In brief: Planned Parenthood files federal suit over Alabama Medicaid funding cuts

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Planned Parenthood Southeast on Friday filed a federal lawsuit over Gov. Robert Bentley’s effort to cut off Medicaid payments to the organization’s Alabama clinics.

The organization said Bentley’s effort penalizes low-income women who seek contraceptive and preventive health care services at the clinics. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Montgomery. It accuses Bentley of violating a federal law that they said requires Medicaid patients to have their choice of provider to receive family planning care.

“We’re in court today because each and every patient, and her ability to make her own deeply personal and private health care decisions, matters,” said Staci Fox, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast.

Bentley’s press office did not have an immediate response to the lawsuit.

Bentley earlier this month announced he was moving to terminate Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood. The governor cited now famous hidden-camera videos that accuse the organization of selling fetal organs for profit after abortions.

Court: NSA can keep collecting phone records until November

WASHINGTON – The National Security Agency can continue to collect the phone records of millions of Americans, but only for three more months, under a ruling Friday by the U.S. appeals court here.

The ruling is a symbolic win for the Obama administration and its national security team, but it’s also largely moot since Congress voted this summer to phase out the controversial surveillance program.

Two years ago, a federal judge in Washington declared the once-secret surveillance program unconstitutional and issued an injunction against it. But the judge stayed his injunction pending an appeal.

In Friday’s 3-0 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington set aside the district judge’s early ruling and agreed with the NSA that it can continue to collect the bulk data.

But that controversial policy will end in late November, thanks to a bipartisan compromise written into law in June. Libertarian Republicans and liberal Democrats agreed that the government did not need to collect and store the phone records in order to thwart terrorist plots.

Judge rules against death-row inmate’s insanity plea

MCALESTER, Okla. – A judge ruled against an Oklahoma death row inmate on Friday after his attorneys argued he is insane and sought to halt his upcoming execution for the 2002 killing of his 9-month-old daughter.

District Judge James Bland denied the request from Benjamin Cole’s attorneys following a hearing in which Cole testified from a wheelchair. His lawyers wanted Bland to order the prison warden to find that Cole is insane.

They say the warden is violating a state law that requires her to notify the local district attorney when an inmate has become insane. They are expected to appeal the judge’s ruling to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.

Cole, who is being housed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, is set to be executed by lethal injection on Oct. 7. The Claremore man was convicted of first-degree murder in Rogers County for killing his daughter, Brianna Cole.

He has not denied killing the child.