FBI continues anthrax investigation in Florida

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- FBI agents and scientists spent Monday combing the former headquarters of American Media Inc., searching for clues in last fall's anthrax attacks.

Investigators have declined to say how many people are working inside the quarantined building or if any evidence has been discovered. Crews re-entered the building Friday.

John Florence, a spokesman for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, said Monday the team expects to collect evidence through Friday. The investigation will continue until Sept. 11, the deadline agents set in their search warrant.

The teams hope to discover the letter or package that brought anthrax into the building and fatally infected photo editor Robert Stevens, who was the first of five people to die nationwide during the bioterror attacks.

House explosion kills Maryland gas worker

SNOW HILL, Md. -- A house explosion rocked a neighborhood on Maryland's Eastern Shore, killing a gas utility worker and injuring four residents and 13 firefighters.

The explosion blew firefighters off their feet and left nothing but a pile of rubble where the house in the working-class neighborhood stood. Glass and metal debris strewn 50 yards away. A door from the home lay on a sidewalk nearby.

The cause of the explosion is under investigation, but authorities believe it is related to a reported gas leak in the area.

Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Utility worker Ignatius Daniel Saienni, 38, of Stockton, who was responding to the gas leak, died in the explosion.

Seven dead in plane crash in New Hampshire

SWANZEY, N.H. -- Seven people were killed Monday when their small plane crashed in the woods outside a southwest New Hampshire airport, authorities said.

There were no survivors, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters.

Peters said the plane was apparently attempting to return to the Dillant-Hopkins Airport, about two miles from where the craft went down. Witnesses said there was a large fireball and the plane burned up, Peters said.

Peters said there was no distress call.

He said the pilot filed a flight plan for Charleston, W.Va., but it was not known if that was the final destination.

Authorities said the pilot was from Lafayette, La., but did not release his name.

Alleged abortion-doctor killer feared for his life

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A man accused in the 1998 sniper slaying of a doctor who provided abortions told supporters in a letter from a French jail that he went into hiding abroad because he feared he would be killed.

Proclaiming his innocence in the death of Dr. Barnett Slepian, James Kopp said he fled because he believed he might meet the same fate as a high-profile, anti-abortion ally, Maurice Lewis, who died under what Kopp claimed were suspicious circumstances.

Portions of the letter were published in Monday's Buffalo News. The newspaper did not indicate how it obtained a copy.

Lewis was found dead in his truck in Ontario in September 1997.

Man returned to Florida to face murder charge

BARTOW, Fla. -- A man arrested in Ecuador has been returned to face charges of murdering his business partner and three relatives of another associate, including a prosecutor, investigators said Monday.

Nelson Ivan Serrano, 63, was being held without bond in the Polk County Jail.

Serrano is charged with murdering partner George Gonsalves, 69, in 1997.

The other victims were related to another of Serrano's business partners, Felice Dosso. They are Dosso's son, Frank Dosso, 35; daughter, Diane Patisso, 28; and Diane's husband, George Patisso Jr., 26. Diane Patisso was a Polk County prosecutor, but authorities said her job was unrelated to the killings.

-- From wire reports