Around the world
CHECHNYA: Even as commanders from the warring sides prepared to resume peace talks, the Russian military warned residents of several Chechen towns to leave Friday or face new barrages. The Russians indicated they would launch intensive artillery attacks on the towns of Samashky, Argun, Gudermes and Shali if rebels didn't leave. Having ousted most Chechen fighters from Grozny, the capital, the Russians are focusing on eliminating the remaining strongholds of rebel resistance as their leaders go through the motions of peace talks.
JOURNALIST: Russian newspapers Friday mourned the death of a popular TV journalist in a fashion once reserved for Kremlin leaders, devoting entire, black-bordered front pages to the slaying. "You won't stop us, you scum!" the nation's top-selling daily, Moskovsky Komsomolets, cried in a banner headline directed at the mafia, which is blamed for the shooting death of Vladislav Listyev. Listyev, the recently named executive director of state-run Ostankino television, was gunned down Wednesday night outside his apartment building in central Moscow.
Across the nation
PIZZA: A man was sentenced under California's "three strikes" law to 25 years to life in prison for stealing a slice of pepperoni pizza last summer. Jerry Dewayne Williams, 27, was convicted of felony petty theft in January for taking the pizza July 30 from a group of children on a pier. He was sentenced Thursday in Torrance and must serve 20 years before he is eligible for parole.
LOVE TRIANGLE: A man who killed his estranged wife and his cousin in Belmont, Calif., was apparently angry that they were having an affair. Hector Rene Corzo also wounded his wife's brother before killing himself, police said Thursday. His 14-month old daughter, found cradled in her dead mother's arms, wasn't hurt.
TELESCOPES: Endeavour's crew and astronomers back on Earth began stargazing Friday with a $200 million set of telescopes that will probe distant celestial targets during a marathon shuttle flight. This morning, the three ultraviolet telescopes peered at a remnant of an exploded star an estimated 1,500 light years away. The four astrophysicists on the shuttle calibrated the telescopes by pointing them at various stars chosen by ground controllers.
KING CENTER: The National Park Service has reached a temporary truce with Martin Luther King Jr.'s family that will allow it to resume tours of the home where King was born in Atlanta. The family-run Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change halted the free tours in December because of a dispute over the Park Service's plans to build an $11.8 million visitors center honoring King.
In Washington
FRAUD: Federal investigations of health-care fraud rose by 50 percent last year as prosecutors obtained record financial penalties and prison sentences. Such results will produce "more self-policing by the industry itself when it begins to recognize there are serious penalties, both criminal and civil," said Gerald Stern, special counsel for health-fraud issues to Attorney General Janet Reno. Stern and Reno reviewed the effort at her weekly news conference Thursday.