Associated Press

PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. - Federal investigators examined a new cruise ship Wednesday to try to determine why the 951-foot vessel suddenly rolled to one side, seriously injuring 20 people in a scene that looked like something out of the movie on that night's bill, "Titanic."

The Coast Guard also questioned why authorities first learned of the trouble not from the captain, but from the mother of a passenger who had called her from the ship.

The Crown Princess rolled 15 degrees to its right Tuesday afternoon about 11.5 miles off Port Canaveral, throwing passengers, TV sets and other objects against the deck and walls. The ship slowly came back up after 30 to 40 seconds, by passengers' estimate, then returned to port.

The crew reported a steering problem aboard the 113,000-ton vessel, which was christened only last month. The ship was sailing through calm seas, and there was no indication that a rogue wave or foul play contributed to the roll, officials said.

The Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board began an investigation.

"We'll look at weather, we'll look at stability issues and we'll look at mechanical issues," Coast Guard Commander James McLaughlin said.

As passengers boarded buses for the airport Wednesday, many recounted the terrifying scene. Some sobbed and clutched loved ones.

"Another 20 degrees and I would have been in the water," said Alfred Caproni, of North Adams, Mass., who was on his balcony on the ninth deck. "All the water from the pools was coming right over the edge. It was like Niagara Falls. There were dozens of people with bleeding noses."

Gerald Brock, a surgeon from Ontario, Canada, said he helped ship doctors treat dozens of passengers with such injuries as broken bones, dislocated joints, short of breath and chest pains.

Tuesday night's movie aboard the ship was supposed to be "Titanic," according to several passengers.

The cruise line reported that all 3,100 passengers and 1,200 crew members were accounted for, but the Coast Guard was still verifying that information Wednesday.

"There is a possibility when you take a roll like that that somebody could have gone overboard," McLaughlin said.

About 240 passengers were treated on board for minor injuries, according to Princess Cruises. Ninety-eight people were taken to the hospital, including a child and an adult who were critically injured.

Coast Guard officials said it was unusual that first word of a problem came from a passenger's mother. The Coast Guard immediately tried to contact the vessel, but were unable to reach it for 10 minutes, Petty Officer James Judge said.

Capt. Andrew Proctor was not on the bridge at the time of the incident, Princess Cruises spokeswoman Julie Benson said. She said that she did not know who called the Coast Guard first, but that it is standard procedure for the captain to contact authorities.

Coast Guard officials said it is not uncommon for a captain to first assess the situation and ensure the ship's stability before contacting them.

Investigators said there was no indication the captain was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He tested negative for alcohol; drug test results were still pending.

"He's one of our most senior captains. He's been with the company for about 35 years. He has an exemplary record," Benson said.

She said all passengers on the nine-day Western Caribbean cruise ending in New York would receive a full refund.

A similar incident occurred in February on a ship also operated by Princess. The 2,600-passenger Grand Princess left the Port of Galveston but soon turned around after a passenger suffered a heart attack. The ship tipped sharply on its side, injuring 27 passengers and 10 crew members. The incident was blamed on human error, Benson said.

James Hall, former chairman of the NTSB, said Wednesday he hopes the latest incident will prompt federal officials to toughen cruise industry regulations.

"This was a serious roll, there were injuries and obviously the people that were on the ship were terrified," Hall said.

- Associated Press writers Travis Reed in Port Canaveral and Kelli Kennedy in Miami contributed to this report.

Europe swelters; Britain gets through its hottest July day ever

LONDON - (AP) Lions licked blood-flavored ice blocks in the zoo, judges went wigless in court and guards at Buckingham Palace ducked into the shade.

Britain faced the hottest day ever recorded in July on Wednesday as a heat wave swept much of Europe. Temperatures hit 96.6 degrees south of London - so hot some road surfaces melted.

Two people died in Spain as temperatures climbed above 104 degrees, while officials in France said as many as nine people who died recently were believed to be victims of the heat.

But with its aging buildings and infrequent brushes with sweltering temperatures, Britain was particularly ill-equipped for the heat wave.

London's Underground has no air conditioning and the Evening Standard newspaper measured temperatures in the train system at 117 degrees. Operator Transport for London takes no measurements but did not dispute the figure.

"I don't even want to talk about it," said Jean Thurgood of east London, fanning herself frantically on a stuffy bus. "It feels like the hottest day of the century."

Construction workers in northwest England, meanwhile, dumped crushed rocks on highways because the liquefying pavement was sticking to vehicles, Cumbria's county council said.

Across Europe, health officials warned people to stay out of the sun and to drink plenty of water.

In France, several days of dry heat and high temperatures - which reached 97 degrees in Paris on Wednesday and 102 degrees in Bordeaux a day earlier - recalled a heat wave in 2003, when 15,000 people died from dehydration and heat-related disorders. Many were elderly and were in some cases left alone while families vacationed.

Since then, France's government has adopted measures to avoid a repeat of the disaster. On Wednesday, French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin visited a retirement home to check on the prevention plan.

In Paris, heat-busters included four giant humidifiers placed around the Eiffel Tower, one at each foot, that sprayed passers-by with water vapor as they tried to escape the sun's punishing rays.

This week's victims of the heat in France likely included two people in their 80s who died Tuesday in the Bordeaux region, and a 53-year-old construction worker who collapsed in the central city of Macon.

Elsewhere in Europe, temperatures at 4 p.m., when daytime measurements generally peak, registered 95 degrees in Berlin, 93.9 in Brussels, Belgium, and 95.5 in the Dutch city of Utrecht.

In the Netherlands, the Nijmegen 4-Day March was canceled after two participants died in the heat. Some 300 people taking part in the popular walk became ill Tuesday in temperatures that reached 95 degrees and 30 were hospitalized.

In Britain, many people simply sought shelter indoors as the mercury rose. By mid-afternoon Wednesday, the temperature at Charlwood, near London's Gatwick Airport, hit 97.3 degrees - the hottest temperature ever recorded in Britain in July.

The average temperature in southeastern England in July is 70 degrees - and that figure has been the nighttime temperature the past few days.

Sancha Lancaster, spokeswoman for Britain's primary weather forecaster the Meteorological Office, said as the heat hangs on, temperatures could eclipse the record of 101 degrees in Faversham, Kent, on Aug. 10, 2003.

"There's no air conditioning anywhere, it seems," said 24-year-old Australian Mark Jones, who is living in London this summer. "In Australia, we're used to this, but here, a lot of people don't even have fans."

London officials advised people to carry a bottle of water.

Andrei Danilov, 32, dutifully cradled mineral water on a London bus.

"It gets worse and worse every year," he said. "I can't stand it."

At the historic Royal Courts of Justice, judges were allowed to remove their traditional wigs for court proceedings. One of Britain's largest trade union federations, the Trades Union Congress, issued a statement urging people to wear shorts to work.

And in a rare move, the two-hour shifts of the royal guards who stand outside Buckingham Palace were reduced to one hour at the beginning of the week in preparation for the heat, said the London headquarters spokesman, Col. David Sievwright.

At the Colchester Zoo, zookeepers gave lions ice blocks flavored with blood, and monkeys got blocks containing fruit.

But the heat failed to dash one of Queen Elizabeth II's annual garden parties. Nearly 8,000 people lined up to enter Buckingham Palace.

Rumors of fresh waves spark panic in tsunami zone as victims given mass burial

PANGANDARAN, Indonesia (AP) - Rumors of another killer wave sparked mass panic Wednesday in the resort area hardest hit by the Indonesian tsunami, while the death toll rose to 531, with more than 270 missing.

More than 1,000 residents of the beach town of Pangandaran fled inland, running, bicycling or driving amid shouts of "The water is coming!"

"People suddenly started running, so I joined them," said Marino, 42.

It was unclear how the rumor started. Indonesia has no nationwide tsunami warning system and coastal residents had no notice of the onrushing wave Monday.

Several hours later, a strong earthquake off Java island's coast caused buildings in the capital, Jakarta, to sway for more than a minute. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

Monday's tsunami, triggered by a magnitude 7.7 undersea earthquake, smashed into a 110-mile stretch of Java's coastline, which was unaffected by the devastating wave in 2004.

Waves more than 6 feet high reached 200 yards inland in some places, destroying scores of houses, restaurants and hotels. Cars, motorbikes and boats were left mangled amid fishing nets, furniture and other debris.

Amateur video aired Wednesday on Metro TV showed children playing in the surf and building sandcastles, followed by brief shots of a wall of black water bearing down on Pangandaran beach on Java's south coast. The camera operator runs away amid the sound of screaming.

The region has been rattled by aftershocks, including Wednesday's quake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.1. Suharjono, head of the earthquake division at Jakarta's meteorological agency, told Metro TV that the temblor was not strong enough to trigger a tsunami, but he urged people to be on guard.

Ambulances with sirens blaring brought bodies to a cemetery in Pangandaran for a mass burial as hundreds looked on. As darkness fell, 24 unidentified corpses were tagged with numbers and laid in the ground, five children among them.

Police and army teams with dogs and mechanical equipment kept searching for survivors amid the ruins, but found only bodies, pushing the death toll to 531, said Maman Susanto of the government's disaster coordinating board. Several foreign tourists were among the dead.

He said 275 people were listed as missing.

At the area's main hospital, in the town of Banjar, medics treated a steady stream of patients, most from the Pangandaran coast. Some slept on dirty mattresses on the floor, while others were treated in the admissions hall.

Surgeons amputated the left leg of a women who was trapped under the ruins of her house.

"I thought I was going do die, but God gave me mercy so I can carry on with my life," Tintin Rotiyani said from her hospital bed.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and Japan's Meteorological Agency issued warnings of a possible tsunami about 15 minutes after Monday's quake. The tsunami struck Java about 45 minutes later - before authorities had time to warn anyone on the coast.

Science and Technology Minister Kusmayanto Kadiman, who has said the government received both warnings but did not try to announce them, told el-Shinta radio Wednesday that the government's meteorological agency in fact sent text messages to at least 400 officials. One of his staffers appeared on national television to warn of the tsunami, he said.

But Kadiman did not say whether the actions were taken before the tsunami hit, or whether the 400 officials lived on the threatened coastline.

With no warning sirens or alarms on the beaches, it was unlikely officials even could have gotten the message to significant numbers of residents and tourists.

The quake was not felt by most people on the beaches. The first most people knew of the wave was when they heard screams of "Tsunami! Tsunami!"

Indonesia was the nation hardest hit by a 2004 tsunami that killed at least 216,000 people in a dozen Indian Ocean nations - with more than half the deaths in Sumatra island's Aceh province.

The country started to install a warning system after that disaster and had been planning to extend it to Java in 2007.

More than 100 dead or missing in North Korea floods, landslides: aid group

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Floods and landslides in North Korea have left more than 100 people dead or missing, an aid group operating in the communist nation said Wednesday, as the North's official media acknowledged heavy rains had caused "tremendous losses."

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the harsh weather in North Korea this month caused flash floods that damaged 11,524 houses, leaving more than 9,000 families homeless.

More than 100 people were dead or missing, the group said, without giving further details. The damage has cut off telephone connections, making collecting reliable information difficult to obtain, it said.

"A lot of people have been displaced. They are trying to find out who is actually missing," Jaap Timmer, head of the International Red Cross in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, told The Associated Press by telephone.

South Korea also has suffered from the effects of heavy rain on the peninsula, with at least 25 deaths and 24 people missing as of Wednesday, according to the National Emergency Management Agency.

Mudslides and flooding in Japan killed at least 10 people and left 13 missing in central and western prefectures, the Kyodo News agency reported. Disaster response officials said they were still collecting information and could not confirm the report.

Up to 10 inches of rain was forecast into Thursday southern and western Japan.

North Korea's official media gave details on damage caused by the weather, but didn't mention any deaths.

"Heavy rains have hit some areas, causing tremendous losses in various sectors of the national economy," the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency said. Railway bridges have been destroyed, forcing suspension of operations, and roads and communications have been cut off, according to KCNA.

Relief operations in affected areas were under way, KCNA reported.

The International Red Cross said the weather could also affect food supplies in North Korea, which suffered famines in the 1990s, when natural disasters and outdated farming technology are believed to have killed as many as 2 million people.

"Extensive areas of arable fields have been inundated, wiping out much of the anticipated harvest," it said.

North Koreans' efforts to grow food on any possible arable land has caused deforestation in mountainous areas of the country's South Pyongan, North Hwanghe and Kangwon provinces, with the strong rains triggering landslides, Timmer said.

"Erosion is most likely the main cause of this large disaster," he said.

The Red Cross said it was providing blankets, kitchen sets, plastic sheeting, water containers and purification tablets to families whose homes were destroyed.

Timmer said the Red Cross was considering launching an international emergency appeal, and representatives were negotiating with the government to get access to affected areas to survey what was needed. He said he hoped to send workers to the area by Thursday or Friday.

Bigfoot battle bound for court

SAN FRANCISCO - The latest Bigfoot sighting in Northern California isn't deep in the woods or high on a mountain, but in a courthouse.

One of the leading searchers for the creature is suing the Great American Bigfoot Research Organization for breach of contract, claiming it never paid to use keepsakes he collected in his pursuits, including a plaster impression of what he describes as the hairy beast's actual big foot.

"You can't get this stuff anywhere," C. Thomas Biscardi said Wednesday by cell phone from Texas, where he says he has spotted a Bigfoot yet again. "It's worth thousands of thousands of dollars."

Biscardi claims the suburban San Francisco company agreed to pay him $215,000 but only made one initial payment. His attorney, Dennis Kazubowski, said the company hasn't replied to repeated requests to return the items.

The company didn't immediately return a call on Wednesday seeking comment.

Bigfoot, a hairy humanoid that supposedly stands up to 8 feet tall, has long vexed legions who have taken to the American wilds to look for what some claim might be evolution's missing link. Many others scoff at the very notion of its existence.

Generations of American children were reared on the legend, which spawned television shows, films and even tours. More than 2,550 sightings have been reported in North America in the past century, according to Christopher L. Murphy's 2004 book "Meet the Sasquatch," a title referring to the creature's American Indian name.

But hoaxes have also been a large part of the Bigfoot legend. California construction company owner Ray L. Wallace donned 16-inch wooden feet to create tracks in mud in 1958, and it led to a front-page story in a local paper that coined the term "Bigfoot."

In the suit filed in Marin County Superior Court, Biscardi asked for $185,000 plus interest and the return of his rare Bigfoot stash including original film reels, magazine articles, books and pictures. He's also asking the organization not to use his name or likeness on its Web site, which was still offering Biscardi-led expeditions Wednesday.

Kazubowski said the Bigfoot expert entered a licensing agreement with research organization executives Carole Rubin and Robert Shorey in 2005 to conduct Bigfoot expeditions and allow the organization to use his collection.

The lawsuit claims Biscardi "is publicly renowned for leading the research into whether the Bigfoot creature exists."

On the Net:

Great American Bigfoot Research Organization: www.greatamericanbigfoot.com

Reno man gets 2 years jail for repeat graffiti crimes

RENO, Nev. - A 19-year-old Reno man who was placed on one year's probation for defacing scores of buildings and vehicles with graffiti in January was sentenced to two years in jail on Wednesday for committing the same crime again.

Tyler Austin Beck was sentenced to one year probation in January, ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution, placed on house arrest and ordered to do eight hours a week in graffiti abatement.

Beck would spray paint the word "LOVER" and "HOVER" on local buildings, vehicles, parks, roadways, schools and trains - a total of more than 80 acts of vandalism, Washoe County Deputy District Elliott Sattler II said.

While on house arrest on March 15, police spotted him spray painting "LOVER" on a Union Pacific Car and apprehended him after he attempted to flee on foot, he said.

Beck attempted to argue before Washoe District Judge Janet Berry on Wednesday that his vandalism was a form of an addiction, Sattler said.

"However, the court was unmoved," the prosecutor said.

"It was clear (he) had little regard for the property of other people or the criminal justice system given the fact that he continued his criminal activity after being given an initial grant of community supervision," Sattler said.

Berry sentenced him to the maximum - revoking the probation to serve a year in the Washoe County jail, to be followed by a second year in jail for the latest offenses. He also was ordered to pay an additional $2,995 in restitution.

Former Village People singer pleads no contest to drug charges

By:REDWOOD CITY - The original policeman in the 1970s disco band The Village People pleaded no contest Wednesday to drug possession charges. - Victor Willis, 54, was arrested in March in South San Francisco, after police stopped his car and found cocaine and drug paraphernalia. He had been wanted since October after failing to appear in San Mateo County Superior Court on another drug charge.

A judge will decide Sept. 1 whether Willis should serve time in a residential drug treatment program or go to prison. He's been in custody since his arrest.

Defense lawyer Mark Geragos, best known for defending double murderer Scott Peterson, said Willis is serious about breaking the cycle of addiction. He was previously on probation for a cocaine charge.

"He's knocking on the door of double digits for state prison," Geragos said outside court. "He's got to take it one step at a time … get a handle on this."

Prosecutor Steve Wagstaffe said Willis needs to prove to the Probation Department that he's committed to recovery.

"He's going to have to do some convincing," he said.

Willis, who co-wrote the hits "Macho Man," "YMCA" and "In the Navy," left The Village People in 1980.

Martinez man wins $600,000 settlement in priest abuse case

MARTINEZ (AP) - A jury awarded $600,000 to a Martinez man sexually abused by a priest when he was a high school student more than three decades ago.

"I've finally been vindicated," said Joey Piscitelli, 50, a former altar boy. "The church has denied and tried to disgrace me and my family for 35 years. They've devastated me and my family, and they've never apologized."

The Contra Costa County jury on Thursday found the Salesian order of priests and the Rev. Stephen Whelan equally responsible for the abuse, which occurred between 1969 and 1971 while Piscitelli was a student at Salesian High School in Richmond. Whelan was vice principal.

Church lawyer Stephen McFeely said he's considering an appeal.

"The alleged perpetrator … denies that he engaged in any such conduct toward the plaintiff. In his 37-year career, he has never been accused of abuse by anyone other than the plaintiff. It is difficult for us to understand how the jury came to the conclusion that it did," he said.

Piscitelli, now a coordinator for the national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the school did nothing to stop the sexual abuse.

The Salesian order last month reached a $700,000 settlement with another man in Alameda County Superior Court.

Indian Internet users protest blocked Web sites after Bombay bombings

NEW DELHI (AP) - Police said Wednesday that e-mails purportedly from Islamic militants claiming responsibility for the bombings of Bombay's train system were a hoax.

Angry Internet users and software executives, meanwhile, pressured India's government to reopen access to Web sites blocked after the bombings.

A teenage boy sent the e-mails Saturday and Tuesday to Aaj Tak television, posing as the spokesman for a group called Lashkar-e-Qahhar, or the Army of Terror, police investigator K.P. Raghuvanshi said. The e-mails claimed responsibility for the bombings, which killed 207 people and wounded more than 800, and warned of more.

The investigator said the boy was from the southern city of Bhopal but gave no other details about him or how police determined the e-mails were fraudulent.

"It appears that a boy … in Bhopal sent out these e-mails only for publicity," said Raghuvanshi, who is leading the investigation of the bombings.

Lashkar-e-Qahar was unknown before it claimed responsibility for twin bombings in March that killed 20 people in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi; it remains unclear whether that claim was legitimate.

With no arrests or breakthroughs in the search for those behind the July 11 blasts, suspicion has centered on Islamic militants fighting India rule in the disputed territory of Kashmir.

The government apparently blocked access to some Web sites to prevent Islamic groups from provoking a fresh outbreak of Hindu-Muslim violence.

In its efforts to shut down extremists blogs, the government ended up blocking all access to several Web sites, including the popular www.blogspot.com.

"The Indian Internet service providers don't have the technological wherewithal to block specific blogs on a blogging site. Consequently, they ended up blocking the entire site," said technology expert Pawan Duggal.

Gulshan Rai, director of the state-run Computer Emergency Response Team of the Information Technology Ministry, said the government order targeted four blogs hosted on blogspot.

"There's no attempt to block www.blogspot.com from our side," the Hindustan Times quoted him as saying.

On Wednesday morning it was still difficult to access blogs on that Web site from India. Angry Indian Internet users exchanged e-mails and flooded message boards with postings in protest.

Kiran Karnick, president of The National Association of Software and Services Companies, the country's main information technology trade group, said his organization would take up the matter with the government.

Investigators, meanwhile, questioned 11 Islamic preachers who have spent the past three weeks delivering sermons in remote villages along India's porous border with Bangladesh. Authorities fear Muslim militants might be smuggling weapons and munitions over that border into India.

Building collapses in Nigeria, killing at least 16 people

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - A four-story apartment building collapsed overnight in Nigeria's commercial capital, and Red Cross officials helping pull survivors out of the rubble Wednesday said at least 16 people were killed.

Up to 180 people were believed to live in the building, located in a poor Lagos district, but it was not known how many were home when it suddenly collapsed Tuesday night.

Red Cross official Timothy Oladene said 36 people, many of them wounded and caked with dust and debris, had been rescued and taken to hospitals across the city.

Prince Oniru, an adviser to the Lagos state government on infrastructure, said the building was poorly constructed.

The state governor visited the site and vowed to prosecute those responsible. "The developer cannot run away. He has property in Lagos. The government will seize it and prosecute him," Gov. Bola Tinubu told a gathering crowd.

The structure was reduced to a pile of rubble, and several trapped people could be heard shouting from inside the debris, witnesses said.

Complicating efforts, power was out in the Ebute-Meta district and volunteers worked though the night with candles and flashlights, Oladene said.

After daybreak, police kept back thousands of people who crowded around the building looking for loved ones. The crowds cheered as a woman was brought out alive. Three cranes worked to lift larger pieces of rubble.

Oladene said a Red Cross employee was among those trapped inside.

"We have rescued his wife and two children but the man is still inside," Oladene said. "We will be here until we find the last person."

The building contained 36 apartments. Several shops and businesses, including a hair salon, were on the ground floor.

Ex-lover of Pablo Escobar, wanted as witness in assassination trial, flees Colombia

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - A former lover of slain drug kingpin Pablo Escobar fled to the United States on Tuesday after revealing information Colombian prosecutors had hoped would help convict a former justice minister in the 1989 assassination of a presidential candidate.

The U.S. Embassy said "for safety and security reasons," it had escorted former television news anchor Virginia Vallejo to the United States, where her help is sought in ongoing drug investigations.

The abrupt departure by Vallejo, whose leggy ads for a brand of stockings seduced the nation in the 1980s and won her the heart of Escobar, came two days after she broke a decade of silence to tell the Miami newspaper El Nuevo Herald that she witnessed former Justice Minister Alberto Santofimio urging her lover to kill Luis Carlos Galan.

Santofimio is on trial on charges he ordered a hit squad to kill Galan during the 1990 election campaign in order to boost his own presidential candidacy and prevent Escobar's extradition to the United States. It was unclear how Vallejo's departure would affect the trial and prosecutors' strategy.

Vallejo's surprise interview included details of her long affair with and the pudgy, unkempt Escobar - a love she confessed to "paying for with 20 years of tears."

Vallejo said she was present on three occasions when Santofimio, considered Escobar's political godfather, urged him to "neutralize Galan," calling him a threat to their plans to "convert Colombia into a narco-state."

After learning of Vallejo's revelations, prosecutors hoped her sworn testimony would provide the final evidence to convict Santofimio, who was a senator and justice minister in the 1970s. Santofimio, 62, faces up to 40 years in prison.

Even though Vallejo was not slated to take the witness stand and open-court proceedings ended 10 days ago, prosecutors on Monday formally asked Judge Jesus Antonio Lozano to make an exception and allow her last-minute testimony.

"The judge should make an independent evaluation of this new piece of evidence and make a ruling accordingly," Attorney General Edgardo Maya told the Colombian daily newspaper El Tiempo.

It was unclear whether Vallejo would return to Colombia for testimony or would provide evidence in writing.

Before he was killed by authorities in 1993, Escobar's Medellin drug cartel waged a bloody campaign of killings, bombings and kidnappings to intimidate judges, police, journalists, Cabinet ministers and an attorney general to prevent their boss' extradition. Hundreds more died in Medellin and the capital of Bogota.

Raul Cortez, renowned Brazilian actor, dies at 73

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Raul Cortez, one of Brazil's most renowned stage, screen and television actors, has died of stomach cancer. He was 73.

Cortez died Tuesday night in Sao Paulo's Sirio Libanes Hospital, where he had been hospitalized since June 30 to undergo chemotherapy.

"Brazilian culture has lost an actor of unequaled talent," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in a statement.

Cortez acted in 66 plays, more than 25 feature films and in nearly 30 television soap operas and miniseries.

His stage performances in "King Lear" and "Amadeus," in which he played Salieri, were among the widely praised roles of his career, which began at the age of 23.

Earlier this year he played a politician in a television miniseries on the life of former president Juscelino Kubitschek. It was his last role.

Michigan teen flips Jeep, hits 5 vehicles during driver's exam

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) - A 16-year-old boy apparently had a seizure during his driving test, causing him to hit five vehicles, flip his Jeep and wreck the front of a store. - The teen and other drivers were treated at a hospital after Monday's crash. The driver's license examiner, Gregory Desmet, 59, of Macomb County's Shelby Township, was hospitalized overnight with a broken arm.

The teen, whose name was not released, drove the 2004 black Jeep Cherokee above speed limits, hit four cars and rolled over before going airborne and crashing into another car, which was pushed through the window of a rug store.

"Based on what Mr. Desmet told us, it appears the driver may have suffered some kind of seizure," Dearborn police Sgt. Doug Topolski told The Detroit News.

The boy probably will avoid charges, police said. Getting that license, however, is a different story.

Kelly Chesney, a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State, said the teen won't even be allowed to retake the test until he provides an explanation of what happened from a doctor.

Two die on wilderness hikes in Utah heat; another hiker dies in S.D.

MOAB, Utah (AP) - Two people have died during separate hiking trips in the rugged southern Utah desert country, one a participant in a wilderness survival course and the other a teenager who got separated from her group in 110-degree heat, officials said.

Another hiker died of apparent heat exhaustion and dehydration in South Dakota's Badlands National Park, the park's chief ranger said.

Dave Buschow, 29, of River Vale, N.J., died Monday night near Boulder, Utah, while taking part in a 28-day survival course offered by the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, Garfield County spokeswoman Becki Bronson said.

Buschow was on the second day of the $3,000 course and in a group of 12 with three staff members. The group was resting near a water source when one of the students noticed Buschow was unusually quiet, Bronson said.

"All day Monday they were hiking in the heat with very little food or water," Bronson said. "He was complaining about lack of water and cramping and still given very little water, and it was still hot."

Temperatures were in the low 90s in the area, the National Weather Service said.

Bronson said students are intentionally given little food or water to simulate hardship conditions in the course, designed to teach primitive survival skills using limited tools.

School representatives did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The school's Web site says its field courses teach participants how to survive in wilderness with minimal food, water, clothing and gear. "Our goal is to take you from a world of convenience and comfort and put you in a situation where you must go 'just a little bit farther' - past those false limits your mind has set for your body," the site says.

On Sunday, Elisa D. Santry, 16, of South Boston, Mass., died on the 16th day of a three-week Outward Bound Wilderness course near Canyonlands National Park. The temperature was about 110, said San Juan County Sheriff Mike Lacy.

Organizers said the girl was with five other teens, ages 16 to 18, hiking through heavy brush to reach rafts waiting for them at the Colorado River.

As they were nearing the river, she had lagged behind, possibly to wait for another hiker, the sheriff's office said Tuesday. The other hiker reached the river but Santry did not show up. She was later found up a small side canyon, the sheriff's office said.

"There was no evidence of foul play," said Mickey Freeman, president of Outward Bound Wilderness. An autopsy was planned.

The girl had passed a medical screening before joining the program, the group said. Outward Bound canceled the remaining five days of the program, which included hiking, climbing and rafting. There were 13 other teens participating.

Canyonlands National Park is about 200 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, and Boulder is about 200 miles south of the city.

In southwestern South Dakota, a woman hiking on a short but steep Badlands trail died Sunday, when the temperature was well over 100 degrees.

Other hikers found the body of Joan Kovach, 52, of Canfield, Ohio, Chief Ranger Mark Gorman said.

"Where she eventually gave in, her water bottles were empty and unfortunately she just did not have enough water for the conditions," Gorman said. He said people hiking in the park during extreme heat should carry at least a gallon of water.

On the Net:

Outward Bound: http://www.outwardboundwilderness.org/

Boulder Outdoor Survival: http://www.boss-inc.com/

Senator's 'tubes' comment subject of Internet jokes

JUNEAU, Alaska - Sen. Ted Stevens' credibility when it comes to high technology seems to be going down the tubes.

Web sites and TV comics have made the 82-year-old senator the butt of jokes and satirical songs in recent weeks for describing the Internet last month as "a series of tubes" and for speaking of sending "an Internet" instead of an e-mail.

Most of the wisecracks portray Stevens as an old man who doesn't really get the technology over which he wields influence as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Nothing could be further than the truth, the Senate committee's staff says.

Stevens uttered the remarks June 28 while trying to make the point that Internet businesses were clogging up the Internet and slowing down individual users' communications.

"They want to deliver vast amount of information over the Internet, and again, the Internet is not just something you dump something on," he said. "It's not a big truck, it's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled. If they're filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line, it's going to be delayed by anyone who puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

The senator was clearly using "tubes" metaphorically, and, in fact, Internet experts often speak of the Internet's "pipes." But many have seized on the remarks to poke fun at the Republican.

Jon Stewart wisecracked on "The Daily Show": "That might have sounded more like something you'd hear from, let's say, from a crazy old man in an airport bar at 3 a.m. than the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee."

And: "There's apparently an enormous amount of material clogging Ted Stevens' tubes. Now, perhaps a little fiber (long pause) optic cable might be the answer."

Popping up on Web sites is the "DJ Ted Stevens Techno Remix," in which audio excerpts from Stevens' speech are set to an electronic dance beat. More recently, a file appeared on the Internet that added video to the mix.

The creator of the song, Paul Holcomb, who helps run an advertising agency based in Atlanta, said the song has been downloaded more than 50,000 times.

"I think, unfortunately at Sen. Stevens' personal expense, people see the same irony that we saw when we created the file," Holcomb said. "I thought it was ironic that a person such as him, someone who has such an influential vote, wasn't able to articulate the nuances at a basic level of how the Internet works."

A spokesman for Stevens declined to be interviewed. Commerce Committee staff director Lisa Sutherland said in a statement that Stevens has a deep understanding of the technical, legal and economic aspects of new technology.

"Yes, a few bloggers are going after him because he used the word `tubes' instead of "`pipes' - but when you look at the body of his work and how he has crafted a bill that will not only serve Alaska, but the nation, I think the final product speaks for itself," Sutherland said.

On the Net:

http://www.boldheaded.com/2006/07/dj-ted-stevens-techno-remix-series -of.html

http://www.myspace.com/tedstevensfanclub

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v

Python gets surgery after gulping queen-size electric blanket

KETCHUM, Idaho (AP) - It took surgery to save a 12-foot Burmese python after it swallowed an entire queen-size electric blanket - with the electrical cord and control box. - The blanket must have gotten tangled up in the snake's rabbit dinner, owner Karl Beznoska said. He kept the blanket in the cage to keep the 60-pound reptile, named Houdini, warm.

"Somehow, he was able to unplug the electric cord," Beznoska said Wednesday. "He at least wasn't hooked up to the power. It might have been pretty warm there."

Veterinarian Karsten Fostvedt conducted a two-hour operation on the python Tuesday, and said afterward, "The prognosis is great."

Neither Fostvedt nor fellow veterinarian Barry Rathfon had operated on a snake before. "We just basically called a couple of specialists and they told us where to go in," Fostvedt said.

X-rays showed the tangle of the blanket's wiring extending through about 8 feet of the python's digestive tract. The surgery to remove it took an 18-inch incision.

Specialists at the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine told them it probably would have taken Houdini six hours to swallow the blanket and the snake probably would have died without the operation.

Beznoska, a retired ski instructor who now works as a draftsman and carpenter, is from Austria and moved to the resort area in 1965. He has had Houdini for 16 years and takes him to local schools for show-and-tell.

Practical joke tours sour

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. (AP) - A man's idea of a joke - putting a pet 6-foot boa constrictor in his mailbox to startle a mail carrier - could bring him jail time.

"It was an incredibly stupid practical joke that wasn't funny," said James R. Mell, 31, an auto mechanic from the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills.

Mell put the snake in his mailbox July 7, The Detroit News reported.

"I thought it was funny. Looking back on it, it isn't, and it wasn't," he said.

On Monday, federal prosecutors charged Mell with obstructing the delivery of the U.S. mail. The charge carries a penalty of up to six months in prison.

Postal carrier Nakeema Anderson was making her rounds when she opened Mell's mailbox and found the snake, court records say.

"Anderson reported observing a white male in the driveway laughing," said a report from U.S. postal inspector Andrew Gottfried.

Mell wrote a letter apologizing to Anderson and said he hoped that would settle the matter.

The pet snake is not poisonous, does not bite and has tiny teeth.

"It will only strike at something that it can actually eat," Mell said.

Man plays dead in middle of the road

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - A driver stranded on a remote stretch of Australian highway tried to get help by playing dead in the middle of the road, a police officer said.

A woman who was driving with her two children spotted the man and had to swerve to avoid hitting him, said Doug Backhouse, a detective with the Western Australia state police.

"She drove around the body - which didn't move at all - and got to the nearest phone," Backhouse said.

Police arrived with an ambulance and found the man alive and well, but with car troubles.

"The best way he thought to get a vehicle to stop was to lay down in the middle of the road and pretend to be dead," Backhouse said, adding that the man didn't think anyone would stop if he were standing up.

Police said they told the man that lying in the road was "a stupid thing to do," but didn't charge him with any offense.

The incident occurred near Esperance, about 450 miles southeast of the state capital, Perth.

Reno firefighters battle blaze in own station

RENO, Nev. (AP) - Reno firefighters didn't have to go far to answer an early morning fire alarm - it was in their own station.

When the crew at Station 14 was awakened by the alarm around 2 a.m. Tuesday, they found one of their own engines on fire.

A motorist on a nearby freeway had noticed smoke coming from Station 14 in southeast Reno and called 911, officials said.

Capt. John Ewald and three other firefighters on duty moved other trucks and equipment out of the station, then fought the blaze with a brush truck and extinguishers until help arrived.

Officials said the fire was confined to the truck and equipment storage area. The cost of losing the engine truck and the damage to the building was estimated at $800,000.

Chief Paul Wagner praised the crew for its efforts, noting they saved more than $600,000 in fire trucks alone.

Investigators believe the fire started in the 10-year-old engine. The truck will be examined to try to determine the exact cause, officials said.

Police declare double murder-suicide in deaths of Wyoming students

LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) - The deaths of three college students at a house near the University of Wyoming campus were the result of a murder-suicide, police said Wednesday.

Justin Geiger killed Amber N. Carlson with a rifle, then killed Adam Towler with a knife before shooting himself early Sunday, police said.

Geiger, 20, of South Beloit, Ill., also stabbed another man, 19-year-old Anthony Klochak, who survived and escaped from the house, and has been assisting police.

Investigators were still trying to determine the motive, police Commander Dale A. Stalder said.

"There was alcohol involved in this incident. To what extent it was a factor in the incident, we don't know," Stalder said. "At this point, we don't believe there was other drug usage."

The group was apparently having a small party when neighbors called police after hearing Klochak yelling for help.

Geiger and Carlson, also 19, of Denver, died of single gunshot wounds to the head, Stalder said. Towler, 20, of Laramie, died of multiple stab wounds to the chest. Stalder said the knife used was one that had been in the house shared by Klochak and Geiger.

Klochak, of Chardon, Ohio, suffered knife wounds and other injuries.

Geiger, Carlson and Klochak were all students at the University of Wyoming. Towler had attended Emory University in Atlanta and planned to transfer to Georgetown University in the fall.

Psychiatrist says Yates initially thought drownings were right

HOUSTON (AP) - Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the bathtub because she thought she had ruined them so much that one would grow up to be a serial killer and another would become a mute gay prostitute, a forensic psychiatrist testified Wednesday.

Dr. Phillip Resnick, who evaluated Yates about three weeks after the June 2001 drownings, said she knew her actions were illegal but didn't know they were wrong because she was trying to save the children from going to hell.

"If she did not intervene and take their lives while they were still innocent, they would end up in hell," he said, testifying as a defense rebuttal witness. "Mrs. Yates knew what she was doing was right for her children."

Yates, 42, is being retried because an appeals court overturned her 2002 capital murder conviction on the grounds that some erroneous testimony may have influenced jurors. Yates, charged in only three of the children's deaths, has again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

If convicted, she will be sentenced to life in prison. If found not guilty by reason of insanity, she will be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released - although jurors are not allowed to know that.

Her attorneys say she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and meets Texas' definition of insanity: that a severe mental illness prevents someone who is committing a crime from knowing it is wrong.

On Tuesday, jurors saw a 14-minute videotape of Resnick's interview with Yates in jail on July 14, 2001. She answered questions about the drownings after listing her children's names and ages: Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and Mary, 6 months.

"They just did a lot of silly stuff and didn't obey. When Rusty's mom would visit, they wouldn't treat her well, call her names," she said, adding that they were not developing correctly and were unrighteous. "They didn't do things God likes."

When asked how she felt about the children, she said, "I didn't hate my children." When Resnick asked whether she loved them, she responded, "Yes. Not in the right way, though."

Yates did not show remorse then because she was too psychotic and still thought that killing the children was in their best interest, he said.

But when he evaluated her four months later, he said, she had been taking anti-psychotic medication and realized she had "needlessly taken her children's lives … so it was a very different picture."

Resnick, a psychiatry professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, began testifying after the state rested its case Tuesday.

Connecticut man and girlfriend charged after 3-year-old locked in room

LITCHFIELD, Conn. (AP) - A man and his girlfriend were arrested after his 3-year-old son was found locked in a room with a broken arm as punishment for swearing, authorities said.

The boy and seven other children in their apartment were taken into state custody. They were found Monday by a neighbor, who told police she went to the apartment after seeing several children hanging off a second-floor balcony.

Police said the boy was forced to stay in the room for a month as punishment for swearing. He was allowed to leave only to use the toilet for a bowel movement. A 20-ounce soda bottle was provided when he had to urinate, according to the police report.

The child's father, Jeremy Lacey 29, and his girlfriend, Mistee Lee Lemons, 27, were charged with three counts of risk of injury to a minor and ordered held on $150,000 bonds. They are scheduled to return to court Aug. 2.

The boy told police he hurt his arm trying to climb on a milk crate to open the door. His injury appeared to be at least 15 hours old, according to the police report.

Police said the children, all offspring of either Lacey or Lemons, told them the couple also forced them to balance books on their heads as punishment, and would spank them if a book dropped.

South Carolina woman charged with killing baby 18 years ago

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Eighteen years after her 8-month-old baby died, a mother walked into a police station and told officers she killed her son while staying at a home for unwed mothers, police said.

Elaine Teresa Patterson, 43, was charged with murder Tuesday.

"She just decided she had enough," said Greenville Police spokesman Lt. Mike Gambrell.

The baby, Bill Rhinehart III, was born premature and spent five months in hospitals before coming home. Patterson was not married and left with her son after her mother told her she should go to a home for unwed mothers in Greenville, Gambrell said.

Not long after she arrived, Patterson told police she held her son against her breast until he stopped breathing, Gambrell said.

Patterson then called 911 and told paramedics she woke up and found her son unconscious, police said. He died in the hospital three days later on May 26, 1988.

An autopsy determined the child died from the rupture of a blood vessel outside the brain. But what caused that vessel to break was never determined, Gambrell said.

Three months ago, Patterson came into the Beaufort Police Department and told officers she wanted to turn herself in for killing her son.

Investigators sent Patterson's statement and the autopsy findings to a pathologist, who determined the injuries on the boy were consistent with being smothered, Gambrell said. Patterson was arrested at her home in Beaufort on Tuesday and remains at the county jail.

There was no phone number listed either for Patterson or her address.

Humane Society pressuring Amazon.com over cockfighting magazines

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The Humane Society of the United States is threatening a lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc., saying the online retailer is violating federal law by selling two magazines that promote cockfighting.

The Humane Society sent a letter Tuesday to the retailer, detailing its intention to begin legal action unless the magazines - "The Feathered Warrior" and "The Gamecock" - are removed immediately from the site. Both are mailed from western Arkansas.

The group cited the Animal Welfare Act, which says it is unlawful to use the "mail service or the U.S. Postal Service" to promote "an animal-fighting venture except as performed outside the States of the United States."

"That's their claim, and we don't agree with their claim, so we're going to continue to make these titles available," Amazon.com spokeswoman Patty Smith said Tuesday. "It's up to the customer to determine what they feel is appropriate for them to purchase."

Cockfighting is legal in Louisiana and New Mexico; Arkansas is among 48 states that ban the practice.

In April, The Humane Society asked that the postal service stop allowing the magazines to be sent through the mail, citing the act and postal regulations. Last year, the group asked Amazon.com to stop selling the magazines, but did not get a response.

The Humane Society's Ann Chynoweth said it would be difficult to stop a magazine from being published - but her group hopes to slow circulation when possible.

Last month, Amazon.com said it would pull a DVD featuring violent pit bull fights that unleashed protests against the distributor and several online merchants that had been peddling the video.

Verna Dowd, editor of "The Feathered Warrior," said she wasn't too concerned about The Humane Society's threatened lawsuit.

"I don't know anything about it," she said. "I didn't even know they posted my magazine on Amazon."

Nation of Islam leader sanctioned by judge

HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) - Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has been ordered by a federal magistrate to pay $4,052 in legal fees for a couple suing his son for his role in a traffic accident three years ago.

U.S. District Magistrate Andrew Rodovich ruled Friday that Farrakhan's lawyers had made excessive motions and used delaying tactics.

"The courts are very busy and don't have time for motions that don't have at least some merit," said Michael Back, attorney for Gladys and Charles Peterson of Gary.

The Petersons sought $5,091 in legal costs. They filed a lawsuit in 2003 against Farrakhan and his son, Nasir Farrakhan.

The younger Farrakhan was arrested in May 2003 after a highway crash in LaPorte County, about 15 miles east of Gary. State police said Farrakhan was driving east when the Hummer struck the rear of a car driven by Charles Peterson. In June 2004, Nasir Farrakhan pleaded guilty to criminal recklessness.

The Petersons claim in the lawsuit that they suffered physical injuries and property loss and incurred medical bills as a result of the crash.

The Petersons also sued Farrakhan's father, the legal owner of the SUV. Farrakhan said he banned his son, who is 47, from driving the Hummer because Nasir Farrakhan's driver's license had been suspended for numerous speeding tickets.

Last month, the minister was removed from the lawsuit because the federal court for the Northern District of Indiana did not have jurisdiction over him. Back said the Petersons intend to refile the case against the minister in Illinois.

The Associated Press left a message seeking comment Tuesday for Farrakhan's attorney, Christopher J. Grabarek, and at Nation of Islam's headquarters in Chicago.

Egyptian student indicted after melee at New York golf club

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) - A college student accused of driving his sports car into a group of people after a bar fight at an upscale golf club was indicted on assault charges.

But an attorney for 24-year-old Sayed Khaled El-Waraky said his client was the victim of a racial attack on June 18 that caused him to flee the bar in a panic.

El-Waraky, an Egyptian national who attends American University in Washington, D.C., was indicted on four counts of first-degree assault, two counts each of second- and third-degree assault, reckless endangerment and driving while intoxicated, District Attorney Kathleen Rice said in a statement.

According to prosecutors, El-Waraky started a fight at the Glen Cove Golf Club before threatening to kill a bouncer who threw him out, prosecutors said.

El-Waraky, who was at the bar drinking with some fraternity brothers, got into his 2005 Jaguar and began to leave.

Prosecutors say that's when he turned back and sped toward a crowd gathered outside, striking four people who suffered injuries including skull fractures.

"This was a truly horrific assault," Rice said. "I look forward to holding this individual accountable for his actions."

El-Waraky's attorney, John Lewis, said his client was the victim of an attack by several men inside the club and was ridiculed with racial epithets.

"He was panicky and fearful; he was just trying to flee," Lewis said.

Police: New York man fires rifle while calling radio show

MELVILLE, N.Y. (AP) - Police arrested a man accused of firing a rifle in his backyard while calling in to a syndicated radio show.

Thomas Young, 30, was arrested around 10 a.m. Tuesday after he fired five shots into woods near his home, Suffolk County police said. He admitted he fired the rifle while on the air with the hosts of the "Opie & Anthony Show," police said.

The show once aired a live account of people having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Young was charged with discharging a firearm in a prohibited area, a misdemeanor. Police confiscated the rifle.

CBS Radio dumped the radio show after the August 2002 cathedral sex prank. The show, which later moved to satellite radio, recently returned to terrestrial radio and now airs in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and other markets.

A man who lives near Young told police he heard gunfire about 7 a.m. and his son told him he heard Young on the radio show saying he was "going outside to kill a tree," police said. Young claimed he shot the rifle into the woods behind his Huntington house so he wouldn't injure anyone, police said, but it's against town law to shoot a rifle in unauthorized areas.

A telephone message left at Young's home seeking comment was not immediately returned Tuesday night.

Remains of 9 World War II airmen identified

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Investigators have identified the remains of nine World War II airmen whose bomber disappeared over Papua New Guinea in 1943, officials said.

The Department of Defense made the announcement Tuesday.

The crash site was found in 2002 after a local government official contacted a team of military investigators exploring an unrelated crash site. The official turned over aircraft data plates, human remains and identification tags.

Investigators spent eight weeks excavating the site and used DNA testing and dental records to identify U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Arthur Armacost III, of Cincinnati; 2nd Lt. Charles Feucht, of Reynoldsburg, Ohio; 1st Lt. William Hafner, of Norfolk, Va.; 2nd Lt. David Eppright, of Warrensburg, Mo.; 2nd Lt. Charles Cisneros, of San Antonio; Technical Sgt. Alfred Hill, of Temple, Okla.; Technical Sgt. James Lascelles, of New York City; Staff Sgt. William Cameron, of Los Angeles; and Staff Sgt. Wilburn Rozzell, of Duncan, Okla.

The men were members of the 63rd Squadron, 43 Bombardment Group and were flying a reconnaissance mission over the Bismarck Sea. Their B-24 Liberator disappeared after attacking a convoy of Japanese ships it had followed.

Armacost, Cameron, Hafner and Lascelles were to be buried Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery, as were the group remains that couldn't be matched specifically to any missing airman. Individual remains of the other five have been buried elsewhere.

Arkansas bail bondsman loses license after sex-for-bail allegations

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A bail bondsman has lost his license after state regulators heard accusations that he had asked for sex instead of money to get women or their relatives out of jail.

The Arkansas Professional Bail Bondsman Licensing Board took the action against Billy Kennedy of Colt, in northeast Arkansas, on Monday after the hearing accusations by six women.

Kennedy, 46, denied the allegations and declined to comment after the hearing.

Veronica Crumley said she hired Kennedy to post her $20,000 bond after she was arrested in October. She said she made two payments, and had sex with Kennedy four or five times. "If I didn't have sex, I'd go back to jail," she told the board.

Kennedy, who owns an upholstery shop, was employed by Bryce's Bail Bonding Inc. and worked for the company about three years, posting 200 to 300 bonds a year, officials said. He was suspended in May without pay when the company learned he was under investigation.

From his basement, upstate New York man grows coral

DRYDEN, N.Y. (AP) - In upstate New York, famous for its snowy winters and far from any tropical ocean, Steve Lowes is growing coral reefs in his basement.

The 41-year-old English-born Lowes is raising dozens of coral species for his Web-based coral business, Reef Encounters, and is one of a growing breed of coral farmer who have found a niche supporting the booming hobby of keeping aquariums, which in 2005 was a $6.9 billion market.

And in the process, they are also helping scientists learn more about coral and are raising public awareness about a threatened species.

"It brings the ecosystem to life for people in a very effective way that's much more persuasive than reading about it in a book or looking at photographs," Lowes said.

Scientists have identified about 2,000 species of reef-building coral. The coral reefs are typically found in the warm salt waters in region between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn and cover about 1 percent of the earth's surface. The reefs, some millions of years old, are among the planet's most diverse and productive ecosystems.

Their value to the world economy is projected at more than $300 billion as a food source, for tourism appeal and in reducing shoreline erosion. However, they are threatened because of disease, natural disasters, pollution, overharvesting and global warming.

"There's something about life under the sea that attracts the human spirit. It starts with children," said Lowes, a scuba diver whose fascination with the sea began as a child watching Jacques Cousteau documentaries in the 1970s.

Lowes, a chemist for a pharmaceutical company, began growing coral as a hobby more than a decade ago while living in the United Kingdom. In 2002, he turned his "addiction" into a business and became a professional coral farmer.

Lowes raises 50 species and sells about 200 animals a month to upstate New York hobbyists and wholesalers. Depending on the species' rarity, they sell from $10 to $1,000 or more. He also helps install high-end reef aquarium systems, some of which can cost in excess of $30,000.

Home reef aquariums have been gaining popularity in the United States since the late 1980s, said Joe Yaillo, curator at Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead, N.Y., which features a 20,000-gallon tank with the nation's largest live coral reef exhibit.

Lowes belongs to a loosely knit organization called the Upstate Reef Society with approximately 100 active members. Yaillo estimated there are more than 100 such groups across the United States.

Lowes' basement looks like a mad scientist's laboratory, with tens of thousands of dollars worth of lighting and filtration equipment hooked up to a 125-gallon aquarium and three large 100-gallon tanks.

He propagates his coral by breaking off millimeter-sized fragments and growing them in the tanks. They grow to about two inches in six months, when they are ready for sale and shipment. While its primary purpose is display, the aquarium also allows Lowes to study the interaction among the more than 60 species he keeps.

Lowes is investigating the ways corals' anti-fungal compounds could be useful to humans, one of many subjects he is working on with a Cornell University professor. Another is a project studying coral photosynthesis as part of an effort to develop improved lighting systems - it bothers him that he must rely on fossil fuel to light and power his tanks.

By growing coral for home aquariums, hobbyists are reducing the need to harvest wild coral and have contributed significantly to the growing understanding of coral over the past 15 years, said Eric Borneman, a professor of coral reef biology at the University of Houston who has written extensively on coral.

"As scientists, we often only get snapshots of the coral we study, whether in the wild or in the lab," Borneman said. "Hobbyists are filling in the gaps by looking at coral every day, for much longer periods."

On the Net:

Reef Encounters, www.reef-encounters.com

Atlantis Marine World, www.atlantismarineworld.com

US Airways to place ads on air sickness bags

PHOENIX (AP) - US Airways wants to make the most out of a nauseating situation.

The Tempe, Ariz.-based airline plans to sell advertisements on its air-sickness bags - those pint-sized expandable envelopes tucked between the in-flight magazines and safety cards.

"They're in every back seat pocket," said spokesman Phil Gee. "We figure while it's there, why don't we make it multipurpose?"

Passengers should see the new, commercialized sickness bags in September, he said.

The ads are just the latest initiative the company has used to squeeze out a bigger profit.

America West, which merged with US Airways last year, had the first advertisements in the industry on tray tables, the first airline gift cards and the first in-flight meals for sale.

"Little things like that work," said Michael Boyd, president of the Boyd Group, an aviation consulting group in Evergreen, Colo. "Barf bags have a lot of shelf life - people aren't barfing as much in planes as they used to."

The new bags drew a few chuckles among US Airways passengers at the company's hub at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

"I would honestly pay no attention to an ad if I got sick," said Nathan Vierra, 19, a student. "But hey, if skateboarders can sell ad space on their T-shirts, I guess why can't an airline sell ads on barf bags?"

US Airways has not decided how much it will charge for the ads, and has only begun negotiating with companies that could be interested, Gee said.

The ads could be for anti-motion sickness medications or other products immediately on the mind of someone who reaches for one of the bags. But Gee said US Airways will look for a wide range of product advertisements to put on its bags.

Boyd said the trick for US Airways is to find ads that will make them a little cash without turning off customers.

"Some people don't want the inside of their cabins to look like subway cars," he said. "And the jury isn't in on advertising on tray tables as a decent way to boost revenue.

"But having an advertisement for a barf bag, especially if it's for something like Dramamine, now that's brilliant."

Maryland Comptroller refuses to apologize to Korean Americans

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Maryland Comptroller William Donald Schaefer says he won't apologize for comments that linked South Korean immigrants to North Korea's recent missile launches.

"I don't have to apologize. I didn't say anything to apologize for," Schaefer said Tuesday after meeting with Korean-American leaders.

The group requested the session to discuss Schaefer's comments at a July 6 Board of Public Works meeting when, as he periodically does, he complained about immigrants and U.S. immigration policies.

"I get so irritated that we just open the borders, let everybody in, put everybody in the schools, educate them, all that sort of stuff, and that's the way it is. And Americans (are) going to have to bear the cost," Schaefer said during a discussion of a state contract to teach English to students who speak another language at home.

He followed that up with a comment, "Oh, come on. Korea is another one. All of a sudden they're our friends, too, shooting missiles at us."

Korean organizations were upset not only that the comptroller seemed to confuse South Korea with North Korea, which Schaefer said was a simple mistake, but that his disparaging comments could lead to discrimination and negative feelings against Korean- Americans.

"He's treating us as if we were a bunch of foreigners instead of Korean-Americans," said Chung Pak, chairman of the League of Korean Americans of Maryland. "We were very disappointed he didn't know what he said was wrong."

Sandy Kwon, a 17-year-old high school student from Montgomery County who took advantage of special courses for immigrants through the third grade, said she felt "as if nothing was accomplished" Tuesday.

"He was going pretty much, 'What's the big deal?' I am a friend of Korean-Americans for many years," she said.

Schaefer said he is a longtime friend of Korean-Americans and provided police protection as mayor of Baltimore to owners of inner-city stores that were often targeted by armed robbers.

"I've been in South Korea. I've been in the homes of South Koreans," he said. "If it was something I feel in my heart I have to apologize for, I would have apologized before this meeting."

Young Kim, president of the Korean American Association of Metropolitan Washington, and David Han, president of the Korean Society of Maryland, took a generally conciliatory tone, saying that hoped for another meeting with Schaefer.

"All of us stressed to him that we are Americans. We are taxpayers. We are voters," Han said.

Han and Kim said their organizations do not endorse political candidates and deflected questions about whether they think Schaefer should step aside. But Pak and Kwon suggested it might be time for the 84-year-old Schaefer, a former governor, to end his half-century career as an elected official.

"I do appreciate everything he's done for Maryland and stuff, but I feel he was slightly offensive, and maybe it's just time to kind of rest and go," Kwon said.

A few hours after the meeting, Montgomery County delegate Peter Franchot, who is running against Schaefer in the Democratic primary, issued a statement expressing disappointment that the comptroller did not apologize.