Rights activist arrested at hospital

MONTGOMERY - Former Chicago alderman and civil rights activist Dorothy Tillman was charged yesterday with trespassing at Jackson Hospital in her native Montgomery. Tillman, 60, was arrested after a confrontation over access to medical records for her aunt. Tillman had taken her aunt to the hospital after attending a funeral for civil rights leader Johnnie Carr on Saturday. (AP)

ALBA - A family's opposition to a teenage daughter's romance is suspected of leading to a house fire and shooting Saturday that left the girl's mother and brothers dead and her father critically wounded, investigators said yesterday. Three men and the girl, 16, are in custody on murder charges. The girl's father, Terry Caffey, was shot in the head but crawled to a neighbor's house. (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO - Agents for Regal Stone Ltd., the owner of a cargo ship that dumped oil into San Francisco Bay, have agreed to pay $2 million to the city. The city attorney said the agreement, announced yesterday, was an initial payment to cover some cleanup costs, not a final settlement. About 54,000 gallons of oil spilled and thousands of birds died after the Cosco Busan grazed the Bay Bridge in November. (AP)

TITUSVILLE - A third person has died after a fiery plane collision at a Florida airfield, the National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday. A fourth person remains in critical condition. A chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association was holding a pancake breakfast when the crash occurred Saturday. (AP)

For 61 years, Toys for Tots has delivered Christmas presents to millions of needy children across the nation. Now, the charity, run by the Marines, is launching a yearround children's literacy program, which is to be announced today. The group will collect books and deliver them to the country's most disadvantaged children to help break the cycle of youth illiteracy. (Washington Post)

NEW YORK - A cabdriver accused of making up a story about a baby being abandoned in his taxi faces charges in the abandonment of the girl that could earn him a year in jail, officials said yesterday. The driver, Klever Sailema, 44, told police an unknown man left the 6-month-old child in his livery cab. Police are seeking the child's father, who was identified as the brother of the cabdriver's girl- friend, Maria Siavichay. (AP)