LOS ANGELES - Relatives of the victims in the Simpson slayings case are lashing out at the planned publication of a book by O.J. Simpson in which he discusses how he would have committed the killings of his ex-wife and her friend "if I did it."

"He destroyed my son and took from my family Ron's future and life. And for that I'll hate him always and find him despicable," Fred Goldman said in an interview broadcast Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The book, "If I Did It," is being published by ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. It goes on sale Nov. 30. Fox, which like Harper Collins is owned by News Corp., is airing a two-part TV interview of Simpson on Nov. 27 and 29.

Denise Brown, sister of Nicole Brown Simpson, accused publisher Judith Regan of "promoting the wrongdoing of criminals" and commercializing abuse.

She added: "It's unfortunate that Simpson has decided to awaken a nightmare that we have painfully endured and worked so hard to move beyond."

Regan refused to say what Simpson is being paid for the book, which is being offered for $16.47. She said he came to her with the idea.

"This is an historic case, and I consider this his confession," Regan told The Associated Press.

In a brief promotional clip from the interview posted on Fox's Web site, Simpson, says, "I don't think any two people could be murdered without everybody being covered in blood."

He is also seen setting aside a copy of a book he is reading from and saying, "I can't do no more of this." Neither the title of the book nor the context for his statements was provided.

Simpson did not return numerous calls for comment. Simpson's own attorney Yale Galanter said he did not know about the book or the interview until this week.

Simpson was acquitted in 1995 of murder in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman after a trial that became a cultural flashpoint and a source of racial tension. He was later found liable for the deaths in a wrongful-death suit filed by the Goldman family but has failed to pay the $33.5 million judgment.

His National Football League pension and his Florida home cannot legally be seized. He and the families of the victims have wrangled over the money in court for years.

The families could go after the proceeds from the book's sales to pay off the judgment. But one legal analyst said there are ways to get around that requirement - such as having proceeds not go directly to Simpson.

"Clever lawyering can get you a long way," said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola University law school professor and former federal prosecutor who has followed the case closely.

As explosive as the interview or book may be, the criminal justice system's protection against double jeopardy means Simpson's book should not expose him to any new criminal charges, she said.

"He's snubbing his finger to the system, to the community again," Goldman's sister, Kim Goldman, told CNN's Larry King Live. "He's telling us one more time, 'I'm gonna continue to get away with killing your family members and I'm not gonna honor the judgment and look at me, ha, ha, ha."'

On the Net:

http://www.fox.com/oj

Italian mayor: Cruise and Holmes to marry in castle in Scientology ceremony

By: Associated Press -

ROME - Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes will likely wed Saturday in a Scientology ceremony held at a 15th-century Italian castle in a lakeside town near Rome, the town's mayor said Thursday.

The wedding party, along with guests, are then expected to attend a banquet the same day in Rome, Bracciano Mayor Patrizia Riccioni said.

For weeks rumors have focused on Odescalchi Castle in the sleepy town of Bracciano as the likely venue for the celebrity wedding. Riccioni told a news conference Thursday she had met the couple the day before somewhere outside of her town, but she would not say where.

She was coy about other details, too, saying only that she expected the couple to arrive Saturday morning at the castle, which overlooks Lake Bracciano, for what she believed would be a Scientology wedding ceremony, followed by a banquet. She said she expected the couple to return to the Italian capital the same day.

Cruise and Holmes have been staying this week at a luxury hotel near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

"I want to thank Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes for choosing this venue for such an important event," Riccioni said.

While she stopped short of confirming the actual date of the wedding, the town's Web site late Thursday had a picture of Cruise and Holmes under the headline, "The wedding of the year in Bracciano, Saturday, 18 November 2006."

In the Italian capital, meanwhile, Cruise and Holmes held a dinner at a small restaurant near the Spanish Steps, drawing several hundred fans and curious people hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars.

The area immediately surrounding Nino restaurant was cordoned off, and private security officials crowded the area.

The restaurant owner's daughter, Francesca Luti, told TG Sky 24 news channel that Cruise was "a regular," and that the evening's menu included some of the actor's favorite dishes - gnocchi, several types of pasta, ravioli with truffles and artichokes.

Those spotted going into the restaurant included "Mission Impossible III" director, J.J. Abrams, Brooke Shields and Jennifer Lopez. Lopez's husband, singer Marc Anthony, briefly stepped out to smoke a cigarette.

Bracciano's mayor said she had given the couple a small silver sculpture of the castle as a gift, and photographs posted on the town's Web site late Thursday showed it was engraved with the word Bracciano and Saturday's date.

The congratulatory card that went with it read: "A sincere note in sign of gratitude from the city of Bracciano, for having chosen it as the place where to crown your dream of love."

Riccioni said she would like to give them honorary citizenship "because they have brought so much to our little village."

"When we met, they seemed to me to be far more normal people than what I believed. I think all this secrecy depends on them wanting to keep their marriage private and intimate," the mayor said, sparking laughter in the room filled with the journalists who have been trying for days to find clues about how the wedding will be held.

The Hollywood stars' late-Wednesday visit to Rome City Hall caused a flurry of speculation that they were getting a marriage license, but the city hall said Thursday it was only a courtesy visit to the mayor, a big movie buff.

As of midday Thursday, the Bracciano Town Hall was insisting it had not received any request to celebrate the wedding, but preparations for a party appeared to be under way at the castle.

The Bracciano Town Hall said, however, that the mayor would not need much time to prepare for a civil ceremony if the necessary papers were presented before Saturday.

To obtain a marriage license, U.S. citizens planning to marry in Italy must present specific documents - including their passports, birth certificates and an affidavit that there is no impediment to their marriage. Because the documents need to be translated into Italian and certified, the process is generally time consuming.

A spokesman for the Church of Scientology for Rome said they had not been contacted about the Cruise-Holmes wedding. Cruise belongs to the Church of Scientology.

"If they're getting married with these rites, it won't be with a minister from the Rome church, so I would imagine that they would bring their own," spokesman Fabrizio D'Agostino said.

D'Agostino said an exchange of vows with a Scientology rite was not legally recognized in Italy, and would have to be preceded or followed by a civil union.

Meanwhile, Katie Holmes' parents arrived in the Italian capital on Thursday. They had been traveling with about a half dozen people, and were whisked away in a van that had been waiting outside Rome's small Ciampino airport.

Cruise and Holmes, who have been staying at the Hassler hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps, met Holmes' parents at the nearby St. Regis Grand Hotel, where they stayed for about an hour before returning to the Hassler.

Jim Carrey, Lopez and Anthony and Brooke Shields also arrived Thursday.

Shields and Cruise had a public argument last year after the "Mission: Impossible III" star, echoing the position of the Scientology church, publicly criticized Shields' use of antidepressants after the birth of her first daughter. He said during a U.S. television appearance that depression could be treated with exercise and vitamins rather than drugs.

But the two appeared to have made up, and Shields said in September that Cruise had apologized to her in person.

Cruise and Holmes were first photographed together in Rome in April 2005. They became engaged in June 2005 and are the parents of a daughter, Suri, who was born April 18.

Cruise flew into Rome on Monday with an entourage of 10.

Tornado kills at least 8 in N.C. amid storm system blamed for 12 deaths across South

RIEGELWOOD, N.C. (AP) - A tornado flipped cars, shredded trees and ripped mobile homes to pieces in this little riverside community early Thursday, killing at least eight people, authorities said.

The disaster brought the two-day death toll from a devastating line of thunderstorms that swept across the South to 12.

Kip Godwin, chairman of the Columbus County Commission in North Carolina, said authorities had concluded their search of the area where the eight deaths occurred - a cluster of mobile homes and an adjacent neighborhood of brick homes - and had accounted for everyone.

Twelve people were hospitalized, including four children in critical condition, hospital officials sai.

The storms, which began Wednesday, unleashed tornadoes and straight-line winds that overturned mobile homes and tractor-trailers, uprooted trees and knocked down power lines across the South.

In Louisiana, a man died Wednesday when a tornado struck his home. In South Carolina, a utility worker checking power lines Thursday during the storm was electrocuted. In North Carolina, two people died in car crashes as heavy rain pounded the state, dropping as much as five inches in some areas.

Off the coast, a Coast Guard helicopter lowered a pump to a fishing boat that was taking on water in 15-foot seas about 50 miles from Charleston. One crewman was aboard the 34-foot boat, which the Coast Guard escorted back to land.

The tornado that struck Riegelwood - situated on the Cape Fear River about 20 miles west of Wilmington - hit shortly after 6:30 a.m.

"There was no warning. There was no time," said Cissy Kennedy, a radiologist's assistant who lives in the area. "It just came out from nowhere."

As many as 40 mobile homes were damaged before the tornado crossed a highway and leveled three brick homes. About 100 people were left homeless, and dozens planned to sleep at a shelter established at a nearby elementary school. At least two of the dead were children, Columbus County Sheriff Chris Batten said.

Household debris, including carpet and a laundry basket, was scattered along a road. The storm dumped a minivan in a ditch, and an open refrigerator that still had food inside was filled with rainwater.

County Commissioner Sammie Jacobs said that four to five mobile homes were demolished, and that there were "houses on top of cars and cars on top of houses."

"We've stepped across bodies to get to debris and search for other bodies here this morning," Jacobs said.

The storm knocked out power to 45,000 customers in North Carolina. But the electricity was back on in most places by mid-afternoon.

The storm also caused minor flooding in the Washington area, where rescuers grabbed several people stranded in their vehicles, and slowed commuters as far north as Newark, N.J.

Carrying fish in his luggage? What a croc

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - A Filipino man who flew home from Cambodia said he was carrying live fish in his carryon luggage, until a check at Manila airport revealed three 1.5-foot-long crocodiles, officials said.

The head of the Manila International Airport Authority said Wednesday it wasn't clear how Enrique Yu Castillo, 50, was able to carry the Siamese crocodiles from Phnom Penh to Singapore to Manila on Monday night.

The crocodiles are on an endangered species list and their importation is prohibited, airport manager Alfonso Cusi said in a statement.

He said charges were being readied against Castillo, while the reptiles were turned over to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Castillo had earlier sought a permit to import the exotic animals but his application was denied, said Teddy Aguir, from the environment department's Wildlife Traffic Monitoring unit at the airport.

Protective mom, daughters storm classroom

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - A student's call for help to his mom may have gotten him more parental involvement than he bargained for.

Police said Inez Horne, 45, was arrested Wednesday after she, two daughters and a family friend stormed a classroom to defend her 15-year-old son, who had called home to say he was afraid another student was planning to attack him.

"The mom decided to show up at school and take matters into her own hands," said Police Officer Robert Fey.

Police Sgt. Randy Haigler said the incident unfolded Wednesday morning after Horne's son called to tell her he was being threatened.

"They arrived on campus, they didn't check into the office, they went directly to the classroom and started to assault a 16-year-old student," Haigler said.

Horne was charged with misdemeanor trespassing. Daughters Keisha Horne, 19, and Marquitta McNair, 18, were charged with misdemeanor trespassing, simple assault and carrying concealed weapons - Horne a knife, McNair a box cutter - according to arrest records. A boyfriend to one of the daughters was also charged with misdemeanor trespassing.

"From our perspective, it just makes a tough job even tougher when parents aren't part of the solution," school spokeswoman Nora Carr said.

Horse bites, head-butts real estate agent

BEDFORD, Ind. (AP) - Real estate can be a tough business. But sometimes it's a real beast, Erika McKinney has learned.

McKinney won a trip to the hospital when a horse bit her and knocked her into a tree during a property showing Friday.

McKinney and her client were standing by a fence at the property in rural Bedford, about 65 miles south of Indianapolis, when the horse leaned over and bit McKinney's hand, then head-butted her into a tree.

McKinney, who suffered bruises to her hand and chest, was treated and released from a local hospital.

"We were just kind of standing there and the horse just kind of pulled its head back and reared her in the chest," said Diana Ritter, McKinney's client. "We were both worried that it would come over that fence. I love horses, but that one, I don't know about. It had some sort of problem."

The county animal control officer is investigating the attack.

McKinney, who owns three horses and a pony, wasn't deterred by either attack.

"She kept going after all of it," Ritter said.

Sergio downgraded to Category 1 hurricane

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Hurricane Sergio weakened to a Category 1 hurricane Thursday, soaking areas of Mexico's Pacific coast with rain, but posing no immediate threat to land.

Sergio, the 10th hurricane of the year in the eastern Pacific, had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, and was centered about 385 miles southeast of the port city of Manzanillo, the U.S. Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Sergio was moving north at about 6 mph, a direction that was expected to continue for the next 12 to 24 hours. The hurricane, which became a Category 2 storm Wednesday with maximum high winds of 110 mph, was dumping rain on a long stretch of the Pacific coast from Manzanillo south to Puerto Angel, the center said.

Hurricane force winds extended outward up to 15 miles from the center, and tropical storm-force winds extend outward up to 115 miles.

"We're still predicting that it is going to remain offshore of Mexico and parallel to the coast for the next two to four days," forecaster Michelle Mainelli said. She said Sergio was then expected to weaken to a tropical storm, but that was "still up in the air, so we're urging all residents to keep an eye on what develops."

Idaho town founded by Quakers asks residents to keep guns to protect against disaster refugees

GREENLEAF, Idaho (AP) - After seeing the chaos of Hurricane Katrina, a city councilor in this tiny Idaho town founded by pacifist Quakers came up with a novel idea. - Ordinance 208, passed by the City Council on Tuesday, asks Greenleaf's 862 residents who do not object on religious or other grounds to keep a gun at home in case they are overrun by refugees from disasters like Katrina.

"This is not an 'it'll never happen here kind of thing,"' said Steven Jett, the ordinance's sponsor. "We could get refugees."

In this town about 35 miles west of Boise near the Oregon line - where an estimated 80 percent of the adults already own guns - the proposal hardly caused a stir: It went through weeks of public hearings and drew only mild criticism from the pastor of the town's Quaker meeting house.

But in the six weeks since Jett first introduced the ordinance, national media have flocked to the story.

Jay Leno ribbed Greenleaf in his monologue. Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" telephoned, no doubt to exploit Idaho's reputation as wild woodland where mountain men shop for groceries with a rifle slung over a camouflage jacket.

Jett, whose father died in a hunting accident, said the ordinance is designed to enable residents to protect themselves, but it also gives the city a better platform from which to promote gun safety.

"The fact that Greenleaf supports the Second Amendment, we'll be able to keep the crime rate down," he said.

The thing is, Greenleaf doesn't really have crime. At least as most cities define it. The most violent offense reported in the past two years was a fist fight.

Still, Jett insists, the menace of high crime may be on the horizon.

Greenleaf is on the western fringe of Canyon County, a fast-growing suburb of Boise. As developers turn alfalfa rows into tract housing and hay bales into big box stores, Jett wants newcomers to know that criminals will not be "comfortable" in Greenleaf.

"We don't have a crime problem," he said. "But this area is going to grow and we're going to keep it that way."

Pastor Alan Weinacht originally opposed the ordinance because it conflicted with the Quaker teaching of nonviolence. Based on an unenforced 1982 law in Kennesaw, Ga., it originally require all homeowners to own and "maintain a firearm."

"It made owning a gun a basis of good citizenship," Weinacht said. "I don't know. It just seems we're slipping as a society into a culture of fear."

But then Weinacht, who owns several shotguns and rifles for hunting and target shooting, discussed the law with Jett. Jett softened the language and allowed for personal or religious exemptions.

On Tuesday, Weinacht, one of four residents to attend the council meeting, announced his support. "I want to be a team player," he told the mayor and four council members.

With that, the council approved the ordinance, with Councilor Clovis Strange joking that it had become "gutless."

Mayor Brad Holton, who owns about 25 rifles, laughed at the fact that Greenleaf's gun law had been put the town into the national media spotlight.

Police say Kansas man shoots self in groin during kidnapping attempt

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - A botched kidnapping ended with one of the assailants shooting himself in the groin, police said.

The man had just stuck the gun in his waistband when it fired, shooting him in the left testicle, authorities said. He cringed, causing the gun to fire again and strike him in the left calf, they said.

The 23-year-old man managed to walk into a hospital for treatment. He and his two alleged accomplices, ages 18 and 20, were arrested on attempted kidnapping charges. They were accused of trying to kidnap a teenager in a dispute over stereo speakers.

Despite some recoveries, more maps missing from Boston library

BOSTON (AP) - Three dozen antique maps worth about $1 million are still missing from the Boston Public Library from books and atlases used by a dealer convicted of stealing rare maps from libraries in five cities. Thirty-four of the library's maps have already been recovered. - Library officials released a detailed list of the missing documents to map dealers Wednesday, in case they show up on the market.

"We'll shine the bright light and see if some of these things out there can find their way home," Bernard Margolis, president of the Boston Public Library, told The Boston Globe.

The books containing the missing maps were used by E. Forbes Smiley III, a rare maps dealer with a home on Martha's Vineyard. In September, Smiley was sentenced in federal court in New Haven, Conn., to three years in prison for stealing nearly 100 rare maps worth about $3 million from libraries in five cities, including Boston, New York and London.

Smiley helped investigators recover many of the maps, stolen over eight years, including 34 that will be returned to Boston Public Library. At the time, U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor said Smiley's help led to the recovery of all but six maps and recommended a reduced sentence.

Other institutions, including Harvard and Yale Universities and the New York Public Library, have also said they are missing more maps than were recovered during the Smiley investigation.

Of the maps stolen from the Boston Public Library, a 1613 rendering of New France by Samuel de Champlain is thought to be the most significant because of its rarity and age. The library's curator, Ronald Grim, said there are likely just a handful of copies of the engraving.

Man pleads guilty to 'airlift scam', claiming ill loved one needed money for helicopter lift

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. (AP) - A man pleaded guilty to stealing about $40,000 by telling people over the phone that a member of their family was critically ill and asking them to wire him money to transport their loved one by helicopter.

Billy John Edwards, 44, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Macomb County Circuit Court to a charge of running a criminal enterprise. He was accused of operating a nationwide "airlift scam" in which he and alleged accomplices stole about $40,000 from 28 people across the country.

The offense carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

In exchange for the plea, a second count of the same charge and a habitual offender charge will be dismissed. Under a sentencing agreement, he will be sentenced to 10 to 20 years.

"The victims are pleased with this resolution," assistant prosecutor Kim Mitseff said.

Police use stun gun on student w-ho wouldn't show ID at UCLA library, refused to leave

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A UCLA police officer shocked a student with a stun gun at a campus library after he refused repeated requests to show student identification and wouldn't leave, police said.

The student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, was shocked Tuesday at about 11 p.m. as police did a routine check of student IDs at the University of California, Los Angeles Powell Library computer lab.

"This is a long-standing library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late-night hours," said UCLA Police Department spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein.

She said police tried to escort Tabatabainejad, 23, out of the library after he refused to provide identification. Tabatabainejad instead encouraged others at the library to join his resistance, and when a crowd began to gather, police used the stun gun on him, Greenstein said.

Tabatabainejad was arrested for resisting and obstructing a police officer and later released on his own recognizance. He declined to comment Wednesday night.

The incident was recorded on another student's camera phone and showed Tabatabainejad screaming while on the floor of the computer lab. It was the third incident in a month in which police behavior in the city was criticized after amateur video surfaced. The other two involved the Los Angeles Police Department.

Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams promised an investigation.

"The safety of our campus community is of paramount importance to me," Abrams said in a statement.

Chemical leaking from semitrailer at truck stop shuts interstate, causes breathing problems

LOWELL, Ind. (AP) - A chemical leaking from a tractor-trailer at a truck stop shut down a stretch of Interstate 65 for nearly six hours Thursday after five people complained of breathing problems. - About 17 miles of the north-south route were closed in both directions in northwest Indiana while workers neutralized the chemical, which authorities feared could cause an explosion or a large gas cloud, said Mike Higgins, a spokesman for the Lake County Sheriff's Department.

There was a danger of explosion or a large gas cloud, Higgins said.

The highway shutdown came about nine hours after the first reports of gas leaking from the trailer near Lowell, Higgins said. The truck had been hauling 40,000 pounds of sodium hydrosulfite, and some of the dry chemical apparently spilled from one of the trailer's containers and mixed with rainwater, Higgins said.

The water turned the chemical into a gas, Higgins said.

A police officer who moved truck drivers away from the cloud was among five people treated for respiratory discomfort, Higgins said.

Sodium hydrosulfite is flammable and can ignite on contact with moisture such as rain, said Dan Miller, a hazardous materials chemist at Purdue University in West Lafayette. The chemical is an irritant but not toxic and is used primarily in research, he said.

Atlantic City officials take step toward smoking ban in casinos, exempted by state law

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - Casinos that helped push through an exemption to a new statewide smoking ban may have to start clearing the air anyway.

The City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to introduce a proposal to eliminate smoking in all public places, including gambling floors at the city's 13 casinos.

A final vote could take place late next month, and the measure could take effect as soon as January if approved and signed by the mayor.

City Councilman Bruce Ward, a health care lawyer and a co-sponsor of the proposal, said he "became inspired by the cause" while attending a recent anti-smoking rally.

"People were giving their testimony about their lives and how their lives were impacted. Legislation at the state level takes a long time," he said. "Meanwhile, we have a health hazard that continues."

At the time the state law was passed, lawmakers said they lacked the votes to get a smoking ban through the Legislature without exempting casinos - but they did add a provision allowing cities to craft tougher rules of their own. Cigar bars and simulcast racing sites also are exempt from the state law, which took effect in April.

Representatives of the Casino Association of New Jersey did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.

Former garbage man convicted of 2002 murder of fashion writer on Cape Cod

BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) - A garbage man was convicted Thursday of rape and murder in the slaying of a fashion writer who was found beaten and stabbed in her Cape Cod home, her 2-year-old daughter clinging to her body.

Christopher McCowen, 34, received the automatic sentence of life in prison without parole for the 2002 killing of Christa Worthington, 46.

"I never meant for this to ever take place," said McCowen, who thanked the judge and court officers for showing him respect during the six-week trial. "Your honor, all I can say is I'm an innocent man in this case."

McCowen, who worked in the small town of Truro where Worthington lived, initially denied having any physical contact with her. After police told him his DNA had been found on her body, McCowen said they had consensual sex and he had beaten her. But he said a friend plunged the knife through her chest.

"We put the boots to her," McCowen said, according to police. The friend was never charged.

McCowen cried as the jury came into the courtroom, and his attorney, Robert George, wiped away tears with the sleeve of his suit coat. McCowen bowed and shook his head "no" as the verdict was read.

"People ask about closure, but there will never be closure because Christa is never coming back to us," said her cousin Mary Worthington, who read a statement before sentencing.

Defense attorney Robert George reminded the jury that police had focused on Worthington's former boyfriends before finally arresting McCowen nearly 3.5 years after the crime.

George said police decided Worthington was raped because they could not believe that McCowen - a black, uneducated garbage man - could have had consensual sex with Worthington, a white, sophisticated woman who worked for years as a fashion writer in New York and Paris.

"The black man didn't get justice; I really believe that," said McCowen's friend, Janice Randall.

George also said police failed to seriously consider a report from a neighbor who said he saw a white man driving a dark-colored van or truck speeding out of Worthington's driveway about 12 hours after police believe she was killed.

The jury reported itself deadlocked after a week of deliberations. Then it was forced to start over on Tuesday when the judge removed a juror who had been recorded talking about the case to her jailed boyfriend.

One juror cried as the verdict was read, and she bit her lip and her voice quivered as she said "guilty" when polled by the court officer. Jurors jointly issued a statement saying they did not yet want to speak publicly about the case.

Although the friend McCowen named was never charged, the jurors were instructed they could find McCowen guilty of murder even if they believed the friend actually killed Worthington, as long as they concluded both men participated.

Police search for gunman after 5 people are shot, 2 fatally, on Detroit's west side

DETROIT (AP) - Two men are suspected of shooting five people in the span of 10 minutes Thursday morning, killing two of them and wounding the others before fleeing on foot, police said. - All the shootings were in a three- to four-block area on the city's west side, Detroit police spokesman James Tate said. Police were searching for the gunmen and were questioning one person late Thursday, Detroit police spokeswoman Yvette Walker said.

Killed were Arthur James Smith, 49, and Othelia Fry, 58, both of Detroit, Walker said.

Fry was shot as she sat in a vehicle in front of a day care facility, Tate said. There were no children at the day care at the time, and the shooting didn't appear to be related to the facility, he said.

Smith and a man identified by the Detroit Free Press as Elton Ash, 51, were shot minutes later about a block away. Shortly afterward, Dennis Anderson, 49, was wounded in his back yard and James L. Brown, 50, also was shot, the newspaper reported on its Web site.

The three wounded men were hospitalized Thursday with injuries that police said were not considered life-threatening.

The shootings occurred along or near Linwood Street, a busy, four-lane road that runs through blocks of old homes. The area around the shooting scene is lined with liquor stores, empty lots, a church, gas stations and abandoned buildings.

Tate described the suspects as young men, one wearing a hooded sweat shirt and the other in a dark coat. He said police had not established a motive.

As Solzhenitsyn nears 88, initial volumes put out in Russia of his complete works

MOSCOW (AP) - Alexander Solzhenitsyn's wife on Thursday presented the initial three volumes of the first full collection of his works to be published in Russia, a country still struggling with the legacy of the oppressive era he documented.

It was a cherished moment for the aging Nobel laureate, who has been through prison camps and exile and, Natalya Solzhenitsyn said, feels the "draining of the life force" as his 88th birthday approaches. He was not at the presentation and his wife did not elaborate on his health.

"Alexander Isayevich told me that the French have a saying: 'Nothing comes too late for he who is able to wait,"' Mrs. Solzhenitsyn said.

With financial support from a state-owned bank, the 30-volume project to be completed in four years marks the latest twist in what the reclusive author's wife called the "very dramatic fate of Solzhenitsyn's books," which helped reveal the brutality of the Soviet system and dictator Josef Stalin's labor camps.

Natalya Solzhenitsyn, who has nurtured her husband's work and protected his privacy, recounted how that drama began on Nov. 18, 1936 - 70 years ago Saturday - when she said Solzhenitsyn, a first-year university student, conceived what eventually became "The Red Wheel." Solzhenitsyn finished the 10-volume saga about the Russian Revolution in 1990 and considers it his most important work.

He was arrested for criticizing Stalin in a letter he wrote during World War II, during which he served as a front-line artillery captain, and spent a decade in a labor camp and internal exile.

He drew on his ordeal in the short novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," published in 1962 during a backlash against Stalin. But soon after, his writing was suppressed in the Soviet Union. Subsequent works - including "The Gulag Archipelago" (1973-78) - were written in secret and only published abroad.

At that time, his wife recalled, "hundreds of typewriters across the country - maybe more, nobody was counting - pounded out" underground versions, known as samizdat, of works like "The First Circle" and "Cancer Ward."

Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, and four years later was expelled from the Soviet Union. The only previous major collection of his works, in 20 volumes, was published in Paris during the years he spent in Vermont.

The new collection is to comprise those works and others, as well as material that has never been published - including a diary he wrote during the quarter-century that he worked on "The Red Wheel," his wife said.

The three volumes presented Thursday include one book of stories and "August 1914," the two-volume first part of "The Red Wheel."

The full collection in Russian will not contain unfinished works, alternate versions and letters, said Mrs. Solzhenitsyn, who is its editor. There were no known plans to publish the collection in English.

The former dissident returned to Russia in 1994, taking a train across the country and criticizing the corruption and poverty of post-Soviet Russia. He has kept a lower profile in recent years, giving few interviews and issuing few public statements.

His conservative nationalist views have aligned him with President Vladimir Putin, who bills his years in office as a period of recovery following the economic troubles, disorder and weakness on the world stage that Russia suffered after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

In rare public remarks, Solzhenitsyn has praised Putin despite the president's KGB background. But his wife dismissed the idea of a connection between Solzhenitsyn's political views and the collection's publication with funding from the state-owned bank VTB.

Boris Pasternak, director of the collection's publisher Vremya, said the bank had contributed $100,000 and Vremya expected eventually to profit from the enterprise as demand would require a significant increase over the initial print run of just 3,000.

VTB spokeswoman Yevgeniya Mamsurova also denied any political undertones and said the bank believed the project will burnish its reputation.

While Solzhenitsyn's influence has waned since the Soviet collapse, his wife said interest in his books picked up toward the end of the 1990s. But she said he was still surprised by the offer to publish the current collection.

After returning to Russia, Solzhenitsyn published two books "Russia in Collapse" and "The Russian Question at the End of the 20th Century" that chronicled the greed, corruption, conspicuous consumption in the years following the Soviet collapse. In 2001, he brought out "Two Hundred Years Together," a 500-page tome on Russian-Jewish relations, which sparked new criticism from some who have long accused the writer of anti-Semitism.

Solzhenitsyn keeps the initial volumes from the collection on his table. "He caresses them, he loves them," but he does not believe he will live to see the final volume's expected publication in 2010, his wife said.

While he attentively follows developments in Russia, his "very frail" health means he can do so only as a spectator, she added. "He is experiencing a certain draining of the life force."

Solzhenitsyn said as much in a brief author's note to the first volume, writing that the collection "will include everything I have written - in my adult life, after my youth. And its publication will continue after my death."

Reluctant Arctic hunters to shoot trapped whales as lone air hole freezes

TUKTOYAKTUK, Northwest Territories (AP) - Arctic hunters reluctantly gathered their harpoons and rifles Thursday to kill dozens of beluga whales that have been trapped for weeks in saltwater lakes and now have only one small air hole remaining.

Inuits living near Tuktoyaktuk, in the far Northwest Territories, had hoped the belugas would find their way back to the Beaufort Sea before ice blocked the way out. Many did not make it and they are trapped, having to share a small hole in the ice.

"We're going to have people go out to the site and harvest as many as we can," said Paul Voudrach, head of the Tuktoyaktuk hunters and trappers committee and local representative of the territorial government's Environment Department.

About 200 belugas were first spotted in early August by hunters in the Husky Lakes area south of Tuktoyaktuk, a string of saltwater inlets which are linked to the ocean through a 980-foot-wide channel.

There were still about 80 of the mammals left by late October, but the lakes and the channel are quickly freezing over and the whales' air hole is shrinking.

Residents were cheering for the belugas to escape, despite the fact that each animal could provide enough meat and "muktuk" - skin and blubber usually served raw - to last a couple of large families through the winter.

But an Arctic storm last weekend froze the channel solid and left the whales with a single breathing hole. Officials determined escape was now impossible and the whales would suffocate or starve.

Killing the whales now, while they are still in good shape, is better than leaving them to slowly freeze under the ice, said Voudrach.

"(People) don't like seeing animals suffer. Right now we're looking to take all of them that we can," he said.

Hunters will gather around the breathing hole and wait for the belugas to surface for air. One man will harpoon the animal and another will shoot it with a rifle. Six others will be on hand to haul the whales out of the water, he said.

They will be butchered right there on the ice and the meat and muktuk will be distributed to area communities.

Although most hunters got enough whale meat during this summer's hunting season, some could still use more, said Chuck Gruben, who was heading up the hunt.

"You just look at it as food on the table. If we just leave them there, they're going to freeze and that's not only a waste of an animal, it's a waste of food."

Sicilian court sentences 46 aides of Mafia boss Provenzano

ROME (AP) - A court has convicted 46 deputies, confidants and helpers of jailed Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano, many of whom helped the former fugitive evade capture, and sentenced them to terms of up to 18 years in prison, Italian media reported Thursday.

Court officials in Palermo confirmed the sentences were handed down Wednesday.

The defendants included the group who organized Provenzano's trip to the southern French port of Marseille, where the Mafia boss had a prostate operation while a fugitive. One organizer, Nicola Mandala, was sentenced to 13 years and four months in jail, the news agency Ansa reported.

The longest term went to Benedetto Spera, the head of the Mafia in the town of Belmonte.

The suspects were arrested in an anti-Mafia crackdown in January 2005 - some 15 months before Provenzano's capture in a farmhouse in his home town of Corleone in April. He had been on the run for more than 40 years.

The Milan daily Corriere della Sera reported that 11 of those arrested in the crackdown were acquitted.

Rat population booms after bamboo blooms in northeastern India

GAUHATI, India (AP) - A rare flowering of wild bamboo plants has caused the rat population to explode in northeastern India, raising fears of famine as the rodents rampage through rice paddies, officials said Thursday.

An alert has been declared in Mizoram state, with authorities supplying rat poison free to nearly 10,000 farmers and paying them to make bamboo traps, said local Agriculture Minister H. Rammawi.

"The situation in Mizoram state is alarming. Farmers are killing rats in tons after we directed them to do so using poison or locally made traps," Rammawi told The Associated Press.

The rat population is growing rapidly as they feast on flowering wild bamboo plants - a phenomenon that usually occurs roughly every 50 years, Rammawi said. The last time the bamboo flowered in the region, in 1959, a famine ensured, he said.

"Whenever the rare bamboo flowering occurs, the rats multiply in great numbers as they feed on these flowers and then go on rampaging the crops and granaries," said C. Rokhuma, a community leader.

State authorities have been supplying rat poison free to nearly 10,000 farmers and providing them cash to make bamboo traps, the minister said.

"Rats poisoned to death are buried by the villagers, while those trapped are being eaten by some of them," said James Lalsiamliana, the head of Mizoram's Rodent Control Cell.

The state government has invited experts from Australia, Canada and Japan to study the bamboo flowering and to devise methods to control the rat population.

Ten Japanese experts are doing research on the rare variety of bamboo to find out why it flowers after a gap of nearly five decades, Lalsiamliana said.

Australian and Canadian experts have helped identify 14 species of rodents found in Mizoram, although up to 30 different species are believed to exist in the state.

Mizoram, a state of less than 2 million people, borders Myanmar and Bangladesh.

African lake's iconic birds are vanishing; 'something must be done'

LAKE NAKURU NATIONAL PARK, Kenya - The famous flamingos of Nakuru are fading away.

The spindly, exquisite birds, clouds of pink rising on a million wings in generations of tourist photographs, are dying, flying off, fleeing a seemingly fatal brew of environmental threats in a shrinking Lake Nakuru, the home that has sheltered them for uncounted centuries.

Where just six years ago as many as 1 million flamingos fed in Nakuru's shallows, in vast rosy carpets of plumage, hooked beaks and curved necks, as few as 30,000 stay-behinds hug the equatorial lake's receding shoreline. The carcasses of many hundreds of dead flamingos litter newly dried and caked sections of lakebed.

Nakuru, whose recent maximum size was less than 20 square miles, may have lost half its water in the past few years, residents say.

"Something must be done," said Jackson Kilonzo, manager of the Lake Nakuru Lodge. "People have to come together and decide to do whatever it takes to bring the water level back up."

Precisely why the shallow lake and its flamingo population are shrinking remains a complex question.

The water catchment area around Nakuru has been heavily deforested, and its rivers are running dry. Years of drought have further reduced the water supply. African temperatures, like global temperatures, are rising. Sewer and industrial runoff from nearby Nakuru town pollute the lake. And its blue-green algae, the flamingos' food, has diminished with the lake.

The U.N. Environment Program will soon undertake a comprehensive Lake Nakuru study, said the Nairobi-based agency's Nehemiah Rodich, a former director of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

"It won't be easy to pin down a complexity of issues that ultimately might be the causes," he said.

The flamingo, to many, symbolizes Africa as much as the lion or rhino.

Ancient Egyptians revered the impossibly graceful bird. In her classic 1938 memoir, "Out of Africa," Karen Blixen told of a vast flamingo flock alarmed by duck hunters: "At the first shot they rise in a cloud, like dust from a beaten carpet; they are the color of pink alabaster."

Such sights have drawn 200,000 visitors a year to Lake Nakuru, long home to what was believed to be the bulk of the global population of lesser flamingos, one of two species, with greater flamingos, inhabiting Nakuru, in the Rift Valley 100 miles northwest of Nairobi.

Paul Opiyo, deputy warden of the Lake Nakuru National Park, questioned a recent report in The Nation newspaper of Nairobi that the flamingo population had dropped to 30,000.

"There's slightly more than that," he said, although he offered no current official figures. He also said the Nation's estimate that the population had recently declined by 800,000 was too high.

Many birds are known to have relocated to other Rift Valley lakes that, like Nakuru, are heavily alkaline, waters hospitable to blue-green algae growth. But those lakes are shrinking, too, and Rodich said mass flamingo deaths have been reported at nearby Lake Oloidien.

"There's a problem with the algae," said Opiyo. "If the lake is shrinking, there will be less food for the flamingos."

The park deputy said a smaller Lake Nakuru presents another problem: Toxic urban runoffs become more concentrated in less water. He said many flamingos have developed sores on their legs because of the pollutants.

"We're working to clean up a sewage treatment plant," he said.

Lake Nakuru - mean depth 8 feet - has shrunk before, even disappeared. But this time, because of global warming, it may be different.

"The lake is threatened by deforestation and other problems, but now with a climate signature on top of that," said U.N. Environment Program spokesman Nick Nuttall. The shallowness of many Rift Valley lakes makes them vulnerable as temperatures rise and more water evaporates.

Ringed by big spreading acacia trees and grasslands where zebra, waterbuck and rhinoceros browse, Lake Nakuru is slowly pulling back toward its center, leaving a whitish, salt-encrusted rim several hundred yards wide at some points. Die-hard flamingos retreat with the water, their muted honks breaking a haunting afternoon silence.

Where will it end?

"The life of the flamingo depends on the water level, and we haven't had reliable rainfall for years," said lodge manager Kilonzo. "Tourism is the lifeline of this area. Without the lake and the flamingos, our lifeline is threatened."

Pioneering Russian sociologist dead at age 76

MOSCOW (AP) - Pioneering sociologist Yuri Levada, who was shut out of his profession in Soviet times but came back to track public opinion as Russia made the transition from communism, died Thursday at his institute in Moscow. He was 76.

Levada died of a heart attack, said Leonid Sedov, a colleague at the Levada Analytical Center.

Levada, considered one of the founders of Soviet sociology, began his career under Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev, whose political "thaw" allowed him to carry out the first public opinion surveys. He was ousted from his job at Moscow State University in 1969, banned from having his work published, and barred from leaving the country for what Communist Party authorities condemned as "ideological mistakes in lectures."

In 1988, as Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's glasnost campaign swept the country, Levada joined the first independent public opinion survey firm in the Soviet Union, which provided snapshots of Russians' attitudes to the biggest questions of the day as well as to their own lives. He took the helm in 1992.

Surveys conducted by Levada's center showed strong public support for President Vladimir Putin but also critical attitudes in Russian society toward the wars in Chechnya and other Kremlin policy.

In a February interview with Expert magazine, Levada said he and his colleagues were surprised that the post-Soviet values system did not collapse more quickly, and suggested that Russians appeared most interested in living well.

"We assumed that people would be happy with the possibility to live more freely, work, talk, travel the world, express their opinions and get to know what is foreign to them," he was quoted as saying. "It turned out that now they are much more interested in a life of more material well-being but not a more multifaceted one."

In 2003, Putin's government tried to name a new board of directors at Levada's center in what the staff considered a play to trim its independence. They responded by forming a new center and abandoning their old name to a new, pro-Kremlin grouping.

Angelina Jolie says she wants to portray Mariane Pearl's strength amid the loss of her husband

MUMBAI, India (AP) - Angelina Jolie says playing the wife of slain American journalist Daniel Pearl in "A Mighty Heart" is challenging, as she attempts to portray her strength amid the loss of her husband.

"We need to tell the story of Daniel Pearl and the reason we are making this film is because it's very important to have a dialogue between the two cultures," the 31-year-old actress was quoted as saying in The Times of India newspaper Thursday. "I have the blessings of Daniel Pearl's family to play this role."

Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, was abducted and murdered in Pakistan in 2002 while researching a story on Islamic militancy.

His wife, Mariane, doesn't harbor any ill will toward the Pakistani people, Jolie told a group of Indian journalists Wednesday.

Mariane Pearl has every reason to be "embittered and angry about what happened to her husband and her," but she has remained "positive and has nothing against Pakistan," Jolie said.

Playing Mariane Pearl "was certainly challenging for me, as I have to make the world understand this woman and her family," the Hollywood actress said.

"She still loves Pakistan, she carries no hatred. She is above all that, and her strength is a reminder that this is what the world needs," the DNA newspaper quoted Jolie as saying.

The movie is an adaptation of Mariane Pearl's book, "A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl."

Dan Futterman portrays Pearl in the film, which began shooting scenes in India last month. Directed by Michael Winterbottom, "A Mighty Heart" is expected to be released next year.

More than 700 passengers, crew sick aboard Carnival cruise ship headed from Italy to Florida

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - More than 700 passengers and crew members aboard a trans-Atlantic cruise have fallen ill with flu-like symptoms, cruise line officials said.

The outbreak, believed to be norovirus, struck people aboard the Carnival Cruise Lines' Liberty, one of the world's largest cruise ships, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the Miami-based company.

The ship left Rome on Nov. 3 with about 2,800 paying passengers and was due to arrive in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday.

"Within 24 hours of sailing, they had a lot of people sick. It has tapered off considerably over the past couple days," said David Forney, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

He said three environmental health specialists were expected to board the ship in St. Maarten on Thursday to oversee cleaning and to determine the cause of the outbreak.

Noroviruses affect about 23 million Americans annually, according to the CDC. More than a dozen incidents of the illness have been reported on cruise ships this year.

Boston men seek damages from federal government after exoneration in mob killing

BOSTON (AP) - Two Boston men who spent 30 years in prison for an underworld slaying they did not commit are suing the federal government after the FBI withheld evidence that would have cleared them to protect an informant.

In a trial that opened Thursday, those men and the families of two others who were wrongfully convicted but died in prison are seeking damages from the government that could total more than $100 million.

Joseph Salvati, 72, and Peter Limone, 74, were exonerated in 2001 after a state judge found that FBI agents hid wiretap tapes and other information from state prosecutors to protect an FBI informant and former mob hit man, Joseph "The Animal" Barboza.

Barboza was a known mob assassin responsible for numerous hits during Boston's gangland wars of the 1960s. He was also so vital to FBI efforts to crack the mob that the agency allowed him to frame four men for murder, attorneys for the plaintiffs said in opening statements.

The lawsuit accuses the federal government of malicious prosecution, conspiracy and depriving the men's family of companionship.

"It was a rigged game, a charade, a story concocted by Mr. Barboza and assented to by the FBI," said attorney Austin McGuigan, who represents Salvati. "There was no hope the real story in this case would be uncovered."

The case is the latest development in a scandal that unfolded in Boston about a decade ago, when it was learned that the FBI had a corrupt relationship with the mob, protecting killers who were informants and even tipping them off to pending indictments.

The lawsuit was filed after the Justice Department released documents in 2001 that showed the FBI withheld evidence from state prosecutors that could have cleared the men so the agency could protect an informant who actually committed the crime.

The plaintiffs have not asked for a specific dollar award, but briefs filed in the case point to past decisions that have awarded $1 million for each year wrongly imprisoned, which would total more than $100 million in this case.

Justice Department attorney Bridget Lipscomb said federal authorities had no duty to share information with state prosecutors, and cannot be liable for the results of a separate state investigation. She also noted the four men had access to some FBI information, as well as top-notch attorneys who raised doubts about Barboza's testimony at their trial.

Limone, Louis Greco and Henry Tameleo were sentenced to death in 1968 for the murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan, but were not executed before the death penalty was banned in 1975. Salvati was sentenced to life in prison.

Salvati, 72, and Limone, 74, were exonerated in 2001 after the Justice Department documents were released. Greco and Tameleo died behind bars before being exonerated.

The case is being tried without a jury before U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner.

On Thursday, attorneys for the men and their families, said the problems were rooted in a 1960s FBI policy of protecting informants' identities at all costs.

Days before Deegan was shot in the head in a Chelsea alley, FBI wiretaps caught Barboza and Vincent "Jimmy" Flemmi asking a Rhode Island mob boss for permission for the hit. Informants later told FBI agents that Barboza, Flemmi and three other men were responsible. FBI agent Paul Rico, who handled top echelon informants, listed Deegan as among seven people killed by Flemmi.

"The Deegan murder was literally surrounded by information that Jimmy Flemmi was one of the killers," said Michael Avery, who represents Limone and Tameleo's family.

But the FBI had recently recruited Flemmi as an informant and believed he would provide valuable information for years, McGuigan said. And when Barboza agreed to testify, he told the FBI he would never say anything to implicate his friend Flemmi, McGuigan said.

The FBI did not share any of this evidence with the state, Avery said, making the FBI "masters of this prosecution."

In his testimony in the Deegan case, Barboza implicated Limone, Salvati and Greco because of personal grudges, and Tameleo because an FBI agent wanted to arrest him, according to attorney Juliane Balirro, who represents Limone.

The FBI had at least 20 descriptions of the Deegan murder that conflicted with Barboza's testimony, but did not share them with prosecutors, she said.

Barboza was sentenced to a year and a day in prison after the Deegan trial, and later moved to California as the first participant of the federal witness-protection program. He was shot to death in San Francisco in 1976.

Lipscomb, the Justice Department attorney, said Barboza was subjected to more than six days of intense cross-examination during the trial, which included questions about Flemmi's possible involvement and accusations that he switched who was involved.

Report finds Wisconsin efforts to slow chronic wasting disease in deer herd aren't working

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The state's multimillion-dollar efforts to slow chronic wasting disease in its deer herd aren't working, a state audit released Thursday says.

The Legislative Audit Bureau's report found that the Department of Natural Resources had spent nearly $27 million battling the disease since it surfaced in Wisconsin in 2002.

The agency has been working to thin the deer herd in areas where the disease has been found by lengthening hunting seasons, requiring hunters to shoot a doe before a buck, banning feeding deer in 26 counties and offering rewards and cheap permits for hunters, as well as using sharpshooters to kill more deer.

Despite those measures, the audit found the estimated number of deer in chronic wasting disease zones has increased from 26 deer per square mile in 2002 to 38 in 2005.

"Compared to other states in which CWD has been identified, Wisconsin has taken an aggressive approach to addressing the disease," the audit said. "That approach also has been more costly, but it has not been effective to date."

Chronic wasting disease produces microscopic holes in animals' brain tissue, causing weight loss, tremors, strange behavior and, eventually, death.

The disease, which has been found in deer in 14 states, is in the same family of fatal brain illnesses as mad cow disease and its human equivalent. There is no evidence, however, that people have ever caught chronic wasting disease from infected deer or elk.

In a letter to state auditor Janice Mueller responding to the report, DNR Secretary Scott Hassett conceded CWD can't be eradicated in the near future.

"Wisconsin received a lot of advice, but no one handed us a road map," Hassett wrote. He said the agency would consult the public for suggestions.

The DNR's initial plan to stop the disease called for wiping out every deer in a zone around the area where the first infected bucks were found, and later in more zones where the disease had been detected. The agency backed off its total elimination plan in 2003, saying it wanted to reduce the population in the zones from 10 to 30 deer per square mile to five deer per square mile.

The report says hunters haven't agreed with the strategy and don't want to kill more deer than they can eat. Auditors also said hunters believe the agency's rules are too complex and the population goals are too low.

Man questioned in ex-wife's disappearance 23 years ago jumps to his death

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - A man whose ex-wife's skeletal remains were found in a barrel leaped to his death from an 11-story building Thursday, a day after investigators questioned him, authorities said. - Thomas Tomich jumped from the roof of the building where he worked as a janitor in Omaha, Neb., said Pottawattamie County Sheriff Jeff Danker. Tomich had been scheduled to be questioned again on Thursday, he said.

Danker said Tomich was the primary suspect in the death of his ex-wife, Lois Tomich, whose remains were found in May, 23 years after she was reported missing.

Danker said investigators had questioned several people who said Tomich had implicated himself in the woman's death over the years and had threatened to kill those he told.

Mushroom hunters found the woman's remains in a rusted-out 55-gallon steel drum in an area where the city dumps old trees. She was 28 when her father reported her missing. She was identified via DNA provided by her 28-year-old daughter.

Prosecutor Matt Wilber said it appeared Lois Tomich had been strangled with a wire coat hanger, which was found in the barrel. He said the barrel had been filled with concrete and weighed as much as 1,200 pounds.

The concrete hadn't completely covered Lois Tomich, leaving her skeleton partly exposed, Danker said.

Jury convicts white teen for brutal attack on Hispanic boy in Houston

HOUSTON (AP) - A teenager described by prosecutors as a neo-Nazi skinhead was convicted Thursday of savagely beating and sodomizing a Hispanic youth at a party while yelling racial epithets such as "white power!"

The jury deliberated for four hours before returning the verdict against David Henry Tuck, 18, who could be sentenced to life in prison.

Prosecutors said the attack was racially motivated in part because the 17-year-old victim is Hispanic and Tuck espoused white-supremacist beliefs.

Authorities said Tuck shouted racial insults as he punched, kicked and stomped the teen for four to five hours and sodomized him with the plastic pole of a patio umbrella. Tuck and another teen later stood him against a fence and poured bleach all over him, according to investigators.

Doctors did not initially expect the boy to live. He was hospitalized for more than three months and underwent 20 to 30 surgeries. He testified Wednesday that he remembered nothing of the assault.

"They wanted to kill him, violate him in any way they could," prosecutor Mike Trent said in closing arguments. "This man is guilty of about the most heinous crime you will ever see where the victim survived."

Defense attorneys blamed two witnesses to the attack, a 16-year-old boy and his 13-year-old sister who hosted the party at their family's home in the Houston suburbs. Testimony indicated the youths drank alcohol, smoked marijuana, snorted cocaine and took the anti-anxiety drug Xanax.

During the trial, Gus Sons and his sister testified that they watched helplessly as Tuck and the other teen assaulted the victim.

The two siblings said the attack was triggered by the victim's drunken attempt to kiss Danielle Sons and by an alleged attempt by the victim to steal drugs from Gus Sons.

Defense attorney Chuck Hinton told jurors the attack was not racially motivated, despite testimony about swastikas on Tuck's possessions.

"That's not what this case is about," he said. "It's about a bunch of guys all messed up on drugs and someone wound up getting hurt."

The jury was to begin hearing testimony Friday in the sentencing phase of the trial.

The other teen charged in the beating, Keith Robert Turner, 17, is set to go to trial next month.

The Associated Press has not identified the Hispanic teen because he is a juvenile sexual assault victim.