Canadian union, Chrysler reach tentative deal

Canadian union, Chrysler reach tentative deal

TORONTO — Canadian Auto Workers negotiators have reached a tentative new labor deal with Chrysler, a union official said Friday.

The deal would save Chrysler about $240 million Canadian ($198 million) a year, CAW President Ken Lewenza said. Chrysler had agreed the cuts amounted to the $19 an hour in savings it was seeking, he added.

Chrysler has until April 30 to reach deals with its unions in Canada and the U.S. and it must cement a technology-sharing alliance with Fiat SpA. It also needs to provide a restructuring plan to governments in both countries that will enable it to qualify for government loans to keep it afloat.

Two more banks fail

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Regulators on Friday shut down two more banks, boosting the number of failures this year to 27 — more bank closures than in all of last year.

The latest banks seized were American Southern Bank in Georgia and Michigan Heritage Bank. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will continue to insure deposits at both banks. Regular deposit accounts are insured up to $250,000.

U.N. envoy says U.S. is obligated to prosecute

VIENNA — The U.S. is obligated by a United Nations convention to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who allegedly drafted policies that approved the use of harsh interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects, the U.N.’s top anti-torture envoy said Friday.

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama left the door open to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terror-suspect interrogations. He had previously absolved CIA officers from prosecution.

Manfred Nowak, who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, said Washington is obligated under the U.N. Convention against Torture to prosecute U.S. Justice Department officials who wrote memos that defined torture in the narrowest way in order to justify and legitimize it, and who assured CIA officials that their use of questionable tactics was legal.

Admissions policy blasted

SAN FRANCISCO — A new admissions policy set to take effect at the University of California system in three years is raising fears among Asian-Americans that it will reduce their numbers on campus, where they account for 40 percent of all undergraduates.

University officials say the new standards — the biggest change in UC admissions since 1960 — are intended to widen the pool of high school applicants and make the process more fair.

But Asian-American advocates, parents and lawmakers are angrily calling on the university to rescind the policy, which will apply at all nine of the system’s undergraduate campuses.

They point to a UC projection that the new standards would sharply reduce Asian-American admissions while resulting in little change for blacks and Hispanics, and a big gain for white students.

School evacuated when teacher issues threat

MELVILLE, N.Y. — More than 1,000 students at a New York City school were evacuated Friday morning when a veteran computer teacher, angry about a disciplinary matter, barricaded himself inside a classroom and claimed to have a bomb, police said.

The teacher, Francisco Garabitos, 55, surrendered almost three hours later and was arrested. There were no injuries, and his claim that he had rigged computers to explode was false.

The drama unfolded about 8:30 a.m. when Garabitos, a 28-year veteran of the Department of Education, barricaded himself inside a computer lab at the New Millennium Business Academy Middle School, one of three schools that operate out of the same building in the Bronx.

Official to urge tests on child safety seats

CHICAGO — U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Friday said he planned to urge carmakers to crash-test child safety seats in their vehicles and recommend which child restraints are the safest in each auto, responding to a Chicago Tribune investigation.

If adopted, the system would be a victory for parents who struggle to find the best car seats for their children. Though federal regulators rate new cars for safety, they have no such system for child car seats. Making matters more difficult, a child restraint that performs well in one vehicle may perform poorly in another because it doesn’t fit snugly in that back seat.

Combined dispatches