Around the world
DENIAL: China on Friday denied as "groundless" a report that it shipped missile parts to Pakistan in violation of a pledge not to do so. The New York Times reported Thursday that U.S. intelligence had satellite surveillance and other evidence that China had shipped parts to Pakistan this year that would enable the Pakistanis to assemble their own version of the Chinese M-11 missile.
CRISIS: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin says a political feud is threatening to break up his coalition government and that that would mean an end to the Middle East peace talks. The religious Shas Party vows to bolt unless Rabin fires Education Minister Shulamit Aloni of the left-wing Meretz bloc by Sunday. Aloni has frequently irked ultra-Orthodox Jews with her liberal, secular views.
FOILED: Czech police have arrested five foreigners suspected of planning to assassinate President Vaclav Havel, and a report linked the plot to Havel's stand on Bosnia.
Across the nation
LUCKY: A 2-year-old Chicago girl who plunged 13 stories from an apartment window suffered a broken thigh but was expected to recover. Dominque Hall fell through a bedroom window Thursday when her mother left her alone for a moment to attend to another child, police said. She landed in soft, wet dirt that was recently tilled and planted with grass seed.
DONOR: A Washington state woman and her 10-month-old son were recovering Friday from live-donor liver transplant that was the 50th performed at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
MURDERS: Three 8-year-old boys who vanished while out riding their bikes were found slain in a watery drainage ditch in West Memphis, Ark. Police said they had no suspects and wouldn't disclose how the youngsters were killed.
In Washington
HEALTH PLAN: White House officials say it might be mid-June before President Clinton's overall health care plan is submitted to Congress. Postponing the health care plan from May until mid-June had been recommended by Democratic congressional leaders, as recently as Wednesday, and even by Clinton's own budget director. They argue the postponement would give Congress time to vote on Clinton's mammoth deficit-reduction bill first.