NEW YORK

One in nine younger women have used morning-after pill

About one in nine younger women have used the morning-after pill after sex, according to the first government report to focus on emergency contraception since its approval 15 years ago.

The results come from a survey of females ages 15 to 44. Eleven percent of those who’d had sex reported using a morning-after pill. That’s up from 4 percent in 2002, only a few years after the pills went on the market and adults still needed a prescription.

The increased popularity is probably because it is easier to get now and because of media coverage of controversial efforts to lift the age limit for over-the-counter sales, experts said. A prescription is still required for those younger than 17, so it is still sold from behind pharmacy counters.

In the study, half the women who used the pills said they did it because they’d had unprotected sex. Most of the rest cited a broken condom or worries that the birth control method they used had failed.

White women and more educated women use it the most, the research showed.

GRAPEVINE, Texas

‘Schizophrenic’ prisoner on the run after stabbing

The Florida prisoner who stabbed a detective and escaped near Dallas while being transported to Nevada is “a schizophrenic” who vowed not to return to prison, according to authorities and a 911 call released Wednesday.

Alberto Morales, 42, a convicted sex offender, escaped Monday after using a piece from his eyeglasses to stab Miami-Dade Detective Jaime Pardinas, one of two officers transferring the prisoner by car to Nevada. The escape happened while they were stopped in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Grapevine, a community near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Grapevine police spokesman Robert Eberling said authorities continue to search near the airport and will do so until they believe they should look elsewhere. He said the search covers “any place anybody can hide,” including yards and drainage ditches.

Eberling said inmates who knew Morales in prison have told investigators that he had vowed not to return.

“He’s made it pretty clear that he’s not going back to prison,” Eberling said.

— From news service reports