Biden aide named to his Senate seat

Edward “Ted” Kaufman, a former aide to Sen. Joe Biden, was named Monday by Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner to fill the Senate seat Biden is leaving for the vice presidency.

Kaufman, co-chair of Biden’s transition team and an Obama-Biden transition project advisory board member, plans to serve until the 2010 election, when a new senator is elected.

Lake Village, Ark.

School buses collide in chain reaction

Three school buses collided in a chain-reaction crash Monday in southwestern Arkansas, sending dozens of youngsters to a hospital but few with serious injuries, authorities said.

There were 76 people in the emergency room at a hospital in Lake Village, said state police spokesman Bill Sadler. Ambulance workers listed two people as having serious injuries, he said.

Nashville, Tenn.

Plane crash kills pilot, passengers

A twin-engine plane was spinning as it fell from the sky and crashed Monday several miles from Nashville’s major airport, killing a retail executive and the two others on board, witnesses and authorities said.

The Beech Baron propeller plane took off from Arkansas.

Police on Monday evening tentatively identified the three as Greg Secrest, 67, the pilot; Rodney Tillman, 49; and his wife, Rebecca Ann Tillman, 42, all from Hot Springs, Ark.

New York

Church killings suspect arrested

A California man accused of driving to New Jersey and fatally shooting his estranged wife and another man inside a church on Sunday has been captured in Georgia.

New Jersey district U.S. Marshal James Plousis says 27-year-old Joseph M. Pallipurath was captured about midnight Monday in Monroe, east of Atlanta.

Pallipurath is suspected of shooting and killing 24-year-old Reshma James inside St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church in Clifton, about 15 miles west of Manhattan.

Also killed was Dennis John Mallosseril, who witnesses say had tried to intervene when the couple argued.

A third person was shot in the head and is hospitalized in critical condition.

Los Angeles

Police identify sword-wielder

Police on Monday identified the man who was shot and killed after wielding two samurai swords at the Church of Scientology’s Celebrity Centre.

Authorities said they were unsure why Mario Majorski, 48, traveled from Oregon to the center Sunday morning but indicated he had “created problems” for the church in the past, said Los Angeles Police Department Detective Wendi Berndt.