Around the world
FREED: Two Americans and three other foreigners who were detained this week by armed villagers in northern Guatemala have been freed, authorities said Friday in Guatemala City. The group was seized Wednesday while observing refugees going home to their jungle villages, said Zakarias Sellah, a U.N. official. The hostages were freed unharmed late Thursday in a remote village.BALLOT COUP? Accusing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of a coup d'etat at the ballot box, most of Haiti's opposition parties called Friday in Port-au-Prince for controversial local and legislative elections to be annulled. "We asked for the nullification of the elections and the recomposition of the electoral council, responsible for the nationwide electoral fiasco," said Serge Gilles, leader of the National Progressive Revolutionary Party, a socialist party.
Across the nation
AWARD: A jury in Pensacola, Fla., has ordered a railroad to pay nearly $600,000 to a transient who was run over by a train as he lay unconscious on the tracks after a bout of drinking. Pedro Duran, 56, lost his left arm and suffered a broken back and leg in the 1992 accident. A six-member jury Thursday found CSX negligent for failing to stop the freight train in time.
SHOOTOUT: A gunfight between two groups of youths erupted on the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown on Friday evening, injuring seven people, two seriously. Shots were fired as one group chased another, police Cmdr. John Martel said. At least one bystander, a pregnant woman, was among the victims. The shooting began after five or six youths standing on a corner were approached by another group, Martel said. The first group fled, but it wasn't clear which group opened fire.
BLAME: Snow in the engine caused a helicopter crash in Nevada's rugged Ruby Mountains that killed Walt Disney Co. President Frank Wells and three other people, the National Transportation Safety Board said in Reno, Nev. The group was returning from a heliskiing outing near Elko on April 3, 1994, when the crash occurred. The NTSB report released on Thursday concluded that snow in the engine resulted in a flameout, which caused the engine to fail.