WASHINGTON - Each issue of National Geographic Magazine contains a few dozen of the stunning original photos that have become its trademark. But to get these, thousands are considered and rejected.

Now people can see a few of the also-rans.

A special issue of the magazine, "National Geographic 100 Best Unpublished Pictures," is on sale on newsstands.

"We asked photographers to go back through their work and find the frames they wish we'd been able to fit into the original article," said National Geographic editor Bill Allen. "It became a labor of love."

Along with the photos are captions containing the story behind the photo from the photographers themselves.

In one image an actor in a giant rabbit suit - deemed "ominous bunny" by photographer Joel Santore - looms over children at an Easter party at the home of style maven Martha Stewart.

"At the end of the day, the kids had to give some of the prettiest eggs back to Martha so she could decorate her house with them," Santore wrote.

In a shot that will frighten anyone afraid of heights a pair legs dangle over the Chicago skyline. Photographer Lynn Johnson made the picture covering a day in the life of an antenna serviceman - in this case working 100 stories above the city.

More comforting is Robert Caputo's photo of a cheetah cub snuggled securely between its mothers legs.

The reasons a picture didn't make the magazine varies. Some stories are dropped and some pictures loved by photographers are not the choice of editors.

One photo shows a young couple relaxing on their bed in a shack in Louisiana. It was scheduled to lead a 1973 article until the editor discovered the couple wasn't married.

"I guess it was the times. He didn't want an unmarried couple sitting there in bed," writes photographer C. C. Lockwood.

Undercover DEA agent shot during Philadelphia drug deal; suspect apparently shots, kills self

PHILADELPHIA - A federal agent was shot during an undercover drug deal Tuesday afternoon, and the suspect apparently killed himself after fleeing beneath a pier where the deal went down, police said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration agent, William Hocker, 51, was reported in stable condition at a hospital with shoulder and face wounds, said Normadene Murphy, an agency spokeswoman.

"They were going to buy some drugs from him," Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said. "The person pulled a gun out and shot the DEA agent."

More than a dozen DEA, FBI and Philadelphia police vehicles converged on the Delaware River pier near an entertainment center after the shooting.

"They had him trapped under (the pier) and it appears … he shot himself," Johnson said.

Hocker was a group supervisor in a drug investigation under way in the area, Murphy said.

'Spiderman' scales crane in fathers' rights protest

LONDON - David Chick is an angry man, and a magnet for the anger of others.

Since Friday the 36-year-old father has sat atop a 120-foot crane beside London's Tower Bridge, dressed as Spiderman, in a bid to draw attention to the plight of dads denied access to their children.

Police say he is a safety hazard, and have closed the bridge, a busy traffic route across the River Thames. The area around the bridge now buzzes with irate drivers, puzzled tourists and a knot of angry men who say Britain's legal system is cutting thousands of fathers off from their kids.

"Hats off to the man," said Charlie Harrison, a divorced father of one who stopped to view the scene Tuesday. "It's the only way. Parents and kids are suffering, but no one's listening."

Chick's solo protest is backed by Fathers 4 Justice, a group that has drawn attention to the issue of fathers' rights with a series of high-profile stunts. Last year, 200 supporters dressed as Santa Claus staged a sit-in at a judicial office. Last month, two members dressed as Batman and Robin scaled London's High Court building.

The group says courts overwhelmingly award mothers sole custody of children after a divorce, and that little is done to enforce court orders granting fathers contact with their kids. In most cases, the group says, children should spend half their time with each parent.

The Lord Chancellor's Department, which oversees courts in England and Wales, said mothers win custody in about four-fifths of cases. It said officials are looking into ways to make the custody system speedier and less adversarial, including mediation for divorcing parents before they get to court.

Fathers 4 Justice has a celebrity supporter in rock star and Live Aid founder Bob Geldof, who battled for custody of his three children with former partner Paula Yates, and who has spoken out in favor of greater custody rights for fathers. Yates died of a drug overdose in 2000.

Chick's protest has tapped into a vein of anger and hurt felt by fathers who have lost contact with their children after their relationships broke up.

The area around Tower Bridge draws men who say they have not seen their children in several years and who resent a legal system they believe is biased in favor of women.

"It's like a ritual humiliation," said divorced dad Harrison, 45, who said he has not seen his 12-year-old daughter in two years. "You're taken into court, stripped absolutely bare.

"Things like this will change things," he said, gesturing at the crane. "Going through the courts, I'll just come out another casualty."

Chick's protest has meant more disruption for commuters and residents around Tower Bridge, who faced crowds and traffic delays during magician David Blaine's recent 44-day self-imposed fast in an elevated plastic box beside the Thames.

London mayor Ken Livingstone, whose office overlooks the bridge, said Chick "is amply demonstrating that women do not feel they always want their partners to have access to their children. He is a man who is putting his own life at risk, police officers at risk, other Londoners who may be passing along the road at risk."

Fathers 4 Justice founder Matt O'Connor said Tuesday that Chick was "defiant and determined to stay up for as long as possible," and had a supply of food and water.

But he said Chick "has made his point" and should come down.

Cat hoarder arrested in San Francisco after four months on the run

SAN FRANCISCO - An elusive cat hoarder facing animal cruelty charges in Sonoma County was arrested in San Francisco after four months on the run.

Marilyn Barletta was arrested late Monday at a hotel located near the city's touristy Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco Police spokesman Neville Gittens said Tuesday.

A hotel employee called police after recognizing Barletta from local newspaper reports. As officers were talking to the employee, Barletta walked through the lobby where police arrested her, Gittens said.

The original animal cruelty charges against Barletta stem from the May 2001 discovery of 196 cats in a two-story Petaluma house she bought solely for the feral felines. Barletta, a retired real estate agent, drove daily from her San Francisco home to feed the animals, but the home soon fell into disrepair.

Feces and the bodies of dead cats littered the home when authorities were called. Most of the surviving cats were euthanized because they were judged too dangerous to be adopted.

Barletta's arrest warrant was issued in July after she failed to show up for a court appearance in Sonoma County to undergo a court-ordered psychological examination.

It was the second arrest warrant issued under her name since the case started. In the past two years, Barletta has made about 35 court appearances, winning delay after delay in the case. She was being held Tuesday on $75,000 bail.

Infection forces removal of expanders in conjoined Filipino boys

NEW YORK - A slight infection forced surgeons to temporarily remove tissue expanders that had been placed beneath the scalp of conjoined twins from the Philippines.

However, the removal "will not impact our long-term plans" for separating 18-month-old Carl and Clarence Aguirre, Dr. David Staffenberg, chief of pediatric plastic surgery at Montefiore Medical Center's children's hospital in the Bronx, said Monday.

The boys are joined at the tops of their heads.

The expanders were inserted Oct. 21 during the first of what were planned as three or four operations climaxing with the boys' separation. The expanders are intended to gradually stretch the twins' skin so there will be enough to cover both heads when they are separated.

Doctors at Montefiore removed the expanders after noticing liquid collecting around the plastic expander pouches, said hospital spokesman Steve Osborne.

The brothers were "fine" afterward, Osborne said.

The twins' next operation is tentatively set for later this month, but the schedule will be determined by the boys' conditions, Dr. James Goodrich, the hospital's director of pediatric neurosurgery, said in a statement.

Two-year-old twin boys from Egypt who were separated in one 34-hour operation that ended Oct. 12 were upgraded to good condition last week at Children's Medical Center in Dallas.

On the Net:

Montefiore Medical Center: http://www.montefiore.org

U.S. subpoenas eight more Baltimore city council members in probe

BALTIMORE - Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed the records of at least eight more members of the Baltimore City Council in their continuing investigation.

Fifteen of the council's 19 members acknowledge that they have received requests for financial and other information from U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio's office, The (Baltimore) Sun reported. Prosecutors had issued subpoenas to seven members two months ago.

"I have no idea what they want," said Council President Sheila Dixon, who received her subpoena Friday. "I'm going to provide them with all the information they asked for."

All the grand jury subpoenas asked for information dating back five years that details council members' acceptance of gifts and loans, hiring practices and relationships with two local businessmen. The most recent subpoenas, some of which were delivered Monday, differ by asking for records of all office expenditures during the same period.

Council members have until Nov. 21 to turn over the documents.

Council members receive a salary of $48,000 a year. They control their own office budgets of $130,000 to $160,000. The money is used for assistants' salaries, office supplies and constituent service.

Dixon said she believed the subpoenas were fueled by articles in The Sun reporting that 10 council members have hired relatives and that all have accepted free passes to Arrow Parking garages.

The city's Board of Ethics ruled last month that council members erred in accepting the free parking passes from a company with business before the council.

In addition, the panel said three council members who hired siblings as assistants - Dixon, Pamela V. Carter and John L. Cain - breached ethics rules against such hires.

Carter and Dixon both said they would fire their siblings. Cain refused to say Monday whether he would fire his sister or if he received a subpoena.

Some council members have suggested the investigation is a political witch hunt. DiBiagio is a Republican; council members are all Democrats.

"You have to expect a microscope to be put on you in these positions," Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr. said.

3-year-old boy killed in Long Beach hit-and-run crash

LONG BEACH - An 3-year-old boy was killed and his mother and four others were injured when their car was rear-ended by a pickup truck whose driver fled, police said.

The driver of the pickup, Aldon Dela Pena, 39, of San Pedro, surrendered to police hours later and was arrested for investigation of vehicular manslaughter and felony hit-and-run, police Det. Brian Watt said Tuesday. Dela Pena was held on $50,000 bail, and a court date was set for Thursday.

Theresa Medina, 19, of Carson, was stopped at a red light near the entrance to the Terminal Island Freeway at about 9:20 p.m. Monday when Dela Pena's truck, traveling at about 65 mph, crashed into them from behind, Watt said.

Medina's son, 3-year-old Christian Flores, died at the scene.

Medina was treated for neck pain and released. Four other passengers were hospitalized, including a 5-year-old boy in critical condition with a torn aorta, Watt said. Two boys, ages 2 and 15, sustained minor injuries, and a 23-year-old woman had a broken arm. It was unclear if the other passengers were related.

Watt said alcohol and drugs were not involved and that Dela Pena may have fallen asleep at the wheel en route to his office.

Maryland man steals police cruiser, then commits suicide

RISING SUN, Md. - A handcuffed man stole a police cruiser with another suspect inside, then killed himself with a shotgun taken from the trunk of the car, police said.

Mark Haas, 24, drove off after an officer stepped away from the cruiser about 7 p.m. Monday, state police said. He and another man were arrested after authorities found a gun in their car and they were both in the back seat of the cruiser.

Haas' girlfriend called police about 11 p.m. and said he was threatening suicide outside a home in Rising Sun, about 40 miles northeast of Baltimore. He killed himself after police arrived, using a shotgun he found in the trunk of the cruiser.

The other suspect, Lee Nichols, 21, remained in the car and was not injured, state police said.

Arkansas moves toward executing man given drugs to make his competent for death penalty

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Arkansas' attorney general has determined that appeals have been exhausted for a death row inmate who is forcibly given anti-psychotic drugs that make him mentally competent to be executed, the governor's office said Tuesday.

Charles Singleton most recent appeal failed in the U.S. Supreme Court in October, when the justices refused to review a lower court ruling that the forced medication was acceptable. That court determined it was part of appropriate treatment for Singleton's paranoid schizophrenia.

Attorney General Mike Beebe delivered a letter to Gov. Mike Huckabee on Monday certifying that there are no other obstacles to Singleton's execution, Huckabee's office said.

Singleton's lawyer, Jeff Rosenzweig, has said it is in the inmate's best interest to take the medicine until the resulting sanity puts him on the path to execution. He argued that, at the point an execution is set, it becomes unconstitutional to keep Singleton artificially sane.

A divided 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis disagreed in a 6-4-1 decision, and the Supreme Court refused to consider the argument.

"Of course, Singleton's sanity is always going to be an issue," Rosenzweig said Tuesday. "He has a waxing and waning psychological issue. Last week, he was sane. How he'll be next week, we don't know."

Singleton, the longest-serving inmate on Arkansas's death row, was convicted in the 1979 stabbing death of a grocer.

Huckabee spokesman Jim Harris said Tuesday that Singleton's case would receive a full review and that the inmate's medical history would be considered before a final decision on the execution is made.

The governor will take 10 days to review the case and then set an execution date for 40 to 60 days later, which would be no later than mid-January.

Dengue, encephalitis viruses kill 223 since August in India's most populous state

LUCKNOW, India - Mosquito-borne viruses dengue fever and encephalitis have killed 223 people in India's largest state in the past three months, a health official said Tuesday.

Dr. Awdhesh Srivastava, who heads the epidemic cell of the Health Directorate in India's northern Uttar Pradesh state, said that 926 cases of encephalitis and 384 cases of dengue fever had been reported since August.

"At least 205 people have died of encephalitis while 18 people have died of dengue so far," he told The Associated Press.

Alarmed at the spread of the viruses carried by mosquitos, the High Court in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, has reprimanded the municipal corporation for its slack efforts at maintaining sanitation in the city.

Illegal logging blamed in Indonesian flood disaster

BUKIT LAWANG, Indonesia - A devastating flood in Indonesia that left more than 200 people dead or missing has driven home a stark warning: rampant logging in Sumatra's forests is harming not only endangered animals but humans too.

Felled trees may have blocked a waterway high in the mountains, causing a huge flash flood when they collapsed Sunday night, a government spokesman said.

The wall of logs, boulders and mud crashed through the village of Bukit Lawang, leveling dozens of cheap inns and restaurants that served visitors to a nearby reserve for endangered orangutans. The hillsides that collapsed may have been weakened by the lack of trees, environmentalists said.

By late Tuesday, rescuers with chain saws and bulldozers had pulled out 85 corpses from debris piled two stories high. Five of the dead were foreigners - two Germans, two Austrians and a Singaporean. Officials said up to 123 people were missing and feared dead.

"They are either buried under the logs or swept down the river," provincial government spokesman Eddy Sofiyan told reporters.

Americans Tyson Murphy, 27, and Tommy Connelly, 26, said they climbed trees to get away from the deluge and clung to the branches for 1.5 hours.

When the waters subsided, "we each kissed our respective trees and took a branch with us," said Connelly, of Ladera Ranch, Calif.

Rescuers pulled them and seven other foreigners across the river to safety using a climbing harness and a rope.

"It's one of those things you think will never happen to you," said Murphy, of Laguna Beach, Calif., sporting dreadlocks and a Bob Marley T-shirt. "I just said a couple of prayers."

The village mosque became a makeshift morgue. Volunteers washed the corpses and said prayers according to Muslim tradition.

As rescue teams worked, villagers tried to salvage their belongings from wrecked houses.

Holding a white T-shirt belonging to his 3-year-old daughter, who drowned, Muhammad Yusuf, a tourist guide, sobbed: "She used to wear this when she rode her bicycle. I've lost everything."

The flood follows a spate of disasters that environmentalists blame on the illegal cutting of trees in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago with 210 million inhabitants.

Unchecked logging disrupts the natural absorption and flow of rainwater from the highlands, triggering floods and landslides that sweep into the valleys.

Government officials, who in some areas have been accused of joining forces with the loggers, acknowledge that illegal felling played a part in this week's disaster.

"Its highly likely that logging upstream was one of the causes," Sofiyan said.

He said it appeared that hundreds of thousands of logs - many of them illegally felled - had been blocking a waterway in the upper reaches of the mountains, and came crashing down into the valley when the water pressure became too great.

Logging has also shrunk forests where endangered tigers, elephants and orangutans live. Sumatra, the island were the flood occurred, has several national parks that are home to threatened animals.

Longgena Ginting, executive director of Walhi, Indonesia's largest environmental group, said that up to 20 percent of Leuser National Park, which overlooks Bukit Lawang, was deforested.

Corruption and poor law enforcement - familiar complaints in Indonesia, which is struggling to come to terms with democracy after 32 years of dictatorship that ended in 1998 - means the logging goes largely unchecked.

Bukit Lawang is surrounded by lush tropical rain forests. Upstream, however, in the national park, loggers and construction workers building a road into neighboring Aceh province have cut away large swaths of the jungle.

"At least 85 percent of the floods and landslides in Indonesia are caused by illegal logging," said Ginting. "The Bukit Lawang flood should serve as an alarm to the government."

On Tuesday, the Bahorok River was still raging through the village of 2,500 people.

Tourism has been the mainstay of Bukit Lawang since the orangutan reserve was established more than 20 years ago. The village was one of Sumatra's most visited tourist resorts.

Experts to examine bones of man considered forerunner of the renaissance

ROME - As a poet he encouraged his readers to contemplate death. Now, as the 700th anniversary of his birth approaches, archaeologists will remove the remains of the Italian poet Petrarch from their pink marble resting place, hoping to piece together details of his life.

Led by an Italian anatomy professor, the team wants to reconstruct Petrarch's physical features to shed light on the man considered second only to Dante in the pantheon of Italian writers.

"We will be able to analyze his physical makeup, his height. We will be able to tell from his bones if he was suffering from illnesses," Vito Terribile Wiel Marin, of Padua University, said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his home in the Padua area.

The bones will be removed Nov. 18 from the tomb in Arqua-Petrarca, the village in northeast Italy where Petrarch died in 1374.

Marin said he believes that providing tidbits about Petrarch's body will be a service in itself, even if they do not advance the study of the poet's work.

Petrarch - Francesco Petrarca - was born in Tuscany in 1304. He spent many years writing at a country retreat near Avignon in southern France, home to the then-exiled papacy. He returned to Italy in 1353.

Centuries of literature students have pondered Petrarch's love poems, dedicated to his mystery love, Laura. By describing her as a real woman, he departed from medieval conventions in which literature only depicted women's spiritual qualities.

But he also devoted much of his life to the tireless study of ancient Greek and Roman scholars, attempting to reconcile their pagan world with the Christianity that dominated Medieval European thought.

For this he is widely seen as the founder of humanism, the study of classical civilization that paved the way for the Renaissance.

Petrarch's remains have been dug up and examined once before, in 1853, by a University of Padua team. But Marin doubted the accuracy of some of that team's findings, including one that put Petrarch's height at 6 feet, which would have been unusually tall for those times.

The 1853 researchers also broke Petrarch's cranium, which Marin's team hopes to reconstruct.

The modern-day team hopes to create an image of Petrarch's features using computer technology that could be more precise than contemporary portraits of the poet.

The town council of Arqua-Petrarca - which owns Petrarch's tomb - gave the go-ahead to the project. A local bank is providing the funds.

Marin, who has worked on the exhumation of the body of St. Anthony of Padua in 1981, cited one account about Petrarch the researchers hoped to confirm.

"We have heard that in 1350 while he was traveling from Florence to Rome the horse galloping beside his kicked him on the left leg just below the knee. Petrarch wanted to carry on but they put him in hospital in Rome for two weeks," Marin said.

Jamaican mother of teenage sniper suspect refuses to testify in Muhammad's trial

KINGSTON, Jamaica - The mother of teenage sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo has refused to testify in the murder case of John Allen Muhammad unless she's allowed to meet with her son.

Una James, 38, was subpoenaed by prosecutors to testify in Muhammad's trial in Virginia. She was scheduled to fly from her native Jamaica on Sunday, but refused at the last minute, saying she hadn't received assurances she could see her son, suspected of murder.

"Why is it that America says it stands for family first?," James told CVM television station in a broadcast aired Monday. "If that was an American child would he be without his mother by his side? Is that justice?"

James, who was deported to Jamaica in December 2002, said she doesn't have a lawyer and expressed concern about what might happen to her if she traveled to the United States without legal representation.

James added that she didn't see the point in returning to Jamaica after testifying in Muhammad's trial only to be summoned again for her son's, which begins Nov. 10.

It was unclear when James was subpoenaed or if a future trip is being planned. Virginia prosecutors did not return calls seeking comment.

U.S. Consulate officials this weekend denied James a visa to attend Muhammad's trial, but Virginia authorities and the U.S. Homeland Security Department arranged for her transportation with an escort, U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Orna Blum said.

She later met inside with waiting U.S. officials for about 10 minutes before leaving the airport in a taxi without further explanation.

When reached on her cell phone Monday, James refused to comment, saying she wasn't speaking with the U.S. media.

In a June interview with Jamaican television, James lashed out at U.S. authorities, saying she warned them that Muhammad was a bad influence on her son prior to the shootings. U.S. authorities have disputed her claim.

Malvo, 18, and Muhammad, 42, allegedly took part in 20 shootings that killed 13 people in Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Washington, D.C. last year.

Prosecutors have said the three-week shooting spree was part of scheme to extort $10 million from the government. Both could face the death penalty if convicted.

In 1998, James and Malvo moved from Jamaica to Antigua, where they met Muhammad. Investigators believe she bought identification papers from Muhammad and entered the United States in late 2000 while her son stayed behind with Muhammad.

Malvo came to the United States bearing a false passport that identified him as Muhammad's son, according to Antiguan officials.

He joined his mother in Fort Myers, Fla., but ran away in October 2001 to join Muhammad in Bellingham, Wash., where they lived at a homeless shelter as father and son.

In September, James said she asked Bellingham police to help her get her son back. During the investigation, police said Malvo's comments indicated he and his mother were in the country illegally and officers summoned the Border Patrol, which arrested the mother and son and then released them on $1,500 bail.

Laura Bush celebrates 57th birthday

CRAWFORD, Texas - For her 57th birthday on Tuesday, first lady Laura Bush received from her husband a painting by a New York artist and a goodbye kiss as the president headed to southern California to inspect fire damage.

She also received a well-wishing call from Bush's parents, former President Bush and his wife, Barbara, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

After six nights at their Texas ranch, the first lady and the president went their separate ways as they parted at the airport in Waco. Bush boarded Air Force One, bound for California, and Mrs. Bush flew separately back to Washington with the Bushes' two dogs, Spot and Barney.

The painting the president bought was by a friend, John Clem Clarke. No word from McClellan on its subject. Clarke, born in Bend, Ore., who paints out of a New York studio, is noted for his pop art, including versions of Old Masters such as Rembrandt's "Night Watch."

Upon the president's return to the capital Tuesday night, the Bushes planned a private dinner with family and friends at the White House.

On Wednesday they mark their 26th wedding anniversary. McClellan also remained mum on the plans for that event, normally observed by the Bushes in subdued style.

But Mrs. Bush was keeping busy Wednesday, with at least two events on her calendar: an East Room awards ceremony for 18 organizations from the United States and Mexico that celebrate creativity in young people and a private coffee with Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden.

On the president's public schedule for Wednesday were an Oval Office session of the president of the Congo and a signing ceremony to turn into law a legislation that bans a type of late-term abortion.

Mexico pursues missing children in custody cases

MEXICO CITY - A 14-year-old boy was reunited with his mother in central Mexico on Tuesday after he had been taken illegally by his father five years ago and moved to Baja California.

Diego Carrillo was picked up unharmed by Mexican federal police six months after his aunt Martha Olivares wrote a letter to first lady Marta Sahagun pleading her nephew be found.

Carrillo was on a list of 313 missing minors that Mexican federal police are looking for, said Pedro Penaloza, a department director at the Justice Department, at a news conference Tuesday. Many cases of missing children go unreported, he said.

"We are only touching the tip of the iceberg," Panaloza said. "We have a lot more work to do."

Carrillo was taken by his father Guillermo, a street vendor, outside his house in Cuernavaca when he was nine years old, according to Olivares.

Carrillo said he had not been mistreated by his father, and understood why he took him to Baja California in western Mexico.

"I think any father wants to be with his son," said Carrillo, holding back tears at the news conference.

Forty percent of the children on the Justice Department's missing list are believed to be in the custody of family members, Penaloza said.

"These are problems caused by family disintegration," he said.

Guillermo Carrillo is being charged with defying a court order that awarded custody of Diego to his mother. Under Mexican law, however, he cannot be charged with kidnapping and is unlikely to be sent to jail, Penaloza said.

Christabel Bielenberg, author of best-selling memoir of life in Nazi Germany, dies at 94

DUBLIN, Ireland - Christabel Bielenberg, the author of an internationally acclaimed memoir of her struggle to survive Nazi Germany, died Sunday at her family estate in rural Ireland, relatives said. She was 94.

Bielenberg's "The Past is Myself," published in 1968, became a best seller in the mid-1980s after it was turned into the British television drama "Christabel" starring Elizabeth Hurley. Her memoir recounted how her marriage to a German law student placed her on a collision course with history.

Born Christabel Burton in London in 1909, she rejected an Oxford University scholarship to study opera in Hamburg, where she met Peter Bielenberg. They married in 1934 - and she renounced her British citizenship - just as Adolf Hitler was rising to power.

In 1944, her husband, a civil servant in the Ministry of Economics, supported an unsuccessful plot by generals and government officials to assassinate Hitler. Thanks in part to her diplomatic appeals, he escaped execution and was sent to fight on the Russian front.

After the war, she worked as a correspondent for the British newspaper The Observer, he as a finance official in the first West German government.

Later they decided to move to Ireland and in 1948 bought an estate near Tullow, 60 miles southwest of Dublin.

"All our friends in Germany had been murdered by Hitler, so we left," she recalled. "I couldn't expect my German husband to live in England, which was still very anti-German. So we came to Ireland."

In 1988, she received an honorary Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit from the West German government. She wrote a sequel to her memoir, titled "The Road Ahead" and published in 1992, that described her family's transition from Germany to Ireland.

Her husband died in 2001. They were survived by three sons. Funeral arrangements were not announced.

Odds and ends

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A bunch of flowers has planted a man in jail.

All David Alan Waters had to do to stay a free man was plant 10 chrysanthemums in the yard of Minnie Becton, the 99-year-old woman whose home he vandalized in January.

Waters pleaded guilty on Sept. 22 to vandalism over $1,000, a felony, for throwing large rocks through the windows and doors of Becton's home, smashing her car windshield and gouging her yard with tire tracks.

Waters was given a two-year suspended sentence and two years of probation, provided he spiff up the yard by planting the flowers, among other provisions.

Somebody planted the flowers. Waters said he did it, but Becton claimed it was somebody else.

"There is no reason for a 99-year-old woman in a wheelchair to lie about who she saw on her property," Criminal Court Judge Carolyn Wade Blackett said in revoking Waters' probation. "This is an issue of credibility. Who has reason to lie? Mrs. Becton doesn't."

Waters stuck to his story.

"I planted these mums," he said. "She may not have remembered it. She's wrong. I was there. She was really nice when we were over there."

The judge was unmoved. Blackett on Friday ordered Waters to serve about seven months of his two-year sentence. He also has time to serve for an unrelated harassment conviction.

KERRVILLE, Texas - Christmas has arrived early in Kerr County, and some Central Texas officials say they're irritated by the early display of decorations.

Workers decorated the Kerr County Courthouse with a wire snowman and fake Christmas trees days before Halloween.

County Commissioner Buster Baldwin is pushing a policy to regulate, among other things, how early the Kerrville Christmas Lighting Corp. can display holiday decorations each fall. He says some of his constituents have called the mid-fall rollout "appalling" and "horrible."

But the volunteer decorating group said it needs to start decorating early in the fall if it wants to get the job done by Thanksgiving. All the work is done on weekends, volunteer Walter Schellhase told the San Antonio Express-News for its Friday editions.

"We used to start in September, and we've backed off," Schellhase said. "I don't think it's too early."

EVERETT, Wash. - Want to know who's in the Snohomish County Jail? Just go online.

Authorities in the county north of Seattle have begun posting a list of everyone booked into custody over the past 24 hours, along with charges and bail amounts, with updates hourly between 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., jail director Steve Thompson said.

"It is a real-time look at who's in custody, who's been booked and who's been released," he said.

The site is available to anyone, from nosey neighbors to relatives wondering why a relative is late for dinner, but was designed mostly for law enforcement agencies to cut costs, Thompson said.

For example, police can now readily determine who has been jailed for crimes committed in municipal jurisdictions other than the ones where they were arrested.

"It will save scads of time," Lynnwood Cmdr. Don Cirino said. "Instead of sending e-mails out to the prosecutor, the public defender, investigations - these huge lists - we just give them the Web address."

On the Net:

www.co.snohomish.wa.us/jail/index.htm

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Who wants to buy a Zamboni? The city of Brooklyn Park is about to find out.

A 20-year-old ice resurfacer is among the more eye-catching items on the block this Saturday at a government-sponsored auction in Arden Hills, where state and local officials will try to unload surplus or confiscated equipment.

There are dozens of cars and trucks - including a 2003 Hummer H2 with barely any miles that was seized by the Minnesota Gang Strike Force. Stereos, computers and heavy-duty tools round out a list of more than 200 items up for sale.

Brooklyn Park is letting go of the green-and-blue Zamboni because the suburb has two others to use at its hockey rinks.

The Zamboni has been used less than 10 hours in three years, said Steve Lawrence, who oversees the city equipment. "In my opinion, it is not needed."

Brooklyn Park has gotten plenty from the first Zamboni it ever owned. The city purchased the resurfacer in 1983 for $36,153, and it has the equivalent of 300,000 car miles on it. Two recent appraisals have put the machine's value between $8,000 and $15,000. But it costs the city about $1,000 a year to maintain, Lawrence said.

"I would think with the number of indoor ice arenas in Minnesota, a smaller community would be interested," said Jim Schwartz, a spokesman for the Department of Administration, which conducts about a dozen surplus property auctions each year.

Letterman, girlfriend have a baby boy

NEW YORK - David Letterman is a daddy.

Letterman's girlfriend, Regina Lasko, delivered a baby boy late Monday night. He weighed in at 9 pounds, 11 ounces and is 21 inches long, Letterman announced on his show Tuesday night.

"I could never imagine ever being a part of something that turned out this beautiful," Letterman said, according to a transcript from "Late Show," which is taped earlier in the day.

Letterman, 56, said the baby - his first child - is named after his father, Harry Joseph Letterman, who died at 57.

"So God bless dad and God bless Harry," Letterman said.

The talk show host joked: "I don't know, maybe I shouldn't have done this. First thing I took him home and dangled him over the balcony," a reference to pop star Michael Jackson briefly dangling one of his children over a balcony.

Bandleader Paul Shaffer had filled in for Letterman as host of the "Late Show" Monday night when Lasko went into labor. Tom Keaney, spokesman for Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants, said he didn't know where the baby was born.

The show Tuesday night included a Top Ten list of reasons why Letterman was excited to be a father. The No. 1 reason: There is now tangible evidence that I have had sex.

Names in the news

NEW YORK - As if being the top-ranked tennis player in the world and dating pop star Mandy Moore didn't make him enough of a celebrity, Andy Roddick will soon have his own reality show.

"The Tour" will track the 21-year-old U.S. Open champion next summer as he deals with fame, fans and fellow players.

"I am totally amped for this show," Roddick said Tuesday. "I'm just this guy who happens to play tennis, but my life has become this circus. It's a wild ride, and I've given 'The Tour' producers total access … except my bedroom - sorry, I have to draw the line somewhere!"

Moore, however, told The Associated Press last month that she wouldn't want to be the subject of any reality show, although she's a big fan of MTV's "Newlyweds," about pop singers Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson.

"My personal life is my personal life and it's behind closed doors," the 19-year-old singer-actress said. "I like watching other people, though."

Cameras will follow Roddick from May to September next year during the 2004 ATP Tour. Craig H. Shepherd, producer of the hit series "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," will pitch the show to broadcast networks this week.

Roddick also is hosting "Saturday Night Live" this weekend.

LONDON - Britney Spears has canceled plans to appear at the MTV Europe Music Awards later this week because of an illness, the cable channel said Tuesday.

The pop star returned to the United States Saturday after contracting the flu and a throat infection, said David Frossman, a spokesman for Jive Records, the New York-based label that represents Spears.

She also canceled a promotional event in Paris last week for her upcoming album "In the Zone" because she was sick, Frossman said, adding that the singer had returned to her family home in Louisiana.

He said the 21-year-old singer had planned to present one award at Thursday's MTV event in Edinburgh, Scotland.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Serena and Venus Williams traded the tennis court for a catwalk when they modeled their own fashion designs in a charity event.

Serena introduced a couture line under her label Aneres (Serena spelled backward). Her sister Venus, their half-sister Lyndrea and pop singer Brandy were among the models at a hotel Monday night.

"I just did it for Serena, otherwise I'd be way too shy," said Venus, who wore a super-short chocolate brown and beige snake print dress.

Serena culls ideas from pictures in various pop culture and fashion magazines. The 22-year-old has taken fashion design classes when she isn't playing tennis.

"I don't want to end my career and then start something," said Serena, who has been sidelined since July with a knee injury. "I like to do something while my career is still hot and I've always enjoyed designing."

Venus designed a small collection of black, red and white leather pants and jackets for Wilsons Leather stores nationwide. Like her younger sister, she has been out since July, with an abdominal injury.

"There's plenty of time after my tennis to definitely go full-time fashion, when I have arthritis and all that fun stuff," the 23-year-old said.

NEW YORK - Regina Carter, the first non-classical artist and the first black musician to play Paganini's world-famous violin, was reunited with the instrument in a concert that marked the violin's first appearance on U.S. soil in a decade.

Carter, along with her quintet and an orchestra, played a mixture of classically inspired songs and jazz tunes on the 18th-century violin at a sold-out concert at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall Monday night.

The jazz violinist first performed on the instrument, crafted by Guarneri, at its home in Genoa, Italy, in a history-making concert in 2001. Before Carter, only classical musicians had been allowed to play the violin, owned by the virtuoso Nicolo Paganini.

Carter later recorded with the violin for the album "Paganini: After A Dream," released earlier this year.

"I thought that would be the end of my dream," Carter told the audience. "But the dream continues."

The violin made the trip, along with armed guards and a police escort, so Carter could play it in New York.

She first performed with her own violin; when she brought it out, she joked that there were "no armed guards" for her instrument.

Then, after an intermission she returned with the 257-year-old Guarneri violin, holding it delicately. To illustrate why the violin was so revered, she asked an orchestra member to play her violin before playing a few notes on the Guarneri - and its sharp, booming sound was evident.

"So you know we're not making up a story," Carter joked about its sound.

Carter's performance with the violin drew a standing ovation - but she didn't need to perform on the Paganini violin to get one. The audience also stood up with extended applause when she played on her own instrument.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - A man who accepted tens of thousands of dollars for arranging speeches by celebrities allegedly neglected to give the speakers their share of the fees, stiffing an astronaut, a boxer and a former Cabinet member, prosecutors say.

Andy Rooney of "60 Minutes" says he's another victim.

Alan Walker, 65, was arraigned Monday on mail fraud charges at the federal courthouse.

According to the complaint, Walker never paid former boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch and underwater explorer Robert S. Ballard for speeches they gave, though he was paid for the speeches.

Together, the four speakers are due more than $54,000, the complaint said.

Walker's lawyer, Raymond Granger, said, "At no time did Mr. Walker intend to defraud anyone. … He looks forward to the chance to vindicate himself in court."

Rooney told The Journal News that Walker received $30,000 for a speech Rooney gave in March at Indiana State University and was supposed to pay Rooney $20,000. Rooney took a "60 Minutes" camera crew to Walker's White Plains home last summer and said he eventually received $10,000.

BANGOR, Maine - Stephen King had some good news for fans, so he delivered it in person. Sort of.

An animated "virtual" version of the horror writer appeared Monday on his Web site to announce that he'd completed the final three installments of "The Dark Tower" series, which fans have long awaited.

"People have been asking one question above all others over the past nine years: When are you going to finish `The Dark Tower'? Well, guess what - it's done. So do me a favor and spread the word," he said.

"The Gunslinger," the first "Dark Tower" book, was published in 1982, followed by "The Drawing of the Three" in 1987, "The Waste Lands" in 1991 and "Wizard and Glass" in 1997.

"Wolves of the Calla" was to go on sale Tuesday, followed by "Song of Susannah" next summer. The final installment, "The Dark Tower," will be released next November.

King said the books, published by Donald M. Grant Publisher Inc., will cost about $35 each in hard cover.

"It's steep but worth every penny," he said.

On the Net:

http://www.stephenking.com

http://www.grantbooks.com

SYDNEY, Australia - Sydney is a fitting place to be as the last installment of "The Matrix" trilogy is released this week, said Keanu Reeves, who stars as Neo in the sci-fi action thriller.

"For us to be here where we began filming in 1997, and to be here now is right," said Reeves, who's in Australia to promote "The Matrix Revolutions," the final film in the series.

Much of "The Matrix" movies were filmed in Sydney, and the city's skyline was a frequent backdrop for the shootouts in which Neo and his friends battled evil machines.

"It couldn't have been made anywhere else," said producer Joel Silver.

And it really is the final "Matrix" chapter, Silver said.

"This is it. The story of `The Matrix' was a three-part movie, it answers the questions, it ends what they (creators Andy and Larry Wachowski) set out to do," he told reporters.

Reeves said one highlight of the latest film is a showdown between Neo and Agent Smith (played by Hugo Weaving).

The scene - which involved four months of training and six weeks to shoot - takes place under a driving rain. It was difficult to even see each other, the 39-year-old actor said.

"By the end, we had fought each other so much it was like, `I don't even need to see you,"' he recalled, acting out the motions of different martial arts moves.

"The Matrix Revolutions," which co-stars Laurence Fishburne, opens Wednesday in the United States and Thursday in Australia.

LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson's custom 2001 Bentley Arnage Red Label Turbosedan, used to ferry entertainers to his Neverland Ranch and in the making of the "What More Can I Give?" charity music video, is on the auction block.

With 13,600 miles on the odometer, it's loaded with pop star upgrades: two DVD players, three flat screen video monitors, CD changer and video gaming system operational at each seat.

Performers on the music video autographed the interior ceiling. Among them were Jackson, Beyonce Knowles, Reba McEntire, Nick Carter, Shawn Stockman from Boyz II Men and Tom Petty.

"This will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for somebody to own a truly very special car," Craig Jackson, president of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Barrett-Jackson Auction Co., said recently. He declined to predict what it might bring.

Jackson's Bentley is among hundreds of collector cars on the block during the firm's annual classic car auction Jan. 21-25. Jackson is expected to be there when the Bentley goes on the block Jan. 25.

On the Net:

http://www.barrett-jackson.com

CHICAGO - Sopranos Mirella Freni and Renee Fleming, tenor Ben Heppner, and baritones Bryn Terfel and Thomas Hampson have agreed to sing at the Lyric Opera of Chicago's 50th anniversary gala next Oct. 30.

The gala's roster also includes sopranos Jane Eaglen, Elizabeth Futral, Catherine Malfitano, Karita Mattila and Andrea Rost; mezzo-sopranos Olga Borodina, Susan Graham and Frederica von Stade; basses Nicolai Ghiaurov, James Morris and Samuel Ramey; and tenors Vincenzo La Scola and Richard Margison, the company announced Monday.

Music director Andrew Davis and former music director Bruno Bartoletti will conduct.

Among those to be honored at the gala are sopranos Birgit Nilsson, Leontyne Price, Renata Tebaldi, Joan Sutherland, Regine Crespin, Evelyn Lear, Renata Scotto and Ileana Contrubas; tenors Giuseppe di Stefano, Carlo Bergonzi and Jon Vickers; and mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig.

Tickets are priced at $79 to $12,500, including tax-deductible donations, and go on sale to subscribers this month and to the public Jan. 30.

On the Net:

http://www.lyricopera.org/home.asp

FRANKLIN, Kan. - Paul Newman has made a "generous" donation to the southeast Kansas town of Franklin, which a tornado ravaged in May.

"We decided that it would be best not to give the exact figure, but it was a lovely, generous amount," resident Phyllis Bitner said recently. "We haven't earmarked the money yet for a specific project, but it will go a long way toward something."

The 78-year-old actor sent a personal check to the Franklin Community Council Inc., along with his wishes for continued success.

A tornado hit Franklin, a town of about 500 residents, on May 4, destroying about a third of the homes and leveling the community center and post office. Residents have vowed to rebuild.

Newman won a best-actor Oscar in 1987 for "The Color of Money." His other films include "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "The Hustler," "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke" and "Road to Perdition."

At professor's trial, safety officer says presence of plague samples surprised him

LUBBOCK, Texas - A lab safety officer testified Tuesday that he had immediate doubts when he heard that a Texas Tech University professor had reported 30 vials of plague samples missing.

Safety officer Michael Jones testified that Dr. Thomas Butler "didn't seem particularly disturbed. He was fairly calm and didn't seem particularly upset."

Butler, 62, faces 69 felony charges in connection with the incident that caused a bioterrorism scare earlier this year. He faces up to life in prison and $17.1 million in fines if convicted.

Butler reported in January that 30 vials of the bacteria responsible for the deadly bubonic plague were missing from a university lab, but he later admitted he had accidentally destroyed them.

Butler is accused of smuggling the bacteria from Tanzania and illegally transporting it, lying to federal agents and filing a false income tax return. Butler had listed his cargo only as "laboratory samples."

Jones said that on the day the vials were reported missing, there were no signs of forced entry into Butler's lab. Nothing appeared out of place, and Butler's demeanor seemed unusual for someone reporting potentially lethal germs missing, Jones said.

"I said, basically, 'You need to be sure in fact they are missing because it would be a big deal,"' Jones said.

Butler reported the vials stolen on Jan. 14. A frantic federal search ended when Butler gave FBI agents a statement in which he acknowledged a "misjudgment" in not telling his supervisor that the vials had been "accidentally destroyed," according to court records.

Chuck Meadows, one of Butler's defense attorneys, painted his client as a dedicated researcher who was doing plague research for the government, aiding the Centers for Disease Control, the Army and the Food and Drug Administration.

The three agencies approved of Butler's bringing plague samples into the country and transporting them around the country, Meadows said.

Butler is chief of the infectious diseases division of the department of internal medicine at the university's health sciences center. Mediation hearings have begun as part of the university's process to dismiss him.

Prosecutors alleged in opening statements that Butler reported the vials missing in retaliation for difficulties with the university's Institutional Review Board.

Rhode Island official resigns after sending profane e-mail

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The director of Rhode Island's Department of Environmental Management resigned Tuesday over a profane e-mail he sent to a fishing industry representative.

Jan Reitsma quit after meeting with Gov. Don Carcieri. "What happened is totally unacceptable in my mind," Carcieri said.

Reitsma's Oct. 31 e-mail berated Ralph Boragine, a member of the state Marine Fisheries Council, for not finishing work on an industry proposal that regulators weigh fishermen's catches of fluke less frequently. Stocks of the commercially important fish have rebounded in recent years.

The failure to finish the work "makes me puke," Reitsman wrote, following up with a profanity. Later in the message, he sarcastically called Boragine "your lordship" and suggested he quit the council.

Reitsma apologized Monday for sending the e-mail, and for its contents. He said he was defending his employees who he said had been criticized for efforts in developing fishing regulations.

"Maybe the apt metaphor is, I took the bait," he said.

Boragine did not immediately return a message left on his cell phone Tuesday.

Minting of new state-themed quarters reaches halfway point

WASHINGTON - On the road to change, the quarters are halfway there.

The U.S. Mint's 50-state quarter program, which began with Delaware and will end with Hawaii, reached the halfway mark last week with the debut of the Arkansas 25-cent piece.

Quarters are produced in the order that the states ratified the U.S. Constitution and joined the Union. The states come up with the design, which features images or themes honoring the state.

"Discovery and innovation has been the strongest theme," as seen on the North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri and other state quarters, said Henrietta Holsman Fore, director of the Mint.

Most states also have opted for an outline of their state, she said. Other themes include the land and natural beauty, state capitals, liberty, courage and music.

The state designs are on the back of the coin, while the front retains the familiar image of the nation's first president, George Washington.

Including the release of the Missouri coin, No. 24, the Mint has produced 20.8 billion state quarters since the program began in 1999.

How many quarters are minted depends on the country's overall demand for coins, Fore said.

"If the economy is strong, it increases the usage of all coins and thus there is higher demand to mint and when the economy is slow there is less demand," she said.

The three quarters with the highest mintage - Virginia, 1.59 billion, Connecticut, 1.35 billion, and South Carolina, 1.3 billion - were all made before the 2001 recession hit.

The Maine quarter has the lowest mintage, 448.8 million, followed by Missouri, 453.2 million, and Alabama, 457.4 million. All three coins were produced this year, as the economy struggled to get back on firmer footing.

In good economic times or bad, the state quarters have led to "a renaissance for coin collecting in America," Fore said.

Roughly 130 million Americans collect the state quarters, Fore said. "That represents at least one state quarter collector in every household," she added.

"Americans collect the quarters because they will be scarce. We mint a quarter for 10 weeks and 10 weeks only and we will never mint it again," she said.

The Arkansas quarter, unveiled last Tuesday, is the 25th state quarter and features the image of a diamond, rice stalks and a mallard flying above a lake. It was the last of the state quarters released in 2003.

For 2004, five state quarters are to be released: Michigan, Florida, Texas, Iowa and Wisconsin.

The state quarter program will end in 2008 with Hawaii.

The District of Columbia - which is not a state - is not slated to get a quarter of its own. Congress would have to pass legislation for that to happen, Mint spokesman Michael White said.

On the Net:

Mint: http://www.usmint.gov/

Surfing star undergoes second surgery after shark attack

LIHUE, Hawaii - The 13-year-old surfing star who lost her left arm in a shark attack last week off Kauai remained in stable condition Monday night after a second surgery.

The surgery to close and clean Bethany Hamilton's wound was successful and the girl may be able to return to her Princeville home this week, according to Lani Yukimura, the spokeswoman for Wilcox Memorial Hospital.

Hamilton was said to be resting comfortably after the hour-long surgery. But her family was dealing with a deluge of media requests. The girl's brothers appeared on NBC's "Today" on Monday, while The New York Times included a lengthy front-page report on her in their Tuesday editions.

The family said Hamilton would not be granting any interviews until further notice.

Meanwhile, friends and family of Hamilton set up a Web site, www.bethanyhamilton.com, to log her recovery.

The Web site features dozens of photos of blond Bethany surfing, including one that was taken a week before the shark attack. It also has donation information and Bethany's e-mail address.

"She wants to surf again, she wants to try snowboarding," her brother, Noah Hamilton, said on "Today." "She's tough."

Hamilton was attacked Friday in an area known as Tunnels, a quarter-mile off Makua Beach near Haena. Her arm, bit off near the shoulder, was not recovered and officials said the shark has not been spotted again.

State wildlife experts estimated the tiger shark to be around 14 feet long, based on the massive chunk taken out of Bethany's surf board.

Bethany was a competitive surfer who already had secured sponsorships and was expected to go pro, according to the Hanalei Surf Online Web site.

In August, she won the explorer women's division of the National Scholastic Surfing Association's Open and Explorer event on Kauai. In May, she won the women's division at the Local Motion-Ezekiel Surf Into Summer contest at Ala Moana on Oahu, beating out older surfers.

The shark attack was Hawaii's fourth this year. The last shark attack was Oct. 5, when a woman was bitten while swimming near Kihei on Maui, officials said.

On the Net:

http://www.bethanyhamilton.com/

Father of shark attack victim was bumped from hospital bed by daughter

LIHUE, Hawaii - The father of a 13-year-old surfing star who lost her arm in a shark attack was already at the hospital when the girl was brought in - he was moments away from having knee surgery.

Tom Hamilton immediately thought of his daughter when a doctor told him he was being moved from the operating room to make way for a surfer who was bitten by a shark.

"Oh, God, please. Not my daughter," he told Dr. David Rovinsky, who started to cry and confirmed that Bethany Hamilton was the victim.

A tiger shark believed to be about 14 feet long attacked the girl Friday. She arrived at the hospital with a surfboard leash wrapped around what was remained of her left arm, which was torn off near the shoulder.

The young surfer remained in stable condition Tuesday. She could go home this week, a spokeswoman for Wilcox Memorial Hospital said.

Bethany was a competitive surfer who already had secured sponsorships and was expected to go pro, according to the Hanalei Surf Online Web site.

The shark attack was Hawaii's fourth this year. The most recent was Oct. 5 when a woman was bitten while swimming near Kihei on Maui, officials said.

On the Net:

http://www.bethanyhamilton.com

Al Sharpton to host Saturday Night Live on Dec. 6

WASHINGTON - Democrat Al Sharpton, whose one-liners and pointed rhetoric have added laughs to the presidential campaign, will host "Saturday Night Live" next month.

Sharpton will host the Dec. 6 show, which also will feature Pink as the musical guest. It could be a natural fit for the preacher, who often uses humor to promote his long-shot candidacy and is known to crack up his rivals during debates.

"He said he was actually - for the first time - nervous," said Sharpton spokeswoman Rachel Noerdlinger.

Other political figures who have appeared on the show include Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, Jesse Jackson and former Vice President Al Gore.

Although none of Sharpton's rivals for the Democratic nomination have been on, at least three have been depicted. Actors playing John Kerry, John Edwards and Joe Lieberman courted a real Gore for the vice presidency during Gore's appearance on the show last year.

On the Net: www.al2004.org

Insurance group estimates annual costs of deer-related traffic accidents

WASHINGTON - Some 150 people die each year in more than 1.5 million traffic accidents involving collisions with deer, according to an insurance industry-funded report released Tuesday that puts the economic damage at $1.1 billion.

The study relied on federal and state records as well as academic studies on the issue to develop the national estimates. Researchers hired by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety to produce the report said theirs was the first to look at the accidents nationwide.

"People ask what can motorists do. In a lot of cases, not very much, because they just come flying out at you," said Allan Williams, an institute researcher who worked with a representative of Highway Safety North of Ithaca, N.Y., and two deer experts from Cornell University.

The report focuses on steps by local governments to reduce accidents and recommends fences and reducing deer herds as the most effective ways of keeping the animals off the roads.

The study notes frequent public opposition to herd reduction plans and says that fencing can be costly to maintain and disruptive to natural deer behavior.

Highway reflectors, high-pitched whistles, signs and other methods to prevent collisions show mixed results, the report says.

Wisconsin's Transportation Department relies heavily on driver education to limit deer accidents, and last week, at the start of deer mating season, announced a new program.

"The one thing we can try to influence is motorist behavior, to get motorists to understand there is a hazard," agency spokesman Dennis Hughes said. "That being said, people still hit them."

Already this year, seven people on motorcycles have died in collisions with deer, he said.

The government's auto safety agency, which records the cause of death in each vehicle accident, determined that about 154 people die each year from crashes involving wildlife.

The insurance report relied on state studies from Michigan and Minnesota to estimate that more than 90 percent of wildlife accidents are caused by deer.

Researchers reviewed studies from 1995 and 1997 in a publication by The Wildlife Society, a nonprofit scientific and education association, to estimate the annual number and cost of deer-related accidents.

The insurance group updated those figures by comparing them with a University of Wisconsin study this year that accounted for deer accidents in the upper Midwest.

In survey of skinflints, New Hampshire still least-generous state

CONCORD, N.H. - New Hampshire is holding tightly to its distinction as the stingiest state, according to an annual index of charitable giving.

For the last three of five years, New Hampshire has been at the bottom of the "Generosity Index," which compares what residents of each state earn and how much they give. New Hampshire surrendered the miserly title to Rhode Island the other two years.

New Hampshire residents donated $462 million, an average of about $2,400 per taxpayer, according to The Catalogue for Philanthropy. That looks especially stingy considering the state's relative wealth. Its average income of $51,000 is eighth-highest in the country, while its average giving ranks 48th.

By comparison, Mississippi, the most generous state, had an average income of $34,000 - the lowest in the country. But residents still gave enough to match the national average of $3,500 a person.

The index reflects itemized charitable donations reported on 2001 federal tax returns, the latest available.

New Hampshire's New England neighbors - Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut and Maine - are all among the 20 least generous states.

By comparison, Bible Belt states like Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and South Carolina are all among the top 10.

The regional difference has been attributed to the Southern Christian practice of tithing - giving a tenth of your income to the church.

But Deborah Schachert, the director of Giving New Hampshire, is skeptical. Her program was founded in 2000 to promote and increase philanthropy in the state.

"There are no simple answers. We're talking about a profound change over time in the culture of giving across the whole state," she said.

The Catalogue for Philanthropy is a Needham, Mass.-based nonprofit that publishes a directory of nonprofit organizations. The organization created the index seven years ago.

This year's rankings reveal how Americans responded to the economic turndown, spokesman Marty Cohn said.

Overall, the country's average adjusted gross income fell 3 percent from 2000 to 2001, but itemized charitable donations fell more quickly, by 4 percent. Some states responded with increased charitable giving; others reduced it.

Hawaiians, for example, saw their income decline 1.1 percent, but increased giving by 4.7 percent. In Nebraska, income fell 2.8 percent and giving fell 17.4 percent, the sharpest decline.

In New Hampshire, income fell 6.5 percent and giving declined 12.3 percent.

On the Net:

The Catalogue for Philanthropy: www.catalogueforphilanthropy.org

Giving New Hampshire: www.givingnh.org

When is 'The Matrix'?

LOS ANGELES - What is the Matrix?

That's an old question. The real head-scratcher is:

When is the Matrix?

Using background culled from the three movies and "Animatrix" shorts, The Associated Press compiled an estimated timeline of the war between men and machines:

2010-60 - Humans create humanoid drone robots with Artificial Intelligence to fill jobs as construction laborers and servants.

2069 - The hovercraft transport ship Nebuchadnezzar, later to be captained by Morpheus, is constructed in the United States.

2075 - AI programs evolve and some robots began to resent their human overlords.

2077 - In the first case of a machine rising up against its owners, the butler robot B166ER slaughters two humans, leading to B166ER's eradication and a backlash against robots and artificial intelligence.

2080-85 - Rioting and violence against machines prompts robots to flee major cities and establish their own community - known as Zero One - in a remote part of the Middle East.

2085-2095- Zero One thrives, creating superior vehicles, computers and weaponry and decimating the economies of many human nations, which now lack the machine-based labor that made them strong.

2096- United Nations officials refuse to accept the robot civilization of Zero One as a sovereign nation. A trade blockade of robot goods leads to war.

2097 - Zero One survives a nuclear attack - its inhabitants are impervious to the heat and radiation and casualties are quickly replaced. Counterstrikes launched against humans.

2098 - As cities fall beneath the might of mechanized forces, desperate military leaders attempt to block the main source of energy for the robot city: the sun. The plan destroys the atmosphere and fills the sky with choking black smoke - but does not stop the machines.

2099- Machine forces overtake human armies and capture survivors and civilians for experimentation, determining that human bio-electricity can be harnessed to replace the sun's energy.

2100 - Machines create the Matrix, a dream-like world set in 1999, to extend the lives of the comatose human batteries.

2105 - The first human known as The One, locked in bondage inside the Matrix, learns he can manipulate the world through thought and manages to break free. Seeks sanctuary in the underground human stronghold of Zion.

2105-2150 - Zion resistance movement created, although The One later dies under unexplained circumstances.

2161 - Morpheus born in a Matrix womb; freed in childhood.

2167 - Trinity born in a Matrix womb; freed in early childhood.

2175 - The Oracle prophesizes that Morpheus will discover the second coming of The One.

2199 - Trinity and Morpheus discover Neo, a hacker in the Matrix. They free him and do battle with Agent Smith, a program designed to rid the Matrix of humans who detect its flaws.

2201 - The Osiris, another human rebellion ship, discovers machines drilling through the Earth above Zion. Crew members send a message through the Matrix to their compatriots shortly before being destroyed.

2201 - Now living in Zion and working with the rebellion against the machines, Neo encounters The Architect, the artificial intelligence program that created the Matrix.

2201 -The Architect reveals that the Matrix places rebellious humans in Zion, which it then targets for destruction, thus eradicating "bugs" in its system. He states that Zion has been destroyed five previous times - suggesting the Matrix may be much older than he thinks.

Robert Blake's criminal lawyer subject of court hearing

BURBANK - The criminal lawyer for Robert Blake will be the subject of a hearing next month to determine if he should be fined and sanctioned for alleged "unethical conduct" during a January deposition of the actor, according to court documents.

Eric J. Dubin, who represents the children of Blake's slain wife in a civil wrongful death lawsuit, claimed that criminal lawyer Thomas Mesereau Jr. defied court orders by ordered Blake to remain silent during a January deposition in the civil case. A hearing scheduled for Dec. 4 will determine if Mesereau should be fined $36,075 and found in contempt of court.

Blake, 70, is awaiting trial on charges of shooting Bonny Lee Bakley, 44, to death in his car near a Studio City restaurant where they had just dined in May 2001.

Bakley's adult children sued Blake for wrongful death, which led to the unusual civil deposition being held in advance of Blake's criminal trial.

Dubin contends that Mesereau violated a December 2002 court order that stated witnesses must comply with their duty to answer questions. Mesereau also falsely stated that he was at the deposition by a court order, court documents said.

A telephone call made to Mesereau shortly after business hours Tuesday was not immediately returned.

When Mesereau ordered him to stay silent during the deposition, Blake contested. Blake stopped talking, however, after Mesereau threatened to resign on the spot unless Blake stopped talking.

Mesereau also described the deposition as a "clown show" and a "circus," according to court documents.

In another development, the law firm Goldman & Kagon, which had been representing Blake in the civil case, has withdrawn and has been replaced by Staychia R. Sena, an Irvine attorney.

A substitution of attorney document was signed by Blake and filed last week with the court.