Georgia

Missing toddlers found dead in pond

Two toddlers who were reported missing from their home over the weekend were found dead in an algae-covered sewage pond a few hundred yards away Monday after a two-day search.

The cause of death was not immediately disclosed, and Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said it was not known whether the youngsters were the victims of foul play. Autopsies were planned.

Nicole Payne, 2, and her brother, Jonah, 3, were reported missing on Saturday from their Warrenton house, about 100 miles east of Atlanta. The children’s mother called authorities to report that the toddlers vanished after she went into another room. Police said their mother found the front door open and the children gone.

Police Chief Jim McClain said that earlier in the day Saturday, the children got out of the house. He said Nicole figured out how to unlock the front door and gate and left with Jonah at around 4 p.m. A neighbor returned the children a half-hour later, he said.

New York City

Afghan arrested on smuggling charge

A reputed Afghan drug lord who authorities say operated with the protection of the Taliban has been captured and faces charges that he tried to smuggle more than $50 million worth of heroin into the United States, authorities said.

Bashir Noorzai, who is on the U.S. list of most-wanted drug kingpins, was ordered held without bail at his initial court appearance in Manhattan. If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The full circumstances of Noorzai’s capture were not made public. Prosecutor Boyd Johnson told a judge that Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrested the defendant Saturday in New York, but he did not elaborate.

Prosecutors say the smuggling attempt involved about 1,100 pounds of heroin.

Wisconsin

Dead mother locked in freezer for years

A man told police he kept his mother’s corpse in a basement freezer for more than four years while he collected her Social Security checks, authorities said Monday. A body was found encased in ice, in a sitting position.

Philip Schuth, 52, told police his elderly mother, Edith, died of natural causes in August 2000, but that he didn’t tell anyone because he was afraid police would blame him, according to documents filed in court Monday.

Police recovered a chest-type freezer in Schuth’s basement, and after chipping away at a block of ice, discovered a human knee. The body has not been identified; an autopsy is set for later this week.

Investigators found the freezer at the end of an all-night standoff at Schuth’s home in the Town of Campbell. The standoff began Friday when a 10-year-old boy told his father that Schuth had hit him.

New Mexico

Complaint lodged on Forest Service

Forest Service managers created a potential threat to the public through risky spraying of pesticides and weed-killers in the Southwest, a federal official in Albuquerque charges in a whistleblower complaint.

Environmental laws and the agency’s own rules on spraying were ignored, the complaint says. For example, it says that over the past three years thousands of pounds of insecticides were used near campgrounds in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest without justification or determining the risk to campers and other visitors.

Doug Parker, the pesticide coordinator and assistant director of forestry and forest health for the Forest Service’s Southwestern Region, would not discuss his accusations, saying his supervisor has ordered him not to speak publicly about the matter.

His lawyer, Dennis Montoya, said Parker believes he could lose his job for speaking out but considers it critical that the Forest Service ensure that pesticides are used responsibly.

South Carolina

Driver survives car, train crashes

A 37-year-old woman survived two harrowing incidents within a few hours — first, she was trapped in her car after it veered off the road and then the vehicle was struck by a train.

No one saw the original wreck around 2:30 a.m. Sunday, when Lana Hudspeth ran off U.S. 76 in Ballentine northwest of Columbia, struck a tree, went down a 30-foot embankment and came to rest on the train tracks, McDougald said.

Hudspeth was either unconscious or couldn’t get out of her car for more than two hours, state Highway Patrol spokesman Bryan McDougald said. At about 4:45 a.m. a 93-car train traveling 47 mph struck Hudspeth’s car, pushing it 300 yards down the track, McDougald said.