Washington, D.C.

FDA: abortion pill safe enough for users

The abortion pill RU-486 is safe enough to remain on the market with strengthened warnings, the government said Tuesday despite a third death after the drug’s use.

Critics said scrutiny of the drug would only increase. “I think you’ll see the opposition, but not just from people who are pro-life,” said Wendy Wright, senior policy director at Concerned Women for America. “This is a dangerous drug.”

An abortion-rights advocate hoped the expanded black box warning would not discourage women.

“It is my hope that women will not be afraid” to use mifepristone, originally known as RU-486, to induce abortion, said Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “All of us need to understand that no procedure, no medication is risk-free.”

The federation uses the abortion pill at 222 of its 845 clinics.

Atlanta

Crematory operator expected to plead guilty

A former crematory operator accused of dumping 334 bodies and passing off cement dust as their ashes struck a plea deal that calls for up to 12 years in prison, The Associated Press learned Tuesday.

Ray Brent Marsh, who is to enter the plea Friday, had faced up to 8,000 years in a case that shocked the nation more than two years ago when investigators found rotting corpses stacked in sheds and scattered in woods outside his crematory in rural northwest Georgia.

In a letter to victims’ families dated Nov. 10 and obtained by the AP, the prosecutor’s office describes Marsh’s intent to plead guilty but does not give details of the plea agreement.

New York City

Terror case dealt blow without witness

A man who set himself on fire in front of the White House this week was a key witness against a sheik accused of funneling millions of dollars to al-Qaida and the Palestinian Islamic group Hamas, defense lawyers said Tuesday.

Defense attorneys said Mohamed Alanssi was a confidential informant central to the prosecution of Sheik Ali Hassan al-Moayad, a leading member of an Islamic-oriented political party in Yemen who is awaiting trial in federal court in New York. He and his assistant allegedly conspired to provide material support to Osama bin Laden and the Hamas.

Alanssi sent suicide notes Monday morning to his FBI handler and a Washington Post reporter, complaining about his treatment by the government and threatening that he would burn himself.

Los Angeles

NASA launches hypersonic jet

A tiny unmanned NASA “scramjet” soared above the Pacific Ocean Tuesday at nearly 10 times the speed of sound, or almost 7,000 mph, in a successful demonstration of a radical new engine technology.

The 12-foot-long X-43A supersonic combustion ramjet reached about Mach 9.7, said Leslie Williams, a spokeswoman at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base.

The exotic aircraft was designed to fly under its own power for about 10 seconds after separating from a booster rocket at 110,000 feet, then glide to a splash landing.

New York City

PETA pitches fish as smart, sensitive

Animal-rights activists have launched a novel campaign arguing that fish — contrary to stereotype — are intelligent, sensitive animals no more deserving of being eaten than a pet dog or cat.

Called the Fish Empathy Project, the campaign reflects a strategy shift by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals as it challenges a diet component widely viewed as nutritious

“No one would ever put a hook through a dog’s or cat’s mouth,” said Bruce Friedrich, PETA’s director of vegan outreach. “Once people start to understand that fish, although they come in different packaging, are just as intelligent, they’ll stop eating them.”

The campaign is in its infancy and will face broad skepticism. Major groups such as the American Heart Assn. recommend fish as part of a healthy diet; some academics say it is wrong to portray the intelligence and pain sensitivity of fish as comparable to mammals.