Official: Balloonists from US likely dead

Official: Balloonists from US likely dead

BARI, Italy

Two missing American balloonists were plunging toward the Adriatic Sea at 50 mph when they dropped off air-traffic control radar, a sign that they crashed and almost certainly were killed, organizers of the race they were competing in said Friday.

Flight director Don Cameron said that high rate of descent, if confirmed, leads him to be “very pessimistic” about the fate of veteran pilots Richard Abruzzo and Carol Rymer Davis.

Abruzzo, 47, of Albuquerque, N.M., and Davis, 65, of Denver, Colo., were participating in the 54th Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race when contact was lost Wednesday morning in rough weather over the Adriatic.

CNN’s Rick Sanchez fired after interview

NEW YORK

Say goodbye to the king of “Conventional Idiocy”: CNN newscaster Rick Sanchez has been fired. The news Friday came a day after Sanchez appeared on Pete Dominick’s Sirius XM radio show, where he called “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart a “bigot” (he later amended the term to “prejudicial”) and suggested that “everybody who runs CNN” was Jewish.

On Friday, CNN released a statement noting that “Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service, and we wish him well.”

CNN did not disclose whether Sanchez’s comments were cause for letting him go. But the radio interview was just the latest in a history of incendiary quotes from the newscaster, who has gotten into trouble for calling President Barack Obama a “cotton-pickin’ president” and not understanding the metric system.

Grand jury indicts 2 in kidnap case

PLACERVILLE, Calif.

California kidnapping victim Jaycee Dugard and her two young daughters will be spared from having to testify in open court any time soon after a grand jury indictment of the couple charged with kidnapping and holding her captive for 18 years, a prosecutor said Friday.

Phillip and Nancy Garrido were each indicted on 18 counts that ranged from rape to false imprisonment, plus multiple special allegations in a process that will eliminate the need for a preliminary hearing where their alleged victim likely would have taken the witness stand.

Combined dispatches