Nation and world digest

Glaxo’s Cervarix likely to compete with Gardasil

WASHINGTON — Drugmaker Merck likely will face U.S. competition for its vaccine Gardasil, after federal experts recommended rival GlaxoSmithKline’s Cervarix also be approved to prevent the virus that causes most cervical cancers.

The FDA’s panel of vaccine experts voted overwhelmingly Wednesday that Cervarix appears safe and effective for girls and women age 10 to 25. If the FDA follows the group’s advice as it usually does, Glaxo would begin competing against Merck’s Gardasil, which has controlled the U.S. market since 2006.

But Merck won its own small victory at the meeting, as the same panel recommended Gardasil be expanded to prevent genital warts in boys, a new use for a vaccine that already posts sales of more than $1 billion.

Last year nearly 4,000 women died of cervical cancer in the U.S., less than 1 percent of all cancer related deaths.

Mom charged with murder in daughters’ deaths

LOS ANGELES — A mother accused of fatally slashing her two daughters’ throats inside their North Hollywood home has been charged with two counts of murder.

Antonia Gomez also was charged Wednesday with the special circumstance of multiple murders, making her eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

Prosecutors alleged Gomez stabbed her 11-year-old daughter Edith Moreno and her 17-year-old sister Diana Moreno on Sept. 2 before cutting herself in the arms.

Relatives told the Los Angeles Times the 38-year-old mother recently lost her job, was unable to make mortgage payments and was hospitalized for stress.

Suit over Cuban 5 case

MIAMI — A nonprofit law group Wednesday sued the U.S. government, demanding more information about contracts the government had with journalists it paid while they were reporting on the prosecution of five Cuban intelligence agents in Miami.

The lawsuit filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in Washington argues the U.S. government’s Office of Cuba Broadcasting may have gotten around federal law against domestic propaganda.

It maintains that more than a dozen journalists who covered the seven-month Cuban spy trial in Miami, which began in November 2000, also contributed on a freelance basis to the U.S. government’s Radio and TV Marti broadcasts beamed into Cuba that were highly critical of the five. The articles written by those journalists for Miami area media outlets were also highly critical of the defendants.

The five were convicted in 2001 of being unregistered foreign agents. Three also were found guilty of conspiracy to obtain military secrets, and one was convicted of murder conspiracy. Their supporters maintain they did not receive a fair trial because of strong anti-Castro sentiment in Miami. The men have been lionized in Cuba.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to hear their case, but three members of the group will be resentenced in October and could see their sentences reduced.

New series of quarters

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — Quarters dropped into fountains at Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas next year could feature the park itself.

The U.S. Mint announced Wednesday that the first in its “America the Beautiful” series of quarters will feature Hot Springs, which was set aside for preservation by the federal government in 1832. Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming will be featured second.

Other sites to be honored in the 56-coin series include Washington’s Olympic Mountains, the tallgrass prairie of Kansas and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Each state and territory will be featured in the series, which will end with Alabama’s Tuskegee Airmen memorial in early 2021.

Official: Hijacker is fanatic

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s security secretary says a Bolivian religious fanatic told police he hijacked a Mexican flight from the resort city of Cancun after receiving a divine revelation.

Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna says Jose Mar Flores, 44, told police that Wednesday’s date — 9-9-09 — is the satanic number 666 turned upside down.

Garcia Luna says Flores used a fake bomb to hijack the plane, then ordered the pilot to circle over Mexico City seven times. He said he wanted to warn Mexican President Felipe Calderon of an impending earthquake.

Police stormed the plane Wednesday after all passengers emerged unharmed.

Associated Press