Blog

The recent cyberattack on billing and payments giant Change Healthcare revealed how severe vulnerabilities are across the U.S. healthcare system and alerted industry leaders and policymakers to the urgent need for better digital security.Hospitals, health insurers, medical clinics and other industry players have increasingly been the targets of significant cyber attacks, culminating in the assault on Change, a unit of giant UnitedHealth Group, on February 21.The ransomware attack on the country's largest clearinghouse, which handles a third of all medical records, has had widespread effects. Fixes and workarounds have alleviated some challenges, but vendors are still unable to collect billions of dollars in payments. Many smaller hospitals and medical practices are still struggling t...

Protests against Netanyahu intensifyThousands of people gathered outside the Israeli Parliament yesterday in one of the largest demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the start of the war in Gaza.He has faced growing pressure, abroad and at home, over Israel's handling of the war, with many Israelis calling for him to step down. Close allies such as the United States have criticized the war's heavy civilian toll and urged Israel to allow more aid to Gaza. And many Israelis have called on Netanyahu to prioritize the release of hostages held by Hamas as part of a ceasefire agreement. Thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday against Netanyahu's government.The protests in Jerusalem, which were expected to continue into Wednesday, came as i...

BRIAN REED I didn't feel great after I gave Hamza a hard time for going off on Richy Thompson, the British humanist. And truth is, it wasn't the first time I'd done something like that, where I called him out for crossing lines I thought he shouldn't be crossing as a journalist. The first time was early on in our working together. [PHONE RINGING] HAMZA SYED Hey. BRIAN REED Hey, Hamza. How's it going? HAMZA SYED It was my last week of journalism school, as I cramming to get my final project done, when Brian got in touch saying we needed to talk. HAMZA SYED I'm good. What's good? BRIAN REED Well, it's not great, honestly. HAMZA SYED Oh, God. BRIAN REED So I just got this email. HAMZA SYED This was when we were looking into Adderley Primary school, trying to find information about the he...

Daniel C. Lynch, a computer networking engineer whose exhibits on networking equipment helped accelerate the commercialization of the Internet in the 1980s and 1990s, died Saturday at his home in St. Helena, Calif., at age 82 years old.His death was confirmed by his daughter Julie Lynch-Sasson, who said he was suffering from kidney failure.In the mid-1980s, when the Internet was still the domain of academia and government, Lynch was a computer facilities manager who played a key role in the early years of data networking. Although the Internet was very small and limited to non-commercial use, Lynch was convinced of its greatest commercial potential.Daniel C. Lynch in an undated photograph. He sold his company, Interop, to Ziff Davis in 1991 for about $25 million.Credit...The Lynch family...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will undergo surgery Sunday night to treat a hernia, his office said in a statement.The operation comes at a time when Netanyahu is under growing pressure as the war in Gaza drags on and international calls for a ceasefire grow louder.Mr Netanyahu's office said on Sunday that he had been diagnosed with a hernia during a "routine examination" on Saturday evening. The prime minister has decided, in consultation with his doctors, to undergo an operation, a statement said, adding that it will take place on Sunday evening "under total anaesthesia".“Minister of Justice Yariv Levin will temporarily assume his duties,” the statement said. Levin is a longtime supporter of the prime minister's Likud party.Netanyahu – who also underwent hernia surge...

Ashlee Wiseman, a waitress at a Sizzler in Idaho Falls, Idaho, was 10 weeks pregnant when a nurse phoned with crushing news: a test of fetal DNA in her blood had found that her baby girl had trisomy 18, a catastrophic genetic abnormality, and was unlikely to survive.Devastated, she called her partner, Clint Risenmay, who was at work. He broke down in tears.Ashlee’s response was different.“A still small voice took over me,” she said. “I’m like, ‘I’m not going to listen to them. There has to be something that can help her. And there has to be someone who can help.’”A social media search led her to Dr. John Carey, a professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of Utah, who has devoted his life to helping families dealing with trisomy 18. He supports pregnant women who chose abortion, bu...

King Charles III attended an Easter church service at Windsor Castle on Sunday with Queen Camilla, stopping to greet well-wishers in his first significant public appearance since revealing last month that he has cancer.Charles, 75, continued to work while undergoing treatment, welcoming visitors and holding his weekly meetings with the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak. But he suspended public commitments on the advice of his doctors.The king's appearance in familiar surroundings, St George's Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle, was calculated to restore a semblance of normality to a royal family that has been severely unbalanced by multiple health crises this year. Catherine, Princess of Wales, announced just over a week ago that she too had been diagnosed with cancer.As e...

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.[PHONE INTERNAL RINGING]belindaHello?astead herndonHi, my name’s Astead Herndon. I’m a politics reporter at “The New York Times” and hosting a new politics podcast from “The Times.” I’m looking for Belinda. Is this her?belindaIt is.astead herndonThank you for picking up. We are hoping that you had maybe 5, 10 minutes today for us to ask a few questions about how you’re feeling about politics right now, and then record that. Is that something you think we could do right now?belindaHow long have you been a reporter at “The New York Times?”...

Telecommunications giant AT&T announced Saturday that it had reset the passcodes of 7.6 million customers after determining that compromised customer data had been “released onto the dark web.”“Our internal teams are working with external cybersecurity experts to analyze the situation,” AT&T said. “As far as we know, the compromised data appears to be from 2019 or earlier and contains no personal financial information or call history.”The company said that "information varied by customer and account," but that it could include a person's full name, email address, postal address, phone number, Social Security, date of birth, AT&T account number, and passcode.In addition to these 7.6 million customers, 65.4 million former account holders were also affected.The company said it will “sepa...

The contest for the city hall presidency in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city and economic dynamo, is in many ways between one man who is on the ballot and another who is not.The first is incumbent Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a rising star in the political opposition who won a surprise victory in 2019 and is widely seen as a potential presidential contender.The second is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who decades ago was mayor of Istanbul and, after Imamoglu's victory, wanted to bring his hometown back under the control of the ruling Justice and Development Party.The outcome will be decided by Sunday's municipal elections, which in many ways will determine Turkey's political future.A victory for Erdogan's party would allow him to reclaim the political and financial clout of ru...