Month: August 2014

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California will move mentally ill prisoners from solitary confinement to special isolation units as part of a series of new policies outlined by corrections officials Friday to improve treatment for inmates with psychiatric illnesses. In 2013, about 28 percent of California’s overcrowded prison population was diagnosed with some sort of mental illness, according to state and federal statistics. Complying with the federal order to amend how it deals with these inmates, the state earlier this month outlined changes to curb the use of force after video footage showed mentally ill prisoners screaming as guards doused them in pepper spray. Corrections officials are “focused on ensuring a strong collaborative environment between mental health and custody staff … to ensure mental health input is fully considered in programming and housing decisions,” Friday’s filing said.

The Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 1,500 people across West Africa spread to a fifth country in the region on Friday with the first confirmed case of the deadly virus in Senegal. The case marks the first time a new country has been hit by the outbreak since July and comes a day after the World Health Organization warned the number of infections was increasing rapidly. On Friday, scientists writing in the journal Nature said 18 lab monkeys given high doses of the Ebola virus fully recovered after being given the prototype drug ZMapp, which reversed bleeding in the animals. ZMapp has been given to a handful of frontline health workers who have contracted Ebola, two of whom have recovered, and two of whom have died.

By Laura Zuckerman SALMON Idaho (Reuters) – A court-appointed attorney for boys removed from the Idaho home of a follower of imprisoned polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs said on Friday he feared for the well-being of six of the children released to their parents’ custody. Nathan Jessop, a follower of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was charged with misdemeanor child injury offenses after police raided the home on the outskirts of Pocatello last month and took away the eight teenagers. Their parents had agreed to the arrangement but, earlier this month after Jessop was charged, they traveled to Idaho from such states as Arizona and Kansas to reclaim custody of children they had not seen for years, authorities said. Bradley Willis, an attorney appointed by an Idaho court to represent the boys, was opposed to the state’s handoff of the six boys.

A bill allowing family members to ask a judge to order firearms removed from people likely to commit gun violence was sent to California Governor Jerry Brown on Friday for signing into law. The bill, one of several gun control measures up for votes in the last week of the state’s legislative session, was introduced after police near Santa Barbara said they were unable to confiscate weapons from a man who later went on a rampage and killed six people, despite concern from his family that he was in poor mental health and might become violent.     The bill passed the Assembly 47-25.     If Brown, who has steered a centrist course on gun control legislation, signs the bill, California would be the first U.S.

District Judge Lee Yeakel said the so-called “ambulatory surgical center requirement” was unjust because it placed an undue burden on women by reducing the number of clinics where they could seek abortions and the regulations had no compelling public health interests. “The court concludes, after examining the act and the context in which it operates, that the ambulatory-surgical center requirement was intended to close existing licensed abortion clinics,” Yeakel wrote in the decision. The requirement was to have gone into effect on Sept. 1. Under it, clinics would have had to meet a set of building standards ranging from widening halls to having facilities for certain surgeries that abortion rights advocates said were unnecessary, especially when an abortion is medically induced.

The moratorium marked at least the third consecutive summer that the porn industry has voluntarily shut down productions under its health-screening system because of performers who tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease. “We always err on the side of caution,” said Diane Duke, chief executive of the Los Angeles-based Free Speech Coalition, the porn trade industry group. Because false positives are relatively rare with the type of screening the group conducts, its policy is to immediately halt shooting even before exposure to the AIDS virus is confirmed, she said.

The United Nations will use Ghana as a base for supplies bound for countries stricken by an Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 1,550 people in West Africa, the Ghanaian presidency said in a statement on Friday. UN chief Ban Ki-moon had a telephone conversation on Friday evening with Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama, who agreed to let international agencies use Ghana’s capital Accra as a base for air lifting supplies and personnel to affected countries, the statement said. The statement said the UN and local authorities would work closely to put in place appropriate screening and prevention measures to avoid any adverse effects on Ghana as a result of the international operations. The UN will also help review and strengthen Ghana’s Ebola preparedness as steps are taken to prevent the virus from spreading to that country, according to the statement.