St. Joseph’s Medical Center, a hospital located in Towson, Md., has reached a settlement with the United States to pay $4.9 million in connection with its submission of false claims to Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare programs.

The Justice Department announced today that it reached a settlement with Apple Tree Children’s Center of Norwalk, Iowa, to remedy alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"Together, we can move this country toward the day when being or appearing Jewish, Muslim, Arab, black, gay, – or part of any other group, real or perceived – will not mean accepting a higher risk of becoming a victim of discrimination," said Attorney General Holder.

The Justice Department announced today that, as part of its Barrier-Free Health Care Initiative, it has reached a settlement agreement with another health care provider, Medical Facilities of America XXIX Limited Partnership, t/a Burke Health and Rehabilitation Center in Burke, Va., to ensure that they provide effective communication to people who are deaf or have hearing loss.

A former program coordinator at the defunct health provider Health Care Solutions Network Inc. (HCSN) was sentenced in Miami to 70 months in prison today for her role in a $63 million fraud scheme.

The Justice Department today unveiled a plan calling for sweeping changes to advance crime victims’ rights and services in the 21st century.

Dubuis Health System and Southern Crescent Hospital for Specialty Care, Inc. (Southern Crescent) have agreed to pay the United States $8,000,000 to settle allegations that they submitted false claims to Medicare, the Justice Department announced today. Dubuis Health System manages long-term acute care hospitals in multiple states, including Southern Crescent. Southern Crescent is a long-term acute care hospital located in Riverdale, GA and is part of the CHRISTUS Health System.

Dr. Farid Fata, 48, of Oakland Township, Michigan, was arrested this morning and charged in a criminal complaint for his role in a health care fraud scheme which involved submitting false claims to Medicare for services that were medically unnecessary, including chemotherapy treatments.

A federal jury in Detroit today convicted the owner and the program coordinator of two Flint, Mich., adult day care centers for their participation in a $3.2 million Medicare fraud scheme.

The Justice Department announced today that it has reached a settlement with Camelot Child Development Center of Oklahoma City and Edmond, Okla., under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

From its earliest days, our Republic has been bound together by its extraordinary legal system, and by the enduring values that define it. These values – of equality, opportunity, and justice under law – were first codified in our founding documents. And they are put into action every day by leaders like you – and the talented men and women who learn, at great institutions like Georgetown, what it means to be a steward of the law – and an advocate for those whom it protects and empowers.

Ashland Hospital Corp. d/b/a King’s Daughters Medical Center (KDMC) has agreed to pay $40.9 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims to the Medicare and Kentucky Medicaid programs for medically unnecessary coronary stents and diagnostic catheterizations.

The Justice Department announced today that it is opening a pattern or practice investigation of Hinds County Detention Center including both the Hinds County facility in Raymond, Mississippi, and the Jackson Detention Center, in Jackson, Mississippi.

A grand jury in Miami, Florida, indicted two individuals and two corporations for allegedly operating call centers in Peru that lied to and threatened Spanish-speaking victims into paying fraudulent settlements.

Attorney General Eric Holder and United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara announced today the completion of the Justice Department’s multi-year civil investigation pursuant to the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (“CRIPA”) into the conditions of confinement of adolescent male inmates on Rikers Island. The investigation, which focused on use of force by staff, inmate-on-inmate violence, and use of punitive segregation during the period 2011-2013, concluded that there is a pattern and practice of conduct at Rikers Island that violates the rights of adolescents protected by the Eighth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The investigation found that adolescent inmates are not adequately protected from physical harm due to the rampant use of unnecessary and excessive force by New York City Department of Correction (“DOC”) staff and violence inflicted by other inmates

McKesson Corporation has agreed to pay $18 million to resolve allegations that it improperly set temperature monitors used in shipping vaccines under its contract with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Justice Department announced today. McKesson is a pharmaceutical distributor with corporate headquarters in San Francisco

Attorney General Eric Holder released the following statement Monday regarding the shooting incident that took place Saturday afternoon in Ferguson, Missouri

A Canton, Massachusetts, man was arrested today at Boston's Logan International Airport in connection with the ongoing criminal investigation of New England Compounding Center by the Justice Department’s Civil Division and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

A dual United States-Costa Rican citizen pleaded guilty today for his role in a $1.88 million sweepstakes fraud scheme that defrauded hundreds of elderly Americans.

ALEXANDRIA, Va

Emphasis on fat and protein intake, reduced carbohydrate intake and gut health for managing weight are trends affecting the global weight management category.

The Organic Trade Association and The Organic Center on Thursday applauded Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) for introducing The Organic Agriculture Research Act of 2018.

Posted by Roger Bate My op-ed with Dinesh Thakur in The Hill today highlights the recent recommendation by Europe's chief drug regulator to suspend 700 generic drugs whose approvals were based on flawed – or forged – clinical studies conducted by GVK Bio, an Indian contract research organization. We urge U.S. Federal regulators to follow Europe’s lead and move to rescind market approval for these drugs while conducting their own investigation. You can read the op-ed here [...]

by Adriana Gallardo, ProPublica, and Ariel Goodman for ProPublica

They’ve gotten to know New York City in a way many have not, through the low-wage work of cleaning its skyscrapers, serving its restaurants and crisscrossing its streets on bicycles, through long subway rides very early in the morning and very late at night. The saying goes: You’re not a true New Yorker unless you’ve lived here for a decade. They’ve done their time and felt a deep sense of belonging in this city of immigrants.

But, in the epicenter of a pandemic, the undocumented have never felt more alone.

They are losing loved ones but do not qualify for city funding to help bury them. They are getting sick but hesitating to get tested or go to the hospital, balancing their fear of the virus with their fear of exposure to immigration authorities. They are worried about supporting their families abroad as well as those who live with them, weighing whether to keep working perilous jobs or to stay home and somehow keep food on the table.

They’ve experienced separation, but not like this — out in the world, in a skeleton crew, wearing a mask to deliver food to closed doors; in cramped apartments, sectioned off, in an attempt to quarantine. They are divided across national borders as family members die, praying novenas on Google Hangouts. Their bodies cannot be buried, intact, where they were born; they move from hospital bed, to refrigerated truck, to incinerator.

ProPublica interviewed two dozen undocumented Latino immigrants and their families about their experiences with death, illness and survival. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity, afraid of being targeted. Others allowed us to use their first names or the full names of their family members who died.

One kitchen worker from the Bronx worked in the World Trade Center two decades ago. “We used to fill the back elevators of those towers,” he said. He lost friends on Sept. 11, 2001, who were not identified or acknowledged among the dead because their names did not match those on record or their families were unable to claim the bodies.

He and others spoke to ProPublica because this time they wanted their experiences to be counted as part of the story of their city, overtaken by a virus.

Barriers to a Proper Burial

Adrian Hernandez Lopez, 38, never planned to stay in New York City. His 15 year stint here was dotted with visits to his family in Mexico, for the baptism of his son, who is now almost a teen, and to check on the house he had been sending his paychecks to build.

He and brother worked at an Italian restaurant in Times Square. “We were always together,” his brother said. They crossed the border together and, years later, commuted together from Queens to midtown Manhattan.

The last time they spoke by phone, Lopez waited in agony in a hard chair at Elmhurst Hospital, breathing in oxygen from a machine. He was transferred to Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn. One day later, the father of two wound up in a vegetative state.

He died on April 2. His mother, who lives in Allende, a small village in the state of Puebla, wants him buried there, alongside two babies she lost just after birth.

He can’t be traditionally buried, despite the strong Mexican custom. More than 400 Mexican migrants are known to have died of COVID-19 in the New York area, but for health reasons, Mexico will only accept their bodies if they are cremated.

In place of seeing the body one last time, Lopez’s brother was sent photos by the funeral home, which will hold the cremains while the family figures out how to get them to Mexico.

The Mexican Consulate pledged financial aid to the families of nationals who died of COVID-19 complications, but it has been slow to materialize. According to Lopez’s brother, they’ve been asked to follow guidelines to receive a reimbursement. The Consulate General’s office in New York said it was not authorized by the Mexican government to give interviews at the time of our request for comment.

The city of New York provides burial assistance, but it requires a Social Security number for both the deceased and the person requesting funds. City officials say they are limited by federal and state law in the help they can offer. “We are exploring every possible option to ensure that all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status, are able to bury their loved ones in the way they feel is most fitting,” city spokesperson Avery Cohen said.

Two members of the City Council have called for an emergency fund to provide assistance to all low-income families, including the undocumented.

“One of the most devastating calls I’m regularly getting is from people who can’t afford to bury their loved ones and aren’t eligible for any assistance,” Council Member Francisco Moya said in a release. “That’s simply not acceptable.”

Lopez’s family is one of several raising money for the transport and burial of their loved one who died in the United States.

As he tries to figure out how to send Lopez home, his brother sits in the small apartment they shared in Queens, with his wife and 6-year-old daughter, listening to the sirens that have become a constant reminder of their loss. He and his wife have been out of work for a month. They don’t know how they will pay the rent.

Deterred From Seeking Care

More than a dozen undocumented people told ProPublica that when they got sick, they stayed home, deterred from seeking care by the worry that they would not get it if they tried. They faced the same obstacles as everyone else in New York, where hospitals were crowded and unsafe, and feared additional ones involving their immigration status.

Fani lives in East Harlem. Over the last 18 years, she’s worked at a laundromat and a factory, a restaurant and as a babysitter. When she and her husband got sick they called 311. She said the voice on the other end confirmed their COVID-19 symptoms and told them to stay home unless they couldn’t breathe.

“They said there were no beds, no respirators. We healed each other as best we could with soups, teas and Tylenol,” she said.

Sonia, who became ill with COVID-19 symptoms almost three weeks ago, was afraid to go to the hospital. “I knew several people who went into the hospital with symptoms and they never came back,” she said. “That was my fear and why I decided to not go in. I preferred to isolate myself at home, with a lot of home remedies and hot teas.”

Multiple people said they knew hospitals had limited resources and worried they would be placed last in line for care because they were undocumented. “They’re going to let us die,” one man told his brother. A woman named Yogi in the Bronx said, “It might not be that they don’t want to treat us, maybe there weren’t enough supplies.”

Stories rippled through the Latino community about those who had difficulty getting care and those who could not be saved. According to a recent poll of voters in New York City, more than half of Latinos there said they know someone who died, the highest percentage of any group asked.

They hear stories about people like Juan Leonardo Torres, a 65-year-old retired doorman who knew someone on every corner of Corona, Queens. Unlike the others, Torres, from the Dominican Republic, was a citizen. Even so, he grew discouraged when he tried to get care.

Within one week at the end of March, Torres had gone from feeling slightly ill to experiencing difficulty breathing and fevers that his wife Mindy tried to manage using herbs and other “remedios caseros,” or home remedies. She and her five sons who lived with them finally persuaded him to go to Long Island Jewish Medical Center Forest Hills, just a five-minute drive from the house.

When Torres arrived, he told his family there were not enough seats in the crowded emergency room. He gave his chair up to an older woman and stood for hours as staff connected and disconnected him to an oxygen tank.

Fifteen hours later, on a drizzly night, Torres appeared at the door of the family home. It was 2:30 a.m. He had made the walk alone and declared in Spanish, “For no reason do I want to go to the hospital to die like a dog.”

He spent the next three days quarantined in his son’s room, where he died.

As the family waited six hours for his body to be retrieved, his wife sat in the living room “like a statue.”

Calculating Survival

Unable to qualify for relief programs like unemployment and stimulus cash, undocumented people are faced with the difficult choice of working dangerous jobs or running out of the money they need for essentials like food and housing.

“The little we have goes to food,” said Berenice, who suffers from kidney problems and whose son struggles with asthma. She’s been home for weeks along with her husband Luis, who before the pandemic worked at a cab company.

“Yes, we need money, but there is also our health,” Berenice said. “We have family who are sick and friends who died. We are trying to survive.”

Luis has lived in New York for 18 years, working his way up from delivering pizza on a bicycle to owning a cab. He worries about exposing his wife and son. “I just want this to pass and we’ll see about starting over again,” he said.

Adan lives in the Bronx with his two teenage sons, who were born in New York City, and his wife. She cleaned homes. He worked in a restaurant in East Harlem. Neither are working and both overcame COVID-19. “The little money we had went to pay last month’s rent,” he said. “I don’t know what to do, we just want to work.”

He said his landlord always comes looking for the rent in person. He told “el señor” that he’s spending all his money on food. The man gave him flyers about unemployment, but Adan knows he won’t qualify. “Me las voy a ver duras,” he said. He’s going to see hard times. He said he has lived in the same building for 11 years and has never missed a payment. Even though he can’t be evicted now, he said, “the debt will be there.”

Adding to the pressure, for some, is that they also work to support family members in their home countries, who count on the money they send.

One delivery worker in Queens sends $400 to Mexico every two weeks to help his son, who studies biomedicine at a university in Puebla; that helps him cover what he needs for school, including rent and transportation. He sends another $300 each month to his elderly mother.

He said he remains one of only a few bicycle delivery workers at his diner who are still on the job, and he is seeing more orders than usual. He’s always worked six days a week, but this past month was so busy, he couldn’t stop to eat lunch or take breaks.

He would much rather be outside than at home, but the streets feel tense. “I feel strange not seeing anyone or saying hi anymore, but I think it’s much better this way,” he said. “I understand why people are afraid.”

Even though he doesn’t see them in the buildings he visits, customers have been conscious about leaving tips in envelopes. He feels grateful as he passes the long lines in Queens of those waiting for free food. It makes him sad to know how many need it now.

He rents a room in an apartment he shares with three other men who have all lost their jobs. One was in construction, the other two in restaurants. He takes precautions to keep them safe when he comes home, including changing his clothes before coming in. “It would be irresponsible not to,” he said.

He hopes the rules of social distancing, and his mask and gloves, will protect him. “I’m not scared,” he said. “If you are afraid all the time, you will get sick faster.”

---

Kings County Supervisor Doug Verboon said the outbreak at Central Valley Meat Company in Hanford accounts for nearly two-thirds of the coronavirus cases in the rural county, which has a total of 211 reported cases.

Until millions of Americans can be tested weekly for coronavirus, states will walk blindly into restarts. But NIH director has a plan to ramp up.

When it opened last week for the first time since mid-March, Nomads Canteen in San Clemente quickly filled with customers eager to get out of the house and return to some sense of normalcy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The move comes as the online platform’s business has shifted to focus more on peddling intellectual property.

The post China Literature replaces founding team with Tencent veterans appeared first on DealStreetAsia.

The funding also saw the participation of Omidyar Network, Shunwei Capital, BCCL, and Nexus Venture Partners.

The post Tencent leads $9.4m funding in Indian self-publishing platform Pratilipi appeared first on DealStreetAsia.

Tencent, which first invested in Enflame's pre-Series A round in July 2018, also topped up.

The post Tencent-backed Chinese AI startup Enflame raises nearly $100m Series B funding appeared first on DealStreetAsia.

The international Joint Center for Biomedical Innovation (JCBI) is comprised of two partner research nodes using nanoparticle technologies to develop solutions for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases diagnostics. Henan University has established a new research laboratory in nano-bio system innovation and theranostics, with start-up funding and new academic positions. Macquarie’s node is built upon its established excellence in neuroscience and cancer research programs. The collaborative succes…

With a generous support from the Guangzhou City Government and the Guangdong Provincial Government, Guangzhou Regenerative Medicine and Health-Guangdong Laboratory (GRMH-GDL) was launched in 2017. GRMH-GDL aims to bring together multiple leading scientific research units from Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao and well-known international research institutes to achieve the vital goal of "Healthy China" and to cooperatively tackle the scientific and technical problems and challenges. GRMH-GDL is focused…

The HIT Center for Life Sciences (HCLS) was founded in 2016, which is a new strategic development of the university. According to 2020 US News Rankings of Best Global Universities, HIT’s Biology and Biochemistry was ranked 9th in China. As the first special academic zone of Harbin Institute of Technology(HIT), HCLS runs its own graduate program and enjoys unparalleled freedom in research, personnel employment and financial flexibility within the university. 9 Principal Investigators (PIs) star…

The HIT Center for Life Sciences (HCLS) was founded in 2016, which is a new strategic development of the university. According to 2020 US News Rankings of Best Global Universities, HIT’s Biology and Biochemistry was ranked 9th in China. As the first special academic zone of Harbin Institute of Technology(HIT), HCLS runs its own graduate program and enjoys unparalleled freedom in research, personnel employment and financial flexibility within the university. 9 Principal Investigators (PIs) star…

npj Microgravity, Published online: 03 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41526-020-0098-8

The motor vertical in the absence of gravicentric cues

Mouse studies suggest inhibiting PGF could help treat hypertension.