CASUALTIES OF UNREST: An Israeli woman was axed and stabbed to death in the occupied Gaza Strip Friday, and a Palestinian teenager was fatally shot during a stone-throwing incident in the West Bank, the Israeli army said. It also announced that the body of a soldier was found near a main highway outside Jerusalem, five days after he failed to show up at his base. Although the soldier was shot several times, police initially said it was unclear whether he was slain or committed suicide.
PEACEKEEPERS SOUGHT: The chief U.N. envoy for Angola has proposed deploying 8,000 to 15,000 more U.N. peacekeepers to try to piece together a peace accord blown apart by renewed civil war. But the proposal Margaret Antsee presented to the Security Council on Thursday was unlikely to be endorsed by U.N. chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali, given U.N. commitments in Bosnia and Cambodia and the United Nations' impending takeover of the difficult and dangerous Somalia operation.16 STILL HOSTAGE: Gunmen demanding $6 million in ransom and the ouster of top Nicaraguan government officials were holding 16 hostages at the Nicaraguan Embassy Friday in San Jose, Costa Rica, after releasing nine others. On Thursday the gunmen, foes of Nicaragua's president, Violeta Chamorro, freed two Costa Rican men and seven Nicaraguan women. Ambassador Alfonso Robelo and 15 others, all believed to be Nicaraguans, were still being held.
Across the nation
ANTENNA WON'T UNJAM: NASA failed in its final attempt to open the jammed main antenna on the Galileo spacecraft and will have to settle for a trickle of data from Jupiter. Engineers on Wednesday tripled the rate at which Galileo spins, saying there was a slim chance the centrifugal force might open the umbrella-shaped antenna. It didn't. "We didn't think it would work, but we had to be sure," said Bill O'Neil, manager of the $1.4 billion project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
DRAMATIC CHASE: A burglar shot a policeman, then commandeered a pickup truck and, with a hostage driving, led officers on a chase across four counties at up to 100 mph, firing out the window at his pursuers, police said in Pomona, Calif. News helicopters televised the hourlong chase, which ended with the unidentified gunman abandoning the truck and surrendering. He awaited booking on suspicion of attempted murder of a police officer, police said. Two alleged cohorts in the botched burglary were jailed.
In Washington
WHOLESALE PRICES JUMP: Prices paid by wholesalers jumped 0.4 percent in February, the biggest rise in more than two years, the government said today. Large seasonally adjusted increases for home heating oil, gasoline, tobacco and new cars more than offset declines in the prices of fruits and vegetables, the Labor Department said.
VOTING-RIGHTS SUIT: The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit over alleged voting rights violations in Dade County, Fla., home to Attorney General-designate Janet Reno. The lawsuit charged that Dade County violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by failing to distribute voter information in Spanish as well as English.