Chicago

Report: Pap tests not needed every year

The Pap test for cervical cancer, the nation’s most commonly used cancer-screening test, can be done every three years instead of annually if a woman has no previous negative findings, according to an article in Wednesday’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The findings are sure to intensify the growing debate about Pap tests, which have a significant problem with false positives — misidentifying normal tissue as abnormal — that leads many women to have unnecessary repeat tests, colposcopy exams and biopsies of cervical tissue.

The American Cancer Society and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists already issued new guidelines advising women who have not previously been at risk for cervical cancer that it is safe to have Pap tests every three years.

Dallas

Birth-defects center to be first nationwide

A new research center at a university hospital will be the nation’s first dedicated solely to preventing and seeking cures for birth defects.

The center, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, was created with $1 million from the March of Dimes and $2 million in private donations.

The university’s medical campus is an ideal location for the center because of its related research in children’s cancer, developmental biology and reproductive biology, university President Kern Wildenthal said at reception for dignitaries and contributors.

Birth defects are on the rise, both in the United States and worldwide. Premature births have risen 20 percent in the past 20 years, with about 1,280 premature babies born daily worldwide, according to the March of Dimes.

Washington, D.C.

Security memo warns of terror threat

The Department of Homeland Security has warned airlines, local police and emergency personnel across the country to be on heightened alert after U.S. intelligence recently received “multiple reports (that) indicate terrorists may be poised to conduct simultaneous attacks in the near term against U.S. interests” here or overseas, according to an agency memo.

Friday’s “information circular” distributed to thousands of security and law enforcement officials, but not publicly released, repeats earlier warnings about terrorists’ plans to attack “soft targets,” such as hotels and apartments.

The advisory says the agency does not know the exact timing, targets or locations of the possible attacks.

Agency spokesman Brian Roerhkasse downplayed the memo. He said it was not based on new intelligence but was meant to maintain the awareness of nationwide security concerns.

Iran

Nobel winner wants political detainees freed

Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi demanded Wednesday that Iran’s rulers free all political prisoners and detainees.

“I hope political prisoners and journalists would be freed as soon as possible,” Ebadi said at her first news conference in Iran since she won the prize in a surprise decision on Friday.

Dozens of political advocates, journalists and others have been jailed on vague charges of working against the Islamic establishment.

Ebadi, 56, a lawyer and rights activist, is hailed by reformers as a new beacon for their embattled effort to weaken the clerics’ monopoly on power.

Afghanistan

Seven Taliban killed, 12 captured in fighting

Afghan soldiers backed by U.S. troops and helicopters have killed seven Taliban and captured 12 others during a raid in southern Afghanistan, a police chief said Wednesday.

Three Afghan soldiers also died and five were wounded in two days of fighting in the mountainous Chaar Cheno district, about 90 miles northeast of Kandahar, Police Chief Haji Mohammed Akhtar said.

The operation, which involved hundreds of Afghan soldiers, was a success, he said. It was not immediately clear if any important Taliban were among the dead or captured.