Montana

Two reported killed in plane crash rescued

Two people who were reported killed in a plane crash on Monday emerged alive from rugged Montana wilderness Wednesday.

The two U.S. Forest Service employees reached a highway after making their way on foot for miles through mountains in northwestern Montana, said Denise Germann, a spokeswoman for the Flathead National Forest.

Jodee Hogg, 23, of Billings, and Matthew Ramige, 29, of Jackson Hole, Wyo., were spotted Wednesday afternoon in the Essex area.

Hogg was listed in stable condition at Kalispell Regional Medical Center. Ramige was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for burn treatment.

Three others died in the crash.

Washington, D.C.

New CIA director confirmed

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday, 77-17, to approve Rep. Porter J. Goss, R-Fla., as director of Central Intelligence, handing him a post with an uncertain future and the task of taking over the nation’s battered spy services as they confront their worst crisis since the CIA was created after World War II.

Experts say Goss cannot impose systemic changes until the White House and Congress agree on how and when to rewire the intelligence community.

On top of that, Goss has sharply criticized Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president, and thus is unlikely to keep the job if Bush loses the Nov. 2 election.

Washington, D.C

American detainee released to Saudi Arabia

The Bush administration agreed Wednesday to release an American-born “enemy combatant” captured on a battlefield in Afghanistan, whose more than two-year detention without charges or lawyers culminated this summer in a resounding Supreme Court defeat for the White House.

After insisting for months that the continued incarceration of Yaser Esam Hamdi was essential to national security, government attorneys agreed to send him back to his family in Saudi Arabia in the next few days.

Under terms of the agreement, Hamdi is required to renounce his U.S. citizenship, but will not face any criminal charges. He also is subject to travel restrictions, and he pledged not to sue the United States for any injuries he sustained during his confinement in military brigs in Virginia and South Carolina.

San Francisco

Military spy case dropped

The military on Wednesday dropped an espionage charge against a Muslim interpreter accused of spying at the camp for terror detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The development marks the third Guantanamo spy case to fall apart this year.

The charge against Senior Airman Ahmad Al Halabi was dropped in exchange for his guilty plea to four “minor infractions,” said defense lawyer Donald Rehkopf Jr. His sentence has not been set.

Al Halabi, a naturalized American who was born in Syria, was accused of trying to deliver messages from detainees at Guantanamo to his homeland. He was arrested last July as he headed to Syria to get married.