NEW YORK

Afghan pleads guilty in plot to attack New York subway

A former airport shuttle driver accused of buying beauty supplies to make bombs for an attack on New York City subways pleaded guilty Monday, admitting he agreed to conduct an al-Qaida-led ”martyrdom plan” because of U.S. involvement in his native Afghanistan.

Najibullah Zazi told a judge the terror network recruited him to be a suicide bomber in New York, where he went to high school and once worked a coffee car just blocks from the World Trade Center site.

The Associated Press learned earlier this month that the jailed Zazi had recently volunteered information about the bomb plot in the first step toward a plea deal. His cooperation suggests prosecutors hope to expand the case and bring charges against other suspects in one of the most serious terrorism threats in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001.

SPARKS, Nev.

Engine trouble forces pilot to land on busy highway

A deputy fire chief found an opening in traffic and slipped his single-engine plane into the gap after engine trouble forced him to land on Interstate 80 near Reno.

The Cessna 172 suffered tail and rudder damage, but pilot Joseph DuRousseau Jr. and three passengers on their way home from a humanitarian mission in Mexico were unhurt, Nevada State Trooper Chuck Allen said. He said there were no other injuries and did not appear to be any damage to vehicles.

”He apparently suffered some mechanical difficulties and essentially made an emergency landing on westbound I-80,” Allen told The Associated Press shortly after the plane touched down about 10:20 a.m. a few miles north of Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

DuRousseau, 60, the Reno Fire Department’s division chief for operations, said he was trying to switch from one fuel tank to another when the engine went out and would not restart. He said traffic was light but credited the few motorists around with making the happy ending possible.

”I just saw an opening in the traffic and slowed down,” DuRousseau told KRNV-TV in Reno. He said the cars behind him slowed and those ahead sped up. ”It created a nice spot to come in. Everyone did a nice job.”

WASHINGTON

Cheney resting in hospital after suffering chest pains

An aide to Dick Cheney says the former vice president is in George Washington Hospital after experiencing chest pains.

Cheney’s assistant, Peter Long, said in a statement late Monday that the 69-year-old Cheney was resting comfortably and his doctors were evaluating the situation.

Cheney has a history of heart problems and has a pacemaker.

In 2008, doctors restored a normal rhythm to his heart with an electric shock. It was the second time in less than a year that Cheney had experienced and been treated for an atrial fibrillation, an abnormal rhythm involving the upper chambers of the heart.

Cheney has had four heart attacks, starting when he was 37. He has had quadruple bypass surgery and two artery-clearing angioplasties.

TUCSON Ariz.

Giant George, at 3-foot-7, is tallest dog, Guinness says

A 250-pound blue Great Dane gives new meaning to the term ”big dog.” Guinness World Records says Giant George from Tucson is the tallest dog ever on record. Guinness said that he stands 3 feet, 7 inches tall from paw to shoulder, which is three-quarters of an inch taller than his closest rival — Titan, a white Great Dane from San Diego.

The 4-year-old Titan took the title of world’s tallest dog in 2009 after Gibson, a Great Dane from Grass Valley, Calif., died of bone cancer.