Travelers find fewer delays than expected
NEW YORK, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- U.S. airline officials, employees and passengers said air travel went surprisingly smoothly on what is typically one of the year's busiest flying days.
Experts attributed Wednesday's relative lack long delays and airline mishaps was partially due to many travelers choosing to fly to their Thanksgiving destinations Tuesday or earlier, The New York Times reported Thursday.
The day was also made easier by relatively mild weather, increased numbers of airline customer service and operations teams on hand, and President George W. Bush's decision to allow airlines to use more portions of military airspace, the newspaper said.
New York's La Guardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey said weather-related issued only brought delays of up to two hours -- the same as a normal weekday at the airports. Shorter delays were also reported at different times throughout the day in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles -- but most had cleared up by midnight, the Times said.
3 arrested in U.S. teen's disappearance
ORANJESTAD, Aruba, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- A judge in the Netherlands has ordered the extradition to Aruba of a possible suspect in the 2005 disappearance of a U.S. teenager vacationing in Aruba.
The judge Thursday ordered the extradition of Joran Van der Sloot, who has been arrested in the Netherlands in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway of Alabama, who vanished during a high school graduation trip to the Caribbean resort, CNN reported.
Prosecutors said Wednesday that brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe were arrested in Aruba. They and Van der Sloot have been charged with "involvement in the voluntary manslaughter of Natalee Holloway or causing serious bodily harm to Natalee Holloway, resulting in her death," prosecutors said in a statement.
Holloway was 18 when she was last seen leaving a nightclub in Oranjestad, Aruba, about 1:30 a.m., May 30, 2005. Van der Sloot, now 20, and the Kalpoes, now 24 and 21, were the last people seen with her, CNN said. They were arrested in 2005 but later released due to insufficient evidence.
The Kalpoe brothers are to appear before a judge Friday for a preliminary hearing. Van der Sloot -- who has denied being involved in Holloway's disappearance -- was expected to leave the Netherlands for Aruba as soon as possible, CNN said.
Leahy demands FBI crime lab data
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has demanded data from the Justice Department on cases involving FBI use of a forensics test that has been discredited.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee demanded information on criminal cases in which prosecutors used FBI bullet-matching technology, and criticized the department for failing to notify defendants whose cases were influenced by what has turned out to be faulty science, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
Leahy notified Attorney General Michael Mukasey he may be questioned on Capitol Hill about the technique known as comparative bullet-lead analysis. The Post and the CBS News program "60 Minutes" documented problems with the approach.
Leahy called the reports "just the latest examples of the department's inadequate efforts to ensure that sound forensic testing is utilized to the maximum extent to find the guilty rather than merely obtain a conviction."
Bullet-matching technology had been in use for four decades when the FBI stopped using it in 2005 amid questions about its reliability, the Post reported.
However, the FBI did not notify defendants in cases in which the method was used that it had been dropped -- even though the bureau knew many trials had featured inaccurate testimony or statistically flawed matches.
Court: Fetus death can bring murder charge
AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- The death of a fetus can be prosecuted as homicide, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has ruled.
In a ruling Wednesday, the state's highest criminal court said such cases may involve homicide charges even if a fetus is too undeveloped to survive outside the womb, The Austin American-Statesman reported Thursday.
The court said Texas law regards a fetus as an individual -- eligible for protection under homicide statutes --but the state law does not conflict with U.S. law protecting abortion rights, the newspaper said.
"The (U.S.) Supreme Court has emphasized that states may protect human life not only once the fetus has reached viability but 'from the outset of the pregnancy,'" the Texas court found. "The Legislature is free to protect the lives of those whom it considers to be human beings."
The ruling came in Lawrence vs. State of Texas, involving a 2004 slaying in Dallas County. Terence Lawrence was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted of capital murder in the death of his girlfriend, Antwonyia Smith, and her 4- to 6-week old fetus.
Lawrence had told another girlfriend he would "take care of" the problem after he learned Smith was pregnant with his child, the American-Statesman reported, and then shot and killed Smith.
Report: Hospital overdoses common
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- An overdose of medication given to the newborn twins of actor Dennis Quaid in Los Angeles is part of a much bigger problem in U.S. hospitals, it was reported.
An official at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has apologized for an error that led to several patients receiving overdoses of an anti-coagulant. The newborn twins of Quaid and his wife, Kimberly, were listed in stable condition after they were mistakenly given massive doses of the anti-coagulant last weekend.
The hospital didn't mention Quaid's children specifically, but it apologized in a prepared statement for a "preventable error," People.com reported.
At least 1.5 million Americans are injured in a typical year after receiving the wrong medication or the incorrect dose, The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
Citing the Institute of Medicine -- which is part of the National Academies of Science -- the newspaper said the number of medication errors has more than doubled in the last decade.
Errors typically occur when pharmacists improperly stock drugs, when nurses fail to be sure they are administering the proper medication or when doctors' handwriting is mistaken, among other reasons, the newspaper said.
