CASSADAGA, N.Y.
Police say fugitive is a threat to public
New York state police warned Saturday that a fugitive suspected of shooting three state troopers, two of them in an ambush, is a threat not just to law enforcement but to anyone who might get in his way.
“He’s a desperate man, he knows he’s wanted, and his choices are running out,” Trooper Rebecca Gibbons said.
For months, authorities in western New York have scoured hunting camps and questioned acquaintances in the search for Ralph “Bucky” Phillips, an escaped inmate with the skills of a seasoned outdoorsman.
The manhunt intensified Thursday after two troopers were ambushed by a sniper hiding in the woods outside the home of Phillips’ former girlfriend. The two officers were in critical condition as 75 more troopers were called up to reinforce the search.
BOSTON
Zoo upgrading gorilla exhibit to end escapes
Zoo officials plan to build a glass-walled cage to display Little Joe, a gorilla who escaped three years ago and mauled a 2-year-old girl.
The new cage is part of a $2.3 million renovation of the exhibition space inside the Franklin Park Zoo’s Tropical Forest building.
The renovation will display all seven of the zoo’s gorillas, including Little Joe and another male, Okpara, who have been kept out of the public eye to prevent another escape.
In September 2003, Joe leapt out of the exhibit in his second escape in two months.
Joe reached the zoo pavilion and attacked 2-year-old Nia Scott and an off-duty zoo employee, Courtney Roberson, 18. They suffered cuts and bruises after Joe threw both to the ground and dragged them.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
Forecast looks good for shuttle launch
For the second time in 10 days, shuttle Atlantis’ six astronauts flew into the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday to prepare for a scheduled launch next week.
The countdown toward Wednesday’s planned liftoff is set to begin at 6 a.m. MDT today.
Forecasters are predicting typical summer weather at Cape Canaveral on launch day: high temperatures in the upper 80s, with partly cloudy skies and a 40 percent chance of scattered thunderstorms.
So far, Mother Nature has been uncooperative with NASA’s attempts to launch the shuttle on an important 11-day construction mission to the international space station.
The worst lightning strike ever recorded at the launchpad forced shuttle managers to delay Atlantis’ flight last week while engineers made sure the ship’s systems suffered no damage.
DALLAS
School board member seeks baggy-pants ban
A resident has a message for his city: Pull up your pants. Ron Price, a Dallas school board member, has asked the City Council to look at strengthening a law to go after people who wear baggy pants and expose their underwear.
“I think it’s disrespectful, it’s dishonorable and it’s disgusting,” said Price, who made the recommendation last week.
“I have no problem with the top of your Hanes label being shown. My problem is when grown men walk about the city with pants below their buttocks.”
But experts say that such a law might not hold up, so to speak.
It would be too vague, said Robert Jarvis, constitutional law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
RICHMOND, Va.
Ernesto’s remains soak weekend plans
The remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto put a sloppy wet damper on the last big tourism weekend of the summer for many people, making a mess of some oceanfront hotels and leaving beaches and boardwalks less crowded than usual.
Ernesto was reduced to an area of rain over western New York state and the lower Great Lakes by Saturday afternoon, after drenching Virginia and North Carolina with up to a foot on its run up the East Coast.
It had caused flooding that forced hundreds of people out of their homes, and more than a half-million homes and businesses still had no electricity Saturday in the mid-Atlantic states.
At least four deaths were blamed on the storm in Virginia, plus one in North Carolina.
TEHRAN
U.N. leader in talks on Lebanon, nukes
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Tehran on Saturday for two days of talks in which he hoped to persuade Iran’s leaders to throw their support behind plans for the future of Lebanon and to enter negotiations on the country’s nuclear program.
His visit began two days after Iran missed a Security Council deadline for suspending its enrichment of uranium.
On Saturday he held separate meetings with Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister; Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a senior cleric who is in charge of the powerful Expediency Council; and Ali Larijani, the chief nuclear negotiator.
MILE REFUGEE CAMP, Chad
Obama implored to send U.N. forces
Thousands of Sudanese refugees crowded U.S. Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday as he visited their camp in eastern Chad. They had a single message: Bring in the United Nations.
The refugees told Obama that an international peacekeeping force is the only hope they have of returning to their normal lives in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. Some carried banners held up on sticks demanding U.N. action.
A man who identified himself only as Musadigo said he has been living in the refugee camp, which is home to about 15,000 people, since fleeing his home three years ago.
About 200,000 people have died and some 2 million have been displaced by the conflict.
CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico
Weakening storm lets airport reopen
John weakened to a tropical storm Saturday just hours after it hit land as a hurricane in the southern part of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, ripping the roofs from shacks, knocking out power and sending billboards flying.
Tourists in the resort of Cabo San Lucas scrambled to catch flights out after the airport reopened.
John was a Category 2 storm with 100 mph winds when it struck land near isolated hamlets northeast of Los Cabos on Friday night, but it had slipped to Category 1 status with winds near 85 mph by Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon it weakened to a tropical storm, and the winds dropped to 65 mph by evening.
The storm was located about 50 miles south of Loreto, a rapidly growing center of retirement and vacation homes for U.S. citizens.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan
NATO plane crashes, killing 14 Brit troops
A NATO plane crashed Saturday in southern Afghanistan, killing 14 British troops, according to a spokesman and the British Ministry of Defense.
The International Security Assistance Force said the plane had reported a technical problem before going down and hostile fire did not appear to be the cause.
The British Ministry of Defense said the dead included 12 Royal Air Force personnel, a Royal Marine and an army soldier.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka
Navy sinks 12 craft in fierce rebel clash
Sri Lanka’s navy said Saturday that it sank 12 Tamil rebel boats, including five suicide craft, and killed as many as 100 rebel fighters during a fierce six-hour sea battle off the country’s northern coast.
The fighting broke out late Friday when about 20 boats belonging to the rebel Tamil Tigers’ fierce sea wing attacked a navy patrol near Kankasanthurai harbor, to the east of the northern Jaffna peninsula, navy spokesman Commander D.K.P. Dassanayake said.
The Tigers have been battling the government for more than 20 years for a separate homeland for the country’s ethnic Tamil minority.
