hTravel delays give some longer holiday weekend
hTravel delays give some
longer holiday weekend
NEW YORK — The long Thanksgiving weekend got a bit longer Monday for some people trying to leave the nation’s largest city, where rain and poor visibility delayed some flights for hours. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, arrivals at LaGuardia were delayed three hours throughout much of the day. There were two-hour delays at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and one-hour delays at Kennedy International Airport. Thirty flights at LaGuardia were canceled. In Atlanta, about 25 percent of flights experienced at least short delays. A spokeswoman for the Atlanta airport said nearly 306,000 passengers were expected to pass through the airport Monday. Nelly Su, above, of Miami, rested with her boyfriend Mike Thomas, at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta.
Lott to leave Senate
PASCAGOULA, Miss. — The time was right to step aside, the U.S. Senate’s second-ranking Republican, Trent Lott, told a hometown crowd when he announced Monday that he will resign after completing one year of a six-year term. Lott, 66, has said he planned to retire before Hurricane Katrina, but stayed to help Mississippi, where 42 counties were hit by the storm, particularly Lott’s home base on the Gulf Coast. He said he thinks he has done what he can and now wants to devote more time to his family and professional interests. Lott expressed frustration over the slow pace of progress, even with legislation that raises little controversy.
Hastert ends his run
CHICAGO — Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who made a farewell speech to House colleagues 11 day earlier, made his resignation official Monday with a letter to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Hastert had announced in August he wouldn’t seek another term and earlier this month confirmed he wouldn’t finish his 11th term, but he hadn’t said when he would resign his seat. In his letter, Hastert said he chose Monday because he was advised it would give Blagojevich sufficient time to set a special primary election for Feb. 5 so voters can pick candidates to run for the remainder of his term, which ends in January 2009.
Cheney’s heart shocked
WASHINGTON — Doctors administered an electrical shock Monday to Vice President Dick Cheney’s heart and restored it to a normal rhythm. Cheney went home from George Washington University Hospital after the procedure was declared a success.
Violence erupts in France
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France — Rampaging youths threw Molotov cocktails and fired buckshot at police in troubled neighborhoods outside Paris on Monday, the second night of violence after two teens were killed in a crash with a police patrol car. Officials said 38 officers were wounded. Anger focused on police, with residents claiming that officers left the scene of Sunday’s crash without helping the boys — a claim officials cast doubt on but which the police were investigating.
Holloway case prediction
ORANJESTAD, Aruba — Lawyers for one of three young men re-arrested in the disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway accused prosecutors of rehashing old evidence and predicted all three suspects will be released again. Attorneys Ronald Wix and David Kock told reporters Monday that prosecutors gave them an 11 1/2-page summary of the evidence, and said it mostly contained segments of interrogations that had not been transcribed previously and recordings of conversations from cell phones and discussions inside the home of their client, Satish Kalpoe. They disputed prosecution claims that the evidence — submitted to a judge to justify detaining their client and the two others — is significant or new.
Combined dispatches