Near-collision at JFK

Near-collision at JFK

WASHINGTON — Two airborne planes — one landing and the other taking off — came within a half-mile of colliding at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday in the second such incident at the airport in a week, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The FAA moved quickly to change takeoff and landing procedures at JFK on perpendicular runways — the kind of runways involved in both incidents.

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the Delta Flight 123, a Boeing 757, was landing on one runway Friday when the pilot decided to abort his landing and execute a go-around — a routine procedure often used during heavy congestion. That caused the Delta flight to intersect with the flight path of Comair Flight 1520, a regional jet that was taking off on another runway.

Sudan leader faces charge

UNITED NATIONS — The prosecutor of the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal will seek an arrest warrant Monday charging Sudan’s president with crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur, a move U.N. diplomats warned could bring a backlash from Sudan’s government.

U.N. officials and diplomats said the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court would seek an indictment charging Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with orchestrating violence in Darfur that has left hundreds of thousands of people dead.

Sudan’s government reacted swiftly and angrily.

“If you indict our head of state, the symbol of our country, the symbol of our dignity, then the sky’s the limit for our reactions,” Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed told The Associated Press on Friday.

Actress Evelyn Keyes dies

LOS ANGELES — Evelyn Keyes, who played Scarlett O’Hara’s younger sister Suellen in “Gone With the Wind” and counted director John Huston and bandleaderArtie Shaw among her famous husbands, has died. She was 91.

The actress died July 4 of uterine cancer at her home in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, producer and close friend Allan Glaser said Friday. Glaser said the news was withheld because lawyers wanted to wait until the death certificate was filed.

Keyes’ personal life often overshadowed her acting career. Besides her often turbulent marriages to Shaw and directors Huston and Charles Vidor, she lived with the flamboyant producer Mike Todd for three years during his preparation and filming of “Around the World in 80 Days.” She played a cameo role in the movie and helped on publicity.

Todd sent her to the premiere in Caracas, then called her abruptly from Paris with this message: “Listen, I have to tell you. I’ve fallen in love with Elizabeth [Taylor].”

“Oh well, nothing lasts forever,” she philosophized in 1977. “The good part was that I invested all my money in ‘Around the World in 80 Days,’ and that set me up for life.”

Pakistan: Mortars fired

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Mortar shells fired from Afghanistan wounded six Pakistani security forces along the border, and Pakistan has lodged a “strong protest” with NATO, the army’s top spokesman said Friday.

The six mortars were fired overnight and fell close to a military post in the town of Angore Adda in the South Waziristan tribal region, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said. Pakistani forces immediately returned fire, and “casualties were reported on the other side,” he said.

“This was mortar fire from the Afghan side,” Abbas said. “Whether it was foreign forces or Afghan forces it’s yet to be determined.”

Iran missile test update

WASHINGTON — Iran’s missile test this week did not demonstrate any new capabilities, according to a U.S. official familiar with the intelligence, and the test may not have included one of the longer-range missiles Iran claims was among those launched. Iranian officials claimed the tests Wednesday and Thursday demonstrated a new variant of the Shahab missile that had a range of 1,250 miles. Such a missile would put much of the Middle East in striking distance, including Israel — as close as 650 miles from Iran — as well as Turkey, Pakistan and the Arabian peninsula.

Associated Press