LOS ANGELES — Criminal defense attorney Ronald S. Miller does more than file his briefs — he also takes them off. Miller has spent days in front of a judge and nights in front of a camera as Don Hollywood — porn star.

He has performed in more than 90 films in the past seven years, including "Justice Your Ass" and "The Jerry Shag-Her Show."

Miller, 56, tells his clients about his night job and says he has had no trouble balancing the two careers. His wife, a former accountant, is also a porn star.

"My whole life, I've been one of those people who sees the wet paint sign and has to go up and touch it to see if it's wet," said Miller, who is currently working on 30 to 40 cases. "I want to experience everything, try everything."

Ethics expert and attorney Arthur Margolis said Miller isn't breaking any rules moonlighting as a porn actor.

"There isn't anything more unethical about that than being an actor or a novelist or somebody who sells frozen yogurt," Margolis said. "The only thing you have to be careful of, as you would in any other industry, is you don't do anything criminal or unethical in the sense of dishonesty."

Diane Curtis, a spokeswoman for the California Bar Association, declined to comment on Miller's second career but said Wednesday the bar doesn't have a policy prohibiting such activity.

State Supreme Court refuses PETA's 'happy cow' lawsuit

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court is putting to pasture a lawsuit brought by an animal rights group alleging the California Milk Producers Advisory Board is falsely advertising that California's cows are happy.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sued here in December 2002 alleging the board's advertising was false and misleading. The ads show cows grazing in green pastures with the slogan, "Great cheese comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California."

The animal rights group said it may never be known whether cows are happy, but said cows live in deplorable conditions, are repeatedly milked and impregnated before being slaughtered.

An appeals court in January ruled that Milk Producers Advisory Board, funded by farmers, is immune from being sued under false-advertising laws, just like other state agencies.

PETA says the ads falsely portray the lives of California cows. The group asked the Supreme Court to review that decision, but the court declined without comment Wednesday.

"False advertising is no less harmful when it comes from government-run businesses," said Matthew Penzer, the attorney for PETA in the lawsuit. "Painting a 'happy' image of an industry that sends 400,000 cows to slaughter every year and their calves to the isolation of veal crates is deceptive, no less so because it is the government doing the deceiving."

The case is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. California Milk Producers Advisory Board, S131823.

Famed Danish jazz musician Niels-Henning Oersted Pedersen dies

Associated Press

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Danish bass player Niels-Henning Oersted Pedersen, who performed with legends such as Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon and Dizzy Gillespie, has died at age 58.

Oersted Pedersen, widely known by his initials NHOP, died Tuesday in Copenhagen, Danish media said. The cause of death was not immediately known.

His career took off in 1962 when, at age 16, he played in Copenhagen's famed Montmartre jazz club, where American greats including Count Basie, Gordon and pianist Bud Powell performed.

However, his international breakthrough came in 1973, when he joined the Oscar Peterson trio produced by Norman Granz.

Oersted Pedersen appeared on hundreds of records and played with Toots Thielemans, Chet Baker, Lee Konitz and Martial Solal among others.

Claus Vittus, a leading jazz expert with Denmark's public radio, dubbed Oersted Pedersen "one of the world's greatest" jazz bassists.

From 1964 to 1982, he was a member of the reputed Danish Radio's Big Band and also has performed with trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg and keyboard player Kenneth Knudsen, both Danes.

He is survived by his wife, Solveig.

Five children among six dead in mobile home blaze in tiny town in Arkansas

Associated Press

HUMPHREY, Ark. — Fire destroyed a mobile home Wednesday evening in a hamlet outside Little Rock, killing at least six people, including five children, police said.

State police spokesman Bill Sadler said youngsters in the neighborhood reported that additional children may have been in the home when the fire broke out shortly after 6 p.m.

He said authorities would investigate the possibility the home may have served as a day-care center.

"A search is under way, based on witness accounts, (for the bodies of) other children that may have been in the mobile home," Sadler said.

The children who died were apparently not all from the same family, he said. The sixth victim appeared to be an adult woman. No names or ages were released.

Autopsies were to be performed at the state Crime Lab in Little Rock.

Humphrey, a town of about 800 people, is located about 40 miles southeast of Little Rock.

In 2000, four Humphrey teenagers driving back to school at the end of their lunch break were killed in a collision with a train.

Tornado in eastern China kills seven, injures at least 80

Associated Press

BEIJING — A tornado tore apart houses in two towns in eastern China, killing seven people and injuring more than 80 others, a news report said Thursday.

The tornados hit two counties on the outskirts of Yancheng, a city in Jiangsu province northwest of Shanghai, on Wednesday afternoon, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The report said Xinhua reporters who visited the village of Dazhi, one of the hardest-hit areas, found "half of the houses at the village collapsed and the only township hospital crowded with some 60 villagers waiting for treatment."

Woman claims Florida officers abused her with stun gun

Associated Press

MIAMI — A woman who allegedly overstayed her welcome at a motel was zapped nine times with a stun gun as police arrested her.

Patricia Skelly's attorney said there was little evidence that the 110-pound woman posed such a danger that repeated use of the Taser was needed. But authorities Wednesday defended the use of force, saying Skelly was extremely combative.

Skelly, 47, was arrested Easter Sunday at a motel in Valparaiso in the Florida Panhandle when the owners were unable to determine whether she would leave or stay another night.

"It's just not right what happened to me," Skelly told reporters. "How I lived through this, I don't know."

Larry Caskey, director of the Okaloosa County Department of Corrections, said officers were forced to use the Taser because Skelly tried to wriggle out of handcuffs, escape from a patrol car and bite her own hand.

"It doesn't look good, but when you take it step by step, I feel like they acted appropriately," he said.

The woman's case comes amid increasing nationwide debate over police use of Tasers.

In Tallahassee on Wednesday, a Senate committee approved a bill providing statewide guidelines for Taser use and requiring departments to provide at least four hours of training before using the stun guns.