Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 24, 2001
Web system watched for terrorism
ATLANTA -- As Democrats gathered in Los Angeles last summer to nominate Al Gore for president, health officials were quietly using a new, Web-based tracking system to watch for biological terrorism.
The network linked 11 hospital emergency rooms, an airport and federal health officials, who checked a secure Internet site as often as every hour to detect signs of bacteria circulated to spread deadly disease.
Web tracking allowed specialists to look for patterns in symptoms during the convention rather than waiting for doctors' diagnoses. Had bioterrorists struck, the system would have given the city a critical head start in fighting back.
Details of the network were revealed Monday at a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conference in Atlanta.
SAN FRANCISCO -- On Monday, the Board of Supervisors postponed a vote that would have made San Francisco the only city in the nation to pay for employees' sex changes.
The measure needs nine votes to pass. Two of the 11 supervisors were absent Monday and one supervisor opposes it.
Supervisor Mark Leno, who supports the benefits, said he expected nine votes for the measure when it is taken up again next week. Minnesota offered similar benefits, but its program was phased out in 1998.
CAPE CANAVERAL -- With astronauts at the controls, the international space station's new 58-foot robot arm took its first baby step Monday, lifting one hand and putting it down 24 feet away.
"Congratulations. You've just added a new part of the station," radioed Mission Control.
"We've got a lot of excited people up here," replied space station astronaut Susan Helms.
Because of a series of tests, it took three hours for the arm, a high-tech construction crane with a hand on each end, to complete its first inchwormlike step. With one hand holding on, the hand at the other end of the arm released a temporary handle on the space station and eventually plugged itself into a socket 24 feet away.
The arm aced all of its tests.
"This was one of those linchpins that had to work, and it looks like it's going to work," said space station resident Jim Voss. "We're looking forward to using it to keep building the station."
PHOENIX -- An American Airlines jet made an unscheduled landing Monday because pesticide leaking from a carry-on bag made passengers feel ill.
Three passengers on the flight from Los Angeles to Miami were hospitalized and later released. The plane, which had 167 people on board, later left Phoenix for Miami.
Several passengers complained of nausea and difficulty breathing after they were exposed to concentrated diazinon, a common pesticide, said fire department spokesman Doug Mummert.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jerry Snyder said officials believed Gilberto Villeda of El Salvador took the pesticide on the plane by mistake. He was not detained but the FAA was considering fining him because the pesticide is forbidden on passenger flights, Snyder said.
CAMANCHE, Iowa -- With high winds whipping the Mississippi River into waves that battered levees and buildings, volunteers and National Guard soldiers battled Monday to keep the river from overwhelming flood defenses.
The flood crest that has been rolling slowly down the river through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois appeared to be arriving at the east-central Iowa community of Camanche. The Coast Guard arrived in what is usually a dry neighborhood to tie down a floating dock.
Downstream in Davenport, the largest urban area on the upper Mississippi without a permanent flood wall, there were a couple of minor breaches in the wall of sandbags downtown.
FEMA CHIEF AND BAILOUTS: President Bush on Monday directed his emergency-management director to visit the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois on Thursday.
That region, near the swollen Mississippi River, has been hit by flooding in recent days.
Joe Allbaugh, the Federal Emergency Management Agency chief, told reporters after meeting with Bush that on his trip, he would discuss with elected officials the problem of continual federal bailouts for flood victims.
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A school bus driver was arrested Monday after an early morning shooting at a bus yard that left one man dead and three women wounded.
Cathline Repunte, 36, was arrested without a struggle after the shooting just before 6 a.m. at the Laidlaw bus company's yard. Police said she was subdued by co-worker Gregory Alan, who took her handgun and held her until police arrived.
The bus company said Repunte had been employed for about six years driving high school students. Investigators had not determined the motive.
DENVER -- The families of several victims in the Columbine massacre have filed a lawsuit against companies that create violent video games and sex-oriented Web sites, claiming their products influenced the gunmen.
The suit seeks $5-billion in punitive damages from 25 entertainment companies. It was filed on behalf of the family of slain teacher Dave Sanders and other Columbine victims in federal court.
Companies named in the lawsuit include Nintendo of America, Sega of America, Sony Computer Entertainment and Time Warner Inc., which is now AOL Time Warner, and ID Software Inc. and GT Interactive Software Corp., creators and publishers of the game Doom.
During the investigation into the April 20, 1999, shooting, police found a videotape that shows one of the killers with a sawed-off shotgun on his lap he calls "Arlene" after a character in Doom.
ANDERSONVILLE, Ga. -- Crew members of the USS Pueblo, denied prisoner-of-war status for years even though they were held captive by North Korea for 11 months in 1968, will be honored at the National Prisoner of War Museum this week.
The Pueblo's captain, retired Navy Cmdr. Lloyd M. Bucher, and other crew members will place a plaque on a wall Wednesday.
One crewman was killed and 13 were wounded when North Korean boats opened fire on the surveillance ship Jan. 23, 1968, while it was in international waters.