Las Vegas: Threat probe called off

The FBI said Friday that a Nevada man’s claim that his cellular phone picked up people talking in Arabic about a planned terrorist attack was “not credible.”

“The results of the investigation to date do not substantiate these allegations, and the FBI has determined that this information is not credible,” Ellen Knowlton, special agent in charge of the Las Vegas FBI office, said in a statement.

FBI Special Agent Daron Borst called the investigation “substantially complete” after agents spent 4 1/2 hours questioning Michael Hamdan and giving him a polygraph test Friday. Borst declined to discuss results of the test or elaborate further about the investigation.

Hamdan, 54, told The Associated Press that he failed the lie-detector test. He blamed lack of sleep and mental fatigue after many media interviews in the past 48 hours.

Pennsylvania: Horse-and-buggy crash kills two Amish children

Two Amish children were killed after the horse-drawn buggy in which they were riding was struck by a sport utility vehicle, police said.

The buggy was equipped with a reflective triangle as required on all vehicles that travel at night and that don’t exceed 25 mph. The buggy also had lights which are not required, police said.

The accident in Leacock came weeks after a judge ruled that the ultraconservative Swartzentruber Amish sect must use the orange-and-red reflective triangles on their buggies. The group had argued in court that the gaudy decorations were offensive and violated their beliefs.

It was not clear to which sect the victims in Wednesday’s crash belonged.

Mark Anthony Tomassetti, 22, of Gap, fled the scene, but was arrested about seven hours after the accident while trying to make calls from a pay telephone outside a restaurant. He was being held on $100,000 bail at the Lancaster County prison.

Nebraska: Hospital helicopter crash kills three people

A medical helicopter crashed during an emergency landing attempt Friday, killing all three people aboard, officials said.

The helicopter had left a Norfolk hospital shortly after noon when it experienced a problem and tried to land at an airport three miles away.

A witness, Lynn Stewart, said the helicopter touched down, then immediately went back up in the air and started to gyrate. He said the helicopter was flying erratically as it reached about 100 feet before diving nose first.

The pilot, 43-year-old Phil Herring, died after the LifeNet of the Heartland helicopter crashed. The two passengers died later at an Omaha hospital, said Russ Spray, chairman of Rocky Mountain Holding Corp., LifeNet’s parent company.

The other victims were identified as nurse Lori Schrempp, 41, of Yankton, S.D., and paramedic Pat Scollard, 40, of Sioux City, Iowa.

Police were interviewing the helicopter’s mechanic, and federal investigators were traveling to Norfolk late Friday. Winds were blowing up to 30 mph at the time of the crash.

Salt Lake City: Wanted drifter found

The drifter wanted for questioning in the kidnapping of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was caught Friday at a West Virginia hospital after checking himself in under a fake name with drug-related liver failure.

The capture of Bret Edmunds, 26, shed no immediate light on the June 5 abduction, and police said again that he was not a suspect. But authorities said they hoped to talk with him and search his car.

The teen-ager was taken at gunpoint from her bedroom. Her 9-year-old sister, Mary Katherine Smart, was the sole witness to the abduction.

Police have more than 400 leads.