Saturday, May 19, 2012
Pilot accused of trying to bring gun
BUFFALO, N.Y.
An airline pilot is accused of trying to board a flight at Buffalo for New York City with a loaded revolver in his bag, and authorities believe he’d been flying with it for two days.
The U.S. attorney’s office charged 52-year-old Brett Dieter of Barbersville, Va., with possessing a concealed firearm. A screener spotted the .357 Magnum before Dieter boarded Friday at Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
Dieter was to pilot a Piedmont Airlines flight to LaGuardia International Airport.
Driver, hero in ’76 bus kidnapping dies
FRESNO, Calif.
Frank Edward “Ed” Ray, a school-bus driver who became a hero for helping 26 California students escape after three kidnappers buried them in a storage van in 1976, has died. He was 91.
Ray died Thursday from complications of cirrhosis of the liver, said his granddaughter, Robyn Gomes.
Ray was the only adult on board when his school bus packed with summer-school kids was hijacked near Fresno. They were later buried in the van in a quarry, where Ray led them to safety after he and two older boys dug their way out as the kidnappers slept. No one was hurt.
Murder charges
SEATTLE
Murder charges have been filed against a sergeant accused of killing four other soldiers and a Navy officer in May 2009 at a mental-health clinic in Iraq, the Army said Friday.
The charges against Sgt. John Russell were referred Wednesday and announced Friday in a statement from Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He faces five charges of premeditated murder, one of aggravated assault and one of attempted murder.
If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Kennedy wake amid family rift
BEDFORD, N.Y.
The two sides of Mary Richardson Kennedy’s grieving family faced off in court Friday, just hours before she was mourned at a wake at the estate where she committed suicide.
Details of the legal dispute were sealed by a judge, but it came as the Kennedy and Richardson families were finalizing arrangements for separate memorial services for the 52-year-old architect and environmentalist, who hanged herself Wednesday. Mary and Robert Kennedy had been going through a lengthy, contested divorce.
Associated Press