The smart home realm of 2018 is a confusing world for a consumer. But Belkin WeMo is here with an outlet that works with many ecosystems, and we’ll take all the help we can get.

WeMo’s Mini smart plug can turn a basic electric outlet into a smart one for just $34.99. Better yet, the veteran brand is reliably good about frequent software updates. The latest update brings Apple HomeKit support without the need for a “bridge,” (that clunky hunk of hardware that’s needed to connect with different smart homes and can be a hassle to maintain).

WeMo wants to attract new and old customers to adapt to this smart plug, which is smaller than competitors, but at $34.99 cheaper options are abound on Amazon from lesser known brands.

That said, does the WeMo Mini smart plug pack a punch with a small, nearly $35-package?

A simple design

Image: jake krol/mashable

There’s not much to the smart plug, physically speaking. It weighs 3.2-ounces and measures 3.8 inches wide x 1.4 inches tall x 2.4 inches thick. The design team went with a short, rectangular shape to allow space for two units to plug into the same outlet, which is an improvement upon previous models that were too big to share the use of other outlets.

Image: jake krol/mashable

WeMo opted for an all-white colorway, likely to blend easily into your room; the front features a faint WeMo logo, standard power port, and a power button. There’s also a small LED light for status. The back has the serial number, some model information, and a plug. In all, super minimal.

The WeMo app is a mixed bag

Image: jake krol/mashable

The companion app, however, is a different story. In order to setup with WeMo Mini smart plug, you’ll have to use a proprietary WeMo app for iOS and Android. If you already have other WeMo devices or plan on getting more in the future, this will be home base for all of them. Updating them, naming them, and keeping them in check all happens in the app. 

While the app’s aesthetics leave much to be desired, and it also lacks in features, the setup process is relatively simple, and WeMo makes it easy to connect to external smart home platforms. 

The setup process begins automatically as soon as you plug the WeMo Mini into an outlet for the first time and open the app. Rather than pair via Bluetooth, Z-Wave, or ZigBee, it connects through a WiFi account named “WEMO.”

The setup process takes a few minutes, which is frustrating, and I ended up quitting out of the app, reopening it, and giving it a few minutes before it finally connected.

But once connected, it’s easy to turn your WeMo unit on or off, set a schedule, and customize actions, all right from the app’s screen, and if you connect it through HomeKit, you open up the option of control via Siri on any iOS device, Apple TV, or a HomePod.

HomeKit joins the WeMo compatibility party

Image: jake krol/mashable

Since HomeKit support was added in July, your WeMo Mini might have been packed prior and come to you without that update out of the box; it took about five minutes after I updated the unit before it appeared on my Home app, but once I saw it, the connection was easy. 

Image: jake krol/mashable

The WeMo Mini is the only WeMo product with HomeKit compatibility out of the box (otherwise you’ll need the aforementioned WeMo Bridge), but the company says it plans to release updates that add support to other devices. 

It’s also really easy to add compatibility with IFTTT, the Google Assistant, Nest, and Amazon Alexa.

Image: jake krol/mashable

Keeping cool with the WeMo Mini

It’s been a hot, humid summer where I live in New Jersey, so I wanted to see how the WeMo Mini could handle a non-smart device (my wall-mounted AC unit) and turn it into a smart one. The integration with HomeKit and Alexa was quite useful here.

Even better, the WeMo Mini remembers the WiFi network unless you restore it, which allowed me to move the plug around my house efficiently. 

Using the app, I was able to turn my AC on while still commuting home, and shut it off when I got cold in the middle of the night. Super convenient, but while some smart plugs offer ways to monitor your energy consumption, the WeMo Mini unfortunately does not have this feature.

An easy way to make a dumb outlet smart

Image: jake krol/mashable

Bottom line, at $34.99, the WeMo Mini is an affordable smart outlet that works with a plethora of smart home platforms. Without spending a chunk of change, you’re buying into a flexible system from a veteran brand that has a good chance of staying around for quite some time.

A key separatist leader in eastern Ukraine has been killed in a blast at a coffee shop in Donetsk, according to rebels.

The explosion on Friday fatally wounded Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, which has been pushing for independence since 2014 after Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

Russia accused Ukraine of assassinating the 42-year-old, but Kiev said it had nothing to do with the explosion and blamed separatist infighting.

Zakharchenko “received injuries incompatible with life as a result of an explosion in the centre of Donetsk”, the separatist administration said in a statement. It added that the blast also injured  Alexander Timofeyev, the deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed republic. 

“Zakharchenko was with a colleague at the cafe when the bomb went off,” said Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from the Russian capital, Moscow. “He is the only confirmed fatality so far from that explosion.”

Challands added Donetsk was in lockdown following the blast.

“Nobody is allowed in and nobody is allowed out,” he said.

‘Bloody fight’

Russian-backed rebels threw off Ukrainian central rule in an armed uprising after pro-Western leaders opposed by Moscow came to power in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, in 2014.

A shaky internationally-brokered ceasefire has been in force since 2015, halting large-scale fighting, though there are still frequent outbreaks of shooting incidents on the front line between the separatists and Ukrainian forces.

Russia’s foreign ministry said it had every reason to believe Kiev was responsible for Zakharchenko’s death, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Rossiya-24 state television station.

Zakharchenko’s death shows that Kiev has decided to engage in a “bloody fight” and has passed on its promises of seeking peace, she said.

In Kiev, a spokeswoman for the state security service, Yelena Gitlyanskaya, dismissed Moscow’s accusations.

“According to our information, this was the result of internal fighting which has already been continuing for years between the terrorists and their Russian sponsors,” she said.

Coalmine electrician to rebel leader

Zakharchenko, a former coal mine electrician, joined pro-Russian separatists in an armed uprising in Donetsk in 2014 and sold his business to help fund the movement.

He took the reins as the leader of the Donetsk Republic in November 2014 from a number of Russians, in a bid to show that Ukraine’s separatist movement wasn’t a Russian-led operation.

Other rebel leaders say he was handpicked for the role by Moscow. A vote held by separatists confirmed him in office.

Zakharchenko introduced Soviet-style military parades with tanks in Donetsk and usually wore military fatigues, despite his political role.

He proposed the creation of a new country called “Malorossia” or “Little Russia”, encompassing Ukraine, with its capital in Donetsk.

In the past, he said had been the target of several assassination attempts, accusing Ukraine of trying to kill him in an explosion back in 2016.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

It must be cool to be Maddie Ziegler, knowing that if somehow nothing else works out — which is ludicrous, as she’s already made the jump to film — at least she always has work as long as Sia is calling the shots.

And because she still is, Ziegler takes center stage in the newest video for Sia’s soul-pop collaboration with Diplo and Labrinth, “Thunderclouds.” Together, the trio are known as LSD. Ziegler once again acts as a conduit for Sia herself, dancing and moving on top of a flying car, as Diplo drives the car and Labrinth rides in a cloud sidecar.

The whimsical clip, directed by Ernest Desumbila, also features a puppet Sia, which gives the whole thing a pseudo Wizard of Oz-meets-Star Wars vibe as the four companions eventually end up making camp in the desert and naturally floating through some treacherous thunderclouds.

“Thunderclouds” is one of three LSD songs released in 2018, alongside the airy “Audio” and the plodding “Genius.”

On Instagram, Ziegler shared that she “had the most fun ever” shooting the video. Watch the full thing above.

Premiership live: Bristol Bears v Bath, plus Championship radio commentary – BBC Sport

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Eric Tucker and Chad Day, The Associated Press
Published 1:52 p.m. ET Aug. 31, 2018

WASHINGTON – A senior Justice Department lawyer says a former British spy told him at a breakfast meeting two years ago that Russian intelligence believed it had Donald Trump “over a barrel,” according to multiple people familiar with the encounter.

The lawyer, Bruce Ohr, also says he learned that a Trump campaign aide had met with higher-level Russian officials than the aide had acknowledged, the people said.

The previously unreported details of the July 30, 2016, breakfast with Christopher Steele, which Ohr described to lawmakers this week in a private interview, reveal an exchange of potentially explosive information about Trump between two men the president has relentlessly sought to discredit.

They add to the public understanding of those pivotal summer months as the FBI and intelligence community scrambled to untangle possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. And they reflect the concern of Steele, a longtime FBI informant whose Democratic-funded research into Trump ties to Russia was compiled into a dossier, that the Republican presidential candidate was possibly compromised and his urgent efforts to convey that anxiety to contacts at the FBI and Justice Department.

The people who discussed Ohr’s interview were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the closed session and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Among the things Ohr said he learned from Steele during the breakfast was that an unnamed former Russian intelligence official had said that Russian intelligence believed “they had Trump over a barrel,” according to people familiar with the meeting. It was not clear from Ohr’s interview whether Steele had been directly told that or had picked that up through his contacts, but the broader sentiment is echoed in Steele’s research dossier.

Steele and Ohr, at the time of the election a senior official in the deputy attorney general’s office, had first met a decade earlier and bonded over a shared interest in international organized crime. They met several times during the presidential campaign, a relationship that exposed both men and federal law enforcement more generally to partisan criticism, including from Trump.

Republicans contend the FBI relied excessively on the dossier during its investigation and to obtain a secret wiretap application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. They also say Ohr went outside his job description and chain of command by meeting with Steele, including after his termination as a FBI source, and then relaying information to the FBI.

Trump this month proposed stripping Ohr, who until this year had been largely anonymous during his decades-long Justice Department career, of his security clearance and has asked “how the hell” he remains employed.

Trump has called the Russia investigation a “witch hunt” and has denied any collusion between his campaign and Moscow.

Trump and some of his supporters in Congress have also accused the FBI of launching the entire Russia counterintelligence investigation based on the dossier. But memos authored by Republicans and Democrats and declassified this year show the probe was triggered by information the U.S. government received earlier about the Russian contacts of then-Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos.

The FBI’s investigation was already under way by the time it received Steele’s dossier, and Ohr was not the original source of information from it.

One of the meetings described to House lawmakers Tuesday was a Washington breakfast attended by Steele, an associate of his and Ohr. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, who worked for the political research firm, Fusion GPS, that hired Steele, attended at least part of the breakfast.

Ohr also told Congress that Steele told him that Page, a Trump campaign aide who traveled to Moscow that same month and whose ties to Russia attracted FBI scrutiny, had met with more senior Russian officials than he had acknowledged meeting with.

That breakfast took place amid ongoing FBI concerns about Russian election interference and possible communication with Trump associates. By that point, Russian hackers had penetrated Democratic email accounts, including that of the Clinton campaign chairman, and Papadopoulos, the Trump campaign associate, was said to have revealed that Russians had “dirt” on Democrat Hillary Clinton in the form of emails, according to court papers. That revelation prompted the FBI to open the counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, one day after the breakfast but based on entirely different information.

Ohr told lawmakers he could not vouch for the accuracy of Steele’s information but has said he considered him a reliable FBI informant who delivered credible and actionable intelligence, including his investigation into corruption at FIFA, soccer’s global governing body.

In the interview, Ohr acknowledged that he had not told superiors in his office, including Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, about his meetings with Steele because he considered the information inflammatory raw source material.

He also provided new details about the department’s move to reassign him once his Steele ties were brought to light.

Ohr said he met in late December 2017 with two senior Justice Department officials, Scott Schools and James Crowell, who told him they were unhappy he had not proactively disclosed his meetings with Steele. They said he was being stripped of his associate deputy attorney post as part of a planned internal reorganization, people familiar with Ohr’s account say.

He met again soon after with one of the officials, who told him Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein did not believe he could continue in his current position as director of a drug grant-distribution program – known as the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force.

Sessions and Rosenstein, Ohr was told, did not want him in the post because it entailed White House meetings and interactions, the people said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores declined to comment.

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2C5vn8N

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has pledged its “full support” for Argentina as the country seeks to overcome an ongoing economic crisis that has prompted a world-record interest rate hike and seen the value of the peso plunge to a record low against the dollar.

Gerry Rice, IMF chief spokesperson said in a statement on Friday that a delegation from the Washington, DC-based body would meet with Argentine officials next week to agree on a “revised economic plan” following President Mauricio Macri’s request this week for an early release of funds from a $50bn bailout package agreed to in June.

“We are confident that the strong commitment and determination of the Argentine authorities will help the country overcome the current difficulties,” Rice said.

His comments came a day after students and university professors rallied in the capital, Buenos Aires, to protest against austerity measures – including education budget cuts – tied to the IMF package.

Many Argentines are wary of the body after its perceived role in the country’s worst ever financial crisis during 2001-2002, which left one out of every five people unemployed and thrust millions into poverty.

In May, a survey of more than 1,000 people by Argentine pollsters D’Alessio Irol/Berensztein revealed that 75 percent of respondents felt seeking assistance from the IMF was problematic.

On Friday morning, the peso rallied slightly after a disastrous Thursday which saw it drop by 13.5 percent against the dollar by the time markets closed, marking a 53 percent loss in value since the beginning of the year.

In a bid to arrest the decline, Argentina’s Central Bank has raised the country’s interest rate from 45 to 60 percent – the world’s highest.

The government is expected to announce further economic measures at the beginning of next week.

‘Political blowback’

The economic crisis, which worsened after Macri said on Wednesday he had reached a deal with the IMF for accelerated payouts, has spooked investors and prompted public protests.

The General Confederation of Labour, the country’s largest labour union, has called for general strikes in late September over the government’s economic policies.

Argentina has agreed with the IMF to cut its fiscal deficit to 1.3 percent of gross domestic product by 2019, down from 3.9 percent last year, resulting in cutbacks including slashed energy subsidies and the freezing of some government salaries. 

Fiona Mackie, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, warned the country’s attempt at a “rapid” economic adjustment could prove “painful”.

“Recession could be deep, and political risk will spike amid dwindling confidence at home,” she said in a Twitter post on Thursday.

The economic problems and Macri’s alignment with the IMF have cast doubt over his chances of re-election in next year’s polls.

Argentina just raised interest rates to whopping 60 percent to contain the peso plunge. A big political blowback coming in 2019? Risks on the rise.

— Monica de Bolle (@bollemdb) August 30, 2018

Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the US-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, questioned on Thursday whether there will be a “big political blowback” during the vote with “risks on the rise” ahead of the ballot in October 2019.

Macri’s Chief Cabinet Minister Marcos Pena, meanwhile, said on Thursday that Argentina was “not facing economic failure”.

“This is a transformation, not failure. In that transformation there are difficult moments,” Pena told a Council of the Americas meeting in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.

Argentina, Latin America’s third-largest economy, currently has an unemployment rate of about nine percent.

According to the World Bank, more than 28 percent of its some 43 million people live in poverty.

There’s a lot to be excited for in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald: Jude Law’s Hot Dumbledore, the introduction of Nicolas Flamel, baby Nifflers, new Parisian locations, and even more screen time for the adorably awkward Newt Scamander. But there’s one thing that has diehard Potter fans truly twisting in anticipation: the sequel’s return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. More specifically, the franchise’s return to Lacock Abbey.

In a newly released featurette, it’s revealed that the location used for Hogwarts in the Fantastic Beasts sequel is the same one that was used in three of the Harry Potter films. Author and screenwriter J.K. Rowling called the reunion a “sentimental” experience, while Law — making his debut in Rowling’s onscreen wizarding world as young Albus Dumbledore — described it as an “odd, out-of-body experience.”

“I’ve watched with everyone else, those classes, and suddenly to be in it — you’re in there doing it, but then you look back as yourself and realize how special it was,” he said.

It’s unclear if Hogwarts will have a sizable role in the Fantastic Beasts franchise or if it’s just another setting for Rowling’s globe-trotting series. Either way, it’s a fun easter egg for fans of the Potter franchise, returning to something achingly familiar yet markedly different at the same time.

The Crimes of Grindelwald finds dark wizard Gellert Gridelwald (Johnny Depp) once again on the loose and amassing a dangerous following across Europe. With the wizarding world becoming increasingly divided, it’s up to Dumbledore’s favorite former student Newt (Eddie Redmayne) and his bag of exceptional, magical beasts to thwart Grindelwald’s plans and save the day.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald hits theaters November 16, 2018.

Ohio State coach Urban Meyer has again taken to Twitter to offer what he is calling a “clarification” of why he was suspended for three games, starting Saturday with the Buckeyes’ home opener against Oregon State.

Debate about whether Meyer’s suspension was too light or too heavy is ongoing on social media.

Meyer’s makes three points: First, he was not suspended because he knew about, or condoned, former assistant coach Zach Smith’s alleged domestic violence. Second, independent investigators and school president Michael Drake said he didn’t lie at Big Ten Media Days. Finally, he pointed his fault was not taking action sooner “against a troubled employee about his work-related issues.”

STILL UPSET: Former assistant coach Zach Smith calls Ohio State ‘spineless’

STEPPING DOWN: Ohio State trustee says he resigned over Meyer suspension

He said he still stands by his apologies to Smith’s ex-wife Courtney, plus Smith’s children and everyone else. But he said incorrect reporting of events prompted his new statement.

With regard to his stance on domestic abuse, pulled this passage from the independent investigators’ report, which stated: “We believed that Urban Meyer did not, and does not, condone domestic violence. However, he did fail to take sufficient management action regarding Zach Smith. And he was not as complete and accurate at Media Days and did not uphold the high values and standards of the University on that day.”   

Here’s one of  Meyer’s quote at Big Ten Media Days. “2015 — I got a text late last night that something happened in 2015, and there was nothing. I don’t know who creates a story like that.”       

Meyer also presented a passage in the report that concluded that “Coach Meyer, in our view, didn’t deliberately lie” at Big Ten Media Days.  Investigators also state they “do not find Coach  Meyer’s misstatements on Big Ten Media Days were part of a deliberate cover-up.”

Meyer also offered a passage from the report that concluded that Meyer’s and athletic director Gen Smith’s mistake was make too much of an effort to help a troubled employee. And that was the reason for the suspension.

“Coach Meyer and Athletic Director Smith’s efforts to help Zach Smith overcome his personal issues went too far in allowing him to remain an employee in the face of repeated misconduct,” the report said.