Around the world
HOT CONTAINER: An emergency radiation monitoring system was activated in Moscow Friday after a container of radioactive material was unearthed in a city park. Chechen rebels said they had planted it. Russia's independent NTV television, which found the container, said rebel commander Shamil Basayev revealed its location earlier this month. The material was identified as cesium, which is used in cancer research and radiation therapy. It was not clear how the Chechens intended to use the substance, which poses little health threat, other than to prove they could sow fear in the Russian capital.
NEW CHARGE: Japanese police are set to lay a new murder charge against officials of the doomsday Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth Sect) accused of releasing poison gas in the Tokyo subway, media reports said Friday. NHK public broadcasting said Tokyo and Osaka prefectural police forces on Friday launched a task force to investigate the murder last December of an Osaka office worker using the nerve gas VX. Aum Shinri Kyo leader Shoko Asahara, 40, and at least six other cultists, all already indicted on other serious criminal charges, are suspected of involvement in the killing of Tadahito Hamaguchi, 28, NHK said.
TAMILS ATTACK: Trapped in their battered, nearly deserted former stronghold, Tamil guerrillas Friday rained mortar and machine-gun fire on soldiers who cut off their escape routes, military officials said. It wasn't clear how many guerrillas remained in Jaffna after government forces captured the last routes into the city Wednesday. Most of the Tamil rebel force and the city's 120,000 inhabitants already have fled.
Across the nation
DOCTOR CHARGED: Dr. Debora Green escaped the fire that destroyed her family's $400,000 Olathe, Kan., home last month. Two of her children did not. Now authorities say she set the blaze that killed her son, Tim, 13, and daughter Kelly, 6. Green was charged with murder, arson and attempted murder. District Attorney Paul Morrison said one of two attempted murder charges stemmed from the fire and the other was related to a poisoning attempt. He would not elaborate. Green's other child, 10-year-old Kate, escaped the Oct. 24 fire by climbing onto the garage roof and jumping to safety.
VIRGINIA HUNTS: Trying new ways to thin the deer population, the state Friday opened a $250-a-person "Southern Heritage" hunt, with horse-drawn wagons and other activities reminiscent of the early South. It's the first hunt at Chippokes Plantation State Park in 30 years, and state officials say the unusual twist is aimed at attracting new people to hunting. The hunt was designed in the tradition of Colonial days, when hunting was not only productive but social, with hunters gathering at the end of the day to enjoy a traditional meal and swap stories.
Other news
LIBERIA'S GOVERNMENT has warned against travel to the port town of Buchanan, where an outbreak of yellow fever has killed 23 people, health officials say. . . . ISRAEL "IZZY" COHEN, the chairman of Giant Food Inc., who went from driving the company truck for his father in 1936 to building the largest regional grocery chain in the nation, has died in Washington. He was 83. . . . TWO CHINESE VILLAGE leaders will be executed for beating a peasant to death, a government newspaper reported Friday.