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Bill upgraded to major hurricane

MIAMI, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Hurricane Bill was upgraded to major hurricane status in the Caribbean Tuesday evening, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

At 8:30 p.m. EDT, forecasters said the storm's maximum sustained winds increased to nearly 125 mph, making it a Category 3 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The highest rank on the scale is Category 5, when winds exceed 155 mph.

At 5 p.m., the center said a U.S. Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft spotted Bill's center about 635 miles east of the Leeward Islands, where the Atlantic meets the Caribbean. Bill was moving north-northwest at near 16 mph.

The center said Bill was expected to remain on that path Tuesday night, followed by a turn toward the northwest Wednesday. Bill's core was expected to pass well to the northeast of the Leeward Islands late Wednesday and early Thursday.

The center said hurricane winds extended outward form Bill's core for 45 miles.

Computer projections suggest Bill will take a northerly turn Friday and Saturday, and move between Bermuda and the Carolinas.

The center said another Hurricane Hunter aircraft was being dispatched to fly over the storm Wednesday.

Probe finds more forged lobby firm letters

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. congressional investigators said Tuesday they have uncovered five more forged letters sent to Congress regarding energy and climate legislation.

The letters are designed to make recipients think they were sent by senior centers and elderly services organizations, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said in a statement.

Markey, chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, said the five letters released Tuesday bring to 13 the number of fraudulent letters sent by the Washington lobby group Bonner & Associates. The firm was subcontracted by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity to lobby Congress on the recently passed Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill.

The 13 fake letters purport to represent nine different community groups, including the non-profit Erie Center on Health & Aging; the Charlottesville, Va., NAACP chapter; the Hispanic advocacy group Creciendo Juntos; and the American Association of University Women.

"We've seen fear-mongering with our nation's senior citizens with healthcare, and now we're seeing fraud-mongering with senior citizens on clean energy," Markey said. "Lately, democratic debate has been deceptively debased by fake facts and harsh rhetoric."

Investigators were trying to determine the authenticity of dozens of letters to members of Congress, the statement said.

Loan will let Calif. end IOU program early

SACRAMENTO, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- JPMorgan & Chase Co. has agreed to lend California $1.5 billion, allowing the state to end its IOU program ahead of schedule, state officials said.

The state, which faced a $26 billion revenue gap before reaching a budget agreement last month, has been using IOUs since July 2 to pay many vendors and creditors. The IOUs were scheduled to mature Oct. 2 but the loan announced Tuesday will allow the state to end the program a month earlier, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Controller John Chiang said last week the budget adopted in Sacramento includes sufficient spending cuts to redeem the IOUs if the state could arrange a $1.5 billion loan by Aug. 28.

Tom Dressler, a spokesman for California Treasurer Bill Lockyer, told the newspaper Lockyer has been talking with banks about such a loan in recent weeks and JPMorgan was the first to respond with a reasonable proposal.

The JPMorgan loan is to be repaid by late September, the Times said. At that time, California officials plan to sell $10.5 billion in securities scheduled to mature next spring.

Those notes are expected to sell well, the newspaper said, because they will offer a greater return than other short-term instruments.

Medical groups paid for vaccine promotion

CHICAGO, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Merck & Co. paid three medical associations to promote Gardasil, a vaccine that protects against a sexually transmitted disease, a U.S. medical journal reports.

In a report in the Aug. 19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Merck acknowledged it paid a total of $750,000 to the American College Health Association, the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists and the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, The Washington Post said Tuesday.

Merck said the money went to educate people about the vaccine. The JAMA analysis said the medical groups used a promotion strategy almost identical to what Merck used in its marketing campaign, the Post reported.

"This clearly shows how Merck was able to influence opinion leaders in the medical field to promote the vaccine without presenting any of the downsides," said Diane M. Harper of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, who helped test the vaccine for Merck but has criticized the company's activities. "This shows how they were able to influence physicians."

The medical groups said they disclosed their funding source.

James Turner, president of the American College Health Association, said the vaccine -- which protects against the human papillomavirus -- is "the greatest prevention tool in women's health since the invention of the Pap smear."

HPV causes genital warts and can lead to cervical cancer.