VA says personal data for 38,000 is missing

As many as 38,000 veterans may be at risk of identity theft because a Veterans Affairs Department subcontractor lost a desktop computer containing their sensitive personal data. VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said that Unisys Corp., a subcontractor hired to assist in insurance collections for VA medical centers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, reported the missing computer last Thursday. The computer was being used in Unisys's offices in Reston, Va. It is not yet known what happened to the computer, Nicholson said. (AP)

A medicine used to treat patients with Alzheimer's disease may point the way to better care in cases of poisoning by nerve agents and pesticides. Galantamine, approved for treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer's, protected guinea pigs from the effects of compounds used in pesticides and some poisons that attack the nervous system, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine report in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (AP)

Arizona

YUMA -- A sport utility vehicle crowded with suspected illegal immigrants overturned yesterday in an attempt to outrun Border Patrol agents, killing nine people and injuring at least 12 others, officials said. Five of the injured, including a pregnant woman, were in critical condition, most with head trauma, hospital officials said. The Chevy Suburban was carrying as many as 22 people when the driver had tried to circumvent a checkpoint on the highway, Border Patrol spokesman Lloyd Frers said. With agents in pursuit, the driver attempted to make a U-turn and rolled over, Frers said. He did not know how fast either vehicle was traveling. (AP)

Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS -- Prosecutors from outside the metropolitan area have been brought into New Orleans to help clear a huge backlog of cases, a special panel working on the city's troubled criminal justice system said yesterday. The panel, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee appointed by Mayor Ray Nagin, said prosecutors from neighboring Jefferson Parish are helping the Orleans Parish district attorney's office screen arrests for possible prosecutions as the city struggles to recover from Hurricane Katrina. The committee also is pushing for more private lawyers to work as public defenders for poor defendants. (AP)