News Briefs

Moscow Airport Blast: Suicide Bomb Kills 35

MOSCOW—The suicide bombing Monday at Domodedovo Airport marked one of the most damaging attacks here in years, striking at a crucial link between Russia and the rest of the world.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which killed 35 people and injured 86, 40 of them critically. Russian authorities said they were investigating leads late Monday.

Russia has experienced nearly 15 years of terrorist acts, virtually all of them attributed to Chechens or other Islamic separatists from the North Caucasus, where a low-level civil war continues to smolder.

The bomber attacked at the airport's most vulnerable point, the unsecured reception area outside customs. Authorities here and elsewhere promised new measures to tighten security at airports worldwide.

Domodedovo handles 600 flights a day from all points of the globe, including major U.S. airports. It is a more potent symbol than the Moscow subway system, bombed in March in an attack that killed 40, or the Moscow-St. Petersburg rail line, disrupted by a bombing 14 months ago that killed 27.

Authorities did not point to separatists from the North Caucasus as the likely culprits, as they often do. It is probable, though, that official suspicion will fall on the Islamist separatists whom Russia has been fighting in Chechnya and neighboring regions for more than a decade. Moscow fought two wars against the Chechens, with huge casualties.

Officials said the bombing was a terrorist attack carried out by a male bomber using about 15 pounds of explosives. They declared a "high terror alert" at Moscow's two other major airports and the subway system.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev went on national TV Monday evening and criticized the lapses that had allowed the bombing to occur. Late into the evening, the floor at the airport was littered with bodies and body parts.

Many of the flights arriving at Domodedovo on Monday happened to be delayed, which may have saved lives. Witnesses said the reception area where the explosion took place was less crowded than it might have been.

Domodedovo continued to operate, although most flights were diverted to one of Moscow's other airports or returned to their starting point. The explosion brought expressions of solidarity from around the world.

Samuel F. Yette, Journalist and Educator Who Spoke Out for Civil Rights, Dies

Samuel F. Yette, a journalist, author and educator who became an influential and sometimes incendiary voice on civil rights, died Jan. 21 at an assisted-living facility in Laurel, Md. He was 81 and had Alzheimer's disease.

In a career spanning six decades, Yette (pronounced "Yet") worked for many news organizations and government agencies and held positions in academia, including as a journalism professor at Howard University.

As a young reporter, he covered the civil rights movement for black publications including The Afro-American Newspaper and Ebony magazine. In the mid-1960s, he served as executive secretary of the Peace Corps and special assistant for civil rights to the director of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, which administered anti-poverty programs.

In 1968, Yette became the first black Washington correspondent for Newsweek. He said his three years at the magazine were rocky and blamed his firing in 1971 on the publication of his book "The Choice: The Issue of Black Survival in America."

In the book, Yette used contemporary accounts from newspapers and government documents to back up his statements. He referred to a study that indicated an overwhelming majority of white Americans would do nothing if the government instituted the mass imprisonment of blacks.

A few months after his book was published, Yette was dismissed from Newsweek. He sued his former employer and claimed that he was fired because of "incipient racism" among leaders at Newsweek, which then was owned by The Washington Post.

Yette won an initial court ruling, but the decision was reversed years later in a federal appeals court. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Yette turned the rest of his career to education as a professor at Howard.

Samuel Frederick Yette, born July 2, 1929 in Harriman, Tenn., was the grandson of a slave.

Yette was a 1951 English graduate of Tennessee State University and received a master's degree in journalism from Indiana University in 1959. His career in journalism took off in the mid-1950s after he accompanied Life Magazine photographer Gordon Parks on a tour of the South.

Parks was assigned to document segregation; Yette told the Tennessee Tribune in 1996 that he served "as a reporter, researcher, pack-horse, camera-loader . . . frontman and chauffeur" for the established photographer.

In 1956, he became a reporter for The Afro-American Newspaper. He covered several major civil rights events, including the 1957 march on Washington and numerous events organized by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Council.

During his career at Howard, Yette passed on his belief in the power of education to generations of students.

Hassan Beheading Case Moves Forward

Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan, an Orchard Park resident and founder of Bridges TV, is now acting as his own attorney during his murder trial. Hassan is accused of beheading his wife, Aasiya Hassan, 37, in February 2009 at the Bridges TV studio.

Hassan turned himself in to the Orchard Park police headquarters about an hour after his wife was slain on Feb. 12.

Nearly two years later, Hassan's trial began last week as postponements including financial negotiations for defense, custody issues, firing and hiring new defense lawyers delayed the trial. Hassan, now acting as his own attorney, intends to demonstrate at the murder trial that his wife was the "abuser" and listed Judge Thomas Franczyk, prosecutor Curtin Gable, Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III and Buffalo News reporter Sandra Tan as possible witnesses in his claims.