Urban News

(ATLANTA) -- Officials of the Atlanta metropolitan area's mass transit system, MARTA, say they have cut back on days off this week and will heighten security within the city's rail and bus lines. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution says that the overseers of the sprawling bus-rail system tell it that because of the "national code orange" security alert, the system is participating in every way it can in helping make sure nothing happens in the Atlanta area.

In May the agency was informed that terrorists may have been planning an attack within the MARTA subway tunnels. You may remember that terrorists some years ago carried out an attack using poisonous gas in the Tokyo subway system. The Tokyo attack happened in the spring of 1995. Twelve people died and thousands were sickened.

In Atlanta officials have set up a special anti-terrorism hotline number: 404-848-4911.

(CINCINNATI) -- A controversial, long-time member of the Cincinnati Police Department must resign after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge and paying a $1 fine as part of a plea bargain agreement with a suburban court. Records show that Lt. Col. Ron Twitty was accused of lying about $3,300 in damages to a city-owned car to which he was assigned.

He must now turn in his resignation from the force and has 90 days to do so.

The Cincinnati Enquirer is reporting that Twitty, the department's highest-ranking black officer, will also have to pay about $125 in court costs. He could have been sentenced to two months in jail and been fined $500.

Twitty had claimed that he had no knowledge of how the damage was done and said he found his car in that condition after leaving his home one morning to play golf.

(MIAMI) -- Special scientific experts from the FBI say they have now finished their work on a building that used to house the tabloid the National Enquirer. The building was gone over with a "fine-tooth comb" for nearly two weeks to try to find more information about an anthrax attack on the building last year.

The agency tells local media that the focus of the search was the incoming mail that could have brought the spores into the building.

This is the case in which the government has never officially charged anyone but has pointed to one man as a "person of interest." That man, Steven J. Hatfill, continues -- through his lawyers -- to ask for an apology from the government, saying that he lives under the black cloud of innuendo regarding the "non-charges."

Little progress has been made in the 11 months that the building, in the Boca Raton section of greater Miami, has been probed.

(DENVER) -- The media in Denver is abuzz with the news that former Denver Nuggets center Bison Dele -- who played under the name Brian Williams -- and his girlfriend have apparently been lost at sea. The pair was on a catamaran with a three-man crew that left Tahiti on the Fourth of July and is now overdue in Hawaii.

The Denver Post says that the vessel is a 60-foot sloop.

Members of the family tell the publication that they suspect foul play.

Meanwhile, there are reports from Phoenix police that a man, posing as Dele, tried to buy more than $150,000 worth of gold from a dealer in that city last week, presenting identification. There are unconfirmed reports that he had Dele's passport.

Dele's mother says she thinks the man who tried to pose as Dele was his brother, Miles Dabord.