The following stories are brought to you by the fine folks on the News4 assignment desk.
ST. ELIZABETHS: NEW BUILDING, SAME OLD ABUSES
Washington City Paper: "Today, University Legal Services, a non-profit legal service agency federally mandated to provide advocacy and oversight for D.C. residents with disabilities, published its third report on conditions at St. Elizabeths Hospital. While the lawyers praised the opening of the new hospital, it still found that individuals' care hadn't improved: "the same issues that have been addressed in the past continue to occur even in the new Hospital."
St. E's can still be a rough place. For it's roughly 300 patients last year, there were 388 physical assaults. In July and August, there were 88 assaults on patients and staff. This past year, there were also 63 reports of "abuse, neglect or exploitation" as well as 10 sexual assaults, and 342 reports of physical injury–of which 158 were the result of physical assaults."
MD OFF-SHORE WIND FARM GETS BOOST
Washington Examiner: "Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he's cracking the whip to get Maryland's off-shore wind farm — and three other mid-Atlantic wind farms — up and running.
Construction cannot begin on any of the wind farms until the four sites recieve exhaustive environmental impact reviews, which can last two or three years.
Salazar said Monday he will expedite the reviews, though he did not provide a timeline."
MD BILL SEEKS TO RENAME NEGRO, POLISH MOUNTAINS
WTOP: "A state senator from Baltimore says she wants a commission created to rename Negro Mountain in western Maryland.
Democrat Lisa Gladden said Monday her bill would have both Negro and Polish mountains renamed by the end of this year.
Gladden says the name Negro Mountain has irked her since she first saw it in 1998. Historians say it is meant to honor the heroism during the French and Indian War of a free black man named Nemesis."
UVA STUDY: RECESSION HURT AMERICAN MARRIAGES
Washington Post: "Americans without a college degree bore the brunt of the recent recession, and so did their marriages, according to a new report by researchers at the University of Virginia.
The "Survey of Marital Generosity," conducted on behalf of U-Va.'s Marriage Project, found that 29 percent of couples reported that the economic downturn had put financial stress on their marriages.
At the same time, about a third of the couples surveyed said the recession had prompted them to work harder on saving their marriage - a finding that the report's author described as one of two "silver linings" to the longest economic downturn since the Great Depression. It's unclear whether those couples might have had more stable marriages to begin with."
