MUMBAI, India - India's female bureaucrats are being told to provide details of their menstrual cycles in a new job appraisal form.

Among questions about goals and skills, an appraisal form sent out earlier this year asked female civil servants, "when was your last menstrual period?" and "give details of your menstrual history."

The form also calls for women to detail their last maternity leave.

"This is insensitive. We feel strongly about this," said Seema Vyas, a civil servant in the western state of Maharashtra's administration department. "What will the government do with this information?"

A senior government official said the form was based on Health Ministry guidelines but refused to offer further explanation. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

All civil servants routinely undergo health checkups, but the results are not supposed to be part of their appraisals.

Vyas said women in Maharashtra would meet next week to organize a formal complaint to the federal government's personnel department and demand the questions be removed from the forms.

There was no word on whether female bureaucrats in other parts of the country plan to make similar demands. The Health Ministry said it had not received any complaints.

"A committee had formulated these new rules. But for every problem there is a solution," said K. Ramchandran, a ministry spokesman. "If things are not proper, another committee will be appointed to re-look at the new appraisal form."

Nearly 10 percent of India's 4,000 federal civil service workers are women.

Prosecutors drop charges in Duke case, say athletes were victims of 'tragic rush to accuse'

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - North Carolina's top prosecutor dropped all charges Wednesday against the three former Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a stripper at a party, saying the athletes were innocent victims of a "tragic rush to accuse" by an overreaching district attorney.

"There were many points in the case where caution would have served justice better than bravado," North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said in a damning assessment of Durham County District Mike Nifong's handling of the sensational, racially charged case. "In the rush to condemn, a community and a state lost the ability to see clearly."

Cooper, who took over the case in January after Nifong was charged with ethics violations that could get him disbarred, said his own investigation "led us to the conclusion that no attack occurred."

"I think a lot of people owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people," Cooper said in a news conference held before dozens of reporters in the press room at the arena where Raleigh's NHL team plays.

At an often-bitter, I-told-you-so news conference with the three young men and their families, defense attorney Joe Cheshire accused the media of portraying the athletes as criminals, and said: "We're angry, very angry. But we're very relieved."

"It's been 395 days since this nightmare began. And finally today it's coming to a closure," said one of cleared defendants, David Evans, his voice breaking at one point. "We're just as innocent today as we were back then. Nothing has changed, the facts don't change."

He added: "I'm excited to get on with my life. It's been a long year, longer than you could ever imagine. … But I hope these allegations don't come to define me."

Nifong was out of town and could not immediately be reached for comment. But his lawyer, David Freedman, said before Cooper's announcement that Nifong has "complete confidence in the attorney general's office to make the appropriate decision."

Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty were indicted last spring on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual offense after the woman told police she was assaulted in the bathroom at an off-campus house during a team party where she had been hired to perform. The rape charges were later dropped; until Wednesday, the other charges remained.

The case stirred furious debate over race, class and the privileged status of college athletes, and heightened long-standing tensions in Durham between its large working-class black population and the mostly white, mostly affluent students at the private, elite university.

The woman is black and attended nearby North Carolina Central University; all three Duke players are white.

The attorney general said the eyewitness identification procedures were unreliable, no DNA supported the stripper's story, no other witness corroborated it, and the woman contradicted herself.

"Based on the significant inconsistencies between the evidence and the various accounts given by the accusing witness, we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges," Cooper said. He said the charges resulted from a "tragic rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations."

However, Cooper said no charges will be brought against the accuser, saying she "may actually believe" the many different stories she told. "We believe it is in the best interest of justice not to bring charges," he said.

The accuser's whereabouts were not immediately known.

Portraying Nifong as a "rogue prosecutor," Cooper called for the passage of a law that would allow the North Carolina Supreme Court to remove a district attorney where justice demands it.

"This case shows the enormous consequences of overreaching by a prosecutor," he said.

Cooper declined to say whether he believes Nifong should be disbarred, saying it would not be fair to pass judgment before he goes on trial before the state bar in June.

At the news conference with his former teammates, Finnerty said: "Knowing I had the truth on my side was really the most comforting thing at all throughout this last year."

Seligmann thanked his lawyers for sparing him from 30 years in prison for a "hoax" and complained that society has lost sight of the presumption of innocence. "This entire experience has opened my eyes up to a tragic world of injustice," he said.

The case was troubled almost from the start. DNA failed to connect any of the athletes to the 28-year-old stripper. One of the athletes claimed to have ATM receipts and time-stamped photos that provided an alibi. It was also learned that the stripper had leveled similar gang-rape allegations a decade ago, and no charges resulted.

Then, in December, Nifong dropped the rape charges after the woman said she was no longer certain she was penetrated.

Nifong came under furious criticism from the community, the university and other members of the bar for pressing ahead with a case that they said seemed pitifully weak.

The district attorney withdrew from the case in January after the North Carolina bar charged him with making misleading and inflammatory comments to the media about the athletes under suspicion. The bar later added more serious charges of withholding evidence from defense attorneys and lying to the court.

Among other things, Nifong called the athletes "a bunch of hooligans" and flatly declared DNA evidence would identify the guilty. He was also accused of withholding the results of lab tests that found DNA from several men - none of them lacrosse team members - on the accuser's underwear and body.

Duke suspended Seligmann, 21, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Finnerty, 20, of Garden City, N.Y., after their arrest. Both were invited to return to campus this year, but neither accepted. Evans, 24, of Bethesda, Md., graduated the day before he was indicted.

In the uproar over the allegations, Duke canceled the rest of the team's 2006 season, the lacrosse coach was fired, and a schism opened up on the faculty between those who supported the athletes and those who accused them of getting away with loutish frat-boy behavior for too long.

The team resumed play this year.

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut, author of 'Slaughterhouse-Five' and 'Cat's Cradle,' dies at 84

NEW YORK (AP) - Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," died Wednesday. He was 84.

Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.

The author of at least 19 novels, many of them best-sellers, as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays, Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic. He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.

"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations," Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.

A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view. He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot. In "Slaughterhouse-Five," he drew a headstone with the epitaph: "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."

But much in his life was traumatic, and left him in pain.

Despite his commercial success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life, and in 1984, he attempted suicide with pills and alcohol, joking later about how he botched the job.

"I think he was a man who combined a wicked sense of humor and sort of steady moral compass, who was always sort of looking at the big picture of the things that were most important," said Joel Bleifuss, editor of In These Times, a liberal magazine based in Chicago that featured Vonnegut articles.

He always said he was a humanist and a socialist. That's how he described himself."

His mother had succeeded in killing herself just before he left for Germany during World War II, where he was quickly taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He was being held in Dresden when Allied bombs created a firestorm that killed an estimated tens of thousands of people in the city.

"The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am," Vonnegut wrote in "Fates Worse Than Death," his 1991 autobiography of sorts.

But he spent 23 years struggling to write about the ordeal, which he survived by huddling with other POW's inside an underground meat locker labeled slaughterhouse-five.

The novel, in which Pvt. Pilgrim is transported from Dresden by time-traveling aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, was published at the height of the Vietnam War, and solidified his reputation as an iconoclast.

"He was sort of like nobody else," said Gore Vidal, who noted that he, Vonnegut and Norman Mailer were among the last writers around who served in World War II.

"He was imaginative; our generation of writers didn't go in for imagination very much. Literary realism was the general style. Those of us who came out of the war in the 1940s made it sort of the official American prose, and it was often a bit on the dull side. Kurt was never dull."

Vonnegut was born on Nov. 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, a "fourth-generation German-American religious skeptic Freethinker," and studied chemistry at Cornell University before joining the Army.

When he returned, he reported for Chicago's City News Bureau, then did public relations for General Electric, a job he loathed. He wrote his first novel, "Player Piano," in 1951, followed by "The Sirens of Titan," "Canary in a Cat House" and "Mother Night," making ends meet by selling Saabs on Cape Cod.

Critics ignored him at first, then denigrated his deliberately bizarre stories and disjointed plots as haphazardly written science fiction. But his novels became cult classics, especially "Cat's Cradle" in 1963, in which scientists create "ice-nine," a crystal that turns water solid and destroys the earth.

Many of his novels were best-sellers. Some also were banned and burned for suspected obscenity. Vonnegut took on censorship as an active member of the PEN writers' aid group and the American Civil Liberties Union. The American Humanist Association, which promotes individual freedom, rational thought and scientific skepticism, made him its honorary president.

His characters tended to be miserable anti-heros with little control over their fate. Vonnegut said the villains in his books were never individuals, but culture, society and history, which he said were making a mess of the planet.

"We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard … and too damn cheap," he once suggested carving into a wall on the Grand Canyon, as a message for flying-saucer creatures.

He retired from novel writing in his later years, but continued to publish short articles. He had a best-seller in 2005 with "A Man Without a Country," a collection of his nonfiction, including jabs at the Bush administration ("upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography") and the uncertain future of the planet.

He called the book's success "a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life."

In recent years, Vonnegut worked as a senior editor and columnist at In These Times. Bleifuss said he had been trying recently to get Vonnegut to write something more for the magazine, but was unsuccessful.

"He would just say he's too old and that he had nothing more to say. He realized, I think, he was at the end of his life," Bleifuss said.

Vonnegut, who had homes in Manhattan and the Hamptons in New York, adopted his sister's three young children after she died. He also had three children of his own with his first wife, Ann Cox, and later adopted a daughter, Lily, with his second wife, the noted photographer Jill Krementz.

Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he'd prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the difficulties of old age.

"When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon," Vonnegut told The Associated Press in 2005.

"My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I'll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children."

- Associated Press writers Michael Warren, Hillel Italie and Chelsea Carter contributed to this report.

MSNBC drops Imus simulcast amid furor over comments about Rutgers' women's basketball team

NEW YORK (AP) - MSNBC said Wednesday it will drop its simulcast of the "Imus in the Morning" radio program, responding to growing outrage about the radio host's racial slur against the Rutgers women's basketball team.

"This decision comes as a result of an ongoing review process, which initially included the announcement of a suspension. It also takes into account many conversations with our own employees," NBC news said in a statement.

Talk-show host Don Imus triggered the uproar on his April 4 show, when he referred to the mostly black Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." His comments have been widely denounced by civil rights and women's groups.

The decision does not affect Imus' nationally syndicated radio show, and the ultimate decision on the fate of that program will rest with executives at CBS Corp. In a statement, CBS reiterated that Imus will be suspended without pay for two weeks beginning on Monday, and that CBS Radio "will continue to speak with all concerned parties and monitor the situation closely."

MSNBC's action came after a growing list of sponsors - including American Express Co., Sprint Nextel Corp., Staples Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., and General Motors Corp. - said they were pulling ads from Imus' show for the indefinite future.

NBC News President Steve Capus said he made the decision after reading thousands of e-mails and having countless discussions with NBC workers and the public, but he denied the potential loss of advertising dollars had anything to do with it.

"I take no joy in this. It's not a particularly happy moment, but it needed to happen," he said. "I can't ignore the fact that there is a very long list of inappropriate comments, of inappropriate banter, and it has to stop."

NBC's decision came at a time when Imus' program on MSNBC was doing better competitively than it ever has been. For the first three months of the year, its audience was nearly identical to CNN's, leading CNN to replace its morning news team last week.

Calls for Imus' firing from the radio portion of the program have intensified during the past week, and remained strong even after MSNBC's announcment. The show originates from WFAN-AM in New York City and is syndicated nationally by Westwood One, both of which are managed by CBS Corp. MSNBC, which had been simulcasting the show, is a unit of General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal.

Bruce Gordon, former head of the NAACP and a director of CBS Corp., said before MSNBC's decision Wednesday he hoped the broadcasting company would "make the smart decision" by firing Imus.

"He's crossed the line, he's violated our community," Gordon said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "He needs to face the consequence of that violation."

Gordon, a longtime telecommunications executive, stepped down in March after 19 months as head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the foremost U.S. civil rights organizations.

He said he had spoken with CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves and hoped the company, after reviewing the situation, would fire Imus rather than let him return to the air at the end of his suspension.

"We should have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to what I see as irresponsible, racist behavior," Gordon said. "The Imus comments go beyond humor. Maybe he thought it was funny, but that's not what occurred."

A CBS spokesman, Dana McClintock, declined comment on the remarks by Gordon, who is one of at least two minorities on the 13-member board.

The 10 members of the Rutgers team spoke publicly for the first time Tuesday about the on-air comments, made the day after the team lost the NCAA championship game to Tennessee. Some of them wiped away tears as their coach, C. Vivian Stringer, criticized Imus for "racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable, abominable and unconscionable."

The women, eight of whom are black, agreed to meet with Imus privately and hear his explanation. They held back from saying whether they'd accept Imus' apologies or passing judgment on whether a two-week suspension imposed by CBS Radio and MSNBC was sufficient.

Stringer said late Wednesday that she did not call for Imus' firing, but was pleased with the decision by NBC executives.

She said the meeting with Imus was never designed to call for his removal but to give the women on the team the opportunity to meet with him and for him to see the people he had so publicly hurt.

"The young ladies and I needed to put a face behind the remarks… He needs to know who these young ladies were that he hurt," Stringer said.

Imus has apologized repeatedly for his comments. He said Tuesday he hadn't been thinking when making a joke that went "way too far." He also said that those who called for his firing without knowing him, his philanthropic work or what his show was about would be making an "ill-informed" choice.

The Rev. Al Sharpton said in New York that he would put pressure on CBS but that the issue was larger than Imus.

"I think we also have to have now a broad discussion on how the music industry allows this to be used," Sharpton said. "I don't think that we should stop at NBC, and I don't think we should stop at Imus."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said he planned to meet with CBS and NBC executives on Thursday with a delegation of other civil rights activists and lawmakers to discuss the Imus situation and diversity in broadcasting.

"Imus is on 1,040 hours a week and yet they have virtually no black show hosts. That is true for other networks as well," Jackson said. "We must raise the ethical standard for all of them."

At the Rutgers campus in New Brunswick, N.J., about 300 students and faculty rallied earlier in the day to cheer for their team, which lost in the national championship game, and add their voices to the crescendo of calls for Imus' ouster. One of the speakers was Chidimma Acholonu, president of the campus chapter of the NAACP.

"This is not a battle against one man. This is a battle against a way of thought," she said. "Don Imus does not understand the power of his words, so it is our responsibility to remind him."

- Associated Press writers David Bauder, Samantha Gross and Seth Sutel in New York and Rebecca Santana in New Brunswick, N.J., contributed to this report.

Pennsylvania DJ fired for repeating Imus' racially charged comments as part of contest

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A radio station fired its longtime morning DJ Wednesday after he encouraged listeners to repeat talk-show host Don Imus' racially charged comments in an on-air contest.

Gary Smith told WSBG-FM listeners to call and say "I'm a nappy-headed ho" for Tuesday's "Phrase that Pays" contest, said Rick Musselman, executive vice president of station owner Nassau Broadcasting Partners L.P.

Musselman said three of the listeners who called were awarded tickets to a NASCAR promotion at a local club.

Station management reviewed a tape of the broadcast of the "Gary in the Morning" show and fired Smith, Musselman said.

Musselman said that Smith was fired and not suspended because he uttered the slur in a premeditated manner, "with full knowledge of the reaction to Don Imus' use of the exact same phrase."

Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Smith for comment were unsuccessful. But he told The Morning Call of Allentown he regretted the comment.

"What I said was stupid, and I'm sorry," Smith told the newspaper.

MSNBC dropped its simulcast of Imus' nationally syndicated radio program on Wednesday amid a furor over the remarks. Imus called members of the mostly black Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos," prompting civil rights groups to demand his firing. He is suspended from the program for two weeks beginning Monday.

WSBG 93.5, a 3,000-watt rock station, is based in Stroudsburg, about 40 miles northeast of Allentown. The Princeton, N.J.-based Nassau is privately held with more than 50 radio stations in the Northeast.

Birkhead says he doesn't plan to share legal custody of Smith's baby

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) - Larry Birkhead said Wednesday he doesn't plan to share legal custody of Anna Nicole Smith's baby, a day after a court announced that DNA tests proved he is the father.

Birkhead, accompanied by his relatives, visited Dannielynn several hours after Tuesday's announcement of the DNA test results, "Entertainment Tonight" reported. The former boyfriend changed his daughter's diaper and fed her apple sauce with some coaching from Smith's lawyer-turned-partner Howard K. Stern, the program reported.

A hearing is scheduled for Friday during which a judge is expected to discuss who will raise 7-month-old Dannielynn. Stern, who has been caring for the baby since Smith's sudden death in February, said he wouldn't fight for custody, but a lawyer for Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, indicated she might.

Birkhead said Wednesday he did not want another legal fight.

"We might go from one fight to another, but I'm hoping that's not the case because, you know, there's only one dad, and I have no problem with anyone that has good intentions being allowed to visit the baby and see the baby and be a part of the baby's life," he told NBC's "Today" show from the Bahamas.

Birkhead said, however, he has no intentions of sharing custody of the child.

"It would imply that I'm unfit as a parent, which I'm not," the Los Angeles photographer said. "I'm looking forward to giving Dannielynn everything that she needs and all the love and support."

Stern said Tuesday he loved the baby despite the DNA results and would support Birkhead.

"I'm obviously very disappointed, but my feelings for Dannielynn have not changed," he said, adding of Birkhead: "I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure he gets sole custody."

Birkhead said he believes Stern gave up his custody fight because he wants what is best for Dannielynn. He said the "dirty laundry" being aired in the courtroom is "something the baby could see one day."

Separately, a hearing was scheduled for Wednesday in the Bahamian Coroner's Court to check the status of an appeal filed by Stern that stalled the inquest into the death of Smith's 20-year-old son, Daniel.

Birkhead, who broke up with Smith before she moved to the Bahamas in July, had been seeking custody of Dannielynn for months. Stern was listed on the birth certificate as the baby's father and has been taking care of the child at the oceanfront mansion he and Smith shared in the Bahamas.

Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern stands to inherit a fortune if the legal battles her mother left her ever get resolved.

The baby could potentially inherit millions from the estate of Smith's late husband, J. Howard Marshall II. The former model had been fighting the Texas oil tycoon's family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995, and that battle remains unresolved.

It remains unclear how much, if any, of the Marshall estate Dannielynn could ever hope to obtain, and whether her guardian would have any access to the money.

Even Smith's own estate remains unresolved. A 2001 will released after her death in February said her fortune should be held in trust for her son, but he's dead now. The 19-page will named Stern as her executor, but did not say how much Smith was worth or how much her daughter might inherit.

Nassau has been transfixed by the Anna Nicole saga since she moved here last year. Smith gave birth to Dannielynn in September, only to see Daniel die days later at her bedside from a lethal combination of drugs. Smith died on Feb. 8, at the age of 39, also from a deadly mix of prescription drugs.

Smith's mother said Tuesday that she wanted to be present in her granddaughter's life, but seemed appeased by the DNA results.

"I'm happy that Dannielynn will know who her real father is," she said.

Although fatherhood will be a new role for Birkhead, he has said it is one he is prepared for.

"She's got lots of toys and a nursery ready for her and she's got everything she's going to need. All I have do is just give her the love," he told the "Today" show.

Birkhead has said he met Smith, a former Playboy Playmate, at a Kentucky Derby party in 2003 but that they didn't start dating until he saw her at the same event the following year.

She had lost weight, was much friendlier than she had been the year before and invited him to accompany her to other events to take photos "and one thing led to another," he told Fox's Greta Van Susteren in January.

"We had, you know, even though it sounds like we battled and battled, but we had a great time in our relationship," he told Van Susteren.

Birkhead has said that he and Smith remained together until May 2006 when she was five months pregnant with Dannielynn.

Associated Press Writer John Rogers in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Cruise ship company blames human error in ship sinking near Greek island

SANTORINI, Greece (AP) - The operator of a cruise ship that struck a reef and sank off a popular Mediterranean resort, leaving two people missing, said Wednesday that human error was to blame.

The captain and five other crew members from the Sea Diamond already have been charged with negligence.

The ship struck well-marked rocks on April 5 and sank near Greece's Santorini island. Nearly 1,600 people, most of them Americans, including two dozen students from North Carolina, were safely evacuated. An unmanned submarine is searching the sunken vessel for a missing French tourist and his daughter.

"The incident was a result of human error - but so are 75 percent of all accidents at sea," said Giorgos Koubenis, a representative of Cypriot-based Louis Cruise Lines.

It was the company's first comment on the probable cause of the accident.

Koubenis said the Sea Diamond was one of the company's premier ships. "We only acquired it last year," he said.

The Greek government stepped up efforts to stem an oil leak from the Sea Diamond, which has already spilled more than 26,000 gallons of fuel near Santorini, known for its soaring cliffs and black sand beaches.

Nearly 119,000 gallons of oil are still inside the ship, threatening environmental damage at the onset of the busy summer season. The remote-controlled submarine was trying stop the leak.

Efforts were hampered by the ship's unstable position. The 10-story-high vessel is face-down on an undersea slope, with most of the hull more than 325 feet below the surface.

"Santorini must return to the way it was before the accident," said Merchant Marine Minister Manolis Kefaloyiannis, adding that additional resources had been made available for the cleanup. "The situation is under control for the moment."

In a statement to the Cyprus stock market, the Louis Cruise Lines said it was fully cooperating in efforts to investigate the accident and had hired a private firm to help prevent environmental damage. The company said it was fully insured, including for possible environmental pollution.

The captain has told investigators he was caught unawares by a sea current that swept his vessel onto the rocks minutes before it was due to dock. If convicted of negligence, the captain, first mate and four other crew members face a maximum five-year sentence.

The Greek captains' association spoke out in defense of the crew.

"Once again, the captain has been made a scapegoat and has been blamed even before his account (was heard," the Masters and Mates Union of the Greek Merchant Marine said in a statement.

"The captain is a very capable and highly regarded colleague," the union said. "Of course the fact that two passengers were not found fills us with sadness. (But) the evacuation was carried out successfully."

The association cited a 2003 study by the National Technical University of Athens, which listed Santorini of one of 17 Aegean Sea ports lacking proper docking facilities.

The Sea Diamond sank in Santorini's sea-filled volcanic crater - known as a caldera - about 15 hours after the rocks tore a hole nearly 100 feet long in the side of the ship.

Missing French tourists Jean-Christophe Allain, 45, and his 16-year-old daughter Maud had a lower deck cabin near the position whether reef struck.

Allain's wife and son survived the accident.

Snowstorm closes Minnesota schools, grounds flights at Chicago airports

CHICAGO (AP) - Hundreds of airline flights were grounded Wednesday and a major league baseball game was called as yet another spring snowstorm spread wet snow across the upper Midwest.

North Dakota and South Dakota both measured about 7 inches, and up to 10 inches was possible in Wisconsin, the National Weather Service said.

"It's kind of flying sideways," hardware store owner Harvey Neu said in Menomonee Falls, Wis. "It's not like a gently falling snowfall. It's more of a get-out-of-my-face type of thing."

About 400 flights were canceled at O'Hare International Airport because of poor visibility, said city aviation spokesman Gregg Cunningham. The airport also had delays of one to 2 hours on both inbound and outbound flights, and delays at Midway Airport were about 30 minutes, he said.

"The storm system is moving north right now, but it may circle around and stay in the area," Cunningham said.

Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport also had a handful of delays and cancellations.

"I think we are all cranky about the weather," said Pat Rowe, spokeswoman for General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee. "We are ready to be done with winter, but that's the month of April in Wisconsin. … There's really nothing that anyone can do besides book a flight to a warm location before the storm hits."

Wednesday's Houston Astros at Chicago Cubs game was postponed because of the storm. During the weekend, heavy snow wiped out scheduled Angels-Indians games for four straight days at Cleveland, and their contest was finally moved to Milwaukee's enclosed field.

Nearly two dozen school districts canceled classes Wednesday across southern Minnesota, where up to 6 inches of snow was forecast. More closed in Iowa, where numerous vehicles had slid off slippery highways.

Snow this late is not that unusual, said weather service meteorologist Andrew Krein in Chicago.

"Typically every few years we'll get some snow in April," Krein said. "Snow in April is not unheard of."

Thirteen years ago, in fact, Sioux Falls, S.D., got 10 inches of snow on April 28.

Associated Press reporter Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee, Nafeesa Syeed in Des Moines and Tammy Webber in Chicago also contributed to this report.

Argentine icebreaker ablaze in South Atlantic, 296 rescued after abandoning ship

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - A raging fire aboard an Argentine navy icebreaker forced all 296 people aboard to abandon ship in the South Atlantic, where they spent hours in lifeboats awaiting rescue by an oil tanker and fishing vessels, the military said Wednesday.

The fire broke out late Tuesday in the auxiliary generator compartment of the Almirante Irizar, and Capt. Guillermo Tarapow ordered all passengers and crew to abandon ship in 24 lifeboats when the flames became uncontrollable.

An oil tanker and two fishing vessels rushed to the area and, within hours, plucked people from most of the lifeboats drifting off the remote Patagonian city of Puerto Madryn, 930 miles south of Buenos Aires.

Winds helped spread the flames, and after battling the fire for about 90 minutes, the crew had to abandon ship, said Capt. Guillermo Palet, a naval spokesman.

"The captain took the very difficult decision of ordering those aboard to abandon ship," Palet told a news conference.

Survivors spent hours in lifeboats on the chilly waters before they were plucked to safety, he said. Most were rescued overnight, but some had to wait until after daybreak.

"It was a continuous operation from the start," said Palet, who had no initial reports of serious injuries, although doctors were being flown to Chubut as a precaution. "The information being provided by the three (rescue) ships is that there are no cases of hypothermia."

Authorities did not give a cause for the fire.

The Panamanian-flagged tanker Scarlet Ibis and an Uruguayan fishing vessel were the first to arrive in the area, located some 140 miles east of Puerto Madryn, the military said. Another fishing ship followed afterward.

On Wednesday, navy and air force planes overflew the stricken icebreaker and authorities said the coast guard ship Thompson and the navy ship Granville were speeding to the area.

The Almirante Irizar was built in Finland and acquired by the Argentine navy in 1978. Measuring 390 feet, it has played key roles in Argentina's annual supply runs to Antarctica in the warmer southern hemisphere summer that begins each December.

The ship had restocked more than a dozen Argentine bases and research stations, and was returning to Buenos Aires with armed forces personnel who had concluded stints in Antarctica when the fire broke out just after 10 p.m. Tuesday.

Passengers aboard the Irizar included civilian employees of Argentina's Antarctic National Command operation as well as army, air force and navy personnel.

Nation's top law enforcement officials to attend agent's funeral in Pennsylvania

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III will attend a funeral Thursday for a federal agent killed while trying to capture a group of suspected bank robbers, officials said.

Thousands of people are expected to attend the funeral in eastern Pennsylvania, where FBI Special Agent Barry Lee Bush grew up. Justice Department officials said Wednesday that Gonzales and Mueller would attend.

Bush, 52, a 19-year agency veteran, may have been accidentally shot by another agent during an April 5 confrontation with the suspects outside a PNC Bank branch, the FBI said. An internal investigation is under way.

Two suspects were apprehended the day of the confrontation. A third was captured Friday in a wooded area nearby, and a fourth suspect was arrested in connection with an earlier holdup.

Alumnus John Kluge donates $400M to Columbia University for student financial aid

NEW YORK (AP) - Billionaire media entrepreneur John Werner Kluge is giving $400 million to Columbia University for financial aid, one of the largest gifts ever to an American university, the university announced Wednesday.

Kluge attended Columbia on scholarship and credits the opportunity with helping him become a successful broadcast entrepreneur.

While most large donations are made toward the construction of a new building or to endow a professorship, Kluge wanted his to go for financial aid to students. It is the largest in Columbia's history and will come from his estate when he dies.

"John's extraordinary gift, coupled with his earlier gifts, will help generations of Columbians," university President Lee C. Bollinger said at a ceremony attended by Kluge, 92, a longtime supporter of the Ivy League institution.

"He has chosen to direct his amazing generosity to ensuring that young people will have the chance to benefit from a Columbia education regardless of their wealth or family income," Bollinger said.

Kluge (pronounced KLOOG-ee) bought a single radio station in 1946 and built it into Metromedia Broadcasting. In 1983, Kluge took Metromedia private in a leveraged buyout, and he then sold off the broadcast properties piecemeal for $4.65 billion.

He also acquired entertainment properties ranging from the Ice Capades to the Harlem Globetrotters to Playbill magazine.

Forbes magazine ranked him the wealthiest man in America in 1989-91. Last year, he was still listed as the 25th richest American with an estimated net worth of $9.1 billion.

Kluge has already given $100 million to Columbia for the Kluge Scholars Program, which has supported 500 undergraduate students.

He explained his efforts in 2004 by saying: "I'd rather by far invest in people than buildings. If I can infuse a mind to improve itself, that'll pass on to their children, and to their children's children."

Columbia, citing the Chronicle of Higher Education, said Kluge's gift is the largest ever devoted exclusively to student aid and the fourth largest ever to any single institution of higher education in the United States.

The announcement of the gift comes as Columbia pushes ahead with a campaign to raise $4 billion, specifically for financial aid and endowed faculty at its schools. With Kluge's commitment, the university has reached $2.2 billion of that goal.

As of last year, the Ivy League school had an endowment of more than $5 billion, larger than most universities but smaller than other Ivy League schools.

On the Net:

http://www.columbia.edu

FDA: "Cocaine" energy drink marketed illegally

WASHINGTON (AP) - Cocaine is a drug, federal health officials say.

So what's the news?

This Cocaine is an energy drink produced by a Las Vegas company. It contains no actual cocaine, but is being marketed as "The Legal Alternative" to the illegal drug, according to its Web site. Its logo appears to be spelled out in a white powder that resembles the drug.

The Food and Drug Administration said Redux Beverages LLC is illegally marketing the drink as both a street drug alternative and a dietary supplement, according to a warning letter dated April 4 but publicly released Wednesday. The FDA cites as evidence the drink's own labeling and Web site, which include the statements "Speed in a Can," "Liquid Cocaine" and "Cocaine - Instant Rush," according to the letter.

In addition, dietary supplements cannot carry claims to prevent or treat a disease - something only drugs can do, according to the letter. The Cocaine Web site lists an ingredient called inositol and says it reduces cholesterol and helps prevent hardening of the arteries, among other health claims, the FDA said.

"Your product, Cocaine, is a drug," the three-page letter reads in part. It's also a new drug and as such cannot be sold without FDA approval. In addition, the FDA said the product is mislabeled since it doesn't include "adequate directions for its intended uses."

A message left Wednesday with the Las Vegas company was not immediately returned.

Cocaine was one of roughly 500 energy drinks launched worldwide last year, capitalizing on the craze for the typically sugar- and caffeine-laden beverages. Entries on Cocaine's own MySpace.com page suggest the drink has thousands of fans, many of them teens.

The FDA said it inspected the company Feb. 14 and reviewed the product's Web site, http://www.drinkcocaine.com . The agency said it's aware of a proliferation of dietary supplement products being touted as alternatives to illegal street drugs.

The FDA said the company has 15 days to notify the agency of its plans to correct the violations of federal law. Otherwise, it can face seizure of its products, injunctions and possible criminal prosecution.

Last year, Hannah Kirby, wife of Redux Beverages founder James Kirby, told The Associated Press the product's name was a bid to stand out in the crowd of competing energy drinks.

An opposition to James Kirby's year-old attempt to trademark "cocaine" is now pending at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark office.

On the Net:

Food and Drug Administration warning letters: http://www.fda.gov/foi/warning.htm

Orangutans play video games at Zoo Atlanta, research hopes to help survival of wild population

ATLANTA (AP) - Four-year-old Bernas isn't the computer wizard his mom is, but he's learning. Just the other day he used his lips and feet to play a game on the touch-screen monitor as his mom, Madu, swung from vines and climbed trees.

The two Sumatran orangutans at Zoo Atlanta are playing computer games while researchers study the cognitive skills of the orange and brown primates.

The best part? Zoo visitors get to watch their every move.

The orangutans use a touch screen built into a tree-like structure that blend in with their zoo habitat. Visitors watch from a video monitor in front of the exhibit.

"That's so cool," Jeri McCarthy told her three daughters as Bernas drew a red, blue and yellow picture on the screen. "He can't get enough!"

Zoo officials hope the exhibit will raise awareness of the rapidly diminishing wild orangutan population, which is on track to completely disappear in the next decade, and potentially provide keys to their survival.

"The more we understand about orangutan's cognitive processes, the more we'll understand about what they need to survive in the wild," said Tara Stoinski, manager of conservation partnerships for the zoo. "It enables us to show the public how smart they are."

In one game, orangutans choose identical photographs or match orangutan sounds with photos of the animals - correct answers are rewarded with food pellets. Another game lets them draw pictures by moving their hands and other body parts around the screen. Printouts of their masterpieces are on display in the zoo.

The computer games, which volunteers from IBM spent nearly 500 hours developing, test the animals' memory, reasoning and learning, spitting out sheets of data for researchers at the zoo and Atlanta's Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, a partner in the project.

The data will help researchers learn about socializing patterns, such as whether they mimic others or learn behavior from scratch through trial and error, said Elliott Albers with the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience.

Researchers hope the data can point to new conservation strategies to help the 37,000 orangutans living in the wild on the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

"Hopefully we can get the animals to find better sources of food more easily," Albers said.

The National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago are also conducting such orangutan research. Visitors can also watch the animals use computers at the National Zoo, Stoinski said.

On the Net:

Zoo Atlanta: http://www.zooatlanta.org

Center for Behavioral Neuroscience: http://www.cbn-atl.org

Coroner's jury in Ill. rules homicide in fetus slaying, death of mother

BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - A baby sitter charged with murder clubbed a pregnant woman in the head repeatedly with a table leg, then cut her fetus from the womb in a bathtub where she later drowned the victim's three young children, an investigator testified Wednesday.

The grisly details in the September slayings of Jimella Tunstall and her family were revealed at a hearing where a coroner's jury, after a few minutes of deliberations, concluded the deaths were homicides.

Tiffany Hall, 24, has been charged with first-degree murder and faces a possible death sentence in the death of Tunstall and with intentional homicide of an unborn child - Tunstall's 7-month-old fetus.

She has pleaded not guilty and remains jailed on $5 million bond. She has not been charged in the drownings of the children, ages 7, 2 and 1, although authorities have said she confessed and led them to the bodies. Prosecutor Robert Haida has said those deaths eventually will be presented to a grand jury for possible charges.

Illinois State Police investigator David Bivens told the coroner's jury that Hall "had been thinking about taking the baby for some time" from Tunstall before going through with it.

Bivens said Hall confessed on videotape that she hit Tunstall twice over the head with a table leg in Hall's mother's East St. Louis house Sept. 15, then bound the woman's hands and feet with duct tape.

When Tunstall tried to wriggle free, Bivens said, Hall hit her again and taped the woman's mouth shut before apparently dragging the unconscious woman to the bathtub. Hall used a scissor-like implement to cut open the woman's womb and remove the fetus, Bivens said. The coroner's jury ruled Tunstall bled to death.

The body of Tunstall was first hidden by Hall in a plastic container in the basement, then dragged outside into high weeds behind the house where it was found, Bivens said.

Later that day, Bivens said, Hall summoned police to an East St. Louis park - just blocks from where Tunstall's body later was found - saying she had given birth to a stillborn child after she said she had been sexually attacked in St. Louis.

At a hospital, Bivens said, Hall refused to let doctors examine her.

Tunstall's body had not been found by Sept. 18, when her children were last seen alive with Hall.

According to Bivens, Hall admitted she drowned 2-year-old Ivan Tunstall-Collins and 1-year-old Jinela Tunstall in the same bathtub where their mother had been slain, then found their 7-year-old brother, DeMond Tunstall.

"She told DeMond it was time to take a bath, and she drowned him, too," Bivens said.

During the baby's Sept. 21 funeral, Bivens testified, Hall confessed to her boyfriend that the baby wasn't his and that she had killed the mother to get it. The boyfriend notified police, who found Tunstall's body and arrested Hall.

The bodies of the children were found in the washer and dryer of Tunstall's apartment, after Hall reportedly directed police there. They had searched the apartment earlier but did not look in the washer and dryer.

A relative of Tunstall's told reporters through tears after Bivens' testimony that she feels sorry for Hall and does not believe the death penalty should be in play.

"I just think she should be in prison the rest of her life to think about what she did," said Regina Kizer, a cousin of Tunstall's. "God's gonna have the upper hand."

A message seeking comment was left Wednesday with James Gomric, one of Hall's attorneys. Hall was not in the courtroom Wednesday.

Last baseball player still hospitalized after team bus crash upgraded to fair condition

ATLANTA (AP) - An Ohio college baseball player who barely survived a deadly bus crash over a month ago has been upgraded to fair condition, hospital officials said Wednesday.

Tim Berta, 22, suffered brain injuries March 2 when a bus carrying his Bluffton University baseball team plowed off an overpass onto Interstate 75 in Atlanta. Berta has been at Grady Memorial Hospital since then slowly recovering.

He is the only player still hospitalized. After the wreck, 29 people were hospitalized, seven in serious or critical condition, including coach James Grandey.

Five players, the bus driver and the driver's wife died in the crash as the team headed toward Florida for a tournament. Investigators say the driver apparently mistook an exit ramp for a highway lane.