Around the Nation

SOUTH CAROLINA

Helicopter missing; three soldiers aboard

FLORENCE — An Army helicopter with three soldiers aboard vanished during a training flight in bad weather. A search was under way yesterday in a swampy, wooded region, authorities said.

The UH-60 Black Hawk was on a flight from Fort Bragg, N.C., to Florence when it was reported missing at about 9:50 p.m. Monday.

It wasn’t known whether the helicopter crashed or made an emergency landing, but there were no distress signals, said Lt. Col. Billy Buckner, a spokesman for the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg.

There were also no signals from radios that crew members carry on their flight survival vests, Col. Buckner said.

WISCONSIN

Sister soldiers opt for noncombat jobs

MADISON — Two soldiers who were given the choice of returning to combat in Iraq after their sister was killed in a Baghdad ambush have decided not to go back, a National Guard spokesman said yesterday.

Rachel and Charity Witmer instead asked for noncombat jobs, said Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Tim Donovan.

The two arrived home April 12 to attend the funeral of Spc. Michelle Witmer, their 20-year-old sister and Charity’s twin, who was killed April 9 in an attack.

Under Pentagon policy, when a soldier is killed while serving in a hostile area, other family members in the military can request a noncombat assignment.

ALABAMA

Officials celebrate restored monument

MONTGOMERY — Confederate flags waved and cannons boomed yesterday at Alabama’s Capitol as officials used Confederate Memorial Day to celebrate the restoration of a Confederate monument.

The state spent nearly $232,000 in federal funds to renovate the 70-foot-tall monument on the north side of the Capitol.

Gov. Bob Riley, a Republican, told the crowd that the monument needed to be restored because Alabamians today are the caretakers of the memories of those who fought and died in the Civil War.

The ceremony attracted members of several Confederate heritage groups, as well as interested citizens. Dana McKeown of Greenville said she brought her four children because she had at least 30 ancestors who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.

ALASKA

Boy fights off brown bear attack

ANCHORAGE — A 15-year-old boy on a wilderness expedition for emotionally troubled youths woke up to find a 400-pound brown bear with a bad attitude sitting at his feet.

After trying unsuccessfully to back out of the tent, the boy was bitten in the forearm and decided to fight back, punching the bear with his left hand a half-dozen times, Alaska State Trooper Adam Benson said Monday.

The bear chased the boy around a nearby stand of trees. The boy eventually remembered an air horn in his gear, and blew it in the bear’s muzzle, waking others in the camp, said Steve Prysunka, director of the six-week Crossing Wilderness Expeditions for Youth program.

The bear finally turned and ran when counselors blasted it with pepper spray and fired a flare at its feet, Mr. Prysunka said.

Later Saturday, after the morning attack, officials found the bear in the campsite area on Deer Island in southeast Alaska and killed it. The boy was flown to a hospital, where he was treated, then sent home to Barrow.

ARIZONA

Two fatally shot in office complex

PHOENIX — Two men were fatally shot yesterday inside a small office complex, and police said they were searching for a man who had threatened both victims.

SWAT officers and other police surrounded the building in northeast Phoenix after someone in an adjacent business heard an argument and gunshots at about 7:25 a.m., police Sgt. Randy Force said.

Nearby schools were locked down, but after about a two-hour search officers concluded that the gunman had fled.

COLORADO

Reagan backers plan university

DENVER — Supporters of Ronald Reagan have begun raising money to establish a university in his name in Colorado.

Organizers hope to create a general university with medical and law schools and a graduate school of public and international policy. They want to open by 2010 with 10,000 students and 2,000 faculty members and staff.

The organizers have received 200 acres of donated land with a view of the Rocky Mountains near Denver.

ILLINOIS

Ailments linger from anthrax

CHICAGO — People exposed to anthrax during the deadly mail sabotage attack of 2001 continued to suffer physical and mental problems at least a year later, researchers said yesterday.

“We found that many of the anthrax-infected survivors continued to report significant health problems, psychological distress, poor life adjustment and a loss of functional capacity one year after the onset of infection,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The agency said it looked at 15 adults who were among those exposed to anthrax in threatening letters sent to two senators and several news outlets in 2001. Five persons died from the poisonings.

Eight of the survivors had not returned to work when the study ended, and those who had inhaled the agent had significantly worse overall health than those exposed only through the skin, the study said.

The most common complaints were respiratory tract problems such as chronic cough, fatigue, swollen and painful joints and memory problems, it said.

IOWA

Celebration on hold in riot’s aftermath

DES MOINES — Iowa State University officials are suspending the school’s annual festival for one year after this spring’s event turned riotous, the university’s president said yesterday.

Gregory Geoffroy said two task forces will study what caused the riot and how to ensure it won’t happen in the future, but the results won’t be ready in time for next spring.

The student-organized festival, known as Veishea, erupted in violence April 18, when rioters threw rocks and bottles, smashed windows, set fires in trash bins and toppled street lights. Police used tear gas and batons to control the crowd, and 38 persons were arrested.

After the task forces issue reports in November, Mr. Geoffroy said, he will decide the fate of the event.

MONTANA

Recorded voices help rescue dog

MISSOULA — Volunteers armed with Vienna sausages and a tape recording of Tom and Betty Kuffel’s voice managed to coax the family’s skittish dog back to safety.

Valkyrie, a German shepherd mix, had survived an April 17 small plane crash with the Kuffels, but was spooked and ran off when rescue crews arrived. Valkyrie was spotted Monday, said family friend Barbara Palmer.

Rescuers didn’t want to scare her, “so they got back in the car and played the tape recording of Tom and Betty’s voice,” Miss Palmer said. “When she heard Betty and Tom’s voice, ’Here Valkyrie, here baby, good girl,’ she just ran and jumped in the car.”

The Kuffels are recovering from injuries suffered in the crash.

Their single engine, home-built plane crashed on the Montana-Idaho state line after their carburetor iced up.

NEW MEXICO

Drug treatment draws on Indian traditions

ALBUQUERQUE — The Bernalillo County metropolitan court has begun an initiative aimed at reducing alcohol- and drug-related arrests among American Indians.

It offers substance abuse treatments that use native traditions. The voluntary Urban Native American Drug Court offers Indians rehabilitation using sweat lodges, talking circles, Indian counselors and medicine men from their particular tribe.

NEW YORK

Condit allowed to sue for slander

NEW YORK — A former U.S. congressman won a round in court yesterday when a federal judge refused to dismiss a slander suit accusing columnist Dominick Dunne of wrongfully implicating the ex-lawmaker in the disappearance of murdered intern Chandra Levy.

U.S. District Judge Peter Leisure ruled that Gary Condit’s slander claims over statements the columnist made in 2002 on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” “Entertainment Tonight Online,” “Larry King Live,” and at celebrity dinner parties would remain in the case.

He did, however, dismiss claims made about statements the columnist made to the Boston Herald and USA Today.

Judge Leisure said the Vanity Fair columnist “did not merely comment on a public controversy, but also added false assertions of fact to the public controversy.”

NORTH DAKOTA

Groom arrested on wedding day

BISMARCK — A man who was arrested while leaving his wedding ceremony won’t be enjoying his honeymoon until he deals with a warrant for writing bad checks in Montana.

Cory Harmon and Daniella Kuntz, both 24, were married Friday at the Burleigh County Courthouse. Mr. Harmon was arrested a short time later when a police officer conducted a routine driver’s license check because he thought a member of the wedding party was a suspect in an ongoing investigation.

It was a case of mistaken identity, but the license check turned up the warrant for Mr. Harmon, who said he does not know how many bad checks he wrote or the amounts because he had moved to Bismarck before the warrant was issued.

UTAH

Conservationists sue to stop gas survey

SALT LAKE CITY — Conservation groups filed suit Monday to stop a natural gas survey alongside an eastern Utah canyon that contains a wealth of ancient Indian art and dwellings.

The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, in a lawsuit filed in Washington, claim heavy trucks and blast holes used to look for gas reserves could damage one of the nation’s greatest concentrations of ancient sites. Nine Mile Canyon has more than 1,000 rock panels and ancient dwellings.

Leaders of the Sierra Club and Wilderness Society painted the project as a reckless act by the Bush administration to exploit more public lands for gas and oil. The lawsuit was filed against the Bureau of Land Management and the Interior Department.

Bureau officials say the seismic exploration will stay out of Nine Mile Canyon.

From wire dispatches and staff reports