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CRASH: A plane crash Saturday in a remote part of Papua New Guinea killed all 28 people aboard, officials for the Australian airline that operates the aircraft said Monday. The plane's operators, Melbourne-based Missionary Aviation Fellowship, said the aircraft was carrying mine workers and their families back to their village near the Papua New Guinea border with Indonesia's Irian Jaya when it smashed into a mountainside.SUICIDE: Japanese police said Monday a fourth-grade student hanged himself in his home in the latest in a string of student suicides that has seen at least seven youngsters take their lives in about three weeks. The boy left a note saying, "I decided to go to a different world because I've become sick of this one." Many of the victims have been the subjects of bullying by classmates. It wasn't known whether the latest victim was bullied at school.

COLD: Seven people froze to death on Moscow streets over the weekend in the coldest weather in the Russian capital in more than a century. All of the victims were drunk, officials said Monday. December has been cold and snowy in Moscow. The overnight temperature dipped to minus 14 degrees Fahrenheit early Monday.

Across the nation

FOILED: A bride saved her Jaguar - and her honeymoon - when she dived into the passenger's seat to foil a pair of car thieves. The newlyweds, whose names weren't released, stopped at a convenience store Sunday in Temecula, Calif., and left the car's motor running when they went inside, sheriff's Sgt. Bill DeLuna said. When two men pulled up and one climbed into the Jaguar and put it in gear, the bride took action. "She jumped in and started hitting him," DeLuna said. The groom ran down the street after the car, and about 300 feet later the Jaguar screeched to a halt. The bride apparently pulled the parking brake. When the man ran back to the Honda and sped off with his accomplice, the groom grabbed his handgun from the Jaguar and opened fire on the Honda. He missed. Two men were later arrested for investigation of auto theft and kidnapping. Meanwhile, the newlyweds hopped back in their Jaguar and motored off to a regatta in San Diego. They told DeLuna they'd meant to report the incident but never got around to it. "I guess they had other things on their mind," he said.

PILOTS: American Eagle pilots based at Raleigh-Durham International Airport demanded an apology from their union president for suggesting they weren't prepared to fly in winter weather. The 300 pilots said in a letter Sunday they were appalled by messages and news releases from the Allied Pilots Association implying they were "unsafe, inadequately trained or less than the true professionals we all are."'

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JUMP: A passenger in a small plane opened the door and jumped out when it became apparent the stalled aircraft was about to crash. Doug Adkins bailed out moments after the PA-32 Piper Lens Turbo clipped some power lines Sunday afternoon in San Antonio. He suffered only a sore back, and managed to walk to a nearby house for help, officials said. The plane slammed into a small hill in a wooded area near San Antonio International Airport, injuring the other two passengers.

ESCAPE: Two jail inmates used a 200-foot rope made of bedsheets to escape - leaving the warden to wonder how they gathered so many linens. One of the two was recaptured early Monday. "It seems like they did a lot of work," Warden Charles Kozakiewicz said after the inmates escaped from the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh early Sunday. Officials believe the two cellmates kicked through a weak spot in a plaster ceiling while lying on a top bunk bed at the 103-year-old stone jail. They made it to a crawl space, then broke through a second plaster ceiling. From there, the men entered the jail's attic and punched through the roof with several objects, including metal leg irons that had been in the attic for decades, Kozakiewicz said. They unfurled the bedsheets and climbed down, fleeing from the 620-bed jail in the heart of the city's business district.

Other news

AN ARMY bomb disposal team carried out a controlled explosion on a gasoline-based device found at a furniture store in Northern Ireland Sunday night, the first bomb found since the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries declared a cease-fire to begin peace talks. . . . CHINESE leaders Monday marked the 10th anniversary of the Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong by hoisting an electric timer over Tiananmen Square to count down the days and seconds until the British colony reverts to Chinese rule.

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