Around the world
APPEAL: The widow of Chechen rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev said Saturday she wants to travel to Moscow on a peace mission. "I'm asking you to guarantee me safe passage and to allow me to carry out a mission of peace," Alla Dudayeva said, wearing black and choking back tears. Her appeal, broadcast on Russia's independent NTV, was directed at Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. NTV said she wanted to meet with top Russian officials. It said there was no immediate response from the Kremlin. and no other details were released.HOLY DAY: Under a merciless sun, more than 2 million Muslims prayed Saturday on Mount Arafat outside Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca, where the prophet Mohammed gave his last sermon nearly 14 centuries ago. The gathering, on the most sacred day of the Islamic calendar, marks the height of the pilgrimage, or hajj, a duty every able-bodied Muslim must perform at least once in a lifetime if possible. The rite appeared to go without incident.
RETALIATION: Rwandan soldiers killed 38 people in retaliation for the slaying of a military guard in a northwestern Rwanda village two weeks ago, U.N. investigators in Kigali said Saturday. The villagers earlier told aid workers between 72 and 135 people were killed.
Across the nation
PASSED AWAY: Mary Electa Bidwell, the oldest living American, has died at age 114 in Hamden, Conn. Mrs. Bidwell, who was born on May 9, 1881, when James Garfield was president and Queen Victoria ruled half the world, died Thursday at a convalescent home here.
IN THE POKEY: A man who oinked at his ex-wife and played "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" when he saw her walking past his house was serving a 30-day prison sentence Friday for harassment in Harrisburg, Pa. Rachel Nickle, who lives several houses away from her ex, Robert Barzyk, said he made pig and elephant noises for nine years, each time she walked by his house to a school bus stop. Dauphin County Common Pleas Judge Lawrence F. Clark Jr. ordered Barzyk to begin serving his sentence on Wednesday. But on Friday, his lawyer got a higher court to agree that Barzyk should be granted $1,000 bail during his appeals.