Flight attendant was calm during Sept. 11 hijacking

Flight attendant was calmduring Sept. 11 hijacking
WASHINGTON -- The calm voice calling from American Airlines Flight 11 belied the mayhem unfolding on the jetliner: A hijacking was under way, three people were stabbed, the cockpit was silent.
"The cockpit is not answering their phone," flight attendant Betty Ong told the American Airlines operations center shortly before the plane slammed into the World Trade Center. "There's somebody stabbed in business class, and we can't breathe in business. Um, I think there is some Mace or something. We can't breathe.
"I don't know, but I think we're getting hijacked."
Ong, 45, known as "Bee," of Andover, Mass., was working coach class on the American Airlines Boeing 767 flying from Boston to Los Angeles on Sept. 11, 2001, before suspected 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta and four others took over the plane and crashed it into the North Tower of the Trade Center.
The Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States heard portions of Ong's 23-minute conversation with the operations center on the second of a two-day hearing Tuesday.
Marine sentenced to lifein prison for murder plot
SAN DIEGO -- A Marine was sentenced to life in federal prison Tuesday for trying to murder the husband of a woman with whom he was having an affair while the two men were stationed in Kuwait.
Chief Warrant Officer Larry A. Framness will be eligible for parole in 25 years, said a spokesman at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, where the court-martial was held. The military judge ordered Framness dismissed from the Marines.
Framness, 36, pleaded guilty Monday to attempted murder, making false statements, dereliction of duty and adultery in the May 14 attack on Chief Warrant Officer James Glass, who suffered shrapnel wounds to his neck, back and legs in a grenade attack.
Military officials said Framness lured Glass into a small guard shack in Kuwait and then tossed the grenade at him. The explosion was supposed to look like a terrorist attack.
Framness met Glass while they were assigned to the Marine Wing Support Squadron 371, based in Yuma, Ariz. He later met Wendy Glass and the two began an 18-month affair before plotting to kill James Glass in October 2002.
Military prosecutors argued that Framness and Wendy Glass expected to collect $350,000 in life insurance.
Cabinet OKs scarf ban
PARIS -- French Cabinet ministers adopted a bill today to ban conspicuous religious symbols in public schools -- the first step to outlawing Islamic head scarves in the classroom.
The bill, containing three articles, goes to the parliament for debate Tuesday.
It stipulates that "in schools, junior high schools and high schools, signs and dress that conspicuously show the religious affiliation of students are forbidden."
It does not apply to pupils in private schools.
The law would forbid Islamic head scarves, Jewish skullcaps and Christian crosses, but it is clearly aimed at the Muslim head coverings.
Soldier dies in attack
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The second suicide attack in two days on international peacekeepers in the Afghan capital killed a British soldier today and wounded four more, the security force and officials said.
The latest bombing came during a memorial ceremony for a Canadian soldier killed the day before. An Afghan bystander also died in that attack. The Taliban once more claimed responsibility.
The British soldier died after a taxi packed with explosives detonated near his patrol vehicle about 11 a.m. local time near the main British base in the eastern outskirts of Kabul, said Nayamatullah Jalili, intelligence chief at the Afghan Interior Ministry. He said an Afghan was also killed -- apparently the assailant.
Art exhibit protest
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Sweden's prime minister has been bombarded with about 14,000 e-mails from a U.S.-based Jewish human rights group protesting an art exhibit featuring the image of a Palestinian suicide bomber, the government said Tuesday.
The flap threatened to overshadow a three-day international conference in Stockholm on preventing genocide that ends today.
Israel downgraded its representation at the conference after the Museum of National Antiquities refused to remove a display showing a picture of Islamic Jihad bomber Hanadi Jaradat, who killed herself and 21 bystanders in a suicide attack Oct. 4 in Haifa, Israel.
The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center said the exhibit glorified a "Palestinian homicide bomber" and Sweden should declare suicide bombings a crime against humanity.
Associated Press