Briefly

Los Angeles

Young pilots set records

When Jimmy Haywood and Kenny Roy flew from California to Canada and back, they saw livestock, lakes, a snowcapped mountain — and set a couple of world records.

Jimmy, at age 11, became the youngest black pilot to make an international flight, and 14-year-old Kenny passed Canada’s flight test to become the world’s youngest black pilot licensed to fly solo.

Their three-day adventure ended Saturday where it began, at the Compton/Woodley Airport, with a homecoming attended by family, friends and even the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, including Lt. Col. Lee Archer.

Jimmy piloted a Cessna 172 for 10 hours each way between Southern California and Vancouver, British Columbia. A certified flight instructor acted as the boys’ chaperone but did not fly.

Kenny executed stalls, spins and spiral dives to get his license to fly solo. He took the test in Vancouver because Canada allows pilots to be licensed at 14; the age is 16 in the United States.

Seattle

Scientists: Small explosion possible at Mount St. Helens

A strengthening series of earthquakes at Mount St. Helens prompted seismologists Sunday to warn that the once-devastating volcano may see a small explosion soon.

The U.S. Geological Survey issued a notice of volcanic unrest in response to the swarm of hundreds of earthquakes that began Thursday.

The quakes were tiny at first, but on Saturday and Sunday there were more than 10 temblors of magnitude 2.0 to 2.8, the most in a 24-hour period since the last dome-building eruption in October 1986, said Willie Scott, a geologist with the USGS office in Vancouver.

A northern portion of the mountain blew out during the 1980 eruption that left 57 people dead.

Afghanistan

Taliban commander killed

A former inmate at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who returned to Afghanistan to rejoin the Taliban as a key commander, was killed with two fellow fighters in a raid by Afghan security forces, two senior officials said Sunday.

Interim President Hamid Karzai, meanwhile, made a visit — under heavy security — to a northern warlord whose influence could swing the Oct. 9 presidential election, which the Taliban and their anti-government allies threaten to disrupt.

The Taliban commander, Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, died along with two comrades in a gunbattle Saturday night in Uruzgan, a southern province.