LOS ANGELES — The federal government claims in a civil lawsuit that the Boeing Co. inflated the price it charged the Air Force for a towed decoy system to protect B-1 bombers from missiles.
The suit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles federal court says the Air Force paid $7.5 million more than it should have.
The suit says Boeing told the Air Force in 1998 it would manufacture 50 system components at its own facility but was planning to buy them from suppliers and subcontractors.
The government claims Boeing did not tell the Air Force about its savings on earlier contracts from buying similar parts from suppliers.
Boeing spokesman Forrest Gossett said the company believes it “acted appropriately in negotiating and performing the contract in question.”
Florida: Immunity offer for mother of missing child expires
The mother of a missing toddler did not respond by the Tuesday deadline to an offer that would have given her some protection from prosecution if she told investigators what she knows about her daughter’s disappearance. Officials say 3-year-old Caylee Anthony is probably dead. Her mother, Casey Anthony, did not respond to an offer of limited immunity, a spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office said. Under the offer, prosecutors could not have used Anthony’s statements against her, but they could have used any evidence found as a result. Caylee hasn’t been seen since June; her mother did not report her missing until July.
Rhode Island: Band offers to settle fire suits
Members of the 1980s rock band whose pyrotechnics sparked a nightclub fire that killed 100 people have agreed to pay $1 million to survivors and victims’ relatives, according to court papers filed Tuesday. The settlement offer from Great White stems from the February 2003 fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick. The band does not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which requires the approval of the more than 300 people suing, among other conditions.
Texas: Suspect had 4 DUI arrests
An intoxicated man with four previous drunken-driving arrests and an invalid license sped away from a sheriff’s deputy before crashing into two sport utility vehicles, killing a newlywed couple and injuring several other people, Dallas authorities said. Uriel Perez Palacios, 22, raced away with his lights off early Monday and drove through a red light, striking an SUV carrying five Southern Methodist University students, said Dallas County sheriff’s officials. His vehicle then went airborne before landing on top of German and Erika Clouet’s vehicle as the couple, married a little more than a month, drove home from a movie, authorities said.
Pennsylvania: Brothers admit plundering corpses
Two brothers who ran a pair of funeral homes and a crematorium in Philadelphia admitted Tuesday that they sold corpses to a company that trafficked in stolen body parts. Louis and Gerald Garzone pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy, theft, abusing corpses and welfare fraud. The brothers allowed at least 244 corpses to be carved up without families’ permission and without medical tests, prosecutors said. Skin, bones, tendons and other parts — some of them diseased — were then sold around the country for dental implants, knee and hip replacements, and other procedures.
Illinois: Students skip school in protest over unequal funding
More than 1,000 Chicago public school students skipped the first day of classes Tuesday to protest unequal education funding. The students took church buses 30 miles north to the wealthy suburb of Northfield, where they filled out applications to enroll in the better-funded New Trier district. The move was largely symbolic because students must pay tuition to attend a school outside their home district.
Afghanistan: U.S. refutes claims of up to 90 civilian deaths in airstrike
U.S. military officials on Tuesday flatly refuted claims from the United Nations and Afghan government that a U.S. airstrike in western Afghanistan two weeks ago killed up to 90 Afghan civilians, saying that a complete investigation into the incident found that only five civilians were killed. A review of video footage, photos and an analysis of burial sites following the strike in Azizabad village in Herat province on Aug. 22 — in addition to interviews with American and Afghan participants in the raid — found that 30 to 35 Taliban insurgents and five civilian relatives of a Taliban commander died in the attack, according to a summary of the findings released Tuesday evening. Two other civilians were injured, it said.
Congo: Aid flight crashes; all feared dead
A humanitarian aid flight carrying 17 people crashed while trying to land during a storm in remote eastern Congo on Tuesday. Air Serv International, the Warrenton, Va.-based aid group that runs the twice-weekly aid delivery between Kisangani and Bukavu, said helicopter surveys suggested everyone on board was killed.
From Herald news services
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