Canadian fighters shadowed a New York-bound Air India jetliner over the Atlantic Ocean yesterday after authorities determined that a suspicious passenger was aboard, U.S. government officials said.

The commercial plane, flying from London to New York, landed at JFK International Airport at about 4:45 p.m. It was believed to be carrying 378 passengers and 19 crew members.

U.S. fighters had been expected to escort the plane once it entered U.S. airspace.

It was not immediately clear what caused the concern about the passenger, but the officials said Federal Aviation Administration authorities had spoken to members of the Air India crew, who were in a reinforced cockpit and indicated they were not alarmed.

The jetliner was being shadowed from a distance, not escorted, so the passengers would not see the Canadian fighters, the officials said.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a screener in London thought one of the passengers resembled someone on a list given to civil aviation authorities of suspected terrorists and others who are not allowed on airplanes.

The person in question was traveling under a different name than the one under the picture that looked like him, the official said. The screener mentioned his suspicion to someone else after the plane took off, and was interviewed by British law enforcement officials.

A mortar shell tore through the roof of an eastern Afghan village school Thursday as boys studied, killing one child and injuring dozens, the government said.

In Kabul, British peacekeepers reported coming under fire for the third time in two weeks. No injuries were reported, though rounds came close enough to leave a bullet hole in the roof of the observation post.

Amid the violence, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged an extension of the mandate for the British-led peacekeeping force past summer - saying too quick an exit risks chaos for Afghanistan.

The mortar attack hit a government-run boys school in Sarobi, 40 miles east of Kabul, Interior Ministry official Mohammed Azimi said in Kabul.

Family members told hospital workers the blast ripped through the ceiling of a classroom where about 35 boys were studying, said Rossella Miccio, administrator in the Kabul hospital where 19 of the injured were treated.

It was unclear whether the shell had targeted the school or strayed. Although admitting authorities didn't know who was responsible, Azimi blamed renegade Taliban or al-Qaida trying to sabotage Afghan leader Hamid Karzai's new government.

"They fired the mortar intentionally," he charged.

A public defender faces possible disciplinary action for inadvertently e-mailing an ethnic slur to dozens of members of a Connecticut lawyers group.

Thomas Wynne's anti-Semitic remark about a colleague's "penny-pinching" law firm was accidentally e-mailed Tuesday to 200 subscribers of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.

Wynne was responding to an e-mail from Christian Young of the New Haven law firm Gulash & Riccio that urged online message board readers to check out a magazine story titled: "Are Defense Lawyers Obsolete?"

Thinking he was responding soley to Young, Wynne e-mailed back: "no more obsolete than 'well paid' associates of those penny pinchers Jewlash and Riccio."

Wynne issued several apologies for the remark, but Chief Public Defender Gerard Smyth said Wednesday that disciplinary action would still be considered.

"I find his comments inexcusable, and this will be handled as a disciplinary matter by the agency," Smith said. The type of disciplinary action under consideration was not disclosed.