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workersolidarity · 8 months ago

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[ 📹 More than 70 civilians were killed over the previous 24-hours resulting from the Israeli occupation's surprise offensive into central Gaza after weeks of fighting in Gaza's north and south forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into the central Gaza Strip. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

ISRAELI OCCUPATION'S GENOCIDE IN GAZA DAY 243: NY TIMES ARTICLE SAYS ZIONIST REGIME LAUNCHED A DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN IN US, OCCUPATION ARMY CREATES NEW UNIT TO KEEP PALESTINIANS IN OUTDOOR PRISON OF GAZA, OCCUPATION ARMY RAISES CONSCRIPTION CAPS, NEW ISRAELI GROUND OFFENSIVE TARGETS CENTRAL GAZA, MASS SLAUGHTER OF CIVILIANS CONTINUES

On 243rd day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 4 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 36 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 115 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands, of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or who's bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

"Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation."

That's according to an investigation conducted by the New York Times revealing a covert disinformation campaign launched by the Israeli occupation to target US lawmakers and the American public.

According to the Times, the disinformation campaign was "commissioned by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel."

The Times article stated that the Israeli occupation "allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out."

The campaign started back in October and "remains active on the [social media] platform X."

At its zenith, the campaign used "hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments," with the majority of the accounts focused on "US lawmakers, particularly ones who are black and Democrats, such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, with posts urging them to continue funding Israel's military."

"ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, was used to generate many of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English-language news sites featuring pro-Israel articles," the Times stated, later adding that "the secretive campaign signals the lengths Israel was willing to go to sway American opinion on the war in Gaza."

In other news for Wednesday, the Israeli occupation army has created a new unit, the "Lotar Cover," with the purpose of protecting Zionist settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli army spokesperson said the "Awtf" unit will operate within the 143rd Division, with the express purpose of providing a rapid response to any potential threats to settlements coming out of the Gaza Strip.

The occupation army says the unit will consist of “reserve fighters who graduate from elite units who live in or around the [Gaza] cover settlements and who will be on alert to operate in the region. The soldiers will undergo a special training and qualification process, at the end of which, they will be qualified to deal with the challenges of the region.”

In the meantime, the Israeli occupation has made the decision to raise the number of reservists the occupation army is authorized to call-up for service.

According to reporting in the Hebrew media, the Israeli occupation army will now be authorized to call-up for service 350'000 citizens, up from 300'000, which the Israeli army claims has "nothing to do with tensions in northern Israel."

The occupation authorities claimed the reason for the shift "relates to the operation in southern Gaza's Rafah taking more personnel than initially planned."

Previously, as a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing genocide campaign in Gaza, the Israeli occupation army called-up a total of 287'000 reservists.

However, many have already been released from duty for the time being. The draft marked the largest call-up of reservists in the occupation's nearly 80-year history.

Elsewhere in international news reports, the Slovenian Parliament has officially approved the government's decision to recognize the State of Palestine as an independent and sovereign state, on Wednesday.

Previously, on Thursday of last week, the Slovenian Prime Minister, Robert Golub, announced that his government would recognize the State of Palestine under its 1967 borders in accordance with international law and UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

The Slovenian Prime Minister said the decision “sends a message of peace,” stressing that “the time has come for the entire world to unite its efforts towards a two-state solution that will bring peace to the Middle East.”

By recognizing the State of Palestine, Slovenia joins the ranks of several other countries to recently announce their recognition of Palestine as a state, including Spain, Ireland and Norway, all of whom announced their recognition last month, bringing the total number of countries to recognize Palestine to 148, out of a total of 193 member-states belonging to the United Nations.

In other news, after several weeks of Israeli assaults on the north and south of Gaza, pushing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into the central areas, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) announced a new campaign of terror targeting the residents of the central Gaza Strip.

The latest ground offensive is to be conducted by the 98th Division, and is expected to focus on neighborhoods east of the Bureij Refugee Camp, as well as the east of Deir al-Balah, where one of the last large, functional hospitals standing in Gaza, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, remains in operation.

The 98th Division is the same military group that just recently withdrew from Jabalia in Gaza's north, committing horrific crimes against the Palestinian residents there, and also previously terrorized the citizens of Khan Yunis, south of Gaza.

The Zionist army says the operation was launched following intelligence that Resistance operatives and infrastructure, both above and below ground, were located in the area.

The operation has already seen occupation soldiers advancing into the east of the Bureij Camp, in addition to the east of Deir al-Balah on Tuesday, while simultaneously, a "large wave of airstrikes" were conducted targeting so-called "weapons depots, underground infrastructure, buildings used by terror groups, and other sites," according to the occupation military.

The Israeli occupation claims several Hamas operatives were killed in the operations, while an airstrike supposedly targeting a "Hamas compound," in the Bureij Camp, [a seeming impossibility when Hamas keeps its military infrastructure deep in underground tunnel networks] which was "based out of a United Nations School."

[This is typically how the occupation army admits to bombing civilian infrastructure such as schools, water facilities and displacement shelters.]

The Zionist military stated that several Hamas operatives were "gathered at UNRWA's Abu Alhilu School when the strike was carried out," further claiming that the strike was “carefully planned and carried out using precise munitions, while avoiding harm to uninvolved [civilians] as much as possible.”

Meanwhile, local Palestinian media reported that 72 Palestinian citizens were killed during Israeli operations in central Gaza over the previous 24-hours, while scores of others were wounded in the same period.

Witnesses said the Israeli occupation forces' ground operations targeted areas of the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi Camps, in addition to neighborhoods east of Deir al-Balah, while occupation bombing and artillery shelling targeted the Nuseirat Camp.

As ground operations targeted central Gaza, intense waves of bombing and shelling also targeted various other sectors of Gaza as well, including in the north and south of the enclave.

In one example, Zionist warplanes bombed a residential home belonging to the Hussein family in the vicinity of the Abu Rasas roundabout in the Bureij Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, killing one civilian and wounding a number of others.

Similarly, occupation fighter jets bombed a residential house belonging to the Kirdi family on Block-5 of the Bureij Camp. After the strike, the body of one civilian and several wounded were transported to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

Additionally, another occupation airstrike targeted a house belonging to the Al-Dawli family near the entrance to the Bureij Camp, resulting in the deaths of two Palestinians and wounding several others.

Another 5 civilians were wounded following an Israeli airstrike in the vicinity of a UNRWA clinic in the area and the Services Club nearby.

Zionist occupation forces also dropped several violent firebelts between the Bureij and the Al-Maghazi Camps, one of which targeted a residential building in the Al-Bataniyya neighborhood of the Al-Maghazi Camp, killing four Palestinian civilians.

In particular, the strikes killed Majd Darwish, his wife and his two children, and also wounded a number of others.

In another criminal atrocity, occupation aircraft bombed a civilian residence belonging to the Qatawi family in the Al-Maghazi Camp, in central Gaza, killing two civilians and wounding several others.

At the same time, another massacre occured when Zionist warplanes bombed a residential apartment in the Aslan Building, in the vicinity of the Qattoush roundabout in the Al-Maghazi Camp, resulting in the martyredom of 8 civilians and wounding a number of others.

Yet another occupation airstrike targeted and destroyed a four-story residential building belonging to the Al-Barr family near Salah al-Din, west of the Maghazi Camp.

The horrors went on when Israeli fighter jets bombed a residential house belonging to the Al-Louh family overnight, east of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least 5 civilians and wounding several others, while yet another airstrike targeted the Al-Masdar family home in the vicinity of the Al-Masdar Mosque, wounding several people.

Two more civilians were killed, and a number of others wounded, after Zionist artillery detatchments shelled a house in the Abu Al-Ajen area, southeast of Deir al-Balah.

According to local reports, the Israeli occupation army also arrested a number of Palestinians, including women, after the occupation forces surrounded a house belonging to the Abu Luz family, east of the Abu Al-Ajen neighborhood, southeast of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, with the kidnapped persons taken to an unknown location.

Local civil defense and paramedic personnel also reported recovering the bodies of dozens of martyrs and wounded from neighborhoods east of the central Gaza Strip following a night of intense and violent bombardment of the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi Camps, as well as the town of Al-Masdar and Deir al-Balah, with the many wounded transfered to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

Further airstrikes targeted neighborhoods east of Khan Yunis, south of Gaza, while occupation vehicles opened fire east of the town of Al-Qarara, coinciding with intense artillery shelling of the area.

Additionally, the European Gaza Hospital reported the arrival of two dead bodies of Palestinians following Israeli drone strikes east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, north of Gaza, occupation warplanes bombed a residential home belonging to the Dalloul family in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, resulting in the wounding of at least 7 citizens, while occupation bombing also targeted the Tal al-Hawa and Sheikh Ajlin neighborhoods, coinciding with intense machine gun fire, in addition to occupation drones which opened fire near 20th Street, east of the Nuseirat Camp, in central Gaza.

In Rafah, south of Gaza, Zionist artillery forces fired several shells into residential areas east of Al-Qarara, northeast of Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza.

Zionist air forces also bombed a gathering of civilians in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, resulting in the murder of four Palestinians.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the infinitely rising death toll now exceeds 36'586 Palestinians killed, including upwards of 10'000 women and over 15'000 children, while another 83'074 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

June 4th, 2024.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

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lemonnsss · 10 months ago

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Moral of the Story Chapter 6

A/N: School is pain. ALSO- I changed MC’s(?) I’m universe name to make it more GN

Warnings: Trypanophobia

Mots Masterlist

Taglist: @vicmc624 , @mostlymarvelgirl , @yvonneeeee, @beetlejuicesupremacy , @moonlightreader649 , @whattheduckisupkyle , @chrisevans-realwife, @nekoannie-chan , @mrsbarnes32557038 , @imyourbratzdoll , @weallhaveadestiny

Word Count: 1.2k

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A bright blue light accompanied by the sound of the Iron Man suit’s beam powering up came as a shock, seemingly out of nowhere.

She brought her arms back up and turned around, shocked, obviously not expecting his appearance.

“You know, if you’re going to kill someone, then at least don’t call their boss to let them know their assistant’s awake. Amateur move, honestly. Although, I guess this would be your first time intentionally killing someone.” He moved his other hand languidly, illustrating his point.

Her hand moved down again, the needle almost grazing my skin, “You don’t understand. I don’t have a choice.” Unspilled tears broke her voice.

“Everyone has a choice, though the other option may not be so appealing.”

She started shaking her head from side to side and let the syringe drop against my skin, “You don’t know what it’s like to be so poor that you are used to the feeling of borderline starvation. To work two or more jobs so you don’t end up on the streets.” She couldn’t help but let the tears flow. That much was evident despite her face being turned away from me.

“So, your loyalty lies with money? How much did they pay you?”

“About forty thousand euros, enough to afford my son’s treatment.”

“What? Isn’t healthcare free in Europe?” he shifted his weight onto his other leg.

My heart was pounding in my chest so hard it felt like I couldn’t breathe. Despite that, I was breathing too much too fast. I did everything I could to stay focused and present as they spoke. I was trying to prevent myself from hyperventilating.

“... It is. He is very sick. The specialists are in America. They are his best chance.”

His features softened, still firm, yet now more sympathetic, “I can’t say I know what it’s like, financially I mean, but my mother died when I was seventeen. If I were alone in a foreign country when I discovered she wasn’t coming back. I don’t know what I would’ve done. Put the syringe away, and I’ll put double in your account. Does that sound okay?”

I couldn’t understand why Mr. Star-Tony, was doing this. Eighty-thousand euros? That’s what- fifty-six, fifty-seven thousand dollars? What could he gain from this? Is he doing this as an act of charity?

She looked at me, tears streaming down her face, staining her shirt, "They know where he is, or at least where to look. I can't put him in danger." She turned back to Tony, "I'm sorry."

The needle plunged through my skin unnoticeably initially, the sharpness of the needle to blame - then, not even a second after its insertion the entire area stung with a pinch.

If I wasn’t shaking before I was shaking now. My whole body shook as the threat of my death was coming closer to fruition. Whoever ordered my death had succeeded.

The high-pitched hum that had previously filled the room dissipated with a high shriek and a beam of bright blue light. Her arm was blown off along with the plunger of the syringe. Her arm, the muscle structure, tendons, nerves, everything that had been attached to her not even a second ago was now incinerated, leaving nothing but the blood that was spurting across the bed.

She cried animalistically at the burnt-off nerve endings screamed out in pain, her blood spat out drenching the fabric of my hospital sheets and the floor beneath us.

The syringe was still in my arm. I expected the morphine to flow out of the needle; instead, my bloodshot up through the needle, mixing with the pain meds. I couldn’t move. Tony dashed over to me, ignoring the woman writing on the ground, and pulled what remained of the syringe before an air bubble found its way into my bloodstream.

A little blood came out of the insertion point but Tony pressed his armored hand around, stopping the overall, minor blood flow.

Finally, another nurse ran into the doorway looking into the room, he gasped slightly, face turning white, at the sight of his coworker on the ground, her blood surrounding her.

He ran over to her, grabbing gloves and a tourniquet along the way, “What happened here?”

“Your colleague tried to kill my assistant.”

His head jolted up, “What? Maria attacked you? I-I’m sorry. You must know she hasn’t been in a great mental state recently. She isn’t normally like this.”

“I’ll be requesting a transfer to a different hospital in the area, I’d also like to recommend telling your manager that I’ll be suing until they are transferred though I will not be leaving their room which I hope will be changed. Okay?”

After the nurse, whose name was Maria apparently, was taken out of the room to fix the end of what remained of her arm I was taken to a new room where I took a shower and returned to a new bed. The only people in the room were myself and Tony. Now felt like the best time to pop the question that had beset in my mind.

"Why did you do that?" He looked up from his phone, swiveling his head to the door I was standing beside.

"Do what? You'll have to be a bit more specific."

"I don't know. Maybe shooting a person's arm off?" He raised a brow, my sarcasm not lost on him.

"You're the first person who hasn't tried to jump my bones, who's been offended at the notion of it, in a few years. If you died, Pep would kill me. Simple as that." He shrugged his shoulders before leaning on one of the arms of the chair, “How did you transfer the gunshot wound from my body to yours? And why would someone pay to have you killed, or at least subdued? And are those questions related?”

I looked down at my feet, “I don’t know why someone would try to kill me. And I don’t know if it’s related, but I would assume yes.”

“Hm…” That was all the response I got.

It’s been about a year since I started working for Mr. Stark. Thankfully, the topic of how I healed him hasn’t come up again. His security team got buffed after the incident and I got a bonus plus the sign-on bonus plus my first month's salary - the total of which, after taxes, was more than my yearly pay from Xaviers. Things were calm.

When I came into work today the main door to Mr. Starks office was locked. It wasn’t unusual. He rarely came into work, so when he did it was typically earlier than I came in. I went to my office to finish up what I could for this week's paperwork.

A quiet ring came from the in-office phone, Mr. Stark’s line. I picked up the clunky handset- which probably hadn’t been replaced since the nineties- “Hello, Mr. Stark-”

“For the last time, it’s Tony. Stop it with the, ‘Mr. Stark’ nonsense.”

“Apologies, Tony. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Yeah, do you mind coming into my office? There’s someone for you.”

“Of course, give me just a moment.”

I stood up and flattened the creases in my clothes before walking through the door that joined our offices. A man was wearing all black with an eyepatch standing in front of Tony’s desk.

“Hello, Mx… Eirsson?”

“Yeah, a bit of an odd last name, I know. Pardon but, what is this about?”

“My name is Director Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

#steve rogers x reader #captain america #mcu #mcu fanfiction #captain america x reader #fanfic #captain steve rogers #steve rodgers x reader #mcu x reader #nick fury #director fury #tony stark #iron man

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mariacallous · 1 month ago

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Every year has its own mix of digital security debacles, from the absurd to the sinister, but 2024 was particularly marked by hacking sprees in which cybercriminals and state-backed espionage groups repeatedly exploited the same weakness or type of target to fuel their frenzy. For attackers, the approach is ruthlessly efficient, but for compromised institutions—and the individuals they serve—the malicious rampages had very real consequences for people's privacy, safety, and security.

As political turmoil and social unrest intensify around the world, 2025 will be a complicated—and potentially explosive—year in cyberspace. But first, here's WIRED's look back on this year's worst breaches, leaks, state-sponsored hacking campaigns, ransomware attacks, and digital extortion cases. Stay alert, and stay safe out there.

China's Salt Typhoon Telecom Breaches

Espionage operations are a fact of life, and relentless Chinese campaigns have been a constant in cyberspace for years now. But the China-linked espionage group Salt Typhoon carried out a particularly noteworthy operation this year, infiltrating a slew of US telecoms including Verizon and AT&T (plus others around the world) for months. And US officials told reporters earlier this month that many victim companies are still actively attempting to remove the hackers from their networks.

The attackers surveilled a small group of people—less than 150 by current count—but they include individuals who were already subject to US wiretap orders as well as state department officials and members of both the Trump and Harris presidential campaigns. Additionally, texts and calls from other people who interacted with the Salt Typhoon targets were inherently also caught up in the espionage scheme.

Snowflake Customer Breaches

Throughout the summer, attackers were on a tear, breaching prominent companies and organizations that were all customers of the cloud data storage company Snowflake. The spree barely qualifies as hacking, since cybercriminals were simply using stolen passwords to log in to Snowflake accounts that didn't have two-factor authentication turned on. The end result, though, was an extraordinary amount of data stolen from victims including Ticketmaster, Santander Bank, and Neiman Marcus. Another prominent victim, the telecom giant AT&T, said in July that “nearly all” records relating to its customers' calls and texts from a seven-month stretch in 2022 were stolen in a Snowflake-related intrusion. The security firm Mandiant, which is owned by Google, said in June that the rampage impacted roughly 165 victims.

In July, Snowflake added a feature so account administrators could make two-factor authentication mandatory for all of their users. In November, suspect Alexander “Connor” Moucka was arrested by Canadian law enforcement for allegedly leading the hacking spree. He was indicted by the US Department of Justice for the Snowflake tear and faces extradition to the US. John Erin Binns, who was arrested in Turkey for an indictment related to a 2021 breach of the telecom T-Mobile, was also indicted on charges related to the Snowflake customer breaches.

Change Healthcare Ransomware Attack

At the end of February, the medical billing and insurance processing company Change Healthcare was hit with a ransomware attack that caused disruptions at hospitals, doctor's offices, pharmacies, and other health care facilities around the US. The attack is one of the all-time largest breaches of medical data, impacting more than 100 million people. The company, which is owned by UnitedHealth, is a dominant medical billing processor in the US. It said days after the attack started that it believed ALPHV/BlackCat, a notorious Russian-speaking ransomware gang, was behind the assault.

Personal data stolen in the attack included patient phone numbers, addresses, banking and other financial information, and health records including diagnoses, prescriptions, and treatment details. The company paid a $22 million ransom to ALPHV/BlackCat at the beginning of March in an attempt to contain the situation. The payment seemingly emboldened attackers to hit health care targets at an even greater rate than usual. With ongoing, rolling notifications to more than 100 million victims—with more still being discovered—lawsuits and other blowback has been mounting. This month, for example, the state of Nebraska sued Change Healthcare, alleging that “failures to implement basic security protections” made the attack much worse than it should have been.

Russia's Midnight Blizzard Hit Microsoft

Microsoft said in January that it had been breached by Russia's “Midnight Blizzard” hackers in an incident that compromised company executives' email accounts. The group is tied to the Kremlin's SVR foreign intelligence agency and is specifically linked to SVR's APT 29, also known as Cozy Bear. After an initial intrusion in November 2023, the attackers targeted and compromised historic Microsoft system test accounts that then allowed them to access what the company said were “a very small percentage of Microsoft corporate email accounts, including members of our senior leadership team and employees in our cybersecurity, legal, and other functions.” From there, the group exfiltrated “some emails and attached documents.” Microsoft said that the attackers seemed to be looking for information about what the company knew about them—in other words, Midnight Blizzard doing reconnaissance on Microsoft's research into the group. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) also said in January that it had suffered a corporate email breach attributed to Midnight Blizzard.

National Public Data

The background check company National Public Data suffered a breach in December 2023, and data from the incident started showing up for sale on cybercriminal forums in April 2024. Different configurations of the data cropped up again and again over the summer, culminating in public confirmation of the breach by the company in August. The stolen data included names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, addresses, and dates of birth. Since National Public Data didn't confirm the breach until August, speculation about the situation grew for months and included theories that the data included tens or even hundreds of millions of Social Security numbers. Though the breach was significant, the true number of impacted individuals seems to be, mercifully, much lower. The company reported in a filing to officials in Maine that the breach affected 1.3 million people. In October, National Public Data's parent company, Jerico Pictures, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in the Southern District of Florida, citing state and federal investigations into the breach as well as a number of lawsuits that the company is facing over the incident.

Honorable Mention: North Korean Cryptocurrency Theft

A lot of people steal a lot of cryptocurrency every year, including North Korean cybercriminals who have a mandate to help fund the hermit kingdom. A report from the cryptocurrency tracing firm Chainalysis released this month, though, underscores just how aggressive Pyongyang-backed hackers have become. The researchers found that in 2023, hackers affiliated with North Korea stole more than $660 million across 20 attacks. This year, they stole roughly $1.34 billion across 47 incidents. The 2024 figures represent 20 percent of total incidents Chainalysis tracked for the year and a whopping 61 percent of the total funds stolen by all actors.

The sheer domination is impressive, but the researchers emphasize the seriousness of the crimes. “US and international officials have assessed that Pyongyang uses the crypto it steals to finance its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles programs, endangering international security,” Chainalysis wrote.

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shannendoherty-fans · 6 months ago

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Shannen Doherty’s Untimely Death Sparks Important Conversations About Healthcare Access And Equity

By Janice Gassam Asare

Shannen Doherty, the actress best known for her roles in Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed has died after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 53. In a 2015 statement to People magazine, the actress revealed her breast cancer diagnosis, stating that she was “undergoing treatment” and that she was suing a firm and its former business manager for causing her to lose her health insurance due to a failure to pay the insurance premiums. According to reports, in a lawsuit Doherty shared that she hired a firm for tax, accounting, and investment services, among other things, and that part of their role was to make her health insurance premium payments to the Screen Actors Guild; Doherty claimed that their failure to make the premium payments in 2014 caused her health insurance to lapse until the re-enrollment period in 2015. When Doherty went in for a checkup in March of 2015, the cancer was discovered, at which time it had spread. In the lawsuit, Doherty indicated that if she had insurance, she would have been able to get the checkup sooner—the cancer would have been discovered, and she could have avoided chemotherapy and a mastectomy.

Under the IRS, actors are often classified as independent contractors, which comes with its own set of challenges. Although it is unclear what Doherty’s situation was, for many independent contractors, obtaining health insurance can be difficult. Trying to get health insurance as an independent contractor can be a costly and convoluted process. A 2020 Actors’ Equity Association survey indicated that “more than 80% of nonunion actors and stage managers in California have been misclassified as independent contractors.” A 2021 research study revealed that self-employment (which is what independent contractors are considered to be) was associated with a higher likelihood of being uninsured.

Doherty’s tragic situation invites a larger conversation about healthcare access and equity in the United States. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” was signed into law in 2010 and revolutionized healthcare access in two distinct ways: “creating health insurance marketplaces with federal financial assistance that reduces premiums and deductibles and by allowing states to expand Medicaid to adults with household incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.” The ACA helped reduce the number of uninsured Americans and expanded healthcare access to those most in need. It also helped close gaps in coverage for different populations, including those with pre-existing health conditions, lower-income individuals, part-time workers, and those from historically excluded and marginalized populations.

Despite strides made through the ACA, healthcare access and equity are still persistent issues, especially within marginalized communities. Research from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) examining 2010-2022 data indicated that in 2022, non-elderly American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) and Hispanic people had the greatest uninsured rates (19.1% and 18% respectively). When compared with their white counterparts, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders (NHOPI) and Black people also had higher uninsured rates at 12.7% and 10%, respectively. The Commonwealth Fund reported that between 2013 and 2021, “states that expanded Medicaid eligibility had higher rates of insurance coverage and health care access, with smaller disparities between racial/ethnic groups and larger improvements, than states that didn’t expand Medicaid.” It’s important to note that if a Republican president is elected, Project 2025, the far-right policy proposal document, seeks to upend Medicaid as we know it by introducing limits on the amount of time that a person can receive Medicaid.

When peeling back the layers to examine these racial and ethnic differences in more detail, the Brookings Institute noted in 2020 that the refusal of several states to expand Medicaid could be one contributing factor. One 2017 research study found that some underrepresented racial groups were more likely to experience insurance loss than their white counterparts. The study indicated that for Black and Hispanic populations, specific trigger events were more likely, as well as “socioeconomic characteristics” that were linked to more insurance loss and slower insurance gain. The study also noted that in the U.S., health insurance access was associated with employment and and marriage and that Black and Hispanic populations were “disadvantaged in both areas.”

Equity in and access to healthcare is fundamental, but bias is omnipresent. Age bias, for example, is a pervasive issue in breast cancer treatment. Research also indicates that racial bias is a prevalent issue—because the current guidelines in breast cancer screenings are based on white populations, this can lead to a delayed diagnosis for women from non-white communities. Our health is one of our greatest assets and healthcare should be a basic human right, no matter what state or country you live in. As a society, we must ensure that healthcare is available, affordable and accessible to all citizens. After all, how can a country call itself great if so many of its citizens, especially those most marginalized and vulnerable, don’t have access to healthcare?

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yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit · 2 months ago

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a guy in NYC shot point-blank the CEO of a healthcare insurance firm a few days ago. the bullets had engraved "deny, depose, defend" on them. the police found a backpack a couple days ago with a jacket inside, otherwise stuffed full of monopoly money. with every photo they release, people find the shooter hotter and stand with him. information about jury nullification (declaring someone as not-guilty on the account of their actions being justified) is being spread. A lot of online blogs which run identification gimmicks refuse to help the police. The offered rewards were insultingly low, compared to some of the insanely overpriced medical bill items. any businesses that provide information to the police are being boycotted and drowned in one-star reviews. the other CEOs of health companies are going dark, taking down their information from their websites, linkedin and even wikipedia. eMusk showed up to a senate meeting with his previously-unseen child as a speculated shield. the rich are scared out of their mind lol the public perception is in support of the shooter across the board, despite some (ben shapiro) claiming it to be only the left. people have been upset at the USA healthcare system for a veeery long time now and it's starting to boil over now

hope this gets you up to speed!!

Well that certainly does, thank you! [posting in case anyone else has been under a rock for a week]

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beardedmrbean · 29 days ago

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Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Chinese hackers called Salt Typhoon have infiltrated a ninth telecommunications firm, gaining access to information about millions of people, U.S. cybersecurity officials say.

The FBI is investigating the Salt Typhoon attacks, which are spurring new defensive measures, deputy U.S. national security adviser Anne Neuberger told reporters on Friday.

"As we look at China's compromise of now nine telecom companies, the first step is creating a defensible infrastructure," she said.

The hackers primarily are targeting individuals and organizations involved in political or governmental activities and a significant number of hacking victims are located in the Washington D.C.-Virginia area.

The hackers can geolocate millions of people in the United States, listen to their phone conversations and record them whenever they like, Politico reported.

Among recent victims are President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and several Biden administration officials.

Neuberger did not name the nine telecommunications firms that have been hacked, but said telecommunications firms and others must do more to improve cybersecurity and protect individual customers.

"We wouldn't leave our homes, our offices unlocked," she said. "Yet, the private companies owning and operating our critical infrastructure often do not have the basic cybersecurity practices in place that would make our infrastructure riskier, costlier and harder for countries and criminals to attack."

She said companies need better management of configuration, better vulnerability management of networks and better work across the telecom sector to share information when incidents occur.

"However, we know that voluntary cybersecurity practices are inadequate to protect against China, Russia and Iran hacking our critical infrastructure," Neuberger said.

Australian and British officials already have enacted telecom regulations "because they recognize that the nation's secrets, the nation's economy relies on their telecommunications sector."

Neuberger said her British counterparts told her they would have detected and contained Salt Typhoon attacks faster and minimized their spread and impact.

"One of the most concerning and really troubling things we deal with is hacking of hospitals [and] hacking of healthcare data," Neuberger said. "We see Americans' sensitive healthcare data, sensitive mental health procedures [and] sensitive procedures being leaked on the dark web with the opportunity to blackmail individuals with that."

She said federal regulators are updating existing rules and implementing new ones to counteract the cyberattacks and threats from Salt Typhoon and others.

The Department of Justice on Friday issued a rule prohibiting or restricting certain types of data transactions with certain nations or individuals who might have an interest in that data.

The protected information includes those involving government-related data and bulk sensitive personal data of individuals that could pose an unacceptable risk to the nation's national security.

The Department of Health and Human Services likewise issued a proposed rule to improve cybersecurity and protect the nation's healthcare system against an increasing number of cyberattacks.

The proposed HHS rule would require health insurers, most healthcare providers and their business partners to improve cybersecurity protections for individuals' information that is protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

"The increasing frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks in the healthcare sector pose a direct and significant threat to patient safety," HHS Deputy Secretary Andrea Palm said Friday.

"These attacks endanger patients by exposing vulnerabilities in our healthcare system, degrading patient trust, disrupting patient care, diverting patients and delaying medical procedures."

The proposed rule "is a vital step to ensuring that healthcare providers, patients and communities are not only better prepared to face a cyberattack but are also more secure and resilient," Palm added.

Neuberger estimated the cost to implement improved cybersecurity to thwart attacks by Salt Typhoon and others at $9 billion during the first year and $6 billion for years 2 through 5.

"The cost of not acting is not only high, it also endangers critical infrastructure and patient safety," she said, "and it carries other harmful consequences."

The average cost of a breach in healthcare was $10.1 million in 2023, but the cost is nearing $800 million from a breach of Change Healthcare last year.

Those costs include the costs of recovery and operations and, "frankly, in the cost to Americans' healthcare data and the operations of hospitals affected by it," Neuberger said.

The Federal Communications Commission also has scheduled a Jan. 15 vote on additional proposed rules to combat Salt Typhoon and other hackers.

#nunyas news

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victusinveritas · 3 months ago

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Late night political rant from a middle aged Leftist.

Look...

Harris...

Isn't great. Or good. And... she's going to murder people overseas (yep, them, also some other folks, also probably definitely (weirdly) Lichtenstein which is not really a genocide but she'll probably keep enabling one) and her declaration about a strong military is...not great. At best, and I say this with all the confidence of someone knowing it's more likely that all my student loans are forgiven and I end up with free dental because of my college degree, she might tug the leash on BB and friends and maybe suggest, slightly curtailing the genocide in Gaza and the bombing of Lebanon, once she's in power. Maybe. Do I think she's likely to do anything right away (in goddamn January)? No. She'll say "we're moving towards peace..." while arming a nuclear terrorist state with even less compunction about committing war crimes than the US or Canada (not recently, but Canada is like half of why the Geneva Convention exists because they... didn't like taking prisoners in WWI and II).

But what about X candidate that only exists in California or God the fuck knows where? No. No chance of them winning. To get a third party president elected we need to get a third party in House and the Senate. Once we turn them at least a bit Good Red (Socialist of some stripe) we can take a chance at someone outside the usual Dems or GOP.

But...Stein is a Trump/Putin stooge that pops up every four years and will probably continue to do so like the monster in Jeepers Creepers until she has body parts from staffers in every state to create a mega-Libertarian (Megazord but with a real firm knowledge of age of consent laws and a Randian sense of self importance)...

So...

The one thing I can say for Harris is that Tim Walz probably has a kinda wholesome fetish for women his own age or within an appropriate margin (milfs and up) who look like his wife and like to pop balloons. Anyway, whatever his take kink is, he will fight like a Midwesterner (with folksy homespun cussedness) to keep Pornhub and similar sites free to access for all people, because this is America, and we invented modern porn (Czechoslovakia and Hungary perfected it) and the internet, and by gum we're going to keep those things together because they're as American as what one or more consenting folks do in the privacy of anywhere not a school zone or very public park (bushes are fine, ditto riverbanks).

Project 2025 will take away all of that and more.

Vote Blue. And then drag Blue kicking and screaming towards accountability and the things America and the world are owed by the billionaires dodging their fair share of things. Vote in folks running on pro universal healthcare tickets and just generally not being douchebags.

(and no, I'm not going to debate folks on any of this except perhaps my theories on a US invasion of Liechtenstein, I have better things to do than yell at people on the internet and so do you. Go join a mutual aid group or three, play a hand or two of cards.)

#project 2025 #please vote #vote blue #jerkin it in private is a human right #life liberty and the pursuit of happiness #usa usa usa #christofascists #antifascist #straight up jorking it #jorkin depeanus #jorkin depeanus vance #fuck trump #political rants #leftist infighting

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mmbaaccountantss · 1 year ago

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sem24 · 2 days ago

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On the importance of immigrants…

I usually just post fun, quirky fandom stuff, but in light of recent events I felt I needed to speak up:

Most Americans probably know this iconic song.

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It’s considered a classic piece of Americana, but what you may not know is that despite all its mentions of West Virginia, the song was actually inspired by its neighbor, Maryland.

The other thing is, it wasn’t written by John Denver but by a couple, Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert. Their creativity and collaboration brought the song to life before Denver’s voice made it a legend.

Before the success of that song, the two were very much starving artists—in the most literal sense. They couldn’t even afford groceries.

The names Sol and Helen Butt may not mean anything to you, but they mean everything to me…they were my great-grandparents.

Sol was a Polish immigrant, hence the unfortunate last name, awkwardly shortened from its original Polish form. It’s difficult to trace the records, but we believe he arrived in the U.S. sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s. According to my grandmother—his daughter-in-law—he saw the writing on the wall with the rise of fascism and antisemitism in the lead up to you know what.

As a Jew, he decided to leave before it was too late. The details are hazy, and my recently deceased grandmother’s memory wasn’t as sharp in her final years. (We sadly lost my grandfather when I was very young.) But as far as we know, only Sol—and possibly one of his sisters—made it out. What became of his parents and other siblings is unclear, but you can imagine…

Sol was, by all accounts, a kind, generous, and very… passionate man. One family legend tells of a time when a man came into their little “Mom and Pop grocery store” and held a knife to my great-grandmother’s throat, attempting to rob them. My great-grandfather was in the back, where they also had a small butcher shop. Hearing the commotion, he came out holding his giant butcher’s cleaver. The would-be robber took one look at the furious Polish man with the enormous knife and bolted. But Sol, enraged that someone would dare threaten his beloved wife, didn’t stop there—he chased the man down the street, cleaver in hand, yelling at him the whole way.

Sol and Helen had a long, happy marriage until their deaths, long before I was born. They were apparently so well-loved in their neighborhood that when they eventually retired and sold their shop, the community threw a giant block party in their honor. Somewhere, packed away in my dad’s house, there’s an old album with grainy photos of that day—a celebration of two lives that left such a lasting mark on everyone around them.

They were survived by my grandfather, who, as I mentioned earlier, passed away many years ago. Even so, I can still vaguely remember him—a warm, bald man with an infectious belly laugh and the kind of hugs that made you feel completely safe and loved. Sol and Helen raised a good man, someone who spent the last 30 years of his life using his law degree not to climb the ladder at some fancy law firm, but to defend people against predatory IRS practices, fighting for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. Tragically, despite his dedication to helping others, he was let down by the U.S. healthcare system and died from a preventable cause—a painful irony for a man who spent his life trying to make things fairer for others.

All this to say, immigrants built this country, shaping everything from agriculture to art and contributing to the few parts of the U.S. that make life here worth living. No one should have to justify why they deserve to exist somewhere, but immigrants have more than proven their value. Without them, much of what we think of as quintessentially American wouldn’t exist—from Italians giving us pizza to Japanese workers building the railroads, to Mexican communities enriching our culture, to a small immigrant-owned grocery store quietly supporting the creation of one of America’s most beloved songs. Immigrants aren’t just part of the story—they are the story, woven into the very fabric of this nation.

Fuck Elon Musk

Fuck our orange dictator

Fuck Nazis

And remember kids, always punch Nazis in their stupid fucking face.

Or chase them with a cleaver, you have options.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, that is all.

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