FEDERAL EMPLOYEES RECEIVE A 3.1% PAY RAISE IN JANUARY
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Starting next month, federal workers will see a 3.1 percent increase in their paychecks along with a separate adjustment based on their location.Under an executive order signed by President Clinton on Monday, federal white-collar workers nationwide will receive raises effective in January ranging up to 4.02 percent, with the highest raises going to workers in San Francisco, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
The adjustments for location are based on wage surveys in 32 metropolitan areas.
In the Washington-Baltimore area, the nearly 270,000 white-collar government workers will receive a 3.68 percent salary hike. This will add $2,105 to the average salary in the area, bringing it up to $59,307.
3 PENNSYLVANIA MEN DIE IN TENT FROM GRILL'S FUMES
MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) -- Fumes from a cooking grill killed three Pennsylvania men sleeping in their tents while on a fishing trip over the weekend, authorities said.
The bodies of the men, all from Easton, Pa., were found Monday on an island in the Sandy Hook recreation area in west-central New Jersey, Chief Ranger Bruce Lane said Monday.
A charcoal-burning grill the men used to cook fish was inside the tent. They likely died of carbon monoxide poisoning from the grill, Lane said.
A fourth man, found outside the tent, was in serious condition at a hospital late Monday.
EX-BRANCH DAVIDIAN LEADER FOUND DEAD NEAR AN ASYLUM
BIG SPRING, Texas (AP) -- Former Branch Davidian leader George Roden, who had been in state care since he was declared insane in 1989, was found dead outside a mental institution.
Roden, 60, escaped from the Big Spring State Hospital late Saturday, his third escape from a state institution since 1993. An employee found his body on the grounds Monday morning.
A preliminary autopsy report indicated Roden likely died of a heart attack, Justice of the Peace China Long told the Waco Tribune-Herald.
Roden was driven out of the religious group in 1987 after a gunbattle with David Koresh. Two years later, he was institutionalized after being found not guilty by reason of insanity in the killing of his roommate.
JUROR CONCEALED HER LINK TO MY FOE, TUCKER TESTIFIES
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker says if he and his lawyers had known of a juror's relationship to a political adversary, they would have bounced her from the panel that convicted him of fraud in a Whitewater-related case.
Tucker testified Monday during a hearing on his request to set aside the 1996 conviction. He said Renee Johnson Hayes concealed her relationship to Robert "Say" McIntosh, a vocal Tucker critic. During the trial, she married McIntosh's nephew, for whom Tucker had twice denied clemency for a drug conviction.
FENFLURAMINE SUIT SETTLED, BUT TERMS ARE NOT DISCLOSED
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- A woman who suffered severe heart valve damage after taking the diet drug fenfluramine has settled a $5 million lawsuit against the drug's manufacturer.
The terms of the agreement prohibit disclosure of the settlement amount. But Sabine Sisk-Bisson, 55, was "adequately compensated," her attorney, Aaron Levine, said Monday.
Fenfluramine, half of the enormously popular fen-phen diet drug cocktail, was taken off the market last year after medical studies found a link to heart disease.
Sisk-Bisson, an Alexandria resident who developed an enlarged heart and had to give up working, has undergone open-heart surgery and expects to need more operations.
MOON ROCK FOR SALE? AGENTS SEIZE CHUNK, POINT TO A PLOT
MIAMI (AP) -- A 3.9 million-year-old chunk of the moon that President Richard Nixon gave to Honduras has been seized by federal agents who said they uncovered a plan to sell the rock for $5 million.
"Operation Lunar Eclipse," an undercover investigation involving U.S. Customs, NASA and the Postal Service, was aimed at stopping the sale of bogus lunar samples. In this case, however, agents found a real one.
It was brought back by astronauts on the Apollo 17 mission that lifted off Dec. 7, 1972, federal officials said. The rock was part of a larger sample the astronauts dedicated to the people of the world before they returned to Earth, said Capt. Eugene Cernan, the mission's commander.
GENERALS TO TESTIFY OF POLITICS RELATING TO ITALY GONDOLA CASE
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) -- Top Marine Corps generals will be called to testify about political pressure brought to bear before aviators were charged in an Italian gondola accident that killed 20 people.
Lt. Gen. Peter Pace, commander of Marine forces in the Atlantic, and his former deputy, Maj. Gen. Michael DeLong, will be called next week during hearings on defense motions to dismiss charges, judge Lt. Col. Robert Nunley said Monday.
"There's no doubt there was political pressure here," Nunley said.
Defense attorneys contend that Pace may have influenced DeLong during an investigation of the Feb. 3 accident. The defense said Pace became an accuser instead of remaining impartial.
DID A COMPUTER MALFUNCTION CAUSE NEAR COLLISION OF JETS?
BOSTON (AP) -- Two passenger jets heading to Europe nearly collided off Long Island, N.Y., and federal investigators are trying to determine if a computer malfunction at an air traffic control center was to blame.
The planes, traveling at more than 500 mph, came within 1.07 miles of each other Sunday night, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The pilots took evasive action after being alerted by onboard collision systems.
The planes were a British Caledonian L-1011 carrying 271 people from Montego Bay, Jamaica, to Manchester, England, and a Delta Air Lines Boeing 767 carrying 101 passengers from Atlanta to Zurich.