NEWS BRIEFS
BOGOTA, COLUMBIA
Bomb kills 2 Colombian police officers; other bombs explode in capital
Associated Press
A parked car with a body inside blew up yesterday south of Bogota, killing two police explosives experts. Two homemade mortars were later launched near the presidential palace in Bogota, but neither detonated.
Two small bombs also exploded in a downtown commercial district of the capital, injuring four people, including a 6-year-old girl who was reported in critical condition. Police spent much of the day rushing around the city, responding to reports of explosions and the discovery of bombs.
No one claimed responsibility for the bombings, but police blamed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Just two blocks from the presidential palace, an explosion was heard in an alley. Police who investigated the report found a car that had been set up to launch homemade mortars, according to a bomb squad member. Two unexploded mortars were found in parks in the area and were deactivated, he said.
The attacks caused jitters in this Andean capital of 7 million.
Nelson Cuervo, 35, rushed to get his child out of a school near the palace.
"The thing that is so unfair is that all of us innocent people have to pay for the war that is happening here, especially the children," he said as he stood with dozens of people evacuated from nearby buildings.
The attacks began before dawn yesterday, when police found a car abandoned on a rural road 25 miles south of Bogota, with a corpse and bags inside. Fearing the bags contained explosives, the police didn't touch the car or try to remove the unidentified body, and called the bomb squad.
CAPITOL HEIGHTS, Md.
Work-zone accidents on the rise along with highway construction
Associated Press
Fatal wrecks in highway work zones have increased sharply along with construction, killing 1,093 people in 2000.
The deaths have risen steadily since 1998, when Congress passed a six-year, $203 billion bill for highway construction and mass transit, an increase of 40 percent over the previous six years.
"We never fully appreciated how much added pressure would be on the highways," said Minnesota Rep. James Oberstar, the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation Committee. "We're building the world's best highway system. We've not done enough to make it the world's safest highway system."
Fatal crashes were dropping in the years leading up to the bill's passage but increased 58 percent from 1997 to 2000, the latest year for which statistics are available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The American Traffic Safety Services Association, which represents companies that sell traffic control devices, unveiled the National Work Zone Memorial yesterday at a ceremony in Capitol Heights. More than 700 names of people killed in construction zone crashes are etched into a set of walls that will travel around the country this year.
State highway officials are supporting the memorial as a way to encourage motorists to drive carefully in construction zones. James Codell, Kentucky's secretary of transportation, said more than 80 percent of people who die in highway construction zones are motorists, not workers.
ALIQUIPPA, Pa.
Authorities break up $22 million coke ring with Arizona ties
Associated Press
Thirty-two people were charged yesterday in a ring authorities said brought more than 1,300 pounds of cocaine worth $21.6 million into southwestern Pennsylvania from Arizona and Mexico in the last two years.
Michael Glanton, 29, of Phoenix, who formerly lived in Aliquippa, about 20 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, was described as the ringleader by Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher.
Glanton remained at large yesterday, but 22 of the other suspects were apprehended and being arraigned throughout the day before District Justice Janet Swihart.
Fisher said his agents linked Glanton to a Crips street gang that is affiliated with groups in Arizona, California and Kansas.
A state grand jury determined that Glanton's alleged ring also brought marijuana and Ecstasy into southwestern Pennsylvania, Fisher said. Glanton got the drugs in Phoenix, and sometimes directly from sources in Mexico, Fisher said.
The Phoenix-to-Beaver County route was known as the "pipeline" by drug dealers in Pennsylvania because of the high volume of cocaine the ring moved into the area, Fisher said.
"This was clearly one of the largest cocaine distribution networks to ever operate in southwestern Pennsylvania," Fisher said.
Ronald Whethers, of McClellandtown, is serving a life sentence in federal prison for heading an organization that brought more than 860 pounds of cocaine to western Pennsylvania from 1989 to 1995. At the time of his 1996 conviction, state and federal authorities said Whethers had been southwestern Pennsylvania's preeminent drug dealer.
