NATIONAL BRIEFS

CALIFORNIA: Tougher sentence ordered

A terrorist who plotted to blow up Los Angeles International Airport on the eve of the millennium, now halfway through his 22-year sentence, will have to serve longer after an appeals court ruled Monday that the original punishment did not fit a crime that a judge said could have rivaled 9/11. In a 7-4 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the government's appeal and sent the case back to a federal judge in Seattle for resentencing for a third time. The court, with some of the nation's most liberal judges, said Ressam's plot to blow up the airport on New Year's Eve 1999, was "horrific" and intended to intimidate the nation and the world. Ressam, an Algerian national, had attended training camps for Islamic terrorists. He was arrested Dec. 14, 1999, in Port Angeles, Wash.

4th fisherman missing

A team of divers was searching the ocean near Santa Cruz Island for a fourth person believed to have died when a 24-foot boat capsized during a weekend fishing trip. Three bodies were recovered after the boat from Channel Islands Harbor was reported overdue on Sunday. A fourth body was spotted by air but couldn't be found by searchers. The three victims recovered so far have been identified as Sieng Sophorn Bun, 37, of Oxnard, Edgar Allen Isnec, 54, of Port Hueneme and Ramiro Alvarez Duarte, 52, of Oxnard.

MARYLAND: Student held in online threats

A University of Maryland honor student who warned on websites he was going to "kill enough people to make it to national news" was arrested after several people reported the online messages to police, perhaps helping to thwart a threatened campus rampage, authorities said. By Sunday morning, police had set up surveillance on Alexander Song and he was arrested on campus. Song, 19, was shaking and crying when taken into custody and appeared "emotionally distraught," police said. He admitted to feeling stressed out. Song was not armed when arrested, and no weapons were found in his dorm room or his parent's home in Fulton, Md.