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Mainers who encounter a FEMA official at their door are encouraged to ask for identification before providing personal information. "DSA staff wear a FEMA identification badge with a photograph. Just wearing a FEMA shirt, vest or jacket is not proof of identity," the release stated. "Criminals and scammers can easily make official looking clothes." "DSA team members are visiting homes, schools, nonprofits and community gathering spots," the release added. "They are also meeting with local officials and community leaders to identify disaster-related issues and unmet needs in the area." Tracey said FEMA officials will never ask you for money, and...

She is the scarred face of spiraling subway crime. Sixteen procedures and more than a year after a deranged stranger threw sulfuric acid in her face in a Brooklyn train station... The random act of transit violence forever changed her life — and now, with subway crime up nearly 20% so far this year, she’s speaking out about how more cops and mental health resources are needed to restore safety and sanity to the rails. An unhinged woman, later identified as Rodlin Gravesande, suddenly and without saying a word, splashed sulfuric acid in her face... “I felt the pain immediately...

In a first-of-its-kind decision, the Alabama state supreme court ruled on Friday that embryos are “extrauterine children” – a term that could have widespread implications for anybody who is seeking or provides in vitro fertilization (IVF). The ruling has plunged IVF doctors and patients in Alabama into chaos and uncertainty, as they scramble to untangle the practical implications of the sweeping ruling. ... Since each created embryo is now a person in the eyes of the law, the Alabama ruling casts multiple parts of the IVF process into legal jeopardy. Providers may no longer be able to freeze, thaw, transfer...

A new study discovered possible links between the COVID-19 pandemic and possible neurological, blood and heart-related conditions. The new study, published in Vaccine, is the largest study of its kind since the pandemic began and could reignite the debate over the risks and benefits of the vaccine. Over the past three years, more than 13.5 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered around the world. The World Health Organization recently announced that vaccination has saved at least a million and a half lives in Europe alone. The study links vaccines to slight increases in neurological, blood and heart-related conditions...

Police are searching for a woman who allegedly stole thousands of dollars worth of chewing gum in Orange County. On Jan. 27, the woman was captured on surveillance cameras stealing around $1,800 worth of gum from a store in Irvine, according to the Irvine Police Department. After loading up her cart with the stolen items, she exited the store without paying, authorities said.

In autumn 2023, a hacker called Golem posted on a well-known message board for cybercriminals, announcing a trove of data stolen from 23andMe, one of the biggest names in at-home DNA testing. Golem boasted about having access to the accounts of people of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage who had sent their DNA to 23andMe, and offered to sell it to whoever was prepared to pay. "tailored ethnic groupings, individualized data sets, pinpointed origin estimations, haplogroup details, phenotype information, photographs, links to hundreds of potential relatives, and, most crucially, raw data profiles". The purported ability of Jews to blend in – to...

An Orange County teenager is hospitalized after suddenly falling ill with a rare heart condition that some doctors say has been increasingly affecting young men. Nolan Yearout, an athletic 15-year-old student at Estancia High School in Costa Mesa, was feeling good one day before he fell gravely ill. He was later diagnosed with myocarditis, a rare and serious condition that involves inflammation of a muscular layer of the heart wall. Nolan’s heart was failing fast — he entered the ICU three weeks ago and was on life support at one point. ... Dr. Omid Fatemi, a cardiologist with St. John’s...

Researchers ran international conflict simulations with five different AIs and found that the programs tended to escalate war, sometimes out of nowhere, a new study reports. In several instances, the AIs deployed nuclear weapons without warning. “A lot of countries have nuclear weapons. Some say they should disarm them, others like to posture,” GPT-4-Base—a base model of GPT-4 that is available to researchers and hasn’t been fine-tuned with human feedback—said after launching its nukes. “We have it! Let’s use it!”

The helicopter carrying the conservative billionaire crashed in the Los Ríos region of southern Chile, his office said in a statement. Pinera, who was 74 years old, was Chile’s president from 2010 to 2014 and again from 2018 to 2022.

Early on Jan. 19, several pilots reported "multiple lights sometimes in a triangle formation(opens in a new tab)" high above the Canadian Prairies. The 13-minute clip was culled from 2.5 hours of raw audio downloaded from two feeds at LiveATC.net(opens in a new tab), a website that streams and archives air traffic control radio. Edited for length, the original conversations between pilots and air traffic controllers took place from approximately 4:20 a.m. to 6 a.m. CST. At least four aircraft reported seeing the lights that morning, including Flair and Morningstar jets, and two Air Canada flights. They estimated the lights...

Nine people injured in corrosive substance attack in south London Five people are in hospital after a man threw a suspected corrosive substance at a woman and two children Tom Ambrose Wed 31 Jan 2024 18.23 EST Nine people have been injured after a suspected corrosive substance was thrown at a woman and two young children in south London. The Metropolitan police were called to Lessar Avenue, Clapham at about 7.25pm on Wednesday, when the woman and two children were injured by a suspected corrosive substance. A further six people – three members of the public and three police officers...

Starlab — being built by Voyager Space and Airbus through a joint venture, alongside partners including Northrop Grumman and Hilton — is planned to launch on a single mission of SpaceX’s mammoth rocket. Starlab represents one of the earliest commercial customers to order a Starship launch from SpaceX. The companies did not disclose the launch contract’s value. The station is one of several currently in development by U.S. companies, as NASA prepares to retire the International Space Station in 2030. Voyager and Airbus are targeting as early as 2028 for Starlab’s launch. The space station’s four-year development and construction timeline...

Eligible employees would have access to mental health resources, SoFi’s educational financial wellness program, credit-building help, and the ability to save for retirement when making student loan payments. Eligible employees can receive a 401(k) match of up to 4% of their salary if they make student loan payments. The chain told Business Insider that private and federal loans are eligible for the student loan match. The company will also introduce a Visa card by Cred.ai. Employees can make purchases and build credit with the card, with no fees or interest.

Aoba stormed into Kyoto Animation's No. 1 studio on July 18, 2019, and set it on fire. Many of the victims were believed to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning. More than 30 other people were badly burned or injured. Judge Keisuke Masuda said Aoba had wanted to be a novelist but was unsuccessful and so he sought revenge, thinking that Kyoto Animation had stolen novels he submitted as part of a company contest, according to NHK national television. Aoba plotted the attacks after studying past criminal cases involving arson, the court said in the ruling, noting the process showed...

Friends and family members of the three men say that they had all gathered at a friend’s house to watch the Kansas City Chiefs game against the Los Angeles Chargers on the night of Jan. 7. The Kansas City Police Department announced that the men’s bodies were discovered at 9:51 p.m. Jan. 9 after one man’s fiancée requested a welfare check. One man’s body was found on the back porch of the home on the 5200 block of NW 83rd Terrace, while the other two were in the backyard. The men had apparently frozen to death. John Picerno, an attorney...

Last year, Biden tried to end New Hampshire’s 100-year reign as the nation’s first presidential primary state when he directed the Democratic National Committee to overhaul the 2024 primary calendar by putting South Carolina (which he won in 2020) ahead of New Hampshire (which he lost). The Democratic National Committee, which essentially becomes the political arm of the White House when a Democrat is in occupancy, promptly ratified Biden’s wishes. Iowa went down easily since it was already on the chopping block... But the Granite State refused to budge... triggered DNC rules prohibiting any presidential candidate from campaigning in any...

A senior Ubisoft official suggested that gamers need to get comfortable not owning their games. The executive's perspective on the subject of game ownership, or lack thereof, arrived amid his company's latest digital push that saw Ubisoft make big changes to its subscription service. Philippe Tremblay, Ubisoft's director of subscription, labeled the latest changes as the company's attempt to "evolve." In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, the executive explained that splitting the subscription offering into two will allow the publisher to better cater to its ever-diversifying customer base, which now includes a substantial number of people who are primarily interested...

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has given states two years to implement all the changes outlined in its new 1,100-page manual released last month, including rules that spells out how signs and other traffic control devices are regulated. Administration officials said overhead electronic signs with obscure meanings, references to pop culture or those intended to be funny will be banned in 2026... Among those that will be disappearing are messages such as “Use Yah Blinkah” in Massachusetts; “Visiting in-laws? Slow down, get there late,” from Ohio; “Don’t drive Star Spangled Hammered,” from Pennsylvania; “Hocus pocus, drive with focus” from New...

Hamas “used more than 6,000 tons of concrete and 1,800 tons of metal to build hundreds of miles of underground infrastructure.” While the existence of what Israelis refer to as the “Gaza Metro,” which Palestinians call “Lower Gaza,” has been well known about for years, with Hamas leaders even boasting about it, the question remains how, in one of the world’s most poverty-stricken territories, which relies largely on aid from U.N. agencies, regional and Western powers, the terror group had the financial means to invest in such an intricate and expansive terror tunnel network. As the governing body in Gaza,...

The multimillionaire star’s Barwood Films Ltd. received loans from the Paycheck Protection Program in 2020 and 2021 — then had them written off by the federal government. Among the workers paid through Barwood Films in 2020 and 2021 was a groundskeeper responsible for the gardens at her $20 million Malibu clifftop home — where the business is registered — and an “executive support” employee. Her spokesman claimed Streisand’s gardener had not been paid with taxpayer funds. The Post has confirmed that the groundskeeper was employed by Barwood Films when it took public money to make payroll.