White separatists protest in Jena

About 50 white separatists protested the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Monday in this tiny town, which was thrust into the spotlight months ago by 20,000 demonstrators who claimed prosecutors discriminated against blacks.

Police separated participants in the "pro-majority" rally organized by the Learned, Miss.-based Nationalist Movement from a racially mixed group of about 100 counter-demonstrators outside the LaSalle Parish Courthouse. There was no violence and one arrest, of a counter-demonstrator.

Chants of "No KKK" from the mostly college-age counter-demonstrators were met with a chant from the separatists that contained a racial epithet.

Race relations in Jena (population about 2,800) have been in the news ever since six black teenagers were arrested in the beating of a white classmate in December 2006.

New York

Study: Implants tied to infections

Breast-cancer patients who had reconstructive surgery using implants immediately after mastectomies were twice as likely to become infected as women who immediately had breast reconstruction using their own tissue, according to a study published Monday.

The article in Archives of Surgery, which examined the medical records of breast-surgery patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis from mid-1999 to mid-2002, found that 50 of 949 patients acquired an infection at the surgical site within a year after surgery.

Roughly 12 percent of the infections occurred in mastectomy patients who immediately had implant surgery, compared with roughly 6 percent of infections in those who immediately had breast reconstruction using their own abdominal tissue, the study said. In noncancer patients, about 1 percent of infections occurred after breast reductions and no infections occurred after breast augmentation using implants, the study said.

Milwaukee

Mother charged in newborn's death

A woman who said she placed her 2-week-old twins in a bathtub and watched them struggle in the water was charged Monday with homicide after one boy died, according to a criminal complaint.

Alisa Lorraine Evans, 38, who was upset about the recent shooting death of her adult son in Texas, also was charged with the attempted homicide of the other twin, who was expected to survive, records said.

Evans, who is a licensed vocational nurse, told police that she wanted a permanent solution to her problems and "only wanted the children to go to heaven."

Lawrence, Mass.

Club fire spreads to 16 buildings

A huge blaze started in an empty downtown nightclub early Monday and spread quickly through 16 buildings, destroying homes and businesses and forcing residents to flee in their pajamas into the bitter night.

One person suffered minor injuries.

The fire started in a nightclub that was being renovated and spread quickly on a stiff wind through the block that included early 1900s wood-framed buildings. Three of the buildings were being rehabilitated by Habitat for Humanity.

Fire officials in Lawrence, about 30 miles north of Boston, said the cause was suspicious.

Morristown, Tenn.

3 charged in death of 94-year-old man

A 94-year-old man was found fatally beaten early Monday in a thicket of bushes, his left hand cut off, and three people were arrested in what might have been a botched robbery, authorities said.

Willie Lee Morgan, who was reported missing Saturday, "died a horrible death," Hamblen County Sheriff Esco Jarnigan said.

Two butcher knives and a left hand were found in one of the suspects' cars.

Darrell Nance, 22, was charged with murder and Jessica Lane, 23, was charged with accessory to murder. Brice Whaley was charged as an accessory after the fact and abuse of a corpse.

Jarnigan said the suspects may have been trying to steal cash from Morgan's home or hold him for ransom as payback for money owed by some of Morgan's family members.

Los Angeles

Tribune chairman backs editor's firing

Tribune Chairman Sam Zell on Monday backed Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller's decision to replace the newspaper's editor.

"I've said loud and clear that I am returning control of our businesses to the people who run them," Zell told Tribune employees in an e-mail message. "That means David Hiller has my full support."

Hiller said he notified Zell last week that James O'Shea would be leaving the Times after 14 months as editor. Hiller and O'Shea had clashed over the newsroom budget, and Hiller characterized O'Shea's departure as voluntary. O'Shea on Monday repeated his assertion that Hiller had fired him.

In a defiant speech in the newsroom, O'Shea, 64, complained about what he called the "pervasive culture of defeat" manifested by repeated cutbacks in newsroom spending across the country. He attacked Tribune's budgeting process for its reliance on "voodoo economics," saying that "journalists and not accountants should seize responsibility for the financial health of our newspapers."

Also

Family members of one of the men killed Sunday when two small planes collided over Corona, Calif., said he was a student pilot, but it was unclear whether he was flying one of the planes. Five people were killed when the planes crashed over car dealerships.

Seattle Times news services