Ark. governor didn't know about fugitive's health

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe on Wednesday defended his request to have a 63-year-old fugitive returned from Michigan, even though the convicted killer is in poor health.

Beebe told The Associated Press he wasn't aware of Lester Stiggers' health issues when he sought to have him brought back to the Arkansas prison system he fled in 1970.

"We can't pick and choose which laws that we like and which laws that we don't like," Beebe told the AP. "And once the Department of Correction was given information about his whereabouts, and ... they requested me to sign an extradition warrant, then that's my duty and that's the law and that's what we did."

Stiggers was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for killing his father as a teenager in 1965. When he was granted a five-day leave from prison for good behavior, he headed to Michigan, where his mother lived. He's been there ever since — thanks to a governor who, in 1971, refused to send him back to Arkansas and its then-notorious prison system.

The AP recently found Stiggers living in a one-bedroom apartment along a busy road in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Mich. He gets by on $700 a month in Social Security benefits, usually making trips outside only to see a doctor. He needs an inhaler and 10 pills a day for his diabetes, high blood pressure and other ailments. A stocky man with thick arms, Stiggers grappled with sewer lines as a plumber until two strokes ended his working days and made his speech difficult to understand.

He was astounded to learn that Arkansas has renewed its efforts to bring him back to prison — more than four decades after then-Gov. William Milliken blocked the state's initial request.

Beebe, a Democrat, sent a letter this year to Republican Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, seeking Stiggers after his Social Security benefits put him back on Arkansas' radar.

State prison officials said they didn't know that Stiggers was sick, either. But Department of Correction spokeswoman Shea Wilson told the AP that it's not the agency's role to make judgments about whether Stiggers should be brought back to Arkansas.

"It's our job to carry out the mandates of the court," Wilson said. "And that's simply what we're doing in our efforts to seek him."

Sara Wurfel, a spokeswoman for Snyder, said the matter was still under review and "there's not currently a timeframe for when that may be concluded."

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Associated Press writer David Eggert contributed reporting from Lansing, Mich., and Ed White contributed reporting from Detroit.

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Despite free treatment, British health rankings decline

LONDON (Reuters) - Years of universal healthcare, rising health spending, cancer screening, immunisation and anti-smoking laws have failed to stop Britain falling behind in reducing early death and disease, a study showed on Tuesday.

Researchers who compared Britain's health performance since 1990 with 14 European Union countries plus Australia, Canada, Norway and the United States said its pace of decline in premature death was "persistently and significantly" behind the average - a finding they described as "startling".

Chris Murray, who led the work at the University of Washington, said Britain's poor performance was partly due to dramatic increases in Alzheimer's disease and in drug and alcohol abuse problems, and to a failure to tackle leading killers such as heart disease, strokes and lung diseases.

"Concerted action is urgently needed," said Murray, director of the university's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Using data from a vast study called the Global Burden of Diseases, headline findings of which were published last year, researchers analysed patterns of ill health and death in Britain, calculated the contribution of various preventable risk factors, and ranked it among high-income countries that spent similar amounts on health in 1990 and 2010.

They found that only in men older than 55 years had Britain seen significantly faster drops in death rates than other nations over the last 20 years.

Britain's ranking in premature mortality rates for adults aged between 20 and 54 had "worsened substantially", they found.

This was partly due to dramatic growth in problems linked to drugs and alcohol, which were ranked among the least important causes of death in this age group in 1990 - ranked 32nd and 43rd respectively - but rose to sixth and 18th place in 2010.

"WAKE-UP CALL"

Kevin Fenton, Director of Health and Wellbeing at Public Health England, who worked with Murray on the study, said the findings were "both a wake-up call and an opportunity".

"While it's encouraging that overall the health of the UK has improved substantially since the last report the pace of improvement is not enough," he said in a statement.

Overall, the study found, Britain's eight leading causes of death have changed little in the last 20 years, with heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, lung cancer and lower respiratory infections remaining the top five.

There has also been a startling increase Alzheimer's disease - which rose from 24th to 10th place - in cirrhosis, which is linked to alcohol abuse, and in drug use disorders. They rose from 14th to 9th position and from 64th to 21st respectively.

The study found that in 2010, Britain had significantly lower premature death rates from diabetes, road injuries, liver cancer and chronic kidney disease on average than other nations.

But it had not kept pace on rates of early death from other conditions such as heart and lung diseases, breast and oesophageal cancer and preterm birth complications.

Commenting on the findings, Edmund Jessop from the UK Faculty of Public Health in London, said there was "plenty of room for bold action by politicians".

He said ministers should introduce tighter health policies such as plain packaging for cigarettes, a minimum price for alcohol, a ban on trans fats, improved control of hypertension and a greater focus on psychiatric disorders.

"Alternatively, the UK can continue to languish at the bottom of European league tables," he said.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Queen Elizabeth cancels Italy visit over health - presidency

ROME (Reuters) - Queen Elizabeth has cancelled a trip to Italy this week because of health reasons, the Italian presidency announced on Sunday.

The Queen was to have visited Italy March 6-7 as a guest of Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.

The monarch cancelled a visit to the Welsh city of Swansea because of a stomach upset on March 1.

The president's office said it had been informed about the cancellation by Britain's ambassador to Rome, Christopher Prentice, who told Italian officials that the Queen needed "medical checks".

Queen Elizabeth marked 60 years on the throne last year and remains hugely popular in Britain.

(Reporting by Naomi O'Leary)

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