Just In } New AIDS Cases Have Level Off

 

Nation

The world's AIDS epidemic has hit a plateau, with 2.7 million people becoming newly infected each year for the past five years, according to the annual report released Monday by UNAIDS, the U.N. agency fighting the disease. Almost 7 million people are receiving treatment — more than half of them thanks to U.S. taxpayers — and that number has been steadily rising.

But it is still not close to catching up to the new infection rate: Last year, 1.35 million received treatment for the first time, meaning 200 people were newly infected for each 100 newly treated. That is an improvement over two years ago, when 250 were infected for each 100 treated.

No charges urged in failed Stevens case

Seattle— The special prosecutor who investigated the botched case against late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is not recommending criminal charges against any of the Justice Department attorneys who tried him despite finding widespread misconduct beyond what has yet been publicly revealed.

The findings in a two-and-a-half-year investigation by Washington lawyer Henry F. Schuelke III were revealed Monday in an order from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan. Sullivan wrote the investigation found that the Stevens prosecution was "permeated" by the prosecutors' concealment of evidence they collected that could have helped the senator's defense. The full 500-page report remains under seal until the Justice Department has a chance to respond, but Sullivan says he will release it publicly.

A jury convicted Stevens of seven felony counts of lying on Senate financial disclosure documents to hide hundreds of thousands of dollars in home renovations and gifts from wealthy. A few days later, Stevens lost re-election to the seat he'd held for 40 years, making him the longest-serving Republican in the Senate at the time. Sullivan dismissed the conviction after the Justice Department admitted misconduct in the case. Stevens died in a plane crash last year.

Sailors implicated in drug use, sale

San Diego— Twenty-eight sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan have beenimplicatedin an investigation into the alleged use and distribution of the designer drug "spice," a so-called fake marijuana, the Navy said Monday. Any sailor found guilty of using the drug will be booted out of the Navy, officials said.

Los Angeles— A Southern California teenager pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder for killing a gay student during a computer lab class three years ago in a plea deal that will send him to prison for 21 years and avoid a retrial. Brandon McInerney, 17, pleaded guilty to the murder charge, as well as one count each of voluntary manslaughter and use of a firearm, said Ventura County Chief Deputy District Attorney Mike Frawley. McInerney is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 19.

The case drew wide attention because of its premise: McInerney, in a rage, killed Larry King, 15, at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard because he was offended by King's dress and how the victim interacted with him.

World

Death toll from Thai flood tops 600

Bangkok— The death toll from Thailand's worst flooding in more than half a century has passed 600. The floods began in late July, fed by heavy monsoon rains and a series of tropical storms. The situation has improved dramatically in recent days and cleanup has begun in many areas, though some still face weeks more under water.

In other headlines

Capsule with three astronauts lands in Kazakhstan : A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts returning from the International Space Station touched down safely in the steppes of Kazakhstan. NASA astronaut Michael Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan's JAXA space agency landed north of the town of Arkalyk this morning after spending 165 days in space.

From Detroit News wire services