WORLD DIGEST || Woman found fused to recliner

Woman found fused to recliner

KANSAS CITY, Mo.

A suburban Kansas City woman was left sitting in a vinyl recliner for so long that her skin had fused to the chair and she had to be pried out to be taken to a hospital after suffering an apparent stroke, authorities said.

Carol F. Brown’s adult son told a state official he had left his 74-year-old mother in the chair for five days without helping her get up to use the bathroom or bathe because he was honoring her wishes to die in her Independence home, according to court documents that described the woman as a “rotting corpse that was still breathing.” Brown later died.

Study stirs debate over transplants

CHICAGO

Some gravely ill alcoholics who need a liver transplant shouldn’t have to prove they can stay sober for six months to get one, doctors say in a study that could intensify the debate over whether those who destroy their organs by drinking deserve new ones. In the small French study, the vast majority of the patients who got a liver without the wait stopped drinking after their surgery and were sober years later.

The study involved patients who were suffering from alcohol-related hepatitis so severe that they were unlikely to survive a six-month delay.

Quake in Turkey kills at least 3

ANKARA, Turkey

An earthquake struck eastern Turkey on Wednesday night, killing at least three people and leaving dozens trapped in the rubble of toppled buildings damaged in a previous temblor, which had killed 600 people.

About two-dozen buildings collapsed in the provincial capital of Van following a 5.7-magnitude quake, though most of them were empty or had been declared unfit because they were weakened by the earlier quake, according to media reports.

Dems present offer to cut deficit by $2T

WASHINGTON

Democrats on Congress’ supercommittee secretly presented Republicans with a revised deficit-cutting proposal earlier this week that calls for a blend of $1 trillion in spending cuts and $1 trillion in higher tax revenue over the next decade, officials in both parties said Wednesday night, adding that compromise talks remain alive though troubled.

The previously undisclosed offer scaled back an earlier Democratic demand for $1.3 trillion in higher taxes, a concession to Republicans. At the same time it jettisoned a plan to slow the growth in future cost-of-living increases in Social Security benefits, a provision liberal Democrats oppose.

Donor talked loan with White House

WASHINGTON

A major donor to President Barack Obama discussed with White House officials a solar energy company that received a half-billion federal loan and later went bankrupt, newly released emails show. The emails released by a House committee appear to contradict repeated assurances by the Obama administration that the donor, George Kaiser, never talked about Solyndra Inc. with the White House.

Solyndra’s name came up at a White House meeting with Kaiser last year at a time when the California company was seeking a second federal loan, after it had already received a $528 million loan in 2009, the emails show.

Associated Press