News In Brief
Incorrect information from the CIA caused the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, a US official said. President Clinton apologized anew for the embassy bombing, but said NATO airstrikes would continue. Diplomats and lawmakers said the resulting protest demonstrations in China threaten to seriously undermine US-China relations.
The State Department suspended official travel to China by US employees and urged Americans to defer planned China visits, citing "volatile" conditions. The Boston Symphony Orchestra's Chinese promoter said in Beijing the orchestra had postponed two concerts scheduled there this week. Premier Zhu Rongji and President Jiang Zemin were to attend Thursday's concert in the Great Hall of the People.
China learned advanced US radar secrets from a scientist assigned to a Pentagon project in 1997, The New York Times reported. Quoting court records, the Times said Peter Lee discussed radar being developed to track submarines in a lecture he gave in Beijing while working for contractor TRW, which the Pentagon had hired. Prosecutors wanted to charge Lee with spying but were held back partly because the Navy didn't want the radar discussed in court, law-enforcement officials said. Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said on NBC that China had obtained nuclear secrets during the Clinton presidency, something administration officials previously denied.
Complaints that school officials are ignoring students' constitutional rights are flooding into the American Civil Liberties Union as a result of the April 20 shootings in Littleton, Colo., officials of the civil-rights group said. Most complaints concern students in trouble for wearing trench coats or black clothes.
About 100 people camped out on Navy training grounds on Vieques Island off Puerto Rico's east coast in a growing protest of war games that recently killed a civilian and injured four other people on the island. Members of the Puerto Rican Independence Party said the North Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility threatens the environment, stunts economic growth, and endangers the island's 9,300 residents.
A chartered bus carrying members of a seniors casino club crashed in New Orleans, killing at least 22 people and injuring 18 others, authorities said. The bus trip to a casino in Bay St. Louis, Miss., reportedly began in La Place, La., 26 miles west of New Orleans. Mayor Marc Morial, called the accident the "worst vehicular collision" in the history of New Orleans.
A landslide at a state park in Hawaii killed at least six people and injured more than 50 others. In the incident at Sacred Falls State Park some 30 miles north of Honolulu, boulders crashed down a cliff onto hikers enjoying one of the state's most scenic waterfalls.
Spending on machine tools in March was up 44 percent from February - but was down 48 percent from a year ago, two industry groups reported. The Association for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors' Association said an estimated $479 million was spent on machine tools in March, surpassing an estimated $333 million spent in February. But that was far short of an estimated $914 million spent in March 1998.