Things To Do In SW Florida

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled against a firefighter who retired early because of Parkinson’s disease and alleged the city of Sanford violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by limiting a health-insurance subsidy.

Justices upheld a decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the lawsuit filed by Karyn Stanley, a fire-department lieutenant who retired in 2018 at age 47 because of the effects of the disease.

The dispute stemmed from Stanley losing a health-insurance subsidy two years after she retired and involved questions about whether the city violated part of the Americans with Disabilities Act aimed at preventing discrimination in employment.

Friday’s main opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, focused heavily on wording in the law that bars discrimination against a “qualified individual on the basis of disability.” The opinion said the definition of a “qualified individual” in what is known as Title I of the law applied only to current employees or people seeking jobs. read more

By KELVIN CHAN

LONDON (AP) — Music streaming service Deezer said Friday that it will start flagging albums with AI-generated songs, part of its fight against streaming fraudsters.

Deezer, based in Paris, is grappling with a surge in music on its platform created using artificial intelligence tools it says are being wielded to earn royalties fraudulently.

The app will display an on-screen label warning about “AI-generated content” and notify listeners that some tracks on an album were created with song generators.

Deezer is a small player in music streaming, which is dominated by Spotify, Amazon and Apple, but the company said AI-generated music is an “industry-wide issue.” It’s committed to “safeguarding the rights of artists and songwriters at a time where copyright law is being put into question in favor of training AI models,” CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release.

Deezer’s move underscores the disruption caused by generative AI systems, which are trained on the contents of the internet including text, images and audio available online. AI companies are facing a slew of lawsuits challenging their practice of scraping the web for such training data without paying for it. read more

As regular readers know, I am a fan of Ed Slott and Co.’s monthly newsletter on retirement accounts. The company, which bills itself as “America’s IRA experts,” also offers a useful newsletter on Social Security prepared by its expert in that field, Heather Schreiber.

In a recent edition of the newsletter, Schreiber discussed “caregiver benefits,” which refers to widow(er)s who are responsible for raising young children who have lost a parent. The regulations associated with caregivers are complicated, and most individuals are not well-versed.

Caregiver benefits

When an individual dies after having earned enough Social Security credits to be eligible for a retirement benefit, his or her children younger than age 18 are eligible for survivor benefits. The surviving child is entitled to 75% of the deceased parent’s full retirement benefit, known as the “primary insurance amount” or PIA.

The PIA amount is based on the wages the deceased parent earned under Social Security, and is based on what his or her benefit would have been at full retirement age. In addition to the survivor benefit available to the child of the deceased worker, the surviving parent (known as the mother’s or father’s benefit) is also eligible for 75% of the PIA if the parent is responsible for the care of the dependent child. The dependent child is eligible for a survivor benefit until age 18 or graduation from high school, whichever comes later (but not later than age 19). There is an exception if the child is disabled with a condition that began prior to age 22. read more

NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers at cybersecurity outlet Cybernews say that billions of login credentials have been leaked and compiled into datasets online, giving criminals “unprecedented access” to accounts consumers use each day.

According to a report published this week, Cybernews researchers have recently discovered 30 exposed datasets that each contain a vast amount of login information — amounting to a total of 16 billion compromised credentials. That includes user passwords for a range of popular platforms including Google, Facebook and Apple.

Related Articles

Retired Sanford firefighter with Parkinson’s loses disabilities fight at US Supreme Court

Music streaming service Deezer adds AI song tags in fight against fraud

The Savings Game: Drilling down on Social Security benefit policy

‘Disney Starlight’ parade times, route in Magic Kingdom set

Aflac finds suspicious activity on US network that may impact Social Security numbers, other data read more

Walt Disney World has confirmed fresh details about the new nighttime parade coming to Magic Kingdom theme park. “Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away” steps off for the first time July 20.

Parade times will be 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. and it will start on Main Street then travel back to Frontierland, a reversal of the usual course for Magic Kingdom parades. This will “allow for better guest flow at the end of the night,” according to the official Disney Parks Blog.

Not only will it be near the park’s closing time, some Disney fans have a habit of strolling behind the final float in parades, so the directional change may separate that throng from the folks leaving Magic Kingdom for the night.

Disney also said that “Starlight” won’t happen on event nights for Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party — an after-hours, extra-ticket gathering that has its own parade. Not-So-Scary is held on select nights between Aug. 15 and Oct. 31.

Disney dates: When Epcot’s Test Track reopens but the Boneyard bows out read more