In brief: Transit workers may have deal

OAKLAND, Calif. – Officials said a tentative agreement was reached in a labor dispute that threatened a crippling commuter train strike in San Francisco.

Union and Bay Area Rapid Transit officials negotiated through the weekend to avoid a strike that would have affected 330,000 riders who use the rail system on weekdays.

Local 1555 threatened to strike today after BART’s board of directors imposed work rules that the union says amount to a 7 percent pay cut.

Freed American hospitalized

BANGKOK – An ailing American who was spared a seven-year prison sentence in Myanmar underwent medical testing in Bangkok today, a day after a U.S. senator secured his release from the military-ruled country.

John Yettaw’s family in the United States said the 53-year-old was hospitalized in the Thai capital and was not in good health after three months in a Myanmar prison, where he was held for sneaking into the home of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Yettaw flew to Bangkok on Sunday with Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, who held rare talks in Myanmar with the junta’s reclusive Senior Gen. Than Shwe and with Suu Kyi during a high-profile, three-day trip.

U.S. says it didn’t know about flight

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The U.S. military said Sunday its troops in Honduras did not know of and played no role in a flight that took ousted President Manuel Zelaya to exile during a military coup.

Zelaya says the Honduran military plane that flew him to Costa Rica on June 28 stopped to refuel at Soto Cano, a Honduran air base that is home to 600 U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen engaged in counter-narcotics operations and other missions in Central America.

U.S. forces at Soto Cano “were not involved in the flight that carried President Zelaya to Costa Rica on June 28,” Southern Command spokesman Robert Appin said.

Appin said troops at Soto Cano have stopped conducting exercises with the Honduran military since the coup.