Nation & World Digest

Witness: Jackson doc interrupted CPR

LOS ANGELES

Michael Jackson’s doctor halted CPR on the dying pop star and delayed calling paramedics so he could collect drug vials at the scene, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press that shed new light on the singer’s chaotic final moments.

The explosive allegation that Dr. Conrad Murray may have tried to hide evidence is likely to be a focus as prosecutors move ahead with their involuntary manslaughter case against him.

The account was given to investigators by Alberto Alvarez, Jackson’s logistics director, who was summoned to the stricken star’s side as he was dying June 25. His statement and those from two other Jackson employees also obtained by the AP paint a grisly scene in Jackson’s bedroom.

ACORN to disband

CHICAGO

The once mighty community-activist group ACORN announced Monday it is folding amid falling revenues — six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute.

Several of its largest affiliates, including ACORN New York and ACORN California, broke away this year and changed their names in a bid to ditch the tarnished image of their parent organization and restore revenue that ran dry in the wake of the video scandal.

FDA warns doctors about Glaxo vaccine

WASHINGTON

U.S. health officials urged pediatricians Monday to temporarily stop using one of two vaccines against a leading cause of diarrhea in babies, after discovering that doses of GlaxoSmithKline’s Rotarix were contaminated with bits of an apparently benign pig virus.

Glaxo’s vaccine has been used in millions of children worldwide, including 1 million in the U.S., with no signs of safety problems — and the pig virus isn’t known to cause any kind of illness in people or animals, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

But vaccines are supposed to be sterile, and because there’s a competing vaccine against diarrhea-causing rotavirus that has tested clean — Merck’s RotaTeq — the FDA decided to err on the side of caution.

Bank forgives debt of $479M for Haiti

CANCUN, Mexico

The Inter-American Development Bank said Monday it has agreed to forgive $479 million in debts owed by quake-ravaged Haiti.

Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno said the bank’s board of governors voted to forgive the debt and will offer $2 billion in financing to the Caribbean nation over the next 10 years.

The measures are meant to help Haiti recover from the magnitude-7 Jan. 12 earthquake, which killed an estimated 230,000 people.

Death-camp doctors’ documents found

WARSAW, Poland

Food coupons for some of the notorious Nazi doctors at the Auschwitz death camp — including perhaps the sadistic Dr. Joseph Mengele — have been found in the attic of a nearby house, where they had lain unseen for decades.

Also found in the attic were other documents relating to the lives of Nazi officials, including death certificates and a map.

Some sugar coupons bear the names of Horst Fischer and Fritz Klein, doctors who were executed for their crimes after the war, Adam Cyra, a historian at the Auschwitz memorial museum who is looking through the documents, said Monday.

Associated Press