USA

About 1 in every 5 female cadets at The Citadel last spring says she has been sexually assaulted since enrolling at the formerly all-male military college, according to a survey released by the South Carolina school Wednesday. About one in 25 men surveyed also reported being sexually assaulted since arriving. Most of the women said the incidents happened in the barrack or elsewhere on the campus and alleged the perpetrator was another cadet.

The federal government has erroneously reimbursed about 230,000 Medicare recipients for monthly premiums they paid this year for prescription drug coverage. For many, the checks – totaling nearly $50 million – accompany a letter mistakenly instructing seniors that their monthly premiums will no longer be deducted from their Social Security check. Officials explained Tuesday that plans had not changed and insisted the money be returned.

Advanced Cell Technology announced Wednesday it has developed a new way of creating stem cells without destroying human embryos, billing it as a potential solution to a contentious political and ethical debate. The new technique takes a single cell from an early-stage embryo and uses it to seed a line of stem cells. The rest of the embryo retains the potential to develop into a healthy human, researchers say. A White House spokeswoman called the method encouraging, but a representative from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops rejected it as "gravely unethical."

Sales of previously owned homes dropped by 4.1 percent in July to the lowest level in more than 2 years, and the inventory of unsold homes climbed to a record high, the National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday. The weaker-than-expected figures raised concerns about the strength of consumer spending, dragging down the Dow Jones home construction index by more than 3 percent.