The word bus comes from omnibus and today means a public conveyance. The word buss means to kiss.

So when two buses buss, some confusion may result, and, in the case of two buses Monday afternoon, one heckuva traffic jam.

The Sabana Estadio bus from downtown was just crossing the Autopista General Cañas when a Station Wagon de Alajuela bus, also leaving the city, clipped its left rear. For some reason, the Alajuela-bound bus could not stop or the driver failed to see he had a red light. Or maybe the traffic signal was out.

The thump was like a small detonation, and the bus aft section leaped to the right.

The Sabana bus filled with downtown office workers and students lurched out of its lane and 

Instantly, transit police, rescue workers and Red Cross medics were on the scene. They seem to stake out major intersections. 

But no one was injured on either bus, although some on the Alajuela bus were sprayed with glass fragments when the front bus window shattered.

Instantly east and west traffic froze on the boulevard that runs north of Parque la Sabana. The Alajuela bus blocked two lanes of the autopista. They were there for awhile as bus passengers scurried for other vehicles.

P.S. You don’t get your 75 colones back when your bus crashes.

The Chilean Supreme Court has thrown out charges against former dictator Augusto Pinochet, accused of human rights abuses during his 17-year rule. 

In a 4-1 ruling on Monday, the judges upheld an appeals court decision from last year which said the general cannot stand trial because he is mentally incompetent. The ailing general suffers from dementia as well as other health problems. 

Pinochet was charged with 18 kidnappings and 57 homicides carried out by the "Caravan of Death," a military death squad that executed political prisoners after he seized power in 1973. 

The former dictator has denied any criminal conduct during his hold on power that ended in 1990. The suspension of the trial is widely seen as ending long-standing efforts in Chile and abroad to prosecute him. Despite Monday's decision, the general's opponents have emphasized that the case was suspended because of his health. He was not declared innocent of the charges, they stress.

Montesinos handed
his first sentence

LIMA, Peru — Peru's former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, has been sentenced to nine years in prison and fined nearly $3 million for abuse of authority. 

Montesinos was convicted of usurping the duties of head of the Peruvian Intelligence System when he served as an advisor to former President Alberto Fujimori. This is the first of some 70 court cases the former spy chief faces on charges including extortion, drug trafficking, illegal arms deals and directing a death squad. 

Montesinos lawyers say they will appeal his conviction. Peruvian judges are now determining how they will deal with the series of cases against Montesinos, set to be tried in public later this year. Peruvian Congressman Rafael Valencia, of the opposition National Unity Party, said the sentence, with the likelihood of early release, does not correspond to the seriousness of the crime. 

"For this case, Mr. Montesinos will only have to serve a prison term of three-and-a-half years, if I calculate correctly," Valencia said. "And this would be an extremely soft term for the enormous damage that this Fujimori adviser did." 

Under Peru's justice system, convicts serve concurrent sentences, meaning any future prison terms resulting from the cases against Montesinos cannot be added on to his current sentence. 

Montesinos' fall from power began in September 2000 with a videotape showing him bribing a congressman to switch to the government party. Montesinos fled the country but was captured eight months later in Venezuela and returned to Peru. 

Then-President Fujimori fled to Japan, his ancestral homeland, where he is in self-imposed exile. The Peruvian government is seeking to extradite him to face multiple charges.  A cache of videotapes found in the wake of the scandal led to charges against dozens of executive officials, judges, congressmen, military officers, and journalists. 

NEW YORK, New York — A U.S. judge here Monday declared the federal death penalty unconstitutional. The ruling is expected to be appealed by the federal government.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff called the Federal Death Penalty Act "tantamount to state-sponsored murder of innocent human beings." 

He ruled that people are not given enough opportunity to prove their innocence, creating a risk executing innocent people and denying the right to due process. This is the first time since 1994 that the Federal Death Penalty Act has been declared unconstitutional. 

Although the decision does not affect state death penalty laws, it could halt federal executions in several states. U.S. District Court Judge Rakoff said he based his decision on recent studies of death penalty cases in state courts, which indicate that numerous innocent people have been sentenced to death. 

Norman Olch is a law professor at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Professor Olch says that in the past, a national debate about the death penalty in the United States centered on ethical issues. Now he says science is fueling the debate. 

"I think that the engine that at the moment is driving the increased dialogue about the death penalty is science," he said. "And I think one of the questions that the proponents of the death penalty, it seems to me, must answer is the question of the execution of the innocent. It simply has been shown recently that there are a number of wrongfully convicted people either on death row or serving long-terms of imprisonment." 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that the execution of the mentally retarded is unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the U.S. States of Maryland and Illinois have declared moratoriums on executions pending review of the system. In the past, bias based on racial and geographic grounds in death penalty cases have been revealed. 

New York's highest court is also reviewing a death sentence case for the first time in nearly 20 years. 

Federal prosecutors, who are expected to appeal Judge Rakoff's decision, argue that no one sentenced under federal law has later been found innocent. 

Two people have been executed under the 1994 Federal Death Penalty Act Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Juan Garza, convicted of murder related to drug smuggling. 

Judge Rakoff made his ruling during pre-trial arguments in a case involving heroin ring partners accused of torturing and killing an informant. 
 

Venerable currencies
in history’s dust bin

Many European currencies, including marks, francs, pestas, escudos, lire, guilder and others, have really gone out of style. 

As of Monday, July 1, they have lost their status as legal tender and are only accepted by the central banks of the 12 European Union countries that have adopted the euro as their official currency. 

The euro, which has been in use for six months, has had its share of highs and lows. When it first made an appearance in financial transactions in January, 1999, it was worth about $1.17. Since then it has lost value - down as low as 86 cents, although it recently rebounded to about 99 cents, nearly on equal footing with the dollar.

Also beginning Monday, Europeans traveling in the so-called eurozone no longer had to pay higher fees to withdraw euros from another member country's automatic teller machines.