In the Nation

LAS VEGAS - City police officers wearing olive search-and-rescue fatigues gripped a church lectern Monday, choking up as they remembered a colleague who died last week saving a hiker stranded on a mountain ledge.

Coworkers described David Vanbuskirk, 36, as a disciplined and humble man who rose before the sun, refused to take off his wedding band for training exercises, and returned to the hospital the day after rescues to check on people he had saved.

"He was absolutely the best of us," said Sgt. Gavin Vesp, Vanbuskirk's supervisor. "He was a phenomenal human being."

The auditorium at Central Christian Church, which seats 2,900, was near capacity for the funeral. The upper seating section of the church was a sea of police officers in tan, many wearing a black stripe across their badges as a reminder of the death, which was the department's first on-duty casualty since 2009. - AP

ON THE GULF OF MEXICO - A federal agency has announced plans for a panel investigation aimed at finding out what caused last week's gas well blowout off the Louisiana coast.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said it will work closely with the Coast Guard to determine the cause, and ways to prevent such accidents.

Forty-four workers safely evacuated the rig when it blew wild. It later caught fire before sand and sediment plugged the gas flow.

Meanwhile, scientists from several universities will analyze water samples taken over the weekend to determine the extent of any pollution caused by the blowout. - AP

PORTLAND, Ore. - Residents of 75 houses in southwest Oregon have been advised to leave as firefighters try to get a handle on a crop of wildfires touched off by lightning.

Fire spokesman Cheyne Rossbach says flames from the Douglas Complex fires are within a mile of some houses. More than 40 homes are on evacuation alert.

Lightning late last week touched off dozens of fires in southern Douglas County. Most of the small ones were contained, and some merged into larger fires.

The fires have burned 13,400 acres, or nearly 21 square miles. They are only 2 percent contained. - AP

The Ohio man accused in the deaths of three women whose bodies were found wrapped in trash bags has been indicted on 14 counts. The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office announced Monday that a grand jury charged Michael Madison, 35, with six counts of aggravated murder, three counts of kidnapping, three counts of gross abuse of a corpse, one count of rape, and one count of having weapons under disability.