Flooding Feared After Storms Sock South-central US

By Katie Fretland

Oklahoma City - Residents and businesses from southeast Texas north through western Missouri braced for flooding Tuesday after a violent band of storms brought heavy rain, hail and at least one tornado, with more of the same forecast for the next several days.

The National Weather Service said a tornado touched down Monday evening about 25 miles southwest of San Antonio. The twister damaged several homes, trapping some people inside their mobile homes, but no fatalities were reported, according to The San Antonio Express-News.

The fresh crop of storms comes after two tornadoes damaged homes and railcars in North Platte, Neb., on Sunday. The EF3 twister with winds up to 165 mph injured four people.

Flooding remains a serious concern across the affected areas.

Eight inches of rain was expected in southeastern Kansas, which has been unusually dry for nearly a year. 

The area has had less than three-fourths of the precipitation it typically gets since last April, state climatologist Mary Knapp said.

The weather service said some low-lying areas experienced flash floods, including along the Marmaton River at Fort Scott, Kan. Forecasters said the river would likely exceed flood stage later Tuesday, but drop again Thursday when the rain subsides.

Emergency management officials said they're keeping an eye on the clouds but feel that southeast Kansas can handle several days of rain.

In Arkansas, however, emergency management officials readied teams to respond to flash floods, especially in the western part of the state where the heaviest downpour was expected. The U.S. Forest Service closed campsites preemptively Monday, exercising caution after 20 people died in a flash flood at a remote campground in 2010.

Forecasters in Tulsa, Okla., said the slow-moving storm was expected to stall over the area, dumping up to 12 inches of rain in isolated areas.

"When rain falls in those terrain areas" — especially the hills and valleys — "it's quickly funneled into small rivers and streams," said B.J. Simpson, a National Weather Service meteorologist. "Those are the most dangerous areas."

Still, even flatlands could see the potential for runoff and flash floods if the rain comes too fast for the ground to absorb it.

"There's really no amount of dry ground that can take up to 10 inches of rain in a couple day timeframe," Simpson said.

Thousands of customers lost power in San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth, where strong winds and rain pelted the area, and power outages were reported in Oklahoma City and Tulsa County. Flights were stopped temporarily Monday night at Love Field airport and some 35 flights were canceled Tuesday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

AT&T Seeks to Settle, Quietly, With iPhone User

By Peter Svensson

New York - AT&T is offering to discuss a settlement with an iPhone user who won a small-claims case that alleged the company was slowing down his "unlimited" data service.

A law firm retained by AT&T Inc. also threatened in a letter dated Friday to shut off Matthew Spaccarelli's phone service if he doesn't sit down to talk.

The phone company doesn't say if the settlement would involve money beyond the $850 award the Simi Valley, Calif., resident won from the company in small claims court on Feb. 24.

AT&T has about 17 million smartphone customers on "unlimited" plans, and has started slowing down service for users who hit certain traffic thresholds. Spaccarelli maintained at his Feb. 24 small-claims hearing that AT&T broke its promise to provide "unlimited" service, and the judge agreed.

Spaccarelli has posted online the documents he used to argue his case and encourages other AT&T customers copy his suit. Legal settlements usually include non-disclosure agreements that would force Spaccarelli to take down the documents.

In its letter, AT&T asked Spaccarelli to be quiet about the settlement talks, including the fact that it offered to start them, another common stipulation. Spaccarelli said he was not interested in settling, and forwarded the letter to The Associated Press.

Spaccarelli has admitted that he has used his iPhone to provide Internet access for other devices, a practice known as tethering, which violates AT&T's contract terms. AT&T says that means it has the right to turn off his service.

Spaccarelli says he doesn't care — the important thing to him was defeating AT&T in court, he said.

Dallas-based AT&T has said it will appeal the Feb. 24 decision. Appeals in California small claims court are similar in format to the original hearings, except that lawyers may attend.

AT&T did not comment further on its offer.

Late last year, AT&T started "throttling," or slowing down data service for "unlimited" subscribers once they reached the top 5 percent of data users in their area. The slowdown, which makes a phone difficult to use for anything but calls, texts and some emails, lasts until the end of the subscriber's billing cycle.

Subscribers complained that they hit the limits at unexpectedly low levels, and that they had no idea what they levels were before getting warning messages from the company that they were approaching the limit.

Two weeks ago, AT&T said it would stop throttling the top 5 percent, and instead apply the slowdown after 3 gigabytes of data consumption. Customers on a "limited" AT&T plan get 3 gigabytes of data for $30 per month, the same price paid by "unlimited" users.

Spaccarelli's victory in small-claims court is similar to that of Heather Peters, a California woman who won $9,867 from Honda last month because her Civic Hybrid did not live up to the promised gas mileage. She, too, is helping others bring similar cases.

Rare Movie Posters Found in Pa. Attic are for Sale

By Johann Loviglio

Philadelphia - A rowdy band of bloodsuckers, gunslingers, wily wise guys, jaded private eyes, hardboiled reporters and good girls gone bad, stuck in an attic together for 80 years, is going its separate ways.

Nearly three dozen movie theater posters from the Golden Age of Hollywood found in a Pennsylvania attic are expected to fetch $250,000 at auction in Texas this month. They were stuck together with wallpaper glue when they were purchased for around $30,000 at a country auction last fall in Berwick, near Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania.

The buyer, who chose to remain anonymous, consigned them to Heritage Auctions in Dallas, where the stack of 33 Depression-era posters were painstakingly steamed and gingerly separated over the course of several weeks.

"As we started to peel them apart, it was one of the greatest treasure troves from a beautiful period of poster printing," said Grey Smith of Heritage Auctions, where the posters go on the block March 23.

The separated posters underwent minor touch-ups and were backed with linen at a restoration house, he said.

"A number of them were in very, very nice shape. ... The colors had not seen the light of day in 80 years," Smith said. They were glued, one atop the other, apparently as each new release came to town. The find most likely came from one of the three big movie houses in Berwick during that era, Smith said.

From what the auction buyer was able to ascertain, the valuable stack of Hollywood history was inside a home whose contents were being liquidated as part of an estate sale, he said.

The trove includes extraordinarily rare original posters from the 1931 films "The Public Enemy," ''Cimarron," ''The Front Page" and "Little Caesar." Some are versions never before seen, while others are among only one or two other known copies. All measure roughly 27 by 41 inches, known in movie parlance as a one-sheet.

James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Barbara Stanwyck are among the matinee idols gracing several posters but Bela Lugosi, bug-eyed and menacing in the 1931 ad for horror classic "Dracula," counts as the star of the auction with a starting bid of $200,000.

An identical poster owned by actor Nicholas Cage sold at auction in 2009 for $310,000.

The films in the posters date from 1930 and 1931, a uniquely permissive time for filmmaking that came after the adoption of sound but before the enforcement of stringent moral guidelines popularly known as the Hays Code. Movies from the "pre-Code" era of roughly 1929 to 1934 include sex, violence and social commentary that vanished as the Hays Code censored everything from religious criticism to "suggestive postures."

The Humphrey Bogart-John Huston version of "The Maltese Falcon," for example, was a remake of the 1931 original, which was later deemed lewd under the Hays Code for nudity and sexual references and banned from re-release. A poster for the earlier "Falcon," featuring smooching leads Bebe Daniels and Ricardo Cortez, is also part of the sale and the auctioneers say it's the only one known to exist.

"They were purely a product to be disposed of. ... They're not something anyone would have thought to save," Smith said in explaining the scarcity of movie ephemera of the era. Berwick had three large movie houses in the early 1930s and the posters likely came from one of them, he said.

For collectors, a find like the Berwick posters is "like a dream come true," said Bob King, editor of Classic Images, an Ohio-based periodical devoted to pre-1960s film and television.

"When (a discovery like) this happens, it's a big deal because you never know when or if it'll happen again," he said. "Are they ever going to find another one like this? Maybe not."

States Slash Birth Control Subsidies as Federal Debate Rages

United States - Even as a national debate rages over contraception insurance, tens of thousands of low-income women and teenagers across the United States have lost access to subsidized birth control as states slash and restructure family planning funds.

Montana and New Jersey have eliminated altogether their state family planning programs. New Hampshire cut its funding by 57 percent and five other states made more modest program trims.

But the biggest impact, by far, has been in Texas.

State lawmakers last fall cut family-planning funds by two-thirds, or nearly $74 million over two years.

Within months, half the state-supported family planning clinics in Texas had closed.

The state network, which once provided 220,000 women a year free and low-cost birth control, cervical cancer tests and diabetes screenings, will now serve just 40,000 to 60,000, officials said.

Another 130,000 low-income Texas women who get free exams and contraceptives through Medicaid could lose those benefits by month's end, due to a dispute between the state and federal governments over whether Planned Parenthood should be allowed to serve women on that program.

At the People's Community Clinic in Austin, the cuts mean that many low-income patients, except the very poorest, are now charged for contraception that used to be free: $5 for a dozen condoms; $10 for a month of birth control pills; $225 for an IUD.

"I have no clue what I'm going to do," said Rhetta Pope, 22, of Austin. A stay-at-home mother of two, she lives off disability payments of less than $1,500 a month.
Pope said after paying basic living expenses, she has so little left she scrimps on electricity by keeping the lights off and takes her laundry to an aunt's house. She can't imagine how she would pay for birth control.

"I guess I'm going to have to stop using it because I don't have the money," Pope said. "I'm pretty shook up. I really am."

SAVINGS IN DOUBT

Texas legislators who backed the 66-percent family planning cuts say they had no choice - the state budget was in crisis and many worthy programs suffered.

But a budget board analysis concluded the cut would actually cost Texas taxpayers more than it saved.

The board projected that women unable to get low-cost birth control would deliver 20,500 additional babies - costing state and federal taxpayers $231 million in prenatal, maternity and infant care. The state's share would be close to $98 million - significantly more than the family planning cut savings.

State Representative Wayne Christian, a Republican, acknowledged that the cuts might be counterproductive "if you look at it from a financial cost, perhaps."

But he disputed the notion that additional babies were a cost burden. "We value a human life more than just the cost," he said.

In general, he said, the state should not try to deter births by widely distributing free contraception. If women who want birth control cannot afford it, he said, they should first seek help from families or communities.

"I'm sorry," Christian said, "but there's this thing called individual responsibility."

Some women have found ways to pay for the care they once received free, but many have not.
After losing much of its state family-planning grant, the Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas in January began charging most patients a flat $25-per-visit fee.

In the first two weeks of the policy, 362 women cancelled appointments because they could not make the co-pay. Only 20 percent found the money to get care within a week or two, hospital officials said.

Another 20 percent were referred to one of the two Parkland locations still providing free services. Those sites are now so busy, the first available appointment at the Irving Women's Health Center is August 21.

Most of the remaining women never came back for care after learning about the co-pay, said Paula Turicchi, a Parkland senior vice president.

BLOCKING TAXPAYER DOLLARS

In several states, including Texas, questions about birth control access are now entangled with the politically explosive abortion debate.

Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider, with about 330,000 procedures a year. It also runs a network of urban and suburban clinics offering birth control, gynecological exams and care for sexually transmitted diseases.

The organization gets about a third of its revenue, $360 million in 2009, from government grants to provide those services to poor women.

In the past year, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana and Texas all have moved to block Planned Parenthood from receiving taxpayer money. Several other states, including Ohio, Oklahoma and New Hampshire, are considering similar moves.

While public funds don't pay for abortions, critics of Planned Parenthood argue that hiring the organization to provide family planning to poor women helps the organization stay afloat and thus indirectly supports abortion services.

The Texas funding cut prompted Planned Parenthood to shut down 11 clinics. It also has jeopardized a $40 million family-planning program run as a Medicaid extension.

The program provides free birth control and annual exams to 130,000 low-income women of reproductive age who don't qualify for regular Medicaid. The federal government pays 90 percent of the cost; Texas puts up just $4 million a year.

About 40 percent of women in the Texas program get subsidized care from Planned Parenthood clinics, but a new state law blocks those clinics from participating. The Obama administration has said that violates federal Medicaid rules. If neither side compromises, the program will likely close by the end of March.

That infuriates Jonee Longoria, a single mother in Houston who relied on the program for free services for several years as she put herself through college. "I had one child living in poverty and I didn't want another," Longoria said.

She now works for a social service agency and refers many clients to the program for contraception. Without it, she said, "where would they go?"

Advocates of defunding Planned Parenthood say they regret any service disruptions for poor women. But they call it a necessary price to pay to take a moral stance on abortion.

"We're just doing what we think is best," said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, which opposes abortion.

Seven Accused of Bilking $375M from Medicare, Medicaid

By Juan A Lozano and Nomaan Merchant

Dallas - A Texas doctor has been charged with running a massive health fraud care scheme with thousands of fraudulent patients and intermediaries allegedly offering cash, food stamps or free groceries, to bilk Medicare and Medicaid of nearly $375 million.

A federal indictment unsealed Tuesday charges Jacques Roy, a doctor who owned Medistat Group Associates in DeSoto, Texas, and six others in an alleged scheme to bill Medicare for home health services that were not properly billed, not medically necessary or not done.

The scheme was the largest dollar amount by a single doctor uncovered by a task force on Medicare fraud, authorities said.

U.S. Attorney Sarah Saldana accused Roy of "selling his signature" to home health agencies that rounded up thousands of patients' names and billed Medicare and Medicaid for five years.

The indictment alleged that from January 2006 through November 2011, Roy or others certified 11,000 Medicare beneficiaries for more than 500 home health service agencies — more patients than any other medical practice in the U.S. More than 75 of those agencies have had their Medicare payments suspended.

Roy, 54, is charged with several counts of health care fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud. He faces up to 100 years in prison if convicted on all counts. He appeared briefly in court Tuesday and is scheduled to have a detention hearing Wednesday. Authorities also moved to seize cash in Roy's bank accounts, cars and two sailboats.

His attorney, Patrick McLain, said authorities had contacted Roy months ago. McLain said it was too soon to comment on the case because prosecutors hadn't provided him with most of the evidence yet. Phone messages and emails left with Medistat, located just south of Dallas, were not immediately returned Tuesday.

The attorney for one of the home health agency owners, Cynthia Stiger, alleged to be part of the scheme called the charges and the dollar amounts listed overblown. Stiger pleaded not guilty Tuesday.

"They're not anywhere close to accurate," said Jeffrey Grass, Stiger's attorney.

Investigators for the U.S. Health and Human Services department noticed irregularities with Roy's practice about one year ago, officials said.

Roy had "recruiters" finding people to bill for home health services, said Saldana, the top federal prosecutor in Dallas. Some of those alleged patients, when approached by investigators, were found working on their cars and clearly not in need of home healthcare, she said.

Medicare patients qualify for home health care if they are confined to their homes and need care there, according to the indictment.

Saldana said Roy used the home health agencies as "his soldiers on the ground to go door to door to recruit Medicare beneficiaries."

"He was selling his signature," she said.

For example, authorities allege Charity Eleda, one of the home health agency owners charged in the scheme, visited a Dallas homeless shelter to recruit homeless beneficiaries staying at the facility, paying recruiters $50 for each person they found. A message was left Tuesday at Eleda's Dallas-based company, Charry Home Care Services, Inc.

Others indicted are accused of offering free health care and services such as food stamps to anyone who signed up and offered their Medicare number.

Roy would "make home visits to that beneficiary, provide unnecessary medical services and order unnecessary durable medical equipment for that beneficiary," the indictment alleged. "Medistat would then bill Medicare for those visits and services."

The indictment says Roy's business manager — identified only by his initials — recorded conversations between the two in January 2006. The business manager heard Roy describe his alleged scheme and refuse to market for patients in a legitimate way, the indictment said.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also announced the suspension of an additional 78 home health agencies associated with Roy. The agencies were collecting about $2.3 million a month, said Peter Budetti, CMS' deputy administrator for program integrity.

The alleged fraud went unnoticed for several years. After CMS suspended Medicare provider accounts belonging to Roy and Medistat last July, Medistat's employees allegedly started billing Medicare under a different provider number under Roy's supervision, authorities said.

Until recently, HHS could not effectively track data to identify the kind of fraud now linked to Roy, who was billing beneficiaries "off the charts" for more than five years, officials said. The department's inspector general, Dan Levinson, told reporters the department's technology "has not come online as quickly as we'd like to see."

The department is now beefing up its data analysis and tracking other cases, Levinson said. It has also established task forces in several U.S. cities to track Medicare fraud, officials said.

"We're now able to use those data analytic tools in ways — in 2012 and 2011 — that no, we really could not have done in years past," Levinson said.

A spokesman for Trailblazer Health Enterprises, which paid home health claims through a contract with federal authorities, did not return a phone message Tuesday.

Health care fraud is estimated to cost the government at least $60 billion a year, mainly in losses to Medicare and Medicaid. Officials say the fraud involves everything from sophisticated marketing schemes by major pharmaceuticals encouraging doctors to prescribe drugs for unauthorized uses to selling motorized wheelchairs to people who don't need them.

"These are public programs, and we must protect them for future generations," Saldana said.

Texas Teen Soon to Return Home

El Paso - Jakadrien Turner, the teenager who was deported to Colombia after giving ICE officials – who never took the time to confirm her identity nor find out she was unable to speak Spanish – a false name, is likely to return to her Texas home soon.

Jakadrien's release comes after the U.S. embassy provided the needed documents to Colombia. It also states she was working in a call center before she American and Colombian officials were alerted about her true citizenship status. Between that time and now Colombia claims she was in a welfare program.

Update: Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin announced Jakadrien Turner is on the way to being returned to the United States.

Holguin said they are looking into how she was deported into Colombia and allowed entry into the country.

Turner is presently five months pregnant.

Update: She is now back with her family.

Lost Girl Pops Up in Colombia Compliments of ICE

Dallas – Somehow an African-American girl who spoke no Spanish at all was deported to Colombia by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, also known as ICE.

Jakadrien Turner, who was missing since April of 2010, was sent to the country after she gave Houston authorities a false name of an acual illegal immigrant who had warrants for her arrest.

According to News 8, ICE took Jakadrien's fingerprints but didn't confirm her idetity for some reason before deporting her to Colombia. Upon arrival the country gave her a work card and released her.

Her grandmother Lorene found out her location thanks to her Facebook messages.

"She talked about how they had her working in this big house cleaning all day, and how tired she was," the elder Turner said.

Jakadrien ran away from home when she felt under too much stress brought on by the death of her other grandmother and her parents' divorce. After making her way to Houston, she was arrested for theft and gave the fake name. Along with the social media site and Dallas police, Lorene foun her grandaughter.

However all is not settled for the Turner family. Along with being pregnant, the Colombian government is refusing to return the girl to her family.

ICE has released a statement:

ICE takes these allegations very seriously. At the direction of [the Department of Homeland Security], ICE is fully and immediately investigating this matter in order to expeditiously determine the facts of this case.

ICE claims it is aware of cases when people claim to be someone else in order to avoid being deported.

Despite it all however Lorene is confident her grandaughter's case will be resolved saying “I feel like she will come home. I just need help. And I need prayer. ”