Utah gay-adoption birth certificates halted

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Utah Supreme Court has ordered a temporary halt of several district judges' orders requiring the Utah Department of Health to issue birth certificates in same-sex parent adoptions.

The stay was granted Friday night in response to a Utah Attorney General's Office request for clarity on whether the department can issue the birth certificates if directed by court order.

The attorney general's office praised the decision, saying the stay will remain in effect until the issue has been resolved by the court.

The stay appears to apply to 3rd District Judge Andrew Stone's order requiring Attorney General Sean Reyes and two top health officials to explain the state's refusal to recognize a same-sex couple's adoption, the attorney general's office said.

Stone's order, dated May 7, does not identify the child or the two women who adopted the child. The two were among hundreds of gay couples who married after a federal judge overturned Utah's same-sex marriage ban Dec. 20.

Those weddings stopped Jan. 6 when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay, prompting the attorney general's office to maintain adoptions by same-sex partners also should be on hold.

Holder: Race-neutral rules imperil equality

WASHINGTON -- Policies described as "race neutral" often pose a greater threat to equality than insensitive comments that result in media attention, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told graduates of Morgan State University.

"These outbursts of bigotry, while deplorable, are not the true markers of the struggle that still must be waged, or the work that still needs to be done -- because the greatest threats do not announce themselves in screaming headlines," Holder said Saturday in a commencement address at the historically black college in Baltimore, Md.

Holder, the first black to serve in the highest U.S. law enforcement post, delivered his speech on the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed racially segregated public schools, Brown v. Board of Education.

He said the more insidious forms of discrimination include "zero tolerance" school-discipline practices that "affect black males at a rate three times higher than their white peers," along with laws that result in stiffer prison sentences for blacks and other minority-group members, and voter-identification statutes that proponents say are intended to halt fraud at the polls.

Surgery more risky for Medicaid patients

WASHINGTON -- Surgery patients covered by Medicaid arrive at the hospital in worse health, experience more complications, stay longer and cost more than patients with private insurance, a new study has found.

Although Medicaid patients in the study were generally younger than privately insured patients, they were twice as likely to smoke and had higher rates of conditions that made surgery riskier. Those conditions, which can arise from years of poor health habits, include diabetes, lung disease and blood vessel blockage.

The study was led by Dr. Darrell Campbell, the chief medical officer of the University of Michigan Health System, and published this month in the journal JAMA Surgery. It analyzed data on nearly 14,000 patients who had operations at 52 hospitals in Michigan from July 2012 to June 2013.

The findings have financial implications for hospitals, which are often paid less than the full cost of caring for Medicaid patients. About half of all U.S. states have expanded Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Blogger charged with felony exploitation

JACKSON, Miss. -- Authorities have accused a conservative Mississippi blogger of going into a nursing home, photographing the bedridden wife of Republican U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran without permission and posting an image online as part of a video.

Rose Cochran, 72, has lived at St. Catherine's Village since 2000 and has dementia.

Clayton Thomas Kelly, 28, of Pearl, was arrested Friday and charged with felony exploitation of a vulnerable adult, Madison police said. Kelly remained in the Madison County jail Saturday in lieu of $100,000 bond.

Cochran attorney Don Clark said an unauthorized photo of Rose Cochran was taken in her nursing home room, near her bedside, and it was posted briefly online.

Kelly has a blog called Constitutional Clayton, which includes posts disparaging Thad Cochran and at least one showing support for Cochran's Republican primary challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel. McDaniel said Saturday that his campaign has no connection to Kelly.

-- COMPILED BY DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF FROM WIRE REPORTS

A Section on 05/18/2014