free poker game Ambitions, bills and grudges: Reasons DeSantis for defense secretary may never happenNEW YORK — The masked gunman who stalked and killed the leader of one of the largest U.S. health insurance companies outside a Manhattan hotel used ammunition emblazoned with the words "deny," "defend" and "depose," two law enforcement officials said Thursday. The words were written in permanent marker, according to one of the officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. With the gunman still at large, police also released photos of a person they said was wanted for questioning in connection with the shooting. UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, died in a dawn ambush Wednesday as he walked to the company's annual investor conference at a Hilton hotel in Midtown. The reason behind the killing remained unknown, but investigators believe it was a targeted attack. This image shows a man wanted for questioning in connection to the investigation of the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel. The message left on the ammunition echoes the phrase "delay, deny, defend," which is commonly used by attorneys and insurance industry critics to describe tactics used to avoid paying claims. It refers to insurers delaying payment, denying a claim and then defending their actions. Health insurers like UnitedHealthcare have become frequent targets of criticism from doctors and patients for complicating access to care. Investigators recovered several 9 mm shell casings from outside the hotel and a cellphone from the alleyway through which the shooter fled. Inside a nearby trash can, they found a water bottle and protein bar wrapper that they say the gunman purchased from a nearby Starbucks minutes before the shooting. The city's medical examiner was looking for fingerprints. The killing and the shooter's movements in the minutes before and after were captured on some of the multitudes of security cameras present in that part of the city. The shooter fled on a bike and was last seen riding into Central Park. Bullets lie on the sidewalk Wednesday outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan where Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed in New York. The hunt for the shooter brought New York City police to at least two hostels on Manhattan's Upper West Side on Thursday morning, based on a tip that the suspected shooter might have stayed at one of the residences, according to one of the law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation. The photos police released Thursday of a man wanted for questioning were taken in the lobby of the HI New York City hostel. "We are fully cooperating with the NYPD and, as this is an active investigation, can not comment at this time," said Danielle Brumfitt, a spokesperson for the hostel. Police received a flood of tips from members of the public, many of them unfounded. On Wednesday evening, police searched a Long Island Rail Road train after a commuter claimed to have spotted the shooter, but found no sign of the gunman. "We're following up on every single tip that comes in," said Carlos Nieves, a police spokesperson. "That little piece of information could be the missing piece of the puzzle that ties everything together." Investigators believe, judging from surveillance video and evidence collected from the scene, that the shooter had at least some prior firearms training and experience with guns and the weapon was equipped with a silencer, said one of the law enforcement officials who spoke with the AP. This still image from surveillance video shows the suspect, left, sought in the the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, center, Wednesday outside a Manhattan hotel. Security camera video showed the killer approach Thompson from behind, level his pistol and fire several shots, barely pausing to clear a gun jam while the health executive tumbled to the pavement. Cameras showed him fleeing the block across a pedestrian plaza before getting on the bicycle. Police issued several surveillance images of the man wearing a hooded jacket and a mask that concealed most of his face, which wouldn't have attracted attention on a frigid day. Authorities also used drones, helicopters and dogs in an intensive search, but the killer's whereabouts remained unknown. Thompson, a father of two sons who lived in suburban Minneapolis, was with UnitedHealthcare since 2004 and served as CEO for more than three years. The insurer's Minnetonka, Minnesota-based parent company, UnitedHealth Group Inc., was holding its annual meeting with investors in New York to update Wall Street on the company's direction and expectations for the coming year. The company ended the conference early in the wake of Thompson's death. UnitedHealthcare is the largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans in the U.S. and manages health insurance coverage for employers and state and federally funded Medicaid programs. In the U.S. healthcare system, even the simplest act, like booking an appointment with your primary care physician, may feel intimidating. As you wade through intake forms and insurance statements, and research out-of-network coverage , you might wonder, "When did U.S. health care get so confusing?" Short answer? It's complicated. The history of modern U.S. health care spans nearly a century, with social movements, legislation, and politics driving change. Take a trip back in time as Thatch highlights some of the most impactful legislation and policies that gave us the existing healthcare system, particularly how and when things got complicated. In the beginning, a common perception of American doctors was that they were kindly old men stepping right out of a Saturday Evening Post cover illustration to make house calls. If their patients couldn't afford their fee, they'd accept payment in chicken or goats. Health care was relatively affordable and accessible. Then it all fell apart during the Great Depression of the 1930s. That's when hospital administrators started looking for ways to guarantee payment. According to the American College of Healthcare Executives, this is when the earliest form of health insurance was born. Interestingly, doctors would have none of it at first. The earliest health plans covered hospitalization only. A new set of challenges from the Second World War required a new set of responses. During the Depression, there were far too many people and too few jobs. The war economy had the opposite effect. Suddenly, all able-bodied men were in the military, but somebody still had to build the weapons and provision the troops. Even with women entering the workforce in unprecedented numbers, there was simply too much to get done. The competition for skilled labor was brutal. A wage freeze starting in 1942 forced employers to find other means of recruiting and retaining workers. Building on the recently mandated workers' compensation plans, employers or their union counterparts started offering insurance to cover hospital and doctor visits. Of course, the wage freeze ended soon after the war. However, the tax code and the courts soon clarified that employer-sponsored health insurance was non-taxable. Medicare, a government-sponsored health plan for retirees 65 and older, debuted in 1965. Nowadays, Medicare is offered in Parts A, B, C, and D; each offering a different layer of coverage for older Americans. As of 2023, over a quarter of all U.S. adults are enrolled in Medicare. The structure of Medicare is not dissimilar to universal health care offered in other countries, although the policy covers everyone, not just people over a certain age. Medicaid was also signed into law with Medicare. Medicaid provides health care coverage for Americans with low incomes. Over 74 million Americans are enrolled in Medicaid today. The Obama administration was neither the first nor the last to champion new ways to provide health care coverage to a wider swath of Americans. The first attempts to harmonize U.S. healthcare delivery systems with those of other developed economies came just five years after Medicare and Medicaid. Two separate bills were introduced in 1970 alone. Both bills aimed to widen affordable health benefits for Americans, either by making people Medicare-eligible or providing free health benefits for all Americans. As is the case with many bills, both these died, even though there was bipartisan support. But the chairman of the relevant Senate panel had his own bill in mind, which got through the committee. It effectively said that all Americans were entitled to the kind of health benefits enjoyed by the United Auto Workers Union or AFL-CIO—for free. But shortly after Sen. Edward Kennedy began hearings on his bill in early 1971 , a competing proposal came from an unexpected source: Richard Nixon's White House. President Nixon's approach , in retrospect, had some commonalities with what Obamacare turned out to be. There was the employer mandate, for example, and an expansion of Medicaid. It favored healthcare delivery via health maintenance organizations, or HMOs, which was a novel idea at the time. HMOs, which offer managed care within a tight network of health care providers, descended from the prepaid health plans that flourished briefly in the 1910s and 1920s. They were first conceived in their current form around 1970 by Dr. Paul M. Ellwood, Jr. In 1973, a law was passed to require large companies to give their employees an HMO option as well as a traditional health insurance option. But that was always intended to be ancillary to Nixon's more ambitious proposal, which got even closer to what exists now after it wallowed in the swamp for a while. When Nixon reintroduced the proposal in 1974, it featured state-run health insurance plans as a substitute for Medicaid—not a far cry from the tax credit-fueled state-run exchanges of today. Of course, Nixon had other things to worry about in 1974: inflation, recession, a nation just beginning to heal from its first lost war—and his looming impeachment. His successor, Gerald Ford, tried to keep the proposal moving forward, but to no avail. But this raises a good question: If the Republican president and the Democratic Senate majority both see the same problem and have competing but not irreconcilable proposals to address it, why wasn't there some kind of compromise? What major issue divided the two parties? It was a matter of funding. The Democrats wanted to pay for universal health coverage through the U.S. Treasury's general fund, acknowledging that Congress would have to raise taxes to pay for it. The Republicans wanted it to pay for itself by charging participants insurance premiums, which would be, in effect, a new tax. The next significant legislation came from President Reagan, who signed the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or COBRA, in 1985. COBRA enabled laid-off workers to hold onto their health insurance—providing that they pay 100% of the premium, which had been wholly or at least in part subsidized by their erstwhile employer. While COBRA offers continued coverage, its high expense doesn't offer much relief for the unemployed. A 2006 Commonwealth Fund survey found that only 9% of people eligible for COBRA coverage actually signed up for it. The COBRA law had a section, though, that was only tangentially related. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA, which was incorporated into COBRA, required all emergency medical facilities that take Medicare—that is, all of them—to treat patients irrespective of their insurance status or ability to pay. As Forbes staff writer Avik Roy wrote during the Obamacare debate, EMTALA has come to overshadow the rest of the COBRA law in its influence on American health care policy. More on that soon. It wasn't until the 1990s that Washington saw another serious attempt at healthcare reform. Bill Clinton's first order of business as president was to establish a new health care plan. For the first time, the First Lady took on the role of heavy-lifting policy advisor to the president and became the White House point person on universal health care. Hillary Clinton's proposal mandated : The Clintons' plan centralized decision-making in Washington, with a "National Health Board" overseeing quality assurance, training physicians, guaranteeing abortion coverage, and running both long-term care facilities and rural health systems. The insurance lobbyists had a field day with that. The famous "Harry and Louise" ads portrayed a generic American couple having tense conversations in their breakfast nook about how the federal government would come between them and their doctor. By the 1994 midterms, any chance of universal health care in America had died. In this case, it wasn't funding but the debate between big and small governments that killed the Clinton reform. It would be another generation before the U.S. saw universal health care take the stage. Fast-forward to 2010. It was clear that employer-sponsored plans were vestiges of another time. They made sense when people stayed with the same company for their entire careers, but as job-hopping and layoffs became more prevalent, plans tied to the job became obsolete. Thus the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, was proposed by Barack Obama's White House and squeaked by Congress and the Supreme Court with the narrowest of margins. The ACA introduced an individual mandate requiring everyone to have health insurance regardless of job status. It set up an array of government-sponsored online exchanges where individuals could buy coverage . It also provided advance premium tax credits to defray the cost to consumers. But it didn't ignore hat most people were already getting health insurance through work, and a significant proportion didn't want to change . So the ACA also required employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees to provide health coverage to at least 95% of them. The law, nicknamed Obamacare by supporters and detractors, set a minimum baseline of coverage and affordability. The penalty for an employer that offers inadequate or unaffordable coverage can never be greater than the penalty for not offering coverage at all. The model for Obamacare was the health care reform package that went into effect in Massachusetts in 2006. The initial proposal was made by then-Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican who now serves as a senator from Utah. Despite an onslaught of court challenges, Obamacare remains the law of the land. For a while, Republican congressional candidates ran on a "repeal-and-replace" platform plank, but even when they were in the majority, there was little legislative action to do either. Still, Obamacare is not the last word in American health care reform. Since then, there have been two important improvements to Health Reimbursement Arrangements, through which companies pay employees back for out-of-pocket medical-related expenses. HRAs had been evolving informally since at least the 1960s but were first addressed by the Internal Revenue Service in 2002. Not much more happened on that front until Obama's lame-duck period. In December 2016, he signed the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, which was mainly a funding bill supporting the National Institutes of Health as it addressed the opioid crisis. But, just like the right to free emergency room treatment was nested in the larger COBRA law, the legal framework of Qualified Small Employer Health Reimbursement Arrangements was tucked away in a corner of the Cures Act. QSEHRAs, offered only by companies with fewer than 50 full-time employees, allow firms to let their employees pick their insurance coverage off the Obamacare exchanges. The firms pay the employees back for some or all of the cost of those premiums. The employees then become ineligible for the premium tax credit provided by the ACA, but a well-constructed QSEHRA will meet or exceed the value of that subsidy. That brings this timeline to one last innovation, which expands QSEHRA-like treatment to companies with more than 50 employees or aspiring to have them. Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements , or ICHRAs, were established by a 2019 IRS rule . ICHRAs allow firms of any size to offer employees tax-free contributions to cover up to 100% of their individual health insurance premiums as well as other eligible medical expenses. Instead of offering insurance policies directly, companies advise employees to shop on a government-sponsored exchange and select the best plan that suits their needs. Employer reimbursement rather than an advance premium tax credit reduces premiums. And because these plans are already ACA-compliant, there's no risk to the employer that they won't meet coverage or affordability standards. The U.S. is never going back to the mid-20th century model of lifetime employment at one company. Now, with remote employees and gig workers characterizing the workforce, the portability of an ICHRA provides some consistency for those who expect to be independent contractors for their entire careers. Simultaneously, allows bootstrap-phase startups to offer the dignity of health coverage to their Day One associates. The U.S. health care system can feel clunky and confusing to navigate. It is also regressive and penalizes startups and small businesses. For a country founded by entrepreneurs, it's sad that corporations like Google pay less for health care per employee than a small coffee shop in Florida. In many ways, ICHRA democratizes procuring health care coverage. In the same way that large employers enjoy the benefits of better rates, ICHRA plan quality and prices improve as the ICHRA risk pool grows. Moving away from the traditional employer model will change the incentive structure of the healthcare industry. Insurers will be able to compete and differentiate on the merits of their product. They will be incentivized to build products for people, not one-size-fits-all solutions for employers. This story was produced by Thatch and reviewed and distributed by Stacker Media. Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email.Xtract One Announces First Quarter Fiscal 2025 Results

Natixis Advisors LLC Cuts Stake in United Therapeutics Co. (NASDAQ:UTHR)Luigi Mangione pleads not guilty to murder and weapons charges in UnitedHealthcare CEO's deathHAMILTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. , Dec. 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Billtrust , a B2B order-to-cash and digital payments market leader, has been named a Leader in two IDC MarketScape reports – IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Accounts Receivable Automation Applications for the Enterprise 2024 Vendor Assessment (doc #US51740924, December 2024 ) and IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Accounts Receivable Automation Applications for Small and Midmarket 2024 Vendor Assessment (doc #US52692224, December 2024 ). Billtrust was one of 14 providers evaluated for the enterprise report and one of 11 providers in the small and midmarket report. The IDC MarketScapes evaluate a broad set of SaaS and cloud-enabled accounts receivable automation software vendors based on innovation, functionality, range of services, customer satisfaction, cloud capabilities and architecture. "Billtrust is a Leader in the Accounts Receivable Automation Applications for Enterprise and Small and Midmarket," said Kevin Permenter , Research Director, Financial Applications at IDC. "Billtrust attempts to differentiate itself with a scalable, unified solution that simplifies AR processes and improvement to the payment experience their clients provide their customers, all while empowering their AR teams to turn financial data into insights that contribute to their business strategy. They offer an extensive suite of payment management capabilities designed to streamline and automate the accounts receivable process." Billtrust was recognized for the following strengths: Unified experience: "The unified platform enables customers to have an uninterrupted, AI-powered, complete view of customer activity across the entire AR process." Reporting and data analytics: "Billtrust's solutions feature dynamic reporting and dashboards." The news of Billtrust's recognition as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape comes as B2B businesses are leveraging technology like generative AI to boost efficiency and optimize operations as they grapple with the challenges of cash flow management, according to a recent IDC InfoBrief study (IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Billtrust, "AI Pushing the Boundaries of What's Possible for OTC," IDC #US52446224, August 2024 ). Billtrust recently announced new generative AI functionality within its accounts receivable software platform to empower finance professionals to better understand their business, make strategic decisions, maximize cash flow and engage customers more effectively. "We are honored to be recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape, which we believe reflects our dedication to innovation, digital transformation, and delivering exceptional customer outcomes," said Sunil Rajasekar , CEO of Billtrust. "In 2024, we achieved remarkable milestones, including the launch of our generative AI tool, Billtrust Finance Co-Pilot, which provides unmatched, in-depth analysis of customer data. We are proud to support finance teams in working more efficiently, accelerating payments, and enhancing the buyer experience." About IDC MarketScape IDC MarketScape vendor assessment model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of technology and service suppliers in a given market. The research utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each supplier's position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of technology suppliers can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective suppliers. About Billtrust Finance leaders turn to Billtrust to get paid faster while controlling costs, accelerating cash flow and maximizing customer satisfaction. As a B2B order-to-cash software and digital payments market leader, we help the world's leading brands move finance forward with AI-powered solutions to transition from expensive paper invoicing and check acceptance to efficient electronic billing and payments. With more than $1 trillion invoice dollars processed, Billtrust delivers business value through deep industry expertise and a culture relentlessly focused on delivering meaningful customer outcomes. Media Contact Paul Accardo PR@billtrust.com View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/billtrust-named-a-leader-in-idc-marketscape-for-worldwide-accounts-receivable-automation-software-for-enterprise-and-small-and-midmarket-2024-302324426.html SOURCE Billtrust

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Sidberry 8-9 1-2 18, Daley 3-5 4-5 10, Ivey 1-5 0-0 3, Todd 3-6 2-3 9, Waggoner 6-9 2-4 15, Jackson 2-3 0-0 4, Krasovec 0-1 0-0 0, Ndiaye 1-5 0-0 2, Greene 2-4 0-0 5, Thompson 2-3 1-2 5, Tomlinson 4-9 0-0 10, Totals 32-59 10-16 81 Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.Kendrick Lamar’s GNX has been at the center of attention since its release on November 22nd, and it hasn’t been all positive, partially due to the strays that a few individuals caught, including comedian Andrew Schulz. In the post “ Not Like Us ” summer, Kendrick Lamar emerged victorious against his feud with Drake and left fans on the edge of their seats for his next body of work. Some felt it would likely arrive before the Super Bowl, but no one expected it to drop so soon. “wacced out murals,” the album’s intro, sets the tone while Kendrick gets a few things off his chest. He takes a shot or two at Drake, namedrops Lil Wayne and Snoop Dogg , and airs out his grievances surrounding white comedians who make disparaging remarks towards Black women. “ Don't let no white comedian talk about no Black woman, that's law, ” Kendrick raps on the song. The one line in particular caused a storm online and eventually, earned a response from Schulz, who assumed that bar was targeting him. Below, we’ll be breaking down the controversy at large and the escalating feud between Kendrick Lamar and Andrew Schulz. Read More: Kendrick Lamar “wacced out murals” Lyric Breakdown U.K.-based podcast hosts James Duncan and Fuhad Dawodu of Shxtsngigs appeared on Andrew Schulz’s Flagrant podcast in the fall when they engaged in a discussion surrounding the “Black girlfriend effect.” Duncan and Dawodu argued that Black women “glow up the other culture” in mixed relationships. “All of a sudden, they have a line-up, clean shape up. He glows up, bro,” Duncan said. However, Schulz said that it was actually a “protective instinct.” “They shave their hair because they start losing it, because he's so stressed to be around this Black girl complaining about sh*t all the f*cking time. That’s why they shave their head,” Schulz said. “They grow a beard because there’s more cushion when they get slapped the f*ck out of.” The comments earned some widespread backlash from both Schulz and the Shxtsngigs podcast hosts who eventually offered an apology. However, Schulz doubled down on the “edgy” humor without offering an apology to those offended by the misogynoir commentary. In the third verse of the GNX intro, Kendrick Lamar seemingly references the situation, though without mentioning names, it’s really an “if the shoe fits” type of situation, especially since Gary Owen responded to the song . In “wacced out murals,” Kendrick raps, “Don't let no white comedian talk about no Black woman, that's law/ I know propaganda work for them, and fuck whoever that's close to them/ The n***as that’s coon, the n***as that being goons, slide on both of them.” Many assumed Kendrick Lamar targeted Andrew Schulz since the ShxtsNGigs controversy happened a few months prior. And while Kendrick Lamar’s bar could definitely apply to Andrew Schulz, the subsequent bars indicate that the issue is figures like Duncan and Dawodu who let the joke slide unchecked. Shortly after the album dropped, social media dissected every angle of the album. However, Akademiks eventually highlighted this particular bar in a live-stream, revealing that he contacted Schulz who felt as though Kendrick was speaking about him. "Is this guy too woke to understand a joke?" Schulz allegedly told Akademiks who relayed the message to his audience. Read More: Kendrick Lamar Announces 2025 "Grand National" Tour With SZA: Tickets, Dates & More During the latest episode, Schulz o ffered an official response where he deemed Kendrick Lamar hypocritical and a clout-chaser for dissing comedians. “Nobody has respected women more through art than rappers,” he said sarcastically. “So I completely understand how a rapper could look at a comedian telling a joke and be like, ‘Yo, y’all need to switch that sh*t up. How dare y’all keep saying your wives are annoying. Be more like us and... b*tches ain’t nothing but hoes and tricks. I beat my b*tch with a stick, what?’” Schulz continued to group all rappers together, claiming that hip-hop’s long history of misogyny makes Kendrick look like a hypocrite. Moreover, he brought up Kendrick Lamar’s upcoming comedy movie with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park, who themselves have a history of creating edgy and offensive material. Afterward, Andrew Schulz’s co-host, Akaash Singh, brought up the number of accused abusers that Kendrick has collaborated with over the years, including Kodak Black and Dr. Dre . He also cited the Spotify controversy a few years ago when Kendrick Lamar threatened to remove his music from the streaming platform in response to the Hate Content & Hateful Conduct Policy that removed XXXTENTACION and R. Kelly ’s music from editorial and algorithmic playlists. In the same episode, Schulz told his co-hosts that he would “make love to him and the only thing he could do is decide if it’s consensual or not.” “I would make love to him and there's nothing he could do about it. Just Kendrick Lamar. I would make love to him and the only thing he could do is decide if it's consensual or not," Schulz began. "That's the only thing he could do. If it's me and Kendrick, it's about physics," he continued. "I don't even know if I'll get hard. But, if we're in a cell, and we're bored and we're done tattooing each other–whatever you do in a cell, and we ran out of board games and we did all the other things, and we cleaned everything, and I'm like, 'Man, I might as well f*ck you.' There's nothing he can physically do to stop that. I'd put his legs in the air and choose a position." While Kendrick Lamar hasn’t responded to Andrew Schulz yet, the comedian has felt the wrath of the hip-hop community at large, though the internet at large has been divided. Schulz has faced plenty of condemnation from people like TDE Punch, Meek Mill (who he later responded to), Peter Rosenberg, and many others. However, DJ Akademiks pointed out the contradiction in the public's response , citing the viral moment when Saucy Santana threatened to rape him following a volley of insults between the two. Some agreed with Ak, and others felt it wasn’t similar at all.

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Michigan’s renewed pursuit of Belleville five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood became very public last month, with reports saying the Wolverines were putting on a full-court press to try and flip the No. 1 overall recruit nationally from LSU. But as head coach and Sherrone Moore and his staff continued to make their pitch to Underwood’s camp, many recruiting experts gave Michigan a slim chance at prying him away from the Tigers. Even Underwood himself posted a graphic on social media last week, which was deleted shortly after, of himself in LSU gear saying he was “likely to decline” a Michigan name, image, likeness package worth around $10 million. The Wolverines successfully pulled off the flip Thursday in a historic recruiting win for the program. And according to a report from CBS Sports, a Michigan and NFL legend helped secure Underwood’s commitment. “A FaceTime conversation between Brady and Underwood a few weeks ago marked the beginning of their relationship, which grew over multiple conversations,” Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports wrote. After getting drafted in the sixth round in 2000 after a four-year career in Ann Arbor, Brady went on to set NFL records in passing yards and touchdowns while winning seven Super Bowls. But at Michigan, the California native was a backup for his first two years. Brady emphasizing that he would be a resource for Underwood moving forward resonated with him, per Zenitz, helping lead Michigan to arguably its biggest recruiting win in program history. Underwood was a four-year starter at Belleville, appearing in three Division 1 state championships, winning two while setting state records in passing touchdowns and total touchdowns. He becomes the centerpiece of Michigan’s 2025 recruiting class, which now is No. 9 in the 247Sports Composite rankings and features two five-stars and five top-100 prospects. Of course, other factors swayed Underwood’s decision. Moore spearheaded Michigan’s pursuit and also had significant support from NIL collective Champions Circle. “I think this is honestly program-saving, game-changing type of land,” Brice Marich, recruiting reporter for the Michigan Insider, told MLive. “He’s a generational talent. He’s the hometown hero, so to speak. There’s a lot to like about him. He been playing since he was a freshman at Belleville. He’s won state titles. He’s a winner. He can run the ball, he can throw the ball. It’s a reason why so many schools were after him. For Michigan to keep chipping away, keep chipping away, and then finally knock over that wall and land a talent like him, that speaks volumes. I don’t say there was a lot of pressure, but from the outside’s perspective, I felt like this is one that Sherrone needed to have, and he got it.”Wait — why is my favorite employment law blog detouring into the world of website accessibility? If your business has a website, keep reading. If you read our blog regularly, you probably recall a few posts about website accessibility lawsuits and where the courts stand on whether a website is a “place of public accommodation.” These cases often land on an employment lawyer’s desk because they are brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act and employment lawyers regularly work with the ADA. Just in time for Christmas, the chief judge in one of the leading courts on this issue, the Southern District of New York, recently issued an opinion that provides helpful insights on these cases and, specifically, whether a completely virtual business with no brick-and-mortar locations is a “place of public accommodation” covered by the ADA. Background Under Title III of the ADA , places of public accommodation must be equally accessible to those living with disabilities. The ADA does not define a “place of public accommodation,” but it lists a number of examples, ranging from restaurants, bars, and bakeries to healthcare providers, schools, and social service centers. These examples make clear that a business’s brick-and-mortar locations — where they do business with customers — are nearly always considered places of public accommodation. But what about a business’s website? If I sell things on my website, does that make it a place of public accommodation? In recent years, courts have seen a substantial increase in the number of website accessibility suits. Generally, these suits claim that a person living with a disability (often a vision impairment) was unable to use a business’s website to purchase certain goods or learn about certain products, services, or other information. Thus, the plaintiff’s lawyer argues that the plaintiff and all similarly situated individuals were denied equal access to the goods and services of a business, i.e., a place of public accommodation. Are Website-Only Businesses Places of Public Accommodation? Whether a website is a place of public accommodation has been subject to much debate. One question in particular has been whether a business’s website is a place of public accommodation if the business has no brick-and-mortar business locations and operates only online. Courts have not agreed on this issue. Because both New York State and New York City have laws that require equal access to places of public accommodation, many of these lawsuits are filed in the federal Southern District of New York, resulting in that court being one of the leading courts on website accessibility. Unfortunately, there has been a split amongst the judges in that court on whether the website of a business with no physical locations is a place of public accommodation. But recently the chief judge provided clarity. The Chief Judge Chimes In Like many website accessibility lawsuits, the plaintiff in this case has a visual impairment and alleged that a business’s website was not accessible with his screen reader. The business sold coffee products exclusively online and had no physical place of business open to the public. The business moved to dismiss the case, arguing that the ADA did not cover its virtual-only business because it was not a place of public accommodation. The chief judge ultimately agreed and concluded that “a stand-alone website is not a place of public accommodation under Title III of the ADA.” After noting that there was a split amongst judges in the Southern District of New York over whether the website of an online-only business was a place of public accommodation, the court also pointed out that the majority rule in the federal courts of appeal requires a connection or “nexus” to a physical place of public accommodation. The court then looked to the ADA’s list of examples of places of public accommodation and determined that, “[b]y listing 50 terms... that almost all refer to physical places, Congress indicated an intent to limit public accommodations to entities with physical locations.” The court also reasoned that “a standalone website should not be considered a ‘place of public accommodation’” because the ADA’s list “does not explicitly address businesses without a physical location, such as mail order merchandise and television shopping channels, despite numerous applicable business models in existence at the time the statute was written.” Takeaways This opinion is not binding on any courts outside of the Southern District of New York, and it is not technically binding on the opinions of other judges in that district. However, the opinion, issued by the chief judge, is an attempt to move the Southern District of New York in the direction that websites of businesses without brick-and-mortar locations are not places of public accommodation. Time will tell as to how that plays out. Listen to this article