In the Nation

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A backpacker shot and killed a grizzly bear with his handgun in Alaska's Denali National Park, officials said.

A man and woman reported that they were hiking Friday evening when the bear emerged from trailside brush and charged the woman, park spokeswoman Kris Fister said.

The man fired nine rounds from his .45-caliber, semiautomatic pistol at the animal, which then stopped and walked into the brush. Rangers restricted access to the Igloo Canyon area for fear that the bear was wounded and dangerous.

On Saturday, rangers found the dead bear about 100 feet from the shooting site. Park officials are determining the justification for the shooting. It is legal to carry firearms in that area of the park but illegal to discharge them. - AP

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Two climbers from Canada died in an avalanche in Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve over the weekend, officials reported.

Park officials say Canadian Andrew Herzenberg, 39, and Israeli Avner Magen, 42, were descending a steep gully of Ruth Gorge on Saturday when they were swept away by the avalanche. Both men were residents of Toronto.

Officials say other climbers witnessed the avalanche and skied closer to the site.

In the debris, the climbers saw what appeared to be two people and gear and called rangers with a satellite phone. The bodies of the two men were recovered Sunday.

- AP

WASHINGTON - An Aeromexico flight from Paris to Mexico City was diverted to Montreal when the United States denied the flight access to its airspace after a man named in an outstanding warrant was reported aboard, an official said.

The man, whose name officials did not release, was removed from the plane Sunday at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport and arrested, said Lauren Gaches, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration.

Other passengers on the Aeromexico Flight 006 from Paris to Mexico City were rescreened and allowed to reboard the flight, Gaches said.

A spokesman for Canada Border Services, Dominque McNeely, said that there was no incident on the plane and that law-enforcement officials boarded the plane around 2:30 p.m. and took the suspect into custody.

- AP

The Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah said Monday that workers had destroyed the last explosively configured mustard-agent-filled munitions at its site in Utah's west desert. Depot officials said that with mortar-disposal operations completed last week, only bulk containers of mustard agent were left to be processed. The U.S. Army said that nearly 90 percent of the original stockpile had been eliminated and that more than one million munitions were destroyed.