In brief: Fifteen found safe at gas plant

Tavares, Fla. – Workers were injured and several were initially missing after explosions erupted at a Florida gas plant.

A county sheriff’s spokesman said all 26 people working at Blue Rhino, a propane-tank business there, have been accounted for after the blasts.

Lake County Sheriff Gary Borders said the blasts occurred inside the plant and blew the roof off.

The newspaper reports that the blasts began about 11 p.m. and continued for about an hour.

Airlines urged to use GPS

SAN FRANCISCO – Federal aviation officials have advised all foreign airlines to use a GPS system instead of visual reckoning and cockpit instruments when landing at San Francisco International Airport in the wake of the deadly Asiana Airlines crash.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued the recommendation on Sunday involving main runways at the airport, saying in a statement that it took the action after noticing an increase in aborted landings by some foreign carriers flying visual approaches into the airport.

Pilots on Asiana Airlines Flight 214 had been cleared to make a visual approach when the plane crash-landed on July 6. Three people died, and 180 others were injured when the flight came in too low and too slow, slamming its landing gear into a seawall well before the runway.

Two weeks after the crash, another Asiana flight aborted its landing, San Francisco airport officials said. In addition, they said a Taiwanese EVA Air flight approached too low last week then aborted and began another approach.

Manning verdict due today

FORT MEADE, Md. – The judge presiding over the military court martial of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning has reached a verdict and will announce her decision today into whether Manning violated the Espionage Act and aided foreign terror groups by providing more than 700,000 classified documents to the anti-secrecy organization known as WikiLeaks, wire services reported.

Army Col. Denise Lind began deliberating Friday evening after nearly two months of testimony and evidence in the court martial against the 25-year-old soldier who, if convicted of the most serious charges, could spend the rest of his life in a military prison with no parole.

Row house collapse injures eight

PHILADELPHIA – A natural-gas explosion on a densely populated city block on Monday razed a row house and injured eight people, including two babies and a contractor.

Inspectors concluded that a gas leak Monday was to blame for leveling the unoccupied home, which was being remodeled.

McCrory signs abortion bill

RALEIGH, N.C. – North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory on Monday signed into law a measure directing state officials to regulate abortion clinics based on the same standards as those for outpatient surgical centers, a change opponents say will force most of North Carolina’s 16 abortion clinics to close because only one now meets the standards.

Critics say the move represents a shift by the first-year Republican executive, who pledged as a candidate last fall that he wouldn’t approve any new abortion restrictions if elected.

“We are appalled that Gov. McCrory broke his campaign promise and we will do everything in our power to let the women of North Carolina know they cannot trust him to stand up to lawmakers intent on denying women access to safe and legal abortion,” said Paige Johnson, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Central NC.

McCrory, however, said he wasn’t limiting access to the procedure, but rather was signing a measure that “will result in safer conditions for North Carolina women.”

Arrest made in D.C. vandalism

WASHINGTON – A woman was arrested Monday after green paint was found splattered inside two chapels at the Washington National Cathedral, and police were investigating her in connection with two similar incidents on the National Mall, authorities said.

Jiamei Tian, 58, was arrested inside the cathedral shortly after the paint was found and charged with defacing property, police and cathedral officials said. Investigators were hoping to question her about the vandalism on the Mall, including at the Lincoln Memorial, but a language barrier delayed the interrogation, Assistant D.C. police Chief Peter Newsham said.