A large swath of the U.S. suffered through another miserable day of sizzling temperatures and steamy humidity Monday — a deadly heat wave that had people cranking up air conditioners, scrambling to cooling shelters and running through sprinklers in the park.

Temperatures soared past 100 in several cities, and the National Weather Service posted excessive heat warnings and advisories from Illinois to Louisiana and from Nebraska to the District of Columbia.

"It feels like basically just walking around in an oven," said 20-year-old McDarren Paschal as he mowed grass at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.

The blistering heat has caused numerous deaths. The Chicago Fire Department said three people died Sunday from what appeared to be heat-related injuries, but added that the exact causes of death have yet to be confirmed. Twenty-four people, most of them homeless, have died from heat this summer in the Phoenix area.

City workers in Chicago checked on elderly residents and shuttled people to cooling centers Monday, hoping to avoid a repeat of a disastrous 1995 heat wave that killed 700 people. Wilmington, Del., set up sprinklers in city parks so people could run through the spray to cool off. A social service agency in Oklahoma City handed out fans to elderly people who didn't have air conditioning.

Sherri Ball went to a cooling center in Peoria, Ill., because her window air conditioner couldn't keep up with the heat, a day after the mercury topped 100 degrees in the central Illinois city for the first time in a decade.

"It's hot and I can't breathe when it's real hot outside," said the 46-year-old Ball.

In other states, at least three deaths have been blamed on the heat in Missouri this summer, and authorities were looking into the death of a woman found Sunday in a home without air conditioning. Four people have died of the heat in Oklahoma, two of them young children left in cars, and at least three heat deaths have been tallied in New Jersey.

Some 200 cities in the West hit daily record highs last week, including Las Vegas, Nev., at 117, and Death Valley soared to 129, the weather service said.

A break in the heat was on the way, at least for the Midwest.

A cold front brought rain Monday to parts of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and was on its way to crossing Illinois, Missouri and Indiana on Tuesday, said Ed Shimmon, a weather service meteorologist in Lincoln, Ill. He said rainfall will likely be scattered, but still welcome in the drought-stricken region.

Demand for electricity to run air conditioners has hit near-record peaks from Southern California to the region served by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The load on generators caused a power outage in St. Louis County, Ill., where more than 900 customers were still without electricity Monday.

The heat was hardest on people who have to work outside.

"I try not to think about it," said Beatrice Gonzales, running a hot dog stand in Baltimore as the temperature neared 90.

"I guess you can never really get used to the heat, but you get tolerant of it," construction worker Lee Tate said in Jackson, Miss., where the mercury hit the mid 90s before noon Monday.

Fans pumped cool air Monday at the Vanderburgh County fair grounds in Evansville, Ind., but it was directed at the livestock, from rabbits and ducks to llamas and pigs. In Ohio, dog owners cooled pets with ice packs at a county fair competition.

Associated Press writers Jim Suhr in Sparta, Ill., Nathaniel Hernandez in Chicago, Erica Ryan in Columbus, Ohio, and Taunya English in Baltimore contributed to this report.

Woman pleads guilty to holding sex parties for teenage boys

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — A woman who told police she wanted to be a "cool mom" pleaded guilty to sexual assault charges Monday for having sex with high school boys at parties where authorities said she supplied drugs and alcohol.

Silvia Johnson, 40, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of sexual assault and nine felony counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped two counts of distribution of methamphetamine.

"She described herself as a `cool mom,"' Detective R.J. Vander Veen wrote in the affidavit. He said Johnson told investigators "she was never popular with classmates in high school and now began `feeling like one of the group."'

Prosecutors did not recommend a sentence, but each sexual assault count carries up to two years in prison, and each count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor carries up to six years, district attorney's spokeswoman Pam Russell said.

Johnson, who is free on bail, held parties for the boys almost weekly between October 2003 and October 2004, authorities said. She was accused of providing drugs and alcohol to eight boys and having sex with five of them.

Police said the investigation began after one of the boys told his mother about the encounters, and she reported it to authorities.

Newborn Arizona twins at UCLA need new hearts due to rare disease

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The parents of 2-week-old twins born with a rare heart disease pleaded for organ donations Monday in hopes of saving the boys' lives.

Nicole Draper was in the 30th week of her pregnancy when she and her husband learned her sons, Nicholas and Nathaniel, have heart muscles that are too weak to pump efficiently. Doctors at UCLA's Mattel Children's Hospital, where the babies are being treated, say their chances of survival are good if they receive heart transplants within three to six months.

"We want our boys to have a chance," said their father, Michael Draper. "We want them to come home."

The Drapers, who are both registered organ donors themselves, said they didn't want other families to suffer the death of a child. But in the event that a baby does die, they hope the parents would be willing to donate the organs to help them or other parents.

Nicholas is already on the list of prospective recipients, and his brother is expected to be added as well. They will receive hearts in the order that they become available.

The boys are behind other babies on the list, but there are not many children of their age and size who need hearts, said Dr. Mark Plunkett, surgical director of the hospital's pediatric heart transplant program. He did not know how many babies are ahead of the Draper twins on the list.

Plunkett said he believed the boys would need the surgery unless they improve dramatically in the next few months. If they don't receive the hearts, other organs could fail, further jeopardizing their health, he said.

It is extremely rare for one baby to have the condition, known as dilated cardiomyopathy, but even rarer for twins to have it, doctors said.

The Drapers, who live in Phoenix, have only been able to hold each of the boys once since their birth on July 11. The babies were flown separately from Phoenix to the children's hospital within days of their birth, and have been monitored since then in a special unit.

"It's just hard," said Michael Draper, 33. "When you walk into that setting it's hard to say, 'Let's just spend some time with our boys and pretend everything's normal."'

Michael Draper is continuing his job in admissions at the University of Phoenix while Nicole Draper, 32, stays in Los Angeles to be near the twins. The couple also have a 5-year-old daughter and 4-year-old fraternal twins, who have been drawing pictures to give to the newborns.

"They're very excited to have new brothers," Nicole Draper said. "They understand that they're sick. … They just want them to come home."

Though the couple has insurance, they said it's been hard to cover the cost of travel, food and a place to stay in Los Angeles. People wishing to donate to the "Nick and Nate Draper Benefit Fund," can contact Wells Fargo Bank about account number 5763252060.

"We're going to swallow our pride and ask for help," Michael Draper said.

On the Net:

http://www.donatelifecalifornia.org/

Jury convicts photographer in connection with topless Diaz photos

LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles-based photographer was convicted Monday of forgery, perjury and attempted grand theft in connection with his June 2003 bid to sell topless photos he took of Cameron Diaz more than a decade earlier.

The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated for just under four hours over two days before convicting John Rutter of the three felonies.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor ordered Rutter, 42, to be taken into custody immediately after the jury's verdict, saying he was a "definite flight risk."

Rutter is facing a maximum of more than five years in state prison when he is sentenced Sept. 15 at the downtown Los Angeles courthouse.

"This was an epic battle between a rich and famous celebrity and a hard- working photographer who tried to do what he thought was right," defense attorney Mark Werksman told reporters outside court.

"He tried to give Cameron Diaz the right of first refusal to the photographs that he had lawfully taken with her consent back in 1992 and she brought some very powerful, enormous interests to bear against him. And her side has prevailed in this litigation," Rutter's lawyer said.

Deputy District Attorney David Walgren said the jury had reached "what we feel was the only proper verdict in this case, which was guilty on all counts."

"… These crimes definitely warrant custody time, I will tell you that," the prosecutor said.

Walgren called the crimes "serious" and said they "would have been prosecuted in the same courts, in the same manner and with the same diligence" if they did not involve a celebrity.

In a statement released by her publicist, Diaz said, "Although I wish that this unfortunate situation hadn't occurred in the first place, I am very gratified that justice has been served. I'd like to thank David Walgren, (District Attorney's investigator) Brian Bennett and everyone in the prosecutor's office, as well as my personal attorneys, for their hard work on this matter."

Rutter took the photos of Diaz on May 30, 1992, when she was an unknown model, and approached her with the pictures and what the prosecutor said was a forged model release form in June 2003 along with a request for more than $3 million for the photos after her movie career had skyrocketed.

In testimony earlier this month, Diaz vehemently maintained that she had never signed a model release form during the photo shoot. She said the signature on the form was not hers.

The perjury charge stems from a July 2003 declaration in which Rutter maintained that Diaz's signature on the model release form was not faked.

Rutter, who testified in his own defense, told jurors last week that he had directed an assistant to get Diaz's signature on the model release form at the photo shoot. He said he thought he had a legitimate signature from Diaz when he approached her with an offer to sell her the photographs.

One of the female jurors was seen crying after the jury's verdicts were read, and the panel asked to be escorted out of court without speaking to anyone.

Rutter's mother, who sat in the back row of the courtroom as the verdict was read, was "hysterical" afterwards, according to his attorney.

"The last thing he expected was to be convicted, and on top of that, to be remanded adds insult to injury. So this is about the blackest day in John Rutter's life and the bleakest," Werksman told reporters after the verdict.

A civil case also is pending in connection with the 1992 photos. Trial is set Oct. 17 in Santa Monica Superior Court in that case.

—— North County Times wire services

Judge clears way for reunion between mother and daughter she was accused of abusing

MIAMI (AP) — A judge cleared the way for a reunion between an 18-year-old girl and her mother, who was sent to prison for deliberately making her so ill that she was hospitalized about 200 times and underwent numerous unnecessary operations.

There is no evidence that visits with her mother, Kathy Bush, would cause psychological or physical harm to the daughter, Circuit Judge Cheryl Aleman said in a ruling made public Monday.

Prosecutors said Jennifer Bush was the victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a rare form of child abuse in which parents make a child ill to gain attention and sympathy for themselves. During the trial, prosecutors said the mother gave her excessive doses of seizure medicine, and tampered with her hospital feeding machine and medical charts.

Kathy Bush has denied that she ever did anything to hurt her daughter.

The last time the two saw each other was 1999, the year the mother was convicted of aggravated child abuse and fraud. She was released in June after serving three years in prison, with several months in a work-release program.

The judge ruled that Bush, 47, may visit her daughter but the two may not live together. She also is not allowed to administer any drugs or medicines or make any health care decisions regarding her daughter.

The mother went to court last week seeking a reunion, and her daughter wrote the judge a letter requesting contact. A condition of Bush's probation had restricted the mother and daughter from being together, and the two have had only indirect contact, through letters, in recent years.

"We are eager to pick up the pieces and move on with our lives," Bush said Monday. She looked forward to "recapturing the life that we once had, and I look forward to spending time with Jennifer, my sons and my husband."

Nancy Gregoire, the daughter's attorney, said the ruling is "a huge step in the process for these people, of healing."

Jennifer's illnesses and mounting medical bills drew national attention when the girl and her mother went to the White House in 1994 to help lobby for health insurance improvements.

The girl's symptoms began when she was 2 and continued until she was 8. She underwent about 40 operations, including removal of her gall bladder, appendix and part of her intestines. Doctors treated her for seizures, infection, diarrhea, vomiting and other symptoms — all the result of her mother's actions, prosecutors argued at trial.

Robert Buschel, an attorney for the mother, argued that Jennifer suffered from a rare gastrointestinal disorder.

Greyhound bus accident in Baltimore sends 34 to hospitals

BALTIMORE (AP) — A Greyhound bus ran off a highway during a heavy downpour and overturned onto its side Monday, sending 34 people to hospitals, including several who were seriously hurt, officials said.

Sections of Interstate 95 on the eastern edge of Baltimore were closed for several hours after the 6 a.m. crash of the Washington-to-Philadelphia bus. Two people were trapped in the bus and had to be pulled out by rescue crews, fire officials said.

The accident happened just after a tractor-trailer passed the bus and kicked up road spray, said Gary McLhinney, chief of the Maryland Transportation Authority.

"The driver of the bus changed lanes, at which point she lost control of the vehicle," he said.

There were 33 passengers and a female driver on the bus, Greyhound spokeswoman Anna Folmnsbee said. Everyone was taken to hospitals to be checked out, fire officials said.

Of the five most seriously injured patients, one was in critical but stable condition, two were in serious but stable condition and two were fair, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Susan Gordon Lydon, author and Rolling Stone editor, dies

OAKLAND (AP) — Susan Gordon Lydon, a founding editor of Rolling Stone magazine who wrote a benchmark feminist essay and turned her struggle with drug addiction into a memoir, has died. She was 61.

Lydon died of cancer July 15 at a Boca Raton, Fla., hospice, where she spent her final days with her family.

Lydon and her former husband, Michael Lydon, were among the first journalists Jann Wenner asked to work for the fledgling rock magazine. Lydon covered fashion and music and in 1970 wrote the feminist essay "The Politics of Orgasm," now required reading in women's studies classes at many American universities.

Susan Lydon was born Nov. 14, 1943, in the Bronx, N.Y., and grew up on Long Island. She received a full scholarship in 1961 to Vassar, where she studied history and met her husband, Michael Lydon.

After her marriage broke up, Lydon began a romance with Dave Getz, the drummer for Big Brother and the Holding Co., and lived with him in Marin County.

In 1975, Lydon moved with her daughter to New York City, where she wrote for the Village Voice, New York Daily News and New York Times.

Lydon struggled with drug addiction in the 1980s but eventually recovered at a facility in Massachusetts, her daughter said.

"She was inspiring to me as a heroin addict as much as she was inspiring to me when she was diagnosed with cancer," Shuna Lydon said.

Lydon later moved back to the Bay Area, worked for the Oakland Tribune and wrote several books, including her memoir "Take the Long Way Home," published in 1993.

She was a passionate knitter and wrote two books on the subject: "The Knitting Sutra: Craft as a Spiritual Practice," was released in 2004 and its sequel, "Knitting Heaven and Earth: Healing the Heart with Craft," was released this summer.

A memorial is planned in Berkeley for the fall.

In addition to her daughter, Lydon is survived by mother Eve Gordon, sisters Lorraine Garnett and Sheila Wolff, and brother Ricky Ian Gordon.

Phony doctor indicted on a murder charge

NEW YORK (AP) — A man who fled to Central America after pleading guilty to practicing medicine without a license was charged with murder Monday in the death of a patient who was found buried at his former New Jersey home, prosecutors said.

The second-degree murder indictment charges Dean Faiello with depraved indifference to human life in the death of Maria Cruz, 35, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said.

Cruz, a financial analyst, had gone to Faiello for laser treatments of a growth on her tongue. Her body was found in Feb 2004 under a concrete slab at Faiello's former home in Newark, N.J., 10 months after she vanished.

Faiello had been arrested in October 2002 for practicing medicine without a license, but he continued to see patients after that arrest, prosecutors said.

He fled to Central America after pleading guilty in June 2003 to the unlicensed practice of medicine charge, which carries a possible four years in prison. He was sent back to New York from Costa Rica in May.

If convicted of second-degree murder, Faiello faces 25 years to life in prison.

Mystery illness kills at least 17 Chinese farmers who handled pigs or sheep

BEIJING (AP) — A mystery disease that has killed 17 farmers who handled sick pigs or sheep in China's southwest is unrelated to bird flu or SARS and is probably caused by bacteria carried by pigs, state media reported Monday.

An additional 41 people were hospitalized in Sichuan province with symptoms that include high fever, fatigue, nausea and vomiting, and "became comatose later with bruises under the skin," the official Xinhua News Agency said. It said 12 were in critical condition.

The illness likely stems from streptococcus suis, a bacteria that is usually spread among pigs, provincial health official Zeng Huajin was quoted as saying by the China Daily newspaper.

"I can assure you that the disease is absolutely not SARS, anthrax or bird flu," Zeng said. He did not elaborate on how the illness spread to humans, saying more research needed to be done.

A spokesman for the World Health Organization said the symptoms reported "seem consistent" with streptococcus suis.

"We don't think we've seen numbers on this scale before, but it might be because of a heightened surveillance system," said Bob Dietz, a spokesman for the World Health Organization in Manila. "Of course we are concerned anytime we have a situation like this. We will continue to watch it closely."

China is sensitive to such public health threats after criticism of its handling of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which emerged in 2002. The government was widely criticized for its slow response to pleas for information about the disease, which killed nearly 800 people worldwide before subsiding in July 2003.

China also is trying to contain an outbreak of avian flu in its west, where thousands of migratory birds have died in recent weeks.

Dietz said China has so far kept WHO informed "in a timely manner" about the outbreak that killed the farmers. WHO headquarters in Geneva was awaiting laboratory results before it would speculate on what the disease might be.

A man who answered the phone at the Sichuan health bureau on Monday said 17 people have died from the mystery illness and two have recovered. He refused to give his name, saying only that the cause of the deaths was under investigation.

A woman who answered the phone at the Ziyang No. 1 People's Hospital, where most of the patients were being treated, hung up when asked about the cases.

The last major pig-borne epidemic occurred in Malaysia, where 265 people were infected with the Nipah virus between 1998 and 1999. Some 105 people died and nearly a million hogs were slaughtered before the outbreak was controlled. The virus is capable of infecting a variety of animals and is lethal to about 50 percent of human patients, causing encephalitis.

The Chinese ministries of health and agriculture sent a team to Sichuan last week to help investigate, treat and control of the outbreak, the China Daily said.

Xinhua said medical experts believe the illness in Sichuan "is not spreading further among humans," and that there were "no obvious signs of (an) epidemic."

Shanghai's Oriental Morning Post newspaper said the patients were 30 to 70 years old, and one was a woman.

The son of one victim told Hong Kong's Cable TV said his father fell ill after slaughtering a pig and eating some of the meat. The names of the son and victim were not given.

Also Monday, two supermarket chains in Hong Kong stopped the sale of frozen pork from Sichuan as officials sought to assure the public the disease did not pose a threat to the territory.

Gas pipe leak forces Mexico to evacuate small town, close highway

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) — Mexico's state-run oil company was working Monday to repair a leak in a 20-inch (50-centimeter) gas pipe in southeast Mexico that forced officials to evacuate a small town and close a highway.

In a statement, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said the leak, discovered Sunday, forced officials to evacuate 70 people from the town of El Paraiso.

However, the company said no damage or injuries had been reported.

Officials cut off the pipeline's gas supply as they tried to repair the leak.

It was the latest setback for Pemex, which has experienced several pipeline problems in the past year.

In April, a private repair company contracted by Pemex caused a release of gas that killed six workers and forced the evacuation of thousands of residents of Nanchital.

Nanchital was also the site of a December oil spill that released 5,000 barrels of crude into the Coatzacoalcos River feeding the southern Gulf of Mexico.

Tropical Storm Gert soaks Mexico's eastern coastline, is downgraded to depression

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Tropical Storm Gert soaked Mexico's eastern coastline and was downgraded to a tropical depression early Monday, as the storm moved inland toward central Mexico.

Some light flooding was reported, but no other major damage was immediately reported.

Forecasters at the U.S. Hurricane Center said heavy rains could cause mudslides and flash flooding in an area doused last week by Hurricane Emily.

On Sunday, shortly before the storm hit, at least 1,000 people were evacuated from low-lying residences and businesses near the towns of Naranjos and Tamiahua as a precaution against flash flooding, said Ranulfo Marquez of the Civil Protection Department in Veracruz state.

Early Monday, the storm was centered 175 miles (280 kilometers) west of Tampico. It had maximum sustained winds of 30 mph (45 kph.)

Emily hit both the Yucatan and northeastern Mexico earlier this month with winds of more than 125 mph (200 kph), driving tourists from luxury hotels in the Cancun and dropping torrents of rain over Mexico's interior.

A woman was swept away and drowned last week in northeast Mexico while trying to cross a canyon flooded with rains from the hurricane.

On the Net:

U.S. National Hurricane Center: www.nhc.noaa.gov