Author: KnowledgeHippo

On August 21, 2017, Kiki Smith’s teenage sons giddily prepared to watch the partial solar eclipse in Rochester, N.Y. As Mrs. Smith listened to their chatter, she felt left out.”I felt very alone,” she said. Mrs. Smith was diagnosed with the degenerative condition as a child and lost the last of her sight in 2011. The local buzz around the eclipse and national media attention unexpectedly struck a nerve.The eclipse “was about experiencing a historic moment in the community, and I wasn’t a part of it,” he said.Ms Smith, 52, who works for a community development organization in Rochester, is…

Boeing has faced intense scrutiny and pressure since a panel exploded on a 737 Max 9 shortly after takeoff on an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5. The episode raised new questions about the quality of the planes the company produces several years after two Max 8 planes crashed, killing nearly 350 people.Interviews with more than two dozen current and former employees reveal lingering concerns about quality, particularly as pressure mounted to keep production at the company’s factories.Now, Boeing faces a huge challenge as it seeks to make changes that improve the quality of its products and regain credibility with…

In the years before war and famine upended daily life in Yemen, Mohammed Abdullah Youssef used to sit down after a long day of fasting during Ramadan to a rich spread of food. His family ate meat, falafel, beans, salty fried pastries and occasionally bought creme caramel from the store.This year, the Islamic holy month looks different for Mr Youssef, 52, a social studies teacher in the coastal town of Al Mukalla. With bread, soup and vegetables they break the fast with his wife and their five children. Earning the equivalent of $66 a month, he frets that his paycheck…

Telecom giant AT&T announced on Saturday that it had reset the passwords of 7.6 million customers after it found that compromised customer data had been “circulated on the dark web”.”Our internal teams are working with external cybersecurity experts to analyze the situation,” AT&T said. “To our knowledge, the breached data appears to be from 2019 or earlier and does not contain personal financial information or call history.”The company said that “the information varied by customer and account,” but that it may have included full name, email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, date of birth, AT&T account number…

A problematic heart pump that has now been linked to 49 deaths and dozens of injuries worldwide will be allowed to remain in use, despite the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to issue a warning about its risk of puncturing a heart wall.The tiny Impella pumps, about the width of a candy cane, pass through blood vessels to take over the work of the heart in patients undergoing complex procedures or with life-threatening conditions.The FDA said the device’s maker, Abiomed, should have notified the agency more than two years ago when the company first posted an update on its website…

On Tuesday, the largest credit card companies in the United States reached an agreement with merchants to reduce so-called swipe fees that retailers pay to accept credit card payments, potentially saving $30 billion.Those fees also help fund credit card rewards programs that many travelers redeem for things like free flights and hotel stays, leading hawks to wonder: Are rewards programs at risk?Here’s what we know so far about the changes.What are the terms of the agreement?Last year, credit card payments generated about $72 billion in fees paid by merchants, which are generally passed on to customers in the form of…

Although the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on Monday demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, it remains to be seen whether it will have a concrete effect on the war or turn out to be just a political statement.The measure, Resolution 2728, followed three previous attempts that had been blocked by the United States. It passed with 14 votes, after the United States abstained and did not use its veto.The resolution also calls for the unconditional release of all hostages and an end to barriers to humanitarian aid.Israel’s government condemned the vote, and early indications are…

The recent cyberattack on billing and payment giant Change Healthcare revealed just how serious vulnerabilities are across the US healthcare system and alerted industry leaders and policymakers to the urgent need for better digital security.Hospitals, health insurers, doctors’ clinics and others in the industry are increasingly the targets of major hacks, culminating in the Feb. 21 attack on Change, a unit of the giant UnitedHealth Group.The ransomware attack on the nation’s largest clearinghouse, which handles a third of all patient records, had far-reaching effects. Fixes and workarounds have eased some of the discomfort, but providers still can’t collect billions of…

The phone woke Doug Nordman at 3 in the morning. A surgeon was calling from a hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., where Mr. Nordman’s father had arrived at the emergency room, incoherent and in pain, then passed out.At first, staff thought he had suffered a heart attack, but a CT scan found part of his small intestine had been perforated. A surgical team repaired the hole, saving his life, but the surgeon had some questions.”Was your father an alcoholic?” asked. Doctors found Dean Nordman malnourished, his peritoneal cavity “flooded with alcohol.”The younger Mr. Nordman, a military personal finance writer who…

Opening Episode: “The Worst Black Bear Attack in History: Part 1″Matt Pycroft, a filmmaker specializing in documenting remote and hostile outer locations, delivers interviews with guests who share his thirst for exploration. The definition of adventure can vary dramatically, and this is reflected in the wide range of topics here. Many episodes focus on mountaineering, polar expeditions and base jumping, but there are also options closer to home, such as cold water swimming and mudslinging, the tradition of hunting for hidden treasures on the banks of the River Thames in London. Interspersed with the inspiring interviews are tips like the…