In brief: Searchers spot large objects in ocean near AirAsia site

Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia – Indonesian officials were hopeful today they were homing in on the wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501 after sonar equipment detected two large objects on the ocean floor, a week after the plane went down in stormy weather.

Teams equipped with a remote-operated vehicle were battling high waves and strong currents as they tried to capture images of the find for confirmation. The objects were detected early Friday by an Indonesian navy ship.

Prominent professor, poet Miller Williams dies at 84

Little Rock, Ark. – Arkansas poet Miller Williams, a prolific writer and teacher who read a poem at President Bill Clinton’s 1997 inauguration, has died. He was 84.

Williams, the father of singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, died Thursday night at a hospital in Fayetteville of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. Williams was a longtime professor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

He helped found the university’s publishing arm, the University of Arkansas Press, in 1980, and directed it for almost 20 years. He has written, translated or edited more than 30 books.

Three snowmobilers save moose after avalanche

Anchorage, Alaska – There’s an extra moose alive in south central Alaska thanks to three snowmobilers who freed it from an avalanche.

Marty Mobley, Rob Uphus and Avery Vucinich, residents of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, on Sunday went riding on the west side of Hatcher Pass about 55 miles northeast of Anchorage. With Alaska’s unseasonably warm weather, they were wary of avalanches, Mobley said.

Mobley spotted something brown moving in a hard-packed snow of the debris field.

“It looked like a guy’s arm at first because we were expecting to see a skier,” Mobley said. “But it was moaning and groaning and moving and we realized it was a moose, even though only his ears and some of its snout was sticking out of the snow.”

The men grabbed shovels. After about 10 minutes, Mobley said, three-quarters of the animal was free.

“It stood right up and towered over us, because we were in kind of a hole from the digging,” Mobley said. “It looked like the abominable snowman because its fur was so packed with snow and it looked at us, shook the snow off it, and off it went.”