Also on today’s menu:
Indictments Allege Harvesting Harvard Body Parts
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Sued For Date Breach
Boris Johnson Steps Down From Parliament
Senate Bill 70, which the New Hampshire House passed last week, would give the Secretary of State’s Office permission to create an “election information portal” that would allow residents to register to vote and request absentee ballots online. Under current law, state residents must register to vote in person or by mail. Each municipality’s checklist supervisors must meet between six and 13 days before the election to review new registrations.
The proposed system also would allow voters to change their party affiliation online and amend information such as names and addresses in the voter file. Advocates say the changes would ease the burdens on both voters and poll workers and make it easier for those with disabilities.
The timing of the potential change is auspicious, as the Secretary of State’s Office already is looking to replace its “legacy voter database” with a more modern system, which Secretary of State Dave Scanlan told lawmakers would be able to accommodate online registrations. If approved by lawmakers and signed by Governor Chris Sununu, the bill would take effect in January 2024, just ahead of the state’s presidential primary in February.
New Hampshire is one of 11 states that does not have online registration, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Indictments Allege Harvesting Harvard Body Parts
A Goffstown couple is among six people indicted on June 14 on federal charges of conspiring to harvest and resell human body parts from cadavers donated for medical research at Harvard Medical School. Cedric Lodge, 55, of Goffstown, manager of the Anatomical Gift Program at the medical school, allegedly removed human organs from the morgue he oversaw and brought them to his home, where he and his wife, Denise, allegedly shipped them to buyers.
The charges include allowing co-conspirators to “examine cadavers to choose what to purchase,” according to prosecutors. Katrina Maclean, 44, of Salem, Massachusetts, who operates Kat’s Creepy Creations, a “dark arts and oddities” shop, and Joshua Taylor, 46, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania, allegedly purchased body parts, including heads, brains, skin, and bones that were harvested from the cadavers before they were cremated.
Also indicted were Mathew Lampi, 52, of East Bethel, Minnesota, and Candace Chapman Scott, who worked at a morgue in Little Rock, Arkansas. Scott allegedly “stole parts of cadavers she was supposed to have cremated, many of which had been donated to and used for research and educational purposes by an area medical school, as well as the corpses of two stillborn babies who were supposed to be cremated and returned as cremains to their families.” She then allegedly shipped the remains to a Pennsylvania man, who sold them to customers, including Lampi.
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Sued For Date Breach
Residents in New Hampshire and Massachusetts have filed four lawsuits against Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and its parent company, Point32Health, over an April data breach and ransomware attack that compromised sensitive data such as Social Security numbers, names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, provider taxpayer identification numbers, and medical histories of 2.5 million people, according to a disclosure filed with the federal government. The lawsuits also claim it took the company too long to detect the cyber attack and notify customers, leaving impacted users vulnerable to identity theft and fraud.
One of the people suing the insurer works at St. Paul’s School in Concord and receives health insurance through the school, according to her lawsuit. She claims she experienced $250 worth of credit card fraud after the incident. Another New Hampshire resident who sued said she has experienced stress and other ailments due to the data breach, as well as an increase in spam texts and phone calls.
All four of the lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Kathleen Makela, director of Public Relations for Point32Health, issued a statement saying the company has started to notify impacted individuals, but, “Due to the systems outage we were not able to directly communicate with our members as contact information was not accessible.”
Boris Johnson Steps Down From Parliament
One day after Boris Johnson received a copy of a Privileges Committee report setting out criticism and evidence it intends to make public that could trigger a recall petition, he announced that he is stepping down from his seat in Parliament.
The Privileges Committee, a cross-party group of senior members of Parliament, was looking into reports of parties at No. 10 Downing Street during COVID lockdowns, when he was prime minister. The committee found that Johnson had deliberately misled the Commons about what he knew about gatherings; he misled the Privileges Committee during its investigation; and he was complicit in a “campaign of abuse” against the people investigating him.
Johnson left the job of prime minister in 2022 after a mass revolt by ministers over his leadership, sparked by the scandals that included what is known as Partygate.
In his official statement, Johnson said he had decided to step down “for now” but accusing the committee of mounting a “witch hunt” to “drive me out of Parliament”. He said, “It is in no one’s interest, that the process the committee has launched should continue for a single day further.” The decision triggers an immediate by-election by his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.
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