JUDGE STOPS CLOSING OF COUNTY REHAB CENTER

A federal judge stopped the county from immediately closing a county-run
rehabilitation center finding that ``many of the needs of these patients
and hundreds like them, could not and would not be met.''

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ordered a temporary injunction
Tuesday in response to a lawsuit filed by the Western Law Center for
Disability Rights and other advocacy groups for the disabled.

County officials had planned to close 150-bed Rancho Los Amigos National
Rehabilitation Center in Downey on June 30 to save $58.6 million in the
county's Department of Health Service budget.