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ByJuliePaceandLisa Lerer TheAssociatedPress LAS VEGAS Hillary Clin- ton and Sen. Bernie Sanders clashed over U.S. involve- ment in the Middle East, gun control and economic policy in the first Demo- cratic presidential debate Tuesday, outlining com- peting visions for a party seeking to keep the White House for a third straight term. Yet in a moment of po- litical unity — and levity — Sanders leapt to Clinton's defense on the issue of her controversial email prac- tices as secretary of state. "The American peo- ple are sick and tired are hearing about your damn emails," Sanders exclaimed as the crowd in Las Ve- gas roared with applause. A smiling Clinton reached over to shake his hand and said, "Thank you, Bernie." Traditionalthemes While the five candi- dates onstage took issue with each other, they also repeatedly sounded tradi- tional Democratic themes — such as fighting income inequality — that are sure to carry over to the general election campaign against the Republicans. First, the Democrats must choose their own candidate. And through- out most of the two-hour debate Clinton played the role of aggressor, an unex- pected shift for a candidate who had barely mentioned her Democratic rivals since launching her campaign six months ago. Until now, Clinton and Sanders — who has emerged as her tough- est competition — have cir- cled each other cautiously and avoided personal at- tacks. After Sanders, a self-de- scribed democratic social- ist, derided "a casino cap- italist process by which so few have so much," Clinton said it would be a "big mis- take" for the U.S. to turn its back on the system that built the American middle class. Asked whether she thought Sanders, who has a mixed record on gun control legislation, had been tough enough on the issue, she said simply," No, I do not." Sanders defended his gun control record, and called for better mental health services, stricter background checks and closing a loophole that ex- empts gun shows from background checks The two also tangled over foreign policy, an issue where Clinton is often more hawkish than others in the Democratic Party. The for- mer secretary of state reit- erated her call for more ro- bust U.S. action to stop the Syrian civil war and de- fended her judgment on in- ternational issues, despite having voted for the 2002 invasion of Iraq. Sanders called the Iraq war "the worst foreign pol- icy blunder in the history of our country" and said he would not support sending American combat troops back to the Middle East to fight terrorism. "Nobody does, Senator Sanders," Clinton inter- jected. Joining Clinton and Sanders on stage in Las Ve- gas was a trio of low-poll- ing candidates looking for a breakthrough moment: for- mer Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley; Jim Webb, a for- mer Navy secretary and U.S. senator from Virginia, and Lincoln Chafee, the Re- publican-turned indepen- dent-turned Democrat from Rhode Island. Trump tweets Not present but eager to make his presence known, Republican front-runner Donald Trump was com- menting live on Twitter. "Who knows, maybe a star will be born (unlikely)," Trump wrote shortly before the debate was to begin. Also hanging over the debate: the lengthy delib- erations of Vice President Joe Biden, who is weighing a late entry into the Dem- ocratic race. Debate host CNN kept an extra podium on standby just in case Biden decided to show up, but the vice president in- stead stayed in Washing- ton, where he was watching the debate at his residence. For Clinton, the debate was a much-needed oppor- tunity to focus on policy in addition to the controversy over her exclusive use of personal email and a pri- vate Internet server during her tenure in the Obama ad- ministration. The email is- sue has shadowed her roll- out of numerous policy po- sitions and has hurt her standing with voters. Clinton said her email use "wasn't the best choice" and cast the issue as a po- litically motivated effort by Republicans to drive down her poll numbers. She high- lighted comments from Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Ca- lif., who bragged about how a House committee investi- gating Clinton's role in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, had hurt her politi- cally. "I am still standing," she said. The only candidate on stage who challenged Clin- ton on her email practices was Chafee, who said "cred- ibility is an issue." The former secretary of state has also faced criti- cism that she's shifted her positions on trade, gay mar- riage and other issues to match the mood of voters — a charge she vigorously denied Tuesday. "Like most human be- ings, I do absorb new infor- mation, I do look at what's happening in the world," Clinton said. Pressed spe- cifically on her newly an- nounced opposition to a Pacific Rim trade deal she touted while serving in the Obama administration, Clinton said she had hoped to support it but ultimately decided it did not meet her standards. DEMOCRATIC DEBATE Clinton, Sanders clash about guns, economy, foreign policy JOHNLOCHER—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, le , and Hillary Clinton laugh during the CNN Democratic presidential debate, Tuesday in Las Vegas. By Jack Gillum And Stephen Braun The Associated Press WASHINGTON The pri- vate email server running in Hillary Rodham Clin- ton's home basement when she was secretary of state was connected to the In- ternet in ways that made it more vulnerable to hack- ers while using software that could have been ex- ploited, according to data and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Clinton's server, which handled her personal and State Department corre- spondence, appeared to allow users to connect openly over the Internet to control it remotely, ac- cording to detailed records compiled in 2012. Experts said the Microsoft remote desktop service wasn't in- tended for such use with- out additional protective measures, and was the subject of U.S. government and industry warnings at the time over attacks from even low-skilled intruders. Records show that Clin- ton additionally operated two more devices on her home network in Chap- paqua, New York, that also were directly accessi- ble from the Internet. One contained similar remote- control software that also has suffered from security vulnerabilities, known as Virtual Network Com- puting, and the other ap- peared to be configured to run websites. The new details provide the first clues about how Clinton's computer, run- ning Microsoft's server software, was set up and protected when she used it exclusively over four years as secretary of state for all work messages. Clin- ton's privately paid tech- nology adviser, Bryan Pa- gliano, has declined to an- swer questions about his work from congressional investigators, citing the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. Some emails on Clin- ton's server were later deemed top secret, and scores of others included confidential or sensitive in- formation. Clinton has said that her server featured "numerous safeguards," but she has yet to explain how well her system was secured and whether, or how frequently, security updates were applied. Clinton has apologized for running her home- brew server, and President Barack Obama said during a "60 Minutes" interview aired Sunday that it was "a mistake." Obama said na- tional security wasn't en- dangered, although the FBI still has yet to com- plete its review of Clin- ton's server for evidence of hacking. On Tuesday, however, the White House left room for results of the Justice Department's investiga- tion into her server. "The president certainly re- spects the independence and integrity of an inde- pendent investigation, in- cluding those that are con- ducted by the FBI," press secretary Josh Earnest said. Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said late Monday that "this report, like others before it, lacks any evidence of an actual breach, let alone one spe- cifically targeting Hillary Clinton. The Justice De- partment is conducting a review of the security of the server, and we are co- operating in full." The AP exclusively re- viewed numerous records from an Internet "cen- sus" by an anonymous hacker-researcher. Us- ing a computer in Serbia, the hacker scanned Clin- ton's basement server in Chappaqua at least twice, in August and December 2012. AP REVIEW Cl in to n' s em ai l se rv er setup risked intrusions By Michael Liedtke The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO Twitter is laying off up to 336 em- ployees, signaling CEO Jack Dorsey's resolve to slash costs while the company struggles to make money. The cutbacks announced Tuesday could equate to about 8 percent of Twitter's workforce of 4,100 people. The purge comes two weeks after Twitter brought back one of its co-founders as permanent CEO in hopes that Dorsey would be able to resolve problems that have slowed user growth at the messaging service and compounded an unin- terrupted cycle of financial losses. Cutting costs can boost profits but at Twitter, it has also raises uncertainty about the future, the com- pany's pursuit of faster growth and its ability to at- tract a bigger audience. The layoffs may be a sign of desperation at a sinking company, said Edison In- vestment Research analyst Richard Windsor. "It is important to run a tight ship, but simply cut- ting jobs is often the ac- tion of a company that does not know what else to do," Windsor said. Dorsey told Twitter em- ployees in a Tuesday letter that a more streamlined company will result in more products rolling out more quickly. "We feel strongly that engineering will move much faster with a smaller and nimbler team," Dorsey wrote. Twitter's workforce has nearly doubled over the past two years, hindering efforts to turn a profit for the first time in its nine-year his- tory. Since Dorsey and his partners started the ser- vice, Twitter has lost nearly $2 billion. When reports of the an- ticipated layoffs surfaced late last week, investors initially fretted that Dorsey might be reacting to disap- pointing performance in the quarter that just ended in September. Twitter eased those worries Tuesday by disclosing that its reve- nue for the period will hit or slightly exceed its previ- ously target of $545 million to $560 million. The official results are due out Oct. 27. Twitter's stock gained 99 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $29.74 in midday trading Tuesday. Dorsey has acknowl- edged that Twitter is too confusing for many people to use, turning off new users at a time when other social services such as Snapchat and Facebook's WhatsApp have grown in popularity. As part of its revival plan, Twitter last week unveiled a new feature called "Mo- ments" that packages com- mentary, video and pho- tos about major events that have captured people's at- tention. The work on Mo- ments began while Dors- ey's predecessor, Dick Cos- tolo, was still Twitter's CEO. After returning as CEO, Dorsey promised to make Twitter even more acces- sible to the masses by next year. Jettisoning jobs will give Twitter more financial leeway while it designs new tools. Twitter's expenses through the first half of the year climbed 44 percent to $1.2 billion. The company's revenue totaled $938 mil- lion during the same pe- riod. Retrenching will cost Twitter $10 million to $20 million, mostly to pay for employee severance pack- ages. The accounting charge for the reorganiza- tion is expected to be lower, ranging from $5 million to $15 million, because Twitter some of the departing em- ployees will be losing stock options that didn't vest. MESSAGING SERVICE Twitter purging up to 336 workers By David Mchugh The Associated Press FRANKFURT, GERMANY Volkswagen's flagship brand plans to change its diesel technology in Europe and North America as well as develop new hybrid and electric vehicles in response to its emissions scandal. The new steps were part of a plan to confront the company's scandal over cars that were equipped with computer software that let them evade U.S. emissions tests. Volkswagen division head HerbertDiesssaidinastate- ment Tuesday the company would change its approach to diesel emissions in Eu- rope and North America and adopt so-called selec- tive catalytic converter tech- nology, or SCR. That is a sys- tem that injects the chemi- cal substance urea into the exhaust stream to neutral- ize harmful nitrogen oxides. He said that change would come "as soon as possible." Diess also said the com- pany would reduce spend- ing on investments by 1 bil- lion euros ($1.1billion) and redouble efforts to cut other costs. Volkswagen will expand its modular construction system — which involves sharing technical specifica- tions and parts across dif- ferent models to save money — to include new plug-in hy- brid and electric vehicles. The company addition- ally plans to turn the next version of its large Phaeton luxury sedan into an elec- tric-only vehicle to demon- strate the company's tech- nological competence. The Phaeton, a project introduced by former CEO Ferdinand Piech, has been criticized as a money-loser. The Piech and Porsche fami- lies own the majority of vot- ing shares in Volkswagen through a holding company. RESPONSE TO SCANDAL VW t o cha ng e em is si on s tec hn ol og y | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2015 8 A