Texas

American Airlines CEO quits

The embattled chairman and chief executive of American Airlines resigned Thursday as the flight attendants union split bitterly over a cost-cutting package that was the last hope for avoiding bankruptcy.

Two other unions representing pilots and ground workers agreed to the company’s sweetened offer, but leaders of the flight attendants union were said by a source to be embroiled in a “holy war” over whether to go along. The union’s board rejected the deal, but the executive committee was seeking to overturn the decision.

The company has said it would file Chapter 11 bankruptcy unless all three labor groups accepted the $1.8 billion in annual wage and benefit concessions.

With the airline’s fate uncertain, Donald J. Carty resigned as chairman and CEO. Gerard Arpey, the company’s president, will replace Carty as CEO, while board member Edward A. Brennan will take over as chairman.

Washington, D.C.

GOP tries to link Democrats to Pelosi’s liberal record

A Republican effort to link some liberal statements by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to eight Democratic lawmakers in competitive districts offers the latest example of campaign rhetoric.

“Pelosi ‘Devastated’ by War with Iraq, In Full Support of Anti-War Protesters; Unapologetic in Support of National Gun Law, Needle Exchange Programs, Gay Marriage, Cloning, Partial-Birth Abortion and (Kansas Democratic Rep.) Dennis Moore,” reads one version of the news release from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The moderate Moore, who captured slightly more than 50 percent of the vote to win a third term in a Republican-leaning district that includes Lawrence, Kan., last fall, is one of eight Democrats considered vulnerable. He received a $5,000 contribution from Pelosi’s political action committee, PAC to the Future, in the first three months of 2003.

A San Francisco Democrat with a liberal voting record, Pelosi has made regaining control of the House after nearly 10 years in the minority her top priority.

Virginia

Judge: Prosecutors won’t have to prove shooter

A judge ruled Thursday that prosecutors will not necessarily have to prove that sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad fired the shot that killed a man to get the death penalty.

Circuit Judge LeRoy Millette Jr. also ruled that prosecutors do not have to tell defense attorneys their theory about whether Muhammad, 42, or fellow sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo, 18, fired the shot.

Muhammad is charged with capital murder under two statutes. One is a new state antiterrorism law that requires no proof of who pulled the trigger. But the law had never been used before the sniper shooting case and is subject to a constitutional challenge.

The other statute allows for the death penalty in cases of multiple murders. Typically, only the triggerman has been eligible for the death penalty under this law.