Nation, World Briefs: Experts identify remains of four more 9/11 victims

NEW YORK — The city has identified the remains of four more victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including one man whose DNA was found beneath a service road that was initially paved over, officials said Monday. Ronald Keith Milstein’s remains were found beneath the road that was built to carry cleanup and construction trucks in and out of the World Trade Center site after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the city medical examiner’s office said. Milstein of Queens was 54 when he was killed. The remains of more than 40 percent of the 2,749 people killed at the site have yet to be identified.

@3. Headline Briefs 14 no:Manhattan driving fee rejected

Lawmakers rejected a proposal Monday to charge Manhattan motorists an extra fee to drive in the city, a plan advocates hoped would reduce traffic and curb pollution. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver announced the decision after a survey of Democratic Assembly members in a private conference. The decision comes after days of closed-door negotiations, and means the city will forfeit $354 million in federal funding for trying to kick-start the plan.

@3. Headline Briefs 14 no:The Post wins six Pulitzer Prizes

The Washington Post won six Pulitzer Prizes on Monday, including the public service medal for exposing shoddy treatment of America’s war wounded at Walter Reed hospital, and the breaking-news award for coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre. The Pulitzers are journalism’s highest honor, and the public service award is the most distinguished of all. The New York Times received two Pulitzers: one for investigative reporting, for stories on toxic ingredients in products imported from China, and one for explanatory reporting, for examining the issues surrounding DNA testing.

D.C.: McCain takes in $15 million

Advisers say Republican Sen. John McCain has raised more than $15 million in March for his presidential campaign. The total is his best fundraising month since he began the campaign. He still raised less than the Democrats in the race, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama raised more than $40 million in March and Clinton raised more than $20 million.

Massachusetts: Tips for skycaps

A federal jury on Monday awarded $325,000 to nine American Airlines skycaps who claimed they lost tips when the airline instituted a $2-per-bag fee for curbside check-in service at Logan International Airport in Boston. Skycaps complained in the lawsuit that many passengers saw the fee as a forced tip and therefore didn’t tip them for handling their bags. American Airlines said its decision to impose the baggage fee in 2005 was an attempt to cut costs after it lost $821 million the year before.

California: Problems found at jail

Results of a grand jury investigation released Monday show that an Orange County sheriff’s deputy watched TV and sent text messages while jail inmates beat a fellow prisoner to death. The findings were compiled in a report released by district attorney, who said the jail probe found “institutionalized laziness.” He has said, however, that the grand jury could not find criminal negligence among jail staff.

France: Commandos dispatched

Elite French troops were headed to East Africa to bolster efforts to free captives of a yacht held by pirates off Somalia, a French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Monday. A team of the GIGN, a commando force that conducts anti-terrorist and hostage rescue operations, was being sent to Djibouti to “reinforce” negotiation teams in place, she said. Pirates seized the yacht, called Le Ponant, in the Gulf of Aden on Friday. It was carrying 30 crew members, including 22 French citizens, but no passengers.

Britain: Facelift for Tower Bridge

London’s famous Tower Bridge is getting an $8 million facelift over the next four years. The British landmark will be stripped of its paint and repainted in traditional blue and white as part of plans announced Monday. Work on the improvements are due to start in June or July, with the bridge remaining open until at least the winter of 2010. The bridge beside Tower Hill has become one of London’s most recognizable sites since the future king Edward VII opened it in 1894.

Mexico: Illegal immigrants drown

A truck carrying illegal migrants from Central American plunged into a reservoir in southern Mexico and at least seven people drowned, officials said Monday. Crews recovered the bodies of five men and two women after an 18-hour search Sunday at the La Angostura dam near the border with Guatemala, where the victims were believed to be from, a La Concordia police commander said. The migrants had been hidden under a floorboard beneath a load of kitchen goods and were trapped when the driver apparently lost control and the vehicle sank in 65 feet of water, he said.

From Herald news services