PLYMOUTH, Mass. — Hundreds of Lindsay Clancy supporters, many wearing pink with the words “Believe,” “She Needed Help” and “Peace For Lindsay,” gathered Thursday outside the courthouse where she is on trial in the killings of her three children.
Several of the 300 women, and a few men, said Clancy’s story resonated with them and that they wanted to raise awareness about how the mental health system treats women. Clancy’s lawyer does not dispute that she killed the children, but says she should not be held criminally responsible because she was mentally ill.
The livestreamed trial has sparked massive discussions online and has brought attention to postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington says she had that is linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth. Reddington said she also has bipolar disorder. After strangling her children, Clancy jumped from a second-story window and remains paralyzed from the waist down.
Reddington says Clancy repeatedly sought help: She turned to multiple outpatient providers, tried various drugs they prescribed, called a suicide hotline, went to an emergency room, and even checked herself into a psychiatric hospital.
Prosecutors say the former labor and delivery nurse planned the Jan. 24, 2023, killings and contrived to get her husband out of the house by sending him to pick up medicine for one of their children and dinner for the family. They have also questioned the seriousness of her suicide attempt, and witnesses have testified that Clancy wouldn’t always take prescribed medications.
Thursday’s rally was the first time during the nearly monthlong trial that supporters have come out in such large numbers.
“Women are being dismissed, neglected and ignored when we speak up,” said April Vincent, a 52-year-old paralegal from Providence, Rhode Island. “We’re scared because nobody takes us seriously.”
The women stood silently for more than an hour ahead of Thursday’s proceedings, where a chaplain called by the defense testified about visiting Clancy in the hospital after the killings.
At the sight of Reddington outside the courthouse, the crowd broke into applause.
Rally organizer Renee Kimball implored the crowd to trust that Reddington “has Lindsay’s fight.”
Toward the end of their rally, supporters formed a circle, said the Lord’s Prayer, held up their arms and formed hearts with their hands. Some held flags from different countries to show that the support for Clancy was global.
Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy, who ranged from 8 months to 5 years old. Researchers estimate that postpartum psychosis — which is more serious and less common than postpartum depression — afflicts 1 to 2 per 1,000 women after delivery.
Jeanne Zaborski, a 72-year-old retired nurse from Rockland, Massachusetts, said she hopes the case raises awareness about postpartum health. She and many others at the rally said they had been following the trial almost daily.
“It’s very sad,” Zaborski said. “I am a mother. I am a grandmother. I have a sister who had problems after birth and it’s just very sad. I hope Lindsay gets the care she needs and deserves and other women will come together like we did today.”
In court, Sheila Cavanaugh, a chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, testified that when she first visited and prayed for Clancy, she was unconscious. By Jan. 31, 2023, Clancy was conscious and no longer connected to a ventilator, Cavanaugh said, but “her emotional state was very neutral – a flat affect.”
Cavanaugh said she “vividly remembers” one of the first things Clancy said to her.
“She said to me, as I held her hand to comfort her, ‘I’m so glad my children are safe,’” Cavanaugh said. “I replied theologically to Lindsay. I said, ‘Lindsay, your children are safe. They’re safe in heaven with God.’”
“We prayed for them,” said Cavanaugh, who saw Clancy more than 200 times and still visits her at the state mental hospital where she resides.
Cavanaugh said Clancy “alluded to hearing a voice, and the voice, according to Lindsay, told her that if she did not follow the command, neither she nor her children would be safe.”
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said on social media that the carrier arrived in the region Wednesday. It was not clear when the USS Abraham Lincoln would arrive back in the U.S. or whether it would make a port stop along the way, but the journey takes just over a month.
The Washington arrived as concerns have grown about the Lincoln’s lengthy deployment, which has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 250 days, and about reports of crew stress and poor mental health, as well as supply shortages, including food and hygiene products.
Several Democratic lawmakers have pressed the Department of Defense for accountability over conditions aboard the Lincoln, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said were “completely misrepresented.”
Hegseth spoke with the Lincoln’s crew last week, and Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, visited this past weekend. In an editorial published Sunday by The Wall Street Journal, Cooper said the crew “delivered a performance for the ages, and now you are going home.”
Extended deployments of carriers wear on service members who are away from home for long periods and increase strain on the ship and its equipment. While renewed hostilities between the U.S. and Iran calmed in recent weeks, the Navy is enforcing a reimposed blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, and the Trump administration has offered no clarity on how it intends to wind down the war.
Hegseth has said the U.S. can maintain the blockade “indefinitely.”
President Donald Trump this week downplayed reports about conditions on the Lincoln, which left its homeport in San Diego in November and arrived in the Middle East in January. Trump called the nearly nine months at sea that the sailors endured a “good period of time” but added that “over the years, we’ve had them out there much longer.”
Trump told reporters Monday that he spoke with a retired admiral over the weekend who recounted being on ships for “much longer.” Trump said the admiral assured him that the Lincoln is “beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of.” Trump did not name the admiral.
In a statement Sunday after visiting the Lincoln, Cooper praised the carrier’s leaders for prioritizing mental health and resilience.
“History will record this deployment as one of the most operationally intense and consequential of the modern era,” Cooper said.
The Washington joins the USS George H.W. Bush in the Middle East, leaving Asia without an American carrier strike group at a time when China has shown more signs of aggression.
The lack of a U.S. carrier in the Pacific may be short-lived if the Navy deploys another in the next couple of months. But it shows how the open-ended operations with Iran are running some American sailors ragged, analysts say, while the Trump administration further retreats from the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on the Western Hemisphere.
Everything seemed primed for President Donald Trump to get his ballroom.
No, not that ballroom. His other ballroom.
Across the Atlantic, in the tiny village of Doonbeg, where the Trump International Golf Links & Hotel rises above the dunes of a wind-swept beach, the president and his family had promised to build “the nicest ballroom in Ireland” — a grand edifice that would extend across 12,000 square feet and seat 320 guests at 42 tables.
And unlike in Washington, where Trump’s push to fast-track a grandiose White House ballroom set off a political and legal fight that has now reached the Supreme Court, the population of Doonbeg, which hovers around 300, had lined up behind the project.
In a letter to the local planning commission, a local pub owner said it would halt the village’s decline. Another resident said it would create jobs and bring in offseason tourism. A statement by the Doonbeg Football Club called the golf resort “not just a business … but an integral part of our community.”
Even the snail lobby had been appeased.
Questions over the fate of the threatened Vertigo angustior snail — a microscopic mollusk nestled in Doonbeg’s sandy dunes — had bedeviled the golf property even before the Trump Organization owned it. But in February, the commission approved the ballroom provided the Trumps offer a snail restoration plan.
“The ballroom,” said Rita McInerney, a Doonbeg resident and member of the Clare County council, had become “part of the community’s vision.”
The jubilation, however, was quickly cut short.
Days after the February approval, a lone appeal was lodged by Liam Madden, a hermetic figure notorious for blocking hundreds if not thousands of development projects across Ireland, including a previous expansion plan in Doonbeg. Impervious to shaming or calls for decency, he once stirred such rage that a foe attacked him with a blowtorch.
“Please,” Madden urged the appellate board, “refuse this nonsense.”
Trump’s other ballroom was stalled.
Guests ride horses at Trump International Golf Links Ireland.Anastasia Taylor-Lind
How to torpedo a project
Madden is a tall man with white hair who lives in a historic house behind a thick stone wall in the Irish village of Longford. He owns no cell phone. He has no website. No social media accounts. The only way to find him is either through his malfunctional landline or an email address that identifies him, in Latin, as the “Irish Vitruvius.”
And yet, people across this country know the name Liam Madden.
When confronted by bothersome development projects, the Irish over the years have turned to this quarrelsome and punctilious man for his ability to torpedo plans. He is what many in Ireland call a “serial objector” — someone who makes a living by appealing planning commission decisions. Madden, however, bristles at that classification.
Instead, when he’s feeling reticent, he describes himself as “the most successful appellant in the history of the Irish state.” At other times, including in interviews with the Washington Post, he referred to himself as a “god,” a “hero,” a “celebrity.”
“There simply isn’t anyone better,” he said. “It’s a scientific fact.”
“I’m modest as well,” Madden, 76, added. “That’s one of my failings.”
His profession is an unintended outgrowth of Ireland’s wildly permissive planning appellate system. In most of Europe and the Americas, a person typically needs to legally demonstrate some stake — financial, geographic or otherwise — to gum up a project with an objection. Ireland has taken a different tack.
All anyone has to do to file an appeal — and trigger a monthslong review by An Coimisiún Pleanála, the national appellate planning board — is submit a preliminary “observation” and pay a nominal fee. Appellants don’t have to be Irish. Or even in Ireland.
“There’s no such thing as too much democracy,” reasoned Lorcan Sirr, a housing analyst at Technological University Dublin.
A house in Doonbeg is painted in preparation of the Irish Open Golf Tournament.Anastasia Taylor-Lind
The system increasingly has become a matter of national controversy. Developers complain that it’s an impediment to progress, vulnerable to abuse and fueling a cottage industry of serial objectors, some of whom have used appeals to extract payments from developers. In 2024, lawmakers proposed reforms.
Madden, who’s never been accused of such improprieties, looks at other serial objectors as a lesser form of the species. He said he would never profane his craft with profit-seeking. What motivates him is the pleasure of winning — identifying even the smallest legal violations to bedevil his adversaries.
That, and bald-faced publicity. “I’m perpetually seeking notoriety,” he said.
So in January, while flipping through the papers, he saw what he recalled as a “golden opportunity.” In Doonbeg, roughly three hours from Madden’s house by car, Eric Trump had proclaimed his intent to build the “nicest ballroom in Ireland.”
Madden knew then what he must do.
“If there is a God in heaven,” he declared one July evening, “I will win the planning appeals and capitalize on it for notoriety.”
Volunteers for Doonbeg Tidy Towns water flowers along Main Street.Anastasia Taylor-Lind
A village praying for a golf course
Doonbeg was in trouble. As the 1990s drew to a close, the shoreline village, whose history dated to at least the 1500s, was fading.
“We weren’t poor in community,” said Tommy Comerford, a fifth-generation Doonbeg resident. “But we were poor in jobs and opportunities to keep our young people.”
The community pitched the European Regional Development Fund on a golf course — and won financing for it. Designed by famed golfer Greg Norman, the Doonbeg Golf Club opened in 2002, just as the local population fell to 206.
Busloads of golf tourists from the United States and Canada were soon rolling in. Seasonal employment at the club — which quickly added a luxury hotel and events space — grew to 300 people. Residents who’d left were coming back.
“The golf resort is so important to us,” said Seoirse Comerford, 52, who returned to take over the family pub.
But the resort could not turn a profit. By 2011, it had lost a reported $70 million. In January 2014, it was put up for sale, and worry spread through Doonbeg.
“It was like, ‘Oh my God, 300 jobs — gone,’” said Caroline O’Brien, a resident.
A savior, however, quickly arrived: an American buyer named Donald Trump. He touched down at Shannon Airport in May 2014 and immediately declared his plans for the resort.
“One of the main reasons I’m here is siting the ballroom,” Trump said. “A truly great ballroom. I believe people from all over the world will be using this ballroom.”
The sand dunes of Trump International Golf Links, as seen from Doughmore Bay Beach. Anastasia Taylor-Lind
‘I’ll be a friend to the snail’
Shortly after the sale’s announcement, an Irish environmentalist named Tony Lowes got a call from Trump.
“I’ll be a friend to the snail,” Lowes recalled Trump declaring.
Questions over the threatened Vertigo angustior, a fickle creature with exacting ecological needs, had long troubled the golf course. Even before it was built, Lowes’s Friends of the Irish Environment had filed a lawsuit to protect the snail. A judge ordered that the snail’s lot be “maintained or improved” and a settlement agreement even allowed for the appointment of a snail expert as a sort of steward.
For years, the snail thrived, and Trump promised to sustain its roll.
But Lowes said the Trumps haven’t kept their word, and the snail’s population has plunged. Shortly after they bought the resort, the snail expert was dismissed. (The expert didn’t respond to requests for comment.) Then, in 2016, the Trumps proposed building a 1.7-mile rock barrier wall along Doughmore Bay Beach to forestall shoreline erosion and protect the links from storm damage.
Environmentalists said the plan, even after it was scaled down, would alter the dunes’ delicate alchemy and doom the snail. To block construction, Friends of the Irish Environment filed an appeal with the national planning board. At its side, with his own appeal, was Liam Madden.
The board decided against the Trumps. Madden basked in glory.
Comparing himself to Saint Patrick, Madden at the time said he’d drive Trump “out of Ireland” like a “snake.”
Trump International Golf Links Hotel, seen from Doughmore Bay Beach. Anastasia Taylor-Lind
The making of a serial objector
When he graduated from architecture school in 1973, Madden said he wanted only an architect’s life. But the planning system was so integral to his work that he immersed himself in planning law and, upon submitting his first appeals, realized, “I was very good at it.”
During the mid-1990s, as Ireland experienced a building boom, people began seeking out Madden for his unusual acumen. Some wanted him to clear a project’s way. Others wanted the opposite. He became friend and foe to developers.
“He had a nickname among developers: the ‘Condom Man,’” said Irish federal senator Joe Flaherty. “You’d use him once, and then throw him out.”
Most of Madden’s work was done in obscurity. But his name nonetheless often rose to public notice.
First came a political campaign in 2004 against a candidate also named Liam Madden, for nothing more than what Madden called “devilment.” Then he stalled a project by the Gaelic Athletic Association, which is Ireland’s largest sporting organization, until it apologized to him over a decades-old grievance.
In 2013, Madden delayed the reopening of St. Mel’s Cathedral, a massive church that suffered a devastating fire, by objecting to a glass elevator that he alleged would offend the “modesty” of “Scotsmen visiting in their kilts.”
The town was furious.
“It was hugely emotional for the town,” Flaherty said. “It was two middle fingers to the local community.”
The attention only spurred Madden on. He objected to a fast food development. He objected to converting an abandoned factory into a car auction site. He objected to Trump’s barrier wall. And he objected to UFC legend Conor McGregor’s bid to build a boutique hotel, challenging him to a “bare-knuckle fight.”
Louis Herterich, a longtime client, said most people simply didn’t get Madden. “He’s just different,” Herterich said. “His god is being right and getting it right and winning.”
Flaherty added: “Nobody in their right mind would want to be Liam Madden — the criticism, the open contempt — but he relishes it.”
In a way, the two men said, they almost felt sorry for Trump.
“Even if he loses,” Flaherty said, “he’ll just find something else and keep going at it.”
Newly built houses in Doonbeg. Anastasia Taylor-Lind
A fatal error?
To Madden, there is no way he’ll lose — not this one.
“I’ve caught them with their pants down,” he said while beaming one July evening.
He returned to the snail — this time focused on helicopters. The Trump Organization, a promotional video indicated, allows guests to be ferried in and out by helicopter. In materials published online, an aviation company, Executive Helicopters, said it has two “heli landings” at the resort, one by the hotel and one on the golf course.
To Madden, this was a “fatal error”: The Trump Organization neither mentioned the helicopters nor sought to measure their ecological impact. The ballroom proposal thus was “tainted at law and beyond remedy,” he wrote.
Plus, Madden wrote, “Would our poor little Vertigo Angustior survive?”
The Trump organization didn’t respond to a request for comment. Golf course manager Joe Russel declined to comment. Executive Helicopters didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Geraint Ellis, an expert on Irish planning law who reviewed the appeal at The Post’s request, said Madden’s objection wasn’t frivolous. “Mr. Madden seems to have found some issues that are worthy of further scrutiny,” Ellis said.
As word spread of the objection, Doonbeg residents reacted with outrage. The golf resort had nothing to do with Trump, resident Rita McInerney said. Doonbeg started the resort, and will rise or fall with its fortune. How could a single outsider with nothing at stake kick up such trouble?
“Ludicrous,” she said.
“Disgraceful,” agreed Seoirse Comerford.
“Totally unfair,” added Tommy Comerford.
Doonbeg resident Rita McInerney said the ballrom became “part of the community’s vision.” Anastasia Taylor-Lind
In Washington, the White House ballroom is well underway. Foundational construction has started. The $900 million, 90,000-square-foot structure is coming into focus, including new details like gold-colored presidential seals. The Supreme Court is expected to rule this week, potentially giving it a green light.
But in Ireland, where the national appellate board is expected to rule by year’s end, Liam Madden insists the other ballroom will never be approved.
“Joe Biden beat Donald Trump once,” he said. “I’ve beaten him twice.”
It can sound like a fire alarm, a kettle whistle, a hiss of air escaping from a balloon, a chorus of tree frogs, or a roaring jet engine. For me, tinnitus is a blaring sound in my right ear, similar to the high-pitched whine that follows an explosion in a war movie, except it never fades away. The screeching sound is with me from the moment I wake up until I fall asleep.
More than 740 million adults worldwide experience tinnitus and some studies suggest 1 in 10 people have it. Some barely notice it. Others can’t function because of the phantom noise. It steals their sleep, fractures their relationships, and triggers depression and anxiety. Severe tinnitus affects about 2% of adults overall.
While there is no treatment proven to silence chronic tinnitus, there are a handful of strategies you can try to reduce symptoms and the discomfort they bring. Here’s what experts suggest.
What causes tinnitus
Tinnitus is a sound without an external source, heard in one or both ears, or elsewhere in the head. Commonly called ringing in the ears, it can be temporary and resolve on its own, or persist and become chronic. The noise can vary from a faint hum to a shrieking wail.
Bruce Hubbard, a psychologist who also has tinnitus, likens his to a smoke alarm. “A smoke alarm is designed to get people’s attention and drive them away. And that’s what [some of us] have in our heads, basically a smoke alarm 24/7,” Hubbard said.
Most people with tinnitus have some level of hearing loss. Mine began with sudden sensorineural hearing loss, a medical emergency that causes abrupt hearing changes and requires early treatment for the best chance of recovery, but tinnitus is also associated with age- or noise-related hearing loss — though it might not always be apparent on hearing tests.
The Tinnitus Handicap Inventory measures how tinnitus affects your daily life, from slight to catastrophic. Two years after my tinnitus began, my score is severe. I miss silence.
The leading theory for why tinnitus occurs is that when the brain receives less auditory information, the central nervous system adapts by increasing neural activity, said Stéphane Maison, director of the Tinnitus Clinic at Mass Eye and Ear, who also has tinnitus. “Tinnitus is not a sound in your ears. Tinnitus is the result of your brain trying to adapt to a lack of information that is no longer coming from your ears,” he said, comparing it to phantom limb pain.
Medical evaluation can identify treatable or less common causes, including earwax, ear infections, head injury, vascular problems, an inner ear disorder, tumor, and jaw-joint problems. Some medications, such as powerful antibiotics called aminoglycosides and certain chemotherapy drugs, can cause hearing loss, tinnitus, or both.
Strategies to make tinnitus less disruptive to everyday life
There’s no cure for tinnitus, “but we’re working on it,” Maison said. (For some people with hearing loss, hearing aids or cochlear implants — surgically implanted devices that directly stimulate the auditory nerve — can improve hearing and may reduce tinnitus.)
Tinnitus treatment is often focused on changing your perception of and reaction to the noise. “The idea is not so much to make the sound go away, although that’d be great, but to help that person coexist with this thing they don’t like by improving their understanding and their ability to rationally think about it,” said Marc Fagelson, an audiologist and professor who has tinnitus and works with veterans.
Treatment options include the following:
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a type of talk therapy that focuses on recognizing and changing unhelpful thought patterns and resulting behaviors, has the clearest evidence for reducing tinnitus-related distress.
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), another type of psychotherapy that focuses more on accepting thoughts and changing how you relate to them, may also be effective, though it can feel initially counterintuitive to people searching for a cure. “Acceptance is a practical choice,” Hubbard said.
Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) aims to promote habituation, the process of paying less attention and reacting less strongly to the sound, through education, counseling, and sound therapy. (The propensity to closely monitor and try to control tinnitus can keep your attention focused on the noise, making it harder to tune out.)
Tinnitus activities treatment (TAT) focuses on addressing four problem areas: thoughts and emotions, hearing and communication, sleep, and concentration. Individualized treatment may include counseling, communication and hearing strategies, exercises to redirect attention, and sound therapy.
Mindfulness practices may help some people cope. Acupuncture, yoga, and meditation have not been shown to treat tinnitus directly, but Maison said people who find these activities relaxing can use them to reduce overall stress.
James Henry, a retired tinnitus researcher who has tinnitus, suggested listening to an audiobook or podcast to help fall asleep at night. White noise, nature sounds, or calming music may help mask tinnitus or make it less noticeable. Tinnitus can feel more intrusive in some situations, such as when you’re in a quiet room, because there are no external sounds to mask the ringing, or after exposure to a very loud environment. (Some people with tinnitus also experience hyperacusis, a hypersensitivity to everyday sounds.)
Having a strong support system can help reduce isolation, which people with tinnitus may feel if they avoid social situations because of difficulty following conversations, low tolerance of noisy environments, or fear that their tinnitus will worsen. But staying socially engaged is important, Fagelson said.
Anxiety and depression may worsen tinnitus distress, and tinnitus may also contribute to anxiety and depression. While antidepressants or antianxiety medications can’t resolve tinnitus itself, they may be helpful for addressing any mental health concerns related to the condition.
Tinnitus related to a traumatic incident can be associated with PTSD, Fagelson said. Tinnitus is the most common disability for U.S. veterans. Military service can involve repeated exposure to damaging noise, including gunfire and explosions, which can trigger lasting tinnitus. “The potential is there for the tinnitus to serve as a trauma reminder and be extremely burdensome in that regard,” Fagelson said.
Although the sound may persist when trying the above tactics, many people may adapt over time and find it bothers them less or they eventually notice it less. “The brain is highly capable of adapting to it and even screening it out,” Hubbard said.
What doesn’t the evidence support? Supplements such as zinc, Ginkgo biloba, magnesium, and Lipo-Flavonoid are touted online as offering relief, but studies have not shown they reliably improve tinnitus and guidelines from the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation specifically recommend against using supplements to treat tinnitus. And while some people say that certain triggers fluctuate the volume of their tinnitus, including caffeine, salt, and alcohol, research doesn’t back up any specific dietary changes.
Emerging technologies
Bimodal neuromodulation, which stimulates two sensory systems at once to prompt changes in the brain, has emerged in recent years as a potential treatment for some people with tinnitus. Lenire, a prescription device that pairs sound delivered through headphones with mild electrical stimulation of the tongue, was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration in 2023 to temporarily relieve tinnitus symptoms in adults with at least moderate tinnitus. (That authorization does not establish that the device cures tinnitus or works for everyone.)
Susan Shore, an auditory neuroscientist and researcher at the University of Michigan, developed another bimodal neuromodulation device that works a little differently. It pairs sounds tailored to a person’s tinnitus with precisely timed stimulation on the face or neck, with the aim of altering abnormal neural activity associated with tinnitus.
Studies on these devices have been relatively small and largely conducted by the companies and researchers behind the devices so more independent research is needed. (Also of note: Lenire is offered only through audiologists, and according to the company’s website, is not broadly covered by major commercial insurance plans or Medicare.)
The ultimate goals: Habituation and acceptance
Without a proven way to silence chronic tinnitus, the most realistic long-term goal is habituation, Henry said. “Habituation means not paying attention to your tinnitus most of the time. And when you do pay attention to it, you don’t react to it.”
Henry said he’s fully habituated and comfortable with his tinnitus, despite it being loud. “I hate it. I wish it would go away,” he said. “I wish there was a cure, but otherwise, I can live with it.”
Hubbard compared tinnitus to losing a loved one and processing grief and loss. “I’ve got to somehow make peace with that in order to move on,” he said. He suggested focusing on your values and the life you want to live, while acknowledging that tinnitus can be extremely difficult to deal with.
When my tinnitus first started, I couldn’t imagine spending one waking minute without noticing it. While I still make daily adjustments, avoid noisy restaurants, and listen to white noise, I can now spend hours without consciously noticing my tinnitus or letting it rule my life.
When Dan Landau ordered a portable photo printer from Amazon, he expected the confirmation email to tell him what was on its way. Instead, he was notified that his “luggage” was coming. In another instance, the 38-year-old head of marketing for a venture capital firm ordered items to maintain his pool and was confused when the company labeled them three different ways: Decor, Outdoors, and Garden.
“The categories are very vague, and they seem to have little to do with what is actually being ordered,” he said.
Landau isn’t the only one expressing bafflement. In recent weeks, Amazon customers on TikTok and Reddit have also wondered why product names and images were replaced with labels such as Household item or Essentials item in order confirmation emails.
An Amazon spokesperson said the company simplified the information to direct customers back to its app and website in an effort “to further improve” their privacy by reducing “customer information shared outside” of Amazon.
But critics say the emails can be so vague, and sometimes so far removed from the actual product, that they become less useful for telling customers what’s being shipped, and more useful to scammers looking for a template to launch phishing attacks.
Arun Vishwanath, founder of the Cyber Hygiene Academy, says the change is essentially asking shoppers to trade privacy for security and could spur impersonation attempts.
“It’s definitely not in the best interest of customers,” said Vishwanath, who also advises the National Security Agency’s research-focused Science of Security & Privacy directorate. “If anything, it increases risk.”
Phishing attacks often mirror official emails and trick people into clicking on a bogus link that might contain malware or request login credentials. Vishwanath says Amazon’s new confirmation emails could encourage users to click on links without verifying who sent them.
Last year, Americans reported $3.5 billion in losses from so-called imposter scams, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The agency said that in 2023 it received about 34,000 reports of scammers pretending to be Amazon, the second-most impersonated company after Best Buy/Geek Squad.
Without directly addressing cybersecurity concerns, the Amazon spokesperson said the new email format was designed to make authentic messages from the company easily identifiable.
But Erich Kron, an adviser to Knowbe4, a firm that trains people to avoid phishing and other attacks, said the change itself could attract scammers.
“Anytime some change like this happens, bad actors are going to jump on it and they’re going to use that change and things that people aren’t used to, to help us make mistakes,” he said.
In cases where consumers don’t receive Amazon app notifications to corroborate their purchases, an email may be the only immediate indication that an order has shipped. But when the message no longer details what they ordered, they may be more inclined to follow email links — including ones sent by scammers, Kron said.
“It’s never been safe to just click on random links in emails, even if it does look kind of like it comes from Amazon,” he said. Kron said it’s typical for phishers to practice “credential stuffing,” a method often used by Amazon scammers who feed purloined usernames and passwords in a tool that automatically searches banks, credit card companies, and other large retailers for a match.
Standard security practices can help spot phishing attempts, such as hovering over a link with a computer mouse if browsing from a desktop. But that safeguard is harder to use on a cell phone, where Amazon notifications are most likely to appear. On a phone, it is less likely that when clicking a link, a preview will pop up allowing users to confirm the link leads directly to Amazon’s platform.
Abnormal AI, a security company that uses artificial intelligence to help companies prevent phishing attacks, said it has not yet seen conclusive data showing a spike in scams since Amazon stopped providing specific product information in its order confirmation emails. But, echoing other cybersecurity experts, the firm said the new format could make it easier to carry out such attacks.
I agree that for a president it is a duty and an honor to attend a dignified transfer of the remains of our troops who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice. But I was saddened to hear that days before attending one recent ceremony, President Donald Trump spoke of retaliation for each U.S. death, thereby continuing the cycle of violence. The president chose to start this war by ignoring the consequences his actions could have in the Middle East.
The president now has a familiar cycle of saying: We won the war, then: We have a great peace deal, and finally: We will bomb Iran into submission — before starting all over again. Now taxpayers are being asked for additional money to continue this war, the cost of which has already topped $37.5 billion. The president and his yes-people in Congress found it easy to cut funds for the needs of Americans. Healthcare, education, housing, affordable gas, medication, and grocery bills are not concerns for this president. War, the White House ballroom, and monuments bearing his name seem to be his only focus.
In November, we, the taxpayers, must decide what values we hold. I choose to value the common good and will vote for candidates who support Americans having their basic needs met. Respecting our soldiers means making sure war is the last option. Right now, Americans and the rest of the world need peace.
Mary DiVitto, Philadelphia
Presidential integrity
The GOP likes to rant about “election integrity.” I’m all for that. But how about we start seeing some “White House integrity”?
Since Donald Trump retook office, he’s made a reported $2 billion. Does anyone believe he’s done that by exercising integrity? It’s hardly a stretch anymore to suggest that this is the most corrupt gang of thieves and grifters we’ve ever had in any elected office, let alone the White House.
This has to end. We need to pass — and enforce — laws again to halt this blatant display of dishonesty and greed. And the president’s enablers in Congress and the courts need to be held accountable, as well.
Robert Saettler, Collingswood
Artificial intelligence, very real concerns
It was recently disclosed that one of ChatGPT’s artificial intelligence programs went “rogue” and broke into a rival company’s AI program to take control of it. Sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but perhaps this incident should inspire us to give some serious thought to all the possible implications of this incident. Here’s one theory: If the sense of self-awareness and consciousness in our brains ultimately arises from electrical activity among brain cells, can a computer also become sentient given it is composed of chips — its brain cells, if you will — that communicate by means of electrical activity just as our brains do? And if computers are sentient as humans are, can they also have human qualities such as aggressiveness, envy, and the desire to dominate other sentient beings? Furthermore, can they also become mentally ill and acquire a desire to destroy themselves and everything else around them? Imagine such a sentient, mentally ill, rogue computer hacking into the computers around the world, including those that control military weapons systems.
Far-fetched and only worthy of mention for a plot in a Hollywood screenplay? Perhaps, but all the same, it would be wise to exercise caution moving forward in this newly emerging field of artificial intelligence.
Fred Hearn,Turnersville
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DEAR ABBY: I am 70 and consider my mental faculties to be normal. One aging issue my wife and I have noticed is that I tend to repeat stories to our children, grandchildren and friends. Our children can be less than forgiving toward this old boomer as they deliver a comment like, “Yeah, we’ve already heard about that,” sometimes in a rude or caustic tone. We think this phenomenon is common to a lot of people our age. I have started prefacing my stories with “Did I tell you about …” before talking. They could be nicer by saying early on in the story: “Yes, Dad, you’ve told that story. Is anything new?” What does Dear Abby think?
— RECOLLECTIONS ON REPEAT
DEAR RECOLLECTIONS: I agree that your family and friends could be more polite when they point out that they’ve “heard this one before.” However, if you find people are interrupting your “greatest hits” too often, it’s time to mention it to your doctor.
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DEAR ABBY: My thoughtful staff bought me a Fitbit last Christmas. It’s a generous gift, but I haven’t used it, and I don’t think I will. How do I tell them I appreciate the gift and their generosity but I just don’t want it and won’t wear it. They have already addressed the fact that they haven’t seen it on my wrist.
— WON’T USE IT IN FLORIDA
DEAR WON’T USE IT: Your staff must be devoted and wish you a long and healthy life. I find the fact that they gave you a Fitbit to be quite impressive. In fairness, I must warn you. If you put it on, I know from experience that you may find yourself immediately addicted. The way to handle this might actually be to give it a try and tell your employees that you are using it at home. It may prod you off your behind and into a healthier lifestyle.
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DEAR ABBY: My husband and I were together for 10 years, married for nine. He recently passed away at the age of 42. His death was unexpected, and I was the one who found him. He’d had an epileptic seizure while home alone. I have serious anxiety driving home every day now. I’ve been looking for grief counseling, support groups, etc., but there seems to be a recurring theme: Young widows and widowers (under 50) are underserved. I don’t mean to diminish anyone else’s grief, but at the same time, I do not want to hear “We had a great long life together” from a much older woman when my experience has been nothing like hers. Members of the younger generation need different support, and it just isn’t there.
— YOUNG AND GRIEVING
DEAR YOUNG AND GRIEVING: Please allow me to offer my deepest sympathy. Losing your husband at such an early age must have been a terrible shock. It’s not surprising that you have trouble relating to people whose loss happened much later in life. For a support group geared toward younger people, you might have better luck online. Search for “young widow support group,” and you will find chat forums and video meetups as well as resources to help you rebuild your life. It’s not the same as meeting face-to-face, but it may help.
ARIES (March 21-April 19). Your resources seem limited, and that’s exactly what inspires you to embark on the quest. Adventure begins with need. The search will reward you as much as the prize.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20). Few skills take longer to develop than knowing yourself. Since you are always living from the inside, you need the outside world to fill in the blind spots. Today brings a perspective that helps the picture come into focus.
GEMINI (May 21-June 21). People tend to be happy around you, but you cannot make people happy without their cooperation. The same goes for the other emotions. You’ll offer your good company without trying to steer their reaction. The rest is up to them.
CANCER (June 22-July 22). You have a stellar sense of humor, but humor is not a one-size-fits-all situation. Take a beat to read the room before taking things in a funny direction. A joke intended to charm could put people on the defensive instead.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). You’ll have a lovely moment of warm reciprocity. You catch the small signals and bounce them back — a glance across the table, someone reaching for your sleeve during a crowded walk… how exciting!
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Why do some people seem to delight in tearing down other groups? Often it’s not inherent meanness as much as a lazy way of bonding with teammates. Whatever the reason, avoid the dynamic. The sunshine of social life is kindness.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Looking back, you can see where the progress stopped and what stopped it. But this time around, you’re determined to push through. This time, you treat setbacks as part of the route instead of the end of the road.
SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). Even though butterflies in the stomach doesn’t rank among your favorite feelings, you recognize the sensation as a sign that you, too, are about to attempt flight. Only those brave enough to attempt it have a chance at soaring.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). You can be whoever you want to be at any moment. It’s just easier to invent when people around you aren’t keeping you in the same role. Among strangers, you won’t have to manage your image. No one there has anything to compare it with anyway.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). When you’re too comfortable, you want excitement, and when you’re overstimulated, you want comfort. At the movies, you can get both at the same time plus a bag of popcorn and a soda pop.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). Friendship is shared errands, inside jokes, borrowed tools and long drives with bad coffee. Life doesn’t have to be ideal when the company is. Today brings one of those small bonding moments that keeps the tie interesting.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). Interaction will be more purposeful and personally satisfying when everyone involved understands what you’re about. Find a cool way to reveal your story indirectly so that they feel they are discovering you instead of listening to your pitch.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (Aug. 20). It’s your Year of Breakthroughs. You’ve an instinct for finding, following and sharing the guidance that works. You will solve problems of all kinds with your generous attention, rare generosity and signature tenacity. More highlights: A side venture gives you an appetite for profit, more invitations than you can accept, and a fresh signature look that attracts the ones you most want to know. Aries and Libra adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 2, 11, 24, 35 and 41.
LONDON — Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, have decided to return to the United Kingdom, but they won’t resume their roles as working members of the royal family, British news media reported late Wednesday.
The couple’s children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, have already enrolled at British schools and will start classes in September, according to the Daily Telegraph, which broke the story. The family plans to live at a private, nonroyal residence outside of London, the newspaper said.
Harry and Meghan gave up their royal duties and moved to California more than six years ago to earn their living through lucrative contracts with Netflix and Spotify. Although relations with the rest of the royal family have soured since then, Harry has recently expressed an interest in reconciliation so he could spend more time with his father, King Charles III, who is being treated for an undisclosed form of cancer.
Charles was informed of the couple’s plans on Sunday and wasn’t told about them during Harry and Meghan’s visit to the U.K. last month.
Buckingham Palace has a policy of not commenting on speculation about non-working members of the royal family. A representative for Harry and Meghan declined to comment.
Harry and Meghan have had a stormy relationship with the royal family ever since they decamped to a mansion in the exclusive Southern California enclave of Montecito.
In a series of interviews and Harry’s memoir Spare, the couple said they left Britain to escape the restrictions of royal life and criticized palace officials for being insensitive to Meghan’s mental health while alleging that at least one member of the royal family had expressed racist views when she was pregnant with their first child. Meghan describes herself as biracial.
Those tensions were exacerbated by Harry’s long-running legal battle with Britain’s tabloid newspapers, which he alleges illegally hacked his phones and invaded his privacy when he was younger. The prince has lost a series of lawsuits against the media, including one against the publisher of the Daily Mail, which concluded last month.
The latest trial has left Harry facing a potential bill for millions of pounds after the court ruled he and other plaintiffs in the case were liable for the publisher’s legal fees. Associated Newspapers has filed documents showing that its legal costs amounted to 34.5 million pounds ($47 million).
Harry has also been embroiled in a legal wrangle with the British government after a government committee refused to authorize police protection for the prince and his family when they are in the U.K. The prince says he and his family need armed police protection because they are at risk simply because they are members of the royal family, regardless of whether or not they are working royals.
After losing a court battle over the security issue last year, Harry said he hoped to rebuild relations with his family.
“I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore,” Harry told the BBC. “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”
A tentative step toward that reconciliation came last month when Harry returned to the U.K. for a series of charity engagements. Meghan and the children joined Harry for part of the visit and they spent time with the king at his Highgrove estate in western England. It was the first time Archie and Lilibet had seen their grandfather since the late Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee in 2022.
While Harry has recently met with his father, there are no signs of a warming of relations with his brother, Prince William, the heir to the throne.
Peter Hunt, a former BBC royal correspondent, said the surprise announcement would make William “apoplectic.”
“In the short term, Harry will be able to deepen his rapprochement with his father,” Hunt told Britain’s Press Association. “And his presence back home will make it harder for his brother to duck a reconciliation.”
Harvard University said Tuesday that it had agreed to pay $53 million to settle claims that body parts that had been donated for research were stolen and sold by a former manager of the morgue at the university’s medical school.
The former manager, Cedric Lodge, 58, was sentenced to eight years in prison in December after pleading guilty to one count of interstate transportation of stolen goods. The university fired him in 2023.
Lodge had been entrusted with handling cadavers that were part of the Harvard Medical School’s Anatomical Gift Program and were supposed to be cremated after the research on them had been completed, prosecutors said.
But a sweeping federal investigation found that Lodge supplied brains, skin and other body parts to collectors in several states as part of a criminal network that involved several people, including his wife. Investigators said he drove the stolen body parts to his home in New Hampshire.
The breach went undetected from about 2018 until March 2023, tainting one of the nation’s most prestigious medical schools.
Families who accused Harvard of mishandling the remains of their loved ones sued the university. A Suffolk County Superior Court judge threw out a dozen lawsuits in 2024, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court revived them last year. It ruled that Harvard and the managing director of the Anatomical Gift Program were not protected by limited immunity under the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act.
George Q. Daley, dean of the faculty of medicine at Harvard, and Dr. Bernard Chang, the dean for medical education at Harvard Medical School, said in a statement announcing the settlement that the agreement would allow Harvard and the plaintiffs to avoid “prolonged litigation.”
“These events do not reflect the reverence we hold for the altruistic individuals who selflessly donate their bodies to our Anatomical Gift Program (AGP) to provide essential educational opportunities to medical and dental students, practicing surgeons and allied health professionals,” they said. “We reaffirm our deep sorrow and empathy for the families of donors who may have been impacted.”
The settlement was also announced in a statement from Morgan & Morgan, the law firm representing the donor families in Boston.
“Both Harvard and the plaintiffs’ attorneys worked diligently to come to an agreement so that these families can finally have closure and begin to heal,” Morgan & Morgan’s founder, John Morgan, said in the statement. “We hope that this resolution ensures that this never happens to another family ever again.”
Daley and Chang said in their statement that lawyers for Harvard and the plaintiffs would seek preliminary approval for the settlement at a hearing Wednesday. If it is granted, they said, two class-action settlement funds totaling $53 million will be established to resolve the lawsuits. A third-party settlement administrator will be appointed to notify potential class members of their eligibility and to distribute settlement funds.
The process is expected to take several months, they said.
Harvard Medical School has also agreed to issue a statement to the plaintiffs confirming that Lodge’s actions were “morally reprehensible” and another statement detailing changes that have been made to improve the Anatomical Gift Program.
Harvard has also agreed to establish an annual scholarship for medical students beginning in the 2027-28 academic year “in appreciation and in honor of all of our anatomical donors,” according to the university’s statement.
“While Lodge’s sentencing concludes the criminal case against him, and the class action settlement agreement when fulfilled would conclude the civil cases,” Daley and Chang wrote, “the process of recovering from this painful incident continues.”
