BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Three college students, including two aspiring actors known around campus as pranksters, were arrested Wednesday in a string of nine church fires that spread fear across Alabama last month.

Federal agents said the defendants claimed that the first few blazes were set as "a joke" and that the others were started to throw investigators off the track.

Gov. Bob Riley said the fires did not appear to be "any type of conspiracy against organized religion" or the Baptist faith. With the arrests, he said, "the faith-based community can rest a little easier."

Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee Debusk Jr., both 19-year-old students at Birmingham-Southern College, appeared in federal court and were ordered held on church arson charges pending a hearing Friday. Matthew Lee Cloyd, 20-year-old junior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was also arrested.

The fires broke out at five Baptist churches in Bibb County south of Birmingham on Feb. 3 and four Baptist churches in west Alabama on Feb. 7. The federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency had made the investigation its top priority, with scores of federal agents joining state and local officers.

"While all three are entitled to have their day in court, we are very hopeful that this is the end to the fear that has been rampant in West Alabama," said Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala.

Federal agents traced tire tracks found at some of the churches to one suspect's parents, who then acknowledged their son was involved.

Five churches were destroyed and four damaged. In many cases, the fire was set in the sanctuary near the altar. No one was injured.

Acquaintances said DeBusk and Moseley were both amateur actors who were known as pranksters and dreamed of becoming stars. They performed in campus plays and appeared in a documentary film.

Moseley confessed to the arsons after his arrest, investigators said in court papers.

The papers said Moseley told agents that he, Cloyd and Debusk went to Bibb County in Cloyd's sport utility vehicle on Feb. 2 and set fire to five churches. A witness quoted Cloyd as saying Moseley did it "as a joke and it got out of hand."

Moseley also told agents the four fires in west Alabama were set "as a diversion to throw investigators off," an attempt that "obviously did not work," the court papers said.

Authorities had said earlier that they were looking for two men seen in a dark SUV near a couple of the church fires.

Agents analyzed tire tracks found at the scene of six fires and reviewed records of local motorists who had purchased that model, one of whom was Cloyd's mother.

The day before the arrests, authorities spoke with Cloyd's parents, Kimberly and Michael Cloyd. The father said his son admitted that "he knew who did it and he was there," according to court papers.

An attorney for Cloyd, Tommy Spina, declined to comment on the charges but added: "This is not a hate crime. This is not a religious crime."

A lawyer for DeBusk did not immediately return a message seeking comment, and court files did not list an attorney for Moseley.

Investigators said previously that there appeared to be no racial pattern in the fires; four were white congregations, five were black. While all were Baptist churches, that is the dominant faith in the region, and agents were uncertain if that denomination was a factor.

The three students are white and all either attend or previously were enrolled at Birmingham-Southern, a Methodist-affiliated liberal arts college.

Jim Parker, pastor of Ashby Baptist Church at Brierfield, a Bibb County church destroyed in the spree, said the congregation had been worried that the arsonists had some "political or religious agenda." He said he had spoken to federal agents and understood the defendants were promising students from good families.

"We really are concerned about them as people," he said. "I would just like to know what they were thinking."

Suspect surrenders after lengthy standoff snarls freeway traffic

By: North County Times News Service

SOUTH GATE - A kidnapping suspect who fled police then prompted a four-and-a-half-hour standoff on the Long Beach (710) Freeway surrendered peacefully Wednesday, but not before snarling traffic for much of the day.

The freeway was closed in both directions in the area of Imperial Highway after the standoff with the possibly armed suspect, who sat in a disabled red minivan, began about 10:30 a.m., said Long Beach police Officer Jackie Bezart.

Just before 3 p.m., the suspect - identified as 32-year-old Eduardo Medina - got out of the red minivan and surrendered to SWAT officers, who had surrounded the vehicle and blocked it with several armored trucks.

The freeway was reopened around 3:30 p.m., according to the California Highway Patrol.

Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Paul Vernon said Medina, a gang member from East Los Angeles, was wanted in connection with a December kidnapping in Van Nuys. Vernon said Medina and an 18-year-old accomplice tried to kidnap a restaurant owner's daughter for ransom, but accidentally kidnapped the daughter's 17-year-old friend.

The 18-year-old suspect was arrested in December, but Medina remained at large. Vernon said police received a tip that Medina was in Long Beach, and police tried to arrest him this morning in a traffic stop.

Medina refused to pull over, and Long Beach police pursued him onto the 710 Freeway until his minivan stalled in the northbound lanes, Vernon said. Unsure if Medina was armed, police surrounded the vehicle, beginning the lengthy standoff.

At one point, authorities used a robot to deliver a telephone to the suspect.

"We have some good news. It ended with the suspect giving himself up peacefully. We have a felony suspect in custody," Vernon told KCAL9 immediately after the suspect surrendered. "We waited him out long enough."

Media reports indicated that Medina decided to give himself up because he was concerned about his wife, his daughter and his own safety.

Vernon defended the manner in which police decided to wait out the suspect, even if many motorists had to put up with long traffic delays.

"There are no options. We can't take risks with people's lives. What if he did have a gun? It sounds easy to say storm the truck," Vernon said, "but not if you're the one storming the truck." CNS-03-8-2006 17:16

Church wall in Uganda capital collapses during heavy rains; at least 27 dead

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - A brick wall at a partly constructed church in Uganda's capital collapsed onto the congregation Wednesday during an evening thunderstorm, killing at least 27 people and injuring dozens more, authorities said.

The Protestant evangelical church in a Kampala slum was under construction, and parishioners set up a wood-and-tin shack inside the unfinished structure so they could conduct services, regional police Commander Grace Puryagumanawe said.

"We're going to investigate the poor building standards. We have already collected samples of the materials used," he said.

Fire and rescue chief Joseph Mugisa said the wall collapsed during a thunderstorm with high winds and heavy rains, and 27 people were killed.

"It was completely chaotic. Everyone was trying to get out; people were yelling and shouting; people were trying to carry out the injured," Mugisa said.

Kampala's Mulago Hospital received 86 injured people, deputy director Isaac Exati said. The hospital trauma room has only 20 beds and most of the wounded lay moaning on the floor, screaming for their families. Hundreds of relatives gathered outside the hospital waiting for word of the survivors' conditions.

"We were in the church for the service and it was raining very heavily," said Nsubuga Hannington, who was in the hospital with a minor head injury. "All of a sudden, I heard a crash and the wall fell down."

He said he was knocked unconscious and woke up under a pile of bricks.

The police and the fire and rescue service said they were almost certain that all the dead and injured were removed from the debris.

The slum has no electricity and witnesses who first came out of the neighborhood said rescuers had burned plastic chairs to provide light for those digging through the wreckage. They said that after the chairs had all been burned rescuers had to give up the search until dawn.

Small slide strikes outside Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort

TWIN BRIDGES (AP) - A small avalanche swept down a mountain Wednesday afternoon in an apparently unoccupied back country area outside the Sierra-at-Tahoe Ski Area. - El Dorado County Sheriff's Department Lt. Les Lovell said back country slides occur at this time of year when conditions are warming up.

He said a foot crew and an avalanche dog went out to check the area in Huckleberry Canyon. "Right now, we have nothing really to report," he said.

The avalanche was estimated to be 50 yards wide at the top, narrowing to 25 yards at the base and about 75 yards long and 6 inches deep.

The ski area is just off U.S. 50 between Twin Bridges and Kyburz.

Writer insists in British court that 'Da Vinci Code' borrowed from his work

LONDON (AP) - An author who claims "The Da Vinci Code" copied ideas from his work insisted in a British court Wednesday that there are major similarities between his nonfiction book and Dan Brown's crypto-religious thriller - but conceded there are also substantial differences.

"We were writing historical conjecture, and Mr. Brown was writing a novel," said Michael Baigent, co-author of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail."

"One would expect their perspectives to be marginally different, if not substantially different."

Nonetheless, he said, the similarities were "fairly specific."

Baigent and co-author Richard Leigh are suing "Da Vinci Code" publisher Random House at Britain's High Court for infringing the copyright of their 1982 book. They claim Brown's blockbuster "appropriated the architecture" of their work, which explores theories that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, the couple had a child and the bloodline survives.

If the writers succeed in securing an injunction to bar the use of their material, they could hold up the scheduled May 19 release of "The Da Vinci Code" film starring Tom Hanks.

Random House lawyers argue that the ideas in dispute are so general they are not protected by copyright.

A lawyer for the publisher, John Baldwin, also said many of the ideas in "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" did not feature in Brown's book, a mixture of code-breaking, art history, religion and mystical lore that has sold more than 40 million copies since it was published in 2003.

"Your statement that Mr. Brown reached all the same historical conjecture you did is fairly misleading," Baldwin told Baigent. "You are being unfair and inaccurate."

Baigent insisted that Brown "used the results of our historical conjecture."

"'The Da Vinci Code' uses the tips of the icebergs that were produced by the research that we did," Baigent said.

New Zealand-born Baigent was appearing for a second day of tense exchanges with Baldwin. At one point, he acknowledged using "infelicitous phraseology" in his witness statement.

"Is infelicitous your long word for being wrong?" said Baldwin.

In a day of testimony that sometimes evoked a university seminar, lawyers, judge and witness pored over well-thumbed copies of "The Da Vinci Code," seeking parallels and differences with "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail."

Baldwin read passages from the novel out loud to stress the differences from the earlier book, which proposed that a secret order called the Priory of Sion existed to preserve the bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.

"There's no mention of the Priory's oath to keep its true nature hidden in `The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail,' is there?" Baldwin asked.

Baigent replied: "No. I concede that."

"There's no mention of the Priory protecting the tomb of Mary Magdalene, is there?" Baldwin asked.

"Not explicitly, no," said Baigent.

Judge Peter Smith told Baigent that it appeared some theories put forward in "The Da Vinci Code" were "exactly the opposite" of passages in the earlier book.

Smith said Dan Brown's book used some of the same material "and comes up with an entirely different plot. Are you saying they can't do that?"

"No I'm not, my lord," Baigent said.

Leigh is scheduled to take the stand Thursday, with Brown to follow, likely on Friday.

The third author of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," Henry Lincoln, is not involved in the case. A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Paul Sutton, refused to say why he was not participating.

Lincoln, who is in his 70s and reportedly in poor health, could not be reached for comment.

Man accused of drugging his children's tennis opponents, leading to a death

BORDEAUX, France (AP) - A man accused of drugging his children's tennis opponents, leading to one player's accidental death, described being gripped by panic and anguish as his desire to see his son and daughter succeed spun out of control.

Judges expect to reach a verdict Thursday in the trial of Christophe Fauviau of Mont-de-Marsan in southwestern France. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of unintentionally causing a death by administering toxic substances.

In tearful testimony, Fauviau asked the parents of the victim, 25-year-old Alexandre Lagardere, for forgiveness.

"It's something that completely took me over, and I couldn't imagine that I could be responsible for the death of your son," Fauviau, a former military pilot, told the court last week. "I never wanted things to come out like this."

Fauviau's 16-year-old daughter, Valentine, is considered a rising star in French tennis, and he recalled disputes with the French Tennis League, whom he accused of not paying enough attention to her "enormous potential."

"Each match was a terrible anguish," he said. He said he began taking the anti-anxiety drug Temesta, which he allegedly used against his children's opponents.

"I completely lost reason. I took Temesta myself. To put it in the bottles became a habit that I wasn't aware of. I never considered that in doing this, I could hurt someone," he said.

Fauviau, 46, is accused of spiking the water bottles of his children's opponents 27 times in tournaments from 2000 to 2003, using Temesta, which can cause drowsiness.

The opponents complained to investigators of weakness, dizziness, nausea or fainting. Several were hospitalized.

In July 2003, Fauviau's son, Maxime, defeated Lagardere, who complained of fatigue after the match and slept for two hours. While driving home later, Lagardere crashed his car and was killed, and police believe he fell asleep at the wheel. Toxicology tests showed traces of Temesta in his system, allegedly delivered by Fauviau.

The story began to unfold at a minor tennis tournament a month earlier, when a player allegedly saw Christophe Fauviau tampering with his water bottle before a match against Maxime. The player gave the bottle to police, and it tested positive for Temesta.

Valentine Fauviau cast doubt on the accusations against her father.

"Tired girls, yes, I saw them. But nothing more than that," she told the court, according to French newspapers. "I never needed anyone to help me win."

Her brother was more blunt.

"He blew a gasket and didn't calculate all the consequences. He's too involved in tennis," Maxime Fauviau told the court, according to Le Parisien.

Fauviau's wife, Catherine, said she had no idea whether he was involved in drugging players.

"If I had, it would have been suitcases or the psychiatrist," she was quoted in Le Parisien as saying.

Fauviau, a former helicopter pilot instructor for the French army, has been in custody pending trial since his arrest in August 2003.

Defendant acting as own attorney cross-examines son

MARTINEZ (AP) - Family drama spilled into a courtroom Wednesday as a woman representing herself on charges she murdered her husband cross-examined her son.

Prosecutors say Susan Polk, 48, stabbed her 70-year-old husband Felix Polk as the couple was getting divorced in 2002.

Polk's first trial ended in a mistrial last October after the wife of her attorney, well-known TV commentator Daniel Horowitz, was killed.

For her second trial, Polk is acting as her own attorney.

It was in that capacity that she cross-examined her youngest son, Gabriel, 19, for about three hours Wednesday afternoon, attempting to challenge his credibility.

The confrontation, played out before a pin-drop-quiet audience, was often uncomfortable as Polk asked probing questions of the high school senior.

"Why did your father tell you I was delusional?" she asked at one point, questioning whether there was evidence of that.

"Because you were acting that way," Gabriel Polk replied. "I didn't need his evidence. I saw your delusions myself."

In his opening statement, prosecutor Paul Sequeira described Polk as an angry person who controlled her household.

Polk has said she was abused during the more than 20-year relationship with Felix Polk. She claimed she killed her husband after he attacked her with a knife in the couple's home in the upscale San Francisco suburb of Orinda.

Polk's oldest son, Adam Polk, 23, was scheduled to testify for prosecutors next. Middle son, Eli Polk, 20, was expected to testify on his mother's behalf.

Ang Lee says gay romance 'Brokeback Mountain' wasn't meant as social statement

HONG KONG (AP) - Ang Lee said he never intended "Brokeback Mountain" to be a social statement about homosexuals, amid speculation the gay cowboy romance lost the Oscar best picture race because of its subject matter.

The movie won best director for Lee - making him the first Asian winner of the prize - as well as best musical score and best adapted screenplay Sunday at the Oscar ceremony, but it lost the best-picture award to "Crash," despite having racked up several other major film awards.

The upset prompted speculation that the U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences wasn't prepared to hand its top prize to a movie about gays.

But the Taiwanese director said he never approached the love story between two ranch hands set in conservative Wyoming as social commentary.

"For me, 'Brokeback' isn't rebellious at all. It's a very ordinary movie. People call it groundbreaking or what not. It puts a lot of pressure on me. But I didn't feel this way when I was making the movie," he said at a press conference for Chinese media held in Los Angeles earlier this week and aired Wednesday on Hong Kong television

"This is the way gays are. It's just that they have been distorted. When two people are in love and are scared, that's the way they are," he said.

"Brokeback Mountain" has received mixed responses in Asia.

Its distributor in mostly Muslim Malaysia decided not to release the movie. The movie was welcomed in Hong Kong and Lee's native Taiwan, but banned in mainland China.

While Chinese society generally does not actively persecute gays, the topic remains taboo.

In mainland China, where the communist government still maintains a tight grip on ideology, censors keep gay content away from most mainstream media. But China's official psychiatric association no longer considers homosexuality deviant and gay-themed movies are available on pirated DVDs.

Despite the ban, China heaped praise on Lee for winning the best director award.

"Ang Lee is the pride of Chinese people all over the world, and he is the glory of Chinese cinematic talent," the official China Daily newspaper said Tuesday in a front-page news article.

Lee said earlier he believes that Asians are more tolerant of gay subject matter than Americans.

One of Lee's first films, "The Wedding Banquet" was about a gay Chinese man who fakes a marriage to please his traditional parents. It won five Golden Horse Awards - the Chinese-language equivalent of the Oscars.

However, Lee said he is somewhat of a rebel at heart.

"I had to fight with my background … but I also had to live in the general environment. People have to be categorized. That's very annoying. Don't you find that annoying? Life shouldn't be like that. The world isn't like that. There's a lot of complexity. There are exceptions," Lee said.

Lee faced resistance for pursuing a career in film when growing up in Taiwan, a traditional, academically oriented society that looks down on the entertainment business.

He said movies are a form of dissent.

"That's why we make movies. Otherwise, we just have a leader issue an order and we all follow. Why else would there be filmmakers like us? Why else would people lock themselves in a dark room and watch a movie together?" Lee said.

Lee expressed disappointment about the movie's Oscar best-picture loss, especially after it won four Golden Globes, including best picture, the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and four British Academy Film Awards.

"We've won every award since September, but missed out on the last one, the biggest one," Lee said.

But he added that feeling disappointed "is human nature. And it wasn't for myself. I led a whole team of people."

Lee said the process of marketing "Brokeback Mountain" was tough.

"My work was really hard. I had to fight many battles. Personally, I don't like doing press, but once a film is on the Oscar track, for half a year you're fighting the same battle," he said.

On the Net:

Movie's Web site: http://www.brokebackmountainmovie.com/home.html

National cheerleading safety group recommends barring certain stunts

ST. LOUIS - (AP) A national cheerleading safety group is calling for the suspension of certain aerial and towering stunts during this year's college basketball tournaments in response to a cheerleader's frightening fall from a 15-foot human pyramid.

The injured cheerleader's coach on Wednesday criticized the action - which essentially bars cheerleaders from performing the high-flying tricks that many squads have been doing for years - as "devastating" and unnecessary.

Effective immediately, the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators recommended college conferences bar basket tosses and high pyramids without a mat. But cheerleaders would not likely have time to haul the mats around during tournament games, meaning they would have to omit those routines.

While the association has no enforcement power, the NCAA, NAIA and other basketball tournaments require cheerleading teams to conform to its guidelines. And squads are likely to comply, since conferences could kick cheerleading teams out of games for breaking the rules.

"It'd be an unwise move for a coach or others to go against the committee," Jim Lord, the cheerleading group's executive director, said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the Missouri Valley Conference barred its cheerleaders from such stunts during its women's basketball tournament, which begins Thursday. The MVC includes Southern Illinois University, whose nationally televised conference title game Sunday came to a halt when cheerleader Kristi Yamaoka lost her balance, toppled the wrong way off the human pyramid and landed on her head.

The 18-year-old sophomore had a concussion and cracked vertebra in her neck, but gave a thumbs-up after she was strapped to a backboard and cheered with her arms as her school's band struck up its fight song. She was released Tuesday from a hospital.

With Yamaoka escaping serious injury, "we dodged a bullet," Lord said. "We don't want to have another situation like that."

SIU's cheerleading coach, Jennifer Graeff, said that while her squad will comply with the restrictions, she questioned their necessity after what she called Yamaoka's "unfortunate accident" doing a formation she said is routinely done thousands of times a year.

Graeff said her colleagues across the country are upset and hoping the rule will not stand.

"Other coaches are angry, saying this is ridiculous," she said. "If a basketball player dunks and breaks an ankle, are they going to say you can't dunk?"

The group's rules committee will consider making its recommendations permanent when it meets April 20. The MVC also will revisit in May whether to extend its ban.

Many schools already have their own rules against aerial stunts.

The University of Nebraska, for instance, outlawed flips, pyramids and other stunts after cheerleader Tracy Jensen was paralyzed in 1996 from a fall while practicing handsprings. She sued the school and settled for $2.1 million settlement in 2001.

And in January, a former San Jose State University cheerleader sued that school and a coach, alleging that she was paralyzed in 2004 in a fall after her squad was told to deviate from a routine.

The new restrictions won't affect Duke, where cheerleaders have not been allowed to do anything but routine tumbling since the mid-1980s.

Chris Kennedy, Duke's senior associate athletics director, said those limitations followed accidents elsewhere, including a 1985 fall by a cheerleader at nearby UNC-Chapel Hill.

"For straight cheerleading, we will not be doing lifts or stunts," he said. "We're not going to change. That's the way it is."

On the Net:

American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators, http://www.aacca.org

Seven charged in $7.4 million Miami airport robbery, kidnapping

MIAMI (AP) - Four people have been charged in a daring, $7.4 million heist at the Miami airport, and three others are accused of kidnapping one of the defendants in an attempt to get some of the money, officials said Wednesday.

One of the robbery suspects, Jeffrey Boatwright, was tracked by agents to a Miami hotel garage, where he was found tied up with duct tape in the back of a truck. Federal prosecutors said three people kidnapped him after hearing about the robbery and were demanding $500,000 in ransom.

The money was stolen from an airport warehouse Nov. 6 by masked robbers. It was part of a shipment of $80 million in currency that had arrived from Germany and was headed for the Federal Reserve Bank in Miami. The robbers ordered warehouse workers and guards to lie on the floor while they loaded bags of currency into a pickup truck.

"The brazenness of this crime is the stuff of Hollywood movies," U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said.

Confidential informants told law enforcement officials that Boatwright, 31, and Karls Monzon, 33, were involved in the crime, according to prosecutors. Police also said 27-year-old Onelio Diaz may have provided inside information. He had worked as a guard for Brink's, which provided security at the warehouse.

The three men and Monzon's wife, 29-year-old Cinnamon Monzon, were arrested in mid-February.

Diaz was carrying about $85,000, and $80,000 in sealed packets was found in the Monzons' attic, but the bulk of the $7.4 million has not been recovered, authorities said.

S.C. Board of Education rejects call to 'critically analyze' evolution

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The state Board of Education on Wednesday rejected a state panel's proposal to change high school standards on evolution by calling on students to "critically analyze" the theory.

Science teachers had complained that although critical analysis is part of all science, the wording was really a backdoor attempt to force educators to teach religious-based alternatives. In a 10-6 vote, board members agreed.

The Education Oversight Committee, a school reform panel made up of lawmakers, teachers, parents and other community members, recommended the change last month. Panel member Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, has said it was intended to introduce students to challenges to evolutionary theory.

Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum, a Democrat, has called the effort "a ploy to confuse the issue of evolution so that ultimately evolution won't be taught."

Officials disagreed over the effect of the vote.

Education department officials say the vote leaves previous science standards adopted in 2002 in place. But Rep. Bob Walker, R-Landrum, said both the Education Oversight Committee and the Board of Education must agree on new standards.

Walker suggested state lawmakers might vote to change the evolution curriculum through legislation.

Around the country, attempts to introduce public school students to alternatives to evolution such as "intelligent design" have largely failed. Intelligent design holds that life is so complex it must have had a creator, an idea supporters of evolutionary theory say is simply creationism stripped of religious references.

In December, a federal judge barred the school system in Dover, Pa., from teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in high school biology classes. But critics of evolution got a boost in November when the Kansas Board of Education adopted standards that treat evolution as a flawed theory.

Deputy in Florida kills driver who authorities say aimed stolen truck at him

IMMOKALEE, Fla. (AP) - A sheriff's deputy shot and killed a driver who allegedly drove a stolen truck in his direction early Wednesday, the sheriff's office said.

The deputy, who had been pursuing the stolen truck, had stepped out of his patrol car before the driver turned the truck toward him, the Collier County sheriff's office said.

A woman in the truck was not injured. The sheriff's office did not identify the deputy or the person who was killed.

Mexican anti-harassment campaign features blowup sex dolls dressed as secretaries

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican television is showing jarring scenes of inflatable sex dolls dressed as office workers - part of a campaign by Mexico's National Women's Institute to dramatize the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace.

The television part of the campaign - which also includes billboards and radio ads - shows the wide-mouthed sex dolls dressed as secretaries, sitting at desks or photocopiers as men leer at them or try to grope them.

"No woman should be treated like an object," a somber-voiced narrator says in the background. "Sexual harassment is not just demeaning, it's a crime."

Launched on International Women's Day, the campaign will run through mid-April, said Patricia Espinosa, head of the institute.

Recently, the institute also sponsored a series of controversial ads against domestic violence in which prominent female writers, actresses and academics appeared on billboards, made up to appear as if they had been severely beaten.

The slogan of that campaign was "He who hits one of us, hits all of us."

Mexican officials acknowledged on Wednesday that the country still has a problem with machismo, discrimination, harassment and violence against women.

"Our society still has a long way to go in overcoming holdovers from the past, eradicating prejudice and changing habits," President Vicente Fox said.

Fox himself drew criticism from anti-discrimination groups and legislators when he joked that "75 percent of the homes in Mexico have a washing machine, and not the kind with two hands or two legs."

"Apart from whether it was intentional … there are certain forms of expression that stereotype and create prejudices toward women, and that translates into a sexist language," Gilberto Rincon, president of the National Committee to Prevent Discrimination, wrote in a letter to Fox made public Tuesday.

On Wednesday, front-running leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador promised to give at least half the posts in his cabinet to women, should he win the July 2 election.

Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca noted that "violence against women is present in all classes of society, regardless of education levels, and is also present in the workplace and in the family."

In neighboring Guatemala - which has experienced a three-year spike in the killings of women, often involving gang or domestic violence - the government acknowledged the country is one of the most dangerous in the world for women.

About 625 women were killed in Guatemala in 2005 - more than triple the 2002 death toll of 184. Guatemala has a population of 14 million.

"The most recent data show a murder rate of 9.02 per 100,000 women in Guatemala, a rate that is second only behind Russia," said Sergio Morales, the country's human rights prosecutor.

Pregnant woman sentenced to five years for stabbing

REDWOOD CITY (AP) - A pregnant woman was sentenced to five years in state prison for stabbing her boyfriend after he told her not to eat a candy bar because it didn't have any nutritional value. - Maria Islas, 27, was two months pregnant when she stabbed George Shlosser, 18, in the stomach in September, said San Mateo County prosecutor Kathryn Alberti.

Islas, now eight months pregnant, wept during the hearing Tuesday in San Mateo County Superior Court. She claimed in a letter to the court that she feared Shlosser, who fathered the fetus she was carrying, and they had a history of domestic violence.

Islas said Shlosser told her "I hope you have a miscarriage" before she pushed him to the ground and began beating him and stabbing him with a long serrated knife, Alberti said.

Shlosser was hospitalized for two weeks with a lacerated liver and a punctured lung. He has since moved from Menlo Park to West Virginia to live with his mother and has expressed interest in raising their child, Alberti said.

Islas pleaded no contest Jan. 17 to a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.

Fundraiser to help in search for show dog lost at JFK airport

NEW YORK (AP) - Supporters of Vivi, the award-winning show dog that escaped from a travel cage at the airport on the way home from the Westminster Kennel Club show, have planned a fundraising event for her owners' efforts to find her. - The 3-year-old whippet, whose formal name is Champion Bohem C'est La Vie, apparently bolted from her carrier at John F. Kennedy International Airport as she was about to be loaded onto a plane for the flight to Southern California on Feb. 15.

She has not been seen since, despite extensive search efforts by volunteers, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the region's airports, and her owners, Jil Walton and Paul Lepiane.

Admission to Saturday's "Vivi and the Strays" party at the Garden City Hotel's nightclub will be $10, said hotel Vice President Brian Rosenberg, who owns a whippet and a greyhound.

"Every time I look at my whippet I just see Vivi," Rosenberg said Wednesday.

The proceeds will go to the search for Vivi; money left over will go to the Bobbi & the Strays animal shelter, which takes in many dogs found near the 5,000-acre Queens airport.

A lawyer for Vivi's owners, Joyce Randazzo, declined to comment on the specifics of the hunt.

"Our focus and our goal is to find Vivi and to see that all steps can be taken to continue the search efforts," she said.

The dog, which won a merit award at the Madison Square Garden show, had been booked on a Delta Air Lines flight. Delta said it was helping authorities look for the dog and was trying to find out how she it away.

Oakland mayor accused of cracking woman's cell phone

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - Mayor Jerry Brown was accused of making racist comments and breaking a woman's cell phone while touring problem night clubs with police officers, Alameda County prosecutors said. - Two women, Latrenia Delonge of Newark and Ayesha Wilson of Manteca, accused the mayor of damaging Wilson's cell phone during an argument outside the @17th downtown nightclub.

District Attorney Tom Orloff said Tuesday his office was investigating the complaint, but Brown, a former California governor who is running for state attorney general, said the allegations are "absolutely not true," his spokesman said.

The mayor was visiting three clubs late Saturday night and early Sunday morning that had been the subject of numerous complaints, according to spokesman Gil Duran.

The women said Wilson began recording the mayor with her cell phone camera after hearing him allegedly making racist remarks while trying to mediate a fight between two groups of girls.

Brown then grabbed the phone and cracked its case and exterior screen, the women said in the complaint filed Sunday with Oakland police.

The phone still works and Wilson said she was not harmed.

Brown refused to comment further because the accusations do not merit his time, Duran said.

Quincy Krashna, the nightclub's general manager, said the women complained to the mayor about how security guards treated their friend, but became belligerent and cut him off before he could respond.

Krashna said he did not hear the mayor say anything inappropriate to the women or grab the phone.