■ United States
Missing major returns home
An Air Force officer who vanished in Kyrgyzstan and reappeared three days later has returned to Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. Major Jill Metzger greeted her family on Thursday and was resting comfortably at the base, said Captain Gary Arasin, chief of public affairs. Metzger was stationed at the US base in Manas outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, when she vanished on Sept. 5 while on a shopping excursion in the city. She resurfaced on Sept. 8 when she knocked on the door of a house in Kant, about 24km outside Bishkek, and claimed she had been kidnapped.
■ United States
Temple spares vandals
Two men who vandalized a Hindu temple in Minnesota got a break when the leader of the temple helped persuade a judge to give them lighter sentences. "In this day and age of `eye for an eye,'" Shashikant Sane told Hennepin County District Judge Kevin Burke, the two men deserved a chance to become "productive citizens," not "hardened criminals." Burke said on Thursday he had been inclined to give 60-day jail sentences to both Tyler Tuomie, 19, and Paul Spakousky, 20. But instead he sentenced them to serve 30 days, the Star Tribune newspaper reported. They also must pay restitution of US$96,454, he ordered. And they must return to court on April 6, the one-year anniversary of the vandalism. If they haven't stayed out of trouble, Burke said, they'll get another 30 days in jail.
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