Nation briefs 10/10/07

Settlement ends legal argument over acid rain

WASHINGTON -- A $4.6 billion settlement Tuesday by one of the last holdouts among polluting power companies signals the end of a long legal debate over acid rain -- and a tougher battle ahead over carbon dioxide and the use of fossil fuels. The agreement with American Electric Power Co., struck just as the company was to defend itself in court, ends an eight-year battle over reducing smokestack pollution that drifted across Northeast and mid-Atlantic states and chewed away on mountain ranges, bays and national landmarks. AEP, based in Columbus, Ohio, maintains it never violated Clean Air Act rules to curb emissions, and had already spent or planned to pay $5.1 billion on scrubbers and other equipment to reduce its pollution.

Last three bodies located after Wash. plane crash

WHITE PASS, Wash. -- Searchers combing through wreckage Tuesday found the last three victims among 10 killed when their plane crashed in Washington's rugged central Cascade Range on their way home from a skydiving event. Bodies of seven of the 10 people aboard were found Monday. Recovery crews found the rest on Tuesday, said Nisha Marvel, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation's aviation division. The debris at the remote crash site indicated that the Cessna Caravan 208 went down in a steep nosedive, Yakima County Sheriff Ken Irwin told a news conference at a command center.

Wis. deputy died from self-inflicted gunshot

CRANDON, Wis. -- An off-duty sheriff's deputy who killed six people apparently shot himself three times, with the last shot hitting him in the right side of the head, the state attorney general said Tuesday. Tyler Peterson, 20, shot himself twice under the chin before firing the third and fatal shot, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said. Peterson also was shot once in the left biceps from a distance. The six people who died early Sunday were either students or recent graduates of Crandon High School, where Peterson also had graduated.

-- From wire reports