NYC faces crippling strike as transit talks break down
New York – Prospects were dim today that negotiators would reach a deal to avert a shutdown of the city’s subway and bus system.
Talks broke down Monday night about an hour before the midnight strike deadline, and the Transport Workers Union and Metropolitan Transportation Authority offered bleak assessments of the possibility of avoiding a strike.
The deadline passed with no word on whether transit workers would strike, however. The union board was meeting at its headquarters to discuss its next move.
Turning up the pressure on the city’s transit agency, union members at two private bus lines in Queens walked off the job early Monday.
More than 7 million daily riders would be forced to find new ways to get around if the 33,000-member Transport Workers Union shut down the nation’s largest transit system.
With an hour before the deadline, Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Tom Kelly said the MTA put a fair offer on the table. “Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected,” he said.
He did not elaborate, and there was no immediate response from the union. But earlier, union president Roger Toussaint sounded pessimistic about reaching a deal as he appeared before a boisterous gathering of union members Monday evening.
NEWARK, N.J
Man held in pointing of laser light at pilot
Authorities on Monday arrested a man and accused him of shining a laser pointer into the cockpit of a news helicopter, temporarily blinding the pilot.
Pedro Vega, 36, was charged with offenses including assault. The WNBC-TV helicopter was covering a traffic accident Nov. 18 when the laser was shone into the cockpit from about 1,000 feet away, said a spokesman for the Passaic County sheriff.
A helicopter cameraman’s film was being used as evidence. Vega confessed to police.
Vega faces charges of causing or risking widespread injury or damage, tampering with evidence and giving false reports to law enforcers. He also has been charged with interference with transportation and assault. He could get up to two years in prison.
COLLEGE PARK, Md.
Stent inventor gives $30 million for studies
An inventor of medical devices, including stents commonly used in heart surgery, announced plans Monday to give the University of Maryland $30 million to study bioengineering.
Robert Fischell’s donation will help the university establish a new department in its engineering school, as well as an institute where students and scientists can develop medical devices.
Fischell, 76, holds more than 200 patents and has formed more than a half-dozen biomedical companies with his three sons, who are also making a $1 million donation.
He is best known for his work on the stent, a mesh tube that acts as scaffolding when inserted into blocked or clogged arteries, keeping them open and preventing heart attacks.
MEXICO CITY
Mexican kidnappers deadlier, says study
Kidnappers in Mexico are three times more likely to kill their victims than their counterparts in Colombia, long considered the country with the worst problem, a Mexican anti-crime group said Monday.
About one out of every seven people kidnapped in Mexico died at the hands of captors in 2005, compared with one out of every 26 victims in Colombia, according to a report by the Citizen Council for Public Safety, a private-sector think tank.
Mexico overtook Colombia this year as the world leader in reported kidnappings in the first six months of 2005 with 194 cases, compared to 172 abductions registered over the same period in Colombia, according to the think tank. The group is still compiling data for the entire year, but it doesn’t expect Mexico’s ranking to change.
SYDNEY, Australia
Police raids after riots net weapons, ammo
Detectives investigating race riots that rocked Sydney last week seized a pistol, ammunition, knives and smoke bombs in a series of raids Monday.
The weapons haul came after police questioned five men detained Sunday night with a container of gasoline and objects for putting together fuel bombs in their car, New South Wales Police said in a statement.
Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said material in the car suggested the men had links to white supremacist groups.
Four of the men were released after questioning and the fifth was ordered to appear in court Jan. 17 on charges of being armed with intent to commit an indictable offense.
KAMPALA, Uganda
Candidate pleads not guilty to treason
Uganda’s jailed opposition leader pleaded not guilty to treason and rape charges Monday in a trial his supporters claim is being staged to keep him out of upcoming presidential elections.
Kizza Besigye’s 22 co-defendants also pleaded not guilty to charges of treason and concealment of treason at the High Court. If convicted of treason, Besigye and the others face the death penalty.
Besigye, the first credible challenger to President Yoweri Museveni’s 19-year rule, was detained Nov. 14. He had returned from self-imposed exile to run for president in the Feb. 23 elections.
TORONTO
Mountie says suspect confessed al-Qaeda aid
A Canadian terror suspect confessed to buying guns and rocket launchers for al-Qaeda to use against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to a court filing Monday.
In an affidavit submitted to the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, where Abdullah Khadr appeared at a preliminary hearing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Konrad Shourie said Khadr admitted ties to senior al-Qaeda members and confessed to buying the weapons. He also admitted to a role in a plot to assassinate Pakistan’s prime minister, Shourie wrote.
