Triple transplant canceled for Ore. teen

Triple transplantcanceled for Ore. teen
PORTLAND, Ore. -- A 19-year-old woman returned home to wait for a new donor Saturday after her plans to undergo a rare triple transplant were canceled because a donated lung had been damaged.
Brandy Stroeder, who has been fighting the Oregon Health Plan for the right to a lung, liver and heart transplant, had been flown to the hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., for the surgery after learning about the available organs early Friday.
She had been in the hospital for several hours undergoing tests in preparation for the surgery Friday when the transplant was called off.
"She came in, she underwent the evaluation and was in good condition. Unfortunately -- and this is not uncommon -- once the organs were retrieved, they were not viable," said hospital spokeswoman Ruthann Richter.
Stroeder has cystic fibrosis, a disease that chokes her lungs with mucus and causes other organ damage. Without a transplant, Stroeder would likely die within two years. She now relies on an oxygen tank to breathe.
Last year, the Oregon Health Plan, which provides health insurance to Oregon's poor, refused to pay for the transplant for Stroeder, saying the operation was experimental. The transplant could cost more than $250,000.
Wrong remains burieddue to clerical error
NEW YORK -- Authorities said a clerical error caused the wrong set of remains from the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 jet to be buried in the Dominican Republic.
Luz Maria Lendof, 63, and her husband were flying to visit relatives in the Dominican Republic when the Santo Domingo-bound flight crashed shortly after takeoff in New York on Nov. 12.
The New York City medical examiner's office identified Lendof's remains and gave them to her family for burial.
The office later determined the remains actually belonged to another unnamed victim, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office.
"It wasn't a misidentification; it was a clerical error," Borakove said Saturday. She said Lendof's remains were labeled "DQ 587" and the other victim's were marked "DQ 578."
By the time Lendof's relatives were notified, they had already buried the remains in the Dominican Republic.
Ralph DeSimone, spokesman for the family, said they were just coming to terms with the loss when they learned of the mix-up.
Lendof's remains were to be sent to the Dominican Republic today for burial.
Fla. woman won't facevoter fraud charges
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A woman who registered her pet poodle to vote is no longer facing felony voter fraud charges.
Prosecutors agreed not to charge Wendy Albert on the condition that she stays out of trouble for the next year.
The third-degree felony carries a maximum five-year prison term and a $5,000 fine. Paul Zacks, chief assistant state attorney, said the punishment seemed "a little extreme."
Albert's address was on a card registering "Cocoa Fernandez," the poodle, as a Republican. Cocoa got on the voter rolls July 11. Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore sent the registration card to prosecutors.
Albert, 62, had to write a letter of apology to LePore as part of her punishment.
"My purpose was not to embarrass or harass, but simply to bring light to my perception of failings in our voter registration system," Albert wrote. "What began as a joke has turned into what has been publicly perceived as an effort to damage your office. I never intended such and regret any perception otherwise."
Deadly gift handout
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Hundreds of people fighting to enter a building where state officials were to hand out free Christmas presents Saturday created a crush that killed three children and a woman in northeastern Brazil.
Police couldn't hold back the mob of people, some of whom had waited for as long as a week to get in, and they began pushing at one of the gates as soon as it opened, police spokesman Jose Carlos Avares e Silva da Cruz said.
There were 45,000 people waiting to get in the exhibition building in Aracaju in the impoverished state of Sergipe, about 1,050 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro, Silva da Cruz said, but the crush took place at only one of its 10 gates.
25 die in prison riot
ASUNCION, Paraguay -- Rioting inmates started a fire that swept through a prison in the border city of Ciudad del Este on Saturday, killing at least 25 people and injuring about 200 others, authorities said.
The fire started after a prisoner, in an apparent escape bid, attacked a guard with a homemade knife, and the jailer shot and killed him, Paraguayan television stations reported.
More than 500 inmates then began rioting, with some setting mattresses on fire. The fire spread rapidly through the cellblocks, spewing clouds of black smoke that asphyxiated inmates, Canal 13 television reported.
Firefighters had put out the fire by Saturday afternoon, and authorities said they had found many blackened bodies locked in the cells. The bodies of 25 inmates had been found by late Saturday.
Associated Press