Ed Wray/AP
Against the backdrop of a hazy Singapore skyline, a man drives his launch out of a harbor to pick up passengers yesterday. The pollutant standards index reached 75, and visibility was reduced considerably as light winds failed to blow away smoke haze from the Borneo rain forest fires.

Around the World

McCartney misled media to buy time to grieve

LONDON (AP) - Although he knew the real story eventually would be unmasked, Paul McCartney allowed a ''tiny untruth'' to flourish about where his wife, Linda, died so he could buy private time to grieve, a close friend said Thursday.

McCartney asked to be left alone after the family's spokesman, Geoff Baker, acknowledged misleading the media into believing Mrs. McCartney had succumbed to breast cancer in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Baker all but confirmed that the wife of the former Beatle died Friday on a 150-acre ranch the family owns east of Tucson, Ariz. He dismissed speculation her death was assisted suicide as ''rubbish.''

The confusion over the place of death came to light after the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department said Wednesday it would investigate why no death certificate had been filed for Mrs. McCartney.

The department announced Thursday that it would close its inquiry after being convinced she did not die in California.

Baker said he made the decision to mislead reporters to try to protect McCartney and the couple's four children.

Around the Nation

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassin, dead at age 70

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - James Earl Ray, the ex-convict who confessed to assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and then insisted that he was framed, died yesterday, frustrating civil rights leaders who fear they might never learn the truth. He was 70 years old.

Ray died at a hospital of kidney failure and complications from liver disease while serving a 99-year prison sentence for the 1968 slaying.

''America will never have the benefit of Mr. Ray's trial, which would have produced new revelations about the assassination,'' said King's widow, Coretta.

Mrs. King and her son Dexter have said they believe Ray was innocent. Some other civil rights leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, have not gone that far, instead saying that they believe Ray took part in the assassination but that he did not act alone.

As far as Ray and the courts are concerned, it's over. Prosecutors in Memphis, where King was shot on a motel balcony, said Ray's 30-year battle to take back his guilty plea died with him.

''About the only thing I can say is I believe the history books will accurately record that James Earl Ray was the killer of Dr. King,'' said William Gibbons, the lead state prosecutor in Memphis.

Ray's body will be cremated and his ashes flown to Ireland, his brother said.

Around Athens

Students to mull housing problem during program

Availability and quality of on- and off-campus housing in Athens will be discussed today at 5:30 p.m. on the interACTV-7 program Home Groan: The Quest for Quality Housing in Athens.

The show is sponsored by the Public Journalism class as part of an on-going dialogue on housing in Athens. Two students who host a variety of housing experiences will be featured on the interACTV-7 program. The class also is having an interactive discussion on the Home Groan website, which is located at: www.scripps.ohiou.edu/news/friday.

Future topics addressed by the class will include university housing, planning for the future, and maintaining and monitoring housing.

Student photographers win national awards

The winners of the College Photographer of the Year contest were announced Wednesday, and for the second year in a row, OU's School of Visual Communication received more awards than any other university across the nation.

Graduate student Penny De Los Santos was awarded College Photographer of the Year. In the same category, Awards of Excellence were granted to Susanna Frohman and Ting-Li Wang.

OU students received 22 other awards in 11 categories, including first place awards in the following categories: Susanna Frohman for Pictorial, Aaron Muntz for Food Illustration and De Los Santos for Documentary.

A complete list of winners can be found at the website http://www.cpoy.org