Around the world
EXPELLED: Britain's Foreign Office ordered the Sudanese ambassador Tuesday to leave Britain within two weeks after Sudan refused to change its decision to expel the British envoy from Sudan. A Foreign Office spokesman said the decision to expel Ali Osman Yassin was an "inevitable consequence" of Sudan's decision to expel British envoy Peter Streams. Sudan ordered Streams out of the country after Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey refused to visit the capital, Khartoum.TRADE: China and Russia have agreed to create a cross-border free-trade zone on China's northernmost border to boost trade and relations, state-run media said Tuesday. Chinese officials said they hoped the linkup between the countries' two biggest border cities will increase bilateral trade from last year's record figure of $6 billion in the first 10 months.
RAMPAGE: A herd of 50 wild elephants has ended a weeklong rampage in eastern India by returning to their forest habitat, leaving behind a trail of destruction and six people killed.
Across the nation
SPY CASE: A judge in San Jose, Calif., threw out key evidence in the first espionage case against an alleged computer hacker. U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte ruled Monday that computer tapes in a storage locker rented by Kevin Lee Poulsen were examined without a warrant. Poulsen, a Pentagon computer security consultant in the mid-1980s, was charged with possession of government secrets.
MISSING: The 89-year-old uncle of former presidential contender Paul Tsongas was sought Tuesday after possibly suffering a memory lapse since dropping his granddaughter off at a train station on New York's Long Island.
In Washington
NO POSTAL HIKE: The U.S. Postal Service says the cost of a first-class stamp will remain at 29 cents. The service's board of governors finished two days of meetings in Washington and did not forward a recommendation for a rate increase to the independent Postal Rate Commission. The cost of a first-class stamp rose in February 1991 from 25 cents to 29 cents.
NEW DRUG: The Food and Drug Administration has approved an epilepsy drug that can be used in combination with other drugs taken for the disorder. The new drug was developed by the Parke-Davis division of Warner-Lambert Co. of Morris Plains, N.J., and will be marketed under the brand name Neurontin.
LEAD: The U.S. Customs Service has found that some imported chalk and crayons contain lead and seized 570,000 contaminated packages last year. "No level of lead is considered safe in a children's crayon," Customs Service spokesman Dennis Shimkoski said. Customs seized about $370,000 worth of chalk and crayons in 15 seizures in Los Angeles, two in Baltimore and one in Tampa, Fla., Shimkoski said.