Denver: Victim of plane crash had survived Columbine

One of the victims in the deadly crash of two small planes over Denver was a survivor of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.

Jonathan Ross Ladd had been a junior when two students at the school opened fire, killing 12 classmates, a teacher and themselves. Ladd, who had spoken publicly about the attack, had since taken flight lessons and developed a love of airplanes, his grandmother said.

On Friday, she said, Ladd was piloting a single-engine Cessna bound for Cheyenne, Wyo., with two friends aboard when the plane collided with a twin-engine Piper and both plummeted into a residential neighborhood.

All five people in the two planes died.

New Jersey: Senator has surgery to treat head injury

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg underwent surgery Sunday to treat a head injury from a skiing accident in Aspen, Colo., a month ago.

Lautenberg, who turned 79 on Thursday, fell and hit his head while skiing on Ajax Mountain in late December, said Tim Yehl, a spokesman for the senator. The New Jersey Democrat had had a low-grade headache since then.

He checked himself into Weil-Cornell New York Presbyterian Hospital late Saturday, Yehl said. Doctors found blood had collected in an area inside the senator’s skull that required surgery to drain.

Yehl said Lautenberg would need two days to recover from the procedure and should be able to return to Washington after that.

The senator has skied for more than 50 years and was wearing a helmet when he was cut off by another skier and fell, Yehl said. He said Lautenberg was able to ski down the mountain and continued skiing for the rest of his vacation.

New York City: Martha Stewart: Probe has cost $400 million

Martha Stewart estimates the federal investigation into her ImClone stock trade has cost her about $400 million, according to an interview with The New Yorker magazine, which reaches newsstands today.

Stewart told New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin that the losses have been mostly in the decline in value of her more than 30 million shares in her multimedia company, but also in legal fees and lost business opportunities.

It was her first lengthy media interview on the subject since news broke last June that federal prosecutors were investigating Stewart’s sale of ImClone System Inc. shares.

Stewart noted that her image has suffered and said she’s “puzzled by the public’s delight” in her troubles.

“My business is about homemaking,” she said. “And that I have been turned into or vilified openly as something other than what I really am has been really confusing.”