LOS ANGELES - Mr. Blackwell, chronicler of clothing catastrophes, poked fun at socialite-reality TV star Paris Hilton Tuesday for committing the worst fashion follies of the past year.

The acid-tongued critic and former fashion designer has been ailing in recent years, preventing him from reading his 44th annual list aloud to the press.

But in an exclusive interview, Blackwell told AP Radio in Washington: "Paris came up shining with a big spotlight saying, `Pick me!' She was just the most natural contender to make No. 1 this year."

Hilton, star of the Fox reality show "The Simple Life," became an inadvertent Internet icon when a homemade sex video she shot with her then-boyfriend made the rounds online.

"She does everything she can to be outrageous, everything she can to be over the top, everything she can to be too much and she succeeded - and what she got from it was a great TV show," Blackwell told AP Radio.

In a statement, he described those on the list as "Ten Titans of Fashion Terror that, in 2003, ran the gamut of style-free excess from trashy to flashy, frumpy to dumpy and every egregious variation in between."

Madonna and Britney Spears - "kissin' cousins of couture crime" - were tied for second place, followed by Shania Twain (country-fried kitsch), Diane Keaton, Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion (half-sequined scarecrow, half-gaudy acrobat), Missy Elliott, Melanie Griffith, Courtney Love (torrid temptress of fashion) and Lara Flynn Boyle.

"I'm not telling them how to dress," he told AP Radio from his home in Hancock Park, Calif. "I'm just telling them what I think of it. … A lot of the stars are looking better than ever and it was very tough to find 10 bad ones."

On the positive side, Blackwell praised Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Garner, Diane Lane, Salma Hayek, Oprah Winfrey, Katie Holmes, Tippi Hedren, Beyonce, Faith Hill, Sarah Jessica Parker and the Countess of Wessex, the former Sophie Rhys-Jones, as "Fabulous Fashion Independents for 2003."

Man's sworn statement reopens the question: What became of Billy the Kid?

Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Legend has it that Billy the Kid was gunned down by a sheriff in 1881. But was he?

Homer Overton will tell you that the dead man was an unwitting impostor, a drunk shot point-blank in the face by two unlikely chums - the lawman and the legendary gunfighter himself.

Overton learned this some 63 years ago, at age 9, from the widow of the sheriff, Pat Garrett.

Overton's sworn statement was offered as evidence for exhuming the body of the Kid's mother, Catherine Antrim, to compare her DNA with that of a Texas man who claimed until his death in 1950 that he was William Bonney, known in Western lore as Billy the Kid.

Authorities in Lincoln County, where the Kid was convicted of killing a sheriff in the 1870s, want to know if that man - named Ollie "Brushy Bill" Roberts, of Hico, Texas - was the real Billy the Kid.

A hearing on the exhumation petition is set for Jan. 27 in Silver City, where Antrim is buried. Town officials oppose disturbing the gravesite.

Coroner's jurors concluded in 1881 that Garrett killed Bonney that July in the Fort Sumner bedroom of Pete Maxwell, son of New Mexico land baron Lucien B. Maxwell.

Garrett's widow, Apolonaria Garrett, told Overton and a buddy that her husband and the Kid shot a drunk passed out in a street. With no face left, the drunk was just a body that could be passed off for Bonney, Overton's court affidavit says.

Overton's boyhood friend, Bobby Talbert, has not been located for comment.

Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Sullivan has said it is important to determine what is true and what isn't. He has noted that Garrett's image is part of the logo on Lincoln County sheriff's department uniforms.

Overton lives in Alta Loma, Calif., where he issued a notarized sworn affidavit Dec. 27, 2003, that was filed in court in Silver City a week ago.

The affidavit says the boys visited Apolonaria Garrett in the summer of 1940, about 32 years after her husband was shot to death in 1908 near Las Cruces.

"I believe what Mrs. Garrett told us that day was the absolute truth. … It made such an impression on me that I have remembered it in detail these 63 years," Overton's affidavit says.

Historian Leon Metz has said word of a faked death would have leaked; Silver City's motion to reject exhumation says suggesting that such a cover-up could have worked "strains credulity."

Stories have persisted for generations of connections between Bonney and Garrett, said Sherry Tippett, attorney for Sullivan, Deputy Steve Sederwall and DeBaca County Sheriff Gary Graves, who favor exhumation.

"It varies from 'They just knew each other from a card game' to 'They were pals,"' she said.

In oral histories recorded during the 1930s under the federal Works Progress Administration, or WPA, several interviewees said they doubted Garrett shot Bonney, she said.

"There are a number of people who believe that," Tippett said. "And now that we have the tools to determine the truthdon't we have the responsibility?"

Man pleads guilty to running diploma mill

Associated Press

SANTA ANA - A 75-year-old man agreed to plead guilty to mail fraud for running a "diploma mill" offering degrees from nonexistent Columbia State University.

Ronald Pellar, owner and operator of the bogus correspondence school, agreed Monday to enter the pleas to nine counts that could have led to a 45-year prison sentence.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Gaffney said prosecutors agreed to recommend a five-year prison sentence, a $2.2 million fine and $2 million in restitution.

After establishing a "mail drop" for Columbia State University in the early 1990s, Pellar started running the diploma mill in earnest in 1996 when he opened a business office in San Clemente, prosecutors said.

CSU falsely represented itself to be a government-approved university in Louisiana, and it falsely claimed to have faculty and accreditation sufficient to confer bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees by correspondence in as little as one month, investigators said.

Pellar took in millions of dollars from students around the country in tuition fees during the scheme, said Thom Mrozek of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.

Students around the country were defrauded because CSU gave them the impression that it was a legitimate academic institution, but in reality it was nothing more than a diploma mill, he said.

Pellar has been in custody since 1998 on federal contempt charges related to Federal Trade Commission violations.

Bakersfield DA's wife charged with fraud

Associated Press

BAKERSFIELD - The estranged wife of Kern County's chief prosecutor has been charged with stealing prescription pads to illegally obtain pain killers, according to the state Attorney General's office.

Bryanna Jagels, wife of District Attorney Ed Jagels, faces four felony counts, two for obtaining a controlled substance through fraud, and two for burglary. She also faces six misdemeanor charges for trying to get fake prescriptions filled.

Bryanna Jagels was arrested the day before Thanksgiving trying to get a forged prescription filled. The complaint said Jagels has tried to get several prescription pain drugs, including Norco, Vicodin, Soma, Celebrex and Vioxx.

Bryanna Jagel's lawyer, Kyle Humphrey, said Monday rehabilitation should be the objective, not jail time because Jagels has no criminal history.

Ed Jagels refused to comment on his wife's case.

An arraignment date has been set for Jan. 26.

Oscar voter's copy of 'Something's Gotta Give' turns up on Internet

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has launched a probe to determine how an Oscar voter's copy of the comedy "Something's Gotta Give" turned up on the Internet.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, whose Columbia Pictures produced and distributed the movie, notified the academy last week that its Jack Nicholson-Diane Keaton hit was being offered for downloading, academy spokesman John Pavlik said Tuesday.

The Internet copy was from a "screener" videocassette that the studio sent to 69-year-old actor Carmine Caridi, Pavlik said.

Caridi's films include "The Godfather: Part II," "Bugsy," and he had a recurring role on television's "NYPD Blue." A call seeking comment from Caridi was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Sony declined to say where the tape was being offered and it was not immediately clear how many times it had been downloaded.

"The threat of piracy is a real problem affecting our industry and we did everything we could to ensure the secure handling of all of our screeners to members of the academy," Sony spokesman Steve Elzer said. "We're very concerned with the situation, and have turned over all relevant information to the academy for them to conduct their investigation."

Sony also left its options open about whether to pursue legal action pending the completion of the academy's investigation, Elzer said.

Last year the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents studios, banned the distribution of screener DVDs and videotapes because of piracy concerns. It partly lifted the ban after filmmakers and producers complained that the copies were an important way for smaller films to get noticed for awards.

The studios changed the policy in October to allow the shipment of encoded videocassettes only to Oscar voters. A federal judge in December, however, granted a temporary injunction lifting the screener ban in a lawsuit brought by independent production companies.

The studios then sent out screeners to thousands of other awards voters, including groups such as the Los Angeles film critics, the Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood Press Association, which hands out the Golden Globes.

In an October warning, the academy warned that the tapes were film studio property and were being made available only to academy members who requested them. They were not to be distributed even to family members, and carried special coding to identify the member receiving it.

The academy required its 5,803 eligible Oscar voters to sign forms promising to safeguard the tapes before they were received. About 80 percent of voters signed and returned the forms, Pavlik said.

"I agree not to allow the screeners to circulate outside my residence or office. I agree not to allow them to be reproduced in any fashion, and not to sell them or to give them away at any time," the form read.

The form also said: "I agree that a violation of this agreement will constitute grounds for my expulsion from the Academy and may also result in civil and criminal penalties."

Pavlik said Caridi was believed to have signed a form but it was unclear whether he personally took receipt of the "Something's Gotta Give" copy, which could have been sent by mail or courier.

"We contacted the academy member verbally. He promised to call back. He didn't," and so a letter was sent late last week asking him to explain what happened to his screener tape, Pavlik said.

The academy is awaiting an answer and continues to investigate, he said.

"We need to know whether or not he did in fact signed for receipt of the thing … we'd like to know his version of how it got out of his hands," Pavlik said. "We don't know anything at all about the circumstances."

"It's disappointing," he said. "We'd hoped that we would go through this season without having to make any kind of investigation. … But it's not looking that way."

'Friends' cast prepares final episode of NBC sitcom

Associated Press

BURBANK - The creators of "Friends" relied on some of television's best finales to guide them in crafting the final episode of television's most popular sitcom.

In the midst of rehearsing for the last episode of the NBC comedy, the producers and series stars paused Tuesday to talk about what the show has meant to them and how it will end after 10 years.

Series creator Marta Kauffman told reporters that she watched episodes of "The Larry Sanders Show," "Newhart" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" - the latter of which she called "the gold standard" - before joining with fellow executive producers David Crane and Kevin Bright to write the last episode.

They declined to reveal details of the one-hour finale, which is likely to air in May, and said they were taking precautions to keep it secret. The air date has not yet been announced.

On the show's set at Warner Bros.' Burbank lot, the series' cast said the final days of filming are bittersweet.

"We're like china," said Jennifer Aniston, who plays Rachel. "We're like very delicate china right now and we're speeding toward a brick wall of inevitable pain."

David Schwimmer, who plays Rachel's on-and-off beau, Ross, said all the characters' stories are ending as the cast had hoped.

"We all end up with a sense of a new beginning and the audience has a sense or a feeling that it's a new chapter and a positive step for all of our lives," Schwimmer said.

Schwimmer said he and his fellow cast members would be glad to help support co-star Matt LeBlanc, whose character, Joey Tribbiani, is being spun off into a new NBC series, "Joey," next fall.

But the stars shot down rumors that a reunion movie was already in the works - but not without joking that they'd accept $4 million apiece for the honor. The cast members each earn $1 million per episode.

"A reunion?" Aniston said. "We haven't even left yet."

Killer taunts victim's family over the Internet

Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Mary Kate Gach thought she had heard the last of Jack Trawick when he went to death row for murdering her daughter in 1992.

Instead, Trawick's twisted writings about how he beat, strangled and stabbed Stephanie Gach and killed other women are available to anyone who wants to read them on the Internet. Many of the writings were put there by a one-time pen pal and admirer of Trawick's.

The killer even taunts Mary Kate Gach by name.

"I'm mad as hell," she said. "Those people don't even have a right to speak my name or my child's name. There's got to be a way to keep them from funneling this stuff out of prisons."

Around the country, dozens of U.S. death row inmates have gotten their letters and artwork posted on the Internet, a practice that torments the victims' grieving friends and relatives.

"It's going on all over," said Nancy Ruhe, executive director of Parents of Murdered Children in Cincinnati. "People say to me all the time, `When are these (victims) going to get over it?' They can't."

Experts say little can be done about Web sites featuring the writings of killers.

"It's the First Amendment," Ruhe acknowledged.

Typically, material from inmates makes it onto the Internet through an intermediary. Prisoners send letters to people or companies on the outside, where it is then posted online.

Alabama prison officials say it appears Trawick stopped sending out new stories about murder after Gach's mother and others complained last year. But Trawick's old writings are still on the Web, along with gruesome drawings of murdered women.

In one letter posted on the Internet, Trawick reveled in the Gach slaying.

"I would do the whole thing again knowing death row was waiting for me," Trawick, 56, wrote from Holman Prison.

Trawick confessed to kidnapping Gach, 21, from a Birmingham-area shopping mall in 1992. He took her to an isolated area where he beat her with a hammer, strangled her and stabbed her through the heart.

Gach's body was thrown off an embankment, where it was found the next day. Trawick was convicted in 1994, and he was convicted the next year in the slaying of Aileen Pruitt, 27, killed about four months before Gach.

Trawick has yet to exhaust his appeals, and no date for his execution has been set.

Gach's mother avoids listening to anything about Trawick. But it hurts her to know Trawick has a worldwide platform for his sadistic prose.

Free-speech protections prevent prison officials from blocking inmates' outgoing mail unless it presents a security risk or involves a crime in progress, said Amy Fettig, an attorney in Washington with the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project.

"Certainly I would understand victims being upset, and prison officials have a right to read mail," she said. But "just saying nasty things or having bad opinions is not a crime."

In one test of inmates' rights, a federal judge in May struck down as unconstitutional an Arizona law that made it illegal for state inmates to send out material to be posted on Web sites. The judge ruled the law was not "rationally related to legitimate penological objectives."

In Alabama, Gach and other victims' relatives met with the state prisoner commissioner last year to protest inmate Web sites. Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said Trawick's mail was screened extra closely for a time, but his writings have reappeared in new postings in recent weeks.

"I'm in shock. I feel like I have been here before," said Stephanie Gach's mother.

Franken signs deal with liberal radio venture

Associated Press

NEW YORK - They haven't got a name or a launch date yet, but the entrepreneurs who dream of launching a liberal radio network have just landed themselves a lead man: Comedian and best-selling author Al Franken.

Progress Media and Franken told The Associated Press Tuesday they have reached an agreement for Franken to host a live, three-hour daily broadcast that would form the anchor of the programming schedule.

In an interview, Franken said the format of the show was still evolving, but he said he was certain that it wouldn't be akin to that used by his rival Rush Limbaugh, which Franken described as "non-guested confrontation."

"He has no one on the show but it's confrontation," Franken said. "His show is just him railing for three hours."

Franken said he planned to use a mix of interviews, calls from listeners and scripted comedy. He said he planned to have a co-host with long experience in radio, but he said that role had not been finalized.

Franken had long been rumored to be interested in a deal with Progress Media, the startup company that is assembling radio stations and talent for a radio network to challenge conservative talk show powerhouses like Limbaugh.

But Franken had been holding off in recent months, partly to promote his hot-selling book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," and partly because he had reservations about the previous owners of the venture.

"Things got more serious in terms of putting together stations and money to make this possible" with the change in ownership, Franken said.

Last November the company was bought by an investment group led by Mark Walsh, a former America Online executive and adviser to the Democratic National Committee, from the venture capitalists Sheldon and Anita Drobny.

Walsh, who serves as CEO of Progress Media, also said the new network had reached its first major distribution agreement, with the Chicago AM station WNTD. He said he expects to announce at least three other distribution deals in the coming weeks.

Walsh acknowledged that much work remains to be done on the network before it becomes a viable business, including lining up technical arrangements and setting up offices and studios.

He said that about 65 percent of the network's programming has been decided, but he declined to elaborate beyond disclosing another new show to be co-hosted by the environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called "Champions of Justice."

The network also has yet to decide on a name. Last month the company indicated it would call the radio network Central Air, but Walsh said Tuesday the company was no longer certain it would be using that name.

Putting Franken in the midday time slot of noon to 3 p.m. Eastern time is a direct challenge to Limbaugh, whose hugely successful show occupies the same time slot.

Franken, whose earlier book was called "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot," said he plans to call up his nemesis for advice on his own show since Limbaugh has often said he wonders why new radio hosts don't seek out his counsel.

"I'll ask him advice: how he approaches a show, how he frames an issue. If it doesn't happen it will be - very understandably - because he won't take my call," Franken said.

Franken said his contract with Progress Media would last just one year, after which time both sides would reassess how things were going. He also said he very much wanted to do the show during a presidential election year.

"I'm interested in doing what I can to affect this election," Franken said. "I've been thinking about what's the best use of my energies - I hope this is it."

Four die in rural bus crash in Mexico

Associated Press

PUEBLA, Mexico - A bus that was apparently speeding skidded off a rural highway and overturned on Tuesday, killing four people and injuring 21, according to authorities.

State highway police said the Estrella Blanca bus crashed at about 8 a.m. near the town of Tepeyahualco de Cuauhtemoc, about 25 miles southeast of the state capital, Puebla.

Police said the bus wound up on its roof, crushing some passengers.

They said they had not located the driver.

Ted Nugent needs 40 stitches in leg after chain saw accident

Associated Press

DETROIT - Ted Nugent was injured on the Texas set of his reality show when a chain saw cut through his leg.

The outspoken rocker, outdoors enthusiast and star of the VH1 series "Surviving Nugent: The Ted Commandments," required 40 stitches to close the gash in his leg on Sunday, Michelle Clark, a spokeswoman for the cable music channel, said Tuesday.

Nugent didn't miss any time on the series, which is taping through Sunday and is scheduled to air in April. The 55-year-old rocker is wearing a brace on his leg.

The original installment of "Surviving Nugent" aired as a two-hour special in October.

In that version, contestants were shot with paint-balls, made to sleep in a barn, construct their own outhouse and skin a Russian boar - all in an effort to win $25,000 and prizes. Nugent challenged the contestants to live off the land in his rural compound near Jackson, about 70 miles west of Detroit.

In the latest version, which will air as a series, the Motor City Madman again will look to transform a group of unsuspecting city slickers into rough outdoorsmen.

To provide a fresh spin and new challenges, the location has been shifted from the woods of Michigan to Nugent's sprawling, multi-acred compound located just outside of Waco, Texas.

Nugent's family - son, Rocco, and wife, Shemane, along with ranch hands Big Jim and Big John - will figure prominently in the series.

The top prize this time around is $100,000.

On the Net:

http://www.tednugent.com/

Man sentenced to 15 years for stuffing toddler in plastic bag, leaving her in attic

Associated Press

DURHAM, N.C. - A man who stuffed his ex-girlfriend's toddler sister into a plastic trash bag and left her in a sweltering attic was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Samuel Uriah King, 27, pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree kidnapping and assault. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss a charge of attempted murder.

"If somebody had put my 3-year-old daughter in the attic, I probably would have flipped," King said at a court hearing. "I am truly sorry."

With credit for good behavior, King could be eligible for release in nine years.

Kiana Dumas, 3, initially was unconscious when deputies found her in April 2002, but she recovered when the clear plastic bag was opened. She had spent 20 minutes in the bag with duct tape over her mouth.

Police said temperatures were in the 90s that day and estimated it was at least 115 degrees in the attic at the time she was there.

Prosecutors said King had broken into the home of ex-girlfriend Diane Williams, Kiana's 17-year-old half sister. They had separated about a month earlier. King doused Williams with pepper spray, punched her in the face and demanded to have sex, prosecutor Mitchell Garrell said.

Williams ran next door to call police, leaving behind Kiana.

King said he taped the child's mouth shut when she began crying and put her in a closet. When she continued to cry, King said he "got a trash bag and put her in the attic and left for good."

Bruce Dumas, father of both Williams and Kiana, testified that King's action "was just total betrayal."

"We fed him," he said. "We treated him like family. For him to do that to the baby was terrible."