WASHINGTON, D.C.

Medicare lottery to give drug coverage to 50,000 this year

Medicare is planning a lottery later this year for people with cancer, multiple sclerosis and several other diseases. For the 50,000 winners, the government will start helping pay for their medicine, but more than 450,000 others must wait until 2006.

Congress wrote the program into last year’s Medicare prescription drug law to give a head start to people who take oral cancer drugs that can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year. Treatments for MS, rheumatoid arthritis and six other illnesses that can be administered at home also will be covered, the Bush administration announced Thursday. Similar drugs often are paid for when dispensed in doctors’ offices and hospitals.

NEW ORLEANS

Pilot in accidental bombing won’t be court-martialed

The Air Force has decided not to court-martial a U.S. fighter pilot who mistakenly dropped a 500-pound, laser-guided bomb that killed four Canadians in Afghanistan in 2002.

Maj. Harry Schmidt, 37, will face nonjudicial punishment, and four dereliction-of-duty charges against him will be dismissed in court, the Air Force said Thursday.

He could face punishment including 30 days of confinement or loss of one month’s pay, about $5,600, Air Force spokeswoman Col. Alvina Mitchell said.

Schmidt originally was charged with manslaughter and aggravated assault and faced up to 64 years in prison. Military officials recommended against a court-martial on those charges last June, saying Schmidt could face nonjudicial punishment instead.

DENVER

Two soldiers will be charged in death of Iraqi general

The military plans to charge two intelligence soldiers in the suffocation death of an Iraqi general during an interrogation last fall, according to a newspaper report.

Charges of negligent homicide and involuntary manslaughter will be filed against Chief Warrant Officers Lewis Welshofer and Jeff Williams, The Denver Post reported in Thursday editions, citing a Pentagon document obtained by the newspaper.

Welshofer, a member of the 66th Military Intelligence Group, has said he did nothing wrong. He is accused of sitting on the chest of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush and covering his mouth while the air force commander was wrapped in a sleeping bag, according to the document.

Mowhoush, 57, died during interrogation Nov. 26 at Qaim, Iraq.

Turkey

Bomb blast kills four, raising security fears over summit

Bombs shattered a bus Thursday and exploded outside a hotel where President Bush is to stay this weekend, back-to-back attacks that killed four people, wounded 17 and heightened security concerns over an upcoming NATO summit.

Authorities said militant leftists were suspected in the blasts in Istanbul, which killed four people and wounded 14, and an earlier attack outside a luxury hotel in Ankara that injured three others, including two police officers. Three suspects were detained in Istanbul, police said.

The blasts were the latest in a series of explosions — most of them small, without casualties — ahead of the summit. Bush arrives Saturday night in Ankara to meet with Turkish leaders before heading to the summit in Istanbul.