BOISE, Idaho – Four women suing over Idaho's strict abortion bans told a judge Tuesday how excitement about their pregnancies turned to sadness and fear after they learned their fetuses were unlikely to survive birth – and the way they’d to go away the state to get abortions out of fear that pregnancy complications would endanger their very own health.

“We felt like we were being made refugees, medical refugees,” said Jennifer Adkins, considered one of the plaintiffs within the case.

The women, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, usually are not calling for a repeal of the state's abortion ban. Instead, they need the judge to make clear and expand exceptions to the strict ban so that individuals with serious pregnancy complications can get abortions before they’re about to die.

Currently, the state's near-total ban makes it a felony to perform an abortion at any stage of pregnancy unless it’s “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.”

Adkins' fetus had a serious medical condition that meant it might not survive the pregnancy. The disease also puts Adkins vulnerable to developing “mirror syndrome,” a dangerous syndrome that could cause fatal hypertension and other problems, she said.

Adkins and her husband decided to have an abortion and learned they’d have to go away the state for an abortion after an ultrasound showed the fetus still had a heartbeat.

“No parent wants to wish they couldn't see their baby's heartbeat when looking at an ultrasound, but I was hoping I wouldn't,” Adkins said. “I wanted the decision to be made for us and I wanted to end her suffering, so it was really hard to realize that and know that we had the challenges that we had.”

Jilliane St. Michel and Rebecca Vincen-Brown told similar stories, telling the judge how they were devastated to learn that their fetuses suffered from serious medical conditions incompatible with life and the way the indisputable fact that they were forced to go away the state for an abortion, making the already tragic experience much more complicated.

Kayla Smith cried as she told the judge how she came upon she was pregnant for the second time on Mother's Day 2022 and the way she and her husband selected the name “Brooks” for his or her son. She was about 18 or 20 weeks pregnant when the sonographer went silent during a routine anatomy exam, Smith said.

Brooks' heart had abnormalities that were probably the most serious her doctor had ever seen – and the young family couldn't discover a pediatric cardiologist anywhere willing to perform surgery to correct the defects. Even if the center might have been repaired, the veins that offer Brooks' lungs were also abnormal, Smith said. It was possible she could carry the fetus to term, but it surely wouldn’t survive the birth, she said.

Smith had previous experience with pregnancy complications. Her daughter was born via emergency cesarean section, 33 weeks after Smith developed preeclampsia, a dangerous hypertension condition that put her at high risk of stroke. Doctors warned her that there was a risk of developing pre-eclampsia again.

“If I were to continue the pregnancy, not only would I be risking my life with preeclampsia, I would also be unwilling to watch my son suffer and possibly gasp for air,” Smith said, crying.

Idaho's abortion ban went into effect two days before Brooks' diagnosis, she said, making it unattainable for her to get an abortion in her home state.

“We wanted to get to know our son — that was really important to us — so we had to do it in a hospital,” she said. They took out a loan to cover the estimated $16,000 to $20,000 in out-of-network costs and drove greater than eight hours to a hospital where doctors induced labor.

They had an autopsy that confirmed the center defect was even worse than what they saw on the anatomy scan, she said. They also decided to have Brooks cremated, which meant they’d to drive back two weeks later to gather his stays.

The cost, the shortcoming to work with the doctors she selected, the compliance with rules surrounding the transport of human stays — all would have been avoided if she had been capable of receive abortion care in Idaho, Smith said.

“All four of these women were overjoyed to be pregnant with their second child, and all four received the worst news a mother could imagine,” attorney Gail Deady of the Center for Reproductive Rights told 4th District Judge Jason D. Scott, during opening arguments. They all sought abortion “to protect their health, to spare their babies pain and suffering, and to stay alive and healthy to protect their young children.”

The exceptions to Idaho's abortion bans are unworkable and endanger people like Smith, St. Michel and a whole bunch of other Idaho residents who face similar conditions, Deady said.

“Unborn children have a fundamental right to life, and protecting the lives of children is a legitimate and fundamental government interest,” Craig said.

The state also has the identical interest in protecting women's lives, Craig said – and the abortion ban laws do each, he claimed.

In the “rare cases where an abortion is necessary” to forestall the death of the mother, Idaho law allows it, Craig said. The women suing were attempting to “usurp the role of the Legislature” by asking the judge to rewrite the law, he said, and that was not the court's proper role.

The women were the primary witnesses to testify within the trial, which is anticipated to last all month.

By KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Reporter

LONDON (AP) — Most people have accrued quite a lot of data — selfies, emails, videos and more — on their social media and digital accounts over the course of their lives. What happens to it after we die?

It's advisable to jot down a will that specifies who will inherit your physical assets after your death, but don't forget to maintain your digital estate too. Friends and family may treasure the files and posts you left behind, but they may very well be lost in digital purgatory after your death if you happen to don't take just a few easy steps.

Here's how you may prepare your digital life on your family members:

Apple

The iPhone manufacturer lets you nominate a “ Legacy Contact “Who can access your Apple account data after you die?” The company says it’s a secure approach to give trusted people access to photos, files and messages. To set it up, you would like an Apple device with a reasonably recent operating system – iPhones and iPads require iOS or iPadOS 15.2 and MacBooks require macOS Monterey 12.1.

For iPhones, go to Settings, tap Sign in & Security, then tap Old Contact. You can designate a number of individuals who don't need an Apple ID or device.

You must provide your contact with an access key. It generally is a digital version sent electronically, or you may print a replica or save as a screenshot or PDF.

Note that there are some some file types They is not going to have the option to be shared – including digital, rights-protected music, movies and passwords stored in Apple's password manager. Older contacts can only access a deceased user's account for 3 years before Apple deletes the account.

Google

Google is taking a special approach Inactive account managerwhich lets you share your information with someone if it is set that you simply aren’t any longer using your account.

When setting it up, you'll need to choose how long you would like Google to attend (between three and 18 months) before considering your account inactive. Once this time is up, Google can notify as much as 10 people.

You can write a message informing you that you simply aren’t any longer using the account and optionally add a link to download your data. They can select what varieties of data they’ll access – including emails, photos, calendar entries and YouTube videos.

There can be the choice to mechanically delete your account after three months of inactivity, requiring your contacts to download all data before this era expires.

Facebook and Instagram

Some social media platforms may preserve accounts of deceased people in order that family and friends can honor their memory.

If Facebook or Instagram users die, parent company Meta says it's possible commemorate the account when it receives a “valid request” from a friend or member of the family. Requests may be submitted through a Online form.

The social media company strongly encourages Facebook users so as to add a Legacy Contact to administer their memorial accounts. For example, older contacts can reply to latest friend requests and update pinned posts, but they’ll't read private messages or remove or change previous posts. You can only select one person, who must even have a Facebook account.

You may also ask Facebook or Instagram to delete a deceased user's account if you happen to are an in depth member of the family or an executor. You might want to submit documents akin to a death certificate.

TikTok

The video-sharing platform says that after a user dies, a request to recollect the account may be made via the settings menu. Go to the Report a Problem section, then Account and Profile, then Manage Account, where you may report a deceased user.

Once an account has been saved, it is going to be marked “Saving.” No one can log in to the account, which prevents anyone from editing the profile or using the account to post latest content or send messages.

X

It will not be possible to nominate a legacy contact on Elon Musk's social media page. But relations or a licensed person may also submit an application Inquiry to deactivate a deceased user's account.

Passwords

In addition to the key online services, you likely have dozens, if not tons of, of other digital accounts that your survivors may have access to. You could simply write your whole credentials in a notebook and keep it in a protected place. But making a physical copy also comes with its own vulnerabilities. What if you happen to lose track? What if someone finds it?

Instead, consider a Password manager which has an emergency access function. Password managers are digital vaults through which you may store all of your access data. Some, like Guardian,Bitwarden And North Passallow users to designate a number of trusted contacts who can access their keys within the event of an emergency, akin to death.

But there are just a few catches: Those contacts must also use the identical password manager, and you could have to pay for the service.

Originally published: October 25, 2024 at 11:19 am

​​DUBLIN – Four days after a ransomware attack crippled Patelco Credit Union’s systems, the union was still unable to inform its members when banking operations would return to normal.

The Dublin-based credit union has not disclosed further details in regards to the security breach, which has left its members unable to make electronic payments, deposits and transfers since last weekend.

On Tuesday, customers continued to attend in queues at ATMs and were still forced to go to Patelco branches across the state to withdraw money, but were still unable to access their account balances or online banking information.

Enrique Juarez, certainly one of the credit union's estimated 500,000 members, visited the branch on Story Road in San Jose to inquire about his Social Security check, which had bounced and has been his only source of income since he retired in January. A bank worker told him to examine with the federal agency, he said Tuesday.

“I've never had a problem,” said Juarez, a retired warehouse employee who lives in San Jose. “Everything is frozen, I can't even check my account balance until the problem is resolved – and they don't know” when that can occur.

Ahmed Banafa, a lecturer at San Jose State University and a cybersecurity expert, said Tuesday that it was likely that hackers had penetrated the bank's internal databases via a “phishing email” and encrypted their contents, locking the bank out of its own systems.

“The hackers usually demand cryptocurrency, they demand payment. That's why it's called ransomware,” Banafa said.

Patelco is estimated to administer over $9 billion in assets in 37 branches across the state. It is unclear how most of the bank's 500,000 accounts were compromised and the extent to which the bank's assets have been affected.

Banafa called Patelco an “easy target” for hackers, or a low-security goal akin to schools and hospitals, in comparison with other better-known corporations with more sophisticated cybersecurity safeguards akin to federal government databases. It's possible the hackers are targeting either personal information from bank customers or money directly from the credit union, he said.

“Hackers can take this kind of information and sell and exploit it on the dark web,” Banafa said, referring to illegal online servers that sell contraband and other illegal services.

He said the hackers would likely demand a sum of cash from the credit union to return its systems to normal, and they’d proceed to carry the bank's accounts hostage until the bank either finds a option to circumvent the hack or until the hackers are paid. He said payment will likely be demanded in cryptocurrencies akin to BitCoin and is usually wired to an offshore account outside the U.S.

After Patelco waited greater than 24 hours to offer an update on the initial attack on Saturday, Banafa said, “It was clear they were having problems.”

Patelco arrange its own website on Monday to notify customers of the breach, with one other message from CEO Erin Mendez. Mendez wrote that they’re continuing to work with “external cybersecurity experts” to revive Patelco's functionality and that they’re cooperating with law enforcement.

“To our valued members – rest assured that we will refund any fees you are charged late due to this outage. If any of our members have concerns about late payments impacting their credit score, we will write letters on your behalf. We will also waive any Patelco overdraft, late payment or ATM fees until we are back up and running,” Mendez wrote.

She added: “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience our members have experienced and look forward to providing further updates in the coming days and weeks.”

Banafa said the perpetrator also deliberately carried out this attack by selecting the start of a brand new month and an upcoming holiday because the goal.

“The timing is very bad for the users, but it's well planned for the hackers,” Banafa said. “The problems are made worse by the timing… The people who planned this planned it when there was a lot of money at stake.”

Many customers face the issue of paying their rent, mortgage and other bills.

“I don't feel comfortable using my card even though I could,” said Lakeisha Thomas of downtown San Jose. She added that her bills are piling up and he or she's afraid of overdrawing her account because she doesn't understand how much money is in her account at any given time. “I don't want to owe anything later.”

Jermaine Johnson, a Mountain View resident, said in an interview that he would likely move his savings account to a different bank after first hearing in regards to the debacle 4 days ago on Tuesday.

“It's scary to begin with,” Johnson said. “If I didn't have the small amount of money that's in there, I'd be even more scared. But it's scary because you put your money in a place that you think is safe and then it turns out it's not safe.”

DUBLIN – Half 1,000,000 people still had no access to their accounts at Patelco Credit Union on Monday after a security breach on Saturday brought banking operations to a halt with no solution in sight.

On Saturday, Erin Mendez, president and CEO of Patelco, sent a system-wide email informing customers that a “major security breach” required us to “shut down some of our day-to-day banking systems so we can troubleshoot the issue and contain the impact, including our online banking, mobile app and call center.”

“We deeply apologize for the inconvenience and frustration this incident has caused. Our branches, call center and chat will be as ready to assist you as possible during regular business hours on July 1,” the Dublin-based credit union's website said on Monday. “We will answer your questions as best we can, but are unable to provide you with specific account details at this time.”

The credit union's members, estimated at 500,000, were concurrently locked out of their online accounts, unable to ascertain their balances, send or receive money, or change their passwords.

Patelco stated on its social media pages that customers could use “over 30,000 shared ATMs across the U.S.” for money withdrawals and deposits, but residents were unhappy with the limited access to their money.

“It shouldn't have taken your team 36 hours to respond with an official statement. And besides, no mention of the security of our assets? Ridiculous,” Michele Milz posted on X.

Patelco responded that the corporate's CEO “sent an email with an update to all members. While we may not have all the answers now, your safety and peace of mind is our top priority. Please stay tuned for further updates via social media.”

Julie Brusca, a San Jose resident, said she noticed around 7 a.m. Saturday morning that she not had access to her Patelco checking account. She continued trying to ascertain her account balances but found nothing. On Sunday, she went to a neighborhood Patelco ATM but again couldn’t access her accounts. Then, at 1:53 p.m., the company-wide notification got here from the bank's CEO, she said.

“They were unbearably vague about what it was about,” Brusca said in an interview with this newspaper.

Patelco didn’t provide any further information in regards to the severity or causes of the breach as of early Monday afternoon. The credit union's press office didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment Monday, nor did Mendez.

Later Monday afternoon, an updated statement from the press office got here out confirming that the breach was a “ransomware attack.”

The statement also said the bank had “engaged a leading third-party cybersecurity forensic firm to assist us with the investigation and recovery as quickly as possible” and that it was working “around the clock” on the difficulty.

“Is my money safe?” asks Brusca, a member since 1995. “If you pay your rent or something like that by direct debit, you’re out of luck.”

She added: “If they don't get this sorted by the end of the week, their reputation will go down the drain because you can't just deny people access to their money for a whole week.”

Patelco, the Bay Area's third-largest credit union, has multiple branches throughout the South Bay, including in San Jose, Campbell, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Milpitas. Additional locations include Fremont, Redwood City, Hayward, Castro Valley, San Leandro, San Mateo, Dublin, Livermore, San Bruno, Oakland, Berkeley, San Ramon and Danville.

Boom and bust

Non-systemic collapse

“Money doesn’t just disappear”