Inmate Deaths, Medical Care Shortages Reported In Rikers Island Jail Chaos

AP: NYC's Rikers Island Jail Spirals Into Chaos Amid Pandemic
A spate of inmate deaths. Cellblocks unguarded. Staggering staffing shortages caused by AWOL guards. Detainees deprived of food and medical care. New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex, troubled by years of neglect, has spiraled into turmoil during the coronavirus pandemic. It’s not just inmates and advocates saying that. City officials, including the mayor, admit there are serious problems. One jail watchdog called it “a complete breakdown in the operation of the jails.” “In our office’s 50 years of monitoring the city jails, this is one of the most dangerous times we’ve seen,” said Mary Lynne Werlwas, a lawyer and the director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society. (Sisak, 9/16)

CBS News: Cockroaches, Rotting Food And Garbage: Lawmakers Say Rikers Island Jail Conditions Are A "Public Health Issue" 
New York State lawmakers are calling for greater criminal justice reform amid "an absolute humanitarian crisis" at Rikers Island jail complex. The ten facilities situated in the East River near New York City are scheduled to close by 2027, putting an end to some of its longstanding issues of violence and neglect. . "The place is in a state of emergency, and we need to act now," New York State Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas told CBS News' Lana Zak on Thursday. "We must work to decarcerate." While touring the island's facilities, González-Rojas said she saw garbage spewed across the floor, cockroaches and rotting food. She said inmates were piled on top of one another, and some had no access to showers or clothing. She added that she stepped over urine and even witnessed a suicide attempt at the jail. (Powell, 9/17)

In news from Texas, Louisiana, Michigan, Oregon and Alaska —

Houston Chronicle: Higher Rates Of Food Contamination Found At Markets In Houston's Low-Income Areas, Researchers Say
Knowing that people living in low-income neighborhoods often suffer from higher rates of food borne or gastrointestinal illnesses, University of Houston researchers decided to analyze the produce Houstonians eat. What they found: Loose-leaf romaine lettuce purchased from supermarkets in low-income Houston communities were contaminated with higher rates of disease-causing microorganisms, fecal contaminants and pathogens than lettuce purchased in high-income communities in the city. (Britto, 9/16)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: After Ida, Louisiana Hospitals Are Up And Running, But Fallout From Storm And Delta Surge Lingers
Many of the state’s biggest hospitals are back to full operations after Hurricane Ida, but surgeries and appointments remain bottlenecked, smaller hospitals in coastal areas are still partially shuttered and many employees are still living out of hotel rooms, Louisiana hospital officials said Thursday. Ochsner Health, the state's largest health care provider with 40 hospitals across the state, delayed 80,000 appointments due to the storm alone, according to Mike Hulefeld, chief operating officer. The hospital system has rescheduled about half of those missed appointments and is in the process of rescheduling as many as 6,000 surgeries. (Woodruff, 9/16)

Detroit Free Press: Feds: Female Genital Mutilation Case Involved Secret Network Of Doctors
Northville Dr. Jumana Nagarwala may be the only physician on trial on charges of performing female genital mutilation on minor girls in the U.S., but she wasn't the only doctor who was cutting children, federal prosecutors disclosed Thursday. Rather, they said, Nagarwala was part of a secret network of physicians in a tight-knit Indian community who were cutting 7-year-old girls across the country for years as part of a religious obligation and cultural tradition that had mothers and daughters traveling all over for the procedure. (Baldas, 9/16)

The Oregonian: Oregon Department Of Justice Grand Jury Finds Tigard Police Officer Justified In Shooting Man Experiencing Mental Health Crisis 
A grand jury convened by Oregon’s attorney general concluded a Tigard police officer was justified in fatally shooting a man experiencing a mental health crisis in January. The state Department of Justice announced the findings Thursday. The grand jury, which met for a total of eight hours over two days, made its decision late Wednesday. Gabriel Maldonado, then a Tigard police officer, shot 26-year-old Jacob Macduff on Jan. 6 after responding to what police characterized as domestic violence allegations. (Crombie, 9/16)

Anchorage Daily News: Cyberattackers Had Access To Most Alaskans’ Personal Data, State Health Agency Says
A May cyberattack against the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services could have exposed most Alaskans’ personal and health information to the attackers, the department said Thursday. “It is a fair statement to say that any Alaskan could have been compromised by this,” Health and Social Services Commissioner Adam Crum said. Given the attack’s scale, “we cannot be assured there is a low probability that protected health information was compromised, and therefore, in accordance with (federal law), we are notifying Alaskans their health or personal information may have been compromised,” the department said in a written statement. (Brooks, 9/16)

In news from California —

AP: Covered California Director To Step Down In February
The director of Covered California said Thursday he will step down early next year, prompting a national search for a new leader of the nation’s largest state-based health insurance marketplace. Peter Lee has been Covered California’s only executive director in its nine-year history, launching the marketplace in 2012 at a time when the Affordable Care Act was a polarizing force in U.S. politics. (Beam, 9/16)

KHN: Leader Of California’s Muscular Obamacare Exchange To Step Down 
Peter Lee, who has steered California’s Affordable Care Act marketplace since late 2011 and helped mold it into a model of what the federal health care law could achieve, announced Thursday he will leave his post in March. As executive director of Covered California, Lee has worked closely with the administrations of Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden to expand health coverage to millions of people who don’t get it through an employer or government program, most of them aided by income-based financial assistance from the state or federal government. Over 1.6 million people are now enrolled in plans through the exchange, which has covered 5.3 million Californians since it started selling health plans. (Wolfson and Hart, 9/16)

Los Angeles Times: Residents Displaced By LAPD Fireworks Explosion Demand Names
Following the release of a federal report about a massive fireworks explosion that destroyed part of a South L.A. neighborhood, residents Thursday demanded mental health services and the names of Los Angeles police officers involved. More than a dozen people gathered on East 27th street, holding signs that read “lies,” “not repaired” and “justice for our community.” In June, the LAPD damaged the block while trying to safely detonate a cache of illegal fireworks. (Mejia, 9/16)