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also was elected to the panel.
• ___

• JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- The three pilots had just taken off from the Hawkins Field Airport when the single-engine plane they were flying to a Federal Aviation Administration safety conference less than 30 miles away began to falter.
• A Jackson police officer looked up in the sky and saw the Piper PA-32 "spitting and sputtering" like it was out of fuel. The plane's owner is a budding pilot whose own life was spared when he decided to go deer hunting instead of flying Tuesday afternoon.
• One of the aviators asked for permission to return to the airport, but just minutes later the plane went down. It crashed through trees before slamming into a house that quickly caught fire.
• A deputy fire chief told WJTV-TV that one person escaped the burning home with minor injuries.
• ___

• JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. (AP) -- As Army officials weigh whether a case against a staff sergeant accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers in a predawn rampage will proceed to a court-martial, Robert Bales' defense team says the government's case is incomplete.
• And outside experts say a key issue going forward will be to determine whether Bales, who served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
• "There are a number of questions that have not been answered so far in this investigation," defense attorney Emma Scanlan told the investigating officer overseeing the preliminary hearing during closing arguments Tuesday.
• Scanlan said that it's still unknown what Bales' state of mind was the evening of the killings. Prosecutors say Bales, 39, slipped away from his remote base at Camp Belambay in southern Afghanistan to attack two villages early on March 11. Among the dead were nine children.
• An Army criminal investigations command special agent testified last week that

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