By JACQUES BILLEAUD

PHOENIX (AP) — A federal judge has ordered a takeover of health care operations in Arizona’s prisons and will appoint an official to run the system after years of complaints about poor medical and mental health care.

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The decision on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver came after her 2022 verdict that concluded Arizona had violated prisoners’ rights by providing inadequate care that led to suffering and preventable deaths.

Silver wrote that the state hasn’t gotten a semblance of compliance with court-ordered changes and the Constitution after nearly 14 years of litigation, saying “this approach has not only failed completely, but, if continued, would be nothing short of judicial indulgence of deeply entrenched unconstitutional conduct.”

The judge said prisoners still remain exposed to “an intolerable grave and immediate threat of continuing harm and suffering because the systemic deficiencies pervade the administration of health care.”

The Associated Press left a message for the corrections department after the order was issued. The state and attorneys representing prisoners have 60 days to submit a list of candidates to run health and mental health care operations in prisons.

“This decision means that an independent authority will be able to implement the systemic changes necessary to ensure that medical and mental health care meets constitutional standards,” said David Fathi, one of the lawyers representing the prisoners. “This is a life-saving intervention, and it brings hope that the preventable suffering and deaths that have haunted Arizona’s prison system for over a decade can finally end.”

Lawyers for prisoners say Arizona has made few improvements since the verdict and asked the judge for the more drastic remedy of creating such a “receivership,” arguing system remains broken and prisoners who need care are still in danger.

For over a decade, state government has been dogged by criticism that its health care system for the 25,000 inmates in Arizona’s state-run prisons was run shoddily and callously.

The state had vowed to overhaul medical and mental health services for prisoners in a 2014 settlement, but was soon accused of failing to keep many of those promises. That led to $2.5 million in contempt of court fines against the state and, eventually, the revocation of the agreement by Silver, who explained that corrections officials had shown little interest in making the changes.

The judge then ruled against the state at a 2022 trial, issuing an injunction requiring corrections authorities to fix the constitutional violations.

While attorneys for prisoners say the state lacks the leadership to comply within a reasonable amount of time, the corrections department said it has transformed the prison health care system over the last two years, such as expanding access to treatments, increasing staff and opening medical housing units.

Corrections officials say the opposing side refuses to acknowledge their progress and “focus on the reputation and circumstances of the past rather than recognizing or even supporting the good work of the present.” Lawyers for the department say the agency’s leadership has been acting in good faith with the court’s orders.

In September 2019, lawyers representing the prisoners made a similar request for a takeover, but Silver shied away from it, saying she would revive that possibility if the state acts in bad faith or fails to comply with the court-ordered changes. Past receiverships have been ordered for prisons in other states. In California in 2005, a federal judge seized control of the prison medical system after finding that an average of one inmate a week was dying of medical neglect or malpractice.

The Arizona lawsuit does not cover the nearly 10,000 people incarcerated in private prisons for state convictions.

By MARCIA DUNN

NASA’s new boss blasted Boeing and the space agency Thursday for Starliner’s botched flight that left two astronauts stuck for months at the International Space Station.

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Administrator Jared Isaacman said poor leadership and decision-making at Boeing led to Starliner’s troubles. He also blamed NASA managers for failing to intervene and get Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back more quickly.

The two test pilots, now retired from NASA, spent more than nine months at the station before catching a lift back with SpaceX last March.

Isaacman said Starliner’s problems must be better understood and fixed before any more astronauts strap in.

In a sweeping and emphatic move, Isaacman upgraded the seriousness of Starliner’s troubled astronaut debut, declaring it a “Type A mishap,” something that could endanger a crew. Both the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters also involved cultural and leadership missteps. It is a mistake that Starliner was not designated a serious mishap right from the start, Isaacman said, citing internal pressure to keep Boeing on board and flights on track.

“This is just about doing the right thing,” he said. “This is about getting the record straight.”

Thruster failures and other problems almost prevented Wilmore and Williams from reaching the space station following liftoff in 2024. The thruster analyses continue by Boeing.

“We almost did have a really terrible day,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, referring to a potential loss of life.

NASA issued its 312-page Starliner report while conducting a second fueling test of its moon rocket at Kennedy Space Center. Hydrogen fuel leaks spoiled the first dress rehearsal earlier this month and stalled astronauts’ first flight to the moon since 1972.

Boeing said the findings will help the company move forward in ensuring crew safety, and stressed that the Starliner program would continue. Time is running out as NASA proceeds toward decommissioning the space station in 2030, although Isaacman, a self-financed space traveler, foresees “endless demand” for multiple pathways to orbit once private outposts are booming.

There is no timeline for when Boeing can launch Starliner on a supply run, essentially another test flight to prove its safety before astronaut flights. The grounding leaves SpaceX as the only U.S. taxi service for astronauts.

“Boeing has made substantial progress on corrective actions for technical challenges we encountered and driven significant cultural changes across the team,” Boeing said in a statement.

Even before the troubled astronaut flight, Boeing was struggling with Starliner issues. The first test flight in 2019, without anyone on board, ended up in the wrong orbit and forced a repeat mission, which had its own difficulties.

NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX in 2014, in the wake of the space shuttles’ retirement, to ferry astronauts to and from the orbiting lab. Their contracts are worth billions. SpaceX just delivered its 13th crew to the space station for NASA since 2020.

Kshatriya said the space agency must do better moving forward.

“We have to own our part of this,” he said. As for Wilmore and Williams, “We failed them.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By SOPHIA TAREEN

CHICAGO (AP) — Memorial services honoring the life of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. will be expanded beyond Chicago with events in Washington, D.C., and South Carolina, the late civil rights leader’s organization announced Thursday.

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Jackson, a protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate, died earlier this week at age 84 after battling a rare neurological disorder that affected his ability to move and talk.

Jackson will still lie in repose next week at the Chicago headquarters of his Rainbow PUSH Coalition with a public celebration of life and homegoing services to follow, though dates for Chicago events have been changed. Formal services were added, scheduled from March 1 to March 4 in Washington, D.C., and South Carolina, where Jackson was born and raised.

Rainbow PUSH did not offer further details.

Jackson’s adult children gathered outside the family home in Chicago on Wednesday, saying the funeral services would be large gatherings where everyone would be welcomed. They also vowed to continue his decades of advocacy.

“Although his body is absent from us, his spirit suffuses and infuses us, and it charges us to continue with the work,” said Santita Jackson, his eldest child.

In Chicago, a public celebration of life will be held at House of Hope, a 10,000-seat church, on March 6, followed by private homegoing services the next day at Rainbow PUSH, which will be livestreamed.

Jackson rose to prominence six decades ago as a protégé of King, joining the voting rights march King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. King later dispatched Jackson to Chicago to launch Operation Breadbasket, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference effort to pressure companies to hire Black workers. Jackson was with King on April 4, 1968, when the civil rights leader was killed.

By REGINA GARCIA CANO, Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s legislature on Thursday approved an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of politicians, activists, lawyers and many others, effectively acknowledging that the government has held hundreds of people in prison for political motivations.

The approval marks a stark turn for the South American nation, where authorities have for decades denied holding any political prisoners. It is the latest policy reversal following the stunning U.S. military raid in the country’s capital, Caracas, to capture then-President Nicolás Maduro.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who proposed the bill late last month, is expected to sign the measure.

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The bill could benefit opposition members, activists, human rights defenders, journalists and many others who were targeted by the ruling party over the past 27 years. The debate was suspended last week after lawmakers were unable to agree on some issues, including whether people who left the country to avoid detention can be granted amnesty, and laid bare the resistance from some ruling-party loyalists to see opposition members be granted relief.

Rodríguez proposed the bill weeks after the U.S. military captured Maduro on Jan. 3 in Caracas and took him to New York to face drug trafficking charges.

Venezuela’s government has been quick to comply with orders from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, including last month’s overhaul of the country’s oil

As presented last week, the bill’s purpose is to grant people “a general and full amnesty for crimes or offenses committed” during specific periods since 1999 that were marked by politically-driven conflicts in Venezuela, including “acts of politically motivated violence” in the context of the 2024 presidential election. The aftermath of that election led to protests and the arrest of more than 2,000 people, including minors.

Lawmakers voted in favor of the measure’s purpose, but they paused the debate over disagreements on who it would cover, such as people whom the government has accused of various offenses but have evaded trial by hiding in Venezuela or seeking exile abroad. Ruling party lawmakers, including Maduro’s son, insisted during last week’s debate that those individuals should appear before the justice system first to qualify for amnesty as Venezuela’s law does not allow people to be tried in absentia.

“When one sins, I don’t absolve myself at home; I must go to church, I will go to confession (and say), ’Father, I confess that I have sinned,” Nicolás Maduro Guerra said, comparing the church with Venezuela’s justice system. “Therefore, the ritual of saying, ‘I came to the rule of law, and I acknowledge that we are under the law, under strong institutions that have endured and upheld the republic’ … is important.”

His statement, however, ignores that many of the accused, including people currently in prison, often face trumped up charges, are denied attorneys and lack access to any evidence against them. It also overlooks that cases are overseen by rubber-stamping, ruling-party faithful judges.

General amnesty has long been a central demand of Venezuela’s opposition and human rights organizations, but they have viewed the proposal with cautious optimism and raised several concerns about eligibility and implementation.

Venezuela-based prisoners’ rights group Foro Penal estimates more than 600 people are in custody for political reasons.

In the days after Maduro’s capture, Rodríguez’s government announced it would release a significant number of prisoners. But relatives and human rights watchdogs have criticized the slow pace of releases. Foro Penal has tallied 448.

Families hoping for the release of their loved ones have spent days outside detention facilities. A few began a hunger strike on Saturday.