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DateLine Briefs: Older Chileans to Get Free Care

Posted on: Friday, 17 March 2006, 12:00 CST

By Wire Reports

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Newly inaugurated President Michelle Bachelet said Monday that all Chileans older than 60 will immediately begin receiving free care at public hospitals.

"This will become effective immediately, today or tomorrow," the socialist physician said at a news conference. "This is possible because it does not require a law."

It was not immediately clear whether the plan would be restricted to emergency cases. Further details were to be announced later, and some local news media reported that it would probably extend only to people registered with the state insurance system.

According the last national census in 2002, 1.7 million people of Chile's 16 million people are older than 60.

China OKs high-speed train lines

BEIJING -- China announced $22 billion plans Monday to build two new high-speed train lines linking Shanghai with Beijing and another city, including one using magnetic levitation technology that can reach speeds of 260 mph.

Both lines are among the world's most ambitious railway-building projects. They had been long-awaited by international suppliers of railway technology, but the announcements did not specify which companies would be involved in constructing them.

The 820-mile Beijing-Shanghai link will use trains with wheels that can travel up to 220 mph, according to an announcement by the Cabinet's National Reform and Development Commission, the government's top industrial planning agency.

The new 110-mile maglev line will link Shanghai to the city of Hangzhou.

Rebels attack 2 trains in India

NEW DELHI -- Communist rebels attacked two trains in eastern India on Monday, and authorities could not contact a train carrying more than 200 passengers, a railway official said. Reports said the rebels were holding the passengers on the train.

The official in the eastern state of Jharkhand said the driver of a cargo train passing through a remote part of the state reported that his train and a passenger train were being attacked by Maoist rebels.

Divisional Railway Manager A.K. Shukla said the cargo train escaped, but efforts to contact the passenger train failed.

The CNN-IBN network said the train's driver and a guard were taken hostage by the insurgents in Latehar, about 750 miles southeast of New Delhi.

Birthday girl killed by stray bullet

CHICAGO -- Stray gunfire pierced a window and killed a 10-year- old girl during her birthday party, the second time in as many weeks that a child has been shot to death in their South Side neighborhood.

Siretha White was in her aunt's first-floor apartment in Englewood, celebrating her birthday with cousins, when the bullet was fired from a white Cadillac, police said. She would have turned 11 on Monday.

A witness identified the gunman, leading police to another Englewood house, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday. A raid led to the arrests of several men.

Siretha was shot just blocks from the home where 14-year-old honor student Starkesia Reed was killed March 3 when a stray bullet from an assault rifle went through the window of her family's house. Carail Weeks, 24 was charged with first-degree murder in the case.

Ex-game show host dies in crash

SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- A former TV game show host and his wife were killed Monday morning when their small plane crashed into Santa Monica Bay, authorities said. Rescue crews were searching for a third person believed to have been aboard the plane.

The bodies of Peter Tomarken, 63, host of the hit 1980s game show "Press Your Luck," and his wife, Kathleen Abigail Tomarken, 41, were identified by the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office.

The plane was on its way to San Diego to ferry a medical patient to the UCLA Medical Center, said Doug Griffith, a spokesman for Angel Flight West, a nonprofit which provides free air transportation for needy patients. Tomarken, the pilot, was a volunteer for the group. The FAA said the plane was registered to him.

The third person authorities initially believed was on board may have been the patient, said Coast Guard spokesman Tony Migliorini.

"We believe the third person was the person they were going to pick up," he said. "When they filed the flight plan, they said three persons were to be on board. That's why we had to presume they had three and did the search."

The plane apparently had engine trouble and was headed back to Santa Monica Airport, located about two miles inland, but went down in about 19 feet of water about a half-mile southwest of the Santa Monica pier, authorities said.

Source: Tulsa World

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