■ United States
Lottery payout stopped
A woman who told authorities she lost a winning lottery ticket filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to halt any payout to a hospital worker who came forward to collect the US$162 million jackpot. Rebecca Jemison, 34, of suburban South Euclid, turned in the ticket for the 11-state Mega Millions jackpot at Ohio Lottery headquarters. The lottery validated it Tuesday as the sole winning ticket for the drawing. But the woman with the competing claim, Elecia Battle, filed a lawsuit later Tuesday asking a Cuyahoga County judge to block the lottery from paying Jemison. Dennis Kennedy, director of the Ohio Lottery, said the lottery was confident Jemison had purchased the ticket, not found it.
■ United States
Defense for airliners studied
The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that it had picked three teams of companies to try to adapt military missile defenses to civilian airliners, in an effort to counter the threat of terrorists with shoulder-fired missiles near US airports. Government officials said it would take two years to determine whether the system was practical. Along with the costs, officials said they were worried about blinding people on the ground with lasers and about starting fires with flares if the system was activated by a "false positive" or actual attack.
■ Dominica
PM dies of heart attack
Prime Minister Pierre Charles, who supported tough measures to improve the Caribbean island's economy and was an outspoken critic of US policy in the region, died Tuesday of an apparent heart attack. He was 49. Charles was leaving his office after a Cabinet meeting Tuesday night when he complained of chest pains and collapsed, Tourism Minister Charles Savarin said. He was rushed to Princess Margaret Hospital, where he was pronounced dead and officials said the apparent cause was a heart attack. "It's a tremendous shock to the nation," Savarin said. Charles suffered from heart problems and recently took a brief leave of absence to rest on his doctor's advice.
■ South Africa
Boys suspected of murder
An 8-year-old boy was allegedly murdered by three of his playmates, who then covered up their tracks by making it appear that he had accidentally drowned, the Star newspaper reported yesterday. Isaac Muggels, who was on holiday with his grandmother at her farm in the Western Cape province, was hit with a plank, throttled and had his head bashed with a stone, a policeman investigating the case told the daily. The alleged suspects are aged seven, eight and nine.
■ Russia
Putin faces challengers
Russia said on Tuesday a total of 10 candidates could be eligible to run in the March 14 election, which President Vladimir Putin is expected to win comfortably. Unlike the last two elections in 1996 and 2000, the list of candidates did not include ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, communist party chief Gennady Zyuganov and Grigory Yavlinsky of the liberal Yabloko party. All three -- political evergreens on the post-Soviet scene -- decided against standing after elections last month to the State Duma lower house of parliament gave a resounding victory to the pro-Putin United Russia bloc.
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