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Letter to the editor

Army may reduce battlefield tours

By Times Wires
Published January 24, 2008

WASHINGTON

Soldiers' battlefield tours would be cut from 15 months to 12 months beginning Aug. 1, under a proposal being considered by the Army as part of an effort to reduce the stress on a force battered by more than six years at war. The proposal, recommended by U.S. Army Forces Command, is being reviewed by senior Army and Pentagon leaders and would be contingent on the changing needs for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gen. George Casey, chief of staff of the Army, has been pushing to move back to one-year deployments.

Health & medicine

FDA requires suicide studies in drug trials

After decades of inattention to the possible psychiatric side effects of experimental medicines, the Food and Drug Administration is now requiring drugmakers to add a comprehensive suicide assessment to clinical trials, the New York Times reported Wednesday. It is one of the most profound changes of the past 16 years to drug development regulations, but since the FDA's oversight of experimental medicines is a secret, the shift has not been announced publicly.

New York

Commercial space plane unveiled

Within a few years, a handful of rich tourists may be blasting into space in a craft that looks like a cross between the space shuttle and a corporate jet. British billionaire Richard Branson unveiled a model Wednesday of SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle he hopes will be able to take his Virgin Galactic passengers on suborbital joyrides, with test flights beginning as soon as this year. Passengers would get about 4 1/2 minutes of zero-gravity time. About 200 prospective passengers have made reservations, shelling out $200,000 apiece.

[Last modified January 24, 2008, 01:35:22]