Nation, World Briefs: FAA moves ahead on aviation forecast changes

WASHINGTON — The federal government Thursday moved forward with a controversial proposal that would close weather offices at 20 regional air traffic control centers around the country and instead provide controllers with forecasts from Maryland and Missouri. The consolidation plan came under fire from the union representing National Weather Service employees, which charged that the change will endanger aviation safety. But the Federal Aviation Administration, which sought the changes, said advances in technology make face-to-face contact between controllers and forecasters unnecessarily expensive. No weather service employees will lose jobs under the consolidation, according to federal officials, though job locations would change.

Pennsylvania: Gun on plane

The FBI charged a US Airways employee with helping his roommate get a concealed, semiautomatic handgun onto a plane departing Philadelphia early Thursday. Customer service agent Roshid Milledge switched black carry-on bags with passenger Damien Young at the gate so Young could board the 7 a.m. flight to Phoenix with the unloaded 9 mm weapon, the FBI said. An alert fellow passenger saw the switch and, sensing that Milledge seemed “fidgety,” raised concerns.

Florida: Nagasaki co-pilot

Charles Donald Albury, 88, co-pilot of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, has died after years of congestive heart failure. Albury died May 23 at a hospital, Family Funeral Care in Orlando confirmed. Albury helped fly the B-29 that dropped the weapon on Aug. 9, 1945, and witnessed the deployment of the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima three days earlier as a pilot for a support plane. His plane dropped instruments to measure the magnitude of the blast and levels of radioactivity for the Hiroshima mission led by Col. Paul Tibbets Jr.

D.C.: Obamas off to Paris

It’s a family weekend in Paris for the Obamas. A White House official said 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha will join their mother, first lady Michelle Obama, when she flies to Paris today to join President Barack Obama. It will be their first excursion abroad as daughters of an American president. President Obama arrives in Paris today for a meeting Saturday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and D-Day commemorations in Normandy.

Utah: A threat to president

Federal prosecutors have charged a man with making threats against President Barack Obama after he allegedly told a bank employee in Utah he was on a mission to kill the president. The Salt Lake Tribune reported Thursday that Daniel James Murray allegedly made the remark to a teller at a bank in St. George on May 27 as he withdrew $13,000 from an account. The U.S. Secret Service said Murray has at least eight registered firearms. His whereabouts are unknown.

New Mexico: Plague deaths

An 8-year-old boy has died and his 10-year-old sister was hospitalized after both contracted bubonic plague, the first recorded human plague cases in the nation so far this year. State health officials did not immediately say Thursday how the brother and sister contracted the infectious disease, but they are conducting an investigation at the family’s residence to determine if there is any risk to other people. Plague is generally transmitted to humans through the bites of infected fleas.

Indonesia: Elephants killed

Three rare Sumatran elephants were found dead in northwestern Indonesia near an oil palm plantation and are believed to have been poisoned by villagers, a conservationist said Thursday. The carcasses of the protected giant animals were in a forest 560 miles from Jakarta, the head of the local Conservation and Natural Resources Agency said. He said he suspects the elephants were poisoned by villagers running a plantation for oil palms, which are used to make palm oil, in an adjoining forest. Palm oil is one of Indonesia’s leading export products and a billion-dollar industry.

Canada: Decapitation ruling

A schizophrenic man who beheaded and cannibalized a fellow Greyhound bus passenger will remain in a psychiatric hospital for at least another year. Stanley Li was found not criminally responsible earlier this year for the July killing of Tim McLean, whom he stabbed dozens of times and dismembered as horrified passengers fled the bus. A judge in Manitoba ruled that he suffered from untreated schizophrenia and did not realize that his actions were wrong.

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