Elections to be delayed

Elections to be delayed

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan elections will be delayed by one month because of the turmoil sparked by Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, despite opposition threats of street protests unless the crucial vote is held next Tuesday as originally planned, a top official said Tuesday. A senior Election Commission official told The Associated Press that the commission has agreed on a new date. He indicated it would not be before the second week of February but refused to disclose the exact schedule before the formal announcement today. The killing of Bhutto, a former prime minister, triggered three days of nationwide riots that killed 58 people and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage. Above, Pakistani human rights activists took part in a candlelight ceremony in memory of Bhutto on Tuesday.

Seeking ’71 skyjacker

PORTLAND, Ore. — The FBI is making a new stab at identifying mysterious skyjacker Dan Cooper, who bailed out of an airliner in 1971 and vanished, releasing new details that it hopes will jog someone’s memory. The man calling himself Dan Cooper, also known as D.B. Cooper, boarded a Northwest flight in Portland for a flight to Seattle on the night of Nov. 24, 1971, and commandeered the plane, contending he had dynamite. In Seattle, he demanded and got $200,000 and four parachutes and demanded to be flown to Mexico. Somewhere over southwestern Washington, he jumped out the plane’s tail exit with two of the chutes. On Monday, the FBI released drawings that it said probably are close to what Cooper looked like, along with a map of areas where Cooper might have landed.

Study: ER discrimination

CHICAGO — Emergency room doctors are prescribing strong narcotics more often to patients who complain of pain, but minorities are less likely to get them than whites, a new study finds. Even for the severe pain of kidney stones, minorities were prescribed narcotics such as oxycodone and morphine less frequently than whites. The analysis of more than 150,000 emergency room visits over 13 years found differences in prescribing by race in both urban and rural hospitals, in all U.S. regions and for every type of pain.

Accused in deaths

MARKHAM, Ill. — A suburban Chicago man is accused of setting an apartment fire — killing his pregnant daughter, her husband and their young child — because the son-in-law didn’t ask permission for the marriage, prosecutors said.

Subhash Chander, 57, of Oak Forest was ordered held without bond Tuesday on three counts of first-degree murder, one count of intentional homicide of an unborn child and one count of aggravated arson.

Prosecutors allege Chander used gasoline to start the fire late Saturday. The India native told police he disliked his son-in-law because he belonged to a lower caste and had married his daughter without his consent, said Cook County First Assistant State’s Attorney Robert Milan.

Chander’s sister, Kamla Devi, told WBBM-AM that her brother is innocent. She said that relatives approved of the marriage and that the caste system was not a consideration for her family in India, or in the United States.

Woman, fetus killed

COLUMBUS — A woman who was eight-months pregnant woman and her fetus were killed Tuesday when the car she was riding in was struck by an Ohio Department of Transportation salt truck. Police say Paulina Martinez’s husband — 29-year-old Alfonso Martinez — was driving their Toyota just outside Columbus and ran a red light before the collision with the salt truck. Perry Township police say Martinez has no driver’s license and will be charged with two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide. The couple’s 2-year-old son was in critical condition at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Their 4-year-old and 7-year-old daughters were treated at a local hospital and are being cared for by Franklin County Children Services. Police say the children were not wearing seat belts.

Associated Press