Washington, D.C.

Lawmakers press MLB to fix steroids problem

Major League Baseball should enforce stronger rules against steroid abuse by players on its own, but Congress will require changes by law if necessary, leading lawmakers said Sunday.

Sen. John McCain, the driving force behind changing how baseball polices performance-enhancing drug use, said Sunday he thought President Bush would sign a bill into law.

“There’s not a doubt in my mind. He’d love to,” said McCain, who accompanied Bush to Saturday’s Army-Navy college football game in Philadelphia.

He added that Bush, too, would prefer for baseball to act on its own.

Detroit

Parks will live rent-free

Civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who in 2002 faced eviction from her home, will have a free place to live for the rest of her life.

Riverfront Associates, which owns the downtown Riverfront Apartments where Parks has lived since 1994, quietly decided in early October to allow Parks to stay there rent-free permanently.

“I thought it was the right thing to do,” managing partner Peter Cummings said Friday. “This woman is an icon.”

Days after the previously undisclosed gift, the Detroit Free Press reported Oct. 15 that some of Parks’ relatives were worried about her finances. A Nov. 23 article chronicled lawsuits against two charities associated with Parks, the repossession of a vehicle and two eviction notices the Riverfront Apartments sent her in 2002.

Washington, D.C.

Review sought for abstinence programs

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday that the government should review federally funded sexual abstinence programs, under fire from Democrats who say they contain false medical information.

A report last week by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., found 11 of the 13 most widely used programs contain misinformation.

Asked about these findings, Frist, a doctor who often calls on his medical expertise, did not directly address the issues raised. But he said the programs should be reviewed.

“Of course they should be reviewed,” Frist said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” program. “That’s in part our responsibility to make sure that all of these programs are reviewed.”

Atlanta

Sickle cell study halted after kids have strokes

A study aimed at determining whether some children with sickle cell anemia could be weaned off blood transfusion therapy has been halted because two young patients who stopped getting the procedure suffered strokes and others developed a high chance of strokes.

The study, called STOP II, was funded by the NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and involved 23 U.S. medical centers and two in Canada.

The study, which started in July 2000, was ended prematurely last month after 16 children developed narrowed arteries and other risk factors for strokes after they stopped receiving blood transfusions.

Washington, D.C.

Frist: Retirement age may need to increase

“Everything needs to be on the table” to save Social Security, including boosting the retirement age and raising taxes to save the system from going bankrupt, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday.

Frist, whose campaign fund reportedly lost $500,000 in the stock market, also said one of the most appealing options was to create personal accounts that invest in stocks.

“The things that are on the table, or our experts tell us have to be, are things like personal accounts, allowing people to invest or have their money invested in a way that grows faster than just sticking it under a mattress,” the doctor-turned-politician told ABC’s “This Week.”

Lawmakers will have to grapple in the next session with how to pay the trillions of dollars in added costs when millions of baby boomers begin to retire in the next few years.

“I think everything needs to be on the table,” said Frist, R-Tenn.