National news briefs

5 Kenyans linked to government scam

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A federal grand jury in West Virginia has linked five more people to an international scam that allegedly tricked government agencies in several states into paying at least $3.3 million to bogus companies with names that sounded like legitimate firms.

The charges unsealed Tuesday implicate Minnesota residents Michael M. "Mikie" Ochenge, 33; Robert M. "Robe" Otiso, 36; Paramena J. "Joseph" Shikanda, 35; Albert E. Gunga, 30; and Collins A. Masese, 20.

All were born in Kenya and live in or near Minneapolis, prosecutors said. All but Masese were in custody Tuesday, and scheduled to appear before a U.S. magistrate judge in Minneapolis.

Civil rights lawyer's conviction upheld

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of a disbarred civil rights lawyer and ordered her to begin serving her sentence while a judge reconsiders whether he was too lenient in giving her more than two years in prison for passing information between suspected terrorists.

Lynne Stewart, 70, has been free on appeal since she was sentenced in 2006. The three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its nearly 200-page ruling almost two years after hearing arguments in the case.

"I will still go on fighting," Stewart pledged at a news conference. "This is a case that is bigger than me personally," she said. "I am no criminal and will fight it for all the lawyers."

N.Y. newspapers, labor union raided

NEW YORK (AP) — Investigators in the city raided offices for some of the nation's largest newspapers Tuesday as part of a corruption probe into a powerful union that has long faced accusations of ties to organized crime, a law enforcement official said.

Police officers working with the Manhattan district attorney's office searched for paperwork related to the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union in circulation, production and delivery offices of The New York Times, the New York Post, the Daily News and El Diario, said the official, who spoke to The Associated Press.

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said search warrants also were executed at a labor union, but he would not specify which.

Scot is accused of disrupting flight