Francisco Merino

Three bombs exploded Friday in the master bedroom and dining room of El Salvador's Vice President-elect Francisco Merino's home, slightly injuring a child and causing extensive damage, police said. Merino and his wife have been visiting the United States and were not home at the time of the pre-dawn bombing. But the couple's four young children and three friends were sleeping in the house, which is located in an affluent suburb of the capital. The injured girl, who was cut by a piece of debris, is a friend of Merino's children.

Three bombs exploded Friday in the master bedroom and dining room of El Salvador's Vice President-elect Francisco Merino's home, slightly injuring a child and causing extensive damage, police said. Merino and his wife have been visiting the United States and were not home at the time of the pre-dawn bombing. But the couple's four young children and three friends were sleeping in the house, which is located in an affluent suburb of the capital. The injured girl, who was cut by a piece of debris, is a friend of Merino's children.

Three bombs exploded today at the house of Vice President-elect Francisco Merino, injuring one child and causing extensive damage, authorities said. Merino and his wife, Maria Antonieta, were visiting in the United States and were not present at their home in the affluent Maquilishuat neighborhood of San Salvador when the house was attacked at dawn. The couple's four young children and three friends were asleep in the house when four bombs were thrown over a wall surrounding the garden, slightly injuring one of the friends.

A young couple were found dead in their living room Wednesday morning, eight hours after police responded to a call of a possible homicide at their apartment. Officers left the apartment building in the 8600 block of Snowden Avenue about 1 a.m. Wednesday after getting no response from the residence and seeing no evidence of foul play, according to a statement by the Los Angeles Police Department.

The far right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance won 30 out of 60 seats, falling short of a clear majority in the National Assembly in official results announced last week, and party officials said they would seek to have El Salvador's March 20 election nullified. Leaders of the party, known by its Spanish acronym Arena, accused the Central Elections Council of manipulating the official results.

A Salvadoran congressman who admitted that he shot and wounded a police officer during a drunken rampage will not face criminal charges after fellow legislators voted early Friday to let him keep a privilege that human rights activists say verges on impunity for public officials. Deputy Jose Francisco Merino will retain legislative immunity, which protects him and El Salvador's 83 other lawmakers from criminal prosecution, much the way diplomatic immunity protects foreign envoys.

As surprise becomes an almost lost quality in films, the sly wit, the intelligence and the joyous unpredictability of "Half of Heaven" shine like a good deed in an increasingly bankrupt moviegoing world. (It's at AMC Century 14, Century City.) Director Manuel Gutierrez Aragon's story is a lusty appreciation of the power, beauty, tenacity and mysteries of women; it was the Spanish foreign-film entry in last year's Academy Awards.

President Alfredo Cristiani's efforts to sell an agreement he reached with the Salvadoran guerrillas are stumbling over resistance within the military and his own political party arising from his failure to quickly reveal a private understanding he signed separately with the rebels, according to diplomatic and other sources.

The crowd was on the edge of bedlam, a politician's delight of screams, tears of joy and a crescendo of chants, first for the party, then for its founder. As the shouting died down, as more of an afterthought than anything else, a single voice cried out the name of the candidate.

Roman Catholic Church officials said Friday that the U.S.-backed Salvadoran government and leftist rebels have agreed to church mediation for a cease-fire. But there was no official declaration of agreement from either side in the conflict. The cease-fire appeal came from Pope John Paul II a day after the rector of the Jesuit-run Central American University and five other priests were brutally executed by unidentified gunmen allegedly wearing military uniforms.

After a dramatic declaration by the armed forces in support of "the will of the people," El Salvador's Central Elections Council on Wednesday night rejected a right-wing challenge to the weekend National Assembly elections. The decision ended a one-day political confrontation between the Christian Democratic Party of President Jose Napoleon Duarte and a rival conservative coalition led by Roberto D'Aubuisson.