Pan Am families: Libya must meet demands

Pan Am families: Libyamust meet demands
WASHINGTON -- Families of Pan Am 103 victims said Friday they will not agree to a Libyan compensation offer until that country meets U.N. Security Council demands.
About 20 family members met with Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and discussed a deal under which Libya would pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the families for the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am plane.
The compensation payments, amounting to $10 million per family, would be guided by a formula under which funds would be released progressively as U.N. and U.S. sanctions against Libya are lifted.
Details of the arrangement were disclosed last week by lawyers for the family members who negotiated with a Libyan team for 10 months. The State Department was not a party to the talks.
Burns and British officials discussed the issue Thursday in London with Libyan diplomats.
Five family members who spoke to reporters after the State Department meeting said there was broad agreement among those attending that Libya must meet all U.N. requirements as the next step in the process.
New crew arrivesat space station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Space shuttle Endeavour delivered a new crew to the international space station Friday to relieve the three men who have been living aboard the orbiting outpost for the past six months.
Space station astronaut Daniel Bursch was so excited to see his ride home that he rang the ship's bell and announced the shuttle's arrival seven minutes early. Then his crewmate Carl Walz jumped ahead in the hatch-opening procedures and was asked to wait.
When all the hatches finally swung open, no one on Earth could see the exchange of greetings because of interrupted communication coverage. The astronauts promised to beam down a videotape of the event.
Bursch, Walz and Yuri Onufrienko, their Russian commander, moved into the space station in early December and did not expect to stay so long. Robot-arm problems at the space station and then shuttle launch delays added more than a month to their stint in orbit.
Replacing them aboard the space station were two Russians and one American, astronaut-biochemist Peggy Whitson, only the second woman to settle in.
Torrential rains leaveeight dead in Europe
PARIS -- Fierce thunderstorms swept across Europe on Friday, killing eight people and leaving a trail of flooded roads, collapsed houses and downed bridges from France to Poland.
Regional officials in northeastern Italy declared a state of emergency, while the Austrian military was deployed to deal with the flooding aftermath.
In Germany, at least three people died in storm-battered Bavaria. An 81-year-old woman died when flood waters poured into her Dierdorf cellar, while two men drowned in a parking garage.
In southeastern France, floods and mudslides collapsed two houses and carried cars away.
About 100 residents of Saint-Geoire-en-Valdaine in the mountainous Isere region were forced to spend Thursday night in a gymnasium. A woman in her 80s was found dead in the rubble of a home partly destroyed by storms, police said.
Flooding also hit Venice, Italy, where sirens sounded to announce "acqua alta" -- high waters -- which often afflict the lagoon city and its magnificent canal-side palazzos.
Innocent plea
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- A college student accused of planting pipe bombs and anti-government letters in mailboxes in five states pleaded innocent to federal charges Friday.
Luke Helder, 21, made a brief appearance before U.S. Magistrate John Jarvey, then was quickly escorted back to jail.
Helder was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of using a pipe bomb to destroy Delores Werling's mailbox in rural Tipton on May 3. A conviction could bring up to 40 years in prison. He also is charged with using a bomb in a crime of violence, which could bring life in prison.
Helder, a University of Wisconsin-Stout student, reportedly put 18 pipe bombs in mailboxes in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Colorado and Texas. He was arrested near Reno, Nev., on May 7.
Six of the pipe bombs exploded, all in Iowa and Illinois, injuring four letter carriers and two residents.
Werling, 70, was injured in the face and arms by flying shards of metal when the bomb went off. She also suffered some hearing loss.