In brief: Missionary faces another charge
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The last of 10 American missionaries detained in Haiti on suspicion of kidnapping is facing a new charge.
Judge Bernard Saint-Vil says Laura Silsby has been charged for a newly discovered, alleged attempt to bus child earthquake survivors to the Dominican Republic on Jan. 26.
She already could face trial on kidnapping and criminal-association charges from her group’s attempt to take 33 children across the border without permission three days later.
Saint-Vil has added the new charge of “organization of irregular trips,” from a 1980 law restricting travel out of Haiti that was signed by then-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.
Haim’s name on fraudulent scrip
LOS ANGELES – The name of the late actor Corey Haim was found on a fraudulent prescription for a powerful painkiller that authorities said Friday was obtained through a major drug ring.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office said records of the prescription in the name of the former teen heartthrob were found during an investigation of the ring that illegally obtained prescription pads and used the stolen identities of doctors to fill them out.
“Corey Haim’s death is yet another tragedy linked to the growing problem of prescription drug abuse,” Brown said in a statement.
Los Angeles County coroner’s officials, however, said they have not yet determined what killed the 38-year-old Haim on Wednesday.
Feds to revisit ban on gay men, blood
WASHINGTON – Following a nudge from the U.S. Senate, federal health officials announced Friday that they will re-examine a 27-year-old set of restrictions on blood donations by gay men.
The restrictions, enacted at the height of the AIDS-HIV epidemic in the United States, impose a lifetime ban on men donating blood if they’ve had sex with another man at any time since 1977.
In recent years, the American Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks and America’s Blood Banks, which collectively represent almost all blood banks in the country, have recommended loosening the restrictions to allow men who have abstained from gay sex for one year to donate blood.
The FDA last examined the donation protocols in 2006, but left the restrictions in place.