NEW YORK
Former IMF chief’s accuser speaks out for first time
Additional Photos
The maid accusing Dominique Strauss-Kahn of assaulting her in a Manhattan hotel room is speaking out publicly for the first time.
Nafissatou Diallo’s photograph appears on the cover of the new issue of Newsweek, and ABC News says it will carry an exclusive broadcast interview with her on three of its programs today.
The 32-year-old immigrant from Guinea alleges that the former head of the International Monetary Fund sexually assaulted her while she was working at a Midtown hotel. Strauss-Kahn was pulled off a plane and arrested hours later. He has denied the charges.
As the case garnered intense media coverage, questions arose about the accuser’s credibility. In a preview posted online Sunday, Diallo told ABC she never wanted to be in the public eye but had no choice amid questions about her credibility.
SEATTLE
At least 20 people wounded in Seattle-area shootings
At least 20 people were wounded in two separate, unrelated shootings that took place within hours of each other in Seattle suburbs over the weekend, authorities said.
In the first, 13 people were wounded when a fight erupted into gunfire at a lowrider car show Saturday in Kent, about 20 miles south of Seattle.
About 10 hours later, in the neighboring city of Auburn, police said a jealous husband walked into a casino nightclub with a handgun and opened fire on his estranged wife, her male companion and her two sisters as they danced on the floor. Three others were wounded before the suspect was tackled by a casino security guard as he fled the nightclub, authorities said.
“It’s highly unusual that we have multiple shootings, especially this many shootings so close together,” said Cmdr. Mike Hirman with the Auburn, Wash., police department. “They’re not related, that’s for sure, and I don’t have any explanation.”
BEIJING
Toddler found nearly a day after high-speed train crash
A toddler was rescued about 21 hours after a crash involving two high-speed trains in eastern China killed at least 35 people and injured more than 190 others, state media reported.
Xinhua News Agency said the unconscious child was found Sunday while rescuers were clearing one of the train cars. The China Daily newspaper said today that the child was a 2-year-old girl, Xiang Weiyi, who suffered no apparent injuries after being trapped in the last carriage of the train, which had stalled and was hit from behind by the second train.
A bullet train was traveling south from the Zhejiang provincial capital of Hangzhou on Saturday evening when it lost power in a lightning strike and stalled, before being hit from behind by the second train in Wenzhou city.
JERUSALEM
Tiny golden bell discovered from Second Temple period
A tiny golden bell pulled from an ancient sewer beneath the Old City of Jerusalem after 2,000 years was shown Sunday by Israeli archaeologists, who hailed it as a rare find.
The orb, half an inch in diameter, has a small loop that appears to have been used to sew it as an ornament onto the clothes of a wealthy resident of the city two millennia ago, archaeologists said.
When Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority shook it Sunday, the faint metallic sound was something between a clink and a rattle.
The bell’s owner likely “walked in the street, and somehow the golden bell fell from his garment into the drainage channel,” Shukron said.
The relic was found last week. Shukron said it was the only such bell to be found in Jerusalem from the Second Temple period, and as such was a “very rare” find. The Second Temple stood from about 515 B.C. until A.D. 70.
The biblical Book of Exodus mentions tiny golden bells sewn onto the hem of the robes of Temple priests, along with decorative pomegranates.
The artisans who were in charge of making the priestly clothes and implements, according to the Bible, “made bells of pure gold, and attached the bells around the hem of the robe between the pomegranates.”
— From news service reports
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