SECTION: NEWS; Nation/World Briefs Column; Pg. 27

LENGTH: 1274 words

HEADLINE: NATION/WORLD

BYLINE: From News Services

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CINCINNATI

City Council passes plans that target racial profiling

The City Council unanimously approved two plans Friday designed to resolve concerns that police targeted and harassed blacks on the basis of race.

"Much work is ahead for all of us," Mayor Charlie Luken said after the 9-0 vote. A lawsuit filed in March 2001 accused the city of 30 years of discrimination against blacks. It sought a court order permanently prohibiting racial profiling by police officers, which the police department has denied takes place.

A separate investigation by the Department of Justice resulted in numerous recommendations to enhance training and clear up record keeping and vague policies. The tentative settlements, reached earlier this week, are aimed at resolving both the lawsuit and the federal action. The Cincinnati Black United Front has also approved the proposed lawsuit settlement. The Fraternal Order of Police and American Civil Liberties Union still must approve it.

MIAMI

Officials arrest operator of illegal crematorium

Florida officials seized 19 bodies at an illegal crematorium Friday and arrested the operator, who is already under investigation for a scheme in which mortuary students allegedly embalmed corpses without the consent of family members.

Investigators with the state Department of Business and Professional Regulations found the bodies at Oakwood Cremation Services in Miami. Officials said one body was being incinerated when they arrived.

Police arrested Joseph Damiano, 65, the owner of a company that transports corpses. He was charged with operating an incinerator without a license. Damiano was jailed on $500 bail.

Damiano is being investigated for allegedly taking bodies to Lynn University in Boca Raton for embalming by the school's mortuary science students without the families' permission.

WASHINGTON

Cubans will soon have Missouri rice to eat

A shipment of Missouri rice will soon be on dinner tables in Cuba. Workers at Riceland Foods Inc., began loading three Mississippi River barges Friday with 5,000 metric tons of unprocessed Missouri rice, headed to Cuba.

"I'm very excited about it," said Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau. "It bodes well for future (trade) opportunities."

The barges were loaded in Caruthersville, Mo., in Emerson's district. The rice is expected to arrive in Cuba later this month, said Bill J. Reed, vice president of Riceland Foods, a cooperative of about 9,000 farmers, 650 of who are from Missouri.

The U.S. maintains a 40-year-old trade embargo on the communist nation. The sales are allowed under a slight easing of the embargo pushed through Congress in 2000 by Emerson and other lawmakers who want increased trade with the island.

Friday's shipment was part of a second round of sales from Riceland to Cuba. The first sales were shipped out of Arkansas and probably included some rice from Missouri. But Friday's load is the first to leave from the Show Me state.

OAKLAND, Calif.

Elderly tenants evicted in drug use cases can stay

Three elderly tenants whose evictions from public housing over a relatives' drug use, upheld by the Supreme Court last month, will be allowed to stay in their apartments after all.

Housing authority director Jon Gresley said Thursday that three of four eviction notices were canceled because the drug problems that prompted them were resolved during a four-year court battle.

However, Herman Walker, who is 75 and disabled, must go, Gresley said. Walker was given an eviction notice in 1998 after being warned three times that his caretaker had been found with a crack pipe, and there have been ongoing problems since then, Gresley said.

Pearlie Rucker, whose mentally disabled daughter was caught with cocaine three blocks from their shared apartment, was allowed to stay. Also staying will be Barbara Hill and Willie Lee, who were given eviction notices when their grandsons were found with marijuana in a public housing parking lot.

DENVER

Forecaster predicts more hurricanes this season

A top hurricane forecaster Friday predicted a busier-than-average season this year, with 12 named storms, seven of which will develop into hurricanes, three of them major.

Typically during the June-through-October hurricane season, there are about 10 named storms, with six hurricanes, two major. A major hurricane has sustained winds of 111 mph or more.

William Gray, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University, also told the 2002 National Hurricane Conference that the season will be quieter than he first forecast because of a strengthening El Nino system in the eastern Pacific. There is a 75 percent chance that a major hurricane will hit the U.S. coast, Gray said.

RESERVE, N.M.

Wildfire scorches 37,000 acres in national forest

A wildfire has charred 37,000 acres of national forest, consuming mostly grass and brush and burning past a cluster of cabins.

"It's moving so quickly that the big timber is not being engulfed," said Loretta Ray, a spokeswoman for the Gila National Forest in southwest New Mexico. "It's consuming the ground fuels and ground litter but fortunately, we have not seen that torching affect occur or the crowning (flames leaping from treetop to treetop)," she said Friday.

The fire was caused by lightning and was spotted Sunday. It remained small until Wednesday, when it roared out of control and scorched 10,000 acres by that night. Residents of 18 to 20 homes and cabins in the Elk Springs subdivision voluntarily evacuated Wednesday. The area appeared to have been spared, but the flames threatened the homes again Thursday. By Friday morning, the fire passed by the homes without doing damage.

WASHINGTON

17 POWs in Gulf War file lawsuit against Iraq

Seventeen U.S. servicemen held prisoner during the Persian Gulf War have filed a lawsuit against Iraq alleging torture and seeking $910 million in damages for themselves and their families.

The prisoners of war endured severe beatings, starvation, electric shock, threats of amputation and dismemberment and continual death threats, according to Stephen Fennell, lead attorney representing them.

The suit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court and also names Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

The plaintiffs, nine of them still in active service, are each seeking $25 million in compensatory damages, plus $5 million each for 37 family members. The suit also asks for $300 million in punitive damages.

The POWs were all captured between mid-January and the end of February 1991, most after being shot down over Iraq or Kuwait, Fennell said. They were sent to the Persian Gulf as part of the United Nations' military response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.

NIGERIA

Oil workers held hostage are freed by villagers

Villagers freed 10 international and Nigerian oil workers who were held hostage two days after being captured while servicing an offshore drilling rig, Shell Oil said Friday.

The workers were freed late Thursday after talks between government representatives and captors in the village of Amatu, in the swampy coastal Bayelsa state where the men were held, Shell International spokeswoman Kate Hill said.

On Tuesday, the kidnappers demanded employment, oil contracts and other help from Shell in return for the workers' safe release. The hostages - one American, four Ghanaians, one Filipino and four Nigerians - are employees of a Shell subcontractor, Tidex Marine. Their identities were not released, and none of them was harmed. Hill said she did not know if Tidex had met any of the demands.

NOTES:
NATION / WORLD

GRAPHIC: PHOTO; Color Photo by Rafiq Maqbool / The Associated Press - Take a number - An Indian army officer writes a number on the back of a Kashmiri recruit at a military camp in Sharief Abad, India. Hundreds of Kashmiri youths came to the camp in hopes of being chosen for service.

LOAD-DATE: April 6, 2002