NATION IN BRIEF

"The loss of this amazing and gallant woman was devastating for the nation and the King Center family," said her nephew, Isaac Newton Farris Jr., who now leads the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonsocial Violent Change.

Civil rights widow Myrlie Evers-Williams joined former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, entertainer Gladys Knight and the King children in saluting the civil rights matriarch.

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· BOSTON-- The Big Dig tunnel where a woman was crushed to death in a ceiling collapse last summer will reopen Sunday, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) said. Patrick said he has "full confidence in the repairs" after touring the tunnel where Milena Del Valle, 39, was killed July 10. Workers have installed and tested a new bracket-and-hanger system to support the concrete ceiling panels along a half-mile stretch of the tunnel.

· DETROIT-- A Yemeni immigrant from Hamtramck, Mich., being investigated for possible terrorist ties is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday for trying to take a knife onto a plane bound for Yemen. Mohammed Ghanem, 22, was stopped by security agents Sept. 7 in the McNamara Terminal at Detroit Metro Airport after they found an address book in his luggage that contained a knife slipped into a carved-out section, police said.

· ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- A dispute over the ownership of two dogs rescued after Hurricane Katrina and adopted by two Tampa Bay residents will go to trial in April, a judge decided. Steven and Dorreen Couture, who live just outside New Orleans in St. Bernard Parish, filed suit in July, seeking to reclaim the dogs, adopted by Pam Bondi of Tampa and Rhonda Rineker of Dunedin. The suit also named the Humane Society of Pinellas, which adopted the dogs.

-- From News Services