ENTERPRISE, Ala. - Administrators at a high school where eight students died in a tornado were warned about severe weather nearly three hours before the twister struck, raising questions Friday about whether classes should have been dismissed earlier.

Residents of the neighborhood surrounding Enterprise High School said they heard warning sirens long before the tornado slammed into the building, crushing the victims in an avalanche of concrete and metal.

"It came real fast, but they had plenty of time to get those kids out because sirens were going off all morning," said Pearl Green, whose 15-year-old niece attends the school and was hit in the head by a flying brick.

But school officials said they had no chance to evacuate earlier because of the approaching severe weather. And others said the carnage would have been greater if students had been outside or on the road when the storm hit.

Gov. Bob Riley defended administrators' actions after a tour of the school.

"I don't know of anything they didn't do," Riley said after stepping out of the collapsed hallway where the students died. "If I had been there, I hope I would have done as well as they did."

The last of the bodies were removed Friday.

"Each one who was brought out, somebody would say, `That was a good kid,"' said Bob Phares, assistant superintendent.

The students were among 20 people killed Thursday in Alabama, Georgia and Missouri by tornadoes contained in a line of thunderstorms that stretched from Minnesota to the Gulf Coast. The storms damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes, toppled trees and knocked down power lines. In Enterprise, a town of 22,000 people, more than 50 people were hurt.

President Bush planned to visit two of the storm-damaged areas Saturday. The destinations were still being worked out Friday with governors in the affected states.

Warning sirens began blaring in Enterprise about 10:30 a.m. Thursday, prompting school officials to order the high school's 1,200 students into interior halls - supposedly the safest part of the building.

Many students left school after the initial warnings, and administrators decided to dismiss classes at 1 p.m., before the worst of the weather was forecast to hit, Phares said.

But with hundreds of students still huddled inside the school, emergency management officials warned that a possible twister was on the way and advised school officials to hold students until 1:30 p.m., Phares said.

"The storm hit about 1:15," he said. A wall in one hall collapsed, and the concrete slab roof fell on the victims.

Brittany Ammons, 18, left school about 10 minutes before the tornado struck. She said students in the halls could hear the sirens, but no one panicked.

"We weren't really worried because we're always hearing sirens for bad weather," Ammons said.

Looking at the remains of their school, Ammons and three classmates wondered whether students should have been sent home after the first warnings were issued. But senior Charles Strickland said the carnage would have been far worse if students were trying to leave school during the storm.

"If they'd let us out, they'd be looking at 50 to 300 dead," Strickland said. He pointed to a parking lot full of students' vehicles that were thrown around by the twister, with some coming to rest against the building.

"Imagine those kids in the parking lot sitting in those cars," English teacher Beverly Thompson said.

Mitch Edwards, spokesman for the Alabama Board of Education, said the state has a plan requiring schools to conduct weather drills and review safety plans. But the decision on whether to close schools is left to superintendents and principals.

"It's a situation where local superintendents and principals are in position to make the best call," Edwards said. "They try to react based on the best information available."

- Associated Press writer Stephen Majors contributed to this story.

Anna Nicole buried in Bahamas in ceremony fit for a queen

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) - Her coffin covered in a pink rhinestone-studded blanket, Anna Nicole Smith was buried Friday as she lived: extravagantly dressed in a designer gown and surrounded by a small cadre of competing admirers.

The reality TV star was mourned at a lavish memorial service, but while her body was laid to rest, the fight over the former Playboy Playmate's baby daughter - and a potential multimillion dollar inheritance - remains very much alive. Her companion Howard K. Stern, her mother Virgie Arthur and Anna's former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, are battling for custody of 5-month-old Dannielynn.

Smith's mahogany coffin, topped by the pink blanket with rhinestones spelling out her name, was carried into Mount Horeb Baptist Church as hundreds of tourists and fans watched from behind steel barricades guarded by police. Some in the crowd cried out "Anna! Anna! We love you!"

Inside the church, Smith's favorite color was on display. Pink roses and flower arrangements lined the aisle and adorned the altar, where organizers placed two photos of the blonde bombshell - including one showing her in a shimmering white gown and striking a Marilyn Monroe-like pose.

There were fewer than 100 guests at the service, even though an organizer said about 300 - including an "Entertainment Tonight" camera crew - had been invited. Rock guitarist Slash, formerly of Guns N' Roses, was among the guests, and country singer Joe Nichols performed two songs, guests said.

Arthur, Birkhead and Stern took turns eulogizing the 39-year-old Smith, who died last month in a Florida hotel.

"It was pretty tough. The funeral itself was a mixture of emotions, there was a lot of crying and laughing," Birkhead, wearing a pink tie, told MSNBC after the service.

He also referred to comments Stern reportedly made at the service about the legal fight over custody of Smith's daughter.

"We were all given equal amount of time and that's how he chose to spend his time. I wouldn't have used my time that way. … It doesn't make anything better," Birkhead said.

Kathryn Beranich, a supervising producer on Smith's reality TV show, said she thought Smith would have been happy with the ceremony. "I think she wouldn't have been pleased with the division between her biological family and the extended family she created and loved," she told The Associated Press.

Smith was later buried next to her 20-year-old son, Daniel, who died in September of an apparent drug overdose while visiting Smith in the hospital after she gave birth. "Entertainment Tonight" said she was buried with an urn containing some of the ashes of her late husband, Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II.

Onlookers, a mixture of Bahamians and tourists, spontaneously broke into the hymn "When Peace Like a River" as the white hearse and the rest of the funeral cortege reached the cemetery. Some in the crowd booed Smith's mother when she arrived, though she had been cheered earlier by the crowd outside the memorial service.

In a last-minute bid to halt the burial, Arthur, who wanted her daughter buried in her native Texas, sought to have Supreme Court Justice Anita Adams grant her custody of Smith's body, but the Bahamian judge denied the request just before the service began, according to Lilliemae MacDonald, the judge's secretary.

Smith was buried in a custom-made gown, said organizer Patrik Simpson of Beverly Hills, Calif.

Some tourists were amazed at all the security and media.

"I'm just incredulous at all the fuss," said Christie Rathgaber, a 59-year-old nurse from Columbus, Ohio. "She was not a world figure. She was not a queen. She was not a president. She was not anything. … It's just way over the top."

The legal wrangling that began with Smith's death won't end with the funeral: There is pending legal action over custody of her daughter, who stands to inherit a fortune, and over ownership of a Bahamas mansion Smith used to establish residency in the islands last year.

An official inquest into the death of Daniel Smith in the Bahamas is also pending.

Dr. Joshua Perper, the Broward Country medical examiner, said he will announce Anna Nicole Smith's cause of death next week. She died on Feb. 8 in a Florida hotel room. "This was a complex case," Perper said. "It was an unusual case from a medical point of view."

Smith married Marshall in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. She had been fighting his family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Smith could pursue her claim in federal court.

British panel rules jury must hear inquest into Princess Diana's death

LONDON (AP) - A jury will deliver the verdict in the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and her boyfriend, a three-judge panel ruled Friday, accepting the argument that the coroner erred in trying to decide the case on her own.

The decision is a victory for Mohamed al Fayed, father of Diana's boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and the owner of Herrods, who has long alleged a conspiracy was behind the deaths of the couple in the August 1997 car crash, which occurred as they were pursued by paparazzi.

"Now that the coroner is compelled to have a jury … it will become clear beyond doubt that murder was committed," said al Fayed, who has claimed rumors of an impending marriage between Diana and his Muslim son infuriated the royal family.

The judges at London's High Court said jurors had to take part in the case because the circumstances surrounding the deaths could happen again. The court cited recent media intrusions suffered by Prince William's girlfriend and other celebrities as proof that photographers still pursue public figures - often using motorcycles and other vehicles.

"It is likely that there will be a recurrence of the type of event in which the paparazzi on wheels pursued the Princess and Dodi al Fayed," they wrote.

The coroner, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, a retired judge who remains in charge of the case, had earlier said there was no need for a jury. Citing the volume and complexity of the evidence, she had ruled that she alone could best handle the case.

Al Fayed challenged her decision, arguing that a jury verdict was critical to providing an unbiased perspective.

He has contended that Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip, was behind the couple's deaths, and that it was carried out by British secret services. Philip has never commented on the allegations.

Judges noted the allegations and said it was another reason for a jury to be called.

"A jury should be summoned in cases where the state, by its agents, may have had some responsibility for the death," the panel wrote.

Minutes after the announcement, al Fayed emerged in front of the High Court's neo-Gothic entrance and once again blamed Philip for the deaths.

"Diana was the people's princess," he said. "The people must be allowed to hear all the evidence and then, and only then, decide how she died, why she died and who ordered her murder."

A French investigation ruled that the pair's chauffeur, Henri Paul, was drunk and in his efforts to evade photographers, lost control of their car, which careened into a column in a tunnel.

The inquests could begin only after the investigations into the deaths were complete. A two-year French investigation, a three-year Metropolitan Police inquiry in Britain and repeated legal action by al Fayed have delayed the inquest by nearly 10 years.

As with other cases, jurors will be drawn randomly via the electoral rolls from the community where the court is located. It is not yet clear where the inquest, which is expected to start in May will be held.

Astronaut charged in Florida with attempted kidnapping of romantic rival

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Florida prosecutors charged an astronaut Friday with trying to kidnap a romantic rival, but they declined to file an attempted murder charge recommended by police.

Lisa Nowak, 43, was formally charged almost a month after she was arrested at an Orlando airport parking lot.

Police have said the mother of three had raced 900 miles in her car from Houston to Orlando on Feb. 5 to confront a woman she viewed as a rival for a space shuttle pilot's affection. Nowak donned a wig and trench coat, then sprayed a chemical into the woman's car when she wouldn't let Nowak in, police said.

Officers found a BB-gun, a new steel mallet, knife and rubber tubing in Nowak's car, and recommended she be charged with attempted murder.

Nowak pleaded not guilty last month on all counts that police recommended. Her attorney, Donald Lykkebak, said that she denies the charges filed Friday: attempted kidnapping with intent to inflict bodily harm, burglary with an assault using a weapon and battery.

"The state attorney appears to recognize that the initial charges were overreaching," Lykkebak said. "Unfortunately … the state's current assessment still overstates the conduct."

Nowak believed Colleen Shipman was romantically involved with Navy Cmdr. William Oefelein, a pilot during space shuttle Discovery's trip to the space station last December, according to police. After the confrontation, Shipman drove to a parking lot booth for help.

Kepler Funk, Shipman's attorney, said Shipman was pleased prosecutors talked to her before filing the new charges.

Nowak flew on Discovery last summer and won praise for operating the shuttle's robotic arm. NASA relieved her of all mission duties after her arrest and placed her on a 30-day leave, which is up next Thursday. She is free on bond with an ankle tracking device.

Her arrest was a black eye for NASA, which had been basking in the success of three shuttle missions last year. After the arrest, the space agency began reviewing its psychological screening process for astronauts.

She had been scheduled to be the ground communicator with the space shuttle Atlantis crew that is scheduled to launch on a mission to the international space station no earlier than late April.

"As of this morning, there is no change in her status and I do not have information on what her status will be when the 30-day leave is up," said NASA spokesman James Hartsfield in Houston.

Sword fight ensues after break-in at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) - A man toting a 3-foot sword apparently met his match when he broke into his ex-girlfriend's apartment: The woman's roommate grabbed a sword of his own and sliced the intruder, police said.

The roommate, a sword collector, fended off the ex-boyfriend, who was cut on the arm, police said.

Elvis Javier Polanco, 18, was treated at a hospital and charged with burglary and aggravated assault, Beaufort County sheriff's Capt. Toby McSwain said. He said Polanco broke a window and climbed on his friend's shoulders to get into the apartment.

The roommate, Louis Delgado Hernandez, disarmed the intruder while the woman called police, McSwain said.

ABC orders pilot for potential series based on the Geico cavemen ads

NEW YORK (AP) - Those Geico "cavemen" shouldn't be so upset after all - they may get their own TV series.

ABC said Friday it had ordered a pilot for a comedy, tentatively titled "Cavemen," that features the characters used in a series of ads by the insurance company.

In the ads, cavemen appear insulted by a Geico pitchman's claim that the company's Web site is so easy to use that "even a caveman can do it."

The potential series, one of 14 pilots that will be produced by Touchstone Television this spring, features the cavemen as they "struggle with prejudice on a daily basis as they strive to live the lives of normal thirty-somethings in 2007 Atlanta."

It's unusual for characters from an advertising campaign to move into shows of their own, but not unprecedented. The CBS comedy "Baby Bob" featured a talking baby that had been used in several advertisements, according to Daily Variety.

The advertising copywriter who helped create the "cavemen" ads is writing the pilot, the studio said.

A pilot order is no guarantee a show will make it on the air; in fact, the majority of pilots don't make it that far.

6 killed, 29 injured after bus drives off Atlanta highway ramp

ATLANTA (AP) - A small college in Ohio was thrown into mourning Friday after a bus carrying the baseball team tumbled over the side of a highway overpass and slammed onto the pavement 30 feet below, killing four students, the driver and his wife.

The team from the close-knit, Mennonite-affiliated Bluffton University was making its annual spring training trip to Florida before daybreak when the charter bus crashed, scattering bags of baseball equipment across the road and splattering blood on the overpass. Some of the athletes climbed out the roof escape hatch, dazed and bloody.

"I just looked out and saw the road coming up at me. I remember the catcher tapping me on the head, telling me to get out because there was gas all over," said A.J. Ramthun, an 18-year-old second-baseman from Springfield, Ohio, who was asleep in a window seat and suffered a broken collarbone and cuts on his face from broken glass. "I heard some guys crying, 'I'm stuck! I'm stuck!"'

Investigators said the driver apparently mistook an exit ramp for a lane and went into the curve at full speed. It was dark at the time, but the weather was clear.

On the 1,150-student campus in Bluffton, about 50 miles south of Toledo, students and community residents - some wiping away tears - filled the gymnasium to grieve and learn more about what happened. When news of the crash appeared on television, students desperately tried to reach some of the athletes on their cell phones.

Sophomore Courtney Minnich said that at a college as small as Bluffton, "even if you didn't know everybody, it will hurt, because you've seen them on campus."

Classes were canceled, along with other sports trips that had been scheduled during next week's spring break. Airlines arranged for the players' parents to fly to Atlanta free on Friday evening.

Megan Barker, a sophomore, said she knew just about everyone on the team and described them as "a fun-loving group of guys." She added: "They live as a family."

Beyond the six killed, 28 players and their coach, James Grandey, 29, were taken to the hospital. He and six players were reported in serious or critical condition; many of the rest were soon released. The players' injuries included broken bones, cuts and bruises.

The bus had set out from Ohio the evening before and had traveled all night long before it went off the road and landed on its side about at about 5:30 a.m. on Interstate 75. Two vehicles under the overpass were struck by the bus, but their drivers were not hurt.

"It looked to me like a big slab of concrete falling down," said pickup-truck driver Danny Lloyd, 57, of Frostburg, Md. "I didn't recognize it was a bus. I think when I saw the thing coming, I think I closed my eyes and stepped on the gas."

The National Transportation Safety Board was called in to investigate.

Investigators said there were no skid marks, and they hoped to tap into the bus' computer system for clues. The driver had boarded the bus with his wife less than an hour before the wreck, relieving another driving team, authorities said.

It was not immediately known if the bus had seat belts. Motorcoaches like the one involved typically do not have seat belts in the passenger section. Calls to the charter company, Executive Coach Luxury Travel Inc. of Ottawa, Ohio, were not immediately returned.

The university identified the victims as sophomores David Betts and Tyler Williams; freshmen Scott Harmon and Cody Holp; bus driver Jerome Niemeyer; and his wife, Jean Niemeyer, all of them from Ohio.

"This is deeply impacting all of our students, faculty and staff. We know these people on a first-name basis," said James Harder, the school's president. "For now we're pulling together and supporting each other as best we can."

The baseball team had been scheduled to play its first spring-training game of the season in Sarasota, Fla., on Saturday and had eight more games scheduled in Fort Myers, Fla.

The university is affiliated with the Mennonite Church USA. About one-fifth of the students are Mennonite, and the school stresses spirituality, but it is open to all religious backgrounds.

The church emphasizes pacifism and nonviolence. But unlike adherents of more conservative Mennonite denominations and the Amish, members wear modern clothing and use electricity. Smoking and drinking are banned on campus.

At a campus chapel service the night before the bus trip, students had prayed for safe travel for their sports teams and other students during spring break.

"Sometimes you take that stuff for granted," said Katie Barrington, a junior from Brooklyn Heights, Ohio.

Bluffton football players were working out in the weight room when they saw news of the crash on TV and recognized the logo on the bus as the company that all the school's sports teams have used, assistant football coach Steve Rogers said.

"That's when reality hit everybody," he said. "Everybody was in shock. Nobody knew what to say or what to feel." He added: "It hits home harder than it would if it had happened at a bigger school. Everybody knows each other."

Matt Ferguson, a freshman baseball player from Pleasant Hill, Ohio, said most of the freshmen had stayed behind.

"We were bummed out we didn't get to go," he said. "Now, we don't know what to think."

On the Net:

http://www.bluffton.edu

Man sentenced to 5 years in prison for plot to bomb New York City subway station near Macy's

NEW YORK (AP) - A man who pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up a New York subway station next to Macy's flagship department was sentenced Friday to five years in prison.

James Elshafay, along with Pakistani immigrant Shahawar Matin Siraj, had been caught with crude diagrams of the Herald Square subway station Aug. 27, 2004 - the eve of the Republican National Convention. Prosecutors said the men wanted to avenge the abuses of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison.

When the two were arrested, authorities said, they hadn't obtained explosives and had not been linked to known terrorist groups.

Elshafy, the son of an Egyptian father and an Irish mother, agreed to cooperate with investigators, pleaded guilty and testified last year against Siraj, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

At Siraj's trial, Elshafay said he was taking medication for depression and schizophrenia at the time, and that after meeting Siraj at an Islamic bookstore, they hatched an initial scheme - later abandoned - to blow up the four bridges connecting Staten Island to Brooklyn and New Jersey.

When asked about Siraj's reaction to the conversation about the bridges, Elshafay said, "He smiled." Siraj had caught the attention of undercover police with his anti-American rants after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FBI may have recovered stolen Rockwell painting

ST. LOUIS (AP) - The FBI has recovered a painting that appears to be a Norman Rockwell work stolen from suburban St. Louis more than three decades ago.

Law enforcement officials believe the painting could be the original of Rockwell's "Russian Schoolroom," snatched during a late-night burglary at a gallery in Clayton, Mo., on June 25, 1973.

"We think we have located it. It has not been authenticated," said FBI spokesman Pete Krusing. He would not say how or where the painting was discovered, only that it was not in the St. Louis area. No one has been charged in the case, he said.

The oil-on-canvas painting shows children in a classroom with a bust of communist leader Vladimir Lenin.

The painting the FBI was after measured 16 inches-by-37 inches and was presented in a 2-foot by-4 foot frame of dull gold-white molding, according to the FBI's description of the missing work.

The curator of the Rockwell collections at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., Linda Pero, said, "I think it's really wonderful, if it's been found." She did have slightly different dimensions in a catalog of Rockwell's work, 15 1/4 inches-by 37 inches for the missing painting.

The painting was nabbed in a gallery heist and then resurfaced briefly in legitimate art forums before disappearing again.

Mary Ellen Shortland worked at the long-closed Clayton Art Gallery when the painting was stolen 34 years ago. She recalled Friday that the gallery was holding a Rockwell exhibit, mainly of lithographs, at the time. The gallery's parent company, Circle Fine Art in Chicago, arranged for the Rockwell original to be on hand to draw visitors to the show, she said.

Shortland said a Missouri client bought the painting for $25,000, but agreed to let it remain on display, as it had been advertised as part of the show. Just a few nights later, someone smashed the gallery's glass door and escaped with the painting.

"That was all they took. That's what they wanted, that painting," Shortland recalled.

The gallery refunded the client's money, and there was no sign of the work for years. Then in 1988, it was auctioned in New Orleans. "It sold for $70,400 and a 10 percent buyer's premium," Pero said.

Shortland recalled that she saw the painting again in an advertisement for a small New York gallery, since closed, about 15 years ago. She said she contacted Circle, but "Russian Schoolroom" was not recovered. Shortland, now the owner of Creative Art Gallery and Picture Framing, estimated that the painting could be worth "hundreds of thousands of dollars" today, if it is in excellent condition.

In 2004, the FBI's newly formed Art Crime Team initiated an investigation to recover the work.

Rockwell's work often resonates with people because much of it captures moments from everyday life, such as a boy watching his father shave, family members saying grace over a Thanksgiving turkey or a young girl having a dress fitting.

The artist died at age 84 in 1978. While "Russian Schoolroom" appeared in Look magazine, the artist is best known for the covers he did for The Saturday Evening Post. More than 300 Rockwell creations appeared on the cover of the publication.

On the Net:

FBI Art Crime Team: http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/arttheft.htm

Norman Rockwell Museum: http://www.nrm.org

John Ratzenberger, who played Cliff Claven on 'Cheers,' joins cast of 'Dancing With the Stars'

NEW YORK (AP) - A mailman is replacing a hitman on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars."

John Ratzenberger, who played Cliff Claven on "Cheers," will step in for Vincent Pastore, who quit after one week of training.

Ratzenberger, 59, had previously turned down an offer to join the cast for the 10-week dance competition because of a scheduling conflict, ABC said Friday.

The 60-year-old Pastore, who played a tough-guy mobster on HBO's "The Sopranos," said earlier this week he didn't realize how physically demanding the show would be for him.

"We're sad that Vincent felt he was unable to continue in the competition, as he would have been great on the show," executive producer Conrad Green said in a statement Friday. "`Dancing With the Stars' is physically demanding, and it pays to know your limits. We respect his decision."

The new cast also includes Olympic skater Apolo Anton Ohno, boxer Laila Ali, former 'N Sync member Joey Fatone, country singer-actor Billy Ray Cyrus and Paul McCartney's estranged wife, Heather Mills.

"Dancing With the Stars" returns March 19.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. Time Warner Inc. owns HBO.

On the Net:

ABC:

http://abc.go.com/primetime/dancing

Angelina Jolie plans to adopt Vietnamese child, the country's top adoption official confirms

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Angelina Jolie has filed papers to adopt a Vietnamese child, the country's top adoption official said Friday.

A U.S. adoption agency representing the 31-year-old actress filed the papers at Vietnam's International Adoption Agency, said Vu Duc Long, the agency's director.

"She just filed the papers this week," Long said.

Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, have three children: 5-year-old son Maddox, adopted from Cambodia; 2-year-old daughter Zahara, adopted from Ethiopia; and another daughter, Shiloh, who was born to the couple in May.

Long would not name the U.S. adoption agency working with Jolie, who applied to adopt as a single parent.

A phone message left with Jolie's Los Angeles-based manager, Geyer Kosinski, wasn't immediately returned.

Jolie and Pitt, 43, made a surprise visit to Vietnam at Thanksgiving, when they visited the Tam Binh orphanage, on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.

Their pictures were splashed across the front page of Vietnamese newspapers, showing the couple cruising around Ho Chi Minh City on a motorbike.

Nguyen Van Trung, the director of the Tam Binh orphanage, declined to comment. He said he was awaiting the papers from the International Adoption Agency.

Warden discovers cure for jail food throwing

BROOKVILLE, Pa. (AP) - Jefferson County's jail warden got a little tired of inmates throwing food despite repeated warnings not to, so he fought back.

Warden David Riley recently started feeding misbehaving inmates a food loaf, made up of all the offerings at mealtime mixed together and formed into a loaf.

"We microwave the food loaf before it is served," Riley said. "It's really not that bad."

Jails across the country commonly serve food loafs as punishment for bad behavior. Some jails don't use the daily meal offerings, but instead use a recipe that includes ingredients like wheat bread, beans, other vegetables and cheeses in order to make sure the inmate's diet meets daily nutritional guidelines.

Five days after offering the unique concoction, Riley said all food throwing stopped at his jail.

"I had one inmate tell me, 'Well warden, you broke me,"' Riley said. "It has had the desired effect."

Buy your own island?

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) - For about $9 million, interested buyers can now pick up their own island.

The 9.3-acre island in the Caloosahatchee River is near Fort Myers and costs $8.95 million.

Tom Cronin Sr. bought the island in 1997 and planned to build a resort on it, but sold the property for $1.63 million to a Naples real estate company in 2004.

Frank D'Alessandro, of Gates D'Alessandro Woodyard LLC, said the island has approval for stores and restaurants. It also has approval for a hotel or about 80 condo units.

Gates D'Alessandro Woodyard LLC is part of the company that purchased the island in 2004.

Former treasurer approves $13,000 in unemployment benefits for his defeated campaign rival

ABINGTON, Mass. (AP) - A former town treasurer broke state ethics laws by approving $13,000 in unemployment benefits for his defeated campaign rival, according to the state's Ethics Commission.

Paul Donlan, now the Scituate school department's business manager, unseated Thomas Connolly as treasurer in a 2003 election, after which Connolly applied for unemployment benefits.

Donlan approved them, even though officials who lose re-election aren't eligible for benefits. The Ethics Commission also said Donlan violated ethics laws by securing benefits for a former friend, portraying Connolly and Donlan as close until Donlan ran for Connolly's seat.

For six months in 2003, Connolly received about $530 in weekly unemployment benefits, for a total of about $13,000.

Donlan's attorney, Robert W. Galvin, declined comment on the specific allegations, but called the allegations against his client "wholly unwarranted" and said Donlan will be vindicated.

"Through the hearing process, I think there will a completely different version of events that have not been considered in any way shape or form," Galvin said.

Donlan, who declined to comment, served as treasurer in Abington until June 2005.

Calls to a listing for Connolly were not returned.

A public hearing will be scheduled in the case within 90 days. The Ethics Commission can impose civil penalties of up to $2,000 per violation.

Fish smuggler sentenced to 9 months of community service work

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - An Australian woman was sentenced Friday to nine months of community service work for smuggling protected fish from Asia in her dress.

Sharon Naismith, 45, was caught in June 2005 at the airport in the southern city of Melbourne after customs officers heard "flipping" noises coming from her clothes and conducted a search, Australian Customs said.

In a specially made apron under her dress, they found 15 plastic bags filled with water and fish: one rare Asian arowana that customs said was worth tens of thousands of dollars, and 14 catfish.

Naismith, who had arrived from Singapore, pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to import regulated wildlife.

"Wildlife smuggling is a cruel practice, as many offenders ignore the health and well being of the animals," said Australian Customs senior officer Doug Nicoll. "Such animals can also be potential carriers of disease and harm the Australian fish industry."

Original wire story (a0486):

Driver flees crash scene, leaving behind 3 tons of of hash

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Three tons of hashish went up in smoke Friday, incinerated by Dutch authorities after a van carrying the illicit cargo crashed and scattered it across the road.

Detectives were hunting the van's driver and a passenger who fled the scene, leaving behind the wrecked vehicle and its $20 million cargo.

"It's not something you see every day," police spokesman Hielke Vogelzang said, adding that police were tracing the owner of the van, but "it may be stolen or leased."

The crash happened during the morning commute on a highway outside the town of Avenhorn, about 20 miles north of Amsterdam, police said.

Vogelzang said it was unknown whether the vehicle's occupants were injured, but "we're confident we'll catch up to them sooner or later."

Police said the van was heading toward Amsterdam when its driver lost control for unknown reasons. They said eyewitnesses saw the van hit a barrier, flip and clip another car before coming to rest. The two occupants ran away.

Packages of hash were scattered around the area, local media reported, and Vogelzang said that hundreds more were found stacked on wooden pallets inside the van.

Marijuana and hash are technically illegal in the Netherlands, but under the country's tolerance policy, police do not arrest anybody for possession of small amounts.

It is sold openly in licensed shops - which, paradoxically, have no way of legally acquiring their chief product.

Morocco pardons nearly 9,000 prisoners to celebrate birth of royal baby

RABAT, Morocco (AP) - King Mohammed VI pardoned nearly 9,000 prisoners to celebrate the birth of his baby girl, the Justice Ministry said.

In addition to the 8,836 pardons, the king also reduced the sentences of 24,218 other prisoners, the ministry said in a statement released to the official MAP news agency Thursday.

The North African kingdom's massive pardon came after Princess Lalla Salma gave birth to a baby girl Wednesday. Lalla Khadija is the royal couple's second child. Crown Prince Moulay Hassan was born in May 2003.

The ministry said the pardons were based on humanitarian concerns and a hope of integrating many prisoners back into society. Those pardoned include people with disabilities, pregnant women and the elderly.

Newly discovered ruins in Athens suburb may be ancient marketplace

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Archaeologists have discovered extensive remains of what is believed to be an ancient marketplace with shops and a religious center at the southern edge of Athens, the Culture Ministry said Friday.

The finds, in the coastal neighborhood of Voula, date from the 4th or 5th century B.C.

"It is a very large complex," the ministry said. "It was a site of rich financial and religious activity, which was most probably a marketplace."

Marketplaces - or agoras - teemed with shops, open-air stalls and administrative buildings, and were the financial, political and social center of ancient Greek life.

Archaeologists believe the complex belonged to the municipality of Aexonides Halai, among the largest settlements surrounding ancient Athens.

The main building was a hollow square with a rock-cut reservoir in the center. The building had 12 rooms - probably shops - and a small temple with an open-air altar.

Finds included large quantities of pottery, coins and lead weights that would have been used in transactions by traders.

Last month, archaeologists discovered an ancient theater in the northwestern Athens suburb of Menidi.

Indian sex workers demand legal status, compare themselves to actors

CALCUTTA, India (AP) - Sex workers from across India ended a weeklong meeting Friday with the demand that they be allowed to work legally. - The forum attended by nearly 50,000 men and women was held in the eastern city of Calcutta and was organized by the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a group of sex workers from West Bengal state.

Selling sex is illegal in India, though the prohibition is rarely enforced.

"The right to sexual pleasure should be recognized as a fundamental right, and that was the slogan in the meeting," said Smrajit Jana, a spokesman for the group.

"It is common knowledge that sex workers entertain their customers, and that their work is a form of intimate entertaining and communication involving some very subtle and complex combinations of gestures, language, play and relaxation," said Bharati Dey, who attended the meeting.

Kanti Ganguly, a government minister, said there were no plans to legalize prostitution.

Ganguly said he empathizes with sex workers and was aware of their difficulties, "but we have to go to the root cause which forces them to choose this path."

The sex workers remained confident, however.

"We believe the policy makers are going to accept sex workers as entertainment workers today or tomorrow," Jana said.

RBD singer Christian Chavez says he is gay

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Christian Chavez, a singer for the Mexican pop group RBD, has announced that he is gay after photographs showing him "marrying" another man showed up on the Internet.

"I don't want to keep on lying and lie to myself because of fear," Chavez said in a statement posted on the group's official Web site Thursday. "I feel bad for not having shared this with all my fans before, as they are the ones that worry and it is because of them that I decided to be honest."

A series of photos that appeared on the Web site www.latingossip.com, also Thursday, showed the 23-year-old star, known for his ever-changing hair colors, with another man with short black hair. The photos, taken in Canada in 2005 according to a message on the site, show the two signing documents, exchanging rings and giving each other a kiss. Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize gay civil unions in July 2005.

The photos "show a part of me, a part that I was not prepared to speak of in fear of rejection, of criticism, but especially for my family and its consequences," said Chavez, whose statement appeared in both Spanish and English.

"Although I'm scared and filled with uncertainty I know that I can rely on the support of my fans," he added. "Their love is bigger than all of this. I ask them from the bottom of my heart, not to judge me for being honest and to feel proud of who they are and never make the same mistake I did. Tolerance to diversity!"

RBD, which spun off of Mexico's wildly popular two-year-long soap opera, Rebelde, achieved massive success throughout Latin America and among Spanish speakers in the United States.

In February of last year, three people were crushed to death when thousands of fans surged through security barriers at an autograph session in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Weeks earlier, police in New Jersey and Texas also struggled to contain unexpectedly large turnouts of fans for the RBD band.

On the Net:

Chavez statement: http://www.grupo-rbd.com/static/ChristianChavezEN.htm

Mexican police detain man convicted in 1996 fire at Italy's La Fenice opera house

ROME (AP) - Mexican authorities have arrested an Italian electrician convicted in the 1996 fire at La Fenice opera house in Venice, authorities in the two countries said.

Police detained Enrico Carella in the resort city of Cancun and authorities plan to extradite him to Italy, the Mexican Attorney General's office said in a statement Thursday.

The Mexicans were tipped by Italian police who discovered Carella was in the country by monitoring his contacts with friends back at home, the ANSA news agency reported.

Carella, 37, had been on the run since 2003, when Italy's top criminal court upheld convictions on arson charges for Carella and fellow electrician Massimiliano Marchetti, sentencing them to seven and six years in jail respectively, ANSA said.

La Fenice, a late 18th-century opera house, was being renovated when the two electricians torched it the night of Jan. 29, 1996, to avoid fines their company faced for being behind in its work. The electricians admitted starting the blaze but insisted they only wanted to cause minor damage so they wouldn't have to pay the fines.

La Fenice, which means phoenix in Italian, rose from its ashes in December 2003, reopening its doors to the public after years of reconstruction.

Italian cultural world feuds over loan of Leonardo painting to Tokyo museum

ROME (AP) - The government may be wobbling, the economy sputtering, but there's nothing like a good art feud to get Italians really riled up.

Politicians and literati are up in arms over plans to loan Leonardo Da Vinci's "Annunciation" to a Tokyo museum, and one Italian lawmaker threatened Friday to lash himself to the gates of the Uffizi Gallery to stop the painting from leaving its home in Florence.

The 15th-century masterpiece is scheduled to be bundled up like a Russian doll in a series of protective crates March 12 and then flown to the Japanese capital. There it will be the centerpiece of a Leonardo exhibit at the National Museum running from March 20 through June 17 as part of "Italian Spring" - a slew of events meant to promote Italian culture and products in Japan.

Art historians and intellectuals from Florence, including filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli have signed a petition asking Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli to cancel the loan, amid fears the painting could be damaged.

"It's absolute madness to send such works running around," Zeffirelli said. "The minister who authorized this must be stopped."

Italian papers widely reported that Uffizi director Antonio Natali opposed the loan on safety grounds, but was overruled by the Culture Ministry. Natali did not return calls requesting an interview Friday and the ministry declined to comment.

Paolo Amato, a center-right senator, has demanded twice in parliament that Rutelli desist from the project, and now threatens to chain himself to the Uffizi's gates on the day the painting leaves. He said the loan exposes a priceless masterpiece to unnecessary risks and belittles its significance by using it in a commercial event.

"It's like sending the 'Mona Lisa' to promote French cheeses," he said referring to the Leonardo masterpiece kept in Paris' Louvre Museum.

"Japanese already come by the thousands to see Florence," Amato told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Friday, "I don't understand why our paintings should become luxury gadgets in promotional exhibits."

Conflicts over managing and showcasing Italy's countless cultural treasures are frequent. Loans of masterpieces to foreign countries are a known anxiety factor, while projects in Italy by outside artists can produce a frenzy of outrage.

A planned new exit for the Uffizi by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki was scrapped in 2005 when medieval ruins turned up at the site, and after art critics described the project as a slatted bed frame or a bus-stop shelter. American architect Richard Meier restored Rome's Ara Pacis, a museum housing an altar built more than 2,000 years ago. Italian critics compared the blocklike structure of glass, soaring columns and reinforced concrete to a Texas gas pump or a car park.

The "Annunciation" is one of Leonardo's early works, painted between 1472-1475 when the master was in his early 20s. It depicts the archangel Gabriel revealing to the Virgin Mary that she is pregnant.

While the transfer is technically challenging, the "Annunciation" is no more fragile than other paintings from the period, said Roberto Boddi, a restorer who is part of the team preparing the masterpiece for its travels.

"There are always risks, but we have taken measures for every foreseeable problem," Boddi told The AP by telephone from Florence.

The 6.5-foot-long, 3-foot-tall painting will be encased in three crates, two of wood and one of aluminum, filled with shock-absorbers and high-tech sensors to monitor humidity and stress levels. A police escort will flank the truck carrying the painting to Rome's main airport, which is named after Leonardo.

Once in Tokyo, the painting will be displayed behind a bulletproof glass and encased in a crystal and steel case built to protect it from seismic activity in one of world's most earthquake-prone countries.

"It will survive even if the building collapses," Boddi said.

Three acquitted in Chicago nightclub stampede that killed 21 in 2003

CHICAGO (AP) - A judge Friday acquitted a business owner, manager and promoter accused of manslaughter in a 2003 nightclub stampede that killed 21 people.

In his ruling, Cook County Judge Dennis Porter agreed with defense attorneys that prosecutors had failed to show the men played any role in causing the tragedy.

The February 2003 stampede at the E2 club started after someone used pepper spray to break up a dance-floor fight, sending people fleeing down narrow stairs to an exit, authorities said. The force of the bodies piling against the doors prevented them from being opened. More than 50 people were injured.

Acquitted of involuntary manslaughter were club owner Calvin Hollins Jr., his son and club manager Calvin Hollins III and party promoter Marco Flores. Another club owner, Dwain Kyles, is being tried separately and was not affected by Friday's decision, prosecution spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said.

At trial, prosecutors accused the defendants of not doing enough to protect patrons, saying the club didn't have enough exits and those it did have weren't properly marked.

They said videotape showed 1,152 people were in the club - roughly five times its capacity.

Defense attorneys said nobody could have predicted the mix of factors that led hundreds of patrons racing to the entrance, including a fight involving as many as 40 patrons and a disc jockey imploring security guards to use pepper spray on those who were fighting.

Patrons recalling the September 2001 terrorism added to the panic with yells of Osama bin Laden, anthrax and poison gas, defense attorneys said.

Hollins Jr. said he felt "just totally relieved" after the judge's announcement. "My heart still goes out to the families and individuals that were injured that night that I had nothing at all to do with," he said.

Flores was "elated," his attorney said. "My client was never in control of what happened there. But they were looking for someone to blame," Raul Villalobos said.

Relatives of victims expressed anger.

"We are devastated," said Pam Green, whose niece died at E2. "It was no justice at all. They're going to walk away scot free."

Prosecutor Robert Egan said of the ruling, "We disagree with it, respectfully."

The ruling came when defense attorneys asked the judge for a directed verdict, immediately after prosecutors rested their case and before calling any of their own witnesses.

Huge cache of ammo, guns, tunnel found in burning Norco home

NORCO (AP) - More than a million rounds of ammunition, numerous weapons and a tunnel were found in a man's home after a fire that exploded bullets and forced a neighborhood evacuation, authorities said Friday.

The homeowner was hospitalized for a 72-hour psychological evaluation after being rescued from the house by a neighbor and then struggling with authorities who prevented him from re-entering, but he was not arrested.

Gary Eppler, who lives across the street, identified him as Thomas McKiernan, a retired machinist in his 60s who recently separated from his wife, has grown children and didn't seem unusual in the nine years he has known him.

Eppler said McKiernan had an interest in guns and has a son who is an Army sniper who went to Iraq last year and returned safely.

"I knew that he target-practiced and we'd talk about that. He'd go to a rifle range so I knew he had some ammunition," Eppler said.

McKiernan talked about reloading shell casings but said he hadn't done it in some time, Eppler said.

"I've been a psych nurse for 30 years and I didn't notice anything unusual," the neighbor said.

The day after the fire an incongruous scene played out in the windy hilltop neighborhood of older middle-class tract homes set against a backdrop of the snow-capped San Bernardino Mountains - part of a quiet semi-rural community that bills itself as "Horsetown USA."

Riverside County sheriff's deputies and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents carried charred boxes and pieces of furniture out of the house, stacked numerous boxes of ammunition in the driveway and examined seized rifles.

Two weapons were assault rifles that were illegal and the man had no permit for 75 pounds of black gunpowder that was found, said sheriff's Deputy Juan Zamora.

The tunnel, stretching from an entry in the garage 8-10 feet into the backyard, yielded three 25-gallon containers of fluid that was being analyzed by hazardous material experts, said Norco fire Battalion Chief Ron Knueven.

The tunnel was 5 feet wide and tall enough to allow someone to walk upright with room to spare, Zamora said.

Eppler said he was about to go on a bicycle ride Thursday afternoon when he noticed smoke coming from McKiernan's house. He said he alerted his wife, Linda, to call 911 and raced to his neighbor's home.

Inside, Eppler said, he found McKiernan on a couch.

"I looked and saw he was passed out on the couch and I woke him up and I had to help him up because he was staggering a little," Eppler said.

Eppler said it was smoky in the house but he didn't know if McKiernan had been affected by it.

McKiernan then ran to the back of the house, grabbed a hose and tried to pour water on his roof, Eppler said.

Eppler said that when firefighters arrived he convinced McKiernan to come to the front of the house but the man didn't think they were doing a good enough job because they weren't hosing down the roof, and he tried to re-enter the home. After McKiernan was restrained and put in a police car, ammunition began exploding, Eppler said.

The explosions forced evacuation of the area and kept firefighters at a distance. The blaze caused the roof to collapse before the fire was extinguished.

"It sounded like firecrackers, they were going off quite a bit," said neighbor Frank Jackson, who rushed home when he heard about the fire.

When he got there, he said firefighters were swarming over the burning house but the explosions were so intense that firefighters on the roof had to abandon it.

"The shells were going off and you had to back off," he said.

Authorities found a machine in the garage that was used to load the gunpowder into empty casings. The practice known as "reloading" is common and not illegal, ATF spokeswoman Susan Raichel said.

In 2003 McKiernan was quoted in a Riverside newspaper story about a fundraiser to build a military memorial in the city of Corona. McKiernan spoke to The Press-Enterprise about his brother Tim's 1968 death in the crash of a helicopter he was piloting in Vietnam, describing a heroic effort to avoid a school.

In 2002 he was in a newspaper photograph showing him hosing down his roof as a brush fire burned in the nearby Santa Ana River bottom.