Around the Nation

ALASKA

Residents protest colorful-tie ban

KENAI — A window clerk at the Soldotna Post Office is looking a tad more conservative these days — and that’s upsetting many town residents.

Customers have written letters of protest to Soldotna Mayor Dave Carey after postal clerk Steve Adams was banned from sporting his colorful, sometimes clashing, ties at work because they didn’t conform with dress-code regulations.

Margaret Merrill, postmaster for the Soldotna Post Office, said she simply is enforcing the rules.

Mr. Adams now wears a plain blue tie with the U.S. Postal Service logo while he helps customers mail letters and parcels. But he has more than 100 pieces of colorful neckwear on a display rack at home and still has a license plate on his truck that reads “TIE GUY.”

FLORIDA

Pet dog dies chasing firecrackers

STUART — The hyperactive little Jack Russell terrier named Kaylee would chase anything thrown her way.

And to the horror of several adults and children at the Kolinoski family July Fourth picnic, she did exactly that with a powerful firecracker thrown into her yard.

No charges were expected to be filed in the death of the dog after the firecracker exploded in her mouth, authorities said.

“I lost a family member,” Joseph P. Kolinoski, 26, wrote in a statement to a sheriff’s deputy. He said later that he was grateful no one else was hurt.

ILLINOIS

Grand jury: Man sent cash to Iran illegally

CHICAGO — An Illinois man arrested in March on charges of illegally transferring $4 million in cash to Iran was indicted yesterday by a federal grand jury on 193 counts of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities said.

Hossein Esfahani, 44, of Lincolnwood, Ill., was accused in the indictment — handed up in U.S. District Court in Chicago — of operating an illegal money-exchange business out of his home and transferring cash out of the country, which ended up in Iran.

ICE agent Ellisa A. Brown, who heads the agency’s investigative bureau in Chicago, said Mr. Esfahani transmitted money to at least three money-exchange businesses in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and to Shiraz, Iran.

Ms. Brown said money changers, or hawaladars, physically receive cash or funds in one country while correspondent hawaladars in another country dispense an identical amount — minus any fees or commissions — to a recipient or a designated recipient bank account.

MASSACHUSETTS

Nitric oxide may hurt some newborns

BOSTON — Although nitric oxide can halve the risk of developmental problems in premature babies with undeveloped lungs, the gas could be harmful to newborns who are too small and too ill, according to two studies published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The good news for slightly larger, healthier premature infants is that the gas makes the lungs mature rapidly, cutting the risk of developmental problems in half. That could help about half of the 60,000 premature infants born each year with dangerously underdeveloped lungs.

“Babies born at two pounds have only a 50 percent chance at 2 years of age of being considered totally normal,” said pediatrician Michael Schreiber of the University of Chicago, whose team tracked 138 children.

WYOMING

NO PROBLEMS REPORTED BEFORE WALTON CRASH

JACKSON — WAL-MART HEIR JOHN T. WALTON REPORTED NO PROBLEMS TO AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS BEFORE HIS EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT CRASHED LAST MONTH, KILLING HIM, FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS SAID IN A PRELIMINARY REPORT RELEASED YESTERDAY.

MR. WALTON, 58, OF JACKSON, DIED JUNE 27. IN ITS BRIEF REPORT, THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD SAID HE HAD BEEN IN RADIO CONTACT WITH TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS. HE APPARENTLY WAS PREPARING TO LAND AT THE JACKSON HOLE AIRPORT IN GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK WHEN WITNESSES SAID HIS PLANE APPEARED TO GO INTO A FAIRLY STEEP DESCENT, GAINING SPEED UNTIL IT STRUCK THE GROUND SHORT OF THE RUNWAY, ACCORDING TO THE REPORT.

THE REPORT SAID INVESTIGATORS FOUND NOTHING THAT WOULD INDICATE ANY STRUCTURAL FAILURE OR MECHANICAL PROBLEMS WITH THE AIRCRAFT.

MR. WALTON APPEARED TO HAVE DIED ON IMPACT, BUT OFFICIALS SAID AN AUTOPSY WAS TO BE PERFORMED TO DETERMINE WHETHER ANY HEALTH FACTORS PLAYED A ROLE.

NORTH CAROLINA

ALLIGATOR ATTACKS SWIMMER IN LAKE

WILMINGTON — A MAN WHO EITHER IGNORED OR DID NOT SEE WARNING SIGNS WAS ATTACKED BY AN ALLIGATOR IN A NORTH CAROLINA LAKE.

WISI-TV IN SOUTH CAROLINA REPORTS THAT FLOYD MASTERS JUMPED INTO GREENFIELD LAKE IN WILMINGTON. AN ALLIGATOR ESTIMATED TO BE 10 FEET LONG ATTACKED HIM, BITING HIM ON THE CHEST, STOMACH, ARM AND HANDS.

TWO MEN PULLED MR. MASTERS FROM THE LAKE AND USED A SHIRT TO FASHION A TOURNIQUET TO STEM THE BLEEDING. MR. MASTERS IS EXPECTED TO RECOVER.

OHIO

POWER COMPANY GOES ON TRIAL OVER EMISSIONS

COLUMBUS — THE NATION’S LARGEST POWER GENERATOR BROKE CLEAN-AIR RULES WHEN IT FAILED TO CUT EMISSIONS OF SMOG-PRODUCING SOOT THAT CAUSES HEALTH PROBLEMS AND FOULS THE ENVIRONMENT, A JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ATTORNEY SAID YESTERDAY.

THE CASE AGAINST COLUMBUS-BASED AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER THAT GOT UNDER WAY IN FEDERAL COURT IS THE BIGGEST OF SEVERAL FILED IN THE WANING DAYS OF THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION AGAINST UTILITIES IN THE MIDWEST AND SOUTH.

THE GOVERNMENT AND EIGHT STATES IN THE NORTHEAST SAY AEP BROKE THE LAW WHEN IT MADE MAJOR MODIFICATIONS TO NINE COAL-BURNING PLANTS WITHOUT INSTALLING EQUIPMENT THAT WOULD HAVE CUT POLLUTION DRASTICALLY.

“THE PLAINTIFFS EXPECT TO ESTABLISH THAT AEP’S CONDUCT HAS RESULTED IN AN ENVIRONMENTAL HARM,” LESLIE BELLAS, AN ATTORNEY WITH THE GOVERNMENT’S ENVIRONMENTAL ENFORCEMENT SECTION, SAID IN OPENING STATEMENTS.

U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE EDMUND SARGUS IS HEARING THE CASE WITHOUT A JURY. AEP COULD BE FORCED TO PAY BILLIONS OF DOLLARS FOR POLLUTION CONTROLS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN PENALTIES IF IT IS FOUND TO HAVE BROKEN THE CLEAN AIR ACT.

FROM WIRE DISPATCHES AND STAFF REPORTS