News In Brief
New York City police clashed with hundreds of protesters who hurled bottles and destroyed a US flag following Saturday's funeral for an unarmed Haitian-American shot by an undercover narcotics officer. Twenty-seven people were arrested on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to inciting a riot, a police spokesman said. Police also reported 23 officers and five civilians were hurt. The March 16 shooting in Brooklyn of Patrick Dorismond was the third time in 13 months that an unarmed black man has been fatally shot by police officers.
US Airways and unionized flight attendants averted a threatened shutdown of the nation's sixth-largest carrier by reaching a tentative labor contract that both sides were calling a victory. The deal would give flight attendants an 11 percent pay hike over five years - their first since 1996 - plus a 5 percent signing bonus and better retirement benefits, a union official said. Members of the Association of Flight Attendants are expected to ratify the deal in May.
An attorney for the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez said an appeal would be filed by April 3 in their case to keep the Cuban boy in the US. The announcement came after a US district court dismissed the relatives' lawsuit last Tuesday, and the Justice Department told the relatives they must agree to a speedy appeals process or Elian would be swiftly returned to his father in Cuba.
A NASA spacecraft began a two-year mission costing about $150 million to gather pictures of Earth's magnetic field that could help protect satellites from solar storms. Images transmitted from the spacecraft will provide the first real-time data on space weather, according to a spokeswoman for the San Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute, NASA's partner in the mission.
Perhaps not surprisingly, ex-hostage Terry Anderson said he's pleased with a $341 million damage award Iran was ordered to pay for his nearly seven years of captivity in Lebanon. A federal judge in Washington set the amount, although it's uncertain the money will ever be collected for the former journalist and his family. The case was brought under a 1996 law that allows victims of terrorism in certain foreign countries to sue in US court.
Hoping to revitalize heavily used Yosemite National Park, federal officials are to make a sweeping proposal today to cut vehicle use dramatically and let nature take back some of the almost century-old facility. The project would reduce and centralize day-use parking and restore large tracts of undeveloped land in Yosemite Valley, but does not go as far as to remove all private traffic from the 7-mile-long valley. If approved, the plan could cost as much as $343 million to implement during the next decade.
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