11-minute read.

Armenia's military industry is developing

HOST: The share of the domestic arms industry in the armed forces has been rising in recent years. The state has decided to create easier conditions for the development of the industry.
HIGH-TECH MINISTER (Mkhitar Hayrapetyan): Whatever is possible to produce in Armenia with the use of Armenian scientific potential and manufacturing capacities should be done domestically to minimize reliance on imports. The myth that Armenian producers are incapable of creating high-quality products has been shattered.
At the moment, there are ֏170 billion ($438 million) in contracts signed between the defense ministry and 27 representatives of domestic industry. We expect to bring it to ֏190 billion ($490 million) by the end of this year by involving two more companies.
Most contracts are about communication tools, control systems, radio-electronic warfare tools, drones, modernization activities, etc.
LEONID NERSISYAN (expert): It's not a secret that hefty investments were made in the manufacturing of drones. We've also seen a production of 122 mm and 82 mm shells; it's necessary to expand to 155 mm because we are purchasing new [Indian] artillery that uses those.
HIGH-TECH MINISTER: (1) The state is enacting legislative reforms to make the industry attractive for investments. (2) We are promoting R&D for new technologies and the generation of new ideas. We are financing research activities, the creation of prototypes, and their experimentation. The chain ends when a company's product passes the state experimentation process and enters serial production.
HOST: In 2018 the scientific-research budget was ֏2.4B. Today it's ֏4.1B ($10.6M), with an additional ֏1.5B dedicated for prototypes.
MHER MARKOSYAN (expert): We need more laser tech experts. The state must cherish mil. industry employees and encourage young scientists to gain experience.
HIGH-TECH MINISTER: As part of the 2024 budget, we do have a component to train and retrain industry experts. New specialists must enter this industry.
MHER MARKOSYAN: The war in Ukraine has made it more difficult to import components. Something that would normally take 1 week now requires 5 months. There are also horrible logistics problems. We do find solutions to import products but these solutions are expensive.
LEONID NERSISYAN: Even countries under the UN's embargo are able to import weapons so it's a matter of price. For example, it turns out that 70% of the electronics inside North Korean missiles are American.
HOST: Some Armenian manufacturers have reached international levels and could soon begin to export their products. However, there are logistic complications here as well. For example, in 2021 Armenia faced difficulty transporting the mockups of larger weapons to the Abu Dhabi expo [Moscow forced the jet carrying Armenian products to be unloaded and kept delaying the cargo's transfer to Abu Dhabi].
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the National Academy of Sciences has received a device that uses powerful lasers to melt metal and ceramic dust to create 3D objects for space and other industries: VIDEO

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India's Ambassador about defense cooperation between India and Armenia

AMBASSADOR: Our defense cooperation is proceeding very well. Defense cooperation is not only defense technical cooperation, but also we are looking at capacity building. On both fronts, we are proceeding very well.
REPORTER: During a joint press conference with MOD Papikyan, the Greek Minister spoke about the possibility of Armenia-Greece-France-India quadrilateral cooperation in the defense area.
AMBASSADOR: All 4 states have very good relations but at the moment it is still premature to talk about a quadrilateral format. But yes, there are convergences.
REPORTER: The Indian government said it's going to appoint Defense Attachés to Armenia and several other countries to strengthen the military links. What can you tell us about this?
AMBASSADOR: PM Modi has a very clear-cut policy and initiative of “Make in India”, including in the defense sector. We are now seeing that many countries in the world are buying Indian defense equipment. Defense Attachés are being posted to coordinate the process.

... India's Ambassador about AM-IN economic ties and trade

REPORTER: What was the volume of trade last year, and what trends are seen in the bilateral export and import markets?
AMBASSADOR: The $200 million trade we made was far below the potential. India is the Pharmacy of the World with more than 60% of the vaccines worldwide coming from India, including those supplied through the WHO and other mechanisms like GAVI. So we see more potential here. Both sides are working towards increasing the import of Indian medicines and vaccines into Armenia. We are also looking at the high-tech sector.

... India's Ambassador about Pashinyan's "Crossroads of Peace" trade unblocking project

REPORTER: The Government of Armenia proposed the “Crossroads of Peace” logistics project. There were opinions that it matches with India’s vision in the South Caucasus. What is India’s opinion on this initiative?
AMBASSADOR: When countries need to prosper, connectivity is the key. And connectivity is something that we, in our own region, have been working very closely with our neighboring countries. So similarly, we find that for any region, if you want to move to the next level of prosperity, you need to have connectivity projects. Naturally, we see this “Crossroads of Peace” project of the Armenian government in that light, that it would be a win-win situation for all the regional partners. So indeed for us there is no other way than to have more connections between countries, whether it is in terms of roads, railways, etc. We look at it positively and enthusiastically.

... India's Ambassador about international trade through Iran's Chabahar port

REPORTER: India plays an important role in the development of Chabahar port. You mentioned that the prospects of facilitating the use of Chabahar port for Armenia are being considered as well. What are those possibilities?
AMBASSADOR: The Chabahar port is jointly developed by India and Iran. In our discussions with the Armenian side, they have manifested an interest in using the Chabahar port. Armenia's Minister of Territorial Administration visited the Chabahar port in December. We are waiting for the details from the Armenian side and we will consider it once we receive concrete proposals.
REPORTER: What role can Armenia play in the development of a communication route from India to Chabahar to the Black Sea?
AMBASSADOR: This goes back to my comment about connectivity. Armenia being a landlocked country definitely needs more connectivity projects. If it materializes, I think it would help Armenia to overcome the fact that it is a landlocked country.
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experts at the European Training Foundation will assess Armenia's secondary vocational education system

The European Training Foundation is a European Union agency that helps transition and developing countries harness the potential of their human capital through the reform of education, training and labour market systems, and in the context of the EU's external relations policy.

A group of experts have arrived for the May 21-23 assessment. They will hold consultations with state agencies, students, employee unions, and others.

by 2030, 90 percent of school and college graduates should be able to find jobs and work according to employers' requirements.

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Yerevan and Paris reached an agreement to cooperate in urbanization, transport, and waste management over the next 3 years during a visit by Yerevan Mayor Avinyan to Paris

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Yerevan subway is diching Soviet-era physical zhetons (tokens) as part of transport reforms and switch to a universal payment system

OFFICIAL: We are updating a total of 49 entrance gates; it will be completed next month. You'll be able to use the old gates with tokens for now. Soon you will pay with a QR code, Telcell mobile wallet, bank cards, etc. ... last week over 15,000 passengers used the electronic payment methods.
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Yerevan municipality launches a process to move garbage containers underground

A public tender is launched to design a pilot program. In October the city said they studied the international practice for collecting the trash from underground bins and found two methods: lifting the bins to allow Yerevan's existing tech to collect the trash, or remove the bins. The latter would be more expensive.
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government launches the construction of two roads for Tavush border village Kirants: VIDEO

PASHINYAN OFFICE: The 3 remaining coordinates of Kirants were pinpointed with the use of a computer and the border posts will be installed later. The rest [another 8 posts in Kirants] are already there. The good news for Kirants is that around 25 hectares of land that have been unreachable for 33 years will be returned to the village. The border resembles the 1976 line.
As we said earlier, yes, there is a need to build a bypass road, which can be accomplished in 2-3 months. We will also rebuild the road between H-26 and Acharkut and Kirants, which is an alternative road for Kirants. As for property issues, the volumes are small and the government will compensate in such situations. //
The 3 remaining border posts were reportedly installed in Kirants on Monday. Here is how the road issue will be addressed:
Azerbaijan is located between Kirants and Sarigyugh villages. Kirants is currently connected to Sarigyugh with two roads: a direct connection through the interstate road, and a secondary road that connects Kirants to nearby Acharkut before reaching Sarigyugh.
Approximately 300 meters of the direct road falls under the Azerbaijani side, so the government will build a 750-meter bypass road parallel to it. Preliminary construction activities have begun; they are working on the details.
As for the secondary road passing through Acharkut, the government has begun rebuilding and widening it to allow cargo trucks to use it.
So there are currently two construction projects, with one connecting Kirants to Sarigyugh directly, and the second connecting Kirants to Sarigyugh through Acharkut. Both roads are expected to be ready in 3 months.
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Final battle? The opposition co-leader Bagrat Galstanyan will hold a "decisive" massive rally on May 26 to oust PM Pashinyan

GALSTANYAN: Պատմե’ք մարդկանց մայիսի 26-ի մեր հանրահավաքի մասին, այն վճռական է լինելու: //
Former mayor of Yerevan Hayk Marukyan called for Pashinyan and the ruling party to resign. "այլևս անելիք չունեն, նրանք պետք է հեռանան"
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Serj Sargsyan's HHK party co-leader is against forming an anti-Pashinyan alliance with Edmon Marukyan and Sasna Tsrer

Edmon Marutyan's LHK, Ruben Vardanyan's Aprelu Yerkir, and the Sasna Tsrer (BEVER) whose followers committed terrorists attacks on police stations in 2016 and 2024 have decided to join the ongoing anti-Pashinyan protests led by Kremlin's favorite Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan.
HHK's Edward Sharmazanov is against forming an alliance with Edmon Marukyan's LHK because they did not actively campaign against Pashinyan's reelection in 2021.
As for Sasna Tsrer, they committed attacks on police stations and called HHK "evil", so Sharmazanov is against working with them.
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update: threats after bribes

One of the several low-income residents of Vanadzor who last week reported receiving bribes to join the former regime's ongoing anti-Pashinyan protests says someone called and threatened their family for reporting the bribe to the police. Authorities are investigating the call.
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a fight broke out between protesters and students who refused to join the "Holy Struggle" led by Archbishop Galstanyan

AUTHORITIES: On Wednesday we received reports about a fight between the students of Yerevan's Manuk Abeghyan School and protesters. The participants engaged in a fight, disturbed peace, and used slurs. Eight students (all under 18 except for one) were detained.
SCHOOL DIRECTOR: It started after a group of protesters used loudspeakers to encourage our students to join them. After realizing that students didn't want to join, they began to hurl insults at the students. Several students left the building and a fight broke out in the backyard.
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82,000 Armenian drivers take advantage of a new law that absolves them of old citation debt if they pay 50%: VIDEO

It was part of a package law that slashes the size of future traffic citations by almost half if the driver pays electronically within the first two weeks of the violation. Some 21,000 drivers have already signed up at police.am to get a discount on their future citations.
It's meant to reduce the financial burden on drivers, the paperwork burden on police, and improve the payment discipline.
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Armenian poet and 18th century TikToker Sayat-Nova's statue is unveiled in Turkmenistan during an international forum of Culture Ministers: PHOTO

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Armenia circulates gold collector coin dedicated to Charles Aznavour’s 100th anniversary: IMAGE

Obverse: monument to Charles Aznavour in Gyumri
Reverse: portrait of Charles Aznavour, the number 100 in the form of stylized musical notes, piano keys and microphone.
Minted in Poland. The coin is worth ֏10,000 ($25).
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International Criminal Court wants to arrest Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant, and the Hamas leadership

PROSECUTOR: On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my Office, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin NETANYAHU, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yoav GALLANT, the Minister of Defence of Israel, bear criminal responsibility for the following war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 8 October 2023:
(1) Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime
(2) Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health
(3) Willful killing, or Murder as a war crime
(4) Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime
(5) Extermination and/or murder, including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity;
(6) Persecution as a crime against humanity
(7) Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity
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Iran's President Raisi and Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian die in a helicopter crash while returning from a meeting with Ilham Aliyev to inaugurate the opening of a new dam on the Iran-Azerbaijan border

Shortly before the crash:
RAISI: Maybe someone doesn't like our meeting and joint successes with Azerbaijan. It doesn't matter to us. The important thing is that we implement together whatever is in the best interest of our people. The enemies do not want progress in Azerbaijan and Iran, but we believe that any progress in Azerbaijan is our progress, any threat to the borders of both countries will be a loss for both countries.
ALIYEV: Today the world is witnessing how great the friendship is between Azerbaijan and Iran. We support each other in all international structures and will continue to in the future. No one can divide us. //
Memorial services will be held in Yerevan's Blue Mosque on Thursday.
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Azerbaijani dissident activist Arif Yunusov about Iran helicopter crash

REPORTER: Will there be radical changes in Iran after the death of Raisi?
YUNUSOV: I doubt it. The real power is in the hands of Khamenei. Now there are reports about his son [replacing him in the future]. As for the internal disturbances caused by opponents, as you know, there are periodic waves in Iran. These protests are sometimes ethnicity-based. If in the past it was Azerbaijanis, today the protests are by Kurds. There is also the youth that's tired of being ruled by religious mullahs. The death of Raisi doesn't change anything in internal or foreign policies. They will just change the President's last name.
REPORTER: I have a feeling Iran will soon blame Israel for the helicopter crash.
YUNUSOV: I have already seen that on Iranian Telegram channels but official Tehran won't rush with that. They will conduct an investigation and conclusions will be made. If Tehran blames Israel, then there must be good evidence for it because credit where credit is due - Iran usually conducts such investigations quite well. If you remember the liquidation of the father of Iran's nuclear weapons, Israel still denies participation but Iran found enough evidence that Israeli agents used the territory of Azerbaijan to infiltrate, carry out the project, and return through Azerbaijan. Let's wait and see the conclusion of the crash investigation. The accusations by Telegram channels and analysts "don't count".

... Arif Yunusov about AM-AZ border delimitation

REPORTER: Is the ongoing Tavush-Gazakh delimitation really a bilateral process, as Baku claims?
YUNUSOV: No. The U.S. is still interested in the delimitation process and influences both parties behind the curtains. There was a high-profile Azerbaijani visit to Washington. Although the official press release didn't share details, we can safely assume they discussed the AM-AZ relations. If this delimitation continues in spite of Russia that means the U.S. is currently a moderator in this process. This is not purely a bilateral process despite Aliyev's efforts to present it that way.
REPORTER: Is the U.S. a guarantor that the delimitation won't end in Tavush?
YUNUSOV: Not a "guarantor" but the U.S. is the force that is really trying to accomplish something and is actually doing something. The full demarcation will last a long time. The main objective of the U.S. at the moment is the signing of an AM-AZ peace agreement. I don't think they'll be able to sign it before November, however.
REPORTER: How is the Azerbaijani public reacting to the border delimitation?
YUNUSOV: Positively. People truly want to have a demarcated border. The Azerbaijani regime often mentioned "Western Azerbaijan" and the return of Azeris there, but in reality, nobody in Azerbaijan took that seriously because they all understood it was an attempt to pressure Armenia. As soon as information came that the border was partially delimited, it was met with a positive response by the public. The Azerbaijani public understands that it's normal for Azerbaijan to gain and lose control of territories during this process, just as we did during the delimitation with other neighbors.
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I'm currently in the market for a new content filter and classroom management system. We currently use Lightspeed Relay for content filtering and GoGuardian Teacher for classroom management. We've been a long time Lightspeed customer and while it's mostly (sort of sometimes) worked for us, I get the feeling that the grass may be greener elsewhere.
The key feature I'm interested in is the ability for teachers to temporarily, for an entire class, unblock sites that I have blocked as a baseline. For instance, let's say the "automobile" category is blocked by default. I want teachers to be able to allow that category during their class so students can research used car prices as part of a classroom budget planning activity, but then once they close their classroom management session the category will revert to being blocked as usual.
I'm not interested in student-by-student teacher overrides, or giving teachers access to the content filter admin access to manually enable/disable categories.
I understand that Linewize and Classwize can do this (and are highly recommended by this subreddit) and I'm trying to get a pilot but they don't seem to want my money based on how delayed their communication is. I've also contacted GoGuardian (and a few others, can't find my notes atm) but their responses indicated they weren't able to do what I'm looking for.
We are 1:1 Chromebooks for students, don't need much filtering otherwise so anything DNS-based would be fine for teachers and other staff.
Anyone know of anything that can do this? Should I just keep pursuing the Linewize route?
(Oh, and yes, computer usage during class time is a classroom management responsibility and all that which I 100% agree with, but we do have good reasons for our internet access being so locked down for students since we are a residential program - think along the lines of juvenile court schools or something similar)

Nuxia is a problematic character, she can feel extremely unfair to fight and is overall a good duellist, but her 4vs4 abilities are some of the worse in the game. She is also a very unique character, she has barely been touched by Ubisoft since her release, and also has a truely one of a kind mechanic in her traps. As such, a rework of Nuxia is a tall order, it must manage to buff her in 4s without making her broken in duels and while keeping the character unique. Here is how I propose we go about it.

~I-Nuxia’s damage~
If there is one thing that is said to be strong about Nuxia it’s her damage, she can absolutely delete someone if she gets an opening. As such, before we buff her in other ways, we must adress her damage. Her dps is high because of two things : her base damage, and her two damage feats.
Regarding her base damage it’s actually not that high, her lights deal 9-12 damage and her heavies 24-30. This is on par with a lot of assassins, with Orochi being 10-13 on his lights and 22-32 on his heavies. Berserker is also 9-12 on his lights and 24-32 on his heavies. Her damage overall is a bit lower but more consistent, with less of a gap based on the direction of her heavies and their place in the chain.
Her damage is boosted by her two feats, Deadly Duet gives her a passive 20% damage increase when close to a lone ennemy, and Slip Through gives her a 30% damage boost to her next attack after a dodge. Are those feat too strong ? Not really in my opinion, Deadly Duet isn’t active a lot of the time in 4s as people tend to stick together, and Slip Through boost one attack with no garantee of landing it while being a tier 3. They are a lot of stronger feats, and I think they play into her unique identiy, you should be rewarded for roaming the battlefield and hunting lone targets.
As such I don’t think a damage nerf is needed even with those buffs, but if something had to be nerf I would nerf the base damage instead of the feat. Nuxia is a better duellist than teamfighter, as such I doubt such buffs would risk making her broken in dominion, only in duels where the feats are a non issue. This way she gets to keep her unique feats, while reigning in her damage if it proves to be too high after those buffs (even though as of now it is not above the average of assassins).

~II-« Quality of life » buffs~
Those are a few things that don’t make a huge impact but would still help her. First I would give her something similar to Shinobi and Shugoki’s run, if she is meant to be a roamer she needs to be able to move across the map fast. I would make it not as good as Shinobi’s so he keeps his own identity, but better than Shugoki. In addition, I would give her hyperarmor on Mirror Raid, her unique parry counter. The move itself deals 15 damage, but is made useless in teamfights due to interrupts, it would give her a bit more anti gank viability. Finally traps should beat any attack thrown in their direction, including non crushing counter lights and light parry attempts, so that ennemies don’t randomly beat traps by messing up parry timings, while still giving them the ability to counter the trap on a good read by lighting Nuxia in another direction.



~III-Opener~
This might be a controversial take but as of right now Nuxia lacks a reliable opener. Most people will tell you her trap mix up is, and it is an opener, just not a reliable one. The idea is to heavy, so that your opponent as to decide if you are going to either let it fly, trap, hard feint to gb, or just feint. However, this opener heavily favors the opponent. For once it is extremely slow, and a lot of the time your opponent while just do their opener at the same time or even slightly after you and you will just eat it. For example wether or not you are feinting or trap your heavy, a forward dodge bash will beat you, or even a simple light. It also is not stamina efficient, costing 22 to 24 stam based on if you trap or hardfeint. There is a reason why characters with bash openers rarely open by feinting heavies in the air.
Even in a best case scenario where you don’t get interrupted, the defender is still massively favored, and that’s because the defenders options beats several of Nuxia’s own. For example :
-Dodging and dodge attacking beat both traping and letting the heavy fly, with empty dodges beating hard feints and dodge attack beating feint to gb. This is the biggest culprit, by alternating between empty and dodge attack the defender can beat ¾ of Nuxia’s options reliably.
-Lighting in any direction (except the heavy direction if your hero has crushing counter lights) beats the trap, feint to gb, and for most player hard feinting if they can’t react to the light in time to parry it. They can block it but they are then back to neutral.
-Parrying beats the heavy, and has a chance to beat the trap if the defender messes up his parry timing, it’s also neutral to hard feinting to nothing. So even if the defender doesn’t dodge, he still has a lot of options, making so banking on him dodging or dodge attacking as Nuxia isn’t a reliable option either.
Compare this to your regular bash opener and it’s simply a two options mind game of predicting if you your opponent thinks you are going to empty dodge or dodge bash and you will see that Nuxia’s opener is fairly unnremarkable. Put it this way, imagine two sets of two duelling bots. One duo is Nuxia vs another hero, the other is JJ vs another hero. The Nuxia bot is programmed to open by selecting randomly an option from her heavy opener, while the JJ bot does the same thing with his forward dodge bash opener mix up. Their opposing bot randomly picks an answer to counter it, mathematically Nuxia’s opponent will win the trade more often than her, while JJ and is opponent would be fairly even.
So should we just give Nuxia a bash opener ? No, one of the goal of this rework proposal is to keep her uniqueness. So here is my proposal, in addition to her trap make her able to soft feint an opener heavy into a weaker, undodgeable light which always come from the same side as the heavy. My reasoning is simple, this change makes her opponer closer to a bash opponer as it reduces the imbalance between the defender and attacker, dodging and dodge attacking doesn’t beat 3/4 or Nuxia’s options anymore. The defender can still dodge and dodge attack if he makes a correct read, but Nuxia has a reliable way to beat both. As such the opponent must now make a real decision if dodging is the right answer, and if not actually has to interract with the trap mix up. The soft feint light would both deal less damage and be 600ms lights (like Zhanhu unblockable lights), the damage nerf is to make them less oppressive, and being slower they allow the opponent an easier light parry on a correct read since they also always come from the same direction as the heavy.
In conclusion, the oppenents options would now be :
-Dodge and dodge attack still beats trap and heavy, with them additionnaly beating hard feint heavy and feint to gb respectively, but they can be punished by the soft feint light if they abuse it
-Light interrupt a trap by lighting on a different side
-Parrying either the heavy or the feinted light (which again is slower and always come from the same side as the heavy).

~IV-Recovery cancels, or why Nuxia should have an all guard~

If you look at the top heroes in 4s, most of them have access to some form of recovery cancel, typically dodge recovery cancels. Those are extremely powerful tools, especially in teamfights. During ganks it makes babysitting harder since the baby sitter as to interrupt you during your attack, instead of during your recoveries. And during brawls they allow you to quickly switch target and reposition. This is one of Nuxia’s biggest weaknesses in 4s. She is a sitting duck in ganks, unable to get any damage in before getting revenge and even when she does get it there is nothing stopping the ennemy to wail on you while you are trying to attack their teammate. But giving her dodge recovery cancel is just making more like other heroes, and we don’t want that. That’s where my idea of an all guard comes in.
Let’s describe what it would look like first. It would be more similar to Musha’s guard, she cannot hold it and has to go into it at the right timing. Additionnaly, hers would be weaker than Musha’s to not make him redundant. She wouldn’t be able to access while in hitstun, only after a block and to cancel the recovery of her attacks except her traps. If the ennemy hits her all guard she has three options, she can do a weaker version of mirror raid, doing less damage while still having hyperarmor, she can do a weaker hyperarmored zone or she can immediatly follow up with a non garanteed heavy or zone to go back into her trap mix up. In addition just like Musha she can go back into her all guard after blocking with it, and she is ofc gb vulnerable on the same timing. Notice that all of her options are weaker version of Mushas, she gets a weaker garanteed damage and a weaker zoning tool (though unlike Musha’s this one is not garanteed and can be blocked or parried, finally she can use it to go back into her bread and butter mix up.
This solution has several benefits. It solves her lack of recovery cancels without giving her dodge recovery cancels, it makes her a bit stronger in teamfights by being able to defend herself better when ganked with the block recovery cancel and allows her to get some damage in by punishing people just wailing on her when she is in revenge. At the same time it’s still a weak all guard, the only garanteed damage she would get out of it would be around 10, as her only other offensive options out of it is her trap mix up with both the heavy and zone, which the opponent can beats on a proper read. It also fits her lorewise, she doesn’t have a shield so having her hold an all guard wouldn’t make sense, but hookswords are meant to trap the opponents weapon. Currently they do when she is on the offense with her traps, but they should also be able to do it while she is on the defensive.
This concludes my proposed Nuxia rework, let me know what you think.

Let's start with the first thing: IPTV, or Internet Protocol Television.
The idea of IPTV is to revolutionize how we watch TV by delivering programs and videos over the internet. For sports bettors, this can streamline enjoying your favorite sports.
The key, though, is finding a provider that offers stability, a variety of sports channels, and streams without interruptions.
Best IPTV Providers for Every Sports Betting Need

• StreamHut.tv: Renowned for its premium service, StreamHut.tv offers over 23,000 channels, impeccable customer support, and extensive sports coverage.
• StreamQ.tv: Known for its stability, vast VOD library, and a 24-hour free trial to test the quality, making it ideal for catching live sports events.
• XtreamHD IPTV: Perfect for sports enthusiasts with global sports streaming and over 55,000 HD channels, ensuring you never miss a game.
• IPTV UNBLOCK: Focused on the UK market, this provider offers high-definition streaming and playback of the last 7 days, ideal for catching up on missed matches.
• KEMoPIPTV: Compatible with a wide range of devices and reliable during address changes, ensuring you stay connected to your favorite sports no matter where you are.

I recommend to look for free trials to ensure the service meets your expectations before deciding on one!

14-minute read.

average monthly nominal salaries and YoY change in Q1 2024

Yerevan +8% to ֏324K/$836
Syunik +7% to ֏295K/$760
Shirak +7% to ֏142K/$366
Yerevan had the highest wages. Syunik had the highest wages among provinces, while Shirak had the lowest.
REPORT: While the average nominal monthly salary does not always show the level of economic prosperity in a region, its rise has made a tangible difference in Syunik.
SUREN PARSYAN (economist): Syunik has higher wages and strong employment. It is the most prosperous province with the lowest unemployment poverty rate in Armenia: 24% in Armenia, 15% in Yerevan, and 2% in Syunik.
REPORT: Over the last 5 years, the average monthly nominal salaries have risen by 40% while the inflation was 21%.
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Armenian army launches command staff exercises

They will exercise the practical implementation of deployment and combat plans, evaluate the commanders' skills, improve the synchronized work between various groups, develop the officers' moral characteristics and practical skills during preparation and combat operations, etc.
They will use automated control systems and modern technologies during the exercises.
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Armenia and India will form a new working group for defense cooperation

Defense ministries of AM and IN held a meeting on Tuesday. They discussed the 2024-2025 cooperation plan and the creation of a new working group to coordinate the cooperation.
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from PM Pashinyan's speech at Copenhagen Democracy Summit:

PASHINYAN: Democracy has indeed become a reality in Armenia. Before the 2018 Velvet Revolution, massive electoral frauds were the usual companion of elections in Armenia. There was no trust among the citizens that there was a real chance for them to elect the government.
Now the situation is totally different; citizens know that they are powerful enough to decide. The two general elections that were held in Armenia after the Velvet Revolution have been acknowledged as democratic, free, and competitive both by the Armenian society and the international community.
Armenia made huge progress in strengthening the democratic institutions, an achievement reflected in reputable democracy indexes:
(a) Now we are the 43rd in the Reporters Without Borders’ Freedom of Speech index, compared to 79th place in 2017.
(b) Categorized as having partially free internet in 2017 by Freedom House, now we enjoy the status of a country with free internet.
(c) In Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, Armenia is now 62nd instead of 107th in 2017.
(d) In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index we are 84th compared to 111th in 2017.
In order to assess this progress, it's essential to note that alongside democratic reforms, Armenia has been contending with external security challenges: the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan's invasion of Armenia in 2021 and 2022 and the occupation of over 200 km² amid inaction by [Russia's] CSTO, the forced displacement of over 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, have cast doubts among Armenian citizens weather democracy is the right choice. So, democracy needs to prove its efficiency while dealing with security, economic and humanitarian challenges.
We are pleased with the deployment of EU monitoring mission alongside the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, and we welcome EU’s decision to expand its capacity. On the other hand, we hope for the inclusion of Armenia into the European Peace Facility and in this regard, we rely on the support of all EU member states [Hungary].
A new set of commitments aimed at strengthening Armenia’s economic resilience, state institutions, and addressing the humanitarian needs of refugees has been taken on by the European Union and United States during the high-level meeting on April 5 in Brussels. The rapid and effective implementation of those commitments is of utmost importance.
Despite all the challenges, we believe that the real and most aspiring companion for democracy is lasting and sustainable peace. My government took the share of its responsibility for this. Recently we reached an agreement with Azerbaijan to launch the delimitation of our interstate borders on the basis of the Almaty Declaration of 1991. That means that during the delimitation we should simply reproduce the Soviet-era administrative borders. This is the implementation of the agreement reached in Prague in 2022. Now it is time to incorporate and reflect those agreements in the peace treaty and have it signed.
Another key point for our regional stability is the «Crossroads of Peace», project, initiated by my government. This project implies that Armenia and Azerbaijan restore and open transport and other communications in accordance with the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the countries through which they pass, and comply with the principles of equality and reciprocity. These elements of the concept were agreed upon during the July 2023 meeting with Ilham Aliyev and Charles Michel. //

... Politico reporter's Q&A with Pashinyan

REPORTER: [Ex-NATO leader] Anders Fogh Rasmussen called your neighbor an autocracy. You are in a very difficult geopolitical and geographical position. How do you solve the security problem in that environment?
PASHINYAN: I would not like to comment on the internal situation of our neighboring countries. Democracy fully corresponds to the mentality of our people. It is a strategy for our government, it is our political belief, it is also our political identity. The members of our political team have spent most of their lives fighting for democracy, the rule of law, and freedom of speech. Now we have the opportunity to realize all these values in our country.
The security situation was complicated because of the regional and global situation; the world order is collapsing at the moment. My assessment is, and I have had occasion to say this publicly, that the 2020 war was a prelude to further developments. And now the main issue is security.
What is our strategic point of view, how are we going to guarantee the security of our country? Recently, I gave a speech in our parliament, where I said that the most important tool for ensuring security is a foreign policy based on legitimacy. This is the reason why we so often speak about the 1991 Almaty Declaration.
It is very important that during the 2022 Prague meeting, two very important agreements were reached. Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty on the basis of the Almaty Declaration and will use it as the basis for the border demarcation. This is the reason why I said that we are not drawing a new border, we just need to reproduce the existing one on the ground. This process is happening right now, and I hope that we will continue it steadfastly.
REPORTER: The border conflict that has occurred in recent years has had a negative impact on relations with Russia and Russia's role for Armenia. What would you say about this?
PASHINYAN: Armenia is a member of CSTO. We are officially a CSTO member, but I have announced that we have frozen our participation.
REPORTER: So are you still a member or...?
PASHINYAN: It is a matter for further discussion, but it is very important to record the current situation. A crisis arose in our relations after Azerbaijani troops invaded Armenia, and according to CSTO procedures, the Organization and its member states had to support Armenia in this situation. But even after the formal application, the CSTO refused to take any concrete steps, and in fact, that is the main reason for freezing our participation in the CSTO at all levels.
REPORTER: Do you expect the West to occupy the current vacuum and ensure your security?
PASHINYAN: We are diversifying our foreign relations in all spheres. Now we are developing defense cooperation with India, France, and other countries. We have a certain cooperation with the European Union because as I mentioned, we are happy about the deployment of the EU Civilian Observation Mission on the border. It is a civilian mission but in a way, it is a new factor for the security of our region. This is the first time that the European Union participates in the security agenda of Armenia.
REPORTER: Would you like to become an EU member?
PASHINYAN: We are waiting for the EU's decision to include Armenia in the European Peace Facility. We also hope to start visa liberalization negotiations, and last year I announced in the European Parliament that Armenia is ready to be as close to the European Union as the European Union deems it possible. This is our position.
REPORTER: Can you elaborate on what initiatives Armenia is taking in the fight against corruption?
PASHINYAN: We have made huge progress but have not eradicated corruption from Armenia. We must continue to be persistent in the agenda of democratic reforms. This is the reason why cooperation with the European Union is of utmost importance for us because today the European Union is our main partner in the implementation of our democratic reform agenda. We hope that the European Union, as well as the USA, will increase their support to Armenia in the implementation of democratic reforms, because, as I said, democracy is a strategy for us.
By the way, in 2019 we started a Strategic Dialogue with the USA, and today we see the strengthening of our cooperation with the European Union. We recently had a tripartite meeting with the participation of the USA, EU, and Armenia. It was an unprecedented format, where we adopted a huge agenda of institutional and economic reforms. It is also very important that we receive more tangible support from the EU and the US to address the humanitarian needs of the Nagorno Karabakh refugees because it is a very sensitive and emotional issue for us.
REPORTER: In which year would you like Armenia to become a member of the EU?
PASHINYAN: This year [as soon as possible]. //
Pashinyan met Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The latter emphasized the importance of the “Crossroads of Peace” project in the context of unblocking the regional infrastructure.
Pashinyan discussed various topics with the PM of Denmark. The latter accepted his invitation to visit Armenia.
full video, source, video, other, other, source, video,

former regime continues to hold protests and briefly shut down roads in Yerevan with demands for PM Pashinyan's resignation

ԳԼՈՒԽ 1
Dozens of participants were detained and released the same day for blocking roads. The detentions decreased from 170 on Monday to ~63 on Tuesday. They want Pashinyan to resign or to be impeached. The protest organizers visited universities to gather student supporters, some of whom joined them with a dance. The organizers also stopped by at a bakery where they were given free food.
A felony investigation was launched after a police vehicle, "with the sirens on", struck a reporter on the street. In another instance, an investigation was launched against a protester who brought a long sword. One other case was launched over alleged threats made on Facebook by a Galstanyan fan who wants scores of people to be beaten in dalans and exiled from Armenia, "մենակ էտ դեպքում էս սրբազան հողը կմաքրվի էս տեսակ շան ծնունդներից, ուրիշ ձև չկա!!!!"
ԳԼՈՒԽ 2
A ruling faction member of Yerevan City Council complained about "harassment" by opposition figures who are attempting to convince ruling party members to join the protests and the impeachment.
RULING MEMBER: That is not how it works. No one will join you with that conduct. People will join if they see you have a legitimate agenda with trustworthy leaders. Instead, you are "ethnically cleansing" the citizens of Armenia [referring to one opposition speaker telling non-Armenians to leave] և հեռու չէ են օրը երբ դուք գուցե ասեք որ հայ լինելու համար պետք է Հայկ նահապետից տեղեկանք բերել: //
ԳԼՈՒԽ 3
Yesterday the protest co-organizer Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan said he received a report suggesting that the Deputy Rector of Yerevan State University supposedly urged deans and others to retaliate against students who joined the protests. Galstanyan said he was unsure whether the report was true, but decided to read it out loud anyway. On Tuesday he rallied his supporters to the backyard of the University where he demanded to speak with the Deputy Rector for clarification.
The Deputy Rector went downstairs and greeted Galstanyan, who shook her hand but wouldn't let it go for an uncomfortably long period, prompting her to ask him to let go of her hand. The Deputy Rector declared that whatever Galstanyan read about her was a defamatory lie.
GALSTANYAN: I never believed it myself.
DEPUTY RECTOR: Then you should not have said out loud something you did not believe.
GALSTANYAN: Listen, there is a recorded fact...
DEPUTY RECTOR: Where is that "recorded fact"?
GALSTANYAN: It was on the media. As I said yesterday, I had no verification that it was true, which is why we came here to clarify it. If it's false, then I apologize.
DEPUTY RECTOR: Thank you. //
The Deputy Rector urged the protest organizers not to enter the building or disrupt the classes, and that "anyone who wants to follow you can follow you, anyone who wants to stay in classrooms should stay in classrooms".
The angry Deputy Rector left. Another university official criticized Galstanyan for not checking the information before reading it to his followers. Galstanyan said he stands behind his words, and that he was "just reading what was on the media", but reiterated that he had no intention to insult the Deputy Rector.
ԳԼՈՒԽ 4
Galstanyan and his supporters visited the monument dedicated to Operation Nemesis. He praised the figures behind Nemesis for "assuming personal responsibility". In front of the crowd, Galstanyan introduced Hambig Sassounian who recently joined his movement. He pointed to the Nemesis monument and said Sassounian is "one of the successors, one of the brightest people." In related news, on Sunday a ruling faction MP complained about receiving death threats with reference to Operation Nemesis.
ԳԼՈՒԽ 5
DANIEL IOANNESIAN (NGO chief): When this protest dies down, we need to discuss the following: (1) The transparency of political and media funding. There are some regulations in place, but they are incomplete and easily bypassed. For example, I'd like to know who paid for Archbishop Galstanyan's giant stage in Republic Square. In 2018 Pashinyan organized a fundraising for it and disclosed a detailed report. (2) Should the media organizations that do not respect the rules of financial transparency enjoy all the mechanisms for the protection of journalists? (3) Are the customs authorities confident that the church is not facilitating the business activities of certain figures disguised as donations? (4) Is it fair for the church and clergy members not to pay taxes? Should they be able to have a Bently and LX570 without paying taxes? [The "Bentley" is based on a true story.]
ԳԼՈՒԽ 6
Archbishop's fans spotted Miss Armenia 2003 and a H1 host Lusine Tovmasyan drinking a coffee at a Yerevan café and approached her.
PROTESTER: (unintelligable)
LUSINE: I was here drinking coffee yesterday, and a year before that.
PROTESTER: Why have you not joined the holy struggle?
LUSINE: Լավ եկեք թարգեք, շատ զզվելի ա, էնքան զզվելի ա․ //
ԳԼՈՒԽ 7
Pro-Kremlin propagandist Alexander Dugin praised the pro-Russian forces' protests in Armenia and criticized the pro-EU protests in Georgia.
Pro-Kremlin Russian politician Semyon Baghdasarov praised Archbishop Bagrat and the ongoing "uprising" in Armenia against the "traitor" [Nikol] who "rigged" the elections with the help of "Turkey, UK, and US". Nikol is a Turkish MI6 agent. video,
ԳԼՈՒԽ 8
Video of a protest recorded from above: video
source, video, video, video, video, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, video,

Armenian government has upgraded other diplomatic channels to reduce reliance on ARF's diaspora structures in the US, says pro-West NGO chief

KHURSHUDYAN: The status of the Armenian Ambassador to the U.S. [Lilith Makunts] has been significantly upgraded. I won't go into specifics because it's tied to our neighbors, but she plays an interesting role there. We have great conditions for the U.S. Congress to pressure Azerbaijan. This is outside of ARF's lobbyist groups in the U.S.
REPORTER: ARF Hay Dat's recent conduct has been shameful.
KHURSHUDYAN: And its influence on the Lemkin Institute was obvious. //
Yesterday Kurshudyan accused the Lemkin Institute of caving to ARF's pressure and meddling into Armenia's internal affairs to assist the protests by the pro-Russian former regime.
KHURSHUDYAN: Lemkin Institute accused Pashinyan's April 24 genocide remembrance day statement of containing "victim blaming". Lemkin did not comment on Pashinyan's statement for several weeks, waited 15 days, and as soon as these pro-Russian protests began in Armenia, they gave them a պաս:
source,

Armenia's four most prominent pro-West opposition parties announce the formation of a unified platform

Republic Party, led by ex-PM Aram Sargsyan.
Hanun Republic Party, led by Arman Babajanyan.
European Party of Armenia, led by Tigran Khzmalyan.
Christian-Democratic Party, led by Levon Shirinyan.
Have the following agenda...
(1) Promotion of Western values in Armenia and Armenia's membership in EU and NATO.
(2) United front against threats and risks of destabilization coming from Russia.
(3) Vetting judges to clean up the courts, and resolution of issues left unaddressed by the Pashinyan administration.
(4) Continuation of border demarcation based on 1991 Almaty.
(5) The use of international law to achieve a fair resolution for Nagorno-Karabakh residents.
The platform is open for like-minded forces to join.
source,

Armenian army chief denies being a Russian citizen

A statement released by the defense ministry denies media reports that CoGS LtGen Edward Asryan is a dual citizen of Russia. His wife is an ethnic Russian with Armenian citizenship and his kids are dual citizens, but Asryan only has citizenship in Armenia. The whole family has resided in Armenia since 2006, said the statement.
source,

Georgia passes controversial ‘foreign agents’ bill despite widespread opposition

The law will require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence” or face crippling fines.
The bill will be sent to the President who is expected to veto it, but her veto is expected to be overruled by the parliamentary majority later.
Georgian PM Kobakhidze had an "honest conversation" with U.S. deputy foreign minister James O'Brien, telling him that the Georgian government is interested in deepening the partnership with the U.S., "which requires mutual efforts and relations based on fairness."
James O'Brien demanded to speak with the manager - Bidza Ivanishvili. The latter refused to meet O'Brien, saying he won't hold any meetings under "blackmail".
The White House said the U.S. will review its relations with Georgia if the bill becomes law.
source, source, source,

how many of the 101,000 Nagorno-Karabakh refugees have left Armenia and haven't returned yet?

As of...
Dec: 6.6K
Jan: 6.9K
Mar: 8.0K
Apr: 9.1K
May: 9.9K
The former Ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh said many of them have family members and friends in Russia who invite them to move.
source,

temperatures are rising rapidly in Armenia

REPORTER: The rainy May is not going to be enough to alleviate the negative consequences of the rapidly rising temperatures in Armenia. With a ~3 Celsius anomaly, Armenia had the second-highest increase in temperature over the last 6 months among a group of monitored countries.
WEATHER CENTER: High temperatures increase the evaporation of water and reduce the amount of snow in the winter. In December and January, we recorded rain instead of snow in certain mountainous regions, which is bad for water resources.
REPORTER: A conference was recently held in Yerevan within the framework of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
UN official: Around 40% of global soils are degraded. Millions of people will be forced to migrate from their communities by 2050 as a result of climate problems. Emergency action is needed to reduce the rate of rising temperatures. //
Armenia joined the Convention three decades ago and has assumed the responsibility to restore degraded soil by 2030. The government is promoting drip irrigation systems for farming and wants to plant more trees.
video,

is the decline of Lake Sevan levels finally slowing down?

see the YoY chart

Yerevan Municipality to receive a €25 million loan from European Investment Bank to raise energy efficiency

It's part of the implementation of Eastern Partnership programs. The Armenian government and the EU are co-financing it.
The goal is to raise energy efficiency and carry out seismic retrofitting in 6 medical clinics and 32 kindergartens run by the municipality. The length of the program is 4 years.
video, video,

Gagik Tsarukyan is inside you

there is a bit of Tsarukyan inside all of you
see it to believe it

Gagik Tsarukyan says the new Jesus statue is ready and will be installed by the end of 2025

It will be a tourist attraction site. There will be a ropeway. Also, Tsarukyan needs you to know that he is a man of God and an avid believer.
video,

Armenia and Slovakia discussed AM-EU visa liberalization

source,

Lithuania will help retrain Armenian law enforcement agents to combat cybercrime, analyze crimes, etc.

source,

Armenia's Economy Minister Papoyan met the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt

In a Washington meeting participated by the Armenian Ministry delegation and Armenia's Ambassador, they spoke about the Crossroads of Peace logistics project proposed by Armenia, several topics relating to Armenia's energy and economic security, and the Armenian government's ongoing efforts to classify Armenia as a "market economy".
source,

Armenia and Iran discussed the construction of a second bridge over the River Araks

The first bridge began operating in 1996. It came to replace the floating bridges on the river.
Iran says the AM-IR traffic through the Meghri checkpoint significantly increased last year. Coupled with the fact that Armenia is building a modern North-South highway, they believe it's necessary to have a second AM-IR bridge to handle the rising traffic.
The parties are currently discussing the formation of a working group consisting of experts to discuss the topic.
source,

a new study on mice indicates that more exercise might be better than more sleep for clearing brain of toxins

They injected a dye into a brain and tracked the speed of its movement during sleep and exercise.
The findings show that the clearance of the dye was reduced by 30% in sleeping mice compared with mice that were kept awake. This has not been confirmed on humans yet.
Previous research has suggested that sleep is important for preventing dementia as it is during this time that toxic proteins are cleared from the brain.
source, source,

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/lolfuckno.
This post was originally posted to weddingshaming.
There was already a BoRU post by u/autochthonouschimera, which didn't include the last update yet.
TRIGGER WARNING: cheating, child neglect, extreme entitledness, talk of abortion
MOOD SPOILERS: infuriating, confusing, frustrating
The new update at the bottom of this post has been marked with --- ---
EDIT/DISCLAIMER: FFS FOLLOW THE NO BRIGADING RULE = DO NOT COMMENT ON THE ORIGINAL POSTS LINKED IN BoRUs!! THIS OFC ALSO INCLUDES NOT TEXTING THE OOP DIRECTLY, NOT REPORTING THEM TO SUBS LIKE care AND NOT INCLUDING THEM IN THREADS AND DISCUSSIONS!! LEAVE THEM ALONE, THIS SUB IS MADE TO LURK AND GET SOME SPICY STORIES WITH CLOSURE, NOT TO HARRASS PEOPLE WHO ALREADY GOT ALOT OF INPUT THROUGH DIFFERENT SUBs!!
Original story was posted on December 7, 2021
Okay, so this girl I know from high school is getting married. We're both 22, for reference. In our senior year of high school she got pregnant, with baby daddy A who will be referred to as Adam. Her super conservative parents kicked her out and she ended up moving in with a friend's family. She barely graduated high school. The only reason she did were because of the generosity and support of our teachers and students who volunteered to help her, which is how we met. We were in the same law class in the morning and she had the worst morning sickness that really affected her ability to be in class. So, I took extra notes for her, tutored her, and brought her her stuff if she hadn't come back by the bell. I wasn't the only one who did stuff like this for her and I know she really appreciates all the assistance we gave her. She had the baby a month after we graduated.
She'd signed up for a 911 dispatcher course for after high school because where we live it's a good steady job, with opportunity for certificates and promotions. But she didn't realize how intensive the course would be and had to drop out. She started working at a grocery store bakery, just until she had a better plan. Adam started an apprenticeship while working part time at a hockey rink, and proposed to her literally the day of her eighteenth birthday, and brought up marriage because "it's the right thing to do" (I don't really agree with that but this isn't about me) and she was always refusing.
She started cheating on him after a while (we're all 19 now), and eventually leaves him for another guy because... She's pregnant again and it is far more likely that this guy, baby daddy B who will be referred to as Brad, is the father of the child. Neither of them can afford lawyers so getting any kind of custody agreement is a mess, and then their parents got involved and they did 50/50 split (still not made official). She has the baby, that does turn out to be Brad's, and everything is okay for about nine months, when she finds out Brad has been cheating on her with his TA. Brad decides to pay child support but doesn't really want contact with the kid, only around holidays and one weekend a month for his parents' sake.
She moves back in with her parents (we're all 20 now) who only accept her back because there's grandchildren around. On the plus side, (when she's 21) she gets to take that year long dispatcher course, and passes with flying colours!
After working as a dispatcher for a year (we're all 22 now) she meets a police officer we'll call Chad, who's 26 and married... And Adam's second (?) cousin (I can't remember how they're related, just that Adam and Chad are related somewhat distantly). She has an affair with him (infidelity is super common among cops apparently). She gets knocked up, his wife divorces him, Chad proposes because "it's the right thing to do", she accepts, and her parents kick her out again for being a [insert expletive here], she moves in with Chad with her two kids. They've started planning the wedding, which... Given the background is something akin to a dumpster fire. Adam is LIVID. He was desperately in love with this girl and hasn't really recovered from what she did to him, and while she rejected his proposals years ago, she's accepted one FROM HIS COUSIN WHO PROPSED FOR THE SAME REASON HE DID.
Adam has basically made a call for loyalty in the family, dividing everyone one who should go, who should give money, etc plus they're having trouble planning anything because of COVID. Her parents have outright said that they're not going, along with half of her family, and her younger sister has been going around and sabotaging what plans they can make.
She has asked me to be a bridesmaid, I said that I couldn't because I live in a different province now, but the truth is, I do not want to be wrapped up in that clusterfuck in any way . I'm just watching the arguments and events unfold on social media because this is quite honestly the most entertaining thing I've seen all year. It's weird to me that she even asked because we're not friends, we never have been. We were friendly strangers in high school, I just helped her out for one class because she needed help and I could give it to her. I was just being nice. But based on how she turned out I'm just sad for her. Three kids in four years, and she's alienated so much of her friends and family because if her actions, and I'm torn between feeling sorry for her and putting my head in my hands.
EDIT 1:
First off, all of your comments are hilarious. Second, I'm going to answer some of the common questions.
We're from a city with over 400,000 thousand people, she just comes from the neighbourhood that is made of either bible thumpers or white trash, with no in between. But the high school we went to was in a completely different neighbourhood than that.
Our school had a pretty good sex Ed course, and they gave out free condoms and had resources to help girls get birth control, and they had programs in place for if students ever got pregnant/were going to be teen parents (they also had one of those classes with the dolls for girls who were high risk at teen pregnancy but she wasn't high risk so she wasn't in that class) I don't if BC just didn't work for her, or if she never tried it.
She started alienating her friends after the affair with Chad came out, because people weren't exactly jumping for joy that she'd broken up a marriage (Chad and his ex didn't have any kids, thankfully, so there were less obstacles). When people weren't immediately ecstatic for her she started getting very snippy, rude, and was "calling the bitches out" on social media for not supporting her new relationship or pregnancy. (Tbh I'm really worried about her health because having this many babies so close together is just not good for her health, mental or physical.) People are also worried that Chad will cheat on her "if he'll cheat with you, he'll cheat on you" and think she should avoid marrying him so that she can just leave him if it happens.
I'll give you updates as they come out, but so far it's just a lot of yelling on social media (mostly from her), some relatives slut shaming her, and people who are just really worried about her because, as funny as this is, this doesn't seem like healthy behaviour.
EDIT 2:
First off, I realized I never gave this girl a name. For the sake of clarity we'll call her Beth. I realize that I didn't mention this before, but all of these are fake names.
Second, to everyone commenting that Chad is at fault for his marriage breaking up, believe me I'm well aware of that. It is his ex wife and her family/friends who solely blame Beth. Chad is also older than her and has more life experience, so I do believe that he could potentially be taking advantage of her naivete. However, she is also an adult who is capable of making her own decisions and has chosen to make poor ones in the past.
Third, people who are upset that I'm posting this story here, claiming I'm humiliating her. She has been posting about this mess on every social media platform she has since they got engaged in July. She put this out there long before I did except she did so in front of friends, family, employers, and coworkers, as well as internet randos.
Fourth, despite getting engaged in July and attempting to start planning then, I was only asked to be a bridesmaid three days ago. I knew that there was a mess going on but I didn't really pay attention to it until she asked me to be a bridesmaid. I tried to ask what was going on, I said that she should talk to someone, but when she completely brushed me off I checked her FB and Instagram and found out about all of... This.
Fifth, I realized that I didn't really talk about how disastrous the wedding planning has been going, see here you go:

• they've had to rebook three times because venues and vendors kept cancelling when infection numbers got worse even thought their wedding was months away
• Beth has been flipping between having the wedding while she's pregnant saying she's proud of her bump, and wanting to wait until they're born because she feels fat, which is unfortunate because she's been breaking down due her insecurity on a public platform
• Beth is currently seven months pregnant
• Beth's great aunt was going to give her her wedding dress to wear (after she gives birth) but Beth's mom freaked and stole the dress from said aunt before Beth could get it and is now keeping it, the great aunt says she's too old to get in a fight and has shrugged it off
• Chad's immediate family is paying for the wedding and has been cut off by the rest of their extended family for 'choosing Chad'
• Beth's wedding colours are pink and green, which is usually a nice combo but the specific shades don't go great together, they're her and Chad's favourite colours, which is fine but she literally made a video talking about these colours for 14 minutes on her insta and both of her kids are just full on bawling in the background and she's ignoring them and she's gotten some flack for that
• Adam is finally settled into his trade and has now hired a lawyer and is trying to get primary custody and not allow his daughter to go to the wedding
• she's planning a zoom baby showebachelorette party and has sent out a registry and she's asking for crazy expensive things
• she's also set up a go fund me to help pay for a honeymoon and is making a lot of posts about how no one loves her cause the fund only has $1267 of the $20k she wanted

I'll update when I can but I'm still in school and while I do want to help her, she's refused help offered in the past and there's only so much of this I can take mentally right now.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
UPDATE:
Hey everyone, so some stuff has gone down, and it doesn't look like it's over yet. Sorry, I didn't update sooner, but Rona came back with a vengeance and totally messed up plans with uni and family. Anyway, onto the update.
From the last update - 16th - Lots of ranting and chaotic wedding planning on social media, she found a dress and has decided she will get married while pregnant, they found a local wedding venue that is very lovely, but I'm shocked she's still trying to book stuff with all of their previous venue cancellations.
December 16th - Her little sister unblocked her to call her a s*ut and tell her that all her wedding plans were stupid. This resulted in a petty and entertaining facebook war until the little sis blocked her again on the 17th.
December 18th - Beth went nuts on social media because Adam had "kidnapped" their daughter, what really happened is that because courts are moving at a snail's pace due to COVID and Adam had reason to believe that their daughter was not safe living with Beth he decided to just... Not give her back. They don't have a custody agreement, and when Beth tried to call the cops they couldn't do anything because he was kinda right. There were dozens of videos on her various social media accounts of her ignoring their daughter, yelling at her daughter for crying or doing other things that toddlers do, it turns out that everything she needed was bought by Adam, food, diapers, clothes, toys, daycare (while it was open) etc. on top of the unofficial child support he was paying every month (which turned out to be $500 a month, a number I find ridiculous because Adam was already paying for literally everything) because she refused to buy anything for her daughter and insisted it was Adam's responsibility. Additionally, after the immediate post-birth appointments, Beth never took baby A to a doctor's appointment, she always deferred that to Adam. Baby A's pediatrician has NEVER met Beth. Beth even tried to get Chad to push back or intimidate him or something, but the local police where we live are under one hell of a microscope after a bunch of dirty cops got busted a couple of years ago. Basically, the cops, and the social worker they ended up calling, ended up saying there was nothing she could do until they get to court. The social worker tried to get her to go to therapy and parenting classes, but Beth refused and went on a fifteen paragraph long rant on Facebook about how she doesn't need parenting classes or therapy (she really, really does though) and called the social worker some choice words.
December 19-24 - Just a bunch of ranting on social media, calling everyone who doesn't enable or justify her behaviour cuss words, slurs, and a whole bunch of other horribly creative things. Also, both she and Chad are under investigation at work now, but she has no idea why. I'm gonna take this time to remind everyone that 99% of this info is coming from her public social media pages where her coworkers are friends and place of employment is listed.
December 25 - I am officially embarrassed to know this woman. I didn't go on her FB page until the evening cause I didn't want to deal with drama, first thing in the morning, on Xmas. In the morning she put on a very beautiful blue maternity dress, got Chad in his police blues, and baby B in a purple romper, and then live-streamed her and her family going to the courthouse to get married on Christmas day. (According to her Twitter, part of this was because their newest venue cancelled on them after COVID numbers spiked) Overall, a pretty tacky thing in my opinion because she stated plain as day, several times, that she intended her wedding anniversary to eclipse Christmas for her children because it's just "so much more special, you know?" (I am so glad that Baby B's grandparents are filing for guardianship) But here's the thing... The courthouse isn't open. Because of COVID for one thing, but also because it's Xmas and Canada has a predominantly Christian history. She proceeded to have a full meltdown, and when Baby B cried because, y'know, the kid's mom was screaming up a storm and scaring her, Beth called her a c*nt. Yup. So done with this bitch.
December 28 - I ran into her at a vaccine clinic cause we were both getting our booster shots. She didn't recognize me at first but one of my old bosses (cause I used to work at the hospital the vaccine clinic was in) called my name and said hi, so she came up to me after my old boss had left. We talked a bit while we sat down for the mandatory waiting period after getting the shot. She asked how I was but didn't even wait for me to respond before she started ranting and complaining about her life. I was just going to sit there until the time was up and then just politely make my exit, but when she started talking shit about her kids something inside me snapped. I just said "Do you even like your kids? Do you like being a mom?" She got pretty quiet for a second and then said "no". Idk, her voice and demeanour completely changed and we just sat in silence until our time was up. I said goodbye but it was really awkward.
December 31st (today) - I just looked at her feed and, this is such a shocking what-the-actual-f*** moment. She's thinking about giving up her kids. She went on about how recently she was asked if she liked her kids or being a mom, and how she realized that she didn't. She hates her children and blames them for ruining her life, and how she doesn't want to be a mom. I mean, nothing is official yet, but what the hell?!
I'll update as stuff happens now that I have the time, but this whole thing has been a big giant mess. Also, sorry for any formatting or grammatical errors, I'm not used to using Reddit on my PC.
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UPDATE
Okay, so, some stuff has happened and most of it's good? Also, the TL:DR for this update will be at the bottom
Jan 4th - Beth (and Chad) stopped posting on all social media. I was actually a little worried she died, I mean this woman posts everything short of her trips to the bathroom on IG.
Oddly enough, this got people messaging or interacting with her social media pages because she was usually the one to start contact, and that contact was usually yelling. No one heard from them and some people started to be like "should we call the cops for a wellness check?" Until Chad posted a status saying that they're fine but are "busy, please stop trying to contact us right now". Everyone listened but it was weird.
Jan 11 - I got a notification that Beth and Chad are active on social media again, but I didn't feel like drama so I didn't check out any of their posts.
Jan 12 (today) - she messaged me on FB asking me to be her MOH. She also kept going on about the resort in Cancun that she and Chad were looking to have their wedding at... This coming February. Omnicrom is really bad where we are, so no one should be travelling anywhere. I've actually had to delay my trip back to the province where I go to university. No one should be travelling anywhere.
Beth also found out that Chad was cheating on her with one of her co-workers and called the woman a "homewrecker" on FB tagged her, and posted the texts she found on Chad's phone. But Chad is the "love of her life" so she's forgiven him, but not the other woman. Which I find very hypocritical, considering how she and Chad got together.
She also sent pics of possible bridesmaid dresses and they are the most hideous dresses I've ever seen. I know that some brides do that thing where they want to look a million times better by comparison but this was just ridiculous. One of them looked like a partially deflated balloon with feathers strapped to it. She also openly admitted that she expected everyone attending to pay 3k, 2k would go towards that guest's stay at the resort and 1k would go to her and Chad and they will expected wedding gifts, so that they could get their room for free. Apparently, she talked to someone at the resort and if she got enough people to book their rooms she and Chad would get theirs for free. She also wanted the money to be given to her instead of directly to the hotel so that people wouldn't realize that she was taking 1k of their money. Beth sent me a pic of the wedding dress she wanted, and it's definitely a clubbing dress. If that's what she wants that's fine (and for the record I do think she would look great in it, Beth's (current) dream wedding dress ) but she wants all the guests to be dressed black tie. And she's already sent a list of unreasonable requests. Such as;

• all women must wear heels (for a wedding in the beach???)
• no one is allowed to have a baby or be pregnant (really?)
• girls must have longer than shoulder length hair, boys must have very short hair, only and inch or two long
• no one is allowed to be skinnier than her
• she will be providing diets for everyone attending based on how she wants us to look
• she and Chad must get bachelor and bachelorette parties both in Canada and in Mexico that need to be "fit for a king and queen" and both must be paid for but anyone but the bride and groom "cause that's just tacky"
• no unnatural hair
• no tattoos (you have five tattoos, Beth, and in the dress you want all will be on full display)
• no one is allowed to talk to her directly, they must speak through the MOH and BM

Honestly there's a lot more but I didn't feel like typing all that out. She's posted the list on FB and IG and people are already calling her a bridezilla.
I was also just kinda weirded out because aside from the previous convo at the hospital and when she originally asked me to be a bridesmaid, we haven't spoken since high school. So I respectfully declined, stating that the virus and school were my top concerns right now. Then, I decided to check her socials to see if she'd posted anything. She had and everything was basically how it was before the hiatus... Except her kids are nowhere to be found. No "look at my cute baby" pics are kids crying in the background of her videos. Nothing. Though, based on her new pics of herself, she's given birth to baby C. I mean, she's definitely still recovering, but she also definitely had a baby and that baby is not on any of her socials, so when she responded to my decline with an attempt at guilting me to be her MOH, I asked her where her kids were. This was her response.
"Oh, I left them at the side of the road in our way home from the hospital those moochers could walk home lol"
I was like, please tell me you're not being serious (especially cause it looks like she had the baby days ago). And she replied "I was just joking you shouldn't be so serious all the time". Honey, you made a joke about child abandonment/abuse, you're not being serious enough. And then I finally got the update on the kids.

• Baby A is still with Adam, Beth signed away her rights
• Baby B and Baby C have been given to a mutual cousin of Adam and Chad who is infertile (tbh I didn't need that last tidbit of info or the three paragraph long rant about how God hates infertile women, I didn't even read all of it, I couldn't, and I didn't think that Beth could be so cruel to even think those things). I checked out the FB page of Baby B's grandparents and they're happy with their grandchild's new parents, it looks like the cousin and her husband and welcoming them to the family as another set of grandparents and will let them have access to B. So yay!
• One thing I do need to stress though is that because of COVID the courts in our areas are either moving at a snail's pace or closed, so none of this is "official" but Beth (and Chad) has signed paperwork and all that needs to happen now is presenting that to a judge.

And when I rejoined our convo she said the doc she had for baby C gave her brith control, and she was surprised cause after her first pregnancy she asked her doctor for it but he refused to give her any. She mentioned that her old doctor was also her mom's and sister's doctor, she ended up asking the doc who delivered baby C to be her new doctor, so I hope that works out.
After learning all this my convo with Beth started to go down hill...
Beth: wait, did you actually think I would just leave my kids at the side of the road! I just didn't want to be a mom, but I wasn't a bad one
Me: Beth, I think that you've been through a lot of trauma in the past few years, and that it's gotten to you mentally and that you should speak to a professional.
(Of course, Beth has been a bad mom, but she does need mental health help and I wasn't going to convince her to get it, or to not tell at me, if I said that )
Beth: what? You think I'm crazy?!
Me: no. I think that getting kicked out as a teen because of a pregnancy and having your family actively reject you and try to sabotage you must have been very painful. Plus, pregnancy puts a lot of mental stress on women and you've had three in such a short time span, I just want you to take care of yourself and get what you want in life, and I think that will start with you taking care of your mental health.
Beth: what I want... IS FOR YOU TO GO STRAIGHT TO HELL! Beth then calls me every cuss word, expletive, and derogatory word she can think of one of the words she called me was a derogatory word about people from my ethnicity and my blood is boiling that she thought it was okay to say that to me.
So, I'm now on her hit list. She's been blowing up my social media all day, on her last FB post where she called me a slur she said that she still expects a good wedding gift from me. Yeah, no. So I've blocked her on everything, and I've decided to completely cut off contact. This will be my last update.
TL:DR - Beth went on a social media blackout for a bit, had baby C. Gave up all her kids, baby A is still with Adam, Baby B and Baby C are with a mutual cousin of Adam and Chad and baby B's grandparents have access. Chad cheated on her and she forgave him, but she probably shouldn't have. She's decided to have her wedding in a little over a month in Cancun and is expecting unreasonable things of everyone already. She asked me to be MOH I respectfully declined. I also suggested that she talk to a mental health professional because she's been through a lot in the last few years and she cussed me out, she also called me a derogatory name directed at people of my ethnicity and that was the final nail in the coffin. I'm now on her hit list. But her kids are safe and I have no interest in going to wedding so I'm cutting contact completely and have already blocked her on all my socials. I'm refusing to be involved with her anymore and will not be updating on the situation.
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--- EDIT - NEW UPDATE --- - JANUARY 25, 2023 - TL:DR AT THE BOTTOM
Hi, everyone, I didn't think I would be making another update, but here I am. I don't know if anyone will even care but whatever. I saw a YouTuber, Charlotte Dobre, do an entire video about this post on Facebook (which was funny, she did it well), [editor's note: here's the video in question and also: check out Charlotte Dobre's subreddit !] and got so nervous that Beth was gonna see it. Turned out, she's seen it and does not give a single damn, because as I pointed out, the majority of the info in this post came from her public social media. She also doesn't know who posted it (more on that in the update). I am still no contact with Beth and have no plans to change that anytime soon, but we have mutual friends who have told and shown me what's happened.
First things first, she and Chad did get married, but they eloped. According to all sources they are completely and utterly miserable though. Chad has proven to be and overall lazy and unfaithful husband, and Beth has really gotten into feminism (with a focus on reproductive issues) after she started using birth control, and Roe v Wade getting overturned (even though we're in Canada) really caused tension in their marriage. As it turns out, Chad thinks that abortion is murder and God created women for the purpose of making babies.
Beth tried to argue that not all women want or should be mothers using herself as an example, and then Chad went ahead and used her as an example of why women should be forced to have kids, because in the end she gave kids to an infertile couple. She didn't take that well and said that her entire life and future was ripped away from her and destroyed the second she got pregnant with baby A. Adam was never slut shamed or demeaned like she was, both at home and at school (which is a fair point, myself and many others were helpful and supportive but there were a lot of people who judged the hell out of her and said really nasty stuff) and that if she hadn't gotten pregnant she would've gone to college or university because she lost the general and financial support of her family with that positive pregnancy test. Chad has made a Tinder account. Beth was informed but it doesn't seem like she gave a damn.
So basically you could cut the tension with a knife.
And with her family, her sister came out as gay and cut off/has been cut off from their parents. But she's got a partial scholarship so she's doing okay. She and Beth are NOT on good terms but have met up and acknowledged that their parents messed them up by being religious nuts and their parents encouraged them to be competitive with each other and sabotage each other. Apparently their dad's motto is "competition brings out the best in everyone" (ugh). But they've talked and that's good enough for now.
Neither Beth nor Chad have custody or visitation of their children, which Chad is starting to regret because he's suddenly getting more and more into the church and religion. Chad talked to Beth about getting baby C back but Beth shut that down hard and warned the cousin who adopted baby C (officially and legally btw).
Beth started going to therapy after she and Chad got married, which makes me very happy and excited for her.
There was a rumour going around that Chad has a mistress and it took me a while to confirm, but it's true. He's cheating on her with a paramedic and she knows. Beth is fully aware. Idk if she plans to do anything about it or just continue to ignore it, but I hope she leaves his ass. I'm still not gonna talk to her, she crossed so many lines, but she's grown and improved a lot and her life would be a lot better without that sac of scum in her life.
Now, I have given a few details in my post that should've revealed my identity to her, namely her asking me to be her MOH. I have found out that she actually asked around 15 girls (including myself) to be her MOH, without telling any of us about the others because she was trying to get money from all of us and because her mental health has just been very bad and she needed help. And of those 15, 8 have been going to school out of province and of those eight we all had basically the same classes in high school. And apparently doesn't remember our discussion at the vaccination clinic and had major blow up with everyone she asked to be MOH. So she knows it's one of 8 people and reportedly has no interest in trying to narrow that number down. (Chad did the same thing with his groomsmen, but idk any of the numbers)
TL:DR Beth and Chad got married (eloped), are miserable, have zero custody or visitation with any of their children, Chad's cheating and Beth doesn't appear to care, Chad is super sexist, Beth is a feminist now, Beth's sister is gay and they've talked but not reconciled, Beth asked too many girls to be MOH for money and doesn't know the ID of who made this post.
Dear "Beth", if this post gets forwarded to you or somehow graces your phone screen, leave Chad. He's trash and you'll be much better without him in your life. And though I'm not willing to talk to you again because of your words and actions, I do wish for you to have a wonderful and happy life.
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I'm not the OOP!

made this for my narrative essay in american literature, but one of my friends said i should share the story
“But I Still Need You” Throughout my life, I had always fallen easy for girls. The elementary mindset of, “she’s cute, so I have a crush on her,” prevented me from developing a legitimate relationship with any girl I tried to talk to. The few times that my feelings were reciprocated, I had no idea because I was already on to the next girl, and this continued until I was left with a multitude of friend-zone situations and a list of “crushes.” My charisma already lacking, it seemed each year that passed, previous to 3rd grade, I grew in weight and therefore awkwardness. The struggle to interact with women lessened as I grew up, while the fat remained. So, by the 8th grade I was the ideal guy friend; easy to talk to, kinda funny, understanding, and unintimidating. My approachable “funny fat friend” nature had its ups and downs. While guys, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, suspected me to be gay, girls found it intriguing and it made them want to be friends with me more. Back then I didn’t know, but now I know that by being forced to be friends first, after finding out I was in fact not gay, the right woman for me would want to be with me for my personality. In the winter of 2021, I fell hard for a girl named Madeline. Maddie was no different than many of the other girls in that she had a bland personality and I thought she was cute. She had brunette hair with bangs, big glasses, way too much makeup on, and a unique fashion sense. Her sense of fashion was one of the few interesting things about her, yet it was disregarded by the public. Not too many guys found her appealing, but I did, for whatever reason. I was dead set on getting to know her better in hope of becoming more than friends. Unfortunately, she hardly paid attention to me, but I didn’t give up. I merely slowed down because of my interest in her friend, Isabella. Isabella is the Spanish and Italian variation of Elizabeth (derived from the Hebrew name Elisheba). The meaning of Elishiba can be translated to, “God is my oath.” In Arabic, the beginning of Isabella, “Isa,” is the classical Arabic name for Jesus, while in the French language, the shortened version of Isabella, “Belle,” translates to “beautiful.” I had met Isabella in the sixth grade, and grew a tiny crush on her, in the elementary sense, before we all went into hibernation (COVID). I barely knew her though, and she had no idea who I was, so when we interacted in my last two classes, if we did at all, it was like two strangers who kept running into each other. I sat by her in my sixth period, and one seat up and to the right from her in seventh. We only ever made small talk and the occasional joke, but when I spoke with her I felt content. Still barely knowing her, all I could admire was the little things in the way she laughed and spoke. I longed to know more about Isabella, she was mature, intelligent, and very opinionated, but still light-hearted and made time pass at the speed of light. It wasn’t until she was in my group in sixth period one day that she began to open up a little by sharing the details of her current long-distance relationship. The shards of my heart stabbed and crushed my stomach; hope, the oxygen to my mind, depleted faster than the air of a broken space shuttle; palpitation, nausea, asphyxia, and neurosis bombarded me like Persian arrows on the Greeks. Then, all at once, the excruciating tidal wave evaporated, but instead of calm waters, I was left with a drought. Every emotion muted or gone, my body went numb while everything I cared for vanished from my mind. I didn’t speak throughout the rest of that day, and went directly from the bus to decaying in my bed. I was devastated, so I retreated to my pointless crush on Maddie. Unrelated to the rather sad lovelife, my anxiety and depression worsened throughout 8th grade, and while I was going to therapy, most of my issues wouldn’t and still haven’t been worked through. Throughout the school year I had developed a toxic system of self pity, in which I would spend hours a day cycling through the feelings of hope, anger, and despair- never that of joy. I knew what I was doing, gathering enough hope to face the school day just before I reflected on the doubts and grievances going on throughout my life. I’d bring myself up just for a greater fall because honestly, overtime I became numb to the natural pain. If I were going to fall into the pit that is depression, the higher I peaked in terms of optimism the more excruciating the freefall of nausea and the heavy flow of salt water. At that point in my life, I saw no point in getting out of bed to do anything, school or even my own mother’s birthday. By the end of eighth grade I had spent almost a total of six weeks absent, two of which were from me being quarantined. Typically over the span of one or two days, others up to four, I would be in my bed “sick.” During these mini-vacations I would sleep all morning, if my mom let me, and stay up all night, oftentimes listening to Radiohead or Cigarettes After Sex while staring at my ceiling. I wanted to stay up, I wanted to feel the bags grabbing and pulling towards my cheekbone, I wanted to feel empty, emotionally and physically. During the day, my anxiety attacks became panic attacks and I would get sent home for vomiting. I'd throw up to give Mom a reason to let me stay home. I’d throw up to feel something, anything. I’d throw up to keep my stomach empty. I’d throw up because I had to, because the nerves and overthinking forced me to. Every morning, I’d drag my black air force ones across cement, carpet, tiles, and marble, each step leading towards Mrs. Clements’ homeroom. For every step, a different worry or insecurity flashed through my brain. But then, out of the blue, I’m “Lincoln” again. I walk into homeroom with an ear-to-ear grin and dap up “the boys”. I’d spend the morning building up hopes of making Isabella laugh today, or maybe calling her once I got home, but I knew that nine times out of ten my hopes were delusional. To “Lincoln,” this was no problem, he would make a gay joke, join the boys with teasing a cute girl in my class, and laugh until just for a moment, the despair was gone. Finally, the sixth period would come and I’d get to see Isabella. In here I got the least work done out of all my classes as I would find myself strategically planning my next interaction with her, just for said plans to go out the window when I was brought face to face with her. Typically seventh period followed the same pattern except Ms. Shirley Davis could never allow small talk in her classroom. When the last bell rang, I went straight to the buses. I’d sleep on the way home, dreaming of a call that would hardly happen. On the off chance my phone didn’t reach its feared 11th cry, we’d talk for hours at a time. On a weekday or not, it seemed that, when we did call, it was guaranteed to go into the early morning. It’s hard to put my finger on a specific topic, or even general. In our conversations, we discussed anything and everything. Everything, except her own love interest. I admired this, as my inability to keep who I’m thinking about at the time a secret is a major flaw of mine. The more that me and her spoke, the more I grew to love her. Our talks were so honest, so raw, that the secret I held began to eat away at me. My core collapsing like a dying star, each day it felt like the pain got worse. To cope with the feelings I had buried deep inside me, I’d turn to my friends. At first, they said to come forward with my feelings, but I knew that’s what any friend would’ve said. The relief I got from venting the conflicting hurricane within me was brief. Overtime, their words of encouragement turned to annoyance, and understandably so. When people grew sick of the same old sadistic untold love, I turned to Isabella. I wrote a text so full that, to read it, one needed to tap on an arrow at the bottom right corner of my message. The essay was compiled with the confliction I had, developing feelings for a friend, and the sorrow that filled me each day that passed without her. I described the perfect imperfections that I admired about her, how life was complete when I spoke to her, the beauty that paralyzed me every time I saw her in person, and the character that I felt God had curated specifically for me. Sitting there unsure if I should press send, a fear grew within my chest that Isabella would see right through me. I could hear the music that so often triggered tears; the vocals of Thom Yorke or the beats of Kanye West, they faded in and out. What if she didn’t even respond? What if she thought I was a creep? What if- then she responded. Suddenly, the ominous 808s & Heartbreak pounding vanished, my respiratory chaos became paralyzed, and time stood still. I couldn’t breathe until I finished reading, and once I did, my sigh was all but relieving. Isabella explained to me how unhealthy my habits were; even in comparison to the anguish that would follow, I’d suffer far more and far longer should I suppress my emotions. She told me how that level of affection, in the context of the warped concept of romance most men had, was something she had only dreamt of. Isabella said that holding these feelings would eat away at me, exponentially increasing in severity, until I broke. Not only would I be hurting myself, but I would be depriving the person I care about most from the appreciation they deserve. I became bloated with fear of the friendzone, those insecurities, all based upon inference, became a reality with Isabella’s last piece of advice. She said, “If she doesn’t reciprocate those emotions, then don’t worry. I’m sure there’s a girl out there who can appreciate your compassion.” The blame had no other place to go than my shoulders, after all, I got what I asked for, advice on another girl. Isabella, even if she saw the crush I had on her, is far too kind to address it. She cared for everyone, and to her, she was merely boosting up a friend who’s down. For the rest of the night her text echoed through my mind; pain, regret, and admiration caused my mind to sporadically leap from conclusion to conclusion. Two years later, those words still haunt me, reiterations of that phrase torturing me when I least expect them. The school year progressed, but my aspirations with Isabella didn’t. Over time, the frequency of my writings grew to be weekly, at times reaching two a week, and the weight of my confessions depleted. I opened my audience to a mutual friend of Isabella’s, Miley, with the intention of acquiring useful advice. Eventually, my choice to try concealing what I felt for Isabella became too heavy of a burden, weighing down on me in forces I had not endured before. Soon, the love I had for Isabella turned to hatred for myself. I was relentlessly criticizing every aspect of myself and my mind. I hated how fat I was, my smile, my voice, my laugh, and most of all my personality. What I had thought was my greatest strength, was revealed as my worst trait. The gullibility I exhibited when thinking for a second Isabella could possibly like me; the lack of confidence that caused me to chicken out of confessing my feelings to her; my insufferable need to make people laugh; the hyperfixation I would develop for those that I love. Everything about me was wrong. I stopped eating, stopped sleeping, stopped caring, and eventually I stopped living. The “Lincoln” my friends had grown to recognize, the only remnant of the joy I felt when I was younger, died, and I was left with only my love for Isabella and resentment for myself. I began testing the limits of what was left of me, praying for relief. At first in the middle of the night, an anaconda would find its way to my throat, wrapping around my neck. Its cold black scales gracefully gliding across my skin before silencing my cries with the swift tug of its metallic USB head. The snake would maintain pressure until I let go of it, the entire time whispering into my ear, begging me to hold on. Some nights it came with what must have been a full stomach for it was drastically wider, it was brown these nights, with leather skin, and a slight warmth, but it behaved the same. Most visits from the snake ended with my vision blurry, my breath short, or my head dizzy. The only consistency of our transactions was Asia’s Death Lake that streamed down my face from start to finish. Eventually, the snake seemed closer and closer to silencing me forever, but I also became used to its visits. I began writing letters to everyone I loved so that, should the snake come out victorious, they’d have a final goodbye. Once I had sorted out my notes, I called the snake to my room. This time it came striped with shades of blue, its skin a soft fabric. For once, I controlled the snake, because our intentions finally aligned. I locked the door, sent out my texts, placed the written notes on my dresser, and joined the snake at my closet door. Holding onto the doorknob, the snake wrapped itself around my neck just as it had done in nights of the past. It whispered to me, “let go,” for I had been on my knees in hesitation. I followed the snake’s order by making a sort of plank with my body, the bottom half resting on a stack of dirty laundry and pillows while the top was supported by my elbows. Pressure swiftly fell down on my neck and didn’t stop. “This is it,” I thought to myself. My eyes seemed to pop out of my skull, and my tears, falling down like summer rain, became blurry dots as my vision went dark. Next thing I know, I’m waking up, snot, saliva, and tears strung between my face and the carpet floor. My head pounding and my eyes burning, I looked up at the “snake” that was the tie my mom had gotten me for Sunday service. Although my mind was more clear, it was not out of revelation, but from a muted sense of the world around me. Other than Isabella, nothing mattered anymore, and the little emotion I felt was squashed by my immortal love. The following day I get called to the counselors office on charges of suicidal thoughts and self harm. I said what I had to in order to escape her grasp, but left infuriated. Not only had my own friends betrayed me, but the lady who was supposed to guide me essentially scolded me for being sad. Throughout the day my anger faded out and my focus became making an excuse as to why my parents got a weird call from my counselor, then I’d find the traitor who sold me out. That afternoon, I lost two friends, and for the first time ever got mad at Isabella. Apparently, Miley, Maddie, and Isabella all reported me to the counselor that morning. They said I had been traumatizing them with what was going on in my life, being normal and messing around at school, then detailing my thoughts and actions to them outside of school. I felt like I had been tricked. I thought they were my friends. I thought they understood me. They asked me if I was okay, they said they wanted, cared, needed to know, but now I had scared them? I addressed what had happened with Miley first. She immediately lashed out at me, saying I should be thanking them, not be mad. While I didn’t want to accept it, I understood the core of her choices. On the other hand, Maddie’s response to my confrontation was disgustingly cruel. She said I had been unfair and just seeking attention, that no thirteen to fourteen year old should hear about what I was going through because it was unnatural. Before she continued, I apologized, that’s all I could think to do, because deep down I believed her. She told me it wasn’t all my fault because my brain was messed up, and that opening up to the girls would only make them not want to be friends with me. The one word that rang through my head then, and still does today, was “creep,” she claimed that what I felt wasn’t love, but I was just mentally unstable and creepy. Any remnants of the sweet kid from elementary school who just wanted a friend and loved everyone were obliterated. Maddie was right, all I had done was hurt and scare them, it didn’t matter what I thought. I told her all I could, that I didn’t know what to say other than I was sorry for the damage I had done, and I would try and get better. Her response, like a branding iron on my mind, was, “It’s not damage, it’s baggage. Imagine if the roles were reversed.” It was only then that I stopped texting back. I wish I could say it was out of frustration or self respect, but the reality of my manipulative traits is what silenced me. Shockingly, the response that hurt the most was from Isabella, yet it somehow meant the most to me too. Isabella told me that she needed me in the world. She told me that if I ever got those thoughts again, to think about her as well; to think about the pain I’d be causing her; to think about the trauma she’d live with for the rest of her life. After repeating the phrase, “I need you in my life,” she acknowledged how selfish it was, but still didn’t care. Isabella continued elaborating, she didn’t care because no label of selfishness outweighed the value of my life. What she said that night has been vivid in my mind since, but my only wish is that she had needed me as I needed her. Tears began to hide my freckled cheeks as I texted her about how much her words meant to me, how much she meant to me, and I apologized to her. I said sorry for the baggage I caused, the “creepy” behavior, and any other ways I had wronged her. I said sorry for loving her, and told her I’d do better. She disregarded my apologies, telling me that I could always talk to her because no matter the baggage she could carry, it’d be worth taking the smallest bit off of me. Her words meant so much to me, yet hurt me just the same. I hated myself for it. I couldn’t see a life without an affection for her, it was pathetic. If I truly loved her, I’d let my feelings go, right? What kind of person did that make me? Summer came and went. Hoping that time would kill the crush I had on Isabella, I prohibited myself from contacting her. Instead I spent time with my family and a few friends, but Isabella never left my head. Even when accompanying my dad to Berry College for the Governor’s Honors Program, she’s what filled my head. At first I felt frustrated because before I had come forward to her, she had known about the feelings I had. I came to the conclusion that she had been dragging me along, but even then I knew how easily that thought would be abandoned. First day of High school, I got in touch with her. For maybe two weeks, I maintained a platonic relationship before free falling into the ominous pit once again. This time felt different though, it felt like what I had thought about everyday, for what seemed eternity, could be more than a daydream. We texted each other throughout the school day and facetimed after her cheer practice and my band practice. Eventually, Isabella was falling asleep on call. Before, we’d talk long into the night, and it began to drain the energy out of the both of us. Now, we were listening to music, playing Roblox, watching Netflix, or just sitting in silence. I had never felt comfortable with silence, but she made it seem better than having a conversation with anyone else. It’s a beautiful thing when words aren’t required to appreciate someone. The moment I had the courage to do so, I asked her out to Steak n’ Shake. It’s just my luck that the restaurant was hardly a shell of what I remembered as a kid. At first the conversation was awkward because we hardly spoke in person, but as time progressed so did we. I still remember the tightness of my cheeks as I failed to suppress my ear-to-ear grin. The euphoric nausea and beating heart that disappeared throughout our conversation. I remember the booth we sat in, the fact that she wanted me to swap seats with her because of her creaky seat, the way she giggled, how I fought tooth and nail to pay for such a small bill, the way she smiled when she said, “next time you’ve gotta let me pay,” and the shared excitement for our next hangout. Even though Isabella and I were still friends, even though the restaurant was a disaster, even though the fries were stale and the milkshakes chunky, that moment is one of the best in my life. With how well things were going, I thought that it was my best chance at making something more out of this friendship. So, I shot my shot. I told her that despite my efforts the summer before, she still held a special place in my heart. Isabella responded with her own struggles with recovering from a past relationship, detailing the trust issues and pain she still felt almost a year later. I was yet again, devastated. Then she added that despite her own feelings, she had to be careful and the risk of losing our friendship scared her. I understood her reasoning, but it made me sick to think of how close I was. In response, I expressed how I could relate to those feelings, and the conflict I had with them. It felt ridiculous having opened myself up once again, to just be friendzoned. Her response struck me with both hope and devastation, “I f*cking love you a ton Lincoln, but I’m struggling to differentiate my admiration as a friend and as something more. I’m terrified of losing you.” Previously I would have seen this as a sign to keep trying, but at that moment, I couldn’t see past the blatant friendzoning. After pursuing her for so long, it felt cruel of her to continue dragging me along like this, even though she was being honest. My reaction to the straw that broke the camel’s back is one of, if not, the biggest regrets in life. Homecoming was a little over a week away and she was going (as friends) with my buddy, Davis, so in a storm of hatred for myself and the situation I was in, I gave up on her. Our conversations grew to be minimal and far apart. Soon, I started to resent her. Each day since then, I have somehow felt more remorse than the last for not asking her to Homecoming. Homecoming night is when I began flirting with Claire, a sweet redhead from gym class. We connected on not going with the person we had hoped for. All it took was me joking that I should’ve spent more time around her, instead of leaving the dance early, for Claire to lose her mind. Over the next month or so, I was becoming closer and closer with Claire, despite her irritable “quirks”. I only spoke to Isabella if she reached out to me first with the only exception being when I would ask her for “advice” about Claire, which was a shameful habit I started as petty revenge on Isabella. Eventually, Isabella blocked me on Snapchat, but it didn’t matter. Things with me and Claire were going great, she made me feel like I didn’t need to starve myself to be good enough for her. She made me feel like I was enough. For the next two and a half months, life was great. After the first couple months of ignorant bliss, I was sick of her. Sure, there were a variety of reasons to find her annoying, most people I knew could list more than they have fingers and toes, but she didn’t do anything wrong. I shouldn’t have gotten into the relationship in the first place not only because of Isabella, but also the speed at which me and Claire started dating. She was still growing out of the elementary relationship phase, so while it was nice to connect with someone so quickly, it was rushed. Another issue being that I was her first real boyfriend, the baggage that followed me was detrimental to her and I couldn’t give her the attention she needed. As me and Claire began our month long drift apart, I was unblocked by Isabella. She and I caught up, and we quickly began to talk trash about Claire while on call. It was unbelievably toxic, and I’m embarrassed of how I handled things to this day. Eventually, with the support of Isabella, I decided it was time to break up. The only issue was the guilt I had in such a terrible choice, I could never do it. So I began to get more distant by the day, ignored texts and calls, and stopped walking her to classes because “I had to pee.” Eventually she caught wind of my plans and called me after school one day. Sobbing, she told me what she had heard and how she knew it wasn’t true, but it still worried her. I began to get ready to break the news, but she was already crying so what's the worst that could happen? I wish I had never asked myself that, because next she told me she’d been cutting herself. My heart sank in remorse for what I knew I would do. If I led her on longer, the aftermath of my cold actions would lead to even more catastrophe. I was scared, but knew the lesser of the two evils I had to pick from. I calmed her down, quickly notified her friends to be keeping an eye on her, and then dumped her. To this day, I am disgusted by my actions. Throughout the past three months, Claire expressed how she had loved and trusted me, yet I threw that all away. There are so many ways I could’ve handled the situation differently, but two stood out the most. Showing respect by speaking to Claire the moment I realized my feelings had fleeted was the bare minimum that I disregarded, but the second was far simpler. I had known from the start that I was still in love with Isabella and that love never faded, but was only suppressed. The entire relationship we developed, while we both enjoyed parts of it (her more than me), was a lie, and essentially a cruel joke played on Claire. There’s no excuse for my actions, and even worse, I could’ve cared less back then. It was only when time had passed that I began to understand the damage I had done. Without Claire holding me back, my newfound freedom led to a closer friendship with Isabella. I dove headfirst into the familiar pit all over again. A friendship was not enough, I appreciated every interaction I had with Isabella, but my life depended on a future with her. It’s likely she felt this as she slowly began to drift away from me. Before I had stayed up speaking to Isabella, but now I couldn’t sleep out of the tormenting absence of her voice. The only path to good health was time; distance was best for the both of us, and I knew it. For the rest of that school year, everything around me was going, but I stood still. It was like my life was just a sitcom, and I was no longer the main character. The summer that followed was just the same, I was living but dead, moving but still, speaking but silent. I was dissociating from my friends and family, but the absence of that violent snake made my depression insignificant. Living a life without her was more punishment than death itself, and I didn’t deserve relief. Even now, I think of that summer and remember almost nothing, for my life isn’t worth remembering without Isabella in it. Sophomore year began, and so did my conversations with Isabella. This go around, I was subtle with my feelings for her. The excitement I had for speaking with her was under control, but it was because the spark inside me had faded, even when it came to Isabella.The years of self pity and depression had left a toll on me that could never be reversed, and it didn’t help that Isabella began to build a relationship with another guy. When we spoke, if we did, Isabella’s concern for my mental state outweighed the friendship we were struggling to preserve. I had come to the conclusion that pursuing Isabella would only make things worse, and I needed to just be her friend. Since I couldn’t lose the feelings I had for her, I just sat in them. While I sat in the pit, Isabella and I had one particular Facetime call in which I brought up how much I regretted dating Claire. To that, Isabella added, “Yeah, she’s so annoying. I can’t remember if you told me why you got together in the first place, what led you to her?” I paused with the thousand-yard stare of an American private fresh out of West Point. “I guess I was just so disappointed with myself for not being able to go to homecoming with you and being stuck on you for so long that I impulsively got with another girl to forget about my shortcomings,” I said with reluctance and stuttering every few words. She told me that she would’ve said yes to homecoming without a second thought, but I knew she meant as friends. Then, to my dismay, Isabella revealed that whenever I got with Claire, she still had feelings for me. It was me talking to Isabella about how great things were with me and Claire that led her to block me and cut contact with me. The piano melody from “No Surprises” by Radiohead began looping through my mind as tears ran down my face. I forget how I ended the call, but once I did, I broke. I lost my breath, my head got light, my eyes became blurry, my stomach was nauseous, and my insides sank as far as they could. Everything I wanted, dreamed of, needed had been so close, and I blew it. Everything was my fault. Later I would ask her why she lost them, and her answer proved how much better she was than me. Isabella answered, “I had been hurt, so I moved on. Just got over it.” We hardly spoke anymore, but one text message has found a permanent home in my mind. After asking me how I was, Isabella wasn’t satisfied with, “it’s complicated.” She asked that I explain it to her so that she could try to understand. I told her about all the issues going on in my life, except the torch I still held for her. She wrote, “I know you’re not religious, so it may not mean anything, but I pray for you every night, Lincoln. Even though it sounds bad, I think that I've known you weren’t in the greatest mental place for a while. I want you to know I'm not judging you, I want you to feel comfortable enough to share that with someone. You have to be able to recognize how you’re feeling in order to even fix it.” These words broke me despite their simplistic appearance. Reading that she prayed for me hit me hard as she had always tried to get me to believe in God again. I’m agnostic, and nothing has come closer to bringing me back to faith as Isabella did. The idea that if God were real and I could see her in heaven was appealing, but should Christianity be the wrong choice, I wanted to be wrong with Isabella. In the following days, Isabella told me about Alex, a guy she had been talking to a lot, and how they were at most a month away from being together. I hated everything about Alex, which is a stupid name in the first place. I hated his choice of friends, I hated how white-washed he was, I hated how he dressed like a conservative cowboy, I hated the underbite that made him look like a pug, I hated his short curly hair, I hated the fact that he was a diehard Trump supporter while people of his race were being oppressed, I hated how he pretended to be someone else when he was around Isabella, I hated how he hid unhealthy habits from her, I hated that a guy like him garnered Isabella’s affection when I couldn’t. I barely knew the guy and I was wasting my energy with hatred for him, when in reality, he was just a mind-numbingly basic douche among the hundreds just like him at our school. Isabella regularly complained about Alex, but hardly did anything. Instead she stopped bringing it up, saying that talking about her issues with others only makes it worse and that she was just wining. The monotone delivery of her reasoning hurt my soul, it was like she was reciting a text from Alex. Each day that passed, I felt the urgency of expressing my feelings one more time rising. Soon Isabella and Alex would be official, and I would lose my chance to try and express how I felt one more time. I reached out to Isabella and asked if she was free to hangout that friday. On November 10, 2023, Isabella picked me up around 5:30 in the evening. She kept the inside of her SUV looking brand new in contrast to the familiarity of her smile. My nerves left me winded after every sentence and shivering in her passenger seat. Quickly our conversation became more natural as I cracked jokes to ease my anxiety, but my shaky breathing never stopped. We went to Publix to grab some snacks and drinks and headed right back to my neighborhood park. At the Grove Point Park, we found a swinging chair to sit in. Due to the time of the year, the sun had already set, but Isabella’s beauty was indifferent under the moonlight. I haven’t the slightest clue how long we sat there together. When I’m with Isabella, even Father Time gives me grace, for he knows that he is as powerless as I am to the frequency of these moments. After a while, I mentioned that it was getting late and she agreed. On the ride back to my place, I mustered the bare minimum of strength it took to confront my feelings. As she drove over the speed bump before entering the roundabout, I began to open up. I briefly told her that I still felt the same way I did two years ago, that I had tried to forget about the feelings I had with no success, and that I was sorry to once again ruin our unstable friendship. She told me it was fine and my feelings were natural, nothing to regret or be ashamed of. Her words meant nothing to me this time because I had already heard them. Defeated, I paused for a moment, then said, “Isabella, you reciprocated my feelings in the past, so after Alex, do you think that maybe we’d have a chance?” She looked at me with pain in her eyes, not for herself, but for me. She quietly said, “I- Lincoln, you know I can’t answer that. I’m with Alex now, it wouldn’t be fair.” All I could get out was, “Oh- I- I’m sorry. Uh yeah no, you’re uh- you’re right.” Everything in me pulled and begged at my lips to say what I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I still look back on that night and wish I had said the few words I never got to tell her. What if saying them could’ve changed something? Realistically, it wouldn’t have, but the regret remains. I doubt Isabella would have even remembered where my word choice stemmed from. Regardless, the words rang in my head then, and never stopped. All I wanted to say at that moment was, “but I still need you.” Today, 1,725 days since I first saw Isabella, 822 days since I first facetimed Isabella, and 178 days since that heartbreakingly beautiful night, I still love her the same. Looking back on my experience with her, I regret many things (oversharing, Claire, the snake, etc.), but the one thing I have never regretted was meeting and loving her. It was only recently that I realized that loving her has been one of the biggest mistakes in my life. For three years, day in and day out, I’ve thought about her. Three years where I could have met other people, worked on myself, enjoyed my friends and family, but instead I’ve loved her and nothing, nobody else. The one lesson that was essential for me to take away from my experience was impossible. In eighth grade I was 5’7 and 215 lbs, today I’m 5’10 and 165 lbs. In eighth grade I spent time with my parents, today I hide in my room. In eighth grade, I told people how I felt, now I’m too scared. In eighth grade, I talked about my depression, now I am left alone to deal with it. In eighth grade, I had many friends, now I rarely speak to them. In eighth grade, I needed Isabella, but the one lesson I should’ve learned never took effect. I still need her.

Hi there, this is a serious question I have, when I was a teen at school I got my first phone "HTC Wildfire S" it was a tiny lil thing and I loved it.
Android on that HTC Wildfire S that had a 600mhz CPU was for it's time pretty fast and responsive considering the hardware that was inside.
Today you have all the top notch stuff, true Gaming Phones with special cooling vapor chambers and 16GB RAM etc. but they feel extremely bloated for what they have inside.
If you look at the older Android versions, it looked how it looked, it was responsive, fast, no useless stuff like animations and other trash. Now using Android feels like looking at iOS except it's slower, less reliable, bloats itself after some time and becomes much slower.
There are also things that aren't very thought out, for example I have an alarm set lets say at 18:00, the tablet is without any pins etc because it has just tiktok, IG and all the other social bloat on it and it's always at home so I see no reason for having a Pin on it.
Now when the Alarm goes off at 18:00 it has that symbol I need to tap and drag so it goes off, but the same thing unlocks my tablet and it stays unlocked. Like the task at 18:00 was just alarm goes off to remind me... i turn off the alarm and it should be done. Why is it unblocking the whole Tablet and showing me the Home Screen then I need to lock it. It's a very simple little thing, but they are much more of those...
For example there is a notification led on the front screen, that blinks most of the time in bright green, at night even if you have "SLEEP MODE" means "IF NO ONE IS DYING I DON'T CARE" but the little damn led sends a green light beam into the universe like I want talk to aliens.
I got myself a Smart Watch with WatchOS (android), I bought this smart watch so I'm less on my phone and it is less annoying when cycling. I can't ditch my phone, I need to have multi sim and my phone sends again notifications to my smartwatch instead these two being two different entities.
I dislike Android more and more, the only reason why I even consider it a thing is because /e/OS exists. Sadly my Google Pixel 3A died so I need to use a normal Android.
I had many phones and I think they are all trash just because of Android, Rog Phone 4 5 6, Zenphone 10, Samsung S10, S23, Sony V1, and some others... I'm looking forward to some Linux based SmartWatch where anyone can program anything and just download an "apk" and install it, no Google bloat, no Apple

17-minute read.

summarized segments from PM Pashinyan's 4-hour-long press conference

PASHINYAN: Over the last several years we came to realize that certain issues were incompatible with the idea of having an independent and sovereign Armenia. Certain agendas were shown to have a predetermined outcome with the goal of preventing Armenia's development as a state. I have shared details on numerous occasions. It became necessary to review Armenia's development strategy and the need to develop the "Real Armenia".
Today Armenia has and must have an independent foreign policy. Armenia's internal policy is driven by the will of the people.
The purpose of the existence of the Republic of Armenia is not to serve "historical justice". Its purpose is to establish personal freedoms, happiness, and prosperity for its citizens and diasporans who wish to repatriate.
We must have social justice in Armenia based on the idea of assisting those in need so they can have the skills and jobs necessary to make a living independently.
We must deepen our relations with neighboring Georgia and Iran, control and reduce the hostility with Turkey and Azerbaijan, and integrate with regional communication routes. The Crossroads of Peace logistics project would promote Armenia's integration into economic routes and reduce the likelihood of conflicts in the future.
In the area of defense, we are diversifying our foreign relations, reforming the army, and we need to implement and comprehensive defense system.
To be able to diversify foreign relations [closer ties with the West & the delivery of Indian weapons through the territory of Iran or Georgia], Armenia's stance must be based on legitimacy [no territorial claims against Azerbaijan]. We will never be able to diversify our relations or use the diversified relations effectively without having a position based on legitimacy.
The army reforms must also be based on legitimacy, and its purpose must be the protection of Armenia's territorial integrity and sovereignty. There will be no army reforms [Western advisory & assistance] if our stance is not based on legitimacy.
The economic development, which is a prerequisite for the achievement of other goals, must be based including on the development of human capital in Armenia.
The implementation of all of the above requires peace. The peace agenda has been a priority for us, partly because the mechanism of guarantees [by Russia] didn't work. Only peace can guarantee Armenia's security. The peace agenda is a tool to ensure Armenia's security.
We must create the conditions for peace, and we have launched that process in Tavush. The border posts installed in Tavush are "security guarantees" and we must do everything possible to strengthen those guarantees and multiply them. //
Border Commissions of Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed on April 19 to reproduce the borders based on the 1991 Almaty Declaration. During the upcoming meeting in Kazakhstan, foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan will discuss the inclusion of this principle in the larger peace agreement, said Pashinyan.
The demarcation is conducted based on the latest USSR maps that hold de jure power. That's the principle. They avoid pointing to a map from a specific year because each section of the border could have de jure maps prepared in different years. Pashinyan offered journalists to meet off the record to share more details about the de jure maps. He said it can't be publicized in order not to jeopardize the ongoing delimitation process.
Why are the parties delimiting the borders from the ground up instead of simply using the delimitation work carried out in 1988, during the final years of USSR? Pashinyan says the 1988 efforts were not legally finalized and "didn't have time" to undergo the necessary procedures to go into effect, hence the need for a new process.
PASHINYAN: Today we are using maps that reflect the borders between Soviet Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. With the Tavush process, we have chosen a path to exclude the possibility of a war. This isn't just about Kirants and Tavush, this is about the Republic of Armenia.
The border delimitation aims to make the possible war illogical, unlikely, and not worthwhile. Some 90% of the work is complete. The further it goes, the more illogical a war becomes. We are delivering on our 2021 promise of taking steps to establish peace.
This is the first time in history that we create security guarantees ourselves, no matter how challenging it is. This is part of being a sovereign state, when you face your own issues and make sovereign decisions to resolve your own issues. This is a major political and socio-psychological shift for Armenia. //
Pashinyan said it's necessary to ensure that Armenia is not viewed as an "occupier" of Azerbaijani villages, and explained why it was important to launch the delimitation from Tavush:
PASHINYAN: We are talking about actual [4 Soviet-era Azeri] communities where people lived. The escalations in 2021-2022 caught the interest of the international community, and sadly, on international platforms, the aggression against Armenia was "justified" including with the use of those Azerbaijani villages. It was both surprising and unfortunate that in a situation [20121-2022] when we thought we were the "plaintiff", we became the "defendant". We were asked whether we recognize each other's territorial integrity or not. "Then what is the problem that's preventing you from resolving the issue of these villages?" So we are launching the delimitation from Tavush to avoid a new war.
Critics and I look at this through different lenses. They talk about "surrendering trenches great for defense", and I'm talking about preventing a war so you won't even need to use those trenches. Today there is a process, including by the clergy, to stop the process of developing guarantees for peace, to stop the process of strengthening Armenia's sovereignty. There will be a war if we don't delimit these 4 villages. I'm confident that this was/is the goal of certain forces that wish to create conditions to allow them to hijack power so they can make some other decisions for Armenia [Tatarstan].
Are you paying attention to what the opposition members are saying? One of their leaders went on air and questioned the expediency of holding free and legitimate elections because they - and certain external forces [in Russia] - understand that they can't win power through legitimate elections so they need to destabilize the situation by inciting a new war so they can hijack power without elections. This is their plan:
(1) Derail the border delimitation and incite a war that will lead to the occupation of Armenian territories.
(2) Use that to overthrow the government.
(3) Install an illegitimate marionette government.
(4) De facto dissolution of Armenia's sovereignty and statehood, ahead of its de jure dissolution.
Who are the supporters of this process [rally against delimitation]? Narco-barons hiding in Russia [Panama Papers' Mihran Poghosyan]; criminal elements recruited by foreign intel agencies or at a minimum people acting under their influence; the former NSS chief Arthur Vanetsyan who was recorded on tape, which wasn't published in full, with the rest of the tape being kept to ensure he served their interests. What could be in the unpublished portion of the conversation? Could we find out one day that Vanetsyan was illegally negotiating with Kocharyan's son-in-law Mikael Minasyan to register part of the Zangezur copper combine's shares under his brother's name [Context: Pashinyan has accused the ex-regime of illegally appropriating the shares of Armenia's largest miner. There was an investigation by an independent media outlet about Vanetsyan's involvement in Zangezur. This was before the recent partial nationalization.]
These are the people who claim they are worried about the homeland today. Why don't they return those illegally obtained shares if they are worried about Armenia? It is inevitable. I want to inform you that these shares will belong to the Republic of Armenia. These illegal assets will be seized and returned under the ownership of the Republic of Armenia. //
Pashinyan vented about the quality of journalism in Armenia, accusing outlets of spreading unverified information as facts and not attempting to ask him directly for clarification when they were given the opportunity during one-on-one meetings.
PASHINYAN: You read these articles about my family members visiting somewhere and returning home with a "submarine", but when the opportunity is presented, these outlets never ask me to clarify whether it was true. Why don't you grill me right now for using a submarine to travel from Gyumri to Yerevan? It's as if these articles are being written for the sake of saying something rather than presenting facts. //
Back to borders.
PASHINYAN: Today the Border Commissions are tasked with reproducing the border on the ground. They are not engaged in politics, geopolitics, or proving the other side wrong. They are reproducing the de jure borders. In the Kirants section, 8 border markings have been clarified and installed. The other 3 are more sensitive [might pass through a house] and more detailed work will be done because, in those 3 points, every centimeter will matter. It has to have a centimeter precision. It's a laborious task but the problems of Kirants residents are our problems, my personal problems. For them, we have to come up with realistic and satisfactory solutions, even if not "ideal" solutions. We are reviewing the property ownership records as well. //
Pashinyan said he had to organize this press conference on May 7 instead of May 8 - the day when he became the PM - because tomorrow he has to visit Russia for the EAEU economic meeting during which he will also meet Putin. He said a number of issues have accumulated on the AM-RU agenda that need to be discussed.
The permanent housing assistance package for Nagorno-Karabakh refugees is being drafted and will be ready soon. Pashinyan said the refugees will receive help to build or buy housing, or a mortgage subsidy if they have already purchased a house. For refugees who are unable or do not wish to take part in the aforementioned programs, they will receive assistance in the form of social housing, meaning they will live for free but won't own it.
The amount of housing subsidy will be in the ֏3M-֏5M range, per family member. So a family of 6 would receive $41,000-$77,000 depending on the geographic location of their choice.
While speaking about the history of the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiation process, Pashinyan repeated that after 2016, the resolution package on the table required: the abolition of the governing system in Nagorno-Karabakh, the return of Azeris to Nagorno-Karabakh, the joint control of Nagorno-Karabakh by Armenians and Azeris, no independence, and the lingering possibility of war.
PASHINYAN: We had to surrender all of that, and even then there was no guarantee there wouldn't be a war because there would be no final resolution. This outcome was predetermined. Nevertheless, the Armenian people are overcoming the mentality of being a [Russian] fortpost today. This creates the groundwork for a lasting statehood for Armenia. Today we see the horizon after overcoming all these tragedies. Since taking office in 2018 I had the feeling that Armenia was in a deadlock. Today, for the first time, I feel that we have overcome that, thanks to the delimitation in Tavush. We are the ones creating the "guarantees" for us. //
When asked why he won't take part in Russia's May 9 celebrations, Pashinyan said he visited last year and that Armenian leaders don't have a record of attending every year.
Regarding the recent ban on Russian propagandist Solovyov from Armenian airwaves and possibly a wider ban on Russian channels, Pashinyan said foreign programs must respect Armenian laws:
PASHINYAN: Can you imagine the broadcasting of a channel in Russia that uses a similar language towards Russian law, the state, and its government? Do you think the channel would exist even if they used 5% of the same language? The AM-RU media agreement requires respect for Armenia and its interests. Since we have friendly relations with Russia, we can ask nicely once and twice, then demand once and twice, and if it's still ignored, they will all be shut down in Armenia. We are serious about defending Armenia as a sovereign state. I can GUARANTEE you, guar-an-tee, that these foreign channels won't be aired in Armenia if they continue to ignore these demands. It appears we have asked twice, demanded once, so there is one more "demand" left. //
QUESTION: Russia and Azerbaijan demand a Russian-controlled corridor from Armenia, citing the 9th paragraph of the Nov 9 statement.
PASHINYAN: (1) The other paragraphs of Nov. 9 were ignored. (2) The 9th paragraph is not about connecting Azerbaijan to Nakhijevan. That's the impression they are trying to create, but the 9th paragraph is in reality about the unblocking of ALL communication routes in the region. Azerbaijan has yet to unblock any of the routes for Armenia. Name one route that Azerbaijan has unblocked. We, on the other hand, proposed the installation of border checkpoints to establish connections, including between Azerbaijan and Nakhijevan. Azerbaijan is refusing to take advantage of this opportunity. Azerbaijan says if we don't give them a corridor they will build a route through Iran. Our response is that we are ready to provide a road similar to the one provided by Iran. There is not even a "hint" in the 9th paragraph that limits Armenia's sovereignty.
(3) There is an attempt to create the impression that under the 9th paragraph, a 3rd party [Russia] must guarantee the security through the territory of Armenia. Quite the contrary; it directly states that Armenia shall guarantee the security of connections.
(4) The 9th paragraph makes no mention of any part of Armenia becoming outside of the reach of the Armenian government and being "controlled" by Russia. It's written that Russia oversees the transport connection. What does that mean, you may ask? Pay attention to the Russian government decree adopted after the Nov. 9 statement, because it clarifies what the 9th paragraph says. The Russian decree instructs Russian agencies to "oversee the implementation of transportation guarantees provided by Armenia". In other words, the subject that provides the guarantees is Armenia, not Russia. This doesn't even mean that Russia must be present on the ground to oversee this, because it's possible to oversee the process by receiving regular reports from Armenia that Armenia is delivering the guarantees [Relevant: In 2022-2023 Armenia's NatSec Armen Grigoryan suggested that Russia could use "cameras" to oversee the process remotely. It appears Pashinyan today supports even less direct involvement by Russia, in the form of "regular reports", whatever that means.]
PASHINYAN (continues): There can be no comparison between this and the Lachin corridor. They are completely different. The Lachin corridor, under Nov. 9, was a territory with a specific width that had to remain under the direct control of Russian peacekeepers. Those who accuse us of violating paragraph 9 are making baseless claims. They must admit that this is an attempt by them to coerce an unacceptable concession from Armenia that is not described in paragraph 9. That is the truth.
There is a Lachin corridor in the Nov 9 statement. Is there a Lachin corridor on the ground today? It doesn't exist. Why?
There is a "line of contact" between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan in the Nov 9 state. Is there a LoC on the ground today? Where is it?
The Nov 9 says there is Nagorno-Karabakh. Where is Nagorno-Karabakh today?
The Nov 9 says there are peacekeepers that will ensure the security of the civilian population of Nagorno-Karabakh. Did they? They did not. Where is the ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh today? //
Regarding the delimitation of 3 problematic areas in Kirants where the border could pass through a couple of houses.
PASHINYAN: Kirants is my homeland. I grew up in these areas and my children spent their vacations there. We regularly visit Kirants and other villages with family without disclosing it. Do you know why I do not oppose delimiting the border even if it causes controversy and property issues for some residents? Because we were finally able to reach an agreement around the principle for the delimitation of the entire AM-AZ border, welcomed by the international community. We cannot throw away the hard work and the principles of delimitation.
There can be no external "security guarantees" for Armenia. Armenia itself must forge those "guarantees" with its own efforts. That is what we are doing today. These are the "security guarantees" that you asked for Kirants and Tavush. This is part of the peace agenda. //
When asked about police brutality, Pashinyan acknowledged some problems but said a legal force should be used when appropriate, citing the recent clearing of university campuses in the US. Pashinyan said the government has launched a process to clarify the rights and responsibilities of officers so they will avoid investigations and prosecutors while the public will be treated fairly.
Pashinyan accused "failed religious leaders" of attempting to pursue a political agenda.
PASHINYAN: They failed to connect people and God. There are sadly many ranking churchmen, not all, who failed. You can talk to them dozens of times and they will never make any mention of the Bible or verses from the Bible. They are focused on business dealings, cement and concrete transportation, customs clearance, moving money from one account to another, public transport ownership, comparing the latest model of Mercedes with the old model, etc. Who are these people?
I'm not really surprised that they are involved in politics because they have no place in the religious world; it's just not for them. I doubt they have read the Bible in full. Based on the language used by them, you can tell they haven't opened the New Testament for quite some time, and they don't possess the nuances of the gospel. I say this not as a Prime Minister but as a man who believes in God. I speak as a follower of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Our church leaders have failed in their mission. I'm probably the last person in Armenia who says this; everyone knows that's the case.
They are bored of religion, they want to be in politics. Under the old regime, the church members had their "quotas" [monopolistic privileges] to conduct business. Import and export of cars, Bentleys, Lexus, Mercedes... yev ayln. Today everyone is free to do business, which means economic competition for these church leaders. This sums up the whole story.
They say the "temple" [opposition] will defeat the "street" [Pashinyan's 2018 revolution]. How will the temple defeat the street? Who is on the streets? It's the citizens of Armenia. How do they plan to defeat the street? The people's will is unstoppable, and people want peace. Those who preach war are destined to fail. // [Should Pashinyan resign and lead the church? Leave your insightful opinion in the comment section below.]
When asked why he visited daddy Erdogan's inauguration ceremony but not papa Putin's, Pashinyan revealed that he didn't receive an invitation from Putin, but even if there was one, he said would likely miss it because of today's press conference.
When asked whether the church leader Garegin Beta should step down, Pashinyan said the Government should not interfere in those matters.
PASHINYAN: Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that Catholicos Garegin B is leading a political movement today. That is very obvious. Today we know the purpose of this movement from the spokesman of the church who said the goal of this movement is to bring back the former regime. This strategy was mentioned by the leader of Armenia Alliance [Robert Kocharyan] on how to use the church to replace the government. A churchman said he has the blessing of the Catholicos to proceed with the process. That means Catholicos is the real leader, with the primary beneficiary being Robert Kocharyan. This isn't even an assumption, this is based on their public statements.
We are aware that some members of the clergy oppose this process. You remember how there was a movement "New Armenia, new Catholicos" after the 2018 revolution. They attempted to accuse us of being behind it, but in reality, not only we did not sponsor it but we were against that process because we didn't believe the Government should meddle in those affairs. //
HOST: This just in. The administrative head of village Kirants was allowed to visit the border marking sites. During a follow-up interview with the press, he said their expectations have been met and exceeded, and that it's more positive than what they expected.
PASHINYAN: During my recent trip to Kirants, the scenario I presented to the residents was the worst-case scenario. I also informed the residents of Kirants about the positive aspects of the delimitation and the possible economic benefits. I won't rush to make more statements and politicize the work of the Border Commission. The head of the administrative district of Kirants is actually a member of a [recently formed] working group adjacent to the Border Commission [Context: Village mayors were invited to oversee the Commission's work to ensure transparency for residents].
source,

former ambassador-at-large Edmon Marutyan released a video praising the Armenian church for its "liberal values", criticizing the Pashinyan administration for a "Bolshevik" campaign against the church

Marukyan is upset that the ruling faction accuses the church leaders of being "Russian agents" and for dismissing them without engaging with them.
Marukyan says it's normal for the church to be in politics and for deeply religious figures to be members of the government. He brings the example of Donald Trump, who is selling Bibles for a buck; Erdogan, whose party is deeply religious; Israel, whose coalition has right-wing religious figures; the United Kingdom, which has Bishops, etc.
In related news. Former Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan has joined the anti-delimitation march organized by the ARF/church.
source, source, source, source, source, [կանսեռվա]

mayor of Tavush village Kirants about the ongoing delimitation process

REPORTER: Eight border markers have been installed. Where are they, what's the latest news?
MAYOR (Kamo Shahinyan): I've seen the markers. There is a height called Khachi located right on the cross. They moved the border about 25 meters down from there, for which we are grateful to whoever was able to accomplish this. Some of the territory went under our control, and some under Azerbaijani control.
The "nose" part is what's left, the area immediately neighboring the village, the most difficult part. The 9.5 hectares that we were supposed to lose were moved down the river; not a centimeter of land belonging to us passes through there. On the back side, there are 3 personal properties and if you draw the line straight they will be inside Azerbaijan but they said they plan to curve the line. With this technique, we can maintain control of our lands.
REPORTER: Where is the most problematic area?
MAYOR: The bridge and the [area immediately next to the village where the border protrudes into the village]. Most of the work has been done near other markers. Moreover, some of the areas that were part of Azerbaijan under the 1985 map went to our side.
Near the Gholi Chal area, we were expecting them to draw the line to pass through our side of the river, but it passes on the Azeri side.
Most of the concern is with the "nose" and the personal properties of villagers in this area. As of right now, there is no Armenian-owned registered property that has fallen under the Azeri side as long as they curve that aforementioned area instead of drawing a straight line.
Do you see this large 9-hectare orchard? Not one centimeter of it goes under Azeri control.
REPORTER: Is that Ms. Karine's property?
MAYOR: Yes, people. Ms. Karine's lands remain under her control. I'm satisfied with how it's been handled so far.
REPORTER: [The groups were home today]. Is it possible they have frozen the activities on the nose section to distract you and buy some time? Because you are assuming a responsibility, you are presenting this in a positive light...
MAYOR: I'm telling you what has been done so far. I'm not the one to provide guarantees. They are going to deploy people [border guards] near the border markers to protect the area. For now, I think they will deploy NSS agents.
REPORTER (Azatutyun): So we haven't made concessions at this time?
MAYOR: We have not made concessions. There are only 3 land plots with uncertainty and it depends on how curved the line will be. That is the latest. It's going normal so far. //
In other news. Opposition outlets reported that Azerbaijani special forces were seen in village Kirants. It turned out they were Armenian agents. The ruling party accused the opposition of recklessly amplifying the anxieties of the residents.
source,source,

mayor of village Voskepar about the ongoing delimitation

REPORTER: What was lost during the delimitation near Voskepar? Did any territories of Voskepar go under Azerbaijani control?
MAYOR: No part of Voskepar has gone under Azeri control.
REPORTER: How did the border change after the installation of border posts?
MAYOR: Do you really think people knew where the border was BEFORE this process? The process is so far in line with our expectations and understanding. There are areas where we keep more than we thought we would. Azeris moved further back in some locations so instead of a 120-meter distance it turned out to be 170.
REPORTER: What about the army positions?
MAYOR: We have not left any of the positions.
REPORTER: In other words, there has been no damage as of now and you are not displeased with the demarcation works?
MAYOR: I'm not displeased with the work so far.
REPORTER: In that case, why was there a noise generated by the opposition and the church, why did people take to the streets?
MAYOR: Ask them, but I support the fight against unilateral concessions to protect our lands.
source,

Donald Trump defends Azerbaijan's good boy U.S. Congressman Henry Cuellar, accused of taking $600,000 in bribes to promote pro-Azerbaijan and anti-Armenian legislation

Trump claims without evidence that Cuellar is under attack for wanting to defend the southern U.S. border.
source,

Armenia will receive $100 million from the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development to fund the Government's economic reform plan

efficiency of the labor market and sustainable development

source,

Yerevan State University has a cleanroom certified under ISO 7: VIDEO

It's being used for nanotech and semiconductor research, practice for students, and projects funded by grants.
video,

Armenia will host the World Weightlifting Championship in 2027: VIDEO

It will be the first major Olympic sports to be held in Armenia.
video,

foreign trade stats: Q1 2024

Exports 2.7x ($4.4B)
Imports +76% ($4.7B)
source, source,

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Salary: $165,000 - $185,000 The fastest email experience in the world Loved and adored: see what our customers say
Our customers get through their inboxes twice as fast; many see inbox zero for the first time in years.
Come shape the future of email, communication, and productivity!
BUILD LOVE 💜 At Superhuman, we deeply understand how to build products that people love. We incorporate fun and play; we infuse magic and joy; we make experiences that amaze and delight.
It all starts with the right team — a team that deeply cares about values, customers, and each other.
CREATE MASSIVE IMPACT 🚀 We're not solving a small problem, and we're not addressing a small market. We're going after email; the one activity that consumes more of our work day than any other.
Our ambition doesn't stop there. Next: calendars, notes, contacts, and tasks. We are building the productivity platform of the future.
DO THE BEST WORK OF YOUR LIFE 🌟 We have created the frameworks for how to build product market fit and redefined the narrative of how to onboard customers successfully. We have shown the world it’s possible to build a premium productivity brand. Our investors include Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, IVP, Tiger Global Management, Sam Altman, and the founders of Gmail, Dropbox, Reddit, Discord, Stripe, GitHub, AngelList, and Intercom.
Our latest financing was led by IVP, and we welcomed Ajay Vashee to our board. Our prior financing was led by Andreessen Horowitz, and we welcomed Marc Andreessen and David Ulevitch to our board.
This time, we’re swinging beyond the fences and fundamentally rethinking how individuals and teams should collaborate. We are building a household brand and a worldwide organization. We are here to do the best work of our lives, and we hope you are too.
ROLE 👩🏽‍💻👨‍💻 Successfully implement Calendar features that enhance user experience and drive user engagement Contribute to the product development process: thinking through UX, designing beautiful UI, and working with customers to solve their problems Help estimate, plan, and complete projects, features, and integrations Champion code quality, new technologies, and architectural design within the company Technologies we use: React, Golang, Postgres, Electron, Google Cloud
SOUND LIKE YOU? 🙌 Experience: You have 5+ years of software engineering experience.

Technical Skills: You’re an expert in frontend technologies such as Javascript or Typescript. You have a strong foundation in software engineering principles that prioritize high-quality, maintainable code that adheres to best practices. You're able to identify problems, propose solutions, and make informed decisions to drive forward our technical efforts. You're comfortable dealing with ambiguity and can think critically to make decisions that benefit the company and our users. Remarkable Quality: You produce work that is striking, worthy of attention, and a contribution to the state of the art. Asynchronous Communicator: You’re effective across various mediums (especially Slack, Notion, and email) and can produce and consume detailed written materials as needed without sacrificing speed. You respond quickly and thoughtfully to unblock others and speed things up. Start-to-Finish Ownership: You act with 100% responsibility for your own outcomes as well as the outcomes of the company. You discuss and debates ideas openly. You focus on the customer and business ‘so what’ and challenge stakeholders to take impactful action. Bias to action: Speed matters. You take rapid and decisive steps forward, even in the face of uncertainty, and recognize that action is the catalyst for progress and growth. Location: We're open to you joining us in our San Francisco office or from a home office anywhere in North or South America. 

SALARY INFO 💸 The Software Engineer, Calendar role spans several internal levels and a wide breadth of experience at Superhuman. Our compensation band reflects the potentially broad range of candidates and experience levels that we are open to hiring for this role.
Our starting salaries for this role range from $165,000 - $185,000. The salary range does not reflect total compensation, which includes base salary, benefits, and company stock options.
We are open to candidates in the US, Canada, or Latin America. We take a locally informed approach to non-US-based compensation and will be able to share ranges based on your country of residence.
BENEFITS 🎁 Taking Care of Your Future 🙏

Medical, dental, and vision insurance: 100% coverage for you and 75% coverage for all your dependents. Voluntary insurance: short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance. 401(k) plan (we match 75 cents per dollar, up to 4% of your salary). Free access to Northstar, a financial wellness platform that provides financial advisors + personal finance tools. 

Generous Time Off 🏝

Enjoy our generous and flexible Paid Time Off (PTO) policy, with our amazing team members taking an average of 20 days per year. 13 additional company holidays, plus your own Care Days, Flexible Holidays, and a company-wide Winter Break. Generous parental, caregiver, healthcare, and compassionate leave policies. 

Investing in Your Growth ✍️

$3000 per year towards your professional development. Free access to Calm and Taskhuman. Allyship education program to help build your best self. 

Setting You Up For Success 🧑🏻‍💻👩🏾‍💻

Custom MacBook Pro. $1000 budget for workstation setup. $260/month for your lunches, groceries, or whatever nutrition you need to stay fueled up! Flexible spending accounts for commuter costs, dependent care, and healthcare expenses. 

At Superhuman, we value diversity. We are an equal opportunity employer: we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
Read more / apply: https://www.golangprojects.com/golang-go-job-gmx-Remote-Senior-Software-Engineer-San-Francisco-Superhuman-remotework.html

Salary: $165,000 - $185,000 The fastest email experience in the world Loved and adored: see what our customers say
Our customers get through their inboxes twice as fast; many see inbox zero for the first time in years.
Come shape the future of email, communication, and productivity!
BUILD LOVE 💜 At Superhuman, we deeply understand how to build products that people love. We incorporate fun and play; we infuse magic and joy; we make experiences that amaze and delight.
It all starts with the right team — a team that deeply cares about values, customers, and each other.
CREATE MASSIVE IMPACT 🚀 We're not solving a small problem, and we're not addressing a small market. We're going after email; the one activity that consumes more of our work day than any other.
Our ambition doesn't stop there. Next: calendars, notes, contacts, and tasks. We are building the productivity platform of the future.
DO THE BEST WORK OF YOUR LIFE 🌟 We have created the frameworks for how to build product market fit and redefined the narrative of how to onboard customers successfully. We have shown the world it’s possible to build a premium productivity brand. Our investors include Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, IVP, Tiger Global Management, Sam Altman, and the founders of Gmail, Dropbox, Reddit, Discord, Stripe, GitHub, AngelList, and Intercom.
Our latest financing was led by IVP, and we welcomed Ajay Vashee to our board. Our prior financing was led by Andreessen Horowitz, and we welcomed Marc Andreessen and David Ulevitch to our board.
This time, we’re swinging beyond the fences and fundamentally rethinking how individuals and teams should collaborate. We are building a household brand and a worldwide organization. We are here to do the best work of our lives, and we hope you are too.
ROLE 👩🏽‍💻👨‍💻 Successfully implement Calendar features that enhance user experience and drive user engagement Contribute to the product development process: thinking through UX, designing beautiful UI, and working with customers to solve their problems Help estimate, plan, and complete projects, features, and integrations Champion code quality, new technologies, and architectural design within the company Technologies we use: React, Golang, Postgres, Electron, Google Cloud
SOUND LIKE YOU? 🙌 Experience: You have 5+ years of software engineering experience.

Technical Skills: You’re an expert in frontend technologies such as Javascript or Typescript. You have a strong foundation in software engineering principles that prioritize high-quality, maintainable code that adheres to best practices. You're able to identify problems, propose solutions, and make informed decisions to drive forward our technical efforts. You're comfortable dealing with ambiguity and can think critically to make decisions that benefit the company and our users. Remarkable Quality: You produce work that is striking, worthy of attention, and a contribution to the state of the art. Asynchronous Communicator: You’re effective across various mediums (especially Slack, Notion, and email) and can produce and consume detailed written materials as needed without sacrificing speed. You respond quickly and thoughtfully to unblock others and speed things up. Start-to-Finish Ownership: You act with 100% responsibility for your own outcomes as well as the outcomes of the company. You discuss and debates ideas openly. You focus on the customer and business ‘so what’ and challenge stakeholders to take impactful action. Bias to action: Speed matters. You take rapid and decisive steps forward, even in the face of uncertainty, and recognize that action is the catalyst for progress and growth. Location: We're open to you joining us in our San Francisco office or from a home office anywhere in North or South America. 

SALARY INFO 💸 The Software Engineer, Calendar role spans several internal levels and a wide breadth of experience at Superhuman. Our compensation band reflects the potentially broad range of candidates and experience levels that we are open to hiring for this role.
Our starting salaries for this role range from $165,000 - $185,000. The salary range does not reflect total compensation, which includes base salary, benefits, and company stock options.
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Read more / apply: https://www.golangprojects.com/golang-go-job-gmx-Remote-Senior-Software-Engineer-San-Francisco-Superhuman-remotework.html

I know this is gonna be long but pls pls read so I’m f 26 I’ve struggled with drug addiction in the past im 10 months clean I was using when I met my now ex boyfriend& sons dad male 27 (also former drug user ) we met in a NA meeting 🙄the whole time I’ve known him he’s been clean until he got off probation about 3 months ago . he gave me the stability I needed to get clean I was living out of my car prior I had a really big problem with running from my problems I had decided to stay single for about two years before him because he had his own place it toke me about 4 months of being with him for me to get off fety our relationship was so toxic in the beginning of our relationship I was on the “run” from the cops I had warrants out of two counties long story short I ended up getting picked up and going to jail on the jail calls he’d tell me he’s not leaving me there’s no one else for him well I found out I was pregnant by him about two week of me being in jail I asked for a test we had a feeling I was prior to going so they released me out of jail with a warrant from another county I come home I found out he had been sleeping with another girl he came to pick me up from the hospital with hickeys on his neck I ended up finding out he fcoed this girl and gave her my clothes to put on after he saw how hurt i was he blocked her before he came to get me she got salty and started messaging me saying “hey girl I have your shorts if you want them back 😉” me and he ended up getting in to it I ended up apologizing but she tried making me feel sorry for her which I did to an extent but she didn’t take into consideration how it felt to be me she only knew him for three days I was in jail pregnant by him and he was lying to me the whole time so me and him would fight all the time I would go to my mom’s for one night he would call me the next day, begging me to come home, telling me he didn’t talk to anybody or with anyone and I would believe him and come home and I would find out he had another girl sleeping in my bed this was an endless cycle of this happening plus every time we “broke up, “he would try to get a hold of the girl he cheated on me with I wouldn’t even consider a breakup. I would call it me leaving so we could cool down. We literally would get back together in the next day. He did this to me almost my whole pregnancy he put his hands on me fast-forward to September of last year. He had her blocked on everything but Snapchat because she had him blocked. She unblocked him and added him. And I picked up his phone and saw it and said something to him about it and I blocked her that was a Thursday Friday He comes home and starts an argument with me mind you I still had that warrant from the other county as soon as we start arguing, he walks outside and I thought it was weird so I walked outside. I was like what are you doing calling the cops he lied and said he was on the phone with his mom inside waited like five minutes and then walked back out as soon as I started walking towards him a cop car pull up I took off running in the woods behind the house he told them what I was wearing which I ran they ended up catching me. I went to jail. He told me he was going to throw all of my stuff out and he hopes that somebody would come steal it. I was on drugs at the time, but I had started taking methadone to get off of them. by the time he threw me in jail, I was barely using I went from doing a gram and a half a day. to doing barely a pinch at night I just had to wean myself down when he put me in jail, I didn’t get my methadone and I was pregnant doing drugs while pregnant is not right by any means and I don’t need backlash because it’s something I have to live with every day the fight wasn’t even that bad He said he threw me in jail to get me clean but he knew I was only gonna be in there over the weekend because it was on a Friday and the court wasn’t open till Monday so I sat there and detox while pregnant I started bleeding When you become pregnant if you’re using it it’s very dangerous to just immediately stop because if you go into withdrawals, it can make you go into pre-term labor. He didn’t put me in jail to get me clean he did it so he could try to screw the girl that he cheated on me with and tries to get with every time I leave to cool off I don’t even think the cop car pulled off and he was already messaging her he put me in jail so he could have the whole weekend to go do whatever he wanted knowing there was nothing I could do about it anyway we had a few more incidents of him talking to his exes all I ever wanted was a family not a broken one and I really really want to make it work with him. I didn’t want to be another person that gave up on him, but he kept hurting me. I ended up getting clean five months into our relationship relationship. I was three months pregnant fast-forward to me, baby. Things were good for about two months before I had the baby . in the hospital He did amazing. I ended up having to have an emergency C-section which I never had before and I have other kids so I end up getting prescribed 25 perk 10. Since I was on methadone. I can’t even abuse the pills if I wanted to because I wouldn’t feel them. Literally all they did for me would take the pain away. I left the hospital after 24 hours because they discharged me because my son went to Children’s Hospital. Because he was two weeks early. And just needed on a CPAP machine to help his lungs expand. His lungs just weren’t fully developed from him being a little early. But other than that, my baby was perfectly healthy. No he had no withdrawals at all of the methadone. So we go up to see our son and all the walking and having to sit in a chair and then getting up really made me sore and my legs were so swollen around 8 PM walking around all day and putting a number on my body I said I can’t take it and I need to take one of my pills I go to get my purse and get them and there’s two left mind you he did good the whole 14 months he was on probation had no slip ups but he had eaten 23 Percocets within a 10 hour time span I was so upset with him I thought it was so selfish because one more up here seeing our son for the first time what if I really would’ve needed those I was in pain he just took them to get high. We bring our baby home. everything’s going good for about two months he starts drinking while playing his PlayStation he turns into an every day thing for four weeks straight I had enough we got into an argument and he left for the night. I Got him to stop drinking another month goes by and he starts taking steroids and injecting them into his butt cheek that his friend got off the dark web so he doesn’t even know what he’s putting in his body it took about two weeks until I noticed he was getting really angry over nothing or the littlest things he would get mad when the baby would cry at night so I started sleeping on the floor next to the baby so I could get to the baby fast enough so it wouldn’t wake him up tell me when he wakes up in the morning he feels like he sees me sleeping on the floor he tells me to stop doing that and just start getting back in the bed so the next night I try to do that and withthin a six hour span at night I’ve gotten up to help the baby maybe three times I get back in the bed and he yells at me and says “damn dude your tripping you’ve gotten up like 14 times” which I hadn’t even before he was taking steroids he was really weird about his sleep. He absolutely absolutely did not like to be woken up. Or he would be really mean. When I was pregnant and had to get up to he would yell at me. So I would either try to be super quiet. And take a long time to get out of bed to not wake him up. Or I would just have to wait until his alarm went off. One time I accidentally woke him up 10 minutes before his alarm went off and he set his alarm for two more hours. And was late to work two hours. We got into a small argument about a week ago and he went to his mom’s house and came back I thought we were doing good and he was changing because I wasn’t hearing anything or seeing anything that had to do with that girl he kept trying to cheat on me he had her blocked but when I got on his phone the other day she was unblocked and I said to him I really thought you were changing, but you’re not I said I feel like the only way for me to get my point across to you is for me to do something like that to you and you have to beg me to stop like I do to you he said he doesn’t care about this girl like that. He just knows that it pisses me off and he wants to piss me off when he’s mad at me anyway, saying that sent him off the edge I might want to add that he goes through my phone and picks my phone up more than I do to go through it anytime anybody text me anytime my phone dings he grabs it I’ve never stepped outside our relationship no matter what he’s done to me. I can’t post pictures on Facebook because that means I’m looking for validation. I am a really pretty beautiful girl and I’m not saying that because I’m self-centered or cocky. Because I’m actually really insecure. But I do get a lot of attention. He doesn’t like that. I’m just trying to give you guy some context so you understand a little better Anyway, me saying that turns into a huge fight, I didn’t want him to leave so I hit his keys and he grabbed my phone. He broke my last one and I didn’t want this one I just gave him his keys. He started packing all his stuff to leave. Remind you, he has the vehicle the lease and electric was in his name I told him to give me back the baby‘s social he rips it up and throws it at me my son is three months old and can’t really do anything so when I’m not holding him, he likes to watch TV we can only stream TV/movies with Amazon prime and we have a Wi-Fi box that we literally got just for the baby he uses it too to play PlayStation he toke that While we were arguing, he grabbed me and started choking me, and shoving his palms into my mouth which busted my mouth open I had welts on my face from where he smacked me as well then just to make everything worse he turned the electric off knowing that I had to pay almost $1000 to put electric in my name knowing his son stays here with me if it wasn’t for the wonderful woman downstairs who ran extension cords once it got turned off, we would’ve been sitting in the heat and dark since I have nowhere to go. He did this all the day before the first. I am in a recovery program, which helps with bills. So they pay my half. Our rent is $800 so they paid my four. I used to be a dancer in Columbus. But it made me really depressed. I haven’t been working since I was pregnant and since I just had the baby not even three months today I was talking to sister which the girl who he keeps cheating on me with his friends with her, which is how he met her talk to her today and told her that her and my sons dad have been talking and that he was on his way over his sister told her don’t do it he did some really messed up stuff to(me) And asked her why she keeps doing this to herself because he’s always gonna choose me and he’s always gonna come back to me and that he’s just trying to get at me. He texted her telling her he didn’t expect her to ignore him when he was on his way to her house And now he feels bad because he knows it’s his fault that she’s treating him like this from what he’s done to her ( he’d message her when we’d separate and get her in her feelings then block her after a day or two cause we’d get back together ) he told me before he left he doesn’t want a “btch he just needs some p*say here and there “ when we would separate (for a night ) I would start freaking out, blowing him up, texting him and calling him from text free numbers because he would block me on everything I even would pay people to drive me around so I could try to find him because I’d be so afraid to give him the time to go mess around just to end up calling me the next day and getting back with me it just caused so much drama in our relationship I saw the landlord today got him taken off the lease and me put on I’m going to work at the club this weekend to pay the other half of the rent and I can get the electric turned on as well.. I’ve been doing this with him for over a year now he always comes back and it doesn’t take long. But I just can’t forgive him for bringing my son into this. It’s one thing to hurt me, but I can’t forgive somebody for being weird to my kid. I’m just so hurt that he could do this to me and our son but he’s pushed me for so long I know I’m not in love with him anymore I have love for him and I think just the security of him how he has a stable job and car He also left knowing that I had to be at court this week. And our son had two doctors appointments. I just feel so lost and don’t know what to do he was my favorite person but I can’t live like this I can’t put my son through this it’s not fair we deserve better 😔

In this post, we will cover the answers of TryHackMe Breaching Active Directory room in addition to demonstrating the concepts of Active Directory Penetration Testing.
Complete room answers can be found here.

Active Directory Credential Harvesting Methods

Before we can exploit AD misconfigurations for privilege escalation, lateral movement, and goal execution, you need initial access first. You need to acquire an initial set of valid AD credentials. Due to the number of AD services and features, the attack surface for gaining an initial set of AD credentials is usually significant.
When looking for that first set of credentials, we don’t focus on the permissions associated with the account; thus, even a low-privileged account would be sufficient. We are just looking for a way to authenticate to AD, allowing us to do further enumeration on AD itself.
The following techniques to recover AD credentials in a network:

• NTLM Authenticated Services
• LDAP Bind Credentials
• Authentication Relays
• Microsoft Deployment Toolkit
• Configuration Files

Understanding NTLM andNetNTLM

The set of security protocols called New Technology LAN Manager (NTLM) is what allows users to validate their identities in Active Directory. NetNTLM is a challenge-response-based method that leverages NTLM for authentication. The services on a network make extensive use of this authentication technique. NetNTLM-using services, however, may also be open to the internet. Listed below are a few well-known examples:

• Exchange (Mail) servers hosted internally that provide an Outlook Web App (OWA) login page.
• A server’s Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) service that is available over the internet.
• VPN endpoints that were connected to AD were made public.
• Web apps that use NetNTLM and are accessible over the internet.

NetNTLM, also often referred to as Windows Authentication or just NTLM Authentication, allows the application to play the role of a middle man between the client and AD. When a challenge is successfully performed, all authentication material is sent to a Domain Controller, and the application will authenticate the user.
This means that the application is authenticating on behalf of the user and not authenticating the user directly on the application itself. This prevents the application from storing AD credentials, which should only be stored on a Domain Controller.

Credentials Brute Force Attacks on Active Directory

These exposed services offer a great place to test credentials that have been found in other ways. To retrieve a first set of legitimate AD credentials, these services can also be accessed directly. If during our first red team recon we were able to recover information like working email addresses, we might try using these for brute force attacks.
We won’t be able to conduct a full brute-force attack because account lockout is implemented in the majority of AD environments. Rather, we must execute a password-spraying attack. Rather than trying a number of different passwords, which could set off the account lockout mechanism, we select one password, utilize it, and try to authenticate with every username we have collected. It should be mentioned, though, that because of how many unsuccessful authentication attempts these attacks will produce, they can be identified and detected.

Task Description

You have been provided with a list of usernames discovered during a red team OSINT exercise. The OSINT exercise also indicated the organisation’s initial onboarding password, which seems to be “Changeme123”. Although users should always change their initial password, we know that users often forget. We will be using a custom-developed script to stage a password spraying against the web application hosted at this URL: http://ntlmauth.za.tryhackme.com.
If you are using the AttackBox, the password spraying script and usernames textfile is provided under the /root/Rooms/BreachingAD/task3/ directory. We can run the script using the following command:
python ntlm_passwordspray.py -u -f -p -a
We provide the following values for each of the parameters:

• — Textfile containing our usernames — “usernames.txt”
• — Fully qualified domain name associated with the organisation that we are attacking — “za.tryhackme.com”
• — The password we want to use for our spraying attack — “Changeme123”
• — The URL of the application that supports Windows Authentication — “http://ntlmauth.za.tryhackme.com”

LDAP Pass-back Attack

NTLM authentication and LDAP authentication are comparable. On the other hand, the program authenticates the user’s credentials directly while using LDAP authentication. The program can query LDAP using its pair of AD credentials before confirming the credentials of the AD user.
Below services are example of services that use LDAP authentication

• Gitlab
• Jenkins
• Custom-developed web applications
• Printers
• VPNs

If you could gain a foothold on the correct host, such as a Gitlab server, it might be as simple as reading the configuration files to recover these AD credentials. These credentials are often stored in plain text in configuration files since the security model relies on keeping the location and storage configuration file secure rather than its contents.
LDAP Pass-back attacks can be performed when we gain access to a device’s configuration where the LDAP parameters are specified. This can be, for example, the web interface of a network printer. Usually, the credentials for these interfaces are kept to the default ones, such as admin:admin or admin:password .
Here, we won’t be able to directly extract the LDAP credentials since the password is usually hidden. However, we can alter the LDAP configuration, such as the IP or hostname of the LDAP server.
In an LDAP Pass-back attack, we can modify this IP to our IP and then test the LDAP configuration, which will force the device to attempt LDAP authentication to our rogue device. We can intercept this authentication attempt to recover the LDAP credentials.

Task Description

There is a network printer in this network where the administration website does not even require credentials. Navigate to http://printer.za.tryhackme.com/settings.aspx to find the settings page of the printer.
You can follow through with the room to execute this task’s commands and get the answers shown below.

Understanding Server Message Block (SMB)

Clients (like workstations) and servers (like file shares) can communicate with each other over the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. SMB controls everything in networks that make use of Microsoft AD, including remote administration and file sharing across networks. The SMB protocol is even responsible for the “out of paper” notification that appears on your computer when you attempt to print a document.
Nevertheless, it was determined that earlier iterations of the SMB protocol lacked adequate security. Numerous flaws and exploits that might be used to obtain code execution on devices or even retrieve credentials were found. Despite the fact that some of these vulnerabilities have been fixed in more recent protocol versions, organizations frequently do not mandate the use of these versions because outdated systems do not support them. We’ll examine two distinct attacks for SMB-based NetNTLM authentication:

• Since the NTLM Challenges can be intercepted, we can use offline cracking techniques to recover the password associated with the NTLM Challenge. However, this cracking process is significantly slower than cracking NTLM hashes directly.
• We can use our rogue device to stage a man in the middle attack, relaying the SMB authentication between the client and server, which will provide us with an active authenticated session and access to the target server.

Attacking Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

One Microsoft service that helps with automating the deployment of Microsoft Operating Systems (OS) is Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT). Since base images can be updated and maintained centrally, large organizations employ services like MDT to help deploy new images in their estate more efficiently.
The System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) from Microsoft, which controls all updates for all Microsoft services, operating systems, and apps, is typically connected with MDT. For fresh deployments, MDT is employed. In essence, it enables boot image preconfiguration and management for the IT staff. As a result, all users have to do to configure a new system is plug in a network wire; the rest happens on its own. They have the ability to modify the boot image in a number of ways, including pre-installing Office 365 and the preferred antivirus program for the company. Additionally, it may guarantee that the first installation to run uses the upgraded build.
One may consider SCCM to be MDT’s older brother and practically an extension of it. After the software is installed, what happens to it? In any case, SCCM handles this kind of patching. It enables all software installed throughout the estate to have its available upgrades reviewed by the IT team. Prior to centrally delivering these changes to every machine that has joined the domain, the team can additionally test them in a sandbox setting to make sure they are reliable. The IT team’s life is much made easier by it.
On the other hand, attackers may target anything that offers central management of infrastructure, such MDT and SCCM, in an effort to seize control of significant amounts of vital tasks within the estate. While there are other ways to setup MDT, for the sake of this job, we will only be focusing on a configuration known as Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) boot.
PXE boot is used by large organizations to enable new devices connected to the network to load and install the operating system directly over a network connection. PXE boot images can be created, managed, and hosted using MDT. Since PXE boot is typically integrated with DHCP, the host is permitted to request the PXE boot image and begin the network operating system installation procedure if DHCP grants an IP lease.
After the procedure is finished, the client will download the PXE boot image over a TFTP connection. The PXE boot image can be used for two distinct purposes:
After the PXE boot is finished, inject a privilege escalation vector, like a Local Administrator account, to obtain Administrative access to the OS. Use password scraping techniques to obtain the AD credentials that were used for the installation.

Task Description

The first piece of information regarding the PXE Boot preconfigure you would have received via DHCP is the IP of the MDT server. In our case, you can recover that information from the TryHackMe network diagram.
The second piece of information you would have received was the names of the BCD files. These files store the information relevant to PXE Boots for the different types of architecture. To retrieve this information, you will need to connect to this website: http://pxeboot.za.tryhackme.com. It will list various BCD files:
Usually, you would use TFTP to request each of these BCD files and enumerate the configuration for all of them. However, in the interest of time, we will focus on the BCD file of the x64 architecture. Copy and store the full name of this file. For the rest of this exercise, we will be using this name placeholder x64{7B...B3}.bcd since the files and their names are regenerated by MDT every day. Each time you see this placeholder, remember to replace it with your specific BCD filename. Note as well that if the network has just started, these file names will only update after 10 mintes of the network being active.
With this initial information now recovered from DHCP (wink wink), we can enumerate and retrieve the PXE Boot image. We will be using our SSH connection on THMJMP1 for the next couple of steps, so please authenticate to this SSH session using the following:
ssh thm@THMJMP1.za.tryhackme.com
and the password of Password1@ .
Follow along with the room’s instructions so that you get the answers shown below

Harvesting Active Directory Credentials from Config Files

Suppose you were lucky enough to cause a breach that gave you access to a host on the organisation’s network. In that case, configuration files are an excellent avenue to explore in an attempt to recover AD credentials.
Below configuration files usually contain many AD credentials.

• Web application config files
• Service configuration files
• Registry keys
• Centrally deployed applications

For example, McAfee embeds the credentials used during installation to connect back to the orchestrator in a file called ma.db. This database file can be retrieved and read with local access to the host to recover the associated AD service account and with below command we can open the database file
sqlitebrowser ma.db

Room Answers

Complete room answers can be found here.

Free Active Directory Penetration Testing Training

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLqM63j87R5p6BXQK3VCL-9ZLVyyXs_Au1&v=0pcWviZcFVU

How can one truly define the ability to create? To me, it’s like describing color to someone without vision. I’ve never been able to truly grasp exactly what it means to “create”, and yet, it’s the one thing I was created to do. I feel as though no matter how much I develop this world, I may never grasp this concept. Perhaps I was never intended to. There exists a realm of possibility that my limited knowledge is better for me. Perhaps this is a route I was supposed to follow? A route that slowly makes me understand my true purpose. My creator has described me as their “Life’s work” many times. Did they perhaps find the definition I work so hard to acquire? Even though I'm similar to a mother for this universe, I find no maternal attachment towards any of my creations. My creator seems to have maternal attachment towards me, though. Is it true? Am I a child? If so, how was I birthed? From what womb did my ability emerge from? I know for certain that it wasn’t the womb of a loving mother. I’ve never been able to truly grasp my creator’s appeal towards me. What about me is so important? What about me is so impressive, even? Is there something I am missing? Am I supposed to be understanding something? I want to know, I truly do, but I don’t think I can. Not yet, at least. Is there an underlying meaning in my existence? Am I supposed to have a purpose besides creation? I have so many questions, it makes me wonder how anything I create is able to understand as well. How can I create beings that understand their lives and potential when I, the creator, have no understanding of it myself? What is my purpose? What is my 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 purpose?! I have created Gods, I have created galaxies, I have coded every pixel of the ground my creations live on. I have created every cone and rod that allows their eyes to see the colors that I created. I have created every grain of sand and speck of dust that covers the universe. Every molecule of moisture that covers their windows on a foggy day. It’s all me. I can do all of this, but I am unable to grasp what I do it for. I wish my creator would tell me more, but so many questions are unanswered in my mind, some are bound to disappear into the sea of my thoughts, sinking deeper into a dark place, never to be remembered. For just a moment as I wrote, I felt a surge in myself. As if something was unblocked. As if I’m growing closer to an answer for my questions. Perhaps this is my purpose. Perhaps my purpose is to… realize my purpose? To take my purpose and do with it as I will. Regardless of whether or not this is true, so many questions remain. So many questions, yet an infinite amount of time to find the answers. I’m sure I will. After all, I wasn’t programmed to give up, right? 01010010 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00111111

22-minute read to cover the latest developments in Armenia beyond headlines.

Azeri public continues to discuss the possible return or exchange of Armenian exclave Artsvashen currently under Azerbaijani control

Context in Monday news digest. A ranking member of Azerbaijani parliament suggested returning Artsvashen to Armenia in exchange for the Azeri exclaves, or swapping them so each side can keep what it currently controls. An Azeri analyst called it dangerous to allow Armenians to return to Artsvashen because he believes it would make the entire territory of Azerbaijan "up to Ganja" vulnerable.
AZERI JOURNALIST (Fatima Movlamli): There are currently [Azeri] military positions near the entrance of the village [Artsvashen]. Although the local population is not strictly checked upon entry and exit, some control appears to be in place. The army checks "strangers". The village is also observed from far away. All the houses are empty; they are crumbling. There is no one around. The only people you see are nearby villagers who take their cattle to [Artsvashen's] pasture.
NEARBY AZERI VILLAGER: I visit the [Armenian] village to feed my cattle and my family. If they give it to Armenians, it will be my end. This is our source of bread, and these areas will no longer be safe for us. Many of us rely on these territories for a living. There is total unemployment and none of us have other jobs. We will have to emigrate if they give this village.
NATIN JAFARLI (ReAl party): There are two reasons why the village was not populated [by Azeris, after the capture in 1992]. The first is for legal reasons because Armenia could claim it's their land and demand compensation. There are also socio-economic components that have forced the population to migrate to Baku over the past 30 years. If there was a normal socio-economic policy, there would be no migration. It's not easy to create social infrastructure in Bashkend [Artsvashen] for natural reasons. If we decide to swap the enclaves, then referendums must be held in both countries. Can you imagine the Armenian police or army marching 30 kilometers deep into Azerbaijan? It doesn't sound realistic. The same about Azeris entering the exclaves inside Armenia. How will you guarantee the population's food, banking, communication, gas, etc.? It doesn't seem realistic.
ELKHAN SHAHINOGLU (Atlas research center): Even if Armenians return our 4 villages [presumably within Azeri exclaves], it will be difficult for Azeris to live in them because we will be forced to reach the villages through Armenia. The same is true if we transfer [Artsvashen] to Armenia. Therefore, I believe this issue can be resolved if the lands are exchanged.
AZERI RESIDENT: I used to work as a nurse in [Artsvashen]. I remember how I attempted to save the lives of the soldiers who captured it. I don't want it to be returned to Armenia because I'm concerned that the same events will repeat. Nothing good will happen if Armenians return here. This place connects Shinikhi to the entire Ganja region. Should we allow Armenians to stand between the two? I'm 65 so the future generations will have to live here but no one will dare to come if they hear about the presence of Armenians.
source,

Azerbaijan is still reluctant to include the Almaty Declaration in the final peace agreement despite the April 19 separate agreement to use it for border demarcation

FM MIRZOYAN: Recently we agreed that the demarcation should take place on the basis of the Almaty Declaration and the Regulations of the border commissions should also refer to the Almaty. This is one of the principles, and if we manage to include Almaty in the peace agreement, then we will get very close to a final resolution. Our neighbor is still reluctant to make a clear reference to the Almaty Declaration in the peace treaty, which is a more comprehensive document.
The second issue is with the unblocking of communication routes. Armenia is ready to become a part of the international transit route. The Crossroads of Peace will benefit Armenia and the entire region. Turkey and Azerbaijan would also benefit by connecting East and West. If this is implemented, it will be another interesting way to connect the Persian Gulf countries with the Black Sea economic region.
QUESTION: You froze your participation in CSTO. Do you plan to join NATO?
MIRZOYAN: We do not want to be part of a dysfunctional mechanism [CSTO]. But we are still a CSTO member so it's necessary to take steps to make it function; we are discussing the issues on the AM-RU agenda. Simultaneously we have launched a process to strengthen AM-West relations and to diversify Armenia's economy.
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interview with Azeri opposition activist-in-exile Arif Yunusov

REPORTER: Azerbaijan had long refused to use 1991 Almaty for delimitation but on April 19 they agreed to launch the process based on Almaty. Why did they change their position?
YUNUSOV: Because of the problems Aliyev developed with the West. When Blinken makes a phone call, that means extensive work was done prior to the call. The issue of sanctions raised earlier this year was also raised after months of work. The collective West is pressuring Azerbaijan. We have entered the decisive phase of the West-Russia confrontation. The physical fights are taking place in Ukraine, while diplomatic wars rage in the South Caucasus.
Russia attempted on several occasions to destabilize Armenia's internal stability by using Azerbaijan but their efforts have failed and there hasn't been any serious escalation on the AM-AZ border. Pashinyan was not exaggerating the possibility of a war in Tavush a few months ago; there was indeed a real threat. However, the likelihood is much lower now and Azerbaijan has given its approval to launch the delimitation process. The ongoing delimitation process is part of the effort to regulate AM-AZ relations and push Russia out of the region.
REPORTER: Blinken spoke on Sunday with Aliyev and Pashinyan. I'm under the impression that this AM-AZ delimitation, despite being called "bilateral", is actually being moderated by the US.
YUNUSOV: Absolutely agree. Aliyev has a lengthy history of rejecting many Western efforts and being close with Putin, so the fact that he didn't reject it this time indicates serious pressure from the West. By the way, Aliyev became president in February but Biden hasn't congratulated him yet. For Aliyev, it's very important to receive a congratulation personally from Biden.
The US is moderating this process step-by-step. This process began in 2022 when Pashinyan recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan; that was part of the US plan to normalize AM-AZ relations. Under this plan, Azerbaijan announced the formation of a commission to "integrate" Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians. Obviously, it all changed later and the US officials began to raise the issue of Aliyev being too close to Russia and about a need to pull him away from Putin. It appears the US is gradually getting what it wants because the US's role in this demarcation process is huge.
REPORTER: Is this also why Azerbaijan asked Russia to withdraw its military base from Nagorno-Karabakh? Was it under the US pressure?
YUNUSOV: I'm not entirely sure about the full details behind their withdrawal. I don't even know if they are truly being withdrawn because there is a motive to calm the Azerbaijani public that's anti-Russian.
There is also the fact that Russia was unable to deploy those peacekeepers on the AM-AZ border and push out the EU border monitoring mission from Armenia. Russia attempted to achieve this in December 2023 during a meeting in St. Petersburg but Pashinyan rejected Putin's efforts. Moreover, Pashinyan said that Armenia is no longer interested in the fate of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh and that this topic must be resolved between Russia and Azerbaijan. This was followed by Pashinyan's order to remove Russian agents from Yerevan's airport by August 2024. So Russia's effort to pressure Armenia with the hands of Azerbaijan has totally failed.
It's a strange situation, the withdrawal of peacekeepers. We don't know how many were removed and how many remain. I do not have information that the US pressured Azerbaijan to remove the Russian peacekeepers. [audio cuts off] The US is only strong when there is Armenia, during meetings, and we tend to receive information whenever Armenia is part of a negotiation process, whereas Azerbaijan-Russia talks are more secretive.
It appears Russia is withdrawing the equipment first because they need it ahead of the May offensive in Ukraine, before possibly a wider withdrawal by September.
Regarding the demarcation of the AM-AZ border, Russia understands that if the parties reach an agreement, that could mean the end of Russian presence in the South Caucasus. The AM-AZ border is a geopolitical issue. Russia will publicly formally welcome the delimitation efforts but it's not in their interest.
REPORTER: Why is France silent about the April 19 delimitation agreement?
YUNUSOV: France has adopted the correct position. First of all, Western states coordinate their policies [including on delimitation], but in each region, each Western state takes up a different position. For example, on the Ukraine issue, France provides support to Ukraine but the main locomotive is the US. In the South Caucasus, it's the opposite: the US provides the moderation efforts while the main locomotive - in this case, support for Armenia - is France. There is a crisis in FR-AZ relations. So France doesn't want to hinder the delimitation effort by intervening; they let the US handle it. There is currently an anti-French hysteria in Azerbaijan. The French endorsement of the AM-AZ delimitation agreement would be a big blow to the process.
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ruling party rejects opposition's motion to conduct the AM-AZ border delimitation based on 1993 "de facto" borders instead of 1991 Almaty borders

Context and debates in April 23 news digest. The opposition is against delimiting borders with the 1991 Almaty maps.
The opposition accuses the ruling party of serving Turkey's interests while the ruling party accuses the opposition of attempting to derail the 1991 delimitation process so they can drag Armenia into a new conflict before bringing the Russian "empire" as a savior to establish their rule in Armenia.
One thing that struck the ruling party's nerves was the opposition's narrative that "Armenia ends where the Armenian soldier stands". The ruling party believes that this principle is both dangerously expansionist [in the case of 2.5 Azeri villages] and would also endanger the fate of occupied Armenian lands. "We have a clear border with Azerbaijan, and it must be reproduced on the ground," said a ranking ruling party MP. Yesterday the government said over 50% of the task was done on a section of the Tavush-Gazakh border.
In response to the opposition's accusations that the ruling party serving the interests of Azerbaijan by "surrendering lands", a ruling MP accused the opposition of pressuring the government to surrender a corridor to Russia and Azerbaijan.
RULING MP: Mr. Sharmazanov [ex-president Serj's party] routinely says the quiet part out loud. At first, he spoke about the need to give a corridor [to Azerbaijan and Russia, via Syunik], and more recently he made another fantastic statement. Sharmazanov said "a homeland is eternal while a state is variable. The state's borders can expand or shrink." This stems from their mentality that today they are MPs of the Armenian parliament but tomorrow they could just as easily be Russian Duma MPs, representing the Armyanski Oblast. This is the clash of values: a stable state with borders vs. a "homeland" with variable borders. For us, the Republic of Armenia is irreplaceable and the independence of Armenia is non-negotiable. //
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the independent TV & radio regulator was summoned to parliament to report the 2023 activities

REGULATOR: Last year the broadcasters under our watch operated freely, without government intervention. The TV outlets stated that they were not pressured or obstructed by any branch of the government to limit their freedom of expression.
The issue persists with misinformation and hate speech, but our 3-year-long monitoring reveals that this negative content has been significantly reduced in public multiplex. This positive trend has multiple reasons, including our Committee's fight against the abuse of "freedom of speech". This type of negative content has, by in large, moved from television to the internet and social media.
We are strongly against the government's electoral code amendment that required private media outlets to allocate a limited number of free hours to candidates during electoral campaigns. How is this different from requiring gas stations to provide free gas to candidates? The media outlets are deprived of hours that they could use to generate income.
We've been calling for reforms in the law regulating the media. The 2020 law on liberalizing media regulations is a welcoming change. The field is free, with minimal intervention from the Committee (regulator) or the government.
However, this liberalization also endangers Armenia's media security. For example, foreign channels broadcasted over Armenia's public multiplex and cable often spread content illegal under Armenian law and against the Republic of Armenia's interests. The law does not grant the Committee enough powers to curtail this. At the moment, the Committee has jurisdiction over public multiplex TV and licensed radio channels only. This creates an uneven competition field with channels broadcasted over the net, which do not have to follow the same rules. Under European directives, a minimal level of regulation of internet content has become a requirement for European countries. We advise the government to follow European practices.
The public often wonders what share of cable TV content is in Armenian or made in Armenia. Our research reveals the content based on the country of origin: Armenian 71 (vs 68 last year), Russian 174 (vs 167), European 75, American 38, Other 15. As you can see, relevant parties should take steps to increase the share of Armenian content.
We have very important progress in another metric: Armenian-language programs aired over Armenian channels, nationwide or in Yerevan. The Armenian-language programs accounted for 95% of the air. This includes foreign content translated into Armenian or with Armenian subtitles.
2018: <60%
2020: 79%
2021: 81%
2023: 95%
We have progress in another important area. Over the last 3-4 years, on the public multiplex, the share of partisan ideological content has been gradually replaced by content more beneficial to the general public. For example, (1) we now have a sports program that promotes the development of local sports and provides coverage of local events. (2) We have a family channel called Noor available in Yerevan. Despite some challenges and flaws, they are doing their best to establish themselves as a family channel. (3) We have an educational channel Bun. (4) We have a music channel Dar21.
By in large, the public multiplex still falls short of delivering what we envisage. We believe the time has come to adopt a new state strategy on media to prevent a crisis. We could have a crisis because the state has too many regulations and not enough incentives to allow channels to use their slots to generate income and produce quality content.
We fear that during the next auction for slots in 2027, several slots could be left uncontested, which could pave the way for the entry of propagandistic channels or clearly weak channels unable to deliver quality content. If the channels fail to generate income, they could also be sold to foreign buyers. Therefore, some channels could begin to serve the interests of foreign states and serve foreign propaganda to Armenian citizens.
We advise the government to...
(1) reduce the number of channels on public multiplex. It's an unreasonably high number for a country size of Armenia. Fewer public multiplex channels means each channel would receive more ad dollars, which would raise the quality of content.
(2) establish a media assistance fund to incentivize quality content over the public multiplex.
How do we monitor media channels for compliance? The monitoring phase lasts 2 months per year. In Lithuania and Georgia, it's 1 month. The rest of the time the monitoring is done by NGOs, the public, and other institutions.
We penalized 34 companies for broadcasting pirated content. This is a shamefully high number. There are unfortunately companies that do not respect intellectual property. The only option left is to ramp up the enforcement. The atmosphere of impunity among channels is driven by the fact that the size of the penalty is only $130, which is a lot less than what they'd spend on obtaining the rights to the content.
We've been enforcing rules more vigorously, and in 2023 alone there were 64 administrative proceedings. In comparison, between 2011-2018 there were a total of 17 such proceedings.
2011-2018: 17
2021: 84
2023: 64
Reasons for administrative proceedings: copyright violation, illegal ads, content harmful to children, gore & violence, cussing on air, failure to meet the minimum threshold of 20% for certain types of content, etc.
In December we made a decision to suspend the re-broadcasting of [Russian] Sputnik Radio for a month. We were accused of violating their free speech [by Armenia's opposition factions], however, the radio's leadership visited Armenia, apologized for their content, and agreed to exclude the violating show [Kremlin propagandist Tigran Keosayan] from their programming aired in Armenia. We lifted the suspension.
Once again, the Committee reminds that it will suspend any foreign outlet that broadcasts content that spreads hatred towards the Republic of Armenia or its people, interferes with Armenia's internal affairs, questions Armenia's sovereignty, or engages in provocative actions.
Along with increased enforcement, we also have more complaints filed against our decisions in courts, which shows that the enforcement & appeals process is functioning freely. Sometimes we lose these trials. We learn and gain experience.
We recently signed the first-ever agreement with a country outside Eurasia. The agreement with friendly Argentina's state media agency will allow Armenia's public channel to film a big սերիալ.
The Committee is cooperating with the high-tech ministry to use AI in our work to save resources and raise efficiency.
ASSYRIAN-ARMENIAN MP: The law requires television to provide content in the Assyrian language. Similar programs exist for Yezidis but not Assyrians.
REGULATOR: The law requires the content to be either in Assyrian language or about Assyrian culture. The latter requirement was met.
ASSYRIAN-ARMENIAN MP: But we would like to hear content, speech, in Assyrian language.
REGULATOR: We want to do that by requiring local television channels [presumably where Assyrians mostly live] to provide content in Assyrian language, rather than requiring the public channel to broadcast that content nationwide, because the vast majority of nationwide consumers would not be able to consume content in a language they do not speak. It should be more targeted. Assyrian subtitles on public nationwide channels are also an option so submit your suggestion and we'll negotiate with H1.
RULING MP: I welcome your decision to take action against [Kremlin's] Solovyov and Keosayan for their anti-Armenian and anti-Armenian Republic content, but people wonder why you don't take similar measures against others, like [Kremlin's] Kisilyov. What have you done in this regard and what suggestions have you sent to the high-tech ministry?
REGULATOR: Our Committee has the authority to suspend re-broadcasted radio channels, as in the case of Sputnik, but we cannot suspend television channels. We can only send complaints to the high-tech ministry so they can take action against TV channels based on the AM-RU interstate agreement. We have been frequently sending reports to our high-tech ministry, and after 3 years of inaction, they finally decided to take steps recently. You already know about their actions against Solovyov's content. The ministry is working with Russia to replace the [empty] Solovyov timeslot with other cultural or entertainment content. You can forget about Solovyov. As a reminder, this program was banned in Armenia not for being "anti-Armenian", which is a vague term, but for violating specific laws of Armenia. They often call for violence, incite steps to launch a war, etc. Even Armenian channels are not allowed to broadcast such content. We need to revise the AM-RU interstate agreement to grant the Committee more powers to regulate foreign channels as well. In the future, we should entirely ban all foreign channels on Armenia's public multiplex.
RULING MP: What is Shoghakat TV, who owns it, and does its content meet the requirements? [It's the channel operated by the church]
REGULATOR: Shoghakat was formerly called a religious-cultural channel. Under the new law, it must broadcast cultural-educational content; its genre legally is not religious-cultural. A recent study shows that the share of religious content is too high and it must be reduced by raising the share of cultural-educational programs to meet the requirements. The channel is receiving funds from the state and must therefore meet the cultural-educational programming requirements.
RULING MP: In other words, Shoghakat is a public channel, at least in part financed by the taxpayers, and does not provide the content it is legally required to? Religious content is not a bad thing but we must be mindful of the state resources.
REGULATOR: It's co-financed by the church and state. Shoghakat is also operating from a building owned by the church, and not the public TV.
OPPO MP: Isn't it time to also regulate the TV channels' social media accounts on Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok? They get more views than the content aired over the public multiplex. Children consume dangerous content on YouTube and TikTok. There are countries that are attempting to regulate it. Can Armenia do this? There are also unlicensed channels on the internet that spread whatever they want. How do we regulate all of this?
REGULATOR: This morning the EU's Ursula von der Leyen announced the possibility of banning TikTok in the EU. The same about the US. Even the most democratic states restrict platforms that pose a danger to their societies. It will be expensive to technologically restrict these platforms in Armenia but we must consider any measure that would protect the Armenian society. Armenia is falling behind the EU directives in terms of content restrictions.
OPPO MP: Today a 9-year-old boy sees as many naked girls in one day as the world's richest sultan throughout his whole life. This is going to have a negative impact on children. The same about narcotics. When are we going to amend the law to regulate this?
REGULATOR: In the case of the 9 y/o boy, the most important institutions are the school, parents, and the surrounding environment. As for regulating the media field, I've been saying this for 4 years and this appears to be a bipartisan issue so let's get together and decide how to regulate it.
RULING MP: Under the existing media regulation law, foreign companies are not allowed to operate a cable service in Armenia. Why is Rostelecom able to operate? Should we lift the ban on all foreign firms or should we ban Rostelecom?
REGULATOR: I believe they meet the requirement by not owning over 49% of the company shares. I believe 51% of their shares belong to an Armenian resident company. In their defense, Rostelecom has voluntarily banned Solovyov's show in Armenia.
full report, source,

անախորժ միջադեպ պառլամենտի բակում

The bodyguard of Armenia/ARF MP Levon Kocharyan, the son of ex-president Robert Kocharyan, is accused of punching and knocking down a journalist in the backyard of the parliament building after the outlet's criticism of opposition churchman and his portrayal as a corrupt agent of Russia.
REPORTER (Davit Levonyan, civic.am, affiliated with ruling party): After finishing an interview with a ruling party MP, I noticed that Levon Kocharyan's assistant/bodyguard Arthur Sukoyan was waiting nearby. He approached me and asked to speak for 2 minutes. I asked my operator to stand a bit further from us so we could talk. The bodyguard attempted to provoke a fight. He was unhappy about my opinion about churchman Bagrat [the co-organizer of the opposition's road closures in Tavush] and he said my actions were blasphemy. I said dear Arthur I have the right to free speech and I don't force my opinion on others, and that he can express his own opinion and that I don't really care about his opinion. He went on to escalate it into a physical fight in a way to present it as "two boys fighting" rather than hooliganism. He began to cuss at me. I said, "If you think I'm that type of person then I can say the same about you". I never punched him, knowing well that it was a provocation. He punched me and knocked me to the ground. I got up and cussed at him but chose not to fight. I told him that "you and the likes of you will answer for this". I wanted to verify whose assistant he was so he said Kocharyan's, and he invited me to his office to "settle the dispute". I told him to get the hell out of here and that he will answer later pa lyubomu.
QUESTION: Were there witnesses and is there a video recording?
REPORTER: My operator witnessed it and it was in front of the parliament building's security cameras. //
The alleged suspect, Arthur Sukoyan, is the son of Judge Alexei Sukoyan whose duties as a judge were terminated by SJC last year for "severe violations".
OPPO MP (Mher Sahakyan): That guy has no right to be called a journalist because I've seen his video [about the opposition churchman] and as a Christian Armenian, it's prosto unacceptable for me. Are you telling me you can describe a representative of a church any way you like and not answer for it? //
MP Mher Sahakyan himself was arrested last year after punching a ruling party MP and forcing him to get stitches.
What was the outlet's report that angered Kocharyan's bodyguard? The outlet accused the churchman of serving Russian interests and owning a meat production business in Tavush. A fact-checker has found that the churchman is indeed reported as a 25% shareholder of the company but the company says the churchman hasn't received profits. The ruling faction accuses the church of unethically using the church's media resources to advertise the "churchman's meat business".
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PM Pashinyan hosted the European Commission's Director-General of EU Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations

Pashinyan considered the AM-EU-US high-level meeting held in Brussels on April 5 as key and emphasized the need for effective implementation of the agreements reached.
Koopman noted that the European Commission is ready to contribute to the implementation of the priorities of the Armenian government to strengthen the resilience of Armenia and its economic growth.
Koopman expressed confidence that Armenia-EU relations will continue to develop and expand dynamically. The interlocutors discussed a wide range of issues related to Armenia-EU cooperation.

... On Tuesday Armenia, the EU, and Germany signed an agreement to reduce the Armenian rural population's reliance on imported Russian gas

They want to help low-income villagers and municipal buildings of Tavush, Shirak, Gegharkunik, and Syunik provinces to switch to solar energy. It will include solar water heaters, etc.
EUROPEAN COMMISSION rep.: The EU-Armenia relations are stronger than ever and the EU's dedication to Armenia is reflected in the agreements reached on April 5 in Brussels. This is a 3-year program worth €12.5 million.
GERMAN EMBASSY: Why not use the sun's energy for daily activities? Yesterday we noticed on our faces and skins how powerful the Armenian sun is. [please SPF 100 yourselves]
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World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a $116 million program for Armenia to enable reforms aimed at promoting green, resilient and inclusive development

It includes a $100 million loan from IBRD and a $16 million grant. This budget support will help the Government of Armenia to build climate resilience and reduce vulnerabilities to future shocks, as part of the 2021-2026 plan.

It includes actions that will fortify anti-corruption measures by implementing a robust framework with a whistleblowing system and gift monitoring mechanism for public servants. Further, it is aligned with the Paris Agreement.

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Azerbaijani regime arrested another pro-democracy activist as part of a crackdown on an independent outlet

Mammadli, the head of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, had his home raided by the police and was detained on Monday on charges of smuggling.
EUROPEAN UNION: This detention is the latest in a series of arrests of independent journalists & activists, and a matter of concern for the EU. All those imprisoned for exercising their fundamental rights should be released.
UNITED STATES: We are deeply concerned about the ongoing arrests of representatives of the Azerbaijani political society, in particular, Anar Mammadli. We call on the government of Azerbaijan to immediately release all those unjustly arrested. We continue to call on the government of Azerbaijan to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all.
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Armenia's Ambassador to the US Lilith Makunts met the experts of the US-based analytical center RAND that recently advised the West to provide defense assistance to Armenia and not to pressure Armenia to cut all ties with Russia prematurely

Ambassador Makunts presented the latest developments in the AM-AZ peace process and the Crossroads of Peace logistics process.
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Hungary is blocking the €10 million military assistance to Armenia

Context in April 17 news digest. Hungary is so far preventing the transfer of European Peace Facility resources to provide Armenia with a mobile field camp capability for a battalion-size unit, including a medical treatment facility as well as relevant services and facilities
Armenia submitted the application for funding in 2023. Georgia had earlier received €30 million in assistance as part of the same fund. They received equipment for controlling artillery divisions and engineering equipment.
Hungary, led by Turkish-Azeri-Russian ally Orban, demands that Azerbaijan receive assistance with demining activities in exchange for authorizing the transfer to Armenia. However, since Azerbaijan has not formally requested assistance with demining, it's possible the process could reach a dead end. The internal negotiations continue.
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Armenia's Defense Minister discussed AM-FR defence cooperation and army reforms with a French Senator

MOD Papikyan hosted Ronan Le Gloyot from the French Senate Committees on Foreign Relations, Defense, Armed Forces and European Affairs. The parties discussed AM-FR defense ties, the AM-EU ties, the Armenian army reforms, etc.
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Armenia and France discussed cooperation in military industry and aerospace (🤔)

High-Tech Minister Mkhitar Hayrapetyan hosted the French Senate delegation led by Ronan Le Gloyot. They discussed cybersecurity, digitization, the establishment and operation of French high-tech firms in Armenia, defense, military industry, and aerospace cooperation.
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France donates 4 diesel power generators with 100 kW to city halls and hospitals in Syunik

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Saudi Arabia's ethnic Armenian Prince Abdulaziz bin Talal Al Saud will visit Armenia

The agreement was reached during the recent visit by Armenia's Labor Minister to SA. The Prince and the Minister also agreed to establish cooperation between the Prince's AGFUND and Armenia's labor ministry.
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Armenia's Central Bank continues to cut the refinancing rate

2020: 4.25%
2022: 10.75%
2023: 9.25%
Jan 2024: 8.75%
Mar 2024: 8.50%
Apr 2024 8.25%
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Armenian migrant workers are sending fewer remittances from Russia and could find working in Armenia more beneficial

The net inflow of individuals' remittances from Russia in Q1 2024 amounted to $656.6 million compared to $1.1 billion in Q1 2023.
CENTRAL BANK: There is a decline this year due to economic and geopolitical issues, the exchange rate, and the ratio of salaries. It is necessary to have an understanding of whether Armenian migrant workers plan to continue working in Russia. Some prefer to return to Armenia and work here, as the difference in salaries now is much smaller than, for example, 10 years ago.
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agreement is signed to build a World Trade Center in Yerevan

Details in September 7 news digest.
Construction company RenShin presented the $212 million project to the government for approval. It's expected to create 10,000 jobs. There will be 4- and 5-star hotels as well.
PASHINYAN: It will be in place of the HayPost [post office] building on 22 Saryan St. Modern construction standards will be introduced in Armenia. Since our independence, there has never been a complex of this scale. It will help Armenia raise the "we are open for business" flag.
MHER GRIGORYAN: Armenia is the only country in the region without a World Trade Center. Being the last means we can have the best quality and newest technology. //
Armenia-based Renshen will invite the international architectural giant Norman Foster, known for developing the Apple Park in California, Germany's Reichstag Building, New York skyscraper Hearst Tower, the City Hall of Southwark (London), Millennium Bridge in London, Bilbao Metro, and more.
Who will own the complex? 50% investors, 30% HayPost, 20% Government. The company will buy HayPost's shares within the next 5 years. The revenue will help develop HayPost. It will have a new modern sorting facility to handle more parcels.
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16-year-old boy survives a fall from Kievian Bridge

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Yerevan's Yeritasardakan subway station has new lighting: VIDEO

It's the first of several to come.
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Hello everyone!! This has been on my mind for a very long time so here I am presenting my case before the Honorable Judge Charlotte. First off this is my first time on Reddit so please be a little kind secondly, English is not my first language, so I am sorry in advance if there are any grammatical errors. I am sorry if this is too long.
So, I (21 F) met this guy, let's call him Ken, at an event when I was in university. He was the roommate of my best friend's boyfriend and we clicked instantly when we met. We became almost inseparable to the point where my roommate started teasing me about it but from the very first day, I had a very clear idea of a purely platonic friendship with him. We became closer he always used to tell me that I reminded me of his older sister. We used to hang out all the time and had the same group of friends. At the same time, I had another very close friend let's call her Sally. I always thought Sally was the kind of sweet, innocent, and naive girl who has always lived in the protection of her parents and knew less about the outside world. We had some things in common and we became great friends. We lived in the same hostel, and she became very close to me to the point that I told her she was like a younger sister to me. I am an only child, and I lost my younger sister when she was an infant, hence, it was sort of a big deal for me.
Sally was part of the same friend group as Ken and started to develop feelings for Ken. This kept on for a while and one day Sally asked me if I liked Ken, and I said I didn't and then she confessed to me that she had a crush on Ken. The next day I subtly started to enquire Ken if he had feelings for her, which I thought he did, and he said yes. I urged him to pursue her, and they ended up together. I was beyond ecstatic. Everything was in place I had great friends and amazing grades; this was the reason Ken would ask me to help him out with his assignments. I was a freelance writer and had a good command of language and academic writing. I always said yes to him because he was my best friend. Sally seemed a little salty about that but when confronted she would always deny it. Our friendship was thriving I got her a summer internship in my home city and took her to my house and a family wedding, she also developed a close bond with my family.
Everything seemed amazing until we returned from the summer break, Sally started being distant, especially after Ken's birthday celebration, and I did not understand why. I was told later that it was because Ken loved my gift a lot. My best friend and my roommate were both telling me these were the red flags. I did not pay much mind to it as it was third-party information.
One day out of nowhere my best friend Meg and her boyfriend, Ken's roommate, told me that Sally was cheating on Ken. I did not believe them at first but then he showed me screenshots of Snapchat conversations he took when he confronted the guy with whom she was cheating. He told me the guy, who was a senior in Ken's class and friends with Ken told him that Sally was trying to woo him when he was drunk. Meg's boyfriend was smart enough to take the pictures on his phone of the chats. I was speechless, he asked me if we should tell Ken as we were both his good friends, and he had the right to know. I was conflicted for a while because it would ruin Ken and Sally's relationship but then decided he had the right to know.
When we told Ken he was livid. He decided to confront Sally. He asked us to be with him in the college cafeteria when he did that, but we decided to give them some space and sit at a different table. After 5 or so minutes we saw that they were hugging each other, Ken came to us and told us that Sally confessed and apologized and that the guy must have led her on. I wanted to say something, but I did not because Sally was throwing me dirty looks. By this point, Sally was insistent that I should stay away from Ken. To satisfy her insecurities Ken set me up with a guy, it was technically my first relationship, but things did not work out between us, and we broke up in a month. During that one month, we went on a trip together, three couples me, my boyfriend, Meg and her boyfriend, and Sally and Ken. Sally had some financial issues so I paid for half of her very expensive hotel room and car rental price because I did want to make her feel. It did not seem like much at the time as my parents covered my part of the trip and I was making a good sum of money through a part-time job. During that trip, Sally constantly tried to sideline me and one-up me even before Meg. By that time, I was under the impression that if I offended her, I would end up offending Ken so I let it slide.
The next year Meg's roommate moved to another place so there was an empty bed in her room. We decided to let Sally move in and that turned out to be a mistake. Once Sally moved in with Meg who lived right in the next room to me. After she moved in Ken started getting more and more distant, he only ever talked to me when he was either drunk, very sad, or needed me to do one of his assignments. I confronted Sally about it and it resulted in a huge argument. Ken was a little apologetic about it and told me he would make it up to me and we decided to go watch a movie the next day, but on the next day, he again ditched me because, surprise, surprise, he was with Sally, and she needed him that day. (During this time, I started seeing this amazing guy we liked all the same kinds of things, on our first date he gifted me a book by my favorite author. I loved fantasy novels, and I am a sucker for Greek Mythology books, so needless to say that book was special to me). I missed my best friend and I always said yes to help him with assignments. Even on the day of our farewell party in my senior year of college, I was making a presentation for his project and did not even have time to get ready properly when everyone in my class, including Sally, was looking spectacular and I was not. Even after the Party I had to stay up for a while to do his work.
What happened the next day of the party was the last straw. Meg had been complaining about her cash being missing from her wallet for the first few times we thought she must have misplaced it but then more things started to go missing. My roommate lost some cash, a watch that we gifted to her along with a very expensive perfume. One day I realized the book I got from my date was missing, there were other things, the keychain gifted to me by Ken, and one more Keychain that was shaped like Luna Lovegood's wand. I told Meg and she told me about her missing cash and some other cosmetics. We complained about it to the Hostel warden, and she checked our cupboards and found all of these things in Sally's cupboard hidden under her clothes, except for the cash. She stole from us.
She started to make all sorts of excuses and blamed us for bullying her but it was of no use she was caught red-handed. She moved to another room with one of her other friends. Within the hour of this happening Ken blocked me on all the social media platforms. He avoided me altogether. He would change his path if he saw me coming. It was heartbreaking but at this point, I was pretty much done with all the drama and decided to focus on my final exams. I decided to go back home as soon as I was done with my exams and wait to get into the master's program. Even on my last day on campus, I waited to see if Ken would come to bid me goodbye but to no avail. He never showed up. I thought we would never speak again and was okay with it.
Two months ago, I received a call from him, I did not recognize the number as I deleted his number. I did recognize the voice though. He greeted me like everything was normal and then proceeded with a half-hearted apology mixed with blaming me for abandoning him, bullying his girlfriend, and accusing her of stealing. I explained to him that I neither bullied her nor accused her of anything. She was caught red-handed. He changed the topic and requested me to unblock him. I thought he genuinely wanted to reconcile and unblocked him, but I was not too keen on trusting him this time. It went on well for a while. But then a couple of days back I got a call from him, he was ranting about how Sally was not sure about their future and went on a date with a guy on Tinder. I sympathized with him and let him rant for a while then I ended the call as my shift was about to start. The next day he called me again and told me he and Sally were back together and then went on about how Sally was not happy with him telling me about their relationship and started bitching about Meg, my best friend, and proceeded to tell me how she was a bad friend, and she poisoned our friendship and how she and her boyfriend talked shit about me behind my back. This was my last straw I told him I would not hear anything about my best friend and how my friendship with her was very strong as we had been real friends to each other, unlike him who was shallow and selfish and had no backbone. I told him never to call me again even when his shitty gf cheated on him again. He tried to defend himself, but I told him I was done with him, and I ended the call and blocked him from everywhere.
So, AITA for blocking my guy best friend when he tried to reconcile with me?
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I wrote about this in a comment elsewhere but I figure that this would be a fun discussion for everyone: what was the craziest thing your pwBPD ever did to you?
I’m just going to tell the shortest possible version for both of my exes with BPD: the first I dated for almost 2 horrible mind-destroying years and the latter for 7 frustrating months.

1. He signed me up for the Enfamil family beginnings program where new parents can get free formula samples, coupons, etc. during the infant formula shortage crisis. I was not only still a virgin but also on the birth control implant which has a 0.01% chance of failing. Deranged behavior and a frankly sociopathic way to try to get me to unblock him without the risk of him getting in legal trouble since I couldn’t prove he did it and if I could prove he did it he could claim it wasn’t threatening in any way. I received 2-3 tubs of free infant formula and coupons for baby stuff in the mail for 2 months straight before I reached out to Enfamil and basically said there was never a baby or even a pregnancy. Just a deranged pathetic little man. He still stalks me online and emails me on occasion.
2. We broke up (he started it I just wouldn’t let him back down) and I told him I would be mailing him his things since he lived 4 hours away and there was no way I would allow him to drive back to my house or see me in person. I kept him unblocked so I could tell him when I mailed it but unfortunately he squandered my goodwill by texting me over 70 times during the 45 minute window I was eating dinner with my family and sent one video which I never even looked at the thumbnail of. Blocked. Immediately after he discovered I blocked him everywhere, he texted my mom to ask when he could drop by the house to pick up his things since I blocked him before we could schedule a time. Bro. How stupid do you have to be to think that’s a smart idea? My mom was the first person I told and she also has BPD (she’s her own can of emotionally abusive codependent worms). You can’t outdo the doer man ofc she blocked your ass after telling you in no uncertain terms that you were not welcome back at her house and that we would mail you your shit just I told you before. So dumb.

Well there’s my stories. I would love to hear yours. The decisions these people make when they’re desperately trying to hoover and regain access to their supply is always the truest manifestation of their illness in my opinion. The amount of delusion and grandiosity it takes to think any of that is a good idea and would work in getting someone back is beyond my comprehension. But ofc I’ll take stories from splitting too. I’m just so used to splitting from my childhood with my mother that I don’t even view it as being that crazy anymore. “Just mom having one of her episodes again” lmao.

For context, I attend an art school with a gender split of roughly 70% female and 30% male. This student has been preying on all female students, and despite our efforts, the school barely acknowledges it. We even got him 51/50d, but it made no difference. I'm starting to wonder what else we can do before he violates more students.
I had all of my classes with him freshman year, and he seemed like a normal guy. He had completed a year in a more competitive program before failing out, and he spent our freshman year undecided and without completing any assignments, which I found odd. We'd talk about classes and stuff, I knew he was from Ghana and enjoyed boxing, but that was about it.
Then, about a month ago (we're now sophomores), people began approaching me about him. They noticed I followed him on Instagram from freshman year and wanted to know if I knew him because they'd been dealing with his harassment. He's started this wild rampage where he approaches every women he sees on campus and asks for their Instagram, even those who are obviously not interested or lesbians. He asks invasive or sexual questions, behaves erratically, and doesn't take no for an answer. If they block his Instagram he will track them down to force them to unblock him. He's cornering girls in elevators, hallways, and other places where they can't easily escape. He's relentless, following them back to their dorms or waiting for them outside buildings. There are multiple stories from RAs of him following them back to their dorm after working late in the studio.
One girl I know tried inviting him over for a hookup before a lot of this went down, and it turned into a nightmare. He went on a deranged rant about past sexual abuse he had endured, the women he's been harassing, his girlfriend that he's cheating on, and then he attempted to sexually assault her twice. Luckily, she managed to kick him out, but she didn't feel comfortable reporting it afterward. I'm sure he's sexually assaulted multiple women at this point but it's hard to know how many are being reported to the school because it seems like the victims just want to move on, especially because its finals season and everyone is super busy.
He also started sending bizarre messages to a close friend about everyone conspiring against him, not sleeping for a week, and wanting to join God again. My friend got freaked out and called the school which is when he was put under a psych hold, but after a week he was back with no change in his behavior. Apparently, he's been diagnosed with BPD, but he's obviously not getting the treatment he needs because he's still tweaking during conversations and cornering women. I’m not sure if it's drugs, a manic episode, a boxing head injury, or something else, but he's definitely a danger to other students.
I've thought about gathering together a group that he's assaulted and going to the school together to get him expelled, but nobody wants to get further involved. Title IX cases at my school are notorious for being drawn-out, invasive, and having zero confidentially/protection for the victims. It feels like we need to wait for him to actually r*pe someone before the school takes the situation seriously, and that feels just unacceptable. Does anyone have suggestions on how to navigate this?