Tag: victims

Categories
Politics

Insurance coverage corporations heed Biden name to assist victims cowl extra prices

Insurance companies heed Biden call to help victims cover more costs

U.S. President Joe Biden arrives on Jan.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

WASHINGTON – Two of the best-known US insurance companies have responded to President Joe Biden’s request to cover additional living expenses for Louisiana policyholders who evacuated their homes prior to Hurricane Ida but were not under certain mandatory evacuation orders.

Allstate and USAA have agreed to pay additional living expenses for policyholders in the state who have evacuated their homes, a White House official told CNBC.

More companies are expected to follow suit, said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing effort.

Typically, insurance only covers the additional cost of living for policyholders evacuating their homes before major storms, not those who leave their homes voluntarily.

Biden first addressed the issue on Thursday in a White House speech about the storm.

CNBC policy

Read more about CNBC’s political coverage:

“Right now we are hearing reports that some insurance companies may refuse to cover additional living expenses unless the homeowner has been on a mandatory evacuation,” Biden said.

Homeowners in the path of the storm, he said, “left their homes because they felt they were fleeing or risking death. Nothing about that is voluntary.”

Biden then appealed to home insurers: “Do the right thing. Pay your policyholders what you owe them and cover the cost of temporary housing amid the disaster. Help the needy. “

On Friday, Biden visited Louisiana, where he said his government was “putting as much pressure as possible” on insurance companies.

State Insurance Commissioner James Donelon issued a bulletin Friday to all insurers in the state saying they should “refrain from using the language in their insurance policies that requires mandatory evacuation to trigger civil coverage”.

Donelon also directed insurers to let his office know whether or not they would comply, and increased the stakes on companies if they choose to refuse coverage.

After the story was published, a USAA spokesman told CNBC, “Some USAA homeowner policies offer limited coverage for evacuation costs when damage is covered. Members can provide receipts for reimbursement. “

The episode is a rare example of a US president effectively shaming large corporations for changing a fundamental piece of the way they do business – how insurance companies assess eligibility for coverage.

The origins of political change can be traced back to Cedric Richmond, a former Louisiana congressman who is a senior official in the Biden White House.

In the days following the storm, Richmond learned from homeowners that their insurance policies would not cover temporary housing costs unless their homes were subject to mandatory evacuation orders.

Ida hit land in most of southeast Louisiana last Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane. However, the evacuation orders were very different from community to community.

Some coastal communities, such as Grand Isle, made mandatory evacuations for all residents. Others, however, issued evacuation orders that were only compulsory for people in low-lying areas and voluntary in areas that are better isolated from floods.

In New Orleans, Mayor LaToya Cantrell issued a mandatory evacuation order for people living outside the city’s levee system, but a voluntary one for those protected by the levees.

“We are not asking for a mandatory evacuation because time is just not on our side,” Cantrell said on the Friday before the storm. “We don’t want people on the street and therefore in greater danger due to lack of time.”

During his visit, Biden encouraged anyone affected by Ida to contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency and see what kind of help they might be eligible for, and promised to keep the federal resources there until they settle have fully recovered.

“We will be there for you,” he said.

The home insurance industry’s leading trading group said its members are aware of Ida’s suffering and would like to help.

“Ida has devastated communities along the Gulf Coast and along the east coast. Insurers recognize the tragedy and fear faced by many American families, individuals and businesses as wildfires and storms rage amid uncertainty over the pandemic, “said David Sampson, president and CEO of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, said in one Statement to CNBC.

“Insured who have suffered a claim should call their insurer as soon as possible to initiate the claim process. Call your insurer if you have been evacuated voluntarily or compulsorily to discuss your coverage. Policies can vary by company and state, ”he said.

Categories
World News

U.Okay. Justice System Has Failed Rape Victims, Authorities Says

U.K. Justice System Has Failed Rape Victims, Government Says

LONDON — Thousands of rape and sexual assault victims have been failed by the criminal justice system, according to a British government review released Friday that cited a dramatic fall in convictions in England and Wales in recent years, prompting an apology from government ministers.

In an interview with the BBC, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said that the findings of the review revealed “systemic failings” to deal with complaints made by victims “at all stages of the criminal justice process.”

He added: “The first thing I think I need to say is sorry, it’s not good enough. We’ve got to do a lot better.”

The review, which only covered cases with adult victims but acknowledged that children and young people were also subject to sexual assaults, was commissioned in March 2019 by the Conservative government. The review was intended to address the decline in rape prosecutions, which the Ministry of Justice said fell 59 percent, and convictions, which have dropped by 47 percent, since 2015-2016.

In that period, reported rapes of adults jumped to 43,187 from 24,093, according to Office for National Statistics numbers cited in the report.

But the government estimates that fewer than 20 percent of rape cases are actually reported to the police, and that the number of victims is about 128,000 a year. Of reported cases, which the statistics office said involved women in 84 percent of cases, just 1.6 percent resulted in a person being charged, according to the Home Office.

The report came as Britain grapples with a national reckoning over male violence against women that erupted in March after a police officer was arrested in the killing of a young woman, Sarah Everard. The officer, Wayne Couzens, 48, pleaded guilty to the rape and kidnapping of Ms. Everard this month.

In the report released Friday, Mr. Buckland, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Attorney General Michael Ellis said they were “deeply ashamed” of the decline in the number of prosecutions for rape cases, and the fact that one in two victims withdrew from rape investigations.

The review also found that the reasons for the decline in cases reaching court are “complex and wide-ranging,” including an “increase in personal digital data being requested, delays in investigative processes, strained relationships between different parts of the criminal justice system, a lack of specialist resources and inconsistent support to victims.”

Emily Hunt, an independent adviser to the review who was herself a victim of rape, said in the report that the low prosecution rate could not be attributed to possible false claims, which government data suggests accounts for up to 3 percent of rape allegations.

Katie Russell, the national spokeswoman for Rape Crisis, a charity that is part of a coalition of women’s groups called End Violence Against Women, welcomed the government’s admission of its own “catastrophic failures.”

However, she said, the drop in prosecutions could not be accounted for by cuts in funding and resources alone, which Mr. Buckland alluded to in his interview with the BBC.

“It’s clear there are wider cultural issues and issues of the actual functioning of the criminal justice system, in relation to rape and sexual offenses,” said Ms. Russell.

The review acknowledged that victims of rape have been treated “poorly.” In some instances, as they were struggling to deal with the psychological toll of reporting their rapes, they were informed that their cases would not be taken any further, sometimes without explanation.

Bonny Turner, a sexual assault activist who has gone public about her experience with an investigation of her 2016 rape allegations, which was dropped by prosecutors because of insufficient evidence, said the report’s findings came as little comfort.

The report did not make any reference to how the government “is going to redress the situation with those of us who have already been failed,” she said. “It’s as if they feel as though they think they can just get away with an apology but no action to back that up.”

The government said in the review that it would push for a “cultural change” in the police and among prosecutors to return the number of rape cases reaching court to “pre-2016 levels.”

The government added that sexual assault investigations would focus on the behavior patterns of accused attackers, and try to avoid undermining the credibility of victims — a failure that was highlighted in the report.

Citing rape victims who felt traumatized by having their phones taken away and examined during investigations, the review said victims would no longer be left without their devices for more than 24 hours.

Vulnerable victims will also be allowed to record video evidence in advance instead of being forced to endure the trauma of giving public testimony during trials.

Vera Baird, the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales — an independent adviser to the government — welcomed the ministers’ apologies over what she described as an “abysmal record.”

She said the government had taken too long to confront “what victims have been saying for years,” adding that the review underscored numerous missed opportunities. “Despite its clear limitations, we have to seize this moment if we are to escape this crisis in our justice system. I truly hope this review will drive us forwards. Indeed, it can’t get much worse.”

Categories
Health

Covid Victims Remembered By Their Objects

Covid Victims Remembered Through Their Objects

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and provides a behind-the-scenes look at how our journalism comes together.

As the art director of the Well Desk, I’ve spent the last year looking for images that reflect the devastation the pandemic has caused and the distress it has caused. As the crisis spread, I thought of all of the people who lost their loved ones to Covid-19 – not to mention those who lost their loved ones, period – and how they liked the usual ways of collecting and collecting Foreclosure cut off were grief. As the numbers grew every day, it was easy to lose sight of the people behind the statistics. I wanted to find a way to humanize the death toll and restore visibility to the deceased.

To help our readers honor the lives of those lost during the pandemic, we asked them to submit photos of objects that will remind them of their loved ones. The reactions were overwhelming and captured love, heartache and memory. We heard from children, spouses, siblings, grandchildren, and friends – people who had lost loved ones not just to Covid-19, but for all sorts of reasons. What united them was their inability to personally mourn together.

Dani Blum, Wells’ chief news assistant, spoke to each individual by phone for hours. “It’s the toughest reporting I’ve ever done, but I’m really honored to be able to tell these stories,” she said. “What impressed me most about hearing all of these stories was how much fun it was to remember the people who died, even in so many tragedies. Many of these conversations started in tears and ended with laughter as they told me a joke that the person they lost would tell or their favorite happy memory with them. “

The photos and personal stories, which were published digitally as an interactive feature, were designed by Umi Syam and are entitled “What a loss looks like”. Among the stories we uncovered: A ceremonial wedding lasso is a symbol of the unbreakable bond between mother and father, both lost to Covid-19 and mourned by their children. A ceramic zebra figure reminds a woman of her best friend who died after they had finally said goodbye. A gold bracelet that belonged to a father never leaves his daughter’s wrist because she is desperate for a connection to his memory.

For those who are left behind, these items are a tangible daily reminder of those who have departed. These possessions hold a space and tell a story. As you spend time with them, you will feel the weight of their importance, the impact, and the memory of what they represent.

Museums have long shown artifacts as a link to the past. This also applies to the New York Times, which in 2015 published a photo essay about objects collected on September 11th at the World Trade Center and the surrounding area. When we started this project, we heard from several artists who were investigating the relationship between objects and loss in their own work.

Shortly after Hurricane Sandy, Elisabeth Smolarz, an artist in Queens, began working on the Encyclopedia of Things, which examines loss and trauma from personal objects. Kija Lucas, an artist living in San Francisco, has been photographing artifacts for seven years and is showing her work in her project “The Museum of Sentimental Taxonomy”.

“Saved: Objects of the Dead” is a 12-year project by artist Jody Servon and poet Lorene Delany-Ullman, in which photographs of personal items of deceased loved ones are paired with prose to explore the human experience of life and death Memory. And the authors Bill Shapiro and Naomi Wax have interviewed hundreds of people for years and asked them about the most telling single object in their lives and summarized their stories in the book “What We Keep”.

As the pandemic continues to grapple the nation, the Well desk will continue to wrestle with the great grief it leaves behind. Additional features on this topic include resources for grievers, the grief associated with minor loss, and the effects of grief on physical and mental health. Regarding “What a Loss Looks Like”, we’re keeping the callout open and inviting more readers to submit important items, expand and expand this virtual memorial, and create a shared mourning space.

Categories
Health

Compensation for victims of Covid vaccine accidents is restricted

Compensation for victims of Covid vaccine injuries is limited

Joanna Oakley got her annual flu shot in 2015 and immediately knew something was wrong.

“It felt like it hit the bone right away. And over the next few days I noticed that it was getting increasingly sore and it got where I couldn’t move my arm, I couldn’t turn my steering wheel in my car . ” She said.

As a nurse, Oakley is trained to give injections.

“It wasn’t until it happened to me that I started researching. I found that it actually happened more often than I would ever imagine,” she said.

Nurse Joanna Oakley and her son.

Source: Joanna Oakley

Oakley says she had three surgeries and that her arm never returned to normal. She suffered a so-called shoulder injury related to vaccine administration, or SIRVA.

“As a mother and wife and as a nurse, I was more concerned about what this injury would do to me, as far as I know, could I get it repaired? Would I be normal again?” She said.

Oakley is not alone. SIRVA is the most common vaccination violation for which people seek government compensation.

Twenty-one people have filed claims for adverse reactions to Covid-19 shots in the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program. This emerges from a response to the Department of Health and Human Services Freedom of Information Act to Professor Peter Meyers of the George Washington Law School.

To date, there have been seven reports of shoulder injuries from Covid-19 bullets as per the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which is maintained by the Centers for Disease Control of Prevention and does not review the reports. However, none of the 21 Covid-19 vaccine claims submitted to the compensation program are related to shoulder injuries, according to FOIA records.

Joanna Oakley suffered a serious shoulder injury from a flu vaccine.

Source: Joanna Oakley

“I have represented many clients whose lives have been changed by an unfortunate side effect of vaccination. It happens. It is rare, but it does. And often they are on the verge of the end of their life,” said attorney Altom Maglio.

The Countermeasure Compensation Program provides “compensation for those injured or dying of a vaccination, drug, device, or other so-called countermeasure necessary to prevent, treat, or combat a pandemic, epidemic, or security threat,” it says on the program website.

On March 10, 2020, then Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, made a statement under the Public Preparedness and Emergency Preparedness Act approving this program for Covid-related claims.

HHS has a far more generous program known as the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Currently, injuries are treated by 16 commonly used vaccines such as the flu, whooping cough and polio, but the Covid vaccine is not because it is not yet approved for use in children.

The countermeasure compensation program rarely pays off and rejects more than 90% of submitted claims according to HHS and FOIA records. In this case, claims averaging $ 200,000, according to HHS – about 60% less than the average National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program payment. Since the program was launched in 2009, only 29 applications for the H1N1 and smallpox vaccines have been paid in August. One of these has been classified as shoulder pain by HHS.

Maglio calls the CICP a “black hole”.

“Really, it’s a compensation program in name only and not in reality,” he said.

The VICP offers victims the opportunity to sue in court with judges and lawyers and to have the right to appeal. Among the other, he said, there is no right of appeal.

Unlike the VICP, the CICP does not cover legal fees or pain and suffering.

The VICP has paid approximately $ 4.5 billion in total compensation as of March 1 since filing claims in 1998. According to HHS, this dwarfs the approximately $ 6 million in paid services of the CICP over the life of the program.

In July last year, HHS proposed a new regulation aimed at reversing existing consumer protection for shoulder injuries caused by vaccination shots. These were caused by “negligence of the vaccine administrator” rather than the vaccines themselves. That would have forced people with shoulder injuries to sue whoever gave the vaccine, Maglio said.

It was supposed to go into effect in February, but the new administration under President Joe Biden has halted all of the rules proposed in the final days of the Trump administration.

The Biden government last week announced plans to withdraw the final settlement.

“HHS is also proposing to repeal the final rule amid fears it could negatively impact vaccine administrators, which goes against the federal government’s efforts to increase vaccinations in the US to address coronavirus disease 2019 to respond to (COVID-19) pandemic, “HHS wrote in its notice to withdraw the proposed rules.

A spokesman for Health Resources and Service Administration, the agency within HHS that oversees vaccination injury compensation programs, declined to be interviewed. Instead, the CNBC agency referred to its public notices.

“I believe instead of weakening this program and removing injuries from it, it needs to be strengthened,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas. “It hasn’t really been revised since 1988 when it came into effect.”

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) speaks on lower drug prices, particularly those related to coronavirus, during a press conference on Capitol Hill March 5, 2020 in Washington, DC.

Samuel Corum | Getty Images

Doggett’s office estimates that 5,000 to 6,000 people across the country are likely to have an adverse reaction to the Covid vaccine, based on statistics from the H1N1 vaccine.

“It will build confidence to know that in the extremely unlikely event that there is a probability of 1 in a million that you will face adverse consequences that there is a fund to protect you so that you do not have to deal with huge medical bills and others Losses are charged. ” ” he said.

Oakley said she believed in vaccines but wanted a program in case things go wrong.

“I would only be concerned if someone took this program away, if someone had a problem, an adverse effect from a vaccine, they really would have no recourse,” she said.

Categories
Business

1000’s of Microsoft Prospects Could Have Been Victims of Hack Tied to China

Thousands of Microsoft Customers May Have Been Victims of Hack Tied to China

U.S. corporations and government agencies using a Microsoft email service have been compromised in an aggressive hacking campaign likely sponsored by the Chinese government, Microsoft said.

The number of victims is estimated at tens of thousands and, according to some security experts, could rise if the investigation into the breach continues. According to Volexity, the cybersecurity firm that discovered the hack, the hackers secretly attacked multiple targets in January, but their efforts escalated in recent weeks as Microsoft fixed the vulnerabilities exploited in the attack.

The US government’s cybersecurity agency issued an emergency warning on Wednesday fearing that the hacking campaign had hit a large number of targets. The warning prompted federal agencies to patch their systems immediately. On Friday, cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs reported that the attack hit at least 30,000 Microsoft customers.

“We are concerned that there are large numbers of victims,” ​​said White House press secretary Jen Psaki during a press conference on Friday. The attack “could have far-reaching effects,” she added.

Federal officials struggled to understand how the most recent hack compares to last year’s penetration by Russian hackers into a variety of federal agencies and corporate systems in what is known as the SolarWinds attack. In this case, the Russian hackers put code in an update to the SolarWinds network management software. While around 18,000 customers of the company have downloaded the code, so far there is only evidence that the Russian hackers have stolen material from nine government agencies and around 100 companies.

In the hack Microsoft attributed to the Chinese, it is estimated that around 30,000 customers were affected when the hackers exploited vulnerabilities in Exchange, an email and calendar server created by Microsoft. These systems are used by a wide range of customers, from small businesses to local and state agencies to some military contractors. The hackers were able to steal email and install malware to continue monitoring their targets, Microsoft said in a blog post, but Microsoft said it had no idea how extensive the theft was.

The campaign was spotted in January, said Steven Adair, founder of Volexity. The hackers quietly stole emails from multiple destinations, exploiting a flaw that allowed them to access email servers without a password.

“This is what we consider to be really secret,” Adair said, adding that the discovery sparked a frantic investigation. “It made us tear everything apart.” Volexity reported its findings to Microsoft and the US government, he added.

The attack escalated at the end of February. The hackers began weaving multiple vulnerabilities together and targeting a wider group of victims. “We knew that what we had reported and seen as very secret was now being combined and chained to another exploit,” said Adair. “It just got worse and worse.”

According to a cybersecurity researcher who investigated the U.S. investigation into the hacks and who has no authority to speak publicly about the matter, the hackers attacked as many victims as possible online, hitting small businesses, local governments and large credit unions. The errors used by the hackers, known as zero-days, were previously unknown to Microsoft.

“We are closely following Microsoft’s emergency patch for previously unknown vulnerabilities in Exchange Server software and reporting possible compromises between US think tanks and defense companies,” said Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to the White House.

“This is the real deal,” tweeted Christopher Krebs, former director of the US agency for cybersecurity and infrastructure. (Mr. Krebs is not related to the cybersecurity reporter who posted the number of victims.)

Mr Krebs added that companies and organizations using Microsoft’s Exchange program should assume they were hacked sometime between February 26th and March 3rd and should work on it quickly that past week Install patches published by Microsoft.

Microsoft said a Chinese hacking group called Hafnium, “a government sponsored group that operates out of China,” was behind the hack.

Since the company announced the attack, other non-hafnium hackers have started exploiting the vulnerabilities for target organizations that haven’t patched their systems, Microsoft said. “Microsoft continues to see increased use of these vulnerabilities when multiple unpatched systems are attacked by multiple malicious actors,” the company said.

Patching these systems is not an easy task. Email servers are difficult to maintain, even for security professionals, and many companies lack the expertise to securely host their own servers. For years, Microsoft has been pushing these customers to move to the cloud, where Microsoft can manage security for them. Industry experts said the security incidents could encourage customers to move to the cloud and be a financial boon to Microsoft.

Because of the scale of the attack, many Exchange users are likely to be at risk, Adair said. “Even people who fixed this asap, there is an extremely high chance that they have already been compromised.”

Nicole Perlroth contributed to the reporting.

Categories
Business

Israel’s large vaccine drive is not maintaining with new circumstances — particularly amongst youthful victims

Israel's massive vaccine drive isn't keeping up with new cases — especially among younger victims

For the first time since the pandemic began, Israel says more than a quarter of the most serious Covid-19 cases requiring hospitalization occur in patients under the age of 60.

The Israeli Ministry of Health blames a new strain first discovered in the UK last month.

Dr. Itamar Grotto, Deputy Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Health, said: “This is because the new British variant is more contagious, especially among young people and children.”

The news that Israel’s hospitals now have a record number of serious Covid cases came within 24 hours of Israel launching a “second dose”. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first to get his second shot yesterday.

Israel has been commended by the global health community for moving to vaccination so quickly. So far, nearly two million Israelis have received their first shot from around 9 million people. Israel has a highly centralized health system in which everyone has to register in a digital system, which makes it easier for the Ministry of Health to organize the vaccination campaign across the country.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will receive the second dose of the vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on January 9, 2021 at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan near the coastal city of Tel Aviv.

MIRIAM ALSTER | AFP | Getty Images

Despite its success on the vaccine front, Israel is currently in its third nationwide lockdown due to the virus spreading. Without downplaying concerns about the rising percentage of younger people hospitalized with serious infections, epidemiologist Grotto points out that nearly 70% of Israelis over the age of 60 received their first shot, which gives them some immunity.

CNBC employee and former FDA chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb has been keeping an eye on trends in Israel and Europe since the pandemic started a year ago, and used them as a possible model for what could happen in the US, including the relatively newly discovered British variant.

“If we can use the vaccine, we can probably fight it off,” Gottlieb said, referring to the more dangerous, faster-spreading strain.

He believes the recent and alarming surge in cases in the United States is more related to vacation travel and gatherings, “but the bottom line is that we don’t have a good enough surveillance system to know for sure,” said Gottlieb.

The British variant officially only accounts for 0.2% of the US cases. Gottlieb also warned U.S. health officials that they are not yet looking so carefully for the increasingly dangerous burden ravaging an overstretched South African health system.