Crash ends wedding plans

Crash ends wedding plans

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — The Canadian Forces pilot killed in a Snowbirds jet crash during rehearsal for weekend performances at Malmstrom Air Force Base was to be married next month in Montreal, the unit’s commanding officer said Saturday.

Capt. Shawn McCaughey, 31, of Candiac, Quebec, died Friday afternoon when his jet — flying upside down in a four-plane formation — broke from the cluster of Snowbirds and hurtled 300 feet to the ground. Maj. Robert Mitchell, who was flying lead plane in the formation, said a bridal shower had been scheduled for McCaughey’s fiancee Saturday, which also was her birthday. He and other Snowbird pilots had planned to attend the couple’s June 9 wedding.

Wildfires being controlled

PAYSON, Ariz. — Firefighters appeared to be gaining control Saturday over a wildfire that has threatened homes and other structures in two northern Arizona forests. The 6-square-mile Promontory fire was 60 percent contained and officials projected full containment by Tuesday.

Elsewhere, rain helped firefighters fight a blaze that burned 27 square miles of forest in the dry southern New Jersey Pinelands. At the height of the fire, 6,000 people were evacuated and a handful of homes were damaged or destroyed. The New Jersey Forest Fire Service had the fire 90 percent contained Saturday, said Bert Plante, a division fire warden.

Firefighters were making progress battling a wildfire along the Georgia-Florida border, which was 70 percent contained Friday, officials said. More than 700 homes in Florida were evacuated earlier in the week, but the last of those orders was lifted Saturday, a state forestry official said.

226 inmates to be freed

AUSTIN, Texas — The agency that runs the state’s juvenile prison system said it will release 226 inmates after a review found their sentences were improperly extended.

Jay Kimbrough, who is heading an investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the agency’s facilities, formed a panel to review the records of nearly all inmates with extended sentences. The six-member panel, which included community activists and prosecutors, reviewed the cases of 1,027 inmates whose sentences were extended.

Teen hammers classmate

LOS ANGELES — A Beverly Hills teenager attacked a prep school classmate with a claw hammer as they sat in his Jaguar, authorities said. A juvenile court judge on Friday said the 17-year-old must remain in a psychiatric hospital where he was admitted after being taken into custody Monday. He was charged as a juvenile with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.

The teen, whose name was not released because of his age, attacked the female classmate at Harvard-Westlake School as they sat in his car on a Studio City street, authorities said.

Barbara Hayden, mother of the 17-year-old girl told the Los Angeles Times her daughter was struck 40 times with a claw hammer, breaking her nose, shattering her leg and splitting open her scalp in several places.

Zoo puts gorilla on display

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — The 400-pound gorilla who ran amok in a Dutch zoo was back on display Saturday, though the woman he dragged along a path and bit a day earlier remained hospitalized. On Friday, Bokito apparently leapt over a moat surrounding the zoo’s gorilla enclosure and clambered onto a path at the zoo, which was packed with visitors during a long holiday weekend in the Netherlands.

Bokito grabbed a woman, dragged her with him briefly and bit her before barging into a restaurant where he was barricaded in and shot with tranquilizer darts. Bokito, an 11-year-old male gorilla, slept apart from the females in his group on Friday night as he recovered from the tranquilizers that ended his brief taste of freedom at the Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo. He was reunited with the female gorillas on Saturday morning.

Associated Press