United Airlines drops Cleveland as a hub

United Airlines drops Cleveland as a hub

WASHINGTON

United Airlines said Saturday it will drop its money-losing hub in Cleveland, slashing its daily flights and eliminating 470 jobs.

The company’s CEO Jeff Smisek announced in a letter to employees that the airline no longer will use Cleveland to connect fliers coming from other airports around the country. As a result, United’s daily departures from the city will fall from 199 to 72 by June.

“Our hub in Cleveland hasn’t been profitable for over a decade, and has generated tens of millions of dollars of annual losses in recent years,” Smisek said. “We simply cannot continue to bear these losses.”

Volcano erupts, killing at least 14

MOUNT SINABUNG, Indonesia

An Indonesian volcano that has been rumbling for months unleashed a major eruption Saturday, killing 14 people just a day after authorities allowed thousands of villagers who had been evacuated to return to its slopes, saying that activity was decreasing, officials said.

Among the dead on Mount Sinabung were a television journalist and four high-school students and their teacher who were visiting the mountain to see the eruptions up close, said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. At least three other people were injured, and authorities feared the death toll would rise.

UN: At least 733 killed in January in Iraq

baghdad

The United Nations said Saturday that at least 733 Iraqis were killed during violence in January, even when leaving out casualties from an embattled western province.

The figures issued Saturday by the U.N.’s mission to Iraq show 618 civilians and 115 members of the security forces were killed in January. But the UNAMI statement excluded deaths from ongoing fighting in Anbar, due to problems in verifying the “status of those killed.” The figures also leave out insurgent deaths.

Manslaughter verdict in injection trial

jackson, miss.

To hear Natasha Stewart tell it, she was just trying to help an insecure woman when she helped arrange for her to get silicone injections in her buttocks, shots that prosecutors say were deadly. A jury disagreed, convicting Stewart on Friday of culpable negligence manslaughter.

Stewart, of suburban Memphis, Tenn., was found guilty Friday in Jackson, Miss., in the death of 37-year-old Karima Gordon of Atlanta.

Authorities say Stewart, an adult entertainer also known as Pebbelz Da Model, took $200 for a referral to the purported injector and falsely represented that the injector was a nurse.

Stewart had been charged with “depraved-heart” murder, defined as a “callous disregard for human life” resulting in death, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Farrow resurrects molestation claim

NEW YORK

Dylan Farrow renewed molestation allegations against Woody Allen, claiming the movie director sexually assaulted her when she was 7 after he and actress Mia Farrow adopted her.

In an open-letter to The New York Times posted online Saturday, Dylan Farrow made her first public comments about the 1992 incident. In a letter to op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, she said she was moved to speak out because of Hollywood’s continued embrace of Allen.

Associated Press