■ United States
Planes collide
Two small planes collided in New Jersey, killing both pilots and sending one aircraft plunging into the back yard of a home, authorities said. Luke Schiada of the National Transportation Safety Board said that the pilots were the only people in the planes. No one on the ground was injured, he said. A Piper PA-28 that had taken off Saturday morning from an airport in Lincoln Park collided with a Cessna 150 that had left an airport in Caldwell, Schiada said. He said it was not immediately clear where the planes were heading, and that there was no information about whether the pilots had communicated with each other before the crash.
■ United States
Dolphins euthanized
Thirty dolphins stranded on a Florida beach were euthanized after experts and volunteers spent hours trying to get them to swim back to the ocean. The roughtooth dolphins were among a group of 36 dolphins that beached themselves Friday on Hutchinson Island, north of Palm Beach. With limited space at the area's lone dolphin-care facility, experts decided they could nurse only six of the animals back to health. The remaining 30 dolphins, including four calves, were given lethal injections on Saturday. "It was a very painful, very emotional and very difficult decision to make," said Steve McCulloch of the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce.
■ Great Britain
Cockle pickers rescued
Emergency crews rescued more than 100 Scottish and Chinese shellfish hunters stranded in treacherous sands in an English bay after two tractors collided. Liver-pool Coastguard said it received an emergency call shortly before 10am local time on Saturday reporting that the tractors had collided 6.4km offshore at Morecambe Bay and were stuck in a deep gully. Liverpool Coastguard spokesman Paul Parkes said hovercraft, helicopters and boats were used to complete the rescue of 144 Scottish and Chinese cockle pickers before the afternoon high tide. Parkes said nobody was injured. Cumbria Police spokesman Mike Head said police were investigating the incident to see if any criminal offenses had been committed.
■ The Vatican
Pope to visit France
Pope John Paul II makes the 104th foreign visit of his papacy when he flies to the Marian shrine of Lourdes in the French Pyrenees next weekend. It will be his eighth visit to France. So far, his visits have taken in 129 of the world's 191 independent states, many of them more than once. Among the significant states he has not visited are Russia and China.
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