Tag: people

Boise hangar collapse investigation continues

Ana R. Cheatwood

BOISE, Idaho — Attorney Enrique Serna gives Idaho News 6 an update on his investigation into the cause of the Boise hangar collapse.

  • Serna says the families of two of the victim’s families are frustrated
  • More people are coming forward with information
  • Serna hopes people won’t have to look at the wreckage much longer

(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
 

I spoke with Attorney Enrique Serna representing the families of two of the three victims killed here at the hangar collapse near the Boise Airport. I asked Mr. Serna how the families of Mariano Coc Och and Mario Sontay are doing at their homes in Guatemala. “Well, the families are hoping for a prompt resolution they are indigent they do not understand our processes they don’t understand the law the jury and trial system they don’t understand timelines from OSHA and Federal government or State authorities so we’re explaining it to them”.

 
I then asked Enrique Serna about the scope of the investigation. “Let me tell you that I’m grateful for everyone who watches this broadcast. We have had a lot of people coming forward to us of two types. They told us to keep my information confidential, or please let me share it with you so I can share it again. That has led us to dive deep into the documentation that we get from the state and city and some of the participants here.

 
I wanted to know if people are still coming forward with information about the hangar collapse. ”This time I find that the people that I find come forward they come forward with true conviction they drive by here and see this wreckage they don’t want to see it like this it doesn’t feel right in their heart.”

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Lawyers offer free assistance Central Floridians dealing with Social Security overpayment issues

Ana R. Cheatwood

For months WFTV has been telling you about problems with Social Security, as seniors across the area deal with overpayments that were not their fault.

Now, as the agency tries to claw the money back, local lawyers are stepping in to help for free.

▶ WATCH CHANNEL 9 EYEWITNESS NEWS

People like Addie Arnold were just one of many people across the country who fought the Social Security Administration for what she said was a mistake. Arnold is the sole caretaker for her mentally and physically disabled niece.

The family’s Social Security checks are the only funds coming in and in 2019 they were told they needed to pay back a $60,000 because they were overpaid.

“When they sent me a bill saying that we owe $60,000, it’s like, well, pfft, I don’t know how you get it,” Arnold said.

Read: 2 people killed after a plane crashed into a vehicle while landing on I-75 near Naples

So, the SSA started to withhold some of their monthly checks. After our first story aired, Arnold got some of the money back, but no reason as to why.

Arnold is one of the few who have solved their overpayment issue. Millions are still working through the system, a system where their calls go unanswered, appeals have not been heard and hope is dwindling.

Most lawyers won’t take these cases without payment up front, leaving legal aid as the only option.

Read: Daytona Beach woman arrested in New Year’s Day death of ‘obviously neglected’ boy

Which is why the Orange County Bar Association, along with legal services is opening time to deal with Social Security issues here in Central Florida, telling Channel 9 News, “We have received such an outpouring of people who need help with overpayment issues with social security that we

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My so-called ‘disorder’ made me a better attorney

Ana R. Cheatwood

Last year, at the age of 65, I learned something new about myself: that I’m autistic.

It wasn’t the first time I considered the possibility. Seven or eight years earlier I was streaming the television show “Parenthood” when a new character was introduced — an awkward but accomplished middle-aged man played by Ray Romano. The show didn’t tell us he was autistic — he had not yet been diagnosed — but I recognized something in Romano’s performance. Almost as soon as his character appeared, I paused the show, opened my laptop, and looked up what it means to be autistic.

Everything I read online that day in 2015 was so negative and dour that I ruled out autism as being part of my own spectrum. My quick and dirty research told me autistic people have no sense of humor, no understanding of sarcasm and no empathy. All I found were deficits, deficits and more deficits. Forget it. Not me. I shut my computer and carried on.

Flash forward to early 2022, when I met for the first time with a young psychologist. I had barely begun to speak when she told me she was going to send me home with a book — the start of a journey to an entirely new understanding of my life, good parts and bad.

During the next several months I read everything I could find about what it means to be autistic. Happily, what I found online was very different from what I found seven or eight years prior. Instead of a page full of deficits, I stumbled into a list of autistic strengths.

I am an attorney. I never went to law school. I became an attorney the old-fashioned way, studying on my own with the help of a mentor. I did some

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Watch: Car drives down footpath near Auckland school, narrowly avoids children

Ana R. Cheatwood

An Auckland driver has been captured on video mounting the kerb and driving along the footpath, narrowly avoiding children on their walk to school.

Cyclist Su Yin Khoo – who was on a tricycle with her 3-year-old child in it – captured the car on video at 9am on Monday.

It shows the car driving along the footpath of Union St in Auckland’s CBD, before turning down Nelson St.

It narrowly avoided a parent running with their two small children as it mounts the kerb, then just misses a small crowd, including a pram, as it rounds the corner by the lights.

READ MORE:
* Lower speed limits proposed for 800 Auckland roads
* Five-year-old nearly hit by car during Auckland school gate pick up chaos
* Auckland traffic black spot leaves family of six struggling

The traffic lights are red as the driver goes past on the footpath.

Su Yin Khoo’s husband, Lance Wiggs, said there were a lot of people living at the top of Nelson St with young kids.

What this driver did was shocking, he said.

“They could have just stayed in their lane and made a legal left turn.”

He was concerned for the safety of the people “just waiting on the corner” with their children, he said.

Over many years, Wiggs said, he and his wife had seen that part of the footpath used by motorists to park or pull up onto the kerb.

“Auckland Transport are not prioritising people who are walking and cycling … it’s just a matter of time before more people die.”

The driver rounds the corner, edging past a small group of people – including a woman with a pram.

Su Yin Khoo/Supplied

The driver rounds the corner, edging past a small group of people – including a woman with a pram.

There are a few schools close to where the incident occurred, including Freemans Bay School.

A

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Near-death experience inspires lawyer’s career path

Ana R. Cheatwood

MARYVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — Lucas Abbot is a lawyer out of Maryville and has his own firm known as Shield Wall Legal. This wasn’t what he expected to become of his life, but after having a health episode from ice diving that sent him into cardiac arrest, he began to look at life differently.

“I was dead for about 40 seconds,” Abbot said. “When I came out of it, I decided, I’ve got to do something with this life.”

His journey began with the idea of becoming a doctor, but Abbot soon realized how much he enjoyed criminal justice and decided helping people as an attorney could be just as impactful.

“I realized lawyers are the ones that stand between the hurt and the people are trying to hurt them,” Abbot said.

Now with his own firm, Abbot is dedicated to changing archaic laws, exposing corruption, building businesses and providing legal services for those who can’t afford them.

Abbot has helped clients fight against unethical realtors or unconscionable laws. He’s even helped represent children from abuse in schools. His firm also loves catering to local businesses and making sure they are able to get off their feet.

It’s with his found passion for criminal justice after a scary experience that has helped him create the career he has today.

“I’m really just here to focus on people. It’s not about me, it’s about them,” Abbot said.

For more on Shield Wall Legal, visit their website.

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Life insurance needs to close the agent-client age gap

Ana R. Cheatwood

“If we’re really going to serve Canadian society, I think that, as a community, we have to encourage younger people to come into the insurance business so that they can educate their cohorts,” said Michael Aziz (pictured), chief distribution officer at Canada Protection Plan, a Foresters Financial company with a network of more than 25,000 advisors across Canada.

“I think financial advisors have done a fantastic job of understanding their markets. But I also think we need to bring some younger people into the business to coach more seasoned advisors on how to approach the younger generation and what motivates them,” Aziz continued. “What motivates younger consumers to buy life insurance is not always what motivates their parents to buy.”

Education, one of the critical functions of a financial advisor, is still sorely needed among consumers, according to Aziz. “The fact that people don’t understand the value of life insurance and how reasonably priced it can be is a problem. People always think it’s more expensive than it is,” he told Insurance Business.

“I’m not sure we’re doing a great job of educating young people on the importance of financial planning. If we did that better, kids would see the benefits and the value of it, and the opportunities that being a financial advisor brings as a career.

“If we were able to bring younger people in, those people would attract people from their generation, and we could get them the coverage and the financial planning that they need. And I think that would help us overcome some of the generational issues in insurance.”

High cost-of-living bites into budgets

With inflation straining household budgets this year, many could be putting life insurance on the “maybe” list while counting their car and home insurance as “must haves.” But in fact, inflation

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Zappala to seek 7th term as Allegheny County district attorney

Ana R. Cheatwood

Surrounded by hundreds of people representing many of Pittsburgh’s labor unions, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. on Friday announced he will seek a seventh term in office.

Zappala, a Democrat from Fox Chapel, made the announcement at the Pittsburgh Regional Building Trades Christmas party in the Champions Club at Acrisure Stadium.

He is the first candidate to formally enter the race.

Allegheny County Public Defender Matt Dugan, a Democrat, is expected to formally announce his candidacy in mid-January, according to a spokeswoman for his campaign. He declined to comment Friday afternoon.

Zappala spoke for about 18 minutes, outlining his achievements in office and what he hopes to do in the future.

He also talked about what he sees as the dangers of progressive politics.

“In this time, in this place, our home is threatened by a culture of chaos, crime and divisiveness and wrong-headed political agendas that would destroy what we’ve worked so hard to build,” Zappala said. “We’re facing a political agenda that foments racial and class division that empowers criminals.”

Zappala faced a progressive candidate in independent Lisa Middleman in the 2019 general election and defeated her by about 14 percentage points. He said progressive politics in the criminal justice system have “proved disastrous all across this country and as near as Philadelphia.

“You can just look at Philadelphia and understand failed criminal justice policies when they exist,” he said. “That’s as close as I’ll permit that type of agenda and that type of conduct to get to the people of Allegheny County, because as long as I have the honor of being district attorney, I won’t let that happen.”

That prompted applause from those gathered.

Related:

• Zappala updates policy on how prosecutors should deal with discrimination claims
• Allegheny County judge halts

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Keeping history alive in legal thriller ‘Argentina, 1985’

Ana R. Cheatwood

The 1985 Trial of the Juntas was a seismic moment in Argentina’s history, helping to solidify the country’s democratic future after seven years of military dictatorship. But when filmmaker Santiago Mitre started talking about making a classic political thriller about the David vs. Goliath trial, in which public prosecutors Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo tried former military leaders for war crimes, including the torture and disappearance of thousands between 1976 and 1983, he was surprised to learn that few of his peers knew much about it.

Mitre was only four years old at the time of the trial in 1985, but through his mother — who worked in justice her whole life — he’d grown up hearing stories about the trial, its importance for Argentina and anecdotes about Strassera’s unique personality (grumpy, but full of humor).

Strassera was the veteran prosecutor who reluctantly took on the case, fearful for his family and himself. Ocampo was younger and more idealistic, but also risked alienating his own prominent family, who had significant military ties. Mitre was certain that the personalities and drama of the situation would make for a great film in the vein of classic political thrillers like “All the President’s Men” and “Judgement at Nüremberg.”

“Argentina, 1985,” which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video, chronicles the momentous trial, which took place under a cloud of extraordinary uncertainty and unease only two years after the dictatorship fell.

With a death toll that human rights organizations estimate at 30,000, Argentina’s dictatorship is considered Latin America’s deadliest of the 1970s and ’80s. Less than half of the dead have been recognized at the official level, however, because the military made the bodies of most of its victims disappear.

Across five months in the courtroom, during which the prosecutorial team received

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5 Common Myths About Life Insurance Needs

Ana R. Cheatwood

Do you have enough life insurance to provide for your family if something were to happen to you? This is a question I recently received and unfortunately, many people have no idea. After all, death and pushy life insurance agents are two things most people would probably rather not deal with.

It’s an important question though. If you don’t have enough life insurance, you could leave your family in a difficult financial predicament. On the other hand, you could end up wasting thousands of dollars on something you don’t really need if you buy too much. When determining how much life insurance to buy, here are some common myths to steer clear of:

1. Everyone needs to have life insurance.

Life insurance has two main functions. The most common is to provide for people who are financially dependent on you like children and perhaps a spouse. The second is to pay estate taxes so that your heirs won’t have to sell property or a business to do so.

If you don’t have dependents or a federally taxable estate (currently over $12.06 million), you may not need life insurance. Keep in mind that insurance companies collect premiums, invest the money, and then pay their expenses and make a profit with the difference. This means that on average, most people would be better off skipping the insurance and investing the money on their own since the insurance companies pay out less than the total amount that they collect plus the investment returns. On the other hand, your family could be one of the few that really needs the insurance. Like all forms of insurance, the key is to have as much as you need but no more.

One final note

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Law enforcement reminds drivers to watch out for school buses

Ana R. Cheatwood

Drivers who cause death are subject to a felony with either a fine of or up to $7,500. They could also serve up to 15 years in jail.

KENT COUNTY, Mich. — With most schools starting Monday across Kent County, deputies are reminding drivers to watch out for school buses, and we’re giving everyone an important refresher about school bus safety laws.

During Operation Safe Stop last year, drivers were caught on the County Sheriff’s Office dash and body-cam ignoring safety laws.

“The multiple lane road is usually something that screws people up a little bit,” said Sheriff Michelle LaJoye-Young.

If there’s multi-lane paved road, drivers traveling in both directions must stop. If there’s a divided highway, drivers behind the bus must stop, while drivers traveling in the opposite direction must proceed with caution.

“It isn’t the number one citation we write,” said the sheriff. “We have a number of individuals who aren’t mistaken. They just pass the school bus.”

In last October, two new laws went into effect to keep kids safe on the bus.

The first allows police to ticket drivers who blow through the stop arm using the bus’ exterior cameras.

“What that means is even if there’s not a police officer there, if you disregard the indicators on the school bus, you’ll likely be cited if we can get an identification on your vehicle.”

The second law states people can’t walk onto a school bus without permission.

The sheriff encourages drivers to pay attention and to not be distracted.

“Often we’ll find those who disregarded indicators on school bus are distracted. They were doing something else and didn’t see the lights because they weren’t paying attention to driving so we’re just asking people to be super careful.”

If you pass a stopped school bus, you

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