By The Huffington Post News Editors
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Convicted Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph is fighting efforts by prosecutors to seize the small profits from his recently published autobiography.
Rudolph is serving a life sentence for bombings that killed two people in Alabama and Georgia in the 1990s.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
By The Huffington Post News Editors
By Verna Gates
BIRMINGHAM, Ala, April 2 (Reuters) – The Alabama Senate passed an abortion bill on Tuesday critics say would limit access to the procedure with stricter requirements for clinics that provide it.
The Senate passed the bill on a vote of 22-10, after the House passed a similar bill in February. A committee will reconcile the two bills before the proposed legislation goes to the Alabama Governor, Dr. Robert Bentley, who is expected to sign it into law.
A similar bill in Mississippi is threatening to close the state’s lone abortion clinic, as a federal judge ponders its future after the clinic filed a lawsuit. The Alabama bill follows passage of new anti-abortion laws in North Dakota and Arkansas in the past month.
The Alabama bill, called The Women’s Health and Safety Act, would mandate that an Alabama-licensed physician be present at every abortion and those doctors would be required to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.
Most clinics hire out-of-town physicians to provide abortion procedures and partner with local doctors who have hospital admitting privileges to provide follow-up care.
Critics say the bill would make it difficult or impossible for the clinics to do business.
“This legislation will make it harder to access health care, which will put women’s health in danger,” said Planned Parenthood Southeast Vice President of Public Policy Nikema Williams, following the vote to pass the bill.
The bill would also require reporting the name of the baby’s father to law enforcement if the abortion is performed on a minor less than 16 years of age.
Alabama has four remaining abortion clinics, since the clinic bombed by Eric Rudolph lost its license to operate on May 18, 2012. Rudolph, who killed two people and injured 150 others in a series of bombings in the late 1990s, is incarcerated in the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.
State Sen. Harri Anne Smith, an independent and one of Alabama’s five …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
A lawyer for Eric Rudolph says the imprisoned Olympics bomber claims to be on a hunger strike to protest his treatment behind bars.
Birmingham attorney Bill Bowen said Tuesday he received a letter from Rudolph last week saying he’s stopped eating and is refusing medical treatment at the federal prison in Florence, Colo.
A prison system spokesman declined comment on Rudolph’s condition or treatment.
A letter by Rudolph posted on an anti-abortion website claims he is being mistreated because he recently published a book and other writings from inside prison. Relatives and supporters take his messages and spread them.
The prison system spokesman says there’s no rule against outsiders publishing materials written by inmates.
Rudolph pleaded guilty to bombing the 1996 Olympics park in Atlanta and a Birmingham abortion clinic.
The man convicted of bombing Atlanta’s Centennial Park during the 1996 summer Olympics has announced plans to write an autobiography.
WSB-TV Tuesday reported that Eric Rudolph is asking the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to hand over suspect sketches their forensic artist drew of him during the manhunt. Since Rudolph asked through an open records inquiry, the agency has no choice but to honor the request.
GBI spokesman John Bankhead told the television station it is regrettable that the agency has to comply with Rudolph’s request. U.S. Attorney Sally Yates says part of Rudolph’s plea agreement included a stipulation that any book profits would be diverted to victims of his crimes.
Rudolph is being held in the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News