National Briefing

FLORIDA

Python hunting season scheduled

State wildlife officials have created a special python hunting season to try to stop the spread of the nonnative snakes throughout the Everglades.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says anyone with a hunting license who pays a $26 permit fee can kill the reptiles from March 8 to April 17 on state-managed lands around the Everglades in South Florida.

The season is open for Burmese and Indian pythons, African rock pythons, green anacondas and Nile monitor lizards.

Thousands of the nonnative Burmese pythons are believed to be in the region, upsetting the natural balance of the ecosystem.

WASHINGTON

Gay troops get support

The top commanding general in Iraq says he thinks everyone -- gay and straight -- should be allowed to serve in the military “as long as we are still able to fight our wars.”

The comment by Army Gen. Ray Odierno is among the first from a senior military leader currently leading troops in battle since the Pentagon announced this month that it will study the issue.

Odierno helped lead a troop buildup in Iraq that reduced violence and has paved the way for a planned drawdown of U.S. forces.

Odierno told reporters that he hadn’t had much time to think about whether gays should be allowed to serve openly. He said the policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” has been a “non-issue” to him.

WYOMING

Suicide case investigated

Authorities said they’re interviewing friends and family of a suicidal man who blew up his ex-wife’s house, killing him and injuring three police officers.

Michael A. Lesher, 44, was distraught at being told to move out of the upper-middle-class home in Casper, officials said.

The blast happened as the officers, carrying a shield, reached the porch of the gas-filled house around noon Saturday. The explosion tossed them into the yard, and they were treated for cuts and bruises.

Crews found Lesher alive under rubble in the basement, but he died later at a hospital.

The owner of the home since 2005 was Teresa M. Lesher, Lesher’s ex-wife, according to county officials. District court records show the Leshers divorced in 2006, according to a court clerk.

Michael Lesher had been given a deadline of noon Saturday to move out.

OREGON

Police arrest murder suspect

An Oregon man wanted in the slaying of his mother and her boyfriend was arrested in Virginia after police got a tip from a friend who read about the killings on the Internet.

Gabriel Morris, his wife, Jessica Morris, and their 4-year-old daughter, Kalea, were taken into custody in Dumfries, Va., according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

He is wanted in the Feb. 8 shooting deaths of his mother, Robin Anstey, 62, and her boyfriend, Robert Kennelly Jr., 48, near the Oregon coastal town of Bandon.

Two counts of aggravated murder have been filed against Gabriel Morris; his wife was sought as a material witness.

NEVADA

Airplane lands on highway

A deputy fire chief found an opening in traffic and slipped his single-engine plane into the gap after engine trouble forced him to land on Interstate 80 near Reno.

The Cessna 172 suffered tail damage, but pilot Joe DuRousseau and two passengers were unhurt, Nevada State Trooper Chuck Allen said. He said no one else was hurt and there did not appear to be any damage to vehicles.

DuRousseau, the Reno Fire Department’s division chief for operations, said he was trying to switch from one fuel tank to another when the engine went out and would not restart.

He said traffic was light but credited the few motorists around with making the happy ending possible.

“The cars behind slowed down to allow the plane to come in from behind,” DuRousseau told KRNV-TV in Reno.

“The cars ahead of us were going faster, so they moved forward. It created a nice spot to come in.”

-- times wire reports