Entrapment used in arrest, family says

NEW YORK — The family of a 21-year-old Pakistani man arrested in an alleged subway bomb plot charged yesterday the suspect was entrapped by a police informant who played on his sympathy and gullibility.

Shahawar Matin Siraj and James El Shafay, 19, were arrested Friday, charged with conspiring to blow up subway stations, police precincts and the Verrazano Bridge.

But Siraj's family told the New York Daily News that an Egyptian-born police informant from Staten Island enlisted Siraj's help by claiming he was dying of cancer.

Police said Siraj and El Shafay have no known ties to terrorist groups and were never in possession of actual explosives. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Siraj and El Shafay were motivated by "hatred of America" and had cased several potential targets.

New York

Price of gasoline rises to $1.88 a gallon

NEW YORK — The average U.S. retail price of gasoline rose slightly over the past two weeks to almost $1.88 a gallon — the first increase reported since late May, according to the nationwide Lundberg survey of about 8,000 gas stations.

But survey editor Trilby Lundberg said prices should resume their slide in coming weeks as increasing oil supplies push fuel prices down.

Port Edwards, Wis.

Plane crashes in river during fund-raiser

PORT EDWARDS, Wis. — A biplane giving rides for a Children's Miracle Network fund-raiser in central Wisconsin crashed upside down in the Wisconsin River, killing a passenger, authorities said.

The 1941 Steerman biplane's landing gear struck power lines on Saturday, said sheriff's Sgt. Tim Ward.

The victim was identified as Kimberly Reed, 39, of Eau Claire, Mich. The plane flew out of Alexander Field in Wisconsin Rapids, where the fourth annual Children's Miracle Network Balloon Rally & Music Festival was held.

Also

Leslie Ann Myers, 42, shot to death Bonny Wallace, 57, a clinical research director at the University of Arkansas' surgery department, over the weekend in an apparent dispute over money, police said yesterday.

A 10-year-old boy who watched his parents endure a messy divorce that included unproven allegations of sexual abuse, shot his University of Texas physician father, Rick James Lohstroh, 41, as he sat in his sport-utility vehicle after arriving to take the child for a weekend visit, police in Katy, about 30 miles west of Houston, said over the weekend.