Nation in brief

Trapped in van, driver sets fire to draw help

LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, Calif. - A driver stranded for about three days after his van plunged 500 feet off a mountain highway was rescued early Thursday by firefighters responding to a blaze he set to get attention.

The man, who asked that his name and extent of injuries be withheld, was dehydrated but in fair condition at a hospital on Thursday evening.

The two-acre blaze in Angeles National Forest was reported shortly before 8 a.m. and Los Angeles County firefighters sent to battle it discovered the man trapped in the van, said Capt. Roland Sprewell.

The van was on its side in brush far below Angeles Crest Highway, which rises quickly from suburban Los Angeles into the San Gabriel Mountains.

"This person has been here since Monday," Sprewell said. "It's very steep and treacherous terrain."

The victim was strapped into a stretcher and hoisted by a helicopter out of the canyon, and the fire was doused within an hour.

"I don't want to encourage people to start fires, but if you're trapped for four days you gotta do what you gotta do," said firefighter Jeff Ziegler, who helped rescue the man.

Couple who helped doctor's killer released

NEW YORK - A husband and wife who conspired to help the man who gunned down an abortion doctor in 1998 were freed Thursday after serving more than two years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Carol Amon, ruling after a two-day hearing, said sentencing guidelines precluded a longer prison term than the two years and five months Loretta Marra and Dennis Malvasi had already served.

But Amon told the couple that they had joined in "the very kind of evil you purport to abhor" and urged them to consider the seriousness of helping a killer.

Marra, 39, and Malvasi, 53, pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to harbor James Kopp in their Brooklyn apartment. Kopp was convicted this year of killing Dr. Barnett Slepian when he fired an assault rifle through a window of the doctor's home.

NO SIGN OF PANDA TWIN: Bai Yun, a 13-year-old female giant panda at the San Diego Zoo, was caring for her squawking, 4-inch-long cub on Thursday, but a second cub still had not been born. The panda appeared to have contractions again late Wednesday night, but their significance wasn't clear, zoo spokeswoman Yadira Galindo said Thursday. Researchers doubt the second cub will survive the delay between deliveries.

STORE DEATHS LINKED: Investigators said Thursday that ballistics tests showed all three victims in a series of sniper-style slayings at Charleston, W.Va., area convenience stores were killed by the same weapon. Police had linked two of the slayings earlier, and believe they were drug-related.

OREGON EVACUATIONS: Between 500 and 1,000 residents were ordered to evacuate Thursday as wildfires burned toward the central Oregon community of Camp Sherman. Several hundred firefighters are heading to the area to help the 220 firefighters battle the 4,000-acre blaze.

ATTORNEY HIT IN STREET: Monica Wheatley, acting U.S. attorney for the western district of Kentucky, was struck by a sport utility vehicle and injured while crossing a busy street near the federal courthouse Thursday in Louisville, Ky. The injuries could be life threatening, a police spokesman said.

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