Nation Digest
22 electric utilities face legal action

Stephen Vrabel dropped appeals to delay execution.

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Justice Department officials are considering whether to file lawsuits in the 14 cases, and eight more cases are in the pipeline, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Environmental groups charge the EPA has not aggressively prosecuted power plants that violate its New Source Review rule, which requires companies to install new pollution controls when they modernize plants.

Washington

Online service rates health-care quality

A group that sets standards for health organizations is making it easier for people to compare the quality and safety of care at more than 16,000 hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies and other U.S. medical facilities.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations says its online service, Quality Check, includes information about how such groups perform in four important areas: heart attacks, heart failure, pneumonia and pregnancy.

The free Web site, www.qualitycheck.org, also shows how hospitals and other facilities rate on meeting requirements to prevent medical mishaps.

Lucasville, Ohio

Man drops appeals to stall execution

A man was executed yesterday after asking to be killed for shooting his girlfriend and their daughter, then refrigerating their bodies for a month in their apartment.

Stephen Vrabel, 47, was the second Ohio death row inmate since 1999 to drop his appeals to speed his execution. Vrabel shot Susan Clemente, 29, his girlfriend of about four years, and their daughter, 3-year-old Lisa Clemente, in March 1989 at their apartment in the Youngstown suburb of Struthers.
 
Washington

Report: Anti-cancer vaccine extends life

An anti-cancer vaccine made with a patient's own brain tumor has helped several sufferers live much longer than expected, researchers reported today.

They found three specific targets called antigens in brain tumor cells, and customized a vaccine that, apparently, stalled the growth of the deadly brain cancers.

While the 14 patients were not cured, they lived an average of about two and a half years compared to seven and a half months for similar patients who did not get the vaccine, the researchers said.

Lake Hughes, Calif.

Firefighters gain ground on wildfires

Despite withering summer heat, thousands of firefighters aided by planes slowly gained ground yesterday against California wildfires that have burned more than 19,000 acres of brush and forest and caused hundreds of people to evacuate homes.

Wet weather headed into the region, bringing hope of relief but also raising fears of flash flooding and lightning-caused fires.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency authorized spending for some of the fires, which were burning in Los Angeles County, Riverside County, San Diego County and Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada.

Helena, Mont.

British Columbia to sell coal-rich land

British Columbia's oil and gas commissioner said yesterday that the Canadian province will sell parcels of coal-rich land north of Glacier National Park, despite U.S. concerns about the effect on water quality.

Derek Doyle and other Canadian officials met with Montana representatives to discuss the July 8 opening of an auction for the right to explore for natural gas on tracts near the U.S. border.

Coal-bed methane is natural gas that is trapped in coal seams.

Tapping the gas often produces large volumes of salty water.

That concerns U.S. officials because the water released from British Columbia wells would drain into part of the Flathead River that flows along Glacier National Park's western boundary.