Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Widow Who Lost Home Over $6 Had Ample Notice: Judge
A widow was given ample notice before her $280,000 house was sold at a tax auction three years ago over $6.30 in unpaid interest, a Pennsylvania judge has ruled.
The decision last week turned down Eileen Battisti's request to reverse the September 2011 sale of her home outside Aliquippa in western Pennsylvania.
"I paid everything, and didn't know about the $6.30," Battisti said. "For the house to be sold just because of $6.30 is crazy."
KEITH SRAKOCIC / AP, FILE
Battisti, who still lives in the house, said Monday that she plans to appeal to Commonwealth Court. That court earlier ordered an evidentiary hearing, which led to last week's ruling.
Beaver County Common Pleas Judge Gus Kwidis wrote that the county tax claim bureau complied with notification requirements in state law before the auction. She had previously owed other taxes, but at the time of the sale she owed just $235, including other interest and fees.
"There is no doubt that (she) had actual receipt of the notification of the tax upset sale on July 7, 2011, and Aug. 16, 2011," the judge wrote. "Moreover, on Aug. 12, 2011, a notice of sale was sent by first class mail and was not returned."
The property sold for about $116,000, and most of that money will be paid to Battisti if further appeals are unsuccessful. An attorney for the purchaser did not return a phone message on Monday.
Joe Askar, Beaver County's chief solicitor, said the judge got the decision right, based on the law.
"The county never wants to see anybody lose their home, but at the same time the tax sale law, the tax real estate law, doesn't give a whole lot of room for error, either," Askar said.
Battisti said her husband handled the paperwork for the property's taxes before he passed away in 2004.
"It's bad — she had some hard times, I guess her husband kind of took care of a lot of that stuff," Askar said. "It seemed that she was having a hard time coping with the loss of her husband — that just made it set in a little more."
KEITH SRAKOCIC / AP, FILE
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
Monday, April 28, 2014
Serious Internet Explorer Bug Leaves Half of all Browsers Open to Hack
Microsoft is scrambling to fix a newly found bug in Internet Explorer, which leaves all versions of the browser open to potential attacks.
Hackers have already used the flaw to launch "limited, targeted attacks," Microsoft said a "security advisory" on Saturday.
As with many attacks, hackers can start with methods like convincing users to click on fake websites, Microsoft explained. From there, the glitch could allow attackers to run malicious software on the user's computer -- and even gain the same level of access to the computer as the real user.
It's a serious flaw, and a widespread one: Internet Explorer comprised almost 58 percent of all desktop browsers in March, according to analytics company Net Applications.
Even the Department of Homeland Security weighed in with an advisory on Monday, calling on users to run alternative web browsers until Microsoft is able to fix the problem.
The Internet Explorer issue affects the browser's versions 6 through 11, Microsoft said in its post. Microsoft's response came one day after security company FireEye revealed the flaw in a post on its own site on Friday.
FireEye said attackers are focusing mostly on newer browsers: Internet Explorer versions 9 through 11, which make up about a quarter of all browsers. FireEye dubbed the attacks "Operation Clandestine Fox" and called the flaw "significant."
Microsoft is still investigating the issue, and the company said it may fix the problem through either a scheduled or off-cycle security update.
Until then, Microsoft wrote in a separate blog post, the company recommends typical protection steps like installing anti-virus software and being cautious when visiting websites. Microsoft also suggested using Internet Explorer in "enhanced protected mode" and downloading a "toolkit" to help guard against attacks.
FireEye recommended that users disable Adobe Flash, saying "the attack will not work" in that case.
Those steps could help protect users of newer Windows versions until Microsoft releases a fix. But the glitch is a sobering reminder that no help is coming for users of Windows XP, as Microsoft dropped support of that operating system earlier this month.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Former Ga. technician falsified mammogram reports
![Falsified mammograms: Rachael Michelle Rapraeger, center, Floyd Buford, Sharon Holmes, left: In this April 15, 2014 photo, Rachael Michelle Rapraeger, center, sits with her attorney, Floyd Buford, after Sharon Holmes, left, read her statement to a Houston County Superior Court, in Perry, Ga., during a sentencing hearing.]({"default":"http://newsbcpcol.stb.s-msn.com/amnews/i/73/fdbf9e60a499c984d15bbcee75f27d/_h353_w628_m6_otrue_lfalse.jpg"})
AP Photo: The Macon Telegraph, Beau Cabell
In this April 15, 2014 photo, Rachael Michelle Rapraeger, center, sits with her attorney, Floyd Buford, after Sharon Holmes, left, read her statement to a Houston County Superior Court, in Perry, Ga., during a sentencing hearing.
![AP]({"default":"http://newsbcpcol.stb.s-msn.com/amnews/i/e3/12e7ff08bf55a6d7449b766b4e23c/_h17_w0_m6_otrue_lfalse.jpg"}){kind=small}
By KATE BRUMBACK of Associated Press
PERRY, Ga. (AP) — Sharon Holmes found a lump in her left breast quite by accident. At work one day as a high school custodian, her hand brushed up against her chest and she felt a knot sticking out. She was perplexed. After all, just three months earlier, she had been given an all-clear sign from her doctor after a mammogram.
A new mammogram in February 2010 showed she in fact had an aggressive stage 2 breast cancer. The horror of the discovery was compounded by the reason: The earlier test results she had gotten weren't just read incorrectly. They were falsified.
She wasn't alone in facing this news. The lead radiological technologist at Perry Hospital in Perry, a small community about 100 miles south of Atlanta, had for about 18 months been signing off on mammograms and spitting out reports showing nearly 1,300 women were clear of any signs of breast cancer or abnormalities.
Except that she was wrong. Holmes and nine other women were later shown to have lumps or cancerous tumors growing inside them.
AP Photo: The Macon Telegraph, Beau Cabell
Sharon Holmes.
Holmes said the discovery was horrific enough. With a son in his 20s and another in high school at the time, she trembled at the thought of leaving them without a mother. "To me, that meant a death sentence," she said. She underwent successful surgery the month after the cancer was discovered to remove the lump from her breast and followed that with chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
Her breast has been cancer-free for four years and subsequent cancers found elsewhere, in her lymph nodes and thyroid, have been successfully treated. Now she just prays it doesn't come back.
But to find out later that she had been deceived made it even worse. "I'm thinking I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, getting my tests done, and then I find out someone else isn't doing their job," Holmes told The Associated Press.
The tech, Rachael Rapraeger, pleaded guilty earlier this month to 10 misdemeanor charges of reckless conduct and one felony charge of computer forgery. She was sentenced to serve up to six months in a detention center, to serve 10 years on probation during which she can't work in the health care field and to pay a $12,500 fine.
The reasons she gave were vague. She told police she had personal issues that caused her to stop caring about her job, that she had fallen behind processing the piles of mammogram films that stacked up. So she went into the hospital's computer system, assumed the identities of physicians, and gave each patient a clear reading, an investigative report says. That allowed her to avoid the time-consuming paperwork required before the films are brought to a reading room for radiologists to examine, her lawyer Floyd Buford told the AP.
Her actions were uncovered in April 2010 after a patient who'd received a negative report had another mammogram three months later at another hospital that revealed she had breast cancer. As hospital staff began to investigate, it was determined that the doctor whose name was on the faulty report had not been at the hospital the day the report was filed. Rapraeger quickly confessed to her supervisor that she was responsible and was fired from her job about a week later, according to an investigator's report.
Rapraeger told police she knew what she was doing wasn't right, but that she didn't consider the consequences until she realized a patient with cancer had been told her scan was clear.
She didn't return a phone call from The Associated Press seeking comment. Her attorney said she feels great remorse about any pain that she caused.
Cary Martin, CEO of Houston Healthcare, which operates Perry Hospital, released a statement saying he is "pleased this component of Ms. Rapraeger's unfortunate action is concluded" and declined to comment further.
Sara Bailey also received a false-negative report. By the time it was discovered, her breast cancer progressed to the point that doctors had to remove her entire breast rather than just going in and removing a lump, she said.
The surgery was successful and the cancer hasn't returned, but Bailey carries a bitterness inside her that surfaces when she talks about her experience.
"I'm not hurting and I don't think I have cancer, but I'm not a woman anymore," the 80-year-old said, her eyes welling with tears and her voice catching as she talked about the loss of her breast.
AP Photo: Kate Brumback
The emotional wound was opened again this month when Rapraeger received a sentence that Bailey saw as a slap on the wrist.
"I feel like we were thrown under the bus, and there will be an election day," Bailey said, explaining that she plans to organize an effort to get Houston Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Hartwig voted out of office.
Hartwig said he und
erstands how Bailey feels and knows some people think Rapraeger got off easy, but he said his office weighed the evidence in the case very carefully and concluded the plea was a fair outcome. Even though Rapraeger did make statements and admissions to police, they were too general to prove specific instances of wrongdoing, he said.
"Given the entirety of the case and the issues that were there, I really feel like we did the best we could do to get a measure of justice for these women," he said, adding that it would have been even more disappointing if the case had gone to trial and she'd been found not guilty and walked out of there with no penalty.
For her part, Holmes, 49, has tried to move on, and testifying at Rapraeger's sentencing helped with that.
"I wanted her to know I'm a person, not just a name on a paper," she said.
But she's still angry because lingering effects from her chemotherapy and radiation — treatments she said her doctors told her might not have been necessary if the cancer had been caught by the original mammogram — have kept her from returning to work as a high school janitor.
Like Bailey, she thought Rapraeger's sentence was too light, and she was disappointed that Rapraeger didn't speak in court, instead letting her attorney read a statement for her.
"If she had gotten up and at least said, 'I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry these women had to go through this,' that, to me, would have meant that she was truly sorry for what we went through," Holmes said.
Mary Brown had a mammogram in August 2009. She was contacted by the hospital in May 2010 and told to come back for another. That one came back positive, and she had a mastectomy to remove her right breast. She considers herself lucky that she apparently had a slow-growing cancer and didn't need to have chemotherapy or radiation.
Brown, a 78-year-old Jehovah's Witness, credits her strong faith in God with helping her get through the ordeal and with helping her forgive Rapraeger.
"I don't have any hard feelings about her. Whatever she did, she brought it on herself," Brown said, though she conceded her relative good fortune might also be coloring her reaction. "Maybe if I had been dying sick from it I would feel different."
She wasn't alone in facing this news. The lead radiological technologist at Perry Hospital in Perry, a small community about 100 miles south of Atlanta, had for about 18 months been signing off on mammograms and spitting out reports showing nearly 1,300 women were clear of any signs of breast cancer or abnormalities.
Except that she was wrong. Holmes and nine other women were later shown to have lumps or cancerous tumors growing inside them.
AP Photo: The Macon Telegraph, Beau CabellSharon Holmes.
Her breast has been cancer-free for four years and subsequent cancers found elsewhere, in her lymph nodes and thyroid, have been successfully treated. Now she just prays it doesn't come back.
But to find out later that she had been deceived made it even worse. "I'm thinking I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, getting my tests done, and then I find out someone else isn't doing their job," Holmes told The Associated Press.
The tech, Rachael Rapraeger, pleaded guilty earlier this month to 10 misdemeanor charges of reckless conduct and one felony charge of computer forgery. She was sentenced to serve up to six months in a detention center, to serve 10 years on probation during which she can't work in the health care field and to pay a $12,500 fine.
The reasons she gave were vague. She told police she had personal issues that caused her to stop caring about her job, that she had fallen behind processing the piles of mammogram films that stacked up. So she went into the hospital's computer system, assumed the identities of physicians, and gave each patient a clear reading, an investigative report says. That allowed her to avoid the time-consuming paperwork required before the films are brought to a reading room for radiologists to examine, her lawyer Floyd Buford told the AP.
Her actions were uncovered in April 2010 after a patient who'd received a negative report had another mammogram three months later at another hospital that revealed she had breast cancer. As hospital staff began to investigate, it was determined that the doctor whose name was on the faulty report had not been at the hospital the day the report was filed. Rapraeger quickly confessed to her supervisor that she was responsible and was fired from her job about a week later, according to an investigator's report.
Rapraeger told police she knew what she was doing wasn't right, but that she didn't consider the consequences until she realized a patient with cancer had been told her scan was clear.
She didn't return a phone call from The Associated Press seeking comment. Her attorney said she feels great remorse about any pain that she caused.
Cary Martin, CEO of Houston Healthcare, which operates Perry Hospital, released a statement saying he is "pleased this component of Ms. Rapraeger's unfortunate action is concluded" and declined to comment further.
Sara Bailey also received a false-negative report. By the time it was discovered, her breast cancer progressed to the point that doctors had to remove her entire breast rather than just going in and removing a lump, she said.
The surgery was successful and the cancer hasn't returned, but Bailey carries a bitterness inside her that surfaces when she talks about her experience.
"I'm not hurting and I don't think I have cancer, but I'm not a woman anymore," the 80-year-old said, her eyes welling with tears and her voice catching as she talked about the loss of her breast.
AP Photo: Kate Brumback
Sara Bailey.
"I feel like we were thrown under the bus, and there will be an election day," Bailey said, explaining that she plans to organize an effort to get Houston Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Hartwig voted out of office.
Hartwig said he und
erstands how Bailey feels and knows some people think Rapraeger got off easy, but he said his office weighed the evidence in the case very carefully and concluded the plea was a fair outcome. Even though Rapraeger did make statements and admissions to police, they were too general to prove specific instances of wrongdoing, he said.
"Given the entirety of the case and the issues that were there, I really feel like we did the best we could do to get a measure of justice for these women," he said, adding that it would have been even more disappointing if the case had gone to trial and she'd been found not guilty and walked out of there with no penalty.
For her part, Holmes, 49, has tried to move on, and testifying at Rapraeger's sentencing helped with that.
"I wanted her to know I'm a person, not just a name on a paper," she said.
But she's still angry because lingering effects from her chemotherapy and radiation — treatments she said her doctors told her might not have been necessary if the cancer had been caught by the original mammogram — have kept her from returning to work as a high school janitor.
Like Bailey, she thought Rapraeger's sentence was too light, and she was disappointed that Rapraeger didn't speak in court, instead letting her attorney read a statement for her.
"If she had gotten up and at least said, 'I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry these women had to go through this,' that, to me, would have meant that she was truly sorry for what we went through," Holmes said.
Mary Brown had a mammogram in August 2009. She was contacted by the hospital in May 2010 and told to come back for another. That one came back positive, and she had a mastectomy to remove her right breast. She considers herself lucky that she apparently had a slow-growing cancer and didn't need to have chemotherapy or radiation.
Brown, a 78-year-old Jehovah's Witness, credits her strong faith in God with helping her get through the ordeal and with helping her forgive Rapraeger.
"I don't have any hard feelings about her. Whatever she did, she brought it on herself," Brown said, though she conceded her relative good fortune might also be coloring her reaction. "Maybe if I had been dying sick from it I would feel different."
Friday, April 25, 2014
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Saturday, April 19, 2014
4/14/2014
Charities that pay more to fundraisers than the needy
These charities spend more money to raise money than they do to help those in need.
How much of your donation dollar actually goes to the causes you care about?
Sometimes, it can be as little as a dime.
These 10 charities aren't living up to their missions, according to Charity Navigator, a nonprofit evaluator of charities. Each spends more than 50 percent of its budget on for-profit fundraising professionals to solicit donations. They are ranked by the percentage of their total functional expenses spent on professional fundraising fees. As a result, less of these charities’ spending is directed toward their programs and services.
Charity Navigator ranks charities for both their financial health and their accountability and transparency, then provides an overall score. You can use the site, or a similar site such as GuideStar, (both are nonprofits) to research charities before parting with your hard-earned money.
Based on their ratings, Charity Navigator came up with this list of 10 charities that are overpaying their for-profit fundraisers.
10. Children’s Leukemia Research Association
- Garden City, N.Y.
- Percent of budget spent on charitable programs and services: 31.7 percent
- Percent spent on fundraising: 66.6 percent
Charity Navigator’s scoring system.
9. National Police Defense Foundation
- Morganville, N.J.
- Percent of budget spent on charitable programs and services: 17.7 percent
- Percent spent on fundraising: 79.1 percent
8. Law Enforcement Education Program
- Troy, Mich.
- Percent of budget spent on charitable programs and services: 3.3 percent
- Percent spent on fundraising: 79.4 percent
7. Wishing Well Foundation USA
- Metairie, La.
- Percent of budget spent on charitable programs and services: 12.4 percent
- Percent spent on fundraising: 79.8 percent
6. Children’s Charity Fund, Inc.
- Sarasota, Fla.
- Percent of budget spent on charitable programs and services: 8 percent
- Percent spent on fundraising: 83.7 percent
5. National Vietnam Veterans Foundation
- Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
- Percent of budget spent on charitable programs and services: 11.5 percent
- Percent spent on fundraising: 86.8 percent
4. California Police Youth Charities
- Roseville, Calif.
- Percent of budget spent on charitable programs and services: 8.4 percent
- Percent spent on fundraising: 85.5 percent
3. The Committee for Missing Children
- Lawrenceville, Ga.
- Percent of budget spent on charitable programs and services: 12.1 percent
- Percent spent on fundraising: 85.5 percent
2. Firefighters Charitable Foundation
- Farmingdale, N.Y.
- Percent of budget spent on charitable programs and services: 7 percent
- Percent spent on fundraising: 87.7 percent
1. Cancer Survivors’ Fund
- Missouri City, Texas
- Percent of budget spent on charitable programs and services: 7.1 percent
- Percent spent on fundraising: 90.5 percent
Check the bottom of a charity’s ratings page on Charity Navigator to see a list of highly rated charities that offer similar services.
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