Nation & World Briefly

Romney wins presidential preference vote in Maine

Mitt Romney won the presidential preference voting among Maine Republicans on Saturday in the party’s municipal caucuses, which were heavily attended across the state.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, had a little over half of the vote with about two-thirds of the towns holding caucuses reporting. John McCain kept his vote above 20 percent, trailed by Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee.

The nonbinding votes are the first step toward electing 18 Maine delegates to the Republican National Convention.

Rhode Island: Deal in club fire

A TV station and a cameraman accused of getting in the way of people fleeing the nightclub fire that killed 100 people have reached a tentative $30 million settlement with survivors and victims’ relatives, station officials said Saturday. It is the largest settlement of several reached so far with the dozens of people and companies who sued over the Feb. 20, 2003, fire at The Station nightclub.

Utah: LDS president honored

Tens of thousands passed his casket and attended the funeral for Gordon Hinckley, president of the Mormon church. Hinckley, who died last Sunday at age 97, was laid to rest Saturday after a 90-minute funeral in the church’s nearly full 21,000-seat conference center.

California: Train gets moving

A train stuck overnight in the Northern California mountains resumed its journey Saturday after a snow plow that was blocking the tracks was removed, officials said.

Michigan: 225,000 cars recalled

Ford Motor Co. said Saturday it is recalling about 225,000 vehicles that were already repaired as part of an earlier recall to address concerns about a cruise control deactivation switch. Ford dealt with cruise control switch problem by installing new wiring harnesses in the recalled vehicles. Now, the automaker says some of those wiring harnesses appear to be defective.

Sri Lanka: Bomb on bus kills 18

A bomb tore through a bus packed with mostly elderly Buddhist pilgrims in central Sri Lanka on Saturday, killing 18 people and wounding 51 others, the military said. The military blamed separatist Tamil Tiger rebels for the blast in the bus at 7 a.m. in Dambulla, a town about 90 miles northeast of the capital, Colombo.

Egypt: Border with Gaza closes

Egyptian troops closed the last breach in Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip this morning, ending 11 days of free movement for Palestinian residents of the blockaded territory, witnesses and Hamas security officials said. The troops were allowing Gazans and Egyptians to cross the border to return to their homes on the other side, the witnesses and officials said, but prevented any new cross-border movement. Hamas militants blew up section of the Gaza-Egypt border wall on Jan. 23.

Kenya: Ethnic violence continues

Young men from rival ethnic groups hunted each other through the streets of a western Ken­yan town Saturday, burning houses and blocking roads a day after the country’s political foes agreed to try to end weeks of violence. A Pentecostal church in the western town of Eldoret was burned overnight, and only smoldering ruins were left by daybreak. The pastor’s nephew, Peter Ndungu, said the church was burned because his aunt was from Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe. Terrified Kenyans, meanwhile, continued to pour into camps for the displaced.

Lebanon: Arrests ordered in riots

A prosecutor issued arrest warrants Saturday for 11 soldiers and six civilians in connection with clashes between troops and Shiite Muslim protesters that left seven people dead, judicial officials said Saturday. The rioting last weekend was the worst in the Lebanese capital in a year. What started as protests against electricity rationing degenerated into clashes with troops in mostly Shiite areas of the south Beirut suburb of Shiyah.

Turkey: Rift over head scarf ban

Some 125,000 Turks, mostly women, denounced the government on Saturday over its plans to lift a decades-old ban on Islamic head scarves at universities in the mainly Muslim but secular nation. Many Turks, including the country’s influential military establishment, see the move as a serious threat to the country’s traditional separation of church and state. The government has defended its plan as a reform needed to give its citizens religious liberty and bring Turkey in line with European Union human rights guidelines.

Paraguay: Two sentenced in fire

A father and son were sentenced to prison Saturday for manslaughter and endangerment in a fire that killed at least 374 people at supermarket owned by the two men. Juan Pio Paiva, 64, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and his son Daniel Paiva, 40, received 10 years, according to the ruling read by German Torres, president of a three-judge panel.

From Herald news services