WASHINGTON – A congressional commission says the Department of Veterans Affairs’ health operations still have “profound deficiencies,” two years after a scandal over long wait times for veterans seeking care.
The Commission on Care says in a report to be released Wednesday that the VA delivers high-quality care but is inconsistent from one health care site to the next, and problems with access remain.
The panel says the VA needs to improve service, adding that the VA’s health care operations “require urgent reform. America’s veterans deserve a better organized, high-performing health care system.”
TOPEKA, Kan. – A federal judge has blocked Kansas from cutting off Medicaid funding for two Planned Parenthood affiliates.
U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson in Kansas City, Kansas, issued the temporary order Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by local Planned Parenthood affiliates.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment planned to cut off funding Thursday for services such as exams and cancer screenings for poor patients receiving health coverage through Kansas’ Medicaid program.
Federal courts have prevented other states from cutting Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.
LONDON – Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that’s still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong?
On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath.
The U.S.-led conflict killed 179 British troops and some 4,500 American personnel. It also helped trigger violence that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and still rocks the Middle East.
And it overshadows the legacy of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Opponents of the war hope Chilcot will find that Blair agreed to support President George W. Bush’s invasion and then used deception to persuade Parliament and the public to back it.
CAIRO – Egyptian investigators say audio from the cockpit voice recorder of the EgyptAir flight that crashed in May shows that pilots attempted to put out a fire onboard.
Speaking on condition of anonymity Tuesday because an official press statement has yet to be released, they say the recordings were consistent with data previously recovered from the plane’s wreckage that showed heat, fire, and smoke around a bathroom and the avionics area.
The flight from Paris to Cairo crashed into the Mediterranean, killing all 66 people on board. The pilots made no distress call, and no militant group has claimed to have brought the aircraft down.
Investigators say no theories including terrorism are being ruled out, especially since it is rare for a major fire to break out so suddenly.
Associated Press
