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From the Los Angeles Times

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Medical marijuana patients smoke at Buddha Fest in downtown Los Angeles. Proposition 19 would allow recreational pot use in private places when no children are around.

Marijuana law would propel California into unknown territory Proposition 19 — called 'a common sense approach' by some and 'a jumbled legal nightmare' by others — leaves much uncertain. How would pot be controlled? Would buyers risk paying taxes? by John Hoeffel Los Angeles Times October 25, 2010 Vote yes on Proposition 19, the measure to legalize marijuana, and the unofficial state weed and largest cash crop will be controlled like alcohol, police will focus on serious crimes and California will get billions of dollars in new taxes. That's the pitch proponents make. "It's a jumbled legal nightmare," opponents retort, disputing those claims and insisting that the measure would lead to stoned nurses in hospitals, drugged motorists on the road and more high teenagers.

EDITORIAL

Safe sex on the set

Condoms need to be required for porn actors. Not only are sexually transmitted diseases a workplace safety issue, they're also a public health concern.

October 25, 2010

When members of the porn industry and state officials gather in Oakland on Monday for a meeting sponsored by California's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, they will discuss how best to keep adult film performers safe from sexually communicable diseases. The answer, of course, has long been clear: It is to vigorously enforce, and if necessary strengthen, existing rules requiring condom use for adult performers.

The issue resurfaced for the umpteenth time this month when a porn actor tested HIV-positive, but that's no guarantee that anything will change. In 2004, an HIV outbreak among pornography actors prompted a drive to make condom use the norm, but the San Fernando Valley-based porn industry has been recalcitrant.

That porn actors' work leads them to contract sexually transmitted diseases is not in dispute. Since 2004, more than 4,000 people who identified themselves as adult film performers in Los Angeles County have tested positive for chlamydia, gonorrhea or syphilis. But this is not just a workplace safety issue; because porn actors do not live in a bubble but are wives, husbands and members of the Southern California community, those who become infected also pose a risk to public health.

Nor is labor law in dispute. Both federal and state labor laws specifically require the use of personal protective equipment or barriers against blood or bodily fluids in the workplace, such as the gloves and masks used by medical technicians. Or, as Cal/OSHA officials say, employers must have "enclosure control plans." The office has inspected porn operations and cited several for violations, but the refusal to comply is firm. No state law specifically requires condom use; it may be time for that to change.

Makers of pornographic films and many of the actors who flout the law are adamant that their voluntary system of monthly testing at a health clinic is sufficient. But they confuse early detection with prevention. The analogy would be if construction workers were routinely checked for concussions rather than required to wear hardhats.

If condom use does become mandatory in California, filmmakers who make heterosexual porn say business will suffer and they may leave the state. (Condoms are standard in gay porn.) And although some probably would, many would not; some 5,000 crew members who work in the porn industry also work on mainstream Hollywood productions and are not in a position to leave. Besides, that's no excuse for ignoring reasonable health and safety laws.

Before porn producers pack up, they should remember that many states will not welcome their arrival if they can't show that they're willing to take precautions to protect public health. Enforcement can follow wherever they go.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-porn-20101025,0,5062553,print.story

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OPINION

Curing a sick system

The 'individual mandate' is healthcare reform's most divisive — and one of its most crucial — components.

October 24, 2010

The costliest piece of the healthcare reform law Congress passed this year is the subsidy it creates to help working-class Americans buy insurance. This new entitlement is not the law's most controversial piece, however. That dubious distinction belongs to the provision that makes the subsidies necessary: the mandate that all American adults buy health policies, starting in 2014. To critics, this "individual mandate" epitomizes the intrusiveness and regulatory overreach that have characterized the last two years of consolidated Democratic power in Washington. To supporters, it's a vital piece of Congress' effort to make health insurance available to everyone.

Twenty-one state attorneys general brought two separate lawsuits against the mandate, and more than a dozen advocacy groups, trade associations and individuals across the country have filed their own challenges. Although the plaintiffs make a variety of constitutional points, their core argument is that Congress doesn't have the power to force people to buy a product. Because if it did, they ask, where would that power end? Could Congress order people to sign up for a gym membership or eat five daily servings of fruits and vegetables? Could it require them to buy cars from General Motors or Chrysler, at least until the government had recouped its investment in them?

Two federal judges have expressed doubts about the individual mandate, calling it an unprecedented attempt by Congress to regulate economic inactivity. Those cases are still in their preliminary stages, though, and a third judge has upheld the mandate. The legal battles aren't likely to be resolved until one or more of the lawsuits reach the Supreme Court. When that day comes, the justices should say the same thing about Congress' ability to regulate health insurance that they've said several times about interstate commerce in general: The limits on what Congress may do are set mainly in the voting booth, not in the courthouse.

It's not that the Constitution gives Congress unlimited authority — clearly, it doesn't. But where interstate commerce is concerned, the Supreme Court has given Congress considerable leeway to decide how to achieve its regulatory goals. That includes the leeway to do things with which most Americans disagree.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution lays out the powers of Congress, one of them being "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes." Another is "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper" for exercising those powers. There's no debate over whether the trillion-dollar market for health insurance meets the Constitution's definition of interstate commerce; the justices settled that issue in 1944, in a ruling on an antitrust case against insurance companies. Instead, opponents of the mandate contend that it's improper for Congress to push unwilling Americans into the insurance market.

Focusing on whether Americans are being forced to obtain insurance, however, overlooks the larger purpose of the healthcare law. Its objective is to overhaul the entire healthcare system, including the way treatment is delivered and public health is promoted. Everyone participates in that system, except possibly for a tiny fraction of the population that relies on faith instead of doctors and medicine.

Congress' effort to improve the efficiency and quality of the system relies in part on extending insurance to as many individuals as possible. Having insurance encourages people to treat medical problems sooner and at lower cost, rather than waiting for crises and relying on emergency rooms for care. Extending coverage also should reduce the number of unpaid medical bills, which amounted to more than $57 billion in 2008, according to one estimate. When bills go unpaid, the costs don't evaporate; they are passed on to the general public through taxes, insurance premiums and higher medical bills for the self-insured.

To reduce the number of uninsured Americans, the law requires insurers to cover people they've traditionally tried to shun — those with preexisting conditions — and not charge them higher premiums based solely on their medical histories. If the law stopped there, however, many healthy people would respond by waiting to buy insurance until they needed treatment, and then drop it when they were healthy again. That gamesmanship would trigger a vicious cycle of premium increases, making insurance even less affordable and defeating a central purpose of the reform.

To address that problem, the law's authors added the individual mandate. By requiring all adult Americans and legal residents to obtain a basic level of coverage or else pay an annual tax penalty of up to $2,085, the law seeks to deter people from signing up for insurance only after they need expensive care. It's not the only approach Congress could have taken, and it isn't perfect — the penalty seems too low to stop healthy people from going without coverage or employers from ceasing to offer health benefits to their employees. But the mandate is clearly an important component of the reforms Congress is trying to bring to the healthcare market, a means to the end of increasing coverage, improving care and slowing the growth in costs.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that Congress' power over interstate commerce can give it authority over activities that are local and seemingly noneconomic. For example, in 1942 it upheld farm quotas that barred wheat farmers from producing surplus grain for their own families, and in 2005 it ruled that Congress could bar Californians from growing marijuana for their own medicinal use. An important limiting factor on Congress, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a concurring opinion in the marijuana case, is that "such rules must be an essential part of a larger regulatory scheme" that could be undercut if the local actions in question were not regulated.

The individual mandate fits that description. The same logic would be hard to apply to a law that required people to buy a particular brand of car or take a congressionally designated route to better health. The standard may still be too permissive for advocates of smaller and less intrusive government, but congressional elections give them a way every two years to repudiate lawmakers who go further than they want Congress to go.

In fact, this year's campaign is proving that point. Anger about the healthcare reform law has made it a top issue in the campaigns for Congress and even some state offices. And with "tea party" help, Republican opponents of the mandate may very well take control of one or both chambers of Congress, setting up a battle with the White House over the implementation of healthcare reform. That's the sort of control over Congress that the founders intended.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-health-20101024,0,3997886,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Drug Testing Poses Quandary for Employers

October 25, 2010

LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. — The news, delivered in a phone call, left Sue Bates aghast: she was losing her job of 22 years after testing positive for a legally prescribed drug.

Her employer, Dura Automotive Systems, had changed the policy at its sprawling plant here to test for certain prescription drugs as well as illicit ones. The medication that Mrs. Bates was taking for back pain — hydrocodone, a narcotic prescribed by her doctor — was among many that the company, which makes car parts, had suddenly deemed unsafe.

“I don't think it should end the way it did,” said Mrs. Bates, an assembly line worker who has sued Dura for discrimination and invasion of privacy. “You tell somebody you lost your job because you're on prescription medication and they're like, ‘Yeah, right.' ”

Two decades after the Supreme Court first upheld the right to test for drugs in the workplace, Dura's concern — that employees on certain medications posed a safety hazard — is echoing around the country. The growing reliance of Americans on powerful prescription drugs for pain, anxiety and other maladies suggests that many are reporting to work with potent drugs in their systems, and employers are grappling for ways to address that.

What companies consider an effort to maintain a safe work environment is drawing complaints from employees who cite privacy concerns and contend that they should not be fired for taking legal medications, sometimes for injuries sustained on the job.

“This may be the point guard for an important societal issue,” Dr. Robert T. Cochran Jr., a Nashville pain specialist who treats three of the Dura plaintiffs, said of the lawsuit against Dura. “How do we address these drugs as a society?”

There is a dearth of data from independent groups regarding impairment from prescription drugs in the workplace, partly because the issue has not drawn broad scrutiny. But Quest Diagnostics, a prominent provider of workplace drug tests, said that the rate of employees testing positive for prescription opiates rose by more than 40 percent from 2005 to 2009, and by 18 percent last year alone. The data, culled from the results of more than 500,000 drug tests, also indicated that workers who were tested for drugs after accidents were four times more likely to have opiates in their systems than those tested before being hired.

“It's not nearly on employer radar screens as much as it should be,” said Mark A. de Bernardo, executive director of the Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace, a nonprofit business coalition near Washington, and a senior partner at Jackson Lewis, an employment law firm. “Given the liability for industrial accidents or product defects or workplace injuries involving prescription drug abuse, employers cannot afford not to address this issue.”

Nor is the problem limited to factory floors like the one at Dura's plant here, where conveyor belts are in constant motion and tow drivers shuttle pieces of glass from station to station, former workers said. In Texas, a prominent prosecutor resigned in 2008 after a scandal for which he blamed impaired judgment because of prescription drugs. And in Missouri, a patient sued alleging that a doctor had torn a hole in his colon during a 2006 colonoscopy while taking the painkiller oxycodone.

Dr. Carl Rollyn Sullivan, director of addictions programs at the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown, said he had treated “a lot of miners telling me the ridiculous amount of drugs they're doing underground,” most of them legally prescribed.

Challenges for Employers

Setting rules about prescription drug use in the workplace is tricky, not least because it is difficult to prove impairment. Under Dura's policy, a prescription drug was considered unsafe if its label included a warning against driving or operating machinery, but doctors say many users function normally despite such warnings.

Also, some employers find it difficult to deal with the problem partly for fear of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. It prohibits asking employees about prescription drugs unless workers are seen acting in a way that compromises safety or suggests they cannot perform their job for medical reasons, according to lawyers with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“We're up against 20 years of training on the A.D.A. that essentially suggests, ‘ Don't ask, don't tell,' ” said Steven M. Bernstein, an employment lawyer with Fisher & Phillips in Tampa, Fla.

Christopher J. Kuczynski, assistant legal counsel in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's policy division for the Americans with Disabilities Act, said, “The employer must have reasonable belief the person is unable to do the job or poses a threat based on a medical condition.”

The only exception is for police officers, firefighters and others in public safety jobs, Mr. Kuczynski said. They can be required to self-report the use of prescription medication if their inability or impaired ability to perform their job functions would result in a direct threat, he added.

Even with bus and truck drivers, nuclear plant workers, and others in jobs that the federal government deems “safety sensitive,” employers are required to test for only six categories of drugs that do not cover synthetic painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin, anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax, or other controlled prescription drugs. (Because the test looks for codeine and morphine, which experts say are far less abused than the synthetics, many employers wrongly assume it looks for all opiates.)

“That is just a devastating critique of the government's role in this,” said Dr. Robert L. DuPont, president of the Institute for Behavior and Health near Washington. “It's a very serious hole in the system.”

Dr. Donna Bush, a senior forensic toxicologist at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which sets parameters for federal drug testing, said the group was not pushing to add more prescription drugs.

“Which ones do we add?” she asked. “Drug testing for illicit illegal drugs is very easy because presence is an offense.”

Employers can choose to test for more drugs, which is what Dura decided to do at its Lawrenceburg plant in 2007. Citing concerns about drug use and worker safety, Dura hired an independent company to administer random drug tests. Dura chose to screen for 12 types of drugs, including hydrocodone and oxycodone.

“The goal of the plan was to provide a safe environment,” Lindy Boots, the plant's former human resources manager, said in a deposition.

The concerns were not totally unfounded, some employees who worked at the plant said in interviews. A plaintiff said he knew of workers using illegal drugs on the job, and other former employees said they suspected people were passing around prescription drugs.

“If they had a headache or something was hurting some of them would give them one of their Lortabs,” said Willarene Fisher, a former employee who failed the drug test, of her former co-workers. Ms. Fisher is also suing.

Representatives of Dura declined to comment, citing the continuing lawsuit. It is one of two that have been filed against Dura; the other was brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Both cases are currently in court.

Court records show that over a week in May 2007, about 500 employees at the company's Lawrenceburg plant submitted urine samples under the new testing policy. Of those, 44 tested positive for prescription drugs. They were put on a 30-day leave of absence and had to pass a second test to return to their jobs.

Susan Lowery, a former supervisor at the plant who tested positive for oxycodone, said the drug had kept her functioning after three back surgeries and did not affect her job performance.

“My record was clean,” said Mrs. Lowery, a plaintiff in one of two lawsuits against Dura. “I was there every day no matter how I felt.”

National Efforts

The drug tests coincided with Dura's participation in Tennessee's Drug-Free Workplace Program, which provides incentives that include a premium credit on workers' compensation insurance.

Many states have a drug-free workplace program, a concept that developed after Congress passed the 1988 law requiring companies with federal contracts to adopt drug policies. But the programs have barely changed in the 20 years since they were conceived and focus heavily on illegal drugs.

Meanwhile, the laws on drug testing are complex and vary from state to state. Several, for example, prohibit or greatly restrict random drug testing, while many others give employers broad discretion, even providing incentives for employers to drug test their employees like discounts on workers' compensation premiums.

Employers can ask workers in safety-sensitive jobs to self-report any potentially dangerous prescription medications, but they cannot ensure they do so.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration urges companies to train supervisors to look for signs of drug abuse. But an incorrect assessment can land an employer in court, Dr. DuPont said.

“If somebody puts his head down on a desk, do you test him for drugs or not?” he said. “The first time you get an employee who says you're harassing them, you're not going to test anyone else even if they're passed out.”

Many doctors, meanwhile, say that most people can tolerate and function well on pain medication taken under their supervision.

“In general,” said Dr. Seddon R. Savage, a pain specialist at Dartmouth College and president of the American Pain Society, “well-prescribed opioids at a stable dose that are well supervised in most healthy people won't cause sedation or other cognitive problems.”

Dr. Cochran said that opiate painkillers can help workers do their jobs better if taken appropriately.

“I think they terminated some people who were not in any way compromised,” he said of Dura.

Yet Dr. Cochran also estimated that about 15 percent of his patients misused painkillers and said that he understood why employers would be worried.

At the very least, Dr. DuPont said, the standardized testing that is now mandatory for transportation and nuclear workers should be expanded to include more legal drugs. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration recently added a sixth drug, ecstasy, to the panel of five — marijuana; cocaine; amphetamines; phencyclidine, or PCP; and nonsynthetic opiates — that it has long required safety-sensitive workers to be tested for.

That leaves employers in even the most safety-sensitive fields to make their own decisions about whether to test for synthetic opiates and other commonly used legal drugs. And many are skittish, even though anecdotes abound about people misusing or abusing prescription drugs in the workplace.

“I've seen people have their fingers cut off because they or somebody they depended on to operate machinery properly was out of it,” said Dr. Neil Capretto, medical director at Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Aliquippa, Pa. “We treat some people in construction who say so many of their co-workers are using, they sometimes have to change careers because it's too much of a trigger for them to go back to work after rehab.”

Finding a Balance

Dr. Barry Sample, director of science and technology for the Employer Solutions business of Quest Diagnostics, said the smartest thing employers can do is come up with a thorough and consistent policy that spells out which drugs their workers might be tested for and under what circumstances.

Supervisors, he said, should be carefully trained to look for signs of impairment — the “reasonable suspicion” necessary under law to warrant testing.

“They need to understand what constitutes reasonable suspicion,” he said, “and make sure the policy is communicated clearly and very well to the employees who are going to be impacted.”

But some worry that employers wading into the realm of prescription drugs could infringe on privacy and dredge up stereotypes about people who take certain medications.

“People make stereotypical assumptions about certain medications, whether they're prescription or over-the-counter, and use those prejudices from prohibiting people from maintaining gainful employment,” said Nick Pladson, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawyer in Minneapolis who is suing a manufacturing company on behalf of a man who was required to disclose the prescription drugs he was taking and was later fired.

Although Dura officials said in court documents that the goal of expanded testing was to protect employees, some plaintiffs in the lawsuits claim they were injured on the job and supervisors knew about the medications they were taking. Others say they believe the company wanted to get rid of them because they were costing it thousands of dollars in insurance premiums, a charge the company has denied.

“The reason I was taking the medication was a work-related injury,” said Mark Long, 38, who worked at Dura and was fired for taking hydrocodone. “I really didn't expect for my job to end.”

Supervisors worried that employees, who manufactured hundreds of thousands of windows for automotive companies including General Motors and Ford within very close proximity of one another, could cause a “domino effect” if one was impaired and had an accident.

Mr. Long said he had stopped taking Lortab after losing his job because the pain subsided when he was not working full-time. With work scarce in Lawrenceburg, a city of 14,000 in south-central Tennessee, Mr. Long drives 70 miles each way to work as a boat mechanic in northern Alabama.

Mrs. Bates, whose job was trimming car window molding, said she had been unable to find another job. She said she understood Dura's safety concerns but believed the company should have worked with employees who take prescription drugs rather than fire them.

“If the medicine they're taking is not good for them or the workplace, then there should be some sort of program where they can teach us how that affects you or see if something else can be worked out,” Mrs. Bates said. “But that was not an option for us.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/us/25drugs.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Public Housing Repairs Can't Keep Pace With Need

Public housing is falling apart around the country, as federal money has been unable to keep up with the repair needs of buildings more than half a century old.

Over the last 15 years, 150,000 of the nation's public housing units have been lost, officials said, as agencies have sold or torn down decrepit properties. An additional 5,700 units are pending removal from federal public housing programs.

In New York City, which has a three-year backlog of repair requests, the effects can be seen in places like Aixa Torres's apartment on the Lower East Side.

The paint chips were the first to be dislodged, drifting like snowflakes from her kitchen ceiling. When water began dripping through the ceiling, forming a hole sometime this spring, she called her landlord, the city's public housing authority.

A maintenance worker showed up to take a look, and repairs were scheduled.

A plasterer would come to fix the hole in May 2011. A painter would come to cover up the plasterer's work in May 2012.

The drip has yet to be fixed.

The situation is no better in Newark, which has shuttered 600 units that it cannot afford to fix. The city was given federal approval to raze 1,004 more, but it cannot pay for the demolition.

In Washington, the District of Columbia Housing Authority has floated bonds, among other measures, to put $140 million into fixing up its developments, but it is still $200 million short of what the authority says it needs for repairs.

Baltimore's housing authority needs $860 million for crucial repairs, said the housing commissioner, Paul T. Graziano; it has demolished or shuttered 33 percent of its units since the 1990s and has another 600 “on the verge of failure,” with falling cabinets, unhinged doors and aging electrical systems.

All told, the country's housing authorities still need $22 billion to $32 billion to rehabilitate their buildings, said David Lipsetz, a senior adviser in the Office of Public and Indian Housing with the Department of Housing and Urban Development -- an average of $25,000 for each of the 1.175 million public housing units. But that figure is based on a 1998 study, he said; an updated report is in the works.

“The future does not look bright in a model that was built 70-plus years ago and is failing to keep these buildings in good shape,” Mr. Lipsetz said.

A $4 billion federal stimulus infusion helped, but “with that capital backlog,” he said, “they're never catching up.”

In response, HUD has drafted legislation that would allow housing agencies to borrow public and private money, using their land and buildings as equity, to finance repairs. Money received annually from Congress would be used to repay the debt over time. Mr. Lipsetz said that based on other forms of subsidized housing programs the department runs, the risk of default was less than one-tenth of 1 percent.

The bill, yet to be formally introduced in Congress, stirred mixed reactions among housing authorities and advocates, many of whom feared the prospect of public housing falling into private hands.

“Across the country, some advocates are against any private lending,” said Victor Bach, a senior housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society of New York. “On the other hand, a lot of advocates feel that this is the only way, given the way Washington works, to preserve our public housing resources. We're not going to get the capital appropriations needed from Congress.”

But the proposed legislation, currently being reworked, met stiff opposition at a Congressional hearing in May.

“I agree we need more capital funding,” said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, which held the hearing. “But putting a private mortgage on public housing is not a good idea.”

Meanwhile, tenants of New York's public housing say repair delays have never been worse, a belief borne out by figures from the New York City Housing Authority. It already has 106,000 unfulfilled work orders, 9,000 of which are scheduled for 2012 and an additional 300 already for 2013. The State Assembly's Committee on Housing is holding a public hearing on Tuesday focused on the maintenance delays.

Michael Kelly, the housing authority's general manager, said his agency simply could not keep up. A 2005 independent study found that the agency needed $7.5 billion to put its buildings in good condition. But the authority had only $1.5 billion for such needs.

As the federal government began reducing appropriations for public housing early in the last decade, the authority trimmed its staff, cutting 1,540 operations jobs from 2005 to 2009. Meanwhile, work orders for those very people — carpenters, painters and plasterers — began to soar, from 180,000 in 2005 to 250,000 this year, as of Sept. 24.

Mr. Kelly said the cutbacks had affected the authority's ability to respond to work orders “as quickly as we'd like to.”

Tenant frustration has been steadily mounting, with some residents resorting to legal action in housing courts to force repairs to their apartments. Meanwhile, broader issues like poor plumbing and leaky roofs go unaddressed, in turn causing more damage.

Unpatched holes invite cockroaches and mice. Drips lead to collapsed ceilings.

Latoya Craig, 27, an administrative assistant who lives in Moore Houses, in the South Bronx, was recently told that the large hole in her bathroom ceiling would not be repaired until May. In the meantime, mold has started to bloom, causing her to worry about the health of her 6-year-old son.

“The only good thing is he can't reach it,” she said.

Tenants have also complained about the way repairs are scheduled. Around the time the agency began cutting jobs, it introduced a computerized call center to streamline repair work. An automated voice answers in English, with repair requests eventually answered by a housing authority staff member. (Translators are available as needed, a staff member said, but tenants say many non-English callers often give up before that.)

Maintenance workers then make in-person assessments, and repairs are prioritized based on need. If there is no emergency, or if a skilled tradesman is required, the repair date is often years off.

Damaris Reyes, executive director of the tenant advocacy group Good Old Lower East Side, said she had heard from people who had had painters show up before plasterers to paint over holes that remain unfixed, and from tenants whose faulty kitchen sinks were ripped months before the replacement arrived. “Instead of multiple visits for one issue, they should address the issue collectively,” Ms. Reyes said.

Mr. Kelly said the housing authority was seeking solutions, like diverting $7 million from unspent administration fees to the maintenance backlog. The agency may also seek to bring in volunteers, through nonprofit groups, he said, to help with painting and other minor repairs, and perhaps tap residents too — a Habitat for Humanity-type approach that would not cost a thing. Still, such measures would amount to drops in the bucket, given the billions in repairs the agency requires.

New York is unusual in that it has demolished very little of its public housing stock. Elsewhere in the country, notably in Atlanta and New Orleans, housing agencies have torn down decrepit buildings and instead given poor residents federally subsidized housing vouchers to use toward their rent.

But Will Fischer, a senior policy analyst who focuses on low-income housing at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research group, said vouchers could be harder for some populations to use successfully, especially the elderly, as not every landlord accepts them. He also found that in the long run, vouchers cost the government more money than preserving existing housing.

“The buildings are already there,” Mr. Fischer said, “It's just a matter of renovation.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/nyregion/25repairs.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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EDITORIAL

The Long Recovery From 9/11

Nine years after the attack on the World Trade Center, a crucial deadline is approaching for helping thousands of first responders, cleanup workers and volunteers suffering long-term medical and economic losses.

By Nov. 8, 95 percent of 9,055 plaintiffs who sued the city and its contractors for hazardous neglect in the cleanup effort must accept a settlement of more than $700 million worked out in six years of mass litigation. Rejection would mean years more of individual suits. The judge who fought hard for the plaintiffs has wisely counseled acceptance.

The Senate also needs to act, quickly, and approve legislation that would help tens of thousands of additional emergency responders and cleanup workers struggling with the aftereffects of 9/11. These citizens selflessly emerged from the city and across the nation to pitch in for weeks at ground zero. It's now clear that they require medical monitoring and care for years to come for illnesses from inhaling the toxic fumes, dust and smoke.

The House has already passed a bill that provides $3.2 billion over the next eight years for nearly 60,000 people already in monitoring and treatment, financed now on a piecemeal basis. It also would provide $4.2 billion to reopen the 9/11 victims fund for economic losses — compensation that was closed out before additional cases developed. Plaintiffs in the city lawsuits could file claims under the House measure, but additional compensation would be offset by any court award.

Republican leaders tried to scuttle the House measure — wrongly predicting “slush fund” abuses and deficit run-ups. They failed. The bill provides safeguards and is paid for by closing tax loopholes exploited by off-shore corporations. Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it a priority measure, and won the support of 17 Republicans.

Ground zero veterans who came from far away to help are reminding their senators that 9/11 was a national tragedy. Is it too much to ask Senate Republicans to show bipartisanship and responsibility?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/opinion/25mon3.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the Chicago Sun Times

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New York City bedbugs scaring off tourists

October 25, 2010

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City's bedbugs have climbed out of bed and marched into landmarks like the Empire State Building, Bloomingdale's and Lincoln Center, causing fresh anxiety among tourists who are canceling Big Apple vacations planned for the height of the holiday season.

Some travelers who had arranged trips to New York say they are creeped out about staying in hotels and visiting attractions as new reports of bedbugs seem to pop up every few days. And officials in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration are concerned about the effect on the city's image and $30 billion tourism industry.

The discoveries of pests at high-profile places are often not full-blown infestations, or even in public areas. Bloomingdale's reported finding exactly one bug in the famous department store, the Empire State Building had them in the basement and Lincoln Center's were in a dressing room.

But those reports, along with bedbug discoveries in movie theaters, hotels and clothing chain stores, are causing skittish travelers to call off trips planned months ago.

Industry professionals — who have privately told city officials that they are nervous about bedbugs hurting New York's reputation — say publicly that they are not aware of any bedbug-related cancellations. But several would-be tourists tracked down by The Associated Press say they are aborting their trips here because they fear the bloodsucking pests.

"It sounds like you can get them anywhere, any time of day and not know it until you get home," said Patty Majerik, from Baltimore.

She said she may not travel to Manhattan next month with her children, ages 7 and 10, like they do every year around the holidays to shop, catch a Broadway show and see the Radio City Christmas show.

"I've got four people traveling on a train, in cabs, going to stores and theaters, and they could be in any of these places? I hate to say it, but I doubt we're going to come this time," Majerik said.

Suzanne Baldwin said she is forfeiting money spent on reservations for a November trip to New York City from her home in Florida. She had already grown accustomed to checking hotel rooms for bedbugs — and has done so in New York before — but she is now overwhelmed at the idea that the bugs have spread beyond hotels.

"We thought long and hard about this trip," she told the AP in an e-mail. "However, we decided, knowing we would lose quite a bit of money from nonrefundable tickets, it was not worth the worry."

Susannah Johnston, a yoga teacher who lives in the New York City suburbs, said she and her husband wanted to stay overnight in Manhattan last weekend after attending a late concert, but bedbugs thwarted their plans.

"We started researching hotels and prices, and then we read the reviews," she said. "Every one of the hotels we were considering had a guest horror story regarding bedbugs."

Sightings of the rust-colored bugs, which are about the size of an apple seed, have surged in New York and around the nation in recent years. It is not known what caused their sudden spread, but experts have theorized that an increase in global travel and the banning of certain pesticides may be partly responsible.

Bedbugs are famously difficult to eradicate; they hide in many more places than beds and can go for a year without feeding. Bloomberg recently joked on David Letterman's "Late Show" that bedbugs "are probably tougher" than New York City's notoriously hardy rats.

The city's tourism agency, NYC & Company, said it has not seen mass cancellations because of bedbug fears. But officials said some New York hotels, museums and other attractions that depend on tourists have told the administration they are concerned the bedbug rumors will scare travelers away.

Tourism officials are keeping an eye on the situation, and are trying to decide how to address the public relations side of it.

New Yorkers themselves are feeling more anxious about regular activities like shopping, seeing movies and even just going to work, as bedbug reports have spread to office buildings and schools.

"I have definitely had people talking about it more, checking more for signs of bedbugs — it's on people's minds and changing the way they live their lives," said Lisa Tischler, a Manhattan psychologist who treats anxiety disorders. "People are really taking it seriously, and there are people who are out of control about it."

The online travel site TripAdvisor, where travelers post reviews and ask questions of other tourists, said it has seen a 12 percent increase in New York City posts referencing bedbugs. The site compared the first eight months of 2010 with the same period the previous year.

Dan Telfer recently traveled to New York City from Chicago and said he was overcome with anxiety about encountering bedbugs. But the standup comedian forged ahead with the trip after obsessively checking online hotel reviews and finding a place to stay that appeared to be bedbug-free.

"I was acutely aware of all the stories I'd read, and that this bug that everyone thought was almost extinct was taking over the city," he said. "But you can't cancel. Life has to move on — there's no reason to cancel something potentially good or fun because of an anxiety."

City officials and experts say it is difficult to fully measure the extent of the problem, partly because of bedbug stigma and the lack of solid data about confirmed infestations.

For the first time, the city health department included a question about bedbugs on its annual community health survey. In 2009, it found, more than 6 percent of New Yorkers — one in 15 adults — said they had battled the pests in the past year. Until the AP reported those results earlier this year, data had been limited to government statistics on bedbug complaints and private pest control company surveys.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2832426,bedbugs-new-york-tourists-102510.article

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Immigrant veterans face deportation

Death in war earns citizenship, but years of service mean nothing if a crime is committed

October 25, 2010

BY JULIANA BARBASSA

SAN FRANCISCO -- When Rohan Coombs joined the U.S. Marine Corps, he never thought one day he would be locked up in an immigration detention center and facing deportation from the country he had vowed to defend.

Coombs, 43, born in Jamaica, immigrated to the United States legally as a child with his family. He signed up to serve his adopted nation for six years and saw action in the Persian Gulf during the first war with Iraq.

Up to 8,000 non-citizens enlist in the U.S. military every year, and as of May 2010, there were 16,966 non-citizens on active duty. The military does not allow illegal immigrants to enlist.

If non-citizens die while serving, they are given citizenship. If they live and get in trouble with the law, as Coombs did, they can get caught in the net of a 1996 immigration law that expanded the list of crimes for which non-citizens can be deported.

"As far as I was concerned, I was a citizen," said Coombs.

Now advocates of non-citizen servicemen and women are trying to change that. Attorneys are taking cases like Coombs' to court, arguing that an immigrant who serves in the armed forces should be considered a U.S. national and protected from deportation.

"These are people who served us -- whether they are model human beings or not," said Coombs' attorney, Craig Shagin of Harrisburg, Pa. "If they were POWs, they'd be considered American prisoners."

Most immigrants serve with distinction. The Center for Naval Analyses found that non-citizens are far more likely to complete their enlistment obligations successfully than their U.S.-born counterparts.

Coombs was one who did not make the grade.

He spent 10 months in the Persian Gulf and lost friends to combat, he said. After the war, he felt depressed and anxious. He got involved with drugs and got caught.

In 1992, he was court-martialed and given 18 months of confinement and a dishonorable discharge. In 2008, he was busted again and spent eight months in state prison.

"I don't want to make excuses. I made mistakes. I thought I knew the consequences -- I served my time," he said.

He has been held in a San Diego immigration detention center for 22 months and is appealing to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2831540,CST-NWS-vets25.article

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Witness: attack at Mexico rehab center kills 13

October 25, 2010

ASSOCIATED PRESS

TIJUANA, Mexico -- A client at a drug rehab center in the Mexican border city of Tijuana said Monday that a gang of armed men burst into the building and gunned down 13 recovering addicts there.

Prosecutors have not yet confirmed the number of dead. Police at the scene say at least 10 were killed.

The witness, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Jesus, for fear of reprisals, said he was attending a movie showing on the first floor of the center, and had stepped out for something to eat when the attacked occurred late Sunday.

When he returned, his fellow clients told him the attackers made the addicts lie on the floor, and then sprayed them with bullets. Other clients sleeping upstairs in the center also survived. There are normally about 45 clients at the center.

The attack on the ramshackle, privately run center is the first such mass killing at a rehab center in Tijuana, a city praised by some for its anti-gang efforts.

Several such attacks have killed dozens of recovering addicts in another border city, Ciudad Juarez, and a voice was heard over a police radio frequency later saying "this is a taste of Juarez."

While police have not identified the motive in the Tijuana slayings, drug gangs have attacked such centers before to target rival gang members.

In Ciudad Juarez, prosecutors' spokesman Arturo Sandoval said three municipal police officers were found shot to death outside their patrol vehicle on Sunday.

And in the southern Pacific coast state of Guerrero on Sunday, state police found the bound, executed bodies of six men on a highway outside the resort city of Acapulco.

The men had been blindfolded, their hands and feet bound, and shot to death with assault rifles, the state Public Safety Department reported.

The killers left three handwritten messages with bodies, a tactic frequently employed by Mexico's drug gangs to threaten their rivals or authorities, but police routinely do not reveal the contents of such messages.

Nationwide, more than 28,000 people have been killed in drug gang violence since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon deployed soldiers to battle the cartels in their strongholds in northern Mexico and along the Pacific coast.

While the government says most of the dead were involved in the drug trade, innocent bystanders have also died, like three people killed in the crossfire of a shootout between gunmen, police and soldiers in northern Coahuila state Sunday.

The victims were a 14-year-old boy and two women aged 18 and 47, according to a statement by the state prosecutors' office.

The statement said gunmen traveling in two vehicles opened fire on a convoy of federal police officers and soldiers in the city of Saltillo, Coahuila. The officers and soldiers returned fire.

It was not clear who fired the shots that killed the bystanders, but the state attorney general's office said it was investigating and expressed condolences to the victims' families.

"They are civilians who unfortunately died in the exchange of gunfire," it said, describing a running series of confrontations between police and assailants who allegedly fired shots into the air to clear bystanders from their path at one point.

In Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, the death toll from a birthday party massacre late Friday rose to 14 when an 18-year-old man died of his wounds.

Nineteen people were wounded in the attack on two private homes where about four dozen partygoers had gathered for a teenager's birthday.

The dead identified so far were 13 to 32 years old, and the majority of the victims were high school students, a survivor said.

While investigators said they have not yet identified the perpetrators or a motive, police found 70 bullet casings from assault weapons typically used by drug gangs at the scene of the shootings. Cartel violence has killed more than 2,000 people so far this year in the city, which is across from El Paso, Texas.

Drug gangs have increasingly attacked private parties they believe members of rival gangs might be attending; innocent partygoers are often killed in such attacks.

On Sunday, prosecutors in northern Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juarez is located, said they were searching for a man known only by his nickname, "The Mouse," who was apparently the target of the gunmen.

The man was reportedly wounded in the Friday shooting, but has disappeared. Investigators said they believe he can provide information on who was trying to kill him.

Memorial services were held Sunday for some of the victims of Friday's attack, and prosecutors said guards had been provided to protect the services.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/2832324,mexico-drug-murders-102510.article

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From Google News

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Pirates capture ship and tanker

UKPA

October 25, 2010

Somali pirates have seized a German freight ship off the coast of Kenya - the second commercial vessel to be captured in the region in as many days, officials have said.

The pirates took control of the German freight ship Beluga Fortune about 1,200 miles east of Mombasa, Kenya, a spokesman for the German army said on condition of anonymity, in keeping with military regulations.

The German shipping company Beluga-Reederei, which owns the vessel, said Somali pirates were behind the attack and that the ship was on its way from the United Arab Emirates to South Africa.

Verena Beckhusen, a spokeswoman for the Bremen-based company, declined to give further details regarding the crew or the cargo, but a German news agency said the vessel was carrying at least two German citizens.

On Saturday night, pirates seized a liquefied gas tanker 105 miles off the coast of Kenya in the Somali Basin, said officials in Singapore, where the ship is registered.

The MV York was travelling from Mombasa to Mahe in the Seychelles with 17 crew when pirates commandeered it, the Singapore Maritime and Port Authority said in a statement.

The authority said it was working with the ship's owner, York Maritime Co, and government agencies to recover the ship.

A Turkish warship sent a helicopter to investigate the attack, and its crew members saw pirates armed with weapons aboard the MV York, the European Union Naval Force said.

The 5,076-ton MV York had one German, two Ukrainians and 14 Filipinos aboard, the EU force said in a statement.

Somalia has lacked a fully functioning government since 1991, which makes it difficult to prosecute suspected Somali pirates.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5ibixOVdUiBjZlZmthZvbrW9F0-RA?docId=N0071991287974586110A

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Chandra Levy Trial Begins in Washington

After Nearly a Decade, Deadly Mystery That Sparked a Scandal Linked to Congressman Could Be Solved

As the trial for slain political intern Chandra Levy is set to begin today, it could be the beginning of the end for a nine-year-old odyssey that began in mystery and exploded in scandal before turning to heartbreak.

Levy, a 24-year-old intern for California congressman Gary Condit, disappeared on May 1, 2001 while jogging in D.C.'s Rock Creek Park. The woman's body wasn't discovered until more than a year later.

The story, already a headline-maker across the country, sparked a media frenzy when it was revealed that Levy was romantically linked with married congressman Condit.

"The Chandra Levy case was really the perfect storm in the summer of 2001," Washington Post reporter and author of "Finding Chandra" told "Good Morning America." "It became a parlor game in Washington. Everybody was obsessed with the idea that Gary Condit, congressman from California, had something to do with this murder of a young intern."

Then, just last year, authorities arrested Ingmar Guandique, 29, and charged him with murder, kidnapping and attempted sexual assault among other counts. When he was arrested Guandique, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was already serving a 10-year sentence for separate assaults that took place in Rock Creek Park.

Authorities said Guandique admitted to other inmates that he killed Levy, but there is reportedly no hard physical evidence tying Guandique to the scene of the death.

Condit is expected to be called to testify in the case, a spokesman for the former congressman told The Associated Press.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/chandra-levy-trial-begins/story?id=11960042

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Cop Getting Hair Done Thwarts Robber

BY ADRIAN CARRASQUILLO

MYFOXNY.COM

A man who opened fire inside a hair salon in Laurelton, Queens over the weekend was arrested on Monday morning.

Police say Winston Cox,19, entered Sabine's Hallway beauty salon on Franklin Avenue just before 6:30 p.m. Saturday and demanded cash and belongings from the customers.

Off-duty NYPD Officer Feris Jones, 50, identified herself as a police officer and ordered him to drop his gun, but the suspect shot at her and missed and she returned fire.

The president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, Patrick J. Lynch, praised the 20-year veteran police officer.

"New York City police officers are on duty 24/7 all year long as was demonstrated by the heroic actions of police officer Feris Jones. She demonstrated real courage and calm in a deadly situation and we are proud to number her among the New York's Finest," he said.

Police say Cox fled on foot. No injuries were reported inside the salon.

Winston Cox was shot either in his right arm or thigh and may have bandages on his hands, police said.

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/brooklyn/Cop-Getting-Hair-Done-Thwarts-Robber-20101023-apx

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Neighbors say hero cop Feris Jones 'looks out for everyone'

BY Henrick Karoliszyn

New York Daily News

October 25th 2010

Hero cop Feris Jones is a calm, cool pro who is always prepared for trouble, people who know her said Sunday.

"She's a very nice person, but she never leaves here unless she's strapped," said Jones' neighbor Clyde Roper.

He said the 50-year-old Caribbean-born veteran NYPD officer - known around her Flatlands building as Jonesy - is a joyous spirit but is always mindful of her surroundings.

"She looks out for people here," Roper said. "I'm glad to have her around."

The 20-year Queens criminal lab vet calmly went toe to toe Saturday with an armed teen punk trying to rob a Bedford-Stuyvesant salon where Jones is a regular, shooting him in the leg as he opened fire three times.

No one else was hurt. The bleeding teen fled empty-handed.

Police officials hailed Jones as a hero for her quick-witted response.

"She demonstrated real courage and calm in a deadly situation, and we are proud to number her among the New York's finest," said Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch.

Jones is a natural hero, neighbors say.

"She was the right person who was there at the right time," Roper said. "This doesn't surprise me that people are calling her a hero. If she had to do it, she was doing it for other people. She looks out for everyone."

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/25/2010-10-25_she_looks_out_for_everyone.html

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