National briefs

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 27, 2001

U.S. mosques jump 25 percent in 6 years

In an indication of the growing religious organization and visibility of the nation's Muslims, the number of mosques in the United States increased by about 25 percent in six years, to more than 1,200, a study sponsored by four American Islamic organizations has found.

The findings of the Mosque Study Project 2000 were released Thursday and published by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a non-profit advocacy organization. A similar study in 1994 found 964 mosques in the country.

Recent estimates of the number of Muslims in the United States have varied widely. The new study estimated the total at between 6-million and 7-million, arriving at those numbers through calculations based on the average number of Muslims with whom mosques reported some connection.

If that estimate is correct, then the American Muslim population at least equals the commonly accepted figure of 6-million Jews in the United States.

The study also found that a large majority of mosques were in cities and suburbs, that attendance was overwhelmingly male and that worshipers were ethnically diverse: one-third are South Asian, 30 percent are black, 25 percent are Arab. It also said nearly all mosques used English as the main language, or one of the main languages, for sermons at Friday prayers.

N.Y. court: Gunmakers not liable

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Handgun manufacturers cannot be held liable for shooting deaths and injuries suffered by seven people because of the supposedly negligent way the weapons were marketed and distributed, the state's highest court ruled Thursday.

The 7-0 decision by the Court of Appeals probably dooms what lawyers said was the first verdict to go against gunmakers sued over their marketing practices by a shooting victim.

In addition, it probably will influence courts in other states with similar lawsuits, said Lawrence Greenwald, a Baltimore lawyer who represented Beretta USA and American Arms before the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals decided that the chain linking gunmakers with the seven victims is too tenuous to hold the manufacturers responsible.

Elsewhere . . .

WITNESS: RACIST IN OTHER ATTACKS: An ex-girlfriend of a former Ku Klux Klansman accused in a 1963 church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., that killed four black girls testified Thursday that he once tried to run over a black pedestrian and claimed to have attacked others with acid. But Waylene Vaughn, who dated Thomas Blanton Jr. in the early 1960s, said he never talked about participating in the bombing.

NO PUNISHMENT FOR OFFICERS: Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik has decided not to discipline the four officers who killed Amadou Diallo in a hail of gunfire in the Bronx two years ago, but will order them to undergo retraining in tactics, high-ranking police officials told the New York Times Thursday night.

These officials said Kerik would announce as early as today that he had accepted recommendations by two departmental investigating panels that found that the officers, despite their barrage at an unarmed man, had not violated police guidelines because they believed that Diallo had a gun.

WHITE HOUSE T-BALL SET: The first White House South Lawn T-ball game will be May 6 as part of President Bush's effort to revitalize interest in America's pastime.

Two teams from the Washington area will play on a makeshift diamond that will be set up in the president's back yard, White House officials said Wednesday.

The game between the Capital City League Rockies and the Satchel Paige League Memphis Red Sox will feature play-by-play by announcer Bob Costas.

Bush will place the first ball on the batting tee. The field will be designed according to Little League regulations, down to the chalk lines. The benches and the backstop are being shipped from the league's headquarters in Pennsylvania this week. Players on both teams will get jerseys reading "South Lawn Sluggers," and every player will get an autographed baseball from the president.

OLDEST VETERAN DIES: The nation's oldest living veteran, Will Charles Smith, has died in Tallahassee at age 112.

Smith, who was born New Year's Day in 1889 at Sneads in the Florida Panhandle, became the oldest living veteran last month after John Painter of Tennessee died, also at age 112.

Smith, who died April 19, served in the Army in France in 1918-19. He took up farming when he returned home, then moved to Tallahassee in 1946 and worked as a landscaper until age 89.

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