BOSTON

Hand transplant patient recovers from surgery

A Massachusetts man who had a double hand transplant says the first thing he wants to do is touch his grandsons’ faces and stroke their hair.

Richard Mangino of Revere lost his arms below the elbows and lost his legs below the knees after contracting sepsis in 2002.

Last week, a team of more than 40 surgeons, nurses and support staff at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital worked for more than 12 hours performing a bilateral hand transplant. Doctors said it will take months for his sensory functions to return.

CONCORD, N.H.

Plane to evacuate engineer arrives at Antarctica base

A cargo plane that will evacuate a sick engineer from the South Pole arrived Friday at a base in Antarctica.

The plane flew from Chile to the United Kingdom’s Rothera Base on Friday, the National Science Foundation said. It will go to the foundation’s South Pole research station today to pick up 58-year-old Renee-Nicole Douceur of Seabrook, N.H., and take her first to the foundation’s McMurdo station in Antarctica and then on to New Zealand.

Douceur, a manager for research station contractor Raytheon Polar Services Co., asked for an earlier emergency evacuation after having what doctors believed was a stroke in August.

SANTA ANA, Calif.

Hair salon massacre suspect needs meds, attorney says

The attorney for the suspect in the Seal Beach, Calif., hair salon massacre has told a judge his client needs anti-psychotic medications and is not getting them in jail.

Defendant Scott Dekraai made his first appearance in Orange County Superior Court on Friday but his arraignment on eight counts of murder and one count of attempted murder was continued to Nov. 29.

Defense attorney Robert Curtis told the court that Dekraai needs the medications Trazadome and Topamax.

DENVER

Flight attendants restrain passenger after disturbance

Authorities say an American Airlines flight from New York to Los Angeles was diverted to Denver after a drunken passenger hit a flight attendant in the face and yelled threats.

Varoujan Khodjamirian has been charged with interfering with a flight crew. An affidavit said flight attendants had to restrain him with flexible cuffs, and two sat on him until Flight 21 landed Thursday night.

LOS ANGELES

NASA plans to hitch ride aboard private spaceship

NASA engineers, technologists and scientific researchers are planning to hitch a ride to outer space aboard a spaceship owned by Virgin Galactic, British billionaire Richard Branson’s private space venture.

The company, which aspires to be the world’s first commercial carrier in space, said it has confirmed an order from NASA for one charter suborbital spaceflight so the space agency can conduct experiments.

TEMPE, Ariz.

Swimmer pronounced dead after being pulled from pool

Authorities say a former Arizona State University swimmer drowned in a pool on the Tempe campus.

ASU police said 22-year-old James Rigg and a male friend jumped a fence about 1:30 a.m. Monday at the Mona Plummer Aquatic Complex and had a swimming contest. The pool is 18 feet deep and was not lit at the time.

Police said the other man noticed Rigg at the bottom of the pool, pulled him out of the water and started giving him CPR before calling 911.

Rigg was taken to Tempe St. Luke’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

— From news service reports

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