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MINNEAPOLIS — When the Coronavirus pandemic asked a lot of us to change what we were doing, Sarah Stoesz, the CEO and president of Planned Parenthood North Central States, said her organization was up for the challenge. "We were born into controversy and crisis," Stoesz said. "Our organization has lived that way for over 100 years. Over 100 years, we have developed a lot of muscle that allows us to quickly adapt and to iterate." Stoesz doesn't deny that some of their services cannot be delivered virtually. "There will always be a need for clinicians to lay a hand on...

The head of the FBI on Wednesday defended putting a piece of tape over his personal laptop's webcam, claiming the security step was a common sense one that most should take. “There’s some sensible things you should be doing, and that’s one of them,” Director James Comey said during a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “You go into any government office and we all have the little camera things that sit on top of the screen,” he added. “They all have a little lid that closes down on them. “You do that so that people who...

Even though 20 states have banned webcam abortions, they remain legal in Iowa, where a court ruling struck down a ban on the practice. The Iowa Supreme Court has overturned a lower court decision that had upheld the Iowa Board of Medicine's ruling against webcam abortions. Jenifer Bowen of Iowa Right to Life says that equates to lawyers sitting on the bench telling the Board of Medicine their business. "One of the justices said just that: Why should we as Supreme Court justices, attorneys by trade, why should we find ourselves to know more than the Iowa Board of Medicine,...

Take a break from all the depressing news of the day.Watch Phoebe Allen, the adorable little hummingbird, lay her eggs and raise her babies HERE Absolutely cute overload. Phoebe is a Channel Island Allen hummingbird who lives in Orange County, California. She has been hatching 4 to 5 eggs per year and her nest has been on net webcam since 2007. She is currently sitting on two eggs.

The Republican-led Iowa House passed a ban on telemed, or webcam, abortions on Tuesday. 52 Republicans and three Democrats voted in favor of House File 2175. Rep. Tom Shaw of Laurens was the lone Republican not to vote in favor of the bill. He did so primarily because it does not ban all abortions. The bill was authored by Rep. Matt Windschiltl of Missouri Valley and Rep. Kevin Koester of Ankeny led the floor debate. Koester cited federal Food and Drug Administration reports that 14 women have died from taking the abortion-inducing drugs used in webcam abortions. “A huge thanks...

The Republican-led Iowa House passed a ban on telemed, or webcam, abortions on Tuesday. 52 Republicans and three Democrats voted in favor of House File 2175. Rep. Tom Shaw of Laurens was the lone Republican not to vote in favor of the bill. He did so primarily because it does not ban all abortions.The bill was authored by Rep. Matt Windschiltl of Missouri Valley and Rep. Kevin Koester of Ankeny led the floor debate. Koester cited federal Food and Drug Administration reports that 14 women have died from taking the abortion-inducing drugs used in webcam abortions.“A huge thanks to my...

In the Sahara, the African spurred tortoise lives for about a century. Thanks to modern technology, one named Franky has a shot at immortality.“He gets about 10,000 viewers a month,” said Donnie Cook, the owner of Lou’s Pet Shop in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., where Franky, an easygoing 17-year-old, spends his days transmitting over the Internet a nonstop tortoise-eye view of the world. “We get people from at least 30 states, plus Italy, France.” A family in California has even sent the store $50 to keep Franky in lettuce.Why should the National Security Agency have all the fun?Franky’s fame illustrates...

EX-OFFICIAL SAYS FBI CAN SECRETLY ACTIVATE AN INDIVIDUAL’S WEBCAM WITHOUT THE INDICATOR LIGHT TURNING ON The FBI can secretly activate a computer’s webcam to spy on an individual without turning on the indicator light, a former official revealed to the Washington Post in an article published Friday. According to the Washington Post’s account of what Marcus Thomas — former assistant director of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division in Quantico — said, “The FBI has been able to covertly activate a computer’s camera — without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording — for several years, and has...

The Mississippi State Senate, under the leadership of pro-life Lt. Governor Tate Reeves and Public Health Committee Chairman Dean Kirby, has passed Senate Bill 2795 with only eight Senators opposing final passage. Senate Bill 2795 requires that a physician be physically present during a chemical abortion; thus, it bans chemical abortions via an Internet webcam in which the abortionist could be many states away. Senate Bill 2795 has followed a long and winding path through the legislative process. After passing the House and Senate chambers initially, the legislation went to conference committee. After its conference committee approval, the legislation was...

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — A former Rutgers University student accused of using a webcam to spy on his gay roommate's love life was convicted of all counts Friday in a case that exploded into the headlines when the victim of the snooping committed suicide by throwing himself off a bridge. ******************* More at the link: http://news.yahoo.com/former-rutgers-student-convicted-webcam-case-155436220.html

See live & streaming views of the Statue of Liberty, the Torch, New York Harbor, Lower Manhattan, Ellis Island

An elderly couple struggling to learn how to use a webcam have become viral video sensations after their granddaughter posted the fumbling footage online. Bruce and Esther Huffman, of McMinnville, Oregon, captured close to three minutes of themselves making faces at the camera and trying to navigate their new laptop. But they didn't realise until the very end they were being recorded as she tried to take a picture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcN08Tg3PWw&feature=player_embedded

Mt Etna showing life.....a paroxysm response.

Police say they’ve arrested a 20-year-old computer technician on suspicion of planting spyware on dozens of computers to secretly watch the owners via their webcams. Trevor Timothy Harwell was arrested Wednesday after being charged with a dozen counts of illegal computer access and fraud, Fullerton police Sgt. Andrew Goodrich said. While working for Rezitech Inc., Harwell visited the homes of customers to service their Macintosh computers, Goodrich said. “While he had physical access to the computers, he would install a spyware-type application that allowed him remote access to the user’s computer and webcam,” Goodrich said, adding Harwell also worked on...

Eight months after the Lower Merion School District thought it had settled the furor over secret monitoring of students' laptops, the district faces a new legal battle on the issue. On Monday, a 2009 graduate of Harriton High School sued the school district, claiming it violated his civil rights by capturing nearly 8,000 webcam photos and screen-shots from his laptop between September 2008 and March 2009.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A Philadelphia-area school district agreed Monday to pay $610,000 to settle two lawsuits over secret photos taken on school-issued laptops. The Lower Merion School District admitted it captured thousands of webcam photographs and screen shots from student laptops in a misguided effort to locate missing computers....

PISCATAWAY, N.J. (AP) - As prosecutors consider filing bias-crime charges against two college freshmen accused of streaming online video of a classmate's sexual encounter with another man, a huge divide has emerged between those who support the suspects and those who want to see them punished. The saga that unfolded this week at Rutgers University has become a flashpoint for debate after the revelation that 18-year-old Tyler Clementi had jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22. snip "He had gay friends," Derek Yan, 16, told The Associated Press. Yan said that he chatted online with...

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday closed their investigation into Lower Merion School District's secret use of software to track student laptops, saying they found no evidence that anyone intentionally committed a crime. The decision, announced by U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger, ended a six-month probe by the FBI into allegations that district employees might have spied on students through webcams on their school-issued laptops. --snip-- "For the government to prosecute a criminal case, it must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person charged acted with criminal intent," his statement said. "We have not found evidence that would establish beyond a reasonable...

With lawyers' fees approaching $1 million, the webcam controversy in the Lower Merion School District has become a legal feeding frenzy best brought to a speedy conclusion. What Lower Merion students and their parents are waiting to learn, first and foremost, is that the highly regarded district has put policies in place to prevent any repeat of the surreptitious webcam photos taken of students with school-issued laptops reported missing.

Legal fees in the Lower Merion School District's webcam case are inching toward $1 million, a sum that could end up handed to local taxpayers. A district spokesman on Monday disclosed that the bills to defend the use of the now-disabled laptop tracking system have grown to about $780,000. At the same time, the lawyer whose lawsuit over the webcam monitoring drew worldwide attention disclosed in court papers that his fees - costs he is likely to ask Lower Merion to pay - were more than $148,000 and climbing. And the district's insurance firm renewed its contention that it shouldn't...