She’s booted off Southwest

She’s booted off Southwest

SAN DIEGO — A 23-year-old woman who boarded a Southwest Airlines plane in a short skirt for a flight to Arizona says she was led off the plane for wearing an outfit that was considered too skimpy.

Kyla Ebbert said a Southwest employee asked her to leave her seat while the plane was preparing to leave San Diego’s Lindbergh Field on July 3.

Ebbert, a student who was headed to Tucson for a doctor’s appointment, said Friday on NBC’s “Today” show that the employee told her she would have to catch a later flight.

“You’re dressed inappropriately. This is a family airline. You’re too provocative to fly on this plane,” she quoted the employee as saying.

hPope visits Austria

VIENNA, Austria — Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged Europe’s tragic past and warned of its uncertain future Friday as he honored Jews killed in the Holocaust and urged the continent to accept its Christian heritage.

Abortion must never be considered a human right, Benedict said, and urged European political leaders to encourage young married couples to have children and the continent’s graying population “not to become old in spirit.” Above, Carinal Christophe Schoenborn welcomes the pope during a liturgical opening eremony at the Am Hof square in central Vienna.

San Diego diocese to pay
$198M over abuse claims

SAN DIEGO — Victims of clergy sex abuse emerged from a federal courthouse Friday with a $198.1 million settlement from the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego. It was only about $2 million less than they had asked for, and an average of about $1.4 million for each of the 144 plaintiffs, more than victims got elsewhere in the country.

For Michael Bang, it wasn’t enough. “It has taken years to get here, and I’m angry as hell,” said Bang, of Atlanta, who claims he was a sex slave to a reverend monsignor as a boy. “They’re buying their way out of it.”

Plaintiffs were also angry over how the diocese had treated them over more than four years of negotiations in state and federal courts.

Duke prosecutor jailed

RHAM, N.C. — In perhaps his lowest point of the Duke lacrosse debacle, former prosecutor Mike Nifong walked into jail to serve a 24-hour contempt sentence on Friday, soon after it was revealed that the three players he falsely accused of rape are seeking $30 million from the city.

Nifong arrived about 20 minutes before his 9 a.m. deadline to report to jail, surrounded by about 20 supporters and family members. They formed a protective cluster to walk Nifong into the building, with supporters at the front carrying signs that read, “We believe in your integrity and goodness.”

About 20 reporters and a handful of hecklers also were waiting for him. “Justice works!” a woman shouted.

“I hope your family gets what you gave those families, you scumbag,” a man said loudly.

Seach goes on in Utah
for missing student

PROVO, Utah — Authorities searched mountain trails and the Provo River on Friday looking for a Brigham Young University student near where two people took a bicycle that may belong to her.

Climbers airlifted by helicopter atop a 607-foot waterfall made their way down by ropes while checking every crevice. Divers searched a 10-foot-deep pool a few miles downstream as cadaver dogs sniffed a stretch of the river. No evidence of the woman was found by Friday evening

3 die in plane crash

SYRIA, Va. (AP) — A single-engine plane crashed in Shenandoah National Park, killing the three people aboard, state police said Friday.

Authorities withheld the identities of those killed in Thursday’s crash until next of kin could be notified. The 1964 Piper fixed-wing plane departed from Georgia bound for Winchester and went down in a wooded area near Syria. The plane was registered out of Florida.

Associated Press