U.S. to stop confiscating medication from Canada

ORLANDO, Fla. – The federal government will stop seizing small amounts of lower-priced prescription medications mailed from Canada, officials said. Since November 2005, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have seized prescription drugs that 40,000 Americans had ordered from Canada. The new policy, which takes effect Oct. 9, was announced in an e-mail from the Department of Homeland Security to congressional staff on Monday, said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. He said that the new policy will allow Americans to import small amounts of prescription drugs – roughly a 90-day supply.

New Mexico: Stunt pilot dies

An Oklahoma stunt pilot was killed when his single-engine plane crashed Wednesday while performing a loop at an air show, police said. The crash happened in Tucumcari, 108 miles west of Amarillo, Texas. Guy “Doc” Baldwin, 60, of Tulsa, Okla., lost control of the aircraft, police said. The plane, a German-made Extra 300L, left a 200-foot debris trail after impact. Baldwin was a physician and aviation medical examiner who had logged more than 4,000 hours in 35 years of flying.

D.C.: Lost baggage rate soars

Lost or mishandled bags spiked by nearly 25 percent in August as airlines struggled to handle an increase in checked luggage after authorities banned most liquids and gels from passenger cabins, according to government statistics released Wednesday. Overall mishandled bags jumped from 6.5 per 1,000 passengers in July to 8.08 in August. On Aug. 10, U.S. security officials banned most liquids and gels from the passenger cabins of aircraft, resulting in a 20 percent increase in checked baggage.

Passenger faces sex-assault charges

A woman was charged Wednesday with sexual assault after an altercation with a flight attendant on an airplane flying from Charlotte, N.C., to London, an official said. A Federal Air Marshal Service spokesman, said the woman got into an argument with a male flight attendant aboard US Airways Flight 1494. “During the altercation, she grabbed his buttocks,” he said. When the airplane landed at Gatwick Airport, Sussex police charged the woman with disrupting a flight and sexual assault, he said.

U.S. sends warning to North Korea

The Bush administration delivered a secret message to North Korea on Wednesday warning it to back down from a promised nuclear test, and said publicly that the United States would not live with a nuclear-armed North. North Korea “can have a future or it can have these weapons. It cannot have both,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Wednesday in remarks at Johns Hopkins University’s U.S.-Korea Institute. It was the toughest response yet from the Bush administration, coming two days after Pyongyang announced plans to conduct its first nuclear test.

California: Prison emergency

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Wednesday in California’s critically crowded prisons, a step that allows him to use his executive powers to ship inmates to other states. The move comes five weeks after state lawmakers failed to act on a $6 billion prison construction plan Schwarzenegger sought after calling a special session of the Legislature. California has the nation’s largest state prison population with 172,000 inmates. Its prison system is about 70 percent over capacity.

Arizona: Rapist dresses as cop

At least 10 girls and women have been raped on the Fort Apache Reservation by a man who poses as a police officer, federal authorities said. Since March, nine girls and one young woman – all American Indian – have been attacked on a trail between two housing projects between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., said officials with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. According to victims, the attacker wears a dark shirt and a dark baseball cap, both bearing “police.” Victims did not come forward because they thought their attacker was a police officer, an official said.