Austria

Iran cancels nuke inspections

Iran abruptly froze further U.N. inspections of its nuclear program for six weeks on Friday, throwing into turmoil international attempts to verify Tehran’s claims that it is developing atomic power and not weapons.

The move was dismissed as unimportant by Iranian representatives. But diplomats familiar with the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency described it as a potentially insurmountable obstacle to the agency’s efforts to deliver a judgment by June on the nature Tehran’s past and present nuclear ambitions.

One diplomat described the freeze until the end of April as counterproductive to Iran’s stated aim of dispelling suspicions about more than two decades of secret nuclear activities that included uranium enrichment and other activities that can be used to make weapons.

The United States insists Iran tried to make nuclear weapons, something Tehran denies.

California

Seven people found dead

Three women and four children were found dead Friday afternoon in a Fresno home, and police have arrested a suspect, authorities said.

The deaths appear to be linked to a custody dispute, Fresno Police said.

Police arrested Marcus Wesson, who witnesses say was holed up in the house with the children and refused to turn them over to their mothers.

When police negotiators arrived, Wesson walked outside and surrendered, police said.

Washington, D.C.

Internal report faults EPA for drinking water claims

The Environmental Protection Agency incorrectly claimed to have met its goals of ensuring that at least 91 percent of the nation’s drinking water met federal health-based standards from 1999 to 2002, the agency’s inspector general says.

“The agency reported meeting its annual performance goal for drinking water quality even though it concurrently reported that the data used to draw those conclusions were flawed and incomplete,” the agency said in a report this week. “EPA’s own analysis, supported by our review, indicated the correct number was unknown but less than what was reported.”

EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said Friday, however, that the agency “recognizes the importance of high quality data.”

About 54,000 community water systems supply water to 268 million Americans, the report said, so each percentage point reported by EPA represents about 2.6 million people.