ST. LOUIS — A judge has ordered a psychiatric evaluation for the man accused of stealing a plane in Canada and flying over three states before landing in southern Missouri. The U.S. Magistrate judge ordered the evaluation of 31-year-old Adam Dylan Leon during a brief court hearing Friday in St. Louis. When the judge asked Leon if he understood what had transpired during the Friday hearing, he replied “more or less.” Authorities said Leon stole a single-engine Cessna from an Ontario flight school Monday and landed it more than seven hours later near a highway in Ellsinore.
N.Y.: Animal cruelty charge
A prominent thoroughbred breeder who once owned a Kentucky Derby favorite was charged Friday with cruelty to animals, two days after authorities seized 177 malnourished horses at his Hudson Valley farm. Ernie Paragallo was charged with 22 counts of violating New York’s Agriculture and Markets law that prohibits torturing or injuring an animal or failing to provide sustenance, a state police dispatcher said. The horses remain on the farm under the supervision of the Columbia Greene Humane Society.
Michigan: Tasered teen dies
A 15-year-old has died after he was Tasered by police following a traffic stop and short foot chase that began just north of Detroit. A deputy police commissioner in Warren said the teen was Tasered Friday while struggling with officers inside an abandoned Detroit house. He later was pronounced dead at a local hospital. The death is under investigation. An autopsy is scheduled today.
Pennsylvania: Priest crashes
Authorities said a woman lost her leg and at least five other people were injured when a priest drove into a group of people after a Good Friday service. The crash happened in the parking lot of St. Maurice Catholic Church in Forest Hills, just east of Pittsburgh. Witnesses said the priest drove into a group of people on a patio where older people typically wait for rides. A parishioner said the priest told her the accelerator just went. Witnesses said the priest served at St. Maurice’s.
California: Yacht slaying
A man convicted of murdering an Arizona couple by tying them to an anchor and throwing them overboard from their yacht off Southern California was sentenced to death Friday. An Orange County Superior Court judge imposed the sentence recommended by the jury that convicted Skylar Deleon, 29, of killing Tom and Jackie Hawks of Prescott, Ariz. Prosecutors said Deleon, of Long Beach, feigned interest in buying the couple’s nearly half-million-dollar yacht and threw them overboard during a test cruise out of Newport Harbor in 2004.
Russia: Israel supplies drones
Russia is buying pilotless spy aircraft from Israel in hopes of improving its own unmanned drones after a poor performance in the war against Georgia last August, Russian news agencies quoted a top military official as saying Friday. The deputy defense minister said the military has signed a contract to buy an unspecified number of pilotless drones from an Israeli company he did not identify. Russia has never before announced a purchase of military hardware from Israel. Their relations have vastly improved since the Cold War, when Moscow supplied weapons worth billions of dollars to Israel’s Arab foes.
India: Deadly fireworks blast
An Indian news agency says a blaze at a fireworks factory has killed at least 23 workers and injured 48 others in western India. The Press Trust of India news agency quotes a medical officer as saying the injured are being treated at a hospital near Jalgaon, a town in western Maharashtra state. He put the death toll at 23.
Algeria: Incumbent a winner
Incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika won a third term as president of Algeria after an election marred by six terror attacks and the killing of a police officer, the interior minister said Friday. Bouteflika won 90.24 percent of Thursday’s vote, with more than 74 percent of Algerians casting ballots, the interior minister said. The 72-year-old president’s electoral landslide had been widely expected despite his bouts of ill health in recent years. The opposition cried fraud. Still, none of Bouteflika’s five low-profile opponents had the political sweep to capture the nation.
From Herald news services
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