42 killed in fire at hospital
A fire broke out in a Moscow drug treatment hospital while patients slept early today, filling the wards with heavy smoke and killing 42 people, fire officials said.
Russia’s chief fire inspector, Yuri Nenashev, said he was “90 percent certain” the fire was caused by arson.
About 160 people were evacuated from the five-story Hospital No. 17 in southern Moscow, said Moscow Fire Department spokesman Yevgeny Bobylyov.
But he blamed hospital workers for not reacting to the fire sooner and evacuating people more quickly.
Cancun, Mexico
150 prisoners escape during riot
More than 150 prisoners escaped from a state penitentiary in Cancun early Friday after hundreds of inmates overpowered guards with knives and bats. Police quickly recaptured about half the men.
Guards shot and killed three inmates during the riot. Several prisoners and guards were wounded.
About 1,000 inmates attacked guards to stop the transfer of gang leader Marcos Gallegos to another penitentiary more than 200 miles to the south, said prison director Juvenal Reyes.
Gallegos was not among those who escaped.
London
Bar possible site of spy’s poisoning
Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko likely was poisoned at the bar of a hotel here where he met with two other Russians, both of whom are in hospitals showing symptoms of radiation sickness, health investigators said Friday.
For weeks, investigators had zeroed in on a different location, the Piccadilly Circus sushi restaurant where Litvinenko had lunch, believing that was a likely location for his mysterious poisoning with radioactive polonium-210.
But that theory has been shaken by medical evidence showing that seven people who worked at the bar of the Millennium Hotel in London’s tony Mayfair district also have been exposed. The bar has been placed under quarantine.
Sao Paulo, Brazil
U.S. pilots blamed for collision
Police on Friday formally accused two U.S. pilots in connection with Brazil’s deadliest air disaster, saying their “lack of caution” at the controls of an executive jet played a role in the collision over the Amazon that killed 154 people.
One of the pilots’ lawyers called the accusation biased and said police were simply “looking for someone to blame for the crime.”
Joseph Lepore, 42, of Bay Shore, N.Y., and Jan Paladino, 34, of Westhampton Beach, N.Y., were questioned by police for six hours Friday and then allowed to pick up their passports and leave the country.
The pilots signed a legal document promising to return to Brazil for their trial or if required by local authorities.