancy doesn't make the rules anymore -- you know, since he sold his moniker.
The Light and How to Swing It: Paladin 3.0
It's pretty exciting, isn't it? Patch 3.0 is coming, well, "soon™" according to Blizzard. Considering that our favorite class hasn't gotten a second pass, it might be a bit premature to talk about Paladin changes when the pre-Wrath patch finally hits. That said, it looks like more than a few new talents will make it at least into the PTRs more or less intact. Hopefully and changes we'll see during our second pass will be tweaks to numbers and some mechanics refinements but hopefully no major changes.Assuming that most of the changes push through, we should expect a completely different Paladin in the coming months. Even without taking the new talents into account, there are baseline changes that should make gameplay technically different. The most significant change, of course, is in the way Judgements work. This is the one change that will take some getting used to. First of all, there are now three Judgements and they activate the GCD. This means no more macros for Seals and Judgements, which is actually fine because of two things: first, Judgements no longer consume Seals; second, Seals now last for a micromanagement-light two minutes.
