AK Steel to idle plants

AK Steel to idle plants

PITTSBURGH — AK Steel Holding Corp. said Tuesday it was temporarily closing plants in Ohio and Kentucky because of economic turmoil that has sharply lowered demand for its steel products.

The company, based in West Chester, Ohio, said the facilities in Mansfield, Ohio, and Ashland, Ky., will remain idle until early to mid-January. An Ashland plant that produces coke, a steelmaking material, will continue to operate at reduced levels.

AK Steel halted steel production and shipping earlier this week at the Mansfield plant, which employs 365 people and makes flat-rolled steel used mainly in automotive exhaust systems.

The Ashland plant’s blast furnace, steelmaking, casting and coating operations will be idled later this month. The plant employs 1,100 people.

QE2 makes final voyage

LONDON — Britain’s most famous cruise ship, the Queen Elizabeth 2, sailed out into the English channel Tuesday in its last voyage.

Thousands of people gathered at the port in Southampton on England’s south coast to wave goodbye to the 70,000-ton ship as it sailed to a new life as a luxury hotel in Dubai.

Queen Elizabeth II launched the QE2 in 1967, and since then it has traveled around 6 million miles, making more than 800 trans-Atlantic crossings and carrying 2.5 million passengers.

Soldiers rampage in Congo

GOMA, Congo — Hundreds of Congolese soldiers rampaged through several villages in eastern Congo, raping women and pillaging homes as they pulled back ahead of a feared rebel advance, the U.N. reported Tuesday.

U.N. peacekeeping spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich said the army troops had reportedly raped civilians near the town of Kanyabayonga in violent attacks that began overnight that lasted into Tuesday morning.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Tuesday for an immediate cease-fire so aid workers could urgently help “at least 100,000 refugees” cut off in rebel-held areas north of Goma.

Search for survivors ends

PETIONVILLE, Haiti — Crews finished demolishing a collapsed Haitian school Tuesday after the search for survivors ended.

Thousands crowded around the site when workers found several body parts that would be taken to the morgue.

At least 89 people, mostly students, were killed when the College La Promesse suddenly collapsed Friday. The death toll had been 94, but officials revised it downward because some victims had been counted more than once.

Removal of the debris may reveal more bodies of people trapped when the building crashed down, said Nadia Lochard, the civil protection official in charge of the area.

Internet gambling law

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is moving in its last weeks to finalize regulations to enforce a controversial law that seeks to block Internet gambling. The move is drawing hot protests from Democratic lawmakers and supporters of online betting.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the Financial Services Committee, asked Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to postpone the regulation, which was reviewed by the White House budget office last week, usually a final step before publication in the Federal Register.

At issue is a law Congress passed hastily in 2006 when Senate Republicans attached it to an unrelated port security bill in a rush of year-end legislation. The law sought to curb online gambling by prohibiting financial institutions from accepting payments from credit cards, checks or electronic fund transfers to settle online wagers.

Report on airline delays

WASHINGTON — A federal task force that spent nearly a year wrestling with ways to assist people delayed for hours aboard planes parked on tarmacs has finalized its recommendations — none of which requires airlines and airports to do anything.

The tarmac task force, as it is informally known, is expected to vote today on guidelines for airlines and airports on how to craft their own contingency plans for dealing with lengthy tarmac delays.

Among the problems: The task force was unable to agree on whether “lengthy” is one hour, two hours or 10 hours.

Kate Hanni, a task force member and passenger-rights advocate, said Tuesday there is nothing in the draft document that requires airlines or airports to provide additional services for passengers stranded aboard airplanes going nowhere.

Associated Press