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The Associated Press WASHINGTON Inoneofits last chances to tinker with the president's signature health care law, the Obama administration Monday proposed a series of fixes and adjustments for 2018, when the White House will have a new occupant. The changes are de- tailed in a highly techni- cal draft regulation, nearly 300 pages long. Insurers and consumer advocates were trying to decipher its implications Monday eve- ning. The proposal would up- date the health insurance marketplace's premium stabilization system to re- flect concerns that insur- ers have raised. It also pro- poses changes to a current five-year ban on companies returning to the health law's markets after they have left. Some big name carriers have dramatically scaled back for 2017. For consumers, the rule includes an effort to make it easiertocomparecompeting insurance plans, as well as a new method for calculat- ing premiums for children, geared to avoiding large in- creases after a child turns age 21. There's also language to limit abuse of "special en- rollment periods" during which people can get cov- erage outside of the normal sign-up season. The proposed regulation comes in advance of what's expected to be a difficult 2017 open enrollment sea- son, with many consum- ers facing big premium in- creases and less choice. IfDonaldTrumpbecomes president, the administra- tion's latest proposal could be rescinded before it can takeeffect.Trumphasprom- ised to repeal and replace Obama's health care law. But the changes may ap- peal to a president Hillary Clinton, who has commit- ted to building on the Af- fordable Care Act and ad- dressing its problems. WASHINGTON Lastchance?Obamaadministration pr op os es he al th c ar e la w fi xe s By Eric Tucker The Associated Press WASHINGTON Justice De- partment lawyers investi- gating police agencies for claims of racial discrimi- nation and excessive force are increasingly turning up a different problem: officers' interactions with the men- tally ill. The latest example came in Baltimore, where a crit- ical report on that depart- ment's policies found that officers end up in unneces- sarily violent confrontations with mentally disabled peo- ple who in many instances haven't even committed crimes. The report cited in- stances of officers using a stun gun to subdue an ag- itated man who refused to leave a vacant building and of spraying mace to force a troubled person — said by his father to be unarmed and off his medications — out of an apartment. Though past federal in- vestigations have addressed the problem, the Baltimore report went a step further: It was the first time the Jus- tice Department has explic- itly found that a police de- partment's policies violated the Americans with Disabil- ities Act. The finding is in- tended to chart a path to what federal officials hope will be far-reaching im- provements, including bet- ter training for dispatchers and officers, diversion of more people to treatment rather than jail and stron- ger relationships with men- tal health specialists. "Through the course of our work in the last several years on this bucket of is- sues, we've seen how impor- tant it is to get at the mental health issues as early in the system as possible," Vanita Gupta, head of the depart- ment's Civil Rights Divi- sion, said in an interview. Civil rights officials say the Baltimore report builds on work they've done in in- vestigating the treatment of the mentally ill in various settings. In Mississippi, the Hinds County Jail in June recently agreed to better screening for mental ill- ness and to provide indi- vidualized treatment for those with serious disabil- ities, and the Justice De- partment sued the state as a whole this month, saying it was illegally making men- tally ill people go into state- run psychiatric hospitals But it's the work with po- lice departments that of- ten attracts the most atten- tion. Even as police forces improve training and de- velop intervention teams to respond to individuals in the throesofacrisis,concernsre- main that officers aren't ade- quately equipped for the sit- uations and are being forced to fill the void of a resource- starved mental health infra- structure. More than 14 per- cent of male jail inmates and 31 percent of female in- mates are affected by seri- ous mental illness, accord- ing to a July speech by Jus- tice Department official Eve Hill, who said society has for toolongreliedonarrestsand jailratherthantreatmentfor the mentally ill. The Justice Department has incorporated treatment of the mentally ill into sev- eral of its wide-ranging civil rights investigations of troubled police depart- ments. CRIMINAL JUSTICE Fe ds f oc us o n po li ce treatment of mentally ill By Emily Wagster Pettus The Associated Press DURANT, MISS. Hundreds of people filled a cathedral in Mississippi's capital city on Monday to remember two nuns who spent de- cades helping the needy and were found stabbed to death last week in their home in one of the poorest counties of the state. Bail was denied during the initial court appear- ance for the man charged with two counts of capi- tal murder in the slayings of Sisters Margaret Held and Paula Merrill, both 68. Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, of Kosciusko, Missis- sippi, was also charged with one count of burglary grand larceny. He was not represented by an attor- ney during his appearance Monday afternoon in Du- rant city court. City Judge Jim Arnold said the state will appoint an attorney for Sanders. Capital murder is pun- ishable by execution or life in prison; the sisters' reli- gious orders have issued a joint statement against the death penalty. Sanders confessed to the killings but gave no reason, said Holmes County Sher- iff Willie March, who was briefed by Durant police and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation officials who took part in Sanders' inter- rogation. Sanders had been living about 15 miles east of the sisters' Durant home. He has been held at an un- disclosed jail since his ar- rest late Friday. Sander's wife attended the hearing and broke down when addressing the family and friends of the nuns. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to say to y'all. I'm so sorry ... I'm so sorry. I can't take this. Oh my God," Ma- rie Sanders said. Merrill and Held worked as nurse practitioners at Lexington Medical Clinic, about 10 miles west of Du- rant, where they often treated poor and unin- sured patients with diabe- tes and other chronic con- ditions. Their bodies were found in their home after they failed to show up at work Thursday. The clinic in Lexington and the nuns' home in Du- rant are in Holmes County, population 18,000. With 44 percent of its residents liv- ing in poverty, Holmes is the seventh-poorest county in America, according to the Census Bureau. The killings shocked people in the small communities where the women commit- ted their lives to helping the poor. Bishop Joseph Kopacz and more than 20 priests from the Diocese of Jack- son celebrated a memorial Mass on Monday at the small but ornate Cathe- dral of St. Peter in down- town Jackson, about an hour's drive south of Du- rant. The front pews were filled by family members and sisters from Held's and Merrill's religious or- ders, the Kentucky-based Sisters of Charity of Naza- reth and the School Sisters of St. Francis of Milwaukee. The Rev. Greg Plata, who ministers at the church in Lexington, Mississippi, where Held and Merrill led Bible study, praised them for their lives of ser- vice. Plata also noted the joint statement against the death penalty released Sunday by the sisters' or- ders. "Justice for a heinous crime demands punish- ment, but it does not de- mand revenge," Plata said. On Sunday, more than 300 people attended a ser- vice at the church in Lex- ington. Warren Strain, spokes- man for the Department of Public Safety which in- cludes the Mississippi Bu- reau of Investigation, said the organization would nei- ther confirm nor deny that Sanders confessed. Records from the Iowa Department of Corrections show Sanders was in prison from June 2004 to Febru- ary 2011 on a conviction of second-degree robbery. Re- cords show he also was in prison in Iowa from August 1999 to August 2002 on a conviction of theft, and from April to October 1996 for two counts of third-of- fense drunken driving. Sanders was on proba- tion after a prison term for a felony drunken-driv- ing conviction in Missis- sippi last year, said Grace Simmons Fisher, a spokes- woman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. He was also convicted of armed robbery in Holmes County, sentenced in 1986 and served six years. MISSISSIPPI 2 slain nuns remembered for helping the needy ROGELIOV.SOLIS—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS A photograph of Sister Margaret Held of the School Sisters of St. Francis, le , and Sister Paula Merrill, of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, is placed at the entrance to the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle, Monday in Jackson, Miss., where a memorial Mass was held for the two 68-year-old nuns. 13540 Trinity Ave, Red Bluff (530) 527-8262 • (530) 528-8261 IF NO ANSWER CALL 529-7400 www.garysautobodyandtowing.com AUTO BODY REPAIR 24 HOUR TOWING WE BILL ALL MAJOR INSURANCE COMPANIES • ECO-FRIENDLY&DRUGFREE • COLLISION REPAIR APPROVED BY ALL MAJOR INSURANCE COMPANIES • LIFETIME WARRANTY • STATE-OF-THE-ART DOWN DRAFT SPRAY BOOTH • NATIONAL AWARD WINNING RESTORATION • AUTO & RV REPAIRS "WE MEET BY ACCIDENTS" • ECO-FRIENDLY&DRUGFREE • FAST! 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