World & Nation News
www.charlotte.com Posted on Fri, Jan. 31, 2003
WASHINGTON - Los Alamos National Laboratory officials failed to act to address problems in managing lab property and discouraged employees from voicing concerns, according to a report released Thursday by the Energy Department's inspector general. The report also corroborated many of the claims about weak internal control and property management at the lab made by investigators Glenn Walp and Steve Doran, and said the lab's firing of the two men after they blew the whistle on the problems was "incomprehensible." -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
NATION
Man's body hung from tree for at least a year
OLYMPIA, Wash. -- A man's body was found hanging from a tree in a rural area, and police said it may have been there for a year. No foul play was suspected. The body was reported Tuesday by a man who said he first saw it a year ago but kept quiet because he was facing outstanding warrants and feared arrest, police said. He called authorities after returning to the area -- a sparsely populated, heavily wooded part of Olympia -- and seeing the body still there, dangling from a noose about 40 feet off the ground. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
AIR FORCE Staff Sgt. Sheridan Ferrell II was sentenced to six years in military prison Thursday for stealing four laptop computers from the center that oversees operations in the Middle East. He will be demoted and dishonorably discharged after his release from prison. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE DIOCESE of Metuchen, N.J., will pay $800,000 to 10 current and former parishioners who claim they were sexually abused by five priests. In Kentucky, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville reached out-of-court settlements with three men who claimed the church covered up their complaints of abuse by a priest in the 1960s; those terms were not disclosed. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
TWO HIT MEN who were hired by a philandering New Jersey rabbi to kill his wife were sentenced to 23 years in prison Thursday for the fatal beating. Leonard Jenoff, 57, and Paul Daniels, 28, confessed nearly three years ago to killing Carol Neulander in 1994. They later testified against Rabbi Fred Neulander and helped secure his murder conviction last year. Neulander, 61, was sentenced earlier this month to life in prison. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE NATIONAL Association of Police Organizations Inc., which represents more than 1,000 police unions around the country, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan on Wednesday claiming that Ford failed to fix a defect that can cause its Crown Victoria police cruisers to erupt in flames when hit from behind. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
WORLD
Ireland will ban smoking in pubs, starting in 2004
DUBLIN, Ireland -- The social hubs of Ireland, the pub, is going smoke free. Bowing to health concerns, the government said Thursday that it will ban smoking from all workplaces, including pubs, where a pint and a cigarette have long gone hand in hand.
"This ban will mean a massive cultural change for people right around this country," said Health Minister Michael Martin in announcing the new rules. In fact, the change is so significant that the government has given the public 11 months' notice before enforcing the ban. The new law takes effect Jan. 1. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
AN INDONESIAN COURT acquitted a prominent Islamic militant leader Thursday on charges of inciting Muslims to attack Christians on the religiously divided Maluku Islands. The cleric, Jaffar Umar Thalib, the head of a paramilitary group called Laskar Jihad, walked free. In contrast, two Christian separatist leaders were each sentenced two days ago to three years' imprisonment for subversion during the violence on the Malukus, in which thousands of people have been killed. -- NEW YORK TIMES
MOROCCO AND SPAIN announced Thursday the restoration of full diplomatic ties, ending a 15-month dispute that peaked with a military standoff over a tiny, uninhabited island. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
BRAZIL'S NEW PRESIDENT launched his anti-hunger program Thursday with a move to provide $14 a month to 1.5 million families. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's hunger task force estimated 46 million of the country's 175 million citizens survive on less than $1 a day. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAMBODIA APOLOGIZED and offered compensation Thursday for a riot that damaged the Thai Embassy and severely strained relations with its neighbor. The embassy was partially burned and vandalized by mobs during riots Wednesday, leaving one Thai dead and seven injured. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS