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AARP Launches Campaign to Root Out Social Media Scams

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WASHINGTON (FNN NEWS) — AARP — With scams and fraud schemes proliferating on social media, the AARP Fraud Watch Network has launched a campaign to educate Americans about social media hazards and provide information about how they can protect themselves.

“Scammers have been using email and telephone calls to target unsuspecting victims for years. Now, with today’s boom in social media use, the con artists are just as likely to use Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms to execute their insidious scams to steal people’s money and identities,” said AARP Fraud Watch Network Ambassador Frank Abagnale. According to the Pew Research Center, approximately 70 percent of Americans regularly use social media.

The Fraud Watch Network education campaign includes advertising, online videos and a new website, www.aarp.org/SocialScams. The effort warns consumers about specific social media scams, such as the coupon scamand the genealogy scam:

  • Fraudsters execute the coupon scam by distributing advertisements featuring too-good-to-be-true deals on hot items. The real goal is to charge your credit card for phony goods or products you never receive, or to collect your personal information for identity theft.
  • The genealogy scam capitalizes on the current popularity of ancestry research. Scammers set up a legitimate-looking website and social media account – often mimicking the name of an authentic genealogy site by altering a character or two of the name. Victims are duped into providing their credit card information, Social Security numbers and other personal information to the identity thieves.

Abagnale provides the following tips to avoid identity theft via social media:

  • Never post personal information, including your Social Security number – not even the last four digits — birthday, place of birth, home address, phone numbers, or personal account information.
  • Avoid posting a front-facing picture of your full face on social media sites. A con artist can copy the image and use it to create a photo ID that can be used to steal your identity.
  • Set the privacy options for each of your social media accounts to restrict your information so it can only be viewed by people you select. Check your privacy settings regularly.
  • Don’t log in to your social media accounts via a public wireless network, where scammers can lurk. A 2016 surveyby the AARP Fraud Watch Network found that more than 70 percent of the respondents have accessed their email, Facebook and other social media accounts via free public Wi-Fi.

Abagnale, who was named AARP Fraud Watch Ambassador in 2015, has been associated with the FBI for more than four decades, and has advised and consulted with hundreds of financial institutions, corporations and government agencies around the world. Abagnale’s story was told in his best-selling book, Catch Me if You Can, and in the 2002 movie of the same name, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks.

The AARP Fraud Watch Network was launched in 2013 as a free resource for people of all ages. The website provides information about fraud and scams, prevention tips from experts, an interactive scam-tracking map, fun educational quizzes, and video presentations featuring Abagnale. Users may sign up for “Watchdog Alert” emails that deliver breaking scam information, or call a free helpline at 877-908-3360 to speak with volunteers trained in fraud counseling.

SOURCE | AARP

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US NATIONAL NEWS

Team Biden-Harris Launches Latinos con Biden-Harris

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Today, Team Biden-Harris is launching Latinos con Biden-Harris, a national organizing program to engage and mobilize Latino voters, communities, and leaders across the country. Latinos are among the fastest-growing demographic groups in the country, and Latinos con Biden-Harris will ensure the campaign meets Latino voters where they are with trusted messengers and by organizing directly in their communities to earn their vote — in small businesses, dining room tables, and through social media.

Later today, President Biden will officially kick off Latinos con Biden-Harris in Arizona alongside Latino organizers. The President’s Arizona event will kickstart a series of efforts and events both online and in-person to engage, train, and mobilize Latino supporters on messaging and relational organizing to reach their friends and families about the President, his story, and the choice Latinos will face in this election. Throughout the week, the campaign will also hold events — including organizing events, volunteer trainings, and house parties — in battleground states, including Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.

“The Latino vote was critical to the President’s victory in 2020, and 2024 will be no different,” said Biden-Harris 2o24 Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez. “Latinos con Biden-Harris will be essential to activating and mobilizing Latinos across the country, and importantly, is another way we are making clear with action that we are investing aggressively into earning the Latino vote. Our community has deep roots in organizing, and we are excited to harness that skillset to fight for our families, our communities, and against Donald Trump’s anti-Latino agenda. There’s too much at stake in this election.”

To launch Latinos con Biden-Harris, Campaign Co-Chair Congresswoman Veronica Escobar shared a video about the important role Latinos will play in reelecting President Biden and Vice President Harris, and the stakes of this election for the Latino community.

The launch of Latinos con Biden-Harris builds on the campaign’s aggressive and tailored strategy to reaching Latinos:

  • Vice President Harris just completed a swing across Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado focused on reaching Latino voters.
  • First Lady Jill Biden recently traveled to Nevada where she met with Latina mothers to discuss the stakes in this election and the importance of Latino voters to the Biden-Harris coalition.
  • Alongside the launch of Latinos con Biden-Harris, the campaign will engage and coordinate closely with leaders and stakeholders from across the country, focusing on different and critical segments of the Latino community like young Latinos and Latino men.
  • Building off of the 2020 campaign’s efforts to tailor and target its efforts to the many different backgrounds of Latinos in this country, Latinos con Biden-Harris will include grassroots-led efforts to reach individual diasporas like Mexicanos con Biden-Harris, Venezolanos con Biden-Harris, Boricuas con Biden-Harris, and more.
  • In the past few days alone, both President Biden and Vice President Harris have participated in six Hispanic media interviews, including two nationally syndicated interviews with President Biden airing this morning to correspond with the program’s launch.

Today, Team Biden-Harris will also announce its first Latino creative as a part of its $30 million spring paid media buy. “Only One Choice”or “Una Opción” is a direct-to-camera video from President Biden in Spanish, English, and Spanglish that outlines his commitment to delivering on lower costs and more opportunities for Latino families — in stark contrast to Donald Trump, who has demonized Latinos throughout his political career and is pursuing an agenda that hurts Latinos. This ad and this buy build on Team Biden-Harris’ historic 2023 paid media buy that was both the largest and earliest investment in Hispanic media for a reelection campaign in history.

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Vice President Harris Opens NAACP Image Awards by Urging People Across America to Register to Vote

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WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris opened the 55th NAACP Image Awards on Saturday night by urging people across the nation to register to vote or check their registration status. During a surprise video that kicked off the ceremony, the Vice President asked Queen Latifah to remind viewers to go to Vote.Gov.

“Remind people about how important this election is coming up in November,” Vice President Harris urged Queen Latifah. “If you can ask people to go to Vote.gov to register to vote or to check their registration status, that would mean a lot.”

The Vice President has consistently led efforts to protect voting rights and advance voter registration. Last month, she convened her second meeting of 2024 with leaders who are on the frontlines of protecting voting rights and registering communities to vote. During the roundtable conversation, she announced new steps that the Biden-Harris Administration is taking to ensure Americans have the information they need to vote, promote voter participation for students, protect election workers, and fight voter suppression laws. In January, she was in Atlanta, GA for a roundtable conversation on voting rights where she called out extremists across the country for their full-on assault on the freedom to vote at a time when more than 300 anti-voter bills were introduced last year.

Since being sworn in, Vice President Harris has been working with President Biden to ensure that the voting rights of Americans are protected and advanced. In addition to her work on pushing for federal legislation, the Vice President has consistently convened a broad coalition of voting rights champions to strategize about what we must do to ensure that Americans have access to the ballot. She has consistently brought together leaders from the Black community, Latino community, Asian American and Pacific Islander community, Native American and Tribal community, voters with disabilities, youth, poll workers and election officials, and democracy advocacy groups.

In addition to these convenings, Vice President Harris has continued her leadership on voting rights and in the fight for fundamental freedoms:

  • In January, the Vice President traveled to South Carolina to mark the third anniversary of the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol by delivering the keynote speech at the 7th Episcopal District AME Church Women’s Missionary Society’s annual retreat. Her address focused on the full-on attack on hard fought, hard-won freedoms.

 

  • In the fall, the Vice President launched a nationwide “Fight for Our Freedoms” college tour in which she energized more than 15,000 students and young leaders. The Vice President took questions from students on a range of issues – including voting rights – and called on students to register to vote, organize, and stay involved in the fight for our freedoms.

 

  • Last year, the Vice President also held a Summer of Action in which she traveled to 17 states to hold a series of events. During these events, the Vice President spoke about voting rights and how the Administration is fighting back against attacks on fundamental freedoms. For example, she visited the Gila River Indian Community where she spoke about the need for the Native American Voting Rights Act.

 

  • In July, the Vice President convened a roundtable discussion on the Americans with Disabilities Act that focused on voting rights and built on an earlier convening about making voting more accessible for those with disabilities.

 

  • In March of 2022, the Vice President delivered remarks commemorating the President’s Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting.

 

  • The Vice President has regularly held meetings about voting rights with state legislators and members of Congress across the country. This includes traveling to Tennessee after Rep. Jones and Rep. Pearson were expelled, speaking with Texas legislators who were working to block voter suppression efforts, and holding a listening session in Michigan.

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US NATIONAL NEWS

Bennettsville mourns the passing of South Carolina Army Veteran Ronnie Smith

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J Willie David, III / Florida National News

South Carolina Army veteran Ronnie Smith passed away in Bennettsville, unexpectedly, at the age of 64.

“He lived a life of dedication to his family and country,” said J Willie David, III, Smith’s brother-in-law.

A funeral service will be held Saturday, March 16, 2024, at 3:00pm at the Berea Baptist Convention Center. Interment will follow in the Berea Memorial Garden.

For more information visit Bethea Funeral Home, LLC.

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