News In Brief

A Salvadorean family going to Iowa on 'underground RR'

An ''underground railroad'' caravan carrying a Salvadorean refugee family and political-asylum supporters embarked on a 2,000-mile journey from Los Angeles to Iowa Sunday after a speech by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who criticized US military shipments to Central America. The Southern California Interfaith Task Force on Central America hopes the 12-day trip will dramatize what it calls the US government's unjust refusal to grant asylum to most war refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador, said Jo'Ann DeQuattro, the task force's chairwoman.