Friday, September 25, 2009Last Update: 2:19 AM PT

     WASHINGTON (CN) - President Obama has ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to begin making grants to states to explore alternative medical liability schemes. The grant money will come from a 1999 Congressional authorization to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to support demonstration projects and to evaluate the effectiveness of projects regarding all aspects of health care.
     In a memorandum to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Obama noted that although malpractice premiums are only a very small percentage of total medical costs, many doctors report fear of lawsuits leads them to practice defensive medicine, while between 44,000 and 98,000 patients die each year from medical error.
     Obama stressed that medical liability reform must be just one part of broader health insurance reform that slows the growth of health care costs for families, businesses, and government.

     WASHINGTON (CN) - President Obama has extended for one year Executive Order 13224 which was issued by former President Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The order freezes all assets held in the United States or U.S. headquartered financial institutions by people designated by the State Department as terrorists or supporters of terrorism.
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     WASHINGTON (CN) - The shovelnose sturgeon and the threatened pallid sturgeon look so much alike in the wild that anglers and wildlife officials can't tell the one from the other, which poses a threat to both. To remedy the identity problem, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to extend threatened status, under the "Similarity of Appearance" provisions of the Endangered Species Act, to the shovelnose sturgeon.
     Four states where the two species coexist allow for commercial fishing of shovelnose sturgeon, which is in demand for its roe which are sold as caviar. The difficulty in differentiating between shovelnose and pallid sturgeon has resulted in the take of the pallid sturgeon. The pallid sturgeon was listed as threatened in 1990 due to habitat modification, small population size, limited natural reproduction, hybridization, pollution and contaminants, and commercial harvest.
     Listing the shovelnose sturgeon as threatened under the "similarity of appearance" provisions of the act will extend take prohibitions to shovelnose sturgeon, shovelnose-pallid sturgeon hybrids, and their roe, when associated with commercial fishing activity.

     WASHINGTON (CN) - All yellow lemons produced in a Mediterranean fruit fly quarantine area have interstate movement restrictions to prevent the spread of the fruit fly into uninfested areas of the United States.
     Yellow lemons with thinner skin can become infested.
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     WASHINGTON (CN) - Airlines are allowed to require medical documentation and 48 hours' notice before permitting a passenger to bring a psychiatric service dog into the seating area of a plane, according to a recent regulation challenged by the Psychiatric Service Dog Society. In a petition to change the Transportation Department's new regulation, the advocacy group argues that other types of service dogs do not have such requirements, that updated medical documentation can be expensive, and that a person may not know 48 hours ahead of time that he or she needs to fly. The petition also points out that the Transportation Department does not have reason to believe flyers will abuse the system to get regular pets onto flights, which was the impetus for the rules.
     The Transportation Department seeks comment on the petition.
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     WASHINGTON (CN) - The State Department will no longer guarantee that it can process an expedited request for a passport in three days. Instead the department will post the estimated number of days on its Web site, considering the current volume of applications, that an expedited request will take to finish.
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