Around the world
FLIGHT 103: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has hinted he would give cash to families of Americans killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Victims' groups have denounced the offers as "blood money." "It's a bribe by Gadhafi," said Bert Ammerman, whose brother Tom was killed in the 1988 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. Ammerman, president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, downplayed a report in the Aug. 15 issue of U.S. News & World Report that Gadhafi intermediaries have been quietly reaching out to the 189 families, asking if they would take $3 million for each victim as compensation.RELEASED: Kidnappers freed a top executive of one of Mexico's leading retail chains late Friday after his family agreed to pay an undisclosed ransom. Angel Losada Moreno, vice chairman of Grupo Gigante, told a television network that he was in good condition and had been treated well by kidnappers who seized him April 25 in Mexico City.
CLASH: A French patrol boat attacked the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior with water cannon and a stun grenade in the Bay of Biscay on Saturday. No one was injured, and each side blamed the other for provoking the clash over fishing.
VIOLENCE: Anarchist punks, neo-Nazi skinheads and drunken rock fans clashed with police early Saturday in three German cities. Several hundred youths were arrested. About 500 self-described punks from around Germany threw rocks and empty beer bottles at train cars and police before fleeing into abandoned houses in Hanover, in the state of Lower Saxony.
Across the nation
AMBUSH: A gunman ambushed three hikers who were en route to a family picnic in the Ozark National Forest, killing one and injuring another. The wounded man, shot three times, was able to lead the gunman away from his 18-year-old daughter and get help at a farmhouse, authorities said. Jimmy Don Wooten, 31, of Dover, Ark., was arrested about two hours after the shootings Friday.
MARIJUANA: The co-chairman of Northwest Airlines was caught with a bag of marijuana and a pipe in his briefcase as tried to board one of the company's commercial flights in Boise. Gary Wilson, 54, removed himself from his duties with the airline after he was cited Tuesday for misdemeanor possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
LAWSUIT: A federal judge has approved a class-action lawsuit filed by HIV-infected hemophiliacs who claim medical suppliers were negligent in selling blood products tainted with the AIDS virus. The ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge John Grady in Chicago could scuttle a $160 million settlement offered last week by two of the defendants, Baxter International Inc. and Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc.
FUGITIVE: Life on the lam was no life for Richard Lunderman. So he surrendered after 16 years to complete a prison sentence for burglary. "The fact that I've wasted 16 years like this . . . it's a loss," Lunderman said Saturday, one day after getting off a bus from Colorado and surrendering to a sheriff in Hartington, Neb.