Plane passenger accused of slapping air marshal

Plane passenger accusedof slapping air marshal
MIAMI -- A plane passenger slapped a federal air marshal after refusing to sit down and ignoring instructions to end her cellular phone call, which she said would have been "rude," prosecutors said Tuesday.
Lilia Belkova has been jailed since being charged with assaulting a federal officer and interfering with a flight crew last Wednesday as a US Airways flight prepared to take off from Miami to Philadelphia.
A bail hearing was set for Thursday. It was unclear late Tuesday if Belkova, 38, had yet been assigned an attorney.
According to prosecutors, Belkova refused flight attendants' instructions to turn off her cell phone as Flight 26 taxied for takeoff, saying: "It is rude to hang up on people. I don't have to turn my phone off."
After ignoring more flight crew instructions, one of two air marshals ordered Belkova to be seated and put a hand on her shoulder to show her where to sit.
Belkova reached back and slapped the marshal across the face, causing "minor swelling," according to court papers. She was handcuffed and taken off the plane.
Woman dies of burns aftertrying to set man on fire
MILWAUKEE -- A woman died of burns Tuesday after trying to light her boyfriend on fire, police said.
Police and fire officials found the 31-year-old woman standing in front of her apartment building early Tuesday with second- and third-degree burns over 90 percent of her body, Sgt. Kenneth Harris said.
"She got into an argument with her boyfriend and she attempted to douse him with lighter fluid and in dousing him, she doused herself," Harris said. The woman used a cigarette lighter to ignite the fire, he said.
The woman died at a hospital several hours later. Harris said her 57-year-old boyfriend, who lived at the apartment, was treated and released with minor injuries, but was arrested on a drug-related charge.
Their names were not released.
Bank robber returns loot
LONDON -- A thief took more than $180,000 from an automated teller machine, then apparently returned most of the cash a week later.
Police said Tuesday that the money was taken from the machine inside Barclays Bank in Barkingside High Street, east London, overnight on May 21-22.
On May 28, staff discovered a large garbage bag filled with bank notes inside the bank, said a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police.
He would not confirm the amount stolen but news reports said $207,000 was stolen and some $187,000 was returned.
Police said the robber had smashed a window inside the bank to get into the room where the automatic teller machine stood. However, there were no signs of forced entry at the main door.
Rebels kill 19 civilians
KAMPALA, Uganda -- Rebels attacked a refugee camp in northern Uganda, brutally killing 19 civilians and forcing 3,000 others to flee their homes, a government official said today.
More than 100 rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army attacked the camp in Apach district late Tuesday, rampaging through civilians' homes, burning hundreds of huts and abducting several of the camp's residents, said Francis Owor, the district commissioner.
Lt. Paddy Ankunda, the regional army spokesman, confirmed 19 people were killed in the attack 193 miles north of Kampala. He said government forces were chasing the insurgents.
The Lord's Resistance Army rose from the remnants of a revolt by soldiers from the dominant Acholi tribe in northern Uganda after President Yoweri Museveni, a southerner, seized power in 1986.
Royal heart gets funeral
SAINT-DENIS, France -- French royalists staged a pageant-filled funeral Tuesday for a tiny, rock-hard relic they hailed as the heart cut from Louis XVII, who died at age 10 in a filthy revolutionary prison.
A hearse brimming with lilies -- the symbol of the French crown -- delivered a crystal vase containing the heart to the Saint-Denis Basilica. There, it was placed in a royal crypt containing the remains of Louis XVII's parents, Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI.
After two centuries of mystery surrounding the boy's fate, DNA tests have convinced many historians that the relic passed secretly from person to person was truly the royal heart.
A faction of royalists -- who want to turn back the clock and restore the monarchy -- seized on the DNA tests to press the government to allow the funeral at the Gothic basilica north of Paris, the resting place of France's kings.
Louis XVII lost his parents to the guillotine in 1793.
Associated Press