Persistent strain of TB claims victims on L.A.'s skid row

Public health officials have launched a new, coordinated attack to contain a persistent outbreak of tuberculosis on downtown Los Angeles' skid row, including a search for more than 4,500 people who may have been exposed to the disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has dispatched scientists to Los Angeles to help local health officials determine why the disease is spreading and how to stop it.

Officials say 11 have died since 2007. Sixty of the 78 cases were among homeless people who live on and around skid row.

Scientists have recently linked the outbreak to a tuberculosis strain that is unique to Los Angeles, with a few isolated cases outside the area.

"This is the largest outbreak in a decade," said Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. "We are really putting all of our resources into this."

Health workers have identified about 4,650 people who were probably exposed and are trying to track them down for testing and treatment. Local and federal officials are particularly concerned because the cases are linked to one relatively small geographic area and one vulnerable population. But officials are concerned that the outbreak could spread beyond skid row if action isn't taken.

Homeless people are especially at risk of getting TB and of being undiagnosed because they have poor hygiene and nutrition, limited access to healthcare and ongoing contact with infected people. Transmission of the airborne disease is also common because the homeless live in overcrowded areas and are constantly moving among hospitals, shelters and the streets. Many homeless people also have substance abuse or mental health issues that can impede treatment.

"They go from place to place and the likelihood of passing it along is much greater," said Paul Gregerson, chief medical officer of the JWCH Institute, which runs a homeless healthcare program on skid row. "It makes everybody more susceptible."

Tuberculosis is easily transmitted by inhaling droplets from infected patients when they sneeze, cough or laugh. When left untreated, TB can be deadly. The skid row strain can be treated with all anti-TB medications. Treatment lasts six to nine months.

The public health department issued an alert several weeks ago to doctors at emergency rooms, clinics and urgent care centers informing them about the investigation within the homeless community.

Most of the patients are men and about 20% are also HIV-positive, according to the alert, which was obtained by The Times. Six of the eight patients who also had HIV have died.

The increase of TB among the homeless population is occurring even as the county is seeing a decline in overall cases, officials said. There are probably additional cases among the homeless population that have not yet been confirmed.

The health department also issued new guidelines for shelters earlier this year on how to effectively screen and identify patients at risk of tuberculosis. The guidelines urge shelters to appoint a TB liaison and to create a "cough alert" log for tracking patients with persistent coughs.

The county also recommended that shelters determine if incoming clients have been screened and refer those who haven't been to health providers.

The county suggests that all employees and volunteers also be screened for TB because they are also at risk.

As part of the ongoing investigation, the public health department asked shelters last week for information about everybody who has used their services. In the Feb. 12 letter, Los Angeles County TB Control Program acting Director Peter Kerndt said that the information "is necessary to investigate the increase in TB cases so that appropriate steps can be taken to prevent and control the spread."

Officials at local shelters said they are committed to working with public health officials.

"We're trying to understand the urgency of what the CDC and L.A. County Health is doing," Midnight Mission spokeswoman Mai Lee said.

"It does raise questions and concerns."

At the Union Rescue Mission's health clinic, officials said they are taking a much more proactive approach to TB screening — going to the patients rather than waiting for them to come to the clinic.

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Iceland Weighs Exporting the Power Bubbling From Below

Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

The Krafla plant is Iceland’s largest geothermal power station, a showcase of renewable energy.

KRAFLA, Iceland — Soon after work began here on a power plant to harness some of the vast reserves of energy stored at the earth’s crust, the ground moved and, along a six-mile-long fissure, began belching red-hot lava. The eruptions continued for nine years, prompting the construction of a stone and soil barrier to make sure that molten rock did not incinerate Iceland’s first geothermal power station.

While the menacing lava flow has long since stopped and Krafla is today a showcase of Iceland’s peerless mastery of renewable energy sources, another problem that has dogged its energy calculations for decades still remains: what to do with all the electricity that the country — which literally bubbles with steam, hot mud and the occasional cloud of volcanic ash — is capable of producing.

In a nation with only 320,000 people, the state-owned power company, Landsvirkjun, which operates the Krafla facility, sells just 17 percent of its electricity to households and local industry. The rest goes mostly to aluminum smelters owned by the American giant Alcoa and other foreign companies that have been lured to this remote North Atlantic nation by its abundant supply of cheap energy.

Now a huge and potentially far more lucrative market beckons — if only Iceland can find a way to transmit electricity across the more than 1,000 miles of frigid sea that separate it from the 500 million consumers of the European Union. “Prices are so low in Iceland that it is normal that we should want to sell to Europe and get a better price,” said Stein Agust Steinsson, the manager of the Krafla plant. “It is not good to put all our eggs in one basket.”

What Landsvirkjun charges aluminum smelters exactly is a secret, but in 2011 it received on average less than $30 per megawatt/hour — less than half the going rate in the European Union and barely a quarter of what, according to the Renewable Energies Federation, a Brussels-based research unit, is the average tariff, once tax breaks and subsidies are factored in, for “renewable” electricity in the European Union. Iceland would not easily get this top “renewable” rate, which is not a market price, but it still stands to earn far more from its electricity than it does now.

Eager to reach these better paying customers, the power company has conducted extensive research into the possibility of a massive extension cord — or a “submarine interconnector,” in the jargon of the trade — to plug Iceland into Europe’s electricity grid. Such a cable would probably go first to the northern tip of Scotland, which, about 700 miles away, is relatively close, and then all the way to continental Europe, nearly 1,200 miles away. That is more than three times longer than a link between Norway and the Netherlands, which is currently the world’s longest.

Laying an underwater cable from the North Atlantic would probably cost more than $2 billion, and the idea is not popular with those who worry about Iceland — a country that takes pride in living by its own means in harsh isolation — becoming an ice-covered version of Middle East nations addicted to easy money from energy exports.

Backers of the cable “are looking for easy money, but who is going to pay in the end?” said Lara Hanna Einarsdottir, an Icelandic blogger who has written extensively on the potential risks involved in geothermal energy. “We will all pay.”

Iceland, Ms. Einarsdottir said, should use its energy sources to “supply ourselves and coming generations” and not gamble with Iceland’s unique heritage by “building more and more plants so that we can provide electricity to towns in Scotland.”

The idea of somehow exporting electricity to Europe has been around for decades and has been “technically doable for some time,” said Hordur Arnarson, the power company’s chief executive, “but it was not seen as economically feasible until recently.” The change is largely because of a push by the European Union to reduce the use of oil and coal and promote green energy, a move that has put a premium on electricity generated by wind, water and geothermal sources. The union’s 27 member states agreed in 2009 to a mandatory target of deriving at least 20 percent of its energy from “renewable sources” by 2020.

A connection to Europe would not only allow Iceland to tap the export market but also to import electricity from Europe in the event of a crisis, a backup that would allow it to stop keeping large emergency reserves, as it does now.

“This is a very promising project,” Mr. Arnarson said. “We have a lot of electricity for the very few people who live here.” Compared with the rest of the world, he said, Iceland produces “more energy per capita by far, and it is very natural to consider connecting ourselves to other markets.”

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Oscar Preview: Les Mis, Chicago Casts to Sing & Dance

By Stephen M. Silverman

02/20/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

From left: Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, in Les Misérables, and Catherine Zeta Jones, in Chicago

Universal (2); Miramax

Strike up the band, for Sunday night's Oscars promise to be very musical.

In the most detailed preview yet of what is to be expected – and what isn't – the 85th annual Academy Awards producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron tell Deadline.com that their special tribute to the resurgence of movie musicals in the past decade will star Les Misérables nominees Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway with costars Russell Crowe, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tevit, Samantha Barks, and Helena Bonham Carter; Dreamgirls Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson; and Chicago winner Catherine Zeta-Jones.

"What we don't want to do is play it safe," says Zadan about the show in general, admitting – repeatedly – that the job of producing it is "enormous."

So is the Oscar night orchestra: 60 pieces. Accompanying all those instruments will be:

• The previously announced Justin Timberlake, as well as Barbra Streisand, who's only sung on the show once before in her 5½-decade career (and that was 36 years ago)

• Golden Globe song winner Adele ("Skyfall" is up for Best Song) and "Goldfinger" diva Shirley Bassey, an Oscar newbie, who'll appear as part of the James Bond 50th anniversary tribute

• And the evening's host, Seth MacFarlane, who's been known to break into song on more than one occasion – such as when he hosted SNL.

Other reveals:

• "It's not going to be three hours but we will try to get it close to that," says Zadan. (There are 24 categories to recognize.)

• Six college filmmaking students will serve as Oscar presenters after winning a contest to be on the show.

• The 007 tribute will not feature a reunion of Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.

• MacFarlane's opening monologue is "clever and sort of unique … like a throwback to the days of Bob Hope and Johnny Carson," says Zadan.

• Streisand's number is being kept a secret, "but we love the speculation," says Meron.

The 85th annual Academy Awards will air live on Sunday, Feb. 24, on ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

Justin Timberlake and Barbra Streisand

Justin Lane / Landov; Walter McBride / Retna

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Agency checks water after body found in hotel tank

LOS ANGELES (AP) — British tourist Michael Baugh and his wife said water had only dribbled out of the taps at the downtown Cecil Hotel for days.

On Tuesday, after showering, brushing their teeth and drinking some of the tap water, they headed down to the lobby and found out why.

The body of a Canadian woman had been discovered at the bottom of one of four cisterns on the roof of the historic hotel near Skid Row. The tanks provide water for hotel taps and would have been used by guests for washing and drinking.

"The moment we found out, we felt a bit sick to the stomach, quite literally, especially having drank the water, we're not well mentally," Michael Baugh, 27, said.

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health officials issued a do-not-drink order Tuesday while its lab analyzes the water, said Terrance Powell, a director coordinating the department's response. The disclosure contradicts a previous police statement that the water had been deemed safe. Results of the testing were expected by Thursday.

Powell said the water was also used for cooking in the hotel; a coffee shop in the hotel would remain closed and has been instructed to sanitize its food equipment before reopening.

"Our biggest concern is going to be fecal contamination because of the body in the water," Powell said. He said the likelihood of contamination is "minimal" given the large amount of water the body was found in, but the department is being extra cautious.

Powell said the hotel hired a water treatment specialist after the department required it to do so to disinfect its plumbing lines.

A call to the hotel was not returned.

The remains of Elisa Lam, 21, were found by a maintenance worker at the 600-room hotel that charges $65 a night after guests complained about the low water pressure.

Police detectives were working to determine if her death was the result of foul play or an accident.

LAPD Sgt. Rudy Lopez called it suspicious and said a coroner's investigation will determine Lam's cause of death.

Before she died, hotel surveillance footage showed Lam inside an elevator pushing buttons and sticking her head out the doors, looking in both directions. She was later found in the water tank.

Lam, of Vancouver, British Columbia, traveled alone to Los Angeles on Jan. 26 and was last seen five days later by workers at the hotel.

Lopez said the hotel has four cisterns on its roof that are each about 10 feet tall, 4.5 feet wide and hold at least 1,000 gallons of water pumped up from city pipes.

Lam's body was found Tuesday morning at the bottom of one cistern that was about three-quarters full of water, Lopez said.

The opening at the top of the cistern is too small to accommodate firefighters and equipment, so they had to cut a hole in the storage tank to recover Lam's body.

The cisterns are on a platform at least 10 feet above the roof.

To get to the tanks, someone would have to go to the top floor then take a staircase with a locked door and emergency alarm preventing roof access.

Another ladder would have to be taken to the platform and a person would have to climb the side of the tank.

Lopez said there are no security cameras on the roof.

Lam intended to travel to Santa Cruz, about 350 miles north of Los Angeles. Officials said she tended to use public transportation and had been in touch with her family daily until she disappeared.

The Cecil Hotel was built in the 1920s and refurbished several years ago. The hotel is on Main Street in a part of downtown where efforts at gentrification often conflicts with homelessness and crime. It had once been the occasional home of infamous serial killers such as Richard Ramirez, known as the Night Stalker, and Austrian prison author Jack Unterweger, who was convicted of murdering nine prostitutes in Europe and the U.S., the Los Angeles Times reported.

By noon Wednesday, the Cecil Hotel had relocated 27 rooms used by guests to another hotel, but 11 rooms remained filled, Powell said. Those who chose to remain in the hotel were required to sign a waiver in which they acknowledged being informed of the health risks and were being provided bottled water, Powell said.

Baugh and his wife, who were on their first trip to the U.S., had planned to go to SeaWorld on Wednesday. Instead, they were trying to find a new hotel. Their tour agency placed them in another downtown hotel with a less than sterling reputation, from what they heard.

"We're just going from one dodgy place to another," Baugh said, resigned, "but at least there's water."

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Tami Abdollah can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/latams. Shaya Tayefe Mohajer contributed to this report.

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Lack of immigration reform threatens California farmers

SACRAMENTO — Except for illegal immigrants, no group has more at stake in the national fight over immigration reform than California farmers.

"It doesn't pay to plant a product if you can't harvest it," notes Mark Teixeira of Santa Maria, who says he had to let 22 acres of vegetables rot last year because he couldn't find enough field hands to gather the crop. "That hurts."

As security has tightened along the California-Mexican border, the flow of illegal immigrant labor into the nation's most productive agriculture state has slowed significantly, farm interests say.

"It's very difficult to find crews compared to three or four years ago," reports Greg Wegis, a fifth-generation Kern County farmer who grows cherries, almonds, pistachios and tomatoes, among other crops.

Last year, Wegis had to cancel a cherry pick for lack of labor. "It cost me several thousand dollars."

"Migrant workers are moving to other states that are friendlier and where there's less likelihood of getting harassed and deported," he says.

"Obviously [the feds] are doing a better job at the border. Which is great. But it definitely is putting the squeeze on our industry."

Any time some demagogic politician bellows about rounding up all the illegal immigrants and shipping them back to their own country, it sends chills up farmers' spines.

Roughly two-thirds of the state's crop workers "are not properly documented," says Rayne Pegg, who heads the federal policy division of the California Farm Bureau.

"I'm not proud to say I hire illegal aliens," says Teixeira, whose family has been farming for five generations. "Everyone has to show 'documentation.' But I don't work for [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. Bottom line, if I have to verify everyone, I'm not going to be able to harvest my crop."

One federal program designed to allow temporary entry of foreign agriculture workers — called H-2A — fails in California because "it's fraught with bureaucratic nightmares," Pegg says. "The federal government doesn't act timely enough for picking and harvesting."

At the harvest peak last September, California had 453,000 agriculture workers, according to the state Employment Development Department. They averaged about $13 per hour. Most pay is based on a work crew's production.

Some farmers, like Teixeira, pay by the hour — $9 in his case, $1 over the state minimum wage. "We also provide health insurance and a 401(k)," he says. And unlike San Joaquin Valley farmers, Teixeira offers a great climate along the ocean. But he still can't find enough hands for his 800 acres.

"Not just any bozo off the street can come in and harvest produce," he says, noting there's a special skill to, for example, cutting lettuce just right.

"Americans won't take these jobs," asserts Dave Puglia, senior vice president of the Western Growers Assn. "Not even the farmworkers raise their own children to take these jobs. It's hard work. And it's not unskilled labor."

California growers need a more reliable source of labor — one they believe would come from immigration reform. Workers would be here legally, able to move freely from farm to farm and able to cross back and forth across the border without worrying about being jumped by some federal agent.

There are an estimated 2.6 million illegal immigrants living in California, nearly one-fourth of the nation's 11 million total. They represent roughly 7% of the state's population. The vast majority — about 1.8 million — are employed.

A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 72% of likely voters believe that illegal immigrants who have worked in this country for at least two years should be allowed "to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status." Only 25% think "they should be deported back to their native country."

Also, 54% feel that immigrants benefit California "because of their hard work and job skills." Conversely, 39% call them a burden "because they use public services."

Ironically, 60% of Republican voters consider immigrants a burden and only 33% see them as a benefit. That's their long-held view. But many big growers are Republican.

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Afghans Arrest a Pakistani Taliban Leader

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghanistan authorities have captured a senior member of the Pakistan Taliban in a stretch of mountains near the frontier between the two countries, Afghan and Pakistani officials said on Tuesday. One Afghan official said the militant, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, had been arrested after American airstrikes, some carried out via drones, had flushed him out of a more remote haven.

Although Mr. Muhammad, picked up over the weekend, had lost much of his standing in the Pakistan Taliban over the past few years, his arrest was likely to please Pakistani officials and further improve the already warming relations between Kabul and Islamabad. “This is big news,” a senior Pakistani security official said.

Afghan officials, including members of the intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, said its agents, aided by Afghan army special forces, had captured Mr. Muhammad on Sunday along with four other militants in the Mohmand Dara District of Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan. The district borders Pakistan.

A member of the Pakistan Taliban, formally known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban, also said he had heard of Mr. Muhammad’s capture, and that the news was spreading quickly among the many militant factions that make up the Islamist movement.

Shukrullah Durani, the governor of Mohmand Dara, said the five men had been carrying an AK-47 assault rifle, hand grenades, a pistol and a radio when caught about 4:30 p.m. They were driving a white Toyota Corolla — one of Afghanistan’s most common cars, and thus a low-profile way to travel — and were passing through the village of Hazarnaw, he said, adding that authorities had been tracking the men for some time. Except for the district governor, Afghan and Pakistani officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the case.

Pakistani officials have in the past year often complained that Afghan and American authorities were doing little to capture the wanted militant leader. To the dismay of Washington, they repeatedly sought to draw equivalence between his case and longstanding accusations that Islamabad let the Afghan Taliban use Pakistan as a rear base.

Mr. Muhammad, believed to be in his 40s, fled to Afghanistan in 2010 after an offensive by Pakistan’s military on his stronghold in the Bajaur tribal agency. He was at the time a deputy leader of the Pakistan Taliban, an offshoot of the Afghan Taliban movement.

Mr. Muhammad continued to attack Pakistani forces in Bajaur after taking refuge in the isolated valleys of Kunar and Nuristan Provinces in northeastern Afghanistan, prompting Pakistani complaints of American and Afghan inaction.

At the same time, though, he fell out with the leadership of the Pakistan Taliban after trying to open peace talks. But in recent months, as the Pakistan Taliban have made limited overtures toward holding such talks, colleagues have appeared to welcome Mr. Muhammad back.

Afghan officials have long denied that Mr. Muhammad operated from their territory. Intelligence officials in Kabul said that he had been caught on Sunday while crossing into Afghanistan, and they suggested that he had lacked a base of operations on this side of the border.

But another official, an intelligence agent who works in northeastern Afghanistan, said Mr. Muhammad’s trail had been picked up in recent days because he had been trying to flee Kunar Province. Mr. Muhammad felt there were too many airstrikes by the American-led coalition there, the intelligence official said. Many were carried out by drones, and Mr. Muhammad, knowing the effectiveness of drone attacks targeting Islamist militants in Pakistan’s border areas, feared that the Americans had been hunting him.

American officials offered no comment on Mr. Muhammad’s capture, referring questions to the Afghanistan government.

Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan; Sharifullah Sahak from Kabul; and an employee of The New York Times from Asadabad, Afghanistan.

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What's Next for Mindy McCready's Two Young Boys?

By Steve Helling

02/19/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

Mindy McCready's apparent suicide on Sunday has left her two young sons in custodial limbo.

The boys – Zander, 6, and Zayne, 10 months – had been in state custody since Feb. 7, when McCready called police to ask for help in making her father and stepmother leave her home. When police arrived, McCready appeared to be intoxicated, according to a Department of Human Services report.

In a subsequent petition, the singer's father, Tim McCready, asked the court to order her to undergo mental health and substance abuse evaluation and treatment, alleging that his daughter, who had recently lost her boyfriend, "hasn't had a bath in a week ... screams about everything ... [is] very verbally abusive to Zander."

After a judge granted the petition, the children were quickly removed and placed into foster care. Although McCready was released from treatment, the boys remained in state custody.

At the time, Zander's father, Billy McKnight, requested custody of his son. "My son needs me," he told PEOPLE on Feb. 8. "I'm married, working and successful. I'm on the right track and proud of it. I've been sober for years. I just want my son."

But McCready's mother and stepfather, Gayle and Michael Inge, also want custody of the children – and authorities seem to agree.

In a proposed order sent to Circuit Judge Lee Harrod, the Department of Human Services proposed that the Inges might be a better fit for the children, claiming that they have "a substantial relationship." The Inges had custody of Zander for much the past few years, during McCready’s rehab and jail stints.

With McCready's death, the judge will have to determine what is in the children's best interest. A custody hearing has been scheduled for April 5.

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Drug overdose deaths up for 11th consecutive year

CHICAGO (AP) — Drug overdose deaths rose for the 11th straight year, federal data show, and most of them were accidents involving addictive painkillers despite growing attention to risks from these medicines.

"The big picture is that this is a big problem that has gotten much worse quickly," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which gathered and analyzed the data.

In 2010, the CDC reported, there were 38,329 drug overdose deaths nationwide. Medicines, mostly prescription drugs, were involved in nearly 60 percent of overdose deaths that year, overshadowing deaths from illicit narcotics.

The report appears in Tuesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

It details which drugs were at play in most of the fatalities. As in previous recent years, opioid drugs — which include OxyContin and Vicodin — were the biggest problem, contributing to 3 out of 4 medication overdose deaths.

Frieden said many doctors and patients don't realize how addictive these drugs can be, and that they're too often prescribed for pain that can be managed with less risky drugs.

They're useful for cancer, "but if you've got terrible back pain or terrible migraines," using these addictive drugs can be dangerous, he said.

Medication-related deaths accounted for 22,134 of the drug overdose deaths in 2010.

Anti-anxiety drugs including Valium were among common causes of medication-related deaths, involved in almost 30 percent of them. Among the medication-related deaths, 17 percent were suicides.

The report's data came from death certificates, which aren't always clear on whether a death was a suicide or a tragic attempt at getting high. But it does seem like most serious painkiller overdoses were accidental, said Dr. Rich Zane, chair of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

The study's findings are no surprise, he added. "The results are consistent with what we experience" in ERs, he said, adding that the statistics no doubt have gotten worse since 2010.

Some experts believe these deaths will level off. "Right now, there's a general belief that because these are pharmaceutical drugs, they're safer than street drugs like heroin," said Don Des Jarlais, director of the chemical dependency institute at New York City's Beth Israel Medical Center.

"But at some point, people using these drugs are going to become more aware of the dangers," he said.

Frieden said the data show a need for more prescription drug monitoring programs at the state level, and more laws shutting down "pill mills" — doctor offices and pharmacies that over-prescribe addictive medicines.

Last month, a federal panel of drug safety specialists recommended that Vicodin and dozens of other medicines be subjected to the same restrictions as other narcotic drugs like oxycodone and morphine. Meanwhile, more and more hospitals have been establishing tougher restrictions on painkiller prescriptions and refills.

One example: The University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora is considering a rule that would ban emergency doctors from prescribing more medicine for patients who say they lost their pain meds, Zane said.

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Stobbe reported from Atlanta.

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Online:

JAMA: http://www.jama.ama-assn.org

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com

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Appeals court revives women inmates' bid for Wiccan chaplain

At the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, shown, inmates are contending in a lawsuit that California prison policy favors mainstream religions in violation of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment. (Los Angeles Times)

By Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times

February 19, 2013, 3:48 p.m.

A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit Tuesday by female prisoners who contend that the California prison system is violating their rights by refusing to hire a full-time Wiccan chaplain.

A district court rejected the inmates' suit, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the inmates may have a valid claim.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation hires chaplains for five faiths: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Native American. Inmates of other religions are permitted to worship with those chaplains or with volunteer chaplains.

In their lawsuits, inmates at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla contend that the prison policy favors mainstream religions in violation of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment. The inmates said there were more Wiccans at the women's prison than there were Jewish, Muslim or Catholic prisoners.

Wicca is a pagan religion that involves witchcraft. If the inmates' allegations are true, the appeals court said, "The prison administration has created staff chaplain positions for five conventional faiths, but fails to employ any neutral criteria in evaluating whether a growing membership in minority religions warrants a reallocation of resources."

The court stressed that it was not suggesting the lawsuit should succeed. A lower court must now evaluate the evidence, including a survey of the religious affiliations of inmates at the prison, the panel said.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

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Briefs | Middle East: Iran: Rivals Forced to Apologize to Supreme Leader

Rival politicians apologized to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the weekend for having been embroiled in an unusually public feud involving secret tapes and a tit-for-tat impeachment. On Sunday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; the Parliament speaker, Ali Larijani; his brother, Sadegh Larijani; the chief of Iran’s judiciary; and all members of Parliament sent letters expressing sorrow and promising renewed allegiance to Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran. The written apologies, reported by the state-run press, came a day after the ayatollah had criticized both Mr. Ahmadinejad and the Larijanis for letting their own mutual animosity become public, raising speculation of irreparable rifts. The ayatollah had said in a speech that the whole matter “made me feel sad.”

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