WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration is investigating reports of liver damage in patients taking alli, the only nonprescription weight loss drug approved by the agency.
Regulators say they have received more than 30 reports of liver damage in patients taking alli and Xenical, the prescription version of the drug. Twenty-seven patients had to be hospitalized, and six suffered liver failure.
Alli and Xenical are both marketed by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, though Xenical is manufactured by Swiss firm Roche.
The FDA says it has not established a definitive relationship between the weight loss drugs and liver injury.
The agency says patients should continue using the drugs as directed.

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) - Scotland’s justice minister on Monday defended his much-criticized decision to free the Lockerbie bomber, as the U.S. State Department said that though it disagreed “passionately” the move would not affect relations between America and Britain.
The Scottish administration has faced unrelenting criticism from the both the U.S. government and the families of American victims of the 1988 airline bombing since it announced last week it was freeing Abdel Baset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. The terminally ill Al-Megrahi, who has prostate cancer, returned to his native Libya on Thursday, where he was greeted by crowds waving Libyan and Scottish flags.
The United States will stand by Britain, even though it believes the decision was a mistake, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

Lane closures will occur Tuesday morning on Route 51 north of the Henry Mancini Bridge in Aliquippa to the Rochester Monaca Bridge in Monaca, PennDOT said.

Traffic will be reduced to a single-lane, alternating use daily as needed between8 a.m. and 4 p.m. through mid-September. Geotechnical engineering crews will be conducting subsurface investigations for a future improvement project.

HOUSTON, Pa. (AP) - Emergency crews are trying to rescue an injured man trapped in a grain silo on a southwestern Pennsylvania farm.
A Washington County 911 supervisor says the call came in shortly after noon that the man was trapped some 35 feet above ground in the silo.
Dispatchers don’t know how the man got stuck in the silo, or what kind of injury he supposedly has. But by 2 p.m. they were still working to get him out.

CHILMARK, Mass. (AP) - President Barack Obama played tennis with his wife and golf with his buddies Monday, starting his first vacation in office on Martha’s Vineyard, a picturesque island known as a refuge for the wealthy and privileged.
Obama began the day with a workout at his rented retreat, then tennis with Michelle Obama, White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters traveling with the president. Obama later played golf with UBS Investment Bank President Robert Wolf and Chicago physician Eric Whitaker, both friends. White House aide Marvin Nicholson was also in the foursome.
White House officials have stressed that the president is on a private vacation and very little is planned.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Schools should be ready with hard-copy packets and online lessons to keep learning going even if swine flu sickens large numbers of students, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Monday.
Speaking at an elementary school on the first day of classes in Washington, Duncan released recommendations on how educators can ensure instruction continues should the virus cause high absenteeism or school closings.
“As the school year begins, I’m concerned that the H1N1 virus might disrupt learning in some schools across the country,” he said.
Duncan said schools should evaluate what materials they have available for at-home learning. The latest guidance provides more details on methods schools could use, such as distributing recorded classes on podcasts and DVDs; creating take-home packets with up to 12 weeks of printed class material; or holding live classes via conference calls or “webinars.”

WASHINGTON (AP) - Homeland Security officials are warning that some e-mails purporting to be from the department’s intelligence division were fake and contained malicious software.
The e-mails actually originated from Internet addresses in Latvia and Russia, according to a brief alert from the Homeland Security Department’s counterintelligence unit the department said, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.
The Homeland Security Department has sent the warning to the Defense Department and state and local officials after receiving complaints about the e-mails since June. The e-mails were made to look as if they had actual text from a department intelligence assessment. They included links embedded with malware known for stealing banking data protected passwords.

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK, Maine (AP) - The chief ranger at Acadia National Park says officials did all they could to caution throngs of visitors to keep back from the hurricane-fueled waves that crashed against the rocky cliffs - but many didn’t heed their warnings.
As the tide rose in early afternoon Sunday, a dozen people were battered by a fierce wave, three were washed to sea and one of them - a 7-year-old girl - died.
Chief Ranger Stuart West said Monday that 10,000 people had parked along the roadway to view the dramatic surf spun off by Hurricane Bill hours before a monster wave caused the injuries. West says signs were posted, extra rangers were out and a rescue truck was on call.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - NASA is putting the finishing touches on Discovery for an early morning flight to the international space station.
The space shuttle is scheduled to blast off at 1:36 a.m. Tuesday with a full load of supplies. Forecasters put the odds of good launch weather at 80 percent. But there is a 40 percent chance thunderstorms will hamper Monday afternoon’s fueling.
NASA says it can delay the start of fueling by three hours and still launch Tuesday morning. Any longer delay, and the launch would slide to Wednesday.
The seven astronauts, meanwhile, are asleep until mid-afternoon.
They will deliver experiments and equipment, including a new treadmill named after TV comedian Stephen Colbert. The treadmill will fly up in more than 100 pieces.

Reader’s Digest Association Inc., publisher of the iconic general interest magazine that began gracing American homes in 1922, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday as it faces falling print circulation in the Internet age and looming debt payments.
Known for its heartwarming stories about American life as other publications moved toward edgier fare, the company’s flagship Reader’s Digest magazine has seen its U.S. circulation drop from a peak of more than 17 million in the 1970s to just above 8 million last year.
Magnifying the publishing world’s woes is an advertising slump that already has led to the closing of several high-profile magazines, including Conde Nast’s Portfolio, Domino and Blender.