Las Vegas Shooting Launches Multi-State Manhunt

An argument in the valet area of a Las Vegas hotel led to a deadly drive-by shooting on the occupants of a Maserati on Vegas' glitzy strip, initiating a multi-state manhunt for the black Range Rover from which the shots were fired.

Three people were left dead in the attack, including two who died when their taxi was struck by the careening sports car and exploded into flames.

"What happened is not just tragic, but underscores the level of violence we see sometimes here in Las Vegas as well as across America," Las Vegas Metropolitan Sheriff Doug Gillespie said at a news conference today. "Clearly, the suspects in this shooting have no regard for the lives and safety of others."

The altercation took place in the valet area of the Aria resort and casino. Gillespie said there is currently "no indication" what the squabble was about.

Gillespie said that authorities do not know how many people are in the SUV, but that they are considered armed and dangerous. He warned members of the public to stay away from it.

"You should not take action," he said. "Instead, call your local police department and alert them to the whereabouts of the suspect vehicle."

Authorities in Nevada, Utah, Arizona and California are all on alert for the car.

"These individuals will be found," Gillespie said. "They will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun/AP Photo

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The Range Rover SUV shot at two people in the Maserati, which caused a multi-car crash. Police have not released the model of the Maserati, but the price of a new Maserati ranges from $123,000 to $142,000.

Police said that they believe a group of men riding in a black Range Rover Sport SUV pulled up alongside the Maserati around 4:20 a.m. today and fired shots into the car, striking the driver and passenger, according to Officer Jose Hernandez of the Las Vegas Metropolitan police department.

The Maserati then swerved through an intersection, hitting at least four other cars. One car that was struck, a taxi with a driver and passenger in it, caught on fire and burst into flames, trapping both occupants, Hernandez said.

The SUV then fled the scene, according to cops.

Gillespie said investigators are in the process of gathering video footage from hotels, casinos and the taxi cabs that were at the intersection.

The driver of the Maserati died from his gunshot wounds at University Medical Center shortly after the shooting, according to Sgt. John Sheahan.

The driver and passenger of the taxi both died in the car fire.

At least three individuals, including the passenger of the Maserati, were injured during the shooting and car crashes and taken to UMC hospital for treatment.

Authorities said the Maserati passenger, identified only as a man, sustained only a minor injury to his arm. He is speaking to and cooperating with police.

They do not yet know whether the cars had local plates or were from out of state.

No bystanders were hit by gunfire, Hernandez said.

"We're currently looking for a black Range Rover Sport, with large black rims and some sort of dealership advertising or advertisement plates," Hernandez said. "This is an armed and dangerous vehicle."

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority had no immediate comment about the safety of tourists in the wake of the shooting today.

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French general urges EU to equip "impoverished" Mali army

BAMAKO, Mali (Reuters) - The European Union should complement a mission to train Mali's army, routed by rebels last year, by providing equipment from uniforms to vehicles and communications technology, a French general said on Wednesday.

General Francois Lecointre, appointed to head the EU training mission to Mali (EUTM) that was formally launched this week, said in Bamako equipping the "very impoverished" and disorganized Malian army was as important as training it.

Europe, along with the United States, has backed the French-led military intervention in Mali which since January 11 has driven al Qaeda-allied Islamist insurgents out of the main northern towns into remote mountains near Algeria's border.

European governments have ruled out sending combat troops to join French and African soldiers pursuing the Islamist rebels.

But the EU is providing a 500-strong multinational training force that will give military instruction to Malian soldiers for an initial period of 15 months at an estimated cost of 12.3 million euros ($16.45 million).

While hailing what he called the EU's "courageous, novel, historic" decision to support Mali, Lecointre told a news conference the Malian army's lack of equipment was a problem.

"I know the Malian state is poor, but the Malian army is more than poor," the French general told a news conference, adding that it urgently needed everything from uniforms and weapons to vehicles and communications equipment.

Last year, when Tuareg separatist forces swelled by weapons and fighters from the Libyan conflict swept out of the northern deserts, a demoralized and poorly-led Malian army collapsed and fled before them, abandoning arms and vehicles.

Mali's military was further shaken by a March 22 coup by junior officers who toppled President Amadou Toumani Toure, sowing division among rival army factions. Islamist radicals allied to al Qaeda later hijacked the victorious Tuareg rebellion to occupy the northern half of the country.

In a fast-charging military campaign led by Paris, French and African troops have driven the jihadists out of principal northern towns like Gao and Timbuktu, and are fighting the rebels in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.

HUMAN RIGHTS INSTRUCTION

Flanked by Mali's armed forces chief, General Ibrahima Dembele, Lecointre said he was disappointed that a meeting of international donors last month pledged funds for an African military force, known as AFISMA, being deployed in Mali, but included "very few" contributions for the Malian army itself.

"The European Union needs to invest today in the equipping of the Malian army and not just in its training," the general said, adding he would make this point strongly in a report to EU member state representatives early next month.

Asked how much re-equipping the army would cost, he said it would be "much more" than the 12 million euros of EU financing for the training mission, but could not give a precise estimate.

Starting early in April, the EU mission will start instructing Malian soldiers with a plan to train four new battalions of 600-700 members each, formed from existing enlisted men and new recruits.

Lecointre said the EU training would include instruction in human rights. Demands for this increased after allegations by Malian civilians and international human rights groups that Malian soldiers were executing Tuaregs and Arabs accused of collaborating with Islamist rebels.

The European training contingent is drawn from a range of European countries, but the main contributors would be France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain, EUTM officers said.

Mali's army has received foreign training before - several battalions that fled before the rebels last year were trained by the U.S. military and the leader of the March 22 coup, Captain Amadou Sanogo, attended training courses in the United States.

Dembele said U.S. training failed to forge cohesion among Malian units and he hoped the EU training would achieve this.

The United States, which halted direct support for the Malian military after last year's coup, could eventually resume aid if planned national elections in July fully restore democracy to the West African country.

Washington is providing airlift, refuelling and intelligence support to the French-led military intervention in Mali. ($1 = 0.7479 euros)

(Reporting by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Jason Webb)

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Qantas reports sharp rise in first-half profits

SYDNEY: Australian flag carrier Qantas on Thursday reported that first-half net profit more than doubled to A$111 million (US$114 million), also announcing an upgrade to its fleet.

The result in the six months to December 31 was up 164 percent on the same period in the previous year and in line with guidance, "despite challenging conditions in international and domestic air travel markets."

Underlying profit before tax -- the airline's preferred measure of financial performance -- was A$223 million, up 10 percent.

Qantas also announced an order for five new Boeing 737-800s and the upgrade of 20 Airbus A330-200s and 10 A330-300s.

The additional Boeing 737-800 aircraft are for the flag carrier's domestic service and for delivery during 2014, the company said in a statement, adding that leases on two existing B737-800s would be extended this year.

"The refurbished aircraft will give Qantas International a truly world-class product in global aviation's most dynamic and competitive market," chief executive Alan Joyce told a press conference.

"Growing with Asia is a major priority for the Qantas Group and this investment underpins our commitment to the region."

Joyce said: "Older narrow body Boeing 737-400s will be phased out by the end of 2013 and Boeing 767s by mid-2015.

"We are simplifying our fleet and making better use of the greater flexibility and higher frequencies that the B737-800s provide, while investing in what will be the best domestic onboard product anywhere in the world with the A330s."

The A330 reconfigurations and new orders will not affect planned capital expenditure of A$1.6 billion in 2012/13 and A$1.5 billion in 2013/14.

However, Qantas International reported an underlying before-tax loss of A$91 million in the six-month period, an improvement of A$171 million.

"Qantas International is well advanced in its turnaround plan," Joyce said.

"The 65 per cent improvement in Qantas International's underlying EBIT is testament to the steps taken to remove cost from the businesses, from closing down loss-making routes to retiring aircraft and consolidating operations."

Qantas is planning to broaden its reach in Asia as part of a strategy to turn around its struggling international arm.

The move is a consequence of its global alliance with Dubai-based Emirates, which means services to Asia will no longer be tied to onward links to Europe.

New direct destinations from Australia being considered include Beijing, Seoul, Mumbai, Delhi and Tokyo-Haneda at the same time as increasing capacity and frequency of flights to Hong Kong and Singapore.

Australia's competition watchdog last month gave Qantas and Emirates permission to launch their alliance in which the airlines will coordinate ticket prices and flight schedules.

Qantas will shift its hub for European flights to Dubai from Singapore and end a partnership with British Airways. The tie-up is seen as vital to the sustainability of Qantas, which last year posted its first annual deficit since privatisation in 1995 due to tough regional competition and high fuel costs.

- AFP/ac

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West Bengal govt plans to depoliticize students' union polls

KOLKATA: Increasing incidence of violence on campuses in West Bengal has forced the Mamata Banerjee government to explore ways to depoliticise students' union elections. The state education department has drawn up a draft guideline that proposes to delink student bodies from political parties and make college union polls a 'once-in-two-years' event.

Education minister Bratya Basu is expected to submit the draft to chief minister Mamata Banerjee early next week. "Only after the chief minister's go-ahead, a final draft will be prepared and placed before the cabinet for approval," Basu told TOI on Wednesday.

The proposal comes barely a week after a policeman was shot dead during clashes between students' groups in a city college.

Calcutta University vice-chancellor Suranjan Das, higher education council chairman Sugata Marjit and the education minister have put their heads together to draw up the draft which will be put on the higher education department website on Thursday for stakeholders to give their suggestions.

The guidelines loosely follow the model of Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu) where the student union has been replaced by a senate with several associate societies or clubs. The move has gone a long way in calming the restive Besu campus.

The latest move has been welcomed by academics. "This is an excellent attempt by the education minister. All my life, I have tried to propagate the idea to delink college politics from party politics. This is a move in the right direction. Now, the question is to implement the draft proposals," said former principal of Presidency College Amal Mukhopadhyay.

According to the draft, college elections will not be fought on political symbols. The student union will be renamed student council and its president will be nominated by the senior most teacher of the college. The vice-president will be nominated by the teachers' council. In case of universities, the vice-chancellor will select the president. The two vice-presidents will be nominated by the executive council and the court - the two top bodies in university administration.

The draft provides for election to the post of general secretary, assistant general secretary and five other secretaries who would look after student activities such as culture, drama, sports, etc. All students would either vote to elect these representatives as in the case of Jawaharlal Nehru University or Jadavpur University or the general secretary would be elected from among class representatives as is done in Calcutta University.

In keeping with the recommendations of the Lyngdoh Commission, an election observer will oversee the process and complete it within a month. The observer may wind up the entire process within 15 days, if he deems it fit.

Primacy has been given to the elected representatives. The elected general secretary will represent students in the college governing body while the general secretary of the students' council will make way to the university's highest body - the executive council.

The purpose is to integrate the students' bodies in the overall academic system rather than turning them into power centres of political parties.

Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad leader Shanku Deb Panda, however, reacted cautiously to the move. "We will have to see how far the guidelines can be implemented," he said.

"I have already sent the draft of the students' senate in Besu to the committee formed by the state government and our ideas have been appreciated. We will now wait to read the draft as prepared by the higher education department," said Ajay Ray, vice-chancellor of Besu.

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Scientists use 3-D printing to help grow an ear

WASHINGTON (AP) — Printing out body parts? Cornell University researchers showed it's possible by creating a replacement ear using a 3-D printer and injections of living cells.

The work reported Wednesday is a first step toward one day growing customized new ears for children born with malformed ones, or people who lose one to accident or disease.

It's part of the hot field of tissue regeneration, trying to regrow all kinds of body parts. Scientists hope using 3-D printing technology might offer a speedier method with more lifelike results.

If it pans out, "this enables us to rapidly customize implants for whoever needs them," said Cornell biomedical engineer Lawrence Bonassar, who co-authored the research published online in the journal PLoS One.

This first-step work crafted a human-shaped ear that grew with cartilage from a cow, easier to obtain than human cartilage, especially the uniquely flexible kind that makes up ears. Study co-author Dr. Jason Spector of Weill Cornell Medical Center is working on the next step — how to cultivate enough of a child's remaining ear cartilage in the lab to grow an entirely new ear that could be implanted in the right spot.

Wednesday's report is "a nice advancement," said Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, who wasn't involved in the new research.

Three-dimensional printers, which gradually layer materials to form shapes, are widely used in manufacturing. For medicine, Atala said the ear work is part of broader research that shows "the technology now is at the point where we can in fact print these 3-dimensional structures and they do become functional over time."

Today, people who need a new ear often turn to prosthetics that require a rod to fasten to the head. For children, doctors sometimes fashion a new ear from the stiffer cartilage surrounding ribs, but it's a big operation. Spector said the end result seldom looks completely natural. Hence the quest to use a patient's own cells to grow a replacement ear.

The Cornell team started with a 3-D camera that rapidly rotates around a child's head for a picture of the existing ear to match. It beams the ear's geometry into a computer, without the mess of a traditional mold or the radiation if CT scans were used to measure ear anatomy.

"Kids aren't afraid of it," said Bonassar, who used his then-5-year-old twin daughters' healthy ears as models.

From that image, the 3-D printer produced a soft mold of the ear. Bonassar injected it with a special collagen gel that's full of cow cells that produce cartilage — forming a scaffolding. Over the next few weeks, cartilage grew to replace the collagen. At three months, it appeared to be a flexible and workable outer ear, the study concluded.

Now Bonassar's team can do the process even faster by using the living cells in that collagen gel as the printer's "ink." The 3-D technology directly layers the gel into just the right ear shape for cartilage to cover, without having to make a mold first.

The next step is to use a patient's own cells in the 3-D printing process. Spector, a reconstructive surgeon, is focusing on children born without a fully developed external ear, a condition called microtia. They have some ear cartilage-producing cells in that tissue, just not enough. So he's experimenting with ways to boost those cells in the lab, "so we can grow enough of them from that patient to make an ear," he explained.

That hurdle aside, cartilage may be the tissue most amenable to growing with the help of 3-D printing technology, he said. That's because cartilage doesn't need blood vessels growing inside it to survive.

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Armstrong Snubs Offer From Anti-Doping Officials

Lance Armstrong has turned down what may be his last chance at reducing his lifetime sporting ban.

Armstrong has already admitted in an interview with Oprah Winfrey to a career fueled by doping and deceit. But to get a break from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, all he had to do was tell his story to those who police sports doping. The deadline was today, and Armstrong now says he won't do it.

"For several reasons, Lance will not participate in USADA's efforts to selectively conduct American prosecutions that only demonize selected individuals while failing to address the 95 percent of the sport over which USADA has no jurisdiction," said Tim Herman, Armstrong's longtime lawyer. "Lance is willing to cooperate fully and has been very clear: He will be the first man through the door, and once inside will answer every question, at an international tribunal formed to comprehensively address pro cycling."

But the "international tribunal" Armstrong is anxious to cooperate with has one major problem: It doesn't exist.

The UCI, cycling's governing body, has talked about forming a "truth and reconciliation" commission, but the World Anti-Doping Agency has resisted, citing serious concerns about the UCI and its leadership.

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Livestrong, Elizabeth Kreutz/AP Photo

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U.S. Anti-Doping Agency officials seemed stunned by Armstrong's decision simply to walk away.

"Over the last few weeks, he [Armstrong] has led us to believe that he wanted to come in and assist USADA, but was worried of potential criminal and civil liability if he did so," said Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. "Today, we learned from the media that Mr. Armstrong is choosing not to come in and be truthful and that he will not take the opportunity to work toward righting his wrongs in sport."

Armstrong's ongoing saga plays out amid a backdrop of serious legal problems.

Sources believe one reason Armstrong wants to testify to an international tribunal, rather than USADA, is because perjury charges don't apply if Armstrong lies to a foreign agency, they told ABC News.

While Armstrong has admitted doping, he has not given up any details, including the people and methods required to pull off one of the greatest scandals in all of sport.

Armstrong is facing several multimillion-dollar lawsuits right now, but his biggest problems may be on the horizon. As ABC News first reported, a high-level source said a criminal investigation is ongoing. And the Department of Justice also reportedly is considering joining a whistleblower lawsuit claiming the U.S. Postal Service was defrauded out of millions of dollars paid to sponsor Armstrong's cycling team.

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Syria "Scud-type" missile said to kill 20 in Aleppo

AMMAN (Reuters) - A Syrian missile killed at least 20 people in a rebel-held district of Aleppo on Tuesday, opposition activists said, as the army turns to longer-range weapons after losing bases in the country's second-largest city.

The use of what opposition activists said was a large missile of the same type as Russian-made Scuds against an Aleppo residential district came after rebels overran army bases over the past two months from which troops had fired artillery.

As the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, now a civil war, nears its two-year mark, rebels also landed three mortar bombs in the rarely-used presidential palace compound in the capital Damascus, opposition activists said on Tuesday.

The United Nations estimates 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict between largely Sunni Muslim rebels and Assad's supporters among his minority Alawite sect. An international diplomatic deadlock has prevented intervention, as the war worsens sectarian tensions throughout the Middle East.

A Russian official said on Tuesday that Moscow, which is a long-time ally of Damascus, would not immediately back U.N. investigators' calls for some Syrian leaders to face the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

Moscow has blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have increased pressure on Assad.

Casualties are not only being caused directly by fighting, but also by disruption to infrastructure and Syria's economy.

An estimated 2,500 people in a rebel-held area of northeastern Deir al-Zor province have been infected with typhoid, which causes diarrhea and can be fatal, due to drinking contaminated water from the Euphrates River, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

"There is not enough fuel or electricity to run the pumps so people drink water from the Euphrates which is contaminated, probably with sewage," the WHO representative in Syria, Elisabeth Hoff, told Reuters by telephone.

The WHO had no confirmed reports of deaths so far.

BURIED UNDER RUBBLE

In northern Aleppo, opposition activists said 25 people were missing under rubble of three buildings hit by a several-meter-long missile. They said remains of the weapon showed it to be a Scud-type missile of the type government forces increasingly use in Aleppo and in Deir a-Zor.

NATO said in December Assad's forces fired Scud-type missiles. It did not specify where they landed but said their deployment was an act of desperation.

Bodies were being gradually dug up, Mohammad Nour, an activist, said by phone from Aleppo.

"Some, including children, have died in hospitals," he said.

Video footage showed dozens of people scouring for victims and inspecting damage. A body was pulled from under collapsed concrete. At a nearby hospital, a baby said to have been dug out from wreckage was shown dying in the hands of doctors.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

Opposition activists also reported fighting near the town of Nabak on the Damascus-Homs highway, another route vital for supplying forces in the capital loyal to Assad, whose family has ruled Syria since the 1960s.

Rebels moved anti-aircraft guns into the eastern Damascus district of Jobar, adjacent to the city centre, as they seek to secure recent gains, an activist said.

"The rebels moved truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns to Jobar and are now firing at warplanes rocketing the district," said Damascus activist Moaz al-Shami.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told a news conference a U.N. war crimes report, which accuses military leaders and rebels of terrorizing civilians, was "not the path we should follow ... at this stage it would be untimely and unconstructive."

Syria is not party to the Rome Statute that established the ICC and the only way the court can investigate the situation is if it receives a referral from the Security Council, where Moscow is a permanent member.

(Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Jason Webb)

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Football: LionsXII impress Fandi in 2-2 draw with Johor

SINGAPORE: Fandi Ahmad was left shocked and impressed after his star-studded Johor Darul Takzim were forced to share the spoils at a packed Larkin Stadium, as they drew 2-2 with an impressive LionsXII side in the Malaysian Super League (MSL) on Tuesday night.

Fandi told reporters after the match that he and his players were shocked that the LionsXII had opted to go on the offensive from the start, saying that he had expected V Sundramoorthy's side to adopt "a more counterattacking strategy".

"This has been the best I've seen the LionsXII play," praised Fandi. "I'm also quite puzzled why my players couldn't rise to the occasion tonight and perform."

Indeed, there was a very different look to the LionsXII on Tuesday as they refused to sit back in the first half and often pressed forward in numbers in search of goals.

The LionsXII hardly looked in awe of Johor - who boast the likes of former Lazio player Simone Del Nero and former Spanish international Daniel Guiza - and impressed with fluid passing and hard tackling.

Their desire to draw first blood did not take long to pay dividends when Hariss Harun - who was playing his first match since he suffered a broken fibula in November - blasted the visitors into the lead after four minutes.

The Larkin Stadium was thoroughly silenced by the midfield lynchpin, but it was only for a moment.

Just six minutes later, Johor's livewire midfielder Nurul Azwan lost his marker and sent a low cross into the area which Del Nero superbly headed past goalkeeper Izwan Mahbud to score his first club goal.

Eager to reclaim the initiative, Sundram's charges continued to attack and were rewarded in the 37th minute when Baihakki Khaizan scored with a spectacular diving header following a free-kick.

The match continued to be played at a frenetic pace even after the restart and Fandi soon brought on even more firepower in Safee Sali.

With Safee, Guiza and Norshahrul Idlan Talaha now in attack, the LionsXII found themselves pegged back and digging deep to defend.

Fandi's decision to overload the attack eventually paid off as Norshahrul shrugged off tired LionsXII defenders and fired home Johor's equaliser from 20 yards out.

Despite not bagging the win, Sundram was satisfied with the result, praising his players for the tenacity they displayed.

He said: "I'm very happy the players fought for every ball tonight. The MSL is a very physical league and we've got to be able to fight hard on the field. Player to player, I'm very pleased that our boys can compete against Fandi's."

- TODAY

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No trace of 3,772 children missing from Delhi in last 5 years

NEW DELHI: Over 3,700 children, majority of whom are girls, went missing from Delhi homes in the last five years and are still untraceable yet the Delhi government says it has no evidence of organized gangs operating in the national capital indulging in kidnapping or trafficking of children.

The Delhi home department through advocate S Wasim Qadri cited a special initiative taken by Delhi Police under 'Pehchan' scheme to photograph children belonging to poorer sections of society living in slums.

"This scheme covers areas from where most children go missing and the police are unable to make any headway in tracing them as poor families seldom have photographs of their children. Delhi Police has so far photographed 64,755 children in the last last months," it said.

But the National Human Rights Commission was sceptical about the intent of state governments in protecting children from being kidnapped or trafficked. NHRC's affidavit filed through advocate Shobha said the states had confined to paper the guidelines for protection of children and went through the motion of filing periodic data before the commission.

On Tuesday, this made a bench of Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justices A R Dave and Vikramjit Sen to observe, "We are dealing with a PIL concerning children, who constitute 42% of the population. But this does not seem to bother the states which are supposed to be their guardians. This is possibly because they do not have voice."

Though the Delhi government listed its initiatives, it was discernible that the number of missing children not being traced in the last five years had registered a steady increase. Another disturbing factor in the statistics was that majority of the untraced children were girls.

In 2008, a total of 413 missing children remained untraceable of which 222 were girls. Corresponding figures in the next four years are - 485 untraceable of which 213 were girls (2009), 854 of which 416 were girls (2010), 981 of which 559 were girls (2011) and 1,139 of which 623 were girls (2012).

The Sheila Dikshit government said it was pro-active in analyzing the trends in kidnapping or missing children. "Involvement of organized gangs in kidnapping or trafficking of children for any unlawful activity has so far not come to notice in Delhi," it said.

On the other hand, the NHRC was scathing in its affidavit. It recognized the importance of the issue of missing children raised by by NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan through senior advocate H S Phoolka and said, "This is high time the issue is given top-most priority by the central government, all state governments and all other government and non-government actors/stakeholders."

The commission said it had constituted a committee after the Nithari serial rape-cum-murders to address the issue of missing children. The committee had issued guidelines and sent it to all states.

"But what happens to most of the recommendations, guidelines and reports has happened to the guidelines sent by the commission. The status remains the same, the guidelines became part of record, some states have simply filled up the form and sent back to the commission, while rest still have to find time to complete the paper formality," the NHRC said.

Taking note of Phoolka's allegation that nearly 200 children went missing every day from various states and 100 remained untraceable, the bench said, "Still no one seems to be bothered about it." It listed the matter for detailed hearing on April 15.

On March 17 last year, the court had issued notices to the Centre and states on the NGO's PIL seeking an advanced scientific mechanism to investigate and recover missing children. "In India, in the period from January 2008 to January 2010, over 1.17 lakh children have gone missing in 392 districts in India. Out of them, 41,546 are still untraced," it had said.

The petitioner had sought a direction to the Union government to formulate a National Action Plan on the issue of missing children which should include investigation, recovery, counseling and standard operating procedures for law enforcing agencies on coordinating their efforts.

dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com

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Drug overdose deaths up for 11th consecutive year

CHICAGO (AP) — Drug overdose deaths rose for the 11th straight year, federal data show, and most of them were accidents involving addictive painkillers despite growing attention to risks from these medicines.

"The big picture is that this is a big problem that has gotten much worse quickly," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which gathered and analyzed the data.

In 2010, the CDC reported, there were 38,329 drug overdose deaths nationwide. Medicines, mostly prescription drugs, were involved in nearly 60 percent of overdose deaths that year, overshadowing deaths from illicit narcotics.

The report appears in Tuesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

It details which drugs were at play in most of the fatalities. As in previous recent years, opioid drugs — which include OxyContin and Vicodin — were the biggest problem, contributing to 3 out of 4 medication overdose deaths.

Frieden said many doctors and patients don't realize how addictive these drugs can be, and that they're too often prescribed for pain that can be managed with less risky drugs.

They're useful for cancer, "but if you've got terrible back pain or terrible migraines," using these addictive drugs can be dangerous, he said.

Medication-related deaths accounted for 22,134 of the drug overdose deaths in 2010.

Anti-anxiety drugs including Valium were among common causes of medication-related deaths, involved in almost 30 percent of them. Among the medication-related deaths, 17 percent were suicides.

The report's data came from death certificates, which aren't always clear on whether a death was a suicide or a tragic attempt at getting high. But it does seem like most serious painkiller overdoses were accidental, said Dr. Rich Zane, chair of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

The study's findings are no surprise, he added. "The results are consistent with what we experience" in ERs, he said, adding that the statistics no doubt have gotten worse since 2010.

Some experts believe these deaths will level off. "Right now, there's a general belief that because these are pharmaceutical drugs, they're safer than street drugs like heroin," said Don Des Jarlais, director of the chemical dependency institute at New York City's Beth Israel Medical Center.

"But at some point, people using these drugs are going to become more aware of the dangers," he said.

Frieden said the data show a need for more prescription drug monitoring programs at the state level, and more laws shutting down "pill mills" — doctor offices and pharmacies that over-prescribe addictive medicines.

Last month, a federal panel of drug safety specialists recommended that Vicodin and dozens of other medicines be subjected to the same restrictions as other narcotic drugs like oxycodone and morphine. Meanwhile, more and more hospitals have been establishing tougher restrictions on painkiller prescriptions and refills.

One example: The University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora is considering a rule that would ban emergency doctors from prescribing more medicine for patients who say they lost their pain meds, Zane said.

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Stobbe reported from Atlanta.

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Online:

JAMA: http://www.jama.ama-assn.org

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com

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