Write an article based on this summary:

– A drunk 18-year-old urinated on an 11-year-old girl's leg on a JetBlue flight Wednesday ... and it turns out that drunk 18-year-old is a member of the US Ski Team. Robert "Sandy" Vietze was removed from the team's developmental roster yesterday in the wake of the incident, and the New York Post speculates he may have lost his shot at the 2014 Winter Games. Vietze was on his way back to New York from an Oregon training camp when had had a bit too much to drink (eight alcoholic beverages, to be exact), stumbled a few rows forward from his seat, and mistook the girl's leg for the urinal. Flight attendants separated Vietze and the girl's furious father. "I woke up to this man yelling and literally looking like he was about to punch this kid in the face," a fellow passenger tells the Post. Police took the teen into custody after the plane landed in New York; he was issued a federal summons for indecent exposure and released. Federal prosecutors decided not to pursue the matter and dropped the case, CBS reports. "I was drunk, and I did not realize I was pissing on her leg," Vietze told police. The Post notes that he has not apologized to the girl.

It was plane madness.

 Chaos erupted on JetBlue’s red-eye flight from Portland, Ore., to JFK yesterday when a drunk allegedly urinated on a sleeping 11-year-old girl.

 The youngster was traveling with her sister and dad, and had been left alone for a few minutes while the others used the lavatories.

 Robert Vietze, 18, of South Warren Vt., stumbled from his seat five rows behind her and emptied his bladder, a witness said.

 “I was drunk, and I did not realize I was pissing on her leg,” the 6-foot-4, 195-pound Vietze said, according to law-enforcement sources. He later claimed to have consumed eight alcoholic beverages.

 The girl’s father caught Vietze midstream.

 “I woke up to this man yelling and literally looking like he was about to punch this kid in the face,” said the witness, who asked not to be identified.

 “The father was screaming, ‘F – – k that kid! I don’t want him near my family!’ ” the passenger said.

 Flight attendants separated the pair and removed Vietze to the back of the plane. They attempted to clean up the mess with liquid soap from the bathrooms, and helped to comfort the traumatized girl.

 But the 5½-hour flight from hell was not over yet.

 Roughly an hour before the plane landed, another passenger began to complain of chest pains, then vomited.

 “Is anybody on this flight a nurse or a doctor?” the pilot said over the public-address system. “We have a medical emergency.”

 With no volunteers, the flight crew kept the man calm and tried to tidy him up, again raiding the liquid-soap container.

 “The pilots kept coming out of the cockpit to talk to the flight crew about what was going on,” the witness said. “When we landed, the pilot warned us that police were coming.”

 Six Port Authority cops met the plane at the gate at around 6:30 a.m.

 Two escorted the ill passenger off, and four took Vietze into custody.

 Vietze was issued a federal summons for indecent exposure and released.

 Additional reporting by Philip Messing

 don.kaplan@nypost.com

  ||||| NEW YORK - An 18-year-old accused of urinating on the leg of another passenger during an Oregon-to-New York City flight will not face charges, prosecutors said.

 Robert Vietze, of Warren, Vt., was detained by police and then given a federal summons charging him with indecent exposure on the red-eye flight. The JetBlue plane left Portland late Tuesday and arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday morning.

 Vietze was intoxicated and got up from his seat during the flight and relieved himself in the cabin on another passenger, said Sara Beth Joren, a spokeswoman with the police department of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages the airport.

 As previously reported by The New York Post, Vietze said that he had drank eight alcoholic beverages, according to law enforcement sources.

 The person Vietze allegedly relieved himself on was an 11-year-old girl, whose father saw the incident and started yelling at Vietze, said a witness.

 Also during that same flight, a passenger complained of chest pains and then vomited, says the Post.

 Police officers met the plane at the gate. Vietze was questioned, given the summons and released.

 Federal prosecutors ultimately decided not to pursue the matter and dropped the case, Joren said. Robert Nardoza, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, said he had no information about the case.

 The phone rang unanswered Thursday at the only listed phone number for a Vietze family in Warren.

 A spokeswoman for JetBlue Airways Corp., based in Forest Hills, N.Y., confirmed that an "incident" had taken place aboard the flight and that police had been called, but she declined to discuss it further. ||||| He probably just pissed away his Olympic dreams.

 The drunken JetBlue passenger who treated a sleeping 11-year-old girl like his personal potty is a member of the US Ski Team who refused to apologize yesterday for the high-altitude humiliation.

 Robert “Sandy” Vietze, 18, is among the 75 most elite skiers in the nation — but he may have blown his chance to compete in the 2014 Winter Games in Russia.

 His name was bumped from the team’s developmental roster yesterday afternoon, although officials refused to comment about his status.

 The leaky loser expressed no remorse outside his family’s palatial Vermont home, where he ignored questions about the incident and showed no interest in apologizing to his victim.

 UPDATE: VIETZE CUT FROM OLYMPIC SKI TEAM

 “We have no comment, nothing to say,” snapped Vietze’s mother, Abigail, as they hauled luggage and ski equipment from a gray BMW.

 Vietze had taken the red-eye flight from Portland, Ore., to JFK Wednesday on his way home from a weeklong training camp with the US Ski Team at Mount Hood in Oregon.

 It was lousy luck for his young victim, who was flying with her sister and cancer-stricken father on a trip to see her grandmother on eastern Long Island for the first time since his diagnosis.

 Soon after takeoff, Vietze stumbled from his seat five rows behind the child and emptied his bladder onto the girl, who was briefly left alone while her dad and sister were in restrooms.

 “I was drunk, and I did not realize I was pissing on her leg,” the 6-foot-4, 195-pound Vietze later told cops, according to law-enforcement sources.

 The girl’s father, a Stage 4 cancer patient, caught Vietze midstream and tried to wipe him out.

 “F- -k that kid. I don’t want him near my family!” he yelled.

 Vietze slurred that he had suffered “an accident,” according to another passenger.

 Flight attendants had to separate the men.

 Vietze admitted to cops that he had consumed eight alcoholic beverages before boarding JetBlue Flight 166.

 He was issued a federal summons for indecent exposure, but federal prosecutors later decided to drop the case, according to Port Authority cops.

 The father refused to allow his traumatized 11-year-old daughter to be interviewed by cops, likely sparing Vietze criminal charges.

 Yesterday, the girl’s family attempted to recover from the disgusting incident by attending the Yankee game.

 Last May, when Vietze was invited to join the ski team, he was the toast of the Green Mountain Valley School in Waitsfield, Vt., which describes itself as “a world-class ski academy.”

 “He’s a very nice boy, one of the nicest, most respectable young people I’ve ever met,” said a neighbor, Colin Seaman.

 “It would be very hard for me to believe that this even happened.”

 Additional reporting by Philip Messing and Jennifer Bain |||||


Summarize this article:

President Trump attacked one of the women who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in harsh and stark language Tuesday, as senators escalated their partisan warfare over his confirmation ahead of a highly anticipated hearing.

 After his speech at the United Nations, Trump took aim at Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale University and the second woman to accuse the nominee. She told the New Yorker magazine that he exposed himself to her at a party when they were both first-year students. Dismissing Ramirez’s account because she was “totally inebriated and all messed up,” Trump also accused Democrats of playing a “con game” in an attempt to derail his Supreme Court choice.

 “The second accuser has nothing,” Trump told reporters. “The second accuser thinks maybe it could have been him, maybe not. She admits she was drunk. She admits time lapses.”

 The president dismissed the notion that the allegation could be disqualifying, saying sarcastically: “Oh, gee, let’s not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that.”

 Trump’s charged rhetoric against his nominee’s accusers came as Republicans quickly closed ranks around Kavanaugh, even as a handful of pivotal swing votes remained quiet on whether they would ultimately support his confirmation in the coming days.

 The high court begins its new term Monday, and Republicans are under intense political pressure from conservatives to confirm Kavanaugh amid warnings that failure could cost the GOP in November’s midterm elections.

 Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh has strongly denied accusations from two women of sexual misconduct. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

 Late Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent out a notice scheduling a 9:30 a.m. committee vote Friday in the case “that a majority of the members are prepared” to vote then. The full Senate could vote next Tuesday.

 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was defiant, speaking confidently about Kavanaugh’s prospects, assailing Democrats and casting the nominee as a victim of “the weaponization of unsubstantiated smears.”

 “We’re going to be moving forward. I’m confident we’re going to win,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “He will be confirmed in the very near future.”

 And asked Tuesday whether he could envision any scenario in which the White House withdraws Kavanaugh’s nomination, principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah said on MSNBC: “Absolutely not.”

 Looking ahead to Thursday’s hearing, Republicans hired a female lawyer from outside the panel to lead the questioning as the GOP faced the politically tough optics of the all-male Republican lineup questioning an accuser.

 “We have hired a female assistant to go on staff and to ask these questions in a respectful and professional way,” said McConnell.

 The committee’s chairman, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), confirmed in a statement late Tuesday that it had hired Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to do the questioning, shortly after The Post first reported the decision. A registered Republican, Mitchell is the sex crimes bureau chief for the Maricopa County attorney’s office in Phoenix, where she has worked for 26 years.

 “I’m very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role,” Grassley said. “Ms. Mitchell has been recognized in the legal community for her experience and objectivity.”

 Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegation from Ramirez, as well as the accusation from Christine Blasey Ford, who told The Washington Post that he sexually assaulted her when they were high school students in Maryland. Top panel staffers held a call with Kavanaugh earlier Tuesday to interview him about the allegation outlined in the New Yorker. As he has done publicly, he again denied the allegation in the staff interview, a panel spokesman said.

 Unlike a previous staff interview, Democratic aides listened in on the Tuesday afternoon call, another person briefed on the conversation said. But the Democrats — who have called for the FBI to reopen its background investigation of Kavanaugh — made their objections to the process clear and subsequently refused to ask the judge questions, the person said.

 One of the biggest points of contention remained the outside counsel who would question Ford and Kavanaugh. Republicans sought to avoid a repeat of 1991, when an all-male panel’s questioning of Anita Hill about her allegations of sexual impropriety against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas angered female voters, who elected dozens of women in November 1992. Thomas was confirmed to the court.

 All 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are men (as are six of the 10 Democrats).

 “We’ve done it because we want to depoliticize the whole process, like the Democrats politicized the Anita Hill thing,” said Grassley, who was on the panel in 1991. “The whole point is to create an environment where it’s what Dr. Ford has asked for, to be professional and to not be a circus.”

 Senate Democrats plan to ask questions of Kavanaugh and Ford, and the Democratic panel members met midday Tuesday to strategize about the hearing.

 “It’s up to them,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee, said of Republicans’ plan to use an outside lawyer. “It’s certainly their right to do that, and we’ll see how it goes. I’ve been on the committee for 24 years, and I’ve never seen it before. But we’ll see.”

 Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) pushed back at McConnell and Senate Republicans in unusually personal terms, criticizing him for a promise last week to “plow right through” the proceedings despite the drama over the accusers. “Does that sound like someone who’s treating these allegations with respect and fairness and evenhandedness?” Schumer asked. “Does that sound like someone who wants to get the real facts no matter where they fall? Certainly not to me. Not to the American people.”

 Ford has alleged that Kavanaugh drunkenly pinned her to a bed, groped her and put his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams as he tried to take off her clothes at a house party in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied being at the party.

 Meanwhile, the committee continued its outreach to Ramirez. Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) said Republicans had been rebuffed after trying to contact her lawyer, and a committee spokesman said it has not received a statement or additional evidence from her legal team after requesting them.

 White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that while the White House is open to testimony from Ramirez, she stressed that the confirmation process needs to come to a close.

 The New Yorker reported Sunday that in Ramirez’s initial conversations with the publication, “she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty.”

 But “after six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away,” the magazine said.

 Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) remained quiet about her intentions but stressed that the Thursday hearing should continue — even while the senator called for Ramirez to speak to the Judiciary Committee under oath.

 Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), another potential swing vote, said it was hard to assess Ramirez’s credibility at this point.

 “If there are allegations out there, then Ms. Ramirez needs to be willing to come forward with them, just as Dr. Ford has been willing to come forward, albeit reluctantly and understandably so,” Murkowski said. “And so in order for us to take them under consideration, she needs to take the next steps.”

 Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Ramirez’s accusations seem “pretty thinly sourced.” As to whether they should be explored, he said he will leave that to the Judiciary Committee. “Whatever they decide is fine with me,” Corker said.

 By the time the panel holds its hearing Thursday, there could be a third Kavanaugh accuser.

 Lawyer Michael Avenatti has said he is representing a woman who has accusations about Kavanaugh’s behavior in high school. In a Tuesday tweet, Avenatti said the woman would come forward only when she is ready but said he expects that to be within 36 hours.

 At their regular Tuesday party lunch, Republicans were told to be prepared to be in Washington this weekend to process Kavanaugh’s nomination, senators said.

 Meanwhile, another misconduct allegation threatened to play out Thursday on the other side of Capitol Hill. The House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday invited a woman who has accused Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt, a former Democratic congressman, of sexual harassment and retaliation.

 Gabriel Pogrund, Josh Dawsey, Rosalind S. Helderman, Karoun Demirjian and Mike DeBonis contributed to this report. ||||| In this image from Senate Television, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., speaks about Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the floor of the Senate Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, on Capitol Hill... (Associated Press)

 In this image from Senate Television, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., speaks about Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the floor of the Senate Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, on Capitol Hill in Washington. McConnell is condemning allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh as a "shameful,... (Associated Press)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh (all times local):

 12:10 p.m.

 President Donald Trump says Democrats are playing a "con game" against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

 Trump is seeking to cast doubt on sexual misconduct allegations lodged against Kavanaugh by a Yale classmate, Deborah Ramirez, who made her claims in an article published in The New Yorker magazine.

 Trump says Ramirez says it might not have been Kavanaugh and there were gaps in her memory. He says she says "she was totally inebriated and all messed up."

 Trump says: "This is a con game being played by the Democrats."

 Kavanaugh is set to testify Thursday at a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, is also expected to testify.

 ___

 11:18 a.m.

 A key Republican senator is indicating she believes there should be a new FBI investigation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh after allegations of sexual misconduct.

 Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is one of a handful of Senate Republicans undecided on Kavanaugh's confirmation. When asked Tuesday if there should be a full FBI investigation about the claims, she said: "Well, it would sure clear up all the questions, wouldn't it?"

 President Donald Trump and most Senate Republicans have said an FBI investigation isn't needed. Kavanaugh and his initial accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, will testify Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ford says he sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers.

 A second woman told the New Yorker magazine that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her in college. Kavanaugh denies both claims.

 ____

 11 a.m.

 The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, says Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell owes Christine Blasey Ford an apology for calling her allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh a smear job.

 Schumer says "he should apologize to her immediately."

 Two women have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct decades ago. He has denied sexually assaulting anyone.

 Schumer, the minority leader, also says it is galling that McConnell is making charges of partisanship by Democrats. He says McConnell has done more than maybe anyone else to politicize the Supreme Court nomination process.

 Schumer says that if McConnell truly believed the allegations were a partisan attack, he would join Democrats in calling for a background investigation.

 Schumer says "I think they're afraid of the facts."

 __

 10:35 a.m.

 The Senate's top Republican says unconfirmed, decades-old allegations of sexual misconduct by Brett Kavanaugh are no reason to block his Supreme Court nomination.

 Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says such charges are "nowhere near" a reason to "nullify someone's career." He says in the United States, accused people are supposed to be treated with fairness and a presumption of innocence.

 McConnell's emphasis on fairness comes as Republican leaders have ramped up efforts to solidify support for Kavanaugh among GOP senators.

 Christine Blasey Ford has accused Kavanaugh of molesting her during an early 1980s high school party. Deborah Ramirez has said Kavanaugh forced her to touch his penis during a Yale dormitory party when both were freshmen. Kavanaugh has denied both allegations.

 McConnell says the Senate will vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation soon.

 __

 7:25 a.m.

 White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says "we would be open" to Deborah Ramirez, a second woman accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, testify before the Senate Judiciary panel this week.

 Sanders says that "process could take place on Thursday," when Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has separately accused him of assaulting her in high school, are scheduled to testify.

 She says President Donald Trump "has said a number of times these individuals should be heard." At the same time, she noted that Kavanaugh has been "unequivocal in his denial" of sexual assault allegations. She adds, "This is a country where you're innocent until proven guilty except when you're a conservative Republican."

 Republicans have accused Democrats of a smear campaign by using the women's accusations of misconduct by Kavanaugh in high school and college to try to defeat his nomination.

 __

 12:40 a.m.

 Brett Kavanaugh says he won't let "false accusations" drive him from his quest to win Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court. That's part of an aggressive drive by President Donald Trump and top Republicans to rally the public and GOP senators behind Kavanaugh's teetering nomination.

 Trump and Republican leaders are accusing Democrats of a smear campaign by using accusations by two women of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh in the 1980s to try scuttling his Senate confirmation.

 There were no immediate indications that the emergence of a second accuser had fatally wounded Kavanaugh's prospects. But Republicans tried projecting unflinching support for Kavanaugh that included the nominee taking the unusual step of defending himself in a television interview.

 Kavanaugh said Monday on Fox News Channel, "I've never sexually assaulted anyone." ||||| Sitting beside the President of Colombia, Iván Duque Márquez, President Donald Trump said the two on-record accusations of sexual assault and misconduct made against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh were “a con game being played by the Democrats.”

 “As the President of a great country, Colombia, you must say, ‘How is this possible?’” Trump asked the Colombian president.

 “Thirty-six years ago and nobody ever knew about it, nobody ever heard about it?” Trump continued. “And now a new charge comes up and she said, well, it might not be him, and there were gaps, and she said she was totally inebriated and she was all messed up and she doesn’t know it was him, but it might have been him? Oh gee, let’s not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that?”

 “This is a con game being played by the Democrats.”

 Watch below: ||||| CLOSE President Donald Trump says Democrats are playing a "con game" against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. (Sept. 25) AP

 President Donald Trump arrives with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and National Security Advisor John Bolton, left, at the United Nations on Sept. 24, 2018. (Photo: JUSTIN LANE, EPA-EFE)

 NEW YORK – President Donald Trump unloaded on congressional Democrats Tuesday for playing a "con game" over his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, and he used his strongest language yet to criticize those accusing him of sexual assault.

 “The second accuser has nothing,” Trump said of Deborah Ramirez, who has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her at a party when they were freshmen at Yale University. “She admits that she was drunk. She admits time lapses."

 Trump made the remarks to reporters during a bilateral meeting with the president of Colombia, Iván Duque Márquez, at the United Nations General Assembly. He focused most of his ire on Democrats, who have urged a delay in the face of accusations from Ramirez and Christine Blasey Ford.

 “They’re really con artists,” Trump said of Democrats. “They don’t believe it themselves. They’re playing a con game, and they play it very well.”

 The Democrats are playing a high level CON GAME in their vicious effort to destroy a fine person. It is called the politics of destruction. Behind the scene the Dems are laughing. Pray for Brett Kavanaugh and his family! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2018

 In a late-night tweet, Trump again blasted Democrats for what he called a "vicious effort to destroy a fine person" and asked for prayers for Kavanaugh and his family.

 "The Democrats are playing a high level CON GAME in their vicious effort to destroy a fine person. It is called the politics of destruction. Behind the scene the Dems are laughing. Pray for Brett Kavanaugh and his family!" Trump wrote.

 But Trump, who initially took a more cautious approach to Kavanaugh's accusers, has increasingly ramped up his criticism of them. Last week he questioned why Ford had not reported the allegations to authorities at the time.

 On Tuesday, he took a more direct approach in questioning Ramirez's story.

 "Now a new charge comes up and she says it may not be him and there are gaps. And she was totally inebriated and all messed up, and she doesn’t know," Trump said. "It might have been him, or it might have been him.

 "Gee, let’s not make him a Supreme Court judge," Trump continued. "This is a con game being played by the Democrats."

 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2QXWeag |||||

– President Trump amped up the rhetoric Tuesday by calling Democrats "con artists" and saying Brett Kavanaugh's second accuser "has nothing" on the Supreme Court nominee, USA Today reports. "She admits that she was drunk," says Trump of Deborah Ramirez, who accuses Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her at a drunken dormitory party years ago. "She admits time lapses." Talking Points Memo notes that Trump was at UN headquarters in New York with the president of Colombia, Ivan Marquez, when he said, "As the president of a great country, Colombia, you must say, 'How is this possible?' Thirty-six years ago and nobody ever knew about it, nobody ever heard about it?” "And now a new charge comes up and she said, well, it might not be him, and there were gaps, and she said she was totally inebriated and she was all messed up and she doesn’t know it was him, but it might have been him?" adds Trump. "Oh gee, let’s not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that?" Of the Democrats, he says: "They’re really con artists. They don’t believe it themselves. They're playing a con game, and they play it very well." Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Ramirez could testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday—the same day Christine Ford plans to speak—and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who remains undecided on Kavanaugh, suggests she supports a full FBI investigation, per the AP.


– A Kentucky pastor has nullified a vote by his church to ban interracial couples, he says. “As far as I'm concerned and the church is concerned, this case will be closed as of tomorrow,” said Stacy Stepp on Saturday, after raising the issue with a council of local church leaders. The group ruled that the vote had no weight because parishioners hadn’t followed proper voting rules, ABC News reports. Stepp opposed the vote in the first place, he told the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Expand this summary.

The pastor at a small Kentucky church says he has nullified a vote by parishioners that banned interracial couples from the church.

 "As far as I'm concerned and the church is concerned, this case will be closed as of tomorrow," Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church pastor Stacy Stepp said Saturday, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. "We will ... get back on the right track and continue to win souls for the Lord."

 Stepp, who said he opposed the vote, declared it null and void after approaching the Sandy Valley Conference of Free Will Baptists, which consists of 13 Pike County churches.

 The conference met Saturday and released a statement saying it had reviewed the situation and concluded that the vote was of no effect because it "was not carried out in accordance with" Robert's Rules of Order, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader, and would therefore require a change in the church bylaws.

 The Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church voted 9 to 6 on Nov. 27 to ban interracial couples from church services or functions, with the exception of funerals.

 Stella Harville, 24, and her fiance Ticha Chikuni, 28, are the couple that prompted the church's actions. Harville is white and Chikuni is black. The couple met at Georgetown College in Kentucky, where both were students, and they plan to marry in July 2012.

 Harville is in graduate school in Indiana and Chikuni is working at Georgetown College, but when the couple visits Harville's parents in Pike County, Ky., they usually go to church with her parents.

 Harville's parents Cathy and Dean Harville have been church members for decades. Cathy Harville has taught Sunday school at the church and Dean Harville was a deacon there and is currently the church's secretary. They consider the church's 42 congregants their family.

 But after a service in June where Stella Harville and Chikuni participated by singing and playing the piano for a hymn, the family was shocked when then-pastor Melvin Thompson approached them after the service.

 Interracial Couple Prompts Church Ban

 "There seemed to not be a problem and then all of a sudden the pastor at the time came up to [Chikuni] and told him he could not sing anymore," Harville said. "That floored us. We wanted to know why."

 The next week, Cathy and Dean Harville met with Thompson and were shocked to hear their pastor say that members of the congregation had said they would walk out if Chikuni sang again. The parents wanted to know exactly who had a problem with their future son-in-law.

 "'Me, for one,'" Cathy Harville said that Thompson replied. She said he added, "'The best thing [Stella] can do is take him back where she found him.'"

 She said the pastor would not tell her any names of other people who took issue with Chikuni.

 Cathy Harville was taken aback.

 "There's no love at all in that and that really hurt me," she said. "They are both Christians and they both try to live a Christian life and serve God. There is nothing in the Bible that we found that tells us that the couple should not be married."

 Thompson could not be reached for comment.

 Thompson has since been replaced with a new pastor who said that everyone was welcome at the church and the Harville family said the issue was dropped, but at a recent meeting Thompson, who is still a member of the congregation, brought up the issue again and asked that it be discussed at a business meeting among the church's men.

 "Grown men cried at that meeting," Cathy Harville said. Three men voted to bring the issue before the church for a vote, and two voted against it, so the matter went before the congregation this past Sunday.

 Harville said that of 42 members, very few stayed for the meeting after church and even fewer voted. She said most congregants wanted no part of the vote.

 The motion read, in part: "The Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church does not condone interracial marriage. Parties of such marriages will not be received as members, nor will they be used in worship services and other church functions, with the exception being funerals."

 And: "The recommendation is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but indicated to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve."

 Church Torn by Ban on Interracial Couples

 Ultimately, nine people voted for the motion and six voted against it and interracial couples were banned.

 "It hurt," Harville said. "[Stella] knew she was going to face some challenges after she decided she would marry Ticha, but I didn't think it would be from our family."

 Stella Harville and Chikuni did not respond to requests for comment.

 Other churches in the community have condemned the decision.

 Randy Johnson, president of the Pike County/Pikeville Area Ministerial Association, which includes about 60 churches, said many people already have "stigmas" and "stereotypes" that they associate with Appalachia and that this decision does not accurately represent the vast majority of the community.

 "This really is an anomaly. This is not in any way, shape or form the sentiment of any other local churches or church leaders," Johnson said. "It really has saddened many people. It goes against almost everyone else's philosophy and theology of what it means to be a church." ||||| The pastor of a Pike County church that voted to exclude interracial couples from membership said he plans to take the advice of a church conference and declare the vote null and void in a meeting after services Sunday.

 "As far as I'm concerned and the church is concerned, this case will be closed as of tomorrow," Stacy Stepp, pastor of the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church, said Saturday. "We will ... get back on the right track and continue to win souls for the Lord."

 Stepp had approached the Sandy Valley Conference of Free Will Baptists, which consists of 13 Pike County churches, with a request for help after the church ignited a firestorm of criticism by voting 9-6 last Sunday to approve a statement saying it didn't condone interracial marriage.

 The statement said that while everyone was welcome to attend, interracial couples would not be received as members or used in worship services.

 Stepp said he opposed the statement.

 The Sandy Valley Conference met Saturday and issued a statement saying it had reviewed the situation and concluded that the vote was of no effect because it "was not carried out in accordance with" Robert's Rules of Order.

 The conference's parliamentary committee said the measure to exclude interracial couples would require a change in the church bylaws. Under Robert's Rules, such a change would require a vote of the majority of the entire membership, or a vote of two-thirds of those voting, the committee concluded.

 Since the church has about 44 members, a simple majority would require 23 "yes" votes for the motion to pass; two-thirds of those voting would have been 10 "yes" votes.

 "There wasn't enough support in that tiny church for what they did," said Jim Patton, a representative of the conference and pastor of the Pikeville Free Will Baptist Church. "This is not any longer a part of their church. It is null and void."

 In its public statement, the conference said that it "will continue to work with the Gulnare church to rebuild what has been damaged by this tragic error."

 "We the churches of the Sandy Valley Conference strongly denounce prejudice, racism and all ungodly forms of conduct, whether within the church or without," the statement said.

 Dean Harville, a longtime member and church clerk, said a former pastor who attends the church, Melvin Thompson, proposed that the church make a statement against interracial marriage after Harville's daughter, Stella, brought her fiancé to a worship service last summer and the two performed a song.

 Stella Harville is white; her fiancé is black.

 Thompson previously declined to discuss the issue with the Herald-Leader, but he told the Associated Press last week that he is not prejudiced.

 Patton said Saturday that Thompson has "repented" and would not bring the issue up again. "He is devastated. He is broken-hearted," Patton said. "He is a good man."

 Stella Harville, who is pursuing a graduate degree in optical engineering at a college in Indiana, said she hopes the church follows through with a reversal of its previous vote.

 "Let's just hope that the members have gotten the message — overturn it," she said. "But I'm not going to hold my breath."

 Stepp said that on Sunday, the church will likely take an informal vote "for the unity of the church" stating that all people are welcome, regardless of race.

 Herald-Leader staff writer Bill Estep contributed to this report. |||||


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Mr. Fateh told investigators that the houses in Swat, Haripur and Abbottabad were organized by their Pashtun hosts, identified as two brothers named Ibrahim and Abrar, whose families stayed with them throughout. Ibrahim is believed to refer to Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, a Pakistani-born Pashtun who grew up in Kuwait and who was known for a time to American intelligence as “the courier,” because he carried the Qaeda leader’s messages.

 When Navy SEAL commandos stormed the Abbottabad house last May, they killed Bin Laden and shot Ms. Fateh, who was in the same room, in the leg. She survived but four others were killed in the raid: the courier, his wife Bushra, his brother, Abrar, and Bin Laden’s 20-year-old son, Khalid.

 Bin Laden’s three wives are now confined to a rented house in Islamabad. On Tuesday, a cousin of Ms. Fateh’s in Yemen claimed that she was being held in a basement. “She limps from a bullet wound in her knee, and she’s suffering from psychological trauma and very low blood pressure,” Hameed al-Sadeh told Reuters.

 Ms. Fateh’s account, if proven, suggests that American military forces came tantalizingly close to Bin Laden in late 2005. In October of that year, a giant earthquake struck northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 73,000 people. For weeks afterward, American Chinook helicopters, diverted from Afghanistan and carrying relief supplies, passed overhead on their way into the quake zone. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, then a close ally of the Bush administration, repeatedly asserted that Bin Laden was sheltering across the border inside Afghanistan.

 The Pakistani decision to prosecute the three wives and two children goes against an earlier recommendation from the police that they be deported to Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Pakistani analysts said that suggested that Pakistani intelligence may have hidden reasons for detaining the family. “I think the government wants to hang on to them through a trial procedure so that the investigation can be completed,” said Riffat Hussain, a defense analyst. “And I think the Americans are quite keen to have access to Osama’s wives, too.”

 Scott Shane contributed reporting from Washington. ||||| ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Osama bin Laden spent nine years on the run in Pakistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, during which time he moved among five safe houses and fathered four children, at least two of whom were born in a government hospital, his youngest wife has told Pakistani investigators.

 The testimony of Amal Ahmad Abdul Fateh, Bin Laden’s 30-year-old wife, offers the most detailed account yet of life on the run for the Bin Laden family in the years preceding the American commando raid in May 2011 that killed the leader of Al Qaeda at the age of 54.

 Her account is contained in a police report dated Jan. 19 that, as an account of that frantic period, contains manifest flaws: Ms. Fateh’s words are paraphrased by a police officer, and there is noticeably little detail about the Pakistanis who helped her husband evade his American pursuers. Nevertheless, it raises more questions about how the world’s most wanted man managed to shunt his family between cities that span the breadth of Pakistan, apparently undetected and unmolested by the otherwise formidable security services.

 Bin Laden’s three widows are of great interest because they hold the answers to some of the questions that frustrated Western intelligence in the years after 2001. They are currently under house arrest in Islamabad, and their lawyer says he expects them and two adult children — Bin Laden’s daughters Maryam, 21, and Sumaya, 20 — to be charged on Monday with breaking Pakistani immigration laws, which carries a possible five-year jail sentence.

 The wives have cooperated with the authorities to varying degrees. Investigators say the older women, named in court documents as Kharia Hussain Sabir and Siham Sharif, both citizens of Saudi Arabia, have largely refused to cooperate with investigators. However, Ms. Fateh, who was wounded in the raid that killed her husband, has spoken out.

 The report, by a joint investigative panel made up of civilian and military officials, was first noted by the Pakistani newspaper Dawn on Thursday; The New York Times later obtained a copy of the filing. In Washington, United States officials said that while they could not confirm every detail of the report, it appeared generally consistent with what is known and believed about Bin Laden’s movements.

 In the report’s account, Ms. Fateh said she agreed to marry Bin Laden in 2000 because “she had a desire of marrying a mujahid.” She flew into Karachi in July that year and, months later, crossed into Afghanistan to join Bin Laden and two other wives at his base on a farm outside Kandahar.

 The Sept. 11 attacks caused the Bin Laden family to “scatter,” the report said. She returned to Karachi with her newborn daughter, Safia, where they stayed for about nine months. They changed houses up to seven times under arrangements brokered by “some Pakistani family” and Bin Laden’s elder son, Saad.

 Other senior Qaeda figures were also in Karachi, a sprawling city of up to 18 million people. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, claims to have personally killed the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl there during this period; he was captured at a house in Rawalpindi in March 2003.

 Ms. Fateh said she left Karachi in the second half of 2002 for Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, where she was reunited with her husband. The American pursuit of Bin Laden was running high: Qaeda operatives had attacked an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya and nightclubs in Indonesia, and with C.I.A. intelligence resources not yet diverted to Iraq, the search was firmly focused on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.

 Bin Laden, according to his wife, took his family deep into rural mountain areas of northwest Pakistan — but not, notably, into the tribal belt where much Western attention was focused. First they stayed in the Shangla district in Swat, a picturesque area about 80 miles northwest of the capital, Islamabad, where they stayed in two different houses for eight to nine months.

 Then in 2003 they moved to Haripur, a small town even closer to Islamabad, where they stayed in a rented house for two years. Here, Ms. Fateh gave birth to a girl, Aasia, in 2003 and a boy, Ibrahim, in 2004 — both of whom were delivered in a local government hospital. The police report states that Ms. Fateh “stayed in hospital for a very short time of about 2-3 hours” on each occasion. A separate document states that she gave fake identity papers to hospital staff.

 Finally, in mid-2005, according to Ms. Fateh, Bin Laden and his family moved to Abbottabad, 20 miles east of Haripur, where she gave birth to another two children: Zainab in 2006 and Hussain in 2008.

 Scott Shane contributed reporting from Washington. |||||Summary:

– During the nine years Osama bin Laden spent in hiding in Pakistan after 9/11, he made his way between five different homes in the country and fathered four children, according to his youngest wife. As recounted by a Pakistani police report, Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah revealed that two of the children were born in government hospitals, and these new details have the New York Times wondering how her husband was able to traverse the country with family in tow without being caught by Pakistani's powerful security forces. The bin Laden family split up after 9/11, but Abdulfattah joined her husband in the Pakistani city of Peshawar in 2002, she said. The family hid in rural northwest Pakistan, not far from Islamabad, though not in the tribal regions where Western authorities were searching. In 2003, they moved to Haripur, nearer to Islamabad, where Abdulfattah had two children in government hospitals, apparently under a fake name. They moved to Abbottabad, where bin Laden was killed, in 2005. Two more children were born there. Click for the full account of bin Laden's movements, including a near miss by US forces.


Article:

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 In recent years, many Americans’ personal information has become compromised by big data breaches. In 2018 alone, prominent companies like Adidas, Best Buy, Delta, Kmart, Macy’s and Sears have fallen victim to cybercriminals. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s most recent Data Breach Report, between January 1, 2005 and August 31, 2018, there have been 9,395 breaches. That accounts for over 1.1 billion records compromised.

 The federal government and various businesses in recent years have taken more aggressive measures to build up our defenses. The Trump administration recently released a new cybersecurity plan, including taking more offensive measures toward foreign cyberattacks. Despite this, criminal strategies continue to evolve and grow in sophistication, keeping consumers vulnerable to identity theft and fraud.

 But some Americans are more susceptible than others to such crimes. In order to determine who is most likely to be exposed to and affected by identity theft and fraud, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across ten key metrics. Our data set ranges from identity-theft complaints per capita to average loss amount due to fraud. Read on for our findings, tips for protecting your personal information and a full description of our methodology.

 Main Findings

 States With the Most Identity Theft & Fraud

 Overall Rank* State Total Score ‘Identity Theft’ Rank ‘Fraud’ Rank ‘Policy’ Rank 1 Nevada 72.66 2 5 27 2 Florida 69.11 12 2 27 3 New Jersey 68.52 1 25 5 4 Delaware 68.34 21 1 50 5 California 64.12 6 17 16 6 District of Columbia 63.89 20 3 5 7 New York 62.17 9 15 27 8 West Virginia 62.10 8 29 5 9 Michigan 61.71 10 13 41 10 North Dakota 61.64 4 37 5 11 Ohio 61.44 3 41 41 12 Maryland 59.60 7 19 51 13 Illinois 59.39 5 40 18 14 New Mexico 59.38 13 21 27 15 Colorado 59.20 14 14 41 16 South Carolina 57.83 22 9 41 17 Texas 57.72 18 12 27 18 Oregon 57.06 33 4 18 19 Tennessee 56.85 26 8 27 20 Georgia 56.36 23 10 27 21 Arizona 56.35 17 16 41 22 North Carolina 56.16 31 6 27 23 Pennsylvania 55.63 24 23 1 24 Minnesota 55.62 19 28 5 25 Virginia 55.28 25 11 18 26 Oklahoma 55.09 15 44 5 27 Nebraska 54.87 11 51 18 28 New Hampshire 53.70 30 20 1 29 Massachusetts 53.34 16 48 5 30 Missouri 51.04 32 27 1 31 Alabama 50.22 46 7 5 32 Rhode Island 49.86 28 47 4 33 Washington 49.32 27 38 18 34 Mississippi 48.91 34 18 18 35 Connecticut 48.16 29 36 27 36 Louisiana 46.48 39 22 18 37 Utah 45.49 36 30 27 38 Idaho 45.48 37 43 5 39 Alaska 44.38 38 39 18 40 Arkansas 43.35 35 45 41 41 Kansas 42.95 40 31 41 42 Wyoming 42.78 44 32 5 43 Montana 42.72 41 42 27 44 Indiana 42.35 47 24 27 45 Kentucky 41.83 45 35 16 46 Wisconsin 41.25 43 33 27 47 Maine 40.42 49 46 5 48 Iowa 39.25 42 49 41 49 Vermont 38.86 50 34 27 50 South Dakota 37.85 51 26 18 51 Hawaii 36.79 48 50 41

 *No. 1 = Most Vulnerable

 Quick Tips for Avoiding Identity Theft & Fraud

 Emphasize Email Security : It’s obviously important to use strong passwords for all financial accounts, but you may not realize how essential it is to focus on email. Your primary email address will likely serve as your username and means of resetting your password on other websites. If it’s vulnerable, all of your other accounts will be, too. As a result, make sure to use an especially secure password and establish two-step verification for this account.

 : It’s obviously important to use strong passwords for all financial accounts, but you may not realize how essential it is to focus on email. Your primary email address will likely serve as your username and means of resetting your password on other websites. If it’s vulnerable, all of your other accounts will be, too. As a result, make sure to use an especially secure password and establish two-step verification for this account. Sign Up for Credit Monitoring : Credit monitoring is the best way to keep tabs on your credit report. It provides peace of mind in the form of alerts about important changes to your file, including potential signs of identity theft. WalletHub offers free monitoring of your TransUnion credit report.

 : Credit monitoring is the best way to keep tabs on your credit report. It provides peace of mind in the form of alerts about important changes to your file, including potential signs of identity theft. WalletHub offers free monitoring of your TransUnion credit report. Leverage Account Alerts & Update Contact Info : Setting up online management for all of your financial accounts (e.g., credit cards, loans, Social Security), and keeping your phone number, email address and street address up to date will make them harder for identity thieves to hijack. Establishing alerts for changes to your contact info and other suspicious account activity will serve as a safeguard.

 : Setting up online management for all of your financial accounts (e.g., credit cards, loans, Social Security), and keeping your phone number, email address and street address up to date will make them harder for identity thieves to hijack. Establishing alerts for changes to your contact info and other suspicious account activity will serve as a safeguard. Use Common Sense Online: Don’t open emails you don’t recognize. Don’t download files from untrustworthy sources. Don’t send account numbers and passwords via email or messenger applications. And don’t enter financial or personal information into websites that lack the “https” prefix in their URLs.

 For more tips and information, check out WalletHub’s Identity Theft Guide.

 Ask the Experts

 As a cyber-oriented culture, it’s natural to wonder whether and how our daily habits assist hackers in stealing our personal information. We consulted a panel of experts for answers to such questions and advice on how to safeguard our data against cybercriminals. Click on the experts’ profiles to read their bios and thoughts on the following key questions:

 What can individuals do to guard against identity theft? How should consumers choose among third-party providers offering services to protect their identity and personal data? Should victims of identity theft be able to change their Social Security number? How can we make this number more difficult to steal and use (e.g., add more digits)? Is the recent expansion of social media facilitating identity thefts? Should the federal government intervene to establish a clear process for victims of identity theft looking to clear their name? What measures can authorities undertake in order to avoid cases like the recent Equifax leaks? Should credit bureaus be tested for security breaches by authorities on a regular basis? If so, would the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau play a larger role in regulation and enforcement of bureaus?

 Methodology

 In order to determine where American consumers are most vulnerable to identity theft and fraud, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across three key dimensions: 1) Identity Theft, 2) Fraud and 3) Policy.

 We evaluated those dimensions using ten key metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most vulnerable.

 Finally, we determined each state and the District’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its total score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample.

 Identity Theft – Total Points: 47.5

 Identity-Theft Complaints per Capita: Full Weight (~23.75 Points)

 Average Loss Amount Due to Online Identity Theft: Full Weight (~23.75 Points)

 Note: This metric was calculated using the following formula: Total Loss Amount / Total Number of Online Identity-Theft Complaints.

 Fraud – Total Points: 47.5

 Fraud & Other Complaints per Capita: Full Weight (~11.88 Points)

 Median Loss Amount Due to Fraud: Full Weight (~11.88 Points)

 Note: This metric was calculated using the following formula: Total Reported Amount Paid / Total Number of Complaints Stating the Amount Stolen. “Total reported amount paid” is based on the total number of fraud complaints for which the amount paid was reported by the victims. The amount paid ranges from $0 to $999,999.

 Persons Arrested for Fraud per Capita: Full Weight (~11.88 Points)

 E-Commerce Attack Rates: Full Weight (~11.88 Points)

 Policy – Total Points: 5.0

 Availability of Security-Freeze Law for Minors’ Credit Reports: Full Weight (~1.25 Points)

 Note: This binary metric considers the presence or absence of legislation allowing parents, legal guardians or other representatives of minors to place a security freeze on the minor’s credit report.

 Availability of Identity-Theft Passport Program : Full Weight (~1.25 Points)

 Note: This binary metric considers the presence or absence of Identity-Theft Passport programs that help victims of identity theft reclaim their identity. When presented to a law-enforcement agency, an “identity-theft passport” allows a victim to prevent his or her arrest for offenses committed by an identity thief.

 Compliance with REAL ID Act : Full Weight (~1.25 Points)

 Note: According to the Department of Homeland Security, the REAL ID Act “establishes minimum security standards for license issuance and production and prohibits Federal agencies from accepting for certain purposes driver’s licenses and identification cards from states not meeting the Act’s minimum standards. The purposes covered by the Act are: accessing Federal facilities, entering nuclear power plants, and, boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft.” This binary metric considers a state’s compliance, noncompliance or extension of time to comply with the ACT. An extension allows a state to accept driver’s licenses and identification cards issued by that jurisdiction to accept those forms of identification for official purposes, under the condition that the state has provided adequate justification for noncompliance.

 Data Disposal Laws by State : Full Weight (~1.25 Points)

 Note: This is a binary metric that measures the presence or absence of data disposal laws in each state. Businesses and government collect personal information and store it in various formats-digital and paper. Several states have enacted laws that require entities to destroy, dispose or otherwise make personal information unreadable or undecipherable.

 Videos for News Use:

 Sources: Data used to create this ranking were collected from the Federal Trade Commission, Internet Crime Complaint Center, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, Experian Information Solutions and National Conference of State Legislatures.

 Image: alexskopje / Shutterstock.com

 Was this article helpful? Yes No Awesome! Thanks for your feedback. Thank you for your feedback. Sorry! Failed to send the feedback. Please try again later. Submit ||||| 2018 Data Breaches: Click Here

 2017 Data Breaches: Click Here

 Information management is critically important to all of us - as employees and consumers. For that reason, the Identity Theft Resource Center has been tracking security breaches since 2005, looking for patterns, new trends and any information that may better help us to educate consumers and businesses on the need for understanding the value of protecting personal identifying information.

 January 1, 2005 to May 17, 2018 (cumulative totals)

 Number of Breaches = 9,039

 Number of Records Exposed = 1,097,531,139 records

 The ITRC Breach Report is a compilation of data breaches confirmed by various media sources and/or notification lists from state governmental agencies. This list is updated daily, and published each Tuesday. Breaches on this list typically have exposed information that could potentially lead to identity theft, including Social Security numbers, financial account information, medical information, and even email addresses and passwords. ITRC follows U.S. Federal guidelines about what combination of personal information comprise a unique individual, and the exposure of which will constitute a data breach.

 What is a breach? The ITRC defines a data breach as an incident in which an individual name plus a Social Security number, Driver’s License number, medical record or financial record (credit/debit cards included) is potentially put at risk because of exposure. This exposure can occur either electronically or in paper format. The ITRC will also capture breaches that do not, by the nature of the incident, trigger data breach notification laws. Generally, these breaches consist of the exposure of user names, emails and passwords without involving sensitive personal identifying information. These breach incidents will be included by name but without the total number of compromised records included in the cumulative total.

 There are currently two ITRC breach reports which are updated and posted on-line on a weekly basis. The ITRC Breach Report presents detailed information about data exposure events along with running totals for a specific year. Breaches are broken down into five categories, as follows: business, financial/credit/financial, educational, governmental/military and medical/healthcare. The ITRC Breach Stats Report provides a summary of this information by category. Other more detailed reports may be generated on a quarterly basis or as dictated by trends.

 It should be noted that data breaches are not all alike. Security breaches can be broken down into a number of additional sub-categories by what happened and what information (data) was exposed. What they all have in common is they usually contain personal identifying information (PII) in a format easily read by thieves, in other words, not encrypted.

 The ITRC currently tracks seven categories of data loss methods:

 ● Insider Theft ● Hacking / Computer Intrusion ( includes Phishing, Ransomware/Malware and Skimming) ● Data on the Move ● Physical Theft ● Employee Error / Negligence / Improper Disposal / Lost ● Accidental Web/Internet Exposure ● Unauthorized Access

 Please note that the Subcontractor/Third Party/BA category is no longer identified as a "method" for a breach but is coupled with one of the types of the breaches above.

 The ITRC currently tracks various types of information compromised:

 ● Social Security number ● Credit/Debit Card number ● Email/Password/User Name ● Protected Health Information (PHI)

 ● Driver's License ● Financial Accounts ● Other/Undefined type of records

 ITRC has been tracking and compiling statistics on data breaches since 2005. Our findings are reported below or you can view the multi-year chart:

 Regarding the rules of inclusion, the ITRC has given a considerable amount of thought to the development of the criteria used when assessing breaches and the integrity of its sources. For example, breaches that occurred in any given year or a previous year are included in the year in which the breach was publicized. Each selected incident is required to have been reported to a state Attorney General's office or published by a credible media source, such as TV, radio, press, etc. The item will not be included at all if ITRC is not certain that the source is real and credible. Larger breaches often have multiple attributions, and we usually cite more than one source.

 We include, in each reported data breach item, a link or source of the article, and the information presented by that article. Many times, we have attributions from a multitude of media sources and outlets. ITRC adheres to the facts as reported, and does not alter the previously published information. We always attempt to provide live links back to the original article, but these remain good only as long as the source retains the article at that web URL.

 As an authority on data breach exposures, the ITRC is frequently asked if there are more security breaches now than ever before. This question is hard to answer. More companies are revealing that they have had a data breach, either due to laws or public pressure. It is the opinion of the ITRC that the criminal population is stealing more data from companies, AND data breaches are being more frequently publicized. ITRC is also aware that many breaches go unreported, and as a result of we are certain that our ITRC Breach List under-reports the problem. One thing we can say with certainty is that this is NOT a new problem.

 Other websites and resources for data breaches include: |||||
What is a summary?

– Given the recent Equifax security breach—alongside a 630% increase in data breaches in the past year, according to one report—identity theft is bound to be a concern for many Americans. But it turns out the state you call home has a lot to do with your risk. WalletHub reviewed identity theft and fraud complaints and policy across the US to come up with the most vulnerable states.


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– A psychedelic brew from the jungles of Brazil shows promise as a treatment for depression—in fact, as a treatment for those who don't respond to more traditional medication. Researchers at the University of Sao Paulo have just published the results of the first clinical trial involving the anti-depressant effects of ayahuasca, a centuries-old drink made from jungle vine and shrubs long used in religious ceremonies in South America, reports Scientific American. Patients began to feel better within a couple of hours—conventional medications can take weeks to kick in—and the beneficial effects lasted for three weeks. The "psychedelic" part wore off after about five hours. "This is an area that really does merit further work and serious consideration," a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, not involved with the study tells the Huffington Post. "There's a need for effective treatments that can work in the short term." Like conventional anti-depressant medications, the chemical compounds in ayahuasca seem to alter the brain's level of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates mood. Popular Science highlights one "grain of salt" aspect of the study: It was small, with just six participants, and it did not have a placebo group. But more studies are under way, and a much larger one at at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte should wrap up this year. (Another study finds that talk therapy is effective at preventing suicides.)

A psychedelic drink used for centuries in healing ceremonies is now attracting the attention of biomedical scientists as a possible treatment for depression. Researchers from Brazil last month published results from the first clinical test of a potential therapeutic benefit for ayahuasca, a South American plant-based brew. Although the study included just six volunteers and no placebo group, the scientists say that the drink began to reduce depression in patients within hours, and the effect was still present after three weeks. They are now conducting larger studies that they hope will shore up their findings.

 The work forms part of a renaissance in studying the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelic or recreational drugs—research that was largely banned or restricted worldwide half a century ago. Ketamine, which is used medically as an anaesthetic, has shown promise as a fast-acting antidepressant; psilocybin, a hallucinogen found in ‘magic mushrooms’, can help to alleviate anxiety in patients with advanced-stage cancer; MDMA (ecstasy) can alleviate post-traumatic stress disorder; and patients who experience debilitating cluster headaches have reported that LSD eases their symptoms.

 Ayahuasca, a sacramental drink traditionally brewed from the bark of a jungle vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and the leaves of a shrub (Psychotria viridis), contains ingredients that are illegal in most countries. But a booming ayahuasca industry has developed in South America, where its religious use is allowed, and where thousands of people each year head to rainforest retreats to sample its intense psychedelic insights.

 Depression drink?

 The brew has been studied by anthropologists, social scientists and theologians, but clinical research on ayahuasca has been limited to observation of its effects in mice and rats, and in healthy human volunteers, including brain-imaging studies and retrospective surveys of past use.

 For the latest study, researchers led by Jaime Hallak, a neuroscientist at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, gave one mild dose of ayahuasca to six volunteers who had been diagnosed with mild to severe depression that was unresponsive to at least one conventional antidepressant drug. None had drunk ayahuasca before.

 After their drink, the participants sat in a quiet, dimly lit room. Physicians used standard clinical questionnaires to track their depression symptoms. Improvements were seen in two or three hours (though the psychedelic effects of an oral dose take around five hours to wear off)—a rapid effect, as conventional antidepressants can take weeks to work. The benefits, which were statistically significant, continued to hold up in assessments over the next three weeks. Three of the participants vomited, a common side effect of ayahuasca, but otherwise the procedure was well tolerated, Hallak says.

 “It is a proof of concept of what so many ritual ayahuasca users already know: ayahuasca can help one feel extra well, not just during the experience, but for up to days or weeks after,” says Brian Anderson, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study but has published papers on the drink’s potential. “The relationship between ayahuasca’s psychedelic effects and its therapeutic effects needs to be empirically studied,” he says.

 James Stone, a psychiatrist at King’s College London who has studied the effects of psychoactive drugs on the brain, says that the study is interesting but should be viewed with caution because it had no placebo group. “Placebo response is a well-documented effect in clinical trials of antidepressants,” he says. “The only things that can really be concluded from this study are that it is tolerated by patients with depression, and in these people did not seem to have any serious side effects following a single dose.”

 It is biochemically plausible that ayahuasca could treat depression—its plants contain compounds that alter the concentrations of the mood-regulating neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain—as do commercial antidepressants. These compounds include the hallucinogen N,N-dimethyltryptamine, which binds to serotonin receptors, and also the chemicals harmine, tetrahydroharmine and harmaline, which are thought to inhibit an enzyme called monoamine oxidase A and so prevent the breakdown of serotonin and other neurotransmitters.

 “It is possible that ayahuasca and other serotonergic psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin, may be useful as antidepressants for particular subsets of patients in the future,” says Stone. “We await the results of well-designed, random controlled trials to determine clinical effectiveness.”

 Further trials are under way. Draulio de Araujo, a neuroscientist at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Natal, Brazil, and a co-author of the study, says that his team has already treated 46 (out of a planned 80) patients in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of ayahuasca and depression that began in January 2014. “We hope to finish it by the end of this year,” he says.

 This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on April 6, 2015. ||||| Deep in the Amazon basin, shaman prepare a natural tea called ayahuasca to bring its drinkers to hallucinogenic states of revelation. People come to the region from all over the world to take ayahuasca in order to make better contact with their emotions within or the spirits beyond--or simply to try the drug recreationally. But more recently scientists have been investigating ayahuasca as a treatment for psychological conditions such as PTSD and anxiety. Now a team of Brazilian researchers is testing the potion to treat depression, with promising preliminary results. They published their work recently in the journal Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria (translation: Brazilian Review Of Psychiatry).

 Ayahuasca is made from a jungle vine and shrub leaves and contains the chemical dimethyltryptamine, which makes it illegal in most countries (though many allow its consumption for religious purposes). Consuming the brew is notoriously hard on the system, resulting in excessive vomiting, disorientation, and occasionally death, but that doesn’t stop thousands of “ayahuasca tourists” from seeking it out every year. Though ayahuasca and the rituals surrounding it have been studied by social scientists and anthropologists, study of its medicinal properties has been limited to animal studies and a few with healthy volunteers. But researchers suspected that some of the compounds in ayahuasca change the concentration of mood-altering serotonin in the brain, as do commercial antidepressants.

 In the study, the researchers gave doses of ayahuasca to six participants with depression for whom commercial antidepressants hadn’t been effective. As they sat in a dimly lit room, the researchers asked them questions from clinical questionnaires to track their symptoms. They found that the symptoms of depression decreased three hours after taking the ayahusaca (a typical trip lasts five hours) and they felt the positive effects for up to three weeks.

 It’s important to note that there was no control group for this study, and there were very few participants, so the results should be taken with a grain of salt. However, the researchers are currently working on a study of similar design with many more participants that will track the symptoms for much longer after the participants take the ayahuasca. ||||| For centuries, Amazonian shamans have been brewing ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant-based tea, for use in traditional healing ceremonies.

 Now, the substance has caught the attention of not only the American tourists and spiritual seekers traveling to South America to participate ayahuasca retreats, but also medical researchers, who are investigating ayahuasca (also known as the "spirit vine") as a treatment for mental health problems such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

 This week, the results of the first clinical trial investigating ayahuasca as a treatment for depression were published in the Brazilian Review of Psychiatry. Its publication marks a promising early step toward clinical use of the psychotropic substance as a treatment for depression and other mental health problems.

 For the small study, neuroscientists at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil gave ayahuasca to volunteers who had been diagnosed with depression that proved resistant to at least one type of antidepressant. The researchers observed reduced depression in all participants within two to three hours of ingesting the substance, and also after a three-week follow-up.

 The preliminary study had a very small sample size of only six participants. The study's conclusions are further limited by the absence of a placebo group, but they do suggest the plant holds promise as a fast-acting treatment for depression.

 "This is an area that really does merit further work and serious consideration," Dr. Brian Anderson, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, who has also conducted medical anthropological work on ayahuasca, told The Huffington Post. "There's a need for effective treatments that can work in the short term. A lot of our current depression treatments take weeks to use, when we think about pills or psychotherapies."

 So how does the brew provide both immediate and lingering relief from depressive symptoms? Like pharmaceutical antidepressants, ayahuasca seems to alter concentrations of the mood-boosting neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain.

 “It is possible that ayahuasca and other serotonergic psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin, may be useful as antidepressants for particular subsets of patients in the future,” King's College psychiatrist James Stone, who has studied the effects of psychedelic drugs on the brain, told Nature.

 Another possible way ayahuasca may alleviate feelings of depression is through its active ingredient, the psychoactive chemical DMT (dimethyltryptamine), which is known to induce spiritual experiences and revelations.

 Larger, placebo-controlled trials using ayahuasca for depression are already underway. Another group of Brazilian researchers are about halfway through a double-blind trial that will be conducted on 80 participants, Nature reported.

 Ayahuasca joins other psychedelics including MDMA, LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) as substances scientists are investigating as treatments for depression. However, even in controlled settings, the use of ayahuasca and other psychedelics isn't without risk. There are some case reports of people experiencing psychological distress after using ayahuasca, and it's possible in some cases the hallucinogen could worsen symptoms of depression.

 Still, the research offers reason for optimism.

 "This study is helpful because it's actually documenting, in a structured hospital setting, that this is being done safely," Anderson said. |||||


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A customer shows her purchased Powerball tickets for Wednesday's drawing, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, in Hialeah, Fla. The winner could take the $700 million annuity option (paid out over 29 years) or the... (Associated Press)

 A customer shows her purchased Powerball tickets for Wednesday's drawing, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, in Hialeah, Fla. The winner could take the $700 million annuity option (paid out over 29 years) or the $443.3 million cash prize, minus state and federal taxes. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) (Associated Press)

 A customer shows her purchased Powerball tickets for Wednesday's drawing, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, in Hialeah, Fla. The winner could take the $700 million annuity option (paid out over 29 years) or the $443.3 million cash prize, minus state and federal taxes. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) (Associated Press) A customer shows her purchased Powerball tickets for Wednesday's drawing, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, in Hialeah, Fla. The winner could take the $700 million annuity option (paid out over 29 years) or the... (Associated Press)

 CHICOPEE, Massachusetts (AP) — The Latest on the lone winning ticket for the $758.7 million Powerball drawing that was sold in Chicopee, Massachusetts (all times local):

 8 a.m.

 Massachusetts State Lottery officials have corrected the site where the single winning ticket for the Powerball $758.7 million jackpot was sold to Chicopee, not Watertown.

 The Massachusetts State Lottery had announced around 2:30 a.m. Thursday that a convenience store in Watertown, near Boston, had sold the winning ticket.

 But shortly before 8 a.m., the lottery said it had made a mistake, and that the winning ticket was sold across the state at the Pride Station & Store in Chicopee, in Western Massachusetts.

 The lottery did not say how the error was made .

 It said the store in Watertown did sell a ticket that won a $1 million prize.

 ____

 7:30 a.m.

 The owner of the convenience story that sold the only winning ticket for the $758.7 million Powerball jackpot says she is happy and emotional after learning her store sold it.

 Kamaljeet Kaur, who owns Handy Variety in Watertown, Massachusetts, says she was getting ready to come to work Thursday morning when her husband told her.

 Reporters descended on the store hours before it opened around 6:30 a.m.

 The jackpot is the largest grand prize won by a single lottery ticket in U.S. history.

 ___

 7 a.m.

 The only winning ticket for the Powerball $758.7 million jackpot has been sold in Watertown, Massachusetts, a town familiar for its connection to the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013.

 Watertown is the suburb to which the Boston Marathon bombers fled.

 Tamerlan Tsarnaev (TAM'-ehr-luhn tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) was killed in an ensuing gunbattle with police, and his brother Dzhokhar (joh-HAHR') was captured hiding in a boat in a Watertown man's backyard.

 The Powerball jackpot is the largest grand prize won by a single lottery ticket in U.S. history.

 ___

 12:45 a.m.

 Powerball Product Group Chair Charlie McIntyre says the $758.7 million jackpot claimed by a ticket sold in Massachusetts is the largest grand prize won by a single lottery ticket in U.S. history.

 In a statement early Thursday, McIntyre also says six other tickets won $2 million apiece, and 34 more are worth $1 million.

 The lucky numbers for the second largest lottery prize in U.S. history were 6, 7, 16, 23 and 26, and the Powerball number was 4.

 The Massachusetts State Lottery announced on Twitter that the winning ticket was sold at the Handy Variety convenience store in Watertown.

 ___

 12:05 a.m.

 A single winning Powerball ticket matching all six numbers has been sold in Massachusetts.

 The jackpot for Wednesday night's drawing reached $758.7 million.

 Powerball officials did not immediately disclose the location where the winning ticket was sold.

 The lucky numbers for the second largest lottery prize in U.S. history were 6, 7, 16, 23 and 26, and the Powerball number was 4.

 ___

 10:05 p.m.

 The numbers have been drawn for the second largest lottery prize in U.S. history.

 The winning numbers are 6, 7, 16, 23 and 26, and the Powerball number is 4.

 Before Wednesday night's drawing the jackpot was estimated at $700 million.

 Powerball is played in 44 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

 ___

 8:55 a.m.

 Lottery players will have a shot at a $700 million Powerball jackpot that ranks as the second largest in U.S. history.

 Despite incredibly long odds, people throughout the country will hold their breath Wednesday night as five white balls and one red ball are drawn from drums.

 The jackpot is second only to a $1.6 billion prize won in January 2016.

 The $700 million prize reflects the annuity option, paid over 29 years. A winner who wants cash would receive $443.3 million, minus federal and state taxes that generally eat up more than 30 percent of winnings.

 Odds of winning the jackpot are one in 292.2 million.

 Powerball is played in 44 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. ||||| BOSTON (CBS) – The winner of the $758.7 million Powerball jackpot has been identified as Mavis Wanczyk of Chicopee.

 Wanczyk, 53, a mother of two adult children, came to lottery headquarters in Braintree late Thursday morning to claim her prize and was introduced a short time later at a news conference. Now, she said, she’s “going to go hide in my bed.”

 Wanczyk said she found out she had won as she was leaving work Wednesday night with a colleague.

 “He’s reading these numbers, and I pull mine out, and I go, ‘Hey, I have that number…and I have that…I have that!'” she told reporters. “And he goes, ‘Let me see that ticket–you just won!'” she said.

 “We have validated the ticket. It is indeed the winning ticket,” said Michael Sweeney, the Executive Director of the Lottery.

 “Last night, it was kind of like I didn’t realize I won,” Wanczyk said. “Today, as I’m driving here, I’m still like, ‘this isn’t true, this can’t be.’ And now it’s like, uh, I am the winner and I’m scared, but I’ll be okay.”

 “I want to be just me, and just be alone, and just be able to be me and figure out what I want to do,” she said.

 So what will she do first?

 “I just want to sit back and relax,” Wanczyk said. “I had a pipe dream, and my pipe dream has finally come true, I wanted to retire and it came early.”

 She has been working at Mercy Medical Center in Springfield for 32 years – until Thursday.

 “I have called and I have told them I will not be coming back.”

 Wanczyk has a 31-year-old daughter and a 26-year-old son. Lottery rules allow the winner up to a year to come forward, but Wanczyk couldn’t wait.

 “I just wanted to do this, I just wanted to get it over and done with and then everybody will just leave me alone,” she told reporters, who then asked her if she was already comfortable financially.

 “I’ve been okay. I’m not gonna say I’m the richest person in the world, I can’t say I’m the poorest person in the world. I make do with what I have,” she said. “I just bought a car, September of last year, and I just plan on paying it off.”

 The lone winning ticket in the nationwide lottery was sold at the Pride gas station and store on Montgomery Street in Chicopee.

 “I was just there to buy it, for just luck,” Wanczyk said. “Just go in, buy a scratch ticket, and say maybe it’s me, maybe it won’t be me. It’s just a chance, a chance I had to take.”

 “My numbers were kind of basically random, like maybe with our birthdays, one from here, one from there,” she said. “There’s a thing between me and my mom and my stepfather and I have a friend, we all go out to dinner on a Friday night and we play Keno, and our number is four. I just happened to choose, and it worked to my advantage.”

 The store will get $50,000 for selling the winning ticket, which was purchased at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to Pride owner Bob Bolduc.

 “We’re going to give all the money to charity, that’s our pattern. We really believe in supporting local charities,” Bolduc told reporters.

 The lottery initially said the Chicopee store had only sold a $1 million winner, but issued a correction just before 8 a.m. Thursday, more than six hours after announcing the lone winning ticket had been sold at Handy Variety on Common Street in Watertown.

 There was a winning ticket sold at the Watertown shop, but it was for just $1 million.

 Related: Watertown Store Owners On Powerball Blunder: ‘Better Than Nothing’

 “When manually recording the names of the retailers that sold the jackpot winning ticket and the $1 million winning tickets, the information was transcribed incorrectly,” Sweeney said in a statement.

 “I think we had a couple of excited people in a computer room at one in the morning being a little nervous about handling a $700 million winner,” he told WBZ NewsRadio 1030.

 Related: Mass. Lottery’s ‘Steve Harvey Moment’

 So how does something like this happen?

 “Human error, plain and simple,” Sweeney said. “If anyone’s looking for anyone to blame, the buck stops here with me, the executive director.”

 Related: ‘Simple Mistake’ Caused Powerball Blunder

 The winning numbers were 6-7-16-23-26 with the Powerball 4.

 We are there for her. We will be keeping an extra eye on her.

 https://t.co/XNAamDBuJt — Chicopee Police (@ChicopeeMa_PD) August 24, 2017

 Wanczyk returned to her home in Chicopee Thursday night. Chicopee Police said they would be keeping an extra eye on her.

 “I want to stay at my own house in my own peace and quiet,” she told reporters outside her home.

 According to the Massachusetts Lottery, this is the largest jackpot won by a single ticket in North American lottery history.

 Another $1 million ticket was sold at Sandy’s Variety on Washington Street in Dorchester.

 “What happens is, the $50,000 will go to the store that actually sold the winning ticket, which is Pride station and store out in Chicopee. The good news for the people out here is that, in Watertown, a $1 million winning prize ticket was sold, as well as an additional $1 million sold in Dorchester. There is a prize for those, up to $10,000 on the $1 million prize,” Sweeney said.

 This is the fourth time a Powerball jackpot winning ticket has been sold in Massachusetts. The others were in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

 WBZ NewsRadio 1030’s Lana Jones reports |||||

– Somebody who bought a Powerball ticket in Massachusetts has scored the biggest solo jackpot in American history. But state lottery officials have a major correction: It turns out, the winning ticket for $759 million was sold at a store in Chicopee, not Watertown as originally announced, reports the AP. "Human error, plain and simple," says the state lottery's executive director, Michael Sweeney. The store in Watertown did sell a ticket worth $1 million, perhaps playing a role in the confusion, but the much bigger winner picked up the lucky ticket at the Pride Station & Store across the state. The numbers that won a jackpot were 6, 7, 16, 23, 26 and the Powerball was 4. The only bigger lottery jackpot in US history was 2016's $1.6 billion prize, but that was split three ways. The store owner in Chicopee will get $50,000 for selling the winning ticket, reports CBS Boston. The store owner in Watertown will have to settle for $10,000 for selling the $1 million ticket. Of note: The $758.7 million is the figure for the annuity option, which is paid over 29 years. If the winner wants it all now, he or she will receive $443.3 million, minus more than 30% to cover state and federal taxes.