Performance Audit University Of Pittsburgh: Fill & Download for Free

Why yes, Ms. Brooks, I remember it vividly. The first time was also the last.I arrived at kindergarten at age four already reading The Wall Street Journal.When Mrs. Pool found out, she sent me to see Mr. Collins for diagnostic testing to assess what grade I belonged in.Results led them to suggest that I transfer to a private school where I could receive more individual instruction & stimulation. We couldn’t afford it. As an option they recommended that I be promoted to a grade commensurate with my reading level.My mother was adamantly opposed on the grounds that as an only child I needed to socialize with children my age.That didn’t happen. In fact, it backfired.Mrs. Pool sent me to the first-grade classes to be a reading coach. I invite you to imagine the attitudes of those older children & how much “socialization” I received.When I was not being paraded around like a little oddity, I was confined to a corner of the kindergarten room to sit on the floor under a table where I would not disturb the other children at play. I was not allowed to play. In as much as I could read, I was forced to. Library books were my only friends.Recently my mother told me that Mrs. Pool told her that I often selected books beneath my ability in hopes of attracting other students to read with. I don’t remember that. What I do remember was a sparse K-6 school library ALL of whose selections were beneath my ability.The librarian, Mrs. Stivers, began bringing me books from home & the public library.Remember: At home I was reading The Wall Street Journal & The Tulsa World daily, supplemented by my parents’ college text books & whatever my father brought home from work.Is it any wonder I hated school?The exception to my hatred of school was the time I spent in the Shawnee-Mission South (KS) school district, 4th, 6th, 7th, & half of 8th grades. (During my 5th grade year we were back in Tulsa.) Their curricula permitted students to advance at their own rate. I easily mastered the assigned learning objectives, performed the experiments, wrote the papers, whatever was asked, when I was allowed to write my own learning objectives and study pretty much anything I wanted to independently.In Overland Park I thrived.Midway through 8th grade my parents & I moved to Pittsburgh & the North Allegheny school district. I wanted to commit suicide.I made the best of it by auditing classes at the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne (Latin), & Carnegie-Mellon.Mr. Collins may have been my friend, or tried to be, but he was the last.

Q. I am 14 years old and considering Rice University as a possible school, what are some things that would help me get there? What are some tips to get in and steps I should take along the way?A2A: Rice is a great school. It remains very competitive, despite having increased the size of the freshmen class by 30% in recent years. For 2017, I interviewed many applicants, but only one was accepted. This is lower than prior years. Rice doesn’t do much legacy. Only one child among my suite mates was accepted.You should show passion in your studies. Take advantage of everything your school offers. All the AP classes, and if too meager, community college, online classes. Be fluent in a foreign language, travel widely if possible. Seek out scholarship opportunities to attend summer programs. Perform well on standardized tests. Be a National Merit Scholar semi/finalist.You should show passion in non-academic pursuits. Perhaps varsity sports, cheer leading, band/orchestra, scout, debate, chess, coding … Win/place in events. Rice participates in Division I athletics. It is always on the lookout for potential Academic All Americans.You should demonstrate the ability to multitask and explore in depth your vocation. If you want to study premed - shadow doctors, volunteer in the ER, hospice. If you want to pursue engineering, join robotic teams, learn to code, hack.You should show an interest in your community or service, over a long period. Start a club, tutor, be a leader, volunteer, make a difference …You should show an interest in Rice and what makes it unique. Early decision acceptance is 23%. An 8% margin over regular decision.All the best!The following are for later in the application process.US News National UniversitiesNiche RankingPrep ScholarsAdmission StatisticsAdmission at Rice University is an individualized and holistic admission process which examines the entirety of an applicant's academic prowess, creativity, motivation, unique talents, leadership potential and life experiences. In making a decision to admit a student to Rice, we are careful not to ascribe too much value to any single metric, such as class rank, GPA, or SAT/ACT scores. We use a broader perspective that includes such qualitative factors as the overall strength of a student's academic program and the ways in which a student has engaged in their community.We provide these admission statistics to give prospective students a general picture of the freshman applicant and admitted student pool, and we encourage students to keep in mind that these statistics only reflect certain parts of our holistic review process.National Universities Rankings Schools in the National Universities category, such as Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master's and doctoral programs. These colleges also are committed to producing groundbreaking research.#15 (t) Rice University Houston, TXOverviewRice University is a private institution that was founded in 1912. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 3,910, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 285 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Rice University's ranking in the 2017 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 15. Its tuition and fees are $43,918 (2016-17).Rice University, located in the heart of Houston’s Museum District, offers a dynamic student life in the nation’s fourth-largest city. The Rice Coffeehouse, Valhalla Pub and Willy’s Pub are all student-run institutions offering on-campus food and drink. Before stepping foot on campus, all students are assigned to one of 11 residential colleges, of which they remain members even if they decide to move off campus. The residential colleges provide housing, dining, and academic and social events. The Rice Owls boast 14 varsity NCAA Division I athletic teams and are well known for their strong baseball program. Students receive free tickets to all varsity athletic events.Rice is comprised of eight schools, including the School of Social Sciences, School of Humanities and Wiess School of Natural Sciences. Its graduate schools include the highly ranked Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business and George R. Brown School of Engineering. Rice also has a well-regarded School of Architecture and the Shepherd School of Music. Rice is home to the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan think tank, which offers coursework, internships and lectures. When a private detective found Rice’s stolen owl mascot at rival school Texas A&M in 1917, he sent a coded message back to Rice students letting them know that "Sammy" was OK, thus bestowing a name on the school’s mascot.School Mission and Unique QualitiesContent is provided by the school.As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this mission by cultivating a diverse community of learning and discovery that produces leaders across the spectrum of human endeavor. Undergraduate education has remained at the center of Rice University s mission since the school s founding in 1912.Our students have unparalleled opportunities to learn from distinguished faculty through classroom interaction and research collaboration. Rice combines the advantages of a liberal arts college with the resources and facilities of a premier research university. Some of the important engineering and science developments include Rice being the first university in the nation with a department wholly dedicated to space science; Rice researchers joining Dr. Michael DeBakey and his Baylor College of Medicine team to produce the first artificial heart; and Rice professors Robert Curl, Richard Smalley, and British chemist Sir Harold Kroto receiving the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery of buckyballs, which introduced the new field of nanotechnology.Rice Engineering studentsIn addition to engineering, Rice has highly respected schools of architecture, business, continuing studies, humanities, music, natural sciences and social sciences. Rice also is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan think tank that has brought a distinctive voice to national policy dialogue, and the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, a leading urban think tank that now conducts the longest ongoing study of any metropolitan area in the U.S (35 years).The distinctive residential college system enhances the Rice experience by allowing students to flourish as individuals in a community of their peers. Minority students represent more than half of the undergraduate student body, and Rice ranks highly in national student surveys for quality of life and student happiness. Rice boasts an undergraduate student-faculty ratio of just under 6:1, a median class size of 14, an endowment of $5.6 billion and numerous opportunities for undergraduates to conduct primary research. Rice practices need-blind admission, meets 100 percent of students' demonstrated need and is consistently heralded as one of the best values in higher education.Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice is surrounded by the Texas Medical Center, the Museum District, Hermann Park, Rice Village and great restaurants, and is a short MetroRail ride away from the theater, symphony, ballet, opera and major league sports.Undergraduate InformationApplyingWhen applying to Rice University, it's important to note the application deadline is Jan. 1, and the early decision deadline is Nov. 1. The application fee at Rice University is $75. Scores for either the ACT or SAT test are due Dec. 31. It is most selective, with an acceptance rate of 16 percent.For more information about the tests, essays, interviews and admissions process, visit the Applying to College knowledge center.Selectivity Most selectiveFall 2015 acceptance rate 16%See full Applying details »Academic LifeThe student-faculty ratio at Rice University is 6:1, and the school has 68.8 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at Rice University include: Biochemistry, Psychology, General, Chemical Engineering, Kinesiology and Exercise Science and Mechanical Engineering. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 97 percent.Class sizesClasses with fewer than 20 students 68.8%20-49 23.8%50 or more 7.3%4-year graduation rate 80%Student-faculty ratio of just under 6:1Student LifeRice University has a total undergraduate enrollment of 3,910, with a gender distribution of 53 percent male students and 47 percent female students. At this school, 72 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated or -affiliated housing and 28 percent of students live off campus. Rice University is part of the NCAA I athletic conference.Student gender distribution 53% MaleTotal enrollment 6,719Collegiate athletic association NCAA ICost & Financial AidAt Rice University, 37% percent of full-time undergraduates receive some kind of need-based financial aid and the average need-based scholarship or grant award is $36,025.Paying for college doesn't have to be difficult or devastating. Go to the Paying for College knowledge center to get advice on raising cash and reducing costs, or use the U.S. News 529 Finder to choose the best tax-advantaged college investment account for you.2017 Best Colleges in America (Niche Rankings) - This list combines the US News National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges Rankings.Stanford UniversityMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyYale UniversityHarvard UniversityPrinceton UniversityRice UniversityBowdoin CollegeUniversity of PennsylvaniaWashington University in St. LouisBrown UniversityDuke UniversityColumbia UniversityDartmouth CollegeVanderbilt UniversityPomona CollegeCalifornia Institute of TechnologyUniversity of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of Notre DameUniversity of ChicagoWashington & Lee UniversityCarleton CollegeColgate UniversityUniversity of Michigan - Ann ArborNorthwestern UniversityTufts UniversityWilliams CollegeGeorgetown UniversityAmherst CollegeCornell UniversityBarnard CollegeRice alumniJones School of BusinessThis Year's Rice University Admission RequirementsGPA requirementsSAT and ACT requirementsApplication requirementsSchool location: Houston, TXAdmissions Rate: 17%This means the school is extremely selective. Meeting their GPA requirements and SAT/ACT requirements is very important to getting past their first round of filters and proving your academic preparation. After crossing this hurdle, you'll need to impress Rice University application readers through their other application requirements, including extracurriculars, essays, and letters of recommendation. We'll cover more below.Rice University GPA RequirementsAverage GPA: 4.08(Most schools use a weighted GPA out of 4.0, though some report an unweighted GPA. This school did not officially report its average GPA, but we've estimated it here using data from over 1,000 schools.)With a GPA of 4.08, Rice University requires you to be at the top of your class. You'll need nearly straight A's in all your classes to compete with other applicants. Furthermore, you should be taking hard classes - AP or IB courses - to show that college-level academics is a breeze.If you're currently a junior or senior, your GPA is hard to change in time for college applications. If your GPA is at or below the school average of 4.08, you'll need a higher SAT or ACT score to compensate. This will help you compete effectively against other applicants who have higher GPAs than you.SAT and ACT RequirementsYou must take either the SAT or ACT to submit an application to Rice University.Average SAT: 1510This score makes Rice University Strongly Competitive for SAT test scores.The 25th percentile New SAT score is 1430, and the 75th percentile New SAT score is 1570. In other words, a 1430 on the New SAT places you below average, while a 1570 will move you up to above average.The Score Choice policy at your school is an important part of your testing strategy.Rice University has the Score Choice policy of "All Scores."This means that Rice University requires you to send all SAT scores you've ever taken to their office.Rice University ACT RequirementsAverage ACT: 33Rice University is Strongly Competitive for ACT scores.The 25th percentile ACT score is 31, and the 75th percentile ACT score is 34.Even though Rice University likely says they have no minimum ACT requirement, if you apply with a 31 or below, you'll have a very hard time getting in, unless you have something else very impressive in your application. There are so many applicants scoring 33 and above that a 31 will look academically weak.ACT Score Sending PolicyIf you're taking the ACT as opposed to the SAT, you have a huge advantage in how you send scores, and this dramatically affects your testing strategy.Here it is: when you send ACT scores to colleges, you have absolute control over which tests you send. You could take 10 tests, and only send your highest one. This is unlike the SAT, where many schools require you to send all your tests ever taken.This means that you have more chances than you think to improve your ACT score. To try to aim for the school's ACT requirement of 34 and above, you should try to take the ACT as many times as you can. When you have the final score that you're happy with, you can then send only that score to all your schools.ACT Superscore PolicyBy and large, most colleges do not superscore the ACT. (Superscore means that the school takes your best section scores from all the test dates you submit, and then combines them into the best possible composite score). Thus, most schools will just take your highest ACT score from a single sitting.We weren't able to find the school's exact ACT policy, which most likely means that it does not Superscore. Regardless, you can choose your single best ACT score to send in to Rice University, so you should prep until you reach our recommended target ACT score of 34.SAT/ACT Writing Section RequirementsBoth the SAT and ACT have a Writing section that includes an essay.Rice University requires you to take the SAT/ACT Writing section. They'll use this as another factor in their admissions consideration.SAT Subject Test RequirementsSchools vary in their SAT subject test requirements. Typically, selective schools tend to require them, while most schools in the country do not.We did not find information that Rice University requires SAT subject tests, and so most likely it does not. At least 6 months before applying, you should still doublecheck just to make sure, so you have enough time to take the test.Final Admissions VerdictBecause this school is extremely selective, getting a high SAT/ACT score and GPA is vital to having a chance at getting in. If you don't pass their SAT/ACT and GPA requirements, they'll likely reject you without much consideration.To have the best shot of getting in, you should aim for the 75th percentile, with a 1570 SAT or a 34 ACT. You should also have a 4.08 GPA or higher. If your GPA is lower than this, you need to compensate with a higher SAT/ACT score.For a school as selective as Rice University, you'll also need to impress them with the rest of your application. We'll cover those details next.But if you apply with a score below a 1570 SAT or a 34 ACT, you unfortunately start out with the odds against you and have a tiny chance of getting in. There are just too many students with high SAT/ACT scores and strong applications, and you need to compete against them.Application RequirementsEvery school requires an application with the bare essentials - high school transcript and GPA, application form, and other core information. Many schools, as explained above, also require SAT and ACT scores, as well as letters of recommendation, application essays, and interviews. We'll cover the exact requirements of Rice University here.Application Requirements OverviewCommon Application Accepted, supplemental forms requiredUniversal Application Accepted, supplemental forms requiredElectronic Application AvailableEssay or Personal Statement Required for all freshmenLetters of Recommendation 2Interview Not requiredApplication Fee $75Fee Waiver Available? AvailableOther Notes Portfolio for architecture; audition for music recommended for some freshmenTesting RequirementsSAT or ACT RequiredSAT or ACT Writing RequiredSAT Subject TestsCoursework RequirementsSubject Required YearsEnglish 4Math 3Science 2Foreign Language 2Social Studies 2HistoryElectives 3Deadlines and Early AdmissionsRegular Admission Yes 11Early Decision Yes 115Admissions Office InformationAddress: 6100 South MainHouston, TX 77251-1892Phone: (713) 348-7423Fax: (713) 348-5323Email: [email protected] Expert's NotesWe did more detailed research into this school's admissions process and found the following information:You will choose one of the six undergraduate schools -- Architecture, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences, or Social Sciences when you apply. This choice isn't binding, but each college looks for different strengths so you should make the choice carefully. (The music and architecture schools have extra admission requirements including a recording for music and a portfolio for architecture.) More specifics on the different schools here.To request an interview, which is not required but highly encouraged, you need to submit your application early -- by October 15th for early decision and December 1st for regular decision, with the interview request deadlines two days later. Learn more about deadlines here.SourceOther Schools For YouIf you're interested in Rice University, you'll probably be interested in these schools as well. We've divided them into 3 categories depending on how hard they are to get into, relative to Rice University.Reach Schools: Harder to Get IntoThese schools are more selective and have higher scores than Rice University. If you improve your SAT score, you'll be competitive for these schools.School Name Location SAT Avg ACT AvgYale University New Haven, CT 1540 33Harvard College Cambridge, MA 1540 34Princeton University Princeton, NJ 1540 33Duke University Durham, NC 1540 34University of Chicago Chicago, IL 1520 33Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 1520 34Columbia University New York, NY 1520 33Same Level: Equally Hard to Get IntoIf you're competitive for Rice University, these schools will offer you a similar chance of admission.Stanford University Stanford, CA 1520 33Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 1510 32University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 1500 32Tufts University Medford, MA 1490 31Brown University Providence, RI 1490 32Cornell University Ithaca, NY 1480 32Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 1470 32

As a career journalist retired, if that's possible, there are a large number of things one looks at to judge the authenticity of a story. Standards vary, but the dilemma for reputable news sources is where to draw the line between bullshit and the possibility of a story being true.In this case, inclusion of these allegations in a Presidential security report by our highest level security agencies almost requires reputable news organizations to report it with appropriate disclaimers about its authenticity and discretion in reporting details.The fact that a respected Republican senator (McCain) believed it warranted further followup and handed it off to the FBI is another factor.You have to remember all media operate with the awareness that their credibility is what makes them commercially viable. It's also why talented young people forego far more lucrative careers to work in the field. They also know that one mistake can destroy their career and do irreparable damage to their employer.For instance, I will probably never bother to read Rolling Stone again, following the debacle concerning rapes on the campus of the University of Virginia. It has come to light that writer Sabrina Erdely made unforgivably poor judgments in presenting the material and that editors failed in their responsibility to vette sources prior to publication. She and her employer now face libel lawsuits and Sabrina the end of her career - a high price to pay for sloppy reporting even though it was well-intentioned.Withholding Information from the PublicReaders must remember that legitimate news organizations also walk a line between truthful/accurate reporting and withholding information from the public that readers have a right to know. Both are ethical standards that are often in conflict.Again, reliable news organizations also weigh the irreversible damage a story can do if reported and later found to be false - both to the subject and their own reputation. Example: FBI Director Comey’s disclosure of additional Clinton emails 11 days before the election.Imagine the public outrage if media had failed to report that despite the fact that nothing came of it. Editors well knew the unfairness of the story, but they also knew they had an ethical responsibility to tell the public of it in the event something damning was found.That's the kind of rock and a hard place dilemmas editors find themselves in frequently. Even the best news organizations tend to err on the side of disclosure regardless of consequences as long as the story is verifiably true. That's how they guard against becoming an agent of government, corporations, Wall Street or any other organization with an agenda and an army of lawyers with too much time on their hands.News organizations are bombarded with such attempts daily. It is in their longterm best interests to serve their public before their advertisers and especially the government, except when National Security is indisputably at issue.I say indisputably because it is a much abused rationale for government withholding information and threatening criminal charges to avoid being embarrassed. (You would be dispirited to find how often elected officials try to position personal embarrassment or incompetence as a matter of national security.)I was just informed by a Quoran this evening that PE Trump in his news conference today assured reporters that the public was no longer interested in his tax returns. The poster was responding to my prediction that once the audit - which he has incorrectly blamed for his inability to release them - was completed, he would find another another excuse.Such obvious efforts to hide personal information with deceitful excuses is just one more reason it's more important than ever to find aggressive and reliable sources of news during the next four years.And don't be deterred by that old trope about newspapers printing anything that sells the paper. That has not been true for decades as newspapers strengthened training, education and ethics. At my paper, The Pittsburgh Press, Editor Angus McEachran forbid editors and reporters from even signing petitions or participating in protests that might suggest bias. Pretty much all newspapers now require a BA degree to get in the door and specialized degrees for some beats.Unfortunately, sleazy yellow journalism is making a comeback because of the Internet (Click bait; fake news). Your best newspapers are and always have been selling credibility. Not sensationalism. Thank God owners like Jeff Bezos (WaPo) understand that.So to answer your question, there are reliable news organizations that struggle daily to provide you with credible, factual, important news and put it in the proper context. Reporters are better educated and managed by several levels of editors to ensure accuracy and fairness.But it’s also true that with the ubiquity of the Internet and social media, barriers to entry are almost nonexistent. Any jerk with an ax to grind or an opinion to foist on a gullible public can set themselves up as a news site.To attract eyeballs and with no sense of responsibility to society or its citizens, they have learned journalism not from Columbia or Northwestern, but from purveyors of click bait and fake news. They consider anything that gets attention news and the more outrageous the better.(To combat this I’ve weaned myself off click bait and learned to recognize headlines screaming the death of my favorite celebrity or athlete as fake news, unless I’ve learned about it off the Web. I strongly urge readers to get control of the compulsion to read stories about plastic surgeries gone wrong or why Hollywood won’t hire ****** (insert A-list actor) anymore. Only when people quit clicking will these sites go away.)I know resisting the urge isn’t easy, but it doesn’t help when our PE confuses everybody by calling any story he doesn't like fake news. He did that to CNN’s story about Russia collecting damaging information on Trump. For the record, CNN isn't the hardest hitting news org on the planet, but they don't print fake news. They certainly don't belong in the same category with Buzzfeed or The National Enquirer.And I guarantee you they work as hard as any other television newsroom to avoid mistakes.I don’t know where they got the tag Clinton News Network, as they the network that hired Nasty Trump staffer Corey Lewandowski to defend Trump on all their discussion (I’m being polite) panels?But back to the answer on how to identify fake news.The safest and easiest way is to go with companies that have established their reputation before the Internet. The good news is that these sources were once expensive, but now digital versions are available at much lower costs. Currently my choices are WaPo, NYT, and WSJ. I'm sure these are not the only reliable news organizations available, but how many can you read daily and still have a life?Broadcast television news is entertaining and fine for headlines and visuals, but I advise against making them your sole source of what is going on in the world. I used to DVR CBS and NBC and watch them both, but I finally gave an edge to NBC, if Lester Holt would just quit calling anything that happened in the last 24 hours BREAKING NEWS!PBS is reliable and I actually find NPR penetrating and their content remarkably original. Their productions, given that they are working only with sound, are compelling. They have often kept me sitting in my car long after arriving at my destination.The 24-hour news channels are gappy and to be honest, I've grown weary and bored with CNN’s panels of Trump apologists trying to out shout Never Trumpers so you can't hear anyone. I've never watched Fox News or MSNBC so no opinion.Your biggest danger of getting fake news or falsely positioned news are Internet-only sources. For one, as President Obama pointed out in his farewell speech, with a little searching you can find a site that curates and slants the news exactly to your preconceived ideas of what you want to hear. That's undoubtedly easy listening but hardly a way to tune into reality. I also acknowledge some Internet-only sites are probably fine, but I just have no experience with them. Politico seems to be mentioned a lot with some degree of respect, but I’m not familiar with it.WikiLeaks? Never been there, but seems like an open sewer for anyone who wants to do a hatchet job on somebody. The problem seems to be a lack of vetting and verification. Sort of a data dump with all comers welcome.I'm sure reputable online-only sites are out there, but why take a chance when every newspaper in the country -probably the world - has put their content online. You can choose one or two that have proven their credibility over decades if not more than a century.And you should. Our new President lies, misrepresents, verbally threatens private citizens, and seems to have a very loose grip on reality. He and his minions deny having said and done things that are clearly recorded. It’s never been more important to get your news about what is going on from professionals with only your best interests as their goal and the skills and experience to ferret out and contextualize not just what Trump and his family say, but what they mean. What are their intentions?I must mention apps that curate news according to your specific interests. That’s great and excellent for general information, pop culture, movie and gadget reviews. But not so good for news. The problem is they draw from inconsistent sources so to paraphrase Forest Gump, with regard to their credibility they're like a box of Chocolates - You never know what you’re going to get.That’s probably a good way to characterize what to expect out of Washington over the next four years. The best you can do is ensure you are reading the most reliable news from the most skilled, experienced, educated, ethical and professional honest curators.What about the Russian dirt on Trump?Regarding confirmation on the Russians blackmailing Trump, the only thing that would confirm it for me - and I'm a Never Trumper - would be a KGB (or whatever they call it now) defector seeking asylum with a hard copy of Trump performing hard core porn acts and pretty prostitutes urinating on each other.Hard copies of other damaging evidence like business deals and mountains of debt to Russian state-owned banks would be pretty damning. Emails or memos between the Trump team and the Putin team during the campaign would be damaging.But I suspect all we will ever get is Russian insiders claiming this or that, which I would find unconvincing.On the other hand, given Trump’s character and confirmed behavior here at home, I could see everything in the report being true. But it would take iron-clad verification before I would publish it as fact. It's that serious.Some posters have asked for a more direct explanation of how this kind of information would be investigated by the press. Whether it would ever be possible to confirm or debunk it. As I said, I doubt we’ll ever know, but if we do it will come about because of serendipity - a series of lucky inquiries of just the right people at the right time. I honestly think Number 3 below offers us our best shot at getting this nailed down. But even that is a long shot. The others are pretty standard methods investigative reporters might employ in an effort to get corroboration.First let me say that it's doubtful normal research will uncover anything concrete. Hundreds of reporters have already been on overdrive plumbing their contacts in Russia and among Putin’s inner circle with no corroboration.Purely my opinion, but contacts are harder to find in Russia because if they are outed, the consequences are far more servere than say Deep Throat would have faced in the US. Still, Putin has his enemies so it's not a completely hopeless trail to go down.I might try to work through Mikhail Khodorkovsk, at one time Russia’s richest man who Putin imprisoned for ten years then released. He is living in Exile in England I believe, but he is extremely well connected in his homeland. In fact, he is working with an organization dedicated to reform in Russia and has no love for Putin. In an interview with Charlie Rose he said he is working to prepare young reform minded professionals to take over when the Putin regime ends. To me, that sounds like politically active folks who might already be in low-level positions in the Kremlin.Major news organizations will continue to fund efforts to get this story, until it becomes apparent it's either false or they have exhausted their leads snd/or budget.I would have expected our intelligence agencies to pursue it, but I heard a news report tonight that they had dropped their investigations. I don't know if that's disinformation or real. Still, we are always spying on Russia, so info on this is probably one thing they will now be alert for. That won't do the public much good since if Trump’s minions discover it, I doubt it would be leaked.If it is true, it's likely it will be stumbled over, not the result of a headlong search by our intelligence agencies who work for POTUS. But I fully expect if it is confirmed it will be through serendipity rather than ingenious machinations by an ambitious reporter.Also, Please see comments to Ms. Woodside who also asked me to further address this issue of substantiation.