TEEN HERO DIES WITH COUSINS AFTER RESCUE ATTEMPT IN FIREMONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- A teenager went back into his burning home to try to rescue his young cousins from a pre-dawn fire Saturday, and all three died in the blaze.
Aaron Kimball, 17, and his cousins, Brianna Willis, 7, and Michael Willis, 3, a brother and sister from Barton, were killed in the fire.
Police said Kimball and a friend were baby sitting the two children, who were sleeping on the second floor of the house. Fire awakened the two older boys, who were sleeping on the main floor, and they got out of the house.
Kimball returned to the home while his friend called authorities.
The house was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived, and all three victims were found dead in the house.
MOM CHARGED IN DEATH OF TOT AFTER KIDNAP STORY UNRAVELS
NEW YORK (AP) -- A woman who told police a stranger snatched her child out of her arms in a crowded subway was charged Saturday with killing the 20-month-old girl.
Hours after hearing the story Friday, police found the toddler floating just off the shore of the borough of Brooklyn, her feet poking out of a black plastic bag. Nearby, a baby carriage bobbed in the receding tide.
Police said Maria Victoria Santiago's kidnapping hoax quickly unraveled when they started searching for the little girl in a pink dress. Police said she gave differing accounts and finally told where to find her daughter, Victoria.
'VOODOO' DEFENSE FAILS TO WORK FOR DRUG TRAFFICKER
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A man convicted of heroin trafficking said voodoo made him do it. The judge didn't buy it.
Olakunle A. Osoba was sentenced Friday to 2 1/2 years in federal prison.
Before the sentencing, Osoba, 50, a native of Nigeria, told U.S. District Judge John D. Holschuh that his problems started when he began living with a woman in New York.
He said she was a witch who repeatedly fed him "voodoo poisonous food." His health deteriorated and he began suffering from arthritis.
Osoba said he left the woman, at the suggestion of police, but she still controlled him.
He said she ordered him through his dreams to send her money, and he began selling drugs to finance the payments.
N.Y. POLICEMAN KILLS HIMSELF AFTER CAUSING CAR ACCIDENT
NEW YORK (New York Times News Service) -- A police officer committed suicide Friday night shortly after leaving the scene of a multiple-car accident he caused in nearby Nassau County, law enforcement officials said.
The officer was identified as Michael Lynch, 32, a five-year veteran of the Police Department.
No one was seriously hurt in the accident, but Lynch did not know that because he did not stop to check, the Lynbrook Police Department said.
Then, when Lynch showed up at a nearby repair shop an hour later, workers said they told him that his car, a 1999 Honda Accord with 500 miles on the odometer, would cost $9,000 to repair.
"He was very upset when he walked in and just kept saying, 'I really screwed up, I really screwed up,' " said a repairman who declined to give his name. "Then a few minutes later, after we had called him a cab, we heard a gunshot out front."
CLINTON JOINS 75-MILE LINE OF CARS FOR EX-AIDE'S FUNERAL
WYNNE, Ark. (AP) -- Forming a wistful 75-mile caravan from Memphis to this "City With a Smile," a team of fellow former Arkansans went home with President Clinton on Saturday to bury his former aide and "fatherly adviser."
The president delivered the eulogy at an afternoon funeral service for William Maurice Smith Jr., 77, chief of staff in Clinton's gubernatorial office, who died Thursday night after a long battle with emphysema.
The president saluted his former mentor as someone who "loved a good fight, but he never sought to destroy his adversary."
COMPUTER GLITCH GETS BLAME FOR NEAR COLLISION OF 2 JETS
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Two jets flying about 30 miles southwest of here nearly collided after an apparent computer malfunction, the Federal Aviation Administration said Saturday.
The FAA is investigating Tuesday night' incident, which occurred at 22,500 feet, agency spokesman Fraser Jones said. The Traffic Collision Avoidance System -- an automated, on-board computer system -- appears to have put the Northwest Airlines plane, carrying 60 passengers, and 21-passenger Air Ontario plane on a collision course.
6-POUND GIRL ARRIVES ON PLANE IN N.Y. AFTER AFRICAN FLIGHT
NEW YORK (AP) -- When Janet Osita went through customs Saturday after her flight from Africa, all she had to declare was a brand new baby.
Osita, 27, went into labor on the flight from Ghana and delivered a 6-pound girl in the airliner's coach section after landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
"A lot of women fly pregnant. But they usually make it to the hospital," said Lt. Daniel Carbonaro of the Port Authority police force, the department that handles metropolitan airports.
"She was laying across six seats in the middle section of the airplane," Carbonaro said.
The delivery came on board Ghana Air Flight 150 while other passengers filed off the Boeing 757. Baby Osita was welcomed into the world by cheers from the flight's cabin crew.
WIFE HAS HUSBAND ARRESTED AFTER WORK TO GET HIM SPRUNG
PHOENIX (AP) -- A woman who spent 47 days last summer pleading with authorities to get her husband released from a Mexican jail called police last week and had him arrested for assault.
Merry Brunen told police that her husband, James, head-butted her during an argument Thursday, then grabbed her by the hair and threw her down, officer Scott Reed said.
Brunen, 45, was arrested on a misdemeanor domestic violence count.
Brunen has said his family spent nearly $50,000 trying to regain his freedom after he was arrested July 23 by Mexican customs officials in Nogales, Sonora. Mexican authorities said he failed to declare 149 rounds of ammunition found in his vehicle.