 Rich Pedroncelli / AP In this combo image from May 8, 2012, State Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, left, and David Pickup, a licensed marriage and family therapist, address lawmakers in favor and opposition, respectively, of a bill to ban a controversial form of psychotherapy aimed at making gay people straight. By Lisa Leff, The Associated Press A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked California from enforcing a first-of-its-kind law that bars licensed psychotherapists from working to change the sexual orientations of gay minors, but he limited the scope of his order to just the three providers who have appealed to him to overturn the measure. U.S. District Court Judge William Shubb made a decision just hours after a hearing on the issue, ruling that the First Amendment rights of psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals who engage in "reparative" or "conversion" therapy outweigh concern that the practice poses a danger to young people. "Even if SB 1172 is characterized as primarily aimed at regulating conduct, it also extends to forms of (conversion therapy) that utilize speech and, at a minimum, regulates conduct that has an incidental effect on speech," Shubb wrote. The judge also disputed the California Legislature's finding that trying to change young people's sexual orientation puts them at risk for suicide or depression, saying it was based on "questionable and scientifically incomplete studies." The law, which was passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in October, states that therapists and counselors who use "sexual orientation change efforts" on clients under 18 would be engaging in unprofessional conduct and subject to discipline by state licensing boards. It is set to take effect on Jan. 1. Although the ruling is a setback for the law's supporters, the judge softened the impact of his decision by saying that it applies only to three people — psychiatrist Anthony Duk, marriage and family therapist Donald Welch, and Aaron Bitzer, a former patient who is studying to become a counselor who specializes in clients who are unhappy being gay. The exemption for them will remain in place only until Shubb can hold a trial on the merits of their case, although in granting their request for an injunction, the judge noted he thinks they would prevail in getting the law struck down on constitutional grounds. Bitzer, Duk and Welch were represented by the Pacific Justice Institute, a Christian legal group. President Brad Dacus said he thought Shubb's ruling would have a chilling effect that would keep the licensing boards that regulate mental health professionals from targeting other practitioners. "If there are any, we can easily add them to the case as a plaintiff," Dacus said. "We know we will have to have another hearing on the merits, but to be able to get a preliminary injunction at this stage is very telling as to the final outcome, and I'm very encouraged by it." Complicating the outlook for the law is that another federal judge in Sacramento is considering similar arguments from four more counselors, two families and a professional association of Christian counselors, but has not decided yet whether to keep the ban from taking effect. "We are disappointed by the ruling, but very pleased that the temporary delay in implementing this important law applies only to the three plaintiffs who brought this lawsuit," National Center for Lesbian Rights Legal Director Shannon Minter said. "We are confident that as the case progresses, it will be clear to the court that this law is fundamentally no different than many other laws that regulate health care professionals to protect patients." Lawyers for the state argue that outlawing reparative therapy is appropriate because it would protect young people from a practice that has been rejected as unproven and potentially harmful by all the mainstream mental health associations. More content from NBCNews.com:
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12/04/2012
Judge blocks Calif. controversial gay therapy law
On routine stop, cops find man bound in trunk
| Kentucky police were making a routine traffic stop when they discovered a kidnapped man locked in the trunk of the car. WAVE's Jaimie Weiss reports. By Daniel Arkin, NBC News Some Louisville, Ky., police officers got the surprise of their careers when they pulled over a car with expired license plates: a man bound in the trunk. Shawn Bloemer, 22, could hear the officers from inside the cramped space. "I heard a voice and I could tell from his inflection of what have you that he was an officer. He came back and asked about insurance and that's when I started kicking and punching on the hood, yelling," Bloemer said. Bloemer, a clerk at a local Circle K convenience store, says he was captured after his late-night shift and locked in the trunk of his own car after he discovered three people -- Brittany Elder, Trent Blye, and Joseph Davis -- trying to steal his tires. Bloemer said Blye assaulted him, along with the others. "He started to hit me, struck me in the head, punched me in the stomach a couple of times," Bloemer said. "They shoved me headfirst into the light post." The three attackers then allegedly forced Bloemer into the trunk of his vehicle with his wrists tied with a t-shirt and a towel wrapped around his head. "Right before they closed the trunk they said, 'This isn't personal, we need your car,'" Bloemer said. Bloemer estimates he spent nearly three hours locked in the trunk on that August night while his kidnappers drove around. At one point, he fell unconscious. "It was really hot. I passed out a couple times," Bloemer said. Around 3:30 a.m., he woke up to flashing red and blue lights he could see through a crack in the taillight. Officers Fred Wilson and Daniel Goldberg had initially flagged the vehicle for expired plates. But when Goldberg heard someone in the trunk while talking to the occupants, he realized this wouldn't be an ordinary traffic stop. "At that point the officer became very much more aware, immediately called for backup," Bloemer said. In the dash cam video, officers are seen pulling the kidnappers out of the car one by one and rescuing Bloemer from the trunk. Police have arrested Elder, Blye and Davis, who allegedly purchased illegal drugs during their late-night joyride, according to WTSP 10 News. They are each charged with kidnapping, wanton endangerment, and theft of Bloemer's car. More content from NBCNews.com:
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Syrian rebels choke off base
Avlon: Beware the fiscal cliff deniers
Iran says it has seized U.S. drone; U.S. says it's not true
Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- A unit from Iran's navy has captured a U.S. drone flying over the Persian Gulf, according to Iranian state media reports Tuesday. The drone, which was collecting data, was captured immediately after entering Iranian airspace, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is cited as saying by the state-run news agency IRNA The unmanned aerial device was a ScanEagle, Adm. Ali Fadavi, of the Revolutionary Guards, is quoted as saying. The ScanEagle, with a wingspan of just over 10 feet, is designed to fly for 24 hours or more without refueling and can support extreme temperatures and high winds, according to its manufacturer. The United States has not yet commented on the claim. Iran's Press TV showed footage of what purported to be a drone. Last month, the Pentagon said Iranian jets had fired on a U.S. drone as it flew off the Iranian coastline in the northern Persian Gulf. The armed MQ-1 Predator was on a routine surveillance mission above international waters, 16 miles off the coast, the Defense Department said. A year ago, a high-altitude RQ-170 Sentinel crashed in the Iranian desert after leaving an airbase in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. Iranians claimed to have shot it down, and created a toy model of the drone to celebrate its capture.  |
Israel defies settlement critics
Revealed: Secrets of a smartphone bill under $50
| By Bob Sullivan Roger Dluzak used his survival skills to fight his way through the jungles of Vietnam in the 1960s, and picked up a few medals before coming home. He says he uses those same skills now to navigate the jungle of being a U.S. consumer. "I learned how to survive a long time ago, still using the survival skills in today's economy," he said. So when he saw his cellphone bill creep up toward $100 per month, he took immediate evasive action. "When my contract was over with AT&T, I went to Walmart and bought their best smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy II for $350, and signed up with Straight Talk ... for $44 a month, or $500 a year," he said. Dluzak is part of a small but growing segment of smartphone users who are fighting back against triple-digit bills by exploring creative options.
The Red Tape Chronicles recently wrote about a cellphone industry report claiming the average bill was $47 per month, and asked readers to tell us how much they pay for service. From the 1,400 responses we examined, the average bill was more like $125 per month, and about one-quarter of respondents paid more than $200. We looked at the stories behind these high-bill payers in another recent story, "Newest family budget-buster: the $300 cellphone bill." But hundreds of others wrote in to brag that their bills were at or below that industry average $47. Roughly one-quarter -- 423 out of 1,400 -- said their bills were under $85, and 223 said their bills were $50 or less. Today we look at how these cheap talkers do it. The easiest way is to use your phone as just a phone. There is no shortage of old-fashioned, flip-phone plans that can keep your bill south of $50, provided you don't end up receiving a bunch of unexpected text messages. If you want a phone-only phone, you might want to look away from the major carriers, however, which are now focused on lucrative data-hogging customers. If you wander into a local Verizon store, for example, you are likely to find only one or two basic phone options. Smaller carriers and pre-paid services are the right choice here. Those who want cellphones only for emergencies and pay for only the minutes they use can keep their bills down to $20 or even $10 per month. Ditto for those who just don't want to have their face buried in a smartphone for hours per day. "Friends have smartphones. I couldn't care less," said Judith D. Schlesinger, 67, who lives just outside Annapolis, Md. "If they want to talk to me, they can call. If not, they can send email. I had text and email turned off on my phone after I received charges ... for some junk texts and some unknown use, they said, of 1 megabyte of data. I'd never used either before and don't miss them." But can cellphone users who worry about getting lost, getting an important work email on the road or being able to look up movie times while sitting at dinner keep their costs down to $50 monthly? It depends. You'll need a bit of geographical luck, you generally won't enjoy the latest new phone, you might need to forgo any kind of customer service and you probably need to swallow some high up-front costs. But plenty of Red Tape readers are living proof that low smartphone bills exists and, like Dluzak, most of most of them are darn proud of it. "My service has been great for the past five months or so and I only pay $45 a month!!!" wrote Edwin Argueta. He lives near Los Angeles, and uses a Galaxy Nexus phone he purchased directly from Google on Straight Talk's service, which offers unlimited text, talk and web surfing. David Wynn lives in Little Rock, Ark., and had similar enthusiasm for Straight Talk. "I had recently completed a two-year contract with AT&T; enjoyed the service but not the telephone ... or the price. I was paying $100 for unlimited talk and text," he said. "Now I have a better plan (unlimited talk/text/data) with Straight Talk and my cost is a flat $45 per month plus tax. … The bottom line is. I am extremely satisfied with Straight Talk and plan to keep it forever." His enthusiasm hasn't persuaded his wife, however, who has an iPhone on AT&T's network and is on a "'quest to have the most expensive plan ever," Wynn said. Her bill is $150 monthly, he said. "I've yet to convince her that she's going in the wrong direction." Straight Talk, offered through Walmart, was very popular with budget-conscious Red Tape readers. Of the 433 who pay $85 or less monthly, 36 use Straight Talk, and nearly all of them pay less than $50. Another 28 use Virgin Mobile, which offers similar (but slightly more expensive) discounted plans. Virgin has one advantage -- users can "tether" their phones, and use them as WiFi hotspots for tablets and laptops, by paying an extra $15 monthly. Straight Talk doesn't allow tethering. Boost, Tracfone, MetroPCS and Consumer Cellular were also popular with Red Tape readers, and there were a few Cricket users. Some in this discount group were truly lucky – they'd managed to hold on to inexpensive, "grandfathered" data plans from major providers. Since that options isn't available any longer, we won't spend time on that. But customers with moderate data requirements also can find deals, said Sam Simon, chairman of the nonprofit Telecommunications Research and Action Center, which advocates for phone consumers. "We tend to think about data gobblers, but if you aren't the kind of person who's going to use a lot of data, there are cheaper options," he said. There are a few big hurdles to getting a deeply discounted data plan. *Network quality As with all things cellular, the network you use can make or break your deal. A cheap smartphone that can't access your email is useless. A discount seller's service might not work where you live. Because they ride along the large carriers' networks, some have huge coverage gaps. Straight Talk users, for example, must use either AT&T or T-Mobile's network, while Virgin customers use Sprint's network. While service might be good across town, it might be terrible at your house or along your commuting path. When shopping for cheap smartphone service, do a lot of research and ask your friends and neighbors about their experiences with dropped calls and data speeds. *Where's the store? While there are plenty of loyal Straight Talk, Virgin, and Boost customers, there are plenty of complaints about customer service, too. Verizon has the largest national network of cell coverage, and Verizon retail locations are as common as fast food joints. That's handy when you have a cellphone emergency. Discount data users complain frequently that customers service isn't a kiosk away -- it's several continents away, as troubles are handled by overseas calls centers. * Bad to big users Data plans are complex, and change frequently, so it's difficult to give generic advice, but this is certain: Cheap unlimited plans are not designed for data hogs. Straight Talk has a soft cap at 2 Gigabytes per month or 100 Megabytes per day; that might not get you through an entire Netflix movie or baseball game. Users who exceed these marks get warnings that they can be terminated at any time, which would really stink if you paid a lot of money for a phone because you planned on sticking with a discounted service. *Up-front costs Speak of the devil: The biggest hurdle for many would-be discount plan users is the "bring your own phone" element, which can require a large up-front investment. The discount plans offer no phone purchase subsidy with two-year contracts. For example, Walmart is offering a Galaxy SII Android phone for $349, while similar phones would be free from major carriers to users who sign a contract. Of course, there's no such thing as a free phone, and those subsidized phones end up being more costly than one used with a "bring your own" plan. Dluzak's situation is typical: "With AT&T, the cost for two years would have been $2,400 even if I didn't go over my data limit," he said. "With Straight Talk, two years is $1,000, plus the $350 for the phone ... so which would you rather pay?" Here's a rare case where it's sensible to make a purchase with a credit card, even if you can't pay off the full balance at the end of the month. Instead of having the carrier subsidize the large purchase, borrow the money from your card-issuing bank instead. The interest you pay will be less than the "interest" you'd pay the carrier for the subsidy. *Not the latest gadget Cellphone-plan discounters and prepaid services generally don't offer the latest gadgets. Walmart isn't selling the Galaxy III to prepaid users, for example. This isn't so much a conspiracy as it is market economics, says Simon, the phone consumer advocate. "The latest phones would be too expensive for the prepaid folks to provide," he said. They are also servicing their budget-conscious customers, who are clearly more worried about price than getting the latest and greatest gadget. "You still get a decent phone, just not the latest one," he said. "It might be one generation older." But even this bit of accepted market behavior is beginning to change. Starting this week, Apple began selling fully unlocked iPhone 5 devices direct to consumers for $649 to $849, depending on model. The device has some limitations -- you can only buy the GSM model from Apple, meaning it can't be used on many U.S. networks. But the sale shows that smartphone contract haters are starting to enjoy more options. The emergence of a thriving prepaid market for flip-phones over the last decade was a godsend to consumers tired of overpaying for calling minutes they never needed, just to avoid accidental overages and surprise big bills. As pre-paid plans emerged from the shadows and became mainstream, the competition forced contract carriers to lower prices and offer more consumer-friendly options. This same cycle is playing out now with smartphones. Contract phones and the big providers still have an edge with smartphone service and gadgets. But that gap is closing. If you aren't a technophile, don't plan on streaming a lot of video with your phone and don't need tethering capabilities for home or work, you owe it to your family budget spreadsheet to investigate month-to-month smartphone plans. "Sure, it's not the latest and greatest," Dluzak said. "But the latest and greatest will cost dearly. Dearly is twice the price, and yes to be safe, you'll need to make sure you're sitting in a nice comfy chair when you open the bill, because if you're not, you could fall over and injure yourself." * Follow Bob Sullivan on Facebook. More from Red Tape Chronicles:
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