Briefly

Maryland

Sentence commuted for killer jailed at 15

Gov. Robert Ehrlich on Friday commuted the sentences of three inmates, including that of a woman who was sentenced to life in prison for a murder she committed when she was 15 years old.

Mary Washington Brown, 46, was convicted of stabbing Charlotte Ida Lessem to death in 1974 as Brown and a co-defendant robbed her at a Baltimore bus station.

The governor’s office said Brown had been an exemplary inmate who earned her high school equivalency and an associate’s degree in prison. She needs just 15 more credits for a bachelor’s degree in human resources from Morgan State University.

Georgia

College accused of negligence in rape suit

A college student filed a lawsuit accusing the school of failing to protect her from a former student who allegedly stalked, assaulted and repeatedly raped her.

The woman said the school received repeated complaints of attacks by the man but did not inform local police, instead treating the incidents as a disciplinary matter.

The woman filed the lawsuit Tuesday against Berry College in Rome and Marcus Sandelowsky, who has transferred to another school. He has not been charged, and denied the allegations when confronted by college officials last spring.

Dist. Atty. Leigh Patterson said she was awaiting the conclusion of the police investigation to determine whether to pursue criminal charges.

New York City

N. Korean light-water reactor freeze extended

An international consortium said Friday it had extended for another year a freeze on a project to build two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea.

The four main partners in the New York-based Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization — the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union — had previously suspended the project for a year through Dec. 1, 2004.

The freeze will be extended until Dec. 1, 2005, the KEDO group said in a statement.

Reports from South Korea and Japan in recent months have said the United States sought to kill the program outright, but could not persuade Seoul or Tokyo to adopt that stance.

South Korea and Japan are heavily invested in the $4.6 billion light-water reactor program, which is about one-third done.

Wisconsin

Mourners attend first of six hunters’ funerals

The first funeral for six hunters killed in a weekend shooting rampage in remote Wisconsin woods was held, as authorities weighed charges against the suspect in the case.

Friends and family of Mark Roidt paid their last respects to the 28-year-old at a service early Friday in the hamlet of Dobie.

He was buried in the grounds of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church afterwards, according to a spokeswoman for Jarocki Funeral Home in Rice Lake.

Three more victims of Sunday’s shooting will be laid to rest Saturday, with the remaining funerals set for Monday.

Roidt was one of six hunters killed and two wounded after a confrontation with a hunter who was trespassing on private land. Chai Vang is in jail as he awaits formal charges.

Colorado

Crews work to clear I-70 after rock slide

Snowfall delayed repairs Friday to a section of Interstate 70 where a rock slide sent boulders as big as vans crashing onto the road.

Road crews, under the glare of portable spotlights, toiled through the night in hopes of reopening one lane of traffic in each direction. But the highway through scenic Glenwood Canyon remained closed Friday.

More than three dozen boulders landed on I-70 early Thursday, some embedded 6 feet deep. State officials ended up closing a 24-mile section of the main east-west artery through Colorado.

Geologists and engineers were working to figure out what caused the slide.

New York City

Man leaps to death from Empire State Building

A man who looked to be in his 30s climbed over the 10-foot-high, spiked fence surrounding the 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building on Friday and leaped to his death, police said.

The man was not immediately identified. He landed on a sixth-floor landing.

Several tourists saw the man’s suicide leap, police said.

Although jumps off the Empire State Building are the stuff of urban legend, they are relatively infrequent, police and building officials said.

Fewer than 35 have been reported since the building opened in 1931, although the latest was the second this year. In February, a man took a fatal leap from the 80th floor, minutes after filling out a job application.

Florida

Search on for Virginian missing from cruise ship

A 54-year-old passenger vanished as a ship returned home from a five-day cruise to the Bahamas, and the Coast Guard launched a search.

A search boat and helicopter scoured 340 square miles off Jacksonville, Fla., and in the St. Johns River for Glen Sherridan of Richmond, Va. His wife, Gloria, reported him missing Thursday when she could not find him after the Carnival Cruise Lines ship Celebration docked.

The ship’s crew conducted a full search to make sure Sherridan wasn’t still on board. The vessel’s electronic exit and entry program showed the man did not leave the ship after it docked in Jacksonville, Carnival said.

Sherridan’s wife last saw her husband at 1:30 a.m. Thursday. She said he was an early riser and might have fallen overboard as early as 4 a.m., said Coast Guard Petty Officer Bobby Nash.

Washington, D.C.

Rehnquist to miss week of work for treatments

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will be absent from the Supreme Court on Monday, beginning a sixth week of missed work caused by thyroid cancer.

The 80-year-old has been receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatment at home and plans to skip the two-week cycle of arguments that starts Monday, a court spokesman said Friday. No other information was available.

Details have been kept secret about the seriousness of Rehnquist’s cancer, which was announced in a terse statement Oct. 25. Some doctors familiar with thyroid cancer say his treatment suggests a fast-growing cancer.

Massachusetts

Table manners dispute leads to double stabbing

A man was charged with stabbing two relatives after they allegedly criticized his table manners during Thanksgiving dinner.

Police said the fight broke out Thursday when Gonzalo Ocasio, 49, and his 18-year-old son, Gonzalo Jr., reprimanded Frank Palacious for picking at the turkey with his fingers, instead of slicing off pieces with a knife.

Palacious, 24, allegedly responded by stabbing them with a carving knife.

He is charged with domestic assault and assault with intent to murder, Worcester Detective Sgt. Thomas R. Radula said.

Police said Ocasio Jr. suffered stab wounds to the chest, back and right side. University of Massachusetts Medical Center had no information on his condition. His father was treated for a stab wound in his arm.

Washington, D.C.

Cargo inspections need upgrade, report says

The government needs to do a better job monitoring and inspecting hazardous materials shipped aboard airlines, according to a report released Friday by the Transportation Department’s inspector general.

How well the Federal Aviation Administration oversees the shipment of dangerous cargo came into question after the 1996 ValuJet crash in the Everglades, which killed 110 people. The accident was blamed on a fire caused by illegal shipment of oxygen generators in the cargo hold.

Since then, the report said, “the FAA’s enforcement of hazmat regulations has been in flux.” It criticized the agency for reviewing paperwork to make sure shippers and air carriers are properly declaring hazardous materials, without conducting covert tests to make sure airlines are handling them properly.

West Bank

Jailed Palestinian won’t run for presidency

Jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti dropped out of the race to replace Yasser Arafat on Friday, agreeing to support the candidacy of interim leader Mahmoud Abbas in a move intended to head off a split in the ruling Fatah movement.

Barghouti’s decision not to run in the Palestinians’ presidential election Jan. 9 was a big boost for Abbas, a pragmatist who opposes violence and appears to have the tacit support of Israel and the United States.

Fatah’s old-time leaders had feared Barghouti’s popularity among younger activists could carry him to victory.

Meanwhile, Israel agreed to remove all roadblocks in the West Bank on the day of the presidential election, security officials said on condition of anonymity.

London

Study cites global need for health care workers

Efforts to combat diseases such as malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis and polio in the developing world are being thwarted by a critical shortage of 4 million health care workers, a new report has found.

Money is beginning to flow for health programs in poor countries and drugs, vaccines and technologies are now more available than ever. But it is of little use without the health workers to deliver the care, according to the report outlined in this week’s The Lancet medical journal.

“What we do, or what we fail to do, will shape the course of global health for the entire 21st century,” said lead investigator Dr. Lincoln Chen of Harvard University.

Researchers documented for the first time the dangerous scarcity of doctors, nurses, midwives and community health workers in the developing world.

Pakistan

Officials ban Newsweek, call article offensive

Pakistani authorities have banned an issue of Newsweek magazine for publishing material they said was offensive to Islam, local media reported Friday.

A government official in Islamabad had ordered the “forfeiture of all copies of the weekly Newsweek of Nov. 22,” the state-run agency Associated Press of Pakistan reported, quoting Tariq Mahmood Bajwa, a government official in the capital, Islamabad.

The issue carried a story about the slaying in the Netherlands of filmmaker Theo van Gogh and religious and ethnic divisions in Europe under the headline “Clash of Civilizations.”

An alleged Islamic extremist of Moroccan descent has been arrested in the slaying.

Indonesia

At least 13 die in quake

A strong earthquake rocked Indonesia’s West Papua province Friday, killing at least 13 people and causing dozens of buildings and homes to collapse, officials said.

The magnitude-6.4 quake struck at 11:25 a.m. and was centered 20 miles from the Papuan town of Nabire, 2,000 miles northeast of the capital, Jakarta, said seismologist Edison Gurning.

At least 13 people were killed and 65 injured, Nabire Deputy Police Chief Maj. Wempi Batlairi said.

The quake destroyed 170 homes and shops, three bridges, a church and a government telecommunications building, he said. Authorities closed the local airport after a crack was found in the runway.

Tents were being erected to house the homeless.

“People are still scared,” Batlairi said. “We are still getting aftershocks from the quake.”