LAVONIA, Ga. -- When police finally searched the squat white mobile home where they say a man held his family captive for three years, the place was so filthy and bug-infested that one officer had to wear a gas mask and another refused to continue.

Investigators allege it was in this three-bedroom trailer in northeastern Georgia where Raymond Daniel Thurmond forced his wife and four children to live, allowing them to leave only once in three years. Even then, it was only fleeting: A two-hour Easter visit to his wife's parents' place in North Carolina.

"It was pretty much a virtual prison," Lavonia Police Lt. Missy Collins said Wednesday. "He controlled what they ate, what they did. He controlled pretty much everything."

Thurmond now awaits a bond hearing on charges of rape, child abuse and false imprisonment. He has asked for an attorney but one hadn't been assigned as of Wednesday afternoon. Franklin County jail officials turned down a request by The Associated Press to interview Thurmond.

SAN DIEGO -- A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a man throwing rocks at agents near the U.S.-Mexico border in the San Diego area, authorities said Wednesday.

Edgar Israel Ortega Chavez, 22, was hospitalized with a bullet wound in his right torso after Mexican authorities found him alongside the dry, concrete-lined Tijuana River basin, Tijuana police said.

San Diego police said the shooter was a 10-year Border Patrol veteran but did not release his name. The department is investigating the shooting. A Border Patrol spokesman, Daryl Reed, said the agent fired his gun on U.S. soil Tuesday night after seeing the man wielding a softball-sized rock on Mexican soil. Border Patrol agents tried unsuccessfully to disperse the group who had crossed to the U.S. side by firing pepper balls and using tear gas.

There was no fence separating the agent from the group when he fired, Reed said. A yellow stripe on the bottom of the river basin marks the border in the area.

ARAPAHO, Okla. -- Former female inmates of the Custer County jail testified Wednesday that ex-Sheriff Mike Burgess demanded sex from them in exchange for his help in getting them into a drug court rehabilitation program.

The inmates testified on the second day of a preliminary hearing that will determine whether Burgess, 55, is held over for trial on 35 felony charges that accuse him of rape and other inappropriate sexual behavior with female inmates.

Burgess was a member of a drug court panel that decides which offenders are allowed into the rehabilitation program and which offenders are sent to prison.

One former inmate testified that Burgess ordered her to perform sexual acts on him in his office, and also picked her up at her home, drove her to a remote location and demanded sex.

Another woman testified that Burgess visited her at motel rooms and demanded sex. "I just tried to black out the whole thing. It was bad," the woman said.

A third female inmate testified that Burgess gave her alcohol and then had sex with her multiple times during trips to Oklahoma City to promote the drug court program.

She told prosecuting attorneys she was afraid not to have sex with him.

"I would have gone to prison if I hadn't," she said.

TORONTO -- A U.S. Army specialist who fled Fort Bragg for Canada after learning his unit was to be deployed to Iraq was ordered deported Wednesday.

Jeremy Hinzman, 29, is likely to be court-martialed when he returns to the United States and could face up to five years in prison. Hinzman said Canada's Border Services Agency ordered him to leave the country by Sept. 23 and he would be handed over to U.S. authorities.

Before he fled Fort Bragg, N.C., in January 2004, Hinzman had already served a tour of duty with the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan.

He served in a non-combat position because before his unit left in 2002, he applied for conscientious objector status.

In December 2003, the unit was ordered to Iraq, but he left for Canada with his wife and son shortly thereafter. He had served three years in the Army and was one of the first U.S. deserters from Iraq to seek refugee status in Canada.

He said he refused to participate in what he calls an immoral and illegal war.

"I'm disappointed, but I think that every soldier that has refused to fight in Iraq has done a good thing and I'm not ashamed," Hinzman said moments after learning of the decision. "I don't know how political it was. I had a high profile case," he added.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Howard "Cliff" Enoch Jr. disappeared over what would become East Germany near the end of World War II, three months before his only son was born.

Six decades later, that son, Howard Enoch III, is getting to know his father while planning a funeral and memorial service for a man he never met.

"For 63 years, I had no reason to believe I would ever find out what happened to my father," Enoch said. "It's been remarkable."

The Department of Defense announced Wednesday it had identified the remains of 2nd Lt. Howard Clifton Enoch Jr. of Marion, Ky. His burial is scheduled for Sept. 22 at Arlington National Cemetery and a memorial service is being planned for western Kentucky in October.

Lt. Enoch was a 20-year-old pilot of a P-51D Mustang, a long-range single-seat fighter aircraft, that was shot down near the village of Doberschutz, Germany, on March 19, 1945. Lt. Enoch's remains were not immediately recovered and the crash site fell behind Soviet lines when the war ended in May 1945.

His son, Howard Enoch III, grew up in Marion, about 66 miles east of Metropolis, Ill. His mother remarried and he was eventually told about his father's disappearance.

"He had never been there my entire life," Enoch said. "I virtually had no hope of ever knowing what happened to my dad."

BOISE, Idaho -- A jury that will decide whether a convicted pedophile should be executed listened Wednesday as a prosecutor graphically described how the man killed members of an Idaho family, abducted two children and abused the youngsters at a campsite before murdering one of them.

Joseph Edward Duncan III, who is representing himself, told the 12-member jury in his opening statement that the prosecutor's narrative was "fair and accurate up to the point of what occurred at the campground."

Duncan said he would testify during the sentencing hearing so he could try to "clarify things."

Duncan pleaded guilty to 10 federal charges last year in the 2005 kidnappings and murders. The jury will determine whether he should serve life in prison or be put to death.

His standby legal counsel, Judy Clarke, has said Duncan doesn't plan to offer any mitigation, such as evidence of his own traumatic childhood.

HOUSTON -- Passengers and a pilot testified Wednesday they never saw or heard anything that indicated the wife of megachurch evangelist pastor Joel Osteen assaulted a flight attendant before the start of a 2005 flight.

Continental Airlines flight attendant Sharon Brown said in her lawsuit that Victoria Osteen yelled at her, threw her against a bathroom door and elbowed her while attempting to rush into the cockpit after a spill on the armrest of her first-class seat wasn't quickly cleaned up. Brown claims she suffered physical and psychological injuries.

However, three first-class passengers on the plane testified Wednesday that they never saw or heard anything to indicate that Victoria Osteen assaulted Brown before the start of the flight from Houston to Vail, Colo.

"There wasn't anything that occurred that she could be suing over," said Laura Knoppe, who was sitting in the first row of first-class seats, closest to where Brown said the attack took place.

Knoppe, who was called by Victoria Osteen's attorney, Rusty Hardin, said she never heard Osteen yelling or screaming.

Another passenger, Barbara Shedden, who had been called by Brown's attorney, described the interaction between Brown and Victoria Osteen as "just a power of the wills. It was very authoritative on both parts."

Shedden said Victoria Osteen was out of line by standing in the aisle while she waited for the spill to be cleaned up, but testified she doubted an attack took place.

A third passenger, James Steele, said he never heard any yelling or sounds of a physical altercation.

The pilot, William Burnett, testified he saw "nobody fighting the flight attendants."

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Another deadline will pass Thursday without a new emergency siren system going into service around the Indian Point nuclear power plant, just 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan.

Plant owner Entergy Nuclear pledged in January that the state-of-the-art, 172-siren system would be completed and approved by that self-imposed deadline. The company announced last week that its system was ready to go.

But the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Wednesday that its approval process, required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, could not be completed by Thursday. The review is under way but it's unclear how long it will take.

The NRC has already fined Entergy nearly $800,000 for missing two deadlines. It also missed a third deadline with no fine.

The sirens are to alert residents within 10 miles to any emergency at the plant in Buchanan. An older siren system, plagued in recent years by occasional test failures, remains in place and would be used in case of a real emergency. Entergy was ordered by Congress to install backup power to the existing system, but decided to build an entire new system instead.

Entergy has had numerous problems with the sirens, leading to opposition to its application for 20-year license extensions for the two Indian Point reactors. Opponents also claim the site could be a terrorist target and the surrounding area could never be evacuated in an emergency.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Faced with hundreds of big, hard-to-control blazes, California is struggling with what could be its most expensive firefighting season ever, burning through $285 million in the last six weeks alone and up to $13 million a day.

With the worst of the fire season still ahead, lawmakers are scrambling to find a way to pay for it all and are considering slapping homeowners with a disaster surcharge that asks those in fire-prone areas to pay the most.

"There is no more fire season as we know it -- the fire season is now all year-round," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said while touring wildfires last month in Northern California. "That means that we don't have enough resources."

The crisis comes as California deals with a $15.2 billion budget deficit, and Schwarzenegger cited firefighting costs as a major factor when he ordered wages deferred for state workers and laid off others recently to cut costs.

Fire budgets have been strained across the West because more fires are escaping initial attacks and raging out of control, due largely to drier conditions and thicker brush. Higher fuel and labor costs are also factors.