JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — Rockabilly and country performer Sanford Clark, who had a Top 10 hit with “The Fool” in 1956, has died in a Missouri hospital from COVID-19. He was 85.

Clark died Sunday at Mercy Hospital in Joplin, where he had been receiving cancer treatment before he contracted the coronavirus, his publicist and fellow performer Johnny Vallis said Monday.

Clark was born on Oct. 24, 1935, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and raised in Phoenix, where he first began performing in the early 1950s. “The Fool” reached No. 7 on the Billboard Top 100. The song was later recorded by several other well-known artists, including Elvis Presley and The Animals.

Presley actually recorded the song twice, the first time as part of his personal recordings while he was serving in the Army, then again for professional release in the 1970s, Vallis said.

“You can hear that he's trying to emulate Sanford's sound,” Vallis said. “You know, most people I know want to impersonate Elvis, and here Elvis was trying to impersonate him.”

Clark recorded several other songs in the 1950s and 1960s that saw minor success before he left the music business to work in construction, though he occasionally recorded in later decades on his own label, Desert Sun Records.

Sanford is survived by his wife, Marsha, and several children.

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — Rockabilly and country performer Sanford Clark, who had a Top 10 hit with “The Fool” in 1956, has died in a Missouri hospital from COVID-19. He was 85.Clark died Sunday at Mercy Hospital in Joplin, where he had been receiving cancer treatment before he contracted the coronavirus, his publicist and fellow performer Johnny Vallis said Monday.Clark was born on Oct. 24, 1935, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and raised in Phoenix, where he first began performing in the early 1950s. “The Fool” reached No. 7 on the Billboard Top 100. The song was later recorded by several other well-known artists, including Elvis Presley and The Animals.Presley actually recorded the song twice, the first time as part of his personal recordings while he was serving in the Army, then again for professional release in the 1970s, Vallis said.“You can hear that he's trying to emulate Sanford's sound,” Vallis said. “You know, most people I know want to impersonate Elvis, and here Elvis was trying to impersonate him.”Clark recorded several other songs in the 1950s and 1960s that saw minor success before he left the music business to work in construction, though he occasionally recorded in later decades on his own label, Desert Sun Records.Sanford is survived by his wife, Marsha, and several children.

Rockabilly performer Sanford Clark dead from COVID-19

BOSTON (AP) — Cybersecurity teams worked feverishly Sunday to stem the impact of the single biggest global ransomware attack on record, with some details emerging about how the Russia-linked gang responsible breached the company whose software was the conduit.

An affiliate of the notorious REvil gang, best known for extorting $11 million from the meat-processor JBS after a Memorial Day attack, infected thousands of victims in at least 17 countries on Friday, largely through firms that remotely manage IT infrastructure for multiple customers, cybersecurity researchers said.

REvil was demanding ransoms of up to $5 million, the researchers said. But late Sunday it offered in a posting on its dark web site a universal decryptor software key that would unscramble all affected machines in exchange for $70 million in cryptocurrency.

Earlier, the FBI said in&nbsp;<a href="https://go.usa.gov/x6Hzc" target="_blank">a statement&nbsp;</a>that while it was investigating the attack its scale “may make it so that we are unable to respond to each victim individually.” Deputy National Security Advisor Anne Neuberger later issued a statement saying President Joe Biden had “directed the full resources of the government to investigate this incident” and urged all who believed they were compromised to alert the FBI.

Biden&nbsp;<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/03/remarks-by-president-biden-after-visiting-king-orchards/" target="_blank">suggested Saturday&nbsp;</a>the U.S. would respond if it was determined that the Kremlin is at all involved.

Less than a month ago, Biden pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop giving safe haven to REvil and other ransomware gangs whose&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-europe-government-and-politics-technology-business-3b81e8116c42439566040a052617ad55">unrelenting extortionary attacks&nbsp;</a>the U.S. deems a national security threat.

A broad array of businesses and public agencies were hit by the latest attack, apparently on all continents, including in financial services, travel and leisure and the public sector — though few large companies, the cybersecurity firm Sophos reported. Ransomware criminals infiltrate networks and sow malware that cripples them by scrambling all their data. Victims get a decoder key when they pay up.

The Swedish grocery chain Coop said most of its 800 stores would be closed for a second day Sunday because their cash register software supplier was crippled. A Swedish pharmacy chain, gas station chain, the state railway and public broadcaster SVT were also hit.

In Germany, an unnamed IT services company told authorities several thousand of its customers were compromised, the news agency dpa reported. Also among reported victims were two big Dutch IT services companies — VelzArt and Hoppenbrouwer Techniek. Most ransomware victims don’t publicly report attacks or disclose if they’ve paid ransoms.

CEO Fred Voccola of the breached software company, Kaseya, estimated the victim number in the low thousands, mostly small businesses like “dental practices, architecture firms, plastic surgery centers, libraries, things like that.”

Voccola said in an interview that only between 50-60 of the company’s 37,000 customers were compromised. But 70% were managed service providers who use the company’s hacked VSA software to manage multiple customers. It automates the installation of software and security updates and manages backups and other vital tasks.

Experts say it was no coincidence that REvil launched the attack at the start of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, knowing U.S. offices would be lightly staffed. Many victims may not learn of it until they are back at work on Monday. Most end users of managed service providers “have no idea” whose software keep their networks humming, said Voccola,

Kaseya said it sent a detection tool to nearly 900 customers on Saturday night.

The REvil offer to offer blanket decryption for all victims of the Kaseya attack in exchange for $70 million suggested its inability to cope with the sheer quantity of infected networks, said Allan Liska, an analyst with the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Although analysts reported seeing demands of $5 million and $500,000 for bigger targets, it was apparently demanding $45,000 for most.

“This attack is a lot bigger than they expected and it is getting a lot of attention. It is in REvil’s interest to end it quickly,” said Liska. “This is a nightmare to manage.”

Analyst Brett Callow of Emsisoft said he suspects REvil is hoping insurers might crunch the numbers and determine the $70 million will be cheaper for them than extended downtime.

Sophisticated ransomware gangs on REvil’s level usually examine a victim’s financial records — and insurance policies if they can find them — from files they steal before activating the ransomware. The criminals then threaten to dump the stolen data online unless paid. In this attack, that appears not to have happened.

<a href="https://csirt.divd.nl/2021/07/04/Kaseya-Case-Update-2/" target="_blank">Dutch researchers&nbsp;</a>said they alerted Miami-based Kaseya to the breach and said the criminals used a “zero day,” the industry term for a previous unknown security hole in software. Voccola would not confirm that or offer details of the breach — except to say that it was not phishing.

“The level of sophistication here was extraordinary,” he said.

When the cybersecurity firm Mandiant finishes its investigation, Voccola said he is confident it will show that the criminals didn’t just violate Kaseya code in breaking into his network but also exploited vulnerabilities in third-party software.

It was not the first ransomware attack to leverage managed services providers. In 2019, criminals hobbled the networks of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/81d1de758c7b4f5aac0a6dc792702bda">22 Texas municipalities&nbsp;</a>through one. That same year,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/29/politics/ransomware-attack-dental-offices/index.html" target="_blank">400 U.S. dental practices</a>&nbsp;were crippled in a separate attack.

One of the Dutch vulnerability researchers, Victor Gevers, said his team is worried about products like Kaseya’s VSA because of the total control of vast computing resources they can offer. “More and more of the products that are used to keep networks safe and secure are showing structural weaknesses,” he wrote in a blog Sunday.

The cybersecurity firm ESET identified victims in least 17 countries, including the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Indonesia, New Zealand and Kenya.

Kaseya says the attack only affected “on-premise” customers, organizations running their own data centers, as opposed to its cloud-based services that run software for customers. It also shut down those servers as a precaution, however.

Kaseya, which called on customers Friday to shut down their VSA servers immediately, said Sunday it hoped to have a patch in the next few days.

Active since April 2019, REvil provides ransomware-as-a-service, meaning it develops the network-paralyzing software and leases it to so-called affiliates who infect targets and earn the lion’s share of ransoms. U.S. officials say the most potent ransomware gangs are based in Russia and allied states and operate with Kremlin tolerance and sometimes collude with Russian security services.

Cybersecurity expert Dmitri Alperovitch of the Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank said that while he does not believe the Kaseya attack is Kremlin-directed, it shows that Putin “has not yet moved” on shutting down cybercriminals.

BOSTON (AP) — Cybersecurity teams worked feverishly Sunday to stem the impact of the single biggest global ransomware attack on record, with some details emerging about how the Russia-linked gang responsible breached the company whose software was the conduit.An affiliate of the notorious REvil gang, best known for extorting $11 million from the meat-processor JBS after a Memorial Day attack, infected thousands of victims in at least 17 countries on Friday, largely through firms that remotely manage IT infrastructure for multiple customers, cybersecurity researchers said.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">If you believe your systems have been compromised from the Kaseya ransomware incident, we urge you to shut down your VSA servers &amp; contact CISA, our partners at the <a href="https://twitter.com/FBI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FBI</a>, &amp; file a report at <a href="https://t.co/V1Z2YzlPTW">https://t.co/V1Z2YzlPTW</a> We are working with Kaseya &amp; the <a href="https://twitter.com/FBI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FBI</a> to assist those impacted. <a href="https://t.co/vFwJ6iyKog">https://t.co/vFwJ6iyKog</a>&mdash; Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (@CISAgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/CISAgov/status/1411821930521497600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 4, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>REvil was demanding ransoms of up to $5 million, the researchers said. But late Sunday it offered in a posting on its dark web site a universal decryptor software key that would unscramble all affected machines in exchange for $70 million in cryptocurrency.Earlier, the FBI said in&nbsp;<a href="https://go.usa.gov/x6Hzc" target="_blank">a statement&nbsp;</a>that while it was investigating the attack its scale “may make it so that we are unable to respond to each victim individually.” Deputy National Security Advisor Anne Neuberger later issued a statement saying President Joe Biden had “directed the full resources of the government to investigate this incident” and urged all who believed they were compromised to alert the FBI.Biden&nbsp;<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/03/remarks-by-president-biden-after-visiting-king-orchards/" target="_blank">suggested Saturday&nbsp;</a>the U.S. would respond if it was determined that the Kremlin is at all involved.Less than a month ago, Biden pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop giving safe haven to REvil and other ransomware gangs whose&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-europe-government-and-politics-technology-business-3b81e8116c42439566040a052617ad55">unrelenting extortionary attacks&nbsp;</a>the U.S. deems a national security threat.A broad array of businesses and public agencies were hit by the latest attack, apparently on all continents, including in financial services, travel and leisure and the public sector — though few large companies, the cybersecurity firm Sophos reported. Ransomware criminals infiltrate networks and sow malware that cripples them by scrambling all their data. Victims get a decoder key when they pay up.The Swedish grocery chain Coop said most of its 800 stores would be closed for a second day Sunday because their cash register software supplier was crippled. A Swedish pharmacy chain, gas station chain, the state railway and public broadcaster SVT were also hit.In Germany, an unnamed IT services company told authorities several thousand of its customers were compromised, the news agency dpa reported. Also among reported victims were two big Dutch IT services companies — VelzArt and Hoppenbrouwer Techniek. Most ransomware victims don’t publicly report attacks or disclose if they’ve paid ransoms.CEO Fred Voccola of the breached software company, Kaseya, estimated the victim number in the low thousands, mostly small businesses like “dental practices, architecture firms, plastic surgery centers, libraries, things like that.”Voccola said in an interview that only between 50-60 of the company’s 37,000 customers were compromised. But 70% were managed service providers who use the company’s hacked VSA software to manage multiple customers. It automates the installation of software and security updates and manages backups and other vital tasks.Experts say it was no coincidence that REvil launched the attack at the start of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, knowing U.S. offices would be lightly staffed. Many victims may not learn of it until they are back at work on Monday. Most end users of managed service providers “have no idea” whose software keep their networks humming, said Voccola,Kaseya said it sent a detection tool to nearly 900 customers on Saturday night.The REvil offer to offer blanket decryption for all victims of the Kaseya attack in exchange for $70 million suggested its inability to cope with the sheer quantity of infected networks, said Allan Liska, an analyst with the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Although analysts reported seeing demands of $5 million and $500,000 for bigger targets, it was apparently demanding $45,000 for most.“This attack is a lot bigger than they expected and it is getting a lot of attention. It is in REvil’s interest to end it quickly,” said Liska. “This is a nightmare to manage.”Analyst Brett Callow of Emsisoft said he suspects REvil is hoping insurers might crunch the numbers and determine the $70 million will be cheaper for them than extended downtime.Sophisticated ransomware gangs on REvil’s level usually examine a victim’s financial records — and insurance policies if they can find them — from files they steal before activating the ransomware. The criminals then threaten to dump the stolen data online unless paid. In this attack, that appears not to have happened.<a href="https://csirt.divd.nl/2021/07/04/Kaseya-Case-Update-2/" target="_blank">Dutch researchers&nbsp;</a>said they alerted Miami-based Kaseya to the breach and said the criminals used a “zero day,” the industry term for a previous unknown security hole in software. Voccola would not confirm that or offer details of the breach — except to say that it was not phishing.“The level of sophistication here was extraordinary,” he said.When the cybersecurity firm Mandiant finishes its investigation, Voccola said he is confident it will show that the criminals didn’t just violate Kaseya code in breaking into his network but also exploited vulnerabilities in third-party software.It was not the first ransomware attack to leverage managed services providers. In 2019, criminals hobbled the networks of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/81d1de758c7b4f5aac0a6dc792702bda">22 Texas municipalities&nbsp;</a>through one. That same year,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/29/politics/ransomware-attack-dental-offices/index.html" target="_blank">400 U.S. dental practices</a>&nbsp;were crippled in a separate attack.One of the Dutch vulnerability researchers, Victor Gevers, said his team is worried about products like Kaseya’s VSA because of the total control of vast computing resources they can offer. “More and more of the products that are used to keep networks safe and secure are showing structural weaknesses,” he wrote in a blog Sunday.The cybersecurity firm ESET identified victims in least 17 countries, including the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Indonesia, New Zealand and Kenya.Kaseya says the attack only affected “on-premise” customers, organizations running their own data centers, as opposed to its cloud-based services that run software for customers. It also shut down those servers as a precaution, however.Kaseya, which called on customers Friday to shut down their VSA servers immediately, said Sunday it hoped to have a patch in the next few days.Active since April 2019, REvil provides ransomware-as-a-service, meaning it develops the network-paralyzing software and leases it to so-called affiliates who infect targets and earn the lion’s share of ransoms. U.S. officials say the most potent ransomware gangs are based in Russia and allied states and operate with Kremlin tolerance and sometimes collude with Russian security services.Cybersecurity expert Dmitri Alperovitch of the Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank said that while he does not believe the Kaseya attack is Kremlin-directed, it shows that Putin “has not yet moved” on shutting down cybercriminals.

Details emerge of massive holiday weekend ransomware attack 

WASHINGTON&nbsp;—&nbsp;The Internal Revenue Service today extended the tax 
relief provided in Notice 2020-46 for calendar year 2021 for employers 
whose employees forgo sick, vacation or personal leave because of the 
COVID-19 pandemic.

<a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-21-42.pdf">Notice 2021-42&nbsp;PDF</a>
 provides that cash payments employers make to charitable organizations 
that provide relief to victims of the COVID-19 pandemic in exchange for 
sick, vacation or personal leave which their employees forgo will not be
 treated as compensation. Similarly, the employees will not be treated 
as receiving the value of the leave as income and cannot claim a 
deduction for the leave that they donated to their employer.

Employers, however, may deduct these cash payments as a business 
expense or as a charitable contribution deduction if the employer 
otherwise meets the respective requirements of either section.

<a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-20-46.pdf">Notice 2020-46&nbsp;PDF</a> and <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-21-42.pdf">Notice 2021-42&nbsp;PDF</a> provide further details for employers with leave-based donation programs

Additional information about tax relief for those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic can be found at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/coronavirus-tax-relief-for-businesses-and-tax-exempt-entities">Coronavirus Tax Relief for Businesses and Tax-Exempt Entities</a>.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1599869632873.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>IRSWASHINGTON&nbsp;—&nbsp;The Internal Revenue Service today extended the tax 
relief provided in Notice 2020-46 for calendar year 2021 for employers 
whose employees forgo sick, vacation or personal leave because of the 
COVID-19 pandemic.<a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-21-42.pdf">Notice 2021-42&nbsp;PDF</a>
 provides that cash payments employers make to charitable organizations 
that provide relief to victims of the COVID-19 pandemic in exchange for 
sick, vacation or personal leave which their employees forgo will not be
 treated as compensation. Similarly, the employees will not be treated 
as receiving the value of the leave as income and cannot claim a 
deduction for the leave that they donated to their employer.Employers, however, may deduct these cash payments as a business 
expense or as a charitable contribution deduction if the employer 
otherwise meets the respective requirements of either section.<a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-20-46.pdf">Notice 2020-46&nbsp;PDF</a> and <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-21-42.pdf">Notice 2021-42&nbsp;PDF</a> provide further details for employers with leave-based donation programsAdditional information about tax relief for those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic can be found at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/coronavirus-tax-relief-for-businesses-and-tax-exempt-entities">Coronavirus Tax Relief for Businesses and Tax-Exempt Entities</a>.

IRS extends tax relief for employers for lost vacation, sick time during pandemic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration this month began putting in place consumer protections against “surprise” medical bills enacted in bipartisan legislation signed last year by former President Donald Trump.

Regulations jointly issued by four federal agencies spell out protections for insured patients against surprise billing in medical emergencies, and unexpected charges from out-of-network doctors at an in-network facility. Out-of-network clinicians and service providers would also be barred from billing patients for the difference between their charges and what insurance paid.

Surprise medical bills are a common and frustrating problem for people with health insurance, even if they thought they were protected. Charges that can run from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars come from doctors and hospitals outside the network of a patient’s health insurance plan. It’s estimated that about 1 in 5 emergency visits and 1 in 6 inpatient admissions triggers a surprise bill.

Thursday’s action signaled that the Biden administration is committed to having the new protections in place for consumers by Jan. 1, as the law requires. Work continues on another major piece of the new framework, a process to resolve billing disputes between insurers and medical providers without dragging patients into them.

It’s a rare demonstration of bipartisanship on health care, one of the most politically polarized issues of the past decade, as Republicans repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to repeal the Obama-era Affordable Care Act.

“It’s about getting good health care at a good price for all Americans — it’s a bipartisan effort,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, whose department is working on the issue with Treasury, Labor and the federal government’s personnel agency. “You will no longer be stuck in the middle of a payments dispute because you were blindsided by a charge you weren’t expecting.”

Consumer advocates, insurers and medical and hospital associations are poring over the complicated fine print of the Biden administration’s 400-page rule. Arcane definitions pertaining to such issues as payment levels can translate to millions of dollars of economic impact. Also under the rule, insurers and health care providers would have to notify patients about their new protections.

“They are clearly pulling out the stops to get this implemented in a timely manner,” said Karen Pollitz, a health insurance expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “We know this has been a problem that people put at the top of their list of worries.”

Pollitz said it could take until well into next year to see how the new system works in real life. Currently millions of surprise bills are sent every year. “Even if 90% of them are handled perfectly the first year, you could still have hundreds of thousands that go through to the patient,” she said.

The advocacy group Families USA, leading a coalition that has urged the administration to take a pro-consumer approach to implementing the rule, said in a statement the details will take time to digest “but at first blush it appears to recognize the significance of ensuring strong transparency and easily understandable patient notice and consent standards.”

Although many states have passed curbs on surprise billing, federal action was needed to protect patients covered by large employer plans regulated at the national level. The Biden administration is allowing 60 days for public comment on its rule.

<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-bill-end-surprise-medical-bills-d17da7204ade433d20ea8305c2d0538c">The surprise billing law passed by Congress last year</a>&nbsp;takes patients and their families out of the financial equation by limiting what they can be billed for out-of-network services to a fee that’s based on in-network charges. That amount gets counted toward their in-network annual deductible.

The central provisions of the legislation include:

— Holding patients harmless from surprise bills resulting from emergency medical care. Protections apply if the patient is seen at an out-of-network facility, or if they are treated by an out-of-network clinician at an in-network hospital. In either case, the patient can only be billed based on their plan’s in-network rate.

— Protecting patients admitted to an in-network hospital for a planned procedure when an out-of-network clinician gets involved and submits a bill.

— Requiring out-of-network service providers to give patients 72-hour notice of their estimated charges. Patients would have to agree to receive out-of-network care for the hospital or doctor to then bill them.

— Barring air ambulance services from sending patients surprise bills for more than the in-network cost sharing amount.

Surprise bills are a direct of result of high health care costs. To try to keep premiums in check, insurers set up networks of hospitals and doctors who agree in advance on payment levels. But some high-demand clinicians, such as emergency room doctors and anesthesiologists, have an incentive to stay out of at least some networks, to maximize their earnings.

Public programs like Medicare and Medicaid prohibit or restrict such billing practices.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration this month began putting in place consumer protections against “surprise” medical bills enacted in bipartisan legislation signed last year by former President Donald Trump.Regulations jointly issued by four federal agencies spell out protections for insured patients against surprise billing in medical emergencies, and unexpected charges from out-of-network doctors at an in-network facility. Out-of-network clinicians and service providers would also be barred from billing patients for the difference between their charges and what insurance paid.Surprise medical bills are a common and frustrating problem for people with health insurance, even if they thought they were protected. Charges that can run from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars come from doctors and hospitals outside the network of a patient’s health insurance plan. It’s estimated that about 1 in 5 emergency visits and 1 in 6 inpatient admissions triggers a surprise bill.Thursday’s action signaled that the Biden administration is committed to having the new protections in place for consumers by Jan. 1, as the law requires. Work continues on another major piece of the new framework, a process to resolve billing disputes between insurers and medical providers without dragging patients into them.It’s a rare demonstration of bipartisanship on health care, one of the most politically polarized issues of the past decade, as Republicans repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to repeal the Obama-era Affordable Care Act.“It’s about getting good health care at a good price for all Americans — it’s a bipartisan effort,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, whose department is working on the issue with Treasury, Labor and the federal government’s personnel agency. “You will no longer be stuck in the middle of a payments dispute because you were blindsided by a charge you weren’t expecting.”Consumer advocates, insurers and medical and hospital associations are poring over the complicated fine print of the Biden administration’s 400-page rule. Arcane definitions pertaining to such issues as payment levels can translate to millions of dollars of economic impact. Also under the rule, insurers and health care providers would have to notify patients about their new protections.“They are clearly pulling out the stops to get this implemented in a timely manner,” said Karen Pollitz, a health insurance expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “We know this has been a problem that people put at the top of their list of worries.”Pollitz said it could take until well into next year to see how the new system works in real life. Currently millions of surprise bills are sent every year. “Even if 90% of them are handled perfectly the first year, you could still have hundreds of thousands that go through to the patient,” she said.The advocacy group Families USA, leading a coalition that has urged the administration to take a pro-consumer approach to implementing the rule, said in a statement the details will take time to digest “but at first blush it appears to recognize the significance of ensuring strong transparency and easily understandable patient notice and consent standards.”Although many states have passed curbs on surprise billing, federal action was needed to protect patients covered by large employer plans regulated at the national level. The Biden administration is allowing 60 days for public comment on its rule.<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-bill-end-surprise-medical-bills-d17da7204ade433d20ea8305c2d0538c">The surprise billing law passed by Congress last year</a>&nbsp;takes patients and their families out of the financial equation by limiting what they can be billed for out-of-network services to a fee that’s based on in-network charges. That amount gets counted toward their in-network annual deductible.The central provisions of the legislation include:— Holding patients harmless from surprise bills resulting from emergency medical care. Protections apply if the patient is seen at an out-of-network facility, or if they are treated by an out-of-network clinician at an in-network hospital. In either case, the patient can only be billed based on their plan’s in-network rate.— Protecting patients admitted to an in-network hospital for a planned procedure when an out-of-network clinician gets involved and submits a bill.— Requiring out-of-network service providers to give patients 72-hour notice of their estimated charges. Patients would have to agree to receive out-of-network care for the hospital or doctor to then bill them.— Barring air ambulance services from sending patients surprise bills for more than the in-network cost sharing amount.Surprise bills are a direct of result of high health care costs. To try to keep premiums in check, insurers set up networks of hospitals and doctors who agree in advance on payment levels. But some high-demand clinicians, such as emergency room doctors and anesthesiologists, have an incentive to stay out of at least some networks, to maximize their earnings.Public programs like Medicare and Medicaid prohibit or restrict such billing practices.

Consumer relief: Surprise medical bills will soon end

ROME (AP) — The Vatican said Monday that Pope Francis is “in good condition, alert and breathing on his own,” a day after he underwent a three-hour operation that involved removing half his colon.

Francis, 84, is expected to stay in Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic, a Catholic hospital, for about seven days “barring complications,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.

The brief medical bulletin contained the first details the Vatican released, coming more than 12 hours after the end of Sunday’s surgery. The procedure was necessitated by what the Holy See said was a diverticular stenosis, or narrowing the pope’s sigmoid portion of the large intestine.

“His Holy Father is in good, general condition, alert and breathing spontaneously,” Bruni said in a written statement. “The operation for the diverticular stenosis, performed during the evening of July 4, involved a left hemicolectomy and lasted for about three hours,” Bruni said.

That procedure entails removing the left side of the colon and attaching the remaining parts of the large intestine.

Francis was spending his first morning convalescing in a Rome hospital following the surgery on the left side of his large intestine.

Before Monday’s statement, the Vatican had given scant details about the operation at Gemelli Polyclinic. an capital.

Earlier, an Italian cardinal told reporters he had been informed that Francis was doing OK post-operatively.

“Our prayer and our closeness are very great,” Cardinal Enrico Feroci said at Rome’s airport where he was catching a flight. The Italian news agency ANSA quoted him as saying that he had heard earlier in the morning from another cardinal, Angelo De Donatis, “and he told me that the pope is well.” De Donatis is the vicar of the Rome diocese.

Francis is staying in special, 10th floor suite that the hospital keeps available for use by a pontiff, after Pope John Paul II stayed there several times for various medical problems.

When the Vatican announced on Sunday afternoon that Francis had been admitted to hospital for a planned operation, it said that he needed surgery because he had developed a narrowing of the sigmoid portion of the large intestine.

Without citing sources, Rome daily Il Messaggero reported that “complications” arose during the surgery. Without specifying what happened, the newspaper said that the surgeons, after starting to operate via laparoscopy, ended up having to do incisions.

Laparoscopy is a kind of surgical procedure often dubbed “keyhole surgery” since it allows the surgeon access to the inside of the abdomen without requiring large incisions. In the kind of surgery the Vatican said the pope was getting, laparoscopy is commonly used, experts have said.

Patients having laparoscopic surgery generally require shorter hospital stays.

Twice daily updates on Francis’ condition were expected to be issued by the Vatican.

Doctors not connected to the pope’s hospitalization have said it is common to perform a re-sectioning of the affected part of the bowel in such cases.

Get-well messages continued to arrive for the pope. Italian Premier Mario Draghi’s office said the leader “expresses affectionate wishes for a rapid convalescence and quick healing.”

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican says Pope Francis has “reacted well” to planned intestinal surgery at a Rome hospital. In a statement late Sunday, a Holy See spokesman says the 84-year-old Francis had general anesthesia during the surgery necessitated by a narrowing of the sigmoid portion of the large intestine. 

The Vatican gave little detail about the pontiff’s condition. Spokesman Matteo Bruni didn’t say how long Sunday's surgery lasted or give any other details of the procedure. Bruni also didn't say for how long the pope was unconsciousness under anesthesia or how long Francis is expected to stay in Rome’s Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic. Francis is expected to convalesce in a special 10th floor suite reserved for popes.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis was hospitalized in Rome on Sunday afternoon for scheduled surgery on his large intestine, the Vatican said. The news came just three hours after Francis had cheerfully greeted the public in St. Peter’s Square and told them he will go to Hungary and Slovakia in September.

It was the pope’s first known hospitalization since he was elected to the papacy in 2013.

The brief statement from the Holy See’s press office promised a medical update after the surgery was complete at Gemelli Polyclinic, a Catholic teaching hospital. The Vatican didn’t say when the surgery would begin, only indicating it would take place later in the day.

By 9 p.m., there was no indication when the Vatican might issue the update.

The Vatican said the 84-year-old pope had been diagnosed with “symptomatic diverticular stenosis of the colon,” a reference to a narrowing in the large intestine. The surgery was to be performed by Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the director of Gemelli’s digestive surgery department.

A week earlier, Francis had used his same Sunday appearance to ask the public for special prayers for himself, which may have been related to the planned surgery.

“I ask you to pray for the pope, pray in a special way,” Francis had asked the faithful in the square on June 27. “The pope needs your prayers,” he said, adding his thanks and saying “I know you will do that.”

A diverticulum is pouch-like protrusion through the muscular wall of the intestine.

When diverticula become inflamed — a common condition, especially in older people — part of the intestine can sometimes narrow and surgery might be required, according to gastroenterologists. Such surgery can be performed under general anesthesia, possibly with a laparoscopic intervention. Sometimes a re-sectioning of the affected part of the intestine is needed.

Francis is in generally good health, but he did have part of one lung removed as a young man. He also suffers from sciatica, in which a nerve affects the lower back and leg, a painful condition that has forced him at times to skip scheduled appearances.

A 10th-floor papal suite is kept available at the hospital in case of need.

While Church law provides for a prelate to take over the administration of the Roman Catholic Church if a pope dies, there is no known provision for a delegation of powers if a pope is temporarily incapacitated, such while under anesthesia.

The pope had a particularly demanding set of appointments last week, including celebrating a Mass on Tuesday to mark the Catholic feast day honoring Saints Peter and Paul, and later in the week, presiding at a special prayer service for Lebanon. On June 28, he also had a long private audience at the Vatican with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Throughout all those engagements, Francis appeared to be in good spirits.

Usually, besides the traditional Sunday noon blessing and remarks from a window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square, the pontiff holds a public audience every Wednesday. But, in deference to Rome’s heat, the Wednesday appointment gets suspended during July.

Get-well wishes began arriving immediately for Francis. Italian President Sergio Mattarella, as soon as he landed in Paris for a state visit in France, offered an “affectionate thought” on behalf of all Italians. Mattarella said he was wishing for “a good convalescence and even a speedier recovery” for the pope.

Gemelli doctors have performed surgery before on popes, notably Pope John Paul II, who had what the Vatican said was a benign tumor in his colon removed in 1992. John Paul had several other surgeries at the hospital, including after being shot by a gunman in St. Peter’s Square in 1981.

John Paul also had several medical issues in his final years, including severe complications from Parkinson’s disease, and had numerous stays at Gemelli.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican says Pope Francis has gone to a Rome hospital for scheduled surgery for a stenosis, or restriction, of the large intestine. The brief announcement Sunday afternoon didn’t say when the surgery would be performed but it said there would be an announcement when the surgery is complete. 

Just three hours earlier, Francis had cheerfully greeted the public in St. Peter’s Square in keeping with a Sunday tradition and told them he will go to Hungary and Slovakia in September. A week earlier, Francis, 84, had used the same appearance to ask the public for special prayers for himself, which, in hindsight might have been hinting at the planned surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/10/1603292366279.png" alt="Pope Francis enters the House chamber ahead of an address to a joint session of Congress in 2015- image courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>Pope Francis enters the House chamber ahead of an address to a joint session of Congress in 2015- image courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>ROME (AP) — The Vatican said Monday that Pope Francis is “in good condition, alert and breathing on his own,” a day after he underwent a three-hour operation that involved removing half his colon.Francis, 84, is expected to stay in Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic, a Catholic hospital, for about seven days “barring complications,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.The brief medical bulletin contained the first details the Vatican released, coming more than 12 hours after the end of Sunday’s surgery. The procedure was necessitated by what the Holy See said was a diverticular stenosis, or narrowing the pope’s sigmoid portion of the large intestine.“His Holy Father is in good, general condition, alert and breathing spontaneously,” Bruni said in a written statement. “The operation for the diverticular stenosis, performed during the evening of July 4, involved a left hemicolectomy and lasted for about three hours,” Bruni said.That procedure entails removing the left side of the colon and attaching the remaining parts of the large intestine.Francis was spending his first morning convalescing in a Rome hospital following the surgery on the left side of his large intestine.Before Monday’s statement, the Vatican had given scant details about the operation at Gemelli Polyclinic. an capital.Earlier, an Italian cardinal told reporters he had been informed that Francis was doing OK post-operatively.“Our prayer and our closeness are very great,” Cardinal Enrico Feroci said at Rome’s airport where he was catching a flight. The Italian news agency ANSA quoted him as saying that he had heard earlier in the morning from another cardinal, Angelo De Donatis, “and he told me that the pope is well.” De Donatis is the vicar of the Rome diocese.Francis is staying in special, 10th floor suite that the hospital keeps available for use by a pontiff, after Pope John Paul II stayed there several times for various medical problems.When the Vatican announced on Sunday afternoon that Francis had been admitted to hospital for a planned operation, it said that he needed surgery because he had developed a narrowing of the sigmoid portion of the large intestine.Without citing sources, Rome daily Il Messaggero reported that “complications” arose during the surgery. Without specifying what happened, the newspaper said that the surgeons, after starting to operate via laparoscopy, ended up having to do incisions.Laparoscopy is a kind of surgical procedure often dubbed “keyhole surgery” since it allows the surgeon access to the inside of the abdomen without requiring large incisions. In the kind of surgery the Vatican said the pope was getting, laparoscopy is commonly used, experts have said.Patients having laparoscopic surgery generally require shorter hospital stays.Twice daily updates on Francis’ condition were expected to be issued by the Vatican.Doctors not connected to the pope’s hospitalization have said it is common to perform a re-sectioning of the affected part of the bowel in such cases.Get-well messages continued to arrive for the pope. Italian Premier Mario Draghi’s office said the leader “expresses affectionate wishes for a rapid convalescence and quick healing.”---------VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican says Pope Francis has “reacted well” to planned intestinal surgery at a Rome hospital. In a statement late Sunday, a Holy See spokesman says the 84-year-old Francis had general anesthesia during the surgery necessitated by a narrowing of the sigmoid portion of the large intestine. The Vatican gave little detail about the pontiff’s condition. Spokesman Matteo Bruni didn’t say how long Sunday's surgery lasted or give any other details of the procedure. Bruni also didn't say for how long the pope was unconsciousness under anesthesia or how long Francis is expected to stay in Rome’s Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic. Francis is expected to convalesce in a special 10th floor suite reserved for popes.VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis was hospitalized in Rome on Sunday afternoon for scheduled surgery on his large intestine, the Vatican said. The news came just three hours after Francis had cheerfully greeted the public in St. Peter’s Square and told them he will go to Hungary and Slovakia in September.It was the pope’s first known hospitalization since he was elected to the papacy in 2013.The brief statement from the Holy See’s press office promised a medical update after the surgery was complete at Gemelli Polyclinic, a Catholic teaching hospital. The Vatican didn’t say when the surgery would begin, only indicating it would take place later in the day.By 9 p.m., there was no indication when the Vatican might issue the update.The Vatican said the 84-year-old pope had been diagnosed with “symptomatic diverticular stenosis of the colon,” a reference to a narrowing in the large intestine. The surgery was to be performed by Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the director of Gemelli’s digestive surgery department.A week earlier, Francis had used his same Sunday appearance to ask the public for special prayers for himself, which may have been related to the planned surgery.“I ask you to pray for the pope, pray in a special way,” Francis had asked the faithful in the square on June 27. “The pope needs your prayers,” he said, adding his thanks and saying “I know you will do that.”A diverticulum is pouch-like protrusion through the muscular wall of the intestine.When diverticula become inflamed — a common condition, especially in older people — part of the intestine can sometimes narrow and surgery might be required, according to gastroenterologists. Such surgery can be performed under general anesthesia, possibly with a laparoscopic intervention. Sometimes a re-sectioning of the affected part of the intestine is needed.Francis is in generally good health, but he did have part of one lung removed as a young man. He also suffers from sciatica, in which a nerve affects the lower back and leg, a painful condition that has forced him at times to skip scheduled appearances.A 10th-floor papal suite is kept available at the hospital in case of need.While Church law provides for a prelate to take over the administration of the Roman Catholic Church if a pope dies, there is no known provision for a delegation of powers if a pope is temporarily incapacitated, such while under anesthesia.The pope had a particularly demanding set of appointments last week, including celebrating a Mass on Tuesday to mark the Catholic feast day honoring Saints Peter and Paul, and later in the week, presiding at a special prayer service for Lebanon. On June 28, he also had a long private audience at the Vatican with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Throughout all those engagements, Francis appeared to be in good spirits.Usually, besides the traditional Sunday noon blessing and remarks from a window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square, the pontiff holds a public audience every Wednesday. But, in deference to Rome’s heat, the Wednesday appointment gets suspended during July.Get-well wishes began arriving immediately for Francis. Italian President Sergio Mattarella, as soon as he landed in Paris for a state visit in France, offered an “affectionate thought” on behalf of all Italians. Mattarella said he was wishing for “a good convalescence and even a speedier recovery” for the pope.Gemelli doctors have performed surgery before on popes, notably Pope John Paul II, who had what the Vatican said was a benign tumor in his colon removed in 1992. John Paul had several other surgeries at the hospital, including after being shot by a gunman in St. Peter’s Square in 1981.John Paul also had several medical issues in his final years, including severe complications from Parkinson’s disease, and had numerous stays at Gemelli.--------VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican says Pope Francis has gone to a Rome hospital for scheduled surgery for a stenosis, or restriction, of the large intestine. The brief announcement Sunday afternoon didn’t say when the surgery would be performed but it said there would be an announcement when the surgery is complete. Just three hours earlier, Francis had cheerfully greeted the public in St. Peter’s Square in keeping with a Sunday tradition and told them he will go to Hungary and Slovakia in September. A week earlier, Francis, 84, had used the same appearance to ask the public for special prayers for himself, which, in hindsight might have been hinting at the planned surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic.

Vatican: Pope alert and well a day after surgery

WASHINGTON&nbsp;—&nbsp;The
 Internal Revenue Service today concludes the "Dirty Dozen" list of tax 
scams with a warning to taxpayers to watch out for schemes peddled by 
tax promoters, including syndicated conservation easements, abusive 
micro-captive insurance arrangements and other abusive arrangements.

The IRS warns people to be on the lookout for promoters who peddle 
false hopes of large tax deductions from abusive arrangements. These 
"deals" are generally marketed by unscrupulous promoters who make false 
claims about their legitimacy and charge high fees to boot. These 
promoters frequently devise new ways to cheat the system and market them
 aggressively. Some taxpayers play the audit lottery hoping they don't 
get noticed.

To fight the evolving variety of these abusive arrangements, the IRS 
recently created the Office of Promoter Investigations (OPI) to focus on
 participants and the promoters of abusive tax avoidance 
transactions.&nbsp;OPI coordinates service-wide enforcement activities. The 
best defense for a taxpayer approached by a promoter is to show caution:
 if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

These aggressively marketed abusive arrangements wrap up the IRS's annual "Dirty Dozen" list and include the following:

In syndicated conservation easements promoters take a provision of 
tax law for conservation easements and twist it through using inflated 
appraisals of undeveloped land and partnerships. These abusive 
arrangements are designed to game the system and generate inflated and 
unwarranted tax deductions, often by using inflated appraisals of 
undeveloped land and partnerships devoid of a legitimate business 
purpose. More information can be found at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-increases-enforcement-action-on-syndicated-conservation-easements">IRS increases enforcement action on Syndicated Conservation Easements</a>.

In abusive "micro-captive" structures, promoters, accountants or 
wealth planners persuade owners of closely held entities to participate 
in schemes that lack many of the attributes of insurance. For example, 
coverages may "insure" implausible risks, fail to match genuine business
 needs or duplicate the taxpayer's commercial coverages. But the 
"premiums" paid under these arrangements are often excessive and used to
 skirt tax law. Additional information can be found at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-offers-settlement-for-micro-captive-insurance-schemes-letters-being-mailed-to-groups-under-audit">IRS offers settlement for micro-captive insurance schemes; letters being mailed to groups under audit</a>.
 Recently, the IRS has stepped up enforcement against a variation using 
potentially abusive offshore captive insurance companies domiciled in 
Puerto Rico and elsewhere.

Potentially abusive use of the US-Malta tax treaty

Some U.S. citizens and residents are relying on an interpretation of 
the U.S.-Malta Income Tax Treaty (Treaty) to take the position that they
 may contribute appreciated property tax free to certain Maltese pension
 plans and that there are also no tax consequences when the plan sells 
the assets and distributes proceeds to the U.S. taxpayer.&nbsp;Ordinarily 
gain would be recognized upon disposition of the plan's assets and 
distributions of the proceeds.&nbsp;The IRS is evaluating the issue to 
determine the validity of these arrangements and whether Treaty benefits
 should be available in such instances and may challenge the associated 
tax treatment.

Improper claims for the research and experimentation credit generally
 involve failures to participate in, or substantiate, qualified research
 activities and/or satisfy the requirements related to qualified 
research expenses. To claim a research credit, taxpayers must evaluate 
and appropriately document their research activities over a period of 
time to establish the amount of qualified research expenses paid for 
each qualified research activity. Taxpayers should carefully review 
reports or studies to ensure they accurately reflect the taxpayer's 
activities.

Promoters find taxpayers seeking to defer the recognition of gain 
upon the sale of appreciated property and organize an abusive shelter 
through selling them monetized installment sales. These transactions 
occur when an intermediary purchases appreciated property from a seller 
in exchange for an installment note, which typically provides for 
payments of interest only, with principal being paid at the end of the 
term.&nbsp;In these arrangements, the seller gets the lion's share of the 
proceeds but improperly delays the gain recognition on the appreciated 
property until the final payment on the installment note, often slated 
for many years later.

The IRS continues to pursue actions against promoters of these schemes as well as the taxpayers who participate in them.

"We are stepping up our enforcement against abusive arrangements," 
said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. "Don't be lulled into these shady 
deals. The IRS recommends that anyone who participated in one of these 
abusive arrangements should consult independent counsel about coming 
into compliance."

For more on tax schemes, visit <a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/dirty-dozen">IRS.gov/dirtydozen</a>.

IRSWASHINGTON&nbsp;—&nbsp;The
 Internal Revenue Service today concludes the "Dirty Dozen" list of tax 
scams with a warning to taxpayers to watch out for schemes peddled by 
tax promoters, including syndicated conservation easements, abusive 
micro-captive insurance arrangements and other abusive arrangements.The IRS warns people to be on the lookout for promoters who peddle 
false hopes of large tax deductions from abusive arrangements. These 
"deals" are generally marketed by unscrupulous promoters who make false 
claims about their legitimacy and charge high fees to boot. These 
promoters frequently devise new ways to cheat the system and market them
 aggressively. Some taxpayers play the audit lottery hoping they don't 
get noticed.To fight the evolving variety of these abusive arrangements, the IRS 
recently created the Office of Promoter Investigations (OPI) to focus on
 participants and the promoters of abusive tax avoidance 
transactions.&nbsp;OPI coordinates service-wide enforcement activities. The 
best defense for a taxpayer approached by a promoter is to show caution:
 if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.These aggressively marketed abusive arrangements wrap up the IRS's annual "Dirty Dozen" list and include the following:<h2>Syndicated conservation easements</h2>In syndicated conservation easements promoters take a provision of 
tax law for conservation easements and twist it through using inflated 
appraisals of undeveloped land and partnerships. These abusive 
arrangements are designed to game the system and generate inflated and 
unwarranted tax deductions, often by using inflated appraisals of 
undeveloped land and partnerships devoid of a legitimate business 
purpose. More information can be found at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-increases-enforcement-action-on-syndicated-conservation-easements">IRS increases enforcement action on Syndicated Conservation Easements</a>.<h2>Abusive micro-captive arrangements</h2>In abusive "micro-captive" structures, promoters, accountants or 
wealth planners persuade owners of closely held entities to participate 
in schemes that lack many of the attributes of insurance. For example, 
coverages may "insure" implausible risks, fail to match genuine business
 needs or duplicate the taxpayer's commercial coverages. But the 
"premiums" paid under these arrangements are often excessive and used to
 skirt tax law. Additional information can be found at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-offers-settlement-for-micro-captive-insurance-schemes-letters-being-mailed-to-groups-under-audit">IRS offers settlement for micro-captive insurance schemes; letters being mailed to groups under audit</a>.
 Recently, the IRS has stepped up enforcement against a variation using 
potentially abusive offshore captive insurance companies domiciled in 
Puerto Rico and elsewhere.<h2>Potentially abusive use of the US-Malta tax treaty</h2>Some U.S. citizens and residents are relying on an interpretation of 
the U.S.-Malta Income Tax Treaty (Treaty) to take the position that they
 may contribute appreciated property tax free to certain Maltese pension
 plans and that there are also no tax consequences when the plan sells 
the assets and distributes proceeds to the U.S. taxpayer.&nbsp;Ordinarily 
gain would be recognized upon disposition of the plan's assets and 
distributions of the proceeds.&nbsp;The IRS is evaluating the issue to 
determine the validity of these arrangements and whether Treaty benefits
 should be available in such instances and may challenge the associated 
tax treatment.<h2>Improper claims of business credits</h2>Improper claims for the research and experimentation credit generally
 involve failures to participate in, or substantiate, qualified research
 activities and/or satisfy the requirements related to qualified 
research expenses. To claim a research credit, taxpayers must evaluate 
and appropriately document their research activities over a period of 
time to establish the amount of qualified research expenses paid for 
each qualified research activity. Taxpayers should carefully review 
reports or studies to ensure they accurately reflect the taxpayer's 
activities.<h2>Improper monetized installment sales</h2>Promoters find taxpayers seeking to defer the recognition of gain 
upon the sale of appreciated property and organize an abusive shelter 
through selling them monetized installment sales. These transactions 
occur when an intermediary purchases appreciated property from a seller 
in exchange for an installment note, which typically provides for 
payments of interest only, with principal being paid at the end of the 
term.&nbsp;In these arrangements, the seller gets the lion's share of the 
proceeds but improperly delays the gain recognition on the appreciated 
property until the final payment on the installment note, often slated 
for many years later.The IRS continues to pursue actions against promoters of these schemes as well as the taxpayers who participate in them."We are stepping up our enforcement against abusive arrangements," 
said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. "Don't be lulled into these shady 
deals. The IRS recommends that anyone who participated in one of these 
abusive arrangements should consult independent counsel about coming 
into compliance."For more on tax schemes, visit <a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/dirty-dozen">IRS.gov/dirtydozen</a>.

IRS warns of slew of 'abusive arrangement' schemes in US

Analysis finds increasing availability of blocking resources for consumers

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission today released the second of two annual reports on robocall blocking: “Call Blocking Tools Available to Consumers.”  Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel welcomed the progress made on the availability of these consumer resources while also calling on industry to redouble efforts to ensure effective services are available at no cost to consumers.

“I’m encouraged to see the increasing availability of robocall blocking tools for consumers,” said Rosenworcel.  “Stopping robocall scammers from bombarding consumers and businesses takes a whole-of-network approach.  Call blocking consumer tools are a critical part of this approach – along with STIR/SHAKEN implementation, network-level blocking, and ensuring gateway providers don’t let illegal robocall campaigns onto our networks.  That said, we have to put consumers first, and it’s in everyone’s best interest to get these junk calls off our networks.  I will continue to push industry under the law to make these tools free and easily available to the public.”

The report, produced by the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, found that many voice service providers and third-party analytics companies today offer improved call blocking and labeling services to their customers and use new data to continually update their analyses to detect robocalls.  Providers report that they are offering consumers more blocking tools and blocking more calls than ever before, but that not all consumers have opted into many of the call blocking technologies offered by providers.  Voice service providers and analytics companies report few false positives (calls incorrectly identified as being spam or fraudulent, and then being blocked in error).  FCC consumer information on call blocking tools and resources is available at: https://www.fcc.gov/call-blocking.

The report was also clear that, despite some progress in the availability of blocking tools, robocalls remain a substantial consumer problem.  The report notes that “the Commission has taken a multi-pronged approach that includes aggressive enforcement, consumer education, and creating an effective regulatory environment that enables and encourages phone companies and others to proactively stop unwanted robocalls from ever reaching customers.  Going forward, the Commission will build on this foundation and continue to use every tool at its disposal to combat and prevent illegal robocalls.”

Voice service providers also report progress in deploying STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication on the IP portions of their networks.  Among other benefits, the STIR/SHAKEN standards being implemented across networks plays a vital role in informing call blocking tools and improving their accuracy.  Widespread STIR/SHAKEN implementation is required by the FCC by July 1, 2021.  More information on caller ID authentication is available at: https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication. 

The report, “Call Blocking Tools Available to Consumers: Second Report on Call Blocking,” is available <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/document/second-call-blocking-report-blocking-available-consumers">HERE</a>.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/3/1584977952684.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure><h2>Analysis finds increasing availability of blocking resources for consumers</h2> FCCWASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission today released the second of two annual reports on robocall blocking: “Call Blocking Tools Available to Consumers.” Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel welcomed the progress made on the availability of these consumer resources while also calling on industry to redouble efforts to ensure effective services are available at no cost to consumers.“I’m encouraged to see the increasing availability of robocall blocking tools for consumers,” said Rosenworcel. “Stopping robocall scammers from bombarding consumers and businesses takes a whole-of-network approach. Call blocking consumer tools are a critical part of this approach – along with STIR/SHAKEN implementation, network-level blocking, and ensuring gateway providers don’t let illegal robocall campaigns onto our networks. That said, we have to put consumers first, and it’s in everyone’s best interest to get these junk calls off our networks. I will continue to push industry under the law to make these tools free and easily available to the public.”The report, produced by the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, found that many voice service providers and third-party analytics companies today offer improved call blocking and labeling services to their customers and use new data to continually update their analyses to detect robocalls. Providers report that they are offering consumers more blocking tools and blocking more calls than ever before, but that not all consumers have opted into many of the call blocking technologies offered by providers. Voice service providers and analytics companies report few false positives (calls incorrectly identified as being spam or fraudulent, and then being blocked in error). FCC consumer information on call blocking tools and resources is available at: https://www.fcc.gov/call-blocking.The report was also clear that, despite some progress in the availability of blocking tools, robocalls remain a substantial consumer problem. The report notes that “the Commission has taken a multi-pronged approach that includes aggressive enforcement, consumer education, and creating an effective regulatory environment that enables and encourages phone companies and others to proactively stop unwanted robocalls from ever reaching customers. Going forward, the Commission will build on this foundation and continue to use every tool at its disposal to combat and prevent illegal robocalls.”Voice service providers also report progress in deploying STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication on the IP portions of their networks. Among other benefits, the STIR/SHAKEN standards being implemented across networks plays a vital role in informing call blocking tools and improving their accuracy. Widespread STIR/SHAKEN implementation is required by the FCC by July 1, 2021. More information on caller ID authentication is available at: https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication. The report, “Call Blocking Tools Available to Consumers: Second Report on Call Blocking,” is available <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/document/second-call-blocking-report-blocking-available-consumers">HERE</a>.

FCC releases second annual report on robocall blocking tools

By SARAH KLEINER and TAYLOR JOHNSTON of the Center for Public Integrity and MICHAEL CASEY of The Associated Press

Before the pandemic hit, Jacqueline Bartley, a mother of two girls and a boy, had a comfortable life. Then the 41-year-old lost her job at American Airlines, quickly spent her savings and found herself months behind on the $1,350-a-month home she rented. Until then she had never missed a rent payment.

Bartley, of Durham, North Carolina, turned to the state's rental assistance program and was relieved in January to be awarded $8,100. But she says her landlord refused the money after she rejected his request to amend her two-year lease to a shorter period. The program required landlords to honor leases, among other conditions, to get the money.

She turned to a second program launched this month by the state and again was approved. Last week, she learned her landlord had accepted nearly $20,000 for back rent and three months of future payments, and agreed to dismiss his eviction lawsuit.

The news means she won't be forced from her home after the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/eviction-ban-extended-biden-coronavirus-9e7c4dc97c49cbb42a1ecb55b06e3b4c">federal eviction moratorium</a>&nbsp;ends July 31. But the waiting and uncertainty meant months of stress.

“It’s been crazy especially when you have children in school,” Bartley said. “It’s pretty much been going by a whim. OK, am I going to have somewhere to go each month?”

Millions have found themselves in situations similar to Bartley's,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-ms-state-wire-ap-top-news-ok-state-wire-ga-state-wire-833d91877e2f0fa913c5258978a9e83c">facing possible eviction</a>&nbsp;despite bold promises by governors to help renters after Congress passed the sweeping CARES Act in March 2020.

Nationwide,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-new-york-andrew-cuomo-coronavirus-pandemic-us-news-bfbf0744510d50a1e173247ee5f9ba1b">state leaders set aside</a>&nbsp;at least $2.6 billion from the CARES Act’s Coronavirus Relief Fund to prop up struggling renters, but a year later more than $425 million of that — or 16% — hadn't made it into the pockets of tenants or their landlords, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and The Associated Press.

“It’s mind-boggling,” said Anne Kat Alexander, a project manager with Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. “I knew there were problems but that’s a huge amount of money not to be disbursed in a timely manner.”

Like many state leaders, North Carolina's Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper pledged to roll out an ambitious program last year offering tens of millions of dollars in federal aid that would help cover unpaid rent.

But it took months to get up and running and stopped accepting applications just weeks after it finally opened in October due to overwhelming demand. The 20 nonprofits designated to distribute the money often lacked the capacity to get it out quickly.

Then, faced with the Republican-controlled Legislature's takeover of CARES Act spending in January, the state had less money to award applicants. It eventually spent $133 million of a promised $167 million — far short of what some housing advocates say is needed.

“We knew the money would not be enough. There were too many people who needed rental assistance,” said Pamela Atwood, director of housing policy at the North Carolina Housing Coalition. “There was a lot of poor execution in rolling out that first program and it caused a lot of inefficiency.”

Tens of billions of dollars more in rental assistance have been delivered to states from the federal government in 2021, but that has been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/eviction-moratorium-rental-assistance-coronavirus-bd0947fe93b72c88305629a6608602ee">slow to be disbursed</a>, too.

With the first round of funds in 2020, bureaucracy was not the only problem. Politics also played a role, with a handful of states, many led by Republicans and with a history of weak tenant protections, offering little to no assistance.

Then, there was the often onerous application process and an end-of-the-year federal deadline for spending the money, extended so late that some states had already pulled funding to use on other expenses. Some landlords refused to participate over restrictions that meant they could not evict a tenant who fell behind again after the assistance. Tenants sometimes short-changed themselves by filing incomplete applications.

Congress' sweeping 2020 CARES Act sent billions of dollars to states and some local governments. But it didn’t mandate that any money be spent on rental assistance, leaving it to states to create their own programs and set the rules.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s database of rent relief programs in 2020, Georgia, West Virginia and Tennessee, all run by Republican governors, chose not to set up statewide rent-relief programs that year, despite having higher than average historic eviction rates. South Carolina allocated less than $14 per renter-occupied household.

Georgia’s Department of Community Affairs tried to set up a rental assistance program with funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the fall of 2020, but when it became clear that a separate, larger amount of money would be coming from the U.S. Department of Treasury in 2021, the program stalled, said Susan Reif, housing unit director for Georgia Legal Services Program and director of the Eviction Prevention Project.

Still, many states did scramble into action, creating massive programs to keep families in their homes — the safest place to shelter during the coronavirus pandemic. By the summer of 2020, state and local government officials launched about 530 rental assistance programs, setting aside at least $4.3 billion from various sources.

Several states were praised for programs that ran well. Illinois, Indiana, Oregon and Washington state were among more than a dozen that reported distributing every dollar of the rental assistance set aside from the Coronavirus Relief Fund by March 31.

The Center for Public Integrity surveyed about 70 state and local agencies that the National Low Income Housing Coalition identified as having set aside Coronavirus Relief Fund money for rent help in 2020. About $1 out of every $6 of that $2.6 billion wound up getting spent on other COVID-19-related expenses, such as protective equipment, police officers' salaries and small-business loans.

Some states also spent millions of dollars setting up their programs, including North Carolina, which allocated around $20 million on administrative costs, and Hawaii, which spent $8 million. In the case of Hawaii, much of that went to help nonprofits scale up and rent space. The state also spent money on a software system in an effort to prevent fraud.

Diane Yentel, executive director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said last year’s funding challenges led Congress to earmark nearly $47 billion specifically for emergency rental assistance in December and March.

“The previous funds, the vast majority of them, were very flexible and had a broad set of allowable uses," of which eviction prevention was just one, said Yentel, whose group has been tracking rental assistance programs.

“Some states and cities carved out some of those funds for eviction prevention and to create emergency rental assistance programs," she said. "But many didn’t or many didn’t set aside enough.”

Among the biggest challenges was states' failure to spend what they had allocated.

The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency received $150 million to help renters, but returned about $96 million to the state treasury, which plugged holes in the state’s public safety budget. The Florida Housing Finance Corporation earmarked $250 million for rental assistance but returned about $99 million to the state treasury to be spent on other programs. Eighty-three percent of Montana’s $50 million set aside for rental assistance went back to the state. New York ended up spending only $47.5 million of the $100 million promised for rental assistance.

New York's 2020 rent-relief program “was set up to fail,” said Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney at Legal Aid Society in New York. “It was a program that really punished people. There was a real intention to make sure people didn’t do better in being hurt by COVID, so if they were struggling before, they should be struggling after.”

Tenants had to prove they were “rent-burdened” before the pandemic to qualify for rent relief in 2020, though eventually that stipulation was removed.

Hawaii spent around $71 million of the $100 million initially promised, though an analysis by the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice found the state spent the most per capita, at $44.50. Still, the Legislature set a late December deadline for the spending, which meant the remaining $29 million had to be redirected to the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund.

“It would have been better to base the ending of the program on the CARES Act spending deadline with whatever extensions were enacted, because ultimately the deadline was extended,” said Gavin Thornton, the center’s executive director. “If that had been done, the program would have continued, and landlords and tenants would have been able to continue to access those funds, which were certainly needed.”

Smaller cities and counties were affected too. In Marion County, Florida, none of the $1 million set aside for renters from the Coronavirus Relief Fund ever made it to people who needed it because the United Way of Marion County, which administered the funds, didn’t have enough workers to process applications, said Scot Quintel, the organization’s president. The United Way was able to distribute rent assistance from another source, but the Coronavirus Relief Fund money went back to the city for other COVID-19-related expenses.

“It’s just horrifying how ill-prepared some states were,” said Alexander, of the Eviction Lab. “Some places made it work and some places didn’t, which demonstrates that the places that didn’t probably could have.”

In Athens, Georgia, Dylyn Price said she got about $5,800 in rental assistance but that may not prevent her from losing her home. After her pay and hours at a fast food restaurant were cut, eviction notices started arriving in early 2020. They haven’t let up.

Price received rental assistance from the Ark, a nonprofit administering funds from the CARES Act on behalf of the city of Athens, but the assistance ended earlier this year. Price’s landlord has refused to renew her lease, which is expected to expire Wednesday.

She fears having to live, once again, in a homeless shelter with her 14-year-old son.

“It’s a very nauseating and uncomfortable situation to be in,” Price said.

Casey reported from Boston, Kleiner reported from Washington, D.C., and Johnston reported from Brook Park, Ohio. Casey can be reached at mcasey@ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at @mcasey1. Kleiner can be reached at skleiner@publicintegrity.org. Follow her on Twitter at @bysarahkleiner.

By SARAH KLEINER and TAYLOR JOHNSTON of the Center for Public Integrity and MICHAEL CASEY of The Associated PressBefore the pandemic hit, Jacqueline Bartley, a mother of two girls and a boy, had a comfortable life. Then the 41-year-old lost her job at American Airlines, quickly spent her savings and found herself months behind on the $1,350-a-month home she rented. Until then she had never missed a rent payment.Bartley, of Durham, North Carolina, turned to the state's rental assistance program and was relieved in January to be awarded $8,100. But she says her landlord refused the money after she rejected his request to amend her two-year lease to a shorter period. The program required landlords to honor leases, among other conditions, to get the money.She turned to a second program launched this month by the state and again was approved. Last week, she learned her landlord had accepted nearly $20,000 for back rent and three months of future payments, and agreed to dismiss his eviction lawsuit.The news means she won't be forced from her home after the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/eviction-ban-extended-biden-coronavirus-9e7c4dc97c49cbb42a1ecb55b06e3b4c">federal eviction moratorium</a>&nbsp;ends July 31. But the waiting and uncertainty meant months of stress.“It’s been crazy especially when you have children in school,” Bartley said. “It’s pretty much been going by a whim. OK, am I going to have somewhere to go each month?”Millions have found themselves in situations similar to Bartley's,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-ms-state-wire-ap-top-news-ok-state-wire-ga-state-wire-833d91877e2f0fa913c5258978a9e83c">facing possible eviction</a>&nbsp;despite bold promises by governors to help renters after Congress passed the sweeping CARES Act in March 2020.Nationwide,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-new-york-andrew-cuomo-coronavirus-pandemic-us-news-bfbf0744510d50a1e173247ee5f9ba1b">state leaders set aside</a>&nbsp;at least $2.6 billion from the CARES Act’s Coronavirus Relief Fund to prop up struggling renters, but a year later more than $425 million of that — or 16% — hadn't made it into the pockets of tenants or their landlords, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and The Associated Press.“It’s mind-boggling,” said Anne Kat Alexander, a project manager with Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. “I knew there were problems but that’s a huge amount of money not to be disbursed in a timely manner.”Like many state leaders, North Carolina's Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper pledged to roll out an ambitious program last year offering tens of millions of dollars in federal aid that would help cover unpaid rent.But it took months to get up and running and stopped accepting applications just weeks after it finally opened in October due to overwhelming demand. The 20 nonprofits designated to distribute the money often lacked the capacity to get it out quickly.Then, faced with the Republican-controlled Legislature's takeover of CARES Act spending in January, the state had less money to award applicants. It eventually spent $133 million of a promised $167 million — far short of what some housing advocates say is needed.“We knew the money would not be enough. There were too many people who needed rental assistance,” said Pamela Atwood, director of housing policy at the North Carolina Housing Coalition. “There was a lot of poor execution in rolling out that first program and it caused a lot of inefficiency.”Tens of billions of dollars more in rental assistance have been delivered to states from the federal government in 2021, but that has been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/eviction-moratorium-rental-assistance-coronavirus-bd0947fe93b72c88305629a6608602ee">slow to be disbursed</a>, too.With the first round of funds in 2020, bureaucracy was not the only problem. Politics also played a role, with a handful of states, many led by Republicans and with a history of weak tenant protections, offering little to no assistance.Then, there was the often onerous application process and an end-of-the-year federal deadline for spending the money, extended so late that some states had already pulled funding to use on other expenses. Some landlords refused to participate over restrictions that meant they could not evict a tenant who fell behind again after the assistance. Tenants sometimes short-changed themselves by filing incomplete applications.Congress' sweeping 2020 CARES Act sent billions of dollars to states and some local governments. But it didn’t mandate that any money be spent on rental assistance, leaving it to states to create their own programs and set the rules.According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s database of rent relief programs in 2020, Georgia, West Virginia and Tennessee, all run by Republican governors, chose not to set up statewide rent-relief programs that year, despite having higher than average historic eviction rates. South Carolina allocated less than $14 per renter-occupied household.Georgia’s Department of Community Affairs tried to set up a rental assistance program with funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the fall of 2020, but when it became clear that a separate, larger amount of money would be coming from the U.S. Department of Treasury in 2021, the program stalled, said Susan Reif, housing unit director for Georgia Legal Services Program and director of the Eviction Prevention Project.Still, many states did scramble into action, creating massive programs to keep families in their homes — the safest place to shelter during the coronavirus pandemic. By the summer of 2020, state and local government officials launched about 530 rental assistance programs, setting aside at least $4.3 billion from various sources.Several states were praised for programs that ran well. Illinois, Indiana, Oregon and Washington state were among more than a dozen that reported distributing every dollar of the rental assistance set aside from the Coronavirus Relief Fund by March 31.The Center for Public Integrity surveyed about 70 state and local agencies that the National Low Income Housing Coalition identified as having set aside Coronavirus Relief Fund money for rent help in 2020. About $1 out of every $6 of that $2.6 billion wound up getting spent on other COVID-19-related expenses, such as protective equipment, police officers' salaries and small-business loans.Some states also spent millions of dollars setting up their programs, including North Carolina, which allocated around $20 million on administrative costs, and Hawaii, which spent $8 million. In the case of Hawaii, much of that went to help nonprofits scale up and rent space. The state also spent money on a software system in an effort to prevent fraud.Diane Yentel, executive director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said last year’s funding challenges led Congress to earmark nearly $47 billion specifically for emergency rental assistance in December and March.“The previous funds, the vast majority of them, were very flexible and had a broad set of allowable uses," of which eviction prevention was just one, said Yentel, whose group has been tracking rental assistance programs.“Some states and cities carved out some of those funds for eviction prevention and to create emergency rental assistance programs," she said. "But many didn’t or many didn’t set aside enough.”Among the biggest challenges was states' failure to spend what they had allocated.The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency received $150 million to help renters, but returned about $96 million to the state treasury, which plugged holes in the state’s public safety budget. The Florida Housing Finance Corporation earmarked $250 million for rental assistance but returned about $99 million to the state treasury to be spent on other programs. Eighty-three percent of Montana’s $50 million set aside for rental assistance went back to the state. New York ended up spending only $47.5 million of the $100 million promised for rental assistance.New York's 2020 rent-relief program “was set up to fail,” said Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney at Legal Aid Society in New York. “It was a program that really punished people. There was a real intention to make sure people didn’t do better in being hurt by COVID, so if they were struggling before, they should be struggling after.”Tenants had to prove they were “rent-burdened” before the pandemic to qualify for rent relief in 2020, though eventually that stipulation was removed.Hawaii spent around $71 million of the $100 million initially promised, though an analysis by the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice found the state spent the most per capita, at $44.50. Still, the Legislature set a late December deadline for the spending, which meant the remaining $29 million had to be redirected to the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund.“It would have been better to base the ending of the program on the CARES Act spending deadline with whatever extensions were enacted, because ultimately the deadline was extended,” said Gavin Thornton, the center’s executive director. “If that had been done, the program would have continued, and landlords and tenants would have been able to continue to access those funds, which were certainly needed.”Smaller cities and counties were affected too. In Marion County, Florida, none of the $1 million set aside for renters from the Coronavirus Relief Fund ever made it to people who needed it because the United Way of Marion County, which administered the funds, didn’t have enough workers to process applications, said Scot Quintel, the organization’s president. The United Way was able to distribute rent assistance from another source, but the Coronavirus Relief Fund money went back to the city for other COVID-19-related expenses.“It’s just horrifying how ill-prepared some states were,” said Alexander, of the Eviction Lab. “Some places made it work and some places didn’t, which demonstrates that the places that didn’t probably could have.”In Athens, Georgia, Dylyn Price said she got about $5,800 in rental assistance but that may not prevent her from losing her home. After her pay and hours at a fast food restaurant were cut, eviction notices started arriving in early 2020. They haven’t let up.Price received rental assistance from the Ark, a nonprofit administering funds from the CARES Act on behalf of the city of Athens, but the assistance ended earlier this year. Price’s landlord has refused to renew her lease, which is expected to expire Wednesday.She fears having to live, once again, in a homeless shelter with her 14-year-old son.“It’s a very nauseating and uncomfortable situation to be in,” Price said.___Casey reported from Boston, Kleiner reported from Washington, D.C., and Johnston reported from Brook Park, Ohio. Casey can be reached at mcasey@ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at @mcasey1. Kleiner can be reached at skleiner@publicintegrity.org. Follow her on Twitter at @bysarahkleiner.——

Rental assistance fell victim to politics, bureaucracy

By BRIAN GRIMMETT <a href="https://www.kmuw.org/post/hotter-nights-climate-change-will-mean-worse-harvests-kansas-farmers">Kansas News Service</a>

MANHATTAN, Kansas — Climate change conjures notions 
of rising water levels along the coasts, severe drought in the 
Intermountain West and the record temperatures baking the Pacific 
Northwest this week.

New
 research from Kansas State University shows that rising overnight 
temperatures hurt wheat harvests. Rice, corn and barley all face similar
 problems.

While researchers also look into finding more 
resilient varieties of those crops to account for the change, the 
immediate climate trends could have a dramatic impact.

In
 trials of some of the most popular varieties of wheat grown in Kansas, 
K-State and North Carolina State University researchers found that an 
increase of only 1 degree Celsius (about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in 
overnight temperatures caused a 5% reduction in wheat yield.

“Most
 people think plants aren’t dynamic, but they are,” said Colleen 
Doherty, an associate professor of biochemistry at North Carolina State 
University. “Plants are constantly regulating their biological processes
 — gearing up for photosynthesis just before dawn, winding that down in 
the late afternoon, determining precisely how and where to burn their 
energy resources.”

She said their experiments showed that hotter 
overnight temperatures confuse the plant’s internal clock. With a 
screwed up clock, the plant has a harder time turning the sugars 
produced during photosynthesis in the day into plant growth.

“The
 amount of wheat that you’ll get will go down, but also the quality of 
wheat will go down,” said K-State crop physiologist Krishna Jagadish. 
“So your bread probably may start to taste a little bit different in the
 future.”

Average summer nighttime 
temperatures have been increasing across the state. Since 1970, the 
average low in the Wichita area has increased 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. In
 Topeka, it increased 3.5 degrees.

At the same time, the average summer high temperature only increased 1.4 degrees in Wichita and 2.8 degrees in Topeka.

Jagadish
 said it’s harder for people to notice these changes when the average 
temperature is increasing more during the night than it is in the day. 
But researchers, like him, are beginning to look more into the issue and
 to provide information that reveals the true extent of the dangers.

Rising
 overnight temperatures aren’t the only negative impacts from climate 
change that Kansans can expect to experience. Assistant state 
climatologist Mary Knapp says we’re already seeing changes in 
precipitation patterns.

“We’re getting more rain, but it may not be distributed as evenly as needed,” she said.

That
 means some places are going from very dry to getting the expected 
monthly rain total in a single day. That won’t show up in long-term 
averages, but has real consequences.

“You’ve got more of it running off,” she said. “You’ve got more erosion issues and you’ve got more flooding issues.”

Knapp
 also said Kansas winters are getting milder. She said the state will 
still experience its typical spring freezes in March and April, but 
milder Decembers and Januarys will confuse trees and plants, making them
 less resilient to those freezes.

It’s
 not all doom and gloom from the wheat research. There’s already 
evidence that some varieties of wheat are more resilient to temperature 
increases in both the day and the night. Jagadish said once those traits
 have been genetically identified, scientists can begin breeding new 
varieties that combine that trait with other proven varieties.

“It is going to take time,” he said. “But I think that’s the way to do it and we are making progress.”

The
 researchers suspect the sensitivity to rising nighttime temperatures 
can be found in all starchy grains. They’ve now turned their attention 
to corn, to prove their hypothesis.

“(Our study) is not just an interesting scientific question,” Doherty said. “It’s a global food security issue.”

Brian Grimmett reports on the environment, energy and natural resources for KMUW in Wichita and the Kansas News Service.

Image by&nbsp;<a href="https://pixabay.com/users/konevi-6622462/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=3491611">Konevi</a>&nbsp;from&nbsp;<a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=3491611">Pixabay</a>

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/6/1625070877955.jpeg" alt="Image courtesy Pixabay" />
 <figcaption>Image courtesy Pixabay</figcaption>
 </figure>By BRIAN GRIMMETT <a href="https://www.kmuw.org/post/hotter-nights-climate-change-will-mean-worse-harvests-kansas-farmers">Kansas News Service</a>MANHATTAN, Kansas — Climate change conjures notions 
of rising water levels along the coasts, severe drought in the 
Intermountain West and the record temperatures baking the Pacific 
Northwest this week.Add to that toasty Kansas evenings.New
 research from Kansas State University shows that rising overnight 
temperatures hurt wheat harvests. Rice, corn and barley all face similar
 problems.While researchers also look into finding more 
resilient varieties of those crops to account for the change, the 
immediate climate trends could have a dramatic impact.<h2>Wheat impact</h2>In
 trials of some of the most popular varieties of wheat grown in Kansas, 
K-State and North Carolina State University researchers found that an 
increase of only 1 degree Celsius (about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in 
overnight temperatures caused a 5% reduction in wheat yield.“Most
 people think plants aren’t dynamic, but they are,” said Colleen 
Doherty, an associate professor of biochemistry at North Carolina State 
University. “Plants are constantly regulating their biological processes
 — gearing up for photosynthesis just before dawn, winding that down in 
the late afternoon, determining precisely how and where to burn their 
energy resources.”She said their experiments showed that hotter 
overnight temperatures confuse the plant’s internal clock. With a 
screwed up clock, the plant has a harder time turning the sugars 
produced during photosynthesis in the day into plant growth.“The
 amount of wheat that you’ll get will go down, but also the quality of 
wheat will go down,” said K-State crop physiologist Krishna Jagadish. 
“So your bread probably may start to taste a little bit different in the
 future.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/6/1625070998470.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure><h2>Summer nights</h2>Average summer nighttime 
temperatures have been increasing across the state. Since 1970, the 
average low in the Wichita area has increased 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. In
 Topeka, it increased 3.5 degrees.At the same time, the average summer high temperature only increased 1.4 degrees in Wichita and 2.8 degrees in Topeka.Jagadish
 said it’s harder for people to notice these changes when the average 
temperature is increasing more during the night than it is in the day. 
But researchers, like him, are beginning to look more into the issue and
 to provide information that reveals the true extent of the dangers.<h2>Climate impacts</h2>Rising
 overnight temperatures aren’t the only negative impacts from climate 
change that Kansans can expect to experience. Assistant state 
climatologist Mary Knapp says we’re already seeing changes in 
precipitation patterns.“We’re getting more rain, but it may not be distributed as evenly as needed,” she said.That
 means some places are going from very dry to getting the expected 
monthly rain total in a single day. That won’t show up in long-term 
averages, but has real consequences.“You’ve got more of it running off,” she said. “You’ve got more erosion issues and you’ve got more flooding issues.”Knapp
 also said Kansas winters are getting milder. She said the state will 
still experience its typical spring freezes in March and April, but 
milder Decembers and Januarys will confuse trees and plants, making them
 less resilient to those freezes.<h2>Climate Adaptation</h2>It’s
 not all doom and gloom from the wheat research. There’s already 
evidence that some varieties of wheat are more resilient to temperature 
increases in both the day and the night. Jagadish said once those traits
 have been genetically identified, scientists can begin breeding new 
varieties that combine that trait with other proven varieties.“It is going to take time,” he said. “But I think that’s the way to do it and we are making progress.”The
 researchers suspect the sensitivity to rising nighttime temperatures 
can be found in all starchy grains. They’ve now turned their attention 
to corn, to prove their hypothesis.“(Our study) is not just an interesting scientific question,” Doherty said. “It’s a global food security issue.”Brian Grimmett reports on the environment, energy and natural resources for KMUW in Wichita and the Kansas News Service. Image by&nbsp;<a href="https://pixabay.com/users/konevi-6622462/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=3491611">Konevi</a>&nbsp;from&nbsp;<a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=3491611">Pixabay</a>

Hotter nights from climate change will mean worse harvests for farmers

WASHINGTON (AP) —Businesses rushed Saturday to contain a ransomware attack that has paralyzed their computer networks, a situation complicated in the U.S. by offices lightly staffed at the start of the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

In Sweden, most of the grocery chain Coop’s 800 stores were unable to open because their cash registers weren’t working, according to SVT, the country’s public broadcaster. The Swedish State Railways and a major local pharmacy chain were also affected.

Cybersecurity experts say the REvil gang, a major Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate, appears to be behind the attack that targeted a software supplier called Kaseya, using its network-management package as a conduit to spread the ransomware through cloud-service providers.

Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola said in a statement that the company believes it has identified the source of the vulnerability and will “release that patch as quickly as possible to get our customers back up and running.”

John Hammond of the security firm Huntress Labs said he was aware of a number of managed-services providers — companies that host IT infrastructure for multiple customers — being hit by the ransomware, which encrypts networks until the victims pay off attackers.

“It’s reasonable to think this could potentially be impacting thousands of small businesses,” said Hammond, basing his estimate on the service providers reaching out to his company for assistance and comments on Reddit showing how others are responding.

WASHINGTON (AP) —Businesses rushed Saturday to contain a ransomware attack that has paralyzed their computer networks, a situation complicated in the U.S. by offices lightly staffed at the start of the Fourth of July holiday weekend.In Sweden, most of the grocery chain Coop’s 800 stores were unable to open because their cash registers weren’t working, according to SVT, the country’s public broadcaster. The Swedish State Railways and a major local pharmacy chain were also affected.Cybersecurity experts say the REvil gang, a major Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate, appears to be behind the attack that targeted a software supplier called Kaseya, using its network-management package as a conduit to spread the ransomware through cloud-service providers.Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola said in a statement that the company believes it has identified the source of the vulnerability and will “release that patch as quickly as possible to get our customers back up and running.”John Hammond of the security firm Huntress Labs said he was aware of a number of managed-services providers — companies that host IT infrastructure for multiple customers — being hit by the ransomware, which encrypts networks until the victims pay off attackers.“It’s reasonable to think this could potentially be impacting thousands of small businesses,” said Hammond, basing his estimate on the service providers reaching out to his company for assistance and comments on Reddit showing how others are responding.Voccola said fewer than 40 of Kaseya’s customers were known to be affected, but the ransomware could still be affecting hundreds more companies that rely on Kaseya’s clients that provide broader IT services.Voccola said the problem is only affecting its “on-premise” customers, which means organizations running their own data centers. It’s not affecting its cloud-based services running software for customers, though Kaseya also shut down those servers as a precaution, he said.The company added in a statement Saturday that “customers who experienced ransomware and receive a communication from the attackers should not click on any links -- they may be weaponized.”Gartner analyst Katell Thielemann said it’s clear that Kaseya quickly sprang to action, but it’s less clear whether their affected clients had the same level of preparedness.“They reacted with an abundance of caution,” she said. “But the reality of this event is it was architected for maximum impact, combining a supply chain attack with a ransomware attack.”<a href="https://apnews.com/article/europe-hacking-technology-business-d83a29f1eb997f465d057af20d5435b9">Supply chain attacks</a>&nbsp;are those that typically infiltrate widely used software and spread malware as it updates automatically.Complicating the response is that it happened at the start of a major holiday weekend in the U.S., when most corporate IT teams aren’t fully staffed.That could also leave those organizations unable to address other security vulnerabilities, such a dangerous Microsoft bug affecting software for print jobs, said James Shank, of threat intelligence firm Team Cymru.“Customers of Kaseya are in the worst possible situation,” he said. “They’re racing against time to get the updates out on other critical bugs.”Shank said “it’s reasonable to think that the timing was planned” by hackers for the holiday.The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a statement that it is closely monitoring the situation and working with the FBI to collect more information about its impact.CISA urged anyone who might be affected to “follow Kaseya’s guidance to shut down VSA servers immediately.” Kaseya runs what’s called a virtual system administrator, or VSA, that’s used to remotely manage and monitor a customer’s network.The privately held Kaseya is based in Dublin, Ireland, with a U.S. headquarters in Miami.REvil, the group most experts have tied to the attack, was the same ransomware provider that the FBI linked to an attack on JBS SA, a major global meat processor, amid the Memorial Day holiday weekend in May.Active since April 2019, the group provides ransomware-as-a-service, meaning it develops the network-paralyzing software and leases it to so-called affiliates who infect targets and earn the lion’s share of ransoms.The Brazil-based meat company said it paid the equivalent of a $11 million ransom to the hackers, escalating calls by U.S. law enforcement to bring such groups to justice.------------WASHINGTON (AP) — A ransomware attack paralyzed the networks of at least 200 U.S. companies on Friday, according to a cybersecurity researcher whose company was responding to the incident.The REvil gang, a major Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate, appears to be behind the attack, said John Hammond of the security firm Huntress Labs. He said the criminals targeted a software supplier called Kaseya, using its network-management package as a conduit to spread the ransomware through cloud-service providers. Other researchers agreed with Hammond’s assessment.“Kaseya handles large enterprise all the way to small businesses globally, so ultimately, (this) has the potential to spread to any size or scale business,” Hammond said in a direct message on Twitter. “This is a colossal and devastating supply chain attack.”Such cyberattacks typically infiltrate widely used software and spread malware as it updates automatically.It was not immediately clear how many Kaseya customers might be affected or who they might be. Kaseya urged customers in a statement&nbsp;<a href="https://helpdesk.kaseya.com/hc/en-gb/articles/4403440684689" target="_blank">on its website&nbsp;</a>to immediately shut down servers running the affected software. It said the attack was limited to a “small number” of its customers.Brett Callow, a ransomware expert at the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, said he was unaware of any previous ransomware supply-chain attack on this scale. There have been others, but they were fairly minor, he said.“This is SolarWinds with ransomware,” he said. He was referring to a Russian cyberespionage hacking campaign discovered in December that spread by infecting network management software to infiltrate U.S. federal agencies and scores of corporations.Cybersecurity researcher Jake Williams, president of Rendition Infosec, said he was already working with six companies hit by the ransomware. It’s no accident that this happened before the Fourth of July weekend, when IT staffing is generally thin, he added.“There’s zero doubt in my mind that the timing here was intentional,” he said.Hammond of Huntress said he was aware of four managed-services providers — companies that host IT infrastructure for multiple customers — being hit by the ransomware, which encrypts networks until the victims pay off attackers. He said thousand of computers were hit.“We currently have three Huntress partners who are impacted with roughly 200 businesses that have been encrypted,” Hammond said.Hammond wrote on Twitter: “Based on everything we are seeing right now, we strongly believe this (is) REvil/Sodinikibi.” The FBI&nbsp;<a href="https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/ransomware-threat-assessments/7/" target="_blank">linked the same ransomware provider</a>&nbsp;to a May&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/europe-hacking-technology-business-353f8dea34bbbba15207ff350e7a2f0f">attack on JBS SA</a>, a major global meat processer.The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a statement late Friday that it is closely monitoring the situation and working with the FBI to collect more information about its impact.CISA urged anyone who might be affected to “follow Kaseya’s guidance to shut down VSA servers immediately.” Kaseya runs what’s called a virtual system administrator, or VSA, that’s used to remotely manage and monitor a customer’s network.The privately held Kaseya says it is based in Dublin, Ireland, with a U.S. headquarters in Miami. The Miami Herald recently described it as “one of Miami’s oldest tech companies” in a report about its plans to hire as many as 500 workers by 2022 to staff a recently acquired cybersecurity platform.Brian Honan, an Irish cybersecurity consultant, said by email Friday that “this is a classic supply chain attack where the criminals have compromised a trusted supplier of companies and have abused that trust to attack their customers.”He said it can be difficult for smaller businesses to defend against this type of attack because they “rely on the security of their suppliers and the software those suppliers are using.”The only good news, said Williams, of Rendition Infosec, is that “a lot of our customers don’t have Kaseya on every machine in their network,” making it harder for attackers to move across an organization’s computer systems.That makes for an easier recovery, he said.Active since April 2019, the group known as REvil provides ransomware-as-a-service, meaning it develops the network-paralyzing software and leases it to so-called affiliates who infect targets and earn the lion’s share of ransoms.REvil is among ransomware gangs that steal data from targets before activating the ransomware, strengthening their extortion efforts. The average ransom payment to the group was about half a million dollars last year, said the Palo Alto Networks cybersecurity firm in a recent report.Some cybersecurity experts predicted that it might be hard for the gang to handle the ransom negotiations, given the large number of victims — though the long U.S. holiday weekend might give it more time to start working through the list.