News Briefs

November 4, 1995
Web posted at: 12:20 a.m. EST

Jury recommends homicide charges against cops

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- A coroner's jury ruled Friday that criminal homicide charges should be filed against five white police officers in surburban Brentwood who arrested the cousin of Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end Ray Seals.

An autopsy report showed that Jonny Gammage, who was African-American, suffocated to death while in police custody on October 12 after being pulled over for what police described as "erratic driving." A jury of six deliberated for a little over an hour before recommending the charges.

Acting coroner F. James Gregris can either accept or reject the jury's recommendation and make his own recommendation to District Attorney Robert Colville.

Clinton launches pilot pollution-control program

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton unveiled plans Friday for a program to show business and a sound environment can go hand-in-hand.

He kicked off "Project XL," a pilot program involving eight major companies, including Intel, AT&T, Merck and the 3M Co.

The companies will try to control pollution more efficiently in return for greater flexibility in meeting government regulations. The announcement of the plan came a day after House Republicans failed to pass legislation aimed at restricting the power of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Columbia may break shuttle record

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- NASA may be shuffling its space shuttle schedule. Officials said Friday bad weather may delay Columbia's scheduled landing at Florida's Kennedy Space Center Sunday.

If that happens, NASA said, Columbia's flight will be extended by one day, and the launching of the space shuttle Atlantis will be pushed back one day to November 12.

The delay would give Columbia the record as the longest shuttle mission ever.

And the cash came back

SEATTLE, Washington -- If you have to lose your wallet, try to do it in Seattle, where you have a 90 percent chance of getting it back -- with the cash in it.

Reader's Digest did the "wallet test" in 12 communities, finding out what percentage of wallets came back with $50 inside.

Seattle ranked the best. Three smaller communities were next: Meadville, Pennsylvania; Concord, New Hampshire; and Cheyenne, Wyoming. In St. Louis, seven in 10 wallet-finders were honest samaritans. In Atlanta, five out of 10 were.

Report says fewer people getting food stamps

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As Congress debates how to get people off welfare and into the workplace, the problem could be taking care of itself.

New government figures show the number of people receiving food stamps is at a three-year low. The report shows 25.9 million Americans received food stamps in August. Participation in the program hit its peak in March of last year, at 28 million. Democrats say the decline is a result of the improving economy.

Republicans argue that more welfare recipients are getting jobs because they know they'll lose some benefits under proposed welfare reforms.

School bus collides with pick-up truck in New York

HAMBURG, New York (CNN) -- A school bus and a pickup truck collided Friday afternoon about 5 miles south of Buffalo, killing the truck driver and injuring some students on the bus, police said.

Three students complaining of neck injuries were taken by ambulance to Our Lady of Victory Hospital and were being treated in the emergency room, a hospital spokeswoman told CNN.

Twenty-eight other students were taken on another bus to that hospital for examination by a doctor, she said. About 60 students from Hamburg Junior High were on the bus when the crash occurred about 3:15 p.m. EDT, police said.

Man sentenced to life for killing British tourist

MONTICELLO, Florida (CNN) - A judge sentenced a teen-ager to life in prison Friday for murdering a British tourist and wounding his companion.

John "Billy Joe" Crumitie will serve at least 25 years before he is eligible for parole. He had been convicted of killing Gary Colley in a robbery attempt at a highway rest stop in September, 1993.

Crumitie, who was 16 at the time of the shooting, also received a 15-year sentence for the attempted second-degree murder of Margaret Jagger, who was wounded but survived.

Sister of Lockerbie victim boycotts ceremony

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Some relatives of victims of the 1988 Pan Am jetliner bombing over Scotland boycotted Friday's dedication of a memorial to the 270 dead, saying the U.S. government is covering up information on the case.

President Clinton participated in the dedication at Arlington National Ceremony.

One relative accused the U.S. government of "giving lip service" to U.S.-British investigations that blamed the bombing on two Libyan agents of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, while ignoring alleged Iranian, Syrian and Palestinian connections.

She said those alleged connections were covered up to promote the anti-Iraq coalition in the Persian Gulf War and later, the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Migrating birds may have caused radar shutdown

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (CNN) -- A shutdown of radar systems in three Midwestern cities for up to four hours Thursday may have been caused by large flocks of migrating birds.

No disruptions or delays to air traffic were caused by the failures in Omaha, Nebraska; Des Moines, Iowa, and Kansas City, Missouri, which used back-up radar coverage, said FAA spokeswoman Sandra Campbell.

Radar systems identify and track airborne targets but some are susceptible to shutting down if they track more than 700 targets at a given time, said Campbell. Immediately before the system in Omaha shut down, it had identified thousands of targets.

Newspaper says Letterman to leave CBS at end of contract

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Late-night TV host David Letterman will leave CBS at the end of his current contract, the Daily News reported Thursday.

It quoted him as saying, "I think more than likely we will stay here through the contract and then that'll be it for us. Unless something dramatic happens, this is probably our last hurrah."

Letterman's contract option for hosting "Late Show with David Letterman" expires in four years. The first phase of his contract runs through the summer of 1996 and the CBS network has an option for four more years.