New York City: Rabbi suspends plan for armed patrols

A right-wing rabbi suspended plans Sunday to organize armed civilian patrols in heavily Jewish neighborhoods that were considered terror targets after angry residents and lawmakers complained.

“The response was so overwhelmingly negative, but God forbid anything should happen and then I’ll have to say, ‘I told you so,”‘ said the rabbi, Yakove Lloyd. “This is not forever; it may be just for a week or so.”

Lloyd, president of the right-wing Jewish Defense Group, had called a press conference to explain details on his armed patrols with groups carrying shotguns, baseball bats, pipes, cellular phones and walkie-talkies. The patrols had been scheduled to begin Sunday in Borough Park and Flatbush.

He promised a crowd of 100 supporters but showed up alone.

Florida: Chemical fumes force evacuation at hotel

A squirt of pepper spray and a bottle of fingernail polish remover sent four people to the hospital and forced the evacuation of 600 others from a South Orlando hotel.

It all started early Sunday, when several people at the Radisson Twin Towers hotel smelled a chemical odor and had trouble breathing. Hotel managers began evacuating several floors in the south tower and called 911.

It took the hazardous materials team, clad in protective moon-suits, more than five hours to sort out what had happened.

Someone apparently squirted pepper spray in an elevator.

By the time hazardous materials experts arrived at the hotel, the pepper spray had dissipated. But the teams’ ultra-sensitive chemical-meters still detected an unknown chemical agent in the room of the guests who’d called for help.

It took hours to determine the source of the fumes in the room: a bottle of nail polish remover. Hotel guests were allowed to return to their rooms around 3 p.m.

Florida: Rain may postpone space shuttle’s landing

Despite rain in the forecast, space shuttle Endeavour aimed for a touchdown today to end a six-plus-month voyage for the returning crew of the international space station.

It was a quiet Father’s Day in orbit for record-setting American astronauts Carl Walz and Daniel Bursch and their Russian commander, Yuri Onufrienko. They have nine children among them, ranging in age from 3 to 20.

“The best Father’s Day gift we can get would be an on-time landing at Kennedy Space Center,” Walz said Sunday.

Flight director John Shannon said the weather outlook was poor. “We’ll just show up … and hope we get a little bit lucky,” he said.

Sunday was the 193rd day in orbit for Walz, Bursch and Onufrienko. That’s the most time ever spent in space by Americans in a single stretch.

California: Suicide by inmates in county jails rises

The number of inmates who committed suicide in California’s county jails increased dramatically last year, possibly because more mentally ill people are being incarcerated instead of hospitalized, officials said.

A record 38 inmates committed suicide in 2001, up from 23 in 2000, the Los Angeles Times reported in its Sunday editions.

The previous high was 37 in 1983, before wrongful death lawsuits led to reforms in the supervision of potentially suicidal inmates.

So far this year, 10 inmates in statewide county jails have committed suicide. Most have come by strangulation with jail bedding, socks or shoelaces.

The suicide rate for the 73,000 county jail inmates in California is 52 per 100,000. By comparison, the 33 state prisons had 21 suicides in a population of 157,493, or 13 per 100,000 prisoners.