Woman, 70, survives fall from 9-story tower

Woman, 70, survivesfall from 9-story tower
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A 70-year-old woman survived a nine-story fall from a condominium tower Wednesday when she landed on a canopy, officials said. Gloria Jummati was cleaning her balcony at Coral Ridge Towers when she fell and landed on a first-floor canopy, according to the Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue. Jummati was alert and talking when rescuers arrived. She was transported to Broward General Medical Center with a broken arm and other nonlife-threatening injuries, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
Helicopter crashes; 1 dies
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- An Air Force helicopter crashed Wednesday during a training exercise in northern New Mexico, killing one of three airmen aboard, officials said. The other two crew members were taken to a Taos hospital where one was being treated for broken ribs and bruises, said Col. Eric Fiel of Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. The other airman was still being evaluated, he said. Fiel said the pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer were from the base's 512th Rescue Unit of the 58th Special Operations Wing and were on a high altitude training mission.
Blind pair to run day care
DENVER -- A judge has cleared the way for a blind couple to open a day care center in Colorado, saying the state's refusal to issue them a license violated the Americans With Disabilities Act. Christine Hutchinson said she and her husband, Thomas, will move ahead with plans to open a facility, although they are worried they will be hounded by inspectors looking for problems. The couple would apparently be the first blind couple to operate a day care in Colorado.
hWorking on the shuttle
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Lockheed Martin workers Michael Cinquigianno, left, and Lance Mercier check out the vent valve assembly atop the external fuel tank that was slated for space shuttle Atlantis but now will be assigned to Discovery in the vehicle assembly building at Kennedy Space Center. They worked the assembly Wednesday.
Senate stays on Bolton
WASHINGTON -- The Senate kept up an investigation Wednesday of John R. Bolton on the eve of a showdown vote on the troubled nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Democrats who claim he is too hotheaded or unbending say they could try to hold up a final vote in the full Senate. A Senate committee held private interviews with two State Department officials who worked with Bolton in his current job as the department's arms control chief. Republicans claimed to have the support in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee needed to confirm Bolton. Democrats acknowledged as much, saying they probably could not stop Bolton at the committee's scheduled meeting today.
Sword is used to cut offhands of social worker
NEW DELHI -- A man with a sword cut off the hands of a government social worker in central India for trying to stop child marriages, officials said Wednesday. The attack on the woman highlighted the difficulty of ending the centuries-old practice in the region. Shakuntala Verma, a supervisor with the Department of Women and Child Development in Madhya Pradesh state, was attacked Tuesday night in Bhangarh village, Superintendent of Police H. L. Borana was quoted as saying by Press Trust of India. Wednesday marked a Hindu festival in which hundreds of minors are married off.
Rocket hits Israeli town
JERUSALEM -- A Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon landed in the northern Israeli town of Shlomi late Wednesday, the army said, heavily damaging a factory in an industrial zone and drawing an Israeli threat of retaliation. There were no injuries.
Hijacker killed in China
BEIJING -- A man who tried to hijack a long-distance bus in China's northwest using dynamite was shot to death by police, a news report said today. The man, identified as Zhang Baoguo, boarded the bus Wednesday afternoon at a filling station in the city of Yining and threatened to blow it up, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Associated Press