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Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Non-profit trains Jews to deal with terrorists, ambushes —helped end armed standoff in Texas

With violent antisemitic incidents reaching all time highs across the country, a Chicago-based non-profit is teaching Jews how to protect themselves and, in some cases, how to fight back.

Since its founding in 2004, Secure Community Network (SCN) has already trained tens of thousands of people in the Jewish community in the US and Canada on how to survive a terrorist situation and how to outfit synagogues and other public spaces with simple emergency measures such as automatic lock doors to ensure maximum protection.

SCN also helps community groups write grants to the Department of Homeland Security to ask for financing for new security measures.

The goal, according to Michael Masters, SCN’s National Director and CEO, is “to train and empower the community” especially in the wake of the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh which left 11 dead; as well as the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead.

The 14-page manual from a group called Palestine Action, a UK-based collective that uses “disruptive tactics” against “corporate enablers of the Israeli military-industrial complex,” according to its website, where it singles out Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest producer of weapons.

“We have learned by experience over 3,500 years that antisemitism is never going to go away,” said Masters, 46.

Masters is a former Marine with a law degree from Harvard University, who began working on strategic planning for the group in 2015.

He took over SCN two years later, he said, and under his leadership the group has grown exponentially from a five-person operation to a security agency employing more than 100 employees across the country and with a budget of more than $25 million, paid for through donations from Jewish federations.

Among SCN’s investigators and trainers are former FBI analysts and other retired law enforcement who have the ability to monitor threats and alert community leaders and synagogues 24 hours a day.

When a deranged intruder burst into a synagogue during a Shabbat service and pulled out a gun in Texas three years ago, the handful of congregants knew how to save themselves.

After a more than 10-hour standoff, the gunman, British national Malik Faisal Akram, ordered the congregation to their knees. However, the rabbi told the hostages to run and threw a chair in the direction of the kidnapper, which ended the standoff. Akram was then killed by police.

Many of the congregants at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville had received training from SCN, and used the tactics they had learned, such as moving as far away from the gunman as they could and gradually moving in the direction of the exit during the standoff.

“The training kept us safe,” said Jeffrey Cohen, an engineer, who was one of the four hostages at the Colleyville synagogue. “The purpose of the training was to teach people to be aware, to run, hide, fight in an emergency to get yourself out of trouble.”

Colley, 62, said he tripped running out the door of the synagogue and crawled under a hedgerow as a platoon of FBI agents swarmed into the temple to apprehend the assailant.

“We knew what to do and we saved ourselves,” Cohen told The Post, adding he now speaks at synagogues and other community groups, urging their leaders to adopt the same training he received.

After the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the group recorded more than 5,400 threats against Jewish groups — more than double the amount in 2022, said a spokesman for SCN.

“I’m proud and honored everyday when people come to our command center in Chicago, when they see what we do and they walk out saying ‘I feel so much better knowing that this is here,” said Masters.

“We’ve lived too long in the world looking over our shoulder. It’s time for the bad guys to be looking over theirs.”

https://nypost.com/2025/04/01/us-news/how-secure-community-network-scn-trains-the-jewish-community/

Eli Lilly Has No Affiliation With Hims & Hers: company statement

Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) has no affiliation with hims & hers. Zepbound (tirzepatide) can be prescribed by any licensed healthcare professional. People who are commercially insured with coverage for Zepbound may be eligible to pay as low as $25. For those who self-pay, Zepbound is available starting at $349 per month on LillyDirect.

https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/statement-lilly-has-no-affiliation-hims-hers

Survey: Almost 1 in 10 report having been harmed by NHS in last 3 years

Almost one in 10 people in Great Britain experienced health-care-related harm due to care or treatment they received from the National Health Service (NHS) or difficulties accessing care in the last three years, show the findings of a large population survey published in the journal BMJ Quality & Safety.

In more than eight out of 10 cases, the harm had a moderate or severe impact on the respondent. Disadvantaged groups, including people with disabilities, long-term conditions and those in lower socioeconomic groups, were more likely to experience NHS-related harm, and when they did the consequences were likely to be more severe.

The survey used a specially designed questionnaire to collect data from patients on the incidence and consequences of a range of NHS-related adverse events—not only medical or physical consequences of treatment or care, but also psychological harm and harm due to lack of access to care.

Ipsos administered the survey and used quota sampling to ensure participants and, therefore, results reflected the sociodemographic profile of Great Britain. Between November 2021 and May 2022, 10,064 people in England, Scotland and Wales completed the survey.

A total of 9.7% of participants reported experiencing NHS-related harm in the previous three years: in 6.2% of cases the harm was caused by treatment or care received and in 3.5% of cases it was due to lack of access to care. In most cases, hospitals were responsible for the provision of that care. Incidents of harm were higher in women and lower in people aged over 65 years.

In 44.8% of cases the respondent said that the harm experienced had a severe impact and in 37.6% of cases a moderate impact. People with long-term illness or disability, or in lower socioeconomic or other disadvantaged groups reported higher rates and more severe impact of harm.

Around two-thirds of people who experienced harm shared their experience and sought support from family and friends, and almost 60% sought advice and support from professional sources.

Around a third sought support from their GP surgery (34.7%), a similar number sought support from the health provider which caused the harm (31.6%), and 11.6% contacted the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS), which is intended to provide an alternative to official NHS grievance processes in England.

Few people who experienced harm took any formal action, 17% made a formal complaint to the NHS and only 2.1% made a legal claim for compensation.

One in five survey respondents (21.6%) said they would not want to make a financial claim against the NHS for harm, which the authors say reflects patient "loyalty to the NHS."

Rather than compensation, what many patients who had experienced harm wanted was treatment or care to redress the harm by addressing physical or psychological needs (44.4%), an explanation of what had happened (34.8%) and access to treatment previously refused (29.7%).

Two-thirds of people who made a formal complaint felt it was not handled well and only around half were satisfied with their experience of PALS.

"When people cannot get validation of their experiences and adequate help with recovery through these routes, they may be forced to consider taking legal action," the authors write.

The authors highlight a number of limitations to their study, including that it was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have led to a higher rate of harm than usual, and potential issues of representation and bias despite the use of quota sampling.

Nevertheless, the authors conclude, "This study found higher rates of NHS-related harm than previous surveys and showed the impact is likely to have significant consequences for individual patients, families and caregivers, health services and the economy."

The study is one of the first to explicitly assess actions after harm due to lack of access to care, they add.

"An important finding of this study is that people harmed through a lack of access to care also require support, and the responses they desire differ from people who were harmed through treatment of care received. Having their situation recognized and being signposted towards appropriate support via a local health care provider may be vital in reducing harm in this group."

The findings also highlight significant inequities in rates and impact of harm, as well as in responses in the aftermath of harm. Taken together, the differences point towards socially disadvantaged people being more likely to be harmed, experiencing higher impact and being less able to advocate for themselves in the aftermath of harm, the authors say.

More information: Patient-reported harm from NHS treatment or care, or the lack of access to care: a cross-sectional survey of general population prevalence, impact and responses, BMJ Quality & Safety (2025). DOI: 10.1136/bmjqs-2024-017213

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-survey-people-nhs-years.html

Dopamine neurons that fuel overeating may weaken effectiveness of obesity medication

Delicious and extremely palatable food can increase the tendency of hedonic eating, where one consumes food for the sole purpose of deriving pleasure instead of the body's energy needs. Hedonic eating often leads to eating beyond satiety (fullness), which is linked to obesity. Although food palatability is closely linked to hedonic eating, the neural mechanisms underlying this process remain largely unclear.

A recent study on mice by researchers from the University of California, San Diego and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, identified a brain circuit between the peri-locus coeruleus and the ventral tegmental area (VTA) responsible for driving increased consumption of palatable food. The work is published in the journal Science.

The VTADA or dopamine neurons in VTA, also called the brain's reward center, decided the palatability of food and played a key role in driving hedonic eating behaviors and reducing the effectiveness of obesity medications.

Eating behaviors progress in three distinct phases: seeking (initiation), consumption (sustaining), and satiety (terminate feeding). Using cell-specific circuit mapping and optogenetics—a biological technique for controlling neurons or cell activity with light—the researchers found that the dopamine neurons in VTA did not impact the food-seeking behavior.

They were only triggered during food consumption, and their activity increased or decreased in response to the tastiness of the food. The researchers noted that activating the neurons with optogenetics during eating prolonged food intake, similar to the effect of making food more palatable, but inhibiting these neurons reduced consumption without affecting the initiation of eating.

The activity of the dopamine neurons during the consumption of food was suppressed by semaglutide, a glucagon-like peptide receptor 1 (GLP-1R) agonist that mimics the brain's satiety signals and is commonly used as an antiobesity drug.

Mice treated with semaglutide ate less and exhibited low VTADA neuron activity; however, artificially activated neurons during food consumption overcame the appetite-reducing effect of semaglutide and enhanced both food intake and eating duration.

The researchers noticed that as mice lost weight on semaglutide, VTADA neuron activity increased, and so did the intake of palatable food. This observation could help explain why some obesity medications containing semaglutide fail to completely suppress overeating in certain individuals. They also found that this anti-semaglutide behavior can be effectively reversed by targeted inhibition of VTADA neurons.

The mechanism by which VTADA neurons regulate the duration of food intake provides key insights into how palatable food influences appetite. Exploring the interactions between these neurons and different parts of the brain could open up new avenues for developing strategies to combat obesity and other metabolic disorders.

More information: Zhenggang Zhu et al, Hedonic eating is controlled by dopamine neurons that oppose GLP-1R satiety, Science (2025). DOI: 10.1126/science.adt0773

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-dopamine-neurons-fuel-overeating-weaken.html

Hacker linked to Oracle Cloud intrusion threatens to sell stolen data

The threat actor that claimed responsibility for an alleged data breach at Oracle Cloud is threatening to release or sell the data, according to security researchers.

The threat actor, identified as Rose87168, posted a threat Sunday to leak stolen data and claimed Oracle is not cooperating with the hacker’s demands, according to a LinkedIn post by Alon Gal, co-founder and CTO at Hudson Rock.

The threat actor previously took credit for the Oracle Cloud incident, claiming to have access to 6 million data records, affecting more than 140,000 tenants.

After initially denying that a breach took place, Oracle has largely remained silent about the breach and declined to answer numerous requests to comment on the incident. Meanwhile, security researchers have revealed increasing evidence backing up claims of the data breach.

Security researchers from CloudSEK published evidence last week that supported the threat actor’s claims of a breach. Researchers said they believed the hacker exploited a zero-day vulnerability or a misconfiguration in the OAuth2 authentication process.

The alleged breach was linked to a critical vulnerability, listed as CVE-2021-35587, a vulnerability in Oracle Access Manager product of Oracle Fusion Middleware. The vulnerability, which has a CVSS score of 9.8, allows an unauthenticated attacker with network access via HTTP to compromise Oracle Access Manager.

The stolen data includes single sign-on credentials, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol passwords, OAuth2 keys and tenant data, according to CloudSEK.

CloudSEK researchers have been analyzing a sample provided by the hacker.

Researchers from Trustwave SpiderLabs released a blog post last week confirming the hacker is threatening to sell stolen data and offering multiple purchase options, based on company name, hashed credentials and other criteria.

“Based on our research and analysis, and that of other researchers, we feel that it is likely that this is a legitimate breach,” researchers from Trustwave told Cybersecurity Dive via email.

https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/hacker-linked-to-oracle-cloud-intrusion-threatens-to-sell-stolen-data/743981/

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