Ohio

Blackout report blames problems at 2 utilities

Problems at Ohio’s two largest utilities, as well as confusion in the Midwest organization that oversees the region’s transmission grid, appear to be the main causes of the nation’s worst blackout, Michigan utility regulators say.

FirstEnergy Corp.’s and American Electric Power’s systems appear to be where the Aug. 14 blackout originated, the Michigan Public Service Commission said in a report issued Wednesday in Akron.

The group pointed to downed high voltage lines in Ohio and the sudden shutdown of FirstEnergy’s Eastlake plant as significant events that led to the blackout, which spread into parts of eight states and Canada.

“All of the transmission line and power plant outages that occurred in the 2 1/2 hours preceding the power surges that precipitated the blackout involved the facilities of FirstEnergy and American Electric Power in Ohio,” the report stated. “There can be little doubt, based on the sequence of events and magnitude of the power flow reversals, that disturbances in Ohio led to the blackout.”

Washington, D.C.

Military tax package raises death benefit

The House voted unanimously on Wednesday to double to $12,000 the payment given to families of fallen soldiers and send the bill to the president by Veterans Day.

The bill, passed 420-0, makes the bigger death benefit tax-free and extends it to families of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The increased death gratuity, meant to offset the cost of funerals and other immediate expenses, is part of a package giving active duty and reserve personnel new tax breaks.

National Guard and Reserve personnel would get a deduction for overnight travel expenses. The changes exclude certain military benefits, including child care, from taxation. Families of the astronauts killed in the space shuttle Columbia also would get some tax relief.

Florida

Custody challenge OK’d for vegetative patient

A judge ruled Wednesday that the parents of a severely brain-damaged woman at the center of a right-to-die battle can seek to have the woman’s husband removed as her guardian.

Bob and Mary Schindler, parents of Terri Schiavo, want Circuit Judge George W. Greer to appoint the woman’s brother or sister as guardian instead of her husband, Michael Schiavo.

Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped because of a chemical imbalance. Doctors have said she had no hope for recovery from a vegetative state.

Her husband has fought to have her feeding tube removed, saying his wife did not want to be kept alive artificially. Her parents dispute that claim and believe she could be rehabilitated.

Boston

Stomach-staple surgery causes patient’s death

Brigham and Women’s Hospital has stopped performing a type of stomach-stapling surgery after a staple gun apparently misfired during an operation and the patient died, officials said Wednesday.

Chief medical officer Andy Whittemore said the hospital was reviewing all factors that may have contributed to the death last month of Ann Marie Simonelli, including the staple gun.

“In the meantime, there are few words available to define our sorrow,” Whittemore said in a statement.

Simonelli, 38, died at the hospital Oct. 23, two days after trying to combat obesity by having her stomach stapled in a laparoscopic procedure, which involves a small incision and a scope that lets the surgeon look inside. The procedure differs from open gastric bypass, which requires a large incision.