NATION BRIEFS

WASHINGTON/Military to research suicide

Military medical researchers say their efforts to reverse the rising number of suicides among service members are based on "good ideas," but they don't know which prevention programs work and which don't. They launched a $17-million study Wednesday to find out. None of the current training programs is evidence-based, said Army Col. Carl Castro, director of the Military Operational Medicine Research Program at Fort Detrick, Md. The new three-year project, funded by the Army, will develop a network of researchers to study multiple aspects of suicide, look at the work of other studies, and then compile a database so researchers and people running suicide-prevention programs can see what is effective.

Computers caused outage

An equipment failure disrupted communication between 50 nuclear missiles and the launch control center at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming over the weekend, although the Air Force says it never lost the ability to launch the missiles. The Air Force and the U.S. Strategic Command are looking into the incident and believe it was caused by the failure of a computer component, Marine Corps Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman, said Wednesday. There was no evidence of foul play, officials said.

ILLINOIS/Blago conviction upheld

A judge in Chicago has denied a motion to nullify the sole conviction of Rod Blagojevich returned by a jury at the ousted Illinois governor's first corruption trial. In a two-page opinion filed Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Zagel rejects defense claims that prosecutorial misconduct contributed to the guilty verdict against Blagojevich on the charge of lying to the FBI. The judge says defense attorneys often blame the prosecutors' conduct when they are struggling to challenge a conviction based on law or fact. Jurors convicted the ex-governor on one of 24 counts in August. He is set to be retried on the 23 deadlocked charges in April. Blagojevich faces up to 5 years in prison for the sole conviction. He denies any wrongdoing.