■ United States
Limbless passenger sues
A woman sued Air France in federal court on Friday, saying an employee told her she could not board a flight because she had no limbs. Adele Price, 42, who was born with birth defects caused by the leprosy-treatment drug thalidomide, said at a news conference the employee told her that "one head, one bottom and one torso cannot and will not be allowed to fly on Air France" without help. Price claims she suffered emotional and psychological damage and endured large expenses to complete a trip from Manchester in England to New York on Aug. 19, 2000.
■ United States
Star's son's mom eyes cash
The mother of late musician Ray Charles's 16-year-old son has asked a court to increase child support for the teenager from US$3,000 a month to at least US$60,000. Mary Anne den Bok filed a petition last Tuesday in which she says additional money from Charles' estate would provide Corey Robinson den Bok with "the lifestyle he enjoyed" before his father's death on June 10. Her petition seeks a minimum figure of $60,000 a month but suggests the appropriate support should be $240,800 per month. The famed singer and musician left 12 children and, according to the petition, a US$100 million estate.
■ United States
Pakistani suspect deported
A Pakistani immigrant detained on suspicion of terrorism in the fall of 2001 after he took a photograph near a water-treatment plant near Hudson, New York, has been deported, officials said on Friday. Ansar Mahmood, 27, was escorted on Thursday from the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York, to Kennedy International Airport, where he was put on a flight to Pakistan, officials said. Mahmood's deportation ended a three-year legal battle during which he gained the support of peace advocates and several US senators who said he had been the victim of unnecessarily rigid immigration laws.
■ United States
Journalist hit with subpoena
A journalist from the New York Times has been drawn into an official inquiry set up to establish the source of an illegal leak from the White House, raising fears that the investigation is becoming an attack on the right of reporters to protect their sources. Judith Miller has received a grand jury subpoena, joining other journalists facing the threat of jail in a politically sensitive investigation into the leaking of an undercover CIA operative's name to a columnist in July last year. This week, Matthew Cooper, a journalist for Time magazine, was found in contempt of court and ordered to be jailed and fined US$1,000 a day until he agrees to testify to the investigation, though a judge suspended the sentenced.
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