Maggie: Hey everyone. It is Tuesday, April 7. And today, we are heading inside one of the world's biggest tech companies to see how a princess and her unlikely group of hackers are working to keep you safe.
I am Maggie Rulli and Channel One News starts right now.
Let's start off with headlines, and first up, it was a story that created national outrage and led to the suspension of a fraternity at the University of Virginia. Now Rolling Stone magazine has retracted, taken back its account of an alleged sexual assault after an investigation by a top journalism school.
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism released a report about the Rolling Stone story, saying the magazine failed in its reporting, editing and fact-checking.
The story, about a woman known as Jackie, detailed a rape at thePhi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia.
Questions were raised almost immediately about inconsistencies in the story. The Columbia journalism investigation found that the author of the article, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, didn't give the fraternity, where the alleged assault took place, enough information to investigate.
It also says Rolling Stone did not do enough to identify the alleged attacker.
Erdely interviewed Jackie eight times and pressed her to reveal his last name, but she refused, saying she feared for her safety.
Apolice investigation ended in March and could find "no basis" to support Jackie's account in the magazine. The Rolling Stone reporter has apologized, calling the report "brutal and humbling."
And the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity said yesterday, it is going to sue the magazine.
Now, we all know that binge drinking, having more than five alcoholic drinks at a time, is bad for you. But a new study says there is evidence that the damage can last more than just one night.
Researchers found that binge drinking by teens can result in genetic changes that slow brain development at a critical time. The study shows that such early exposure to gene and brain disruption can promote anxiety and excessive drinking into adulthood.
The research was conducted not on teens, but on young rats at the University of Illinois.
And it showed that rats who drank alcohol during the young years wanted to drink more when they became adults.
Alright, now are you one of the millions caught up in March Madness fever?
Well, last night was themen's NCAA basketball championship, pitting powerhouse Duke University against the growing force at the University of Wisconsin.
And it was the Blue Devils that took home the win. It is the fifth time that Duke has won the tournament.
Going into the championship, it was a toss-up who would come out on top with no team being a clear leader.
And it is not over yet. The women's championship game takes place tomorrow night pitting UConn verse Notre Dame.
Alright coming up next, April showers bring may flowers, right? But what happens if those showers never come?
Today's weather forecast for California predicts something that people there haven't seen much of for months, rain; and while the state will take as much of it as they can get, this rain won't do much to make up for this winter's epic drought.
Scott Evans shows us how the landscape of California is starting to change.
Scott: This is becoming a familiar scene in Southern California, home owners ripping out lawns and replacing them with a more drought friendly landscape.
Ryan Nivakoff: We are on a kind of wave of a new era of landscaping in Southern California, and hopefully in California in general.
Scott: California is struggling undera severe 4-year-drought.
NASA recently warned the state only has one year water supply left in its reservoirs.
That's why last week, California Governor Jerry Brown ordered residents to cut 25 percentof their water use.
Governor Jerry Brown: And there will be some heartache here, there will be some who have different views. But this is my best judgment.
Scott: One of the ways the mandate hopes to reduce water use is by eliminating 50 million square feet of grass.
Now 50 million square feet may sound like a lot, but it really isn’t. Not when you put it in perspective. It is just under 1,000 football fields. And businesses like golf courses, cemeteries and college campuses which use most of their water to keep grass green will be forced to reduce their usage or pay big fines.
Californians are also changing habits and making water conservation a priority.
Sarah Feakins: Personally, at home I fill a bucket while I’m waiting for the shower to warm up and then I use that for other things, like flushing the toilet.
Scott: Brown says every bit helps.
Gov. Brown: Turning off that faucet a little quicker, getting out of the shower a little faster, and not flushing the toilet every time.
Scott: But water officials say only about 12 percent of the state's water use comes from Californians at home.
So where is all the water going?
Farming.
California's Central Valley is some of the richest farmland in the world. Nearly half of all the nation's fruits, vegetables, and nuts are grown here. Agriculture accounts for just 2 percent of the state's economy, but uses roughly 80 percent of California's usable water.
The recent order to cut doesn't apply to the farming industry. But they will have to start reporting how much water they are pumping from the ground, something that has never been done before.
Henry Gonzales: Growers generally do not what to share that information. They consider it their trade secret.
Scott: A secret they will no longer be able to hide.
Jay Famiglietti: I don't think we can sustain agriculture at the level that we have been. The water supply just isn't there.
Scott: Scott Evans, Channel One News.
Maggie: Thanks Scott.
Alright coming up, we are going to meet Google's top secret weapon. And get this, she is a princess.
If you are thinking about what comes next after high school, you might want to think about hacking. Yes, you can actually make a career out of it if you go work for the good guys.
Today, Arielle Hixson introduces us to some of the smartest minds in tech who are working to keep your computers safe.
Arielle: It is still before dawn and Parisa Tabriz is pulling herself up a climbing wall at Google's Silicon Valley campus.
Here in the heartland of high tech, where women often struggle to get to the top, Parisa has become a role model.
At any other company, Tabriz might be called "security manager," but here at Google,
she is the "security princess."
Parisa Tabriz: Yep, it's a self-appointed title.
Arielle: And as princess, she rules over a team of 30 hackers.
Tabriz: Managing 30 hired hackers is fun, exciting. You get something new every day.
Arielle: Although her team works for Google, they spend their days trying to break in to Google's software.
Tabriz: I try to find bugs in Google's products, and then remove those so that people who are criminals can't take advantage of them and then harm users.
Arielle: The goal is to beat a growing number of criminal hackers at their own game.
In recent years, hundreds of millions of people have been victimized by cyber-attacks on companies ranging from major retailers to financial institutions to tech giants to the entertainment industry.
Even at some of the world's biggest companies, it takes just a single person and one wrong click for hackers to break in.
Tarbriz: For better or worse, humans are the weak link in security.
Arielle: Like if you get an email that says, “Hey, check this out. It really works,” it could be a hacker.
So Parisa and her team built this protective software into Google's Chrome browser.
You could also argue that Parisa is doing another kind of hacking.
Tabriz: A majority of the people working in information security are guys. But I'm hoping to change that.
Arielle: In Silicon Valley, the center of high tech in California, women make up to only 11 percent of executives and just 23 percent of the entire tech workforce.
When Parisa spoke at a conference of young hackers last year, part of her goal was to urge the girls to stick with it.
Tabriz: The attendance was 50-50 girls and boys. And all of the girls were as active in participating in the activities, as confident in answering questions.
Arielle: She tells both girls and boys that you don't have to grow up building computers to master computer programming.
Tabriz: I’m someone who didn't learn how to program until my first year of college.
Arielle: And Parisa says, you don't have to be a geek, at least not all the time. She has had enough adventures to prove it. From meeting camels in Morocco, to making gelato in Italy, on her days off you are more likely to find her staring at a rock face than at a computer screen.
In an industry dominated by men, Tabriz has succeeded by never being intimidated.
Now a good reminder from the princess, never click on links from people you don't know, even if they act like they know you.
Maggie: Thanks Arielle.
Alright, and if you guys think you know all the tricks for how to stay safe on line, test yourself by taking our quiz over at Channelone.com.
Alright, well that's going to do it for us today. I am Maggie Rulli.
Arielle: I am Arielle Hixson.
Maggie: And we cannot wait to see you tomorrow.
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