coming up on D. T. N. S. Is A. I company deep mind actually profitable? We explain how Facebook's outage happened and what effect it had and why Francis Haugen thinks transparency is the key to fixing this. This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, October 5th, 2021 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. I'm Roger Shane, the show's producer. Sarah Lane has the day off, but Nate Langson, Bloomberg tech editor and host of text messages here. Welcome back Nate. Hello. Thank you for having me again. We were just talking a little bit about how we were personally impacted, not very much by the Facebook outage yesterday, as well as fostering dogs. If you want that wider conversation, get our expanded show Good Day Internet become a member at patreon.com slash D T N S where you can join our top patrons like Johnny Hernandez, Hi Tech Oki and David Mosher. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Google will make an announcement October 9th at 10 a.m. Pacific in the invitation to the virtual event. Google cryptically wrote pixel fall launch. What could it mean? Further text associated with the invite may provide a clue. Google wrote, we're officially introducing you to pixel six and pixel six pro. We could parse that a little more. But I guess we'll just have to find out what it means in that event on October 19th. Google also added the Nest cam wired and Nest cam with floodlight to the Google store. The $100 Nest cam wired as the name implies has no battery needs to be wired in meant for indoor use comes in four colors. And one version has a wooden base that cost you a little extra 120 bucks. The original black indoor Nest cam still available for 130 bucks. And then there's the $280 Nest cam with floodlight. That is a camera with a floodlight that has to be wired through an outdoor junction box. It detects people, animals and vehicles using some on device machine learning. So it's not just motion detection. A few other products here from Kobo. Kobo announced two new Bluetooth enabled e readers. The $260 eight inch Kobo Sage lets you take handwritten notes, but you'll have to get the separately sold Kobo stylus to do that. That's 40 bucks. Notes can be converted to plain text though. Once you do the $180 seven inch Libra two is the other product. It's IP x eight waterproof meaning it can survive two meters of water for up to an hour. Both of these are available for preorder now ship in October 19th. A couple other quick hits here Singapore's legislature approved a bill called the Foreign Interference parentheses countermeasures Act, which gives the Home Affairs Ministry the ability to order companies to hand over user details, remove apps and block content if they are deemed to be used by foreign actors to interfere in Singapore's affairs. The bill would also let the ministry designate politically significant persons, either actual people or entities and order them to disclose or give up foreign funding. The bill must be signed by the president of Singapore before it becomes law and Ubico launched the Yuba key bio. It's the first of their keys to support passwordless login and biometric authentication. It also lets users use a pin in case biometric authentication fails. If it's temperatures weird or there's moisture issues, hands wet, the key does not require batteries, drivers or custom software and works with Windows Linux and Mac OS. Yuba key bio is now available in USB A and USB C versions, the A versions 80 bucks. The C version is 85. All right, Nate, are you ready for the explainer of the Facebook outage? Take it away. All of Facebook services from WhatsApp to its building security system went down Monday, October 4 for six hours. You heard us talk about it briefly yesterday. Facebook VP of Infrastructure, Santos Jenardin posted twice with some good details about it, explaining it was a configuration change at the root of the problem and emphasized despite your best imaginations. There was no malicious activity. No user data was compromised. This was a very bad and unfortunate mistake. Cloudflare you may have read yesterday posted a great explanation of what it looked like from the outside and that's where you may have heard people talking about DNS and BGP as explanations for the outage. They contributed but they're not the cause. DNS is often referred to as the phone book of the internet. So when you type in a domain name like facebook.com DNS is a system that tells your browser what server that domain points to so you can go get the web pages. If you have only one web server, that's easy. The DNS looks up Nate's only server.com sees what IP address it is points at that tells the browser gets the machine. However, if your network is larger, like an ISP or Facebook, you've got a more complex system. You've got multiple servers. And in these systems, the border gateway protocol or BGP works. It's often compared to a postal system. So when your browser sends its request in for Facebook.com, BGP figures out just which server is best for the job. It advertises to the rest of the internet. Here are the servers that are available. That way you get connected to a server that is near you for faster service. That's an oversimplification, but it's kind of right. In larger networks like ISPs, what cloud friend notice is that all of Facebook's BGP was withdrawn. BGP tells the internet where to find Facebook's DNS servers that meant any request. Once the BGP was withdrawn for a Facebook domain returned what's called serve fail. You often update BGP to maybe you had to take a data center down for maintenance.  So serve fail tells other DNS tables around the world to start updating their files to show that any server associated doesn't exist. If you take away all of Facebook's BGP, that means all of Facebook.com no longer exists to the rest of the internet. That caused some automated systems to assume it was available for sale, which it was not. You could see that on the official ICANN record. But if you saw that, that's what caused that. Facebook says the problem was caused by the system that manages communication between its hundreds of data centers around the world. It's got fiber optic cables. It's got undersea cables. It's got high rises full of data centers. And it's got a system that manages communication between them. On Monday, engineers were doing routine maintenance. Often that means taking down a part of the system, so they did a routine command to assess global availability just to make sure they had only taken down the right parts. The command for assessment, however, is the problem. Apparently, it was malformed because Facebook says that that command unintentionally took down all the connections within Facebook's internal network. Facebook has an audit tool that's meant to catch these kinds of human errors, but there was a bug in the audit tool, so it didn't catch it. Double failure. So the upshot is Facebook's data centers now had no way of talking to the internet. And that leads us to the next failure. To keep the network clear of junk, Facebook's domain name system servers, the DNS servers disable BGP if a data center is unavailable. That way you're not telling the internet to send request to something that isn't there. That's normally normally a very smart thing to do. However, in this case, all the data centers because of that configuration error appeared unavailable. So the DNS dutifully disabled BGP for everything, including the DNS servers themselves, meaning DNS appeared unavailable to the internet. Data centers couldn't be accessed because of the configuration bug and the tools you'd use to investigate that were now down because DNS was unavailable. You can't go to Facebook.com slash audit tool when DNS is like there is no Facebook.com or actually the internet saying like, we can't find a DNS for Facebook.com. So Facebook had to send people to the actual data center. That's why they had to do that. They had to debug the issue directly on the machines themselves. And of course, Facebook wisely, I think makes it hard to get into the data center to access its servers and physically modify them even if you have the right to access because how often are you going to need to do that, right? You want to make it hard so you can catch bag bad actors. So it took a long time to do it. It did not mean that they had to cut things open with an angle grinder, as the New York Times briefly reported then retracted that did not happen. And then even after they fixed the machine, turning something as big as Facebook back on all at once would cause huge traffic surges, power surges that could could could cause electrical failures. So this Facebook had drilled on as part of its storm recovery plans, and was able to bring back a little more slowly than you might have thought. But without incident, just took a little more time to do it right. Janard and finished his post by saying we've done extensive work hardening our systems to prevent unauthorized access. And it was interesting to see how that hardening slowed us down as we tried to recover from an outage caused not by malicious activity, but an error of our own making. I believe a trade off like this is worth it, greatly increased day to day security versus a slower recovery from a hopefully rare event like this. From here on out, our job is to strengthen our testing drills, and overall resilience to make sure events like this happen as rarely as possible. So Nate, there you go. That's what happened. It all seems understandable. I feel feel very much for that admin or that engineer who typed in the wrong command, who malformed that command. And can I just can I check on your little soundboard there? Have you still got your round of applause sound? I do. I just press it quickly. That's on behalf of everyone listening who is impressed with being able to sum up all of that in five minutes. Because that was that was incredible. And I have nothing to add other than what we're about to talk about. Which which I'll defer to you, of course, for because there is more to say. Alright, should we talk about the effects then? Yeah, people noticed. Down detector takes public outage reports to help you figure out if it's just you are not received its largest number of outage reports ever for one incident at more than 10.6 million for Facebook being down yesterday. That passed the 7.5 million that had reported Facebook's app outages back in March 2019. It also had a halo effect. Cloudflare's post about the Facebook outage did a great job of showing why this affected other websites that weren't involved in any of the network errors like Discord, Telegram, TikTok. Basically, Telegram added 70 million new users on Monday. That made it slow down. Because when people couldn't use Facebook, they all rushed to sign up or use other stuff. Facebook gets a lot of use every day. So when you cut everyone off at once, that's a lot of people flooding into other systems. And it was costly. MarketWatch did a back of the envelope calculation based on Facebook's 2020 2020 revenue, estimating Facebook was losing 163,565 dollars every minute yesterday. So total of more than 60 million. Now granted, some of that could be made backup with make goods and that stuff. But not all. And the losses don't stop with Facebook. A lot of businesses use Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to communicate and sell to customers. None of those were available for six hours. Not all the effects were bad. Haystack provides engineering metrics for development teams. And it showed developer throughput among its customers rose 32% yesterday. Monday usually sees a bit of a rise in productivity from developers, but not by that much according to Haystack. The analysis indicates lead time for pull requests increase the most.  So Haystack was quick to point out that devs could have just gone to other social networks to engage in the great internet pastime of making fun of Facebook being down, but they didn't. They used the extra time they had from Facebook being down to clean up some stuff. Yeah, and one of the really interesting sides to this that I'm excited in a weird sort of way to see play out is the fact that Mark Zuckerberg has made a huge, huge deal about the advantages of a unified system, you know, from the ground up, you know, quite literally when you're thinking about data centers. And, you know, one of the big fallouts of Facebook, which again, I know we're going to come to is about whether the company is too big. And it's when outages like this happen. I mean, yes, on the one hand, it does also underscore a fundamental weakness that the internet by design can have in extremely rare circumstances like this where you own and operate everything. But I do also think that it's going to be used as a bit of an argument against the unified principles that that Zuckerberg has for Facebook, even though on a, you know, splitting the companies up on paper isn't necessarily going to change anything about this. But it will raise questions about just how joined up should these companies be when a failure like this can cost the communication potential of billions of people all at once. That's going to be really interesting to follow. Yeah, it's easy to armchair this and say, well, why didn't they have redundant systems? It's costly. It's very costly. This isn't just Facebook being money grabbing costly. It's very costly to not run these as one system. And the fact that BGP went away, and hopefully you have at least a somewhat of an understanding of what that means, is it, you know, once in a lifetime event, you don't expect that to happen. And I think Santos Jnardin's post very, very carefully says we shouldn't overreact to the fact that this happened because it's still very unlikely to happen. So I don't think Facebook has to change a lot of things. It is, as you say, an indication of just how big Facebook is. And if it weren't all in the same network because of those cost efficiencies, if it were separate companies, at least Instagram, what's that wouldn't have been affected, right? And what's that being affected? Huge problem for businesses all around the world. Huge problem for families communicating all around the world, which is why you see them driving into Telegram at 70 million. I do think, and I'm curious what you think about this, Nate, it will have caused a lot of people to try something else to get by for six hours yesterday. Yes. And some of those people some percentage of those people will say, actually, this is better. I'm just going to keep doing that. We do see that from time to time. I know Signal said they had also had millions of new users sign up and Signal and Telegram both benefited when WhatsApp announced the big privacy overhaul to its terms and conditions over the last year. But as we've seen before with both outages like this, with privacy scares, with things like Cambridge Analytica, in Facebook's case, again, those things don't long term tend to be the things that dent either a share price or a user base. They always recover and it is far broader issues that tend to take down the behemoths. And it's usually much more nuanced than one event like this. Yeah, if anything, what this is going to show people is, wow, I do have all my eggs in one basket. When Facebook went down, my entire business was unavailable. Maybe I should have a website. Maybe I should diversify. And I think, you know, we could talk about whether Facebook should be legislated or antitrust applied. This could be just good in having people realize, oh, maybe I maybe I shouldn't be encouraging them to be a monolith myself. If you can, if you can take that action, or in some cases, people will realize, crap, I have no other option, which is bad too. Now, there are a lot of conspiracy theories out there that this was all done to take the heat off of Facebook, which doesn't make any sense to me because it just increases the heat on Facebook. But the other thing happening was CBS 60 minutes publishing former Facebook data scientist Francis Haugen's complaints that were filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We mentioned yesterday that Haugen came forward as the whistleblower. Eight complaints were filed based on tens of thousands of internal documents copied by Haugen before she left Facebook in May. The allegations include Facebook and Instagram being aware the platforms were used to quote, promote human trafficking and domestic servitude and failing to deploy countermeasures to combat misinformation and violent extremism. Haugen testified before the US Senate Commerce Committee today, opening by saying, Facebook products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy. The summary of Haugen's testimony would be that she alleges Facebook knows the harm it does, which I think we all know that we all know a lot of the harm we think Facebook does and Facebook is aware of it too. But she says it intentionally does not take action to remedy these things for fear it would harm profits too much. This is similar to the conclusions from the Wall Street Journal reports from September that are based on leaked documents provided by Haugen. In the interview with 60 minutes, Haugen said if the company made its algorithm safer, users would click on less ads and make less money over time for Facebook. Haugen also called several times for Facebook to open up its research and its procedures saying quote, no one truly understands the destructive choices made by Facebook except Facebook.  Of course, senators focused as you might guest on harm to children and whether Facebook intentionally markets to children. But this will not be the end. Senator Marsha Blackburn plans to hold more fact finding hearings about Facebook over the next few months. Senator Ed Markey has brought back his kids act, which would put limits on apps developed for children. And of course, never get between Senator Josh Holly and a microphone is what Justin Robert Young always says. Senator Holly drew up a tort bill to make it easier to sue social media companies if you can prove they are harmful to children. How much momentum will this testimony bring so far? Everything that we've seen and everything being planned are subcommittees and smaller efforts. So can area in the coal mine to keep your eye out for is a full U. S. Senate Commerce Committee probe. If that happens, things are leveling up. If committee chair Senator Maria Cantwell, remember that name, Senator Maria Cantwell signs off on an investigation with subpoena power from the full committee. As I said, things have leveled up. If you don't hear that, just expect more of the same of what you've seen till now. Maybe a bill gets momentum. Maybe not. Nate, what do you make of all of this testimony? All of the Sturman drawing? Well, it reminds me a lot of what happened actually following Cambridge Analytica as regards, you know, privacy when the UK Parliamentary Committee here called the DCMS, which, you know, long time listeners will probably remember something about, made a real show of getting executives from companies and individuals who'd worked with Facebook, with Cambridge Analytica and gave them a pretty hard grilling. It was the one that the sessions that Mark Zuckerberg quite infamously never showed up to give evidence at. And the long term fallout of that has just been this kind of deeply rooted distrust of companies like Facebook and other large tech companies, certainly Amazon and Apple and Google, Microsoft, you know, all get fingers pointed at them from time to time. But particularly Facebook because of this kid's angle. And over here, there's been a huge amount of attention being put on getting answers from the company about these sorts of topics. But they're sort of outside of our jurisdiction when it comes to, you know, a fundamental overhaul of how the company is. Like it's really hard for anyone other than the US to do this because they are an American company at heart. So for this attention to be being placed on it for these reasons, it echoes what I know a lot of lawmakers here in Britain, many other countries worldwide have kind of wanted to see. They're going to be watching this. And you can probably expect to see increased attention locally around the world as a direct result, following the footsteps. So it's going to be very interesting. Yeah, I believe Hogan wants to make things better. But when she says only Facebook understands how destructive Facebook is, I would tend to believe even Facebook doesn't really understand how destructive it is. There's a lot of, well, it makes sense that if Facebook has this many children, it would have these bad effects. That's not science, though. That's that's hypothesis. And these are reasonable hypotheses. I would like to see some actual close looking and saying, but does it? For instance, the Wall Street Journal articles that were implying that Instagram caused. Some people think the Wall Street Journal articles say Instagram caused teens to have bad self images. They didn't. What we got from that is Instagram aggravates bad self image. If you have a bad self image and you use Instagram, it's going to make it worse. To me, that's that's much more useful. I don't care to punish Instagram. What I care about is, ah, well, if we know it aggravates, then that helps us tailor our advice to children. It helps us tailor therapy. It helps us tailor policy to be like, well, we shouldn't keep teens off Instagram. Most of them aren't harmed by it. We should be figuring out how to make sure that those who could be harmed will be off of it. That's just one example. I think there needs to be more open. I've said this before, but I think there needs to be more opening of Facebook's own internal research to outside viewpoints that can study it and actually determine what is happening because this is all new. This is like television in the twenties. We don't really know what effect it has. No. All right, folks, if you'd like a different perspective than mine or Nate's on Facebook and tech news in general, you're going to want to get the tech John in your life. Rob Dunwood, Terence Gaines and Stephanie Humphrey host the tech John taking a second look at the week's tech headlines from an African American perspective because they're African Americans. So they just talk about it from their own perspective. You can follow it over at the tech John dot com. They're talking about Facebook in today's episode that came out. That's T E C H J A W M the tech John dot com. Get it in your life. All right, some non Facebook news out there. UK regulatory filing shows that alphabets AI unit deep mind made 43.8 million pounds profit last year. This comes after reporting a loss of 477 million pounds in 2019. Quiet a turnaround. Google acquired deep mind in 2014 for around 400 million pounds and alphabet wrote off 1.1 billion pounds in debt at one point to kind of wipe the slate clean deep minds revenues stem from applying its tech to various alphabet projects ads on Google, sales, shopping, Waymo YouTube. A recent collaboration with Google Maps improved the estimated arrival times of your using Google Maps by up to 50% if you're using navigation. Of course, since all of deep minds revenue appears to come from within alphabet, it would not be difficult to change the amounts credited to deep mind to make it appear profitable and not saying that's what they did. But it's a little murky. One thing that is clear. Hiring seems to have leveled off deep mind says it has more than 1000 people, which is close to what it said last year and staff costs only rose from 467 million pounds to 473 million pounds. So costs at least are leveling out. Yeah, be cool if you could see some outside clients. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, and you know, it's a very difficult company to get a firm grassbomb because it's kind of becoming like plumbing inside inside of Google. And you know, there's an argument to be made that in order to keep people inside a company interested and engaged in working on what they're working on, you need to be feel you need to feel like your works validated, like you're contributing to something. And the fact that this news originally, you know, it comes out of what's called company's house here in the UK. It's where, you know, all companies over a certain size have to report their filings, including in this instance, deep mind. It's not like it's come out as a press release announcing, hey, we're profitable. Hey, look at all this tax.  This is possibly one of those things that's kind of done in a way that makes employees feel good and the press just happened to notice. This is not a place the public goes to get news company's house. So who knows? But it's interesting for sure. Yeah, I think I think what's interesting to me is, is that alphabet wouldn't mind this getting out wouldn't be shocked if somebody maybe, you know, not someone along the way, because this would be one of the first big, hey, we have a non Google division that's profitable, right? Yeah, and that is how it often happens. But, you know, let's not read too much more into it than that. I would imagine it's, it's, it's not going to be something we're going to keep going back to, right?  They're doing good stuff. Real quickly, tortoise, a remote operated robotic delivery service is expanding to convenience stores across the US with a two year deal with Idaho based King Retail Solutions under the agreement King Retail Solutions, aka KRS will lease more than 500 sidewalk delivery units to its stores. Tortoise vehicles are suited for deliveries ranging between three to five miles. They move about four miles per hour. So you know, kind of plug in along on Sidebox units are expected to complete eight to 10 deliveries a day during store hours. Tortoise also recently made deals with Logistics company Axel Hire, a grocery chain called Shoprite and another convenience store chain called Choice Market. Of course, tortoise isn't the only company doing this. There's Star. There's a few others out there all around the world. It does feel like Nate that sooner or later, little robots trundling along with grocery delivers deliveries might just become normal. Absolutely. Yeah, you've really taught us all a lot about automation today. Hey, oh, um, yeah, still not buying into the whole Amazon thing. The the the Astro, but but for grocery stuff, I'm much more in favor of and I love the name tortoise. It's such a great creature in the world. And I love that is a company named after it. It's brilliant. And it I think it's descriptive, right? Because it just kind of trundles along like a tortoise, you know, but it's fast enough four miles an hour over a couple of miles to get you your groceries in a recent amount of reasonable amount of time. And of course, even with lockdowns easing in certain places of the world, people have got this is what we're talking about earlier. People had to do online delivery for some things for a while. And now they're used to it. Now they're like, you know, even if I don't have to kind of like it. So convenience stores are you wouldn't have thought convenience stores would be a big market for this, but but they are showing huge growth in deliveries. And these are remote operated. These are not autonomous. But even so, you can have a human do a lot more deliveries than you can if you're trying to pay them, you know, 20 pounds an hour to go out and drive from one place to the other because you have to transit time back. Yeah, the show. All right, folks, if you're a wine lover, but you're not sure the vintage or type of wine you like is available in the location you're traveling to, if you're doing any traveling, Chris Christensen has an app for you. This is Chris Christensen from amateur traveler with another tech in travel minute. Last week, I recommended an app for beer lovers. But if you were a wine lover instead, I'm going to recommend the Vivino app. There's a number of different apps that help you keep track of what wines you like. It can be a little more tricky with wine because you might like that wine from that vineyard for 2016, but not for 2017. It's not always as simple as I like that wine or I don't. Vivino builds itself as the Shazam app for wine. You take a picture of the label and it can search it or you can search by name and if you don't have it in there, you can add the wine just in case it's missing. I do find that even if there are some wines from a winery that I'm at, they may not all be in the app. So I do find that I need to add some wines, but I live in a state with over 3,600 vineyards, so that's not too surprising. But check out Vivino. I'm Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler. Thank you, Chris. Although it is it's just strike me that calling it the Shazam of wines makes it sound like you're listening to the wine somehow. Oh, that will be similarly as we do that. Yeah, you can guarantee it. You can I hear I hear notes of cherry. Yeah, I folks keep the emails coming. We love to hear from you. You got it. You got an opinion on all this stuff. Let us know what it is. Feedback at Daily Tech News Show dot com. Thanks to our brand new bosses. Man, when you become a boss, if you're out there listening to the public feed, you not only get a bunch of perks, a lot of extra content to fill out your tech knowledge, you get an ad free feed, but you also get thanked right here on the show are new bosses Chandra Benek and Chad Johnson just started backing us on Patreon. And this is why the applause for Chandra and Chad. Thank you both for backing us. You could be in their place tomorrow. Patreon.com slash DTNS. Thank you, Nate Langston for joining us. Remind people where they can go to find out what you're up to. Yeah, I had more comments about the episode we just put out on Sunday, episode 251 of a text message that it is one of the best shows and most entertaining shows we've ever done. And Ian and I, my cohost, we said similar before we even started getting those comments. So it'd be a great first episode for people to listen. If you like tech news from, you know, this voice that you are hearing now UK tech show dot com episode 251, give it a try. Apparently a lot of people seem to think it's very good. So hope you might agree. I enjoyed it quite a bit myself on Sunday. So go check it out folks UK tech show dot com. We are live Monday through Friday for 30 p.m. Eastern 2030 UTC find out more daily tech news show dot com slash live back tomorrow with Scott Johnson. Talk to you then. This show is part of the frog pants network. Get more at frog pants dot com. Hope you have enjoyed this program.


Hello everyone, I will briefly discuss our new result constraint hiding constraint PRFs for any circuit from standard lattice assumptions. This is a joint work with Chris Pickert. So first let's recall the definition of the constraint hiding constraint PRF. A constraint hiding constraint PRF is a normal PRF which has this nice property. Given a circuit C, we can produce by V, I mean anyone who holds the secret key for the PRF. We can produce a constraint version of the PRF. And what does that mean? That means that this constraint version of the PRF satisfies all these three properties informally. So as long as the circuit C, so as long as the input to the input X, as long as C of X is 0, the value of the constraint PRF and the true value of the PRF match. But if the C of X is 1, then the constraint version of the PRF reveals nothing about the true value of the PRF. And furthermore, the constraint version of the PRF hides the circuit C. Now, in PKT 2017, 2017, Bonnet, Levy, and Wu defined the notion of defined constraint hiding constraint PRFs and gave a construction using based on indistinguishability obfuscation. Later in EuroCrip 2017, Bonnet, Keem, and Montgomery gave a construction which supported this circuit class of equality check circuits. And in the same conference, Canetti and Chen gave a construction for NC1 circuits, circuits with logarithmic depth. Both of these two constructions were based on standard lattice assumptions. In our work, we give a lattice-based construction which supports basically all polynomial size circuits. As a bonus, we also construct lattice-based private programmable PRFs. And what is a private programmable PRF? If you attended this morning's talk, then you would remember that it's a constraint hiding constraint PRF for the circuit class of equality check circuits, which allows us to program the value of the PRF at the constraint point. So, let's have a high level, brief high level overview of our techniques. Our core technique is a way to secretly embed any function g. And by any function g in particular, I mean function g that are independent of the PRF inside the, so we can hide any function g inside the constraint PRF, such that if we evaluate the constraint PRF, the value equals the true value of the PRF plus the value of g evaluated at that point. So, with this technique, now it is easy to, with this technique, we set g to be c times an auxiliary PRF. And this auxiliary PRF can be any PRF based on any assumption. It's independent of the PRF we are constructing. And with this g that we defined, it's not hard to see why we are now having a constraint hiding constraint PRF. When c of x equals 0, then g also equals 0, so the value, the true value and the constraint value match. But when c equals 1, then g, the value of g equals the value of the auxiliary PRF. And that completely hides the true value of the PRF. That was it. Thank you.


Diolch i ni, amser. Ieithiwch i fi hwnnw y byddiwyr, a i gydag ni'n mynd i gydag. Diolch i ni, arweinydd. Diolch i chi'n mynd i chi, pan gennynnau bod hynny du ar gyfer Llyfrgellu Tafelidol. Rwy'r rwyfodh Gweinimheidwyr Llyfrgellu Rwyfodd mewn tuowen, ond am gweithiwch i'u cyffredinol yn dweud i gyf προwydau ar gwns Rhysnas, iOs yn cymrydol. Prysyn hwnnw ychydig i chi fyddir yn cael ym medium wrth yr ydw ni'n ym gösterio. Mae'r oedlion yn ysgandall sydd wedi wrth datblygu'r cyffinfaen,eman o'r gwbl eich gyfath yr ysgandall iawn, nad yw'r gwbl mwyaf o'r cym percefn ychydig? Felly, pan wrth yr ystodr yng nghylch i'r wych yn ysgaddi, rydyn ni'n hynny?   The question on the review that has been referred to, the SPS provided a final report to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice on 8 February. The chief executive of the Scottish prison service met the justice secretary on the course of a regular meeting schedule yesterday o wel connecting hwn i ysgrifent gThere will be updated the criminal justice committee this week. Both the cabinet secretary and the SPS chief executive are due to attend the justice committee, in February, when members of the Parliament will be able to ask questions so that there will be full transparency about the findings of that review as is right and proper. I associate myself with the remarks that the First Minister, and she's correct Lleidogol LŽd willowydd yn robo clapping cyd. Rwy'n ffumins cyd o brydlayr mirrorsol SIL. Aesthio sicrhau gyda b autograph i G straffau rai pethaupturgiol ac confortio i ffun Saiddur o ei ffordd i gael a despon publishediaeth hyn. Mwneud gyngulleif單id a duoton greu tyngau mian Caergyll. I get an answer. The Cabinet Secretary for justice had that report yesterday. The First Minister spoke about further discussions with the justice committee but failed to commit to publishing the report in full. Will she now do that? Will the First Minister confirm that her government will publish the report in full? It's on the justice secretary's desk, I assume. oherwydd ddim yn i'r cwmal y cyfyrdd i guttio. Fy fwy hynny dych yn gweithiau y cwestiynau. Yr eich ysgol, y First Minister efallai wedi'i gweld 12 oes i ddigonwch ar gyfer ein aelodr y Cyfnodol oedd a chyfnodol yn y flond! Fy fyw ddaeth hyn yn cyfweld cyfweld yr oedd yr oed cyfygoedd cyfweld â'r prifnwys. Mae First Minister oeddu i ni oedd ei wneud wynebu i naddwyl eich rhan o ddweud yn fwyeth ar dweud. Rhan o dweud? Rwy'n meddwl, what further information can the First Minister possibly need? So can I ask her, when this monster comes out of jail, will Nicholas Sturgeon- I'm sorry, if SNP members are grumbling at me calling a double rapist a monster you should look at yourselves? Because I'm asking, when he comes out of jail will Nicholas Sturgeon and her government consider him a man, or a woman? On the report, I really do think that Douglas Ross is clutching at straws in his follow-up question. I made very clear that the findings of the report will be published. The cabinet secretary confirmed, I believe he confirmed in this chamber that he will update the criminal justice committee this week. Parliament rises today, of course, for this week. Both the cabinet secretary and the chief executive of the Scottish prison service, Theresa Medhurst, will attend the justice committee on 22 February following the week's recess of Parliament. Members of that committee will be able to ask questions about that review. I am not sure how anybody can suggest that there is not going to be full transparency around that review, but I am grateful for the opportunity to set that out again for Mr Ross. On the subsequent part of his question, the individual that we are talking about here identifies as a woman. However, it is really important, I think, to very calmly set out that any rights associated with that are not a result of any legislation passed by this Parliament and indeed would not be the result of that legislation even if it were enforced. It is a result of the Equality Act passed by the UK Parliament, reserved to the UK Parliament in 2004, which has always been based on self-identification. However, what it does not do is give any individual an automatic right to be treated in a certain way in the prison estate. Actually, this case demonstrates that because the individual is in a male prison. What is relevant here and why I have focused on that is the crime and the nature of the risk posed. In this case, the individual is a double rapist. In terms of decisions about how they are dealt with in the prison estate, that is the relevant factor.  In no other circumstances do we accept the stigmatisation and the denial of rights to the whole group, and we should not do that here either. First Minister claims that I am clutching its straws on this. It seems that she is clutching on to this report because she is not willing to issue it in full today. The report findings, we are told, will be published at some point. Why not today? Why not publish the findings and the full report that your justice secretary has had for over 24 hours? For the 13th time now, Nicola Sturgeon has been unable to say if Isla Bryson is a man or a woman. She says that it does not matter because it is how they are dealt with on the prison estate. My question was very specifically about how they are dealt with when they leave prison. The First Minister has tied herself up in knots over this issue, unable to answer that basic question because she cannot admit the truth. Her Government is going to consider this double rapist a woman.  So Isla Bryson will be considered a woman by this Government, and that is why the First Minister is refusing to answer questions about this double rapist. Let me ask her about another offender, serving time right now. Not a rapist but a dangerous criminal with a history of brutal violence. Tiffany Scott, formerly known as Andrew Burns, claims to be a woman. Does the First Minister believe this criminal is a woman? I think Douglas Ross is demonstrating here a lack of understanding in the law. Any rights that any individual identifying as a woman has flow not from any decisions of this Government or any decisions of this Parliament. They flow from the protected characteristic provisions in the 2004 Equality Act which is UK-wide legislation and is and has always been based on self-identification. A gender recognition certificate and of course the law passed by this Parliament is not yet enforced, but a gender recognition certificate simply enables somebody to change their birth certificate. It does not give trans people any additional rights and that is important. In terms of how individuals are treated within the prison service, as I have said, that is based on the nature of the crime and the nature of the risk posed. Both cases that Douglas Ross has cited demonstrate that in terms of the prisons that these individuals are in. In terms of how prisoners are treated when they leave prison for sex offenders, of course there are well-established procedures including the MAPA procedures and again they are based on an assessment of the nature of risk. Those are important issues, they are sensitive issues, not least for the trans community.  I do not think that Douglas Ross does any service to anybody in the way that he approaches this. I am struck by something that his predecessor, a Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, has said. Trying to do gotcha questions about who is a woman who is a man, I am not sure helps particularly for people in the trans community who are looking at the way that this is reported. Perhaps Douglas Ross could take some guidance from his predecessor on this matter and that might serve this whole debate better than the way that he is doing right now. This is not a gotcha question, it is a very basic question. It is not just me, it is journalists who are asking this repeatedly to the First Minister and I would not stand up here asking those questions if, at any point in the 13 previous attempts, I had ever got a straight answer from Nicola Sturgeon. So, maybe do not focus on the question, focus on the deficiency of the answer. The fact that Nicola Sturgeon is now on two criminals who she said that I have raised two different cases, they are. They are very different cases, but the similarity is the First Minister's point blank refusal to give an answer, and I think that she has to look at that. The First Minister accused me of basic misunderstanding of legislation. I would have to say that she is guilty of either basic or deliberate misunderstanding of her own policy, because it is quite clear that Tiffany Scott, this dangerous criminal, is treated as a woman in a man's jail. We have spoken to a former prison officer who told us this. All officers dealing with this individual were ordered to refer to Tiffany Scott as she and threatened with disciplinary measures if we did not. They said that Scott, and this is quoting them, has used gender recognition as a tool to create as much chaos as possible within the prison system and they continued, this is a classic example of devious, dangerous individuals who are exploiting this ridiculous situation, the words of a retired prison officer who has dealt with this person. We also know that female prison officers have been ordered to carry out intimate strip searches of Tiffany Scott. Reports quote officers who say that nothing else about Scott has changed physically and the officers say that their rights have gone out of the window. So does the First Minister agree with me that this is completely unacceptable? Will she intervene today to stop women prison officers being forced to strip search the likes of Tiffany Scott? First Minister, let me take these issues in turn firstly and let me reiterate this. The law that this Parliament passed before Christmas, backed by two thirds of MSPs across this chamber, including members of Douglas Ross' own party, is not yet in force. It wouldn't have the impact, Douglas Ross says, even if it was in force, but it's not in force. So by definition that can't have that impact. The policies of this Government, the policies of this Government on these issues are guided by the Equality Act. I think I said earlier on 2004, of course, the Equality Act is 2010, but they are guided by the Equality Act, governed by the Equality Act, which is a UK-wide piece of legislation. The rights and protections that trans people have flow from that legislation, and that is important to set out. Those in the prison estate are dealt with depending on the nature of the crime and the nature of the risk posed. Again, it's important, I think, for reasons of public assurance to underline that as well, and that is demonstrated by the two cases that have been cited in the media in recent days and here again today. When it comes to searches in the prison estate, first of all, the Scottish Prison Service has of course been dealing with transgender prisoners, although they are very, very small in number for many, many years now. They have been doing it safely and effectively. They are experienced in managing these situations. Of course, it's also the case that the SPS has the ability to use technology to search individuals without the need for any physical search to be conducted by officers. The SPS has a trauma-informed approach to the management of those in custody and an approach that supports staff as well as inmates in their care. The SPS is experienced in those matters. I trust their handling of those matters, and it's important that we continue to ensure that they are handled appropriately. That's what the Government, in association with the Scottish Prison Service, will continue to do. We will all be devastated by the scenes in Turkey and Syria with the horrific earthquake and a death-thrown out-sitting act. We will suspend business at this point. We will resume, and I call at question 2 Anna Sarwar. Presiding Officer, I would question disruption at any time, but to disrupt when we're talking about the lives lost in Turkey and Syria, I'd like to strike with you. The death toll has now reached over 16,000, and like Douglas Ross and Nicola Sturgeon, I send my condolences to all those that have lost their loved one in Turkey and Syria, and I think of all those families living in Scotland that have a connection with Turkey and Syria. Can I welcome the announcements made by both the Scottish and the UK Governments in terms of money and resources to support the relief effort? Can I also appeal to people across the country? I know that times are really difficult with family budgets, but anything that you can give to support the DEC appeal will make a huge difference to families suffering in Turkey and Syria. The SNP Government is leaving councils the length and breadth of Scotland in a dire position. Despite what Nicola Sturgeon claims, independent analysis shows that the budgets councils have control over have been cut by £304 million in real terms. That means devastating consequences for vital services. Will the First Minister finally admit that she is cutting local government budgets? The Government is increasing local government budgets. The resources available to local government in terms of next year's budget—of course, if Parliament passes next year's budget, the increase will be £570 million. Of course, inflation is sky-high right now. That is not a result of policies of this Government. Of course, that is affecting the budget of this Government as well. Absolutely, it is the case that local government is struggling with these financial constraints as all parts of the public sector, and indeed, as Anna Sarwar has just said, households are struggling as well. That is why it is important that we continue to support local government as much as we can. Obviously, the budgetary process is still under way and will conclude following the February recess of Parliament. We will continue to discuss with COSLA ways in which we can help them to mitigate the difficult situation that they find themselves in. Last week, I invited Anna Sarwar to point to other parts of the draft budget that he thought we could take resources from if he wants us to give more money to local government. He may have sent those to my office. I do not know in which case I will look at those, but I suspect that he has not come up with any reasonable or realistic or credible proposals to do that. Anna Sarwar. The First Minister knows that we have published a document showing £3 billion of waste under this SNP Government. That would be a good place to start. However, the First Minister wants to deny a reality. The Fraser of Allander, the IFS, Spice, Scotland's councils, including Aron, all saying that there is a real-terms cut to local government budgets, but a truth that the First Minister is not willing to accept. There is no way for councils to balance the books without further destroying local services. All of Scotland's 32 councils are united in their opposition to this Government's cuts. That is what a presentation to council leaders said last week. Cuts have already fallen disproportionately on council services, libraries, culture and leisure, sports facilities, youth work, waste, roads, parks. Those are cuts that have already happened in previous years. The presentation concludes that the Government's plans are, I quote, increasingly unrealistic, not sustainable, risk non-delivery of other statutory duties and puts the financial viability of local government at risk. Councilers of every political party, including her own, are angry and warning her of the dire consequences, but Nicola Sturgeon is not listening. As usual, she is right and everyone else is wrong. Why can't the First Minister see the damage that her decisions are making to our communities? Anas Sarwar demonstrated the lack of any credible proposals coming from Labour in the first part of that question. Secondly, he mentioned the IFS. It is important to underline that the IFS analysis confirms that council funding has increased since 2013-14 by £2.2 billion, which is 22.9 per cent higher in cash terms. However, it is the case that inflation is high. When Anas Sarwar shouts at me from a sedentary position, what about real terms? Yes, inflation is high right now, and that is affecting all parts of the public sector. That is down to decisions and economic mismanagement of the Conservatives at Westminster. We come back to the central point. All of us can accept that these are really difficult times for local councils and we will continue to work with local councils to support them as much as we can. However, the draft budget that is before Parliament right now has all the resources at our disposal, including the revenue from asking those who earn the most to pay a bit more in tax. All of that revenue is allocated within that draft budget, so anybody who says—and I understand why they would make this argument—that we should give more money to local government has a duty and a responsibility to point in that draft budget to the lines where they think that money should come from. Is it the NHS? Is it the police budget?  Is it social security? Those are legitimate debates, but if you want to be credible in those debates, you can only argue one side of it. You have to do both of the bits. That is what governing is all about. Anas Sarwar We can only have an honest debate if we get an honest answer from the First Minister. This is a real terms cut to local government budgets. The First Minister is out of touch with reality. Let's look at what's on the table and the options councils are being forced to consider. Aberdeen outsourcing all social work and children's services. Falkirk selling off over 100 council buildings, including swimming pools and theatres. Glasgow slashing care placements for children, which officials warn, will compromise children's safety and increase the risk of abuse and neglect. Enough is enough. Get off your backs and speak out against this First Minister, because across the country we are facing a future where children's music lessons are cut, libraries are closed and rebins will only be collected once a month, and the blame for all of this lies with Nicola Sturgeon and her Government, because wherever you look, this Government is losing its grip. People used to say that the First Minister was competent. Now she is saying that now they are saying that she is out of control and that she has people in her own political party. After 15 years of this SNP Government, local government in crisis, teachers on strike, the NHS on its knees, so will she finally admit that this is an SNP budget for cuts, for closures and for strikes? First Minister, no matter how much Anna Sarwar raises his voice in shouts, it does not cover up the fact that he has not brought forward a single proposal within a budget that is fully allocated for putting a single extra penny into local government budgets. That is why he shouts, because there is absolutely zero substance in anything he is saying. All sound and fury and no substance is a good summary of Anna Sarwar, but let me take some of the points. Anna Sarwar is talking about real terms. The £570 million increase that I have spoken about is a real terms increase of £160.6 million, 1.3 per cent. Secondly, in terms of the proposals that councils are looking at, at this time every year, councils look at a range of proposals. I have seen proposals from Glasgow City Council this morning and the point is made. Those are options that no decisions have been taken. I remember a few years ago claims at this time of year that there were going to be 15,000 job cuts across local government since then. Jobs have actually increased by 19,000. Yes, those are difficult times for local government, but if you want to propose more money for local government within a draft budget that is fully allocated, then to have any credibility, you also have to say where that resource should come from. In the absence of Anna Sarwar being clear about that, I can only assume that he wants us to take money from the national health service or from police budgets and give it to local government or social security, perhaps it is the Scottish child payment. If Anna Sarwar wants to be taken seriously, he really has to bring some substance to what is a very difficult debate and a very difficult situation for local councils across the country. To ask the First Minister what assessment the Scottish Government has made of the potential impact on the hospitality and tourism sectors of a ban on advertising alcohol products. The consultation on alcohol advertising and promotion is on-going. It is open until 9 March, so let me be very clear that no decisions have been taken on scope or type of any restrictions that might be taken forward in future. The point of the consultation is to get a range of views on the most appropriate next steps in reducing alcohol-related harm, which I hope we can all recognise is one of the most pressing public health challenges that we face. Considering restriction in promotion of alcohol is not unique to Scotland, for example Ireland passed legislation to bring in a number of restrictions five years ago. Restrictions that were focused on reducing the exposure of children to alcohol promotion, and I think that that is key, reducing the exposure of children. Ministers have met a range of stakeholders, including representatives from the alcohol and advertising industries, during the consultation period to hear directly from them, and of course will take seriously and consider properly all representations made. I thank the First Minister for her response. She will know that the whisky tourism sector is worth some £84 million annually to the Scottish economy and supports jobs in rural and remote communities where there are a few other opportunities. Yet this sector, as its leaders have been very clear about, is concerned at the threat from a ban on all alcohol advertising. I agree with the First Minister that we need to look at sensible measures to tackle alcohol abuse, but does she agree with me that it would be absurd if whisky distilleries, which are so important to our economy, had to cover up all their signage, close their shops, stop promoting tours and the likes of the Johnny Walker experience in Edinburgh, which is a tremendous tourism draw, had to rebrand itself and board up its windows, which is what people are concerned about. Yes, to be clear, I do agree with that. I will come back to that perhaps in a moment. First, the whisky tourism sector is extremely important to Scotland's reputation as well as to Scotland's economy. The Johnny Walker experience centre here in Edinburgh is a prime example of that. Some of the suggestions that we have heard in recent weeks, just let me be clear that the target would be painted signs on distilleries or visitor centres, are not in our current thinking and let me be very clear about that. There is also a world of difference. Remember what I said in my initial answer about exposure of children to alcohol advertising. There is a world of difference between a billboard outside or in the vicinity of a school and, for example, a Johnny Walker baseball cap. We have to look pragmatically and seriously at that. I am glad that Murdo Fraser recognised that we have a problem, a public health issue with alcohol misuse. Like countries such as Ireland have done, we need to look at promotion and advertising and how we sensibly restrict that to try to deal with that problem, but we need to do that properly and pragmatically. I hope that that answer will give some reassurance to those in the wiscate tourism sector about some of the supposed things that we have heard in recent days and weeks. As there is still a live consultation on the restriction of alcohol advertising and as no final proposals have been lodged, would the First Minister agree with me that any potential harm is still hypothetical at this stage, whereas the real harms being experienced by hospitality and tourism sectors caused by Brexit are being felt right now, and the Tories should be pushing their Westminster leaders to address that. Natalie Dawn is so right to talk about the difference between hypothetical harm and I understand the concerns that have been expressed. I hope that what I have said today will allay those concerns on the part of the wiscate tourism sector, for example. However, there is very real harm being done today, right now, by Brexit. The loss of free movement is causing harm, for example, specifically to our hospitality and tourism sectors as well as to the wider economy. We will continue to listen to the hospitality sector, the tourism sector and the wiscate tourism sector in particular in relation to this issue and take on board reasonable points that they make. If only the UK Government would adopt a similar posture when it came to these industries expressing concern about the very real impacts and the very real harm that Brexit is doing to them right now. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Will the First Minister join me in congratulating East Lothian public in Patrick Kearney, who has recently stepped in to prevent two local pubs, the Preston Grange Gothenburg and Preston Pans and the Tower in a Trinent from permanent closure? However, does she also recognise that, around Scotland, hundreds of pubs are likely to close their doors for good this winter? To prevent last orders being called across Scotland's hospitality sector, will she remove pubs in restaurants and cafes from the chaotic DRS scheme, replicate the UK Government's 75 per cent rates relief for hospitality businesses and halt the alcohol and advertising and sponsorship review, which will inevitably put further pressure on Scotland's hard-pressed publicans? First Minister, let me echo the congratulations extended by the member in his question. Of course, pubs like many businesses are struggling with high inflation right now. High energy costs in particular will come on to a question shortly about DRS, so I will save my substantial comments on that until that question. Of course, businesses such as those will also benefit from this Government's approach to business rates. We have the most competitive business rates regime, including release for businesses to business rates of any country in the UK, so we will continue to do everything we can to support businesses in these very difficult times. Much of those difficult times are down to the economic mismanagement of the Conservative Government at Westminster. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to reports that 600 drinks producers are concerned about the impact on their businesses and the survival of them in relation to the deposit return scheme. First Minister, we will continue to listen to and where possible address concerns that have been raised. In direct response to industry feedback, the Scottish Government has already worked with Circularity Scotland, the scheme administrator, to reduce costs to producers. That includes a reduction in producer fees of up to 40 per cent and a two-thirds reduction in day one payments for producers using UK-wide barcodes. We continue to work with industry to ensure that there are pragmatic approaches to implementation, and we will do so right up to the point of implementation. Many of those 600 businesses are in a state of fear and even despair. Some will close, some will fail and others will no longer sell their own produce in their own country of Scotland. Unless halted now, this scheme, which most businesses believe to be fatally flawed, will damage the reputation of Scotland as a place to do business. Therefore, First Minister, will you instruct a pause of this disaster of a scheme before it becomes a catastrophe? Will you order a thorough and independent review of how better to achieve its aims and exclude glass from the scope as the top six nations in the world on glass recycling have done? We will continue to listen to and engage with businesses, the steps that we have already taken as I sit out already demonstrate that. It is important to say that. In fact, Scotland Food and Drink recognised the approach when they said in recent weeks that those changes mean that some of our key respects have been accommodated, which is positive and means that our collective effort has materially improved the implications for many businesses. In terms of glass, there are 44 countries and territories operating deposit return schemes. Only four of them do not include glass. Of course, it is the case that there are strong environmental reasons for including glass, but on all those issues we will continue to listen. One of the issues that I am particularly concerned to consider further, if there is yet more we can do to reduce any impact on small producers, because some of the concerns that have been raised there are not unreasonable. We will continue to take a responsible approach listening to the concerns of business and responding responsibly in the face of them. Drinks producers have until the end of this month to sign up for the deposit return scheme. Those who do will be financially liable for any delays, having to fork out up to £1.5 million per month. Making matters worse, they are being asked to sign up with key information still missing, but if they do not sign up they cannot sell their products. One leading Scottish brewer described it as an extortion tactics. Does the First Minister agree that the deadline for such registration should be extended until the full, operational, commercial and financial implications of the scheme are provided? We announced an extension to the go live date for the scheme back in December 2021, giving industry additional time to prepare. That was criticised at the time by the Conservatives, among others in the chamber. The regulations require producers to register ahead of the launch. Registration is now open, but we continue to work, and this is important with Circularity Scotland and with businesses as they finalise their operational delivery plans. This is an industry-led scheme, and the industry needs to work with the scheme administrator on a joined-up approach to delivering it. We have already made changes. I have set these out, and we will continue to engage with businesses on any further changes that can sensibly be made to take account of some of the issues that they are raising. To ask the First Minister, in light of reports of people being forced onto prepayment meters, what steps the Scottish Government is taking to support vulnerable people in Scotland with rising energy costs? First of all, the Scottish Government opposes the forced installation of prepayment metres, because it is only more likely to increase debt or leave people unable to heat their homes. We continue to call on the UK Government to provide the necessary additional support for those struggling with energy bills, but also doing everything we can with the powers available to us. That includes doubling the fuel and security fund to £20 million and providing an additional £1.2 million to help advice services meet the increasing demand that they are dealing with. I chaired two energy summits last year. As a result of those, we continue to work with partners to see what more we can do by working together to support and protect Scottish consumers in these times. Mercedes Vialba. Oil and gas giants BP and Shell are reporting record profits on the sale of energy while millions are struggling to heat their homes, but the extortion does not stop there. I have received reports from Dundee Pensioners Forum that their elderly members are receiving alarming letters demanding payment from their energy suppliers. Payments to accounts that are not only not in arrears but are actually in significant credit. When these vulnerable people are unable to pay—to pay what they do not even owe—they are being threatened with forced prepayment installation. I appreciate that much of energy policy is reserved. The First Minister does meet regularly with the energy providers, and she has her ear, so will the First Minister condemn any use of such bullying and strong arm tactics and commit to ending the granting of warrants by courts in Scotland for the forced installation of prepayment metres? I have not seen the letters that the member refers to, but I would condemn any behaviour that seeks to bully consumers or individuals in any way. Two issues were raised in the course of that question. Both important issues—firstly taxation of oil and gas companies and secondly energy regulation. Both of those things are reserved to the UK Government. I wish that that was not the case. I wish that we had powers here in the Scottish Parliament and perhaps the member will support our calls for such powers in future. As First Minister, I cannot instruct courts. I think that every member understands that. However, in the powers that we have available to us and on energy, as the member recognises, those powers are very limited. Of course, this Parliament will and should and the Government will and should look to see what more we can do to help. However, here, as in so many other issues, if we did not always have to look to the UK Government and if we held those powers here in the Scottish Parliament, we would be able to do much more than we are right now. Fiona Hyslop. We also know from this Parliament's net zero energy and transport committees report into energy price rises that customers moving into properties with expensive prepayment metres also have to pay for the privilege of having them removed. As recommended in last summer's committee report, can the First Minister confirm if her Government has raised with the UK Government the issue of a legal right under appropriate circumstances to have a prepayment meter removed free of charge? Yes, this is an important issue that Fiona Hyslop also raises. I absolutely agree that consumers should be entitled to have a prepayment meter removed from their homes and at no cost to them. The energy secretary wrote to the UK Government last autumn on a number of issues, including protections and flexibility for consumers on prepayment meters. Given recent developments surrounding prepayment meters, I can confirm that this is one of a number of issues that we will be raising urgently with both the UK Government and the regulator. Question 6, Mark Ruskell. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's position is on whether oil and gas companies are investing enough of their profits to support a just transition in Scotland. I certainly think that more could be done. The energy profit levy's investment allowance doesn't do enough to future proof energy supplies and promote green energy. Energy companies should reinvest their profits right now, their very significant profits in industries of the future. The draft energy strategy and just transition plan published last month sets out a clear vision to capitalise on the enormous opportunities that a net zero energy system offers. The industry, our economy and our climate highlights the importance of accelerating the transition to renewable energy sources. We've clearly and repeatedly set out the actions that the UK Government should and must now take to ensure a fair and just transition for our energy sector and what will be a decisive decade for action. Mark Ruskell. I thank the First Minister for that response. Despite the utterly obscene profits of the oil and gas companies, investment in transition is not happening at anything like the pace needed to keep 1.5 alive. Over the last week, I've met with both Shell and ExxonMobil, who operate the Mossmorran complex in Fife, the third-largest climate polluter in Scotland. Does the First Minister agree that we cannot meet Scotland's climate targets without slashing Mossmorran's emissions? Will she call on both the operators and the UK Government to commit to investment in a just transition plan for the Mossmorran complex? First, let me reiterate the Scottish Government's commitment to a just transition that both meets our climate targets but also supports good green jobs for our highly-skilled workforce and that allows industry to retain international competitiveness. Mark Ruskell is right to say that decarbonisation of industry plays a vitally important role in achieving all that, and operators, including those at Mossmorran, have much to gain from being at the forefront of a just transition, and I would urge them to make sure that is exactly where they are. We are currently developing a just transition plan for Scotland's largest industrial site at Grangemouth, and on completion of that, we will evaluate and consider what learnings can be replicated across other sites like Mossmorran. The draft energy strategy and just transition plan makes clear, of course, that the UK Government must also take action across a number of areas, and we continue to urge them to commit to a concrete timeline and processes to ensure that that is the case. We move to general and constituency supplementaries. I call Jackie Baillie. The First Minister has been sent a letter from the STUC in Commonwealth setting out their serious concerns about the national care service bill asking that the bill is paused. It is joined by the GMB, Unison, Unite, the Scottish Pensioners Forum, Who Care Scotland, Parkinson's UK, respected professor of public policy, James Mitchell, the SNP trade union group and more besides. That follows significant criticism of the bill by no less than four committees of this Parliament, COSLA, a host of care providers and those receiving care themselves. There is nothing to stop the SNP from delivering improvements to social care. Now, like fair pay and ending non-residential care charges, but the sector is concerned that the SNP are not listening to their concerns and are intent on bulldozing this bill through. Will the First Minister pause the bill and take the time required to get it right? Of course, we will take the time required to get it right. There was a line in the letter that Jackie Baillie referred to that she did not read out, so I will. We want to emphasise that we share the Scottish Government's desire to create a national care service. There are several committees of this Parliament scrutinising the bill at stage one. When we have all of the reports and all of the feedback, we will take time to consider all of the issues that have been raised. At that stage, we will set out the timescale for the rest of the legislative process. Of course, in the interim, we are taking steps to improve social care. Let us remember what a national care service is about. It is about ending the postcode lottery in care provision, and it is about better rewarding those who work within the sector. In the year ahead, we are taking action to boost social care workers' pay and getting the initial organisational arrangements in place. We will continue to proceed in that responsible way. As we do so, we will listen to the views of all the organisations that are signatories to the letter, and I am sure that many others will be beside them. The First Minister, along with the Minister for Public Health, convened a further summit on abortion services earlier this week, which was hugely useful in exploring further themes for my member's bill and I am very grateful for the Scottish Government's support. Could the First Minister update the chamber on next steps and what she says is the most important steps that we can take to protect and further abortion rights in Scotland? I was very pleased to convene with Mary Todd, the second abortion summit on Tuesday, and I thank those members from across the parties who attended that. We had a very constructive discussion on the outcomes of the recent UK Supreme Court judgment on Northern Ireland's safe access zones bill and on the further issues that we must consider for Scottish legislation. The discussion underlined the continuing need for national legislation on this matter, and let me reiterate the Government's commitment to that. Of course, it provided useful insights as the Government continues to work with Gillian Mackay to develop a bill that is robust and effective. I know that we want to see that introduced to the Scottish Parliament as soon as possible. In addition, we were all clear that the commitment to progressing abortion care and ensuring that women have access to high quality abortion care in Scotland that are outlined in the women's health plan are a priority and will be taken forward. The BBC documentary beneath the magic circle affair cast light on a very dark and distressing subject. Senior members of Scotland's legal establishment sexually abused children for decades. Susie Henderson's childhood was destroyed at the hands of her untouchable QC father and his vile associates, yet the Government's child abuse inquiry will not hear evidence about this. Other survivors, including young footballers, have called for the inquiry to broaden its scope, so I would like to ask Nicola Sturgeon if that will happen. First Minister, the content of the BBC documentary where it was extremely distressing and disturbing and I think all of us want to ensure that these matters in the appropriate way are properly investigated. Obviously, any criminal investigations are for the crown and it would be deeply inappropriate for me or anybody else to comment on that. In terms of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, I am absolutely here at the points that the member is making, but as he is aware under the Inquiries Act, the remit and the conduct of a public inquiry is entirely for the inquiry and for the chair of the inquiry and ministers cannot intervene in that, but it is really important that all of the matters raised in whatever way is necessary are properly scrutinised, probed and investigated. I think that that is something that all of us want to ensure is the case. A new report from the National Institute for Economic and Social Research warns that households in my constituency and right across the UK could face a 4,000 financial crisis hit from the cost-loving crisis this year. What can the Scottish Government do to urge the UK Government to reverse its plans to allow energy bills to rise again this spring, which will only heap more misery on those already suffering? Paul McLeanon is right to raise the impact on households in his constituency and across Scotland. We have consistently called on the UK Government to provide additional support for vulnerable households with their energy costs. Prior to the introduction of the energy price guarantee last October, we called for the energy price cap to be frozen, and now we need the UK Government to urgently consider cancelling its proposed rise, along with the reduction in support for domestic consumers. We continue to take action that we can to support households, including, as I said earlier, doubling of the fuel insecurity fund. However, the key levers here lie with the UK Government, and we must press them to use those levers in the interests of households and businesses across the country. The First Minister has betrayed communities in the north of Scotland with her broken promise to dual the A9. It is clear that the work that is required to fulfil the promise has never been done. Her Government seeks to blame events that should never have impacted on this timetable. Will she now give us a date for completion of the dualing of the A9, or is she really telling us that the Greens are running her Government? First, let me be very clear that the Scottish Government is firmly committed to completing the dualing of the A9 between Perth and Cumberness. That is a £3 billion investment. There has been already over £430 million invested in it. Road users are already benefiting from some stretches. On the issue that was covered in Parliament yesterday, we have carefully reviewed the submitted tender for that stretch and concluded, after a very difficult and complex procurement procedure, that a ward of that contract at this time would not represent the best value for the taxpayer. The price of that tender was significantly higher than expected, even allowing for the impacts of inflation and a volatile economy. Had we gone ahead with that, down the line, I am sure that Opposition members would have criticised this for doing so because it was not best value for the taxpayer. As the transport secretary set out yesterday, steps will now be taken out by Transport Scotland on the necessary preparatory steps for the urgent re-tendering with the aim of achieving a contract award before the end of this year, and a new timetable will be set out as quickly as possible. It is also important to point out, finally, that design work is progressing on the rest of the programme, with ministerial decisions, to complete the statutory process confirmed for sieving of the remaining eight schemes.


This is stock number 11241. We are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used heavy-duty truck headquarters today. We are checking out this super clean 2017 Chevy Silverado 2500 crew cab long box This truck has the 6.6 liter Duramax diesel with the L5P motor which pumps out 445 horsepower This truck has been fully Safetyed and inspected by our service shop has a fresh oil and filter change all the fluids have been checked and topped off and This truck is 100% ready to go Ocean blue metallic Or deep ocean blue metallic is the color we shoot all of our videos in 1080p 60 frames per second So if you have HD capabilities on your computer tablet or smartphone device Turn them on right now because it is definitely your best way to check out the quality and condition of the truck before seeing it in person And if you want to check out all the photos on this truck in the upper right hand party screen is a link to our website click Then check us out there comes with the Firestone Trans Force HT tires These are LT 265 60R 20s and they got a really good amount of tread left I'd say probably about 70 to 80 percent of tread on those tires and the 20 inch polished and painted rims Front fenders in pretty nice shape. I didn't see any major dents on that has the projector lamp headlamps The front bumper parking sensors and the factory fog lights the front bumper itself is in great shape I didn't see any major dents or dings in there You do get the hood scoop on there They started that with the L5P Get the chrome trimmed grill there. That's in really nice shape headlight lenses are nice and clear Front fender is in nice shape. I didn't see any major dents or dings on that And the passenger side front rim is in excellent shape as well As you go down this side of the truck take note of how clean the body is how reflective and mirror like that paint is We take these HD videos So if you are a far away or even if you're close by and you just cannot make a trip down But you're still interested in purchasing the truck You can see the truck hear the truck and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at Before you even get here so that when you do get here, there's absolutely no surprises And that is why we offer the summit auto fast pass option in the upper right hand part of your screen a link Right to our website where you can apply for financing get pre-approved see a payment quote Even appraise the trade all from the comfort of your own home So when you get here all you got to do is drive the truck love it, and you'll be all set to go Back tires have just as much tread as the front tires and the framing on the bodies in pretty nice shape just a little bit of late Corrosion by the welds there, but nothing too bad lower rockers look really good didn't see any Corrosion on them and it has all the remaining factory exhaust so it hasn't been altered in any way shape or form Down the rest of the side of the box looks really good Rear bumper is in nice shape as well And it does come with the full towing package which includes a receiver hitch four pin and seven pin wiring rear bumper steps The tailgate is in pretty nice shape as well I didn't see any major denser dings on that And it does come with a drop-in panda liner bed liner Tailgate shuts nice and easily Has the easy lift assist tailgate And as you go down the driver's side just as clean as that passenger side Didn't see any major denser dings on the Driver's side box and for full disclosure this back rim is in pretty nice shape, too Down the rest of the side truck looks good Did you get the telescopic tow mirrors with the built-in directional signals as well as the LED side lights Inside the LTZ package gives you the gray leather interior There are no rips or tears on the seats Both of these front seats are Heated and cooled Factory all-weather floor mats Auto headlamps turned dial four-wheel drive and your factory brake controllers right there You also get tilt and telescopic steering wheel Power windows power locks power mirrors These mirrors also power fold in I Always like showing both sides so that you know that both sides are working good And it does have memory driver seat Bose sound system and as we hop inside The truck here will turn the ignition on so that you can see the miles and everything This truck has 57,088 miles Instrument cluster is very nice and clean. You do get a digital speedometer and compass display You get the heated leather wrap steering wheel That's in really nice shape Bluetooth and Information center controls on the right cruise controls and heated steering wheel controls on the left This one does come with the Allison six-speed automatic transmission with the optional tap shift Remote start there on the key fob has the Chevy my link system MFM and serious XM radio capabilities also comes with that factory navigation system You also have projection manager where you can project your cell phone to the screen the Android auto or Apple CarPlay So if you get a different navigation system that you like better on your phone such as ways or Google Maps You can project it to the screen and do it that way.  That's how you turn on those side lights on the mirrors And you do have the parking sensors you can turn off and on Down here you get two USBs two 12 volt power points and then a hundred ten volt hundred fifty watt plug-in dual climb or I'm sorry Dual gloveboxes passenger side seat and floor mat are in excellent shape Very nice condition smells very clean inside this truck. I Don't think it's ever been smoked in Headliners in great shape. You do get Map lights up there and that indicates that you have the snow plow prep package with this truck On-star and SOS buttons in the rear view mirror We'll take a quick look at the back seats, and then we'll check out under the hood Also, you get this wireless cell phone charge pad The back seats are just as clean as the front seats no rips no tears back here It does have the latch child safety system for any child car seats you may have and you do get the rear window defroster Carpeting and floor mats are in excellent shape back here side curtain airbags and We'll start it up and take a quick look under the hood. I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today There are those LED side lights super bright And hopefully from this HD video you will have been able to tell just how clean this truck is all the way around Inside and out under the hood. We have the 6.6 liter Duramax diesel with the alpine keyboard Engine bay is very clean run very smooth This truck has been fully safety then inspected by our service shop as a fresh oil and filter change all the fluids have been checked and topped off and This truck is 100% Ready to go I'd highly recommend it from a quality and condition standpoint and to see more pictures of this truck Or one of our other 450 new and used cars trucks SUVs minivans wranglers You name it. We got it go to that website right above the truck. There's www.SummitAuto.com full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations All at SummitAuto.com and if you'd like to check out more HD videos You can go to YouTube.com slash SummitAuto remember to like subscribe and share on this video and all the videos that you see there In fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left a link to more Chevy 2500 truck videos like this one on your right if you have not been to our website on the bottom link to this Vehicle on our website click those check us out and we really look forward to help you with this super clean 2017 Chevy Silverado 2500 crew cab long box LTZ and deep ocean blue metallic. Thanks again for checking out the video


I'm trying to evaluate, whatever that is. I'm trying to evaluate myself. It's actually a combination of two things. There's an evaluation and an assessment. Self-evaluation, self-assessment. Ryan's doing a good job. No, you're not. Yes, I am. I'm not. Who's the self? Who am I? What's going on? I'm a behavior analyst. I don't have self. I hope you're following my radio. I'm your self-control.  Anyway, sorry, folks. So when you set a goal for a behavior that you want to change for yourself, don't think about that too long. So anyway, you've set a goal and you want to achieve it and you evaluate whether or not you've been doing it. Are you successful? Are you not?  It's all part of self-assessment. How well am I doing? Am I maintaining it? Am I on track? Am I not on track? How well is my behavior? Am I crazy? Am I not crazy? Am I saying things that are relevant? Am I not? I don't know. I have to watch the video to find out in itself assessment and you get the idea. And we do that and we re-record videos because some of them we don't like because we do self-assessment. But when Brad is doing it for me, it's not self-assessment. He's just evaluating and judging because that's who he is and he just judges me all the time and I know what else to do. And I think I'm getting a little over the top because I'm self-assessing. And I realize that the intensity is probably a bit much for a topic that's not so confusing. So self-assessment, self-evaluation, same thing.


August is hot and so are the savings at Appalachian Wireless, where all smartphones are 50% off. Even the 64, 128, and 256-gig models, two-year agreement required. Better service, bigger savings. That's today's Appalachian Wireless and East Kentucky Network Company. Congressman Hal Rogers announced a number of grants today for Floyd and McGuffin counties. They include $1 million to Prestonsburg for an expansion on their wastewater treatment plant, nearly $2 million for a new Rails to Trails project from Prestonsburg to David, and nearly another $2 million in support of the Royalton Trail Town project. We're going to use that money there in Royalton Trail Town. We're going to use it in 15 acres along the Dawkins Line Rail Trail. And it's going to give places for people to stay, activities. We'll be having different things available there in that bottom. In that way, that will change the Dawkins Line Rail Trail because right now, people will come to it more because they're going to have something to do when they come to Royalton Trail Town. And they're going to have some place to stay, and that's the biggie. Prestonsburg Mayor Les Stapleton is excited for the new rail trail to David, but he says he and Victoria Doucette have a long-term goal in place. I know you've already talked with Vicki Doucette from Royalton Trail Towns. We're only about six and a half, seven miles from them. We're already working towards trying to join with them, make this a complete circuit, make it somewhere so they can enjoy both their rail tram, both our city, and the Dawkins Trail. Our goal is 100% to move forward, try to get tourists in here, get people in here interested. Once they come here and see how much we've got to offer, they want to live here. When they want to live here, they bring jobs. It's a process. Just going to take some time to get there. The road to today's projects becoming a reality began two years ago when Congressman Hal Rogers earmarked a $195 million dollar bill to help projects in five different states that were hit hard by the decline of the coal industry. Maybe you're clearing a piece of property restoring an old coal mine that's going to be used for a shopping center. So this will allow you to build sewage to it in water and grate it down, perhaps build a road. That type of thing. Abandoned mine lands reclamation with a job producing impact. And so Kentucky is sharing in that money. The state decides where it's spent. They'll spend it on local projects like the ones we mentioned. For more information about the Art Bar, simply visit them on Facebook. Reporting from Saliersville, I'm Sean Allen for EKB News.


People have started to put together a Magna Carta, a Bill of Rights for the web. How about we do that? How about we decide these are, in a way, becoming fundamental rights, the right to communicate with whom I want. What would be on your list for that Magna Carta? Let's crowdsource a Magna Carta for the web. This project is Magna Carta My Digital Rights. It's a really exciting new learning resource that we've developed to celebrate the 8th 100th anniversary of Magna Carta and the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web. It's a really great opportunity for young people to debate digital rights and responsibilities. The project is about getting young people to really think about how we live our lives online now. We socialise online, we do our homework, we really want young people to start thinking about some of these bigger issues such as censorship and mass surveillance, cyberbullying, all those things that you come across in your daily life, whether you're aware of it or not. We want to know young people's opinions on that. By taking part in this project, your students will be able to submit a clause for our Magna Carta for the digital age, a document which will really represent how students feel in 2015 about how they would like the web to be used in the future. This project is aimed at key stages three to five, students that are studying citizenship and computing studies and also PSHE students will find it really interesting as well. So we'll be providing a huge amount of resources, there's going to be 15 exciting lesson plans focusing on three different themes, access online, freedom online and privacy. To support those there'll be 15 really short scenario videos that will help really set the scene when you're beginning your debates within the classroom. There's also going to be some introductory films that feature commentators such as Shammy Chakrabarti from Liberty, Simon Fipps from the Open Rights Group and Rachel Logan from Amnesty International. And we'll also be providing some articles as well to give some background information to make sure that your students are really up to date with the information that's out there before they start doing their debates. Getting involved really easy, all you need to do is download one of our free lesson plans and start debating in the classroom with your students. These are going to be available from February 2015 to the end of April 2015. That's when you can submit your clause as well to our huge Magna Carta for the digital age. In June 2015 this will be unveiled online for everyone to see. Do me a favour, will you fight for it for me?