In the Nation
Stolen plane flown into U.S.
WAUSAU, Wis. - The suspected pilot of a plane stolen from Canada and flown into the U.S. trailed by fighter jets was captured last night near the rural stretch of road in Missouri where he landed.
The single-engine, four-seat Cessna was intercepted by U.S. fighter jets over Wisconsin, where it prompted the evacuation of the state capitol, but kept flying south after the pilot failed to respond to radio calls and other signals.
A North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman in Colorado said the Cessna 172 was stolen from Thunder Bay, Ontario, about 2:30 p.m. The pilot was flying erratically and didn't communicate with the fighter pilots from the Wisconsin Air National Guard who intercepted the plane at the Michigan-Wisconsin border, he said.
The pilot finally landed the plane on a road in southeastern Missouri. Adam Dylan Leon, 31, was taken into custody about 9:30 p.m. in the same area, said a spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol.
- AP
Judge revokes Demjanjuk's stay
CLEVELAND - A U.S. immigration judge in Virginia yesterday revoked John Demjanjuk's stay of deportation. Demjanjuk, 89, of suburban Cleveland, plans to appeal the decision, which would clear the way for him to be sent to Germany nearly three decades after officials first alleged he was a guard at a Nazi death camp.
Demjanjuk, a retired autoworker who immigrated to the United States after World War II, is accused in a German arrest warrant of 29,000 counts of acting as an accessory to murder at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. He has denied involvement in any deaths.
Authorities in Germany initially expected him to arrive there yesterday. But Demjanjuk won a reprieve Friday after arguing that being forced to go to Germany would amount to torture because of his poor health. Judge Wayne R. Iskra, who granted the initial stay, reversed the decision yesterday. - AP
VA patient tests positive for HIV
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - A Veterans Affairs patient who was among thousands treated with unsterilized equipment has tested positive for HIV, the first such case reported since the department warned veterans they could have been exposed to infectious diseases.
The VA previously reported that hepatitis had been found in 16 patients, but cautioned there was no way to prove the patients contracted the illnesses because of treatment at their facilities. In an e-mail late Friday, the agency said it was investigating "the possibility of such a relationship."
The VA earlier this year warned more than 10,000 veterans to get blood tests because they could have been exposed to contamination while getting colonoscopies in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Miami. The endoscopic equipment in question was also used at an ear, nose and throat facility in Augusta, Ga. - AP
