Massachusetts

Harvard grad student guilty of manslaughter

A Harvard graduate student was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six to eight years in prison Thursday for stabbing a young man to death in a fight that heightened the generations-old tension between Ivy Leaguers and working-class Cambridge residents.

Prosecutors had charged 26-year-old Alexander Pring-Wilson with murder in the slaying last year of Michael Colono, arguing that Pring-Wilson attacked the 18-year-old Colono for ridiculing him as he stumbled home drunk.

Pring-Wilson said he pulled a 4-inch folding knife and stabbed Colono in self-defense after Colono and his cousin brutally beat him.

Washington, D.C.

Chemical may protect women from HIV

Scientists have long sought a vaginal gel that women could apply before sex to block the AIDS virus. Now they’ve found a new lead: a chemical specially designed to thwart the way HIV penetrates women’s cells.

The experimental drug isn’t ready for human testing yet, but it provided potent protection to female monkeys exposed to large amounts of an AIDS virus, researchers report Thursday in the journal Science.

The chemical prevented HIV from invading vaginal tissue by blocking its preferred cellular doorway, the first evidence that targeting that portal is sufficient to prevent infection.

AIDS specialists called the discovery a promising step in the quest for so-called topical microbicides, gels or creams that women could use to protect themselves without having to get a man to agree to a condom.

Washington, D.C.

Osteoporosis risk grows

Half of Americans older than 50 will be at risk of fractures from too-thin bones by 2020, the surgeon general warned Thursday, urging people to get more calcium, vitamin D and exercise to avoid crippling osteoporosis.

The bone-thinning disease is on the rise as the population grays — but weak bones aren’t a natural consequence of aging, Surgeon General Richard Carmona said.

Osteoporosis affects an estimated 10 million Americans, and each year, about 1.5 million suffer a fracture as a result. Another 34 million Americans have less severe bone-thinning but enough to risk a fracture.

A brochure on bone health is available at www.surgeongeneral.gov or calling toll-free (866) 718-BONE.

Washington, D.C.

Study: Amphibians threatened worldwide

Amphibians are rapidly becoming threatened worldwide, a new study shows.

The rapid decline of animals like toads and salamanders is raising concerns as it worsens, a team of researchers reported Thursday.

There are a variety of reasons for some losses, while others remain a mystery, the group reports in a paper being published online by the journal Science.

Amphibians have porous skins and narrow environmental requirements, and their decline may be an indication that something sinister is under way in the environment.

The researchers reported that 1,856 species, 32.5 percent of the known species of amphibians, are “globally threatened,” meaning they fall into the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s categories of vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. By comparison, 12 percent of bird species and 23 percent of mammal species are threatened.

London

New malaria vaccine shows promise

Scientists have made important progress in the quest for a malaria vaccine, showing for the first time that childhood shots can prevent nearly one-third of cases and slash the risk of severe, life-threatening attacks by almost two-thirds.

Experts say the findings, outlined this week in The Lancet medical journal, provide robust evidence that the dream of developing a vaccine that will get babies through the most vulnerable period of infancy could become a reality by the end of the decade.

Researchers have been working on a malaria vaccine for more than 20 years, but until now none of the candidates showed promise. If this research bears fruit, it would be the first human vaccine against a parasite.

Malaria kills a child every 30 seconds and poses a threat to half of all people on the planet. About 500 million episodes of malaria occur every year, mostly in the developing world. It is the leading killer of children under 5 in sub-Saharan Africa.

West Bank

1 million Palestinians register for election

More than 1 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have registered to vote in upcoming municipal and general elections, officials said Thursday, completing the first phase in an often delayed election process.

The voter registration drive launched by the Palestinian Authority last month officially ended Thursday, although officials at the Central Election Commission said 16 of its offices would remain open.

In the first days of the drive, few of the 1.8 million eligible voters turned out to register, citing frustration with official corruption and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s inability to bring an end to the conflict with Israel.

The commission embarked on a wide advertising campaign, and the Islamic Hamas called on its supporters to register in large numbers.

Municipal elections are scheduled to begin Dec. 9. No date has been set for parliamentary and presidential elections.

Cambodia

King’s son tapped as next monarch

Retiring King Norodom Sihanouk’s son, a former ballet dancer and U.N. cultural ambassador, was officially confirmed Thursday to succeed his father on the throne, assuring the continuation of the ancient monarchy.

Prince Norodom Sihamoni, who has spent much of his life abroad, was unanimously approved by a nine-member Throne Council.

The meeting was triggered by the 81-year-old Sihanouk’s surprise abdication last week for health reasons. His ailments during the past decade have included colon cancer, diabetes, hypertension and two strokes.

Sihanouk and Prime Minister Hun Sen had warned that failure to choose a new king by Thursday could have threatened the continued existence of the monarchy and might destabilize this poor country of 13 million people.

Sihamoni, 51, is with Sihanouk in Beijing, where the monarch has been receiving medical treatment. They are expected to return Wednesday to Cambodia, and a coronation ceremony is planned for Oct. 29.

Afghanistan

Incumbent Karzai leads early ballot count

With just a tiny fraction of votes counted, early results from Afghanistan’s landmark presidential election show Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-backed incumbent, with a strong lead Thursday, nearly a week after ballots were cast.

With 25,123 ballots counted — excluding 452 invalid ones — Karzai held 58.8 percent of the vote. He’s followed by Yunus Qanooni, Karzai’s former minister of education, with 16.8 percent.

In third place was Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum with 12.8 percent.

Nearly 8 million people were estimated to have cast ballots in Saturday’s historic election. About 10.5 million had registered.

Elections officials wouldn’t say when they would declare a winner, but they cautioned that the counting — all done by hand — could take up to three weeks. Counting was to be suspended today with the start of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.

Washington, D.C.

FCC won’t block airing of anti-Kerry film

The Federal Communications Commission won’t intervene to stop a broadcast company’s plans to air a critical documentary about John Kerry’s anti-Vietnam War activities on dozens of TV stations, the agency’s chairman said Thursday.

“Don’t look to us to block the airing of a program,” Michael Powell said. “I don’t know of any precedent in which the commission could do that.”

Eighteen senators, all Democrats, wrote to Powell this week and asked him to investigate Sinclair Broadcast Group’s plan to run the program, “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal,” two weeks before the Nov. 2 election.

Powell said there were no federal rules that would allow the agency to prevent the program.

Washington, D.C.

Republicans criticize Democratic voting guide

A Democratic Party manual tells operatives in battleground states how to combat voter intimidation, but Republicans complained Thursday that the guidelines encourage Democrats to use scare tactics.

The 66-page document distributed by the Democratic National Committee is a guide that details state law on absentee ballots, provisional voting and polling station rules. One section describes the ways minority voters can be intimidated and discusses what to do even if no problems have occurred.

“If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a ‘pre-emptive strike’ (particularly well-suited to states in which these techniques have been tried in the past),” the manual says.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie said such language crossed the line by instructing Democrats “to make charges they know to be false and to manipulate the media into printing and repeating the false charges in newspapers around the country.”

DNC spokesman Jano Cabrera accused the GOP of taking words out of context.

Los Angeles

Final debate attracts second-largest audience

Even a Yankees-Red Sox playoff game was no match for the TV audience’s interest in the final debate between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry.

An estimated 51.2 million viewers watched the candidates in Wednesday’s debate, according to Nielsen Media Research figures released Thursday.

That exceeded the 46.7 million who watched the second debate on Oct. 8 but fell short of the 62.5 million who saw the Sept. 30 match.

The first two debates, however, were carried by seven networks, including the cable news channels, while the third was only on six — the Fox network was broadcasting American and National League championship games.

Washington, D.C.

Kerry ads outnumber Bush’s, for now

Sen. John Kerry and the Democratic Party are running more commercials than President Bush and the Republican National Committee so far this week in many states where both sides are concentrating their television advertising.

But the Democratic advantage probably will be fleeting. Both campaigns are adjusting their advertising now that the race has entered the homestretch.

The race is now focused on 10 states: Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Minnesota. While Michigan, Oregon and Maine still are seeing heavy levels of advertising from both sides, those states appear to be leaning toward Kerry.

When ads by liberal and conservative outside groups in those states are excluded, Democrats have an edge over Republicans on the air in the top prizes of the Nov. 2 election — vote-rich Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania — as well as in four Midwest states, New Mexico and Maine, according to an Associated Press analysis.

Los Angeles

Genesis problem focuses on gravity-switch device

NASA’s Genesis space capsule crashed last month in the Utah desert because a critical piece of equipment that was supposed to trigger the release of two parachutes was apparently installed backward, NASA officials said Thursday.

The finding, if verified, would be a blow to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and its major contractor on the $264 million Genesis mission, Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp., which was also involved in the 1999 loss of NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter because of a mix-up between English and metric units.

Taiwan

Strong earthquake shakes Taiwan’s capital at midday

A strong earthquake rocked Taiwan’s capital during the lunch rush today, shaking tall buildings for about a minute.

The magnitude-7.0 quake’s epicenter was under the ocean about 70 miles east of Taiwan’s east coast harbor town of Su’ao, the Central Weather Bureau said. No immediate information about damage or casualties was available.

On the city’s streets, the tremor caused sidewalks to go up and down slightly.

Washington, D.C.

Report: Young driver deaths dropped in 2003

Fewer young drivers died in accidents in 2003 than the year before, but the total still was 429 more than a decade earlier, the government reported.

The rise in fatalities from 1993 to 2003 among drivers aged 15 to 20 likely is related to an increase in miles traveled. More motorists are dying but people on average are covering more ground, which explains why the nation’s death rate per vehicle miles traveled has fallen steadily over the decade.

Some 3,657 young drivers died in 2003, compared with 3,827 the previous year — a decline of 170, or 4.4 percent, according to data being released today by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The figure for 1993 was 3,228 deaths, or 13 percent less than last year.

Washington, D.C.

Officer who oversaw Abu Ghraib may be promoted

The Pentagon plans to promote Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former head of military operations in Iraq, risking a confrontation with members of Congress because of the prison abuses that occurred during his tenure.

Senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, privately have told colleagues they are determined to pin a fourth star on Sanchez, two senior defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said this week.

Rumsfeld and others recognize that Sanchez remains politically “radioactive,” in the words of a third senior defense official, and would wait until after the Nov. 2 presidential election before putting his name forward. Among his duties in Iraq, Sanchez oversaw all detention facilities, including the Abu Ghraib prison.