Nation in brief

Quakes rattle California

PASO ROBLES, Calif. - Earthquakes Thursday shook the Paso Robles area, where a magnitude-6.5 quake this week killed two people, flattened historic buildings and caused $100-million in damage.

There were no reports of damage or injuries from the Christmas Day temblors, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department said.

The largest in the series of earthquakes had a magnitude of 4.4 and struck about 10 miles west-southwest of Paso Robles around 3:50 a.m., according to a preliminary report from the U.S. Geological Survey. Several of the aftershocks had magnitudes of 3.0 or higher.

NEW YORK - A man was found dead inside the wheel well of a passenger jet that arrived in New York on Christmas Eve from Jamaica, officials said.

Maintenance crews discovered the body late Wednesday, several hours after American Airlines Flight 1190 landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport, said Dan Maynard of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The flight had originated in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

The man was about 25 years old but his identity had not been determined, Maynard said Thursday. It was not known whether the man boarded the plane in Jamaica or had been aboard an earlier flight on the same airplane, said Carlo Bertolini, an airline spokesman.

PLANE CRASH KILLS 6: A single-engine airplane crashed during takeoff at a North Las Vegas airport Thursday, killing all six people aboard, officials said.

The cause is unknown.

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