No charges against 3 detained in Detroit

No charges against 3 detained in Detroit

ROMULUS, Mich.

Police temporarily detained and questioned three passengers at Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport on Sunday after the crew of the Frontier Airlines flight from Denver reported suspicious activity on board, and NORAD sent two F-16 jets to shadow the flight until it landed safely, airline and federal officials said.

The three passengers who were taken off the plane in handcuffs were released Sunday night, and no charges were filed against them, airport spokesman Scott Wintner said.

7 oil workers found alive in Gulf waters

VERACRUZ, Mexico

Seven of 10 oil workers missing in the Gulf of Mexico were found alive Sunday, according to Mexico’s state oil company, three days after evacuating their disabled rig in a tropical storm and escaping in an enclosed life raft.

Two bodies also were found but have yet to be identified, and rescuers still are searching for one worker who remains missing, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said in a statement.

King memorial to be dedicated Oct. 16

WASHINGTON

Organizers have set a new date in October to dedicate the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial after Hurricane Irene forced them to postpone the event in August, days before 250,000 people were expected to attend.

The memorial’s executive architect, Ed Jackson Jr., told The Associated Press on Sunday it will now be dedicated Oct. 16 on the National Mall. A formal announcement is expected this week.

5 suspected of enslaving 24 men

LONDON

Five people have been arrested in Britain on suspicion of holding two dozen men in squalid conditions against their will and forcing them to work for no pay, police said Sunday.

Police said four men and one woman were arrested in a raid at a caravan site in Leighton Buzzard, north of London, after a long-running investigation. Those arrested remain in custody.

Twenty-four men, mostly of English and eastern European backgrounds, were freed and taken to a medical center.

SpongeBob faulted in study of children

CHICAGO

The cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is in hot water from a study suggesting that watching just nine minutes of that program can cause short-term attention and learning problems in 4-year-olds.

The problems were seen in a study of 60 children randomly assigned to either watch “SpongeBob,” or the slower-paced PBS cartoon “Caillou” or assigned to draw pictures. Immediately after these nine-minute assignments, the kids took mental-function tests; those who had watched “SpongeBob” did measurably worse than the others.

Previous research has linked TV-watching with long-term attention problems in children, but the new study suggests more-immediate problems can occur after very little exposure.

Egyptians call for US to release sheik

CAIRO

Around 100 Islamists protested Sunday near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo against the detention of Egyptian-born Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, serving a life sentence in the U.S. for a plot to blow up New York City landmarks.

Known as the “Blind Sheik,” he was the spiritual leader of men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Supporters of the 73-year-old sheik say they will not end their sit-in until he is repatriated to Egypt on humanitarian grounds.

Abdel-Rahman is diabetic and while in prison has waged hunger strikes and shunned his insulin.

Associated Press