In this photo provided by her family, Haleigh Poutre is shown at age 11. Doctors were to perform more tests Thursday, on the severly beaten and comatose girl whose condition may have improved since the Massachusetts high court granted permission to the state to remove her from life support. Associated Press File Photo

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- A severely beaten and comatose 11-year-old girl is now breathing on her own, officials said Thursday, two days after Massachusetts' highest court ruled the state had the authority to remove her from life support.

Denise Monteiro, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services, said doctors have weaned Haleigh Poutre off a ventilator in the past week.

"She can intake air, but she can't swallow on her own," Monteiro said.

Haleigh has been in the agency's custody since she was hospitalized four months ago with a badly damaged brain stem that authorities say resulted from abuse. Thinking that she was in an irreversible vegetative condition, the state had gone to court to seek permission to remove her from life support.

Haleigh's stepfather, Jason Strickland, is charged with beating the girl and could face a murder charge if she dies. He has fought to keep her on life support, but this week's high court ruling said he has no say in her medical care.

"This is exactly the point we were trying to make. What's the rush? Just give her a chance," attorney John Egan said. "Medical science is not that certain. We would hope the whole process will slow down, and everyone will step back and end the compulsion to end her life."

Officials first reported changes in Haleigh's condition on Wednesday, a day after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the agency had the authority to remove her ventilator and feeding tube.

Monteiro said the state now has no immediate plans to remove her feeding tube, and more medical tests will be performed Thursday. She said Haleigh had responded to some testing on Wednesday but would not specify what the tests or responses were.

When Haleigh was hospitalized four months ago, her doctors said she was in a permanent vegetative state and would die within a few days without the feeding tube.

Some patients with severe brain stem injuries may partially recover from a persistent vegetative state, but they rarely recover fully enough to communicate, feed themselves and live ordinary lives, Dr. Steve Williams, chief of rehabilitation medicine at Boston Medical Center, told The Boston Globe in its Thursday editions. But he said recovery is more likely with children than adults.

"There's more plasticity to their brain. There's potentially other areas of the brain that can take over," he said.

Haleigh's aunt and adoptive mother, Holli Strickland, also was charged with assault. But less than two weeks later, she was found dead alongside her grandmother in a possible murder-suicide.

Haleigh's biological mother, Allison Avrett, had supported removing the girl from life support. She said she met with officials and doctors Wednesday but would not comment on reports of her daughter's responses.

Two mine blasts kill four, injure 25 in Sri Lanka


COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) -- Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels exploded anti-personnel mines twice in eastern Sri Lanka on Thursday, killing four people and injuring 25 others, the Defense Ministry said.

European truce monitors called for an immediate halt to the rising violence, which has threatened to plunge the country back into civil war.

Three police and a civilian were killed by a mine near their truck in Batticaloa, 135 miles east of the capital, Colombo, the military media unit said. Twenty soldiers and police and one civilian were wounded.

Separately, three sailors and a police officer were wounded in a suspected rebel mine attack in the eastern town of Trincomalee, 140 miles northeast of Colombo, navy spokesman Cmdr. D.K.P Dassanayake said.

European cease-fire monitors said the violence was "escalating completely out of control" and called for an immediate halt.

"When are the two parties, the government and the (rebels), going to wake up?" Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission spokeswoman Helen Olafsdottir said. "They are the parties that can put an end to violence."

Both Trincomalee and Batticaloa fall within the rebels' envisaged homeland for Sri Lanka's 3.2 million ethnic Tamil minority.

The attacks came as Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse met all political parties in Parliament to build a national consensus on talks with the rebels.

A consensus is crucial to implement any autonomy deal between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam because any agreement must get parliamentary approval.

No details of the meeting were available.

A 2002 Norway-brokered cease-fire has come under serious strain, with 75 government soldiers and sailors killed since Dec. 4. The rebels, for their part, have accused the military of attacking civilians suspected of supporting the guerrillas.

Parliament on Thursday extended a state of emergency amid the continuing violence, which threatens to plunge the tropical island back into civil war.

Sri Lanka has renewed the state of emergency, which gives police and the military special powers, every month since the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in August.

Arctic temperatures blanket Russia, death toll rises to more than 30


MOSCOW (AP) -- Arctic temperatures blanketed Russia for a fourth day on Thursday, sending electricity use surging and pushing the death toll from the cold wave to at least 31 people as even hardy Russians struggled to cope with the big freeze.

Temperatures in Moscow plunged overnight to as low as minus 24, said Tatyana Pozdnyakova, a Moscow weather forecasting service official. The temperature was the lowest recorded on Jan. 19 since 1927, she said.

Seven people died of exposure in the Russian capital in the previous 24 hours, city emergency officials said, pushing the nationwide death toll from the Siberian cold wave that swept into Moscow late Monday to at least 31.

At a zoo in Lipetsk, south of Moscow, director Alexander Osipov said monkeys would be given wine three times day, "to protect against colds," the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

Electricity use surged to record levels and towns and cities struggled to keep indoor temperatures up. Children stayed home from school and drivers struggled to start cars.

But thousands of religious believers along with winter swimmers plunged into icy waters nationwide for an annual ritual marking the Russian Orthodox Christian holiday of Epiphany. Many dipped into holes cut into thick ice on rivers and ponds in the ritual that commemorates the baptism of Jesus Christ in the River Jordan.

Taking a dip at 24 below zero "is the most intense feeling," one man in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg told Channel One television.

In northeast Moscow, Vladimir Grebyonkin, an avid 65-year-old winter swimmer and scientist, said the frigid temperatures gave the water special qualities.

"These waters have their own properties, their own benefits," he says. "I'm not a believer (in God), but I'm believer in physics."

Vendors at Moscow's outdoor food and clothing markets shut their booths, and exposed ATMs reportedly froze. Traffic was uncharacteristically light as drivers were reluctant to venture out or unable to start their cars.

Outside one apartment building, residents hefted car batteries back into their vehicles after taking them inside overnight to keep them warm. Others tried to jump-start their cars.

Heat was disrupted in at least two towns in the Moscow region by water main breaks, leaving dozens of homes and thousands of people shivering. A similar accident left thousands without heat in Siberia's Chita region, some 3,000 miles east of Moscow. Russian buildings frequently are heated by municipal hot water systems.

Electricity use reached a 15-year high earlier this week, power monopoly RAO Unified Energy Systems said Wednesday. The company also said Russia might reduce electricity supplies to Finland in order to ensure deliveries to St. Petersburg and the surrounding region.

Russia's state-controlled natural gas monopoly OAO Gazprom tried to maintain exports -- a sensitive issue for Europe following a New Year's interruption in supplies stemming from a dispute between Russia and Ukraine.

Slightly warmer temperatures were expected Friday, with a forecast weekend high in Moscow of about minus 4.

On call, firefighters return to station in flames


BLOXOM, Va. (AP) -- Volunteer firefighters in this small town were battling a house fire when they got a second call -- that their own firehouse was ablaze.

By the time they raced back to their two-story station early Wednesday, fire had destroyed much of the structure. Firefighters were also unable to save the other house.

"People were crying," said Kimberly Midgett, a department member. "Everyone was walking around hugging each other."

The half-century-old firehouse was a gathering place for the town of about 400 people, 85 miles northeast of Norfolk on the state's Eastern Shore.

State Police are investigating the cause of the station fire, said Capt. Raymond J. Scott of the bureau of criminal investigation's Chesapeake field office. The damage was estimated at $1.5 million.

Judge grants name change for Angelina Jolie's children


By: - SANTA MONICA -- A judge Thursday granted Angelina Jolie's request to alter her adopted children's names to reflect that Brad Pitt is their intended adoptive father.

Jolie, who is pregnant with Pitt's child, sought hyphenated names for 4- year-old Maddox Chivan Jolie and Zahara Marley Jolie, who celebrated her first birthday on Jan. 8.

"I can just confirm that the court has granted Miss Jolie's name-change petition to change Zahara and Maddox's name to Zahara Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Jolie-Pitt," attorney Evan Spiegel said.

Pitt, 42, is referred to as "the adoptive father-to-be" of each child in court papers filed Dec. 2.

Santa Monica Superior Judge Linda K. Lefkowitz granted Jolie's petition, which will result in the children's last name becoming "Jolie-Pitt."

Neither Jolie nor Pitt attended the hearing.

When asked if the two planned to marry, the attorney said he would "not comment on my clients' personal lives."

Jolie, believed to be about four months pregnant, reportedly fell on the set of "The Good Shepherd" in the Dominican Republic earlier this week and suffered a minor cut on her head.

Jolie, 30, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, adopted Maddox in Cambodia and Zahara in Ethiopia.

---- North County Times wire services


Wilson Pickett dies of heart attack at 64


RESTON, Va. (AP) -- Wilson Pickett, the soul pioneer best known for the fiery hits "Mustang Sally" and "In The Midnight Hour," died of a heart attack Thursday, according to his management company. He was 64.

Chris Tuthill of the management company Talent Source said Pickett had been suffering from health problems for the past year.

"He did his part. It was a great ride, a great trip, I loved him and I'm sure he was well-loved, and I just hope that he's given his props," Michael Wilson Pickett, the fourth of the singer's six children, told WRC-TV in Washington after his death.

A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Pickett -- known as the "Wicked Pickett" -- became a star with his soulful hits in the 1960s.

"In the Midnight Hour" made the top 25 on the Billboard pop charts in 1965 and "Mustang Sally" did the same the following year.

Pickett was defined by his raspy voice and passionate delivery. But the Alabama-born picket got his start singing gospel music in church. After moving to Detroit as a teen, he joined the group the Falcons, which scored the hit "I Found a Love" with Pickett on lead vocals in 1962.

He went solo a year later, and would soon find his greatest success. In 1965, he linked with legendary soul producer Jerry Wexler at the equally legendary soul label Stax Records in Memphis, and recorded one of his greatest hits, "In the Midnight Hour," for Atlantic Records. A string of hits followed, including "634-5789," "Funky Broadway" and "Mustang Sally." His sensuous soul was in sharp contrast to the genteel soul songs of his Detroit counterparts at Motown Records.

As Pickett entered a new decade, he had less success on the charts, but still had hits, including the song "Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You."

In later years, he had legal problems and battled substance abuse; in 1994 he served jail time on an assault charge.

Besides his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, he was also given the Pioneer award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation two years later.

Man dies after dog falls from Michigan overpass, hits car


LIVONIA, Mich. (AP) -- A dog apparently fell from a freeway overpass and crashed through a car windshield, fatally injuring the driver, police said Thursday.

Charles G. Jetchick, 81, died Wednesday of injuries suffered in the accident over the weekend in suburban Detroit. A passenger suffered minor injuries.

Investigators do not believe the 60- to 70-pound Labrador retriever was thrown, but rather fell by while trying to avoid a car, State Police Sgt. Michael A. Shaw said. Police questioned the dog's owner. The dog died after a fall of about 16 feet.

Despite his injuries, Jetchick was able to steer his car in a straight line and stop safely, Shaw said.

"We've had rocks and other stuff like that fall off of overpasses. This would be the first dog we've had," said Shaw, who has been with the State Police for 11 years.

Most residents allowed back home as wrecked train carrying cyanide continues to burn


LINCOLN, Ala. (AP) -- Wreckage from the fiery crash of a train carrying sodium cyanide continued to burn Thursday, but no hazardous chemicals were detected in the air, and most nearby residents were allowed to return home.

The fire mostly involved paper and automobile parts, said Jerome Hand, a spokesman for the state environmental management agency. Plastic-lined cardboard boxes containing sodium cyanide spilled inside a train car, but none leaked, Hand said.

The flames broke out Wednesday after the train rear-ended another train that was carrying automobiles. That train had pulled onto side rails to let the other pass through, but not all of its 81 cars cleared the main tracks, said Susan Terpay, a spokeswoman for Norfolk Southern, which operates both trains.

Three crew members were treated at a hospital, and a plume of black smoke could be seen 40 miles away in Birmingham.

Air tests showed no danger from chemicals, Hand said. Environmental officials were also monitoring fish at a nearby lake, he said.

Residents were allowed to return Thursday to all but about 18 of the 500 homes that had been evacuated.

Sodium cyanide is not combustible, but it forms flammable gas on contact with water or damp air, and it can give off irritating or toxic gases in a fire, according to the Centers for Disease Control web site.

Inhalation can lead to headaches, dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath, irregular heart beat and unconsciousness.

Man climbs Miami tower to protest brother's 1962 disappearance


MIAMI (AP) -- A man who believes his brother disappeared four decades ago while on a secret anti-Castro mission climbed a radio tower behind the Miami Herald building Thursday and demanded the U.S. government release information about his sibling.

The man, who identified himself as Robert Annable, left a written statement at the base of the tower pleading with federal officials for any information about his brother Harrison, who disappeared from a fishing boat on Nov. 17, 1962, The Miami Herald reported on its Web site Thursday.

He spent four hours on the tower and hung an American flag upside down before climbing down to where authorities were waiting to lead him away.

In the note, he had threatened to burn the American flag by 5 p.m. if the government did not respond.

"I will hate to do this but I am fed up with the continuing secrecy and lies from the government and I hope to complete my promise to my father on his deathbed that I would find the truth of Harrison's disappearance," he wrote.

"This is not meant to be an affront to the brave Americans that have served and died for their country," he added. "It is to identify one who did the same, yet the country he loved denied, defamed, and likely destroyed him."

Annable's brother and two other men disappeared shortly after leaving Miami on what was supposed to be a lobster fishing expedition in the Bahamas, but Annable alleges that his brother's disappearance was connected to the United States' anti-Castro policies. Their boat, Revenge, was discovered days later, but their bodies were never found, the Herald reported.

Newspaper stories at the time showed U.S. authorities suggested Cuban government boats may have attacked or captured the men.

The disappearance was about a year and a half after the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, in which Cuban exiles backed by the CIA tried to overthrow Fidel Castro's fledgling communist government.

U.S. Coast Guard Spokesman James Judge said Annable first contacted the Coast Guard in 1999 about his brother's disappearance. Judge said officials told Annable they had no information because their records are destroyed after 10 years.

Annable said he spent years seeking information from the State Department, CIA and other federal agencies to no avail. Shortly after President Bush was elected, the CIA closed the family's efforts to request information, citing national security concerns, Annable said in the statement.

"This is simply an act of civil disobedience in the hopes that my government, the media, or the people of Miami will help me learn the truth of what happened to Harrison," he said.

Man who killed 3 teens and buried bodies in basement attempts suicide in jail


CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) -- A man sentenced to life in prison for murdering three teens and burying their bodies in a basement tried to hang himself Thursday morning in his jail cell, officials said.

David Maust, 51, used a bed sheet braided into a rope in a suicide attempt and was in critical condition at a hospital, Lake County Sheriff's Cpl. Mike Higgins said.

Jail staff found a suicide note in which Maust admitted to five killings, Higgins said.

It wasn't immediately clear to which killings the note referred. Maust pleaded guilty last fall to killing the three teens. He had also served time in an Illinois prison for the 1981 murder of a 15-year-old boy before being released in 1999, and he was convicted of manslaughter while serving in the U.S. Army for the killing of a teenager in Germany.

He agreed to the plea in the killings of the three teenagers in exchange for the state withdrawing all death penalty requests in the slayings of Michael Dennis, 13, James Raganyi, 16, and Nicholas James, 19, all of Hammond.

Maust, who has said he acted alone, has been jailed since his arrest in December 2003. Police had searched the basement of a Hammond house where Maust rented a second-floor apartment and found freshly poured concrete. At least two bodies were found beneath it, wrapped in plastic and secured with cords and tape.

Police said they suspect Raganyi and Dennis died of suffocation or strangulation and James of a fractured skull.

Lake County Jail staff had notified Maust shortly before they found him hanging in the cell about 4 a.m. that he was going to be transferred to Indiana Department of Correction custody later that day to be placed in a prison, Higgins said.

Queen of the desert -- Miss America pageant settles in Las Vegas


LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Back home, Miss America had an ocean. Here, she's queen of the desert.

Gone are the traditions that once defined her -- the beach photo shoots, the Boardwalk parades, the morning-after Atlantic Ocean frolic by the newly crowned Miss.

In their place: A visit to "The Tonight Show," a red-carpet arrival ceremony, hitting the casino showrooms and a new home -- for now, anyway -- in a city surrounded by sand but no waves lapping at it.

Transplanted to Las Vegas, the Atlantic City, N.J., beauty contest has traded in some of its most cherished traditions in hopes that the change in scenery can turn its luck and revive ratings.

Viewers who tune into this year's show (8 p.m. EST Saturday, Country Music Television) may not notice the differences, but in the world of Miss America, the new locale represents a sea change of sorts.

"It's always going to be a part of the pageant," said Ric Ferentz, the Miss America Organization's pageant historian, referring to the ocean tradition. "It's not like we're erasing that. But now we're sharing the pageant with the rest of the country."

In Atlantic City, the annual pageant was run principally by volunteers, many of them second- and third-generation "hostesses" who chaperoned the women around town and made sure no one went astray.

When the Miss America contestants arrived each Labor Day, they were welcomed by a squad of Atlantic City Beach Patrol lifeguards, oars in hand, and introduced in a ceremony next to the beach.

When they got dolled up in lavish state-themed costumes for the annual Miss America parade, they rode down the oceanfront Boardwalk in open convertibles, cheered by thousands of people.

"We had hundreds of volunteers, and the thing worked like clockwork," said Art McMaster, chief executive of the Miss America Organization.

In Las Vegas, it's been a more professional affair. Twenty-four pageant hostesses and volunteers are here, but most of the people running the Miss America operation have either been hired for the occasion or are affiliated with Country Music Television or the host Aladdin Resort & Casino.

No new traditions are replacing the old ones, although Las Vegas and the host casino have rolled out the welcome mat.

The image of reigning winner Deidre Downs peers down from billboards. And at the Aladdin, the card-style hotel room keys have her photograph emblazoned on them.

Other casinos have asked to get involved, too.

"I'm getting all these calls from casinos asking `Are you locked in?" said Phyllis George, the former Miss America-turned-sportscaster, now a member of the pageant's board of directors. "Barry Manilow was all over us, inviting the girls to the show, but we couldn't fit it into the schedule."

But on Friday night, there'll be no parade. And on Sunday, the new Miss America will check out of her hotel and hit the road, with no ceremony -- ocean dip or otherwise -- to mark the occasion.

"I'm very sad about the parade," said Miss New Jersey Julie Robenhymer. "But if I win, I'm inviting all 51 of the other contestants to come back to Atlantic City and have a parade with me for my homecoming," said Robenhymer, 24, of Moorestown.

Some traditions, meanwhile, are coming back.

Miss Congeniality, an award given to the contestant most popular with her peers, is returning -- for the first time since 1974. And the sashes that contestants wore for decades, which were jettisoned in the '80s as Miss America tried to downplay her beauty queen image in favor of down-to-earth role model, are back, too.

Back in Atlantic City, former pageant volunteers left behind by the move plan viewing parties. And at least one Miss America tradition will go on.

The Miss'd America Pageant, a spoof held at a gay nightclub -- featuring drag queens competing in talent and evening wear -- will resume this year, albeit in September.

"We'll be the only pageant in town," organizer John Schultz said.

On the Net:


Miss America Organization Web site: http://www.missamerica.org/

Suspended Arcadia police lieutenant in court on felony charges of using another officer's name to solicit prostitutes via the Internet


LOS ANGELES -- A suspended Arcadia police lieutenant was in court Thursday on felony charges of using another officer's name to solicit prostitutes via the Internet while on duty.

Kenneth Kuwahara, 40, did not enter a plea, and his arraignment was postponed until Feb. 2. Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner James Bianco agreed to give Kuwahara the extra time to hire an attorney.

Kuwahara, free on his own recognizance, was charged yesterday with one count each of false personation and identity theft, both felonies, and four misdemeanor counts of soliciting prostitution. The alleged solicitations happened last year from Jan. 1 to May 19 while Kuwahara was working as a watch commander.

Kuwahara allegedly used another officer's name for an e-mail account. He faces up to three years in state prison if convicted, prosecutors said.

Kuwahara also was served Thursday in court with papers from an Arcadia police representative giving him notice the department intends to fire him, according to the District Attorney's Office.

Kuwahara was suspended several months ago by Arcadia police, who began an investigation last summer and then turned it over to the District Attorney's Bureau of Investigation.

Arcadia police found the alleged solicitations through their internal monitoring system, authorities said. All department employees were given written notice that police computers were monitored, authorities said.

---- North County Times wire services


Doctors assessing Gerald Ford for possible hospital discharge


RANCHO MIRAGE (AP) -- Gerald R. Ford continued to improve Thursday at Eisenhower Medical Center, where the 92-year-old former president has been treated for pneumonia since last weekend, his chief of staff said.

Ford was expected to leave the hospital Thursday for his nearby home, but chief of staff Penny Circle said in a brief statement at midday that "doctors are currently in the process of assessing him for discharge."

"He continues to do well and improves daily," Circle said.

The nation's 38th chief executive was admitted to Eisenhower Medical Center on Saturday, his second hospitalization in five weeks. Because of his age, Circle said, Ford was hospitalized so doctors could give him antibiotics intravenously.

Circle said in a statement Wednesday that Ford was feeling well enough to leave his bed in favor of a chair and was reading newspapers.

In mid-December, the nation's oldest living, and only unelected, president underwent routine tests at Eisenhower and was hospitalized overnight because of what Circle called "a horrible cold."

Ford and his wife, Betty, have lived in Rancho Mirage since leaving the White House in 1977. They have another home in Vail, Colo.