Nation Digest: Justice Ginsburg Had Bad Reaction to Two Medications

SUPREME COURT

Ginsburg Hospitalized For Reaction to Drugs

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized overnight and released Thursday morning because of an adverse reaction to the combination of a prescription sleeping aid and an over-the-counter cold medication, the Supreme Court public information office said.

It is the second time in less than a month that the 76-year-old Ginsburg has been hospitalized, although for different reasons. She spent the night at Washington Hospital Center on Sept. 24 after falling ill from an intravenous treatment for anemia.

The court said Thursday that Ginsburg became extremely drowsy after taking the combination of medicines and that she fell from her seat before takeoff on an overnight flight to London. Paramedics took Ginsburg from the plane to the hospital about 11:15 p.m.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer was with Ginsburg at the time and left the plane with her. They were bound for London to celebrate the creation of that country's supreme court.

Ginsburg has been in precarious health this year. Doctors removed her spleen and a tiny cancerous tumor on her pancreas in February. Ginsburg has said she is cancer-free and, as a precaution, underwent chemotherapy.

-- Robert Barnes

GUANTANAMO BAY

Bid to Block Transfers To U.S. Is Thwarted

Handing President Obama a partial victory in his effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, House Democrats on Thursday repelled a Republican effort to block transfer of any of the detainees to the United States.

Instead, by a 224 to 193 vote, the House stood by a Democratic plan to allow suspected enemy combatants held at the controversial facility in Cuba to be shipped to U.S. soil -- but only to be prosecuted for their suspected crimes.

The Guantanamo restrictions were attached by House-Senate negotiators on a $42.8 billion homeland security appropriations bill.

Obama has ordered the facility closed in January but has yet to offer a plan to meet his deadline.

-- Associated Press