NEW YORK

Extremist cleric enters court following overnight flight

A partially blind extremist Egyptian-born preacher charged in multiple terrorism plots entered a U.S. court for the first time Saturday without the use of his arms, complaining that prosthetic hooks he uses were taken away as he and four other terrorism defendants were flown to New York overnight from London.

Abu Hamza al-Masri, 54, indicted under the name Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, entered a Manhattan courtroom under heavy security to face charges he conspired with Seattle men to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon and helped abduct 16 hostages, two of them American tourists, in Yemen in 1998.

ATLANTA

Outbreak claims 7 lives, spreads to nine states

Health officials say the death toll in a rare fungal meningitis outbreak across several states has risen to seven.

In updated figures posted to its website Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the outbreak has spread to more than 60 people across nine states.

Minnesota and Ohio are the two latest states to report confirmed cases linked to a steroid produced by a specialty pharmacy in Massachusetts.

The steroid has been recalled, and health officials have been scrambling to notify anyone who may have been injected with it.

ATHENS, Ga.

Lawmaker calls theories lies ‘straight from the pit of hell’

Georgia Rep. Paul Broun said in videotaped remarks that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell” meant to convince people that they do not need a savior.

The Republican lawmaker made those comments during a speech Sept. 27 at a sportsman’s banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell. Broun, a medical doctor, is running for re-election in November unopposed by Democrats.

Broun also said that he believes the Earth is about 9,000 years old and that it was made in six days.

Those beliefs are held by fundamentalist Christians who believe the creation accounts in the Bible to be literally true.

– From news service reports