Crane accident kills 2

Crane accident kills 2

MIAMI — A section of construction crane plummeted 30 floors at the site of a high-rise condominium Tuesday, killing two workers and smashing into a home that the contractor used for storage, police said. Five other workers were injured, one critically, at the site of the 40-plus-story luxury condo tower on Biscayne Bay just days after a similar accident in New York killed seven people. The part that fell was a 20-foot section workers had been raising to extend the equipment’s reach, Miami fire spokesman Ignatius Carroll said. The crane’s main vertical section was intact. The section smashed through the Spanish-tiled roof of the two-story home, which police spokesman Delrish Moss said had been used in the 1998 comedy film “There’s Something About Mary.”

D.B. Cooper’s parachute?

SEATTLE — The FBI says it’s analyzing a torn, tangled parachute found by children in Washington state to see whether it was used by plane hijacker D.B. Cooper. Officials said Tuesday that children playing outside their home near Amboy, in southwest Washington, found the chute sticking up from the ground this month. FBI agent Larry Carr says they pulled on the fabric as much as they could, then cut the ropes. They had seen recent media coverage of the Cooper case and urged their father to call the FBI. Cooper hijacked a plane from Portland, Ore., to Seattle in 1971, got $200,000 and asked to be flown to Mexico. He parachuted from the plane somewhere near the Oregon border, and officials doubt he could have survived.

Farmers strike over taxes

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax increases on agricultural exports Tuesday, facing down angry farmers embroiled in a nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the world’s biggest beef-exporting nations. At least 9,000 cattle normally enter this capital’s sprawling stockyard each day for slaughter, yet not a single animal arrived this week due to the farm and ranch strike, the largest in decades. South America’s second-largest economy — a leading exporter of soybeans, beef and wheat — is in full farmbelt rebellion over a new sliding-scale increase in export taxes. Soybean taxes are being raised from 35 percent to 45 percent, with smaller increases on corn and other farm products.

Easter Island theft

SANTIAGO, Chile — A Finnish tourist was detained after being accused of stealing a piece of volcanic rock from one of the massive Moai statues on Easter Island. Marko Kulju, 26, faces seven years in prison and a fine of $19,100 if convicted of stealing pieces of the right earlobe from a Moai, one of numerous statues carved out of volcanic rock between 400 and 1,000 years ago to represent deceased ancestors. A native Rapanui woman told authorities she witnessed the theft Sunday at Anakena beach and saw Kulju fleeing from the scene with a piece of the statue in his hand. Police later identified him by the tattoos the woman saw on his body.

Death-penalty repeal fails

LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska lawmakers rejected an attempt to repeal the death penalty Tuesday, a month after courts left the state with no way to execute its killers. Twenty senators in the unicameral, officially nonpartisan Legislature voted for the bill to change the maximum penalty to life in prison without possibility of parole. It would have taken 25 votes to advance the debate. The state Supreme Court ruled in February that the electric chair, the state’s sole means of putting inmates to death, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The most likely alternative — lethal injection — is under federal review in a Kentucky case that questions whether the drugs commonly used risk causing excruciating pain, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule by June. Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, a Republican who had been expected to veto the bill if it passed, applauded the vote and said the focus now should be on deciding a legal method of execution for the state.

Shave, haircut — no beer

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The owner of Jude’s Barbershops will continue offering haircuts and shaves to his customers, but no more free beer. The Michigan attorney general’s office says Thomas Martin’s 11 shops in the Grand Rapids area may not hand out a brew with each cut because he needs a liquor license. Martin says he was just continuing an old-fashioned complimentary service for his customers that started years ago. Police had told him that handing out free beer violated local and state laws.

Associated Press