Rolling Stones Keith Richards snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine, he tells magazine

By: Associated Press | Tuesday, April 3, 2007 7:20 PM PDT ∞

LONDON ---- Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all.

In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.

"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.

Richards, one of rock's legendary wild men, told the magazine that his survival was the result of luck, and advised young musicians against trying to emulate him.

"I did it because that was the way I did it. Now people think it's a way of life," he was quoted as saying.

"I've no pretensions about immortality," he added. "I'm the same as everyone ... just kind of lucky.

"I was No. 1 on the 'who's likely to die' list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list," Richards said.

On the Net:

Rolling Stones:

http://www.rollingstones.com/home.php

NME:

http://www.nme.com/

Shots fired inside CNN headquarters complex in Atlanta; 1 dead, 1 in critical condition

ATLANTA (AP) ---- A domestic dispute erupted in gunfire at CNN's headquarters complex Tuesday, killing a woman and critically wounding the ex-boyfriend who pulled a gun on her, authorities said.

The man and woman were arguing near the main entrance of the complex when the man shot her, police officer James Polite said. The armed man was then shot by a CNN security guard.

The woman was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital, authorities said. The man was in critical condition.

The woman, who checked and stocked honor bars at a hotel attached to CNN Center, was Clara Riddles, 22, of College Park, said Caryn Kboudi, a spokeswoman for the Texas-based Omni Hotel chain.

Polite described the man as the woman's ex-boyfriend. Kboudi said the hotel was not aware of any of the woman's domestic troubles.

The victims were seen being carried out of the building on stretchers. The man's face was covered in blood and his shirt was removed.

CNN reported that the offices of its Internet operations, CNN.com, were immediately evacuated. Video footage also showed police pointing guns at a man lying on the ground at the bottom of an escalator inside the building.

An announcement over the building's public-address system said there had been gunfire "with potential casualties." Police cordoned off an area by the escalators near the main entrance, facing Centennial Olympic Park.

The park was the site of a bombing that killed a woman and injured more than 100 people during the 1996 Summer Olympics.

"I heard four or five shots. I really didn't see it. I got out of there quick," said Jas Stanford, 27, who had been helping take down a temporary stage in the park used for college basketball's Final Four festivities.

Besides the Omni Hotel, the CNN complex also includes a large atrium and a food court. It is connected to Philips Arena, the home of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks.

In the food court, Trina Johnson, 44, of Atlanta, was with her daughter on a family outing.

"All of a sudden we heard a big boom. We thought it was an explosion," Johnson said. "We didn't see the gun. Everybody just started running."

Soon afterward, CNN coverage of the shooting was being shown on large-screen televisions inside the atrium, near where the shooting had taken place.

A message seeking comment was left with CNN officials.

On Monday, a woman was shot and killed at the University of Washington in Seattle by an ex-boyfriend on whom she had sought a restraining order, police said. The man killed himself afterward.

Chicago woman sues boss's husband for 'negligent dancing' after he dropped her

CHICAGO (AP) ---- A woman is suing her dance partner, claiming he dropped her on her head after flipping her into the air at an office party.

Lacey Hindman, 22, was a victim of "negligent dancing," says her lawyer, David M. Baum.

In the suit, Hindman claims that during a party at a Chicago bar and restaurant in April 2006, David Prange grabbed her by the forearms and tossed her in the air, and then she crashed to the wood floor.

"I was in the air, over him," Hindman said. "I fell hard enough you could hear the impact of me hitting the floor over the sound from the jukebox."

Hindman said in the suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, that she suffered a fractured skull and brain injuries. She is seeking damages for medical bills and lost wages for time missed from work.

Hindman worked for Prange's wife, Kate Prange, at Shop Girl, a women's boutique.

There was no immediate response to a call seeking comment from David Prange on Tuesday.

Tsunami victims begin receiving aid in Solomon Islands, but officials warn it's not enough

HONIARA, Solomon Islands (AP) ---- The first boatloads of international aid reached survivors of a devastating tsunami in the Solomon Islands on Tuesday, but officials warned of a dire food shortage if supplies don't quickly get to hundreds of people camped on remote hillsides.

At least 28 people died in Monday's tsunami and quake, measured at a magnitude of 8.1 by the U.S. Geological Survey. The victims include a bishop and three worshippers killed when a wave hit a church and a New Zealand man who drowned trying to save his mother, who remains missing.

Disaster officials said the toll was expected to rise as rescue crews reached outlying villages that were flattened by the waves. Bodies could be seen floating in the water by authorities conducting aerial surveys of the destruction; there was no official count of those missing.

Some of more than 2,000 people who spent Monday night camped on a hill behind the town of Gizo returned Tuesday to look for supplies or loved ones. Others were too afraid to venture to the coast amid more than two dozen aftershocks, including at least four of magnitude-6 or stronger.

Julian Makaa of the National Disaster Management Office said more than 900 homes had been destroyed around Gizo and about 5,000 people affected.

Boats reached Gizo on Tuesday from the Solomons' capital, Honiara, carrying food and other supplies, some of which was distributed to survivors. But officials said shortages would become dire within days without more help.

"There is no food available" in Gizo and Noro, a nearby town, said government spokesman Alfred Maesulia. "Some settlements have been completely wiped out by the waves."

Australia, New Zealand, the International Red Cross and the United Nations were among those offering aid, but no formal relief plan was announced after a day of meetings by senior government officials. Makaa said the airport had been cleared of debris and would reopen Wednesday.

Six doctors and 13 nurses would be among the first flown to the towns of Munda and Gizo, where the region's only hospital was inundated with water, he said.

Disaster teams that flew over the coast around Gizo reported the "destruction was massive and widespread," said Fred Fakarii, chairman of the National Disaster Management Council.

Aerial TV footage showed tin- and thatched-roof buildings collapsed along the muddy shore. Other structures leaned awkwardly on broken stilts as men picked through the debris.

"There are some very ragged, remote areas and there's no connecting roads, (just) isolated villages," Deputy Police Commissioner Peter Marshall told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Makaa said officials could only guess at the numbers of dead in the most remote villages, where two-way radio is the usual mode of contact with the outside world.

The earthquake, which struck about six miles beneath the sea floor and 25 miles from Gizo, set off alarms from Tokyo to Hawaii, testing procedures put in place after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that left 230,000 dead or missing in a dozen countries.

But because of Gizo's proximity to the epicenter, the destructive waves ---- up to 16 feet high ---- hit before an alarm could be sounded. The disaster has rekindled debate about whether the multimillion-dollar warning systems installed after the 2004 tsunami are worth the cost.

"When you have a tsunami coming in so quickly after an earthquake, it doesn't do much good to have an early warning system," said U.S. earthquake expert Kerry Sieh. Officials would be better off putting more resources into disaster response education and efforts to permanently relocate vulnerable communities to higher ground, he said.

Michael Rottmann, the U.N. special coordinator for the early warning system in Indonesia, said warning systems are useful if the message gets out quickly.

"I think a lot of lives can be saved if you have a warning in less than 10 minutes," he said. "If you have five minutes and you have a reliable warning, you can get very far ... up into a hill or away from the beach."

No significant tsunami was reported Monday anywhere outside the Solomons, which are comprised of more than 200 islands with a population of about 552,000 people. They lie on the Pacific Basin's so-called "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanos and fault lines where quakes are frequent.

Swedish couple fights for right to name their baby 'Metallica'

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) ---- Metallica may work as a name for a heavy metal band, but a Swedish couple is struggling to convince authorities it's also suitable for a baby girl.

Sweden's tax agency rejected Michael and Karolina Tomaro's application to name their 6-month-old daughter after the legendary rock band.

"It suits her," Karolina Tomaro, 27, said Tuesday of the name. "She's decisive and she knows what she wants."

Although little Metallica has already been baptized, the Swedish National Tax Board refused to register the name, saying it was associated with both the rock group and the word "metal."

In Sweden, parents must get the names of their children approved by the tax authority, which is in charge of the population registry and issues personal identification numbers, similar to Social Security numbers in the United States.

Tomaro, who has appealed the decision, said the official handling the case also called the name "ugly."

The couple was backed by the County Administrative Court in Goteborg, which ruled on March 13 that there was no reason to block the name. It also noted that there already is a woman in Sweden with Metallica as a middle name.

The tax agency appealed to a higher court, frustrating the family's foreign travel plans.

"We've had to cancel trips and can't get anywhere because we can't get her a passport without an approved name," Tomaro said.

Freelance journalist who spent record time in jail for refusing to testify in case freed

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ---- A freelance videographer walked out of federal prison Tuesday after spending more time behind bars than any other journalist for refusing to testify to a grand jury.

Joshua Wolf, 24, in a deal with prosecutors, posted online the unaired videotape that he had refused to give federal authorities, defense lawyer David Greene said. U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who had jailed Wolf for 226 days, had approved his release earlier in the day.

"Joshua Wolf has complied with the grand jury subpoena," prosecutor Jeffrey Finigan said in court papers filed Tuesday.

Wolf spent more than seven months in a federal prison in Dublin, Calif. after refusing to obey a subpoena to turn over his videotape of a chaotic 2005 San Francisco street protest during the G-8 summit.

The government is investigating how a San Francisco police officer's skull was fractured during the melee and who set a police car on fire.

The footage Wolf posted Tuesday does not show those events, Greene said.

Prosecutors said they were not inclined to seek his grand jury testimony, though they left open the possibility that he could be subpoenaed again later.

"I will not under any circumstances testify before a grand jury," Wolf said as he left the prison.

Wolf's lawyers had argued that the First Amendment gave him the right to refuse the subpoena for unaired video.

The judge, however, cited a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the U.S. Constitution does not entitle reporters, or anybody else, to withhold confidential sources or unpublished material from a grand jury investigation or criminal trial.

No federal shield law protects reporters, unlike California's shield law, which allows reporters to keep sources and unpublished material secret.

Wolf's incarceration time surpassed that of Vanessa Leggett, a Houston freelancer who served 168 days in 2001 and 2002 for refusing to reveal unpublished material about a murder case.

On the Net:

Wolf: http://joshwolf.net/

Chinese developers tear down defiant couple's house after 3-year standoff

BEIJING (AP) ---- For three years, Wu Ping and Yang Wu held off the bulldozers, refusing to allow their home to be torn down for a redevelopment project in southwestern China and captivating a nation in the process.

For three years, they turned down offers from a real estate developer, until the house stood alone in a construction pit, sitting precariously on a mound of earth.

When they finally reached a deal that gave them enough compensation, an earth mover began clawing away at their home.

Three years of defiance was gone in three hours.

Developers on Monday night finally tore down the "nail house," as the two-story brick abode came to be known.

The term was coined by state media and Web commentators because the house stuck up like a nail that couldn't be pulled out. "Dingzihu," or "nail house," also plays on a common, usually derogatory, Chinese phrase for troublemakers who refuse to go along with government policies.

Wu and Yang were one of 280 households in downtown Chongqing asked in 2004 to make way for a redevelopment project in the booming southwestern city of nearly 28 million.

They refused, even though surrounding residences were demolished one by one.

Wu was offered $258,000 in compensation, or two higher floors in the planned complex ---- both of which she turned down because she wanted lower levels in the new building so she could run her restaurant.

Eventually, their home was the only one left, perched on the small island of land surrounded by the vast construction site.

The couple's passive resistance has been portrayed by state media as heroic. Images of their house have been plastered in newspapers recently and have been the focus of editorials and cartoons. Discussions have flooded Chinese Internet chat rooms.

"I support you! Hold on! Governments are indifferent of people's needs. You are the pride of the Chinese people!" said one posting on ynet.com, the Web site of the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper.

"This is not an individual case, it concerns the rights of all those Chinese who say their homes were demolished. You are the people's heroes!" declared an anonymous posting on the Yangcheng Evening News' Web site.

Property disputes and illegal land grabs have accelerated recently as China's economy expands at double-digit rates and farmland is gobbled up for industrial parks and skyscrapers. Government officials often have sided with developers, touching off riots and protests.

In recent weeks, Wu tirelessly met with domestic and foreign media to publicize her fight for better compensation.

The official Xinhua News Agency said her husband, Yang, had been holed up in the isolated house, surviving on deliveries of food and water, before leaving it Monday afternoon.

The couple reportedly negotiated a deal with the real estate developer that gives them a new apartment and a sizable compensation package.

According to the government-run China News Service, the couple is to receive a similarly sized but more expensive apartment in Chongqing's Shapingba district, as well as more than $130,000 in compensation for their destroyed equipment, moving expenses, redecorating costs and lost business income.

The settlement is much greater than the initial offer made to the couple and represents a small fortune in a country where the national average urban wage last year amounted to $1,517.

Yang and Wu could not be immediately reached to confirm the deal. Telephones at the local district government housing management bureau and the Chongqing municipal government rang unanswered Tuesday.

The China News Service report cited a document released by the Jiulongpo District Court, which acted as mediator between the couple and the Chongqing Zhirun Real Estate Development Co.

Once the deal was struck, the end came swiftly for the "nail house."

It took an earth mover about three hours Monday night to claw the home into dust as a few dozen reporters and people looked on, said Zhou Shuguang, a witness who photographed the event and posted the pictures on his blog.

On the Net:

Zhou Shuguang's blog (Chinese language only): http://zuola.com

Another set of Martin Luther King documents headed for auction block; King estate objects

ATLANTA (AP) ---- A faded green folder containing letters, notes and speeches believed to be written by slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is set to be auctioned off in two weeks, and the King estate wants the sale effort stopped.

Isaac Newton Farris, president and chief executive officer of the King Center, said he had no idea the papers existed until Monday.

"Unless the woman has documentation that the papers were given to her, they are owned by the King Estate," Farris said Tuesday. "We're moving forward to get as much information as we can about that."

The collection had sat in the basement of a King friend for nearly 40 years. The woman said she got the papers in a debt settlement with a radio station connected to King, according to Gallery 63 in Atlanta, which is hosting the April 15 auction.

The Gallery 63 Web site describes the papers as a collection of "about 25 previously unknown documents," including first drafts of speeches and letters to and from King, all dating from the early to mid-1960s.

The collection has not been authenticated or appraised, but gallery owner Paul Brown said he expects it to fetch $100,000 to $300,000.

Brown said he has already received about 20 or 30 inquiries about the collection. He would not name the interested parties but said they included two educational institutions, neither of them in Atlanta, and two "high-end, well-known Atlanta collectors."

Brown wouldn't disclose the woman's identity, but he said she is an Atlanta native and a childhood friend of King's.

The King family recently sold a large collection of King's papers to the city of Atlanta for $32 million. Those documents, numbering more than 10,000, were placed with Atlanta's Morehouse College, the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner's alma mater.

Wednesday will be the 39th anniversary of King's assassination. King was killed at the age of 39 by a sniper as he stood on a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn.

On the Net:

Gallery 63: http://www.gallery63.net/

Morehouse College: http://www.morehouse.edu/kingcollection/index.html

King Center: http://www.thekingcenter.org/

4 million-year-old whale skeleton found in Italian countryside

ROME (AP) ---- Italian researchers have excavated the skeleton of a 4 million-year-old whale in the Tuscan countryside, a discovery that could help reconstruct the prehistoric environment of the sea that once covered the region, officials said Tuesday.

The 33-foot skeleton, dating to the Pliocene epoch, was found in almost perfect order, with only the jaw bones out of place, said paleontologists with the Museum of Natural History in Florence.

Nearly all of Italy was once under water, and it is not unusual to find cetacean fossils in Tuscany.

But the whale skeleton's discovery, about 6 miles east of the Mediterranean, was extraordinary because it was almost complete, and a wealth of organisms were found around it, officials said.

"The finding is spectacular," said Elisabetta Cioppi, the head of the museum's paleontology department and coordinator of the excavation.

"The variety of the sea organisms associated with the whale ---- shells, fish and others ---- is extraordinary. It enables us to make a thorough reconstruction of the environment," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Fish and other sea organisms are believed to have lived off the whale's decomposing body for decades. Cioppi said researchers are cataloging the organisms for lab research.

Also found among the bones were some shark teeth, leading researchers to believe that the whale was attacked just before it died. Cioppi said it was too soon to tell if the shark killed the whale.

Excavations for the whale skeleton began in February after an amateur researcher came across the bones while digging for fossils last year and alerted the museum. The skeleton was found about 100 yards underground in Orciano Pisano, about 50 miles west of Florence, the museum said.

The warm waters that covered the Tuscan countryside started receding about 1.5 million years ago, said Alessandro Garassino, a professor with Milan's Museum of Natural History.

Now blessed with lavish vegetation and rolling hills, the Tuscan countryside has yielded bones and fragments for centuries. Other whale skeletons have been found, including one under a Tuscan vineyard only weeks ago, according to news reports and officials.

"This is not an unusual" discovery, said Garassino. "But it does confirm that the Mediterranean is favorable to the development of these sea mammals."

The whale skeleton is expected to be displayed at the Florence museum once it is restored.

Leading expert predicts 'very active' Atlantic hurricane season with 17 named storms

DENVER (AP) ---- A top researcher predicted a "very active" 2007 Atlantic hurricane season Tuesday, with at least nine hurricanes and a good chance one will hit the U.S. coast.

The forecast by William Gray predicts 17 named storms this year, five of them major hurricanes. The probability of a major storm making landfall on the U.S. coast this year is 74 percent, compared with the average of 52 percent over the past century, he said.

The forecast, issued two months before the hurricane season starts, is virtually identical to the one Gray issued before the 2006 season, which turned out far quieter than he and others had feared.

"Our forecast skill does improve as we get closer to the start of the season," said Phil Klotzbach, a member of Gray's team at Colorado State University. "Stay tuned."

Last May, Gray's team forecast 17 named storms in 2006, including nine hurricanes, five of them major ones, and an 81 percent chance that at least one major hurricane would hit the U.S. Scientists with the National Hurricane Center and two other National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agencies issued similar predictions.

Instead, there were 10 named storms in 2006 and five hurricanes, two of them major ones, in what was considered a "near normal" season. None of those hurricanes hit the U.S. Atlantic coast ---- only the 11th time that has occurred since 1945.

Gray's team said a late, unexpected El Nino contributed to the calmer season last year. El Nino ---- a warming in the Pacific Ocean -- has far-reaching effects that include changing wind patterns in the eastern Atlantic, which can disrupt the formation of hurricanes.

Over the past winter, a weak to moderate El Nino occurred but dissipated rapidly, Klotzbach said.

"Conditions this year are likely to be more conducive to hurricanes," he said. In the absence of El Nino, "winds aren't tearing the storm systems apart."

The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, averages 9.6 named storms, 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 intense hurricanes.

Gray predicted 2005 would have 11 named storms, including six hurricanes, three of them major. Instead, there were a record 26 named storms, 14 of which were hurricanes and seven of which were intense hurricanes. Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma combined to make 2005 the costliest hurricane season on record.

Gray and Klotzbach were traveling late Tuesday and could not be reached to discuss the 2005 forecast.

The team's forecasts are based on global oceanic and atmospheric conditions.

Joe Farmer of the South Carolina Emergency Management Division said the state tries to keep residents alert and ready, regardless of the severity of the predictions by Gray and others.

"We really don't know which year is going to be the South Carolina year," Farmer said. "It only takes one storm."

Craig Fugate, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said Gray's year-to-year forecasts are closely watched, but more important is the underlying research that shows hurricane activity rises and falls in long, multiyear cycles. Coastal states may enjoy long periods of calm, he said, but "we can't drop our guard and relax our planning and building codes, because it's going happen again."

Gray has spent more than 40 years in tropical weather research. He heads the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State.

Federal government forecasters plan to release their prediction in late May.

On the Net:

CSU forecast: http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Doctors transplant kidney to formerly conjoined twin

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) ---- A kidney transplanted from a suburban woman into her 5-year-old daughter started working almost immediately, doctors said Tuesday after a pair of surgeries to help the formerly conjoined twin.

"It's working beautifully," Dr. Rebecka Meyers said.

It's the first time Maliyah Herrin has a kidney of her own. Her sister, Kendra, kept their shared kidney when the girls were surgically separated in August.

"We did this so you could have your daughter not go to dialysis three times a week," Meyers told their father, Jake Herrin, after surgery at Primary Children's Medical Center.

Doctors removed Erin Herrin's right kidney 11:41 a.m. MDT. Fifty-two minutes later, doctors implanted it in Maliyah, who spent a total of seven hours in surgery.

"It seemed to work almost immediately after the blood began to flow to it," Sorensen said. "So far, so good. We're off to a very good start."

Maliyah was in critical condition and is expected to spend several weeks in the hospital. Erin Herrin, 26, was in fair condition.

Sorensen said the surgery had no complications.

"It's always exciting to see a kidney that has been taken from one individual basically come alive in another individual," he said. "I never get tired of it."

Kidneys remove water and waste from the blood for excretion. People typically have two kidneys but can survive with one.

Before the transplant, doctors worried about the amount of scar tissue they would find inside Maliyah, who had extensive reconstructive surgery after being separated from her sister.

Another concern was squeezing an adult-size kidney into her smaller-than-average abdomen. In both cases, things were better than expected, although surgeons did some reconstructive work to make the kidney fit, Meyers said.

The kidney was also a little smaller than average, which helped, she added.

Jake Herrin said his family was grateful for surgeons who have performed "miracles" for his daughters. The Herrins, who live in North Salt Lake, had been working with doctors and planning for the kidney transplant even before Maliyah and Kendra were born.

"Looking back, it's amazing how far we've come. We thought we'd never get to this point," he said. "We're really through the big challenges."

Doctors will now be watching Maliyah for any signs of bleeding, infection and organ rejection.

The surgery is expected to be the last big medical hurdle of Maliyah's childhood, her parents said. If all goes well, she's expected to be riding bikes, playing with Barbies, jumping on the trampoline and going to preschool within weeks.

"We have this saying in medicine, 'We hope for the best and plan for the worst,"' Meyers said. "It's really a joy when you hope for the best and have it come true."

On the Net:

www.herrintwins.com

California police arrest diabetic bodybuilder for assault, though he was in insulin shock

REDWOOD CITY (AP) ---- A diabetic bodybuilder faces charges of assault and resisting arrest following a run-in with police who mistakenly believed he was intoxicated.

Doug Burns, 43, was sprayed with Mace and wrestled to the ground by officers who were summoned to a movie theater Sunday night by a security guard, authorities said.

Burns, who was trying a new diabetes drug that night, said Monday he was preparing to see a film when he felt dizziness and poor vision ---- a sign of low blood sugar ---- and hurried to a snack counter.

The security guard noticed Burns' strange behavior and asked him to leave, thinking he was intoxicated, Redwood City Police Capt. Chris Cesena said.

When officers arrived, Burns allegedly lunged at one of them, pushing him to the ground with both hands, and took a fighting stance, Cesena said. Burns continued being combative until four officers wrestled him down, the captain said.

An on-scene medical test later confirmed that Burns had low blood sugar during the incident, Cesena said.

Burns won first prize in the 2006 Mr. Natural Universe competition and often speaks publicly about his diabetes to raise awareness of the disease.

Burns was charged with misdemeanor assault and resisting arrest.

"The fact is Mr. Burns assaulted our officer," Cesena said.

A court date has not been set.

Seven sickened by E. coli dined at same Orange County restaurant

SANTA ANA (AP) ---- Seven people sickened by E. coli in Orange County dined at the same Souplantation restaurant, health authorities said.

The seven who tested positive for the dangerous bacterium ate at a Souplantation in Lake Forest, six on March 23 or March 24, said Howard Sutter, spokesman for the county's Health Care Agency. The seventh could not confirm an exact date.

Authorities have yet to determine the source. The restaurant was allowed to remain open after health inspectors concluded its food and conditions were safe, Sutter said.

Six of the seven sickened are children under age 18, said Tricia Landquist, a spokeswoman with the agency. The other person is in their 70s.

"Usually very young children or older adults with ongoing medical conditions already are more susceptible to developing a more severe form of this infection if it's not treated early," she said.

The seven cases were reported to county authorities in recent days. Three of those sickened were hospitalized, although their symptoms were not considered life-threatening, Sutter said.

Ken Keane, president of Souplantation's parent Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp., said in a statement that the company was working with health officials to investigate the contamination source and "remain committed to the highest level of quality, cleanliness and service."

"The health and welfare of our guests and employees is always our top priority," Keane said.

Souplantations are serve-yourself salad-buffet restaurants.

E. coli can be found in the intestines of people and animals and is usually harmless but can sicken people through various routes and to varying degrees, according to the Health Care Agency.

People can become infected if they eat contaminated food that is not cooked sufficiently to kill the bacteria. It can also be passed from person to person if someone does not wash their hands properly after using the restroom or changing diapers. Symptoms usually start three-to-four days after exposure.