NEWS BRIEFS
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico
Ten U.S. Marines attacked outside Hard Rock Cafe in Puerto Rico by mob armed with bats and pipes
Associated Press
A mob armed with bats and pipes attacked 10 U.S. Navy Marines, leaving one with a cranial fracture and others with injuries from broken bones to minor scrapes, the Navy said yesterday.
All 10 were released from the hospital yesterday after a brawl that erupted Monday night in the colonial section of San Juan, capital of this U.S. Caribbean territory, said Lt. Corey Barker, a Navy spokesman.
The Marines - more than 60 wearing civilian clothes at the time - had just finished work as a security detachment for contested military exercises on the outlying island of Vieques.
Two Marines were arguing between themselves outside at about 11 p.m. when a mob armed with lead pipes and bats started beating them, Barker said. He did not say what the fight was about.
Eight other Marines came to their friends' defense, and the brawl developed into a large street fight involving more than two dozen people, the Navy and police said.
The attackers fled when police were called. There were no arrests.
KANSAS CITY, Mo.
Health officials begin notifying doctors in watered-down medicine case
Associated Press
Health officials mailed letters yesterday to Missouri doctors whose patients may have gotten drugs from a pharmacist who has admitted watering down medications for more than a decade.
The 184 letters - 168 to doctors and the rest to clinics - list patients named by the FBI as possibly receiving prescriptions diluted by Robert Courtney. Prosecutors say Courtney did it for profit, pocketing hundreds of dollars per dose.
Authorities announced last week that Courtney recently admitted diluting 72 drugs, dating to at least 1992 and affecting about 400 doctors and 4,200 patients. On Monday, federal investigators said they were looking into whether the dilutions may have dated back as far as 1985, when Courtney became a pharmacist.
Officials in Kansas mailed similar letters Friday to between 100 and 200 doctors, mainly in the Kansas City area.
Courtney, 49, pleaded guilty in February to 20 counts of tampering, adulterating or misbranding the chemotherapy drugs Taxol and Gemzar. The FBI now believes the watered-down drugs included antibiotics, and AIDS and anti-nausea medications.
MESA
Progress stalled at Williams Gateway, airport officials say
Associated Press
Two commercial airlines showed an interest in using Williams Gateway Airport but backed down after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, airport officials said.
The former Air Force base, which is equipped to handle commercial flights and has completed a new passenger terminal, has been trying without success to lure an airline to the airport.
"It's a matter of timing," said Wayne Balmer, Mesa's project manager for the Williams Gateway economic area. "Right now, we have the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time."
Airport officials said during a meeting with city leaders on Monday that landing commercial air traffic is still as far as two years away.
Mesa Mayor Keno Hawker, a member of the airport authority, said he thinks high-volume passenger service is more likely to pick up after the San Tan Freeway is completed in 2005. The freeway will run just north of the airport.
Meanwhile, a committee is drawing new routes for planes arriving and departing at the airport. A final plan is expected to be completed and presented in two months to the Federal Aviation Administration.
