NATO disputes report of casualties

NATO disputes report of casualties

KABUL, Afghanistan

The U.S.-led coalition on Sunday disputed reports that eight civilians, including children, were killed in a NATO airstrike in a remote part of eastern Afghanistan. Afghan officials said an airstrike Saturday night killed eight members of a family, but a senior NATO official said that so far, there is no evidence of any civilian casualties. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.

Syria denies attack that killed scores

BEIRUT

Syria on Sunday strongly denied allegations that its forces killed scores of people — including women and children — in one of the deadliest days of the country’s uprising, and the U.N. Security Council had an emergency session on the massacre.

The killing of more than 100 people in the west-central area of Houla on Friday brought widespread international criticism of the regime of President Bashar Assad, although differences emerged from world powers over whether his forces were exclusively to blame.

The massacre in Houla on Friday cast fresh doubts on the ability of an international peace plan put forward by envoy Kofi Annan to end Syria’s 14-month-old crisis.

The brutality of the killings became clear in amateur videos posted online that showed scores of bodies, many of them young children, in neat rows and covered with blood and deep wounds. A later video showed the bodies, wrapped in white sheets, being placed in a sprawling mass grave.

Gas gripe is hard to suppress in US

Our rants about gasoline and the oil industry may not always be based on facts, but one thing is undeniable: Americans are obsessed with the price of gasoline. More than any other good or service we buy. Even with gas prices falling, the murmurs arose as Americans opened the year’s driving season over the weekend.

Though drivers may feel relief at the pump, gas still isn’t cheap. Besides last year, the only other time gas was more expensive on Memorial Day was 2008, when it soon climbed to a record of $4.11 per gallon. This year, gas shot up by 66 cents from January through early April because of a spike in oil prices.

In a study of reactions people had in 2008 when gasoline spiked above $4 a gallon for the first time, the Baker Institute and the Brookings Institution found that people’s happiness dropped as if their monthly income had fallen by $530, even though the damage was closer to $70 a month.

Conn. bell factory destroyed by fire

EAST HAMPTON, Conn.

One of the oldest continuously operating factories in Connecticut that made bells was destroyed in a fire late Saturday night.

Little remains of the factory of Bevin Brothers Manufacturing Co., which says it’s the only remaining company manufacturing just bells in the United States.

The company, which dates its East Hampton bell manufacturing to 1832, makes sleigh, hand, house, cow, sheep, door and ship’s bells. The company says it has made as many as 20 sizes of sleigh bells and made the first bicycle bells.

Its products were featured in Hollywood’s Christmas classic, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” and at football games and ski races.

Bevin Brothers was the last of a once-thriving industry that earned East Hampton the nickname, “Belltown, USA.”

Associated Press