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Clinton drops hospital story from stump speech

(CNN) — Sen. Hillary Clinton will stop telling an emotional story about a uninsured pregnant woman who died after being denied medical care, Clinton’s campaign said.

A hospital has raised questions over the accuracy of the story, and Clinton’s campaign has said although they had no reason to doubt the story, they were unable to confirm the details.

In the story, Clinton describes a woman from rural Ohio who was making minimum wage at a local pizza shop. The woman, who was uninsured, became pregnant.

Clinton said the woman ran into trouble and went to a hospital in a nearby county but was denied treatment because she couldn’t afford a $100 payment.

In her speeches, Clinton said the woman later was taken to the hospital by ambulance and lost the baby. The young woman was then taken by helicopter to a Columbus hospital where she died of complications. Watch why the story is raising questions

The New York senator heard the story during a campaign visit to a family’s living room in Pomeroy, Ohio, in late February. Bryan Holman was hosting the candidate and told Clinton the story. She has repeated it frequently since then.

As recently as Friday night in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Clinton said she was just aching inside as she was listening to the story.

It is so wrong, in this good, great and rich country, that a young woman and her baby would die because she didn’t have health insurance or a hundred dollars to get examined, she said.

While Clinton never named the hospital in her speech, the woman she was referring to was treated at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. The hospital said the woman did indeed have insurance, and, at least at their hospital, she was never turned away.

Hospital Chief Executive Officer Rick Castrop in a statement said, we reviewed the medical and patient accounts of the patient after she was named in a newspaper story about Clinton’s stump speech.

There is no indication that she was ever denied medical care at any time, for any reason. We clearly reject any perception that we ever denied any care to this woman.

A hospital spokesperson confirmed to CNN the woman had insurance. She said the hospital decided to come forward after people in the community began to question if they had denied her care.

Clinton’s speech accurately reflects what she was told that day, but the campaign admits they were not able to confirm the account.

Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said, She had no reason to doubt his word.

Candidates are told stories by people all the time, and it’s common for candidates to retell those stories. It’s not always possible to fully vet them, but we try. For example, medical records are confidential. In this case, we tried but weren’t able to fully vet the story, he said.

Elleithee added, If the hospital claims it didn’t happen that way, we certainly respect that, and she won’t repeat the story.

She never mentions the hospital by name and isn’t trying to cast blame. She tells this story because it illustrates the point that we have a very serious health care problem in America. That’s a point very few people will dispute.
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Suicide blast kills Sri Lankan minister

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (CNN) — A senior Sri Lankan cabinet minister and at least 13 other people, including police and government officials, were killed when a suicide bomber exploded at the start of a marathon race just outside of the capital city Colombo Sunday, Sri Lankan police said.

At least 83 people were wounded, police said.

Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, who was the highway minister and the chief government whip in Parliament, died when the suicide bomber stepped forward and detonated his explosives.

Fernandopulle was waving the starting flag for the race which was part of the Hindu New Year celebration in Weliveriya town, police said.

His body will lie in state in Sri Lanka’s parliament on Monday for a national funeral, before it is handed over to his relatives on Tuesday for a family burial, police said.

Lakshman de Alwis, Sri Lanka’s national athletics coach, was also among the dead, police said.

The bombing is the latest to hit Sri Lanka since the government’s January withdrawal from a cease-fire with the Tamil Tigers. The rebel group has fought for an independent Tamil homeland in northern Sri Lanka for more than two decades.

Nearly 200 people have been killed in a wave of attacks on buses, train stations and other public places since the start of the year. E-mail to a friend

CNN’s Iqbal Athas in Colombo contributed to this report

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Azinger slams Ryder Cup rival Faldo

(CNN) — United States captain Paul Azinger has upped the stakes ahead of September’s Ryder Cup with a stinging attack on his Europe team counterpart Nick Faldo.

Faldo’s stewardship ahead of Europe’s bid for victory at Valhalla in Kentucky has already been criticized following his admonishment of Colin Montgomerie for his behavior at last season’s Seve Trophy match in Ireland.

And now Azinger, who has had a rocky relationship with Faldo both as a player and television commentator, has weighed in by claiming that the Englishman is not popular with his players.

Nick Faldo has tried to redefine himself, the American told Britain’s Mail on Sunday newspaper.

I’d say he is both who he is and who he was. Some people have bought it. Some have not. But if you’re going to be a p***k and everyone hates you, why do you think that just because you’re trying to be cute and funny on air now that the same people are all going to start to like you?

The bottom line is that the players from his generation and mine really don’t want to have anything to do with him. He did what he did as a player and there are relational consequences.

Faldo, the record points scorer in Ryder Cup history, was renowned for his single-minded approach as a player — which won him six major titles but few friends on the course.

His first run-in with Azinger came in 1987 after winning his first British Open at Muirfield, reportedly commenting Tough luck, old boy after the American bogeyed the last two holes on the final day to miss out on the title.

They famously halved a Ryder Cup match six years later at The Belfry.

He talked me into giving him a five-footer on the 16th, Azinger told the mail on Sunday. He said, ‘It’s over. You guys have won’. So I waived the putt. Then Davis Love ran over and told me the match was still tied. I can’t tell you how irritating that was.

Then, on the 18th, when America had already won, I needed a 10-footer to win the hole and halve the match. Who gave a rat’s ass about our match because the result of the Ryder Cup was already decided?

I went through the motions of preparing for the putt expecting any second for him to tell me to pick the ball up. It would have been the sporting thing to have done and I couldn’t believe it when he said nothing. I holed it, and that gave me so much pleasure.

I guess I’ve always felt a rivalry with him, probably more than he has with me. I’ve got to know him better now but it doesn’t change what’s happened and, come September at Valhalla, something will have to give.

Faldo and Montgomerie used to be Ryder Cup partners, but the Scot now seems likely to miss out after slipping down the world rankings.

I hope he plays against us, but I’m worried he won’t, Azinger told the Mail on Sunday.

He and Faldo don’t seem to get along and there’s no way Faldo will award him one of his two wild-cards. I love that dude. We’re all scared of him when he plays in the Ryder Cup.

What he’s done is amazing. Monty’s become famous for it in the United States and he’s never even won a major. Americans don’t particularly like him but there’s nothing wrong in being the villain.

He’s brought a lot of it on himself, of course. He probably won’t ever win a major now, but I still want him in the European team because I want to show him what the taste of defeat is like. I’ve told him this. I also implored him to give me some stuff I shouldn’t know about Faldo.

Faldo will be a loner as a leader: very thorough, but a loner. I’ve got three assistants with me and, although people have suggested the players don’t need them, they must understand that the assistants are for me, not the players.

Europe will be seeking a fourth successive victory in Louisville, with the U.S. having last won the biennial event on home soil at Brookline in 1999.
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Possible standoff looms at polygamist ranch

ELDORADO, Texas (CNN) — Ambulances rolled into a Texas ranch that’s home to members of a polygamist sect, as authorities continued their search Saturday night for possible victims of physical and sexual abuse.

The emergency vehicles were called for as investigators prepared to search the group’s temple, law enforcement officials said.

The sect is a rogue branch of the Mormon church, which forbids nonbelievers from entering its temples.

Authorities wanted medical backup in case they’re involved in sensitive areas that could escalate into a negative reaction, a law enforcement source said.

A police helicopter also had begun circling the ranch Saturday night.

Earlier, dozens more children and young women were removed from the compound.

A total of 183 people, including 137 children, have been taken away since law enforcement officers raided the compound Thursday night, said Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for the Texas Child Protective Services Division.

The children — most of them girls — were being interviewed by special investigators, she said.

We’re trying to find out if they’re safe, she explained. We need to know if they have been abused or neglected.

Eighteen of the girls have been taken into state custody.

Authorities believe that they had been abused or were at immediate risk of future abuse, said Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar.

The others were taken to a nearby civic center. Meisner described them as doing remarkably well. Watch a report on the latest developments

Authorities continue to search the 1,900-acre YFZ ranch, occupied by followers of imprisoned polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, and at least one man is being sought by police.

According to the search warrant, authorities are looking for Dale Barlow, 50, whom they suspect of having married and fathered a child with a 16-year-old girl. Watch an Eldorado neighbor talk about the raid

Law enforcement agencies raided the ranch Thursday night after receiving a report Monday that a 16-year-old girl had been sexually and physically abused, Azar said. Watch buses take girls from compound

The warrant cited an immediate need for authorities to have access to the 16-year-old and an 8-month-old child with either the last name of Barlow or the girl’s last name. It instructs law enforcement officers to look for any records showing that Barlow and the girl were married and any evidence of them having a child.

Barlow is in Arizona and does not know his accuser, his probation officer told The Salt Lake Tribune.

He said the authorities had called him [in Colorado City, Arizona], and some girl had accused him of assaulting her, and he didn’t even know who she was, Bill Loader said.

Barlow pleaded no contest last year to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor, The Associated Press reported.

He was ordered to register as a sex offender for three years, according to the AP.

His lawyer in that case told the AP he had not spoken to Barlow in a year.

Jeffs, the 52-year-old leader and prophet of the 10,000-member church, was convicted in Utah last year and sentenced to 10 years on two counts of being an accomplice to rape, charges related to a marriage he performed in 2001. He faces trial in Arizona on eight charges of sexual conduct with a minor, incest and conspiracy.

Jeffs’ Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints bought the land near Eldorado four years ago and built the ranch, which they call the YFZ Ranch. The letters are said to refer to the words Yearning for Zion.

It is home to as many as 400 members who relocated from their Arizona and Utah compounds.

State and local law enforcement agencies set up roadblocks around the ranch Thursday evening, preventing journalists from seeing what was happening on the property, according to Randy Mankin, editor of the Eldorado Success weekly newspaper.

This came totally out of the blue, Mankin said.

There were no indications of violence around the ranch, he said.

When CNN crews have visited the ranch, it was guarded by armed men equipped with night vision gear and other high-tech surveillance tools to prevent intruders.

When CNN flew over the ranch in a small plane last year, the crew saw a massive temple, the three-story housing units where Jeffs’ chosen followers live, the water tower, the school and community center, the dairy and cheese factory and a massive concrete mill.

The church openly practices polygamy in two towns straddling the Arizona-Utah state line — Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona — but members living on their Texas ranch rarely venture into Eldorado, four miles to the south.

Critics of the sect say that it arranges marriages for girls as young as 13 and that competition for brides may be reduced through exiling young men. If male followers are excommunicated, the critics claim, their wives and children can be reassigned to someone else.
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Egypt braces for general strike

CAIRO, Egypt, (AP) — Egypt’s Interior Ministry warned Egyptians on Saturday against interfering with traffic or keeping public servants from going to work ahead of a general strike being called by textile workers and activists.

Egypt’s largest state-owned textile factory, Mahalla al-Kobra, has called for a strike Sunday over low wages and rising prices. Democracy activists are trying to turn it into a nationwide action at a time of rising discontent over economic conditions.

The ministry’s agencies will take the necessary and immediate firm measures against any attempt to demonstrate, block traffic or hinder public services — or inciting any of these acts, the statement said.

The ministry went on to condemn the illegitimate groups calling for the strike and assured the people that on Sunday, government services will be operating as normal.

Strikes and demonstrations are illegal in Egypt under emergency law. Limited demonstrations became possible in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and American pressure on the region to democratize and ahead of Egyptian presidential elections in 2005.

In 2006, however, security services no longer allowed even limited street protests.

In its statement, the ministry assured that there was no prevention of freedom of expression, just that such actions must come through legitimate channels and the qualified unions and professional associations according to the law.

Al-Azhar, the nation’s highest Sunni Islamic institution, whose head is appointed by the government, has also come out against the strike.

Any delay of work is considered harmful to the citizens’ and state’s interest and will exacerbate the problem, Sheik Abdel-Fattah Allam, a senior official at the institution, said in the early Sunday edition of the state-owned daily Al-Gomhuria.

In recent days, anti-government groups have been sending mobile phone messages and e-mails urging people across the country to hold protests, stay home from work, avoid shopping, wear black clothes and hang the Egyptian flag from windows and balconies in a show of support for the strikers.

The country’s most powerful opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, threw its support behind the strikers Thursday, raising government fears that the movements seeks to position itself to be the political vehicle for the economic discontent.

The government quickly announced a ban on political rallies inside mosques, hoping to blunt protests. Mubarak also lifted import duties on some foodstuffs in an effort to soften economic complaints brought on by a near doubling of prices because of international and local influences.

Nearly 40 percent of Egyptians live near or below the poverty line of $2 a day.

The strike calls were the first major attempt by opposition groups to turn the past year’s labor unrest and the rising anger over the economy into a wider political protest against the government, only two days before key elections for local councils Tuesday. E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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