Proposed cuts would end California assistance for most new legal immigrants

Gov. Schwarzenegger's budget proposes saving $304 million by eliminating several programs that provide a safety net for elderly, disabled and low-income immigrants who don't yet qualify for federal welfare.

By Alexandra Zavis and Anna Gorman

February 16, 2010

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest proposals to close California's budget shortfall would end public assistance for most new legal immigrants, eliminating emergency cash, food and medical aid for those who don't yet qualify for federal welfare.

The proposal would represent an about-face for the state. In 1996, Congress denied access to welfare for most legal immigrants who weren't citizens. California and other states established programs to fill the gap.

Now, officials say the state can't afford the price tag. Schwarzenegger's plan would save $304 million but leave tens of thousands of elderly, disabled and impoverished people with no safety net in a deep recession.

"How are we going to live?" asked 70-year-old Yong Hak Cho, who emigrated from Korea four years ago and is raising two grandchildren in Los Angeles. "Immigrants pay taxes like anybody else. So why do they want to eliminate programs for us? It is unfair and it is un-American."

State officials say the cuts are painful but necessary, and there was no attempt to single out any population group in the proposed budget.

"The fact that we have to close a $20-billion budget gap, on the heels of a $60-billion gap last year, means that we have had to make the difficult decision to propose curtailing or eliminating many state-only programs, and these fall into that category," said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the Finance Department.

When families petition to bring relatives to the U.S., they are required to sign affidavits agreeing to support them financially for up to 10 years. But many of these families have fallen on hard times. Affidavits are not required for people entering the country under various other programs.

Federal benefits have been restored to some recent arrivals, but most are not eligible for supplemental security income, food stamps, transitional assistance for needy families or Medi-Cal until they have lived legally in the U.S. for five years. Exceptions are made for refugees and a few other categories.

Only a few other states still provide cash or food aid to new, legal arrivals. Advocates for stricter immigration controls say that a waiting period to receive benefits is appropriate.

"Five years is a legitimate time to ensure that people who have come here the right way are willing to assimilate and be loyal tax-paying Americans," said Barbara Coe of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform.

The proposed cuts include:

The Legislature last year rejected proposals to eliminate some of the same programs, but many recipients have seen their benefits reduced.

UCLA professor of public health Alex Ortega said immigrants are frequently targeted in tough economic times because they can't yet vote, do not speak English well and are often poor.

"They have all the factors that contribute to being vulnerable," Ortega said.

Community activists say the budget proposals will leave many without a lifeline.

"These are elderly, often frail individuals who rely on this support to buy their medicines, pay rent and eat a basic diet," Hala Masri, a policy advocate for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, said in an e-mail.

Cho is so worried that he has considered returning to Korea. But he said, "I have no roots there . . . I am American now."

The $835 in aid the family receives each month doesn't even cover rent.

After working 21 years at a U.S. military base in South Korea, Cho went back to school to learn how to repair computers. When that did not yield a job, he enrolled in English classes and became certified as a security guard. Then his son-in-law died of cancer. His daughter works long hours at a Chinese restaurant, so he took in his two grandchildren, 11 and 8.

Cho now works part-time at a community center, advising other immigrants. His wife works for a program providing in-home care to the frail and disabled, but that too is slated for cuts.

"I will have to find some other work," Cho said, staring at his tea cup on a chilly morning in Koreatown. "What company would hire an old person like me?"

The California Immigrant Policy Center argues in a new report that the savings from the proposed cuts would be offset by increased homelessness and costly emergency room use.

"Not only are these cuts not fair, they are not smart," said Reshma Shamasunder, who runs the advocacy group. "They are not going to save us money in the long run."

Teddy Lechadores, 70, who emigrated legally from the Philippines in 2007, relies on Medi-Cal to pay for dialysis. He also sees doctors for his prostate cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure, and needs eight prescription medicines.

"If I were in the Philippines I would have been dead now," Lechadores said.

He was laid off last month from a security guard job. He now makes $160 a week for doing maintenance and office work at the Pilipino Workers Center west of downtown. His bank account is overdrawn, he sleeps at the center and keeps most of his belongings in his 1996 Acura, which was damaged recently when someone rear-ended him.

"I'm down to nothing," he said as he looked through his Medi-Cal forms on a recent afternoon. "Medi-Cal is very, very important."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immigrant-cuts17-2010feb17,0,3801293,print.story

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Obama pledges $8 billion for new nuclear reactors

The move represents a new federal commitment to the low-carbon-emitting, but highly controversial, sector long championed by Republicans. Environmentalists voice concern.

By Jim Tankersley and Michael Muskal

February 16, 2010

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington

Seeking common ground with Republicans on energy and climate issues, President Obama on Tuesday pledged $8 billion in loan guarantees needed to build the first U.S. nuclear reactors in nearly three decades.

The move, along with a tripling of nuclear loan guarantees in the president's budget, represents a new federal commitment to the low-carbon-emitting, but highly controversial, nuclear power sector long championed by the GOP.

Industry groups and Republican leaders praised the announcement, which has been expected for months, but some environmentalists and free-market think tanks protested.

Speaking at a training center at the Lanham, Md., headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26, the president spoke favorably of nuclear power as part of a mix of energy alternatives to oil.

"In order to truly harness our potential in clean energy, we'll have to do more," Obama said. "In the near term, as we transition to cleaner energy sources, we'll have to make tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. We'll need to make continued investments in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies, even as we build greater capacity in renewables like wind and solar.

"And we'll have to build a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in America," he said.

Obama said his administration would supply about $8 billion in loan guarantees to build two new reactors at an existing nuclear power plant in Burke, Ga., providing thousands of construction jobs in the next few years and about 800 permanent jobs in the years to come.

Free-market groups complained that the loan guarantees could leave taxpayers on the hook for projects too risky for the private sector to finance.

Many environmentalists echoed the concerns and warned that the administration had not mapped a strategy for safe, long-term storage of radioactive waste.

"We're not really seeing anything but drawbacks to another corporate bailout that gives new meaning to the phrase 'toxic asset,' " said Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace. "It is a dirty and dangerous distraction from the clean energy future the president promised America."

Obama noted environmentalist opposition in his remarks but insisted that clean, safe nuclear power was environmentally preferable to burning coal in outdated plants.

Many environmental groups were muted or subdued in their criticism Tuesday -- a reflection of the delicate politics surrounding ongoing efforts to pass energy and climate legislation in Congress.

Many large conservation groups appear to be tacitly accepting the need to increase federal nuclear support -- along with offshore oil and gas drilling, another environmentalist anathema -- to attract Republican votes for a measure to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-obama-nuclear17-2010feb17,0,5814411,print.story

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Survivor: Alabama professor shot methodically

Associated Press Writer

February 16, 2010

Huntsville, Ala.

A survivor of a university shooting rampage said the professor charged in the fatal attack methodically shot her victims in the head until the gun apparently jammed and she was pushed out of the room.

Associate professor Joseph Ng told The Associated Press on Tuesday he was one of 12 people at the biology department meeting Friday at the University of Alabama- Huntsville. He described the details in an e-mail to a colleague at the University of California-Irvine.

Ng said the meeting had been going on for about half an hour when Amy Bishop "got up suddenly, took out a gun and started shooting at each one of us. She started with the one closest to her and went down the row shooting her targets in the head."

Bishop, a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, was arrested and charged with one count of capital murder and three counts of attempted murder.

Killed were Gopi K. Podila, the chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences, and professors Adriel Johnson and Maria Ragland Davis. Two were wounded — professor Joseph Leahy remained in critical condition and staffer Stephanie Monticciolo was in serious condition Tuesday. The third, Luis Cruz-Vera, was released from the hospital.

Ng said the meeting was held around an oval table. The six people on one side were all shot.

"The remaining 5 including myself were on the other side of the table (and) immediately dropped to the floor," he wrote.

Ng told the AP the shooting stopped almost as soon as it started. Ng said the gun seemed to jam and he and others rushed Bishop out of the room and then barricaded the door shut with a table.

Ng said the charge was led by Debra Moriarity, a professor of biochemistry, after Bishop aimed the gun at her and attempted to fire. When the gun didn't shoot, Moriarity pushed her way to Bishop, urged her to stop, and then helped force her out the door.

"Moriarity was probably the one that saved our lives. She was the one that initiated the rush," he told the AP. "It took a lot of guts to just go up to her."

Ng said the survivors worried she would shoot her way through the door, and frantically worked up backup plan in case she burst through. But she never did.

"There was a time when I didn't think I'd come out of the room alive," he said. "I don't think any of us thought we'd come out alive."

Investigators haven't commented on a possible motive, but Bishop was vocal among colleagues about her displeasure over being denied tenure by the university, forcing her to look for work elsewhere after this semester.

Some victims' relatives have also questioned how Bishop was hired at the university in 2003 after she was involved years ago in separate criminal probes. University of Alabama officials were meeting privately to review the files concerning her hiring.

In 1986, Bishop shot and killed her 18-year-old brother with a shotgun at their Braintree, Mass., home. She told police at the time that she had been trying to learn how to use the gun, which her father had bought for protection, when it accidentally discharged.

Authorities released her and said the episode was a tragic accident. She was never charged. The Norfolk County district attorney at the time was William Delahunt, now a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts. He was traveling in Israel and could not immediately be reach for comment on the case.

Current Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier questions how the investigation was handled. Frazier said she also fired once into a wall before hitting her brother, then fired a third time into the ceiling.

Bishop's husband, James Anderson, said Monday he had known about her brother being shot, but said "it was an accident. That's all I knew about it."

An auto mechanic who worked at a dealership near Bishop's home in 1986 told The Boston Globe that Bishop ran in after shooting her brother, waved a gun and demanded a getaway car.

Tom Pettigrew, 45, recalled that Bishop said she had had a fight with her husband and he was going to come after her, so she needed to flee. Pettigrew said Braintree police briefly questioned him and several other employees, but authorities never contacted him again.

Then in 1993, Bishop and her husband were questioned by investigators looking into a pipe bomb sent to one of Bishop's colleagues, Dr. Paul Rosenberg, at Children's Hospital Boston. The bomb did not go off, and nobody was ever charged.

Anderson defended himself and his wife as innocent people questioned by investigators casting a wide net. He said the case "had a dozen people swept up in this and everybody was a subject, not a suspect."

"There was never any indictment, arrest, nothing, and then everyone was cleared after five years," he said.

Huntsville police spokesman Sgt. Mark Roberts said his department didn't find out about either of the older cases until after the shooting on campus. He said police were checking to confirm details of the pipe bomb probe.

Anderson said his wife had practiced at a shooting range not long before the shooting. Anderson said she acted normally while they were at the range and none of her behavior in recent days foreshadowed Friday's rampage.

"She was just a normal professor," he told The Associated Press during an interview at his home Monday.

Anderson said his wife didn't reveal why she took an interest in guns. He knew she had a gun, but didn't know when or where she got the weapon.

"I really don't know how she got it, or where she got it from," he said.

Police have said Bishop had no permit for the gun they believe she used in the campus shooting, and investigators said they didn't know where she got it. It's unclear if it was the same gun that her husband knew about.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-0217-alabama-shooting-20100216,0,4769119,print.story

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In a doomsday cyber attack scenario, answers are unsettling

What if a crippling attack struck the country's digital infrastructure? Experts including current and former officials tackle the question. The results show that the peril is real and growing.

By Bob Drogin

February 17, 2010

Reporting from Washington

The crisis began when college basketball fans downloaded a free March Madness application to their smart phones. The app hid spyware that stole passwords, intercepted e-mails and created havoc.

Soon 60 million cellphones were dead. The Internet crashed, finance and commerce collapsed, and most of the nation's electric grid went dark. White House aides discussed putting the Army in American cities.

That, spiced up with bombs and hurricanes, formed the doomsday scenario when 10 former White House advisors and other top officials joined forces Tuesday in a rare public cyber war game designed to highlight the potential vulnerability of the nation's digital infrastructure to crippling attack.

The results were hardly reassuring.

"We're in uncharted territory here," was the most common refrain during a three-hour simulated crisis meeting of the National Security Council, the crux of the Cyber Shockwave exercise.

Joe Lockhart, former press secretary to President Clinton, urged his fellow panelists to be bold. "Trust me," he said, "you will be judged on this when this is over, and for years to come."

The panelists apparently took him to heart and, as the scenario unfolded, tossed out ways to maintain order -- including nationalizing industries, rationing fuel and snatching suspects overseas.

The public rarely gets a peek at government war games. If Tuesday's no-cliche-left-behind version at times resembled a sci-fi thriller, no one doubts that the peril to telecommunications and other crucial computer-run systems is real and growing.

Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, this month warned the Senate Intelligence Committee, "Malicious cyber activity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication."

Google, for example, recently disclosed what it called a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" originating in China in mid-December on its search engine infrastructure and e-mail, as well as on at least 20 other companies. China's government denied any role in the shadow attacks.

Attacks on government networks are also ubiquitous. According to a 2008 report by the nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies, NASA and the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Commerce "all suffered major intrusions by unknown foreign entities" the previous year.

"The unclassified e-mail of the secretary of defense was hacked, and [Defense Department] officials told us that the department's computers are probed hundreds of thousands of times each day," the report said.

President Obama has pledged to secure the nation's vital computer networks and created a White House office to coordinate cyber security.

In December, the Homeland Security Department released a draft plan to designate roles and responses to potential attacks or mischief.

However, the worst-case scenario presented in a Washington hotel ballroom Tuesday would almost certainly overwhelm the administration's proposed cyber defenses.

It began with the March Madness college basketball postseason tournament application, but then an unidentified insider apparently sabotaged the software patch, making the problem far worse.

As the war game unfolded, the attack was traced to computer servers in Russia, and then to an unnamed individual in Sudan. For reasons never explained, homemade bombs exploded by electric power stations and gas pipelines in Tennessee and Kentucky.

And a monster Category 4 hurricane slammed into the Gulf Coast.

Michael Chertoff, who played the national security advisor in the exercise, had some relevant experience to draw on. He headed the Homeland Security Department when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.

"We need to know how to deal with this," Chertoff declared at the start of the session. "The biggest danger," he added, "is if we're ineffective."

The event was sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based group headed by Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, who co-chaired the 9/11 Commission. The scenario was developed by Georgetown University and several companies, including PayPal. The session will be aired later on CNN.

None of the panelists knew the scenario in advance. Chertoff moderated the debate as others flanked him at tables that formed a V. An audience of industry executives, current and former government officials, and think tank experts watched and occasionally chortled as the group struggled to respond.

The panel sometimes learned the latest developments from fake TV bulletins that appeared on giant screens behind them.

And sometimes they didn't. One broadcast noted that the Federal Aviation Administration had grounded all planes. More than 20 minutes later, the supposed presidential advisors were still discussing whether to do just that.

The former officials all gave a spirited performance.

Stewart Baker, former general counsel of the National Security Agency, said the White House should shut down cellphone networks even if no law specifically allowed it.

"We will be criticized if we don't do everything we can," said Baker, who played national cyber coordinator. "We can straighten out the [legal] authorities over time."

Chertoff later asked if the military could help. "I don't want to seem like a legal Nervous Nellie," he said.

Jamie Gorelick, who was a member of the 9/11 Commission, suggested that intelligence agents kidnap the alleged perpetrator, if necessary, to bring him to justice. "We have authority to do renditions," she said.

"Can't you just mug him and take the stuff?" Baker asked.

Frances Fragos Townsend, who served as counter-terrorism advisor in the George W. Bush White House, called for rationing of gasoline and other crucial supplies if necessary.

Charles F. Wald, a retired Air Force general who played Defense secretary, called for military retaliation if another government were involved in the attack. "I think through our offensive cyber capability we could take some significant action," he said.

John D. Negroponte, who spent most of his career as a diplomat before becoming the first director of national intelligence, urged a diplomatic approach. "We've got to sit down with these people," he said.

Stephen Friedman, who served as director of the National Economic Council under President Bush, declared the attack "a massive blow to the solar plexus of the economy."

"I'm not hearing any answers here as to how to fix this," he added.

John McLaughlin, who was deputy director of the CIA during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, suggested maximizing use of intelligence assets -- and perhaps nationalizing electric power companies.

"We can turn the [National Security Agency] loose on this problem, and gather tons and tons of information, gigabytes beyond imagination," he promised.

In the end, no grand plan emerged, but the group did agree to advise the president to federalize the National Guard, even if governors objected, and deploy the troops -- perhaps backed by the U.S. military -- to guard power lines and prevent unrest.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-cyber-attack17-2010feb17,0,5277567,print.story

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State attorney general wades into controversy over early release of local jail inmates

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown on Tuesday waded into the controversy over a new law that aims to reduce the state prison population by saying it applies to county jail inmates but should not be read as requiring immediate, large-scale reductions of their jail populations.

The bulletin to law enforcement agencies around the state came as the union representing Orange County Sheriff's deputies became the second major policing organization to go to court to block use of the law, which appears to speed the process under which county jail inmates can be released by changing the formula used to determine time off for good behavior.

Brown's spokeswoman Christine Gasparac said it was the job of the attorney general to enforce the law.  But at the same time, she said, Brown wanted to reduce confusion about how counties should interpret the law. Brown believes that the formula under which inmates earned credit for good behavior should be calculated beginning when the law went into effect -- Jan. 25 -- rather than when an inmate began serving time.

"We filed briefs in the courts that argue this position," Gasparac said. "We want all the counties to know that's how we interpret the law and we hope it will give some guidance."

The clarification appears to have come too late for some.

More than 300 inmates have been released in Orange County in the last few weeks and about 200 in Sacramento County, including a man who allegedly assaulted a woman hours after being released early.

Sacramento, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and other counties have said their legal counsels advised them that the law applied retroactively to county jails, so they created release plans when the law took effect last month. In all, more than 1,500 inmates have been released.

The legislation, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year, was designed to reduce the state prison population in the wake of the state's financial crisis and court rulings on prison overcrowding. Officials have said the law would reduce the state prison population by 6,500 "low-level" offenders over the next year, including inmates incarcerated for nonviolent crimes such as theft and drug possession.

Like many law enforcement officials across the state, the union representing the Orange County Sheriff's deputies said they were surprised and disappointed by local authorities' decision to interpret the release as applying to a broad population of their inmates.

“[The] early release program endangers our county and the people who live and work here,” Wayne Quint, president of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, said in a statement. “We can't be releasing drug dealers, car thieves, drunk drivers, spousal abusers and other offenders back into our community early before they serve their sentences. In some instances, we are already seeing some of these individuals immediately turn around and commit new crimes.”

The O.C. sheriff's union's decision to go to court comes a week after a Sacramento County judge ordered a temporary halt to that county's early releases, saying the legislation applies only to state prisons and not to county jails. The judge sided with the local sheriff's deputies union, which filed suit against the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department to block the releases.

In contrast, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has not released any inmates early because of the law. L.A. County requires that most male inmates serve 80% of their sentence, and officials said they won't reduce that requirement because of the new law because they don't believe it applied to local counties.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/state-attorney-general-wades-into-controversy-over-early-release-of-local-jail-inmates.html#more

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L.A. County may further cut reimbursements to doctors treating uninsured patients

Emergency room doctors and on-call specialists treating uninsured patients at private hospitals in Los Angeles County could see county payments slashed under a proposal before supervisors today.

The rate cuts could force private hospitals to close emergency rooms, sending more patients to crowded county hospitals, officials said.

L.A. County reimburses doctors 27% of the cost of providing care to the uninsured during their first three days of care at private hospitals. Under the proposal, that reimbursement rate would be reduced to 18% as of July 1. Supervisors last reduced the rate from 29% in January 2009.

About 4,700 doctors would see payments cut under the proposal, according to Carol Meyer, chief network officer for the county's Department of Health Services. Under the new rate, doctors would receive 43% of what Medi-Cal pays for the same services.

“The health department has a $200-million deficit. The state's not going to give us anything to fix it. There is no one to backfill,” Meyer said.

The county had expected to pay doctors with $9 million from the state's Emergency Medical Services Appropriation. But state lawmakers eliminated the fund, and as the number of uninsured grows, private doctors are expected to file more claims than ever with the county this year, Meyer said — an estimated 350,000.

“There's no new source of funding to fill that gap,” Meyer said.

Doctors will likely look to hospitals to make up the difference, officials said. If they can't, hospitals may lose doctors and be forced to close emergency rooms.

“It depends just how much pressure is put on those hospitals,” said Jim Lott, executive vice president of the Hospital Assn. of Southern California, “Some hospitals could be pushed over the edge by this.”

More than half of Los Angeles County's 72 hospitals are operating at a deficit and two are in bankruptcy, Lott said. Countywide, 11 hospitals have closed since 2002, all of which had emergency rooms, he said.

Meyer said county officials consulted with doctors and hospital officials before proposing the rate cuts. But doctors said they would have appreciated more time to propose alternatives.

“It seemed like it happened all of a sudden,” said Dr. Robert Bitonte, president of the Los Angeles County Medical Assn. “It will impact indigent care, there's no doubt.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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OPINION

No shield when kids are dying

L.A. County's Department of Children and Family Services has no right to silence.

Tim Rutten

February 17, 2010

Of all the manifestations of ineffectual government to which we Angelenos have inured ourselves over the years, none is more insidious than Los Angeles County's continuing failure to protect the most vulnerable children entrusted to its care.

When some bureaucrat neglects to fill a pothole, you have a bumpy ride; when a social worker screws up -- for whatever reason -- children can and do die, often under circumstances whose savage brutality exceeds normal imagination.

As The Times' Garrett Therolf has reported, 31 children in the care of the county's child welfare system were killed by abuse or neglect over the last two years. Trish Ploehn, who directs the responsible agency -- the Department of Children and Family Services -- says that in 18 of those cases, the social worker charged with safeguarding the child's welfare committed serious errors. At least some of those mishandled cases are among the 12 most recent deaths. Ploehn, however -- backed by myopic county lawyers who seem determined to treat a life-and-death public issue like a product liability case -- refuses to release any information on these last dozen deaths.

Perversely, both Ploehn and the lawyers claim they're shielded from having to disclose even the names of the dead children -- some of whom may have been killed by their own parents -- by a state law that was passed with the explicit purpose of opening these records to public scrutiny. SB 39, backed by a coalition of child welfare advocates and news organizations, was signed into law three years ago after it became clear that state and local agencies were using outdated confidentiality regulations to prevent anyone from getting an accurate picture of just how many children are killed by their parents or caregivers each year, even though their families are under some form of governmental scrutiny. The law allows prosecutors conducting an ongoing criminal investigation to redact information crucial to their probe but makes no other exception to the need for timely disclosure, apart from the welfare of a surviving child. The statute plainly states that no competing government interest can be balanced against the public's right to know what transpired in these cases.

Ploehn claims that she cannot release files on four of the 12 children who've died most recently because the Los Angeles County district attorney's office objects to disclosure of any information, including the children's names. The state statute makes no provision for such a blanket objection. In the other eight cases, unnamed law enforcement agencies are purported to object to the release of any information. SB 39 does not give law enforcement any veto over the release of any part of these files, though a self-serving guideline drafted by the California Department of Social Services in the wake of the bill's passage mistakenly says such an exception exists. If the county is relying on that bit of bureaucratic sleight of hand, it's in a lot of trouble.

Actually, the problems in the Department of Children and Family Services may be even worse than this obvious attempt to avoid public scrutiny suggests. According to sources in the county Hall of Administration, Ploehn also is routinely withholding information on these dead children from the five supervisors and the deputies they've delegated to handle child welfare issues. Ploehn, sources say, refuses to share written material on the most troubling cases during her weekly meetings with the deputies and is grudging with verbal information, reportedly because she fears it will be leaked to media.

This factual vacuum is preventing a review of whether the county acted wisely over the last few years when it allowed the child welfare department to reduce the number of youngsters removed from their families and placed in foster care by about 60% to around 19,900. At least some of the supervisors and their aides are concerned that social workers are being discouraged from moving imperiled children to the safety of foster care because spending fewer federal and state block grant dollars on that service frees the money for use in programs more highly favored by the Department of Children and Family Services' hierarchy.

We'll never know, though, so long as the department and its director are allowed to hide their mistakes not only from the scrutiny of the media and the public but from the oversight of elected officials who are legally and morally responsible. At some point, the five supervisors need to ask just how long we're going to go on sacrificing some of our most vulnerable children on the dubious altar of bureaucratic convenience.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten17-2010feb17,0,4684372,print.column

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From the Wall Street Journal

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Haiti Quake Damage in Billions

PORT-AU-PRINCE—Haiti's recent earthquake is the most destructive natural disaster that a single country has experienced, by some measures, and may have caused as much as $13.2 billion in damage, according to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank.

"While the ballpark estimates of the number of people killed or missing are similar to the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, the population of Haiti is only a small fraction of the one of the Asian country, making this particular event more damaging than that infamous tsunami," it said.

"It is the most destructive event a country has ever experienced when measured in terms of the number of people killed as a share of the country's population and affected the capital city of the country: the center of commerce, government and communication," the study said.

It tried to estimate the damage by comparing it to damage from past natural disasters. Using the official Haitian government death toll of 230,000 dead led to a damage estimate of $7.7 billion, with a range of $4.4 billion to $13.2 billion. The authors said the damages could be in the upper range of the estimate.

Ten years after the disaster, Haiti's economic output is likely to be roughly 30% lower than it otherwise would have been, the study added. "This is the case even given significant increases in aid flows that tend to occur after a major disaster," the study said. While aid can help, "this does underline the challenge ahead for Haiti and for the international community attempting to support the country."

On Tuesday, a group of apparel-industry executives, with Haitian and U.S. trade officials, announced a program intended to encourage retailers to produce 1% of their U.S. imports in Haiti. The group, meeting at an industry conference in Las Vegas, included Hanesbrands Inc. and Gap Inc., which are among major brands that use Haitian factories to produce their clothing.

The program, called Plus 1 for Haiti, is an extension of the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Partnership Encouragement Act. That program, known as HOPE II, allows duty-free sales in the U.S. of Haitian-made apparel. Plus 1, which would similarly allow duty-free access, is designed to create jobs for Haitian factories.

Gail Strickler, assistant U.S. Trade Representative, said the program was developed as retailers asked, "What can we do to help Haiti?" She likened the "Made in Haiti" label to the fair-trade designation for coffee.

Before Haiti begins rebuilding, there are major problems to solve, especially regarding the estimated 300,000 families—more than a million people—whose homes were destroyed by the quake and who are now living in the streets. Haiti's new homeless join an estimated 600,000 families that were already living without permanent housing, according to the Haitian government.

"Shelter is a huge issue. Nothing really compares, I think, in terms of a monumental challenge for right now and for the coming weeks before the rainy season and months before the hurricane season," said Lewis Lucke, the U.S. special coordinator for relief and reconstruction in Haiti.

On most days, Haitians living on the streets look to the skies with anxiety, hoping storm clouds don't build. Earlier this week, a thunderstorm caused widespread panic among families sleeping outside.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703798904575069614263432520.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews#printMode

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Pope Tells Clergy: Face Crisis

Benedict XVI asks Irish bishops to be courageous; fails to address demand for resignations

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI asked Irish clergy to be courageous in confronting the pedophile-priest scandal that has rocked the church, but took no action on victims' demands that he force bishops to resign, the Vatican said Tuesday.

The Vatican statement came as the pope and 24 Irish bishops ended an extraordinary meeting on the crisis meant to restore the trust of Irish Catholics shaken by revelations of decades of clergy sex abuse and cover-up.

A Vatican statement said the pope called the sexual abuse of children "a heinous crime" and a "grave sin which offends God." Irish bishops scheduled a news conference for later Tuesday before they head back to Ireland ahead of Ash Wednesday.

During the two-day summit behind closed doors at the Vatican, anger flared in Ireland over the refusal of papal envoy Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza to appear in the Irish parliament. The archbishop, who participated in the summit, told lawmakers in a letter published Monday that he wouldn't answer questions from the foreign-affairs committee.

"I wish to inform that it is not the practice of the Holy See that apostolic nuncios appear before parliamentary commissions," the archbishop wrote in the Feb. 12 letter.

Archibishop Leanza has faced heavy criticism in Ireland for ignoring letters from two state-ordered investigations into how the church suppressed reports of child abuse by parish priests and in Catholic-run residences for poor children.

Rev. Lombardi said Archbishop Leanza, as a diplomat, "has to respond to rules" about diplomatic privilege. "If this is not part of his duty, you can't expect him" to testify, the Vatican spokesman told an improvised news conference minutes after the summit ended.

Irish lawmaker Alan Shatter expressed dismay over Archbishop Leanza's refusal, saying that "it is acknowledged in Rome that members of the clergy in Ireland are guilty of abominable sexual abuse of children."

Rev. Lombardi said the pope would send Irish faithful a letter about the crisis during Lent. That liturgical period of penitence begins on Wednesday with the tradition of distributing ashes to the faithful and ends on Easter Sunday, April 4.

"While realizing that the current painful situation will not be resolved quickly, he challenged the bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve, and to face the present crisis with honesty and courage," said a Vatican statement read to journalists by Rev. Lombardi.

Victims had said the talks would be a failure unless the pope demanded the resignations of bishops who had a role in concealing wrongdoing. They demand the pope accept in full the findings of the Irish investigations, which some church officials in Ireland have called unfair.

In their meeting with the pope, "the bishops spoke frankly of their sense of pain and anger, betrayal, scandal and shame expressed to them on numerous occasions by those who had been abused," the Vatican statement said.

Rev. Lombardi indicated there was no mention of any plans for the pope to meet with Irish victims. The summit was "only a step in long process" in healing, he said.

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Alabama Shooting Suspect Could Have Faced Weapons Charges in 1986

The office of Norfolk County District Attorney William R. Keating said there was no evidence to contradict previous findings that the shooting was accidental, but said an analysis of a "substantial body" of police reports said that "probable cause" existed 24 years ago to place Amy Bishop under arrest and charge her with assault and possession of a dangerous weapon and the unlawful possession of ammunition.

Meanwhile a former assistant district attorney who accepted a 1987 state police report conclusion that the shooting was accidental said Tuesday that the police's report left out crucial details about Ms. Bishop's alleged bizarre behavior after the shooting.

"Whatever happened when she left that house should have been included in that report," said John Kivlan, who was the assistant district attorney for Norfolk County when the shooting happened.

Ms. Bishop fatally shot her brother, 18-year-old Seth Bishop, in the chest in 1986 in her family home in Braintree, Mass. Ms. Bishop was never charged and state police ruled the shooting accidental. But since the Alabama slayings, prosecutors and police have questioned how the case was handled.

Police reports released by Mr. Keating's office showed that just after the shooting, Ms. Bishop ran into an auto body shop, pointed a gun at employees and "said she wanted a car and a set of keys right away" before running out. Two police officers found her nearby "frightened, disoriented and confused" and had to reason with her to get her to drop the gun. They found ammunition in the gun and in her pocket. In the car on the way to the police station, Ms. Bishop said she had had an argument with her father a day earlier.

On Tuesday, Mr. Keating's office said there would be no new charges against Ms. Bishop in Massachusetts because the statute of limitations had run out.

Braintree's current police chief Paul Frazier has also raised questions about the way the case was handled, and said a review would be conducted.

John Polio, who was Braintree's police chief in 1986, said Tuesday he, too, had changed his mind about an investigation into Ms. Bishop's shooting of her brother. He said the report by state police, which he had not read before, revealed numerous "discrepancies."

"It's deficient—I'm not pointing a finger, but there are too many questions," he said.

Meanwhile, it emerged Tuesday that in March, 2003, Ms. Bishop was charged with assault and battery and disorderly conduct after hitting another patron at an International House of Pancakes restaurant in Peabody, Mass., said Capt. Dennis Bonaito, of the Peabody police department, confirming a Boston Globe report.

The police report said Ms. Bishop, who was at the restaurant with her family, became irate when told by a waitress that another woman had just taken the last booster seat.

Ms. Bishop screamed profanities at the customer, and then punched her in the head. After the manager ordered her to leave, Ms. Bishop repeatedly said "I am Dr. Amy Bishop.'' Ms. Bishop pleaded guilty to the charges, and was given six months probation, Capt. Bonaiuto said. The district attorney recommended she attend anger management classes, but it's unclear whether she went, he said.

In Huntsville, meantime, a survivor of the shooting spree described how Ms. Bishop pulled out a gun during a routine meeting and started shooting people at point-blank range until she had to stop to reload.

Ms. Bishop "started with the one closest to her and went down the row shooting her targets in the head," Joseph Ng, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, wrote in an email to a colleague who confirmed the note's veracity. "Our chairman got it the worst as he was right next to her along with two others who died almost instantly."

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Prison to Test Cellphone Jamming

ANNAPOLIS, Md.—Equipment that jams cellphones will get its first federally sanctioned test inside a prison in Maryland this week, as state officials try to show Congress how the technology can prevent inmates from using the contraband devices to commit crimes, a governor's spokesman said Tuesday.

The Federal Communication Commission can only allow federal agencies—not state or local authorities—permission to jam cellphone signals. But a bill that passed the Senate and awaits action by the House would allow states to petition the FCC to block the use of cellphones from prisons.

Testing is set to begin Wednesday at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, said Shaun Adamec, spokesman for Gov. Martin O'Malley. The governor has strongly backed allowing states to use the jamming technology to battle the growing problem of cellphone use in prisons.

A bipartisan measure sponsored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R., Texas) and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.) was approved by the Senate in September. A companion bill is in the House.

The tests are being conducted to provide more information about the technology as the legislation is being considered.

Prisons around the nation have been trying to stem rising problems from prison inmates using cellphones to coordinate criminal activity from behind bars. Officials in New Jersey even intercepted a conference call among gang members from different prisons who were plotting retaliation against another gang member.

In Maryland, a Baltimore drug dealer used a cellphone from the city jail to plan the killing of a witness in 2007. In Texas, a state senator's life was threatened by a death-row inmate who had a cellphone.

Mr. O'Malley and Ms. Mikulski asked the federal government last year to allow the testing to better inform Congress about the technology. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration agreed to hold the test this week. NTIA shares responsibility for managing the nation's communications network with the FCC, which has denied previous requests from states to test the technology.

In July, corrections directors in 26 states signed a petition to the FCC asking federal regulators' permission to jam cellphone signals inside state penitentiaries.

The FCC has authority over nongovernmental radio communications, while the NTIA has authority over federal uses of the radio spectrum.

States have resorted to other ways of tracking illegal cellphones in prison, including the use of specially trained dogs to sniff out phones.

Critics of cellphone jamming have expressed concerns that the technology could interfere with emergency response and legitimate cellphone use near prisons.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704804204575069774004199984.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5#printMode

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From the FBI

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Leader of Chinese Organized Crime Group Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court to Life in Prison

PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that SUI MIN MA, a/k/a "Frank Ma," a/k/a "Ma Gor," the leader, or "dai lo," of a Chinese organized crime group, was sentenced today to life in prison for ordering the murder of two individuals in Toronto, Canada, on July 20, 1994, in connection with his group's heroin trafficking activities. MA pleaded guilty to two counts of murder on September 20, 2007, before United States District Judge DEBORAH A. BATTS. Co-defendant BING YI CHEN, a/k/a "Ah Ngai," who, according to the Superseding Indictment, was the lieutenant of MA's criminal enterprise, was sentenced to 35 years in prison by Judge BATTS on January 4, 2010.

According to the Superseding Indictment, the evidence at trial, and MA's guilty plea allocution:

From 1991 through 1996, MA, CHEN, and their associates were engaged in the importation of millions of dollars worth of heroin from Asia into the United States for distribution in New York City. In the summer of 1994, MA's principal heroin supplier in Hong Kong called MA and asked MA to kill his drug partner in Toronto, Canada. MA agreed to arrange the murder as a favor for the supplier and to strengthen their lucrative criminal partnership. As a result, MA summoned several of his followers from Southern California to New York City, briefed them on their mission, provided them with a photograph of and addresses for the intended victim, and then dispatched the hit team to Toronto to carry out the killing.

MA gave CHEN the task of preparing the hit team for the murders. CHEN, a lieutenant in the criminal organization and one of MA's longest-serving followers, traveled to Canada with the leader of the hit team to scout out where the intended victim lived and worked; went with the leader of the hit team to obtain guns for the murder; attempted to smuggle those guns across the Canadian border; and picked up members of the hit team from the airport, giving each of them $2000 for their trip.

On July 20, 1994, two members of MA's hit team shot their way into a business office where the intended victim was supposed to be, and killed KWAN KIN MING and YIP PAK YIN, two office workers. Neither MING nor YIN were involved in narcotics trafficking, and neither was the intended victim.

The convictions of MA, 55, and CHEN, 42, were the result of 10 years of investigative work into the MA organization, which has, to date, resulted in 13 convictions.

U.S. Attorney PREET BHARARA said: "Sui Min Ma was the leader of a vicious crime family whose orders led to the brutal deaths of two men for the sake of ingratiating himself with a drug supplier. His gang was a destructive force in New York and California, saturating the streets with heroin and committing numerous acts of violence. We are grateful for the cooperative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New York City Police Department, and Canadian law enforcement in this important investigation."

Mr. BHARARA praised the efforts of the FBI's Asian Organized Crime Task Force, comprised of Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Detectives of the New York City Police Department, for their work on the investigation. Mr. BHARARA also praised the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, a Toronto-based Asian Organized Crime Task Force, and the Toronto Police Service, for the vital and ongoing assistance they have provided in the investigation.

This case is being prosecuted by the Office's Organized Crime Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys JONATHAN B. NEW and MICHAEL M. ROSENSAFT are in charge of the prosecution.

http://newyork.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/nyfo021610.htm

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