Around the world
FOILED: Several hundred Cubans boarded an oil tanker in the port of Mariel Sunday in a bid to go to the United States but were stopped by authorities, officials said Monday in Havana. Authorities were not letting the vessel, the Maltese-flagged "Jussara," leave the port west of Havana, and special measures had been taken to ensure it did not move, an Interior Ministry statement said. The incident was the latest involving Cubans trying to leave the communist-ruled Caribbean island.GOING ANYWAY: The Philippines will send a delegation to next month's international conference on population in Cairo despite a Roman Catholic Church call for a government boycott, a senior official said Monday in Manila. "It's an international commitment," President Fidel Ramos' press sec-re-tary Jesus Sison said. "It doesn't mean that the Philippines will implement the decisions arrived at in Cairo which may go against our constitution," he told reporters. At a mass rally Sunday, the church called on the government to boycott the U.N. conference.
TRY PRAYING: The lone pro-democracy bishop among Haiti's conservative Roman Catholic hierarchy, in a strong challenge to his colleagues, has urged Haitians to pray "to get out from under the boot of the military." The message by Bishop Willy Rome-lus, read in several churches Sunday, contrasted with last week's directive from Haiti's 10 other bishops for prayer to stop a possible U.S.-led invasion. It came amid a broadened effort by the military-backed government to muzzle Haiti's media. Romelus' message had added significance, coming on the eve of Monday's Feast of the Assumption, which honors Haiti's patron saint, Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
Across the nation
`NOT TRUE': It's not true that Benjamin Chavis inherited a $2.7 million deficit when he took over as executive director of the NAACP, according to his predecessor, Benjamin Hooks. Hooks says in the Aug. 22 issue of Newsweek that he left the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People with a $600,000 surplus. "It's not a matter of Chavis vs. Hooks," he said. "It's Chavis vs. the books." Chavis has been under pressure to resign for committing up to $332,400 in NAACP money to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit without the consent of the 64-member board of directors.
MARCH: Nearly 1,000 demonstrators sang and prayed as they marched on North Dakota's only abortion clinic in Fargo. Bishop James S. Sullivan ignored criticism by the clinic's administrator, Jane Bovard, who called Sunday's march "incredibly irresponsible" in view of the recent killings at Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinics. "We had this planned for months," Sullivan said. "We are a praying people." A doctor and his escort were gunned down July 29 in Pensacola. A doctor at another Pensacola clinic was shot to death by an abortion opponent 17 months earlier.
STORM: A tropical depression heading toward the Florida Panhandle gained strength overnight and could become Tropical Storm Beryl later Monday. Victims of last month's Georgia flooding worried about more rain. The system remained motionless for several hours roughly at latitude 29.6 north and longitude 85.8 west, or about 40 miles southwest of Panama City. It was expected to head north-northeast, the National Hurricane Center said. The depression's wind measured 35 mph Monday morning but was expected to grow to tropical storm strength of 39 mph or more later in the day, meteorologist David Roth said.
In Washington
ASPIRIN: Doctors already recommend regular aspirin use to prevent heart disease and stroke, but accumulating evidence suggests the "miracle drug" may also prevent one of the nation's most prevalent and lethal cancers - colorectal cancer, Harvard University epidemiologists said Sunday. Surveying some 48,000 male health professionals about their aspirin use and experience with colorectal cancer, epidemiologist Dr. Edward Giovannucci found a major reduction in the risk of cancer among those who took aspirin at least twice a week. "Aspirin-users not only had fewer tumors, but the tumors they had were less advanced. That's important because when you find it earlier, you may not die from it," said Giovannucci, reporting with his colleagues in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Other news
SIX PEOPLE were arrested and some 50 others injured when radical Basque nationalist youths clashed with police during the annual "Salve" festival in San Sebastian, Spain, officials said Monday. . . . AUSTRALIA'S most decorated World War II naval officer, retired Lt. Cmdr. Leonard Goldsworthy, has died at age 85, the navy said Monday in Canberra. He died Aug. 7, the navy said, but did not give the cause. . . . FORTY PEOPLE drowned and eight others were reported missing in the sea and rivers across Japan over the weekend, the National Police said Monday. A police spokesman said the number of casualties in water accidents this summer was higher as more people were flocking to beaches and rivers to beat record-breaking high temperatures.