More mudslide victims found as state seeks new aid

More mudslide victims found as state seeks new aid 

An American flag hangs from the only cedar post left standing at the scene of a deadly mudslide, Monday, March 31, 2014, in Oso, Wash.

DARRINGTON, Wash. (AP) -- Estimated financial losses from the deadly Washington mudslide that has killed at least 24 people have reached $10 million, Gov. Jay Inslee said Monday in a letter asking the federal government for a major disaster declaration.

In seeking additional federal help following one of the deadliest landslides in U.S. history, Inslee said about 30 families need assistance with housing, along with personal and household goods. The estimated losses include nearly $7 million in structures and more than $3 million in their contents, Inslee's letter said.

The Snohomish County medical examiner's office said Monday afternoon that it has received a total of 24 victims, and 17 of those have been positively identified. Previously, the official death toll was 21, with 15 victims identified.

Authorities have said more than two dozen people remain missing following the March 22 slide that destroyed a rural mountainside community northeast of Seattle.

Inslee is also seeking federal help with funeral expenses for up to 48 people, and mental health care programs for survivors, volunteers, community members and first responders.

Monday's request asks for access to disaster housing, disaster grants, disaster-related unemployment insurance, and crisis counseling programs for those in Snohomish County and for the Stillaguamish, Sauk-Suiattle and Tulalip Indian tribes.

Steve Harris, a division supervisor for the search effort, said Monday that search teams have been learning more about the force of the slide, helping them better locate victims in a debris field that is 70 feet deep in places.

"There's a tremendous amount of force and energy behind this," Harris said of the slide.

Harris said search dogs are the primary tool for finding victims, and searchers are finding human remains four to six times per day. Sometimes crews only find partial remains, which makes the identification process harder.

Meanwhile, members of the Seattle Seahawks football team and Seattle Sounders soccer team were scheduled to visit with community members Monday evening.

Deadline dash: Glitches slow health care sign-ups

Deadline dash: Glitches slow health care sign-ups

People line up to enroll for health insurance at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas on Monday, March 31, 2014. The deadline is just hours away to sign up for insurance in the first enrollment period under President Barack Obama's signature health care law.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a flood of last-minute sign-ups, hundreds of thousands of Americans rushed to apply for health insurance Monday, but deadline day for President Barack Obama's overhaul brought long, frustrating waits and a new spate of website ills.

"This is like trying to find a parking spot at Wal-Mart on Dec. 23," said Jason Stevenson, working with a Utah nonprofit group helping people enroll.

At times, more than 125,000 people were simultaneously using HealthCare.gov, straining it beyond its capacity. For long stretches Monday, applicants were shuttled to a virtual waiting room where they could leave an email address and be contacted later.

Officials said the site had not crashed but was experiencing very heavy volume. The website, which was receiving 1.5 million visitors a day last week, had recorded about 1.6 million through 2 p.m. EDT.

Supporters of the health care law fanned out across the country in a final dash to sign up uninsured Americans. People not signed up for health insurance by the deadline, either through their jobs or on their own, were subject to being fined by the IRS, and that threat was helping drive the final dash.

The administration announced last week that people still in line by midnight would get extra time to enroll.

The website stumbled early in the day - out of service for nearly four hours as technicians patched a software bug. Another hiccup in early afternoon temporarily kept new applicants from signing up, and then things slowed further. Overwhelmed by computer problems when launched last fall, the system has been working much better in recent months, but independent testers say it still runs slowly.

At Chicago's Norwegian American Hospital, people began lining up shortly after 7 a.m. to get help signing up for subsidized private health insurance.

Lucy Martinez, an unemployed single mother of two boys, said she'd previously tried to enroll at a clinic in another part of the city but there was always a problem. She'd wait and wait and they wouldn't call her name, or they would ask her for paperwork that she was told earlier she didn't need, she said. Her diabetic mother would start sweating so they'd have to leave.

She's heard "that this would be better here," said Martinez, adding that her mother successfully signed up Sunday at a different location.

At St. Francis Hospital in Wilmington, Del., enrollment counselor Hubert Worthen plunged into a long day. "I got my energy drink," he said. "This is epic, man."

At a Houston community center, there were immigrants from Ethiopia, Nepal, Eritrea, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and other conflict-torn areas, many of them trying anew after failing to complete applications previously. In addition to needing help with the actual enrollment, they needed to wait for interpreters. Many had taken a day off from work, hoping to meet the deadline.

The White House and other supporters of the law were hoping for an enrollment surge that would push sign-ups in the new health insurance markets to around 6.5 million people. That's halfway between a revised goal of 6 million and the original target of 7 million. The first goal was scaled back after the federal website's disastrous launch last fall, which kept it offline during most of October.

The insurance markets - or exchanges - offer subsidized private health insurance to people who don't have access to coverage through their jobs. The federal government is taking the lead in 36 states, while 14 other states plus Washington, D.C., are running their own enrollment websites.

New York, running its own site, reported more than 812,000 had signed up by Sunday morning, nearly 100,000 of them last week.

However, it's unclear what those numbers may mean.

The administration hasn't said how many of the 6 million people nationally who had signed up before the weekend ultimately closed the deal by paying their first month's premiums. Also unknown is how many were previously uninsured - the real test of Obama's health care overhaul. In addition, the law expands coverage for low-income people through Medicaid, but only about half the states have agreed to implement that option.

Cheering on the deadline-day sign-up effort, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius planned to spend much of the day Monday working out of the department's TV studio, conducting interviews by satellite with stations around the country.

Though March 31 was the last day officially to sign up, millions of people are potentially eligible for extensions granted by the administration.

Those include people who had begun enrolling by the deadline but didn't finish, perhaps because of errors, missing information or website glitches. The government says it will accept paper applications until April 7 and take as much time as necessary to handle unfinished cases on HealthCare.gov. Rules may vary in states running their own insurance marketplaces.

The administration is also offering special extensions to make up for all sorts of problems that might have kept people from getting enrolled on time: Natural disasters. Domestic abuse. Website malfunctions. Errors by insurance companies. Mistakes by application counselors.

To seek a special enrollment period, contact the federal call center, at 1-855-889-4325, or the state marketplace and explain what happened. It's on the honor system. If the extension is approved, that brings another 60 days to enroll.

Those who still don't get health insurance run the risk that the Internal Revenue Service will fine them next year for remaining uninsured. It remains to be seen how aggressively the penalties called for in the law are enforced.

Also, the new markets don't have a monopoly on health insurance. People not already covered by an employer or a government program can comply with the insurance mandate by buying a policy directly from an insurer. They'll just have to pay the full premium themselves, although in a few states there may be an exception to that rule as well.

Supporters of the law held their breath early Monday when the website was taken down.

Administration spokesman Aaron Albright said the site undergoes "regular nightly maintenance" during off-peak hours and the period was extended because of a "technical problem." He did not say what the problem was, but an official statement called it "a software bug" unrelated to application volume.

In Oakton, Va., enrollment counselor Rachel Klein said she noticed the website was running slowly.

"We all came into it understanding that today was going to be challenging," said Klein. "We're all relieved that there's going to be a little extra time for people."

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said Monday that Republicans remain committed to repealing Obama's law. But its supporters are wasting no time trying to shape the next open enrollment season, starting Nov. 15. The advocacy group Families USA will announce ten recommendations Tuesday to make the system more consumer-friendly.

They range from providing more in-person assistance with sign-ups, to eliminating premium penalties for smokers, to aligning enrollment with tax-filing season.

 

UConn upsets Michigan St 60-54, back to Final Four

UConn upsets Michigan St 60-54, back to Final Four 

Connecticut's Ryan Boatright dunks the ball in the first half of a regional final against Michigan State at the NCAA college basketball tournament on Sunday, March 30, 2014, in New York.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Shabazz Napier scored 17 of his 25 points in the second half, and UConn beat Michigan State 60-54 to return to the Final Four a year after the Huskies were barred from the NCAA tournament.

Napier, the East Regional's most outstanding player, hit three huge free throws with 37.6 seconds left at 

Madison Square Garden to carry UConn to the Final Four just as Kemba Walker did in Napier's freshman year.

The Huskies (30-8) rallied from a nine-point second-half deficit to become the first No. 7 seed to reach the Final Four since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Fourth-seeded Michigan State's seniors become the first four-year players recruited by Tom Izzo to fail to r

each the Final Four. Gary Harris led the Spartans (29-9) with 22 points.

The undersized Huskies matched Michigan State's physical play box-out for box-out, holding the Spartans to just six offensive rebounds and six points in the paint. UConn dared Michigan State to shoot 3-pointers, and the Spartans nearly made enough, going 11 for 29 from behind the arc.

Trailing 51-49 with more than two minutes left, Michigan State had a chance to tie or take the lead. But Adreian Payne fumbled the ball away, and Napier drilled a jumper on the other end.

After Payne hit a pair of free throws to pull the Spartans back within two, Keith Appling was called for a foul on Napier's 3-point attempt. The senior extended the lead to 56-51, and after Travis Trice missed a 3, Michigan State couldn't get to UConn to foul. Phillip Nolan slipped free for a dunk that clinched the victory and had thousands of Huskies fans in the Garden leaping up and down.

UConn won its third national title in 2011, but the Huskies were ineligible for last year's tournament because of previous low scores on the NCAA's academic progress measure.

Ryan Boatright made four steals as UConn used its quickness to force 16 turnovers. DeAndre Daniels shut down Branden Dawson, who scored 24 points in Michigan State's Sweet 16 win over top-seeded Virginia. 

Dawson attempted just three field goals, making one, to finish with five points.

The 6-foot-10, 245-pound Payne hit two long jumpers to put Michigan State up 32-23 less than four minutes into the second half. But Napier started driving, getting the bigger Appling in foul trouble and UConn back in the game.

After hitting four straight free throws to tie the score at 32 with 12:38 left, Napier was struck in the face by Gary Harris - the UConn guard was called for a foul on the play - and left the court with his nose gushing blood. He was back less than minute later when Daniels completed a three-point play to give the Huskies the lead for good.

Boatright hit a contested 3-pointer with the shot clock winding down to put UConn up 49-39 with less than seven minutes left. But the Spartans rallied behind their long-range shooting.

 

Quake forces evacuations in Southern California

Quake forces evacuations in Southern California 

A broken block wall blocks the sidewalk Saturday, March 29, 2014, after an earthquake hit Orange County Friday night in Fullerton, Calif. More than 100 aftershocks have rattled Orange County south of Los Angeles where a magnitude-5.1 earthquake struck Friday. Despite the relatively minor damage, no injuries have been reported.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A moderate earthquake that rattled a swath of Southern California forced several dozen people in one community out of their homes after firefighters discovered foundation problems that made the buildings unsafe to enter, authorities said Saturday.

Fire crews red-tagged 20 apartment units in a building in the Orange County city of Fullerton after finding a major foundation crack. Structural woes, including broken chimneys and leaning, were uncovered in half a dozen single-family houses, which were also deemed unsafe to occupy until building inspectors clear the structures. The damage displaced 83 residents.

Despite the evacuations and scattered damage, Friday night's magnitude-5.1 earthquake centered about 25 miles south of downtown Los Angeles mostly frayed nerves.

The quake was preceded by two smaller foreshocks. More than 100 aftershocks followed, including a magnitude-4.1 that hit Saturday afternoon, the largest in the sequence so far that was felt over a wide region. No injuries were reported.

Residents were inconvenienced and some lost valuables, but "thankfully the damage wasn't greater," said Chi-Chung Keung, a spokesman for the city of Fullerton.

Business owners in Orange County spent the aftermath sweeping up shattered glass and restocking shelves. Utility crews worked to restore power and shut off gas leaks and water-main breaks. A rock slide in the Carbon Canyon area of nearby Brea also caused a car to overturn. The occupants had minor injuries, and the road remained closed to traffic.

The Red Cross opened a shelter in neighboring La Habra but closed it once the 38 people who stayed overnight returned home.

"Everything is starting to get settled down here," La Habra police Sgt. Mel Ruiz said.

In Fullerton, some residents will have to stay elsewhere until building inspectors can check out the red-tagged apartments and houses and give an all-clear, Fire Battalion Chief John Stokes said.

Another 14 residential structures around the city suffered lesser damage, including collapsed fireplaces. Shortly after the main earthquake, the city dealt with a dozen water-main breaks and multiple natural-gas leaks, Stokes said.

A water-main break flooded several floors of Brea City Hall, and the shaking knocked down computers and ceiling tiles, Stokes said.

It was not immediately clear if City Hall would reopen Monday. An email to the mayor was not immediately returned.

Friday's jolt was the strongest to strike the greater Los Angeles region since 2008. Southern California has 

been in a seismic lull since the deadly 1994 Northridge earthquake killed several dozen people and caused $25 billion in damage.

The latest quake hit a week after a magnitude-4.4 temblor centered in the San Fernando Valley shook buildings and rattled nerves.

It appeared to break a 1-mile segment of the Puente Hills thrust fault, which stretches from the San Gabriel Valley to downtown Los Angeles and caused the 1987 Whittier Narrows quake that killed eight people. The rupture lasted half a second, scientists said.

U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones said it's unclear whether Southern California is entering a more active seismic period. "We have been in a really quiet time. It can't stay that way," Jones said.

A day after the magnitude-5.1 quake, Peter Novahof went shopping with his family at a hardware store in Long Beach. Though nothing was knocked out of his place at his home, he figured it was a good time to think about securing his television and cupboards with glassware.

"We've had an earthquake drought for a while," he said. So people are decorating their houses without taking into consideration that "we're in earthquake zone."

Health law legacy eludes Obama as changes sink in

Health law legacy eludes Obama as changes sink in

This photo taken March 25, 2014 shows Dan Luke, a self-employed owner of "hardworking pictures," posing in his office in St. Paul, Minn. As a hectic sign-up season winds down, President Barack Obama's health care law has managed to change the country. Americans are unlikely to go back to a time when people with medical problems could be denied coverage. But Obama’s overhaul needs reworking of its own to go down in history as a legacy achievement like Medicare and Social Security.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As a roller-coaster sign-up season winds down, President Barack Obama's health care law has indeed managed to change the country.

Americans are unlikely to go back to a time when people with medical problems could be denied coverage.

But Obama's overhaul needs major work of its own if it is to go down in history as a legacy achievement like Medicare or Social Security.

Major elements of the Affordable Care Act face an uncertain future:

-As a 6-month-long sign-up season comes to an end Monday the administration's next big challenge is to make 2015 open enrollment more manageable for consumers unaccustomed to dealing with insurance jargon. There's also concern premiums will rise next year.

-The new insurance markets created by the law are anything but customer friendly. After the HealthCare.gov website finally got fixed, more than 6 million people have managed to sign up, allowing the exchanges to stay afloat economically. But many consumers have bought policies with restricted access to top-tier hospitals and the latest medications. The website is seeing heavy traffic this weekend, and consumers may encounter a wait or last-minute glitches.

-Nearly half the states are still opposed to or undecided about the law's expansion of Medicaid, the government's health insurance program for the poor. As a result, millions of low-income people who otherwise would have been covered remain uninsured.

-This year's pitch has been about the "carrots" in the law: subsidies and guaranteed coverage. But the "sticks" are just over the horizon: collecting penalties from individuals who remain uninsured and enforcing requirements that medium- to large-sized employers provide affordable coverage.

Many basic facts about the ultimate effects of the health insurance program remain unclear. It's not known how many of those who have gotten coverage were previously uninsured - the ultimate test of the law. Independent measurements by Gallup do show fewer uninsured Americans, but such progress hasn't won hearts and minds. The public remains deeply divided, with opponents of the law outnumbering supporters.

At a recent insurance industry conference, a top administration official acknowledged the huge job still ahead.

"The No. 1 thing that probably we've all learned from 2014 is that this is hard work," said Gary Cohen, outgoing director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, the agency created to carry out the health care law. "It's not a one-year project; it's a multiyear project ... we're asking a lot, frankly, of consumers," he added. "This is new for them."

Among those consumers is Dan Luke of St. Paul, Minn., the owner of a small video production company who had been uninsured since he was turned down for coverage last year due to a pre-existing condition. 

The condition? Luke was born with one eye due to a birth defect, and he uses a glass eye.

"For 63 years I've had one eye," said Luke. "They had to dig deep to find that."

He's happy with the coverage he and his wife have bought; they're saving $300 a month on premiums compared with the last time they had insurance. But he said he had to endure weeks of website run-arounds.

"There is a lot of bureaucracy involved," said Luke. "It's sort of like taxes, filled with loopholes and pitfalls. 

They should make it easier for people to get insurance and pay for insurance, rather than have to prove so many things and jump through so many hoops."

Those comments echo sentiments broadly reflected in national opinion polls. Most Americans want lawmakers to fix the problems with the health care law, rather than scrapping it. A new AP-Gfk poll finds that only 13 percent expect the law will be completely repealed. Seventy-two percent say it will be implemented with changes, whether major or minor.

Republicans have again made repeal of "Obamacare" their official battle cry this election season. But even if the GOP wins control of the Senate and Congress were to repeal the law next year, the president would veto it. Opponents would then need a difficult two-thirds majority in both chambers to override Obama's veto.

"It's going to depend on the next couple of elections whether we stick with the current ACA models," said Brookings Institution health policy expert Mark McClellan, who oversaw the rollout of the last major federal coverage expansion, the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

"We are still a long way from a stable market and from completing implementation," he said. But "we're not going back to people with pre-existing conditions having no good options."

The administration will have to get to work quickly on a plan for next year. It is still struggling with such basics as providing consumers with clear information about the process and their options.

Until now, those signing up have skewed toward an older crowd. That could lead to higher premiums next year, making the program a harder sell for younger people.

Some Democratic lawmakers who voted for the law are frustrated.

"Instead of just circling the wagons against all the political arrows that are shot against this plan, we need a little more accountability, and we need to ensure the next enrollment period is not handled as poorly as the last one," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas.

DeAnn Friedholm, health reform team leader for Consumers Union, said her group still supports Obama's overhaul, but with concerns.

"The jury is out in terms of its long-term success," she said. "We still think it's better than the old way, which left a lot of people out because they were sick."

 

Putin, Obama discuss solution to Ukraine crisis

Putin, Obama discuss solution to Ukraine crisis

Ukrainian servicemen carry a bag to a truck before leaving the Belbek airbase near Sevastopol, Crimea, Friday, March 28, 2014. Ukraine started withdrawing its troops and weapons from Crimea, now controlled by Russia. Russia's president says Ukraine could regain some arms and equipment of military units in Crimea that did not switch their loyalty to Russia.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin called President Barack Obama on Friday to discuss a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis, while Ukraine's fugitive leader urged a nationwide referendum that would serve Moscow's purpose of turning its neighbor into a loosely knit federation.

The statement from Viktor Yanukovych, the former Ukrainian president who fled to Russia last month after three months of protests, raised the threat of more unrest in Ukraine's Russian-speaking eastern provinces, where many resent the new Ukrainian government.

Also Friday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin the Ukrainian military withdrawal from Crimea was complete. Ukrainian soldiers were seen carrying duffel bags and flags as they shipped out of the Black Sea peninsula that Russia has annexed.

While Yanukovych has practically no leverage in Ukraine, his statement clearly reflected the Kremlin's focus on supporting separatist sentiments in eastern Ukraine.

The White House said that Putin called Obama Friday to discuss a U.S. proposal for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in Ukraine, which U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry presented to Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov earlier this week. Obama suggested that Russia put a concrete response in writing and the presidents agreed that Kerry and Lavrov would meet to discuss the next steps.

"President Obama noted that the Ukrainian government continues to take a restrained and de-escalatory approach to the crisis and is moving ahead with constitutional reform and democratic elections, and urged Russia to support this process and avoid further provocations, including the buildup of forces on its border with Ukraine," the White House said in a statement.

A White House official, who wasn't authorized to comment by name and demanded anonymity, said that Obama and Putin spoke for an hour. He said the plan was the old off-ramp roadmap that had been drafted before Russia annexed Crimea last week.

The Kremlin said in its account of the conversation that Putin talked about action by extremists in Ukraine and suggested "possible steps by the international community to help stabilize the situation" in Ukraine. It added that Putin also pointed at an "effective blockade" of Moldova's separatist region of Trans-Dniester, where Russia has troops. Russia and the local authorities have complained of Ukraine's recent moves to limit travel across the border of the region on Ukraine's southern border. There were fears in Ukraine that Russia could use its forces in Trans-Dniester to invade.

Deep divisions between Ukraine's Russian-speaking eastern regions, where many favor close ties with Moscow, and the Ukrainian-speaking west, where most want to integrate into Europe, continue to fuel tensions.

The Crimean Peninsula, where ethnic Russians are a majority, voted this month to secede from Ukraine before Russia formally annexed it, a move that Western countries have denounced as illegitimate. Talk percolates of similar votes in other Ukrainian regions with large Russian populations, although none has been scheduled.

Russia has pushed strongly for federalizing Ukraine - giving its regions more autonomy - but Ukraine's interim authorities in Kiev have rejected such a move. The one vote that has been scheduled is a presidential election on May 25.

"Only an all-Ukrainian referendum, not the early presidential elections, could to a large extent stabilize the political situation and preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Yanukovych said in a statement carried by the ITAR-Tass news agency.

He didn't specify what the vote should ask or when it should be held.

Russia's state RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Alexei Mukhin, a Kremlin-connected political analyst, as saying while a nationwide referendum would be difficult to organize in each of Ukraine's provinces, the country's southeastern regions could follow Yanukovych's advice.

In Kiev, Ukrainian prosecutors opened a new investigation against Yanukovych on charges of making calls to overthrow the country's constitutional order. He already is being investigated in the deaths of dozens of Ukrainian protesters who were shot dead in Kiev in February.

Yanukovych's old rival, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, attacked his statement, accusing him of being "a tool aimed at destroying the independence of Ukraine."

Tymoshenko is running in Ukraine's next presidential election, which Russia has sought to delay.

The new Ukrainian government and the West, meanwhile, have voiced concerns about a possible invasion as Russia builds up its troops near the border with Ukraine. Putin has warned that Russia could use "all means" to protect people in Ukraine from radical nationalists.

However, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday that Putin had assured him he had no intention of making another military move into Ukraine.

That was echoed by Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who said Putin made clear in a March 18 statement that there was not going to be any new Russian move into Ukraine.

While Putin has said Russia doesn't want a division of Ukraine, he also sought to cast it as an artificial state created by the Communists that includes historic Russian regions - controversial statements that raise doubts about the Kremlin's intentions.

To tamp down those fears, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday that Moscow allowed observation flights over the border by Ukrainian, U.S., German and other Western officials. It said if any major troop concentrations had been spotted, the West wouldn't have been shy to speak about it.

Russia also kept pushing its long-held contention that ethnic minorities in Ukraine are living in fear of the new interim authorities. The Foreign Ministry said not just ethnic Russians, but ethnic Germans, Hungarians and Czechs in Ukraine also are feeling in peril.

"They are unsettled by the unstable political situation in the country and are seriously afraid for their lives," the statement said, without citing specific incidents.

However, there have been no signs of such threats toward ethnic minorities in Ukraine.

Russia also said it has responded anew to Western sanctions over Ukraine but did not make any new names public.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said some Western nations have followed the U.S. example and expanded their sanctions against Russia, adding that Moscow has taken "retaliatory measures, which are largely tit-for-tat." He wouldn't say who the latest targets were.

The United States, the European Union and Canada have slapped Russia with travel bans and asset freezes targeting its officials and lawmakers over the annexation of Crimea.

PSPCA To File Charges After 260 Cats Removed From Frankford Home

PSPCA To File Charges After 260 Cats Removed From Frankford Home

Sign posted on a fence next to a Frankford home where the PSPCA removed approximately 260 cats on March 26, 2014.

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The Pennsylvania SPCA is bringing charges against a woman who was keeping hundreds of cats in her home in what’s being called deplorable conditions.

Sarah Eremus with the Pennsylvania SPCA says they entered the woman’s house on Wednesday, in the city’s Frankford section. They found more than 300 cats living in less than ideal conditions.

“The ammonia levels were very high, there were feces all over the place, litter boxes were overflowing. Was not a good environment for cats or even humans to be in,” Eremus said.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Australia: 'Credible lead' shifts jet search area

Australia: 'Credible lead' shifts jet search area 

A woman wipes her tears as she joins a ceremony in memory of passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Thursday, March 27, 2014. Australian officials say search operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane have been suspended for the day due to bad weather.

PERTH, Australia (AP) -- The search zone for the Malaysia airliner that crashed in the Indian Ocean nearly three weeks ago has shifted 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) to the northeast of where planes and ships had been looking for possible debris because of a "new credible lead," Australia said Friday.

The revised search area comes as the weather cleared enough Friday to allow planes to hunt for fresh clues to the fate of the plane carrying 239 people that went missing March 8.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said the change came after updated the new information is based on continuing analysis of radar data between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca before radar contact was lost with the Boeing 777.

It said the analysis indicated the aircraft was travelling faster than previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel use and reducing the possible distance the aircraft could have flown into the Indian Ocean.

The new area is 319,000 square kilometers (123,000 square miles) and about 1,850 kilometers (1,250 miles) west of Perth, Australia, the launching area for the search. The pervious search area was more southwest and about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) from Perth.

"This is a credible new lead and will be thoroughly investigated today," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Friday.

"This is an extraordinarily difficult search, and an agonizing wait for family and friends of the passengers and crew," he said. "We owe it to them to follow every credible lead and to keep the public informed of significant new developments. That is what we are doing."

 

5 Philadelphia Students Hospitalized After Playing “Cinnamon Challenge”

5 Philadelphia Students Hospitalized After Playing “Cinnamon Challenge”

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Five Philadelphia schoolchildren are hospitalized, after playing a game called the “cinnamon challenge.”

A district spokesman says nine children were trying to swallow spoonfuls of dry cinnamon, and five of them wound up going to the hospital. It happened during lunch at the Richard Wright School at 27th and Dauphin in Strawberry Mansion. District spokesman Fernando Gallard says the five were taken to the hospital by ambulance after they displayed abnormalities in their vital signs.

“A mix of boys and girls, fifth-graders. They were in good condition. We transported them to St. Christopher’s for observation,” Gallard said.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Hunt for Flight 370 resumes in calmer seas

Hunt for Flight 370 resumes in calmer seas 

Relatives of Chinese passengers onboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 cry as they protest outside the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing, China, Tuesday, March 25, 2014. Furious over Malaysia's handling of the lost jetliner a day after the country said the passengers must be dead, Chinese relatives of the missing marched Tuesday to the Malaysia Embassy, where they threw plastic water bottles, tried to rush the gate and chanted, "Liars!"

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- As frustration was setting in, calmer seas returned Wednesday and the search for the remains of Flight 370 began anew in remote waters of the Indian Ocean off western Australia.

Gale-force winds that forced an all-day delay Tuesday died down, allowing a total of 12 planes and two ships from the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand to resume the hunt for any pieces of the Malaysia Airlines jet - tangible evidence for the families seeking closure after more than two weeks of anguished uncertainty.

A day earlier, angry relatives shouted "Liars!" in the streets of Beijing about Malaysia's declaration that the plane went down with all aboard.

Although officials sharply narrowed the search zone based on the last satellite signals received from the Boeing 777, it was still estimated at 1.6 million square kilometers (622,000 square miles), an area bigger than Texas and Oklahoma combined.

"We're not searching for a needle in a haystack - we're still trying to define where the haystack is," Australia's deputy defense chief, Air Marshal Mark Binskin, told reporters Tuesday at a military base in the Australian west coast city of Perth as idle planes stood behind him.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which coordinates the search on Malaysia's behalf, said Wednesday's search will focus on 80,000 square kilometers (30,900 square miles) of ocean. The search area is about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth.

Malaysia announced Monday that an analysis of satellite data received after Flight 370 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8 indicated the plane had gone down in the Indian Ocean, killing all 239 people aboard.

The finding did not answer troubling questions about why the plane was so far off-course, and China, home to 153 of the passengers, demanded that Malaysia turn over the satellite data used to determine the plane's fate.

The airline's chairman, Mohammed Nor Mohammed Yusof, said it may take time for further answers to become clear.

"The investigation still underway may yet prove to be even longer and more complex than it has been since March 8th," he said.

The search for the wreckage and the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders could take years because the ocean can extend to up to 7,000 meters (23,000 feet) deep in some parts. It took two years to find the black box from an Air France jet that went down in the Atlantic Ocean on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in 2009, and searchers knew within days where the crash site was.

There is a race against the clock to find Flight 370's black boxes, whose battery-powered "pinger" could stop sending signals within two weeks. The batteries are designed to last at least a month.

David Ferreira, an oceanographer at the University of Reading in Britain, said little is known about the detailed topography of the seabed where Malaysia Flight 370 is believed to have crashed.

"We know much more about the surface of the moon than we do about the ocean floor in that part of the Indian Ocean," Ferreira said.

Searching for a needle in a haystack would be simple by comparison, he said.

"This haystack is in the dark, two or three miles underwater, hundreds of miles from land, and in a field no one has even seen before, let alone mapped," Ferreira added.

The satellite information does not provide an exact location - only a rough estimate of where the jet went down.

Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the data is still being analyzed "to attempt to determine the final position of the aircraft" and that an international working group of satellite and aircraft performance experts had been set up.

Monday's announcement that there were no survivors unleashed sorrow and anger among the victims' families, who have complained bitterly about a lack of reliable information from Malaysian officials.

Nearly 100 relatives and their supporters marched Tuesday to the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing, where they threw plastic water bottles, tried to rush the gate and chanted, "Liars!"

Many wore white T-shirts that read "Let's pray for MH370." They held banners and shouted, "Tell the truth! Return our relatives!"

Police briefly scuffled with a group of relatives who tried to approach journalists. The relatives demanded to see the Malaysian ambassador, and they later met with him.

In a clear statement of support for the families, Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered a special envoy, Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui, to Kuala Lumpur to deal with the case. Deputy Foreign Minister Xie Hangsheng told Malaysia's ambassador that China wanted to know exactly what led Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to announce that the plane had been lost, a statement on the ministry's website said.

The conclusions were based on an analysis of the brief signals the plane sent every hour to a satellite belonging to Inmarsat, a British company, even after other communication systems on the jetliner shut down for unknown reasons.

Yusof, the airline's chairman, said the conclusion was based on "the evidence given to us, and by rational deduction."

Investigators will be looking at various possibilities, including mechanical or electrical failure, hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or someone else on board.

"We do not know why. We do not know how. We do not know how the terrible tragedy happened," Malaysia Airlines' chief executive, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, told reporters.

Australian and Chinese search planes spotted floating objects southwest of Perth on Monday, but none was retrieved. With the 24-hour delay in the search, those objects and other possible debris from the plane could drift to an even wider area.

There are 26 countries involved in the search, and Hishammudin said the problems are not diplomatic "but technical and logistical."

"We've got to get lucky," said John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. "It's a race to get to the area in time to catch the black box pinger while it's still working."

Expert: Screaming gives Pistorius 'major problem'

Expert: Screaming gives Pistorius 'major problem' 

Oscar Pistorius, holds his head in his hands in the dock during cross examination of a witnesses in court in Pretoria, South Africa, Tuesday, March 18, 2014. Pistorius is on trial for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day, 2013.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- Prosecutors at Oscar Pistorius' murder trial have presented a "golden thread" of evidence suggesting Reeva Steenkamp screamed before she died, leaving the double-amputee athlete with "serious questions" to answer and his defense likely hinging on his own testimony, a legal expert in South Africa said.

Three neighbors say they heard a woman scream before and during the deadly gunshots coming from Pistorius' home in the early hours of Valentine's Day last year. The pathologist who performed the autopsy on Steenkamp's body said it would have been "abnormal" for her not to scream from some of her injuries.

A police ballistics expert concluded that the first shot Pistorius fired through a toilet door hit Steenkamp in the hip and caused her to collapse, but didn't immediately kill her. The second shot missed. From the policeman's testimony, Steenkamp likely had time to yell out before she was hit by two more shots as she covered her head with her arms in a desperate attempt to protect herself.

"Suddenly what we have is Oscar Pistorius firing at Reeva Steenkamp while her hands are covering her head while she's screaming in the toilet, and that's murder," said Marius du Toit, a defense lawyer and former state prosecutor who says he has worked on at least 100 murder cases.

Du Toit, who is following the trial but not involved, said the prosecution has "definitely" made a case for murder against the Olympic runner for the fatal shooting of Steenkamp, and Pistorius' defense must now respond.

Chief prosecutor Gerrie Nel has so far presented a specific line of evidence compellingly, du Toit said. Using the accounts of neighbors and backing them up with the expert opinion of pathologist Gert Saayman and police ballistics investigator Capt. Christiaan Mangena, Nel may have shown to the court that it was "reasonable" that Steenkamp screamed during the four shots fired at her, du Toit said.

"There's definitely a golden thread here," du Toit told The Associated Press in a telephone interview, using a courtroom term that refers to the prosecution's duty to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. "A golden thread of someone who was screaming and who was shot. The objective facts, which are the injuries she sustained, coupled with the expert opinion, tied with your circumstantial evidence presented by witnesses. And if that ties up with one another then Oscar has got a major problem."

Prosecutors say they will wrap up their case next week, the fourth week of the trial, by calling four or five more witnesses. The defense will then present its case. High court authorities in Gauteng province said in a statement Sunday that the trial will be halted for the week beginning April 7, and then resume from April 14 until May 16.

Pistorius, 27, was a celebrated track athlete who made history as the first amputee to run against able bodied runners at the Olympics after having his lower legs amputated as a baby because of a congenital condition. He now faces going to prison for 25 years to life if convicted of premeditated murder. If found guilty of murder without premeditation for killing Steenkamp, who was 29, Pistorius faces a minimum 15-year sentence.

Pistorius says he shot Steenkamp by mistake believing she was an intruder in his home and has maintained throughout that he was the only person to scream, partly after realizing his tragic error.

In a court case being broadcast live on television to millions and followed by over 100 reporters at the Pretoria courthouse, Pistorius' chief defense lawyer, Barry Roux, has attracted attention for his cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, and his consistent criticism of an apparently flawed police investigation into the shooting in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 14, 2013.

Du Toit identified two areas he believes will be crucial to Pistorius' defense: The world-famous runner's own testimony and evidence given by the defense's forensic and ballistics experts.

Defense lawyer Roux has made it clear that Pistorius' experts will offer another version regarding the shots that killed Steenkamp, arguing that Pistorius fired with "double-tap" bursts that gave Steenkamp no time to scream, and so Pistorius did not realize he was shooting at Steenkamp.

Du Toit also noted that police experts did not test if parts of Pistorius' story were plausible.

"So all they (the defense) have to do is say, `well you never bothered so we tested it and this is what we found," du Toit said.

But, ultimately, Pistorius has admitted killing Steenkamp and he is expected to explain his decision to fire four times into a small cubicle from close range. That will open him up to cross-examination by the prosecution.

"The only question is whether there was intent and intent is subjective," du Toit said. "That means the accused must come and dispel that. Oscar (testifying) is definitely going to be the key, but I wonder if it's going to be good for him."

French data show possible debris from jetliner

French data show possible debris from jetliner

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's P-3C Orion arrives to help with search operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 at Royal Australian Air Force Pearce Base in Perth, Australia, Sunday, March 23, 2014.

PERTH, Australia (AP) -- France provided new satellite data Sunday showing possible debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, as searchers combing a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean tried without success to locate a wooden pallet that could yield clues to one of the world's most baffling aviation mysteries.

The new data consists of "radar echoes" in the same part of the ocean where satellite images previously released by Australia and China showed what might be debris from the plane, French authorities said.

Flight 370 vanished March 8 with 239 people aboard while en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to 

Beijing, setting off a multinational search that has turned up no confirmed pieces and nothing conclusive on what happened to the jet.

The latest satellite data came to light as Australian authorities coordinating the search, conducted about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth, sent planes and a ship to try to "re-find" a wooden pallet that appeared to be surrounded by straps of different lengths and colors.

The pallet was spotted on Saturday from a search plane, but the spotters were unable to take photos of it, and a PC Orion military plane dispatched to locate it could not find it.

"So, we've gone back to that area again today to try and re-find it," said Mike Barton, chief of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's rescue coordination center. He added: "It's a possible lead."

Wooden pallets are often used by ships, Barton cautioned. But he said airlines also commonly use them in cargo holds.

An official with Malaysia Airlines said Sunday night that the flight was, in fact, carrying wooden pallets. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with company policy.

AMSA said it has requested a cargo manifest from Malaysia Airlines.

When Brazilian searchers in 2009 were looking for debris from Air France Flight 447 after it mysteriously plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, they found a wooden pallet. The military initially reported the pallet came from the Air France flight, but backtracked hours later and said the plane had not been carrying any wooden pallets.

Sunday's search was frustrating because "there was cloud down to the surface, and at times we were completely enclosed by cloud," Royal Australian Air Force flight Lt. Russell Adams told reporters.

Nothing of interest was found, he said. But he added that the search was worth it because "we might do 10 sorties and find nothing, but on that 11th flight when you find something and you know that you're actually contributing to some answers for somebody."

In Paris, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said in an interview with The Associated Press that the satellite radar echoes "identified some debris that could be from the Malaysian Airlines plane."

The spokesman said that these echoes "are not images with a definition like a photograph, but they do allow us to identify the nature of an object and to localize it."

"The French government has decided to increase its satellite monitoring of this zone and try to obtain precise images and locations," Nadal said.

Gathering satellite echo data involves sending a beam of energy to the Earth and then analyzing it when it bounces back, according to Joseph Bermudez Jr., chief analytics officer at AllSource Analysis, a commercial satellite intelligence firm.

Satellite radar echoes can be converted into an image that would look similar to a black-and-white photo, though not as clear, he said. "You'd have to know what you're looking at," Bermudez said.

A Malaysian official involved in the search said the French data located objects about 930 kilometers (575 miles) north of the spots where the objects in the images released by Australia and China were located.

One of the objects located was estimated to be about the same size as an object captured Tuesday by the Chinese satellite that appeared to be 22 meters (72 feet) by 13 meters (43 feet), said the official, who declined to be identified because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media. It was not possible to determine precise dimensions from the French data, the official said.

The southern Indian Ocean is thought to be a potential area to find the jet because Malaysian authorities have said pings sent by the Boeing 777-200 for several hours after it disappeared indicated that the plane ended up in one of two huge arcs: a northern corridor stretching from Malaysia to Central Asia, or a southern corridor that stretches toward Antarctica.

Malaysian authorities have not ruled out any possible explanation for what happened to the jet, but have said the evidence so far suggests it was deliberately turned back across Malaysia to the Strait of Malacca, with its communications systems disabled. They are unsure what happened next.

Authorities are considering the possibilities of hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or someone else on board.

In the U.S., Tony Blinken, President Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, said on CNN: "There is no prevailing theory."

"Publicly or privately, we don't know" what happened to the plane, he said. "We're chasing down every theory."

 

Anita Hill in spotlight again as new film opens

Anita Hill in spotlight again as new film opens 

FILE - This Oct. 11, 1991 file photo shows University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. Hill made national headlines in 1991 when she testified that then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her. Now, more than 20 years later, director Freida Mock explores Hill's landmark testimony and the resulting social and political changes in the documentary "Anita."

NEW YORK (AP) -- It's been more than 22 years since Anita Hill sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee in that famous bright blue suit - one she could never bring herself to wear again - to make the sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas that transfixed a nation.

And much has changed since then.

But not everything.

"I hope you rot in hell," went an email that Hill, now 57 and a professor at Brandeis University, received just a few weeks ago from a member of the public.

After all this time?

"Yes," Hill says, with a resigned air. "As they go, this one was fairly mild. But it happens. And it'll happen again."

Especially now. The soft-spoken Hill, who still speaks in the same calm, precise tone many remember from 1991, has for two decades been living a quiet academic life, occasionally venturing out to speak about sexual harassment but often declining interviews.

But she's about to enter the maelstrom again with the release Friday of a new documentary, "Anita," by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Freida Mock. After years of declining requests to collaborate on a film about her experiences, she said yes.

Why now?

Hill says she was inspired by the reactions she was getting from people as the 20th anniversary of those Supreme Court confirmation hearings approached - particularly in 2010, when news broke that she'd received a voice mail from Thomas' wife, Virginia, asking Hill to "consider an apology." (That voice mail opens the film.)

"People responded with outrage to that," Hill says. "But even more, I realized that here we are 20 years later and the issues are still resonating - in the workplace, in universities, in the military. So if 1991 could help us start a conversation, how then can we move this to another level? Because clearly we haven't eliminated the problem."

Experts agree the problem surely hasn't been eliminated. But many cite Hill's testimony as a landmark event, in both social and legal terms.

"Back then, this was an invisible issue, until Anita testified," says Marcia D. Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Women's Law Center. Not only did Hill's testimony raise public consciousness about sexual harassment in the workplace, she says, and spur other women to make claims, but only months later, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which addressed issues of employment discrimination, was passed with strong support.

"That happened in direct response to the growing realization of what the American public had seen in the hearings," Greenberger contends.

It's clear that Hill became, and remains, a heroine to many women. It's also clear that while she doesn't reject it, she remains somewhat uncomfortable with the status. In an interview at a Manhattan hotel, she seems almost more excited to discuss her work preparing a strategic plan for Brandeis than her public persona.

"In some ways I'm not very well suited, I think, for that position of heroine," she says. "People do want that person who is sort of out there and vocal and adamant about who they are and what they want. But I wouldn't be credible if I didn't come to this with my own personality."

Hill says that in her day-to-day life, "1991 just doesn't figure in." Case in point: At Brandeis, many of her students don't even know about her past. Hill points out that her grad students were only children in 1991, and the undergrads weren't even born.

"It doesn't bother me," she says. "It's important to help them focus on what their learning objectives are, and not on me as a person."

Reluctant heroine or not, Hill often evokes a passionate response, says filmmaker Mock, who has accompanied Hill at film-related events.

"I had no idea she was a rock star," says Mock. "But it's a routine: People stand up when she walks in. They shout: `I love you!' and `I believe you, Anita!'"

"She was a reluctant witness, and she remains a reluctant public figure," Mock adds. "But she is proud to be a part of this journey that she never intended to be on."

In fact, Hill says, before all this, she'd planned to build a career in international commercial law, perhaps in Europe. "It would have been a very different life!" she laughs.

A life, likely, without hate mail. Hill says the worst part wasn't the actual hours spent testifying about painfully explicit matters, or when Thomas was ultimately confirmed to the Supreme Court, but what happened when she returned to her teaching job at the University of Oklahoma.

"I was getting threats," she said. "People were trying to get me fired. Friends of mine were fired." At the same time, she was getting bundles of letters of support from across the country. But the threat of losing her job felt more immediate.

Hill left the university in 1996, and landed at Brandeis soon after. In 2007, she was back in the news when Thomas wrote a book, "My Grandfather's Son," in which he described her as rude, a mediocre worker, a liar, and his "most traitorous adversary." She wrote a New York Times op-ed piece saying she would not allow Thomas to "reinvent" her.

Hill has had no contact with Thomas, who had no comment for this article; she also never answered his wife's phone call. And she's had no contact over the years with the former senator who ran the hearings, Vice President Joe Biden, of whom she has been critical (though she says she's a supporter of his boss.)

The sight of that all-white, all-male panel, in clear contrast to Hill, is one of the more striking visuals in "Anita."

"Can you believe it was JUST 22 years ago?" she says. "It's like `Mad Men'!"

"It was such a harsh contrast between who they were, and me and how I looked, in that blue suit," she says. "It was a reflection of their power and privilege. And I think the public saw that and related to me - though at the time, I just felt isolated."

What if the hearings were to happen now? Much would be different, Hill believes, including the language used by the senators. "I do not believe we would have an (Sen.) Alan Simpson saying `that sexual harassment crap,' for example," she says. "The conversation has changed. We as a society have accepted that these are important issues."

Speaking of the suit, we have to ask: What happened to it?

"You're not going to ask me if it still fits, are you?" she asks with mock alarm.

That suit, she explains, was way too loaded with meaning to ever wear again. The Smithsonian recently asked to display it, but she wasn't ready yet.

"One day, the time will be right," she says.

APNewsBreak: NYC inmate 'baked to death' in cell

APNewsBreak: NYC inmate 'baked to death' in cell 

In this March 12, 2014 photo, Alma Murdough and her daughter Cheryl Warner hold a photo of Murdough's son, at her home in the Queens borough of New York. Jerome Murdough, a mentally ill, homeless former Marine arrested for sleeping in the roof landing of a New York City public housing project during one of the coldest recorded winters in city history, died last month in a Rikers Island jail cell that multiple city officials say was at least 100 degrees when his body was discovered. Murdough, 56, was found dead in his cell in a mental observation unit in the early hours of Feb. 15, after excessive heat, believed to be caused by an equipment malfunction, redirected it’s flow to his upper-level cell, the officials said.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Jerome Murdough was just looking for a warm place to sleep on a chilly night last month when he curled up in an enclosed stairwell on the roof of a Harlem public housing project where he was arrested for trespassing.

A week later, the mentally ill homeless man was found dead in a Rikers Island jail cell that four city officials say had overheated to at least 100 degrees, apparently because of malfunctioning equipment.

The officials told The Associated Press that the 56-year-old former Marine was on anti-psychotic and anti-seizure medication, which may have made him more vulnerable to heat. He also apparently did not open a small vent in his cell, as other inmates did, to let in cool air.

"He basically baked to death," said one of the officials, who all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to discuss specifics of the case.

The medical examiner's office said an autopsy was inconclusive and that more tests were needed to determine Murdough's exact cause of death. But the officials, all with detailed knowledge of the case, say initial indications from the autopsy and investigation point to extreme dehydration or heat stroke.

Advocates for mentally ill inmates in New York say the death represents the failure of the city's justice system on almost every level: by arresting Murdough instead of finding him help, by setting bail at a prohibitive $2,500 and by not supervising him closely in what is supposed to be a special observation unit for inmates with mental illnesses.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Department of Correction Acting Commissioner Mark Cranston called Murdough's death "unfortunate" and reiterated that an internal investigation will look into the entire episode, "including issues of staff performance and the adequacy of procedures."

Cranston also acknowledged that the temperature in Murdough's cell was "unusually high" and said that action has been taken to fix mechanical problems to ensure safe temperatures, "particularly in areas housing vulnerable inmates."

The department said it had addressed two contributing factors an outside consultant identified as causing the excess heat. It also said temperature checks immediately after the death revealed that several cells nearby were over 80 degrees.

Murdough's 75-year-old mother, Alma Murdough, said she did not learn of her son's death until the AP contacted her last week, nearly a month after he died. His public defender was told of the death three days after the inmate was found, the DOC said.

"He was a very lovely, caring guy," said Murdough, adding that her son had bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and that she had not seen him in about three years.

"He had beer problems. Drinking beer. That was his downfall. Other than that, he was a very nice guy. He'd give you the shirt off his back."

Family members say Murdough grew up in Queens and joined the Marine Corps right out of high school, doing at least one stint in Okinawa, Japan.

When he returned from the service, his family said, both his mental illness and thirst for alcohol became more pronounced, and he would often disappear for months at a time, finding warmth in hospitals, shelters and the streets.

"When he wanted to venture off, we let him, we allowed him to come and go," recalled his sister, Cheryl Warner. "He always came back."

Murdough's criminal record included 11 misdemeanor convictions for trespassing, drinking in public and minor drug charges, said Ivan Vogel, a public defender who represented him at his arraignment on the trespassing charge.

According to the city officials, Murdough was locked alone into his 6-by-10 cinderblock cell at about 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 14, a week after his arrest. Because he was in the mental-observation unit, he was supposed to be checked every 15 minutes as part of suicide watch, they said. But Murdough was not discovered until four hours later, at about 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 15. He was slumped over in his bed and already dead.

When Murdough was found and his cell opened, his internal body temperature and the temperature in the cell were at least 100 degrees. Those temperatures could have been higher before he was discovered because the cell had been closed for several hours, the officials said.

Dr. Susi Vassallo, an associate professor at New York University School of Medicine and a national expert on heat-related deaths who monitors heat conditions at Rikers Island, said psychotropic medications can impair the body's ability to cool itself by sweating, making it retain more heat than it should.

Exposure to intense heat for a couple of hours by someone on such medications could be fatal, she said.

Last year, three Rikers inmates died from non-natural causes, according to Department of Correction statistics.

Of the 12,000 inmates who make up the nation's second-largest jail system, about 40 percent are mentally ill, and a third of them suffer from serious mental problems the department said. Advocates and others have long argued that correction officers are not sufficiently trained to deal with mentally ill inmates whose needs are complex.

Catherine Abate, a member of the New York City Board of Correction, an agency charged with overseeing the city's jails, suggested at a recent public meeting that Murdough should have been referred to psychiatric care, not to Rikers Island.

Jennifer J. Parish, an attorney at the New York-based Urban Justice Center's Mental Health Project, said Murdough appeared to be a man in need of care.

"So Mr. Murdough violated the trespass law. So he suffered the consequences by going to jail," Parish said. "But the jail system committed more serious harm to him. And the question is, `Will they ever be held responsible?'"

Wanda Mehala, another of Murdough's sisters, said the family wants an explanation.

"We want justice for what was done," she said. "He wasn't just some old homeless person on the street. He was loved. He had a life. He had a family. He had feelings."