Shootings New York City

A Maryland tourist who went to Chinatown to celebrate the Fourth of July with friends was fatally shot when she wandered into a fight involving members of the Ghost Shadows gang, police said. Rhona Lantin, 26, a graduate student at the University of Maryland, was in a car with five friends late Thursday when she was hit in the head by a stray bullet, authorities said. She died Friday morning.

The city agreed Wednesday to pay a total of $1.87 million to three young men shot in Harlem by police officers investigating a shooting, lawyers in the case said. The deal averted a trial in the youths' federal lawsuit, which was scheduled to start in six weeks. Robert Raynoso, Juval Green and Caesar Ramos had originally asked for more than $100 million in damages, alleging that they were unarmed when two plainclothes officers fired at them in 1997.

Lloyd Daniels, a star basketball prospect whose career was sidetracked by drug and alcohol abuse, was critically wounded in a shooting that New York police said may have been drug-related. Daniels, 22, was in stable condition after surgery. He was shot in the chest and neck, according to a hospital spokesman. The 6-foot-8 Daniels attended four high schools in three states without graduating, enrolled in junior college at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif., and went on to Nevada Las Vegas.

The Palestinian gunman who opened fire on sightseers at the Empire State Building picked the landmark to express his anger against the United States, Britain and France and to strike out against his personal enemies, according to a letter made public by police on Tuesday. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said that it would take mental health professionals to sort out the contents of a bitter letter titled "charter of honor" that Ali Hassan Abu Kamal carried to his death.

An armed man trying to hold up a cabbie Sunday leaped out of the taxi after the driver swerved in front of a police car. The gunman shot two officers and then apparently drove their squad car to a hospital. A man who fit the robber's description stumbled into the hospital with a chest wound apparently inflicted by police gunfire, authorities said. The unidentified suspect was in critical condition and the two wounded officers were in stable condition after surgery, police said.

Americans marked New Year's Day with parades, football games and family gatherings after putting 1988 to rest with a round of parties and festivals. Many celebrants awoke on the first day of the year without the traditional hangover--thanks to a growing trend toward New Year's Eve celebrations free of alcohol.

The Supreme Court, pondering one of the new tactics devised by cities to crack down on sexually oriented businesses, said Monday it would decide whether adult bookstores and theaters can be required to obtain operating licenses that can be denied or revoked on an assortment of grounds. In recent years, many cities have used zoning laws to move X-rated businesses away from residential areas and business centers, a tactic upheld by the Supreme Court three years ago.

A man identified as a Palestinian opened fire Sunday on the crowded observation deck of the Empire State Building 86 floors above Manhattan, turning a day of sightseeing into sheer terror. A Danish musician was slain and six others were wounded before the gunman killed himself. At least six other people were being treated Sunday night for injuries sustained in the crush as panicked tourists tried to escape the shooting.

A woman on her way to work with her infant daughter in her arms was shot to death Saturday when she was grabbed by a man involved in a street fight and used as a human shield, police said. Cynthia Diaz Roanova, 18, had just left her Washington Heights apartment in Upper Manhattan, carrying her 10-month-old daughter. Roanova was heading to her job as a flower saleswoman when one of two men in front of her apartment building began arguing.