Top British Cardinal Resigns After Accusations of ‘Inappropriate Acts’

VATICAN CITY — Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric announced his resignation on Monday, a day after being accused of “inappropriate acts” with priests, saying he would not attend the conclave to elect a new pope.

The cleric, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, said that he had submitted his resignation months ago, and that the Vatican said Pope Benedict XVI had accepted it on Feb. 18. However, the timing of the announcement — a day after news reports of alleged abuse appeared in Britain — suggested that the Vatican had encouraged the cardinal to stay away from the conclave,

“Everybody’s been struck by how quickly Rome responded,” said Austen Ivereigh, director of the British church advocacy group Catholic Voices. “Clearly Rome saw that there was sufficient substance to the allegations. They would not have told him to stand down unless they thought there was something worth investigating.”

The move leaves Britain without a voting cardinal in the conclave, and is bound to raise questions about other cardinals. It comes amid a campaign by some critics to urge Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles not to attend the conclave because of his role in moving priests accused of abuse to other parishes.

It also comes just days after the Vatican Secretariat of State issued a harsh statement against recent news media reports, including ones alleging a gay sex scandal inside the Vatican. It said that cardinals should not be affected by external pressures when they vote for the next pope. About 115 cardinals are expected to be at the gathering. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the former archbishop of Westminster, will attend the meetings in Rome before the conclave, according to Mr. Ivereigh, the cardinal’s former spokesman, but is past the voting age cutoff of 80 years.

Vatican watchers said that Cardinal O’Brien’s decision not to attend the conclave was rare.

“It’s quite unprecedented,” said Sandro Magister, a Vatican expert with the Italian weekly L’Espresso. “He made it clear that his resignation came under the pressure of the accusations. His certainly isn’t a frequent case and hasn’t happened in conclaves in recent memory.”

On Monday, Benedict changed the laws governing the conclave to allow cardinals to move up the start date before the traditional 15-to-20-day waiting period after the papacy is vacant. He also met with three cardinals who had conducted a secret investigation into a scandal over leaked documents and ruled that the contents of their report would be known only to his successor, not to the cardinals entering the conclave.

Cardinal O’Brien’s announcement came a day after The Observer reported that four men had made complaints to the pope’s diplomatic representative in Britain, Antonio Mennini, the week before Pope Benedict XVI announced on Feb. 11 that he would be stepping down as of Feb. 28.

The Observer said that the accusations, which dated back to the 1980s, had been forwarded to the Vatican.

Last week, Cardinal O’Brien drew different headlines, telling the BBC that the next pope should consider abandoning the church’s insistence on priestly celibacy, and suggesting that it might be time for the papal conclave to choose a pontiff from Africa or Asia, where church membership has been growing even as it has fallen across Europe and North America.

On Monday, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, played down the connection between the media reports and Cardinal O’Brien’s resignation, which the pope accepted under a norm of church law that says he had reached the normal retirement age of 75.

A statement issued by the media office of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland said Cardinal O’Brien had informed the pope some time ago of his intention to resign as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh as his 75th birthday approached on March 17, but that no date had been set.

The cardinal said in the statement, “The Holy Father has now decided that my resignation will take effect today, 25 February 2013.

“Looking back over my years of ministry: For any good I have been able to do, I thank God,” he said. “For any failures, I apologize to all whom I have offended.”

“I also ask God’s blessing on my brother cardinals who will soon gather in Rome,” the statement said, adding: “I will not join them for this conclave in person. I do not wish media attention in Rome to be focused on me — but rather on Pope Benedict XVI and on his successor.”

Rachel Donadio reported from Rome and John F. Burns from London. Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London and Laurie Goodstein from New York.

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The Texas Tribune: Advocates Seek Mental Health Changes, Including Power to Detain

Matt Rainwaters for Texas Monthly

The Sherman grave of Andre Thomas’s victims.

SHERMAN — A worried call from his daughter’s boyfriend sent Paul Boren rushing to her apartment on the morning of March 27, 2004. He drove the eight blocks to her apartment, peering into his neighbors’ yards, searching for Andre Thomas, Laura Boren’s estranged husband.

Expanded coverage of Texas is produced by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news organization. To join the conversation about this article, go to texastribune.org.

For more articles on mental health and criminal justice in Texas, as well as a timeline of the Andre Thomas case: texastribune.org

Matt Rainwaters for Texas Monthly

Laura Boren

He drove past the brightly colored slides, swings and bouncy plastic animals in Fairview Park across the street from the apartment where Ms. Boren, 20, and her two children lived. He pulled into a parking spot below and immediately saw that her door was broken. As his heart raced, Mr. Boren, a white-haired giant of a man, bounded up the stairwell, calling out for his daughter.

He found her on the white carpet, smeared with blood, a gaping hole in her chest. Beside her left leg, a one-dollar bill was folded lengthwise, the radiating eye of the pyramid facing up. Mr. Boren knew she was gone.

In a panic, he rushed past the stuffed animals, dolls and plastic toys strewn along the hallway to the bedroom shared by his two grandchildren. The body of 13-month-old Leyha Hughes lay on the floor next to a blood-spattered doll nearly as big as she was.

Andre Boren, 4, lay on his back in his white children’s bed just above Leyha. He looked as if he could have been sleeping — a moment away from revealing the toothy grin that typically spread from one of his round cheeks to the other — except for the massive chest wound that matched the ones his father, Andre Thomas (the boy was also known as Andre Jr.), had inflicted on his mother and his half-sister as he tried to remove their hearts.

“You just can’t believe that it’s real,” said Sherry Boren, Laura Boren’s mother. “You’re hoping that it’s not, that it’s a dream or something, that you’re going to wake up at any minute.”

Mr. Thomas, who confessed to the murders of his wife, their son and her daughter by another man, was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death at age 21. While awaiting trial in 2004, he gouged out one of his eyes, and in 2008 on death row, he removed the other and ate it.

At least twice in the three weeks before the crime, Mr. Thomas had sought mental health treatment, babbling illogically and threatening to commit suicide. On two occasions, staff members at the medical facilities were so worried that his psychosis made him a threat to himself or others that they sought emergency detention warrants for him.

Despite talk of suicide and bizarre biblical delusions, he was not detained for treatment. Mr. Thomas later told the police that he was convinced that Ms. Boren was the wicked Jezebel from the Bible, that his own son was the Antichrist and that Leyha was involved in an evil conspiracy with them.

He was on a mission from God, he said, to free their hearts of demons.

Hospitals do not have legal authority to detain people who voluntarily enter their facilities in search of mental health care but then decide to leave. It is one of many holes in the state’s nearly 30-year-old mental health code that advocates, police officers and judges say lawmakers need to fix. In a report last year, Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit advocacy organization, called on lawmakers to replace the existing code with one that reflects contemporary mental health needs.

“It was last fully revised in 1985, and clearly the mental health system has changed drastically since then,” said Susan Stone, a lawyer and psychiatrist who led the two-year Texas Appleseed project to study and recommend reforms to the code. Lawmakers have said that although the code may need to be revamped, it will not happen in this year’s legislative session. Such an undertaking requires legislative studies that have not been conducted. But advocates are urging legislators to make a few critical changes that they say could prevent tragedies, including giving hospitals the right to detain someone who is having a mental health crisis.

From the time Mr. Thomas was 10, he had told friends he heard demons in his head instructing him to do bad things. The cacophony drove him to attempt suicide repeatedly as an adolescent, according to court records. He drank and abused drugs to try to quiet the noise.

bgrissom@texastribune.org

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The Texas Tribune: Advocates Seek Mental Health Changes, Including Power to Detain

Matt Rainwaters for Texas Monthly

The Sherman grave of Andre Thomas’s victims.

SHERMAN — A worried call from his daughter’s boyfriend sent Paul Boren rushing to her apartment on the morning of March 27, 2004. He drove the eight blocks to her apartment, peering into his neighbors’ yards, searching for Andre Thomas, Laura Boren’s estranged husband.

Expanded coverage of Texas is produced by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news organization. To join the conversation about this article, go to texastribune.org.

For more articles on mental health and criminal justice in Texas, as well as a timeline of the Andre Thomas case: texastribune.org

Matt Rainwaters for Texas Monthly

Laura Boren

He drove past the brightly colored slides, swings and bouncy plastic animals in Fairview Park across the street from the apartment where Ms. Boren, 20, and her two children lived. He pulled into a parking spot below and immediately saw that her door was broken. As his heart raced, Mr. Boren, a white-haired giant of a man, bounded up the stairwell, calling out for his daughter.

He found her on the white carpet, smeared with blood, a gaping hole in her chest. Beside her left leg, a one-dollar bill was folded lengthwise, the radiating eye of the pyramid facing up. Mr. Boren knew she was gone.

In a panic, he rushed past the stuffed animals, dolls and plastic toys strewn along the hallway to the bedroom shared by his two grandchildren. The body of 13-month-old Leyha Hughes lay on the floor next to a blood-spattered doll nearly as big as she was.

Andre Boren, 4, lay on his back in his white children’s bed just above Leyha. He looked as if he could have been sleeping — a moment away from revealing the toothy grin that typically spread from one of his round cheeks to the other — except for the massive chest wound that matched the ones his father, Andre Thomas (the boy was also known as Andre Jr.), had inflicted on his mother and his half-sister as he tried to remove their hearts.

“You just can’t believe that it’s real,” said Sherry Boren, Laura Boren’s mother. “You’re hoping that it’s not, that it’s a dream or something, that you’re going to wake up at any minute.”

Mr. Thomas, who confessed to the murders of his wife, their son and her daughter by another man, was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death at age 21. While awaiting trial in 2004, he gouged out one of his eyes, and in 2008 on death row, he removed the other and ate it.

At least twice in the three weeks before the crime, Mr. Thomas had sought mental health treatment, babbling illogically and threatening to commit suicide. On two occasions, staff members at the medical facilities were so worried that his psychosis made him a threat to himself or others that they sought emergency detention warrants for him.

Despite talk of suicide and bizarre biblical delusions, he was not detained for treatment. Mr. Thomas later told the police that he was convinced that Ms. Boren was the wicked Jezebel from the Bible, that his own son was the Antichrist and that Leyha was involved in an evil conspiracy with them.

He was on a mission from God, he said, to free their hearts of demons.

Hospitals do not have legal authority to detain people who voluntarily enter their facilities in search of mental health care but then decide to leave. It is one of many holes in the state’s nearly 30-year-old mental health code that advocates, police officers and judges say lawmakers need to fix. In a report last year, Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit advocacy organization, called on lawmakers to replace the existing code with one that reflects contemporary mental health needs.

“It was last fully revised in 1985, and clearly the mental health system has changed drastically since then,” said Susan Stone, a lawyer and psychiatrist who led the two-year Texas Appleseed project to study and recommend reforms to the code. Lawmakers have said that although the code may need to be revamped, it will not happen in this year’s legislative session. Such an undertaking requires legislative studies that have not been conducted. But advocates are urging legislators to make a few critical changes that they say could prevent tragedies, including giving hospitals the right to detain someone who is having a mental health crisis.

From the time Mr. Thomas was 10, he had told friends he heard demons in his head instructing him to do bad things. The cacophony drove him to attempt suicide repeatedly as an adolescent, according to court records. He drank and abused drugs to try to quiet the noise.

bgrissom@texastribune.org

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Bits: Online Gambling Heats Up

The two big casino states, Nevada and New Jersey, are racing into online gambling as a way of protecting their turf. They will in essence become laboratories for what is and is not feasible in Internet wagering.

Nevada legislators, who previously authorized online poker, hurriedly passed a new bill this week that allows the state to enter into deals with other states to essentially pool their gambling populations. “This is the day we usher Nevada into the next frontier of gaming,” Brian Sandoval, Nevada’s governor, said on Thursday as he signed the bill.

In the year since online poker became a theoretical possibility in Nevada, no company has yet offered it. One problem: It’s too small a market, especially in a state where it is not exactly hard to gamble the old-fashioned way — by plunking your body down in a casino or, for that matter, just about anywhere else.

“We don’t have a universe of players,” Pete Ernaut, a Nevada political consultant, told The Las Vegas Review-Journal. “So for us, what we get to offer to a state like California or Texas is that we have the most mature regulatory infrastructure. We have the most mature financial, auditing and collection capabilities, much greater than some of those states, and they have the players.”

Meanwhile, New Jersey is also barreling ahead. Chris Christie, the governor, is likely to sign a revised bill permitting a variety of online gambling as soon as next week. All online ventures will be under the tight control of the Atlantic City casinos. Delaware, the smallest of the three states that are moving ahead with online gambling, also has ambitious plans.

In a harbinger of the new age, gamblers at the Borgata casino in Atlantic City will, as USA Today put it, “be able to lose their shirts without wearing one.” Gamblers staying in one of the casino’s 2,000 rooms can now place their bets right there without venturing onto the casino floor. From there it is only a small step to just staying home and gambling from the hammock.

Internet companies that make online games are watching all this with considerable interest. “Is 2013 going to be a game-changer?” asked Paul Thelen of Big Fish Studios, which began offering a gambling app in Britain last fall. “No. But in 2014, it starts getting interesting.”

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Letter From Washington: A Struggle for Control of Republican Party

WASHINGTON — The late William F. Buckley and Karl Rove have little in common, other than the Republican Party and intelligence. Mr. Buckley’s politics were guided by principles; Mr. Rove’s principles are guided by politics.

Yet Mr. Rove, the party establishment’s money and strategy guru, is channeling Mr. Buckley, a founding father of contemporary conservatism, by trying to root out extremism from the Republican mainstream. A half-century ago, Mr. Buckley sought to expunge the John Birch Society, anti-Semites and white supremacists from the party’s inner circles. Today, Mr. Rove is threatening to finance primary campaigns against those he considers right-wing extremists of the type that have already cost Republicans several Senate seats.

It may be the right purpose, but he’s the wrong person. He can’t avoid looking like an inside-the-Beltway kingmaker trying to purge populist insurgencies around the country and make some more bucks while doing it. There is a backlash.

Still, prominent Republicans with more credibility than Mr. Rove need to consider this cause. There are more than a few fringe figures who play a role in defining the party, many of them express a vitriolic dislike of President Barack Obama that turns off possible Republican voters.

There is Representative Steve King of Iowa, who is unrelenting in his criticism of the president. One of his latest targets is the September attack in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, were killed.

He goes further than other critics: Benghazi, he declares, “is a lot bigger” than other scandals. It is, he says, at least 10 times bigger than Watergate and Iran-contra combined.

Mr. King has made a name for himself with anti-immigrant rants. Last year, he said Americans should select eligible immigrants the same way they would go about picking a “good bird dog.” That means choosing “the one that’s the friskiest, the one that’s engaged the most, and not the one that’s over there sleeping in the corner.” He later explained that he meant this as a compliment — he likes bird dogs.

Then there’s Representative Paul C. Broun of Georgia. The former physician said evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell.” He once proposed banning Playboy magazine from military installations, which might have jeopardized the survival of the all-volunteer army.

Like more than a few of his colleagues on the right, he directs his greatest vitriol at Mr. Obama. Mr. Broun boasts that he was the first to call the president “a socialist who embraces Marxist-Leninist policies.” The “only Constitution that Barack Obama upholds is the Soviet constitution,” he charges.

These two lawmakers aren’t simply innocuous backbenchers. They are among the leading contenders in Republican primaries for open Senate seats in Georgia and Iowa.

Even some Republicans who aren’t as far out get caught up in the fervor, particularly when it touches on Mr. Obama. This month, Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina likened those who didn’t fight hard enough against the Obama administration’s regulation of for-profit colleges to Germans who didn’t stand up to the Nazis in the 1930s.

Texas, the biggest Republican-dominated state, is a hotbed of Obama-hating politicians. Louie Gohmert, in his fifth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, asserted in November that the president ousted the dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to allow Al Qaeda to take over Libya.

After a 15-year hiatus, Steve Stockman returned to the House this year and wasted no time. When the president appeared at a news conference surrounded by children after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, Mr. Stockman compared Mr. Obama to Saddam Hussein for using children as props. He’s now talking about impeaching Mr. Obama for proposing gun-control legislation.

The Senate is hardly immune. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who was elected in November, questioned, with no cause, whether Chuck Hagel, the defense secretary nominee, had taken money from terrorist states. The comment was criticized even by the Republican senator John McCain, himself a Hagel critic. Far from expressing regret, Mr. Cruz seemed to revel in the controversy.

This transcends ideology. Mr. Broun has the least conservative voting record of any House Republican from Georgia, according to the latest National Journal survey of voting records. Claiming the president worships the constitution of the Soviet Union isn’t a conservative position — it’s a nutty one, reminiscent of the John Birchers that Mr. Buckley assailed a half-century ago.

Another new senator, Jeff Flake of Arizona, is every bit as conservative as Mr. Cruz, and they will probably vote alike most of the time. Yet Mr. Cruz revels in vilification, while Mr. Flake seeks common ground when possible.

It is the Flake persona that should offer the greatest appeal to younger or more independent voters. Many conservatives insist that the United States is a center-right country, where voters are receptive to the case for limited government and cultural traditionalism. The changing demographic profile of the electorate seems to undercut that case.

That is a good debate to have. But conservatives can’t compete in the argument when their party is identified with bizarre theories, bigotry and a visceral hatred of the president.

That’s going to change when prominent Republicans with conservative bona fides — Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida — don’t just talk the talk about a broader-based party but walk the walk and reject the haters.

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Gulf Coast States Jockey Over Settlement on Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

John Moore/Getty Images

A BP cleanup crew removing oil from a beach in May 2010 in Port Fourchon, La., after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

With a major civil trial scheduled to start Monday in New Orleans against BP over damages related to the explosion of an offshore drilling rig in 2010, federal officials and those from the five affected Gulf Coast states are trying to pull together to strike an 11th-hour settlement in the case.

A lawyer briefed on those talks said that the Justice Department and the five states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — have reportedly prepared an offer to resolve the two biggest issues central to a series of trials against BP, the first of which starts Monday.

One of those issues is the fines that the company would pay for violations of the Clean Water Act related to the four million gallons of oil spilled after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, which BP had leased from Transocean. The other point of dispute is how much the company will have to pay in penalties under a different environmental statute for damage caused by the oil to the area: beaches, marshes, wildlife and fisheries.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Friday that federal and state officials were preparing a $16 billion settlement offer that would cover both the Clean Water Act fines and environmental penalties related to the spill. “The ball is on BP’s side of the table,” said the lawyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Justice Department officials and state officials could not be reached Saturday to comment on any possible offer. A spokesman for BP, Geoff Morrell, said, “BP doesn’t talk about possible offers or negotiations, but I can tell you we are ready for trial and looking forward to the opportunity to present our case starting Monday.”

The lawyer briefed on the talks said that one problem with the current proposal by federal and state officials was that it did not cover economic damages claimed by the states related to the spill. Such claims could still leave BP on the hook for billions more, in addition to the environmental damages.

The late negotiations among federal and state officials to find common ground represents progress, even if limited, in the search for a settlement. The five states have had sharp disagreements over how much BP should pay and how billions of dollars in potential settlement funds should be divided.

For example, only two of the states, Louisiana and Alabama, are participating in the trial starting on Monday, though Florida, Mississippi and Texas could be part of any settlement. Officials in Louisiana believe their state deserves the bulk of any settlement since that state’s coastal waters, fisheries and businesses suffered the most. Florida and other states that escaped serious coastal damage instead want money for economic losses that they sustained.

“There are a lot of moving parts,” said Luther Strange, the attorney general of Alabama. “Personalities aside, the issues are so complex.” Another lawyer briefed on the talks said he believed any proposal involving Louisiana would be significant because its participation would be critical to any settlement.

Also, billions of dollars could be assessed against BP in several ways, either through fines, or through penalties to redress environmental damage and payments to cover economic losses. And each of those methods represents a different set of stakes and consequences for each of the states and for BP.

For instance, BP would prefer to limit the fines, and make more payments through environmental damage penalties, because those penalties can be written off as tax deductions while fines cannot. But the states have more flexibility in spending money derived from fines.

To date, BP has agreed to pay an estimated $30 billion in fines, settlement payments and cleanup costs related to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 workers aboard the rig. And so far, company officials have said that they have no intention of acceding to demands from the states for huge economic damages.

Still, the stakes for BP in the trial are high. If the company is found in this first phase of the trial to have acted with gross negligence, BP could face up to $17.5 billion in penalties, much of that in fines that would hit the bottom line hardest because those fines do not qualify as tax deductions.

The lack of a unified strategy to date among the states has also posed another problem for BP; companies are less likely to settle a major lawsuit if they know yet another one is waiting.

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Drone Pilots Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do

U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Steve Horton

Capt. Richard Koll, left, and Airman First Class Mike Eulo monitored a drone aircraft after launching it in Iraq.

The study affirms a growing body of research finding health hazards even for those piloting machines from bases far from actual combat zones.

“Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors and has tough consequences for those crews,” said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about drones. He was not involved in the new research.

That study, by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, which analyzes health trends among military personnel, did not try to explain the sources of mental health problems among drone pilots.

But Air Force officials and independent experts have suggested several potential causes, among them witnessing combat violence on live video feeds, working in isolation or under inflexible shift hours, juggling the simultaneous demands of home life with combat operations and dealing with intense stress because of crew shortages.

“Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.”

Dr. Otto said she had begun the study expecting that drone pilots would actually have a higher rate of mental health problems because of the unique pressures of their job.

Since 2008, the number of pilots of remotely piloted aircraft — the Air Force’s preferred term for drones — has grown fourfold, to nearly 1,300. The Air Force is now training more pilots for its drones than for its fighter jets and bombers combined. And by 2015, it expects to have more drone pilots than bomber pilots, although fighter pilots will remain a larger group.

Those figures do not include drones operated by the C.I.A. in counterterrorism operations over Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.

The Pentagon has begun taking steps to keep pace with the rapid expansion of drone operations. It recently created a new medal to honor troops involved in both drone warfare and cyberwarfare. And the Air Force has expanded access to chaplains and therapists for drone operators, said Col. William M. Tart, who commanded remotely piloted aircraft crews at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

The Air Force has also conducted research into the health issues of drone crew members. In a 2011 survey of nearly 840 drone operators, it found that 46 percent of Reaper and Predator pilots, and 48 percent of Global Hawk sensor operators, reported “high operational stress.” Those crews cited long hours and frequent shift changes as major causes.

That study found the stress among drone operators to be much higher than that reported by Air Force members in logistics or support jobs. But it did not compare the stress levels of the drone operators with those of traditional pilots.

The new study looked at the electronic health records of 709 drone pilots and 5,256 manned aircraft pilots between October 2003 and December 2011. Those records included information about clinical diagnoses by medical professionals and not just self-reported symptoms.

After analyzing diagnosis and treatment records, the researchers initially found that the drone pilots had higher incidence rates for 12 conditions, including anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.

But after the data were adjusted for age, number of deployments, time in service and history of previous mental health problems, the rates were similar, said Dr. Otto, who was scheduled to present her findings in Arizona on Saturday at a conference of the American College of Preventive Medicine.

The study also found that the incidence rates of mental heath problems among drone pilots spiked in 2009. Dr. Otto speculated that the increase might have been the result of intense pressure on pilots during the Iraq surge in the preceding years.

The study found that pilots of both manned and unmanned aircraft had lower rates of mental health problems than other Air Force personnel. But Dr. Otto conceded that her study might underestimate problems among both manned and unmanned aircraft pilots, who may feel pressure not to report mental health symptoms to doctors out of fears that they will be grounded.

She said she planned to conduct two follow-up studies: one that tries to compensate for possible underreporting of mental health problems by pilots and another that analyzes mental health issues among sensor operators, who control drone cameras while sitting next to the pilots.

“The increasing use of remotely piloted aircraft for war fighting as well as humanitarian relief should prompt increased surveillance,” she said.

Read More..

Drone Pilots Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do

U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Steve Horton

Capt. Richard Koll, left, and Airman First Class Mike Eulo monitored a drone aircraft after launching it in Iraq.

The study affirms a growing body of research finding health hazards even for those piloting machines from bases far from actual combat zones.

“Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors and has tough consequences for those crews,” said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about drones. He was not involved in the new research.

That study, by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, which analyzes health trends among military personnel, did not try to explain the sources of mental health problems among drone pilots.

But Air Force officials and independent experts have suggested several potential causes, among them witnessing combat violence on live video feeds, working in isolation or under inflexible shift hours, juggling the simultaneous demands of home life with combat operations and dealing with intense stress because of crew shortages.

“Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.”

Dr. Otto said she had begun the study expecting that drone pilots would actually have a higher rate of mental health problems because of the unique pressures of their job.

Since 2008, the number of pilots of remotely piloted aircraft — the Air Force’s preferred term for drones — has grown fourfold, to nearly 1,300. The Air Force is now training more pilots for its drones than for its fighter jets and bombers combined. And by 2015, it expects to have more drone pilots than bomber pilots, although fighter pilots will remain a larger group.

Those figures do not include drones operated by the C.I.A. in counterterrorism operations over Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.

The Pentagon has begun taking steps to keep pace with the rapid expansion of drone operations. It recently created a new medal to honor troops involved in both drone warfare and cyberwarfare. And the Air Force has expanded access to chaplains and therapists for drone operators, said Col. William M. Tart, who commanded remotely piloted aircraft crews at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

The Air Force has also conducted research into the health issues of drone crew members. In a 2011 survey of nearly 840 drone operators, it found that 46 percent of Reaper and Predator pilots, and 48 percent of Global Hawk sensor operators, reported “high operational stress.” Those crews cited long hours and frequent shift changes as major causes.

That study found the stress among drone operators to be much higher than that reported by Air Force members in logistics or support jobs. But it did not compare the stress levels of the drone operators with those of traditional pilots.

The new study looked at the electronic health records of 709 drone pilots and 5,256 manned aircraft pilots between October 2003 and December 2011. Those records included information about clinical diagnoses by medical professionals and not just self-reported symptoms.

After analyzing diagnosis and treatment records, the researchers initially found that the drone pilots had higher incidence rates for 12 conditions, including anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.

But after the data were adjusted for age, number of deployments, time in service and history of previous mental health problems, the rates were similar, said Dr. Otto, who was scheduled to present her findings in Arizona on Saturday at a conference of the American College of Preventive Medicine.

The study also found that the incidence rates of mental heath problems among drone pilots spiked in 2009. Dr. Otto speculated that the increase might have been the result of intense pressure on pilots during the Iraq surge in the preceding years.

The study found that pilots of both manned and unmanned aircraft had lower rates of mental health problems than other Air Force personnel. But Dr. Otto conceded that her study might underestimate problems among both manned and unmanned aircraft pilots, who may feel pressure not to report mental health symptoms to doctors out of fears that they will be grounded.

She said she planned to conduct two follow-up studies: one that tries to compensate for possible underreporting of mental health problems by pilots and another that analyzes mental health issues among sensor operators, who control drone cameras while sitting next to the pilots.

“The increasing use of remotely piloted aircraft for war fighting as well as humanitarian relief should prompt increased surveillance,” she said.

Read More..

In a Slight Shift, North Korea Widens Internet Access, but Just for Visitors

HONG KONG — North Korea will finally allow Internet searches on mobile devices. But if you’re a North Korean, you’re out of luck — only foreigners will get this privilege.

Cracking the door open slightly to wider Internet use, the government will allow a company called Koryolink to give foreigners access to 3G mobile Internet service by next Friday, according to The Associated Press, which has a bureau in the North.

The North Korean police state is famously cloistered, a means for the government to keep news of the world from its impoverished people. Only the most elite North Koreans have been allowed access to the Internet, and even they are watched. And although many North Koreans are allowed to have cellphones, sanctioned phones cannot call outside the country.

Foreigners were only recently allowed to use cellphones in the country. Previously, most had to surrender their phones with customs agents.

But it is unlikely that the small opening will compromise the North’s tight control of its people; the relatively few foreigners who travel to North Korea — a group that includes tourists and occasional journalists — are assigned government minders.

The decision, announced Friday, to allow foreigners Internet access comes a month after Google’s chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, visited Pyongyang, the North’s capital. While there he prodded officials on allowing Internet access, noting how easy it would be to set up through the expanding 3G network of Koryolink, a joint venture of North Korean and Egyptian telecommunications corporations. Presumably, Mr. Schmidt’s appeal was directed at giving North Koreans such capability.

“As the world becomes increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world, their economic growth and so forth,” Mr. Schmidt told reporters following his visit. “We made that alternative very, very clear.”

North Koreans will get some benefit from the 3G service, as they will be allowed to text and make video calls, The Associated Press said. They can also view newspaper reports — but the news service mentioned only one source: Rodong Sinmun, the North’s main Communist Party newspaper.

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Iran Says It Has Found New Uranium Deposits

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Reuters) — Days before resuming talks over its disputed nuclear program, Iran said Saturday that it had found significant new deposits of raw uranium and identified sites for 16 more nuclear power stations.

The state news agency IRNA quoted a report by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, which said that the reserves were discovered in northern and southern coastal areas and had tripled the amount outlined in previous estimates.

There was no independent confirmation. Western experts had previously thought that Iran, with few uranium mines of its own, might be close to exhausting its supply of raw uranium.

“We have discovered new sources of uranium in the country, and we will put them to use in the near future,” Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of the Atomic Energy Organization, was quoted as saying at Iran’s annual nuclear industry conference.

The timing of the announcement suggested that Iran, by talking up its reserves and nuclear ambitions, may hope to strengthen its negotiating hand at talks in Kazakhstan on Tuesday with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Diplomats say the six powers are willing to offer Iran some relief from international sanctions if it agrees to curb its production of higher-grade enriched uranium.

The West says Iran’s enrichment of uranium to a purity of 20 percent demonstrates its intent to develop a nuclear weapons ability, an allegation the Islamic republic denies.

The enriched uranium required for use in nuclear reactors or weapons is produced in centrifuges that spin uranium hexafluoride gas at high speeds. The gas is derived from yellow cake, a concentrate from uranium ore found in mines.

Iran’s raw uranium reserves now total around 4,400 tons, including discoveries over the past 18 months, IRNA quoted the report as saying.

In another sign that Iran is intent on pushing forward with its nuclear ambitions, the report also said that 16 sites had been identified for the construction of nuclear power stations. It did not specify the exact locations but said they included coastal areas of the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, Khuzestan Province and the Caspian Sea.

The Iranian authorities have long announced their desire to build more nuclear power plants for electricity production. Only one currently exists, in the southern city of Bushehr, and it has suffered several shutdowns in recent months.

The announcements could further complicate the search for a breakthrough in Kazakhstan, after three unsuccessful rounds of talks between the sides in 2012.

“We are meeting all of our obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and we should be able to benefit from our rights,” Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, was quoted as saying at the conference on Saturday. “We don’t accept more responsibilities and less rights.”

In what Washington has called a provocative move, Iran is also installing new-generation centrifuges, capable of producing enriched uranium much faster, at a site in Natanz in the center of the country.

Western diplomats say the six powers will reiterate demands for the suspension of uranium enrichment to a purity of 20 percent, the closing of Iran’s Fordo enrichment plant, increased access for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and an agreement to address concerns on existing uranium stockpiles.

In return, the latest embargoes on gold and metals trading with Iran would be lifted. Iran has criticized the offer and says its rights need to be fully recognized.

If the West wants to start constructive talks with Tehran, “It needs to present a valid proposal,” Mr. Jalili said. In a statement issued before the Iranian announcement, the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, said the six-power group wanted to enter a “substantial negotiation process” over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The talks in Kazakhstan “are a chance which I hope Iran takes,” he said.

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